One Wish For Christmas.

# one #

The first Christmas.

Two years ago.

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Mark was quietly sitting at the kitchen’s counter, watching Kris fumbling around with the cookie dough. It has to be perfect, he said, it has to be perfect or my brother will cook me for dinner instead. And so Mark could now see him hurriedly – and quite forcefully – mixing the bowl’s content with a spoon, his face frowny and his lips pursed.

Needless to say, Mark was amused.

“You could help me instead of sitting there scratching your balls”.

Mark smirked. “I’m not scratching my balls”.

Kris huffed, turning the bowl around this time and keeping the spoon still. Mark figured his friend would know that was not a good way to do that. Shrugging it off, he decided to keep his mouth shut about it; he didn’t feel like hearing Kris complain about ‘Mark not helping and still giving away orders’. He was, after all, not helping with the preparations at all.

Not unless P’Gun asked him to.

“You know what I mean, asshole” Kris told him. “Don’t play clever with me. I’m not my brother, I know you are dumb”.

Mark smiled at the mention of P’Gun.

What Kris was saying was true, though; P’Gun had mentioned on countless occasions how smart he thought Mark was, and how he should help his brother out at school stuff more often. He wasn’t exactly sure how the elder sibling had gotten that idea of him, yet he was not complaining. If P’Gun wanted to call him smart, then he more than willingly would play the part. Since the first time he had said it, Mark had made sure to score the highest grades he could during tests, and then announce them all to the Napat’s family, ‘modestly’ telling them how ‘it wasn’t a big deal’.

It was a big deal, though. Mark spent entire days locked up in his bedroom to prepare for those tests.

Not that P’Gun would ever find out; Mark didn’t know what would happen if he did, if P’ would not like him anymore afterwards. And if there was one thing Mark wouldn’t be able to survive in this world, then that would be P’Gun not liking him at all, not even as a friend.

Mark couldn’t even picture that happening; he would just cease to exist.

“Well, I did score the highest grade on last Friday’s test. I dunno about you, man” he said, shrugging and raising his hands up as if to say ‘what can I do?'.

Kris chuckled, shaking his head, as he dropped the spoon on the table, the metal clinking against the surface. He then proceeded to fetch the most appropiate container to bake them, and started dumping the dough on it.

Mark watched in awe as his friend worked, as he was a complete flop with everything regarding cooking. He wondered where Kris had learned to do all of this; he wondered if, perhaps, this had been the work of P’Gun.

Remembering his handsome face, he couldn’t help but smile.

Mark had spent plenty of time since last Christmas thinking of a way in which he could fulfill his wish. Day and night, he had looked for ways to hold P’Gun’s hand and for him not to be able to tell just how much he actually wanted to be doing it. He had to make it seem as an accident, as it had been last year, when P’ had thanked him with a firm handshake. P’Gun couldn’t find out about his crush, or he would push Mark away, and he wouldn’t think he would be able to stand it if he did. So he had made it a goal to keep it friendly, to avoid being rejected by perfect P’Gun, the hard-working, kind, funny elder sibling of his best friend, who would not in a million years like lazy, morally ambiguous Mark.