#ellegood

Good had never celebrated Christmas. His family was Buddhist, and surely he’d gone to the mall and heard the Christmas music they played, but he’d never wanted to celebrate it. Most Thai people didn’t. He worked with a Christian girl who did, but he never had asked about it and she never really told. She just took a day off and that would be it. No Christmas for him. Not even Fairy had wanted to celebrate it.

Sure, maybe they would have some cookies at home, but that was the most Christmas like thing he’d ever done. Now that he lived with Elle, he should have expected that to change. Elle always wanted to try things, something like this especially.

They’d done Halloween with a full blown costume. Elle went to every festival there was. He wouldn’t be surprised if he’d come up with something extravagant for Valentine’s Day, too and of course new year. He’d have to see how that would go, because after the fish incident he wasn’t planning on letting Elle use any fireworks and kill something again.

Elle had watched many Thai shows. After that he started to watch Korean dramas. Then Chinese dramas. Eventually he found American and British shows. Elle used them to learn about the world, but when Good came home today he wondered if he’d have to buy Elle some book for foreigners to learn Thai culture. This was completely insane. 

The table was filled with more food than he’d ever seen before. Seriously. Did Elle invite his entire family and an orphanage over without him knowing? Perhaps he had. Elle definitely was kind enough to. But he’d know that the house was way too small, right? Okay. Surely Elle hadn’t done that.

But then there were the decorations. They were everywhere. He had no idea how Elle had gotten them, giving that he had no money of himself, and feared to look in his wallet. There even was a tree! Where did he get that on such short notice? It wasn’t there when he left this morning.

“Do you like it?” Finally Elle acknowledged him, but he didn’t answer. He got distracted by something. Elle had some flour on his cheek, and Good couldn’t let but think it was just slightly adorable. He took of his coat and walked towards Elle, to wipe it off his cheek. He did it without  much thinking, but before he made his action Elle looked up at the ceiling.

When Good followed his gaze, he saw a mistletoe. Where had Elle gotten that? Or did it just magically appear? At this point he didn’t think he’d be surprised anymore. Anything was possible with Elle. 

“We need to kiss now. Else it will bring bad luck.” Good opened his mouth to say something, but he wasn’t capable of uttering out anything more than a weird, not human-like sound. He had a completely surprised look on his face. Elle’s face looked sweet and innocent. It always did.

“It’s tradition” Elle followed up his last sentence with. Yeah, it was just a silly tradition, right? Nothing weird about it and Elle just wanted to be like everyone else, or like those people from those shows at least. Quite normal. Guide used to want to be a ninja turtle, everyone had a dream like that at some point in their lives. Why would Elle be any different? 

Yet his mind was racing with a million thoughts he couldn’t keep track off. They came as fast as they went, and it felt like they all slipped through his fingers right before he could take a grasp of even one. He was trying so hard to keep one, that he didn’t even realize how close Elle came to his face. When he realized, it was already too late.

Elle placed his lips on Good’s cheek, a soft kiss that yet made a blush creep up to his face and made his heart feel warm. How could a boys lips be so soft? He’d felt them before when he kissed Kafe and she became Elle, but this was different. At the time he’d done that because of alcohol, stupidity and because of how much he missed Fairy. This was a different feeling. He liked this more.

Before Good could react with words, Elle pulled away and shot Good one of his heart melting (wait. what?) smiles and walked away again, towards the tree. The flour was still on his cheek. 

Before Good followed him, he looked up again. One, two, three, four, five berries. The mistletoe had five berries.

While Elle had gotten the first part of the tradition right, you were actually supposed to remove one berry from the mistletoe. Each berry made for one kiss, and when all berries were gone the mistletoe lost its power. Then you’re no longer supposed to kiss.

He silently removed one of the berries and put it in his pocket. For some reason he wanted to keep the little thing as a memory to this moment.

Good’s cheeks still felt warm, he noticed when he laid his hand on it.