The Marrying Type || Jensoo & Chaelisa

Chapter 26

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-"