Yixing faceplanted onto his bed, stomach full and heavy with lots of home cooking.  His phone rang off with a text notification, and he reluctantly lifted a hand to grab the device from the bedside table.  It was a text from Luhan, as usual, but the quick flash of words on the screen made Yixing sit upright immediately.

ily.

That’s what Yixing managed to see on the lock screen before it went to black.  His hand stood still in mid-air over the phone, all thoughts of going to sleep gone from his mind now.  And with impeccable timing as ever, his phone rang with a call from the very person who was causing Yixing’s current internal dilemma.

“Uh…  Hi?” Yixing awkwardly answered.

Luhan laughed on the other end of the line.

“You sound like you’re greeting an impending doom or something.”

In Yixing’s mind, that was not too far from the truth.

“Anyways, I just wanted to check up on you,” Luhan continued.  “You know, extend some holiday cheer and stuff.”

“Thanks.  You too,” Yixing replied, keeping his responses short in order to not babble out something embarrassing.

Luhan audibly coughed at the slight silence that had overtaken the conversation.

“I guess I’ll see you when you get back then.  Later, Yixing!”

“Um!” Yixing checked to make sure that Luhan was still on the phone before he continued, which he thankfully was.

“For the holidays and stuff, I...uh…I love you too.”

Yixing held his breath and waited for a response.  He listened closely but could only hear silence from the other end.  Yixing was worried that Luhan may have hung up on him when he heard a softly spoken “What?”

Yixing nervously scratched at the side of his neck.

“You’re making me repeat it?  Are you secretly recording me or something?” He added in the last bit to try to lighten the mood.

Luhan laughed in response, sounding almost breathless and surprised to Yixing’s ears.

“No, but I wish I was,” he spoke warmly, the tone of his voice making Yixing’s face burn.  “What brought this on?  I mean I’m flattered, but that was kind of, uh, unexpected.”

“You – you said it first though?” Yixing stammered.

A bit of rustling was heard on Luhan’s side of the conversation, a couple of subtle tap sounds on the phone screen, and then a sudden burst of laughter.

“Yixing, did you happen to read all of the message that I sent you before I called?” Luhan asked.

“No, I didn’t get a chance to?” Yixing replied confused.

Luhan made an unintelligible noise from his end.

“Yikes, Yifan’s calling me right now.  Wow, this is going to be extremely awkward,” Luhan chuckled.  “Yixing, we’ll talk some other time, okay?  Bye!”

Luhan ended the call before Yixing could respond.  Yixing then went to his phone inbox and clicked on the message that Luhan had sent.

Hey!  Holidays greetings and whatnot! 

Enjoy the time you have with your friends and fam

ily.

The latter half of the word “family” had been cut off from the original message and placed into a second message consisting only of the “ily.” that Yixing had seen.  Luhan was probably trying to clear up the misunderstanding with Yifan right now, but Yixing had dived right into his assumptions that it was a confession and had even responded mistakenly.

Yixing grabbed the nearest pillow and proceeded to whine into it.