Christmas was just around the corner. However, Christmas break had already started and everyone couldn't wait to get a head start on their winter plans. Some people celebrate it early and some do it at a later day in the month. Regardless, any day in December was still as thoroughly Christmas as one could ask for.

December is probably the best month out of the twelve in the year.

Snowy trees, beautiful afternoon sunsets, soothing darkness. Ancient Christmas songs playing by the lutist Rolf Lislevand, some medieval Christmas chants, and then some Palestrina. A real Christmas tree,  naturally. The scent is the most important thing. As long as they could, people would rather have a living spruce in their living room. Delicious food; many kinds of fish, oven-roasted root vegetables, saffron buns, fruitcake, gingerbread biscuits and lots of chocolate. 

Children's laughter. Joy in the eyes of the old.

Spending Christmas Eve with your family, all together. It was very special to be there, with all these people still, no one missing. The older we get, the more we appreciate what we have now. 

Christmas is celebrated a few days after the winter solstice, the longest night of the year, the darkest night. In the past, during this period people would tell scary stories full of mystery in the light of the fire. To think that a merry holiday would have so much cheer, Nayeon didn't think that anything could go wrong.

The university gave a staggering five weeks off for Christmas break. This was the greatest news to receive for everyone. Nayeon was going to visit Jeongyeon and stay over for the first four weeks of the break. She would dedicate the last week to prepping their dorm and make sure that everything wasn't out of place.

Kookeu was more than eager to help her pack the necessities. Just for the sake of getting acquainted with another, Nayeon decided that Kookeu would stay in the dorms with Suzy. Her roommate said that she would be staying in the dorm for the entire break since money was tight for her family and they had other complex situations that involved tons of paper. 

She proposed that she would watch Kookeu for the time being. Quite saddened of what her roommate told her but she was elated that she offered to watch Kookeu while she was gone. Nayeon made a mental note that she would buy her some goodies while at New York. 

When Nayeon whistled over for Kookeu to come to her, he had such a sprightly look on his face with his tongue hanging out of the corner of his mouth and his tail wagging as fast as the ceiling fan. Nayeon knelt down and scratched him under his chin, which he seemed very pleased by this. She then went for the back of his ears and that made Kookeu tapped his feet repeatedly, extremely satisfied with the treatment he was being given.

Nayeon laughed, looking at her excited pup. She continued to shower him with scratches as the bad news was said.

    "You're gonna be staying here for the break. Okay, Kookeu? I'll be gone for four weeks. But don't be sad because Suzy is going to take very good care of you. Alright?"

Kookeu appeared to understand every single word Nayeon said. His expressions rapidly changed from confused to inevitably crestfallen. Nayeon wished to not have seen the sad image of her pup and cupped his fury face before shaking his head as a last parting gesture.

As Nayeon stood up, Kookeu let out a small whimper. Staring down at her dejected dog with a slight frown, Nayeon took her rolling luggage with a frown and waved at Suzy as she left the dorm. Nayeon made her way to the elevator. To her luck, nobody else came out of their room to use the elevator. She had two large luggage's and a backpack so her hands were quite full.

Pressing the button to the ground floor, she waited, her arms kept to her side. Four weeks. How was she supposed to leave her precious Kookeu for a whole month? She had never been away from Kookeu. Never. This would be the first time. She reminded herself that Suzy would look after him, easing her apprehension.

Nayeon was meticulous when scheduling her flight and where to sit. It was hard to pick between the different airlines since their airtime was all different. A round trip flight from Nashville International to New York JFK International would take around four hours. Then, it would only take 2 hours going back which didn't make sense to Nayeon. She chose the one-way lane so that she wouldn't have to go for stops. 

The seat she had was the third row in the front. It was the only available one at the time. Another lucky strike for her. She didn't want the window seat since she wanted to get out as quickly as possible. There would be no delays in seeing Jeongyeon. She could care less if someone else took the window seat. The airlines informed her that they could not give specific information on who she would be seated with. Nayeon just wished there wouldn't be a kid and their ignorant parent behind her. Now that would really .

Jeongyeon knew that Nayeon would be coming over to visit. Nayeon wanted it to be a surprise at first but debated over it. She knew that Jeongyeon needed time to clean up the place to be fit for her visit. This would be the first time Nayeon would visit as well. Both of them were overflowed with Joy and couldn't wait to see each other.

After being greeted by the stewardess, Nayeon found her seat. She was surprised to see a lady and a little boy, who Nayeon automatically assumed was her son already seated. The boy was at the window and his mother sat next to him. She was watching him watch cartoons on the iPad and looked to see the movement that caught her eye. The lady felt overtaken by Nayeon's presence and even had somewhat agog. 

Nayeon felt an alarming tension rise between them and tried to pull off an awkward smile. She noticed how the lady didn't look that old either. In fact, she appeared to be quite young, maybe even around her age of a bit older.

Nayeon didn't even have time to think about this thoughtfully. At a brisk pace, she stored her luggage and bag into the carry-on compartment. She quietly sat down at her seat which was next to the alleyway, not saying anything to the lady. Nayeon shoved her AirPods into her ears and played some music. She decided to text Jeongyeon first.

To: Jeong my love~(=^▽^)♡

Hey just got on my flight. Can't wait to see you (*≧∀≦*)

It didn't take Jeongyeon that long to respond. A minute passed after Nayeon put down her phone, she got an instant reply back. Looks like Jeongyeon had her phone with her at the right moment. Nayeon was about to take a short nap but she too her phone and replied back.

From: Jeong my love~(=^▽^)♡

Yusss tell me when you land. I wish I could pick you up. I'm so sorryyyyyy. Me and my dumb (￣^￣)

To: Jeong my love~(=^▽^)♡

No noo is ok. It's not your fault the ppl @ the shop are taking longer with your car. I will take the bus

From: Jeong my love~(=^▽^)

Are you sure?? I can make someone get you 

To: Jeong my love~(=^▽^)

Make? Yoo Jeongyeon, do you even have that type of money?

From: Jeong my love~(=^▽^)

Anything for you, babyluvs

A red flash spread across Nayeon's face, seeing the message pop up on her screen. Her hands typed a fast response without her thinking. Suddenly, a bizarre feeling came down on her shoulders. Nayeon looked from the corner of her eye and saw that the girl was trying not to curiously peek at Nayeon's phone. This wasn't something Nayeon wanted to have to deal with. She certainly didn't like a stranger raking their eyes over her phone.

Quickly, she typed a response to Jeongyeon and went to her music app to play a song before putting her phone down on her lap and crossing her arms. She snuggled her neck into the pillow and shut her eyes but she knew that the girl switched her head to the other direction, pretending to look down at her son. Getting stared at by people was a wild card to Nayeon, that didn't mean that she liked the special treatment.

 The nap Nayeon took didn't last long. She awoke to the sound of the little boy talking vividly to his mother. Her eyes fluttered open, glancing at the girl first and then the boy. Nayeon checked the time on her phone. Only an hour had passed since they took off. Nayeon groaned at how time moved so slow. 

Her interest was at its peak when Nayeon looked over to see the girl watching her son, staring intently out the airplane window. They were just melodically passing through some big white clouds. The boy looked concerned and Nayeon wondered what he might be thinking about. Kids were very curious and would poke at people's business. Neither can they be blamed for it because they didn't know what they were doing. 

Suddenly his eyes lit up and a big smile came across his face. He announced loudly, "Mom! I know why we're not getting anywhere—we're stuck in all this snow!"

That made an abrupt snicker fall out of Nayeon's mouth which she tried to hide by turning her head away and putting her sleeve over . This didn't go unnoticed by his mother. She looked at Nayeon and then smiled to herself. From the moment the two locked eyes, the girl was already interested in Nayeon. She internally thanked her son before attending to his curiosity of the white puffy objects that surrounded them.

At some point during the flight, the girl gathered the will to start a conversation with Nayeon. Nayeon didn't mind it at all. She preferred to have a distraction from her phone or the small screen that hung above her. Turned out that the girl's name was Jennie and her son was Max and he was four years old. She was actually a senior in college and got pregnant by her ex-boyfriend on prom night. They were going to visit her grandmother since her parents tossed her out when they found out the news about her pregnancy. Hearing that slightly broke Nayeon's heart. How could anyone look their child in the eye and disown them like that? It made her feel grateful that her parents were accepting of her being a lesbian. 

Nayeon also shared a bit about herself. They held conversations from time to time during the entire flight without any troubles from her son who took an interest in the lady talking to his mother. Nayeon found him to be adorable and really talkative. He even said that Nayeon was pretty to which his mother agreed, indirectly complimenting Nayeon. To say the least, she was amused by the pair.

Finally, the plane had landed and Nayeon was more than eager to get off and take the first bus out of the airport. Jennie and Max parted ways with Nayeon. She grabbed her luggage and walked through the doors. It was five in the morning by the time she texted Jeongyeon. She was usually up cooking something.

To: Jeong my love~(=^▽^)♡

Hi baby. Morning. Just landed. Going to find a bus now 

There were buses waiting to take people. Nayeon always wanted to give the bus a try. It was another 3 hours until she would see Jeongyeon, and having never taken such a long bus trip, it was a little scary. Nayeon found a free seat somewhere in the middle of the bus. She read somewhere that it was the best place to sit on a public bus for a series of factors. 

As Nayeon was on the final leg of the journey, less than an hour away from home, a drunk lady got up and started walking up and down the aisles, talking about how everyone on board wanted to kill her and how she needed to get off the bus for a smoke break. Nayeon's eyes widened at the sight of her. A baby on board started crying loudly and his mother tried to calm the baby down. The bus driver looked in the rear-view mirror, trying to kindly tell the woman to sit down.

Nayeon didn't know what to make of that situation. She tried not to make herself be seen by the woman and it worked. Luckily, she made it to her stop before things got too out of hand, but needless to say, Nayeon had decided to stop taking the bus after that.

She took a taxi to Jeongyeon's apartment. Even at this hour, the city of New York was already buzzing with noise. Nayeon would have to ask Jeongyeon about how she was able to handle such a clamorous atmosphere. When the taxi came to a halt, she checked her phone to see Jeongyeon messaged thirty six minutes ago, saying that she had already showered and was fixing up some breakfast.

The looks of the apartment from the outside were rather decent. Nayeon scanned the number of floors that it had and then went in. She entered the elevator and pressed the button to Jeongyeon's floor. With each step that Nayeon took towards the door, the pace of her heartbeat picked up. 

She brought her hand up to the door and knocked three times. The empty seconds that lingered after she knocked felt like an eternity. Nayeon was visibly sweating. 

The second the door opened, Nayeon was pulled into Jeongyeon's tight embrace. Nayeon almost tripped on the carpet being grabbed like that all of a sudden. But she didn't care when she could feel her girlfriend's loving arms.

"You look awful, babe," Jeongyeon snickered.

Nayeon rolled her eyes, smiling into Jeongyeon's neck. "And you still have morning breath, loser."

Jeongyeon gasped, pretending to be offended. "No way, I brushed my teeth and got ready before you even came."

Something was off to Nay