December 03, 2013

December the third brought with it no end to entertainment. The rest of EXO-K arrived to join their (mostly) Chinese counterparts; Junmyeon strode in with gifts underneath both arms, surrounded by the rest of his troupe, eyes glowing.

EXO-M greeted them with open arms and warming hugs, and once they had set their things in their rooms they gathered in the sitting room.

Kyungsoo mumbled something quietly to Lay, making a sweeping gesture as he spoke. They both got up and headed into the kitchen. Kai tried to peer around the door to see what they were up to. For a moment he was sure he'd heard mention of cookies, but he wasn't sure.

“You haven't put up a tree yet,” Baekhyun observed, looking around the room. “We put ours up days ago.”

Kris clapped his hands decisively. “Oh! We were going to put it up on the first.”

Luhan clung to Sehun, leaning against his shoulder, sitting on his cold, aching hands. “We can help,” he offered. “Right, Chanye'?”

Chanyeol smiled and nodded. “You should see our dorm. It's beautiful. We put up decorations on the walls and over the door – the tree was actually the last thing we did!”

“We have pictures. Would you like to see?”

Junmyeon pulled out a camera phone, unlocked it and passed it around. Beautiful was an understatement – the dorm looked stunning. “Baekhyun and Chanyeol worked hard to organise decorations. Everything was tangled from last year,” he explained, “so we had to unravel half the stuff.”

“Xiumin put our things away,” Kris told him. “He refused to let anyone else near it.” Then he coughed, and it sounded suspiciously like a name.

Sehun patted his back. “Good ol' Xiumin.”

Junmyeon's lip twitched at a half exasperated, half scowling look the eldest shot Sehun. To Kris he dared, “I dare you to do better.”

Kris's eyes smouldered.

The rest of the afternoon went something like this: EXO-K sat back, watched and laughed at EXO-M while Kris tried to organise them all into specific tasks. Junmyeon leaned back and forth from time to time, restless, but Kris refused to let them help.

When Lay and Xiumin went to set up the tree, Chen and Tao, who were supposed to decorate the walls with tinsel, flung baubles at each other from a box. They managed to drag Luhan into their little fight, and when Kris tried to concentrate them, several hollow, plastic green and red balls bounced off the back of his head.

“They're a lot calmer than we were,” Kyungsoo murmured quietly.

Junmyeon's lips twitched. Kai and Baekhyun had the indecency to look completely unashamed. In fact, had the sudden halos over their heads been glowing any brighter, Chanyeol probably would have pinned them to the tree.

“Xiumin, give me a hand a moment.”

“They are, but that was probably because Junmyeon started it.”

“No, no, grab the other one. It's got bells on it.”

Lay skirted to avoid Luhan, who stepped on a bauble and grimaced at a loud crack that split the not-calm. His ankle hooked a long trail of bright green and dragged it along the floor.

Sehun elbowed Chanyeol and Baekhyun, who he sat between. The kitten was scampering cautiously amongst the debris. As soon as her wide eyes landed on the tinsel dangling off the edge of one table, she headed up to it and started to paw at one end with a purr of kitty-delight.

Five pairs of eyes turned to Kai, who made a strange, endeared noise.

“Don't look me like that, Kyungsoo.”

“Aww.”

“No. No, shut up.”

Baekhyun reached over and dangled the sparkling green decoration over the kitten. “I didn't know you had a cat.”

Junmyeon knelt and ran his hand down the warm kitten's back. At all the attention she was getting, the kitten couldn't help but mewl and purr as she pawed at her new plaything. He was soon followed by Kyungsoo, Luhan, Chen and Tao, who noticed the little monster's antics and couldn't help but sit down to play with her.

Sehun explained to the others how they had come across the kitten. “She hasn't got a name yet. Tao found her so he gets to pick.”

“Any ideas yet?”

Tao tipped his head, enamoured. “A few. I don't want to call her something snowy, it's too cliché. I might call her Tinsel Monster.”

“After Rap Monster?”

Chen shrugged. “I think of Santa Claws – it's Christmas, isn't it? But that's cliché too.”

“Mittens?”

“Blackie.”

Mew.

“Mew?” Tao tickled her paws and smiled. “Nah, you'll turn into a meow soon enough. Cute idea, though.”

“Where'd you put the tape?” Kris asked, brushing pieces of plastic tree from his shoulders. Straightening the branches was a messy job. “Why are you sitting down? Leave that cat alone, you need to help with the tree! We can't put anything under it until it's done.”

A bauble bounced off the top of Chen's head, and suddenly his expression turned devious.

It took them another twenty minutes to stop fighting, and an hour before they actually finished the tree. By that time they had also decorated each other and put a bunch of large presents beneath the boughs.

Alongside Baekhyun.

They hadn't meant to tie him up with the tinsel. Really. It just happened.