Feel your lips crush

4.

I'll be your holiday (To: You, From: Me)

NIve

Every year Johnny is left with the same issue: last minute Christmas shopping. Between exam season and working shifts at the cafe so he can even afford to get gifts, his schedule doesn't exactly open up for him to think about it. This year there are a couple of exceptions in the shape of Doyoung and Taeil. He bought their gift about a month or so ago, but only because it's concert tickets and he had to secure good seats for them. For everyone else though?

Exam season is finally through, winter break has started and Christmas is in four days. He's in one of many stores, the music blasting through the speakers transitioning from jingle bells to everyone's favorite Mariah Carey song. It's got him humming along before he can even notice as he strolls through the aisles.

There's no telling how well his shopping is going to go, it's a gamble each time. Some years he wanders through the store and just finds a bunch of things that remind him of his friends. Other times he walks around cringing the whole time because nothing is really jumping out at him. Those years it takes him many hours and many stores before he finishes. Luckily, this year seems to be in the former category. It doesn't take him very long to get everyone something.

He thinks about his parents first. He already got a bottle of wine that he's planning to bring home for his mom. He spots a pair of matching ugly sweaters and throws them in his cart after finding the right sizes. His parents always did like cutesy things like that and his dad liked having a festive sweater on hand during the holiday season. But from there he just kinda wanders and lands on things people would like. He sees a huge wolf plushie and immediately thinks of Taeyong. He ends up by a jewelry display and picks out a variety of charms that seem like something Ten would like. Johnny picks up a few other small things for some family members and a few other friends like Donghyuck, even if they haven't seen each other much lately.

It isn't until he's idly walking around the music section that he finds something for Mark. As if the gift finding gods were just on his side today, Johnny sees that a bunch of the big bulky headphones are on sale. He remembers Mark talking about wanting to get some from a specific brand but just never getting to it and he manages to find the very brand in the color blue, staring at him from one of the middle shelves like it was just begging to be bought. With the box in his cart, Johnny's crossed all the people off his list but one. Jaehyun.

He keeps going through the music section, trying to think of something the other would like. He passes by CDs, speakers, headphones of all shapes and sizes, but when he lands on the vinyls he stops. A memory comes to mind and he smiles looking through them to find the right record.

"You've got a vinyl collection?" Johnny asks, looking through the records on the shelf in front of him. He had gotten bored at Jaehyun's apartment and ended up looking around.

"Yeah, I just started getting them recently though so I don't have too many."

"Cigarettes after sex?" Johnny asks, raising his eyebrows suggestively at Jaehyun before observing the simple design of the cover.

"You haven't heard of them?" Jaehyun questions surprised.

"I've heard of it. Didn't know you were into that sort of thing."

Jaehyun pinches the skin of Johnny's neck and he squirms away, letting Jaehyun take the record. In seconds music floods the room. "At least listen to one song. This album sounds really good like this. I was thinking about getting another one, maybe their Cry album?"

Johnny smiles in success when he finds the Cry album, lifting it up to inspect it. The price thankfully did not send him over budget. So he buys a bit of wrapping paper and a few small boxes for the gifts that aren't exactly wrappable as is. When he leaves it's with over a hundred dollars spent and a lot of wrapping to do.