This song was made for this chapter, I swear. This masterpiece is such a gift T.T

Do play it while reading if possible :)

Christmas Eve: The Third Year

Jingle bells, Jingle bells

Jingle all the way…

Oh, what fun it is to ride…

Byun Baekhyun, seated inside of a shopping cart sang along to the Jingle bells that the store was blaring out on their loudspeakers. He smiles at every customer they pass wishing them a loud Merry Christmas and even Santa’s signature Ho-Ho-Hos.

“Baek…” A warning voice sounds somewhere above him making Baekhyun chuckle mischievously as he leans back to look at the person pushing the cart. Kina, who had been pushing the cart looked done with him as she heaved him along to get some necessary ingredients. This, of course, encourages him to sing even louder and throw her kissy faces making her gag and hide her face with a large packet of shredded parmesan.

It was Christmas Eve all over again but this time… His Christmas Eve was simply amazing. Perhaps the whole of the third year has been amazing… because he was now under the care of the one and only Kina.

His Kina.

“Stop staring at me…” Kina mumbles placing the packet on his face making him laugh. Like always, he got lost staring at her. He probably lost count of how many times he did that and how many times his friends had bet on how long he stares at her.

It was not like he can help it anyway… She was just so beautiful.

“It’s your fault…” He replied cheekily as he puts the packet in his stomach and held it tight.

Kina scoffs at that but puts her attention elsewhere checking some packages.

Baekhyun continued looking at her as she checked the aisles and the packages carefully making him wonder how on earth was he even so lucky to get her as his?

He sighed happily a little thinking back to the two Christmas Eves that they had spent together. Last year had been almost a step towards where they were at the moment. His need to escape and her need to be found perhaps paved a way for them to be so intensely attached to each other since that Christmas knowing they could find it in each other.

It had been a gradual process like it always was with Kina. Breaking into her walls wasn’t easy but once he was in… Boy felt like he was on top of the world.

The formality they had between them obviously was thrown into the sea once she became comfortable around him and now he was at her house almost as much as she was in there.

She always complained every time he shows up, which was honestly every single day but then he also knows she low-key expects him because she always had his favorite foods ready. Baekhyun knows that accepting him into her home meant a big deal because none of her friends, aside from that one time she was sick weren’t invited much.

Breaking into her walls was perhaps the most rewarding thing ever. It wasn’t just her walls that got torn down at that… even his walls bared themselves for her. This process took them both some beautiful moments of long discussions during rainy days inside cozy cafes, in his or her cars on their rides back home, hushed whispered conversations in library corners, and even with tea and noodles inside the Lee’s Mansion.

He really wouldn’t have it any other way. All the hard work of trying to get to her heart was worth it.

He felt his heart race as she came closer to him with a bottle of some sauce and smile at him as she gave him the bottle.

“Can you give me a kiss?” He suddenly asks making Kina’s eyes widen at his request before scrunching her face adorably.

“Maybe later when you are not being a baby and I don’t have to haul your fatass around…” She says with a playful smile as she began pushing the cart again.

“No…” He says with utter seriousness, head still propped to the cart looking up at her. She looked exquisite even from this position. “I want a kiss… please?”

She however, shook her head and turns to check an ingredient making him finally decide to get out of the cart and get what he wants.

Kina lived her life according to plan and Byun Baekhyun is the opposite of that. Plans suffocate him, plans make him annoyed. You only live once so why plan for everything when you can live in the moment and enjoy every single second.

And so standing up thereby displacing almost every item to the floor, he quickly goes and grabs her by her waist.

“Are you really not going to give me a kiss? You are going to deprive your boyfriend of a kiss? Hmm?”

“I can’t believe you dropped everything, Baekhyun…” Kina scowls at that trying to free herself of his grip to get to the cart while looking around worriedly.

“Relax, ma’am…” Baekhyun sighed, annoyed that she was not giving him what he asked for already. It was just a kiss. “No one’s around.”

“Alright.” She snaps, “Fine. Here.”

Saying that she gives an angry peck at his cheek and tried to move away but Baekhyun traps her again.

“Oho! That won’t suffice. That’s a headbutt and not a kiss.” Saying that he places a soft, tender kiss on her cheeks. “See? That’s called a kiss. Now give me one.”

Here’s the thing why he was doing something like this. He knows that she was clearly uncomfortable and angry about this but he wanted her to break open from this stifling condition that she has created for herself. She acts as though every single person in the world was watching her at every moment and she has to be perfect.

She need not be. She was already as perfect as she was.

Taking a deep breath, she calms down but instead of kissing him, she hugs him. This, of course, makes the great Byun Baekhyun melt.

“Or we can stay like this…” He sighs smiling into her hair. “See? It’s alright… The world won’t end because we showed some PDA.”

Change.

'Change' wasn’t something Kina was very fond of, something he noticed during his interactions with Kina, and yet 'change' was something he wishes to impart it to her.

Of course, it wasn’t his intention to change her and to make her into something she was not but he knew she was capable of so many more things if she was not so unwilling to change… so unwilling to embrace new things.

With the way she was brought up, it was undeniable that she wasn’t so in tune with the fast pacing world and Baekhyun felt as if the duty of letting her catch up fell on him.

Kina lets go of him at that and puts her palm on his chest. “Go and pick up all the things and catch me in the frozen section.”

And before Baekhyun could even argue she dashes making him pout. She did not give him a kiss.

Anyhow begrudgingly he picks up the items, throws them into the cart, and pushed it around trying to find the frozen section.

He forgot, of course where the frozen section was. This was a proper grocery store and not his favorite convenience store and no matter how many trips he took with Kina to come down here the past year… he still is lost every single time he comes down here.

His phone buzzes a good five minutes of wandering later.

“Are you lost?” She asks and this immediately makes him melt into a puddle. God. He was literally snow in Kina’s heat.

“Mmm…” He hums stopping wherever he was with a soft-chuckle.

“Where are you? Tell me which section you are in.”

“I…” He looked around at the tall Christmas trees around him. “I think I wandered into the decoration section.”

“Oh… That’s just around the corner. Stay there… I’ll come to get you.”

Baekhyun nods his head as though she could see him and look around a little to pass the time