“Welcome home” Kai greeted the girl around his arms before lovingly tucking a strand of her hair behind her ear. He was grinning from ear to ear, and the worst part was that Baekhyun knew Kai liked that he was watching, the bastard.

The burning sensation in Baekhyun’s chest was indescribable, the flames of fury, the stab of jealousy, his itching hands tempted to swing a fist right at the male. But instead, he balls them up, his fingernails digging into his skin and his teeth clenches to hold in with whatever will power he had left to not do anything illegal.

“Oh, Baekhyun, hey I didn’t even see you there” Kai blinked at him, pretending as though he hadn’t noticed the other boy in the room. A grin remained plastered on his face and his arm wrapped around Zora’s waist from behind, mocking, teasing, tempting him, pushing him at his limits.

Hold it in, Baekhyun. Hold it in. 

“Why didn’t you tell me your sister’s coming back?” Kai continued.

‘Sister’. That word was chosen deliberately.

For a while, a tense silence swept in. The two males glared each other down, Baekhyun with a sharpened, Kai with an irritatingly innocent and triumphant one. But Baekhyun was the first to break. He spun around, left the kitchen and entered the living room. The sheer amount of force he used to slam the door sent vibrations travelling all around the house.

Luna, Chanyeol and King froze, immobilizing themselves as they watched Baekhyun attempt to calm himself down in front of them.

Kai ing kissed her. He held her close and he welcomed her home the little shi- 

“Baekhyun” Luna bravely spoke up, “Are you alright, honey?” She asked, sincerely concerned as she noticed Baekhyun’s trembling fists.

 “No”. What was even going through his head? Why was he fuming mad? Why was his chest so tense? Something didn’t make sense.

Luna sighed quietly to herself, “Baekhyun…honey, Zora misses you so much, you should go and-“

“I’m going out” Baekhyun strode to the front door.

“Where are you going?” Chanyeol asked as Baekhyun slips on his shoes and without answering, he leaves the house. “Luna…” Chanyeol called, a sullen tone to his usually happy voice, “You think we should tell him?”

Luna bit her bottom lip, “Soon…I promise”

Out in the cold, Baekhyun sat himself on one of the wooden benches, letting himself cool off. It was still early in the morning, around 8 am or something maybe and no one was around. Baekhyun felt as though he had everything for himself and let the serene, motionless scenery in front calm him. He didn’t go far from his neighbourhood, but far enough for him to feel like he got away from it all.

He couldn’t understand why he was so mad. Why he felt so…so betrayed, so uncomfortable and…so murderous towards Kai. He just kissed her. Was it that he thought Kai as a good friend? It’s weird to have a friend like your sister…No, that’s not it. It might be partly the reason, but there must be more to it. Was it that he felt uncomfortable because he knew Kai wasn’t real? No, that’s not it either.

Baekhyun heaved a sigh and thick water vapour emitted from his mouth, “I should have brought a scarf or something” He muttered to himself, regretting the fact that he came out in his pyjamas and a leather jacket. He must have looked ridiculous but to be honest, he couldn’t care less. Besides, no one was here any-

“Baekhyun?”

God dammit.

“Sehun?” Baekhyun’s eyes widened at the familiar male heading towards him in his full track suit, equipped with black gloves and headphones. True, he knew that Sehun lived nearby, but he would have never guessed that his slacker of a friend would be up this early. And it seemed that the friend had the same thought as him.

“What are you doing here?” Both males asked in unison.

Sehun took a seat next to Baekhyun. Apparently his reason for getting up early for a run was that he was training for his soccer match that was coming up; which made it more believable, if Sehun was dedicated about anything then it was soccer.

“You not playing the game?” Sehun questioned, but Baekhyun knew that he already knew the answer to that one.

“I don’t play anymore, remember?”

Sehun scoffed light-heartedly, “Yeah I know, you’ve always been a quitter” With a sharp glance from Baekhyun, the younger boy quickly covered himself, “What? It’s true. Taekwondo, soccer, piano, singing, you quit it all dude”

All of that was true as Sehun said. He had done all of those things but as he grew older, Baekhyun felt like none of those things mattered to him anymore. Nothing was worth holding onto. It was a waste of time, money and effort, so why continue doing it? And instead of explaining it to Sehun, Baekhyun kept it to himself. He remained quiet and stared off into the clear, bright blue sky. Despite the sub-zero weather, the weather looked brilliant. The sun was shining and the sky was cloudless.

“It’s Christmas today…why aren’t you at home?” Sehun asked.

Baekhyun scoffed bitterly, “What would I be doing at home?”

Sehun shrugged yet again, “I dunno, shouldn’t you be at home with Zora or something? She might be lonely if she’s…” As though the realization only just hit him, Sehun bit his lips shut to stop himself from talking, only to open them again to try and explain, “S-Sorry, I forgot about the incident, y-you don’t have to tell me where she is if you’re uncomfortable with it, I mean, I’m curious but I guess-“

“She’s at home” Baekhyun answered, shutting him up. But his response was far from a delighted tone, more so, he had a distant, blank gaze in his eyes that Sehun couldn’t read.

Sehun blinked at his friend, curiosity eating at him but deciding on not to bombard him with questions. “…Okay then…”

“…Did Jongdae and Lay tell you anything?”

“What?”

“Nothing”

There was a short pause before Sehun spoke up again, “You know, you were pretty good at all of them…I mean, you won two national Taekwondo competitions back in elementary school. We always won the soccer matches in school when you were our captain. And, well, you did piano and singing secretively but we’ve heard you and your pretty good at them too…It just…makes me wonder why you quit” The younger heaved a sigh, “And it makes me wonder…what would you hang onto…what could you love so much for you to never let it go…”

Baekhyun was somewhat rendered speechless. Sehun had just raised a very good point, too good in fact. Could there really be something he loved so much? It felt impossible now. He would probably never know.

All of a sudden, he felt Sehun prod his arm, the boy jerked his head towards the girl standing in the distance. Not only did Sehun have his eyes widened at her, but the moment Baekhyun caught sight of her, he too had his eyes wide.

She was wearing jeans. Actual female denim jeans that fitted her and even a new white shirt, one that slipped off one side of her shoulders. Her hair had fallen loose from her plaits and was left down, her glasses nowhere to be seen, even her shoes seemed like normal black converse. For a moment, Baekhyun couldn’t believe his eyes. Just a few minutes ago, she was still back in the house with her white pyjamas on. But looking at her like this…she…she almost seemed normal. She looked…

“Man, she’s cute” Sehun whispered incoherently, in complete awe as he watched the girl walk towards them, slightly out of breathe. “Dude, I swear if she wasn’t your stepsister, I’d-” The younger caught Baekhyun’s deathly glare, one challenging him to finish his sentence and he immediately swallowed the words back down his throat. “I-I’ll be off then” He took his leave, waving his hand at Zora with a shy smile before jogging off somewhere else. By then, Zora had already made her way to Baekhyun, the male trying his best not to speak his mind and say everything out in the open.

“…Where’s Kai?” He asked bitterly. Not making eye contact as he kept his eyes in the far distance, acting lazy when really his heart was running wild. God dammit, why did she have to change clothes now? And where the hell did she even get them from?

But when the only thing he heard was the sound of her heavy panting, he couldn’t help but glance at her. She was shivering terribly under those thin clothes and it was clear that she couldn’t quite catch her breathe fast enough to even gesture anything to him, more so, he noticed that she was holding the very familiar black sketchpad in her hand. The one he found her room with the ambiguous messages on them. And from her hands, his gaze trailed up to her face, her flawless features made a few butterflies in his stomach spring to life, but when the image of her and Kai kissing come into mind, he immediately killed them off. And even when Zora took the seat next to him, he blatantly ignored her, pretending that her presence wasn’t affecting him, when really she was affecting him in all ways.

The temptation just to turn his head was ridiculous, but he held himself back. But after only a couple minutes of silence, he broke. “Go back home…it’s cold outside, you’ll get ill again” He mumbled, feeling awkward at the words that left his mouth. But when there was no response, he continued, “What kind of idiot wears those kind of clothes outside in the middle of winter?” He scolded, still not facing her, “Who gave you them anyway…Was it a Christmas present from Luna or something?” When he detected a slow nod from the corner of his eye, he knew that she was still listening. “Figures...that woman sure is…” When he finally turns to face her, he’d suddenly lost in her eyes.

She was smiling. Smiling so softly, so full of content that it sent him aback. But why? He wasn’t even looking at her, his tone wasn’t even kind and he was babbling on about nothing yet she’d looked so gratified that Baekhyun suddenly didn’t want to say anything else in fear of ruining it. “Where’re you’re glasses? Can you see anything?” He asked her.

She simply nodded her head.

“Are you wearing contacts?”

She shook her head.

“So your vision just kinda – poof – clear?”

She nodded her head triumphantly, an amused smile tugged at her lips. Baekhyun almost laughed with her, but reminded himself not to. But then he realized – why was he even stopping himself? Why was he forcing himself to act like such a jerk when he didn’t even need to?

Zora flipped through her sketchbook and stopped at a page to show Baekhyun. It was a very decorative, beautifully drawn yet simple layout. In bold letter, the words ‘Merry Christmas’ was written in red pen, a couple of mini hollies dotted around it along with a Christmas tree on the left of it and a snowman on the right, the snowman showing an uncanny resemblance of Baekhyun.

“Is that me?” He smirked, pointing at the little snowman drawing.

Zora rolled her eyes, but the smile on her face said that he was right. She shrugged her shoulders and Baekhyun interpreted it as one of her ‘I tried my best’ gestures. But Baekhyun’s heart couldn’t help but warm up slightly. The fact that this was pre-drawn and it was one of him. The fact that she was actually thinking about him whilst she was away. Something about that thought made his lips curl up into a goofy smile.

Take that Kai.

But the smile vanished all too quickly when he remembered that Kai had already kissed her, never mind a drawing, of course she’s drawn him before; he was born from them for Christ sake. All of a sudden, he felt like he’d lost something. Like he’d been defeated in a game he didn’t even realize he was playing.

But, at this moment in time, Zora was beside him, she was with him.

Two days, Baekhyun. Figure yourself out within those two days, or you’ll regret it.

Kris’s words rang in his ears and all of a sudden, Baekhyun could feel his heart rate start to rise. For god’s sake, this has to stop. He has to prove it to himself sooner or later.

Baekhyun bit his tongue and took a deep breathe in. He had an odd feeling that he might just regret this, “...You...You wanna go to the market?”