24th / 25th December 2014

Gayoon hadn’t realised how close Christmas was until the night before; in all truthfulness, she had completely forgotten about the holiday, as focused as they had all been on getting everything sorted for their comeback. It had suddenly dawned on her as the six girls spent the afternoon lounging in the sitting room, watching some random k-drama on TV and she had jumped up as though she had been electrocuted, panicking as she realised that she still hadn’t wrapped up the presents that she had sneakily bought for the other members.

“You okay, Gayoon-ah?” Eunjung asked lazily, stealing a handful of popcorn from the bowl that Seohyeon was monopolizing; the maknae glared at the leader, who simply smiled sweetly in response. 

“I’m fine!” the vocalist squeaked, attempting to school her face into a relaxed grin. “I just remembered something. I’ll be right back.”

“Remembered what?!” Chaerin called after her as she hurried off towards the bedroom that she shared with Eunjung. “Yah! Remembered what?!”

“Just leaver her be,” Subin told the younger girl. “You know what she’s been like lately - she’d forget her head if it wasn’t already attached to her body. She’s probably just misplaced her lyrics or something. Don’t worry about it.”

“Are you two planning something together, hmm?” Jimin asked, suspicious. Ever since the argument that had broken out in the practice room between her, Eunjung and Charein, she had been spending more and more time with the group, and everything had gone back to how it had been before. 

“What? No, I don’t have a clue what you’re talking about, Minnie.”

“Are you sure?” she pressed. 

“We’ve already said that Christmas is going to be no big deal for us this year because of the comeback,” Eunjung reminded them all. “There’s no way that they would plan everything because we all know that it would make the rest of feel bad because we haven’t had the time to plan anything.”

Seohyeon raised an eyebrow at Eunjung. “Like anybody in this dorm listens to you when you say stuff like that, unnie. You know at least one person has bought presents,”

“Well, I’m telling you all now!” Eunjung shouted playfully, raising one arm into the air, still clutching some popcorn in her fist. “If you’ve bought christmas presents, you’d better not give them out because then we’ll all feel guilty!”

There was a chorus of laughs and Chaerin shook her head at her friend.

Meanwhile, in her room, Gayoon was hurriedly searching for the christmas bags that she had hidden in her wardrobe. Luckily, Eunjung wasn’t one of the neat ‘everything-has-to-be-tidy’ members of Polaris, so there wasn’t really much chance of her going snooping through Gayoon’s things in an attempt to give them all a proper home of their own. 

Once the five presents had been all wrapped up and were sitting in a row on her bed, the vocalist ran a hand through her hair and sighed. “Now where am I going to hide these?”

“Gayoon-ah?” Eunjung’s voice sounded, accompanied by a knock on the closed door. “Are you okay? You’ve been in there for a while,”

Gayoon started, feeling guilty that she had made her members worried about her, and quickly shoved the gifts under her bed, pulling her blankets and duvet lower over the side so that the shiny paper wouldn’t be seen. 

“I’m good, Jungie,” she called back, walking over to the door and opening it; the leader peeked into the room, eyes narrowed. 

“What were you doing?”

“Ah, nothing. Just had to wish my family a happy early Christmas!” she lied, hoping that her made-up excuse would be believed. 

Eunjung scrutinised her for a moment before accepting it. “Eh, okay. Whatever you say, Yoonie. I was just coming to ask you what you wanted to get for dinner because Chaerin is insisting that she’s craving soondubu jiggae, but we all want pizza, so you need to have some input otherwise Rin is going to bully us into getting what she wants and I swear to God, if I have to eat tofu one more time this week, I’ll throw somebody through a window!”

“Okay, I’m coming in now,” Gayoon told her, shutting the door and following the leader into the sitting room. “Guys, I’m feeling pizza!” she called to the others; Chaerin’s groan was even louder than the cheers from Jimin, Seohyeon and Subin.

*
“EVERYONE UP! CHRISTMAS! IT’S CHRISTMAS! EVERYONE UP AND IN THE LOUNGE IN TEN OR I’M POURING WATER ON YOU ALL!”

Gayoon groaned and attempted to bury her head underneath her pillow in an attempt to drown out Chaerin’s hollering. Why the American felt that it was necessary to wake them all up in such a manner, she would never know. Christmas just wasn’t as big a thing in Korea as it was in America or England, as she had been finding out over the last few days from the two lead vocalists, who seemed determined to make the day a good one. 

“Chaerin....” Eunjung moaned as the talkative member hammered on their bedroom door. “Shut the up.”

“IT’S SIX, COME ON GUYS, I’VE WAITED LONG ENOUGH!”

“ARE YOU KIDDING ME?!” came Jimin’s annoyed voice from down the hall. “I am going to strangle you with your own intestines, Kwon Chaerin!”

Eunjung threw something that hit the door with a heavy ‘thunk’ across the room. 

“That had better not be my favourite book,” Gayoon warned, moving her pillow from her face and squinting through the dark at her room-mate. 

“I think it was my alarm clock,” the leader muttered. “Aish! I’d better get up and shut up Rin otherwise I think Subin and Jimin are going to murder her,” she added, clambering out of bed and shuffling across the room to put on her dressing gown and locate her slippers. “Want some tea?”

“Green tea would be lovely,” Gayoon replied with a sigh, turning onto her back and pulling her hair away from her face. 

“’kay. See you in a bit.” With that, Eunjung quietly slipped out of the room. There was a muffled ‘thump’ and Chaerin protested loudly, which led Gayoon to believe that the Brit had smacked the American around the back of the head, an action which she had picked up from Subin. 

Now that she was up, the vocalist was finding it hard to fall back to sleep, so with a sigh, she crawled out of bed and felt around blindly for the light switch on the wall near the door, hands fluttering across the wallpaper like spiders. Once she could actually see, she pulled on some thick fluffy socks and a cardigan (turned out that Eunjung had picked up Gayoon’s dressing gown and the leader's was missing, which meant that it had probably been stolen by Chaerin or Seohyeon).

When she entered the lounge, the first thing she noticed was Chaerin curled up across the sofa, apparently taking a nap. Gayoon scoffed and walked past her, rubbing her eyes, which felt as though they had had grit thrown into them. Eunjung was already in the kitchen, pulling all sorts of things out of the fridge while the kettle boiled. 

“Don’t tell me you’re getting things ready to cook already,” Seohyeon called from the doorway; the room-mates jumped, neither of them having noticed her enter the room. 

“Jesus, maknae, don’t creep up on people like that,” Eunjung complained loudly. “You almost gave me a heart attack!”

“Why are you speaking so loudly?” Seohyeon asked, ignoring the scolding completely. “I thought that was Chaerin’s job,”

“She woke us all up at six in the morning and then fell asleep on the sofa,” Eunjung explained with a wicked grin. “Time we repay the favour, right?” 

“You’re evil and I don’t think I noticed before just now,” Gayoon muttered as she readied the cups for everyone - three cups of coffee for Subin, Jimin and Chaerin, a cup of English breakfast tea for Eunjung and two green teas for herself and Seohyeon. 

“And in response to your earlier question,” Eunjung began, pulling a cutting knife from the cutlery drawer. “Yes, I’m getting some stuff ready for dinner. I’m sorry, but I feel the overwhelming need to force some English food onto all of you, so I’m roasting up a chicken and doing some roast potatoes and veggies with gravy.”

“That sounds disgusting,” Seohyeon informed her while Gayoon frowned. 

“I thought turkey was what you were meant to eat on Christmas day?”

“We don’t have any turkey, okay? So chicken will have to do!” Eunjung responded cheerfully, cutting into the broccoli. “And can someone go and wake up the others? Seohyeon, why didn’t you bring Jimin with you?”

“She insisted on sending me out first. She’s acting pretty shady, if you ask me.”

Eunjung sighed. “Then do your job as maknae and deliver the drinks to everyone,”

This immediately caused her to sulk, folding her arms across her chest and pouting. “Why do you always make me do everything?!”

“Wear the young ones out first,” Gayoon answered before Eunjung could say anything, causing the younger member to burst into laughter. 

“Ah, I knew I liked you for a reason, Yoon-ah!”

*

It was three hours later that the food was all ready, Chaerin had been woken up and the table set (Seohyeon had pushed this job onto Subin, despite being told to do it herself). The six girls settled down in their places and looked over all the food. The kamjatang, a hearty potato stew with ox ribs and a fiery red sauce, was in pride of place and Subin doled out bowls full of it.

“Eunjung, please explain to me exactly what that is on yours and Chaerin’s plates,” Jimin asked politely, taking a sip of her drink while the others looked up in interest.

“It’s traditional,” Eunjung began firmly. “Roast chicken, some steamed vegetables, roasted potatoes and meat gravy. This is what we eat on Christmas day at my home in Oxford,”

“And I eat something similar, so I just joined in!” Chaerin put in, still in her sky-high mood, despite being hit by Eunjung earlier in the day and woken up from her nap by Jimin dumping some clothes on her face by way of telling her to get dressed for the day.

“It still seems gross, sorry.” The maknae didn’t sound very apologetic despite her words.

“That’s okay, Seohyeon-ah,” Eunjung replied in a dangerously sticky sweet tone. “When I first came to Korea, I thought that the food was gross. You’ll get used to English food eventually. I’ll make sure of it.”

“That sounds scarily ominous,” Subin pointed out around a mouthful of potato. 

When they had all finished eating and the table had been cleared, Eunjung cleared and stood up suddenly from her place on the sofa between Seohyeon and Chaerin, who both stared at her curiously.

“I actually have an announcement to make,” she started nervously, wringing her hands. “I know that we all agreed that we wouldn’t make too big a deal about today, but... I’m a bad person and I went out and bought you all presents.”

“YAH!” Chaerin burst out, pointing at the leader wildly. “You told us just last night that if any of us had bought gifts that we couldn’t give them out in front of the others because it would make them feel bad!”

“I know! I’m sorry!” the older girl apologised, looking incredibly guilty. “I just really wanted to show you all how happy I am that we’re all doing so well!”

“Actually, I have a confession to make, too,” Subin stood aswell and bowed her head. “I, too, snuck out after practice a few weeks ago and got everyone gifts,”

“I did aswell,” Gayoon admitted quietly.

“Well, that makes four of us,” Seohyeon added matter of factly. 

“I’ve been hiding mine in the EXO dorm while they’ve been at their concerts,” Jimin put in with a smile.

“Leeteuk sunbae took mine for me a few days ago, actually.” Chaerin finished, and they all looked at each other in confusion for a moment.

“Is this... Is this the first time that we’ve all been in sync with one another?” Eunjung questioned, more than slightly shocked.

“I think it is!” Jimin confirmed brightly. “Let’s go get them and meet back here in twenty minutes so we can open them!”

Ah, this chapter didn’t turn out quite the way I was hoping, but alas, I still like it! I don't know whether I'm going to post an extra bonus chapter somewhere about what they bought each other, but if you guys want one, I'm more than happy to churn one out, though I'll probably save it to be posted around Christmas, because I feel like that would be a nice gift to you all ^.^

ALSO, AN IMPORTANT NOTICE! I start my job soon, in a few days probably, so I'm just giving you all a warning in advance that when my pre-written chapters run out (I'm up to chapter 18 currently), then I don't know whether I'll be able to update weekly as I am now. But there's still ages to go before then, so it's all good. Thanks!