Somewhat unsurprisingly, Sunggyu and Woohyun ended up being tangled up in fairy light wiring with tinsel bits hanging from their hair at 9 in the evening.

Sunggyu had already began setting up the decorations when Woohyun knocked, he opened the door to a beaming Woohyun making Sunggyu turn soft inside. Then, all of a sudden, his vision was blurred by a glittering gold surrounding him completely, it only lasted a moment but it was a very long moment for Sunggyu. The floor was covered in the stuff and it appeared he was too, Sunggyu noticed it was shredded pieced of tinsels and so he looked at Woohyun (who was now roaring with laughter) with the most menacing look he could muster before reaching down to pick some tinsel up and throw it right back at Woohyun. You would not believe they were in their mid-20s the way they were goofing around at the doorway. Eventually they both forfeited, their stomachs weak with laughter.

They started together with, ironically, placing full-length silver tinsel around the edges of door frames and across the top of walls. Now usually tinsel would look quite tacky, but in this case, it added to chicness of Sunggyu’s apartment, matching with the very light interior décor.

Next came the Christmas ornaments to place on every available surface such as several nutcrackers, Father Christmas in his sleigh, a smiling snowman (which reminded Sunggyu of Woohyun), there were a few miniature reindeers’ too!

They followed this by attempting the make a masterpiece of the bare Christmas tree with as many baubles, candy canes, cute little decorations on every possible space and long shining strands of ribbon intertwined between the fragrant pine leaves. Every so often they brushed each other as they added more to the tree and neither minded.

Finally, the only things that were left were the fairy lights to add an extra twinkle and the ultimate star-at-the-top-of-the-tree. Unfortunately, despite the very fluid teamwork of the two – there was some form of misdirection which lead to Woohyun wounding a wire around Sunggyu almost pinning him to the Christmas tree. As Woohyun attempted to rectify his mistake, Sunggyu was also trying to free himself which consequently caused Sunggyu to lose his balance and topple right into Woohyun. Neither of them could really believe such a cliché fall occurred, especially when they were lying on the floor facing each. Woohyun had deliberately fallen first in an attempt to cushion the fall for Sunggyu. At such a close proximity to one another, Sunggyu noticed how much gold tinsel remained in Woohyun’s hair from their earlier antics and blew some of it away causing Woohyun’s heart to flutter with the light breeze that hit him.

Woohyun came to his senses and snapped back to reality as he stood up and offered a helping hand to Sunggyu who took it gratefully. More heart fluttering (from both males) as their skin made contact and Woohyun barely fought back the smile that threatened to give away the massive adolescent-like crush he had on Sunggyu.

Eventually they completed everything, Sunggyu gave Woohyun the honours of placing the shining star and (obviously) Woohyun overacted as though he’d received a crown or something. Sunggyu still laughed at Woohyun’s behaviour having become more and more accustomed to in the past few months.

About half an hour later, after they’d cleared up and Sunggyu fretted over Woohyun making sure he wore a warm jacket (since they’d be out for a while), they left the apartment. Although Sunggyu did dash back in to grab the wreath to place it on his door, he even had a matching one for Woohyun making Woohyun blush.

The area where the Christmas lights ceremony was taking place was full of excited people and the air full of sweet smells coming from various stalls lined along the road selling a whole host of things from doughnuts and waffles to light-up wands for kids and over-the-top headbands. The headbands caught Woohyun’s attention almost immediately and he pulled Sunggyu over with him. A ‘genius’ idea struck Woohyun, he held up a fist and said very quickly “if-you-don-play-you-lose” and presented an open palm to represent ‘paper.’ Luckily for Sunggyu, this was one of the few things he had good reflexes in and he held up ‘scissors.’ Woohyun gasped, but quickly covered it by appearing seemingly unbothered, he bought two headbands and gave Sunggyu the better of the two. It had a small teddy bear wearing a Christmas hat whilst Woohyun wore a simple red reindeer antlers headband. In all honesty, Woohyun didn’t feel bad about losing since Sunggyu looked utterly adorable with a little teddy bear amongst the fluffy brunette hair, almost like the bear was swimming in it.

The announcement came that the lights would be switching on soon causing the buzz of voices to increase as people anticipated the display. Gradually the lights that were already on began dimming causing the volume of people’s speech to lessen along with the lights.
There was a large display screen at the front of the Christmas market which changed from “Lights Display will start soon” to counting down from 30. This caused the volume to pick up again as 0 got nearer and nearer. Soon enough the whole crowd was chanting “5…4…3…2…1.”
The entire area surrounding them suddenly lit up, the huge array of colours and creativity in the decorations was magnificent. Everyone clapped and cheered widely and over the cheering, Woohyun yelled to Sunggyu “you know, this is the first time I have done this”
Sunggyu smirked “Man you’ve been missing out” he yelled back Woohyun’s word from the day before smugly.

The train journey back was filled with a fair amount of rowdy people in the packed carriages. When they finally stepped off at their station from the stuffy train, Woohyun received a phone call which caused a large grin to appear on his features. “MUMMY!!” he yelled gleefully into the phone, Sunggyu found Woohyun’s close relationship to his family very endearing as he couldn’t experience such. Sunggyu waited patiently for Woohyun to finish the call and once he was done, Woohyun came over and kept apologising until Sunggyu shut him up by saying he’d push him onto the tracks if Woohyun didn’t stop saying sorry since there was nothing to be sorry for.
Departing from the station gave both Woohyun and Sunggyu a sense of déjà vu as it was the first place they had met, so much had changed since then.

“Sunggyu?” Woohyun began on their walk home. Sunggyu hummed to indicate he had heard
“Are you doing anything for Christmas?” Woohyun asked
“Not really, actually nothing at all except lounge around to be honest”
“How would you like to accompany me back to my hometown and spend it with my family?” Woohyun enquired a little tentatively. Sunggyu was quite shocked at the invitation and his protective state came out “So out of the blue? Would your family be okay with it? Is there enough room? I don’t want to inconvenience anyone, I’d just be another mouth to feed”
Woohyun calmed him down with soft rubs to Sunggyu’s back (Woohyun had picked up subtle actions like that helped Sunggyu loosen up), “my mum suggested it over the phone and my family would be over the moon to be your host”
That made Sunggyu smile and so he gratefully accepted the offer.

The past 48 hours had really strengthened Woohyun and Sunggyu’s bond.