Even before Sanghyuk reaches the door of the student council's meeting room, he can hear Christmas carols blasting loudly from it. An extravagant wreath hangs from the door, decorated in bells, ribbons, lights, and glitter of all sorts. Rolling his eyes at N's obvious hand in the decorating, Sanghyuk pushes his way into the room.

"Merry Christmas!" N screams, skipping past hims whilst waving a bell in his face.

Sanghyuk groans and facepalms in response. "N, it's November. 27th."

"He threatened to take away Leo's coffee supply," Aimee explains, balancing precariously on a wobbly. Sanghyuk gives the boy a fleeting glance. He's resting contentedly on one of the bean bags, coffee mug in hand.

"....So, there's two slackers now?" Sanghyuk deadpans.

Aimee nods solemnly, but N laughs. "No, of course not! We're just taking a break!" Leo nods in agreement. Everyone else rolls their eyes and groans in unison,

Sanghyuk shakes his head but lets it go, knowing that he'd never get anywhere arguing with N and Leo. Instead, he heads over to Aimee and Hongbin's elaborately decorated Christmas tree. "Are you sure that's safe?" he asks, staring warily at the rickety ladder.

Aimee laughs. "Yeah, dude. It's fine. Could you just pass that—" She leans down, and as she does, the ladder tips. Suddenly, there's a scream and a crash.

It happens too fast and too slow at the same time, but the end result is really just Aimee sprawled on top of Hongbin with Sanghyuk propping up the ladder.

"Ow, my ," Hongbin grumbles. Aimee just groans and quite literally rolls off of Hongbin.

"I told you that was unsafe," Sanghyuk sasses, setting the ladder back up.

"So?" Aimee sniffs. She gets up....only to climb back onto the ladder.

Hongbin makes sure to shove Sanghyuk into the spot where he was standing before.

Christmas carols serenade the air. Fake snow litters the ground. The (fake) Christmas tree glitters and lights up the room. The scent of gingerbread and chocolate permeates the area. It feels like it's actually Christmas in the meeting room....but it's still only December 3rd.

"Have a cookie, Hyuk!" N pushes a meticulously decorated gingerbread man into Sanghyuk's hand, along with a mug of hot chocolate. Sanghyuk glances warily down at the food, then at N, and then back at the food.

"Just eat it, kid," Ravi says, stuffing a cookie into his mouth. "Free food."

"....Who made this?" Sanghyuk asks cautiously.

"Me," Hongbin says, raising his hand. "N paid me like $20, so, yeah." He shrugs.

Relieved by the information, Sanghyuk feels safe enough to nibble a bit of the cookie. "Holy ," he says in awe, quickly taking a huge bite. "This is good."

Hongbin grins. "Thanks!"

"Hey, wait," N speaks up, realizing something. "Where are Leo, Aimee, and Ken?"

As if on cue, the door bursts open and in fly three students, completely breathless.

"Ha!" Ken yells, waving middle fingers in Leo and Aimee's faces. "I won! I ing won! You know what? I won!"

Aimee glares up at him from where she'd collapsed on the ground. "Shut up, loser. You only won because I tripped on the stairs and because Leo's slow."

Leo, also panting heavily, glares at her. "At least I wasn't last."

"I tripped!"

"Hey, hey, woah," Hongbin, ever the peacemaker, steps in before things can get too heated. "Have a cookie." Grinning, he holds up the platter.

"Cool!" Ken hops over, as energetic as ever. "I'll take two! Y'know, 'cause I won." He cackles evilly.

Leo glowers at him and opens his mouth, presumably intending to make Ken feel the pain of 1000 deaths, but before he can, Hongbin swoops in and places a cookie into his open mouth. "Have a cookie!" Although Leo, is fuming, he chooses the cookie route and begins eating properly.

The room slips into a peaceful silence for the next 8 minutes, the only sounds being the occasional slurping of hot chocolate and the soft Christmas carols playing on N's phone. But that's all interrupted once Sanghyuk notices that Aimee's not enjoying their relaxation time everyone else.

"You're not eating?" he asks.

"I'm good," she answers absent-mindedly, pencil flying across paper without pause. Sanghyuk's temporarily hypnotized by how she works; her pencil moving like the speed of light over multiple sheets of paper at once, never once stopping, not even when she needs to flip something over. She simply moves to another form while she's doing that.

"Whatcha workin' on?" Ken asks eagerly, -scooching over to her.

"Winter Dance forms. Homework. And—ooh." Finally, she stops, pushing her chair back and gathering folded-up strips of paper in her hands. "Any of you have a hat or something?"

Hongbin groans. "Oh, no."

"What?" Sanghyuk asks, temporarily reminding everyone in the room this is his first year in the Seoul High student council.

"Secret Santa!" Aimee beams, dumping the slips of paper into that snapback that Ravi brought out. "You know how this works, right, Sanghyuk?"

Sanghyuk shrugs. "Yeah."

"Awesome. So, who wants to go first?" she shakes the hat and holds it out.

"Ooh! Me! Me!" N hops up to the hat and automatically pulls out a strip. As he scans it, a devilish grins spreads across his face and he skips away, still smiling creepily. Sanghyuk desperately hopes that N hasn't gotten his name.

"I'll go next," Ravi volunteers, shuffling up to the hat, grabbing a slip, and shuffling back to his spot. Unfortunately, his face gives away no sign of who he may have gotten; he merely glances at the paper and then slips it into his pocket. Same goes for Hongbin and Leo, but Ken squeals excitedly once he sees who he's gotten.

"There's two slips left, Hyukkie~" Aimee sings as she shakes the hat. Sighing internally, Sanghyuk blindly reaches his hand into the hat and grabs the first slip that his fingers brush across. Curiosity tugging at him, he quickly unfurls the slip.

Jung Leo.

Sanghyuk slumps against the wall in relief. God forbid he'd get Aimee, or even worse, N. He silently thanks his dead grandmother for looking over him and preventing him from a mental breakdown.

"Psst, kid," Hongbin's voice whispers from behind his shoulder, breaking him out of his blissful dreams.

Sanghyuk jumps, but remembers to speak quietly. "What."

"Will you trade papers with me? Please?" Hongbin sounds actually desperate. Oh, man, is Sanghyuk gonna have fun with this.

"Well....do you have?" he asks, letting Hongbin entertain the idea that Sanghyuk would even consider switching.

Hongbin looks extremely troubled, like someone just killed his pet dog. "....N."

Sanghyuk cackles loudly, so loudly that everybody else pauses and stares at them weirdly. "You wish. Good luck~"

And with those parting words, he skips off happily, a new dose of evil maknae to add to his delight.