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Presents. The concept isn’t one that’s been a very useful one in his life. Or familiar. Orphans don’t have the affection required to receive one after all. And after that had been the cataclysm.
After that , of course, had been the whole transmigration fiasco, so one might understand why Kim Roksoo doesn’t consider himself a master on the topic.
It’s Christmas, though. The holiday isn’t the same as earth, in fact it’s called by another name. The date is the same, as is the frigid air typical of South Korean winters, but the tradition and more importantly religion associated with the day is where the divide lies.
The only similar thing is that the family is expected to gather around a giant tree. The act of gift giving is another similarity.
Come to think of it, there are a number of similarities between the earth holiday and Rowoon’s. But that isn’t what’s important right now.
“But I didn’t do anything?”
Kim Roksoo looks down at the colorful red and green cube in confusion. He’s joined by three miniature figures, a swordsman, to name a few.
It seems to him like perhaps his entire group of acquaintances has made themselves available tonight. He’s surprised the stone villa can accommodate a crowd this large, but then, maybe it isn’t that big of a surprise.
He’s holding a gift. It fits into the palm of his hand and is decorated by a frilly ribbon.
The edges are pasted together by glue. Clumsily done, given how he can see the sticky excess peeking over the torn corners.
It still makes his stomach flip oddly inside.
“Do you like it, silly human? We know you do!”
“Open it, open it! We have to see you open it!”
Encouraged (read: deeply pressured) by the mess of fur and scales which has taken his lap, shoulders, and right hand hostage, Kim Roksoo spares them a look before moving his free hand to task.
When he’s peeled back the wrapping, the room having hushed as if a spell of silence has befallen them at large, he pauses, glancing out at them again.
“This is a bribe,” he guesses aloud.
He has just enough time to think, ‘what do you need from me and how do you need me to do it?’ before a certain butler in a neatly pressed three piece suit steps forward.
“You’re being unusually cautious today, young master. How unlike you.”
Ron smiles benignly.
Kim Roksoo takes that to mean that he better get on with the program. Or else.
Finally opening the box is met with the same quiet of the onlookers. Kim Roksoo is largely unaware as he gingerly pulls out his gift.
It’s a snowglobe. And it’s small. And even if it wasn’t the way the strange loops his stomach was performing has slowly begun to warm him up from the chest up, he knows it’s something that can’t, or won’t, be found anywhere else.
Under a deceptively calm landscape, a red headed figure sits among a circle of caricatures who, unlike the concept of presents, are immensely familiar to Kim Roksoo.
The room looks on. And, deprived of his voice for a good second, Kim Roksoo flicks his wrist to give the globe a firm shake.
A flurry of dainty white snowflakes dust over the miniatures.
The crowd of his friends, and dare he say it, family, has begun to smile.
“…thank you.”
“You’re so welcome, human! Now open the next one!”
Drowned in a veritable mountain of gifts small and large, Kim Roksoo silently marvels at the affection which has filled his heart.
He has his own mountains of gifts he has prepared. They are waiting in his portable pocket dimension.
He plans to give them out before the day is up, carefully noting each reaction he’ll receive, but for now he cautiously enjoys himself.
He basks in the spirit of the holiday and the genuine emotion that his acquaintances have deigned to shower on him.
The small smile which dusts his lips by the end of the evening, in truth, is in his family’s eyes the best gift they could possibly conceive.