#I didn't get back from midnight mass until nearly 2am and I need to be back at church for 10.30am tomorrow

[sleepyfantasy]

Miracles in December: Sehun

AN: Hi, I have been meaning to write more of these since last year but here I am in the same position as last year, trying to get one done before Midnight Mass and actually doing worse lol. Sorry. Anyway, I hope you guys enjoy. (And just so you know Y/N/N is not a weird typo, it means your neice’s name. A bit of a cop out, sorry.)

Edited: AN: Sorry for the messing around but I wanted to have something posted before Christmas. This post now contains the FULL STORY. I have a couple more of these planned for between now and New Year. Let’s hope I actually get them done and don’t procrastinate as hard as I did before this one. 

Summary: You take your niece for a walk and find her an unexpected play date.

Others in series: Xiumin, Lay, Chanyeol, Kai

Your niece had been getting on everyone’s nerves as you were all trying to tidy up after Christmas dinner. She love love loved each of her presents... for a maximum of half an hour. You knew she would go back to playing with them all tomorrow, but the Christmas magic had her too excited to do anything for any length of time.

Her grandmother had been trying to get her to come for a walk with her to get her out of everyone’s hair for a while, but as today’s favourite family member, she insisted on you coming with her instead.

You planned to take her out to the nearby square. There weren’t any parks nearby, but you figured the square would be mostly empty and have enough of a covering of snow for her to play in to keep her happy for a little while. Leaving her mum in charge of wrangling the excitable child into as many layers as possible to keep her warm in the snow, you searched the house for the supplies you needed.

Once you had everything in your bag and she was wrapped up so much she could barely bend her limbs, you headed out into the cold. You held one of her tiny gloved hands in your own, keeping her next to you as you crossed empty roads covered in snow. It was necessary to hold onto her because she was so hyper that you worried she would just take off in a direction and you didn’t fancy taking chase, although you also wanted to keep a grip on her in case she slipped on the snow.

Entering the square, you found you were very wrong when you thought it would be empty. There were men scattered around the square, all looking out for someone. This meant that several of them looked up when they heard you enter the square, but quickly looked away when they saw you weren’t the one they were waiting for.

Trying to find an empty-ish spot that hadn’t been trampled too much, you walked around to the other side of the fountain. You noticed a perfect place for what you had in mind, only to be pulled away from it by your tiny niece yanking you in the other direction, back towards the fountain where there was a young man with blonde hair staring down at the ground, a bouquet of flowers in one hand hanging at his side.

Obviously, you were strong enough to pull your niece back, but you didn’t want to hurt her. Instead you found yourself just following her as you spoke quickly, trying, unsuccessfully, to convince her to go towards the spot you had found. “Y/N/N-ie, why don’t we go over there. There’s some lovely crisp snow that’s not been trampled too much. I was thinking we could build a snowman. That would be fun, wouldn’t it?”

She was having none of it.

“Pretty flowers,” she said, reaching out for the flowers the man was holding, and making him look up from the patch of floor he had been glaring at.

His expression softened immediately when he saw your adorable little niece smiling up at him.

Now that she had stopped pulling you and was just reaching out for the flowers, you picked her up, sitting her on your hip.

“I’m sorry for bothering you,” you told him, bowing your head slightly.

He shook his head. “Don’t worry about it.”

Reaching into the bouquet, he plucked one of the pink roses out of it, snapping off part of the stem, making it much shorter, and checked there were no thorns left. He reached forward, looking at you for permission, and after a nod from you, he placed it behind your niece’s ear. The way that her hair was up in bunches helped it stay in place as she looked up at him in awe.

You knew that look.

You may have been the favourite family member for the day, but this man had just become her favourite person for the day.

“What do you say, Y/N/N-ie?” you asked her.

“Thank you, Ajeossi,” she said, suddenly shy and hiding her face against you, tickling your nose a bit with the flower.

He laughed. “I’m not an ajeossi! Please call me Sehun.”

“I’m Y/N,” you introduced yourself. When you looked down at your niece and she was still being shy, you introduced her too. “This is my niece, Y/N/N.”

“How old is she?”

He had directed the question towards you, but this was one of her favourite questions. A combination of her birthday having been relatively recently and her learning her numbers at school meant that any time this was asked, and often when it wasn’t, she would proudly tell anyone who would listen, “I’m five,” holding up the right number of fingers exactly as she did just then, almost falling out of your arms in the process.

Sehun pretended to be impressed. “Five? Wow!” He held up five fingers to match her and she took the opportunity to give him a high five, again almost falling out of your arms.

You decided she might be safer if you put her down. As soon as you placed her down on the ground, she started pulling on Sehun’s trousers. Automatically, you reached to stop her, but he shook his head, mouthing, “It’s okay.”

“Come play with us!” your niece insisted.

“Y/N/N-ie, ask nicely,” you nagged.

For a five year old, she was very good at rolling her eyes. “Sehun-oppa, please come play with us?”

He looked around the square, presumably looking for the person he was waiting for. When he saw no sign of them, he knelt down and asked her, “What do you want to play?”

You had forgotten how quickly the little girl could move until in one swift movement she bent down and threw snow in his face. “Snowball fight!” she shouted, starting to run away before you caught her and picked her up again.

“I am so so sorry,” you told Sehun as he wiped the snow from his eyes.

“Don’t be,” he said, laughing. Then he patted your niece on the head. “Maybe we can have a snowball fight next time it snows.”

“For now, how about you and I build a snowman,” you suggested, “and leave Sehun-oppa to what he was doing?”

“No!” she crossed her arms and pouted.

After looking around again, he said, “I like building snowmen. Can I join in?”

The pout instantly disappeared.

“Yeah!”

She wriggled her way out of your arms and as soon as she made it to the ground, she reached up and grabbed Sehun’s hand, pulling him along to the area you had spotted before with the good snow.

Once they got there, Sehun having to bend at an awkward angle due to their height difference, she paused. “How do you make a snowman?”

You couldn’t help but take pictures of how happy your niece was as Sehun started explaining how to make a snowman, while helping her do it, especially with how cute she looked with that flower still tucked behind her ear.

When you were distracted, sending some of them to your sister, you were suddenly hit directly on the top of your head by a snowball. Narrowing your eyes at the two of them, you saw each of them pointing to the other, as if telling you ‘they did it’.

Although there was no question in your mind who did it, your niece not being able to form a proper snowball, much less aim that well from a few metres away, you still ran to her and picked her up in your arms, tickling her. “Did you do that? Did you throw a snowball at me?”

“No!” she protested through her giggles. “It was Sehun-oppa!”

You stopped. “Oh, was it.”

Kneeling down, you made a couple of snowballs and whispered in your nieces ear what to do.

She ran over to Sehun as you pretended to be aiming for her, shouting, “Save me, Oppa!”

He picked her up instinctively, as you had hoped and as soon as he did, you threw the snowball at him, just as your niece did as she was told and stuffed the other one down the back of his neck.

Although her almost dropped her, he managed to hold on enough to put her down safely.

“Right,” he said, “that’s it.” He started forming a huge snowball, benefiting from much larger hands than either of you.

Your niece ran to you again and you held her, turning your back on Sehun as you said, “We surrender, we surrender!”

“You’re only saying that because you know I would win a snowball fight,” he said, putting down his snowball.

“That’s part of it,” you conceded. “But also, it’s getting late so we need to get to work if we want to finish this snowman.”

By the looks of it, both Sehun and your niece had completely forgotten about the snowman , or rather, the two medium sized snowballs on the ground nearby ready to be turned into a snowman. Now that you had reminded them, they both went over to them again, starting to roll one snowball each.

Sehun’s grew much faster than your niece’s so when that was done, he helped with the other one. Then the two of them finally remembered you were there and asked you to help them lift the head onto the body.

As was always the case, it ended up having to be a little wonky to keep balanced, but you all decided that just gave it character.

Suddenly Sehun remembered, “How are we going to make the face?”

You laughed. “Have no fear. I came prepared.”

Out of your bag you pulled out a beret your sister had been given for Christmas last year which she hated, a carrot from the bag that had been bought for dinner and some large buttons from a coat of your mother’s that had worn out. “And I thought we could find some stones to make into a mouth.”

Your niece instantly started reaching to put the beret onto the snowman, almost knocking it over in the process, which would almost certainly cause a tantrum you didn’t fancy dealing with right now, so you had to swoop in and pick her up. This meant that you couldn’t check on Sehun as he suddenly walked away. She kept you busy as she kept trying to dress the snowman.

Only a few minutes later, Sehun rejoined the two of you and avoided eye contact with you as you tried to check on him, but he seemed okay as he helped your niece decorate the snowman.

When the snowman was finished, the three of you stepped back to admire it, giving you a chance to take a picture.

“Well done, Y/N/N! What should we call your new friend?”

“Sehun!” she called out.

“Yes?” he replied.

“No, silly!” she told him. “Sehun!” she pointed at the snowman.

“You want to name your snowman after Sehun-oppa? That’s nice.”

“I am honoured,” he said, performing an exaggerated bow.

A couple of seconds more of admiring the snowman later, she called out, “Can we make another one?”

“It’s getting late, Y/N/N-ie,” you said, almost giving in when she started with the puppy dog eyes but you held strong. “We’ve got to go back home. Mummy and Daddy and Grandma and Grandpa will be missing you otherwise.”

The pouty lip came out then. “But I want to play with Sehun-oppa!”

Before you could reply, she had turned to Sehun, pulling on his trousers again. “Can you come home with us, Sehun-oppa?”

You almost choked.

“Y/N/N-ie, Sehun-oppa is waiting for someone here and even if he wasn’t, I’m sure he has better things to be doing than coming over to your house, Sweetie.”

He cleared his throat, interrupting the pouting that was about to begin. “Actually, she texted me. She’s not coming. And I think I should at least walk you home, as it is late.”

“Yay!” your niece shouted, pulling Sehun back in the direction of her house.

This only lasted about a minute, however, before she let go of him and held her arms up to you. As soon as you picked her up, she snuggled into your arms and fell asleep, worn out from all the playing she’d been doing and probably crashing after the amount of sugar she had consumed throughout the day.

Once you were sure she was asleep, you asked Sehun, “Are you okay?”

He had been thinking as he walked silently alongside you and you startled him out of his thoughts with your question. “Yes,” he answered automatically. When he saw the look you were giving him, however, he reconsidered his reply. “Well. It’s complicated.” You were still looking at him like that. Making him elaborate. “I travel for work and I’ve been away for a while. A while longer than I was supposed to be. The girl I am…was seeing, was angry at me for staying away an extra week, especially because I missed a party she was throwing. We were supposed to meet today. I was going to meet her in the square with apology flowers.” He looked down at his hands briefly, as if surprised the flowers still weren’t there, before remembering that he had left them next to the snowman. “Then I was going to make a romantic Christmas lunch at mine and give her the other presents I got for her.”

“Wait,” you said. “Lunch? How long had you been standing there when we arrived?”

After thinking for a second, he replied, “Five hours-ish?”

You were amazed by his dedication. He stood out there waiting for her, and she didn’t even have the courtesy to show up to break up with him. She did it by text, nearly six hours after she was supposed to meet him. You were mad. Sehun had been so sweet with your niece, you couldn’t imagine anyone treating him like that and it made you so angry that she had.

“Y/N/N-ie was right. You should come with us. But I’ll drop her off at hers. My house is across the street. You need to get a warm drink in you.”

He shook his head. “Don’t go out of your way. I’m fine.”

“Oh, I’m sorry, did that come across as a request? It wasn’t. You’re coming over.”

He laughed for the first time since you had left the square, holding his hands up in defence. “Okay, okay. I know when I’m beat. Who knew someone could look so scary when holding a five-year-old?”

You laughed too. “Oh, I knew it. You should see my sister, her mum,” you inclined your head toward the sleeping child, “when her dad pisses her off.”

“I’m going to hope I never have to,” he replied.

“This is us, here,” you said as you arrived at your sister’s house.

Not having your key with you, you knocked, and the door opened almost immediately to reveal your sister on the other side. “I thought that might have happened by now,” she said, reaching to take your deeply slumbering niece from your arms.

She wasn’t sleeping as deeply as you thought, however, as when you said, “I’m going to head home,” she lifted her head slightly and sleepily called out,

“Sehun-oppa?”

“Yes, Y/N/N-ie?” he replied, stepping forward and surprising your sister who hadn’t noticed him before.

“You promise we can have a snowball fight next time it snows?” she asked.

He looked at you as he said, “Next time I’m in town and it snows, I promise.”

“Sleep well, Y/N/N-ie,” you told her, stroking her back gently before stepping back.

“Night. And night, Sehun-oppa.”

“Night, Y/N/N-ie,” he replied.

You pointed Sehun in the direction of your house and when he turned around, your sister whispered to you, “You need to tell me where you found him later.” Then she held out her little finger for you to link. You did so, promising, and then you strode out to catch up to Sehun.

Once you had got him warmed up with a hot drink, a hot water bottle and a warm blanket, you curled up on the other side of the sofa and got him to tell you the full story, which led on to you telling one of your stories, which led on to another of his, which led on… and so on, all night.

It was well into Boxing Day morning when the two of you realised the time and decided it was time for bed. It was too late for him to go home, so he slept on the sofa, meaning he was there in the morning when you woke up and the two of you started chatting again.

When it started snowing around mid-afternoon, Sehun ended up keeping his promise to your niece much sooner than anyone could have expected.

Walking home that night, he barely looked up from his phone, too caught up in talking to you even then and he thought to himself that possibly the most important event in his life so far had been being stood up on Christmas Day. 

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