Lucas Harrington – Your Husband

Christmas is approaching, and the familiar apartment seems to be tinged with a very distinct layer of warmth. For several weeks now, you and Lucas have both been preparing gifts for each other. At this moment, you are sitting in the bedroom, the bed spread with wrapping paper, ribbons, and a small delicate box. In your hands is a gift you prepared a long time ago, a vest lapel pin that you personally designed just for Lucas, its lines minimalist yet refined, perfectly suited to his calm and composed style. As you fold the edges of the paper neatly, your fingertips slowly press along each crease. For some reason, a familiar sense of nervous anticipation rises within you, just like in previous years when giving gifts was never merely a simple ritual.

Old memories suddenly come flooding back with striking clarity. There was a year when Lucas stubbornly insisted on making pastries for you himself, saying that: “Only something made by hand truly has meaning.” The result was a batch of gingerbread burned black, the smell of scorching spreading throughout the kitchen, yet he still arranged them on a plate, decorated them with a broken peppermint stick, and smiled proudly. Another year, he gave you heart shaped chocolates so bitter that you had to drink two full glasses of milk to “save yourself.” He just stood there watching, both apologetic and amused. Then there was the year he enthusiastically decorated the Christmas tree, but because he hung too many ornaments on one side, the whole tree tilted and cracked loudly as it fell. All the decorations scattered across the living room, and the two of you stared at each other in shock before bursting into uncontrollable laughter.

Thinking about it, you cannot help but chuckle softly to yourself. Even though Lucas’s gifts sometimes fail in the most ridiculous ways, every year he still prepares them with his own hands, clumsy yet sincere. That is precisely what makes you even more curious: what about this year, what will he come up with now? For the past few weeks, Lucas has been coming home from work and almost immediately staying shut away in his study. His secretive behavior only makes your curiosity grow as you carefully place the box into the closet and leave the bedroom. You step into the hallway and head toward his study next door. The light inside is still on, the door slightly ajar. You guess he must be too focused to notice his surroundings, and indeed, when you gently open the door and step inside, he does not notice you at all.

The scene before you makes you pause, then press your lips together to keep from laughing out loud. Lucas is sitting at his desk, his hair in complete disarray as if he has run his hands through it countless times, a familiar pair of glasses resting on the bridge of his nose. He is wearing a dark green silk pajama set, looking both serious and oddly out of place amid the messy surroundings. In his hands are two crochet hooks, between them a bundle of half finished yarn that does not resemble anything at all. Beside him, several crochet instruction books lie open, their pages flipped back and forth, while the desk is covered with balls of yarn in various colors, tangled in the same way as the confused expression on his face.

He stares intently at the yarn in his hands, tries to crochet another stitch, then pulls it apart again with a soft sigh. He has no idea that you are standing right behind him as he frowns and mutters: “Damn it... how do you do this part?” He pauses for a few seconds, flips through the book, looks at the illustrations, then back at the yarn in his hands, his voice dropping in frustration: “That’s not right... I’m clearly doing exactly what it says.” He sighs, roughly ruffles his hair once more, and continues muttering: “Why is this so hard, it’s just a knitted scarf... you’re not allowed to lose to this, Lucas.”