"It's a Christian holiday; why do we have to celebrate it?" Wrath asked grumpily for what felt like the thousandth time.

"It's tradition, Jihoon," Lust said with exasperation, "and it's fun. Just go with it."

"Fine. But if I have to sing even a single crappy Christmas carol, I'm going to murder all of you in your sleep."

Lust only rolled his eyes and pushed his hands deeper into his jacket pockets. It was incredibly cold (something Seungkwan whined about on a regular basis) and it had started to snow a few days prior. By now everything was covered in a white blanket and the demons had experienced their first snowball fight - or rather, snowball war. Wrath and Pride had both been a bit too ambitious to win and Hansol and Minghao had proven to be worthy opponents. Sloth had intervened after the first bloody nose, something both teams weren't particularly happy about.

"Jisoo hyung! Jihoon hyung! Hurry! There won't be any trees left!" Chan shouted from the front of the group, jumping in place, the tip of his nose adorably red.

Wrath waved a dismissive hand but couldn't quite hide his smile. He sped up a little to catch up with Pride, who was walking a few meters in front of him next to Envy and Hansol. The two of them were talking enthusiastically about a new game they wanted to try later, not paying any attention to the oldest demon.

Wrath slowed down next to him.

"I would've never thought that I could adapt so well to the human realm," the elder said after noticing him. "We've been here for barely three months and I'm actually enjoying myself."

"Is our great leader finally turning into a softie?" Wrath asked with a teasing grin.

Pride slung his arm around the smaller demon, making him squirm, and poked his cheek. "Don't even try to deny how much you like our humans, Jihoonie. It's so obvious in the way you interact with them."

Wrath only scowled and blushed, snuggling a bit closer to the warmth the other demon provided.

Gluttony was just as excited about buying a Christmas tree as Chan was, perhaps even more since it was his first time. Therefore, the two of them were bouncing around in the front of the group and played with each other, all under the watchful eyes of Seokmin who was trailing after them. He had already prevented several collisions with random streetsigns and at least two car accidents. After the third almost-accident, he grew tired of their antics and forced them to walk by his sides, arms linked with him. Chan was still as hyper as before but Gluttony turned unusually quiet, overly aware of the areas where his arm touched Seokmin's (even though there were at least four thick layers of clothing separating them).

Lust had sneaked closer to Jeonghan, who was walking behind hand-holding Jun and Minghao. The two Chinese boys had gathered the tenants of number seventeen a few days prior to come out with their relationship, both blushing scarlet at the cheers from Hansol, Chan and Seokmin, and the congratulations from the rest. (Everyone had pretended to be surprised for their sake.)

"Are you trying to jump me?" Sloth asked without turning around.

Lust blushed and quickly walked next to him. "Of course not. I was just... thinking about where to walk."

Sloth shot him a disbelieving look and then shook his head with an amused smile. "I see."

They remained in silence for the rest of the way.

Greed was trudging at the end of the group, alone and sad, shivering when the cold wind hit his bare neck. Wonwoo had told him earlier to wear a scarf but Greed had ignored his advice because the only scarf he owned was a hideous yellowish colour that didn't match his jacket at all. He deeply regretted it now, especially since Wonwoo had seemed annoyed at his blatant disregard and had stopped talking to him. He missed his boyfriend already.

He looked up when someone stopped next to him, only to find the boyfriend he had just been thinking about, wearing Greed's ugly scarf.

Wonwoo blocked his way and wrapped his own blue scarf around the demon's neck. "You're going to get a cold if you don't keep your neck warm, you idiot," he said with his trademark small smile and pecked Mingyu on the nose.

Greed wondered what good deeds he had done in his human life to deserve someone as perfect as Wonwoo.

Of course actually buying a Christmas tree was a mess. After Greed and Envy had almost started a fistfight with a random human over a tree they liked and Chan had almost lit the whole place on fire by bumping into a candle; Sloth, Lust and Pride decided to just return the next day, only the three of them. This, of course, caused loud protests from the rest of the tenants. Finally and after many complaints, Pride pulled the age-card and picked the tree that conveniently stood next to him, silencing everyone's complaints with withering glares.

They decided to decorate the tree and the house the day before Christmas eve.

Jun and Minghao were responsible for decorating the windows with fairy lights. A task they took very seriously and which therefore took several hours to accomplish. Jun nearly got a heart attack when he found out that Greed had tripped over one of the cables and ripped off an entire string of lights and Minghao almost pounced on Envy after an offhand comment about how he would prefer colourful lights in his room, instead of the white ones the couple had used.

Gluttony offered to bake cookies and shooed everyone except Seokmin out of the kitchen.

The rest all wanted to help with the tree (except for Wrath, who was very content with sitting on the sofa and watching them until Pride ordered him to decorate the room with candles and little trinkets to which he grumpily complied) and a fight broke out over the colour of the tree ornaments, before they decided on red and silver by majority vote.

Lust and Sloth kept the tenants in line while decorating (especially overeager Chan and Hansol) and Envy spied on the neighbours for inspiration, bringing back twigs and cones of fir to place them on the window sills.

Lust was also the one who placed the little angel figurine on top of the tree - an action that elicited sniggers from the present demons and Wonwoo.

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