23 Days of NCT

Christmas Caroling - Taeil

"What do you think about this, Taeil?" You held up a rather darling scarf and he looked at it for a short while.

"Not sure if that's really your style, (Y/N)," he hums. You laughed quietly, so as not to disturb the other store patrons.

"It's for your mom."

"Oh! Okay, in that case it's great," Taeil smiles and gives you a thumbs up. "But, I think she'd like this blue one more," he picks up the scarf next to the one you were looking at and handed it to you.

"You're the boss," You placed it into the basket and continued throughout the store, buying the rest of the necessary gifts and paid for them. On your way out with Taeil, a chorus of voices caught your ear. "Oh look! Christmas carolers!" You listened to their melodies and smiled, you always had a heart for music, probably why you and Taeil got along so well, and you were always the kind of person to support artists whenever you could.

"We should drop by and see how they're doing then," Taeil offers. You nodded your head a tad too excitedly and he let you drag him with you, pulling his mask over his face a bit higher. The carolers voices crescendoed as you got closer, and soon they sung their finale, the pianist ending the set with a flourished trill before hitting the final chord.

"I'm sorry I missed your set! But my boyfriend and I wanted to say that what we heard sounded great!" You complimented them.

"Ah, thank you so much!" One of the carolers bowed their head and you clapped your mittened hands together. Taeil dropped a few bills into the bucket on the side while the caroler continued. "We were actually caroling to raise funds for the orphanage behind us, they usually give gifts for the children."

"Usually?"

"The pandemic really hit the system hard, not a lot of donations this year."

"Oh, that's too bad," you looked at the sparse collection of money in the bucket.

"We can probably help!" Taeil speaks up. "I can sing too, if you guys want," he offers.

Now you were surprised when he offered to sing, because you had expected that he'd want a break from the singing after doing it 24/7 for nearly the entire year. But Taeil did have a tendency to surprise you. He took his mask off and did a quick and quiet vocal warm up.

"Oh, we appreciate it a lot, but you don't have to!" The pianist spoke up.

"Nonsense, it would be a shame if Santa couldn't drop by here this year," Taeil insisted. He walks next to the piano. "Do you mind?" He asks.

"Be my guest," the pianist walked away from the bench and stood aside while Taeil got ready. Then he began his song. It was just a simple cover of 'Grownup Christmas List,' but there was something about it that was moving.

"It's Taeil from NCT!" A sudden shout came from somewhere in the plaza, and, you could swear, it was only a blink of an eye before multiple people were by you and the carolers. At the nod of a head, the carolers joined in with Taeil and began to harmonize with him.

You were genuinely blown away, you'd thought that after dating Taeil for now running three years you would've gotten used to this, but no, you're always starstruck when you hear his voice. It always did, though now it just occurred to you that you're probably going to have to walk away when he's done like the two of you didn't even know each other, an old protocol that you and Taeil had longed established quite some time ago. But, at this very moment, you were just as enraptured by his performance as the multitudes of people around you, but, perhaps it was just you, but his song felt a bit more different. And just like Christmas magic, the bucket was filled, two even, with enough funds to provide for the orphanage for the year.

Christmas magic, Taeil thought to himself constantly. After years of working on Christmas, he almost forgot that it was an actual thing. Maybe this was cheating a little, actually, and he wasn't looking forward to the stern words of his manager, not for singing in public, no, it's that he's out in the open with no staff around. But he didn't really care about that right now, actually, contrary to the current belief, he was singing for you. Something he hasn't actually done in quite some time. Now that SM finally let him take a holiday off, he wanted it to be unforgettable. He already knew it, but this Christmas was going to be a little more special.