Not Too Late | Choi San

CHAPTER TWENTY NINE

i'd give my all,
to hold you close.
but in the end,
i'm the only one
who falls.

•••

      Christmas eve rolls around in the blink of an eye. time has gone by fast and before anyone has realised it, the eight boys were gathered in the living room with a punch of boxes and happy, excited smiles.

"alright kids," Seonghwa seats himself down, completing the circle they've made on the floor. he has a red and green Christmas sweater, an ugly one at that with funny dog faces, as do the others. they're the same matching sweaters him and Hongjoong bought a while ago, and they've gone out today morning to buy two more for Jongho and Wooyoung since they weren't there at that time. so now everyone is forced to sit with their ugly sweater in this circle with their gifts in front of them, including San who's fiddling nervously with the wrapping of his gift. "let's start from Jongho and go from youngest to oldest."

Jongho throws his big blue gift at Yeosang's, making the boy wince and wail as it has hit him right in the face. "take it, your gift, hyung."

"why use hyung when you just hit me like that you brat," Yeosang mumbles as he tears his gift apart, gasping upon seeing the drone in front of him. "you didn't! this is expensive as hell!"

"i used my savings," Jongho tries to look indifferent but his face starts to heat up. "nothing special, i mean—"

Yeosang jumps on him and then they're hugging. Jongho looks kinda uncomfortable, and Yeosang doesn't linger for long since he knows the younger isn't a fan of skinship.

"thanks! this is literally so good oh my god!"

next is Wooyoung, and he looks bouncy as he hands his gift to Hongjoong. "i still hate you, hyung, but i hope you like this gift! i had to go through hell and back to get it!"

Hongjoong opens the box to find a golden mug with the words best hyungie, Hongjoongie engraved onto it in a black majestic font. he gapes at the words and then he's chuckling. "yah! Hongjoongie??"

Wooyoung giggles, "yeah! suits you! you're cute when angry!"

Hongjoong huffs but still smiles fondly.

and then it's Mingi's turn and turns out he had Yunho and his gift is, unsurprisingly, rubber duckies. needless to say, he got chased throughout the whole dorm for a good ten minutes.

then it's San's turn, and he nervously pushes the small box he has bought last night towards Wooyoung, the latter bouncing excitedly as he opens it.

it's a silver bracelet, one that he contemplated too hard before getting because it was expensive. he spent more than half of his allowance on it, but San bought it anyways. he was having a hard time the last couple of days after meeting with his father and Wooyoung has been with him the whole time, he glared at Yeosang whenever he passed by and huddled close to San when they were watching a movie. he even stayed with him when he was doing homework. so San thought that the least he could do was buy him something meaningful, and what made him believe buying this bracelet is a good idea is because it has an infinity symbol dangling from it's side. it looks simple yet elegant in a way, and San thought that maybe, just maybe, if he bought this bracelet with the infinity symbol then Wooyoung would stay with him forever, maybe he wouldn't have to say goodbye to him or to his other friends.