Lucas

We sit in our class. The class is very boring, it always is. This happens to be the most boring, and the worst class in general, math. All this stupid and borderline useless stuff is not the skills I'd need to live. Tomorrow is Christmas, and Ness ensured that I knew what the holiday was about. I stayed by his house last night, and we spent the entire day and night talking about the holiday and even went out to buy gifts. Today, though, I heard the school will have a special event. It's called Secret Santa. Apparently, a week ago students had given the board gifts and they'd give the gifts to the recipient and the giver would be anonymous. I would have given a present, if I weren't so lazy and just flat out didn't want to.

Class was almost over. Ness and I stare at the clock. There had been loads of snow days, and instead of the days being moved to the end of the year, they moved it here. Due to the more days of school they compensated it with taking more days from January. I looked over to Ness, who sits at the opposite end of the room, and he gives me a small hand signal signifying small. I nodded and looked back to the clock. One minute. The longest damn minute of my life. Right when the bell would ring, the loudspeaker chimed on.

"Morning students and faculty, sorry for the interruption. We will now be giving out the Secret Santa gifts, thank you, and we hope you have a wonderful winter break," the principal said. A few people came into the room. One of which was Claus. He had the widest smile I've ever seen in my life. He walked over to me with a gift in his hands.

"What's up with the smile?" I asked.

"Someone has their eye on ya?" Claus said placing the gift on my desk. The gift had my name, but it was encased in a heart. "Whoever gave you this, though it was also Valentine's day. Good luck." He gave me a wink then walked out. I tilted my head. Ninten, who sat next to me, slammed his hand on my desk. This made me jump and look at him.

"The hell was that for?" I ask.

"I hate you," he said.

"Why?"

"You made me lose out on 40 bucks."

"How?"

"Claus bet that you'd have someone crushing on you before me, and well here we are."

"Well, in that case, you might need to have a chat with Claus about his crush."

"Why?" At this point, the bell rang and I looked back at Ness. I quickly stood up and grabbed the gift.

"Bye." I ran out of the room. I looked back and saw Ness chasing me, but not Ninten. He had a smile.

"He doesn't know about Claus does he?" he asked.

"Now he will." We walked to my locker and I organized my bag so I can walk home with as little items as possible. Ness had picked up the gift and started to look it around. I stood up and closed my locker. "You know who it's from?" He shrugged and handed it back to me. I then started to take it apart and saw that it was a box. I opened the box and saw another box. "You've gotta be shitting me." I opened the box, only to find a…..nother box. I took a deep breath and heard Ness cackle. I looked up at him and he turned his cackling into him clearing his throat.

"Whoever did this is a dick," he tried to defend himself. I rolled my eyes and opened the final box, it was small. When I opened it I found a necklace. The necklace had a trinket of two hands. The hands were embracing each other. The overall silver color made them seem at ease.

"Well, whoever sent this clearly had some money." Ness shrugged and took the necklace. He undid the back and looked at me. I lowered my head and he wrapped it around my neck. He then put them back together and moved back. I smiled at the sight of the necklace. He started to walk off and I followed after grabbing my bag. We walked through the halls, talking about what Christmas will be for us.

"So, your family is coming over to mine?" Ness asked.

"Yea, took a while to convince them. Honestly, it was Claus who did it."

"How'd he do it?"

"Not sure, but kinda scared to know."

"Fair enough," Ness laughed. I copied his laugh. We walked over to his house and found Ninten and Claus there already.

"OH MY GOD, finally, I need to speak with you," Claus said grabbing my shirt and dragging me away. He dragged me to the side of the house and pushed me against the house walls. He pointed to my face. "You told him?" He asked this in an intimidating yet quiet tone. He almost growled it out.

"I didn't necessarily tell him, but," I shrugged. He sighed.

"Fuck you, now for that, I'll do something for you and Ness."

"WHAT!" I covered my mouth once I realized I screamed that out. "I-I mean, no, please don't." He shook his head and smiled. He just chuckled and walked away. "W-wait, ugh." I just slumped out and followed him. We walked into Ness' house. After saying hi to King, Tracy, and his mom we walked up to his room. We sat down.

"What are we all doing here anyway?" Ness asked.

"Not sure, Claus came for Lucas, I just tagged along," Ninten said. Ness looked away for a second. He then stood off his bed and grabbed Ninten's arm and walked out of the room. I looked at Claus and he just shrugged.

"So, you know whatcha doing for Christmas?" I asked.

"I'm going to make sure you get what you deserve," Claus said with a smug undertone.

"What do you mean by that?"

"You'll see," he winked. He walked over to the computer on Ness' desk and casually turned it on. He started to browse the internet when Ninten and Ness walked back in. Ninten whispered something into Claus' ear and Claus looked back at me with a smile. He nodded and stood up. "I hope you boys have a wonderful time." I rolled my eyes and watched as they left. I looked at the computer and saw an order placed under Claus' name. I read the name of the item. Mistletoe? Ness turned off the computer and looked at me.

"I was wondering if you wanted to stay by my place," Ness suggested.

"Sure," I nodded. He smiled and walked into his closet.

"Could you help me with something?"

"What is it?" He didn't answer right away. He was still searching for something.

"Aha, found it," Ness said. I tilted my head as he pushed a box out of the closet. "Man, for a big box it was well hidden." I saw a sticker that had an evergreen tree that looked fake. I raised an eyebrow. "Can you help me set up my Christmas Tree?" I then awed in awareness.

"Sure, but what will I do?"

"I'll teach ya." He then opened the box and brought out three parts of the tree. The first part had a stand and a fair amount of the actual tree. He placed it in the corner of the room, parallel to his bed. We did have to move a dresser, which was hard but doable. The midsection of the tree held most of the branches and connected by a small pipe into the bottom. There was this small ball at the bottom of the pipe that signified it was connected to the other part via the ball entering a small hole. The last part was tricky, in order to connect it to the top one of us needed help to reach up. I tried without the help due to me being taller, but I couldn't reach.

"Damn, how will we get this on?" I then felt hands on my sides, I looked back and saw Ness with a smile. He then picked me up, which was scary at first but I quickly placed the top of the tree on. He then let me down and I playfully smacked his cheek a few times. "You're an ass." He just chuckled cutely. He ran back into the closet and dragged out another box. When we opened it we saw ornaments. One, in particular, caught my eye. It was a sunflower. This sunflower looked like it shines a light and the stem is open at the bottom. I held it and looked at Ness.

"That's to be the star at the top of the tree if you want to do the honors?"

"I'd love to." I looked back at the top of the tree and peeked back. I cleared my throat. "Can you help?" He smiled and placed his arms around my waist, this time like he was hugging me. He lifted me up, it wasn't the most ideal way of picking someone up, but hey, it worked so I can't complain. His face ended up near my butt.

"I swear to god if you fart."

"Come on, I would never do that. I'm not Ninten." We chuckled together and I placed the sunflower at the top. He then lowered me and reached into the box for the Christmas lights.

"Let's do this." We spent the next hour in a half decorating the tree and the room. There were lights in the top corners of the room. On the room's door, there was a wreath that was decorated with small lights. We then backed up to look at the tree. The ornaments and the lights and the garland. All of it, placed together, is beautiful. Ness walked over to the wall and plugged a plug in and the tree got more beautiful. The lights, the sunflower, all turned on. My mouth fell agape and Ness leaned against my shoulder.

"Now, now, what have I told you about sucking ghost dick?" Ness chuckled.

"To keep practicing for a real dick."

"What?"

"That's what I say," I winked. This wink brought upon some blush into his cheeks. It was cute, I patted his back and walked to the window. I looked out and saw snow coming peacefully down. I sighed happily and was soon joined by Ness. The sky was already dark, damn daylights saving time. But the mixture of the dark sky and the peaceful snow added to my ease. I had my hands crossed on the little outing of the window. I soon felt Ness' warm hand plant itself on my elbow. I looked at him, but he was staring out at the snow. I looked at his hand and thought for a moment. I uncrossed my arms and held his right hand with my left. He was caught off guard by it but was still staring out the window.

"I really like it when we're alone like this Luke."

"Yea, it's the best time."

"If." He didn't seem to keen on finishing his sentence.

"If? If what?"

"Nevermind, I'll ask tomorrow." I finally turned to look at him and soon he looked at me. We stared into each other's eyes. His smile, the small dimple that grew in each of his cheeks when he did smile was all too cute for someone as rough as him. He looked away as if to think alone, then snapped his fingers. He ran to the computer and turned it on. He maneuvered until he got to Youtube. He put on "Baby It's Cold Outside". He walked to me as the song started and held out his hand.

"Care to dance?" I hovered my hand over his, thinking. I soon allowed my hand to collapse into his hand and he grabbed it. He gently lifted me off the bed and walked me to the middle of the room. In between the clean wreath-ed door, the bright and lively Christmas Tree, and the calm and peaceful dark snow. He moved my hands onto his waist and his hands went over my shoulders. We started to gently move around. Small steps. We were also spinning very slowly to ensure that neither of us would get dizzy. I was able to get a clean look at the hard work we've done, and the hard work that the world did to ensure that Christmas was as beautiful as the person I'm currently dancing with. Ness placed his chin on my right shoulder.

"I like you, Luke."

"I-I like you too."

"No, I mean, more than a friend should like another friend."

"Yea, I know, I ain't stupid. That's what I meant." He moved his head off my shoulder and planted his forehead against mine.

"I'm glad." At this point the music was interrupted by an ad that talked about Trojan condoms. Ness shot his head to the computer and ran over to turn it off. He turned back to me and cleared his voice.

"Don't ads come based on search history, for google at least?" Ness just looked away and looked at the bed.

"Uhhh, let's just head to sleep." He ran over to his bed and tucked himself into his bed. He started to fake snore. I chuckled and walked over and crawled into the bed next to him.

"Don't worry, I get a ton of ads for condoms." His fake snores stopped and I reached my hand over him, he was sleeping on his right side, and grabbed his hand. He seemed to be thinking for a moment, then grabbed my hand. He pulled me closer to his back and we slept.

It's now Christmas day. We had been preparing during the day for quite a long time. My family had come by, along with Ninten's. All three of our families had a great dinner. We all then huddled around the Christmas tree that stands in the living room to unwrap gifts. Ninten then whispered something in Claus' ear and he nodded and ran upstairs.

"Wonder where he's going?" Ness asked. I just shrugged and Ness passed a gift to me. I opened it to see a red comb. I took it and fixed up my hair slightly to test it out. It's a small gift, but Ness knows that I've already gotten a bigger gift the night before. Claus soon came back down and we finished some of the other Christmas stuff. We even went outside to play a little in the snow, created a small snowman, and had a massive snowball fight. We came in to warm up. I warmed up by being in Ness' arms and Ninten warmed up by being in Claus'. Our families saw how close we were and sort of left us alone. My mom called me and Claus over before we walked upstairs. She reached in her pocket and grabbed something. We reached out hands out and she hovered her hands over them.

Once she dropped the items she winked and said, "For protection, my baby boys." We looked down and saw two condoms in our hands. We sighed and turned around in a scoff. We looked at each other as we pocketed it and just shrugged.

"You never know," he said. I walked forward.

"You're sick." We walked upstairs and saw Ness in the doorway talking to Ninten, who was in the room.

"Why can't I go in my room?"

"Because," Ninten said. He saw Claus and happily jumped up. Claus entered and he stopped, leaving me in the doorway with Ness.

"The hell?" I say. Ninten snapped his fingers and pointed up. I looked up and saw the thing from the computer. The mistletoe. "That doesn't answer my question." Ness cleared his throat.

"When there's a mistletoe, the two people who are underneath it must kiss," Ness explained with a faint of fear in his voice. I looked up at the plant and tilted my head.

"That's stupid."

"I know." I looked at him trying to convince Ninten and Claus to not make them do it. I smiled and shuffled over to him. I kissed his cheek and looked at them.

"That good?" In my peripheral, I could see that Ness had his hand on his cheek, surprised. They shook their heads.

"Nope, has to be a full-blown kiss," Ninten said.

"Come on, that's not at all wha-" I was cut off by Ness' lips colliding into mine. He wrapped his arms around me, and I allowed myself to melt in them. I started to move my lips and we stood there kissing for only a minute. I'm not sure if that's long for a first kiss, but it was all I needed to love it. Our kiss stopped and we held our foreheads together.

"Merry Christmas Luke."

"Merry Christmas Ness."

"Ness and Lucas sitting in a tree," Ninten sung.

"K-I-S-S-I-N-G," Claus finished. We had turned to face them at this point.

"First comes love."

"Second comes marriage."

"Then comes baby in a baby carriage." We crossed our hands and shook our heads, almost in unison.

"You guys are stupid," Ness said.

"Yea, we can't even have babies," I finished.

"That's not-you know what sure-that's what I meant." Claus smiled.

"Merry Christmas to us bundle of sticks, and to any other people who may or may not be bundle of sticks."

"You're such an idiot, Claus," I said.

"Oh yea, well, fuck you."

"Fuck you too."