SSS 2010: for madmiyabee
For: madmiyabee
From: Your Secret Santa
Title: Our First Christmas together
Pairing: Onew/Jonghyun; hinted OT5
Rating: PG
Wordcount: 3,765
Summary: Jinki and Jonghyun remember their first Christmas together back when they were kids. It was all just a blizzard’s fault - but it was an eventful and cheerful day to remember, as well as this day changed the way they celebrated Christmas for the many years to come.
“Hey, Jonghyun. Do you still remember the first Christmas we spent together?” Jinki smiled at the other guy who stopped munching the gingerbread man.
Jonghyun grinned brightly in the memory, then hastily tried to gulp down the mass in his mouth but only ended in a coughing fit. After the elder patted his back, Jonghyun was finally able to speak again. “How could I forget?” A few crumbs sprayed into Jinki’s direction, who ducked away, laughing.
Two pairs of child’s hands are pressed against the freezing cold glass of the window. Always-curious eyes look out in the white mess that whirls around and only gets settled after at least a hundred spirals, as Jonghyun would claim. Jinki had added that it reminded him of the leaves in fall, or the cherry blossom petals; just like the snow outside, all these things had characteristics. Some would wildly swirl around, refusing to settle down, whereas some would just take their sweet time slowly sinking.
“If there’s snow in winter, cherry blossom petals in spring and leaves in fall - what’s there in the summer? There cannot be nothing.” Jinki pressed his forehead against the glass and turned his head to look at the younger boy.
Jonghyun was busy tracing one particularly beautiful frost pattern, his eyes following the pretty outlines of the ice flower. “Isn’t it obvious? Dandelions, of course.” The elder nodded, mutely and continued watching the smaller boy. “Don’t you think they must have souls too? To me, it feels as if they have.” Jonghyun looked up, staring at Jinki and smiling slightly.
Slightly chuckling, the seven-year-old looks meaningfully at the snow storm out there. “Do you also think they build up to a storm on purpose? Are they rioting, or do they only want us to stay together?” After finishing his sentence, Jinki begins to crack up, and the six-year-old joins the laughter.
“Maybe the snow tells us to wreak some havoc? Well, I don’t mind either way, I like having you here.” Jonghyun beams brightly, his smile lacking one lateral incisor. Spontaneously, they hug and Jinki ruffles the younger boy’s hair.
“Hey, how about we steal a few cookies from your mom?”, the elder suggests with a boyish and sneaky smile, turning around on the window sill and jumping the distance to the floor with outstretched limbs - the result of this was one boy who lay sprawled out on the parquet floor and another boy who almost fell off the window sill himself while laughing at the clumsy action of his best friend.
A muffled wheeze came from the living heap, but Jonghyun lands safely on the floor and struts over to the other with ostentation, finally extending one palm. “Come on, we have to work out the greatest, most wonderful steal-the-cookies plan that will be so super duper that we will go down in history as the bestest idea-ers of the century.”
As the two boys tip-toe to the kitchen, they stop occasionally and do this super cool action where the hero checks if the coast is clear!, quotation Jonghyun end. It’s risky, their moms sitting on the table just at the entrance of the kitchen - but they are talking and sipping hot tea, maybe they would be able to succeed in their steal-as-much-cookies-as-possible mission.
Unnoticed, they proceed to run and hide behind random pieces of furniture, finally getting too close as hiding behind the flower pot of a rubber plant. Two meters away from them, Jinki’s mom was just telling Jonghyun’s mom about some ’failing incident’ - as Jonghyun dubbed it -, when Jonghyun carefully grabbed the twigs and formed a hole to look through it.
“Yah, Jinki hyung!” The younger boy hisses to get the attention of the blushing boy. “You need to focus! Don’t stand around like a lightning-struck penguin!” Because of this reprimand, Jinki gets on his knees and crawls over to the pot and peers at their moms from behind. To make up for his previously lacking attention, he gives his surroundings an once-over and then blurts out the first idea he has.
“How about simply crawling over? There’s no idea our moms would notice if we’re totally mute and we’ll just crawl over to the table and hide behind that huge bag of … whatever it is …” The elder trails off with an asking tone on the end of his suggestion and carefully lifts his gaze to the other’s.
Jonghyun gives no expression, blankly looking at his friend. Feeling uncomfortable, the latter tries an encouraging smile; but by that time, Jonghyun suddenly grabs Jinki’s shoulders, frightening him.
“Hey Jinki!! I got an idea! We’ll just go over there by imitating a caterpillar! They won’t notice us at all!!” Jonghyun breaks out in his trademark megawatt-smile, ignoring Jinki’s deadpanning like he had not just copied the other’s idea and plainly put it into other words.
But Jinki has no time to complain as the younger already peers again through the leaves and then motions for him to follow as he put his chest onto the floor, his butt poking high into the air. One moment later, he launches forward by stretching out his legs and pushing himself forward like this.
Then the boy pulls his legs to his body again and again, the caterpillar-like posture with his butt in the air appeared. Afraid he might be left behind, Jinki also launches his best caterpillar moves.
The two boys don’t notice how Mrs. Kim is suddenly spotting the motions in the back of her best friend, Mrs. Lee. She isn’t able to suppress the urge to giggle, picking up her friend’s attention in the process.
Mrs. Lee follows the glance of the other woman curiously and finds their respective sons crawling across the floor in movements that resemble a caterpillar’s. She, too, hides a bright chuckle behind her hand. Amusing themselves, the two young women pretend to chat along, while actually watching their sons.
With a triumphant smile, Jonghyun hurries over to the big paper bag of Jinki’s mom standing on the floor. He goes on to hide behind it - which was not much of a task for him, as he was quite small and flexible. Looking back at his friend, he impatiently waves to the elder still moving forward.
Jonghyun gets frightened when suddenly the chairs get pushed back with loud clattering noises and he thinks they have been found out - turns out that they had not been found out, as the two women leave the kitchen (of course to allow their lovely boys to get the cookies they were obviously on the hunt for).
Jinki blurts out a hearty laugh as soon as their parents are gone and he looks at Jonghyun, having curled up and scrunched up into a little ball; like a turtle being afraid. “Hey Jjong, they’re gone! Didn’t it work out great?”
The elder had walked over to his friend who unfolded himself to show off another grin. “Indeed! Come on!” Jonghyun grabs the other boy’s hand and starts running into the kitchen, stopping before the kitchen counter where the box of cookies stands on top of another shelf.
“Uh, well. Seems like the box is up quite far … so you’re out of consideration as always, and also -“ Jinki stretches and hops to try to reach the shelf. “-also, I am unable to reach it. Go stand on my shoulders.” The younger blinks at Jinki. “Eh?”
But he seven-year-old goes on his knees and Jonghyun cannot chicken out like that. So he gets onto Jinki’s shoulders and grabs his head to stabilize himself while Jinki stands up and puts his hands up against the kitchen counter for stabilization.
After some bickering going on because of Jinki’s slightly unsteady stand and Jonghyun’s rude fisting of the elder’s hair, the six-year-old really succeeds in climbing onto the counter and getting the box with self-made cookies. “Catch it!”, he warns Jinki and then drops down the box, following shortly after.
Jinki really had managed to catch the container and now stands beside the kitchen door, waiting for his companion. “We should make a run for your room…”, he carefully suggests and squints outside to the table. Jonghyun accompanies his friend in the doorway and chuckles. “We should.”, he agrees and then, he dashes outside, running back all the way to his room.
He arrives in his room and Jinki is just behind him. Their plan succeeded! “Mission Caterpillar Complete!”, Jonghyun proudly announces and goes to sit on his bed, waving to Jinki to follow him.
As they share the cookies in silence, they don’t care about the possibility of being caught or all of the crumbs collecting on Jonghyun’s comforter. Also, they do not only share the cookies, but occasional grins when they think about their ingenuity.
And when the cookies in the box run low, Jonghyun gets to take the last cookie due to Jinki giving it to him. “It was your idea.” He doesn’t mind Jonghyun some kind of ‘stealing’ his plan earlier, instead he grins and shows off his eyesmile. But he did not expect what happens next: the younger breaks the cookie in the middle and hands the bigger half to Jinki.
“It was our idea, and our effort, right?” Jonghyun reciprocates the elder’s smile as they both munch on their respective half of the cookie.
After another few hours of pranks, talking and playing around, it is finally time for the formal Christmas dinner. Originally spent with the family, this year’s dinner at Kim’s would be spent with Jinki and his parents. Jonghyun doesn’t have any grandparents who would want to come - his grandpa in Japan is a huffy old man, distancing himself from the family - and everybody else was already gone. It would have been rude to throw out the Lees because of the blizzard outside, so they simply resolved to celebrate together.
Since the conversations of their parents is nothing to pay too much attention to, Jonghyun and Jinki preferred to have their own talks - about Jinki’s latest matchbox toy car or Jonghyun’s new classmate (who was the cousin of their later friend Minho, hilariously enough), or whatever comes to their minds.
Honestly, they both are unable to really concentrate on the taste of the delicious, home-made variety of foods, or the mochi cake, or whatever was placed in front of them - the tingly, excited feeling taking control of the boy’s minds.
Jinki’s dad, who was a rather quiet and observing man, had noticed the two boys fidgeting in their seats. To get the attention of the kids, he pokes his tongue out at them, then pulls a few dorky grimaces, intending to distract them a bit and making them laugh.
Jonghyun is the first to take notice of his best friend’s dad doing hilarious grimaces, immediately bursting out laughing. The younger nudged Jinki in the side, and the latter nearly dropped the chopsticks when he looked at his dad. Because such an incident couldn’t go unnoticed, suddenly the three other parents look with blank faces at Mr. Lee, who had frozen in a stupid grimace as soon as he noticed the attention focused on him.
Nervously, he broke out in a bright smile and laughed to pass off his embarrassment. Jonghyun’s mom began to laugh a moment later, successfully breaking the tensed atmosphere. “Jinki definitely got his antics by you…”, she comments and looks at said boy for a little while. Jinki’s dad grins and shrugs - family antics are family antics, right?
The rest of the dinner went by smoothly. After his previous embarrassment, Jinki’s dad had excused himself. Despite being extremely nervous due to the gifts awaiting them, even the two boys helped cleaning the table.
Now they are sitting with their parents (minus Jinki’s dad - God knows what he’s doing) and bore themselves out.
“Hm… what about we play a little game?”, Jonghyun’s dad suggests after glancing at his watch with a worried look. Obviously he plans on distracting the two boys that were shifting about but didn’t really notice the attempt to avert their attention from the door and windows.
Like in a tennis game, their eyes constantly switch between these two directions - who would want to miss the arrival of Santa Claus?
“Yeah, how about we do ’Catch the mouse’?”, Jinki’s mom replies with an enthusiastic smile while Jonghyun’s mom nods approvingly.
The younger boy lifts his gaze from the door and looks at his mom as if scanning her - something smells foul here. Nevertheless, he spares Jinki a look and slowly nods his head one moment later. “Hm, okay.”
Since they are sitting all around the table, Jonghyun stands up and drags his chair behind himself like a toy duck with a string. After about five seconds of only the noise of the chair being dragged across the floor resounding, Jinki and Jonghyun’s mom stand up to follow him to the other side of the table, too.
To play ‘Catch the mouse’ properly, they have to sit in a line with their shoulders meeting and facing one direction - to prevent cheating, obviously. “Who’s gonna be first?”, Jinki’s mom playfully asks and Jonghyun darts forward, almost toppling Jinki over in the process.
The adults can’t help but laugh at seeing the youngest being all for it. Jonghyun proudly takes his seat as the head of the row, beaming as in his head he’s already planning mischief. “No cheating allowed.”, Mr. Kim says - and it would have been a perfectly normal announcing if he wasn’t looking only at Jonghyun.
After everyone is finally sitting, the order goes like this: Jonghyun - Jinki - Jonghyun’s mom - Jinki’s mom - Jonghyun’s dad. “You ready?”, Jonghyun asks the others and receives several confirmations. “Fine, let’s do it!”
They start the game by chanting “Catch the mouse! Catch the mouse! Catch, catch, catch! How many? How many?” altogether. Jonghyun, being the first one in the line, shouted out the number of mice. “4!”
In this first round, every of the left players took a turn in catching a mouse, so that Jonghyun’s dad was the last one to shout out a “Catch!” before they all chanted “Hooray!”. Nobody drops out that way, so Jonghyun has to start a new round. “Cat!”, he yells and everybody but Jinki reacts fast enough to shout “Meow!” with raised arms.
While Jonghyun laughs almost madly because of succeeding in kicking his best friend out of the game, Jinki splutters: “But he told me he’d shout ‘3!’ next! This isn’t fair!”
Mrs. Kim gives Jonghyun a warning look. “Restart. No cheating from now on - it’s not nice, Jongie.” Said boy sighs and pouts a little before getting back into position. “Oh, and this time, I’ll start.”, Mr. Lee announces with a smile.
Everybody but Jonghyun’s dad and Jinki had dropped out by the time when a loud knock is heard on the door. The two boys of the lot immediately jerk their head up, feeling all tingly again. This has to be Santa!
And really, while the kids are frozen to the spot because of their excitement, Jonghyun’s mom goes over to the door and opens it, revealing a white-bearded man who is clad in red clothes with white (faux) fur. He has a hilarious hat on and Jinki would have bursted out laughing if he wasn’t so distracted by the gift bag.
“Ho, ho, ho! These young boys must be Kim Jonghyun and Lee Jinki, aren’t you?”, Santa Claus hollers with a deep voice, stomping closer to the said. They are a bit put off because Santa Claus is nothing like they had imagined.
Jonghyun just isn’t able to shake off the thought he seemed a little unfitting for his image, especially when the man almost trips on air. But then, the thoughts are put to a rest because the man kneels down to match the boy’s eyelevel a bit more.
“I wondered why nobody’s at home at your place, Jinki. Come to think of the snow, I guess I have to thank my reindeers for bringing me and your gifts safely here - though I have to tell you I left your present at your house, Jinki. I bet you’ll like it!”, Santa told Jinki, who carefully nods a bit, though he seems a bit disappointed.
“Ah, and Jonghyun. You haven’t been very nice sometimes this year, have you?” Santa gives the youngest boy a questioning glance; this is also answered with a reluctant nod. “It’s not nice to play pranks everytime you get a funny idea, you know? Although I think some of it was really hilarious.”
The man almost chuckles, but he goes back to serious when Mrs. Lee clears her throat warningly. “I can only give your present to you if you promise you’ll be a good boy this year, Jonghyun.”, Santa seriously tells him.
Jonghyun gulps and reluctantly nods again. “Scout’s honor?”, the white-bearded man asks.
“Yeah, scout’s honor. I’ll be a good boy this year.” His statement sounds almost grudgingly, but Santa laughs and nods approvingly, obviously content with the answer he got. “Well done.” He rummages through his bag and draws a rather big, square gift out.
“Ooh-wah!” Jonghyun is extremely anticipating whatever may be in there. He pays no attention anymore as Santa gives Jinki a chocolate Santa. When he stands up, he pats both boys on their heads and turns to leave.
Jonghyun is busy ripping the wrapping of his gift apart while Jinki pads over to the table. He makes a sad face as he unwraps the foil of the choco Santa.
Mrs. Lee notices her son sitting on his own and goes to sit beside him. “Don’t you want to ask Jonghyun if you can join him playing?”, she encourages him with a motherly smile and nudges him to go.
With an insecure smile, Jinki gets up to do as he’s told. He sees that Jonghyun’s gifts are a few matchbox cars and a racing site to play on with the cars. “Jongie? Can I play with you?”, he asks warily. In response, he gets a bright beam and a matchbox car shoved in his hand. “Chase me!”, Jonghyun demands while pushing his own car across the toy racing site.
Jinki quietly but gleefully murmurs a “Thanks”, when he goes on to follow his friend’s request, racing him with the matchbox car. Their parents watch them with typically parent-like smiles and happy hearts, drinking a bottle of good wine together as a present to themselves.
As his dad returns some time later, the seven-year old thinks it’s quite sad his dad wasn’t around to meet Santa Claus. But then again, he’s distracted by Jonghyun, who loudly imitates car racing sounds and bumps one matchbox car into Jinki’s hand, who wails and goes on to race Jonghyun’s car with his own.
Later that night, Jinki staggers behind Jonghyun to follow him into his room. Generously, the younger boy had offered on his own initiative for Jinki to sleep in his bed, too, since they are now stuck together till the next morning anyway.
Tired and already stumbling from the sleepiness, the two boys get ready for bed (on their own, of course, they weren’t babies, were they?!).
As much as Jinki chuckles when Jonghyun’s mom tells the younger boy to brush his teeth properly, Jonghyun is snickering at how Jinki’s mom enjoins the elder to sit down when peeing. In the end, they are both reprimanded because of their super giggly and hyper behavior - probably the combined result of them being together, their bliss about Christmas and their sleepiness taking over.
But all of the day’s happenings were a good drug to their sleepiness. They were still talking for a while after their moms had left, when Jinki had fallen asleep at some point. The elder had pulled the comforter up all the way over his head. At first, Jonghyun snickered about it, then went all annoyed about it, but in the end, he refrains himself from waking Jinki up violently and instead wiggles around to get his body under the comforter.
Like this, he had really managed to get some of the warmth - his limbs still sticking out under the comforter, but Jinki hugged him like an oversized plushie. It isn’t overly comfortable for Jonghyun, but he decides to keep quiet about it - it’s Christmas and about his best friend, after all. He falls asleep quite fast despite his lacking freedom, though.
That night, the two boys dream about adventures with each other, about future and past, Christmas trees, love, and whatever their subconscious has in mind. One could say that this day and night spent together was a big step in sealing their long-lasting friendship, as well as their love, maybe.
Jonghyun giggled, feeling happy with just the memory of this day. “I feel like this was just yesterday…”, he then admitted and laughed out loud again.
“Yeah. My parents were super shocked when I confronted them about dad playing Santa Claus accordingly to you. You didn’t only destroy my belief in Santa Claus, but also my parent’s innocent belief thinking that I’d never find out.” Jinki grinned in that charming, whole-hearted toothy smile.
“Your dad being Santa destroyed my belief too, you know?” The younger male snorted, chuckling.
A few footsteps were approaching them. “Hey, what’s it that you’re laughing about so happily? Wanna know~” Taemin stretched the last syllable extra long with a tint of aegyo. It was him, Minho and Kibum who had appeared; while Jinki and Jonghyun’s friendship progressed throughout the years, they met the three boys one after another.
It was their first Christmas to be celebrated as a group of five. They were living together as five for about a year, with usual arguments here and there, but a rather smooth atmosphere in a whole.”Ah, Jinki and me just reminisced about our first ever Christmas together.” Jonghyun smiled and dodged the not-so-serious slap from Kibum.
“Who are you to keep secrets from us? It’s Christmas, the time of love and revelation - how about telling us about it, too?”, the third oldest man demanded. Minho hummed in approval and snatched a bite from Taemin’s piece of gingerbread ma, which the younger in turn had stolen from Jinki.
The latter chuckled and couldn’t help but feel like the happy father of those three telling them about their parents met. “Well … I guess there’s nothing to be said against it…” And again, the two eldest began telling their little story, big smiles plastered on their faces.
From: Your Secret Santa
Title: Our First Christmas together
Pairing: Onew/Jonghyun; hinted OT5
Rating: PG
Wordcount: 3,765
Summary: Jinki and Jonghyun remember their first Christmas together back when they were kids. It was all just a blizzard’s fault - but it was an eventful and cheerful day to remember, as well as this day changed the way they celebrated Christmas for the many years to come.
“Hey, Jonghyun. Do you still remember the first Christmas we spent together?” Jinki smiled at the other guy who stopped munching the gingerbread man.
Jonghyun grinned brightly in the memory, then hastily tried to gulp down the mass in his mouth but only ended in a coughing fit. After the elder patted his back, Jonghyun was finally able to speak again. “How could I forget?” A few crumbs sprayed into Jinki’s direction, who ducked away, laughing.
Two pairs of child’s hands are pressed against the freezing cold glass of the window. Always-curious eyes look out in the white mess that whirls around and only gets settled after at least a hundred spirals, as Jonghyun would claim. Jinki had added that it reminded him of the leaves in fall, or the cherry blossom petals; just like the snow outside, all these things had characteristics. Some would wildly swirl around, refusing to settle down, whereas some would just take their sweet time slowly sinking.
“If there’s snow in winter, cherry blossom petals in spring and leaves in fall - what’s there in the summer? There cannot be nothing.” Jinki pressed his forehead against the glass and turned his head to look at the younger boy.
Jonghyun was busy tracing one particularly beautiful frost pattern, his eyes following the pretty outlines of the ice flower. “Isn’t it obvious? Dandelions, of course.” The elder nodded, mutely and continued watching the smaller boy. “Don’t you think they must have souls too? To me, it feels as if they have.” Jonghyun looked up, staring at Jinki and smiling slightly.
Slightly chuckling, the seven-year-old looks meaningfully at the snow storm out there. “Do you also think they build up to a storm on purpose? Are they rioting, or do they only want us to stay together?” After finishing his sentence, Jinki begins to crack up, and the six-year-old joins the laughter.
“Maybe the snow tells us to wreak some havoc? Well, I don’t mind either way, I like having you here.” Jonghyun beams brightly, his smile lacking one lateral incisor. Spontaneously, they hug and Jinki ruffles the younger boy’s hair.
“Hey, how about we steal a few cookies from your mom?”, the elder suggests with a boyish and sneaky smile, turning around on the window sill and jumping the distance to the floor with outstretched limbs - the result of this was one boy who lay sprawled out on the parquet floor and another boy who almost fell off the window sill himself while laughing at the clumsy action of his best friend.
A muffled wheeze came from the living heap, but Jonghyun lands safely on the floor and struts over to the other with ostentation, finally extending one palm. “Come on, we have to work out the greatest, most wonderful steal-the-cookies plan that will be so super duper that we will go down in history as the bestest idea-ers of the century.”
As the two boys tip-toe to the kitchen, they stop occasionally and do this super cool action where the hero checks if the coast is clear!, quotation Jonghyun end. It’s risky, their moms sitting on the table just at the entrance of the kitchen - but they are talking and sipping hot tea, maybe they would be able to succeed in their steal-as-much-cookies-as-possible mission.
Unnoticed, they proceed to run and hide behind random pieces of furniture, finally getting too close as hiding behind the flower pot of a rubber plant. Two meters away from them, Jinki’s mom was just telling Jonghyun’s mom about some ’failing incident’ - as Jonghyun dubbed it -, when Jonghyun carefully grabbed the twigs and formed a hole to look through it.
“Yah, Jinki hyung!” The younger boy hisses to get the attention of the blushing boy. “You need to focus! Don’t stand around like a lightning-struck penguin!” Because of this reprimand, Jinki gets on his knees and crawls over to the pot and peers at their moms from behind. To make up for his previously lacking attention, he gives his surroundings an once-over and then blurts out the first idea he has.
“How about simply crawling over? There’s no idea our moms would notice if we’re totally mute and we’ll just crawl over to the table and hide behind that huge bag of … whatever it is …” The elder trails off with an asking tone on the end of his suggestion and carefully lifts his gaze to the other’s.
Jonghyun gives no expression, blankly looking at his friend. Feeling uncomfortable, the latter tries an encouraging smile; but by that time, Jonghyun suddenly grabs Jinki’s shoulders, frightening him.
“Hey Jinki!! I got an idea! We’ll just go over there by imitating a caterpillar! They won’t notice us at all!!” Jonghyun breaks out in his trademark megawatt-smile, ignoring Jinki’s deadpanning like he had not just copied the other’s idea and plainly put it into other words.
But Jinki has no time to complain as the younger already peers again through the leaves and then motions for him to follow as he put his chest onto the floor, his butt poking high into the air. One moment later, he launches forward by stretching out his legs and pushing himself forward like this.
Then the boy pulls his legs to his body again and again, the caterpillar-like posture with his butt in the air appeared. Afraid he might be left behind, Jinki also launches his best caterpillar moves.
The two boys don’t notice how Mrs. Kim is suddenly spotting the motions in the back of her best friend, Mrs. Lee. She isn’t able to suppress the urge to giggle, picking up her friend’s attention in the process.
Mrs. Lee follows the glance of the other woman curiously and finds their respective sons crawling across the floor in movements that resemble a caterpillar’s. She, too, hides a bright chuckle behind her hand. Amusing themselves, the two young women pretend to chat along, while actually watching their sons.
With a triumphant smile, Jonghyun hurries over to the big paper bag of Jinki’s mom standing on the floor. He goes on to hide behind it - which was not much of a task for him, as he was quite small and flexible. Looking back at his friend, he impatiently waves to the elder still moving forward.
Jonghyun gets frightened when suddenly the chairs get pushed back with loud clattering noises and he thinks they have been found out - turns out that they had not been found out, as the two women leave the kitchen (of course to allow their lovely boys to get the cookies they were obviously on the hunt for).
Jinki blurts out a hearty laugh as soon as their parents are gone and he looks at Jonghyun, having curled up and scrunched up into a little ball; like a turtle being afraid. “Hey Jjong, they’re gone! Didn’t it work out great?”
The elder had walked over to his friend who unfolded himself to show off another grin. “Indeed! Come on!” Jonghyun grabs the other boy’s hand and starts running into the kitchen, stopping before the kitchen counter where the box of cookies stands on top of another shelf.
“Uh, well. Seems like the box is up quite far … so you’re out of consideration as always, and also -“ Jinki stretches and hops to try to reach the shelf. “-also, I am unable to reach it. Go stand on my shoulders.” The younger blinks at Jinki. “Eh?”
But he seven-year-old goes on his knees and Jonghyun cannot chicken out like that. So he gets onto Jinki’s shoulders and grabs his head to stabilize himself while Jinki stands up and puts his hands up against the kitchen counter for stabilization.
After some bickering going on because of Jinki’s slightly unsteady stand and Jonghyun’s rude fisting of the elder’s hair, the six-year-old really succeeds in climbing onto the counter and getting the box with self-made cookies. “Catch it!”, he warns Jinki and then drops down the box, following shortly after.
Jinki really had managed to catch the container and now stands beside the kitchen door, waiting for his companion. “We should make a run for your room…”, he carefully suggests and squints outside to the table. Jonghyun accompanies his friend in the doorway and chuckles. “We should.”, he agrees and then, he dashes outside, running back all the way to his room.
He arrives in his room and Jinki is just behind him. Their plan succeeded! “Mission Caterpillar Complete!”, Jonghyun proudly announces and goes to sit on his bed, waving to Jinki to follow him.
As they share the cookies in silence, they don’t care about the possibility of being caught or all of the crumbs collecting on Jonghyun’s comforter. Also, they do not only share the cookies, but occasional grins when they think about their ingenuity.
And when the cookies in the box run low, Jonghyun gets to take the last cookie due to Jinki giving it to him. “It was your idea.” He doesn’t mind Jonghyun some kind of ‘stealing’ his plan earlier, instead he grins and shows off his eyesmile. But he did not expect what happens next: the younger breaks the cookie in the middle and hands the bigger half to Jinki.
“It was our idea, and our effort, right?” Jonghyun reciprocates the elder’s smile as they both munch on their respective half of the cookie.
After another few hours of pranks, talking and playing around, it is finally time for the formal Christmas dinner. Originally spent with the family, this year’s dinner at Kim’s would be spent with Jinki and his parents. Jonghyun doesn’t have any grandparents who would want to come - his grandpa in Japan is a huffy old man, distancing himself from the family - and everybody else was already gone. It would have been rude to throw out the Lees because of the blizzard outside, so they simply resolved to celebrate together.
Since the conversations of their parents is nothing to pay too much attention to, Jonghyun and Jinki preferred to have their own talks - about Jinki’s latest matchbox toy car or Jonghyun’s new classmate (who was the cousin of their later friend Minho, hilariously enough), or whatever comes to their minds.
Honestly, they both are unable to really concentrate on the taste of the delicious, home-made variety of foods, or the mochi cake, or whatever was placed in front of them - the tingly, excited feeling taking control of the boy’s minds.
Jinki’s dad, who was a rather quiet and observing man, had noticed the two boys fidgeting in their seats. To get the attention of the kids, he pokes his tongue out at them, then pulls a few dorky grimaces, intending to distract them a bit and making them laugh.
Jonghyun is the first to take notice of his best friend’s dad doing hilarious grimaces, immediately bursting out laughing. The younger nudged Jinki in the side, and the latter nearly dropped the chopsticks when he looked at his dad. Because such an incident couldn’t go unnoticed, suddenly the three other parents look with blank faces at Mr. Lee, who had frozen in a stupid grimace as soon as he noticed the attention focused on him.
Nervously, he broke out in a bright smile and laughed to pass off his embarrassment. Jonghyun’s mom began to laugh a moment later, successfully breaking the tensed atmosphere. “Jinki definitely got his antics by you…”, she comments and looks at said boy for a little while. Jinki’s dad grins and shrugs - family antics are family antics, right?
The rest of the dinner went by smoothly. After his previous embarrassment, Jinki’s dad had excused himself. Despite being extremely nervous due to the gifts awaiting them, even the two boys helped cleaning the table.
Now they are sitting with their parents (minus Jinki’s dad - God knows what he’s doing) and bore themselves out.
“Hm… what about we play a little game?”, Jonghyun’s dad suggests after glancing at his watch with a worried look. Obviously he plans on distracting the two boys that were shifting about but didn’t really notice the attempt to avert their attention from the door and windows.
Like in a tennis game, their eyes constantly switch between these two directions - who would want to miss the arrival of Santa Claus?
“Yeah, how about we do ’Catch the mouse’?”, Jinki’s mom replies with an enthusiastic smile while Jonghyun’s mom nods approvingly.
The younger boy lifts his gaze from the door and looks at his mom as if scanning her - something smells foul here. Nevertheless, he spares Jinki a look and slowly nods his head one moment later. “Hm, okay.”
Since they are sitting all around the table, Jonghyun stands up and drags his chair behind himself like a toy duck with a string. After about five seconds of only the noise of the chair being dragged across the floor resounding, Jinki and Jonghyun’s mom stand up to follow him to the other side of the table, too.
To play ‘Catch the mouse’ properly, they have to sit in a line with their shoulders meeting and facing one direction - to prevent cheating, obviously. “Who’s gonna be first?”, Jinki’s mom playfully asks and Jonghyun darts forward, almost toppling Jinki over in the process.
The adults can’t help but laugh at seeing the youngest being all for it. Jonghyun proudly takes his seat as the head of the row, beaming as in his head he’s already planning mischief. “No cheating allowed.”, Mr. Kim says - and it would have been a perfectly normal announcing if he wasn’t looking only at Jonghyun.
After everyone is finally sitting, the order goes like this: Jonghyun - Jinki - Jonghyun’s mom - Jinki’s mom - Jonghyun’s dad. “You ready?”, Jonghyun asks the others and receives several confirmations. “Fine, let’s do it!”
They start the game by chanting “Catch the mouse! Catch the mouse! Catch, catch, catch! How many? How many?” altogether. Jonghyun, being the first one in the line, shouted out the number of mice. “4!”
In this first round, every of the left players took a turn in catching a mouse, so that Jonghyun’s dad was the last one to shout out a “Catch!” before they all chanted “Hooray!”. Nobody drops out that way, so Jonghyun has to start a new round. “Cat!”, he yells and everybody but Jinki reacts fast enough to shout “Meow!” with raised arms.
While Jonghyun laughs almost madly because of succeeding in kicking his best friend out of the game, Jinki splutters: “But he told me he’d shout ‘3!’ next! This isn’t fair!”
Mrs. Kim gives Jonghyun a warning look. “Restart. No cheating from now on - it’s not nice, Jongie.” Said boy sighs and pouts a little before getting back into position. “Oh, and this time, I’ll start.”, Mr. Lee announces with a smile.
Everybody but Jonghyun’s dad and Jinki had dropped out by the time when a loud knock is heard on the door. The two boys of the lot immediately jerk their head up, feeling all tingly again. This has to be Santa!
And really, while the kids are frozen to the spot because of their excitement, Jonghyun’s mom goes over to the door and opens it, revealing a white-bearded man who is clad in red clothes with white (faux) fur. He has a hilarious hat on and Jinki would have bursted out laughing if he wasn’t so distracted by the gift bag.
“Ho, ho, ho! These young boys must be Kim Jonghyun and Lee Jinki, aren’t you?”, Santa Claus hollers with a deep voice, stomping closer to the said. They are a bit put off because Santa Claus is nothing like they had imagined.
Jonghyun just isn’t able to shake off the thought he seemed a little unfitting for his image, especially when the man almost trips on air. But then, the thoughts are put to a rest because the man kneels down to match the boy’s eyelevel a bit more.
“I wondered why nobody’s at home at your place, Jinki. Come to think of the snow, I guess I have to thank my reindeers for bringing me and your gifts safely here - though I have to tell you I left your present at your house, Jinki. I bet you’ll like it!”, Santa told Jinki, who carefully nods a bit, though he seems a bit disappointed.
“Ah, and Jonghyun. You haven’t been very nice sometimes this year, have you?” Santa gives the youngest boy a questioning glance; this is also answered with a reluctant nod. “It’s not nice to play pranks everytime you get a funny idea, you know? Although I think some of it was really hilarious.”
The man almost chuckles, but he goes back to serious when Mrs. Lee clears her throat warningly. “I can only give your present to you if you promise you’ll be a good boy this year, Jonghyun.”, Santa seriously tells him.
Jonghyun gulps and reluctantly nods again. “Scout’s honor?”, the white-bearded man asks.
“Yeah, scout’s honor. I’ll be a good boy this year.” His statement sounds almost grudgingly, but Santa laughs and nods approvingly, obviously content with the answer he got. “Well done.” He rummages through his bag and draws a rather big, square gift out.
“Ooh-wah!” Jonghyun is extremely anticipating whatever may be in there. He pays no attention anymore as Santa gives Jinki a chocolate Santa. When he stands up, he pats both boys on their heads and turns to leave.
Jonghyun is busy ripping the wrapping of his gift apart while Jinki pads over to the table. He makes a sad face as he unwraps the foil of the choco Santa.
Mrs. Lee notices her son sitting on his own and goes to sit beside him. “Don’t you want to ask Jonghyun if you can join him playing?”, she encourages him with a motherly smile and nudges him to go.
With an insecure smile, Jinki gets up to do as he’s told. He sees that Jonghyun’s gifts are a few matchbox cars and a racing site to play on with the cars. “Jongie? Can I play with you?”, he asks warily. In response, he gets a bright beam and a matchbox car shoved in his hand. “Chase me!”, Jonghyun demands while pushing his own car across the toy racing site.
Jinki quietly but gleefully murmurs a “Thanks”, when he goes on to follow his friend’s request, racing him with the matchbox car. Their parents watch them with typically parent-like smiles and happy hearts, drinking a bottle of good wine together as a present to themselves.
As his dad returns some time later, the seven-year old thinks it’s quite sad his dad wasn’t around to meet Santa Claus. But then again, he’s distracted by Jonghyun, who loudly imitates car racing sounds and bumps one matchbox car into Jinki’s hand, who wails and goes on to race Jonghyun’s car with his own.
Later that night, Jinki staggers behind Jonghyun to follow him into his room. Generously, the younger boy had offered on his own initiative for Jinki to sleep in his bed, too, since they are now stuck together till the next morning anyway.
Tired and already stumbling from the sleepiness, the two boys get ready for bed (on their own, of course, they weren’t babies, were they?!).
As much as Jinki chuckles when Jonghyun’s mom tells the younger boy to brush his teeth properly, Jonghyun is snickering at how Jinki’s mom enjoins the elder to sit down when peeing. In the end, they are both reprimanded because of their super giggly and hyper behavior - probably the combined result of them being together, their bliss about Christmas and their sleepiness taking over.
But all of the day’s happenings were a good drug to their sleepiness. They were still talking for a while after their moms had left, when Jinki had fallen asleep at some point. The elder had pulled the comforter up all the way over his head. At first, Jonghyun snickered about it, then went all annoyed about it, but in the end, he refrains himself from waking Jinki up violently and instead wiggles around to get his body under the comforter.
Like this, he had really managed to get some of the warmth - his limbs still sticking out under the comforter, but Jinki hugged him like an oversized plushie. It isn’t overly comfortable for Jonghyun, but he decides to keep quiet about it - it’s Christmas and about his best friend, after all. He falls asleep quite fast despite his lacking freedom, though.
That night, the two boys dream about adventures with each other, about future and past, Christmas trees, love, and whatever their subconscious has in mind. One could say that this day and night spent together was a big step in sealing their long-lasting friendship, as well as their love, maybe.
Jonghyun giggled, feeling happy with just the memory of this day. “I feel like this was just yesterday…”, he then admitted and laughed out loud again.
“Yeah. My parents were super shocked when I confronted them about dad playing Santa Claus accordingly to you. You didn’t only destroy my belief in Santa Claus, but also my parent’s innocent belief thinking that I’d never find out.” Jinki grinned in that charming, whole-hearted toothy smile.
“Your dad being Santa destroyed my belief too, you know?” The younger male snorted, chuckling.
A few footsteps were approaching them. “Hey, what’s it that you’re laughing about so happily? Wanna know~” Taemin stretched the last syllable extra long with a tint of aegyo. It was him, Minho and Kibum who had appeared; while Jinki and Jonghyun’s friendship progressed throughout the years, they met the three boys one after another.
It was their first Christmas to be celebrated as a group of five. They were living together as five for about a year, with usual arguments here and there, but a rather smooth atmosphere in a whole.”Ah, Jinki and me just reminisced about our first ever Christmas together.” Jonghyun smiled and dodged the not-so-serious slap from Kibum.
“Who are you to keep secrets from us? It’s Christmas, the time of love and revelation - how about telling us about it, too?”, the third oldest man demanded. Minho hummed in approval and snatched a bite from Taemin’s piece of gingerbread ma, which the younger in turn had stolen from Jinki.
The latter chuckled and couldn’t help but feel like the happy father of those three telling them about their parents met. “Well … I guess there’s nothing to be said against it…” And again, the two eldest began telling their little story, big smiles plastered on their faces.