Nicola hears someone knocking loudly on the apartment door. Her room is still black, telling her that the sun hasn’t come up yet. She rolls back over to face the wall and drift back to sleep when she hears that Dave has the door.

“Keep it down.” Dave hushes his visitors.

“Its okay, the boys are mostly asleep as it is.” Kwon whispers and motions for the boys to file into the apartment. Minwoo bounces in carrying a few large bags.

“Where do we put the tree?” Donghyun asks from the doorway.

“You got a tree?” Dave looks to Kwon in surprise.

“Over in the corner of the room.” Kwon instructs. Kwangmin carries the water stand that the tree has to be put into like a vase. Donghyun, Hyungseong, Jeongmin, and Youngmin carry the tree in and get it up right on the stand. Minwoo and Kwangmin begin getting the decorations out of the two bags. The boys get to work on the living room while Kwon and Dave carry up the few gifts they have for under the tree. All of the boys went out the night before after they dropped Dave and Nicola off to find gifts for Nicola. Kwon called Dave to inform him of the surprise the boys wanted to do to welcome her back. Kwon and Dave lean in the doorway of the kitchen looking into the living room watching the boys happily work as quiet as they could be. Soon, the boys are finished and want to wake her up right away but Dave wants her to get some sleep at least. They all pout and wait until seven. The boys slink down the hall to her room with Kwon and Dave fallowing behind. Dave and Kwon watch from the door while the boys softly call for Nicola to wake up. She rolls over and looks to see what time it is but instead finds 6 pairs of eyes looking at her. She blinks quickly to make sure she isn’t see things and then pulls the blankets over her head.

“What are you doing!” She squeals.

“Waking you up?” Jeongmin questions.

“No, I mean, why is everyone here in my room? Did I over sleep?” She answers from under the blanket.

“No silly, we have today off mostly. We have a surprise for you! Come out from under there.” Minwoo tries to pull the blanket off her head but doesn’t want to hurt her so he gives up.

“Give me a few minutes to get ready.” She answers.

“No, we worked all morning on this. Come see it now.” Jeongmin whines.

“Please, pretty please. I didn’t get a chance to take off my makeup last night. I know it’s smeared on my face.” She pleads but doesn’t emerge. They finally agree to let her get ready. Everyone files out and she shuts her door. She grabs everything she needs and ducks off into the bathroom down the hall a few feet away. After blow drying, straightening, and fixing, she emerges with a fresh face and clean clothes. She pulls a long sleeve shirt over her head and heads out. The boys sit by the tree with grins on their faces.

“Are you happy?” Minwoo asks.

“I’m a little confused but happy.” She nods.

“We didn’t get to spend the holiday with you so now we are.” Kwangmin starts.

“And so we came up with a plan to decorate and everything.” Youngmin takes where his brother stopped.

“And we brought gifts! You are going to like mine the best.” Hyunseong smirks.

“Aw, guys.” She is truly happy to be where she is and is about to cry.

“Come sit down, we have to give you your stuff!” Minwoo stands up and takes her hand to lead her to sit on the floor in the middle of all of them.

One by one, she opens the gifts. Each one picked out by each member with a lot of care and a lot of thought.

“Guys, you are going to make me cry. You are too sweet. I hate that I don’t have anything for you.” Nicola feels selfish.

“But you did. You came back! We couldn’t have asked for anything else.” Minwoo says brightly. The others all nod and agree with bright smiles.

“Well, thank you. I’m glad to have such great friends.” Nicola beams.

“It was going to happen one day.” Kwon says into his mug of coffee while he stands out of ear shot of the kids.

“I know…And I would rather it be them.” Dave nods. Dave suddenly remembers. He didn’t give her the present he got her before she left. He goes into his room and finds the silver box. He enters the room a little awkwardly.

“Nicola, you know I’ve never been good at shopping for you but I hope you like this.” Dave hands her the box. She opens it to find a replica of the necklace from a Korean drama.

“Aw! Dad! I can’t believe you remembered! I pointed this out months ago.” She jumps up to hug him. “I love it.”

“We want hugs too.” The boys whine. Nicola rolls her eyes but laughs. She gives them each hugs.

“Let’s eat some breakfast!” Kwon calls from the kitchen. Nicola is still fidgeting with her necklace to try to put it on. Kwangmin helps out by clasping it for her. Kwon nudges Dave then motions to them. Dave smiles.

“If she is happy, I’m happy.” Dave states and Kwon pats his back.

“You have come a long ways my friend.” Kwon smiles.

They all crowd around the little kitchen table eating breakfast together like one big family.

“We were going to go into Seoul to that huge mall for some shopping, do you want to come?” Donghyun says then takes the last bite of his breakfast. Nicola looks to Dave. He nods with a smile.

“Thank you dad!” Nicola beams.

They finish up their meal and hurry down to the van. Dave gives her his card so she can buy some stuff as well. While in the van, the boys put on caps and masks or sunglasses to cover their faces. Hyunseong hands her a simple white mask.

“You might want that.” Hyunseong laughs. Nicola nods and slips it on. The van shortly arrives to the large mall. They hurry in out of the cold.

“Whoa, we don’t have malls like this where I come from.” Nicola looks up at all the different floors and stores. “What are we looking for anyway?”

“Nothing really, we are just out for a shop day.” Jeongmin shrugs.

“Yeah, we sometimes don’t find anything and other times we find a lot.” Youngmin finishes. Nicola nods.

“Have you ever been to the top?” She looks up.

“Once, but we have not shopped all the levels. It was a race.” Donghyun nods.

“Nicola, come look at this.” Minwoo pulls her over to a store. The other boys fallow. Minwoo puts on a hat and looks in the mirror then at Nicola. “What do you think?” The maknae smiles.

“I think it looks nice on you. It will be good with a few outfits you have.” Nicola nods.

“Okay, I’m getting it then. Oh look at this.” Minwoo picks up a fedora and places it on Nicola’s head. It falls over her eyes. She laughs with Minwoo and Kwangmin. The other boys are off in the store looking. The boys all kind of split up into pairs and head off to other parts of the mall. Kwangmin and Minwoo stay with Nicola to find they are abandoned by their other members. They stroll off to the next store after Minwoo buys his hat. The group reunites to have some lunch. So far only Minwoo has bought anything.

“Why don’t we have a race?” Hyunseong munches on his food. The others all turn their attention, interested in what the boy has to say. “We will start on the main floor, make our way up to the top floor but here is the catch, we will split up into groups. You have to have all of your team members in order to be declared done. Since we don’t have an even number, the group with more people just has to have 3 members at the top instead of all 4.” He explains.

“How do we pick teams?” Donghyun asks. Everyone looks at one another for a moment.

“How about we draw straws?” Nicola asks. The boys nod. She goes over one of the drink station to get the larger straws and then to another to get littler straws. She positions them in her hands just right so they look the same. “Okay, start picking.” The boys grab a straw and she is left with a short straw. The groups are settled. Nicola, Kwangmin, and Hyunseong on one team while Minwoo, Jeongmin, Youngmin, and Donghyun is on the other team.

“And so we don’t have 7 kids all running for the same place at once, one team will start at one end of the mall and the other team at a different end. We will meet up at the Seoul 21 store. Losers have to buy ice cream.” Hyunseong answers. They all nod agreeing. The group of four get up and start walking over to the other side of the mall. They video call the group of three to show them that they are in fact on the other side and are not cheating. While the call is still up they do the countdown to the start and off they all go. Hyunseong leads his group but Nicola starts to fall behind.

“Don’t leave me! I don’t know my way around here at all! We will lose then!” She calls to the boys. Kwangmin slows down a bit and takes her hand then takes off running after Hyunseong, who is about three stores ahead of them. It isn’t long before they can’t see Hyunseong anymore. Kwangmin knows his way around, so he guides them to where they need to be. They get to the top to find Hyunseong waiting but he isn’t alone, Minwoo is already there as well.

“Hurry!” Hyunseong yells. The other boys are finally at the top as well. In the end, Kwangmin and Nicola make it before the other boys.

“Hyung just left us in the dust. Nicola doesn’t even know her way around.” Kwangmin says breathing heavily.

“We get free ice cream now.” Hyunseong points out. Kwangmin nods.

“I told you not to take the elevator. It stops at EVERY floor and then you are on the floor for 20 minutes while people get off and on.” Minwoo complains.

“To the ice cream shop!” Kwangmin says like a superhero. “I think I see one over here.” He starts to walk back the way him and Nicola came. They find a stand shortly and then sit back down to eat their treat. Donghyun gets a call on his phone. He nods and lets the person on the phone know he will.

“Kwon called, Dave and he are going out tonight. We are to look after Nicola.” Donghyun informs them.

“Looks like you are stuck with us for the rest of the night.” Minwoo smiles to Nicola.

“I don’t mind that.” She smiles.

 

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I'm so sorry guys. My computer litteraly died then I had to be mom for my family because my mom left us and has just now returned. And I just got a computer that works. I'm truely sorry. I will now be doing updates! Please comment. Spread the story. And have a wonderful day!