The holidays were stressful for Kim Sunggyu. Not only did he actually have to suffer through human interaction he had to make his house presentable enough to have guests over. With all the guys coming around, he actually had to pick up the vacuum cleaner and move it around the floor. Just the thought of it was exhausting so by the time he was done cleaning, he was pretty ready to turn in for the night.

He was very close to picking up his phone to text them all that he couldn’t allow them to come over anymore. Sunggyu had only unlocked the screen when his doorbell rang. He cursed and rushed towards the door to answer it. He forgot that Sungjong always liked to show up to their gatherings early.

“You look like , bro,” said the young one, cheerily. “Lucky for you, I brought all the essentials!”

The younger man grinned at him, taking no notice of the frown on Sunggyu’s face. There were at least six bags in his hands, full of things that were not even on the list of materials that Sungyeol had compiled.

“Lee Sungjong! What have you brought into my home?” Sunggyu demanded to know.

“Look, building gingerbread houses is a lot of hard work. We’re going to get hungry so I brought some additional snacks.”

Sunggyu pinched the bridge of his nose. These idiots were going to make a mess of his house. He just knew it. The worst part was that it was a plan for them to celebrate privately and they would have a separate schedule to wish their fans a good holiday season. He was offering up his apartment for slaughter and no one was even going to appreciate his sacrifice.

In the next ten minutes, everyone started to arrive, each of them bringing in a bunch of unnecessary things to build a gingerbread house. It was almost like they didn’t even know how to build one, despite everyone in the group chat claiming they had done it before. Sunggyu would not be surprised if they all lied just so they could do it for the first time together.

Not even five minutes had passed and Sungyeol was already screeching, probably trying to make him receive a noise complaint from the neighbors. Dongwoo was rifling through his fridge for what called “items of interest” as if Sunggyu was hiding things from amongst the vegetables. Myungsoo had actually brought a ginger root and he very close to yelling at all of them.

But he couldn’t do that even if really wanted to. He liked the idiots too much so he refrained from the overly harsh comments.

“All of you are idiots!” he screamed. “Sit down!”

He prided himself on restraint.

“Hey bro, did you get the frosting?” Woohyun asked, directing the question towards Howon.

“Yeah, but I didn’t know which one we really needed so I bought the entire shelf,” Howon nodded, excitedly. He hefted up the bag that contained at least twenty four different flavors of frosting.

“Vanilla!” Sunggyu yelled. “I thought you all said you’ve done this before!”

Six pairs of eyes turned their gazes on him. “We lied.” They all spoke in unison as if they were introducing themselves on a music show.

“Did anyone at least get a ready made kit?” he asked.

“I did!” Sungyeol said, raising his hand. “I knew that it was unlikely anyone would know what they were doing so I thought ahead.”

“Sungyeol,” Myungsoo spoke up, eyes shining brightly. “I didn’t know you were this smart.”

They got the ready made kit out and while half of them began to work on it immediately, the other half of them pulled out the instructions and directed them. Sunggyu was the boss in this case, as always.

“Okay, pretend we’re construction workers,” Howon said, seriously, like it was an acting role he was preparing for. “We are gonna build this house so good guys. The boss has given us until midnight. We are sweaty and hungry and the new couple needs to move in as quickly as possible. The pressure is on.”

“Do you understand what he’s saying?” Dongwoo whispered to Woohyun.

“It’s the inner thespian. You wouldn’t understand,” Woohyun replied.

Myungsoo, out of all people, seemed to understand. He was taking the role playing very seriously. Sunggyu was pretty sure he wasn’t even sweaty or tired but he kept wiping his forehead every two seconds. Sungjong wasn’t helping the situation either. He had somehow gotten ahold of his hand towels and began dabbing all their faces and handing them snacks. After the damn gingerbread house was built he never wanted to do this again.

He really should have just pushed for that trip to Sungyeol’s house for the holidays. They could have all celebrated the nicer things that happened in the year. Like Daeyeol finally debuting with Golden Child. Sungyeol was so proud he only mentioned it every time he saw someone.

“So Daeyeol is the leader of Golden Child,” Sungyeol said, as if on cue. There was no other statement to go along with it. He just said it to say it. None of them made fun of him for it though. They all knew how much Daeyeol and the other kids had worked to debut. They knew what that feeling was, when all the hard work paid off in the end.

But only Sunggyu understood the burden of being the leader.

“Remind me to give him tips on how to keep us Woolim brats in line,” Sunggyu smirked.

“If he got tips from you, he’d be a grumpy old man before he turns twenty five,” Sungjong quipped.

“He’s already twenty four.” Woohyun laughed. Sunggyu loved that man for being the only remotely sane person out of this group.

“My point exactly. Being in your presence for even a minute will age an individual by at least fifty years.”

“You guys must all be immortal then,” Sunggyu said, sneering at them. Then he felt his eyes widen. “No, Dongwoo. Hold it upright. If you are a builder, this frosting is your cement. Do not let it set crookedly.”

“Can I do something with the gumdrops, please?” Myungsoo asked, raising his hand.

“Not yet, Myungsoo. Go eat your rice cakes in the corner,” Sunggyu ordered.

Myungsoo went to the corner to eat his rice cakes. Howon went with him.

Dongwoo’s hand was on its way to getting stuck in the middle of the roof so Sungjong finally set his snacks aside and decided to help with a little manual labor. The two them managed to get the frosting to the stick on all corners of the house. They just had to wait a bit until the frosting hardened enough to be able to decorate it without it falling apart.

So to kill time, they spent a few hours watching reaction videos of their music videos on YouTube. Sunggyu was just glad that people still cared about them even when they disappeared for months on end.

“It’s time to decorate!” Woohyun screeched.

“Can we please mind the fact that I have neighbors?” Sunggyu reminded them.

As usual, no one was listening to him.

Myungsoo was far too into the gumdrops, which was really a matter of concern but he had never met a self respecting twenty five year old man that was obsessed with gumdrops. Just Kim Myungsoo.

Another issue was that Howon was a little too happy with slathering the entire house with frosting. The whole thing was pretty much white when he was done with it.

He worked with overgrown children.

“Yo boss, want a snack?” Sungjong said, ing a bag of chips into his face.

Sunggyu took the packet without arguing. All the energy he had was gone. It had been gone before Sungjong had even shown up at his apartment. At this point, he wasn’t even going to argue with anyone or regulate how the decorating would go. They could do whatever they wanted as long as they didn’t mess with the foundations. He had worked too hard at keeping on eye on the making of the house part.

Dongwoo and Sungyeol were working on crumbling bits of candy cane that they called “peppermint sprinkles” which was actually a good idea, if he had to admit it. It was just hard to see them struggling not to break his dining table while they doing so. He was so going to bill them for new furniture if they messed anything up.

He was actually starting to remember why he liked these dorks he called a second family. Sure, they had been coworkers for years and they drove each other crazy but they were always there for each other.

INFINITE really was the best thing to have ever happened to him.

He began to draft a great dedication to his friends for his next solo album, whenever that would be happening (he didn’t know), when he was interrupted in his thoughts.

“It’s done!” Woohyun cheered.

Sunggyu blinked and looked at the gingerbread house. It was ugly. Somehow in the process of decorating, it had become crooked. The peppermint sprinkles only made it on one side of the roof and there were way too many gumdrops on it. There seemed to be no symmetrical pattern to the decoration. They had even stuck a whole candy cane on it without caring whether or not it would look proper.

It looked nothing like the box.

It also looked kind of perfect. Wordlessly, Sunggyu pulled out his phone and snapped a picture of it.

He posted it on Instagram—his first post in a long time— with a caption that read, “Happy holidays from Infinite!”

Somehow it was much better than what Woolim would make them do for the season’s greetings.

Again, 

Happy Birthday Tri!

Love you <3