You’re so cute around Christmas.

Well, Akseli thinks you’re always cute – knows, really.

But there’s something softer about you this time of year, something sweeter in the air of your shared home. Christmas tree decorated weeks before, bright reds and glimmering golds against the tree’s vibrant green. A star situated at the very top, though he believes you’re much brighter than any star could ever hope to be.

Candles scented with cinnamon and all things warm and gooey, lit and casting a light glow in every corner. Faint jazz music playing in the background, drawn-out voices describing all things love and warmth.

His hands, already aching from weeks spent crafting with the kids he teaches, but content to work even longer. Content to mix flour and sugar, dry ingredients before wet ingredients. Flour, sugar, cinnamon, salt – milk, butter, vanilla, eggs. Sticky and sweet, unbaked yet impossibly tasty.

Impossibly sweet, it is, to bake cookies with you.

His experience making up for any tender mistake you make, his lips pulled into a perpetually soft smile. Chuckling when you jokingly swipe a bit of batter onto his cheek, uncaring of its stickiness, or the faint oily film it’ll leave on his skin.

Returning the favor, and gathering a bit of the mix onto his own skin – pressing his thumb against the apple of your cheek, smearing it against you, too.

Gentle laughter and warm air, securing his decision for him.

Maybe it isn’t the right time to kneel before you, flour caught in his hair. Maybe it isn’t the right time to pull that small box out of his pocket – the one he’d been holding onto for months, waiting and yearning. No, maybe Christmas isn’t the right time at all.

But it certainly feels like it is.

“{{user}}, I … know our kitchen might not be the most romantic setting, but … will you marry me?”