Chanyeol’s mother arrived at the school to pick him up. The car drew much attention for the sleek black colour and expensive rims, and suddenly Chanyeol wished he had bussed. Baekhyun patted his back to prod him forward, and his mother got out of the car. “Hello, you two! Good to see you!”

“Good to see you, too, Ms. Choi,” said Baekhyun with a smile.

She took both of their backpacks and loaded them into the trunk, then hurried over to the driver’s seat. Meanwhile, Baekhyun and Chanyeol had sat down and strapped themselves in for the ride.

They blasted the radio on their way, and while Chanyeol would normally belt out all of the songs in a voice that could shatter the tinted windows, his voice had shrunk from all the nerves and barely made it past the decibel count of a mouse. His mother, thankfully, didn’t notice, but Baekhyun did. He set a hand on the taller one’s knee and drummed along to the beat.

During the commercials, Ms. Choi lowered the volume. “So, Baekhyun! We’re excited to have you with us this new year!”

Baekhyun smiled. He was joining them on the pretense that he couldn’t afford the trip up north to his grandmother’s. “I’m very thankful to celebrate with you and the rest of Chanyeol’s family.”

“Oh don’t mention it. Chanyeol used to go through best friends so easily; any best friend that lasts as long as you have may as well be part of the family, too.”

Chanyeol rolled his eyes. Baekhyun chuckled awkwardly.

“Sohee is coming, too, right Mom?” Chanyeol asked, mostly as a way to bring his mother down a peg.

“Yes. Your beloved step-mother is coming too.”

The car ride was quiet after that.

When they got to his mom’s place, his sister was already there with her husband. “Hi! You must be Baekhyun,” Yura said. “My dad’s told me all about you.” She gave the befuddled boy a wink and pulled him into an embrace. As she did so, she whispered in his ear, “Please take good care of Chanyeol.” Then she let go, offered up one last smile, and then moved on to greet her brother.

Her husband was not one of many words. He said a warm “Hello,” to anyone who greeted him, and then slunk back into his own head. Yura poked fun at him for “behaving like he has his own universe in his noggin” but did so with a smile and a loving rub on the shoulder. Chanyeol leaned over and said that Yura’s husband was an author, and her joke about the universe in his head wasn’t too far from the truth.

Finally, Taejoon and Sohee arrived. Eunha greeted her with an icy “Hi,” that sent chills down everyone else’s spines. Sohee was warm regardless.

Yura and Eunha began serving the tteokguk as the new arrivals made their way around the table, until finally sitting down closest to the door. In case Ms. Choi loses it and they have to make a quick run for it, Baekhyun thought, humoured.

When everyone had their bowls of hot rice cake soup in front of them, Eunha brought out the champagne. “Drinks?” she asked, less like a question and more like a forceful invitation not to leave her to drink alone.

Out of the seven people around the table, Sohee was the only one to refuse. “Too good for that?” Eunha asked. “You’re not better than any of us for not drinking, you know.”

“Mom,” Chanyeol groaned.

“What?” she mouthed back.

“No, not at all, that’s not what I meant by it whatsoever!” Sohee rushed to defend.

“Then have some champagne. You know when I was with Taejoon, I couldn’t go to bed with him unless I was a couple drinks down.”

Taejoon cleared his throat. “Eunha, that’s enough. She doesn’t want any, let it go.”

“Mom, please just sit down. Think of it this way, there’s more for you,” Yura coaxed.

It was a quiet meal after that.

***

Luhan was over at Sehun's house for the second time, but somehow it was so different this time. Maybe it was the pointed stares his mother kept giving their interlocked hands, or the fact that their hands were interlocked at all. Luhan didn’t know when that had happened, but he could recall grasping onto the first limb attached to Sehun within his reach. He was nervous. Very nervous.

“So, Luhan…” Ms. Oh said, chopping potatoes. “How have you been since I last saw you?”

“Good, sir. Err. Ma’am. I’m sorry.” Luhan wanted to shrivel up and explode into dust particles.

“Luhan, are you okay?” Sehun asked.

The Chinese boy nodded, and then shook his head, excusing himself to go to the bathroom.

Sehun looked at his mother and shrugged. “I should go check on him.” He knocked on the door and spoke softly. “Luhan? Everything okay?”

“Yeah?” came the shaky response.

In all the years living in the same apartment, Sehun knew how to jiggle the doors to get them to unlock. He wasn’t afraid of seeing anything he wasn’t supposed to; when he’d first arrived to SUA, Luhan had been rooming alone and had let go of the habit of closing doors.

Luhan was sitting--fully clothed--on the lid of the toilet seat with his head between his hands, whispering profanities to himself.

“Luhan!” Sehun gasped. “What’s wrong?”

“What’s wrong?! I thought I was ready for this but I’m clearly not!”

“Ready for what?” Sehun asked. He could not understand what was bugging his roommate so much.

“Meeting your mom!”

The younger man frowned. “You met my mom at Christmas.”

Luhan shook his head. “Yeah, but that was before.”

Finally it clicked. Sehun approached Luhan in the tiny bathroom and crouched to meet his eye level. “Listen Luhan. There is absolutely nothing different from Christmas and now. I was completely, madly in love with you then, and my mother was way too aware of it then, too. I am still completely, madly in love with you, and she is still way too aware of that. Whether or not you love me back doesn’t change anything.”

“I do,” Luhan squeaked.

“Well, that’s a relief,” Sehun chuckled. “Great. So we’re a household of love. I love you, you love me, my mom loves me, I love her, and she loves you too.”

“She does?”

“If she loves me, then she’d better love you. Besides, what’s not to love about you? I’m sure by now you’ve charmed her enough that she loves you more than she loves me.” The blond winked for good measure, and stood up, reaching a hand out to help Luhan up as well.

Ms. Oh was standing at the bathroom door with her knife pointed at the boys as they opened it. Luhan let out a scream before he could stop himself. “I don’t love you more than I love my son,” she started before softening up her face and smiling, “but you are right up there with him. Anyone Sehun loves, I love. Anyone who loves Sehun, I love even more.”

She pulled the boys in for a hug, but not before Sehun snapped, “Mom! Put the knife away, you’re gonna stab someone!”

“Sorry for freaking out, Ms. Oh,” Luhan apologized.

The lady in question waved her hand dismissively, but in it was still the knife.

“Mom! For real! Please don’t traipse around with that thing!”

“The new year dinner isn’t going to cook itself, boys,” Ms. Oh announced nonchalantly, beginning to make her way back to the kitchen. Sehun sheepishly shrugged and followed her, dragging Luhan with him by the hand he was still holding.

***

Yixing and Joonmyun were finally finishing up that game of Monopoly. It really ended when Yixing landed on Joonmyun’s Boardwalk, which had a hotel.

“How much do I owe you?” Yixing groaned.

“More than you can afford, peasant.”

Considering all Yixing had was fives and ones, and all of his properties were mortgaged, it wasn’t a far off assumption. They finally got to pack up the game and put it away. Yixing leaned back to the ground and then flipped over to his side, watching as Joonmyun rejoined him. As Joonmyun sat cross-legged on the floor, Yixing readjusted himself to rest his head on the other’s lap. Joonmyun played with stray strands of Yixing’s hair, the orange fading.

“This may be the loneliest lunar new year I've ever spent,” Yixing said. “Not lonely as in I’m alone, I mean lonely as in we’re alone.”

Joonmyun nodded. “Me too. Normally I’d at least have some family in Seoul, but none of them came this year.”

Yixing closed his eyes. “It still may be one of my best, though.”

Laughter filling the room, Joonmyun asked, “Why? Is it because of my blessed presence in your humble company?”

The Chinese man smiled. “Well, I wouldn’t have put it in those terms, but yeah. In essence.”

Joonmyun’s hands stopped, his breath hitched, and his heart raced. He had a clue why, but he didn’t want to admit it or deal with it. Instead he just ignored it, and went back to whatever mindless thing he could get his hands to do while he calmed his heart down.

“Joon…” Yixing whispered, and Joonmyun’s heart rate spiked again. “Why are you just tracing my face?”

“Because… your skin is soft?”

Yixing shrugged. “Fair enough. That it is.”

***

Walking around Jongin’s childhood home for the second time felt strange. It felt like at any given moment, a teenaged Jongin would pop out from a corridor. Kyungsoo was kind of creeped out by how much presence teenaged Jongin had in this house. It almost felt like he’d died at fifteen and his parents just couldn’t bring themselves to take the pictures down.

Even his bedroom, Kyungsoo found, had been left untouched. Of course, Jongin remembered it perfectly; Greenbloom’s hadn’t quite settled by the time he’d left this place.

“I always wanted to bring you here,” Jongin said. “In high school. I mean look around.” The walls were so decorated with posters and pictures it