Crash Landing On You - These Are The Days

Our Very Own Christmas

I am back! There you go—their pre-babies story.

Yoon Se Ri was not a baker. She was barely a cook. So when it came to her kitchen skills, she'd choose to wash dishes. Every time.

And yet, here she was. In the kitchen. Cooking.

Baking? Either cooking or baking. One of them.

She'd gathered all the ingredients, just like all the cooking blog she'd read to do. She had all the equipment set up, just like those people on YouTube said to do. She had the oven preheating, just like the directions said to do so. Although it had finished preheating several... god knows how many minutes ago. The gingerbread had been tougher to mix than she'd thought it would be.

Somewhere, she knew she had gone terribly wrong. She hadn't moved from the kitchen, and yet the whole place was a shambles.

Se Ri, flour on her nose, in her hair, possibly in one ear, and a molasses smeared on one cheek, grimly surveyed the damage.

She pointed the wooden spoon at the bowl in front of her. It had taken all her strength, all her research in the past week, and all her inner strength to get to this point.

No. There was she could stop right now.

"Damn you." she said.

She glanced at the clock on the oven, but the time had been replaced by a 350 in glaring green digits. She sighed. And the fact that she still had to clean up before Jeong Hyeok came home.

Okay. What could possibly go wrong? She thought.

The mixture smelled right, she thought as she moved it into the pan, but why was it so thick? Was it supposed to be? Had she done it wrong after all?

"Damn you and you," she sang to her doubts and the gingerbread both, as she shoved the pan into the oven.

She pulled out her phone to set the time. "What's gotten into you, Yoon Se Ri? You shouldn't have done this to begin with." She muttered. "No, no. It's our first Christmas in our home. I should do something special." Then she sighed and closed her eyes. "Nope, this is not going to work. Damn you and I don't even care anymore." She lightly kicked the oven door, more a display of her feelings than an outlet for them.

"That's not about me, I hope."

Se Ri jumped and spun. "Ri Jeong Hyeok-ssi!" He wasn't supposed to be home until—She looked at her phone again, this time actually noting the clock. Shit.

He raised an eyebrow. "Were you expecting someone else?"

Jeong Hyeok leaned to the side to look around the kitchen island, his hands in his hips. "Wow."

She grinned and kissed him. "Sorry," she mumbled. She'd always been better at cleaning the kitchen than cooking, and she grabbed a kitchen towel and shoved it under the sink faucet. "I'll clean them in a minute. You go sit down. I was thinking we could have hot chocolate and watch old movies perhaps."

His eyes danced in delight. "Our very own Christmas."

She smiled and nodded. "Yes. I know I've been busy and—you've been busy, we barely had the time for ourselves," she admitted. "Still, I thought it might be nice."

He nodded and stepped forward, gently taking the towel from her. "It sounds amazing. Just one problem." He dabbed at her cheek, and it wasn't lost on her how much care he always took with her. All that strength in his hands, and yet his movements were so careful and soft. Always—

"Of course. Christmas is supposed to be spent together.

She raised an eyebrow, "With old movies and hot chocolate?"