23 Days of NCT

Knitting - Jeno

Were you surprised that Jeno was rather enthusiastic about knitting? No, actually, not at all, the boy had a heart of gold you knew he'd pick this up easily. Were you surprised that he was having a bit of trouble with it? Also no, when it came to more dexterous activities Jeno tended to take longer to get the hang of it. But were you surprised that he brought it up to you? Yeah, kind of.

It was one of his off-days, today, he finally had a break from the company and first thing he did was show up at your apartment holding two bags and covered head-to-toe and shivering cold. You were quick to turn up the heat in your apartment and let him in, obviously, and once your boyfriend, quite literally, defrosted, he reached in the bag and pulled out knitting needles and yarn and now here you were, watching the Nightmare Before Christmas while knitting various small stockings. Twenty-two to be exact.

Turns out Jeno wanted to make his Christmas gifts extra special and you haven't bought anything for the boys yet either so you both settled on knitting, well, Christmas stockings.

"I think my hands are about to fall off..." Jeno collapses on the couch, leaving the knitting needles on his chest.

"You can do it, babe, ten more to go," you responded, focused on the needles in your hands. You actually picked it up rather quickly, you were slightly more proficient at it than Jeno, that's for sure.

"How many more do you have to do?"

"Two."

"Ugh, what was I thinking?" He sits up and gets back to work. "Okay, I can do this, I can do it."

"Yes you can!"

"Yes I can!" Jeno started working again at a new found vigor and went straight back to the small stocking he was knitting. You had to be honest, Jeno was actually really good at knitting, it just took him longer to knit just one of them, whether that was because the joints on his hands were on the stiffer side or because he wanted them to be perfect was beyond you, but you found the sentiment very sweet.

"You doing okay, Jeno?" You finished up your last share and saw him knitting a deer into one of the stockings, Sungchan's no doubt, and once he finished it he showed it to you.

"I am so fucking good at knitting," Jeno laughs and flashes you a smile.

"How many more do you have to do?"

"Seven."

"Ah you're almost done then!"

"That's right," Jeno starts on the next one after deleting Sungchan's name off of his list. "You done?"

"Mmhmm," you counted the stockings on your side again just in case, twelve stockings laid perfectly complete on the table next to you.

"Okay, come here then!" He placed the needles down and held his arms towards you. "I need to recharge," he made small grabby motions and you relented, moving over to lie down on his chest while he got back to work.

"You're not cold anymore," you teased him.

"Oh my god it's freezing outside," he chuckles. He seems to have gotten the hang of it now, working a bit faster than before.

Jeno seems to have been taking a lot more days off, now that you thought about it, or at least he's been visiting you a lot more than usual. Not that there was anything wrong with that! You were just a bit worried that there was something going on at the company or at the dorms you didn't know about, he's even slept over a couple of times already and you couldn't help but wonder if something was up. You've even found out that he's been leaving some things at your apartment on accident and for "safety reasons" he just tells you to keep it instead of returning them to him. You weren't complaining, you felt like you haven't seen him all year, after all, but you were a tad curious.

But, little did you know, if you had just asked Jeno he would've cracked and told you everything he's been planning. It was such a long time ago, actually, while you were both kids. You both had met because you were both trainees at SM, you having left after realizing that the chances of debuting was too small for you but encouraging Jeno to stay because you knew he had talent. Probably safe to say that you both never lost touch with each other recently and surprise now you're dating. It was a silly activity that the younger trainees were doing, just a 'what do you want for Christmas?' and he realizes that you were both young and dumb, but he figured what's wrong with giving you that gift a few years later? But then again, he really wanted to surprise you when he finally tells you that he got approval from the company to move in with you. He already knew it, but this Christmas was going to be a little more special.