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Arian had been a little leary of visiting the Winder Wonderland 'Extravaganza' that was being put on by the The Emporium, because events like these never seemed to go well - at least none of the ones that he had experienced had seemed to.

Anxo, however, didn't have the benefit of his experience and his boyfriend had really, really wanted to go - and, if truth be told, Arian found it hard to say no when Anxo started pulling out the puppy eyes.

It hadn't stop a part of him from worrying however, a part of him half expecting the penny to drop and giant spiders to invade or for youma to make an appearance - or some other completely weird thing - because this was Destiny City and events here (well at least events on this scale) tended to have form.

At least they usually did.

But they'd been there a while and there hadn't been any creepy spiders or invading youma or other general weirdness - at least not so far - which meant that Arian was finally starting to relax as he made his way back to where he'd seem his boyfriend last, a couple of bags of cookies in his hand.

His lips tilted up in a small smile as he caught sight of Anxo by the one of sprigs of mistletoe that had been set up around the carnival - because it was very Anxo - a slightly mischievous expression flickering in his eyes as he carefully slipped the cookies into his satchel and stepped over.

It's tradition he told himself as gave Anxo a peck on the cheek, knowing that the gesture would probably surprise his boyfriend since Anxo was the one more often than not to take the lead, keeping it to just a peck because he wasn't like some of the others who appeared to be using the mistletoe sprigs to go full on PDA–

But when he opened his eyes, he found that it was very much not Anxo standing in front of him, but a complete stranger.

"I'm sorry."

Arian could feel his cheeks flush with complete mortification as he started to take a step backwards "I'm really, truly sorry..."

He could only hope that something, that his luck would take pity on him and that Anxo hadn't seen his faux pas.

It was bad enough that he had made the awful mistake of kissing someone, who had turned out to be most definitely not Anxo - but it seemed that his wish for luck to take pity on him hadn't been answered - at least going by the expression on his boyfriend's face–

And whilst Arian wasn't sure how much Anxo had seen, he knew that it probably hadn't looked good.

"It isn't actually my thing" he admitted, because Anxo knew that he wasn't really into big PDAs, "But I actually thought it was you under the mistletoe and so I thought that I'd surprise you."

Because, he knew that Anxo was pretty big on traditions and the mistletoe tradition was about as Christmassy as you could get - well at least that had been the plan.

He looked away, the expression on the other's face not really helping with his overall sense of mortification.

As it happened Arian had squeezed his eyes shut, which - given how well the 'kiss' had turned out - had shown just how impractical it was–

And it was certainly making Arian think twice about trying to be impulsive.

His shoulders slumped slightly at the holding hands comment, because whilst Anxo had said that he believed him when he'd told him that the kiss had been an awful horrible mistake, the tone of the other's voice made him think that he didn't really - which wasn't really surprising given the optics.

"You don't need to worry, I've learnt my lesson and certainly won't..." his voice trailed off as Anxo spoke up at the same time, looking up startled from his perusal of the ground at the other's words sunk in "Wait, do you actually really want me to try again - even with how 'well' last time went?"

Arian managed a small smile in answer to the glimmer of mischief in Anxo's eyes "You're an awful tease you know" he murmured.

It wasn't a complaint, nor was it the first time that he'd said those words and - knowing his boyfriend - it probably wouldn't be the last time that he said those words.

But whilst he liked Anxo's kisses as the other well knew, Arian couldn't forget the other's 'you're so very private' comment from earlier - wasn't able to get it out of his mind - because it was true in a way given that Anxo was less reserved than he was, was a whole lot less reserved..

But it didn't mean that he couldn't be the one to take a lead sometimes, even if...

Even if he had messed up so very badly earlier and not to mention that it was tradition.

Suiting action to thought - and before he could second-talk himself out of doing it - Arian tiptoed up and gave Anxo a peck on the cheek.

"I figured I should be the one to do it" he said once done - and if his cheeks were red then he was downright going to blame it on the cold.

"Oh?" Arian's lips quirked up in a small smile of his own as he held up the bags of cookies that up to this point had gone largely forgotten "Weren't we supposed to be picking up some hot chocolate and then on to Christmas shopping?"

He was only half serious, after all hot chocolate had been mentioned, although the queue by the stall when he had passed by earlier on had been seriously long, either a testament to the hot chocolate itself or a side effect of the time of year aka cold. They really were supposed to be Christmas shopping though once they finished with the winter fair - or at the very least starting - especially as there weren't that many days left before the day itself.