“Give me one good reason why I should let you buy a cart full of fireworks,” Seungcheol folds his arms across his chest. Soonyoung and Seokmin exchange glances.

“It’s not necessarily a cart full,” Seoonyoung begins and Seokmin nods his head vigorously in agreement. “Just a few… each?”

“That’s a cart full,” Seungcheol deadpans, but before he can continue to berate them, Jihoon tugs on his shirt sleeve and asks him if he’s excused from the “bonding time” to go back to the studio. Seungcheol turns to him and starts trying to explain why “family bonding time is important” and also how “he shouldn’t spend too much time in the studio”.

Soonyoung and Seokmin use it as a means of escape and slip out the door with matching mischievous grins, while Jeonghan watches them go, eyebrow raised.

“Well your family time is already ruined, since we’re all bored as hell and your prankster kids just took off,” Jeonghan calls out to him and Seungcheol stops, whirling around to find Soonyoung and Seokmin missing from the spot they were a moment ago.

“Wha - ?” He gapes at the empty spot, then at Jeonghan. “But - I said we had to - ”

“Jihoon-hyung just left,” Chan singsongs from the couch as Wonwoo plays with his hair and Mingyu raises a hand.

Seungcheol looks on the verge of a breakdown as he stares at the empty space Jihoon had been just before, but quietly calls Mingyu’s name, giving him permission to speak. Seungcheol has told him on multiple occasions it wasn’t a classroom and Mingyu could speak whenever, but Mingyu still continued to do so. Seungcheol guessed it was respecting him in Mingyu’s own strange way.

“Hyung, can I go bake the cookies now? I don’t want to leave it too late,” Mingyu asks.

Seungcheol sighs heavily. Seungkwan brightens at the mention of cookies and Hansol doesn’t even look away from his phone, earphones in his ears.

“Yes, okay, fine. Bonding time is over,” Seungcheol announces heavily, shoulders slumped like he’s aged a few years in the last few minutes.

“What?!” Jisoo squeaks from the corner. “But I was almost ready!”

“For what, Shua?” Jeonghan asks as Mingyu gets up to go to the kitchen, Junhui following him curiously, asking if he wants help.

“I was going to show you guys what an American Christmas is like,” Jisoo says. Hansol actually raises his head at the clamour of voices this time.

“What’s going on?” he asks, blinking at everyone. Seungcheol is slumped in an armchair, head in his hands, looking like his soul is quietly leaving his body.

“Family bonding time is over,” Minghao informs him. Hansol looks perplexed while Jeonghan saunters over to Jisoo.

“What’s an American Christmas like?” he asks gently, seeing Jisoo’s disheartened face at no one being interested in what he had to share.

“Well, we have gingerbread houses, which I was going to get everyone to decorate together, and sing Christmas carols,” Jisoo says, “Christmas ham is also traditional too, of course,”

“Ham?” Chan perks up at the word and Wonwoo drops his phone from where he was showing Chan and Minghao a video.

“Yes, ham,” Jisoo says, “but I couldn’t find any, and the company wouldn’t let me get any, since we’re all on diets,”

“But Mingyu is making cookies,” Minghao says, glancing in the kitchen where Junhui and Mingyu are bent over a recipe book, double checking they have all the ingredients.

“He told the executives he would keep the sugar to a minimum,” Jisoo sighs.

“I’m going to go get Jihoon back,” Seungcheol announces suddenly, getting to his feet. “No one is to leave the dorm, do you hear me? If you need anything, you call me and I’ll get it. No one is to leave, under any circumstances.”

“What if there’s a fire?” Seungkwan asks and Seungcheol sighs.

“You can leave then,” he says heavily before grabbing his jacket. “Jisoo, you’re in charge,”

“Why not me?” Jeonghan cries. “I’m the second oldest,”

“You’d let them out as soon as one of them called you their favourite,” Seungcheol deadpans as he yanks on his shoes. “But fine, both of you are in charge. No one is to leave,” and then he’s gone, door slamming shut behind him.

Everyone exchanges glances before the door opens a moment later, and Seungcheol pokes his head back in. “And if Soonyoung and Seokmin come back, someone please tie them to the fridge or something. Just make sure they don’t leave,” and then he’s gone again.

Soonyoung looks between the red firecracker in his left hand and the green one in his right hand.

“Hyung, we should get these ones!” Seokimin says, eyes shining as he holds up one that looks like a small, fat bottle.

“What is it?” Soonyoung asks, putting both firecrackers that were in his hands into their cart. It’s already got an assortment of firecrackers in it, but Soonyoung doesn’t think it’s enough yet. They have thirteen members, they need at least a few each, right?

“It says…” Seokmin peers at the label and Soonyoung decides to be annoying and squish his cheek against Seokmin’s, getting unnecessarily close. Seokmin doesn’t even bat an eyelash, continuing to read the too small font on the bottle. “It’s a fountain one. You put it on the ground and it sets off like a mini fountain,” Seokmin says.

“That sounds great, we should get a few,” Soonyoung says, detaching himself from Seokmin, disappointed he didn’t have any effect. Seokmin grabs two more and then drops it into the shopping cart that Soonyoung has begun to push further down the aisle.

“Should we get some smaller sparkler kind of ones?” Soonyoung asks as they pass it. “It’d be safer, since we’re in the middle of the city,”

Seokmin hums and they get a few of those, pretending the other firecrackers in the shopping trolley are totally safe too. (Hint: they’re not.)

Twenty minutes later, Soonyoung fishes for his wallet in his pocket and Seokmin pulls out crumpled notes from his jacket to pay the disgruntled cashier, watching them blearily try to make up enough money to pay for the firecrackers. In the end, they have to take out a couple and the two of them spend a solid five minutes arguing over which one should be left behind. The cashier sighs.

It’s been years, but sometimes, Seungcheol still gets a little lost in the corridors of the company. They just all look the same, and if he isn’t paying attention he’ll get confused where he is.

Luckily, Jihoon’s studio isn’t too difficult to find, just that the code he knows doesn’t work and he sighs as he knocks and waits. Jihoon changes the code every month or so, depending whether he’s annoyed at the others barging into his studio and interrupting him. Seems like they’ve been annoying lately.

The door remains stubbornly closed and Seungcheol calls Jihoon’s phone. Even if Jihoon hates being disturbed, he does keep his phone nearby, in case the managers need him urgently.

Seungcheol beams when he hears the sigh on the other end of the line, Jihoon’s way of answering a call he doesn’t really want to answer.

“What?” he asks blearily after a moment.

“I gave you half an hour. You need to come home now. Mingyu is making cookies,”

“No,”

“I’ll keep calling you,”

“I’ll turn my phone off,”

“Manager-hyung won’t like that,”

“Neither would you, but I’ll do it if that’s what I need to get a few minutes of peace,” Jihoon mutters back.

Seungcheol pouts. “C’mon, Jihoon, please? It’s the holiday season, we’re already busy enough as it is, you don’t need to keep working even more on new songs,”

A heavy sigh. “Fine, but give me five more minutes,”

“Open the door first, otherwise you’ll ignore me,” Seungcheol says. He hears Jihoon grumble some more before the call disconnects and the door opens.

Somehow in the dim lights of the studio, Jihoon looks even more tired, but it might also because he’s scowling and squinting at Seungcheol in the bright lights of the corridor.

“Don’t disturb me until I’m done,” he relents as he lets Seungcheol in. The leader just beams and lets Jihoon go back to his chair.

Ten minutes later and Seungcheol is getting jittery, hovering behind Jihoon as he watches him navigate the complicated music program.

“Jihoon,”

“Hyung, shut up, I’m almost done, just don’t bother me,”

Seungcheol chews his lip, resembling a hurt puppy. Another minute and Jihoon sighs an