Christmas Eve in the Kim household consisted of two things; food and cleaning. Dara had dragged them all out of bed at dawn, and none of them had been happy about it, especially when some of them had received vacuuming, dusting or polishing duties not minutes after crawling out of the sweet warmth of their bed. Suho was sent outside to chop up some firewood, because Dara liked to keep a fire going throughout the day because it was festive and because her house had a tendency to get chilly in the winter. Once he was done, he was to clean up the yard to make it look neat and ready for Christmas, whatever that may have meant. Bogum was assigned the job of vacuuming the house, while Irene followed behind him mopping the floors; Lisa's duty was to dust every corner of the house, every small trinket(there were thousands) and book and painting, and she did this while listening to music and dancing around and looking absolutely idiotic but also so very Lisa-like.
Dara sent Jisoo out on some last-minute errands, and Jennie she reserved for kitchen duty, which mainly consisted of decorating the dozens and dozens of cookies which she had baked, leaving her the time she wanted to really get to know her daughter-in-law.
"Here. Just do whatever you like with them, it doesn't matter if they're messy. They'll all be eaten anyway." She offered her daughter-in-law a warm smile, which was returned shyly. Jennie looked at the piles of yet undecorated cookies and the array of frosting and candies and other decorating supplies laid out on the table.
"Everyone else is cleaning, and I get to do this?" She asked, half in awe and half suspicious.
"I figured I'd need some one-on-one time with you." Dara said, taking a seat across from Jennie and grabbing a cookie. "Come on, there's plenty to decorate. When everyone's done we'll sit down and eat some with milk, of course, and that's when Christmas really starts."
Jennie nodded and got to it. She had only ever decorated cookies in elementary school – even in her elite private school, first graders were allowed some fun. But that had been years ago, and now she was sitting in a kitchen, wearing wool socks and a hoodie and decorating gingerbread reindeer and hearts and it was all just very strange to her.
It was so warm and homey that Jennie didn't really know what to do with herself.
"This is a little weird for you, isn't it?"
Jennie looked up at Dara and stared at her for a while before nodding. It was odd how the woman seemed to know exactly what she was thinking, and how kind she was about it; she wasn't prodding or intruding in her own mental space, but rather just gently coaxing her out of the shell that she instinctively put up at times without even noticing.
"Yeah. I...my parents don't do Christmas like this."
Dara understood that she was quiet, and just wanted to make her feel comfortable. "Well, from what I gather, they're not really your family anymore."
When she saw Jennie's brows furrow, she added: "We're your family. Jisoo, me, and Taeyang. You're a Kim now."
The bright smile that spread onto Jennie's lips was more than enough to make Dara laugh gently.
"Now, tell me. How's Jisoo doing?"
"What do you mean?"
"She's not exactly an expert at long-term relationships," Dara shrugged as she placed an M&M onto a dab of frosting to complete the reindeer she'd been decorating. "But she's doing well with you, more than well might I add. I'm just curious about how well she's managing day-to-day life with someone else."
"I...it's nice. She's...comfortable, I guess. It works. She lets me sleep in on weekends and I've been trying to get her to cut down on her coffee consumption, and I think I'm getting to her-"
"Oh, that would be great. I've been trying for years."
"And she's an awful cook," Jennie laughed slightly. "Did she ever even try to learn?"
Dara shook her head. "She did, but managed to burn spaghetti so I banned her from ever going near the stove again. Please tell me you know how to cook, or otherwise I'll be forever thinking that the two of you are living on takeout."
"She does know how to make eggs."
"That is the only dish she knows how to make."
"But I guess I know how to cook? Not anything stellar, but edible anyway."
Dara smiled. "That's good. Maybe you can teach her a thing or two."
Jennie let out a laugh, and Dara did too; they both knew just how stubborn Jisoo could be, and knew also that trying to get her to learn to cook would be an impossible feat unless it was done on the threat of death.
"I'm happy, you know. About you and Jisoo. You two seem so happy together, and it's just so great because Jisoo really does deserve it. And you do too."
Jennie now felt slightly flustered, and concentrated on drawing a snowflake on the cookie in her hand. "Uh...thanks, I guess."
"And it was really great what you did yesterday, at the cemetery. She usually won't let me comfort her, you know. I was surprised that she let you. But it's good. I'm glad."
There was no hint of jealousy or distain in Dara's voice, only warmth and motherly love which Jennie recognized but could not fathom or get her heart to understand. This woman was looking at her like she'd seen so many mothers look at her friends, but never had she been looked at like this; she felt accepted, felt whole, felt like she was safe and comfortable and warm – it felt like she could tell Dara anything, and she would simply accept it and offer her a hug.
She really did feel like a part of the family.
"I'm glad too."
*****
Jisoo joined them in decorating the cookies a while later, and their conversation then consisted mainly of Dara recounting embarrassing and adorable stories from Jisoo's childhood. Jennie laughed and smiled so much that by evening her cheeks were hurting, but it was a good hurt which she was more than glad to be feeling.
They went to bed early, all seven of them, knowing that the next morning they'd be roused at dawn by an overly enthusiastic Lisa. If there was one thing Lisa loved more than inappropriate jokes and beer, it was Christmas.
Sure enough, it was only little past six in the morning when Lisa barged into Jisoo's room, jingling a bell in her hands and skipping happily. She wore a Christmas hat on her head, and had hung a strand of sparkly garland around her neck, making her look sort of like a walking Christmas tree with her dark green hoodie and bright red wool socks.
"Rise and shine, Jisoo, it's Christmas!"
Jisoo groaned and buried her face into Jennie's neck, and her wife threw a pillow at Lisa in an attempt to shut her up.
"In a minute." Jennie mumbled.
But Lisa was having none of it. It was Christmas, and Lisa really loved Christmas. She climbed into the bed, ignoring the groans from Jisoo and Jennie, and promptly laid on top of Jisoo who was laying atop Jennie, sandwiching the dark-haired between her and the wife and effectively drawing exasperated groans from both of them.
"I'm not getting off until you get up."
"Lisa, get your ass off of me right now." Jisoo grumbled.
Jennie laughed, although she felt the worst of the weight of both Jisoo and Lisa on top of herself. It was funny how annoyed Jisoo was, and she couldn't help the laughter. "Seriously, Lisa."
"Get up."
"We can't, not while you're on top of Jisoo!" Jennie quipped. Lisa frowned at her and rolled off of Jisoo, who then burrowed her face even more into Jennie's skin and pulled the duvet over her head. "Now go away, Lisa."
But Lisa's hands grabbed her waist and dragged her out of Jennie's arms and out of the bed. "No. It's Christmas. I want to give you your present."
Jennie laughed again, even though she was still pissed about being woken up so early, because Lisa was right.
It was Christmas.
And Jennie was excited. She crawled over to lay over the edge of the bed and to look at Jisoo, who lay on the floor beside the bed whilst Lisa looked over her with her hands planted on her hips. She leaned down and gave her wife a soft kiss before looking her in the eyes and smiling.
"Come on, Jisoo. Let's go."
Jisoo groaned. "Not you, too."
"Jii-soo..."
Jisoo grabbed Jennie and pulled her down from the bed, but this caused her to more fall than gracefully climb onto her, and for a moment she cursed her stupid idea while fighting for the breath which had been knocked out of her lungs.
"That was a bad idea," she groaned. "You're heavier than you look."
"No I'm not," Jennie grumbled. "You just yanked me out of bed with too much force, that's all. Idiot."
"Will you two idiots get up? Everyone else is waiting downstairs."
And so they came downstairs about five minutes later to find a groaning, sleepy group of people scattered along the couches, all looking seconds away from murdering Lisa – but Lisa knew this and did not care, no, because it was Christmas morning and she was damn well going to have fun and make everyone else have fun too.
"There's coffee in the kitchen. Who wants some?"
Every single hand went up, even Jennie's - she was willing to discard her vendetta against caffeine for the sake of actually surviving a morning call this early. Once everyone had been served a warm cup of coffee, they began waking up but very slowly. Dara was the only one missing from the group, because Lisa hadn't dared to cross her and wake her up. Mama Kim could be dangerous when her sleep was disturbed.
"Presents?"
Jisoo laughed. "Yes, Lisa, you can start giving out the presents."
Irene joined Lisa in distributing the pile of gifts set under and around the tree, and for a while, they just watched the two of them skip around handing gifts to people like two little elves. Suho went over to put on some Christmas music, on the lowest volume setting so as to not disturb Dara upstairs. When he walked back to his seat, his eyes lingered for just the slightest moment on Jisoo and Jennie – more specifically, they fixed on their intertwined hands, and Lisa noticed the way his eyes narrowed just slightly when he saw them. But she paid no mind to it, not now, because she was handing Jisoo and Jennie her Christmas gift to them and insisting they open it right that second.
"Lisa, I swear to god, if this is a sex toy-"
"It's not, I promise!" Lisa assured her. "Just open the damn box, it's not a freaking Rubik's cube."
Jisoo laughed and opened the box to reveal two mugs, one of which read "Lisa is my best friend" and the other read "Lisa is my best friend-in-law". Upon seeing the inscriptions, Jennie giggled, as did everyone else when they saw them.
"Lisa, this is hilarious," Jisoo laughed. "It's actually a good gift for once."
"What, a trip to the strip club and fancy underwear wasn't a good gift?" Lisa asked, referring to the gift she'd given Jisoo the Christmas before. "You sure liked the first part, at least."
Jennie raised her eyebrows. "A strip club?"
"Shut up, we weren't even married then." Jisoo grumbled. "Don't blame me for having eyes and a completely normal appreciation of the female figure."
"I won't," Jennie grinned, but made a mental note to bring it up later. She picked up her mug and looked at it, only to notice a card inside. "What's this?"
"A gift card."
"For what?" Jennie asked, picking the card up. Her question was rendered useless when she saw the text on the card: "XXX-Shop".
"Lisa!"
"What? At least now you get to choose what you want."
"Lisa-"
"You two are married. I'm just trying to prevent the tragedy that is lesbian bed death from happening with you two."
Jisoo threw a pillow at her, and threw glares at Irene and Bogum who were laughing their asses off. "Lisa, shut up."
Suho wasn't laughing. Jisoo noticed this, and raised an eyebrow in question. "Suho, you ok?"
He cleared his throat and nodded. "Yeah. Just really tired."
Jisoo stared at him for a while before letting it go. "Ok, can we open the presents now?"
And they did. For a long while, all that one could hear was the ripping of paper and occasional 'oohs' and 'aahs' as they dug into the considerable amount of presents loaded beside each person.
Jennie and Jisoo had agreed to open each other's presents last. Jennie was surprised to find any gifts at all; Chaeyoung had told her she'd get her present when they met again, and Jennie hadn't expected to be getting any gifts from anyone but Jisoo. But she got a scarf and beanie from Irene and Bogum, and a book from Dara – it was a book on philosophy, though how Dara had known she loved the topic evaded Jennie and Jisoo alike. Jisoo swore she hadn't told her mother, and Jennie believed her.
"Maybe she's got a sixth sense."
"Ok, now for my gift." Jisoo took the package and handed it to Jennie. "Go on, open it."
Jennie did as told, and laughed first at the coffee-flavored tea before setting her eyes on the neatly stacked pile of sketchbook papers which were tied together with a ribbon.
"What's this?"
"Just look."
Jennie undid the ribbon and folded it neatly before finally turning the papers over and finding a whole load of different designs for what was obviously a tattoo – or many tattoos, actually, because there were some sketched on arms and on backs and on legs – but they were all beautiful and neat and Jennie wanted to have them all.
"You said you wanted a tattoo but didn't know what to get," Jisoo murmured as she leaned in to kiss her cheek. "So I figured why not give you some ideas."
"Jisoo, I don't have enough skin for all these tattoos. I want them all."
Jisoo laughed. "Well, you've got all the time you want to pick the best ones."
"They're beautiful. Thank you."
"Oh, and I promise to come and hold your hand while you get them done."
Jennie kissed her then, a smile playing on her lips. "It's perfect."
She then placed a large box into Jisoo's hands and smirked. "Now open your present."
And Jisoo did, and Jennie saw the bright smile spread onto her face as she looked through all the different paints and brushes and papers and art supplies that one could imagine.
"Oh my god, Jennie, these are all amazing. How did you know what to buy?"
"A kindly old sales lady helped me."
"It's perfect."
"And it's sort of a starter for your studio, in a way. I know you've already set up there but there's one more surprise waiting at home, and now you've got a lot more supplies and canvases and stuff so you can really go all out with it."
Jisoo kissed her quickly before returning to look at her gift. "I love it. But now I'm going to spend all day painting, I'm sorry, but I have to."
"That's alright. It's what they're for."
Dara entered the room then, and everyone greeted her happily; she let her eyes run over the room, and smiled brightly at the sight. Everyone looked overjoyed and happy, and that was what Christmas was all about for her.
"Your uncle called. He'll be here in about an hour."
Jisoo nodded. "Ok. Thanks for the book, by the way."
Dara laughed. "I figured I'd pass on some wisdom."
Everyone then leaned over to look at the book, which was titled "How to Make A Marriage Last".
"That's perfect," Lisa commented. "I should've bought them that."
"Too bad I thought of it first."
"Where can I get a copy?" Bogum asked, but it was only a joke; Irene swatted him on the shoulder gently, but everyone laughed nevertheless. The mood that morning was light and happy, and even Suho's all-too-blatant disdain of something wasn't enough to ruin it.
Nothing was.
It was Christmas, and they were all overjoyed and enjoying each other's company, and everyone was having fun.
Even Suho.
*****
Dara banned everyone from eating anything in between breakfast and dinner to make room for the feast she was preparing, which was to start at 3pm and end whenever people started dropping to the floor to recover from all the food they were to eat. This led to an extremely hungry group of people sitting around in the house trying to find something to do as delicious smells emanated from the kitchen. Suho, Bogum, Irene and Uncle Taeyang were busy with some football game in the study, while the rest lounged about in the living room. Jisoo was drawing Jennie in her brand new sketchbook, and Jennie was reading the book she'd received from Dara – she was only about two chapters in, but was already loving it.
Lisa was laying on her back on the floor, tossing an apple from one hand to another, bored as ever. As though the universe had heard her silent plea for anything to do, her phone rang in her pocket.
"Hello?"
"Lisa?"
"Chaeyoung? What's up?" Lisa sat up, suddenly slightly flustered, drawing a curious look from Jisoo. Chaeyoung had her number, yes, but was yet to actually use it for anything aside from that one call a week ago that had led her spending the night and the next day and the night after that.
"I'm cold. Can you come pick me up?"
"From where? Long Island?"
"No, idiot. The bus station."
"Now?"
"Yes, now. Did you not hear me say I'm cold?"
"You could've called me from the bus," Lisa pointed out as she struggled to get her jacket on without dropping her phone.
"I thought I could get a cab, but it seems the entirety of Baltimore has died in honor of Christmas."
Lisa laughed. "Ok, I'm on my way."
"My hands are literally freezing, Lisa. Hurry the fuck up."
*****
Lisa found Chaeyoung from the bus station with ease; she was literally the only person standing on the curb, and she was glad to see her let out an exasperated sigh of relief when she curved in front of her.
"Thank god, I'm pretty sure I would've died of hypothermia if you'd taken any longer."
"I came as fast as I could, asshole." Lisa protested. "You didn't give me much warning."
"I had to leave, they were driving me crazy. I was lucky to catch the last bus here, literally nothing is moving on Christmas."
Lisa laughed. "Glad you made it without having to murder them."
"I came pretty close." Chaeyoung rubbed her hands together and blew at them, trying to warm them up. Lisa just rolled her eyes and reached over to enclose her own hands over Chaeyoung's.
"My hands are always warm," she explained, her fingers rubbing at Chaeyoung's and spreading the heat which resided on her skin. "Figured you'd like to not get frostbite."
A smile spread onto Chaeyoung's lips, and she leaned in then, capturing Lisa's lips for a soft, gentle kiss, which was so different from the rough and demanding kisses which Lisa had grown accustomed to receiving from and giving to Chaeyoung.
"Merry Christmas."
Lisa smiled and kissed her again, just as softly as before. "Merry Christmas."
"I got you a gift."
"So did I. It's at the house."
"We'll exchange them then, ok?"
"Of course. Like I'd forget about a present."
Lisa started the car then, and they drove off towards Dara's house. Chaeyoung refused to let go of Lisa's right hand, both because her hands were still cold and because it felt nice to hold it in her own. A few minutes into the drive, however, Lisa felt an overwhelming need to say something - not just a space filler, but something concrete and sincere which she felt and which she knew Chaeyoung would recognize as heartfelt.
"I'm glad you came."
Chaeyoung looked at Lisa, surprised at what she'd said; the brunette kept her eyes fixed on the road, but Chaeyoung now saw that she was vulnerable – she'd exposed herself with her words, through admitting that she'd wanted her to come. It was so incredibly endearing to Chaeyoung that she couldn't help but smile.
"Me too."
She took a slight pause before adding three words which she knew would end the light and fun part of their relationship and drive them into something neither of them were very experienced at.
"I missed you."
Lisa pulled over on the side of the road and looked at Chaeyoung, eyes wide. "You did?"
Chaeyoung just rolled her eyes and slipped her cold hand onto Lisa's neck to pull her in for a kiss. "Yes, I did."
Lisa smiled against her lips, and didn't even bother to pull away as she whispered: "I missed you too."
©artsypolarbear