Bomi is making a scene because it is her turn this year to read the darn Christmas story! Instead–

“Grim! You’re our special guest, why don’t you do the reading?” Yongguk says, snatching the book before it even reaches Bomi’s hands.

Two minutes later, she stalks off from the living room to mope in her bedroom, grimacing at the turn of events.

“What’s the matter with you?” Himchan’s voice reaches her before his body does.

Bomi doesn’t answer, pulling the duvet further over her head when she hears the footsteps stop beside her bed. Then claws grabbed her duvet attempting to yank it out of her grip. Bomi groans and sits up.

“What’s the matter with me? They’re all fawning over you,” she grumbles, not looking at Himchan.

Himchan goes silent. She doesn’t know what he’s doing and just hopes he will her alone. Of course he doesn’t.

“But that’s what you wanted,” he says slowly, like he’s speaking to a baby, “Isn’t that the whole point of all this?”

Bomi stares down at her lap. “Yeah, but…”

“But what?”

“But now they like you more than they like me,” she mumbles, turning around to finally glower at him.

It surprises her because he looks a lot more concerned than she thought he would be. Honestly, Bomi just thought he is annoyed with her like everybody on the entire planet. Well, maybe he is a little.

Himchan sighs, sitting down next to her. She has the urge to push him off but fights it. Quietly he says, “I don’t even want to read the stupid story.”

Bomi shifts, crosses her legs and arms. “I don’t care.”

“Fine,” he says, the sarcastic tone back in his voice, “Then I’m gonna read the stupid story.”

“Fine.” She pushes him off the bed.

“Fine!”

:::::::

Twas the night before Christmas, when all through the house
Not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse;
The stockings were hung by the chimney with care,
In hopes that St. Nicholas soon would be there…

:::::::

It is night time. Everybody is getting ready for bed.

“Okay. Do we really need to leave cookies for Santa this year?” Bomi grumbles as she stalks into the kitchen to find Hyosung flirting with ‘Grim’.

She deliberately shoves them apart and pretends not to notice the way Hyosung glares at her. Himchan rests his elbow on Bomi’s shoulder because he is a jerk.

Hyosung quirks her eyebrows.

“But what if Santa’s hungry?”

Bomi rolls her eyes and Himchan has the decency to chuckle. Before she can stalk away, Youngjae flies into the kitchen and shoves a piece of Christmassy paper in her face.

“Make sure you finish this before you go to bed!” Youngjae cries as Bomi takes the paper.

“Christmas wish list? Aren’t we too old for this already?” Bomi says because she is a party pooper.

Youngjae snorts and then cross his arms over his chest. “But how is Santa going to know what you want?”

Ten minutes later, Bomi finds herself sitting on the couch in the living room near the Christmas tree. Himchan is beside her and she squints at him when he picks up the milk and cookies that are supposed to be for Santa.

“You can’t eat that!” she shrieks.

Everybody has gone upstairs and there are only them here now. Himchan arches his eyebrow and teases, “What’s it gonna look like if Santa doesn’t eat his cookies?”

Bomi elbows him as he begins to munch on Santa’s cookies. She decides to concentrate on her wish list.

“I hope you’re not hoping much from Santa this year,” Himchan drips sarcasm into his Santa’s glass of milk, “This abduction thing pretty much lands you on the naughty list.”

Bomi shoves her paper at Himchan and throws him the pen. “Shut up Grim. You gotta do one too.”

And she leaves Himchan there to go fetch herself a new piece of paper. She sees an uncorked bottle of wine on the pantry table and looks around. Nobody’s here. She had never been much of a drinker but should she drink it? It’s the holidays after all. Bomi decides to take two glasses and the bottle into the sitting room.

Himchan raises his eyebrows at the bottle of wine but does not decline the offer when Bomi fills both their glasses with the drink.

After two or three sips, Bomi already starts to feel a bit off so she puts the glass back down and stops drinking. She’s got three things on her Christmas list so far when Himchan begins to speak again.

“I’m gonna ask for a fully loaded SUV,” Himchan says, smirking as he scribbles it down.

Bomi looks up and stifles a snort. “Interesting,” she says, frowning a little. “I’m gonna ask for an end to global warming.”

She sticks out her tongue at him and then scrawls that down onto the list too.

“What. You think my list is superficial?” says Himchan.

“I dunno, lemme see it.”

“No—”

But Bomi already manages to snatch the list out of Himchan’s hands.

“You want a past machine?” she says, confused.

“I like to cook,” he answers defensively.

When Bomi doesn’t answer, Himchan says, “What?” and snatches his paper back.

“Well, don’t you want something more… meaningful?” she asks quietly, looking down at her list.

Himchan gives Bomi a sarcastic smile when she stares at him.

“Why?” he says, “I have everything I want.” He shrugs, turning away, still smiling. “Great job, great life, beautiful girlfriend…”

Bomi feels something tug at her, feeling slightly sick, she looks away as Himchan trails off, like he suddenly realises he’d said something he shouldn’t.

He clears his throat and changes the subject. “C’mon. Lemme see yours!”

He snatches Bomi’s list before she can react.

Himchan starts to read off, “Tiki lights, Chinese teapot, stop disappointing– everyone…” he slowly turns to look at Bomi. She can feel the embarrassment creeping up as she tries inside her pullover. “Come on. I’m not sure that’s true.”

Bomi snorts and turns away. “Believe me, it’s true.”

A pause.

“Look. I’m sure your parents are good people, they love you. And so do you friends,” he says gently.

Bomi fidgets and doesn’t dare look up.

“I just,” she starts, “I just wish… for once, they’d look at me, like the way they look at you.”

“They do.”

“No, they don’t,” Bomi grumbles and gets up from her seat. She walks away to the window beside the Christmas tree, feeling sad all of a sudden. “The best Christmas I had was when I was ten. There was this huge snow storm that year and the town cancelled the figure skating competition. I was so upset. But then my parents shovelled snow out of the backyard, my dad hosed water to make ice.” Bomi drones on, leaning her head against the cold window, watching her breath fog up the glass. “My mum puts lights in all the trees in the backyard. It was so beautiful. So quiet.” She sighs. “That Christmas eve, I skated my little routine with my parents wathcing. It was like I was the only person the whole world…” She smiles, closing her eyes as the memories return. She feels like crying. She doesn’t know when she’ll ever be that happy again. “Himchan. They were so proud of me.”

Bomi opens her eyes again and she’s staring out at the darkness, her breath had fogged up any vision from view. She begins to move away.

“Somewhere along the way, things changed,” she grumbles, “I just… wish they still thought that way about me, you know?”

Slowly, she feels somebody trudges toward her from the back. She turns around and finds Himchan standing there, only a few inches away, watching her, his dark eyes gentle and there is an emotion in it that Bomi cannot quite place. He gives her this sad smile. Bomi doesn’t know what it means.

“You know,” he says quietly, his breath brushing the top of her head. “I think… parents want the best for their children, but sometimes, they don’t know what that is.”

She stares at him for a while, and he watches her almost without blinking. Something stirs in her stomach. And then she remembers that Himchan isn’t even hers. Who does she even have that is truly on her side?

The thought stings, and she forces a smile before dropping her head and walking away.

:::::::

Morning arrives with nothing new under the sun. It’s Christmas and everybody is excited.

Bomi is just tired.

“Presents are at four, dinner will be at seven!” Hana yells from the stairs after their breakfast.

As Bomi starts to put on a scarf, Himchan shows up beside her, tugging on his coat.

“You know, about last night,” Bomi says quietly, “I didn’t mean to get personal…”

She looks up to find Himchan staring at something over her head. She turns around to see what it is and groans.

Hyosung is making a show stretching her body by the dining table.

“What?” Himchan comes back to his senses too little too late.

“Oh gods, never mind,” Bomi says, stalking off.

Himchan quickly follows. “Why?!”

“Oh no, it’s great! You’re just checking out Daehyun’s girlfriend!” Bomi grumbles and tries to shake him off as she makes to the front door. “I mean, why wouldn’t you be! Of course you are! Ugh.”

“You’re jealous?” Himchan says, sounding amused.

Bomi swings the door open and slams it in his face. “I am not!”

“Are too!”

“Am not!”

:::::::

They are hiking up the hills and the snow is falling. Bomi is trying to get away from Himchan and Himchan is trying to struck a conversation with Bomi.

“So, what do you do for fun?” he asks.

“For fun?”

“Yeah,” he says, “Like, what are you interested in?”

Bomi shrugs and decides to be as boring as possible.

“I paint.”

“Seriously? What kind of painting?” Himchan sounds surprised.

“Portraits mostly. Impressionists stuff—”

Himchan cuts her off, “Oh, I know what impressionist is. Like Alice Neal?”

Bomi whips around, surprised. Himchan almost walks into her.

“I love Alice Neal!” she says, completely forgetting she’s supposed to be angry. “You know Alice Neal?”

Himchan knocks her on the head and then begins to walk again. “You shouldn’t jump to conclusions about people.”

A pause as Bomi follows.

“So, what do you do?” Bomi asks, realising she doesn’t actually know him. “What job do you do?”

Himchan suddenly looks grim. Slowly, he says, “I actually studies architecture. For a while, I thought I was going to go out there on my own…”

“Why didn’t you?”

“It’s risky…” he says, shrugging, “I didn’t have money.”

Bomi frowns at this. “What about your parents? Wouldn’t they help you get started?”

He snorts and begins to laugh dryly. “They would if they had enough. They were both school teachers.” And then he stops walking, turning to look at her. “Died in a car accident when I was nine.”

A pause.

She feels her heart drop.

“Oh. Sorry,” she says, looking away. Then something dawns to her. “Wait. But you said you grew up well off!”

Himchan rolls his eyes. “No. You did. I lived with my grandfather in a one bedroom apartment until I was eighteen. I worked my way through college mowing lawns for the city!”

Bomi doesn’t know what to think. She’d been assuming all these things about Himchan and now to find out everything she thought of him isn’t true at all.

“Must’ve been tough,” she doesn’t know what else to say.

But Himchan shakes his head and grabs her by the shoulder, leading them up the snowy path. “No, it actually helped me, I think. I learned at an early age that we’re all on our own.”

:::::::

They are now back inside the cabin for an hour and are boring each other out while playing chess.

“Hey, I want milk to go with these cookies,” Himchan mumbles, staring at his empty glass of milk.

“Oh cool.” Bomi perks up. “Me too!”

As they walk into the kitchen, bickering, Youngjae and Jieun decide to interrupt them.

“Oh oh!” Youngjae smirks and points up at the archway over their heads.

Bomi snaps her head up and blood drains from her when her eyes land on the mistletoe hanging from the arch frame. She stares, horrified, at Himchan and then turns to her friends.

“Oh uh, we’re… we’re not into public display of affection!” she blurts out.

She can feel Himchan’s stare boring into her side profile. He mutters a sarcastic, “Right.”

She shoots him a glare.

“C’mon! Don’t be such a prude,” Youngjae says, elbowing Bomi.

“Yeah,” Jieun says, budging Bomi to move closer to Grim, “Sorry. We have no choice. It’s mistletoe!”

Bomi stumbles awkwardly and begins to fidget. She looks up to find Himchan watching her with an unreadable expression. He isn’t being helpful in the slightest. He should be arguing with them, why isn’t he?

Before Bomi can come up with anything else, Himchan grabs her by the shoulders, bends down and kisses her. Bomi freezes and waits for Himchan to pull away. When he doesn’t, she begins to panic and breaks the kiss just when Jieun begins to sing the wedding march.

“Hey!” Bomi says, chasing after Jieun.

happy new year, peeps. this should've already finish, but anway, hope you still enjoy it c: