Luhan steps out of the bathroom and sees someone bent over Minseok’s bed, blocking the occupant from his view, and his blood instantly runs cold.

“What’re you doing?!”  He asks the person and the person looks at him, startled.

“Hey, Luhan.”  The person, apparently Yixing, greets and Luhan relaxes a little.  A little.  He still doesn’t know what the other is doing there so he still can’t relax fully.

“Oh, it’s you.”  Luhan replies, putting the face towel on the arm of the sofa before crossing his arms over his chest.  “What do you want?”

“Look, I know you’re mad about what happened during the party, so I wanted to apologize.  I was also supposed to greet Minseok but he’s asleep.  I did bring this, though.”  Yixing says, giving a paper bag to Luhan.  Luhan looks inside and sees a gift wrapped in red paper and mutters a little “Thank you.” 

“It’s for you and Minseok.  I instantly thought of the two of you when I saw that so I bought it.  I hope you guys like it.”  Yixing says.

“Thanks, we’ll open it later when Minseok wakes up.”  Luhan says, smiling.  It’s the first true smile that he’s given Yixing since their not-so-official break-up.  Yixing sighs and looks at Minseok’s sleeping figure, smiling a little when his eyes land on the stuffed bunny that the younger boy is hugging.

“Let me guess, Zitao gave him that.”  He says and Luhan laughs softly.

“Yeah.  He said that he instantly thought of Minseok when he saw it.  Minseok’s kind of a bunny sometimes.”  Luhan replies, running a hand through his hair.

“I guess you’ve already chosen.”  Yixing says.

“Yeah.  You and everyone else were right, it’s always been him but I was just too stupid to see it.  I’m sorry, Yixing, you had to be a victim of my stupidity.” 

“It’s alright, I guess I learned a lot about people after that.  We all make mistakes, Luhan.  What’s important is that we don’t make those same mistakes ever again.”  Yixing replies and Luhan nods.

“I won’t, Zitao said I’m not stupid anymore, so…” Luhan replies and Minseok stirs.  Minseok opens his eyes and sits up when he sees the other occupant of the room.

“Hi Yixing.”  Minseok says, smiling softly as he rubs the sleep from his eyes.  “Merry Christmas.”

“Merry Christmas too, Minseok, even if it’s already the day after.”  Yixing replies, laughing softly. 

“Hey, today still totally counts.”  Minseok replies, stretching his arms above his head.

“I left your gift with Luhan.”  Yixing replies.

“You didn’t have to!  I didn’t get a chance to buy anyone a gift this year.”  Minseok replies, frowning slightly.

“Not your fault and besides, I think your waking up is the best gift you could give anyone this Christmas.”  Yixing replies, smiling at Minseok. 

“O- okay.”  Minseok says, blushing.

“I guess I’ll go now, I still have to attend to some demanding siblings.”  Yixing says before he excuses himself from the room.

“Let’s open Yixing’s gift to us.”  Luhan tells Minseok and Minseok nods, making space for Luhan on the bed.  Luhan takes the box out of the bag and makes his way to the bed.  He sits beside Minseok, putting the bunny on his lap, and hands the gift over to the other boy.  Minseok tears the wrapper off excitedly.  Luhan helps him open the box since the scotch tape is hard to remove, and two slim rectangular velvet boxes greet them once they manage to finally open it.

“I wonder if there’s another box inside these two.”  Minseok says and Luhan laughs as they each take a box.  They examine the exterior of the box first and then proceed to take off the cover when they find nothing interesting.  They both gasp at the contents of the boxes they’re holding.  In Minseok’s box is a necklace; gold chain with a moon pendant.  In Luhan’s box is also a necklace; also having a gold chain but this time with a sun pendant.  They both marvel at the necklaces when Luhan realizes something.

“We should exchange necklaces.”  Luhan says, startling Minseok.  “You are the sun, after all.”  He tells Minseok with a smile before he proceeds to put the sun necklace around Minseok’s neck.  Minseok then proceeds to put the moon necklace around Luhan’s neck and then they both smile at their little handiwork when they’re done.

“So Yeol, I finished writing Angel.”  Sehun tells Chanyeol once he enters the Cassiopeia.

“No .  Seriously?!”  Chanyeol asks, almost dropping the tambourine and looking at Sehun.

“Yeah.  I finished it last night after I came home from the hospital.  You wanna see it?”  Sehun asks as he fishes for his notebook in his backpack.

“Okay, but I wanna make sure that Minseok approves of it first.”  Chanyeol replies, putting the tambourine beside the others.

“Yeah, I guess I’ll do that first.  I wonder when Minseok will get out of the hospital.”  Sehun replies, sitting down on the piano bench.

“Depends on his condtion.”  Chanyeol replies before suddenly falling silent.  Sehun raises an eyebrow, prompting the other boy to speak.  “So… I wrote this song, and it’s about Yifan.”

“Oh really?!  Have you shown him yet?”  Sehun asks, fishing some caramels from his bag.  “Want some?  It’s from Zitao.”

“Sure.”  Chanyeol says, taking one and popping it into his mouth, his face tomato red.  “Nah, not yet.  I’m waiting for the right time, just like you.”

“I haven’t written a song for Zitao yet.”  Sehun replies.

“Sehun, how long are you going to make Zitao wait?”

“I don’t know, okay?!  I know I’m selfish, and I’m sorry, but I just can’t!  I need some time.”  Sehun replies, putting his face on his palms.  “I want this to be perfect.”

“He loves you, Sehun, really loves you.”  Chanyeol replies, frowning while staring intently at his candy wrapper.  “I don’t think he’s going to hurt you if he’s waiting like this just for you.”

“No one’s sure about that.  We tend to hurt people even if we don’t mean to, Yeol.  Just look at what happened to Min and Luhan.”

“Yeah, but look at what happened to them afterwards.  They managed to fix it, Sehun, and you can too.  I know this sounds cheesy but, true love conquers all, right?”  Chanyeol asks, blushing at his own words.

“Ohmygod.”  Sehun says, mouth agape.  “Are you really Yeol or are you a body snatcher or something?  Are you an alien?  Have you been taken over by The Galaxy?” 

“What the hell is The Galaxy?”  Chanyeol asks, amused.

“Go ask Yifan.”  Sehun replies and Chanyeol just smiles at him.  “No, seriously, ask Yifan.  That guy says a lot of things that can shoot down his dignity.”

“Yeah, but he doesn’t give up and let go that easily, and that’s one of the things that I love about him.”  Chanyeol replies, blushing once again.

Luhan enters Minseok’s room and finds the other awake and writing something on a notebook.

“What are you doing?  Aren’t you supposed to be resting?”  Luhan asks as he approaches the bed.  Minseok looks up at him and smiles softly.

“I’m writing.  Remember that time you caught me sleeping when I’m supposed to be eating dinner?  I fell asleep while I was writing this song and I just remembered that I need to continue this.”  Minseok replies, gesturing to the notebook.

“Yeah, but can’t you rest first?  That’s due at the end of the year, right?  You can still work on that later.”  Luhan says, sitting down on the bed and trying to read what’s in the notebook but Minseok hides it from his view.

“Nope, you can’t read it yet.  Besides, I’m bored.”  Minseok says before looking out the window.  “I want to go home, Luhan.”

“Do you really want to go home?”  Luhan asks.

“Yeah, I really do.  I just… I dunno, it’s kind of cold here.”

Luhan instantly panics when Minseok replies.  He remembers his dream, and instantly thinks of a way to get Minseok out of the hospital.  “Okay, then.  I’ll go and try to do something about it.”

“Really?  Thanks, Han!”  Minseok replies as cheerily as he can.  Luhan smiles and hugs his boyfriend—yes, it’s boyfriend now—savoring the warmth that the other is giving.  How can he feel cold here when he’s so warm?

“Anything for you.  But, I have one condition.”  Luhan says and Minseok looks up at him questioningly.  “You won’t do anything school or work related while you’re still here.  You’ll just rest, got it?”  Luhan finishes and Minseok just nods, putting down his pen and notebook.  They both settle down on the bed and watch the snow falling outside through the window.

“They were wrong, you know.”  Luhan suddenly says, causing Minseok to turn his attention back to him.  “About you and me, they were wrong.”

“What do you mean?”  Minseok replies, suddenly feeling very nervous. 

Luhan notices Minseok’s heart speeding up because of the heart monitor and he finds himself chuckling softly before replying.  “I didn’t do a lot of things for you, Min.  I only hurt you before, for all I know, yet they always say that I’ve done a lot of things for you and that they’re thankful.  But the truth is, you’re the one who did a lot of things for me.”

“But that’s wrong.”  Minseok retorts.  “I mean, you took me in.  You fed me, gave me a home, gave me a job, gave me another shot at life, you loved me.”

“Correction, love not loved.  And yeah, we did give you those things, but everyone can give you that, Min.  What I meant is that you made me realize things.  You made me change, and I guess that’s the reason why my parents entrusted me to you and not to anyone else.  And you did a very good job at that, so thanks.  A lot.  I really don’t know where I’ll be without you.”

“Not in a hospital taking care of me, that’s for sure.”

“Do you want me to leave?  You sound like you want me to.”

“No!  It’s just that… don’t you have other things to do aside from this?  I’ll be fine on my own here, you don’t really have to look after me all the time.”

“If I did leave and go back to the bakery or something, Henry and Amber and whoever will probably kick my and drag me back here.”

“You shouldn’t really let your employees boss you around that much, Han.”

“I don’t really mind, especially if it’s you.”

“That was just so cheesy.”  Minseok replies, laughing like an idiot.  Luhan blushes and mentally blames Victoria and Shakespeare for the sudden turn of events.

Changmin enters Cassiopeia and sees Chanyeol looking at him with raised eyebrows from the counter.

“Uhm… hey.  Is your boss here?”  Changmin asks, a little nervous.  Chanyeol steps forward and puts his hands on his hips.

“You mean Yunho?  Yeah, he’s here.  But I want to know what you’re going to do first.”  Chanyeol demands.

“Jesus Christ,” Changmin says, rolling his eyes, “are you like this with all your close friends’ friends, Park?”

“Nope.  I just don’t want them to be hurt, Shim.  I don’t want another Luhan hurting another Minseok.”

“Is that what you think it is?  Seriously, can’t two people just be friends these days?”

“Well, we all try to be like that, Changmin.  But we always end up falling for that person, anyway.”

“Chanyeol, I’m not like Luhan, okay?  And besides, my intentions aren’t like that; we’re doing this for Minseok.” Changmin replies and Chanyeol looks at him curiously.

“What do you mean you’re doing this for Minseok?”  Chanyeol asks, cocking his hip to the left.

“We’re thinking of ways to lighten Minseok’s heavy load.  Maybe fewer work hours in here or a new class schedule for the three of you.  But so far, we can’t find a loophole.”  Changmin replies just as Yunho walks in.

“Looks like you finally revealed our plan to Chanyeol.”  Yunho says, smiling at them.  “It’s okay, though.  He can help us, can’t he?”

“Yeah, I can.”  Chanyeol replies, now at ease with the truth out in the open.  “But you’re doing it the wrong way.”

“Huh?!”  Changmin and Yunho both reply, looking at the youngest boy in shock.

“You shouldn’t really ease those things for Minseok because he’ll think that you don’t trust him to do his job anymore, he has a mentality like that.  What you can do is keep him and Luhan together, protect their relationship and such.”  Chanyeol says, as if giving a lecture in a room full of students.  “Minseok doesn’t know—Sehun, Jongdae, and I have been hiding it from him for a long time now—but, he has a lot of secret admirers in the university.  They’re the reason why we try to keep each other as close as possible in group works.  We always did know that Luhan felt the same, and we tried to make it work.  I guess our hard work paid off in the end.”

“Wow, did you know anything about this?”  Changmin asks Yunho and the other just shakes his head.

“I never heard anything about it.  I always did think that the three of you are just really close, that’s why you tend to stick together as much as possible.”  Yunho replies, eyes wide and staring at Chanyeol.

“Well, that’s the first reason.  The other reason just kind of slipped in when we realized what was happening.  I always did think that Minseok would find out, but thankfully he didn’t.” 

“How did you know that it’s true?  Did you actually manage to encounter a situation like that?  Someone actually tried to approach Min while he’s with you guys?”  Changmin asks.

“Nah, but we have some inside information.”  Chanyeol replies, smirking.

“Why do I have a feeling that I know who the inside information came from?”  Changmin asks, brows creasing.

“Because you do.  In fact, you both do.”  Chanyeol replies, looking smug.  “It came from Jongdae.” 

“What?!”  Yunho exclaims.  “Jongdae… he…”

“Yeah.  He used to like Minseok.  It’s actually kind of funny because he now helps us in keeping Luhan and Minseok together when he used to like one of them.”  Chanyeol replies, laughing.

“He’s not a threat?”  Changmin asks.

“No, goodness, no!  He’s 100% with us in this thing.” 

“I always did think that Luhan has more admirers than Minseok.”  Yunho muses and Chanyeol laughs harder.

“It’s actually the other way around.  I guess the three of us really did a good job if we made others think that way.  A few just managed to slip from our grasp because we were probably busy.  Life’s like that, though, you can’t have everything.”

“You guys are so amusing.  And Minseok is so oblivious.”  Changmin replies, shaking his head in amusement.

“That’s a part of our charm.”  Chanyeol replies and the two adults laugh at his attempt at batting his eyelashes seductively.

A/N: Oh hey, I managed to sneak in a bit of Xiuchen! <3

Also, XIUHAREM