It was a cold December evening, the wind blow softly as snow fell slowly to the ground. It was colder than last year, but none of the carolers let that stop them from singing at each front door. Or well almost every front door.

"Emilie, we're not going to try and sing for that Mr. Scrooge. He was never home anyways, and his house doesn't scream Christmas at all." one of the carolers said.

He was talking about Mr. Agreste. Every year he wasn't home when they were Caroling, so eventually when they saw that the lights were off they didn't even try anymore. However this time it was different. The lights were on for a change.

"But André, the lights are on. So that means he is home." Emilie said hopefully.

"Or he just forgot to turn them off before leaving the house."

"Just let her try. There might be a small chance he would open the door, although that chance is very small… we can go off to another house while she tries to carol for Mr. Scrooge."

"Thanks Nathalie!"

With that Emilie left the group and walked towards the house. The house was quite big, had white walls, black roof tiles, a front garden that was very neat and of course no Christmas decorations. She walked up to the front door and rang the doorbell.

Gabriel sat down at his kitchen table that stood in the living room. He was working on a design for one of his costumers, he had opened commissions a year ago right before he turned 27, when suddenly the doorbell rang. He placed the just drawn pattern and scissors back onto the surface of the table.

He then walked towards the kitchen so he could see who was at the door through the kitchen window. At his door stood a blonde girl, who was probably around his age. She was wearing a dark green coat on top of her dark red dress with a tartan pattern all over it, on top of her head was one of those old fashioned hats which stayed in place by the ribbon that got laced under the chin, women used to wear those kind 100 or so years ago. Her whole look was like she just walked out of a Christmas house or something.

"Shit…" Gabriel cursed once he realized that today was the evening those people sang for some charity. He totally forgot about it.

He quickly wanted to leave the kitchen before she spotted him, but of course luck wasn't on his side. As the girl waited she looked around and happens to catch his glance. Her face lit up the moment she saw Gabriel. He had no idea why, but nonetheless it was adorable.

Gabriel took the string of the blinds that hung above the window and pulled at it, in no time the blinds fell down to the window sill. He heard the girl let out a groan in annoyance. He let out a sigh in relief, the girl would probably leave now.

Gabriel walked back to the living room. He walked past the calendar, the date of today being marked with the text 'Evening caroling'. He let out a sigh how could he forget it? They always went from door to door on Christmas Eve.

Gabriel never really had anything with the whole Christmas holidays. His parents never did anything with it, they only saw it as something commercial. Due to that Gabriel had the same view on the whole holiday as his parents did. Some people thought he was weird for not celebrating it but he never felt like there was something missing in the December month. The caroling volunteers even gave him the nickname Mr. Scrooge as that character who hated Christmas of the care about that.

He never hated Christmas, he just doesn't celebrate it. The only reason he began to pretend not being home lots of years ago was because the first time this caroling group showed up at his door they kind of acted like he was less than them only because he didn't do anything with the holidays. After that he just didn't wanted to do anything with them again and pretended not to be home whenever they would carol in the neighborhood. However he never saw this cute blonde girl with them. He guessed she must have joined them after the whole incident.

Loud knocking on the door and vague shouting in the background brought Gabriel back from his thoughts. He turned around on his heels and stormed back to the kitchen window, once he stood in front of it he lifted one of the blinds up so he could look outside. The blonde was still there, she was hitting the door with her fist as she tried to get Gabriel's attention.

"Mister Agreste! Don't you dare to pretend you're not home! I saw your ugly face myself so I'm not leaving until I sang my songs!" the blonde shouted.

Gabriel let go of the blind and took a step back. He starred in front of him, a bit confused. Did that girl just called him ugly? Normally he only heard from others he was gifted with such good looks. But ugly? No one has ever said that to him.

He shook his head, shaking the confusion away. He turned the light off in the kitchen before he walked towards his living room which was part located at the front of the house. He then quickly pulled the curtains to each other, blocking the view. And he turned the lights off before he took a seat on his leather couch.

Emilie who was standing outside couldn't believe it that Mr. Agreste just tries to pretend he wasn't home while she had seen him. She took a deep breath before she walked to right side of his house. The house didn't had any neighbor's house connecting to it so his front garden connected to the back garden.

Much to Gabriel's surprise there was knocking on a window he hadn't closed the curtains of that didn't face the front garden. He stood up from the couch and walked towards the window.

"Don't you dare to close that curtain!" she said.

"If I just give you money for whatever charity you're collecting money for, would you then leave?" Gabriel asked slightly annoyed.

He knew that the girl could easily hear him due to the fact he kept the most of the small top windows open for fresh air. No matter how cold the weather got in the cold winter months, he kept them open. He didn't got cold quickly anyways and the fresh air always help him to work better on his designs.

"I won't leave until I sang at least one song for you." the girl said.

"I'm not interested in such nonessential holiday and everything that got something to do with it." Gabriel stated in a matter of fact.

The girl looked at him with big eyes in surprise. She tried to say something but she just couldn't come out of her words, it seems she was too surprised by Gabriel's words.

Gabriel's corners of his lips lifted up slightly in a small smile. Could this girl get even cuter? She was cute when mad, when she was surprised, damn she was just cute in general.

"Why?" she asked after a while.

"Never celebrated it and I'm not interested in ever celebrate it." he said.

With that he closed the curtains. He then walked to the other curtains of the windows of his living room. He soon noticed that the girl kept following him, she didn't gave up easily much to Gabriel's annoyance. He just wanted to finish his design.

Just as he was about to close the last pair of curtains, he heard a squeak followed by the sound of something hitting the ground. Gabriel walked back to the curtains he had closed that hangs by the window of the door that lead to the garden and opened it again. There on the ground was the girl, it seems like she had slipped because of the snow that lay on the ground. He unlocked the door and opened it. He couldn't just let her be, what if she's hurt? He didn't want to be the one who let a girl with pain lie in his garden.

"Are you alright?" Gabriel asked as he stepped into the garden. "The back garden can get quite slippery at some places once it snowed."

Gabriel then reached out his hand to her to help her up. The girl looked up in surprise before she hesitantly took his hand. Gabriel pulled her back up onto her feet carefully.

"I'm fine… I think?" She said.

"You think? That doesn't sound certain." Gabriel said. "You can come in side and take a seat while I fix up your jacket."

"My jacket?"

"There is hole in it by your right elbow."

With that Gabriel walked inside and turned the light on. Emilie followed him slowly inside his house and closed the door behind her.

"That's very kind of you Mr. Agreste, but you don't have to do that."

"There is no way I will let you walk out with a hole in. Your jacket just let me patch it up for you. Also you could be injured by that fall." Gabriel said before he walked towards the table and took out the small first aid kit that was inside his sewing kit.

Emilie took off her jacket, revealing her bare shoulders. The dress she wore under the jacket was white above the skirt part of the dress and had puffed balloon shaped sleeves that were off-shoulder, the neckline of the dress was decorated with a red ribbon that matched the color of the skirt. She then took a seat on the couch, placing the jacket on top of her lap as she had no idea where to put it.

"Can I see your elbow?" Gabriel asked once he had kneeled down in front of her.

Emilie nodded and turned her elbow so Gabriel could have a better look.

"There is a small wound, it's nothing too serious but it would be good idea to clean it." he said as he took a cotton pad, some disinfectant and a plaster before he put a bit of the disinfectant on the cotton pad. "This might sting a bit."

He dabbed the cotton pad carefully on the wound, once it was clean he put the plaster on top of it. Emilie thanked him with a soft smile, before she gave him her jacket. Gabriel took it from her with a smile on his face, he couldn't really help it but there was something about this girl that made him want to smile, and that while he didn't even know her name.

Emilie looked around, now noticing the patterns, papers with designs, a measurement tape, his sewing machine and some fabric that was lying on the table, while Gabriel took his seat at the table. She saw how he was looking for the right color tread, all concentrated in his work.

"I'm sorry that I interrupted your work time…" She said as she looked down at her hands that rested on her lap, she felt quite guilty that she ruined his peaceful evening.

"It's fine, it's just some simple dress design for a customer's Christmas party she will be attending tomorrow. I'll be able to finish it by tonight." Gabriel said as he pushed the tread through the eye of the needle.

"But still… I'm sorry… I'm also sorry for saying you have an ugly face… when I'm mad, I say things I don't mean… I hope I didn't offend you..."

"Don't worry you didn't, I was only surprised about you saying that to me."

"And I'm sorry I was shouting, knocking your door like a mad woman and for entering your garden without permission… to be honest I'm quite surprised you didn't call the police on me…"

"Normally, I would have done that."

Emilie looked up with a nervous look in her eyes.

"You… you would? Why am I the exception?" she asked.

"Because you're cute." Gabriel said bluntly.

However he blushed madly as he realized what he had just said. His heart raced and he began to stumble over his words as he tried to explain himself. This wasn't really a success as it only made him more nervous and caused him to stab himself in his finger with the needle by accident.

Meanwhile Emilie was as red as a tomato. She didn't know how to react to it. Her heart was racing and butterflies flew through her stomach. Once she saw Gabriel for the first time she did thought of him as attractive, but she never thought he would think of her like that.

The two stayed quiet and waited for the awkward vibe to go away, there was no sound in the room except for the clock ticking in the background.

"Um…" Gabriel wanted to call out her name once he had finished her jacket. "I never got your name."

"It's Emilie." She said.

"That's a pretty name, you have."

"Thank you… may I know yours?"

"Of course… it's Gabriel."

Gabriel stood up and walked over to Emilie to hand back her jacket.

"It's all fixed." He said.

"Thank you so much." She said as she took it back. "I should probably go now, the group must be worried about me for staying gone for so long."

Emilie then stood up, put on her jacket and walked towards the door that lead to the garden. She didn't want to invade more of Gabriel's privacy, so she decided to leave through the same way she came in.

"Emilie, wait." Gabriel called out. "Do you… do you want to meet up some time?"

"I would love to, but I'll be quite busy the following days…" she said.

"I see…"

"But I do have some time tomorrow evening between the songs we will be singing… I know it isn't much but I would love to see you again. I know you don't celebrate it but it's the only option I have for now."

"I'll be there."

Emilie smiled brightly at him when she heard he was going to be there tomorrow.

"Thank you. I will see you tomorrow then, Gabriel."

"See you tomorrow, Emilie."

She gave him one more smile before she left the house happily, leaving Gabriel behind with a loving smile on his face and butterflies in his stomach.