Teacher's Pet (Jensoo)

Christmas

"Jisoo? Would you stop spacing off?!" Minhyeon broke Jisoo from her happy thoughts, ripping her back to reality. The woman in front of her was not her mother. She was some monster that had torn the sweet woman that she barely knew into shreds. The mother that Jisoo wished she could remember was long gone. Minhyeon hadn't acted in that way to Jisoo in years. She only pretended to be the sweet and loving mother to get into the brunette's head and build her up, only to tear her back down in the end. This woman was nothing but pure manipulation.

"You are so useless." She hissed, shoving the box that she held into her daughter's arms. "I don't even think you deserve that gift."

"Then why give it to me, mother?" Jisoo asked monotonously, a blank expression on her face. She glossed over the insult that her mother gave her, too used to hearing such words from those lips.

"Open the damned thing before I change my mind." Her mother grumbled. Eyes, like molten lava, burned into Jisoo as she tentatively unwrapped the gift.

When she had managed to open the box, wrapping paper littering the floor (which had earned a few disapproving grunts from her mother), she gasped. Inside was a relic from her childhood: a worn panda bear.

Call scene, placing that little, floppy black and white bear in her arms as she sat by the window the night of Christmas, a mug of cocoa in one hand, the bear in the other. Her mother would be sitting behind her, holding the little girl in her arms. That bear had been a gift from her mother just earlier that day, and one of the only gifts that Jisoo had really held onto throughout the years. She had it with her every Christmas, never getting replaced as her mother urged new stuffed toys on her.

The poor thing was old and worn, and Jisoo had thought she lost it long ago. She had assumed her mother had finally thrown it out and, after an hour or so of mourning the loss, she had come to terms that she was too old to be carrying it around anyways. She was about eighteen when that happened.

But, here it was, in this box. Tears stung Jisoo's eyes as she looked up at her mother who, for the first time in a very long time, wore a genuine smile on her lips.

She pulled the bear out, dropping the box on the floor as she murmured. "Mother, I thought you had thrown this out?"

"Unfortunately I had never got my hands on it before it disappeared on me." Minhyeon sniffed, the smile soon leaving her face as she slipped on her stone mask. "I had planned on it, but I thought you already packed it up. It wasn't until I was sorting through the attic, months ago, that I came across a box full of random items. It was buried underneath a few candleholders."

"It's been so long since I had seen him." Jisoo looked at the worn bear, faded in color with a few tufts of its fur missing, and smiled. "Thank you, mother. Thank you for not just throwing it away."

"It's Christmas, Jisoo. I am not that heartless." A smirk curled on the older woman's lips, but Jisoo chose to ignore it. Her mother had done something good and not at all selfish. Or perhaps this was another ploy at trying to win her over onto her side.

Whatever her intentions, Jisoo was happy to have this memory back in her arms. She had long grown out of stuffed toys, but this little panda held a special place in her heart and she couldn't throw it out. She'd save it, perhaps pass it onto her children- or horde it for herself.

"I still appreciate that you had done this for me. That you gave me a piece of my childhood." Jisoo gazed longingly at the yellowed bear, then held it close in one arm as she gazed out the window at the bright, white blankets of snow.

"Do you remember when I was a little girl? You held me close by the window as we watched the new snowfall, drinking mugs of hot cocoa... I had the bear then."