Although I had planned on just going to bed given how completely exhausted I was from the day’s activities, my promise to Baekhyun was plaguing my mind – so much so that when we reached Sehun’s floor and he stepped out, I found myself doing the same. Sehun shot me a questioning look but didn’t say anything. Perhaps he just thought that I was confused or stupid, or potentially both, and decided that he was too tired to help the delusional, lost girl this evening. I had visions of him leaving me in the hallway to roam all night.

Unlocking his door though, he stepped aside and let me enter first. I smiled in thanks quickly before ducking my head to scuttle under his arm and into the room. His apartment looked much the same as always – minus the destroyed vase, of course.

“You hungry?” he asked, muffling a yawn as he locked the door. It occurred to me as he did this that the two of us really had become very comfortable being in one another’s homes without it being weird or awkward – mostly. I was pretty sure I could just turn up at his at any time of day and he would feed me.

I shook my head and set down the cake box on his kitchen counter, not knowing where else to place it; it all depended whether he was a cake-in-fridge or cake-in-cupboard kind of guy.

Sehun stashed his jacket away in a rather organised looking cupboard before turning to me and lifting the bag in his hand, jangling it like it was a bag of kibble and I was a cat. “Want to open these, then?”

I had completely forgotten about the presents in the bag that we had taken with us to Sehun’s family’s house. With a little gasp, I practically ran over to where he was standing with the bag – perhaps the kibble and cats analogy wasn’t that abstract after all. I really wanted him to open his present. If he didn’t like it then I would clobber him on the head with it.

Sehun smirked a little as he lifted the bag a little higher, using my height – or lack of – to his advantage. “What was that?” he asked, tone teasing.

“Open it! Open it!” I chirped, jumping just high enough to grab the corner of the paper bag and drag it back down to my height - I’m not saying that Sehun helped me by lowering it, but I’m not saying he didn’t either. I snatched my dodgy wrapping paper out of the bag and dusted it off with pride, handing the paper bag back to him. I wanted him to sit down to open it so that I could take in his face properly. Also, because I was so confident in my present-choosing abilities, I didn’t want his legs to fall away from him in complete gratitude when he saw it.

“Sit before you open it,” I instructed, motioning for him to move into the living room. He grinned but didn’t move for a second before stuffing his hand into the paper bag and drawing out the other present still left in it. Again, this one was not well-wrapped and the shape was enough cause for someone to raise their eyebrow.

“You have to sit too,” he grinned, waggling the present in his hands.

I blinked for a moment. Pointing to myself, I quietly asked, “For me?”

He rolled his eyes like it was the most obvious thing in the world. “Come on! I want to see your face when you open it!” He directed me through to the living room before plonking himself down very close to me. If either of us sneezed then our thighs would touching. My theory went to hell when he suddenly turned to me, our legs – specifically our knees – banging together. While my spine was zapped at the contact, Sehun seemed totally unaffected by it until he looked up and say me staring at our legs.

“S-sorry,” he grumbled, rubbing the back of his neck and drawing away.

“It’s fine,” I swallowed, scooting a little closer again just so we weren’t sitting on polar opposite ends of the couch. He too moved closer after I did but he was more careful about keeping a little distance between us. Legs touching was clearly not something I was nonchalant about.

“Here,” he shyly said, holding out the rather oddly shaped present. Although I could be wrong, I was sure I saw a faint pink glow on his cheeks. I took it and handing him my own one; his face looked just as confused as mine felt. Ok, so my present wasn’t exactly a conventional shape either.

There was a little tinge of excitement growing within me when I began squeezing and prodding the present. I couldn’t remember the last time I felt this excited about a present before; it was like I was four years old all over again. From what I could tell, there was a large hard rectangle and a squidgy part as well

“Are you going to open it or just squeeze it until it pops?” Sehun asked, tone light.

Nodding towards the present in his hands that he was currently squeezing in a similar fashion to how I was doing it, I raised an eyebrow jokingly. “I think the pot may be calling the kettle black,” I remarked.

Tearing the wrapping paper from around the present in my hands, the first thing I saw was written in English and it read, ‘My First’… with the rest of the words hidden by more wrapping paper. Ripping the rest out of the way, my lips twitched up into a smile. My First Cookbook. It was an American one, probably because that’s where I was born. I wondered if he had had it shipped over for me. On the cover was a photograph was a rather ecstatic looking child holding a bowl and spoon in her hands, and flour dashed all over her face. The sight reminded me of when Sehun and I had fought with flour when he was making pizza. There was still something else in the wrapping paper, but I wanted to see Sehun’s face when he opened my one.

I looked up to see Sehun smiling warmly at me, present untouched on his lap. The sight made me freeze. He was so handsome in that moment; so relaxed. The way his eyes creased around the edges as his cheeks stretched themselves upwards to reach them made my heart stutter a little. He was smiling at me like it was the most natural thing in the world for my smile to merit his own.

Ripping my eyes from his face quickly, I took in a long but subtle breath of air before swallowing. Ignore it, Mira. Ignore it. This is just what friends feel. Clearing my throat, I – unintentionally, I must admit – let out a little squeak, “Open yours too.”

He nodded, looking down to the present that sat on his lap with his smile still lighting up his features. Squeezing it once more, he carefully tore the edges and but then stopped. "You finish your one first." The way he said half-cutely, half-poutily made it impossible for me to deny him his request.

When I unwrapped the other half of the present, I didn’t know whether to feel horror or amusement at what he had given me. In the end, I found my lips twitching upwards at the sight in front of me. I don’t know where he had it made, or what on earth had provoked him to do so, but on my lap sat a personalised pillow with a picture of the two of us one it. Now, although there weren’t many pictures of us together to choose from – I’d guess two, maybe three at most – what actually possessed him to get this one plastered onto a pillow was completely beyond me. It was the one that had been taken of us when we had accidentally bought the newlywed’s dishes; the one where my face looked like a chewed up rag as I stared at the dishes in horror. Sehun, by contrast, looked positively radiant in the picture – and now the pillow.

 I felt hostility building in me and I gritted my teeth and looked up to see Sehun throwing his head back, mouth agape, as he rolled around on the couch in a silent fit of laughter. He clutched onto his stomach like it was going to burst.

“You monster,” I said as I fought off the smirk and hit him with the pillow. And then again. And again. It was an odd sort of stress relief to hit him with the thing that he found to be so amusing.

Occasionally the odd gulp could be heard from him as he struggled for air around his manic laughter. I could tell that he’d been planning this one for a while and dreaded to even imagine how many hours he’d spent staring at the photo in his current uncontrollable fit of laughter. His laughter didn’t stop until I finally stopped hitting him and nodded to the present in his hand.

“Open your one.” If he was in such a fit of giggles over his own present, I wondered what he would do when he saw what mine was.

“What is it?” he asked as he tried to feel through the wrapping paper. I rolled my eyes at his stupid question.

“That’s sort of the point; you need to open it to find out.”

Shooting me an almost disparaging look, he tore away the wrapping paper. A gasp escaped him before he managed to clamp his hand onto his mouth to kill the sound. His eyes were once again turned up as he smiled beneath his hand. I knew he would appreciate the joke of this present. In his now cackling grasp sat a plush toy of Grumpy from Snow White and the Seven Dwarves. It was supposed to be a joke since he always called me ‘angry gnome’. Granted, Grumpy wasn’t technically a gnome, but I wasn’t going to quibble over the details and from the way Sehun was rolling around on the couch, it was obvious that he wasn’t either.

Once he had sobered up – about three minutes later – he dropped his hand from his mouth and held it up, pointing between me and the toy. “I’m going to call it Mira,” he announced with a mischievous grin.

I internally tsked and shot him my best are-you-kidding-me-right-now face. It seemed to just wash over him though as he continued to gleefully smile before holding the Grumpy doll up next to my face and snapping a picture of it on his phone with his free hand. Showing the picture to me, I saw that once again I had been photographed in a most unflattering way.

“Can’t even tell which one’s the real Mira, right?” Sehun prodded, probably trying to ignite some reaction from me for his future enjoyment.

“It already has a name,” I grumbled. “Grumpy. He’s called Grumpy.”

Sehun shrugged. “Maybe originally. But my one is called Mira.” After giving him one more hit with my pillow, I surrendered. Some people just couldn’t be reasoned with.

I didn’t go home after the present exchange, I didn’t really feel the need to. And Sehun didn’t ask me to either, so I didn’t really feel like I was overstepping the mark. On the contrary, he asked me if I wanted to watch a movie - since it was Christmas and all. How could I say no to the puppy eyes he fired my way as he hopped off the grab a jumbo sized bag of potato chips?

Wriggling my toes inside the oversized slippers he had provided me with, I scanned his rather limited collection of DVDs. It seemed like the boy had a thing for anime as well as the manga he had in his room, or at least used to. There were very few actual movies on the shelf at all.

“Pick one?” he practically sung as he returned with two glasses of juice and various snacks in this arms; a far cry from the one bag of potato chips he had initially disappeared to find.

Puffing out my cheeks hopelessly, I shook my head. “Not unless you fancy watching all of One Piece in an evening,” I tersely replied.

“That would take more than an evening.”

“And I doubt Luffy would appreciate us watching it at double speed,” I added, sliding the boxset back into its slot.

“You know Luffy?” he sounded both surprised and amused. Although I had seen very, very little of it, I did in fact know who Luffy was. It was sort of like a way of rebelling at my old school for someone to bring in a manga volume. Now, I must add that although I never did this, Luhan had done so and I had some memories of us sitting together with a few others when we were about twelve or so. I think the craze only lasted a month before the Pupil Council began to clock on. That was the closest I ever came to a cartoon, I think.

“Vaguely,” I honestly replied. “I used to read it when I was younger.” That still didn’t solve our problem though. Huffing a sigh, I swivelled around on my knees to face him again. “Not got a secret stash anywhere?”

He just shook his head. “Just stream something,” he told me, nodding towards a laptop that sat under a heap of used wrapping paper.

Switching the laptop on, I was met with a sign asking me for a password. “Password,” I told him as I was about to turn it around for him to type it in.

Sehun replied with a sigh, “Baekhyun_ate_everything2.”

I raised an eyebrow at the password as I keyed it in. Looking up at him, he simply shook his head. “Don’t let Baekhyun and Kai hang out in your house with your new laptop whist you go out to get you laundry. It doesn’t end well.” I stifled a giggle at the thought of the events that must have occurred on the day in question.

After much hemming and hawing, we finally decided to watch Marley and me. Sehun liked dogs; I liked dogs. Sehun like funny; I liked funny. Sehun liked the film; I, well, I hadn’t actually seen it before, but I was sure that I would.

“Are you not putting subs on?” Sehun asked with a raised eyebrow as I hit play on a non-subbed version.

“How good’s your English?” I asked in English - call it a test.

“It’s fine, but it’s easier with subtitles,” he replied in perfect English. So I guess that despite not attending a prestigious school, the fact that he was the heir to such a huge company hadn’t excused him from language practice. Clicking up a different version, I sat the laptop on the table between us and hit play.

The film was amusing, I must admit. Despite my liking of dogs, I had never owned one, and watching this film made me almost glad that this was the case; the dog was a complete tearaway. It would be my guess that if Marley had been born as a human, then he would have been one of Baekhyun’s cousins.

Sehun too seemed to enjoy the film; considering the amount he chuckled and pointed to screen whist looking at me as if to make sure I also got the joke. It was only when we were about halfway through and nothing much funny had happened in the last wee while that I felt a large object plonk onto my shoulder. With a little jump, I looked towards it only to see Sehun’s head resting there, a gentle and almost silent snore escaping his parted lips. Trying to relax from my tensed position, I found myself wondering how the two of us had come to be sitting so close together since neither of us were in our starting positions. It seemed that we had just sort of gravitated towards the screen in the centre of the couch.

I watched Sehun’s hair bristle lightly as he slowly inhaled and exhaled. Carefully lifting my hand, I hovered it above his head for a moment as if deciding if what I was planning to do was actually a good idea or not. In the end, the slightly less-rational side of my brain won and my hand touched the tips of his now slightly floppy hairstyle. It was