It was morning. Birds were twittering, and the sun was shining.

In Shen Dan’s bedroom, there came the sound of a person’s contented sigh. 

This was the sound of Mikhail waking up from the best sleep of his life. 

Deciding to steep in bed a while longer, Mikhail burrowed more deeply into the warmth and heaviness surrounding him like a cloud. His eyelids were too heavy to open, so he kept them shut. His thoughts were drowsy, but a number of questions still floated into his head:

—Hmm… Since when did I own a heated memory foam mattress?

—Why does my ear feel so ticklish, like someone is breathing on it?

—Around my waist, are these… hands?

—And what the hell is this hard thing poking me in the ass?

In Shen Dan’s bedroom, there came the sound of a second person’s contented sigh.

It turned out, there was another person waking up from the best sleep of his life, too. 

The mattress creaked. Mikhail felt a chin drop into the crook of his neck. The pair of hands around his waist stirred awake, swimming under his shirt and drawing him closer. 

“Good morning,” Shen Dan yawned into his ear. 

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At that moment, the System booted up in Mikhail’s head. A bit delayed, its robotic voice answered his questions one by one:

【QUESTION 1 ANSWER: AS OF TODAY (Wednesday, December 21st, 202X), HOST (Father Motherfucking Christmas) DOES NOT OWN A MEMORY FOAM MATTRESS】

【QUESTION 2 ANSWER: THE EAR IS A SENSORY ORGAN WHICH ENABLES HEARING - FOR MORE DETAILS, PLEASE VISIT ONLINE AT WWW DOT EAR DOT WEBSITE】

【QUESTION 3 ANSWER: HANDS - DEFINITION: THE PLURAL FORM OF HAND】

【QUESTION 4 ANSWER: COMBINED WITH REM SLEEP, THE AVERAGE MALE REPRODUCTIVE SYSTEM—】

“System, don’t you dare finish that fucking sentence!!!!!!” Mikhail blurted. He leapt out of bed and streaked out of the room like a screaming torpedo.  

Shen Dan: “…?”

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Mikhail’s face was hot enough to fry an egg on. After splashing his face with water, he decided to cool off on the porch. He went to the back door and pulled the door’s handle.

It didn’t budge.

Mikhail put a foot against the wall and tugged the door handle with all his might.

It still didn’t budge.

What gives? 

He peeked out the window. Outside, something white was blocking his line of sight, extending all the way up the window and above the top of his head. Mikhail got a chair from the dining room and stood atop it to check what the hell was going on.

The TV, which had been left on all night, turned to a holiday commercial: “Sleigh bells ring, are you listening♪—”

Looking outside, Mikhail’s jaw nearly hit the floor.

Snow! 

Ten fucking feet of it!

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“Shen Dan! Shen Dan!” There were tears in Mikhail’s eyes; his heart was doing the cha-cha. Bursting into Shen Dan’s bathroom, he sang, “It snowed last night! Let’s build a snowman, let’s go sledding, let’s have a snowball fight! Weeeooeoeoeoeo!”

Shen Dan was in the middle of brushing his teeth. He was so startled by Mikhail’s ululating that he choked on his toothbrush. 

Dizzy with delight, Mikhail grabbed Shen Dan’s face and smooched him on the cheek. 

“Oh, it’s a Christmas miracle! I’m going to live! I’m going to live!”

Mikhail, who had the zoomies, did a cartwheel and then disappeared into the kitchen.

Meanwhile, Shen Dan stood with his toothbrush hanging out of his mouth. After blue-screening for a few minutes, he turned to stare at himself in the mirror. The water from the faucet kept running and running. He touched his cheek.  

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After inhaling breakfast, Mikhail doubled-up on jackets, doubled-up on socks, doubled-up on pants, and pulled shoes and mittens on. With the bingo sheet snugly in his pocket, he reached for the door handle. 

It took 0.0000001 seconds for him to come to a grave realization.

Ten feet of snow was… really a lot of snow. 

Oh shit, he thought, beginning to sweat. We’re totally snowed in. 

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A whole day came and went. The snow didn’t melt. 

Another day came and went. The snow didn’t melt.

On day three, Mikhail and Shen Dan did nothing but watch the National Weather Channel. Remembering the magic Bag o’ Snow he had accidentally dumped outside, Mikhail twiddled his thumbs nervously. 

Don’t tell me… I brought about a second Ice Age?!

On the TV, U— Country’s beloved idol of a weather reporter Emil Duong stood like a Greek statue in front of the weekly forecast. Winking at the camera, he said smoothly, “Dear viewers, at this rate, it’s going to be a whiteout Christmas!”

Hearing this, Mikhail choked on his hot cocoa. 

Beside him, Shen Dan put his feet onto the coffee table. Catching sight of Mikhail’s expression of despair out of the corner of his eye, he sipped his coffee and said dryly, “Don’t look so depressed, Mikhail. It’s better than a blackout Christmas.”

Mikhail: “Ha-ha-ha.”

Shen Dan: “Ha-ha-ha.”

As if on cue, the lights flickered dramatically—then came back on. 

There was a pause.

Mikhail, knocking on wood: “Ha-ha-ha.”

Shen Dan: “Ha-ha-ha.”

Promptly, the lights shut off for real. In the dark, two people mutually sighed.  

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Due to the power outage, the temperature inside dropped and dropped. 

After inhaling dinner, Mikhail tripled-up on jackets, tripled-up on socks, tripled-up on pants, and pulled slippers and mittens on. He curled up on the couch under a fort made of quilts and pillows. Inside this cave, teeth chattering, he stared at the bingo sheet by the light of his phone’s screen. 

All he could think was: Tomorrow is Christmas Eve. There are only two days left—

He was interrupted by his phone ringing. 

The system piped up helpfully: 

【HOST (Father Motherfucking Christmas) IS RECEIVING AN INCOMING CALL FROM (Mustard Jerk Do Not Pick Up)】 

Ever since the day Holland had cruelly stolen Mikhail’s first “mouth touch,” Mikhail had been receiving nonstop apology texts from the younger man. Some of them were so heartfelt as to be obviously penned by Manager Wei’s hand; others were so long-winded and formal as to be obviously composed by an AI chatbot. Admittedly, it was still satisfying to read them, so Mikhail had refrained from blocking him against his better judgment. 

But this was the first time Holland was trying to apologize directly. 

From the perspective of a person two days away from being turned into a pine needle, life was too short to hold grudges. After hitting the “accept call” button, Mikhail put the phone to his ear and answered, “Hello?” 

A bright voice crooned: “Mikkkkkkkkki, baby, you answered~~”

Mikhail promptly removed the phone from his ear. He hovered his index finger over the “end call” button.

Holland: “Wait, Mikki, don’t hang up! I want to apologize to you…”

Mikhail: “I’m listening.”

There came the sound of Holland clearing his throat. A loud sip of water. Holland cleared his throat again. Then, he chewed on something, coughed, blew his nose, and cleared his throat a third time. 

Mikhail: “…”

“It’s best if I give you some context,” Holland sighed. “You see, Shen-ge and I used to date—”

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At P— City’s Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observation Tower (LIGOT), a complex mechanism composed of lasers, mirrors, detectors, and beamsplitters spat out a new reading: the first minute distortion of spacetime was recorded! 

Hooray! Einstein FTW! 

The team of quantum theorists and cosmologists cheered, spraying confetti and champagne everywhere. They set their interns loose to organize a press release for this monumental confirmation of general relativity. Of course, according to said theory, these gravitational waves could only be attributed to a major cosmic event, such as the merging of two black holes, a supernova explosion, galaxies colliding, the Big Bang, or… 

“EVERYONE, STOP!”

In the middle of the party, one scientist had shouted this at the top of his lungs. Once he confirmed he had his peers’ attention, he pushed up his shining glasses and continued:

“According to the raw data, the source of this gravitational disturbance is a residential home in the suburbs of P— City, the property owner of which is a man surnamed Shen. Scientifically speaking, this cannot be right. It must be a random error.”

The team of quantum theorists and cosmologists booed. They redirected their interns to instead clean up the mess of confetti and champagne all over the floors and walls. 

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Returning to the aforementioned residential home in the suburbs of P— City, the property owner of which was a man surnamed Shen.

Mikhail shrieked into his phone: “What the fuck do you mean you two used to date?!”

“Ah, it’s like this,” Holland replied. “Three years ago, I met Shen Dan in acting school and it was lust—I mean, love at first sight! One day, after a night of drinking with our upperclassmen, I overheard him saying he was searching for someone… someone with a peculiar teeth-shaped-scar on his wrist…”

Mikhail’s face turned beet-red. “B-but, you have one, too!”

“About that… I, emm, gave it to myself. I wanted to fool Shen Dan into liking me back. It worked for about two weeks, but then I spilled the beans to him by accident, and—you won’t believe it—he dumped me just like that! How cruel, right?! His heart really is made of ice.”

Mikhail: “…”

He downgraded this person in his head from “mustard jerk” to “mustard psychopath.”

Holland sighed. “Anyway, I forget why I told you all that. But I am sorry for springing that kiss on you.”

“You should be sorry! You kissed me for no fucking reason! Your feelings for me weren’t even real!” Mikhail yelled. He was simultaneously relieved and a bit hurt.

“Oh, Mikki, darling~ My feelings for you are a hundred percent real~ You see, ideally I would like to take you and Shen Dan both at the same time, writhing in pleasure under me—”

Mikhail hung up and threw his phone across the room.

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Actually though, it took less time than expected for Mikhail to bounce back from the psychic damage caused by that admittedly-edifying phone call.

Slowly, ever so slowly, the bubble of air inside his pillow and quilt fort began warming up. This was owing to Mikhail’s own thoughts, which were also steadily, ever so steadily warming up.

So, Shen Dan’s first kiss was also Holland?

Carefully, ever so carefully, Mikhail touched his index fingers together.

Then, if Shen Dan and I were to kiss, wouldn’t that cancel everything out?

Gradually, ever so gradually, Mikhail started giggling. 

He was practically high on carbon dioxide when the front “wall” of his fort trembled slightly, and a voice outside caused him to start: 

“Are you cold?”

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Shen Dan had given the front “door” of the fort a gentle rap before asking this. There came the sound of shifting from beneath the quilt, and then a muffled voice said, “Uh… a little.”

“I am also. Can I come inside?”

Mikhail massaged his face to remove the evidence of his earlier mouth-touch-related fantasizing. He peered around the inside of the fort. The square footage was unquestionably limited. “To be honest, I don’t think you’ll fit—”

“I’ll be careful.”

The walls of the fort started to shake. The ceiling began to cave.

“Slower! Move slower!”

“…Like this?”

“Be gentler, goddamn it!”

“Am I hurting you?”

“It’s fine, it’s fine. Are you coming all the way in or what?”

“Yes, I’m coming.”

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…

…

This conversation…

Why does it feel like we’re talking about something else?! 

Fuck!

That pervert mustard psychopath put weird thoughts into my head!