Receiving Gifts
✦ Written for Jumin Week 2023
✦ Jumin x Reader (but mostly a Jumin introspective)
✦ Words: 663
What gifts do you get for one of the richest people in the country?
It's a common sentiment that gets voiced around Jumin's birthday every year and has been one that he has heard since he was a child. He has everything, has enough money to buy up anything he may wish for. What is there left to gift him?
Despite what many people may think (and sometimes say out loud), Jumin has a great appreciation for the thought and effort that goes into the gifts he receives. In fact, he can remember every gift he has every received since he was a child. Every toy, every drawing he traded with Jihyun when they were children, even tokens business partners have brought him over the years.
There are a few, though, that he remembers quite fondly.
There is, of course, Elizabeth the Third. There are no words for how happy she makes him in his daily life, and not a day goes by where he isn't grateful to V for introducing them. It is no exaggeration for him to say that her companionship has changed his life for the better.
It shouldn't come as a surprise that V is, in fact, very good at getting Jumin gifts. There was that year when he managed to source a book on the mystical arts on one of his travels, a rare copy Jumin had only heard of and, (despite Jaehee's best efforts) never managed to find himself. They had spent that evening going through it together, Jihyun joking about all the spells that would be coming from the penthouse after that.
There were the collection of childhood pictures that Jihyun had found in an old box in his house that he put into an album for Jumin. It still sits on his bookshelf, and when he’s feeling sentimental, he likes to take it out and go through it. He also likes to keep it around as evidence for the memories that V sometimes forgets. They always seem to be in his favour.
He had come to not expect much as far as his family and gifting goes. His mother has long since stopped sending him gifts on holidays, but his father had a way of gifting him things that carried more symbolic weight than sentimental value that Jumin had come to appreciate. Many of those gifts sit in his office at C&R, memories of all he has achieved and reminders of all that is expected of him. Latest in that collection is the crystal pen, the one meant to be used when signing contracts.
As for the members of the RFA, they often seemed at a loss for what to get him. Funnily enough, for all of Seven's incomprehensible messaging and his concerning fixation on his cat, he has often managed to surprise Jumin with gifts that he enjoyed. The little clock with cat ears that sits on the desk at Jumin’s home office is just the first in a series of little creations that Seven has made him. Interestingly, most are cat themed, which is only an added benefit.
But you, by far, had become his favourite person to receive gifts from. Your presence in his life has surely been the greatest gift life could have given him. Each object had a personal touch that he valued far beyond anything he could receive otherwise.
Often times, his favourites end up being the things that remind him of you throughout his daily life, like the cufflinks that have your initials engraved on the edge, or the tie you had recently bought while out shopping because it reminded you of him. Even the smaller gifts were enough to make his day, like the time you brought him flowers to the office just to see him smile.
Sure, he could have anything, but what Jumin really wants from his loved ones is a reminder that they care for him, be it through big gifts or small ones.
