7- 

“Do not put your glass down somewhere random, okay? We are all going to toast once the bell rings, and we all have to share couple shots, so hold onto your own drinks, and no complaining!”

Soojung knew that Sulli knew, that everyone was going to do exactly that, complain. It’s a ritual by now, for most of their friends to complain about Sulli’s silly rules at her parties. No one really disobeys her in the end anyway.

Jongin catches her eyes from in between the guys and smiles at her meekly. Soojung finds herself shifting her eyes from each of her friends’ faces. All of them are now married, here at Sulli and Sehun’s house as couples, just minutes away from greeting the New Year. The memories of her and Jongin meeting for the first time in high school are still vivid in her mind. He hadn’t been good at expressing himself, she’d always kept her emotions deep inside her, and they couldn’t have possibly fallen in love without the world’s most lovey dovey cupids, Sehun and Sulli.

Nothing really had changed. Jongin was Jongin, Soojung was Soojung, and their friends were still their friends. Marriage and adult-life hasn’t taken such a great toll on them, as all of them had feared once upon a time, when they were much, much younger.

Sunyoung is pregnant, expecting sometime midway through the coming year. That, Soojung guesses, would really change a couple. Minseok isn’t drinking for Sunyoung’s sake, and Soojung has no doubt that Jongin would do the same for her in the situation, but just seeing the sacrifices they are making for the big pregnancy, rather overwhelms Soojung.

“Yeobo!”

Every female head in the house turns at the call. Soojung knows it isn’t Jongin, it doesn’t sound like her own husband’s scratchy, low voice in the slightest, but still, it’s the word.

And she laughs with the other girls, the guys making jokes about it as well.

“It’s almost time!”

Sulli bounces around the living room, filling glasses with champagne, with the exception of Sunyoung and Minseok, whom she gives orange juice. None of them had really been watching the television, but they all turn to it now, the countdown about to begin.

Soojung, who’d been standing with Naeun, shifts when Taemin pulls Naeun away. After a moment, Jongin is there in her friend’s place. He slides his hand in hers, and Soojung starts when Jongin pulls her.

He brings them to the entrance of the darkened hallway. He watches their friends from the separated distance, as the New Year countdown finally sets off.

“What are we doing?” Soojung asks.

“I’m just keeping up with my Christmas task.” He says.

“Ten!”

“Nine!”

There’s a fluttering in Soojung’s chest, hearing the faint television countdown. She grips Jongin’s hand firmly, the thoughts of her, her husband, and her friends from before, flooding her mind.

“Eight!”

“Seven!”

Jongin kisses her, throwing all her thoughts in a jumble. She looks at him, confused.

“Six!”

He kisses her again, Soojung’s confusion hardened in place as she meets Jongin’s lips.

“Five!”                                                                                                           

Jongin’s head dips again, a slightly longer kiss this time.

He kisses her with every count, eyes lidding over, provoking Soojung’s eyes to do the same.

His breath smells faintly like alcohol, hers does too, and jumbled thoughts about growing up and taking up responsibilities, become replaced with simple, natural movements of lips over lips.

“One!”

With wide eyes and smiling lips, Jongin pulls her back to the living room, both of their champagne glasses joining the upraised circle of arms.

“Happy New Year!”

The glasses clink, and couples turn to each other to tangle their arms. Jongin puts his arm out and lets Soojung’s champagne glass wind through. They tip back their drinks, the shadow of Jongin’s lips still lingering over Soojung’s. Sehun and Sulli do it the extreme way, hugging and bringing their arms around behind each other’s backs, Sulli’s tipsy giggle projecting over the room.

Jongin puts his cheek next to Soojung’s, his mouth just on her ear.
“Merry 7^th Day of Christmas, and Happy New Year, Yeobo.”

He’s off to toast with some of the guys, leaving Soojung with flushed cheeks, and a narrow-eyed group of girls closing in on her.

8-

To make up for how incredibly late they’d returned home from Sulli and Sehun’s last night, Soojung and Jongin sleep in until right around lunch time.

Soojung stirs, throws a huge yawn with her stretching arms, and the back of her left hand brushes against Jongin’s nose. He grumbles, blinks his eyes open, and mutters a tiny, throaty, “Good morning.”

Soojung scrambles out of bed, lips tinting a smile.

“Receive many good fortunes this new year.”

She bows, in the reserved, respectful way she would to her parents-in-law. Even before her body comes up, she’s giggling.

“Yes. Thank you, you too.”

Jongin attempts to bow still lying down and only manages to wrinkle the sheets.

“Ooohh, Jongin, that reminds me. You know what we need to do today?”

“Write our New Year’s resolutions?”

“We need to wash the sheets.”

Jongin grabs Soojung’s pillow and thumps it over his head, covering himself up. Soojung shrugs and strolls to the bathroom to wash up, watching Jongin check the seven boxes from yesterday on the little Christmas card.

As the bathtub is filling with warm water, Jongin fluffs one of the sheets in his arms. With a slightly sleepy face, he lets the sheet spread firmly, then drapes it across Soojung’s shoulders. Soojung narrows her eyes when Jongin clutches the sheets, rolls his hands in circular motions, dragging her toward him like rolling sushi.

Soojung is sushi-fied, Jongin’s arms are trapped in tight sheets, and his tanned face is like meat poking out from the sushi roll. He chuckles at the tangled sheet mess they are in, and then plants a moist kiss over her sulking lips.

Good thing the bathtub finished filling, before Jongin could pull off another one of his sushi roll kiss attempts.

The soapy mixture in the tub casts out glistening arrays of bubbles. Soojung welcomes one of the rainbow bubbles on the surface of , trying to keep it there as long as possible. Once her husband spots it, his slightly parted mouth advances on her. Soojung doesn’t want him to pop the bubble but when he does, the soapy taste of their kiss gets both of them frowning. Regardless, Jongin wades through the small distance between him and Soojung, hands gliding across her chin as lips press softly onto her from above, unpleasant soapiness dissipated by tender motions of affection.

Soojung pulls apart to breath, biting her lip. Jongin’s hands melt down from her chin to her waist, and he lifts her up, out of the calf-deep water, causing Soojung to yelp.

Out of sheer fear of falling Soojung clutches onto Jongin, who wraps his arms around her, bringing her down just enough for their lips to meet again, this time Soojung above him. They’re kissing too long and Soojung has to tap her heel against Jongin’s back to get him to stop.

“Yeobo. When are we gonna wash the sheets?”

“We’re washing them right now!”

Soojung rolls her eyes as her husband lets her down back into the water. They finally begin stomping on the mounds of wet, sheet bubbles, Soojung supporting herself with hands on Jongin’s shoulders to get her feet firmly in the water.

Her foot comes down on a thin white sheet and she slips. She bumps her head in Jongin’s chest, stretching across most of the bathtub.

“Whatcha doin, Yeobo.”

“I slipped!”

“Sure you did.”

Jongin stands her straight and inches closer to kiss her again, and Soojung wants to get the sheets done and over with but her thumping heart says otherwise.

The weather is a bit cold to lay out the washed sheets on the veranda so Soojung decides to do so for just a few hours during the day, with the sun still high. She and Jongin lazily mull around, taking bites of leftover food brought from Sehun and Sulli’s or random pieces of toast and whatnot.

Around 4pm Soojung drags Jongin out to the veranda to bring in the half-dry sheets. They’re piled awkwardly on the living room floor, and Soojung guesses she’ll just have to divide them and stick them in the dryer. Jongin grabs her wrist in the midst of her thoughts and pulls her out to the veranda again.

“Look.”

Soojung starts at the little flakes of white floating in dots around the Seoul cityscape below. A shiver runs across her from the temperature, and Jongin engulfs her from behind, blowing his warm breath against her cheek.

Soojung doesn’t like driving in snow, but she’ll worry about that tomorrow morning when she’ll have to. For now, Jongin’s breath curving around to share the first snow of the New Year, those very plump lips who desperately want to follow the Christmas Card’s rules to the bone, is what she decides to focus on. He’s as warm as ever, his kisses are as loving as ever, and Soojung is more than touched by what he wants to show her with the tasks on this little Christmas Card.

‘I’ll always put this much effort into whatever I do when it comes to you, my Jung Soojung.’

The phrase buzzes in her head throughout the day, and Soojung doesn’t show it outwardly, she doesn’t do those things, but she has very strong urges to just pat those dark cheeks of his and tell him how much she loves the gift.

He checks off boxes as ritually as ever, both of them in bed, his bedside lamp the only light in the house. He plants quaint, little pecks over her lips twice, for the last two boxes of the day.

I'm so sorry I majorly failed at lining these up with the actual Days of Christmas!! (It turns out I counted wrong or something and they didn't even line up with this year's Christmas and New Year anyway... T^T)

But even if it is well past the 12 Days of Christmas, I do hope you guys will still keep your interests in how Kaistal spent it~ As always, I apologize for them being ridiculously long for drabbles and... yeah plz don't fire me as co-author ;;

Four more days of Christmas left to go!

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By Jellyfriedgreen7