Deck the Halls with Boughs of Folly
Deck the Halls with Boughs of Folly
OT12; kris/suho, kyungsoo/jongin, luhan/sehun, baekhyun/chanyeol (if you squint)
PG-13
Comedy, fluff, what
~6k
a/n: this was for the sncj secret santa 2013 :D posted 6 months late and even with the extra 6 months, i haven't beta-ed it. ignore the typos and stuff pls <3
Joonmyun is hardly ever the first to wake up. But on this special occasion, on the 24th of December, he was determined to make it right. Exo was on their well-deserved break after Growl promotions and were given a few weeks off for the Christmas and New Years break.
2012’s Christmas was nothing special since most members left back to their hometowns to spend Christmas with family. But this year, Joonmyun managed to snag Christmas break for group bonding and left new years for family.
“AYO EXO. GOGO EXO. GET UP EXO. IT’S GROUP BONDING TIME, EXO. UP WE GO EXO.” He bashed through the dorm armed with his obnoxious red speakerphone and wake up gong, which was gifted by Lee Soo Man at his coronation as ‘Suho’.
Down the hall, Yi Fan’s face twitches from the disturbance that is Joonmyun and his yelling. He blindly reaches for his phone to check the time and is not-so-pleasantly surprised to see it was only 6am. He breathes deeply and slowly unclenches his fists.
“Joonmyun. IF YOU SAY EXO ONE MORE TIME I WILL MAKE SURE THAT IT IS YOUR LAST WORD.” Yi Fan’s voice echoes from down the hall.
Joonmyun flinches from Yi Fan’s not-so-empty threats and decides to leave his room last. He stomps loudly to the first room down the hall housing Luhan, Jongin and Sehun.
He’s not surprised to see Luhan stretched out on Sehun’s bed, arms draped loosely on the taller boy’s waist. Jongin continues to sleep like a log even with the racket outside the door.
“Jongin,” he whispers while rocking the younger boy’s shoulder back and forth. “Jongin-ah. It’s time to wake u-.” As quick as it came, a hand slapped away Joonmyun’s careful hands with a loud smack.
Joonmyun stumbles back, face aghast with despair. He reaches forward for another attempt at waking the lead dancer.
“Ggamjong. Jongin-ie.” He coos into the dancer’s ear, earning another annoyed shove to the head. Joonmyun huffs before shoving his hands under the baby blue bed sheets and sticks his long fingers into the spaces between Jongin’s ribs and tickles him into consciousness.
The 19 year old snaps into reality with a pained shriek.
“HYUNG WHAT WAS THAT FO-“ he starts but is rudely interrupted by a pillow to the face courtesy of the ever-graceful Sehun, who was glaring groggily at his band mate.
“SEHUN. MY NOSE. OH MY GOD. IT’S MORE CROOKED NOW, I CAN FEEL IT.” Jongin cries with his hands cupping his nose delicately.
“Don’t worry. It can’t look any uglier than it already was.”
Jongin lets out a battle cry and leaps from his bed to fiercely battle Sehun with pillows in both hands. But also successfully crushing Luhan who was still sleeping soundly on Sehun’s double bed.
Suddenly, a hand grips Sehun and Jongin’s ankles and slams them down to the floor. Joonmyun stands there, mouth open in a wide gape as he sees Luhan arise from his beauty sleep. Face ashen with anger.
Sehun freezes in his ministrations to Jongin’s hair while Jongin just whimpers and attempts to crawl away but is held back by a strong grip.
“Se. Hun. Jong. In. I hope you’re ready from some piece of hell,” Luhan says with his eyes still glued together with sleep. “Which one of you wants to get punished first this time?” He asks with no malice laced in his words.
Sehun shoves Jongin forward and the older boy lets out a protest.
“SEHUN CALM YOUR BOYFRIEND. HE’S GONNA BURN THIS DORM DOWN.”
“YOU STARTED IT, YOU FIX IT. WAIT. JOONMYUN HYUNG STARTED IT. KILL HIM FIRST, LUHAN.”
Three pairs of eyes snap in the direction of the frozen leader in the doorway. Luhan’s hand slowly releases the maknae line, and makes his way towards the younger male.
Joonmyun’s eyes widen to the size of saucers, raising his arms in surrender and slowly backs out of the dim room. He decides that LuSeKai are awake enough to his standards.
The leader opens the next door and is greeted with the stench of smelly socks and rotting fruit. He tries not to gag but evidently fails as he slams the door shut, gasping for air. He drops his instruments and paces to the bathroom to grab a mask (or two).
Re-armed and ready for his wake up mission, he bursts into the shared room, runs to the window, separates the curtains, and conveniently ignores the obvious pasta stains on the green fabric.
Yixing groans from his blanket cocoon and rolls out onto the cluttered floor, aimlessly waving his legs and arms around. Joonmyun grabs his arms from nearly hitting a half full can of coke lying haphazardly on the floor and picks it up with two pinkies with a face of disgust painted on his face. He puts his wake up mission on hold as he empties the overfilling trashcan into the communal bin.
After carefully mapping a safe pathway to the floored Yixing, he tugs cautiously at his outstretched arm, making sure to keep a safe distance away from his kicking legs.
“Yixing-ah. Wake up. We have to have a meeting,” he whispers into his ear, air tickling the Chinese male’s neck and creating a whirlwind of kicks and punches. Joonmyun curses and jumps out of the way only to stumble, landing on top of a week old cup-a-soup and Yixing’s chest. He lets out a groan and cracks open his eyes, before shutting them swiftly after an eyeful of Joonmyun’s face.
“Urgh it’s too early for your bare face. Come back and wake me up with BB cream on.” Yixing mumbles in slurred Korean slinging a thin arm across his eyes dramatically.
Joonmyun lets out an indignant sound before forcefully tugging the other male up from the floor and shoving him out the door.
Joonmyun takes a deep breath and hikes slowly up to the queen sized bed; he tugs at Chanyeol’s lanky arms and pulls them from Baekhyun’s thin waist. He silently shifts to Baekhyun’s side of the bed and waves a hand tentatively across the space in front of his face. After making sure there was no reaction, he loops his arms around the smaller boy’s chest, pulls him into a sitting position, and soothingly wakes him up.
Except that was what he was planning to do before his hair was violently tugged within centimeters of life by petite hands. He lets a strangled scream and frantically tries to loosen the fingers gripping his precious hair.
“BAEKHYU-EIRHGIEUR. MY HAIR. LET GO.”
“Ye who dares disturb thy slumber shall receive a fitting punishment.” He mumbles with eyes still slammed shut.
“GROUP MEETING. SOON. CHRISTMAS. OW CHANYEOL HELP ME,” Joonmyun chokes out with hands still desperately trying to loosen the hand around his unstyled hair.
The sleeping giant next to the prison guard shifts in his sleep and mumbles a deep, sleep infused “you deserve it” before flopping back face first on the slightly yellowing sheets.
Joonmyun lets out a stifled sob and surrenders to Baekhyun’s iron fist.
“Wh-what do you want? Free bubble tea? Free lunch? ANYTHING.”
Baekhyun slowly unfolds his eyes and gives Joonmyun a piercing look.
“I want free reign of this household for a week.”
“B-but.” Baekhyun tugs at the hair once, “OUCH. OKAY OKAY. FINE.”
Baekhyun lets out a victorious chuckle before releasing the strands of hair from his hands and lifts himself from the warm bed with a pained groan. Chanyeol follows not long after with an I-told-you-so look pointed towards the leader.
Joonmyun picks himself and what’s left of his dignity off the floor and makes his way to the adjacent room. He breathes a sigh of relief when he finds the room spick and span. Tao already on the floor doing his morning stretches and Minseok starting to fold his blankets into a neat rectangle on his bed. Kyungsoo was still sprawled on his bed with limbs threatening to spill over the edges. But a simple brush of his face brings him into consciousness, arms and legs flailing almost knocking out Minseok who had made his rounds to tidying his display of fan art and letters.
“Group meeting in 10! Lounge room!”
Tao swats at him with his wushu stick and Joonmyun slinks out of the room back to his bedroom.
“YI FAN. JONGDAE GET UP. YOU’RE THE LAST TO GET OFF YOUR BUTTS.”
Jongdae just ignores his exasperated leader’s yells and flops back into his fluffy blanket. Joonmyun’s mouth downturns and the corners almost reach his chin.
He stalks to Yi Fan’s bed and latches an arm onto the broad shoulders. Joonmyun tries to ignore the lingering feeling of fear before shoving the thought to the back of his mind and ruffles the other leader’s hair, earning him a muffled grumble.
Joonmyun doesn’t even get a squeak out before he is roughly pulled into the warmth of Yi Fan’s bed by strong arms, finding himself sandwiched between the wall and a warm chest. He resists the urge to snuggle and protests in soft squeaks.
“Yi Fan. It’s time to get up. I need to hold a meeting.” He hopes the taller male can hear his pout through his shuteyes.
“Shh. I’m the Other Leader,” Yi Fan grunts with a thick voice with his lips pressing at the back of Joonmyun’s neck while winding his arms around the other’s waist. “And The Other Leader says to sleep longer.”
Joonmyun rolls over to face Yi Fan and brushes his lips just close enough to feel the faint expel of air on his cheeks.
“If you don’t get up, you won’t get to hug me for a week.”
Yi Fan’s eyes snap open and he jumps from his bed, rolling Joonmyun out in the process. He manages to get a foot stuck in a corner and stumbles haphazardly towards the bathroom.
Jongdae lets out a groan and whines about the PDA in the dorm and trudges out of the room, leaving Joonmyun’s exhausted body on the floor.
-
“So. Finally we are all gathered here in one room.”
“It’s only 9am. And I should be sleeping for another good three hours. If there isn’t a good reason to this, I’ll pee on everything you love. And then burn it.”
Jongdae can feel a severe burning feeling at the back of his head and a quick glance confirms the M leader glaring with all his might. Jongdae lets out a whimper and swivels back to the front.
“AS I WAS SAYING,” Joonmyun chirps while sticking both his thumbs up at Yi Fan, “We are going to have a Christmas party. Here. In the dorm!”
The reaction he receives is much more than he was expecting. Woops fill the room and even Sehun’s face makes some kind of movement.
Joonmyun’s face relaxes and his shoulders visibly relax.
“Joonmyun, you really think we’d shoot down your ideas? You’ve obviously done this for us.” Luhan says with an impish smile, facing the leader dutifully.
“Luhan you were going to smother me with a pillow this morning. I don’t think you should talk.”
“No one is allowed to wake me up. Not even the Leadership.”
“Luhan when was there a Leadership here?” Yi Fan butts into the conversation with furrowed brows.
“Woah. Duizhang. Calm the brows. They’re scaring me.” Jongdae pitches in, leg dangling precariously on the sofa arm. Yi Fan makes a move to strangle him. Except he can’t because M needs their main vocalist.
“BaCK oN TaSk pLEaSe,” Joonmyun yells over his speakerphone. Yi Fan freezes his ministrations to Jongdae and sits back innocently, opening his eyes to imitate a cute puppy.
“Stop that,” Minseok says, his small hand sliding down Yi Fan’s face in an attempt to wipe the ugly off. “You look like some autistic dog.”
“GUYS.”
“Sorry.” They all chorus in some kind of harmony. Yi Fan’s face sympathetic.
Joonmyun sighs in reverence and wheels out his whiteboard used to plan out who goes into which van. Except this time it’s been decorated within inches of its life with tinsel and neat letters in red, green and white.
The noise dies down at the wheeled monstrosity and Yi Fan plasters a tight smile on his face and slowly untangles his arms from around Minseok’s neck.
“First of all, I know we’re all rookies with varying financial conditions so I won’t make everyone buy something for every member. Just pick a specific person you want to buy for to save money and time! The present doesn’t have to be expensive!! It could be a car or a piece of lined paper.”
-
“Kyungsoo.” Kyungsoo looks up with his wide eyes, preparing for the blow. “You’re doing the cooking with Jongin.”
The air becomes stagnant and eleven pairs of eyes are fixed on the leader’s face. Tao’s body seizes up faster than it has since the sasaengs recorded him singing in the shower.
“Joonmyun. Honey. We just debuted. I’d like to see our second anniversary.” Yi Fan pleads to his partner while stroking a hyperventilating Tao. “Plus. Tao isn’t ready to revisit that time when Jongin thought it’d be a good idea to be a good idea to smear vegemite over Tao’s chocopie.”
“Shhh. It’ll be fine. Kyungsoo will keep him in check.”
Yi fan’s eyes the other male cautiously but drops the topic, turning his attention back to the youngest in M.
Joonmyun smiles and looks back to his gleaming whiteboard.
“RIGHT! Next is the décor! Baekhyun. Chanyeol. GREEN! RED! WHITE! SPARKLES! EVERYWHERE! You have $20 to spend. Go crazy!”
“TWENTY????????????????????” The two exclaimed, pointing randomly in the air to punctuate their sentence.
“Was it necessary for so many question marks?” Yixing says while swatting at the air with an annoyed face.
Joonmyun pushes the three-way banter as background noise and continues with his jobs list. In the end, Jongdae and Yixing are grocery shopping while Minseok and Tao are decorating the outside of the house.
Luhan and Sehun were stuck with cleaning which earned plenty complaints and not just from the two of them. Minseok foresees disaster in many aspects of this plan but lets it be, looking forward to that I-told-you-so moment he’s been saving up since pre-debut.
“Aaand Kris and I are going to be the supervisors.”
Kris squeals (in a manly fashion) and hugs the leader. 10 pairs of legs make it to Joonmyun’s stomach.
-
“Hey. Yeol.” Baekhyun coos with a suspicious look on his face. Chanyeol flicks his head to face the smaller male, expecting anything but a stream of fake snow hitting his face.
“ARGH. EW I ATE SOME.”
“Aw yeol, the gangly abominable snowman.”
“Oh yeah?”
“YEAH.”
“COME HERE YOU BRAT.”
Crashes and sounds of furniture hitting the floor are heard throughout the dorm. Yi Fan and Joonmyun try to intervene but end up inching away from the white mess left on the floor belonging to Baekhyun and Chanyeol. In the background, protests are heard from Luhan and Sehun.
-
“So how much vodka do I put in this?” Jongin asks with the vodka bottle poised over a measuring cup.
The recipe says three cups but I think that’s a bit excessive, especially since everyone here is a lightweight. I don’t want vomit in the house on the 26th.”
“Yessir. Two. Cups. One. Two- oops fuck”
Kyungsoo turns around to check on the pot over the stove but Jongin’s face moulded into one of nonchalance expertly, diverting the attention to Kyungsoo’s perfectly cut carrots for dip.
“Don’t you trust me? I am king of the kitchen.”
Kyungsoo rolls his eyes and turns back to his cutting board.
Meanwhile, Jongin desperately spoons as much vodka into the sink without acting suspicious.
“It’s okay. They’ll never notice.”
-
“This sucks balls. I’m texting Jongin.” Sehun groans while picking up old ramyun containers littered throughout Baekhyun, Chanyeol and Yixing’s room. He drops his plastic bag and flicks through his contacts to Jongin’s name.
Sehun: If I see another piece of noodle, I am going to thread it through Chanyeol’s nose.
Jongin: LMAO. The leader got you this time. This is why you suck up to him.
Sehun: I’m sorry I’m not a natural ass kisser.
Jongin: You’re just jealous I don’t have to clean up Chanyeol’s shit.
Sehun: At least I’m paired with a person who likes me back.
Jongin: ShuT uP yOU little sHIt
Sehun: Make me.
A battle call erupts from the busy kitchen despite loud protests from Chef Kyungsoo.
“COME HERE MAKNAE.” Jongin screams wielding a wooden spoon covered in cake batter.
Furniture is dodged and rampaged past by the two teenagers like kids on a sugar high.
Sehun clips the side of the monstrous green coffee table (courtesy of Yi Fan) and tumbles to the floor, landing on an equally ugly pillow (courtesy of Yi Fan, again.) Sehun pats it affectionately and mentally thanks it for cushioning his fall. His relief is short lived as he is suddenly thrust into sudden darkness caused by the looming figures of two males, namely Luhan and Jongin.
“Oh Se Hun.” Luhan says, eyes narrowed into thin slits sharp enough to cut stale bread,
“As in oh, Sehun or Oh Sehun?” Sehun meekly grins at his boyfriend from his spot on the floor.
“As in if I don’t see the floor sparkling in an hour, you are banned from our bedroom and don’t expect a special Christmas present, if you know what I mean.”
Silence fills the room and “ooooo’s” echo (but it’s just Jongin who ends up cracking up from Sehun’s face.)
“Kim Jongin. Don’t think you’re exempted from this punishment.”
Jongin’s laughter dies down to a whimper and lugs his body into the kitchen to get a cloth, not risking his life to protest.
“This is all Joonmyun hyung’s fault.” Sehun mutters while scrubbing batter off the (ugly) green couch. “This. Is. War.”
“JEON JAENG I YA. KYEOB JAENG I YA.”
“SHUT UP JONGIN.”
-
Christmas day comes in a flurry of movement and screams of anguish of
“THE BLUE TACK ISN’T STICKING” and “THAT’S NOT SUGAR JONGIN”. But waking up on the 25th of December 2013 makes Joonmyun smile because all twelve members are together this year, and the chances of a normal Christmas is all but wiped out.
What doesn’t make him smile, however, is how the dorm looks. It looks like Santa came and threw up on all the furniture, only missing the sparkling clean floor. Not to mention the infinite amount of mistletoe tactlessly duct taped to the ceiling. He can’t complain much due to the fact he was occupied in another room with his other supervisor doing “supervisor stuff”.
Joonmyun sits up in his bed and realizes there’s a missing body next to him. He wanders out of his room, padding down the clean hallways, narrowly missing the protruding candy cane tower Chanyeol and Baekhyun engineered. How did they do all this with just $20? His mind flicks quickly back to yesterday, when his wallet went missing… Those brats. He thinks while taking the last corner into the living room, I’m going to kill-
“MERRY CHRISTMAS JOONMYUN.” Ten voices chorus at the top of their lungs, confetti showering the still sleepy leader.
A hysterical laugh bursts out of his lips and a wave of emotion washes over the leader.
“Guys… this is so sweet.” Joonmyun manages to blubber after frantically wiping his eyes free of tears.
Joonmyun I know we’re in private but your face is so ugly when you cry. Please don’t.” Kyungsoo utters from his space on the (ugly) couch.
Joonmyun nods, desperately trying to curb his tears.
“If you stop crying, you can see what we’ve done to the dorm!” Baekhyun and Minseok chime in. It’s not long until Joonmyun looks around and notices the dorm looks different from yesterday. It looks worse. If yesterday it was Santa’s up chuck, today’s looks like the whole elf community joined in.
“Where’s Luhan?” Joonmyun asks after his crying bout.
“You know how he is in the morning. Didn’t want to spend Christmas headless.” Sehun replies.
“You’re all dead when he wakes up then anyway.”
“Whyyy…?” They all look at Joonmyun in question who just points to the mess on the walls and on the floor, “oh my god.”
Fake snow littered the once clean floor and a makeshift snowman was found on the floor made up of balled up pieces of toilet paper. Tinsel lined the couches and the television was painted red, green and white. The only thing that didn’t change was the number of mistletoe stuck on the ceiling. He’s not sure if he should be relieved or not.
-
By lunch o’clock the dorm looks like a dorm again after Luhan wakes up and screams bloody murder. The TV is cleaned back to its former shining glory and the snowman has been placed in the toilet in case of emergencies. The twelve all leave the dorm dressed in hideous sweaters with decals of snowmen and reindeer printed on the front (and sometimes the back) in search of a present for their chosen person.
At around 5pm, after everyone stumbles back from shopping for presents, with Minseok and Tao still cackling at their decorations on the outside of the house: a huge banner saying “MERRY KRIS- MAS” with a very large photo of Yi Fan’s head and a speech bubble screaming “HOHOHO.” The obnoxiously loud red paint didn’t dry properly so it ran down the paper and turned into something more like it came out of a horror movie.
Kyungsoo rubs at his temples and reassures himself that he’s not going to have to clean that up. But he’s always wrong about that. The twelve of them shed their coats and make wet puddles (from the snow, but Jongin is quick to accuse Minseok of his sweaty feet) as they step into their warm and dry dorm.
Everyone drops their presents under the bauble infested Christmas tree and sprint to take the first shower. Except Yixing already beat them all and instead of putting his present under the tree, he left it outside the locked bathroom door with a sticky note saying: “Better luck next time, suckers. P.S put my present under the tree pls.”
-
Yixing enjoys his showers. He enjoys them more when he’s alone. So when he hears the familiar ‘click’ of the once locked door, he knows that this may turn out badly.
It’s in between shampoo and conditioner that the door bursts open with the perpetrator (no other than Chanyeol) holding the trusty screwdriver and pencil. The (monstrous) grin he sports makes Yixing want to punch it off.
The shower suddenly becomes somewhat like a public bathroom as all twelve team up to wash each other’s backs and take bathroom selcas.
Chanyeol and Jongdae create Santa beards using the body wash and laugh mercilessly when they see Yi Fan struck down by the cleanser getting caught in his eyes, trying desperately to wash it out. Tao happily leaps from person to person with his special panda washcloth, claiming it has magic powers to help back pain and neck aches.
Minseok and Baekhyun take incriminating photos to use later as leverage against their fellow members.
-
“I don’t think you know how much I hate all of you.”
“Aw Xing-Xing,” Jongdae says with his head caught in a headlock after hiding Kris’ clothing behind the toilet. “Deep down inside, you know all this pent up hatred is really just pure, unadulterated love.”
Yixing shoots him a dirty look and goes back to setting up the dinner table.
Tao whines about how scratchy the sweaters are and switches back to his black hoodie, hiding behind the couch to scare his unsuspecting victims: Joonmyun and Baekhyun.
Tao’s high pitch shrieks of laughter can be heard from the kitchen where Kyungsoo and Jongin are busy finishing off the last touches for dinner.
“Is the egg nog ready, Jongin?” Kyungsoo inquires over his shoulder while laying out the cold meats onto a plate.
Jongin glances nervously at the yellow concoction in the pot and nods an affirmative to his chief chef.
-
Dinner is served and the twelve sit along their super long dining table with food lined along the table. The roast chicken is flawless and both leaders cut the chicken to symbolize the start of the feast. The noise quickly escalates and everyone joins into a huge muddle of sound.
“Why do I have two knives?” Jongdae squints at his two pieces of cutlery. Yixing just laughs with a piece of chicken hanging out of his mouth at Jongdae’s predicament.
“Karma probably.”
“Funny, I didn’t think karma got renamed to Yixing,” Jongdae quips, pointing a piece of pineapple at the offender stuck on his two knives.
Joonmyun quickly saves the day by replacing one of Jongdae’s knives with a fork and welcomes the eggnog. Jongin chuckles nervously before pouring his eggnog into everyone’s festive red cups.
Dinner ends when the pudding comes out and everybody files out into the living room where the Christmas tree and couches are situated. Sehun plops down on the orange bean bag and pulls Luhan down with him, earning a light smack on his arm. Jongdae openly gags at the gesture and protests at the PDA by lying lengthwise along the couch, blocking anyone from sitting there.
Chanyeol laughs at his attempt to claim the couch before calling a group sandwich and promptly piles on top of the protesting Jongdae. A few kicks to the stomach and a whole lot of pain later, Jongdae relents and is squished to the arm of the (hideous) green couch, almost sitting on Tao’s lap.
Suddenly, bells start ringing and the lights flick off, raising alarms in the eyes of many (but really just Tao and Sehun) and Joonmyun steps out of the hall, decked in Christmas lights and Santa suit, complete with a beard.
“HOHOHO. IT’S PRESENT TIME!”
Woops fills the air and Chanyeol beat boxes in time to Joonmyun’s strides, causing Luhan to clap like a retarded seal. Sehun reaches up to push his jaw back to its rightful place,: connected to his face.
“FIRST PRESENT, FROM JONGIN. TO… ME.” Joonmyun’s eyes light up as his rips through the paper to see…
-
7 hours earlier…
“Oh my god. Look, it’s hyung.” Jongin cackles while holding up a shirt with a crying baby on the front.
Sehun joins in before turning back to face the rack of clothing. He finds a shirt he likes and flips the price tag to check the expense of the graphic tee.
“What the fuck, 50 000 won for a t shirt. Jongin let’s ditch this joint.” He turns to his best friend only to see him pass his card to the sales assistant at the counter. When did that brat have money?
“HAHA. I’m done. I’m going for lunch. Bye, sucker.” Jongin grins while skipping past Sehun’s flabbergasted being.
“YOU’RE FIRED FROM BEING MY BEST FRIEND, DICKWAD.” Sehun calls out into the street. Jongin just sticks his thumb up and continues walking, not even turning back to look at Sehun’s rude gestures.
-
“Tao put it down.”
“But why. Hyung likes whatever I like.”
Minseok looks at Tao with a judging look. “I don’t think he’ll appreciate the leopard print jumpsuit.
Tao pouts but puts down the clothing set. He can just buy it for himself tomorrow.
“I think I’ll get him this mug. He doesn’t need many things but all his favourite cups are coffee stained and gross. Whoever is on breakfast duty should be fired.” Minseok says while inspecting a cup in the shape of rubbish bin. “Do you think it’s too hard to drink from a mug like this?”
Tao grunts in annoyance while trying on sunglasses for himself in the mirror. “It’s fine.”
Minseok isn’t too happy with the response but grabs the box anyway. The Seoul winter was getting to him.
Tao grabs the sunglasses off his face and quickly purchases them, afraid of being left behind by his hyung.
-
As the other members paired up into twos and threes, Yi Fan is stuck with Joonmyun. But it isn’t much of a secret to who Joonmyun is buying the present for, since he’s buying one for everyone.
“Everyone has worked to hard this year. I want to reward them for their persistence.”
Yi Fan pouts at that statement but has no reason to refute the argument: it is a good one.
“You thought you were going to be the special one didn’t you.” Joonmyun chuckles. “You get a special present! My love~.” He says while blowing a kiss at Yi Fan. Yi Fan swats at the imaginary heart with a hand before setting it back into Joonmyun’s.
-
“What are you getting him?” Jongdae asks Yixing while they browse a bookstore.
Yixing shrugs from behind the cooking shelf.
“Something not too expensive. I’m broke. Shipping to China is no joke. Oh,” Yixing exclaims while pointing his finger in the air, “I’m a poet.”
Jongdae rolls his eyes at his companion. “I’m going to get him socks since he has an issue with bare feet. I don’t understand it.”
Yixing peers over his chocolate recipe book. “Hey that’s lame and cheap.”
“If I get him toe socks, it’ll be more special.”
“Nah. Get him camel socks.”
-
Present time
“AW JONGIN-IE~ Thank you!” Joonmyun pulls him into a hug.
He snaps back to his role and starts ringing his bell, eager to move on.
“HOHOHO WHOOOO-“ Joonmyun coughs at the strain to his normally higher voice, “IS NEXT?” He wriggles his eyebrows up and down which earns a groan from the members.
“From Tao… to me again! I feel so loved. Heehee.” Joonmyun happily unwraps his present unveiling a black pouch containing the sunglasses he’s been eyeing since January. He thanks Tao and continues to take presents out from the bag. After the second consecutive present to him is taken out, Joonmyun narrows his eyes at his red fur lined bag.
“To me. Me. Me. Me. Me. Me. Me. Did you all just get something for me?” Joonmyun questions with an imploring expression.
“Aw leader. It wasn’t to make this less fun, we thought you deserve a special something.” Joonmyun’s expression softens and he takes a swig of his eggnog before handing out his gifts to everyone else.
“That’s so sweet, guys. I’m going to hold my tears for later.” The leader sniffs while wiping an invisible tear from his right eye.
“Hyung. Don’t cry please. There’s only enough ugly I can take in a day.” Jongin comments behind his warm mug of beverage, only sipping slowly to avoid looking as red as Sehun does now. Joonmyun hits him lightly and goes back to unwrapping his presents.
“Sehun. Coupons. Really.”
Sehun retorts that he indeed doesn’t have money but is flounced by Jongin’s obvious display of financial security.
“Yeah but these are horrible coupons. ‘I will clean your room’, ‘I will eat my spinach’ and ‘I will bow 80 degrees’ don’t really cut it as Christmas presents.” Jongin quips from his side of the couch.
“He said we could use coupons!” Sehun protests before Luhan slaps his hand over the teenager’s mouth and smiles down at him with a smle that doesn’t reach his eyes. Silent prayers are made in that moment for Sehun.
“Hey Jongin, where did you get that money from?” Chanyeol inquired with squinty eyes, breath already smelling of alcohol. “When did your mum allow you to get a card?” he continues to narrow his eyes until they’re just as small as Baekhyun’s after a night of instant ramyun.
“I’m old enough to take care of my own finances okay?” Jongin defends quickly, slipping a hand in his pocket slowly and avoiding all eye contact with anyone but the bottom of Yi Fan’s. But Kyungsoo catches him and snatches the card from Jongin’s grip.
“Oh wow, Kim Jongin,” Kyungsoo says slowly while inspecting the pink card with gold flecks on its front, “I didn’t know you changed your name to Zhang Yixing.” He smirks while flipping the card around to show the rest of the group. Yixing’s eyes snap open from his tipsy stupor and stumbles forward, only to catch on the edge of the fraying fluoro orange rug and fly on top of Jongin.
“Ok,” Jongin wheezes, “I’d say I didn’t deserve this but I think I do. Merry Christmas?”
Yixing just pats Jongin with a heavy hand, earning a whine but not further argument from the younger (and flatter) one.
“Uurgh, I think I need to pee.” Baekhyun groans from his seat on top of Chanyeol, climbing down from the former’s tall legs. He misses the smirks from the cleaning team and continues on to the shared bathroom. It’s not until much later that a yell is heard from the toilet.
“LUHAN. MAKNAE. WHY ARE OUR FACES ON THE TOILET PAPER? I CAN’T WIPE MY ASS WITH MY FACE ON IT. OH MY GOD. WHY ARE THERE NO MORE NORMAL ROLLS IN HERE? WHICH IDIOT THOUGHT THIS WAS A GOOD IDEA. I FEEL SICK.”
The two are on the floor cackling at their prank and only stopped when they start running out of air. Joonmyun looks at them all with judging looks before getting up to find replacement rolls: some without their faces on it. The smirk on Sehun’s face doesn’t disappear as he places his cup down in anticipation.
A crash is heard from the corridor and the members groggily stumble around to see where the commotion was. All they see is their small leader being crushed by life sized cutouts of all twelve of them. Sehun had persuaded the managers of Nature’s Republic to give them the old promotion material and Luhan had helped him pack them into the closet where the toilet paper was normally kept.
“I told you so.” Minseok chimed in while Yi Fan pulls his co-leader from under the pile of cardboard exo.
“Hey can I keep this one? I can put it next to the window and scare the sasaengs from climbing in through the window.” Jongdae asks while picking up his cutout and inspecting the damage that was caused from the fall. “Better yet, can I have all of them and create a platoon to encircle our dorm?”
“Yeah, go for it. I only wanted them to shower hyung with our love. Physically.”
A cry from Baekhyun causes the procession to move from the cupboard to outside the bathroom door to slide some white toilet rolls for the main vocalist.
“Finally. I thought you were going to forget about me in there. My butt was drying itself.”
Chanyeol scrunches his face up and groans, “too much information Baek. Too much information.”
“Hey hyung, why didn’t you use the toilet paper snowman we made this morning?”
Baekhyun gives Jongin a dull look.
“I do not know or want to know what everyone has done to that.”
Jongin pats his back while walking back to the living room to clear up the plates with Kyungsoo who evidently lost interest in the pranks played by the two.
-
Once they enter the kitchen, Kyungsoo spins arounud and looks Jongin in the eyes.
“So. Jongin. How much vodka did you actually put in the egg nog? Our members are lightweight. But not that lightweight.”
“Woah. You’re quick on the uptake.”
Kyungsoo narrows his eyes at his cooking partner, willing a response out of the younger member.
“I may or may not have dropped the bottle in the pot.”
Kyungsoo drops his head to the counter.
“Nah it’s okay, hyung. See? No vomit. Just a little bit tipsy.” He pokes his head out the door to see Sehun making impersonation of each of the members and Tao just doing tumble turns from one end of the room to the other.
“Okay, maybe just a bit more than tipsy but they’ll survive.”
Kyungsoo gives him The Look but even he can see the pink flush on Kyungsoo’s cheeks. It might be the alcohol, but he likes to pretend he put it there.
“Oh. Look. Mistletoe. Funny that.” Jongin says while pointing up at the green leaves taped to the ceiling above them.
“Funny that indeed since they’re covering every inch of the flipping ceil-dflkgherf.” The soft insistent press of lips cuts off his observation. It’s quick but effective in it’s conveying of Jongin’s feelings.
A shy smile replaces the carefree grin the younger sported earlier, one of honesty.
“Hyung,” Jongin begins while plucking a rose out of thin air, “If I wrote a cookbook, you’d be a featured recipe. You’re my missing ingredient so would you go out with me?”
A moment of silence follows and Jongin chews on his bottom lip nervously, glancing anywhere except at Kyungsoo.
The older male steps forward, taking Jongin’s chin and whispers, “I must be a snowflake, because I’ve fallen for you.” Before reconnecting their lips.
Jongin’s eyes widen before fluttering closed, time slows down but the moment is ruined when they hear the familiar sound of someone throwing up. Kyungsoo leaps to the rescue with a washcloth and Jongin groans at the interruption of his finest moment.
“So,” Jongin spins his head in the direction of the voice so fast he gets whiplash, “it’s you and Kyungsoo, huh?” Minseok says, his cup of the offending yellow beverage still in his hand.
“OW. And yeah. I guess so. Hahahahahaaa,” Jongin’s laughter trails off into the distance as he spots a phone peeking out from the doorway. He follows the arm, which connects to the shoulder o f his very dumb and very stupid best friend, Sehun.
“Sehun…” Jongin begins very slowly, inching his hand towards the iPhone clutched by the youngest.
“You’re my missing ingredient,” Sehun mimics in a ridiculously high voice, “Something about a recipe.”
Jongin groans and makes a leap for the other but still misses as Sehun’s still more able in his drunken state than Jongin in any state.
“Oooo. I’m Kim Jongin with my sleazy greasy gross pick up lines. I’m so coooool.” Sehun coos, holding his phone away from Jongin’s desperate grasps.
“Tonight, you will make your last breath, Oh Sehun.” Jongin grits out, arms reaching for the felonious white smartphone.
-
December 26th comes quicker than they all expect. With all it’s hangover glory. Joonmyun and Yi Fan wake up under the table, head resting on one of the legs and arms sprawled over each other. Jongin is still stuck in the same position, on top of Sehun and only a few inches away his prize but frozen in sleep. Only Tao and Luhan made it back to their beds but only after snapping some photos ready for the right moment to reveal.
Joonmyun wakes up with a killer headache and a back that may rival the Hunchback of Notre dame’s but smiles at all the memories made at the night before.
He crawls off Yi Fan and grabs his favourite speakerphone.
“OKAY EXO. WAKE UP EXO.”
OT12; kris/suho, kyungsoo/jongin, luhan/sehun, baekhyun/chanyeol (if you squint)
PG-13
Comedy, fluff, what
~6k
a/n: this was for the sncj secret santa 2013 :D posted 6 months late and even with the extra 6 months, i haven't beta-ed it. ignore the typos and stuff pls <3
Joonmyun is hardly ever the first to wake up. But on this special occasion, on the 24th of December, he was determined to make it right. Exo was on their well-deserved break after Growl promotions and were given a few weeks off for the Christmas and New Years break.
2012’s Christmas was nothing special since most members left back to their hometowns to spend Christmas with family. But this year, Joonmyun managed to snag Christmas break for group bonding and left new years for family.
“AYO EXO. GOGO EXO. GET UP EXO. IT’S GROUP BONDING TIME, EXO. UP WE GO EXO.” He bashed through the dorm armed with his obnoxious red speakerphone and wake up gong, which was gifted by Lee Soo Man at his coronation as ‘Suho’.
Down the hall, Yi Fan’s face twitches from the disturbance that is Joonmyun and his yelling. He blindly reaches for his phone to check the time and is not-so-pleasantly surprised to see it was only 6am. He breathes deeply and slowly unclenches his fists.
“Joonmyun. IF YOU SAY EXO ONE MORE TIME I WILL MAKE SURE THAT IT IS YOUR LAST WORD.” Yi Fan’s voice echoes from down the hall.
Joonmyun flinches from Yi Fan’s not-so-empty threats and decides to leave his room last. He stomps loudly to the first room down the hall housing Luhan, Jongin and Sehun.
He’s not surprised to see Luhan stretched out on Sehun’s bed, arms draped loosely on the taller boy’s waist. Jongin continues to sleep like a log even with the racket outside the door.
“Jongin,” he whispers while rocking the younger boy’s shoulder back and forth. “Jongin-ah. It’s time to wake u-.” As quick as it came, a hand slapped away Joonmyun’s careful hands with a loud smack.
Joonmyun stumbles back, face aghast with despair. He reaches forward for another attempt at waking the lead dancer.
“Ggamjong. Jongin-ie.” He coos into the dancer’s ear, earning another annoyed shove to the head. Joonmyun huffs before shoving his hands under the baby blue bed sheets and sticks his long fingers into the spaces between Jongin’s ribs and tickles him into consciousness.
The 19 year old snaps into reality with a pained shriek.
“HYUNG WHAT WAS THAT FO-“ he starts but is rudely interrupted by a pillow to the face courtesy of the ever-graceful Sehun, who was glaring groggily at his band mate.
“SEHUN. MY NOSE. OH MY GOD. IT’S MORE CROOKED NOW, I CAN FEEL IT.” Jongin cries with his hands cupping his nose delicately.
“Don’t worry. It can’t look any uglier than it already was.”
Jongin lets out a battle cry and leaps from his bed to fiercely battle Sehun with pillows in both hands. But also successfully crushing Luhan who was still sleeping soundly on Sehun’s double bed.
Suddenly, a hand grips Sehun and Jongin’s ankles and slams them down to the floor. Joonmyun stands there, mouth open in a wide gape as he sees Luhan arise from his beauty sleep. Face ashen with anger.
Sehun freezes in his ministrations to Jongin’s hair while Jongin just whimpers and attempts to crawl away but is held back by a strong grip.
“Se. Hun. Jong. In. I hope you’re ready from some piece of hell,” Luhan says with his eyes still glued together with sleep. “Which one of you wants to get punished first this time?” He asks with no malice laced in his words.
Sehun shoves Jongin forward and the older boy lets out a protest.
“SEHUN CALM YOUR BOYFRIEND. HE’S GONNA BURN THIS DORM DOWN.”
“YOU STARTED IT, YOU FIX IT. WAIT. JOONMYUN HYUNG STARTED IT. KILL HIM FIRST, LUHAN.”
Three pairs of eyes snap in the direction of the frozen leader in the doorway. Luhan’s hand slowly releases the maknae line, and makes his way towards the younger male.
Joonmyun’s eyes widen to the size of saucers, raising his arms in surrender and slowly backs out of the dim room. He decides that LuSeKai are awake enough to his standards.
The leader opens the next door and is greeted with the stench of smelly socks and rotting fruit. He tries not to gag but evidently fails as he slams the door shut, gasping for air. He drops his instruments and paces to the bathroom to grab a mask (or two).
Re-armed and ready for his wake up mission, he bursts into the shared room, runs to the window, separates the curtains, and conveniently ignores the obvious pasta stains on the green fabric.
Yixing groans from his blanket cocoon and rolls out onto the cluttered floor, aimlessly waving his legs and arms around. Joonmyun grabs his arms from nearly hitting a half full can of coke lying haphazardly on the floor and picks it up with two pinkies with a face of disgust painted on his face. He puts his wake up mission on hold as he empties the overfilling trashcan into the communal bin.
After carefully mapping a safe pathway to the floored Yixing, he tugs cautiously at his outstretched arm, making sure to keep a safe distance away from his kicking legs.
“Yixing-ah. Wake up. We have to have a meeting,” he whispers into his ear, air tickling the Chinese male’s neck and creating a whirlwind of kicks and punches. Joonmyun curses and jumps out of the way only to stumble, landing on top of a week old cup-a-soup and Yixing’s chest. He lets out a groan and cracks open his eyes, before shutting them swiftly after an eyeful of Joonmyun’s face.
“Urgh it’s too early for your bare face. Come back and wake me up with BB cream on.” Yixing mumbles in slurred Korean slinging a thin arm across his eyes dramatically.
Joonmyun lets out an indignant sound before forcefully tugging the other male up from the floor and shoving him out the door.
Joonmyun takes a deep breath and hikes slowly up to the queen sized bed; he tugs at Chanyeol’s lanky arms and pulls them from Baekhyun’s thin waist. He silently shifts to Baekhyun’s side of the bed and waves a hand tentatively across the space in front of his face. After making sure there was no reaction, he loops his arms around the smaller boy’s chest, pulls him into a sitting position, and soothingly wakes him up.
Except that was what he was planning to do before his hair was violently tugged within centimeters of life by petite hands. He lets a strangled scream and frantically tries to loosen the fingers gripping his precious hair.
“BAEKHYU-EIRHGIEUR. MY HAIR. LET GO.”
“Ye who dares disturb thy slumber shall receive a fitting punishment.” He mumbles with eyes still slammed shut.
“GROUP MEETING. SOON. CHRISTMAS. OW CHANYEOL HELP ME,” Joonmyun chokes out with hands still desperately trying to loosen the hand around his unstyled hair.
The sleeping giant next to the prison guard shifts in his sleep and mumbles a deep, sleep infused “you deserve it” before flopping back face first on the slightly yellowing sheets.
Joonmyun lets out a stifled sob and surrenders to Baekhyun’s iron fist.
“Wh-what do you want? Free bubble tea? Free lunch? ANYTHING.”
Baekhyun slowly unfolds his eyes and gives Joonmyun a piercing look.
“I want free reign of this household for a week.”
“B-but.” Baekhyun tugs at the hair once, “OUCH. OKAY OKAY. FINE.”
Baekhyun lets out a victorious chuckle before releasing the strands of hair from his hands and lifts himself from the warm bed with a pained groan. Chanyeol follows not long after with an I-told-you-so look pointed towards the leader.
Joonmyun picks himself and what’s left of his dignity off the floor and makes his way to the adjacent room. He breathes a sigh of relief when he finds the room spick and span. Tao already on the floor doing his morning stretches and Minseok starting to fold his blankets into a neat rectangle on his bed. Kyungsoo was still sprawled on his bed with limbs threatening to spill over the edges. But a simple brush of his face brings him into consciousness, arms and legs flailing almost knocking out Minseok who had made his rounds to tidying his display of fan art and letters.
“Group meeting in 10! Lounge room!”
Tao swats at him with his wushu stick and Joonmyun slinks out of the room back to his bedroom.
“YI FAN. JONGDAE GET UP. YOU’RE THE LAST TO GET OFF YOUR BUTTS.”
Jongdae just ignores his exasperated leader’s yells and flops back into his fluffy blanket. Joonmyun’s mouth downturns and the corners almost reach his chin.
He stalks to Yi Fan’s bed and latches an arm onto the broad shoulders. Joonmyun tries to ignore the lingering feeling of fear before shoving the thought to the back of his mind and ruffles the other leader’s hair, earning him a muffled grumble.
Joonmyun doesn’t even get a squeak out before he is roughly pulled into the warmth of Yi Fan’s bed by strong arms, finding himself sandwiched between the wall and a warm chest. He resists the urge to snuggle and protests in soft squeaks.
“Yi Fan. It’s time to get up. I need to hold a meeting.” He hopes the taller male can hear his pout through his shuteyes.
“Shh. I’m the Other Leader,” Yi Fan grunts with a thick voice with his lips pressing at the back of Joonmyun’s neck while winding his arms around the other’s waist. “And The Other Leader says to sleep longer.”
Joonmyun rolls over to face Yi Fan and brushes his lips just close enough to feel the faint expel of air on his cheeks.
“If you don’t get up, you won’t get to hug me for a week.”
Yi Fan’s eyes snap open and he jumps from his bed, rolling Joonmyun out in the process. He manages to get a foot stuck in a corner and stumbles haphazardly towards the bathroom.
Jongdae lets out a groan and whines about the PDA in the dorm and trudges out of the room, leaving Joonmyun’s exhausted body on the floor.
-
“So. Finally we are all gathered here in one room.”
“It’s only 9am. And I should be sleeping for another good three hours. If there isn’t a good reason to this, I’ll pee on everything you love. And then burn it.”
Jongdae can feel a severe burning feeling at the back of his head and a quick glance confirms the M leader glaring with all his might. Jongdae lets out a whimper and swivels back to the front.
“AS I WAS SAYING,” Joonmyun chirps while sticking both his thumbs up at Yi Fan, “We are going to have a Christmas party. Here. In the dorm!”
The reaction he receives is much more than he was expecting. Woops fill the room and even Sehun’s face makes some kind of movement.
Joonmyun’s face relaxes and his shoulders visibly relax.
“Joonmyun, you really think we’d shoot down your ideas? You’ve obviously done this for us.” Luhan says with an impish smile, facing the leader dutifully.
“Luhan you were going to smother me with a pillow this morning. I don’t think you should talk.”
“No one is allowed to wake me up. Not even the Leadership.”
“Luhan when was there a Leadership here?” Yi Fan butts into the conversation with furrowed brows.
“Woah. Duizhang. Calm the brows. They’re scaring me.” Jongdae pitches in, leg dangling precariously on the sofa arm. Yi Fan makes a move to strangle him. Except he can’t because M needs their main vocalist.
“BaCK oN TaSk pLEaSe,” Joonmyun yells over his speakerphone. Yi Fan freezes his ministrations to Jongdae and sits back innocently, opening his eyes to imitate a cute puppy.
“Stop that,” Minseok says, his small hand sliding down Yi Fan’s face in an attempt to wipe the ugly off. “You look like some autistic dog.”
“GUYS.”
“Sorry.” They all chorus in some kind of harmony. Yi Fan’s face sympathetic.
Joonmyun sighs in reverence and wheels out his whiteboard used to plan out who goes into which van. Except this time it’s been decorated within inches of its life with tinsel and neat letters in red, green and white.
The noise dies down at the wheeled monstrosity and Yi Fan plasters a tight smile on his face and slowly untangles his arms from around Minseok’s neck.
“First of all, I know we’re all rookies with varying financial conditions so I won’t make everyone buy something for every member. Just pick a specific person you want to buy for to save money and time! The present doesn’t have to be expensive!! It could be a car or a piece of lined paper.”
-
“Kyungsoo.” Kyungsoo looks up with his wide eyes, preparing for the blow. “You’re doing the cooking with Jongin.”
The air becomes stagnant and eleven pairs of eyes are fixed on the leader’s face. Tao’s body seizes up faster than it has since the sasaengs recorded him singing in the shower.
“Joonmyun. Honey. We just debuted. I’d like to see our second anniversary.” Yi Fan pleads to his partner while stroking a hyperventilating Tao. “Plus. Tao isn’t ready to revisit that time when Jongin thought it’d be a good idea to be a good idea to smear vegemite over Tao’s chocopie.”
“Shhh. It’ll be fine. Kyungsoo will keep him in check.”
Yi fan’s eyes the other male cautiously but drops the topic, turning his attention back to the youngest in M.
Joonmyun smiles and looks back to his gleaming whiteboard.
“RIGHT! Next is the décor! Baekhyun. Chanyeol. GREEN! RED! WHITE! SPARKLES! EVERYWHERE! You have $20 to spend. Go crazy!”
“TWENTY????????????????????” The two exclaimed, pointing randomly in the air to punctuate their sentence.
“Was it necessary for so many question marks?” Yixing says while swatting at the air with an annoyed face.
Joonmyun pushes the three-way banter as background noise and continues with his jobs list. In the end, Jongdae and Yixing are grocery shopping while Minseok and Tao are decorating the outside of the house.
Luhan and Sehun were stuck with cleaning which earned plenty complaints and not just from the two of them. Minseok foresees disaster in many aspects of this plan but lets it be, looking forward to that I-told-you-so moment he’s been saving up since pre-debut.
“Aaand Kris and I are going to be the supervisors.”
Kris squeals (in a manly fashion) and hugs the leader. 10 pairs of legs make it to Joonmyun’s stomach.
-
“Hey. Yeol.” Baekhyun coos with a suspicious look on his face. Chanyeol flicks his head to face the smaller male, expecting anything but a stream of fake snow hitting his face.
“ARGH. EW I ATE SOME.”
“Aw yeol, the gangly abominable snowman.”
“Oh yeah?”
“YEAH.”
“COME HERE YOU BRAT.”
Crashes and sounds of furniture hitting the floor are heard throughout the dorm. Yi Fan and Joonmyun try to intervene but end up inching away from the white mess left on the floor belonging to Baekhyun and Chanyeol. In the background, protests are heard from Luhan and Sehun.
-
“So how much vodka do I put in this?” Jongin asks with the vodka bottle poised over a measuring cup.
The recipe says three cups but I think that’s a bit excessive, especially since everyone here is a lightweight. I don’t want vomit in the house on the 26th.”
“Yessir. Two. Cups. One. Two- oops fuck”
Kyungsoo turns around to check on the pot over the stove but Jongin’s face moulded into one of nonchalance expertly, diverting the attention to Kyungsoo’s perfectly cut carrots for dip.
“Don’t you trust me? I am king of the kitchen.”
Kyungsoo rolls his eyes and turns back to his cutting board.
Meanwhile, Jongin desperately spoons as much vodka into the sink without acting suspicious.
“It’s okay. They’ll never notice.”
-
“This sucks balls. I’m texting Jongin.” Sehun groans while picking up old ramyun containers littered throughout Baekhyun, Chanyeol and Yixing’s room. He drops his plastic bag and flicks through his contacts to Jongin’s name.
Sehun: If I see another piece of noodle, I am going to thread it through Chanyeol’s nose.
Jongin: LMAO. The leader got you this time. This is why you suck up to him.
Sehun: I’m sorry I’m not a natural ass kisser.
Jongin: You’re just jealous I don’t have to clean up Chanyeol’s shit.
Sehun: At least I’m paired with a person who likes me back.
Jongin: ShuT uP yOU little sHIt
Sehun: Make me.
A battle call erupts from the busy kitchen despite loud protests from Chef Kyungsoo.
“COME HERE MAKNAE.” Jongin screams wielding a wooden spoon covered in cake batter.
Furniture is dodged and rampaged past by the two teenagers like kids on a sugar high.
Sehun clips the side of the monstrous green coffee table (courtesy of Yi Fan) and tumbles to the floor, landing on an equally ugly pillow (courtesy of Yi Fan, again.) Sehun pats it affectionately and mentally thanks it for cushioning his fall. His relief is short lived as he is suddenly thrust into sudden darkness caused by the looming figures of two males, namely Luhan and Jongin.
“Oh Se Hun.” Luhan says, eyes narrowed into thin slits sharp enough to cut stale bread,
“As in oh, Sehun or Oh Sehun?” Sehun meekly grins at his boyfriend from his spot on the floor.
“As in if I don’t see the floor sparkling in an hour, you are banned from our bedroom and don’t expect a special Christmas present, if you know what I mean.”
Silence fills the room and “ooooo’s” echo (but it’s just Jongin who ends up cracking up from Sehun’s face.)
“Kim Jongin. Don’t think you’re exempted from this punishment.”
Jongin’s laughter dies down to a whimper and lugs his body into the kitchen to get a cloth, not risking his life to protest.
“This is all Joonmyun hyung’s fault.” Sehun mutters while scrubbing batter off the (ugly) green couch. “This. Is. War.”
“JEON JAENG I YA. KYEOB JAENG I YA.”
“SHUT UP JONGIN.”
-
Christmas day comes in a flurry of movement and screams of anguish of
“THE BLUE TACK ISN’T STICKING” and “THAT’S NOT SUGAR JONGIN”. But waking up on the 25th of December 2013 makes Joonmyun smile because all twelve members are together this year, and the chances of a normal Christmas is all but wiped out.
What doesn’t make him smile, however, is how the dorm looks. It looks like Santa came and threw up on all the furniture, only missing the sparkling clean floor. Not to mention the infinite amount of mistletoe tactlessly duct taped to the ceiling. He can’t complain much due to the fact he was occupied in another room with his other supervisor doing “supervisor stuff”.
Joonmyun sits up in his bed and realizes there’s a missing body next to him. He wanders out of his room, padding down the clean hallways, narrowly missing the protruding candy cane tower Chanyeol and Baekhyun engineered. How did they do all this with just $20? His mind flicks quickly back to yesterday, when his wallet went missing… Those brats. He thinks while taking the last corner into the living room, I’m going to kill-
“MERRY CHRISTMAS JOONMYUN.” Ten voices chorus at the top of their lungs, confetti showering the still sleepy leader.
A hysterical laugh bursts out of his lips and a wave of emotion washes over the leader.
“Guys… this is so sweet.” Joonmyun manages to blubber after frantically wiping his eyes free of tears.
Joonmyun I know we’re in private but your face is so ugly when you cry. Please don’t.” Kyungsoo utters from his space on the (ugly) couch.
Joonmyun nods, desperately trying to curb his tears.
“If you stop crying, you can see what we’ve done to the dorm!” Baekhyun and Minseok chime in. It’s not long until Joonmyun looks around and notices the dorm looks different from yesterday. It looks worse. If yesterday it was Santa’s up chuck, today’s looks like the whole elf community joined in.
“Where’s Luhan?” Joonmyun asks after his crying bout.
“You know how he is in the morning. Didn’t want to spend Christmas headless.” Sehun replies.
“You’re all dead when he wakes up then anyway.”
“Whyyy…?” They all look at Joonmyun in question who just points to the mess on the walls and on the floor, “oh my god.”
Fake snow littered the once clean floor and a makeshift snowman was found on the floor made up of balled up pieces of toilet paper. Tinsel lined the couches and the television was painted red, green and white. The only thing that didn’t change was the number of mistletoe stuck on the ceiling. He’s not sure if he should be relieved or not.
-
By lunch o’clock the dorm looks like a dorm again after Luhan wakes up and screams bloody murder. The TV is cleaned back to its former shining glory and the snowman has been placed in the toilet in case of emergencies. The twelve all leave the dorm dressed in hideous sweaters with decals of snowmen and reindeer printed on the front (and sometimes the back) in search of a present for their chosen person.
At around 5pm, after everyone stumbles back from shopping for presents, with Minseok and Tao still cackling at their decorations on the outside of the house: a huge banner saying “MERRY KRIS- MAS” with a very large photo of Yi Fan’s head and a speech bubble screaming “HOHOHO.” The obnoxiously loud red paint didn’t dry properly so it ran down the paper and turned into something more like it came out of a horror movie.
Kyungsoo rubs at his temples and reassures himself that he’s not going to have to clean that up. But he’s always wrong about that. The twelve of them shed their coats and make wet puddles (from the snow, but Jongin is quick to accuse Minseok of his sweaty feet) as they step into their warm and dry dorm.
Everyone drops their presents under the bauble infested Christmas tree and sprint to take the first shower. Except Yixing already beat them all and instead of putting his present under the tree, he left it outside the locked bathroom door with a sticky note saying: “Better luck next time, suckers. P.S put my present under the tree pls.”
-
Yixing enjoys his showers. He enjoys them more when he’s alone. So when he hears the familiar ‘click’ of the once locked door, he knows that this may turn out badly.
It’s in between shampoo and conditioner that the door bursts open with the perpetrator (no other than Chanyeol) holding the trusty screwdriver and pencil. The (monstrous) grin he sports makes Yixing want to punch it off.
The shower suddenly becomes somewhat like a public bathroom as all twelve team up to wash each other’s backs and take bathroom selcas.
Chanyeol and Jongdae create Santa beards using the body wash and laugh mercilessly when they see Yi Fan struck down by the cleanser getting caught in his eyes, trying desperately to wash it out. Tao happily leaps from person to person with his special panda washcloth, claiming it has magic powers to help back pain and neck aches.
Minseok and Baekhyun take incriminating photos to use later as leverage against their fellow members.
-
“I don’t think you know how much I hate all of you.”
“Aw Xing-Xing,” Jongdae says with his head caught in a headlock after hiding Kris’ clothing behind the toilet. “Deep down inside, you know all this pent up hatred is really just pure, unadulterated love.”
Yixing shoots him a dirty look and goes back to setting up the dinner table.
Tao whines about how scratchy the sweaters are and switches back to his black hoodie, hiding behind the couch to scare his unsuspecting victims: Joonmyun and Baekhyun.
Tao’s high pitch shrieks of laughter can be heard from the kitchen where Kyungsoo and Jongin are busy finishing off the last touches for dinner.
“Is the egg nog ready, Jongin?” Kyungsoo inquires over his shoulder while laying out the cold meats onto a plate.
Jongin glances nervously at the yellow concoction in the pot and nods an affirmative to his chief chef.
-
Dinner is served and the twelve sit along their super long dining table with food lined along the table. The roast chicken is flawless and both leaders cut the chicken to symbolize the start of the feast. The noise quickly escalates and everyone joins into a huge muddle of sound.
“Why do I have two knives?” Jongdae squints at his two pieces of cutlery. Yixing just laughs with a piece of chicken hanging out of his mouth at Jongdae’s predicament.
“Karma probably.”
“Funny, I didn’t think karma got renamed to Yixing,” Jongdae quips, pointing a piece of pineapple at the offender stuck on his two knives.
Joonmyun quickly saves the day by replacing one of Jongdae’s knives with a fork and welcomes the eggnog. Jongin chuckles nervously before pouring his eggnog into everyone’s festive red cups.
Dinner ends when the pudding comes out and everybody files out into the living room where the Christmas tree and couches are situated. Sehun plops down on the orange bean bag and pulls Luhan down with him, earning a light smack on his arm. Jongdae openly gags at the gesture and protests at the PDA by lying lengthwise along the couch, blocking anyone from sitting there.
Chanyeol laughs at his attempt to claim the couch before calling a group sandwich and promptly piles on top of the protesting Jongdae. A few kicks to the stomach and a whole lot of pain later, Jongdae relents and is squished to the arm of the (hideous) green couch, almost sitting on Tao’s lap.
Suddenly, bells start ringing and the lights flick off, raising alarms in the eyes of many (but really just Tao and Sehun) and Joonmyun steps out of the hall, decked in Christmas lights and Santa suit, complete with a beard.
“HOHOHO. IT’S PRESENT TIME!”
Woops fills the air and Chanyeol beat boxes in time to Joonmyun’s strides, causing Luhan to clap like a retarded seal. Sehun reaches up to push his jaw back to its rightful place,: connected to his face.
“FIRST PRESENT, FROM JONGIN. TO… ME.” Joonmyun’s eyes light up as his rips through the paper to see…
-
7 hours earlier…
“Oh my god. Look, it’s hyung.” Jongin cackles while holding up a shirt with a crying baby on the front.
Sehun joins in before turning back to face the rack of clothing. He finds a shirt he likes and flips the price tag to check the expense of the graphic tee.
“What the fuck, 50 000 won for a t shirt. Jongin let’s ditch this joint.” He turns to his best friend only to see him pass his card to the sales assistant at the counter. When did that brat have money?
“HAHA. I’m done. I’m going for lunch. Bye, sucker.” Jongin grins while skipping past Sehun’s flabbergasted being.
“YOU’RE FIRED FROM BEING MY BEST FRIEND, DICKWAD.” Sehun calls out into the street. Jongin just sticks his thumb up and continues walking, not even turning back to look at Sehun’s rude gestures.
-
“Tao put it down.”
“But why. Hyung likes whatever I like.”
Minseok looks at Tao with a judging look. “I don’t think he’ll appreciate the leopard print jumpsuit.
Tao pouts but puts down the clothing set. He can just buy it for himself tomorrow.
“I think I’ll get him this mug. He doesn’t need many things but all his favourite cups are coffee stained and gross. Whoever is on breakfast duty should be fired.” Minseok says while inspecting a cup in the shape of rubbish bin. “Do you think it’s too hard to drink from a mug like this?”
Tao grunts in annoyance while trying on sunglasses for himself in the mirror. “It’s fine.”
Minseok isn’t too happy with the response but grabs the box anyway. The Seoul winter was getting to him.
Tao grabs the sunglasses off his face and quickly purchases them, afraid of being left behind by his hyung.
-
As the other members paired up into twos and threes, Yi Fan is stuck with Joonmyun. But it isn’t much of a secret to who Joonmyun is buying the present for, since he’s buying one for everyone.
“Everyone has worked to hard this year. I want to reward them for their persistence.”
Yi Fan pouts at that statement but has no reason to refute the argument: it is a good one.
“You thought you were going to be the special one didn’t you.” Joonmyun chuckles. “You get a special present! My love~.” He says while blowing a kiss at Yi Fan. Yi Fan swats at the imaginary heart with a hand before setting it back into Joonmyun’s.
-
“What are you getting him?” Jongdae asks Yixing while they browse a bookstore.
Yixing shrugs from behind the cooking shelf.
“Something not too expensive. I’m broke. Shipping to China is no joke. Oh,” Yixing exclaims while pointing his finger in the air, “I’m a poet.”
Jongdae rolls his eyes at his companion. “I’m going to get him socks since he has an issue with bare feet. I don’t understand it.”
Yixing peers over his chocolate recipe book. “Hey that’s lame and cheap.”
“If I get him toe socks, it’ll be more special.”
“Nah. Get him camel socks.”
-
Present time
“AW JONGIN-IE~ Thank you!” Joonmyun pulls him into a hug.
He snaps back to his role and starts ringing his bell, eager to move on.
“HOHOHO WHOOOO-“ Joonmyun coughs at the strain to his normally higher voice, “IS NEXT?” He wriggles his eyebrows up and down which earns a groan from the members.
“From Tao… to me again! I feel so loved. Heehee.” Joonmyun happily unwraps his present unveiling a black pouch containing the sunglasses he’s been eyeing since January. He thanks Tao and continues to take presents out from the bag. After the second consecutive present to him is taken out, Joonmyun narrows his eyes at his red fur lined bag.
“To me. Me. Me. Me. Me. Me. Me. Did you all just get something for me?” Joonmyun questions with an imploring expression.
“Aw leader. It wasn’t to make this less fun, we thought you deserve a special something.” Joonmyun’s expression softens and he takes a swig of his eggnog before handing out his gifts to everyone else.
“That’s so sweet, guys. I’m going to hold my tears for later.” The leader sniffs while wiping an invisible tear from his right eye.
“Hyung. Don’t cry please. There’s only enough ugly I can take in a day.” Jongin comments behind his warm mug of beverage, only sipping slowly to avoid looking as red as Sehun does now. Joonmyun hits him lightly and goes back to unwrapping his presents.
“Sehun. Coupons. Really.”
Sehun retorts that he indeed doesn’t have money but is flounced by Jongin’s obvious display of financial security.
“Yeah but these are horrible coupons. ‘I will clean your room’, ‘I will eat my spinach’ and ‘I will bow 80 degrees’ don’t really cut it as Christmas presents.” Jongin quips from his side of the couch.
“He said we could use coupons!” Sehun protests before Luhan slaps his hand over the teenager’s mouth and smiles down at him with a smle that doesn’t reach his eyes. Silent prayers are made in that moment for Sehun.
“Hey Jongin, where did you get that money from?” Chanyeol inquired with squinty eyes, breath already smelling of alcohol. “When did your mum allow you to get a card?” he continues to narrow his eyes until they’re just as small as Baekhyun’s after a night of instant ramyun.
“I’m old enough to take care of my own finances okay?” Jongin defends quickly, slipping a hand in his pocket slowly and avoiding all eye contact with anyone but the bottom of Yi Fan’s. But Kyungsoo catches him and snatches the card from Jongin’s grip.
“Oh wow, Kim Jongin,” Kyungsoo says slowly while inspecting the pink card with gold flecks on its front, “I didn’t know you changed your name to Zhang Yixing.” He smirks while flipping the card around to show the rest of the group. Yixing’s eyes snap open from his tipsy stupor and stumbles forward, only to catch on the edge of the fraying fluoro orange rug and fly on top of Jongin.
“Ok,” Jongin wheezes, “I’d say I didn’t deserve this but I think I do. Merry Christmas?”
Yixing just pats Jongin with a heavy hand, earning a whine but not further argument from the younger (and flatter) one.
“Uurgh, I think I need to pee.” Baekhyun groans from his seat on top of Chanyeol, climbing down from the former’s tall legs. He misses the smirks from the cleaning team and continues on to the shared bathroom. It’s not until much later that a yell is heard from the toilet.
“LUHAN. MAKNAE. WHY ARE OUR FACES ON THE TOILET PAPER? I CAN’T WIPE MY ASS WITH MY FACE ON IT. OH MY GOD. WHY ARE THERE NO MORE NORMAL ROLLS IN HERE? WHICH IDIOT THOUGHT THIS WAS A GOOD IDEA. I FEEL SICK.”
The two are on the floor cackling at their prank and only stopped when they start running out of air. Joonmyun looks at them all with judging looks before getting up to find replacement rolls: some without their faces on it. The smirk on Sehun’s face doesn’t disappear as he places his cup down in anticipation.
A crash is heard from the corridor and the members groggily stumble around to see where the commotion was. All they see is their small leader being crushed by life sized cutouts of all twelve of them. Sehun had persuaded the managers of Nature’s Republic to give them the old promotion material and Luhan had helped him pack them into the closet where the toilet paper was normally kept.
“I told you so.” Minseok chimed in while Yi Fan pulls his co-leader from under the pile of cardboard exo.
“Hey can I keep this one? I can put it next to the window and scare the sasaengs from climbing in through the window.” Jongdae asks while picking up his cutout and inspecting the damage that was caused from the fall. “Better yet, can I have all of them and create a platoon to encircle our dorm?”
“Yeah, go for it. I only wanted them to shower hyung with our love. Physically.”
A cry from Baekhyun causes the procession to move from the cupboard to outside the bathroom door to slide some white toilet rolls for the main vocalist.
“Finally. I thought you were going to forget about me in there. My butt was drying itself.”
Chanyeol scrunches his face up and groans, “too much information Baek. Too much information.”
“Hey hyung, why didn’t you use the toilet paper snowman we made this morning?”
Baekhyun gives Jongin a dull look.
“I do not know or want to know what everyone has done to that.”
Jongin pats his back while walking back to the living room to clear up the plates with Kyungsoo who evidently lost interest in the pranks played by the two.
-
Once they enter the kitchen, Kyungsoo spins arounud and looks Jongin in the eyes.
“So. Jongin. How much vodka did you actually put in the egg nog? Our members are lightweight. But not that lightweight.”
“Woah. You’re quick on the uptake.”
Kyungsoo narrows his eyes at his cooking partner, willing a response out of the younger member.
“I may or may not have dropped the bottle in the pot.”
Kyungsoo drops his head to the counter.
“Nah it’s okay, hyung. See? No vomit. Just a little bit tipsy.” He pokes his head out the door to see Sehun making impersonation of each of the members and Tao just doing tumble turns from one end of the room to the other.
“Okay, maybe just a bit more than tipsy but they’ll survive.”
Kyungsoo gives him The Look but even he can see the pink flush on Kyungsoo’s cheeks. It might be the alcohol, but he likes to pretend he put it there.
“Oh. Look. Mistletoe. Funny that.” Jongin says while pointing up at the green leaves taped to the ceiling above them.
“Funny that indeed since they’re covering every inch of the flipping ceil-dflkgherf.” The soft insistent press of lips cuts off his observation. It’s quick but effective in it’s conveying of Jongin’s feelings.
A shy smile replaces the carefree grin the younger sported earlier, one of honesty.
“Hyung,” Jongin begins while plucking a rose out of thin air, “If I wrote a cookbook, you’d be a featured recipe. You’re my missing ingredient so would you go out with me?”
A moment of silence follows and Jongin chews on his bottom lip nervously, glancing anywhere except at Kyungsoo.
The older male steps forward, taking Jongin’s chin and whispers, “I must be a snowflake, because I’ve fallen for you.” Before reconnecting their lips.
Jongin’s eyes widen before fluttering closed, time slows down but the moment is ruined when they hear the familiar sound of someone throwing up. Kyungsoo leaps to the rescue with a washcloth and Jongin groans at the interruption of his finest moment.
“So,” Jongin spins his head in the direction of the voice so fast he gets whiplash, “it’s you and Kyungsoo, huh?” Minseok says, his cup of the offending yellow beverage still in his hand.
“OW. And yeah. I guess so. Hahahahahaaa,” Jongin’s laughter trails off into the distance as he spots a phone peeking out from the doorway. He follows the arm, which connects to the shoulder o f his very dumb and very stupid best friend, Sehun.
“Sehun…” Jongin begins very slowly, inching his hand towards the iPhone clutched by the youngest.
“You’re my missing ingredient,” Sehun mimics in a ridiculously high voice, “Something about a recipe.”
Jongin groans and makes a leap for the other but still misses as Sehun’s still more able in his drunken state than Jongin in any state.
“Oooo. I’m Kim Jongin with my sleazy greasy gross pick up lines. I’m so coooool.” Sehun coos, holding his phone away from Jongin’s desperate grasps.
“Tonight, you will make your last breath, Oh Sehun.” Jongin grits out, arms reaching for the felonious white smartphone.
-
December 26th comes quicker than they all expect. With all it’s hangover glory. Joonmyun and Yi Fan wake up under the table, head resting on one of the legs and arms sprawled over each other. Jongin is still stuck in the same position, on top of Sehun and only a few inches away his prize but frozen in sleep. Only Tao and Luhan made it back to their beds but only after snapping some photos ready for the right moment to reveal.
Joonmyun wakes up with a killer headache and a back that may rival the Hunchback of Notre dame’s but smiles at all the memories made at the night before.
He crawls off Yi Fan and grabs his favourite speakerphone.
“OKAY EXO. WAKE UP EXO.”