Mix & Match

Chapter 1: Rivalry

It was a beautiful Christmas morning. The sun was shining, a thin layer of snow replaced the ground, and the trees were covered in a glimmering frost. There were people scattered throughout the mall, searching for the perfect Christmas present for loved relatives before presents would be opened. Out of all of the forgetful people, Chengxi was the most worried. He was afraid he wouldn't be in time for Sarah Voon's annual gift exchange. She would always have her special cheese and crackers set up in the kitchen, and he was excited to eat them. It was 7:01 AM and Sarah's gift exchange was at 8:00 AM sharp. Chengxi thought to himself. "Hmm, what would I want for Christmas? Oh! How about Legos?" He ran to the nearest Lego store and picked up a Santa Lego figure, along with a card that said "I won't ever LEGO of you! Merry Christmas!". Chengxi thought it was perfect. As long as he liked the Legos, hopefully Sarah would like them too.

As he ran out the mall, he bumped into a quite familiar feeling body.
The familiar boy turned around, only to reveal to Chengxi that it was his old 3rd grade rival, James Liu.
(Author's note: Wondering how Chengxi knows how James' body feels? *wink wink*)
When James saw him, he smirked, and started walking the opposite direction. Although James merely smirked, Chengxi felt extremely offended. He ran up to James, and pinched him in the arm. Chengxi could see it wasn't doing much, so he brought in a few weak baby kicks. James looked at him, and told him to shoo. Chengxi ran home bawling, convinced that he was hated by everyone. It was now 7:54, and Chengxi's face was still covered in his tears. He began walking to Sarah's house, unenthusiastically. When he finally reached her house, he rang the doorbell weakly, trying to prepare a simple smile for his one true love.

Sarah opened the door, only to find a sad little boy holding a small gift bag. Sarah nudged Chengxi slightly, which caused him to look up. Once facing Sarah, he couldn't look back down. It was as if he had walked right past the gates of heaven. He was so astounded at the beauty of the glorious Christmas wreath hanging on the door, behind Sarah. Chengxi smiled and almost felt drool coming out of his mouth.

Although Sarah hadn't welcomed him in, Chengxi saw the crackers and cheese, so he went inside the house without permission. Sarah looked remotely disappointed in his barbaric behavior, however was fairly glad because she believed that she would receive a decent present. For about the next two hours, Chengxi had avoided any sort of conversation. Sarah would attempt to ask him some questions every once in a while, but he would hush her, complaining that she was going to mess him up on his iPad game. After Chengxi's iPad battery had finally run out, he ran quickly to the kitchen to go help himself to some of Sarah's cookies in the pantry. He shoved the cookies into his mouth, and ran back into the living room, gagging on large cookie crumbs, spitting saliva-covered bits onto her newly purchased rug. As he stepped into the living room, he gasped. James was sitting in his chair, talking to HIS Sarah Voon. And the worst part was, Sarah seemed to be enjoying herself more with James, than she was with Chengxi.

Chengxi bubbled up with anger, and felt like kicking James in the leg as hard as he could. But he didn't want to seem rude in front of his love. So instead, he controlled himself and strutted towards the living room. As Sarah saw Chengxi walk into the room, Sarah scolded him and told him to clean the ring of pastry crumbs around his mouth. James scoffed and once again smiled politely at Sarah. Sarah smiled back, which made Chengxi even more angry. Once Chengxi came back from the bathroom (there were still quite a few crumbs near his mouth), he was only more frustrated to find James with his arm around Sarah, as they watched Frozen. The lights had been noticeably dimmed, and somehow, there were three scented candles, spreading a sweet aroma throughout the room.

Chengxi sat there impatiently as he had to deal with quiet giggles and grins from the two, until it was finally time for the gift trading. Chengxi would give his gift to Sarah, Sarah would give her gift to James, and James would give his gift to Chengxi. Although Sarah was ultimately terrorized of Legos (due to an injury when she was 4 after slipping on a pile of them, falling down the stairs, then breaking her arm), she tried to smile after receiving her gift. Chengxi gave the proudest look possible to know that Sarah was utterly satisfied with his present. Next in the gift trading process was James. He was quite happy to find a $50 iTunes gift card along with a miniature ladybug plush, which Chengxi was extremely jealous of. Chengxi was very anxious, as his gift from James was in a small rectangular box, which could only be an iPhone. As Chengxi excitedly opened the box, he was extremely disappointed to find a gift card inside the box for fifty cents off of a small frozen yogurt in Russia.

Chengxi could no longer handle this "James". He cringed just thinking about how lovable James was. Chengxi decided that he would win Sarah Voon's heart once and for all. He grabbed a handful of cookies from Sarah's pantry, and asked Sarah if she'd like to take a walk around the park, just them two. Sarah hesitated at first, but decided that she had nothing better to do. After about 5 minutes of silent walking, Chengxi began complaining. "I can't go on! My legs are too tired Sarah. Can we please please please sit down?" Sarah rolled her eyes and sat on a conveniently nearby bench, with Chengxi next to her. She looked at Chengxi, and he looked back. She smiled. Chengxi smiled back. He felt a tingly feeling, and figured it was love at last. Turns out it was just a sneeze. They were still facing each other, their faces only about three inches away from the other. When suddenly he sneezed and unfortunately got a huge glob of snot on her shirt. She began to frown and started walking away. She knew that this wouldn't work out.

Without thinking, Chengxi grabbed her arm before she could walk any farther, and pulled her close to him. She stared at him, and he stared at her. They felt a zing together, and realized that they were in love. Chengxi stood on his tip-toes and began awkwardly kissing Sarah Voon. From a distance, it would've looked as if he were trying to devour her poor face. He was attempting to simply kiss her, but ended up engulfing her entire mouth. As they were still kissing, Chengxi felt a grumble in his chest, and let out a gargantuan burp as their lips were still locked. Sarah tasted a mass amount of fart, gagged and felt as if she were going to throw up. But she continued to kiss, with Chengxi now literally sucking on her lips as if they were a ring pop. Sarah was in so much pain, yet accepted the fact that Chengxi was not even the slightest bit romantic, and still continued to kiss. After about four minutes of sheer making out, he forced his lips from hers, and stared at her, examining her thoroughly. He gazed in her direction once more, and he felt as if he was the luckiest man in the world. Behind Sarah was a crisp one dollar bill. It was truly his lucky day. He leapt from the bench in which they both had somewhat made out (intensely) for four minutes, and picked up the bill. Without a word to Sarah, he galloped home, but this time with a smile on his face, for he now finally had received a real gift on Christmas.