It was awkward. I was sitting on the floor next to my dismantled phone and the empty soju bottle. Drop-Face was standing by the window, pretending to be looking out, even though his face was obviously stuck to his and watching my every move. Donghae was sitting quite far away from me on the sofa and holding a cup of tea I made for the both of us. He seemed to be in strangely good mood but I didn´t dare to try and start a conversation.

“So,” he cleared his throat and I shivered. “Why exactly did you call me, Hyukjae?”

“Do you need to sound that excited? I´m dying here if you haven´t noticed,” I mumbled, clenching my own cup of hot tea.

“You´re being defensive again,” Donghae sighed. “I can´t figure you out, Hyukjae.”

“There´s no need to figure me out, just get used to the fact that a guy like me exists and let it go,” I didn´t mean to talk in that tone but the exhaustion finally hit my body and I was losing it.

“Alright, I get, you simply don´t want me around you,” Donghae finally understood. “Let me just ask one last thing before I leave you here to rot in your own shame.”

“What is it?” I expected him to attack me again and was afraid that my defence would crumble at once.

“Have you ever thought of me in any different way than of a celebrity?” He asked seriously. I was so surprised by his question that my eyes darted to look into his face. Donghae was trying to hide that he was hurt by me and I felt guilty. He deserved an honest answer.

“No, you are definitely a celebrity,” I answered and for a moment it seemed like I made Donghae cry. I turned my head away cowardly, hoping he would listen to everything I had to say. “You shouldn´t expect people to treat you like a usual person. Your world has different rules, I get to taste them nowadays. There is another standard for lies and truths. I see you as a famous person but I don´t believe your image because that comes from that other world. I believe only what you say to my face, not what you say into the camera.”

Donghae should open his eyes. If he wanted to befriend people that don´t treat him like a celebrity, he should go someplace where they don´t have a TV. It´s unrealistic to want to become a commoner for only a small number of friends. For me what matters isn´t the profession but the real personality hidden beneath all those white lies and half-truths. But I´m a different kind since I live in another world of myself, the world of monsters. My judgement has no weight for somebody like Lee Donghae.

“I didn´t expect that,” Donghae chuckled, “you know how to shake me in my boots. You say that fame has its own world. If that´s true, then it´s a world in binary numbers. Either you are number one or you are zero. This was what I always believed, what everyone made me believe, but you somehow think out of the box and make there a space for me to feel a little more myself. Tell me Hyukjae, is there really no way you could become friends with me?”

Donghae´s words sounded sad, he had a lot on his mind too. I wondered if it was normal for him to share these kinds of intimate thoughts with other people of if he really wanted to be close. I didn´t like adding a new name to my friend list much but Donghae already stepped into my life and perhaps if I accepted that, I could control his steps more.

“You were the one who hit on me when I agreed to go out drinking with you,” I mumbled a little irritated. “Stop making me the bad guy.” Donghae laughed aloud.

“What do I have to do to make you stop hating me?” He asked and finally sipped from his tea, he relaxed.

“Fix it so people stop thinking I´m a bastard,” I told him, “if you have to tell them that we are friends, I can live with that.”

“Was that a manly way to say that you could possibly get along with me?” Donghae felt like he was on a safe ground and began messing with me.

“No, it was the only version of the sentence that didn´t contain more than one swear words,” I rolled my eyes and downed the tea I was holding. The warm liquid did me good and soothed my nerves a little. “Anyway, I bet you are going to regret your choice of friends.”

“Why should I? You might be vulgar sometimes but you don´t seem like the violent or criminal type,” Donghae began his analysis of my persona. “Or is this about those other people you talked about in the phone earlier? Do you have some bad friends?” Drop-Face suddenly twitched, expectantly looking at me.

“Never mind, I was just blabbering,” I shooed the topic away, avoiding the bullet. Donghae didn´t poke into it anymore, he still didn´t trust our newly gained friendship enough.

“Alright,” he hummed and smiled for himself. “Okay, I should really go already, it´s almost morning and I have a shoot in a short while.”

“I see,” I stood up when Donghae began picking himself up. “So we are fine, right?” I asked just to make sure. We didn´t apologize to each other but I felt like we managed to talk it all out.

“Sure,” Donghae chuckled, “let´s meet before Christmas.”

That was what Donghae said before he left that day. I went to sleep right away and somehow felt at ease. Donghae acted more civil than I expected him to, but again, it could have just been me and my prejudices. Perhaps he was a nice guy, after all. Maybe it wouldn´t be so bad to make a new friend, all I had to do was to keep Drop-Face from interfering.

I stayed in close contact with Donghae. He asked me to mention him during my radio show and it turned out that he also talked about me in an interview. And after leaving a few messages here and there on SNS, Donghae´s fans and public overall settled at the fact that the war was over. I wanted to celebrate my regained calm life with Donghae but the latter was especially busy before Christmas with all those TV and magazine specials. And so it turned out that he called me on 24^th of December to have a lunch together. I accepted.

“You have the radio show tonight?” He asked me surprised. We were sitting in a medium-priced restaurant and having a feast.

“Well, it´s Saturday,” shrugged with my mouth full of meat, “I even DJ in the club after that.”

“That´s bad,” Donghae hummed, “my plans changed and I ended up free today. I hoped I could spend the day with you.”

“Oh, so I´m the plan B?” I teased and Donghae seemed startled. We were in contact a lot nowadays but it was the first time we met in person after the night in my apartment.

“I didn´t mean it like that,” Donghae was holding his chopsticks with a bite mid-air for a long time, “there are many plans B I could call tonight. It´s just that I rather spend the day with a good friend than a shabby one night stand.”

“I´m flattered,” I told him. There was nothing else I could say if I didn´t want to make the situation awkward. Donghae seemed to be happy in my presence without any real base for that feeling. It was strange but perhaps I was the one at fault for not opening up to him.

“But you are busy,” he ended the conversation by finally delivering the cold piece of meat into his mouth. He looked disappointed.

“There are many lonely people on Christmas day,” I suddenly said and Donghae only sadly nodded, “I´m sure it would bring up their mood if they could hear your voice in the radio.”

“Uh? What do you mean?” Donghae was trying hard to hold back his excitement.

“How about you come with me? There are no guests today anyway,” I smiled at him. “Let´s go party afterwards.” I didn´t think of spending the day in any other way than working. If Donghae wouldn´t mind following me, it would actually make me happy. Who wants to be alone today?

“Hyukjae, let´s have fun together today!” And that´s how I spent my Christmas day, with good food, microphone and Lee Donghae.

Merry Christmas! In the end I really managed to update on Christmas (a little ahead but by the time you read it, it will be the D-day :D). I wrote also a short Christmas story, so you can read this one too while eating sweets. :3 Thank you very much, have a happy holiday and spend your time happily! - PandaHero