Christmas Eve 

Perhaps Seoyun couldn’t explain to anyone exactly why, but she despised being late regardless. To her, being late was like turning all the burners on the stove on to high and walking away; being late is accepting possible disaster. 

She didn’t have the mental security to deal with lateness. Even if she was trying. 

“Please hurry.” She was pacing again. He looked like he was trying not to drop the soap. 

“Seo,” he lightly chuckled like her predicament was somehow endearing, “we won’t be late.” 

She glanced at the clock again and wondered if it would eventually wear out from her abundant attention. “We will if you don’t get ready in the next ten minutes and are walking out the door.” She gave him one of those pointed looks, the real distinct one. “Your parents live thirty minutes away and dinner is at six and—” the clock looked like it was glaring at her, but maybe that was her imagination, “— it’s 5:22!” 

Chanyeol turned the water off, grabbing the towel that was extended from her hand. His fingers were sinking into his wet locks when she noticed the slight curl to his lips and the growing shine in his chocolate eyes. 

She knew what was coming before it even happened, but that didn’t actually stop anything, or rather, it didn’t stop him. 

Chanyeol was pouncing on her and landing small kisses all over her head before she could get out that he was going to crush her hair— that didn’t really matter, but at the same time, it did when you couldn't help but worry that people were going to notice and would they ask and what would she say and would they think that she can’t put herself together and what if Chan—

“—Baby?” 

Seoyun hadn’t noticed his grip slowly waning and his once playful eyes dulling down to frosted worry. When did everything get so heavy, she thought? When would things change?

His fingers brushed back lines of distress from her forehead and worked what felt like a failed sigh from her lips. 

“Sorry,” she breathed out, not wanting to seem like a burden, “I’m fine.” 

It wasn’t always easy to tell what he was thinking, but sometimes, like now she would say, she could simply feel it. She could feel it in his calm eyes and that slight head tilt, and the stronghold he has around her as he pulls her against his chest. She could just feel it. 

“Tell me what’s wrong, so we can fix it.” He murmured into her hair, his breath soft in the powerful kind of resignation that made it hard not to trust. 

“I—” she started, but stopped.

It was hard to explain what was wrong when she didn’t even really understand it herself. Was it that she was worried about being late? Or was it actually something else? She should be thinking more about it and why it impacts her— wait, was that therapy talking? She’s too jumbled to be sure. 

“I think it’s just this time of year… it’s not easy for me.” That sounded like a confession. 

He hummed, patterns being drawn over her tensed shoulders. 

“We don’t have to do anything you don’t want to. We can call it a night on the couch, order that good Chinese from down the street. Watch cartoon reruns. I’m easy baby, and whatever makes you happy will make me happy.” 

“Easy, huh?” A smirk finds its way onto her face as she involuntarily lands a resonating smack onto what she is now realizing is his bare bottom. 

He in his bottom lips with a chuckle, “I set myself up for that one didn’t I?”

“Ugh, huh.”

He didn’t move from around her when he tilted his head, waiting patiently for her real response. “What’s it gonna be, Seoyun?” He was gentle like that. 

She couldn’t resist when she tucked her forehead under his chin, just resting there for a second in his embrace. 

“Let’s go,” she finalized. “I want to go.” 

“Are you sure?” 

She was sure, she knew he could tell too. But it was his after thought of wanting to be sure that warmed her up on the inside, that made her fall for him in the first place. 

Maybe it was that part of him that she was thankful for the most, the part that just wanted her to be happy. 

Simple, really. Yet so hard to find. 

“Yeah, Channie, I want to make you happy too.”

…

Seoyun looked down at her heaping plate with an internal sigh. Not only had Mr. Park insisted that she take extra helpings, but Baekhyun had somehow weaseled all of his vegetables onto her plate as well. Almost everyone was done and yet she still had plenty left to go.

Although somewhere deep inside her she knew that there was nothing wrong with that, she couldn't seem to get rid of the feeling that she was committing some terrible crime by possibly making them wait.

She could hear a nagging voice, almost too strongly in her ear, one she had thought she wouldn't hear again. It whispered in words of anxiety and hurt, telling her what she would be able to rationalize as not true if she could just take a breath. The whole morning had been so chaotic and nerve-wracking to Seoyun that she couldn't seem to get a grip when she needed it the most.

Christmas wasn't easy, it was hard to get over the fact that it was a time to spend with family and be thankful for one another. It was even worse when she thought of the fact that not only does she not get to do that now, but that she had been ripped of that right for her whole life.

Seoyun felt herself tensing up, her hands clammy in her lap as she struggled to take a reasoning breath. The claws were setting in again and instead of feeling lost in desperation, she was just left feeling angry. A raw, blood curdling angry. What did she ever do to deserve to feel this way? She never asked to be born into a house where she would never be understood. She didn't want to live a life where she had no control over her emotions and yet, time after time, no matter how strong she gets, a simple plate full of food at a table where everyone else is done is enough to set her over the edge.

It's not fair. It doesn't make any sense. She hates it more than anything else because in the end she knows that the cause of her anguish is only herself. 

Those insistent voices telling her that she is a worthless burden are long gone. And even if they were still here, she knows now that it isn't the truth anyway.

But somehow she finds herself like she is now, chest aching, heart racing, tongue twisted, into a hole she isn't sure how she got into in the first place. She doesn't know what's worse anymore, feeling the claws of anxiety or knowing that they are always looming right around the corner.

And then his hand was in her lap and like a sail finally pulled up, the storm wasn’t so capable of knocking her overboard. 

She watched through half-lidded eyes as Chanyeol reached over and discreetly exchanged their plates, placing his empty one on her setting and digging into her previous dish. Any other day, and maybe she would have nagged him for being greedy, but as his hand tightened around hers, soothing circles pressing into her palm, she understood. 

She felt silly then, maybe even a little ridiculous, but it was hard not to think it when looking around the table. Baekhyun, Chanyeol’s best friend since high school, was talking animatedly about his new teaching job, saying something about how one of his students was basically a piano prodigy, better than me even. And then there was Chanyeol’s parents, their smiles and comments filling the room with a welcomeness that she never got to experience as a child. 

The whole atmosphere— it was kind, it was gentle, it was accepting, it was loving. She didn’t have anything to worry about. 

Chanyeol’s eyes met hers willingly, though they bore a tinge of worry, and she nodded a sign of ease to say I’m okay now. 

Chanyeol leaned over and placed a delicate kiss on the side of , nuzzling his nose there before retracting his warm touch. Seoyun let out the breath she hadn't realized she had been holding and let him guide her back to shore.

“Seoyun darling,” his mom called, “please tell me you want leftovers, there’s so much left.” 

She was right, the food on the table was enormous despite the amount they all ate. Regardless, the comment fell flat against her and she couldn’t help but to smile at the irony. 

“Don’t harass my girlfriend,” Chanyeol whined around a mouthful of rice, sending his mother a meaningless glare. 

“Girlfriend? Isn’t she more than that by now?” She retorted with a wink in Seoyun’s direction. “I’m expecting grandchildren by next Christmas, you hear me?”

Baekhyun pretended to be grossed out as Chanyeol’s food came spewing from his mouth. Seoyun patted his back, trying to hide her smile. 

“Mom, stop.” He groaned. 

Chanyeol's mom only chuckled sil