JUNGKOOK DIDN'T KNOW much about flowers. 

He knew that white lilies were for funerals and that Neva always liked the tiny white flowers that came with bouquets to bulk them up, instead of the actual flowers themselves. Baby's breath, it was called, but he always found the name uncomfortable for some reason, so had grown used to referring to it as Neva's flower.

It made sense. She'd been named after the first snowfall of 1997, which happened to time itself almost perfectly to her birth. The flowers looked like tiny snowflakes suspended on pale green stems, so Neva wasn't an unfathomable namesake. 

Back when they were dating, he would always just end up buying her sprigs of it instead of actual bouquets. At first, he felt cheap doing so, but as time went on it would prove to be money well spent. Her face would light up, smitten at the simple gesture.

Presently, they were in a supermarket, as Jungkook had requested to stop off on the way home. Having not said a word to his mother since he had returned, he knew that an apology of sorts was owed. Flowers always seemed to go down well, so that's what he had decided upon, not realising how many bloody options there were. There was so much scope to get it wrong.

He failed to realise that there were no 'wrong' choices when it came to buying flowers. His mother would have appreciated even a pretty weed picked from a strangers garden.

"I've just got to pick up some last-minute bits and bobs for tomorrow," Neva had hummed pleasantly, leaving him to his own devices as she roamed the shop.

Festive jingles played around the store, fake snow fogging up the windows. There was hustle and bustle in every direction, on account of it being Christmas eve.

The pair of them had agreed on not doing presents. It was awkward and weird between them still, in many aspects. Neither of them knew how to classify their relationship, and so if they couldn't even decide on that, then Christmas presents shouldn't have been considered either.

Glancing over to the flower stand while she paid for her items, Neva found herself looking for him. He wasn't there, so she figured that he must have already been waiting for her outside - and she was proven right as she left the shop to see him leaning up against her car.

She walked towards her vehicle slowly with a stupid grin, watching Jungkook as he fiddled with the largest bouquet of peachy flowers and vibrant greens she'd ever seen - before he pulled one of the pale roses out from it.

He'd been fiddling around, finding the most beautiful one of the bunch for her.

Feeling eyes on him, he gazed up and smiled at the sight of her. Broad back up against her car, still looking handsome as ever in last nights clothes, he tucked the rose behind his ear as if it were a cigarette.

"Well don't you look all rather dashing," she trifled, only to be met with an incredibly formal bow.

Swiping the rose from behind his ear, Jungkook dramatically presented it in front of himself for her to take.

Regaining his former stance, he watched her fondly as her gaze fell onto the pretty peach flower.

"For you," he encouraged, wishing for her to take it - and so she did, curiously smitten by such a simple act.

"You're very cute when you want to be."

"I know," he shrugged. "Never seems to last long though, so drink it up while you can, sweetpea."

Neva smiled, knowing that getting drunk off of his endearing qualities would have been heavenly - a world away from the sin she was so used to indulging in with him.

"You're so dumb," she hummed playfully, clasping the rose between her teeth so that she could rummage around in her bag for her keys.

"Also I know we said we weren't doing Christmas presents..."

Neva's eyes rose upwards, her brows high beneath the hair that had fallen loose from her ponytail.

"... I just couldn't help myself," he grinned, holding up a kinder egg.

Keys now in hand, Neva bashfully dug into her bag once more, pulling out an identical foil wrapped egg.

"Got you one, too."

They laughed together, hearts racing just like they had when they'd first held hands as teenagers. There was a giddy innocence to their interactions that neither of them could quite understand.

"We're not very good at this," she mused, causing him to furrow his brows.

"Good at what?" He questioned, opening her car door for her, before walking around the front of the vehicle to his side.

Sliding into her car, Neva propped the rose up in the centre console, letting her kinder egg sit in a cup holder.

"Yanno," she began as his door gently clicked shut. "The whole being friends thing."

"I think we're great," he retorted without a single thought contrary. 

With a soft shake of her head, Neva pushed her keys into the ignition and let the roar of her engine mute any thoughts she had on the matter.

She knew that they were great - and that was the issue. They weren't acting like 'friends' anymore.

Friends didn't spend the night, and friends certainly didn't do what they did in the morning. Friends shouldn't have to self impose sanctions over buying gifts, and friends definitely didn't pluck roses from bouquets for one another.

Unless, maybe they did? It wasn't conventional, no, but they never really ever had been. They were always an odd pair, balancing out one another's weirdness.

"So, like, are you gonna drive? Or are you  just gonna sit there and stare straight ahead of you?" Jungkook interrupted her from her thoughts. She hadn't even realised she had spaced out.

Turning to face him, Neva smiled sweetly and placed her hand over his, squeezing tightly.

Jungkook was taken aback by the gesture, and failed to respond - until he felt the chocolate egg he was holding crack beneath the pressure.

"Oh you are such a little bitch," he laughed.

He had one of those smiles that you didn't see often. It was the kind that had you hoping you were the source of it, or at least lucky enough to be the recipient of it. Mouth wide, teeth on full display, there was no hiding what he was feeling. If he was happy, you knew about it.

Neva had always adored it. She sought it out in the best of times, to be secure in the knowledge that she had someone to share them with. She sought it out in the worst of times, reassurance that things would be better eventually.

She never really considered how lucky she was to have in it the in-between times; during the insignificant moments or the mundane routines of everyday life. He had an innate ability to make every moment seem indispensable. 

"Takes one to know one," she grinned, putting her car into reverse and finally pulling out of the parking lot.

Her phone automatically connected to the speaker, playing the last track that she had been listening to - one of the shitty bands that she had loved during high school, that Jungkook had been forced to listen to a million times over.

"I hate this song," he laughed, and he meant it. He really did hate this song.

But every word rolled off his tongue and into the car around them, harmonising with her as if they shared a vocal cord. They didn't, of course, and she actually sounded like a strangled kitten left out in the rain, but there was something so delightful about the unadulterated happiness that clung to her bum notes that just made him smile.

"I hate you," Neva shrugged, biting down on her lip with a smile.

"Get a new joke, Eva."

"I'm not joking."

"You didn't seem to hate me this morning," he teased.

"If you don't shut up I will veer my car off the road."

"Why?" he bit on his lip, enamoured with the back and forth. "You were the one moaning my name - 'Ohhhh, Jungkoooook'," he intimidated and Neva wanted to die.

"Don't test me. I will crash it."

"Go on then."

Pursing her lips together, Neva obviously wasn't going to crash her car. "I'm too cute for jail."

"Pussy."

"So you want me to kill you?"

"We both know you'll be the death of me one day, Eva. Why not now?"

Oh. Do we, now?

"Shut up."

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A/N: i have not set the Christmas mood at all lmao, cba, perils of writing Christmas in april