December 24^th2011

It was Christmas Eveand Seoul was expecting a snow storm. It was one of those odd years that they gotChristmas with their families but Jungkook and Jimin had to stop their tripmidway due to the weather conditions. They had ended up in a hotel somewhere in the outskirts of Gumi with transits stopped for the night. It was after a long phone call of Jungkook assuring his parents that he was alright that he had securely reached the hotel room before he could go for a shower. Honestly he was fourteen and Jimin sixteen; he really couldn’t understand why his parents were so worried. They were only there for one night, and they would be on their way once again the day after.

With Jimin out of the bathroom, Jungkook stepped in bringing a towel along with him. He the shower and sighed as the warm water trickled down his shoulders and to the rest of his body; finally able to stop shivering after doing so for the past hour. If Jungkook had to admit the place that they had ended up in was pretty dead despite how he had described it to his dad.  Unlike Seoul, where it was obvious of the Christmas cheers, here it was just another day, except for the wreath that was placed on the front doors of the building. It was also slightly creepy; the dim lights through the halls as they approached their assigned room seemed as if they were part of a horror movie and all they were missing now was a power—the lights went off and soon the water stopped- outage.

He stood there for the next few seconds which seemed to last longer than it was and he wasn’t sure if he should expect a serial killer.  No… No… those things only happen in movies. Jungkook hesitantly reached over to the towel that he had carelessly tossed onto the hanger to dry himself. But then again, everything that was happening did resemble what it was like in those movies. No. Just stop.  Nothing like that is going happen, get yourself together Jeon Jungkook. He tried to convince himself only to end up freezing.

Creeeek, creek…. Creek.

what was that.

“Hyuung?” It was only when the door completely open and he saw Jimin holding a candle that he could breathe properly.  But why did the older boy look like he just saw ghost- Jungook glanced down. “HYUNG!”  Jungkook scrambled trying to cover himself and wrapped the towel around his waist. They were close, true, but not that close. It had been barely a year since they had met.

“I didn’t see anything!”  Jimin claimed, eyes covered with his hand and the younger couldn’t help but appreciate the thought. It was only when Jimin turned around that the hand slipped off his face and then continued, “I thought you would get scared so I went to the front desk and got some candles.”

“I wasn’t…” Jungkook said as he finally managed to completely secure the towel around himself, “but thank you, you can look now, it's okay.” The lights clicked on for a moment but then went out once again with the sound of thunder almost on que and the boy who had been at the other side bathroom was, in seconds,  attached to the elder. There was a long pause before either processed what had happened before Jimin laughed (trying and succeeding in hiding how scared he was). Smack. “… the last five minutes never happened okay?”

“O- ahaha Okay…”  Jimin finally managed to say once he had calmed only to earn another smack from the younger. Jungkook walked out of the bathroom and the other followed to place the candle over the bed stand near their luggage. By the time that Jungook changed into his night clothes, the candle was quarter melted and he glanced at the figure that had spread himself on top of the bed eyes fixed on Jungkook with a slight grin.

“What?”  Jungkook raised a brow unable to hold back a smile that was spreading across his own lips. The latter shrugged before voicing out a ‘nothing’ then reached out for the boy with both hands.

“Come here, let’s sleep we have to wake up early tomorrow.” Jungkook scrunched up his nose and pushed the elder’s arms away, and got onto the bed keeping to himself. The good thing about Jimin was that he barely took things personally, but in hindsight Jungkook wasn’t so sure how much of a good thing that was. Even if he had meant to offend the older boy, it barely worked. Sounds of thunder stiked again and this time both young males had moved in close to one another arms wrapped around each other and into a tight hug. “It’s okay, when we get back to the dorm, none of this ever happened.”

It was almost twelve by the time the night had come to calm, and till then they had ended up talking, laughter resounding the walls of the room every now and then. When the younger seemed to have fallen asleep, Jimin leaned over to blow out the candle that was coming to its end before returning to the younger’s embrace. For a moment he wondered if Jungkook would grow out of this phase, like his brother had months ago, but decided that till then he would cherish it. Jimin pushed the hair that hung over the boy’s forehead to the side before closing his eyes, a smile playing at his lips as he gave the younger a quick squeeze.

“Merry Christmas hyung.”  Jungkook whispered in the dark; surprising Jimin as he thought the younger was long asleep. Maybe this wasn’t so much of a horror movie after all, quite the contrary actually, the night had turned out to oddly comforting; Jimin pressed his lips against the Jungkook’s forehead only to pull away soon after. 

“Merry Christmas Kookie.”