• I could feel his eyes on the back of my head, to my complete and utter annoyance. He seemed to enjoy watching me hiss under my breath, clearly noticing where his eyes were. I cursed him for being so annoying before I turned to face him with a smile upon my face. I held up the tray of snack food I had been working on for an hour..

    “I got cheese and crackers,” I smiled sweetly towards him. He seemed to just be amused by the look upon my face. I cursed him again. He could see through my fake smile. I placed the tray closer to him. “Come on Justin, try one.”

    He easily took one up and placed it into his mouth and began to chew on it. He took his eyes off me just for a moment, so that he may chew, as he looked off to something across the kitchen. I ignored it, but only for a moment, until his eyes went wide and he began to choke hard on the cracker. My eyes widened before I put the tray back down on the counter and began to help him, to prevent him from choking.

    I patted his back more then once before he stopped coughing long enough for me to know he was okay. He turned back to what I too was now clearly seeing. It was there that I saw Aumi in a heavy and deep lip lock with Derek. I was surprised, but only for a second. Directly above them was mistletoe. I immediately knew she had played one of her tricks on the guy to get a kiss. She had gotten Derek into a deep conversation, had him walk around, and she’d stop, and gasp, and from there, the lips did the work.

    It was exactly something dear Aumi would do to get what she wanted. For months she had wanted to kiss the guy, and she finally got to, but only after she tricked him. I chuckled slightly, amused that the one guy she did want, hadn’t tried to kiss her all the sooner. It was fairly amusing for me just because she was one of the most wanted girls in our grade.

    “Sill, what’s so funny?”

    I was surprised that Justin had even noticed what I was doing, now that I had returned to getting refreshments ready. I shook my head, “Nothing.” I began to mix the fruit punch into a large bowel, not really answering his question. He knew this all too well, as it was my own mysterious way, something he was well use too by this point in time.

    Justin seemed to still be in a daze, watching Aumi, continue to play tonsil hockey with Derek. He seemed to think deeply in though. What he was thinking about was a mystery to me all together. He was just so quiet. He rarely did open his mouth to anyone, despite him not being shy. He was very open, and spoke his mind whenever he felt he needed too. He slowly turned to me and peered over my shoulder as he watched me work. I began to curse once again. And again he began to chuckle as he did this to me.

    “I can see why you were laughing at them,” he chuckled to himself. “They look like fools.”

    “Of course they do,”I smiled to myself. “Aumi is an attention whore and Derek loves to make girls jealous. There perfect for the other.”

    “And of all things, mistletoe,” he commented. “You know that mistletoe is poisonous right? That’s why they hang it, to keep away from children.”

    I hid my smile from Justin as silently cheered to myself. It wasn’t often that Justin acted smart around me. He often put himself down and called himself an idiot, and it seemed that he never wanted to sound smart in front of me. I liked it when he showed his true side to me. “Kissing under mistletoe, what a bunch of bullshit.”

    “What do you mean?”

    “Mistletoe,” I repeated. “Its such a silly tradition.” I turned to face him as I began to talk to have this discussion with him. I placed my hands on my hips as I opened my mouth freely, “It makes no sense. You stand under a poisonous plant and decide to kiss? Where’s the knowledge in that?”

    “Well, some people just see it as a way to show affection in another wise impossible way,” he explained. My eyes past from his gaze and I returned to watch Aumi and Derek, who had now taken there hockey game to the couch. I rolled my eyes as I realized how Justin’s comment fit in with Aumi all too perfectly.

    I returned to finishing the punch and turned to give it to him. I smiled, “Can you take this out to the living room for me?”

    He nodded and smiled at me, “Sure.” He picked up the heavy punch bowel from my hands, and held it as he looked down at me for a moment before he turned away and left to the living room with it. I turned back to the kitchen counter and began to lean on it, deep in thought to what I should make next.

    I had lots of snacks left to make, and Aumi was no help, she had already moved her full attention to Derek, so there was little hope for her to help me, despite this being her Christmas party. She was going to be no help. So I was thankful that Justin arriving right away when I called him up. Aumi had called Derek up with the same reason, but of course not the real reason.

    I sighed as I took a seat on a chair next to the island. I placed my head down on the counter top, leaning onto one side, while my arms remained low by my side. I peered over to the doorway to where Justin had left, and hadn’t yet returned to. I sat up quickly as I heard Aumi scream. Before I had a chance to stand to see what the problem was, it was much too late. The chair from under me had started to dribble, until my body freely fell hard to the floor. I sat up as soon as I gained my balance once again. I turned immediately to face Angelo who was standing in the corner of the kitchen smiling at me with a wide grin. “Angelo, you little b*****d,” I cursed. He continued to stare at me and smile.

    “You know that I’m the cute little b*****d,” he grinned at me. “You forgot cute.”

    I glared at Angelo as he started to skip out of the kitchen, down the hall to an unknown destination. Aumi suddenly flew into the kitchen, her long wavy hair flying in all directions, and her cheeks red with anger. Soon I could see a purple vein pounding on her forehead as she began to throw a fit and scream at Angelo.

    Justin had arrived in the kitchen and seemed to pay no mind to the two fighting. I turned away and began to look around for something to do. Justin and I both knew how this was going to end. Angelo was going to trick Aumi like she hurt his feelings, then he would get her. He did it every time, and every time he would trick her.

    Justin stepped beside me, and began to pick up several of the dishes and move them out to the living room with the rest of the goodies. By the time I was done, Justin was done as well, making me glad to know Aumi and Angelo were done fighting, and Aumi had locked him up in his bedroom for the night.

    Not long after Aumi’s friends began to arrive, so Justin and I were then locked in the basement by Aumi, who didn’t want her friends to see either of us. I was use to it, but Justin seemed rather surprised by it. I moved us into the small rec room downstairs and sat down on the couch before I sighed deeply.

    Justin sat beside me before he leaned forward and grabbed one of the soda cans in front of me. He opened it before he took a long sip out of the can. I changed by position, so my legs were on the coffee table. It was rude I knew, but I honestly didn’t care, and neither did Justin, who soon joined me.

    I soon turned the t.v on and began to search for something interesting. I gave up after flicking through all the channels about twice. I smiled at Justin and gave him the remote. He immediately changed the channel to Discovery, to watch something he saw earlier. I began to relax and eased into the sit and watch the program, quickly getting into the program. About fifteen minutes later, the loud music started up, and me and Justin could no longer hear, or enjoy the show, so we turned it off. We both sat in silence for a few minutes before the basement door open. I sighed. “Its Aumi coming down to ask me of a favor I bet.”

    “No doubt,” Justin agreed.

    We heard the loud clogging of her shoes coming down the stairs. I held a chuckle in as she entered the room looking quiet panicked.”Justin, I’m sorry. Can you please come up stairs. I know I told you I wouldn’t bother you, but could you please fix the speakers.. The speakers aren’t working so good.” I rolled my eyes at that comment. They sounded well to me. I thought that even the neighbors would agree with me greatly. I turned to Justin and looked for his opinion. “Justin, should we go up stairs and fix the speakers?”

    He smiled at me, “Only if you can stay up stairs.” I nodded and turned to Aumi, looking for her answer. “Well? Can we?”

    The look on her face clearly read displacement, but she was in a bind and knew she could do nothing to stop it. She nodded, agreeing with us both. “Stay, just help fix the speakers.”

    “Alright,” I stood. “Lets go Justin.”

    As we made it up the stairs we soon could hear the full blown blast of the guests speaking, and the loud speakers blaring through-out the house. I gasped for a moment when I saw tons of more mistletoe placed in between all the doorways. Though they weren’t what I noticed, it was all the couples making out in the doorway. I turned to Justin, and rolled my eyes, making him chuckle lightly. We pushed through the crowds of people as Aumi lead us, making us go to the head of the living room where the stage was set up.

    Aumi smiled at the guy who held the mic and took it from him, taking his place from the stage. She smiled at the group, “We’ll have the speaker working soon. Justin here knows how to fix this stuff.”

    Justin sighed and moved to the front of the crowd, making his way over to the speakers. He adjusted his glasses before he began to look at the wiring. Aumi began whispering to a friend, who seemed to take off very quickly through the crowds. I turned back to watch Justin who was working about, searching for the problem. He studied it for a few moments, unsure what the problem was. Another few minutes past, and Aumi’s friend returned. Both girls broke into fits of giggles. I rolled my eyes, turning my attention to Justin, who turned to look at the front of the speakers.

    “You got to be kidding me!”

    “What’s the problem?”

    “The volume is low. I bet that is the problem,” he explained. He showed me, slowly easing the volume button up. Slowly the already loud music because ear hurting, the crowd cheering. “Retards.”

    Aumi met me immediately in a warm hug, as she held me warmly in her arms. She released me and smiled, “Thank you so much Sill.”

    “Shouldn’t you be thanking Justin?”

    “Maybe later,” she replied.

    I rolled my eyes, taking Justin by the arm, drawing from out of the crowds into the enterance way of the kitchen. “So, what do you want to do?”

    “Why don’t we play a game of chess?” Justin asked. “Leave the party animals to their silly traditions.” He pointed to a couple in the other kitchen’s doorway, kissing passionately, under the mistletoe.

    “Silly traditions is right,” I covered my mouth as I laughed with him. “Chess is a much better use of our time.” I took his hand, and lead him, past the couple, trying not to bump into them. We seemed to make it past them easily, and again headed back down the stairs, into the basement.

    When we were at the bottom of the stairs, I turned to the back walk-in closest. “Its up pretty high, could you be my height?” He nodded and opened the door and stepped inside the dark closet. I followed behind. “It should be in the corner, by the Chinese checkers board.”

    Justin searched, but couldn’t see it, even when he tried to fix his glasses. “Do you have a light?”

    “Yeah, I’ll turn on the light,” I turned behind me and reached up to the long dangling string, and pulled, filling the walk-in closest with light. Both our eyes landed onto what was hanging by the light, and casted a large shadow across the wall. Both our mouth hung open, while my cheeks turned a red shade.

    ‘Aumi is going to die,’ I thought deeply. ‘Very painfully. Mistletoe in the walk-in closet, of all places!’

    Slowly I turned to face Justin, who’s face thankfully wasn’t red, but made me blush all the harder. I ended up looking down away from him, to try and hide this. I just kept reminding myself about the silly tradition over and over again in my head. That was all it was. A silly tradition. He wasn’t going to kiss me, because we both knew it was just a silly tradition.

    That was where I was wrong. I ended up looking to face Justin when both his hands rested on my shoulders, holding me quite firmly. My eyes were wide and my cheeks grew warmer as he leaned down towards me. My heart began to pound hard as I felt his warm breath on my face, nearing my mouth.

    My hands soon rested on his chest, pushing him away lightly. I stared at him, deep in his surprised eyes before I answered, “Its just a silly tradition.” His right hand moved from my shoulder up to my cheek where he cupped my cheek, forcing my cheeks to warm again.

    “I agree,” he replied as he again started to move in closer try and meet my lips again. “I just wanted an excuse to kiss you.”

    My eyes widened in surprise as he tilted his head to the side and slowly brushed his lips against mine. His hand traveled downward to my hip, where he pulled me closer to his warm body, while his other hand continued to cup my cheek and light caressed it as he kissed me. Soon my eyes closed, and I melted into his arms.

    ‘This doesn’t change a thing, its still a silly tradition,’ I thought. ‘But, it’s a nice one.’