Joonmyun was never really different from others. Maybe he worked harder at maintaining his grades high and was always nice to everyone, but that was simply the way it was. But all in all, he was just another normal student with his own problems and his own group of (stupid, unhelpful) friends. He never tried to be something he was not and get into something like the student council even if he was pestered on many occasions by different people. So it came as kind of a surprise that he was asked to guide a new student around the school and not some student that was actually willing to do so. He wanted to say no but the way the teacher looked at him, with trust shining in her old, dull eyes, made Joonmyun smile awkwardly and bow as he promised to do well.

“Who the hell even switches schools in the middle of the year” He muttered to himself as he made his way down the hallway. He was supposed to meet the student near the entrance and a wave of questions washed over Joonmyun as he slowly trudged towards his destination. He was told the student was Chinese so what if he didn’t understand Korean correctly? Joonmyun wasn’t that good at languages. And how was he even supposed to recognise him in the first place? It made Joonmyun’s head spin a little and his stomach twist nervously.

When he finally got to the entrance he looked around and searched for a student who looked like he might be new. It wasn’t hard to notice one boy standing at the side, looking intently at the ground with earphones in his ears and head barely bobbing to the beat. Joonmyun looked around and waited a few minutes to make sure that he was really going to talk to the right person and not make a fool out of himself. With a calming breath he approached the slightly taller boy and tapped on his shoulder, a friendly smile at the ready.

The boy looked up slowly and, just as slowly, took out the earphones, his questioning gaze piercing through Joonmyun’s soul. It took a while before he got himself back together and realised that the boy was waiting for him to speak.

“Are you Yixing?” He asked and felt how his voice trembled a little. It seemed that Yixing(hopefully that’s him) didn’t notice and if he did, he chose not to comment. Instead he nodded and blinked at Joonmyun, as if waiting for him to speak again. “Um…” Whatever confidence Joonmyun had started faltering a bit. He felt intimidated and confused and Yixing kept waiting. “I guess I should show you around?”

“Okay” Yixing said and Joonmyun smiled awkwardly, not sure how to react.

Joonmyun muttered “Show me your schedule” and outstretched his hand for Yixing to give it but the taller probably misheard or misunderstood because he looked at his hand and then outstretched his own to give a handshake. Joonmyun didn’t have the heart to say that it wasn’t what he wanted because his mind was sort of melting and he thought that Yixing looked way too cute with a barely visible smile tugging at his lips. When they pulled away Joonmyun repeated his request, this time loud and clear and Yixing released a small ‘ah’ noise and nodded before pulling out a sheet of paper from his bag and handing it to Joonmyun

He looked over the subjects and realised that he had almost every lesson with the transfer student and realisation hit that maybe this was the reason he was asked to show the other around. He was about to say that they should get moving but then Yixing opened his mouth before stopping himself. Joonmyun was confused but Yixing seemed to be thinking hard and Joonmyun probably didn’t need to think that but the other looked really adorable like that. ‘Okay, maybe it’s time you focus’ He thought to himself but then his train of thought was stopped as the other started speaking. “What’s your name? You never told me it” He said and Joonmyun felt like slapping himself. Of course he didn’t know, how would he?

“Oh, I’m sorry” He smiled sheepishly and rubbed the back of his neck. “My name is Joonmyun. Nice to meet you” He said with a small grin and Yixing smiled at him. Like, fully smiled and Joonmyun wanted to sob because either Yixing didn’t really exist or the smile was so pretty it could be called magical. So basically not existing either way. “Okay, we need to, uh, go now. The bell is going to ring soon” He said and mentioned for Yixing to follow after him.

They got to class just in time. Yixing, apparently, liked to walk slowly and take in the surrounding. But Joonmyun really didn’t understand what was there to take in. The halls had rows upon rows of mostly dirty lockers and the walls were really boring. He didn’t even want to look at the ceiling. However, Yixing found everything interesting, but then again, he was new so it was understandable.

Joonmyun walked over to his seat and mentioned the other boy to find himself a seat as well, which just happened to be right in front of him. The students all sat in their seats, some sending curious glances towards Yixing while Joonmyun leaned his head against his hand and stared off into space. The teacher made her appearance soon after. It was the same teacher who asked Joonmyun to help the new student out so, naturally, she noticed Yixing quite quickly and smiled at him.

“You must be the new student. Please, do come up here and introduce yourself” The teacher said, smiling lightly. Joonmyun kind of felt bad for Yixing; why did they even need to do something like this? If people were interested enough they would ask on their own. But the transfer student didn’t seem to have any problems with the idea of standing in front of many curious eyes. He looked at the teacher, as if asking what he was supposed to say. The teacher smiled and gestured her hands around. “Just tell us your name, where are you from, hobbies, age and so on”

Yixing nodded and looked around the class before deciding to speak. “My name is Yixing, I’m a transfer student from China and I love dancing” He said, his voice calm and soft. Joonmyun kind of had to remind himself how to breathe because Yixing’s gaze ended up locked with his and maybe that was because they met before he was forced to introduce himself. Before the teacher could say anything else Yixing walked back to his seat and pulled out a notebook to use. Class went on like normal from that point.

And after it was finished the teacher asked both Joonmyun and Yixing to stay for a few minutes. She told Yixing that he would need to borrow a notebook to write down all the information and since Joonmyun was already assigned to help him around, she figured he could lend the new student his notes. They both nodded and left the classroom with Joonmyun glancing at Yixing’s schedule again, making sure they really did have the following lesson together again.

And the first few hours until lunch break went on like that, with Joonmyun showing Yixing around and the slightly younger (as he somehow managed to learn) boy following him around, glancing around all the time even though everything looked the same. Or that was Joonmyun’s opinion anyway.

He was about to walk to the cafeteria when Yixing grabbed his sleeve and asked where the director’s office was. The elder blinked a few times and led him to the room. He said that Yixing should come and find him in the cafeteria when he was done but he wasn’t sure if the younger heard him at all. Joonmyun shrugged to himself and made his way into the cafeteria, looking for a familiar tuft of hair which wasn’t really a hard thing. Not many people dyed their hair in their school and finding his friend was easy.

“You took a while” Kris said while looking at him with an unreadable expression.

“Yeah, sorry. I had to walk the new student somewhere” Joonmyun explained as he sat down at the table, slightly wondering where the others were.

“Oh right, you were made to look after some newbie”

“Yeah. Anyway, where are the others?” He asked and looked around, trying to find any familiar faces. Kris merely shrugged and hummed in a way that sounded like I-don’t-know  and Joonmyun glared half-heartedly at him. “Do you even care about anything other than Tao’s ?”

“Hey, I care about Tao as a whole. Not just his ” The elder defended, squinting at him as if Joonmyun told a lie. They spent the rest of the time simply sitting there with Joonmyun complaining about one thing or another. He decided that Kris deserved an award for the most uncaring friend in the world. (It was a lie though, Kris was a really good friend. Occasionally.)

It so happened that Yixing didn’t come to the cafeteria and Joonmyun somehow forgot about it. Only when he was walking to his class a few minutes before the bell rang did he remember that he was supposed to show Yixing to his class. Joonmyun resisted the urge to face-palm and walked around, hoping that he would just find the younger standing somewhere. And it seemed luck was on his side that day because as he was walking towards his class, thinking that maybe the taller found his way into the room, he noticed Yixing standing by the wall. His eyes were trailing after the people walking past him and he had one earphone in his ear again.

With a sigh of relief Joonmyun walked over to him and smiled. “Why didn’t you go to the cafeteria?”

“I got lost and confused and decided to hope that you would find me” He shrugged with a little smile and Joonmyun thought that maybe the boy really wasn’t real and he was having a dream where angels descended to grace the earth with their presence.

Joonmyun shook the thoughts away and nodded a bit. “Well I found you! Now let’s go, the teacher is going to nag us forever if we are late”

~*~

It has been four days since Yixing transferred to their school and he was still not used to it. He still trailed after Joonmyun and asked him to show where the bathroom was every single time.

“No. I’m just really forgetful, I guess” Yixing said when Joonmyun asked if he was having a hard time getting used to the place.

In the span of those few days Joonmyun managed to find out close to nothing about Yixing. Except that he was easily distracted and apparently rather smart when it came to studying. Though Joonmyun had the thought that Yixing was one of those people who managed to get good grades with minimal studying. He just didn’t seem like someone who would spend a lot of time learning.

One more thing he learned was to never again bring Yixing close to Kris. It’s not like there was something wrong between them, oh no. They actually seemed to get along quite well. But the fact that Kris spoke to him in Chinese made Joonmyun want to pull his hair out. He never really learnt the language and now he was regretting everything because Kris told quite a few funny things to Yixing. And Kris doesn’t just spew around jokes. They were probably something embarrassing about Joonmyun. ‘What an ’ He thought to himself as Kris finished another sentence and Yixing laughed.

The upside of it all, though, was watching how Yixing laughed. Every time he noticed the younger laughing or simply smiling everything in Joonmyun’s world turned upside-down and he started believing in magic and fairy tales and unicorns and ‘Wow, that dimple is so cute what’.

So Joonmyun swallowed down his pride and just observed the younger.

~*~

He went over to Kris’ house on the weekend because he was bored of being home alone and Kris was his neighbour so he thought why not. Except that maybe it wasn’t the brightest idea because of course Tao was there and Joonmyun cringed. He didn’t have anything against the boy. In fact, he really liked him and they got along really well. But Kris did a complete 180 degree spin in his personality when dealing with Tao and Joonmyun felt awkward because if felt like he was with a stranger. At least it was funny and he got what to tease the elder about so in the end, everything worked in Joonmyun’s favour as it always did.

Without noticing it, Joonmyun’s mind often drifted to the new student he was assigned to show around the school. He didn’t know why his mind was so locked on Yixing but he found himself thinking about his lovely voice and his nice hair and beautiful smile and everything else.

The weekend passed just like that, with Joonmyun thinking about the Chinese boy and then panicking the night before Monday because, obviously, no homework was done.

When Monday came and Joonmyun walked slowly to his locker he was kind of surprised to see Yixing there. The younger boy was leaning against the lockers, listening to music and his head barely bobbing to the beat just like the first time they met. Only this time, Yixing actually noticed him before he even got close and pulled out the earphones before smiling at Joonmyun. He still wasn’t used to that smile and it made his insides flutter and Joonmyun decided that he really needed to get a grip of himself before he does something stupid. “What are you doing here?” He forced out, somewhat hoping that he would say that he still needed Joonmyun to help him around the school.

“I don’t really remember my way around here so I thought you could continue helping me” He said, without the usual moment of silence. So he either already planned what he should say or was practicing on his Korean while at home. “I hope I’m not being a bother” He said quickly after, when Joonmyun didn’t answer as he was too busy dancing in his head.

“No you’re not” He answered while smiling genuinely and went to open his locker. Yixing just stood at the side, waiting patiently for him to be finished.

~*~

They were sitting in the cafeteria when Joonmyun remembered what he wanted to ask Yixing for quite a while. Luckily, they were all alone with everyone else scattered somewhere in the building so it was easier for Joonmyun to talk with the younger.

“Hey, Yixing?”

“Hm?”

“Why did you transfer here? In the middle of the school year too.”

“My parents got some better job offers here, so we moved” The younger replied with a shrug. “I didn’t really want to leave but I guess it’s not that bad” He continued and smiled at Joonmyun in a way that he could only describe as cute.

“Can I ask you a favour?” Yixing asked, looking at Joonmyun with an expression he could never say no to. So he only nodded and gestured for him to continue. “Can you help me with my Korean? There’s still so much I don’t understand” he said and Joonmyun found himself nodding before even realising what he was asked to do.

“Uh, yeah, sure. I’ll help” He said with a firm nod just before the bell rang.

They ended up agreeing that Yixing would come over to Joonmyun’s house on the weekend so that they could work in peace.

~*~

The week passed with Joonmyun barely even noticing and soon it was Saturday and he was standing in the local park not too far away from the school, waiting for Yixing to show up. He really hoped that the younger didn’t get lost but his worries vanished when he noticed the familiar person walking towards him. Yixing waved at him before walking close enough for a greeting and Joonmyun grinned and asked if they could go now.

The walk to his house wasn’t long and it was strangely comfortable. Joonmyun almost expected an awkward silence to settle in between them but he was pleasantly surprised. At one point Yixing even initiated a conversation and the elder couldn’t be happier that they seemed to fall into comfortable chatter. Joonmyun decided that Yixing was different than he was while they were in school and he wasn’t sure if it was a bad or a good thing. Because, honestly, his insides were quivering and he really needed to calm down but that obviously wasn’t happening any time soon.

When they were inside the younger gasped quietly and murmured something that Joonmyun assumed was a compliment to his nice house, if he does say so himself. They made quick work of taking off their shoes and winter coats. Joonmyun led them to the living room and gestured Yixing to sit down on the couch.

“I figured it would be better to be in the living room” He said and Yixing smiled at him, nodding a little at the words and Joonmyun had to remind himself how to breathe properly. “Hungry?”

“No. But a snack would be nice” Yixing said and Joonmyun nodded before going to the kitchen and grabbing some candies and gummies and whatever he found. He hoped Yixing wasn’t allergic to anything. He returned back only to find Yixing lying on the couch, staring at the ceiling and blinking every so often. Which was cute in Joonmyun’s opinion. Then again, he decided to just get over the fact that whatever Yixing did he would find it cute.

He settled the snacks on the low table besides the couch and watched as Yixing sat up and grabbed the bag of gummies, ripping it open and putting some into his mouth. Joonmyun had to turn around with heat spreading through his face because Yixing really had nice lips and they looked so soft and for a second he wondered what it would feel like to kiss the younger. He had to shake himself out of it, though, because they were there to help Yixing with Korean and Joonmyun really needed to get a grip.

“So” He began, trying to sound as casual as he could while plopping down onto the couch besides the other. “What exactly do you not understand?”

Yixing blinked at him a few times before explaining his problem slowly. Joonmyun nodded and decided to go through some basic rules and see how much Yixing knows.

~*~
Enjoying how someone was failing to do something while getting more frustrated by the second was definitely not how Joonmyun was. But he couldn’t stop grinning at how Yixing tried explaining words with gestures and other words that would describe them. He looked silly and adorable and he would still occasionally get a gummy and Joonmyun wondered just how creepy would it be to ask if he could feed him. Thankfully, he decided against it and after about two hours of trying to teach Yixing some basic understanding (Yixing called it torture) they decided to take a break.

Joonmyun the television while Yixing excused himself to the bathroom. There was absolutely nothing interesting on the TV and he simply settled for a music channel which, looking back, was probably the worst yet best decision he made.

When Yixing came back to the living room he looked at the screen and tilted his head before his expression changed to that of recognition. “Oh!” He exclaimed and started unconsciously swaying to the beat. “I know this song” He finished and Joonmyun wanted to both cover his eyes and keep them open forever because it seemed that Yixing not only knew the song but the dance too. He never expected to see how good Yixing was at dancing at his own house, sitting on his living room couch with the other moving sharply yet gracefully, almost just as good as the original dancers. At least that was Joonmyun’s opinion though it could be very biased.  He didn’t care though because Yixing’s body moved so well and for a moment Joonmyun thought what it would feel like to be able to hold the other close. But he shook those thoughts away with a sharp intake of breath as the younger opened his eyes and looked straight at Joonmyun, his eyes crinkling up as he smiled brightly and stopped his dancing.

“Do you dance?” He asked as he walked closer to the couch, closer to where Joonmyun was sitting. He shook his head but Yixing merely squinted playfully at him. “Come on! Dance with me”

Joonmyun only shook his head again. “I’m really not good at dancing” He said with a dismissive hand gesture, hoping that Yixing would just drop it.

“So what? Get up” He said and grabbed Joonmyun’s hands, pulling him up and dragging him to the middle of the living room. The elder concluded that luck was finally giving up on him.

Joonmyun really didn’t know what he was doing, but he allowed the younger to pull him around and instruct him how to move his body. It was embarrassing but he decided that the way Yixing laughed was definitely worth it.

In the end, they both dropped back onto the couch giggling a bit and shoving each other’s shoulders.

“That was horrible” He said, stifling in the last of his giggles.

“No it wasn’t” Yixing replied with a smile on his face. And Joonmyun looked over and there was Yixing; sitting in his house, a beautiful smile tugging on his lips and his adorable dimple showing, looking really happy and breath-taking. Not to mention that the barely there light from the windows seemed to gather around him and Joonmyun decided that Yixing really was an angel. Something sent from above to maintain the Christmas spirit. Something that would disappear soon.

“Has Christmas come early” He said out loud, not actually meaning for it to slip out. But Yixing only glanced at him confusedly.

“There’s still a little over a week until Christmas, silly” He said with his smile still present on his face.

Joonmyun nodded and apologised before asking if the younger wanted to try working some more on his Korean.

~*~

“I think I’m in love” Joonmyun sighed and leaned his head against his hand, staring off into the distance dreamily.

“You’ve known him for, what, two weeks?” Kris said, not even looking up from whatever that was that he was reading in a piece of paper.

“Okay, fine. I have a crush” Joonmyun huffed, glaring at the elder.

“You don’t say” Kris said and Joonmyun wanted to throw a book at him. Preferably a big, heavy one.

“Can’t you just be happy for me? Only once?” He asked, not sure why he was even bothering.

“What do you want me to say?” Kris asked, finally glancing up from his paper.

“I don’t know. Something nice!” He exclaimed, not really knowing what he wanted Kris to say either.

Kris looked up at him again and stared blankly for a few minutes before forcing out a smile. “Wow, Joonmyun, your hair looks really nice today”

Joonmyun groaned and let his forehead meet the hard surface of the lunch table. “I hate you” He muttered and Kris only shrugged. “Thanks” Joonmyun whispered moments later and he didn’t need to raise his head to know that Kris was smirking smugly.

There's probably a load of mistakes but I'm seriously not bothered enough to fix them 

At least not now

Yes I smuggled in taoris I love that ship bless