Christmas Eve: The First Year

Baekhyun sighed and watched the white mist escape his lips into the night. Christmas was beautiful and Christmas, for some reason made his heart glad.

He was giddy with happiness at the moment as he had just dropped off his girlfriend home after a wonderful date with her. Perhaps, being an adult was this… Going to a good college, having a hot girlfriend, a good car, and a good neighborhood to hang.

As usual, he stops by his favorite convenience store to get some candies for his younger brother and cousins who will mop him as soon as he gets home. However, maybe it was the decoration or the festivity in the air that made him stop that night and watch the people go by.

He walks in, greets the cashier, and goes to take a seat at the chairs laid there overlooking the festive and cold street outside. He hummed along to the jingles of Christmas songs that the store was playing and watched the people go by.

He smiles seeing plenty of couples passing by hand in hand, smiles adorning their faces… Love was definitely in the air.

He sits for some time until the chill got to him and he thinks it is time to head home. Although if he really preferred, he wishes his girlfriend would invite him to stay over for the night… maybe if she doesn’t want to sleep with him, which was okay, he could just crash on her couch. He just wanted to get away from all the unbreathable atmosphere at home especially knowing that his older brothers and sister will be home for the occasion.

He lets out another sigh and decides to stay for 5 more minutes.

Just 5…

He heaves a sigh, stretches his limps to crack some stiff bones, and looked around the convenience store that was aptly empty. He sighed again feeling empty... Was he waiting for something to happen?

There was this nag at the back of his mind, a feeling that he was waiting for something but what was it? He had no more plans. Maybe Christmas? But he knows that it was 3 hours away from now so he wasn’t exactly waiting for that either. So what was it?

He waits. He watches. He observes… a hobby he loved.

As time ticked on, the street started wearing thin. Their locality was not exactly crowded but since it was a place where decorations were heavily done every year, it was sort of an attraction every Christmas.

A minute before his so-called '5 minutes' is up, a girl wrapped up in a dark hoody and a contrastingly neon muffler walks in and he squints his eye at the familiarity.

He knew almost everyone in the locality and he certainly felt like knew who this girl was but he couldn’t pinpoint it.

Unconsciously he watches her as she goes to the frozen section, which makes him raise his eyebrows, and takes two choco-bars.

Where has he seen this girl? Glancing outside, he does not see any car parked nearby so he assumes that she was from this neighborhood.

He glances away when she turns around and comes towards where he was seated after paying for her things and settles down at the long table that overlooks the street outside.

Baekhyun wondered what he should do. Should he look at her? She was only three seats away from him after all and maybe talk to her. Maybe she was in a situation... after all, who in their right mind would come out to have Choco-bars on a Christmas Eve all alone?

Taking a deep breath, he turns around to look at her and is fairly surprised to see who it was. So it was really someone he knew.

“Lee Kina?”

The girl who was busying tearing the plastic wrap apart jumped a little at her name and turns to look at him. He felt like laughing at her but decided not to.

But he definitely smiled when she looked totally taken by surprise as she paused in all of her activity and simply stared at him like she had seen some ghost.

“Oh? You… Hi?” She managed to say after a minute of inactivity and Baekhyun chuckled at that.

That was… cute as in a cartoon animation kind of cute.

“Do you