I woke up, voices slowly drifting though my hazy state.

“Good morning.” I hear someone call happily. I open my eyes and see his face hovering in front of mine.

“Hey Taemin.” I smile and rub my eyes sleepily.

“You want to go do something fun today?” he asks.

I smile and nod “Sure, let me just get dressed, I’ll be downstairs in a moment.” He nodded at me and strutted out of the room happily.

I picked some jeans off the floor and put them on with a random shirt from my closet, not really caring about what I was wearing. I put on some shoes quickly and ran down the stairs. Taemin was waiting for me by the kitchen table, already sitting on a chair. I smiled at him and sat down next to him. “What would you like to eat?” I asked him.

“Ehm, I’d like some cereal.” He said.

I nodded and told my mom that we’d both like some cereal.

“Sure honey.” She smiled and put two bowls in front of us.

“So where do you want to go today?” I asked him.

He shrugged, “I don’t know, the park maybe?”

“Don’t stay out after dark again okay honey?” my mom said when she overheard me say that to him.

“No, we won’t. Last time Taemin hurt his ankle, I told you that.” I reminded her.

She just smiled at me and nodded before moving on with the dishes.

We ate our breakfast and stood up to leave. 

“Where are you going?” my mom asked.

“The park.” I answered.

“Have fun.” She smiled at me again.

I took Taemin by the arm and walked outside with him.

“Where are the others?” I asked him.

“They will be there.” He just said.

“Okay.” We walked to the park in comfortable silence, playing little games of not stepping on the white stripes on the street.

When I reached the end of the street, and we were almost at the park, I saw two guys standing next to each other, fairly close. Then I heard a squeal and one of them ran away giggling, coming my way.

I ran towards him as well and chuckled “What did you do this time Key?” I laughed at the lost look on the face of Jonghyun in the distance.

“Nothing.” Key giggled innocently and looked behind me where Taemin was coming. He waved happily and turned back around to run back to his best friend.

“Those two are always teasing each other, aren’t they?” Taemin smiled.

I nodded and entered the park.

I saw two people on the swings and joined them. When Minho saw me approaching, his look immediately slid past me to find Taemin. They greeted each other with a hug while I looked at Onew.

He looked a bit sad, so I asked him “What’s up?” with the biggest smile I could manage, hoping to transfer some of my happiness to him.

“The others are always together, and as soon as Minho saw Taemin, he left me, while we were just swinging together. It’s not fair. Nobody loves me.” He sulked.

“That’s not true, I love you!” I smiled again and stood up to give him a big hug, making us both fall off the swing backwards, resulting in lots of laughter.

I asked him if he wanted to stay at my home for dinner and he happily agreed and added “Do you have chicken?”

“I don’t know, I’d have to ask my mom.” He nodded and we climbed back on our swings.

The others gathered around us and we decided to play tag.

“You start!” I told Key as I ran away in advance.

He heaved a deep sigh and started running after Minho.

I saw Jonghyun hide behind the slide, and I joined him. “No, don’t come here! You’ll blow my cover!” he whispered. I giggled and shoved him lightly “Not if you keep quiet.” I whispered back.

He frowned and was about to say something else his eyes suddenly became large and he looked at something behind me. He ran away squealing as I looked behind me, and saw Key there, tagging me with a huge grin “Gotcha.” He said and ran away himself.

“Told you so!” Jonghyun said while laughing at me.

“I’ll get you back, just wait!” I shouted at him and ran after him.

He was a little too fast for me, and I was out of breath before I could reach him. I was closer to Taemin though, and he didn’t seem to be as fast a sprinter as Jonghyun, so I ran towards him and tagged him before he even knew what was going on.

“Aww, no fair.” He pouted and crossed his arms.

“You’ll never tag anyone if you keep standing there like that.” Onew giggled and hid behind a tree.

Taemin made a run for Key, but tripped over a stone. He fell down and clutched his leg whimpering.

“Oh, are you okay?” Minho came running to help his little friend. Once he put his hand on Taemin’s shoulder though, the youngest grinned widely and tagged Minho, running away as fast as he could, apparently not in pain at all.

“That was just mean!” Minho called after him, not looking happy at all. Taemin just giggled and kept moving away from Minho.

“I don’t want to play anymore.” Minho called out.

“Come on, it was just a joke.” I said, pleading for him to stay in the game.

“No, I’m done playing tag. I wanna do something else.” He kept his stance.

Eventually we gave in and decided to play some football together.

When I scored another point in the goal of Onew, Minho and Key, I saw it was getting pretty dark outside.

“We should go home.” I announced. Everyone agreed and I walked home with Onew as the others went their individual ways after saying their goodbyes.

“Mom, can Onew eat with us?” I asked as we entered my house.

“Sure honey, does he want chicken again?” She asked smiling when she walked over to us.

I nodded and she ruffled my hair.

“I’ll go make some, go watch some cartoons in the meantime honey.” She said and I smiled at Onew as we walked into the living room where the television was.

That night as my mom tucked me in and I was on the verge of sleeping, I heard her whisper to my dad “Sometimes I worry about those imaginary friends of her. She needs to socialize with real people.”

To which my dad replied “Just let her be, she’ll grow over it in a few years. Lots of kids have imaginary friends. At least she doesn’t feel lonely all the time.”

15 years later

I woke up on Christmas morning, stretching and yawning widely.

Getting out of bed, I walk downstairs sleepily, sitting down at my kitchen table.

I remember when I was a little girl, I was never alone. I was always accompanied by my imaginary friends; Minho, Taemin, Key, Jonghyun and of course Onew. I miss those times. I was a bit of a loner back then, and I rarely made any real friends to play with, so I made up my own. It was always loads of fun with them, and that way, I never felt like I was alone.

After finishing my breakfast, I walked to my living room, where my Christmas tree was.

When I looked up, something surprised me.

Onew was sitting in front of it with a huge red bow on his head, looking all grown up like me and smiling at me he said “Good, you’re finally awake.” While the rest of my imaginary friends showed up from behind the Christmas tree with the same bow on their heads.

a/n: a little christmas present for you all :) hope you like it ^^ merry christmas!