Seo Soojin's lower lip is exactly 1cm wide. Shuhua knows, because she's measured it with a tape measure. She’s also spent an unreasonable amount of time dreaming about how it tastes and feels against her own. She’s watched lipstick being applied to it, rouge-red, bold and daring and absolutely tempting; she’s followed the way they move when Soojin speaks, small lip movements accompanying a quiet voice, the way they stretch into a shy smile when she’s being complimented. But nothing will ever top the way she says Shuhua’s name.

Yeh - mouth opening, showing a glint of white teeth - 

Shu - lips puckering up for a kiss - 

Hua - released from a kiss, retracting into a coy smile -

“Shuhua!” Soojin’s normally calm voice snaps out at breaks the Taiwanese girl out from her reverie. “The pot! It’s boiling over!”

Shuhua whips around from where she’s been stationed at the chopping board with onions and garlic in their kitchen. Sure enough, the pot of beef broth that’s been merrily bubbling away on their stove is leaking soup, lid clattering as it does a mad jig on its container. Shuhua scrambles to turn the fire off, nearly burning her finger in the process. Grabbing a kitchen towel, she gently lifts the searing-hot lid off the pot and peers into it.

“Oh no.” Shuhua’s voice takes on a sad quality. “Half the soup’s gone.”

Soojin frowns and puts her bowl of batter down. Chocolate chips sink themselves into the quicksand of brownie mix as she bustles over to Shuhua, tightening her apron as her feet busily move across the floor. Pressing herself up against Shuhua’s back, she takes advantage of their three centimetre height difference to peer over Shuhua’s shoulder into the pot. Soup stock packets and some haphazardly thrown in seaweed float to the brim of a thick, fragrant broth that has Shuhua’s mouth watering.

“Don’t worry, Shuhua,” Soojin assures her, pressing a cocoa-dusted hand against the younger girl’s cheek. “We can just add more water to it, and more soup packets if the taste dilutes. Let me just wash my hands and I’ll do it.”

"No no no I'll help you carry it let me help you carry it," Shuhua chants as she follows Soojin around their kitchen from the stove to the sink. "Jinjin no you'll burn yourself." 

Soojin sends Shuhua a scathing look as she picks up their electric kettle. "I'm just going to boil some water, Shu, then pour it into the pot.”

“Oh.” Shuhua her head like a confused puppy. She blinks her doe-like eyes, stark against her snow-white skin, thick black hair never once dyed framing her face like a gilded-gold portrait. “Why?”

“If you put hot water in an already boiling pot of soup, it takes less time for the water to reach boiling point.”

Shuhua’s eyes widen. Seo Soojin, she thinks, is a genius. Scientist extraordinaire, dare she say. She watches Soojin fill up the kettle and set it to a boil before fishing out a couple of extra stock packets just in case. Her eyes dart to the kettle, then back to Soojin again.

The love of her life looks absolutely at home, comfortable in her domestic reign. Her bangs have been brushed aside, slightly damp with sweat as she works on the brownies that Shuhua had been asking for the past week. Under her left eye (Shuhua remembers that it’s left now, the last time she got it wrong on Weekly Idol Soojin gave her the cold shoulder for the whole night and that may have very well been the darkest part of her life to date) is a beauty mark that Soojin has tried time and time again to remove, much to Shuhua’s chagrin. Shuhua loves the mole, partly because it mirrors her own under her right eye.

Protecting her casual sweater-and-jeans outfit is a white apron adorned with little cherries, its string looped around her waist, tied by yours truly in a neatly knotted ribbon. (Shuhua has a matching apron, by the way, with puppies dancing in print across hers.) Her hands are busy stirring brownie batter, Shuhua's personal favourite specialty of Soojin's dessert arsenal. Soojin’s dark, patient eyes flick up to look at Shuhua. “What?”

“I love you!” Shuhua blurts out.

Soojin hums noncommittally, more than accustomed to Shuhua’s daily confessions. “Finish dicing those onions, won’t you?” Soojin nods at the chopping board where the bulbs lie half-cut, knife haphazardly placed when Shuhua had tossed it aside to tend to the stove. 

Shuhua huffs, disheartened by the clear lack of affection, and shuffles back to her station. “Okay.”

(Behind her, Soojin grins and stifles a laugh. It’s just too easy to tease Shuhua.)

Picking her knife up, she starts the tedious task of dicing onions for fried rice. Blade resting against her knuckles, fingers folded in to grip the bulb. One slice, then another. Some more cuts in and her eyes feel like they’re on fire. She sniffles and rubs her tears with the back of her hand before continuing her attack on the onions. Chop, chop, chop. She’s bored. Please, won’t someone come and save her from this terrible, eye-watering chore?

For once, she’s actually wishing Miyeon would come into the kitchen and bother her like she normally does. But that’s not happening today. She knows the oldest woman in their dorm has been knitting a present for Minnie, she’s never seen knitting needles moving that quickly - the result of procrastination. Shuhua’s thought of maybe making something for Soojin, but she doesn’t really know how to make anything, nor does she know what to buy.

Wrapped up in her thoughts, Shuhua doesn’t notice the knife slip until-

“Ouch!”

Soojin’s head shoots up. She immediately drops her bowl of batter and sprints over to Shuhua. A few droplets of blood have found themselves on the wooden board. Soojin reaches for Shuhua’s hand and gently examines her cut finger. It’s not too deep, which is a relief, but still enough to draw blood. She grabs a kitchen towel and holds it against the wound to staunch the bleeding. Looking up, she tries to gauge Shuhua’s pain. 

“Does it hurt?” Soojin asks, her tone soft and motherly. It must, she supposes, why wouldn’t it?

The younger girl isn’t crying - Shuhua is tough, Soojin knows - but there are lines etching themselves into her forehead as she frowns. Shuhua shakes her head. “No.”

“Wait here, okay? Wash the cut, and I’ll go get you a band-aid.”

Shuhua nods. Soojin dashes off to retrieve their first-aid kit hidden somewhere in the house. When she dashes back with some antiseptic ointment and a plaster, Shuhua is leaning by the doorway of the kitchen, pressing a damp tissue to her cut with a sulky expression on her face. Soojin wastes no more time, peeling the tissue away from Shuhua’s finger and lifting it to eye level. She applies some ointment to the cut before neatly covering it with the band-aid.

“There, all done.” She pats Shuhua’s head comfortingly.

Shuhua pouts. “Won’t you kiss it better?”

Soojin stares at her before chuckling. “Okay, okay.” She lifts Shuhua’s hand up like a princess and brushes her lips across the band-aid. 

“And this, too.” Shuhua taps her lips already curving up in a smile, anticipating.

“Shuhua.”

The Taiwanese girl points up at the mistletoe hanging above their heads, dangling by a thin string from the doorjamb. “When did that get there,” Soojin wonders aloud. She suspects Shuhua might have done some sneaking around of her own with her cut finger, because she swears that wasn’t there when they started cooking. Soojin fixes Shuhua with an unamused stare that doesn’t last for very long, not when Shuhua’s eyes are shining with hope and love. 

Who is Soojin to deny her of that?

Rolling her eyes and chuckling, Soojin pulls Shuhua in by the front of her apron. “Merry Christmas, my baby,” she breathes against Shuhua’s lips before painting them lipstick-red with her own.