Reina sat on the couch in her shared dorm, staring at the TV screen, and at JB’s adorable attempt of creating a romantic holiday scene. On the television, he had found a “Fireplace” video, that ran on loop, making crackling wood noises and emitting no heat whatsoever. She was wearing a purple and white sweater, which had the typical ugly christmas sweater patterns, paired with a pair of light blue jeans, and a pair of brown boots that had fur on either sides of the ankles. In her hands was a mug of hot chocolate that JB had made for her, which was relatively large, and on the table in front of her was a small christmas trees. Beside the tree was a variety of tiny ornaments and tinsel.

JB sat on the floor a few feet away, plugging in the lights they were going to put on the tree to make sure they worked. His brows were pulled down over his eyes in frustration, and he kept pushing a hand through the side of his black hair and grabbing a hold of the hairs he’d captured as he stared down at the tangled, non working lights.

Reina shook her head and put the hot chocolate on the coffee table, moving to her feet and walking to his side. He was still fussing over the lights when she knelt down and took his hand, pulling it away from the tangle of lights. He looked up at her, surprise filling his expression, but he followed her lead as she stood, pulling him with her. “Come sit down with me.” She said, twining her fingers with his and leading him towards the couch.

As she sat down and he moved past her to sit on her other side, she flicked on the radio he’d brought, filling the apartment with light christmas music. JB sat down on her right, his dark eyes flitting back to the lights. Reina shook her head. “Uh-uh. Enough with the lights. The tree doesn’t even need them.” She said, gesturing to the tree, which already had a few lights in it’s pine needles. “They were just extra.”

JB shrugged and sighed. “Yeah, but I wanted it to be perfect.”

“It is perfect. All it needs is a little love,” She said, taking one of the glittering silver ornaments and placing it on one of the branches. “We don’t need lights to make it perfect. All that does is draw attention towards it.” She reached to place another ornament. “Why do you want it to be perfect anyways? It’s just a tree.”

JB’s fingers wrapped around Reina’s stopping her from putting the ornament on the tree. She turned and looked at him, caught off guard by his sudden action. “Because,” He said, taking the ornament from her hand and placing it on the table. “It’s our first Christmas together,” He said, leaning down and kissing the base of her wrist and palm. “And I want everything to be just right.”

“If it’s just right, then it’s staged,” She said, taking her hand from him and turning to face him. “If it’s staged, then we tried to hard. I think we should just be genuine. Go with the flow, do what we want with it, not what’s expected. Frankly,” She said, looking at the tree. “I think it needs more color.” The tinsel and ornaments were silver and gold, and the tree lights were white. Very bland. “Just because we’re adults doesn’t mean everything needs to be so adult.” She said, smiling.

JB shrugged. “It could.”

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