Well, hello!

How do you do? Have you finished your Christmas shopping?

Take this one-shot, fluffy snippet as two things.

First, it's my advance holiday gift to you. I hope you have a wonderful Christmas.

Second, it's my apology for being so late with my updates (pertaining to "The Roommate").

Keep on supporting our couple!

Merry Christmas!

Bear hugs and kisses to everyone,

Cheska Rose :)

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It's the way he cooks dinner.

He's not like the rest of them. You know. The ones who uses the sesame oil that add that kick of flavor to his dishes. And who said using it directly from the bottle.

No. Jonghyun uses the real deal.

The pure-all-natural-sweet-then-strained-to-perfection-sesame oil real deal.

Dried raw chamkkae (sesame seeds). Heated for a minute or so and cooled down in an hour.

It usually ends with him cutting her off after three servings of a particular dish because he's that good. 

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It's the way she does calligraphy.

She's not like the rest of them. You know. The ones who deliberately make black on the paper without ease. 

The ones who daub the ink without checking if it's too runny or not.

No. Seungyeon does calligraphy with grace and passion.

She grinds her ink herself, carefull not to overdo it. She's the only person who hates being watched do her calligraphy.

And he loves that about her, but he loves teasing her more.

It usually ends with her telling him to go away and make himself busy before she makes a mistake in her writing. 

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It's the way he plays the guitar.

And no, Lee Jonghyun does not play the guitar. He "plays" it.

Meaning, he sits on the couch and strums the strings and tries to play something somewhat harmonious.

( is trying not to smile while he does it.)

A quarter of time, Seungyeon joins him and tries to make the sound a little better by adding her two hands.

But most of the time, it ends up with Seungyeon begging him to stop. Playing. Now. And she'll kiss the pout on his face until he's begging her to take. Me. Now.

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It's the way she does the crossword puzzle.

Always a crossword puzzle book or a crossword cut-out from a newspaper.

And always with a ballpoint pen with a cute, pororo bobblehead on top.

She argues that it's because she never writes her answer until she knows it's right, so what's the point of writing in pencil? It will just smudge.

And so while she's competing with it, and he's sitting beside her with his misutgaru latte, he likes to look over her shoulder and watch.

It always ends up with him saying 02 across is wrong. And her breath hitches and she freezes in panic until she hears him giggling in her ear. 

By the third time, she know's he's teasing. But she plays along and lets him think otherwise.

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It's the way he reads.

He is definitely not like the rest. The ones who fold the triangle tips down after finishing the chapter or page or sentence or whatever they were reading before they were interrupted.

The ones who leave every page with a crease on its corner.

No. Jonghyun reads with courtesy.

He uses a bookmark. He cares as much as how the book was made as what it's about. He's the only person who returns the book in better condition that it was five borrowers ago.

And she loves that about him.

It usually ends up with her snatching the book out of his hands before he can place a bookmark or --God forbid-- fold one of the pages. But he's laughing too hard to be mad at her.

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It's the way she always wear a seatbelt. 

On the nights that they go out, she usually makes them take the bus or the subway.

But on the recurrent occasion, she gives in and rides their car or sometimes he flags a cab, the first thing she does is put on her seatbelt.

Tourists. Visitors. Residents. No one uses the seatbelt in a cab but her.

It usually ends when the cab doesn't have one and she has to politely remind the driver about safety and the importance of seatbelts.

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It's the way he sleeps with his pillow.

Or, lack of pillow.

He's the only person she knows that refuses to use a pillow. It boggles her mind, because how can he just sleep on a flat mattress? She gets a neck ache just thinking about it. Their marital bed is a bed full of pillows but he refuses to use them. 

Not one morning has he complained of a stiff neck.

She's pretty sure it's because of the high-quality mattress his brother-in-law gave them as a wedding gift. 

But she bites her tongue about forcing him to sleep on it with a pillow.

Because it usually ends up with her waking up to him using her stomach as a pillow, pressing his lips to her skin. Or her thighs. Or her... 

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It's the way she twists her rings.

Her engagement and wedding rings. The ones he placed upon her finger.

Whenever she's bored or anxious or watching a movie or whenever her hands aren't busy, she'll twist them. At night when they're in bed, he can sometimes hear the little murmurs of silver and diamonds clicking together as they rotate around her finger.

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It's the way he doesn't prefer wearing a tie.

Be it a bowtie or a necktie, he prefers a plain polo to complete his suit.

But she just avoids the subject, hoping her silence translates as a disapproval of the idea. She hope he catches on.

He doesn't, of course. And this time, she is perfectly accustomed to it. 

Because it ends with him coming home as a tie-less man, wearing her favorite white shirt or long-sleeved polo on him. His lean torso and wide shoulders showing off beyond his clothing. 

Then she realizes, he looks always his best in white.

And....

It's the way he always says it first. Whether she's running late or he's on a rush, he always says it first. And she never fails to say it back.

I LOVE YOU.

And it ends with ---

Wait.

No.

It NEVER ends. 

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