The next day, I decided to stay home and work on my Christmas presents. There was only a week before Christmas. I was really hoping this Christmas, the aliens and I would be together. This year my aunt and uncle were not coming back. They decided that they would try to celebrate the holiday in another country with their new friends.

Daehyun has been spending less time in his room than before. He even asked me to build snowmen and asked me if we could bake cookies on Christmas. I thought it was weird that he was coming up with these ideas, but I didn't complain. 

He knocked on my door. I pushed my stuff out of view and pretended to be preoccupied with my sketchbook. "Come in."

He opened the door, "Do you want to go sledding?"

"Sledding?"

"Yeah, the snow is piling up. Today's a great day to go slide down a hill."

I bit my lower lip. I still didn't get over the situation that happened last year. I was still afraid. How was I supposed to go up there again when that situation could happen again? To the same person. "I..."

"I'll be more careful." He told me. "I know what happened last year is still haunting you."

I kept looking at the ground, avoiding his gaze. I heard him sigh. He knelt down beside me and grabbed my hand. I looked at him in surprise. "Don't blame yourself. Don't ever blame yourself on what happened that day. I was the one who was irresponsible. I didn't listen to your warning. It was MY fault that it happened. Don't blame yourself for what I got myself into."

I shook my head. "But...if I didn't find out about Jiho's scarf, you wouldn't walk all the way here. Then we wouldn't go sledding and I wouldn't have to send you guys away. It was all my fault Daehyun, I-"

"Stop." He ordered. "If I didn't tear his scarf apart, that wouldn't have happened. I'm sorry, alright?"

I was still unsure. "I just don't want to see you in the hospital anymore." 

"I won't go anywhere near that disease prone place." He told me. "I don't have a fever or anything today, so we'll be fine. When I do get one, I'll listen to whatever you say. Trust me."

I softened. Even though I was still unsure about it, my heart told me to trust him. I squeezed his hand. "Let's go sledding."

We reached to the top of the devastating hill. I looked down and all I could see was white. I gulped down the lump I felt in my throat. "Ready?"

"One at a time?" I asked. He gave me a mischievous smiled but shook his head. "It will take too long to get back up." *Great.*

We got onto the sled. I sat first and Daehyun sat behind me, wrapping his arm around my waist like last time. This time though, he held both my hands. I don't know if my heart was beating because of him, or because of the fear of falling off the sled.

"Don't worry. If we fall, we'll fall together." He whispered in my ear. 

"One, two, three." We pushed off and sled down the hill. At first I thought we weren't going to fall since we were nearing the bottom, but I completely jinxed it. About 5 meters from the ground, the sled decided to topple over. I screamed as we rolled off the sled.

I don't know what happened, but while I was rolling down I didn't feel that scared. Like...Daehyun was still with me. To my surprise, when I opened my closed eyes, I was on top of him. 

His arms were wrapped tightly around my waist, like he was never going to let go. "Daehyun?" I called.

He opened his eyes and cracked a gorgeous smile. "I told you, we'd fall together."

I laughed and he started to laugh along. I never knew he would be that corny. When our laughter died down, I noticed that I was still lying on top of him. He also seemed to notice that because we both pushed each other off at the same time. I saw him scratch the back of his neck. He cleared his throat, "Let's go home. I think that's enough sledding for today." 

I agreed and nodded quickly. He stood up and gave me his hand. I grabbed it and he helped me up. 

He started to walk into front of me and that's when I noticed his whole back side was covered in snow. From head to toe, there was wet, white fluff. I ran towards him and ruffled his hair. He turned around and I shrugged. "Your whole back side is covered in snow. Let me help." I came up with an idea and suddenly smacked his back with my two hands.

"Yah!" He screamed. "What was that for?"

I innocently shrugged. "It's faster that way." I slapped him on the back again.

"That hurts!" he started to run away and I ran after him. "Come back! I need to take off the snow!" 

"No! I'll do it myself!"

Laughing, I ran faster. "Daehyun! Come back here!"

---

The week went by fast. Daehyun was mostly by my side whether it was cooking, playing or just plain chilling. Today was Christmas. We were baking cookies, just like he requested. We burnt the first batch though, because we were preoccupied with our game we made up while waiting for the cookies to bake. Our second batch didn't burn and tasted absolutely amazing. 

While we were eating our cookies, the bell rang. "Who is it?" Daehyun asked.

"What do you mean? I told you Jiho was coming over didn't I?"

Daehyun looked confused. "When did you tell me that?"

I scratched my head with my index finger. "Didn't I? I thought I did." The bell rung again. "I better get the door."

I ran to the door and unlocked the door to open it. I was suddenly enveloped by Jiho's arms. "Oppa, you're squishing me!" I laughed.

"But I missed you so much!" That wasn't Jiho's voice. I pushed myself out of the person's arms. I looked at the person's face and a big smile lit on my face. "Zico oppa!"

"The one and only, baby." He grinned. 

"Sorry Hye Mi." I looked behind him and saw Jiho closing the door. "This guy kept begging me to let him come. I hope you don't mind."

I shook my head. "I'm fine with it. I cooked a lot anyways." I turned back to Zico. "You can give Jiho your jacket. He'll hang it up for you."

"Yah, you're the host here. You're supposed to be taking our jackets!" he complained.

"You're the one who invited him, so you can take his jacket. Oh and hang up yours too please?" I grabbed his arm and pulled him to the dining room after he threw Jiho his jacket. 

"Wow, this is nice." Zico commented, looking around. 

"Oh, it's not my house. It's my aunt's. I'm just living here temporarily for university." I told him.

He chuckled, "I meant the decorations, silly goose."

"Oh, thanks. I had a little help." I walked into the kitchen and saw Daehyun waiting at the dining table with his leg over the other.

"Who's this?" Zico whispered in my ear. "Your boyfriend? Jiho's going to be mad if he knows about this~" He sang.

I giggled. "No, silly. Oppa, this is Daehyun, my friend. Daehyun, this is Zico," I introduced.

Zico walked up to him and held out a friendly hand. "What's up man?"

Daehyun just stared at it like it was a deathly virus. "Okay..." Zico dropped his hand back to his side. 

"Uh, oppa, you can sit down. I'll get out the food right away." I walked over and led him to an empty seat. "Daehyun, do you want to help me?" He obediently stood up and followed me to the kitchen. When we were out of ear's range, I scolded him. "What's wrong? You're supposed to shake his hand when people do that? Didn't I teach you manners?" He didn't say anything. "Daehyun!"

"Can we hurry up and give them food so they can leave?" I was shocked by his sudden snap. I didn't know what got into him. He seemed perfectly fine 2 minutes ago.

I didn't say anything else while we brought out the food from the kitchen. Jiho was already sitting there, talking to Zico. When we came in, I saw Jiho give Daehyun a dirty look. I rolled my eyes. When is Jiho ever going to get along with him?

Once I placed down the food, Zico immediately started to dig in. "Tastes amazing!" 

"Yah! You're in a guest's house!" Jiho scolded.

Zico stopped but his mouth was still full. "Sorry." He cheekily smiled. I giggled, "It's alright. Dig in oppa." He then started to be the messy and sloppy person that he is. 

I started to talk to Jiho about his job. I haven't seen him since winter started so I was wondering how he was doing. While we were talking, Daehyun suddenly slammed the table with his hands, startling all of us. Zico almost chocked on his food. 

He stood up, knocking the chair down and stomped upstairs. My eyebrows arched in worry. I was about to stand up but Jiho stopped me. "Eat. I'll go see what's wrong." Jiho stood up from his chair and walked upstairs. "Sorry about that." I apologized to Zico. I lifted the chair up and sat back down. I looked up towards the stairs. I really hoped there wasn't going to be any fists being swung up there. 

Zico seemed to notice my worried expression and said, "Don't worry about them. Jiho won't do anything to him. Just eat, I don't want to eat by myself."

I gave him a small smile and did what he said. After a couple minutes, Jiho came down. I perked up, "What happened?"

He shook his head. "Don't worry about it."

I furrowed my eyebrows. That wasn't the answer I wanted. "I should go see what's up." I stood up but Jiho held me back. "He said he didn't want anyone to bother him right now.  How about we eat and you can go check up on him later, alright?"

I looked towards the stairs. I hesitated but gave in. I sighed and sat back down to continue the dinner. Once we were done, I wanted to check up on Daehyun but Jiho kept insisting that I stayed with them. He said, "It isn't polite for hosts to leave their guests alone," or something along those lines. 

In the end, we watched a thriller movie. I have a weak heart for blood and suspense, so I hid behind the pillow most of the time. Luckily, we were watching the movie with the lights on or I would've fled the room before the movie even started.

When the movie was over, it was about 10pm. I thought it would be a perfect time to open presents. I gave Jiho his wrapped box. He excitedly ripped open the wrapping paper and opened the box. A bright smile shone on his face. I made him a picture frame, with the picture of us already inside it. It was the picture we took together at the photo shoot one time.

"What is it?" Zico peeked over his shoulder. He took it out and showed Zico. "Isn't it perfect?"

"Hey! No fair! Why do you have a picture with her and I don't?"

He stuck out his tongue. "We have millions of photos together. Some of them even got published in the newspaper."

Zico pouted. He took out his phone and said, "Hye Mi, let's take a picture together!" Jiho suddenly lunged towards him and tried to take away his phone. "No way! Only I can get a picture with her!" Zico's long legs pushed Jiho away from his phone.

I laughed and while shaking my head. He can be really childish at times. "Of course, Zico." I said.

Zico's expression brightened while Jiho's face dropped. Zico took that opportunity to slide next to me and held his camera in front of us. "1, 2, 3, Zico is so cheesy!" The shutter went off. "Alright! Time to set it as my wallpaper~"

I saw Jiho place the frame back into the box with a glum expression. "Don't worry oppa, you're still my favorite."

His face changed 180 degrees. "Ha! In your face Zico!" He stuck his tongue out while he was still occupied with his phone.

"Here," Jiho pushed a long rectangular box towards me. Why didn't I see that when he was coming in? "I know you would probably like something handmade, but I thought this was perfect. It has the best quality and it can see pretty far."

That made me even more curious what was in it. Even Zico peeked over my shoulder. I carefully unwrapped the wrapping so I could reuse it. My mouth dropped and Zico yelled, "What the heck!"

It was a telescope. There was a picture of a white telescope on the box under some stars. I was at loss for words. "Oppa, you shouldn't have..."

"I would've bought you a whole lab if I had the money. Since you know about their plan, I thought you'd need this. I know it's not until summer, but this holiday is an excuse to buy you something like this. I know this thing won't go past the stars, but at least you'll see the beautiful stars and maybe you'll see them fly closer...when that day comes."

I immediately gave him a big hug, blocking out the whining from Zico, asking what the heck he was talking about.  I've never had someone who cared about me this much before. Jiho is definitely the best friend anyone could ever have. He understands me so easily that I even wonder if he had gone through this before. "Thanks Jiho. I'll take good care of it."

"Hey, hey, hey. I'm still in the house. Separate please!" Zico complained. We both laughed and let go of each other. "Here, this is for you." He handed me a small green gift bag. "I didn't expect you to give me anything since I was a surprise guest. But your food was enough."

I grabbed the bag. "Thanks Zico." While I was opening the bag, he warned me that it wasn't as good as Jiho's present. I didn't expect much anyways. I pulled out a pair of pink fluffy socks. 

Zico rubbed the back of his neck. "I told you so." I laughed but hugged him in thanks. "How did you know I needed pink socks?" He chuckled and hugged me back. "You're so modest." We let go and he looked at the time. "Hey, Jiho. We need to go."

"Why?" I asked. "It's only 30 to 11."

"Sorry baby, but Jiho and I have this shoot tomorrow early in the morning. We need our beauty sleep." I nodded and watched them put their jackets back on. 

"Bye bye, baby!" Zico waved. "I had lots of fun today. I'll come back every year!"

Jiho scoffed, "How will your future girlfriend feel if you don't spend it with her?"

Zico blinked. "What do you mean? I AM spending Christmas with my girlfriend. Right Hye Mi?" He grinned.

I giggled. "Aish." Jiho pushed him away from me. "We're going to go now. Have a nice Christmas and New Year!"

"Wait, you're not spending it with me?" I frowned.

He shook his head. "Sorry. I've made plans with some staff members. They wanted to have a New Year dinner."

I pouted. "Zico oppa too?"

"Actually baby, I'm fr-" Jiho put his hand over his mouth. "He's busy." He answered for him. "Spend it with Daehyun, alright? Bye Hye Mi." The both of them waved and turned around. I waved while they walked out the gate.

I signed and looked up the stairs. It was time to face Daehyun.

Erm, sorry guys. I know this story isn't really going anywhere at the moment. I'm actually getting sick of this story :$. My drafts were done ages ago, but editing is the tiring part. Hopefully, I'll get this story done soon. Have a nice Canadian Thanksgiving!