II: The Night Before Christmas (and the Morning Of)

“Ramen is so not right for Christmas Eve dinner!”

Baekhyun turned up from his phone, frowning. “What do you want me to do? Get a turkey takeout? Those things don’t exist, at least not in Seoul.”

“Better than eating ramen! Remember the last time we ate ramen together? Besides, it’s Christmas Eve. It should be at least somewhat fancy.”

Baekhyun was silent for a moment. “Haejoo’s not here this time,” he finally said. “So there’ll be nobody to stop me--”

Hurriedly, I slammed a hand over his mouth (maybe a little too hard, because he let out a pained yelp) to prevent him from saying the rest of his sentence. Over six months of dating, and I still got flustered over the smallest things. One would think the awkwardness would go away after all the time, but it didn’t get better, it got worse. My heart would be palpitating whenever he leaned a bit too close, throat tightening -- all of that. Maybe it was a long term effect that Chanyeol and Jongdae’s teasing brought. If that was the case, I would make them pay someday.

Baekhyun let out a muffled noise, and I realized my hand was still over his mouth. I removed it.

“You turned down the idea of going out someplace to eat, so what are we supposed to do? We only have one night together. You’ll be seeing your grandma tomorrow for Christmas, and Baekbeom is coming tomorrow morning, so we only have Christmas Eve to do what we want. So I say we get the eating over with by eating ramen, and then do something fun. And we won’t be alone on the 26th, since Jongin’s back to visit and we’re all doing something together. So let’s do something fun tonight!”

Thank god we were alone, because last time Baekhyun had suggested to do something ‘fun,’ Jongdae had wiggled his eyes suggestively at us and said he would happily leave us alone. Kyungsoo had told Jongdae to get his mind out of the gutters, though he had been snickering along with Chanyeol too. “Watch a movie?” I suggested. “We can watch something Christmas related! I mean, we’re probably going to spend an hour eating if we eat something fancy. And then go to sleep early, to get it over faster, so we can open presents tomorrow morning.”

“You are the most boring person ever,” Baekhyun moaned into the cushion he was clutching. “I can’t believe I’m spending Christmas Eve with you, ugh.”

I glanced at the Christmas tree in the corner of the room. It was small; I was about eye level to the top of it, but Baekhyun had decorated it quite artistically. The lights flashed, casting patterns of rainbow colours against the wall. Below the Christmas tree, two presents lay: the one I had gotten for Baekhyun, and the one he had gotten for me. Baekbeom was coming back tomorrow, and I had no doubt he had gotten something for Baekhyun. It had been agreed that we spend Christmas Eve at Baekhyun’s house, and then I’d return back to my apartment and spend Christmas with my grandma the next morning. The day after that, Jongin, who had come back to visit, had made us all promise to go shopping with him (on the fact that he would treat us to bubble tea).

“We could also see Christmas carols,” I suggested out of the blue. “Silent Night, whatever you want. Oh, you could play the piano!”

Baekhyun dropped his phone onto the tea table and lobbed his cushion at me. It hit me smack in the face, though I was too surprised to even let out a yelp. When I finally regained my senses and picked the cushion up from the ground and throw it back, Baekhyun had already grabbed two more and was waiting for the attack. Before I could launch it back at him, he had already advanced at me and smothered me to the couch with his pillows.

“Ouch! What’s wrong with Christmas carols?”

With all my strength, I shoved him back up, hitting him as hard as I could with my remaining pillow. Baekhyun let out an indignant shout and tried to block me, though all that happened was one of his pillows was knocked out of his hand. I tried to take advantage of his surprise and whack him again, but in the midst of doing so, lost my balance.

Even with the knowledge that falling would land me on the sofa, I still tried to regain my balance by making a desperate grab for Baekhyun’s shoulder, because landing on the sofa would mean that I had lost the pillow fight. I missed where I had aimed at, though I did manage to grip the sleeve of his sweater.

Apparently, I miscalculated Baekhyun’s strength, because instead of supporting both of us, he went down with me like a dummy.

Too surprise to even shout a warning, my back hit the sofa, and a split second later, pain flared up from my shoulder, then my stomach as Baekhyun landed heavily on me. I tried to shove him off, but he was a deadweight and I wasn’t strong enough to do so. His head rested at the crook of my neck, and locks of hair tickled my throat gently. It wasn’t that uncomfortable; his hair was soft, and I wasn’t extremely ticklish.

Then the thought dawned on me that this was quite an awkward position, and to respond to that, I could feel my face getting warm. Baekhyun made no effort to move, just groaned in pain. “That hurt,” he mumbled, breath warm against my neck. “Why did you even do that?”

“Why did you just fall over?!” I had no right to blame him, of course, but it seemed to be the smartest thing to say in this situation. “I’m not that heavy to actually drag you down with me, you…” I was running out of insults to say at this time -- maybe my brain was too flustered to think of any. “You idiot! Now can you get off of me?”

Baekhyun lifted his head for a moment. His eyes were half lidded. “This is comfortable. Besides, it’s your own fault. Try to push me off if you can.” With that note, his head dropped back to the place it was before, going completely limp, and I drew in a sharp breath.

In all honestly, this couldn’t be classified as physically uncomfortable anymore -- the pressure from him laying on top of me wasn’t at all that painful, but the closeness of it did successfully make me uncomfortable. Baekhyun, who had somehow still had a clean mind despite rooming with Jongdae, didn’t seem to find anything wrong about it, but I did. It was like I could almost see Jongdae and Chanyeol standing in the room with us, snickering and whispering loudly to each other. And frankly, it was a horrifying image.

“Baekhyun, get off!” I tried to push him again.

He lifted his head again and looked down at me, grinning slightly in a boyish manner, in a way that made my heart skip a couple of beats. I tried to control the palpitating of it and keep a straight face, but he was so, so close to my own face that it was impossible to even breath steadily. That, and he was still sprawled atop of me. And that smile -- that same smile that I saw almost daily but was still so captivated by -- god, why did he have to smile that way? It was completely killing me, and from the way his lips tilted upwards even more, he knew it.

“Stop staring,” Baekhyun teased in a light tone. He was so close that I could feel his breath brushing against my cheeks at each word he spoke. “Do you have a crush on me or something?”

At that, I groaned and tried to hide my face, though I was immobile pinned under him, completely unable to move. God knew how awkward he was around Chanyeol and the others, but now that they weren’t here, he was free to joke around all he liked without the inappropriate comments from his friends being thrown around. Which, I wasn’t sure if I was thankful for or not.

His face is so close, my mind supplied oh-so-usefully as I stared upwards dumbly. His bangs fell forwards, possibly too long (but in a endurable way), mouth parted slightly. Five centimeters away? Four? Wait, is he leaning closer…?

“Uh,” I began incoherently, and Baekhyun ended that sentence by closing the distance between us.

Like all the other times, my brain short circuited half a second into the kiss and I struggled to gather my bearings.

Byun Baekhyun is kissing me, a small voice in the back of my head whispered. I wasn’t sure why the voice deemed necessary to narrate the events that were unfolding at the moment, but I decided that it was maybe because I couldn’t quite understand what was happening myself and that I needed a reminder. His lips felt cool, smooth, and de