“Is that all?” Jimin asks as he unloads the last of Taehyung’s bags out of the car. He hasn’t bothered to put on any pants and stands on the driveway shivering in his jammies. Snow is falling as quick as he can feel hypothermia coming on.

                  Taehyung nods briskly and sprints into the house. Jimin follows suit, shuts the door, and hobbles over to the heater. His friend tugs down on his scarf, revealing a bright smile in between rosy cheeks. “Pardon the intrusion!”

                  Jimin starts rubbing his arms. “It’s cool, man. We’re kinda used to having you over every year,” he says with a gentle tone. “The holidays wouldn’t be the same without you.”

                  “Aw!” Taehyung squeals. He pulls off his boots and sets them aside. “I’d probably kiss you if I didn’t forget my mistletoe at home.”

                  “Gross. And why do even have mistletoe in the first place?”

                  He looks at Jimin with a smug face and perches either hand on his hips. “We all have our secret passions, Park Jimin.”

                  They start dragging his stuff up the stairs. Once there, Taehyung declares one corner of Jimin’s bedroom—all two feet and five inches of it—to be his. He starts unpacking while Jimin looks for extra blankets.

                  “Okay, my games go here, and my secret snack stash goes here…” he pauses. “Do you have room for a cat?”

                  Jimin whips his head towards him, eyes bulging out of their sockets. “What?!”

                  “I’m kidding, gosh.” He pulls out a little cat plush and sets it aside. “That’s Mrs. Sausage-Bun.”

                  “… Alright.” The other boy opens his closet and starts rummaging through. “Is it okay if you sleep with me again? My dad keeps forgetting to buy a blow-up mattress for you. And my mom doesn’t want you to sleep on the sofa, as usual.”

                  “Yeah, yeah, it’s fine. Don’t waste your money… oh, here.” Taehyung chucks a sweater at him. “My mom bought this for you.”

                  Jimin blinks, picking it off the carpet. “What for?”

                  “Christmas, duh. You know what she said? She said that you always look so frail and that you should at least try to stay warm, instead of always wearing like a t-shirt or something. Classic mom.”

                  He snorts. “Thanks, I guess.” He holds it up to his chest and looks at the mirror. “I like it.”

                  “Good, because it makes you look like a DORK.”

                  Jimin stares at him. “How many manhwas are you holding in your hands again?”

                  Taehyung stares back. “Twenty.”

                  He rolls his eyes and hangs the sweater in his closet. “Are you done yet? Namjoon and Hoseok said they’re almost here.”

                  “They can wait; it’s not like we’re meeting the queen.”

                  The doorbell rings and both of them barrel down the stairs.

--

                  “So I find this kid standing on the porch,” Hoseok rambles on with vague hand movements. “And it’s snowing like hell outside. He’s ringing the doorbell, but no one opens the door. He spots me standing on the street and says, ‘I don’t think Jimin is home.’ I proceed to tell him that he’s at the wrong in’ house and that your house is ‘round the block, on a different street. He rang that door for an hour.”

                  Taehyung starts laughing hysterically, fists pounding the living room table as Namjoon goes pink. “I got the address wrong…” he says.

                  “Clearly.” Hoseok snorts. “So how was the Winter Concert?”

                  “I killed it!” Taehyung shouts, both hands in the air. “My songs were the bomb! Back me up, Park.”

                  Jimin returns from the kitchen with a bowl of chips in one arm and a soda pack in the other. “They were the bomb.”

                  Hoseok takes the drinks from Jimin’s grasp and distributes them. “Nice.”

                  “Alright, let’s get this early Christmas party thing started!” Taehyung shuffles over to the TV and boots up Jimin’s game system. “What do you kids want to play, Smash?”

                  “Actually Tae, speaking of parties…” Jimin hesitates when he gets everyone’s attention. “T-The party.”

                  The orange-topped boy looks blankly at him. “What party?”

                  He glares. “The party!”

                  It takes a moment before Taehyung catches up to speed. “… Oh… OH! Yeah. What about it?”

                  “Well…” Jimin kind of nods at the other two, who are outright staring at them. “I mean, if you want to pull off something that big then you should at least enlist help, right?”

                  “So you’re saying we should…?”

                  “Yes,” he replies with a speckle of confidence, to which Taehyung responds with the biggest grin stretched across his lips.

                  “Oh, for ’s sake,” Hoseok groans. “Stop speaking in BFF gibberish and give it to us straight.”

                  Namjoon nods vaguely with his eyebrows knotted. “What do you guys need help with?”

                  Taehyung straightens his back and clears his throat, as if he’s going to announce who the killer was. “Okay, so you know how every June, the seniors throw a house party to celebrate their graduation?”

                  “Yeah…?” Hoseok looks skeptical. “It’s usually the biggest thing of the year, bigger than prom.”

                  “Exactly. And we’re not the most popular kids in town, per se.”

                  The other male scoffs. “Take a good look at yerself, golden boy.”

                  “Okay, I’m popular, whatever. But you guys are my only friends. So what I proposed to Jimin was that—”

                  “You proposed to Jimin.”

                  “—was that we crash said party.”

                  “I’m in,” says Namjoon.

                  They all turn to gawk at him. “That was too quick,” Hoseok breathes. “Why are you so excited? You don’t look like a party animal.”

                  “I’m not, but I get where Taehyung is coming from,” he replies, beaming. “He wants to be known as a cool kid, and frankly… I want to clean up my reputation as well.”

                  Taehyung’s lips quiver as he reaches over the table to give him the hand-clasp-shoulder-bump combo. “Bro.”

                  Jimin smiles at them, and then turns to the boy with the aghast expression on his face. “What about you, Hoseok?”

                  “This is peer pressure, stop it.” He sighs. “… I don’t know man, sounds damn risky to me. What would we even do ‘sides walk in uninvited?”

                  “We turn up.”

                  He shoots Taehyung a dirty look. “Do you even know what that means?”

                  “No, but we can show up, take over the dance floor, change their playlist, start food fights and stuff. Make the party a zillion times better with just our presence.”

                  “Right… and then we’ll be considered not rude douchebags, but popular badasses.”

                  “Exactly!”

                  Hoseok frowns. “Wait, who’s throwing the party again?”

                  “Jin-sunbae,” Taehyung replies too gleefully. “It’s probably going to be at his house, so we gotta scout the area first.”

                  “Maybe we can sneak in one of my surveillance bots…” Namjoon mutters.

                  “Wait yeah, that’s a cool idea. With our geek duo here,” Taehyung gestures to Hoseok and the robot lord. “We could probably hijack their lights and sound system. And turn on the in’ sprinklers!”

                  “Why are you assuming we know how to do tha—?”

                  “THE POSSIBILITIES ARE ENDLESS!”

                  “What about us?” Jimin asks, gnawing on a chip. “What’s our role in the plan?”

                  Taehyung scrutinizes his friend for a moment. “… The showstoppers,” he then breathes, putting up a pair of jazz hands.

                  Jimin stares. “… Excuse me?”

                  “Oh, so you two get to be ‘showstoppers’ while we’re BTS, behind the scenes on this thing.”

                  The guy squints at an offended Hoseok. “You were questioning the party like, literally two seconds ago. Do you dance and or have flashy, orange hair?”

                  “I might actually fight you, mate.”

                  “LET’S GO, BRO!”

                  Namjoon coughs. “I’m okay with not being a showstopper, but Jimin… looks like he’s going to faint.”

                  They look over at the guy who’s losing color in his cheeks. “W-Wait, what do you mean by showstopper?” Jimin cries, “I’m not d-dancing in front of all those seniors!”

                  “You never know,” Taehyung replies casually, even though the latter is on the brink of hyperventilation. He stuffs chips into his mouth. “A lot can happen in six months.”

                  “Jesus Christ, Tae—!”

                  Hoseok lights up. “You know, something like this requires a lot of stealth and quick thinkin’.”

                  “Which is perfect, because I’m a ing ninja,” Taehyung says, accidentally knocking over the chip bowl with his elbow (it miraculously survives the carpet).

                  “Yeah, but this guy is a total goof,” he replies, jabbing a thumb in Namjoon’s direction. “And so is Jimin when there’s no music.  We could be completely silent and someone would still hear us because of his teeth clattering. No offense.”

                  Jimin blushes and looks down at his crotch. “N-None taken…”

                  Taehyung gives him a sympathetic pat on the back. “So what are you saying, Hoseok?”

                  “I’m proposing a competition,” he says. “There’s going to be a laser tag game held at school over the break. It’s pretty sweet; over a hundred people signed up, and the last person standing at the end wins some free pizza. It’s basically a great big game of tag, mixed with hide-and-seek.”

                  “That sounds pretty bomb.” Taehyung looks surprised. “Staff is okay with us running around shooting each other?”

                  “They’re lasers, lasers. Don’t make it sound so dangerous. It’s perfectly safe.”

                  Namjoon snorts.

                  “So what I’m saying is, if any of you dimwits make the top ten in that game, then I’m down for any party crashing.” Hoseok folds his arms over his chest and smirks. “Good luck, bubs.”

                  “Oh, you’re so on.” Taehyung chuckles. “You just made the worst mistake of your life. I am as flexible and slick as a cat.”

                  “Tae…” Jimin sighs. “You’re wearing your shirt backwards.”