It really was a Christmas miracle that they’d managed to get all twelve of them around the small table in Baekhyun and Chanyeol’s shared apartment. Normally the table barely sat six, but with some creative finagling they’d managed to find enough space for everyone’s place settings. Chanyeol didn’t see why they needed to be fancy about it with proper china and tableware, seeing as how they were already in a cramped apartment and these were just their closest, dorkiest friends who rarely ate on anything but paper plates anyway, but Baekhyun had insisted that Christmas called for the best the boys had to offer.

Which wasn’t much, but y’know, it was the thought that counted.

“Okay!” Baekhyun announced as he finished arranging the food in the kitchen just right. There wasn’t nearly enough room at the small table, so he’d set up most of the dishes on the kitchen counter buffet-style. “Everybody ready to eat?”

“Ugh, do you really have to ask?” Chanyeol groaned. “I’ve been tortured with food smells all day. Just hurry up, Baek!”

Immediately Baekhyun got grumpy with his troublesome roommate. “Oh, don’t act like you didn’t totally steal some bites earlier, you giant doofus. I saw you! You were picking at the salad and the pasta hoping I wouldn’t notice. I don’t know how I could miss hands as big as yours shoveling food into your giant hole of a face.”

Kai chuckled from his seat next to Chanyeol and punched his friend lightly on the arm. “Good going, dude. You already got him started and it’s barely four p.m. That might be a new record.”

Baekhyun gave his best face. “You should have seen him yesterday trying to fake a bad stomach ache to get out of cleaning the place up for today.” Since this was the first time the pair had hosted the annual pre-Christmas get together just for their friend group, Baekhyun the perfectionist had wanted everything to be just right. Chanyeol thought that was stupid; his friends had come by often to see the place a mess with food remnants and clothing articles everywhere. That was all Chanyeol’s doing, of course, but the point was that their friends knew Chanyeol could be a huge slob and the really wouldn’t have cared if the place had been decked out in stale popcorn and smelled like old fish. Well, maybe they’d have minded a little.

Still, Chanyeol looked flustered at the mixed teasing and criticism from his comrades. “Hey, that was a real stomach ache, for your information! I felt like that guy from Alien for like five hours. And the food stealing was totally innocent. That was for my babies, not for me! Edna, Wilfred and Maisie have to eat too, you know,” he insisted in a whiny voice. His beloved ferrets deserved more than just that pet store every once in a while.

“Seriously, Yeol, your damn ferrets have their own food, they don’t need any of my beautifully crafted Christmas ham. You’re lucky I’m letting you have any,” Baekhyun snapped.

“Yeah, I bet it’s only because our Chanyeol’s been a very good boy this year, huh Baekhyun?” Chen piped up from the other side of the table. To Baekhyun’s disgust, Chen winked.

“I ship it,” Sehun added nonchalantly without looking up from a game on his phone.

“Everyone shut the hell up,” demanded a voice at the head of the table that managed to be both surly and cute at the same time. The expression of the speaker matched, a pout puffing out slightly chubby cheeks coupled with cold, snapping eyes. “I’m ing hungry, let’s stuff our faces already.”

“You’re always hungry, Xiumin.” The accusation came from Luhan, seated to Xiumin’s left. It was delivered in a tone that sounded rehearsed and almost bored, as if he’d repeated that criticism so many times that it was mechanical now.

“He’s right, though. Everyone shut the hell up so Baekhyun can put the damn ham on the table. I’m done with all your bull, too. I want my food.” This order was barked from Kris at the head of the table. Though he didn’t live here, he’d naturally claimed the seat as his own. He was kind of their self-appointed leader and always put himself in charge of keeping the rest of them on task. The fact that they all needed a babysitter in the first place surprised no one, including all twelve of the boys themselves.

“Yeah,” Tao agreed from a chair pushed up against Kris’. The latter wasn’t sure the proximity was strictly necessary even in the tight space, but he was used to the younger boy clinging to him by now like some kind of excitable yet lovable growth. “The sooner we finish dinner the sooner we can have dessert, and I wanna see what D.O. came up with this year.”

D.O. smiled mysteriously from his seat but offered no hints. Last year he’d crafted this gorgeous and very delicious confection of many layers, decorated with berries and drizzles of chocolate sauce, and it was well known that D.O. liked to try to outdo himself every year. Lay, seated next to him, also offered no comment, too preoccupied with attempting to play his wineglass. It wasn’t working, but his face was focused on it like success would lead him to all the answers of the universe.

“Bring out the ham, Baek,” encouraged Suho, Kris’ unofficial second-in-command due to his similar (though mostly failed) attempts to guide the boys back to reality.

Finally Baekhyun obliged, disappearing momentarily into the kitchen to reemerge with a giant hunk of temptingly pink meat. It was nestled on a large oval plate, dripping in tasty-looking juices. Baekhyun had even added in artful slices of pineapple and cherries to top. His face beamed as he set his pride and joy down in the middle of the table, nudging glasses and napkins to ensure that the plate would fit.

The rest of them stared on in wonder. “Damn, that pig looks fiiiine,” Chen commented appreciatively, like he was salivating over a girl’s instead of a literal hunk of meat.

“You really outdid yourself, Baekhyun,” added Suho, an almost proud parental look on his face. He turned to share it with Kris, almost like the two of them had actually raised these boys together, before looking back to the plate. “It’s almost a shame to eat that.”

“But it’s not, so let’s dig in!” Xiumin shouted. He had picked up his knife and fork and was eagerly banging them on the table. Luhan rolled his eyes with fond irritation, moving his plate out of Xiumin’s way. Chanyeol, Tao, Kai, and Chen soon joined in. The noise startled Lay away from his glass, but he smiled and politely joined in the banging too.

“Kris, you do the honors.” Baekhyun beamed as he handed the carving knife and a large two-pronged fork to the older boy at his table head.

When Kris positioned the cutting utensils in the ham everyone lowered their heads as if in prayer. “It gives me great honor to carve this beautiful specimen of meat that our fabulous Baekhyun has been kind enough to bestow upon us this Christmas. Bless him for this wonderful food which he slaved over alone.”

“Hey!” Chanyeol crowed indignantly. “I live here too!

“And bless Chanyeol for not ing it up somehow.”

There was a pause before Chanyeol shrugged, “I’ll take what I can get.”

“Now. Everyone get your plates ready because we are doing this right—“

“HOLY !” Luhan screamed suddenly, startling everyone at the table enough that a few of the actually bumped it and knocked their glasses over. Various drinks bled across the red tablecloth, making Baekhyun pout, but at least he knew how to soak out wine, milk and egg stains.

“What is wrong with you, Luhan?”

“Guys! The Christmas ham is moving! WHY IS IT MOVING?”

Everyone froze for a moment, surprised expressions slowly turning to horror as they turned their heads towards the plate in the center of the table.

The ing ham

was actually moving.

Not much, just a slight shudder, like it was rustling from within. The rest of the room was still; no one screamed, no one spoke, no one even seemed to breathe.

Then Kris asked, “Is there…is there something inside that ing ham?”

Everyone looked to Baekhyun accusingly. He spluttered, “W-what? No! Of course not! I don’t know what the is happening.”

“Should we…poke it?” Xuimin asked nervously, but also with a hint of curiosity.

“I volunteer Kai,” Sehun spoke up. His phone game was forgotten now as he stared at the ham with the rest of them.

“Not on your ing life,” came Kai’s instant retort. “Not even on MY ing life.”

“Well, someone’s got to do something!” Chanyeol reasoned. “We can’t just sit here staring at it all day!”

“Yeah, I want to eat my dessert,” Tao whined, arm clinging to Kris’. “Kris, you’re the leader. You should stab it.”

“I don’t ing think so,” Kris responded. “I don’t know what the hell is under there and I’m not going near it.”

“Oh for the love of God!” Xiumin suddenly snapped. He stood, chair clattering to the ground behind him. “I’ll never get any ing food this way!” Without warning he wrenched the two-pronged fork out of his now useless leader’s hand and stabbed it into the ham. “On three get ready to catch whatever it is, okay?”

“Wait—“

“I don’t—“

“This doesn’t seem like—“

“Onetwothree!” Xiumin shouted, and flung the ham up off the plate with so much force that it was almost lobbed off the fork.

There, under the ham in a little nest of fat and meat bits, were curled three little ferrets.

“…”

“…”

“…”

“CHANYEOL! YOU’VE GOT TO BE ING KIDDING ME! HOW DID YOUR GODDAMN RODENTS GET OUT AND EAT THEIR WAY INTO MY PRECIOUS HAM??”

“I’m sorry, I don’t know!” Chanyeol panicked. He immediately leaned forward and scooped them all up to cradle against his chest. They started to skitter in his hold, but he made little cooing noises at them that calmed them down. “I fed them and I swear I closed the hatch on the cage but…maybe they got out…”

“Maybe?” Baekhyun stormed, getting out of his seat to bring his face dangerously close to Chanyeol’s. “They’ve—no, you’ve ruined Christmas dinner! I hope you’re happy now! All that hard work, gone! My main course is ferret food! How would you like to slave over something for hours of your life only to have it eaten out by ferrets?!”

For a moment Chanyeol just stared at Baekhyun, the shorter boy’s made-up face mere inches from his own. Boy was he mad. One of his eyes looked about ready to twitch, his eyeliner making it much more dramatic. He really looked like he was about to kill Chanyeol.

Then Chanyeol involuntarily let out a little snort. It wasn’t a full out laugh, because he’d caught it in time, but it was enough for the corner of his mouth to turn up guiltily. Baekhyun opened his mouth, presumably to yell more furious things at him, but then the sound was repeated from Kai. Baekhyun whipped his head to the other boy, only to see Suho down the table with his hand pressed against an obviously smiling mouth, Sehun with a blatant smirk, and Tao looking like he was about to burst into his trademark wide-mouthed laughter. Lay was also smiling warmly, which was mirrored by Chen but with a more mischievous twist. In fact, they were all smiling—even Kris, who frequently did not take any of his friends’ .

No one was really sure who started laughing first, but in a split second the whole table had exploded in hysterics. Even Baekhyun had to join in after a minute, resigned that there was nothing he could do and giving in to the absurdity of the situation. He clapped a hand onto his roommate’s shoulder, as Chanyeol still clutched the three ferrets to his chest.

They went on for a good five minutes or so before they all started to calm down, some wiping tears from their eyes.

“Okay, so, I guess we can’t bless Chanyeol for not messing up dinner,” Kris said in good humor.

“I’m really sorry, guys,” Chanyeol said, sounding genuinely apologetic despite his mirth. “I really don’t know how these rascals got in there without us noticing. Sorry we don’t have any delicious ham this time.”

“Well, I mean,” Xiumin started, picking up the hunk of pork from where he’d left it on his plate, “they only ate out the inside, so if we were to just cut off the top…”

“Ew, that’s so gross!” Suho cut in, torn between being disgusted and amused.

“I’m not doing that,” D.O. replied.

“Seconded,” replied Sehun and Luhan together.

“Well…” mused Baekhyun aloud, “anyone for pasta then?” He produced the dish from the buffet setup, removing the now useless ham plate and replacing it with the rectangular pasta dish. There were nods of agreement and a few eagerly lips.

Once everyone had fought their share of pasta onto their plate and sat back to eat, Chanyeol smirked and raised his treasured pets in the air.

“Ferret-y Christmas, everyone!” he smirked.

“Yeah,” Baekhyun replied, sharing a look with his roommate that proved all between them and the ferrets was forgiven, “and hammy holidays to you all!”

The two lame-asses were rewarded with loud groans and thrown rolls.

It was probably their best Christmas yet.