“Taozi, do you want to put an angel at the top, or a star?” Suho asked, unpacking some tree ornaments from a box he’d brought over. All the ornaments were bought last year, however Suho’s parents decided to buy new ones this year and told Suho to find somewhere to put them. Well. What was a better place than one of his closest friend’s house? Tao had been….different…over the last few months. Sad, withdrawn, just completely lost. Suho and the others had hoped that putting up decorations around Tao’s apartment would help his mood, however at the moment the young male was staring out the window at the snow that was slowly falling outside.

“Tao?” Xiumin asked, trying to get their panda’s attention for Suho. Tao suddenly jumped at the sound of his name and turned to look at Xiumin. Laughing slightly, Xiumin then pointed towards Suho and then went back to untangling some lights that were going to be put on the fake tree once BaekHyun and Chanyeol stopped goofing around and put it up. “Star, or angel?” Suho asked again, holding up the two toppers for Tao. Tao’s face then twisted slightly in pain for a second before forcing a smile and pointing towards the star and standing up.

“I’ll be back.” Tao said, heading towards the bathroom for some alone time. He understood what his friends were doing, however it wasn’t helping. Last year Kris and Tao had done all the decorating together at Kris’s place, it just brought back too many painful memories. Why had they fought that day? Tao couldn’t even remember. It was something stupid and small. That stupid and small fight had sent Kris out that night though. And that was the last time Tao saw him.

Taking in a deep breath, Tao turned the fan and the water on in the bathroom once he stepped inside. Wiping away a tear that had managed to slip from his eyes, Tao took in another breath and stared at himself in the mirror, willing the pain to go away. His friends were here to help him, and all he was doing was moping. He had to pull himself together. Kris wouldn’t like to see him like this. Kris would probably punch him in the face for being so mopey, only to then cover him in kisses once the others weren’t around. Kris always tried so hard to seem cool but really he was just as big of a derp as everyone else in the group.

Splashing cold water on his face, Tao cleaned himself up quickly to make it less obvious that he’d been crying. Once he was certain that the red marks were gone from his eyes, Tao forced a catlike smile and went to change out a couple studs in his ears. Might as well make it look like he was doing something productive in there, right? Changing out the balls, Tao put in stars into his ears and then a dangling cross in one ear. Looking himself over, the young male then put a thin layer of eyeliner on his eyes to attempt to hide the puffiness his eyes naturally had.

Once he felt fit for entertainment, Tao left the bathroom, turning the fan off as he went. Greeted by an overly happy Kai, Tao’s eyes widened as the dark haired male dragged him down the hallway and back into the living room where everyone else was. “We got the tree up. All we need is you to put the star up top so we can start decorating! Pali pali!” Kai said, a large grin on his face as he then pushed Tao towards the tree. Biting his lower lip, Tao looked towards Suho who handed over the large star and then motioned towards a small step stool they must have dug out of his pantry while he was in the bathroom.

“Ah, right.” Tao said, moving forward to grab the star and then took the two steps up that were necessary to be tall enough. Putting the star up then, everyone clapped and cheered, causing Tao to smile a little. Such a simple thing didn’t really require that much excitement, however the guys were there for him, trying to cheer him up. The least he could do was play along even though everything hurt, right? “Alright. Now what?” Tao asked, turning around and flashing them a wide smile. The guys then returned their own smiles and handed him an end of the lights and told him to plug it in to the star. Once that was done, the 11 males started putting all the ornaments on the tree as well as decorations around the house.