It didn’t feel like time was moving fast because every single day would drag on unnecessarily slow, but before I realized it, snow was beginning to stick to the ground.

Moving was genuinely exhausting. Moving in with Chanyeol made it that much worse. I was moving my five outfits whereas Chanyeol had a bed, desk, dresser, and enough attire to clothe the homeless in Seoul for a year. The process was drug out. Chanyeol’s parents had called professional movers when we could have just fit everything into their pick-up. I felt extremely overwhelmed and the constant flow of people was physically taxing.

When the final bag of Chanyeol’s belongings came through the front door, all of us were partially relieved, but I knew that there was more work to be done. We would have to go through the tedious process of sorting through the boxes and bags, determining what belonged to who and where, but there was a more prying question to be answered first.

“Which of you boys is going to take the room that looks over the water?” Mrs. Park asked, while making a move to sit on the ground by the large windows.

“I don’t care, it’s up to Baekhyun,” Chanyeol replied, following his mother into a sitting position.

I glared at him with wide eyes. “I can’t make that decision.”

Chanyeol sighed heavily. “Baekhyun, just pick a room. City or ocean? It’s your choice.”

“Yeol,” I whined.

“Baekhyun, you’d better pick before I pick for you both,” Mr. Park pitched in.

“Ugh. Fine. I’ll take the ocean view.”

“Perfect, I wanted the city.” Chanyeol’s widespread grin reached from ear to ear.

By the time Chanyeol and I had developed a routine, his parents finally stopped visiting on a regular basis. He would go to school all day, Monday through Thursday, so I set my work schedule the same. I was too afraid of being alone. The short distance from the apartment to the shop was terrifying enough. I didn’t know why I was suddenly so afraid of being unattended by someone (mainly Chanyeol). Maybe it was my irrational childhood fear of being abandoned that was abruptly brought back to the light that caused the sudden attachment.

Fridays were our “PJ” days. We would stay in our pajamas all day, potentially cook some jiffy pop on the stove. Of course, I didn’t let Chanyeol do it, simply because I still wanted to have an apartment to live in. We would look for a movie to watch online or play board games until one of us got tired, which we quickly adopted as our Friday routine.

The rest of the weekends, we would typically end up back at Chanyeol’s parent’s house, on the couch, eating every last bit of food in their refrigerator. Mrs. Park would constantly nag us to see if we had enough food, or if we were starving, which we were undoubtedly not.  She would ask if we needed her to buy us food, and every time we would break out in simultaneous laughter and shake our heads. She would storm away, seeming like she was frustrated, but we both knew she was simply annoyed.

On Chanyeol’s birthday, we held a small celebration. It snowed heavily, so we weren’t able to do much, not that Chanyeol necessarily wanted to, but I had planned on taking him out for dinner nonetheless. However, my plans were drastically changed and I made something simple yet delicious at home. Chanyeol’s parents called, and they chatted for quite some time, leaving me to read a novel in my room until Chanyeol’s shining smile entered my room and snatched me out of my bed, causing me to lose my page in my book, which to say the least, made me a bit upset.

Once I was forced from my bedroom, I made Chanyeol go sit on the couch and I snuck off into the kitchen to find the cake I had made while he was sleeping. I pulled the plastic wrap off of the top of the cake and open the drawer next to me, searching for a book of matches. I lit up his cake and picked it up before turning down the lights and walking ever-so slowly towards Chanyeol.

I quietly began to sing the familiar song to him and he quickly turned around, his eyes wide and full of surprise. “Baek,” he murmured as I continued to walk in his direction.

After strapping our nine foot tall tree to the top of Chanyeol’s father’s pick up truck, we drove slowly along the icy road which led back into the city. We were lucky enough to find the healthiest looking and most beautiful tree after browsing around the tree farm for an hour and a half in the bitter, early December weather.

I was wrapped up in my new coat that I had just purchased, which fit me snugly, but kept me warm. Chanyeol wore a coat that was a size or two too small for him, but he was too stubborn to get  a new one because his held “sentimental value” to him.

We carefully carried the tree up to our penthouse, surprisingly only killing a few of the branches on the way up. We then got it into the stand with me guiding it in and screwing the bolts against the base of the tree and Chanyeol held the top up so I couldn’t become a part of a tree-floor sandwich.  

Once the tree was finally stabilized, Chanyeol and I quickly abandoned it to go shopping for ornaments to decorate it with. I personally wanted to go with a color scheme, or simply a theme for the tree, but Chanyeol completely disagreed. Before I realized it, there was a grab bag of miscellaneous ornaments and strands of garland, none of which meshed well together. I noticed that anything he liked, or was simply shiny, somehow ended up in the growing mountain in our shopping cart. Chanyeol added a hideous blue ornament with two snowmen sitting on a swing.

His eyes lit up. “Look Baek! It says ‘Our First Christmas’.”

I rolled my eyes at him and sighed heavily.

“You okay, Baek?” His dorky, childish grin instantly faded into a more serious, concerned expression. I honestly started to feel nauseous and my head was beginning to pound, but I wasn’t going to spoil Chanyeol’s fun.

I gritted my teeth and forced a smile on my face. “I’m fine.”

“If you’re fine, then perk up, I don’t want this to be all about what I want!” His inner child was revealed once again and he started singing off key to Christmas music, which was blaring too loudly through the old PA system. I rolled my eyes and forcefully smiled once again, but watching Chanyeol's inner child be released tired me out.

I was glancing around, trying to force myself to forget that I wasn't feeling well and put myself into the Christmas spirit. I glanced at the overly festive ornaments, the ones that had a baby and a woman with four men surrounding them. Little did I notice, while trying to gather my spirit, Chanyeol had stopped dead in the middle of the aisle we were in and I was still pushing the cart closely behind him. I wouldn't have noticed either, but Chanyeol's feminine screech caught my attention.

"Baekhyun!" he shrieked, an octave higher than his normal speaking voice.

"What?" I asked, slowly turning my head towards him, only to find the tall man hopping on one foot, looking like a total moron.

I looked at him with wide eyes and confusion written all over my face. "What on ear-"

"You ran into me with the damn cart!" He was still yelling, but his voice had lowered.

"I-I'm sorry..." I muttered quietly.

"It's fine," he coolly replied with gritted teeth.

“Why’d you suddenly stop anyways?”

“Something caught my eye,” He spoke softly. “Anyways, what should we get for the tree topper?”

“Uh…” I didn’t know that people actually put something on top of their tree to begin with, let alone what was considered “normal” for a tree topper. “What do people usually put on top of their trees?”

“If that was your attempt at being sarcastic, it .”

“What?” He must have misjudged my tone. “I’m being serious, Yeol. My family never decorated for this holiday, or any holiday for that matter.”

“Oh…” he trailed off. “Well, most people typically put a star or an angel on top of their trees, but I’ve seen people do hats or something obscure like that.”

“Hmm,” I said, pondering the new information. With a grin, I decided. “Let’s do a star.”

With the aroma of warm cinnamon baking in the oven, and the Christmas radio station playing softly in the background, Chanyeol and I began our work the following day. The living room was a disaster. Decorations, garland, lights, and ornaments were recklessly strewn across the floor of our penthouse apartment. I was glancing around the tornado that had taken place as Chanyeol carefully tip-toed back to the area of the tree with two piping hot mugs of hot chocolate.

“Here you go,” he mumbled, handing over the hot cup and then setting his cup down on the table. I set my cup of hot liquid on the window sill, trying to not spill it on my exposed toes. Once the mug was safely on the ledge, I turned back towards Chanyeol who was attempting to sip at the liquid, but failed miserably.

“Let’s get started,” I grinned.

With my lack of decorating experience, I had to have Chanyeol explain the little details to me. How to hang the lights on the tree just right so you could see them, but the wires weren’t seen amongst it. Once we agreed on how I was doing it  right (there aren’t honestly that many ways you can put lights on a Christmas tree, but Chanyeol begged to differ), he set me free to hang the lights while he prioritized our ornaments.

I was confused as to why he, the giant, would want me, the dwarf, to risk my life just to put a few lights here and there on a tree, but I didn’t say anything. I just complied, and he pushed a chair my way as support.

I climbed the chair and got on my tip-toes (even with the extra height, I was too short), paying no mind to anything else around me. My concentration was a little too fixed on perfecting something that wasn’t meant to be perfect. I was determined to place the lights perfectly on my first try, but my luck had always been a little bad. More lights tangled at my feet, making it impossible to do anything but fall. Flashing before my eyes was my life and a few of the lights, but I knew for sure I had to keep my eyes shut. It seemed to make the fall feel less intimidating. Whether it was luck or not, I managed to fall into Chanyeol’s arms, quivering with the slightest bit of fear.

My eyes shot open and locked with his. We were still in this stance, sending the same messages to one another with only our eyes. Fear. Confusion. And for me, personally, realization. There were some things I never noticed about Chanyeol before. Despite his enormous stature, he was very gentle, his touch so tender that it sent chills throughout my body. I let the lights slip out of my hands and something a little silkier—like Chanyeol’s hair. I pulled him in but stopped halfway.

“What are you doing?” he asked.

“I don’t really know.” That was all I could say, because I didn’t know. I wanted to kiss him, as if it wasn’t obvious enough, but maybe he didn’t want to kiss me. I stopped and tried to fall out of his arms, but he squeezed me even tighter.

“Wait,” Chanyeol whispered, and much too suddenly, he closed the space in between us, his lips pressing hard against mine, and the only thing I could manage to do then was let him kiss me.