23 Days of NCT

Christmas Decorating (Outdoors) - Jisung

"Jisung," you held one of the strings supporting the obnoxiously large Christmas inflatable while you held out your other hand. Without a moment's hesitation, he placed his own hand in it and held it tightly. You looked at your hands, then up at him, a goofy grin was on his face with starry eyes. "Thanks, love, but I meant for you to hand me one of those stakes."

"Oh! Right, right," he grabs the metal stake and hands it to you. You tie the rope around it a few times and hammer it into the ground. "Well, that's one inflatable down," he nods.

"We just have to set up these candy cane lights and we'll be set," you brushed the dirt off of your hands and stood up, looking around the yard.

Jisung decided to spend some time with you at your place before awards season kicked off, you were slightly saddened at the thought that he wouldn't be joining you for Christmas this year, and you were even more disappointed at the news that you wouldn't be allowed to spend it with him either, but you didn't let that drive a wedge between this newly developed relationship between the two of you. You've actually been working for the company for quite some time now, and naturally that was how the two of you met. This would've been your first Christmas together, but the company had other plans, it would seem.

Regardless, you both settled on helping your parents decorate the outside of the house. Jisung had a break for a couple of days, and you were thankful that he decided to spend it with you; however, you could tell that this wasn't what he had in mind. When your parents came up to you with the dreaded box that read 'Outside Christmas' you were already cancelling the movie plans you originally had planned. Jisung was a bit quiet at the beginning of decorating, but it wasn't long into the work when he started to get into it, and now you're both as happy as could be.

"How do we push these into the ground?" Jisung held up one of the gaudy candy canes.

"I'm pretty sure we attach these stakes to them and just... push," you attached one of the plastic stakes to the bottom of the metal candy cane and pushed it into the dirt. Or, at least, tried to. "Or maybe not," you laughed.

"Let me try," Jisung replaces you next to the candy cane and with one forceful push, the metal decoration embeds into the dirt. "Wow... that's harder than I thought. How many more of these do we have to do?"

"Nineteen..."

"Wah," Jisung's jaw drops suddenly. "And we can't hammer it into the ground?"

"Mm mm," you hummed and shook your head. You picked up two candy canes, handing one to Jisung, and moved opposite to the first candy cane and pushed with all your might, watching the cane dig into the ground. You both continued like this for quite some time, embedding each candy cane, until you noticed a peculiarity on the canes. "Oh, there's a small platform here," you looked at the metal that protruded from the bottom of the candy cane. You stepped on it harshly and the candy cane fixed into place.

"Ah!"

"What? What's wrong?" Jisung looked up, having placed down his own cane already.

"The small platforms on them are supposed to help us push it into the ground!" You held up a cane and pointed to it. You both looked down at the row of canes you had just finished pushing in. "Ah..."

"Well... noted for next year," Jisung wipes away the sweat on his forehead.

"Noted for next year!" You nodded, pushing in the last candy cane.

Jisung watched you finish the row of candy canes with an amazed look on his face. He had to admit that this wasn't what he had in mind when he came over for the first time, and he would've preferred if your parents weren't sitting on the front porch watching the both of you the whole time, especially now that he knew why they were snickering the whole time while you were both struggling to push the candy canes in, but he also felt like this was a good development in the relationship. He was rather new to these things, inexperienced in the world of dating, his only friends had really been the Dreamies and nothing more for quite some time, and all of this was more fascinating to him. He felt bad that he asked you to excuse his naivety so often, but he was also thankful that you didn't seem to mind, or at least you never held it against him. He really hoped he could do this again next year, in fact, he looked forward to it. Even though the both of you would be apart this year, he was looking forward to the holidays. He already knew it, but this Christmas was going to be a little more special.