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"What about the rest?" Rim asks, smoothing her hand across red-and-green spangled paper, a simple tag reading From Heuk-yeong, To Hwa. Merry Christmas. "You can't have finished your wrapping already?"
Hwa waves a hand lazily, not stirring from the couch. "Who would I give gifts to? Besides my lovely wife, of course."
Rim looks up, the lighted tree behind her twinkling through strands of grey in her red hair. "Your children?" she says, as if the answer were obvious.
"Ah - well - we don't really have that kind of relationship," Hwa stammers. "Doha and Jeok-yeon didn't even invite me to their wedding! Heuk-yeong told me he read about it in the newspaper!"
Rim gives him a knowing look. "Just because you aren't close, doesn't mean you can't reach out. Surely they would appreciate a small gift? Doha and all his foster siblings."
"All twenty of them?" Hwa whimpers.
Rim only arches her eyebrow.
Hwa sights, staring at the twinkling lights reflection off the ceiling, and texts Heuk-yeong. I have to buy the kids gifts, go shopping with me?
A moment later, Hwa's phone buzzed. Meet me at the mall in an hour. You owe me for shopping on Christmas Eve!
The mall is packed with shoppers bustling back and forth, their quick feet pattering under the peppy holiday tunes ringing through the shops.
"Heuk-yeong, what do I do?" Hwa moans, surveying the crowds. "I don't even know what to get!"
"You're hopeless," Heuk-yeong sighs. "Let's just go down the list, starting from the eldest, shall we? Do you even remember their jobs?"
"I do!" Hwa protests, wringing his striped scarf between his hands. "Jeongwon's a pharmacist, Doha's working at the university library, Jeok-yeon is campaigning for governor-"
"You missed one," Heuk-yeong says drily.
"See! I need you!" Hwa wails. "Can't I just get them all fruit baskets?"
Heuk-yeong sighs heavily. "Let's go."
Beeps ring though the darkness of a penthouse suite. The door opens, soft lights springing to life as two people enter, one carrying a small stack of packages.
"Should we open these tonight?" Doha asks, weighing the cheerfully wrapped parcels in his hands. One is rectangular and heavy, the other a lightweight cube.
"What, and spoil the surprise tomorrow morning?" Jeok-yeon laughs, shedding her suit jacket.
"Baek-rang said Heuk-yeong dropped these off," Doha says, a hint of disapproval in his voice. "That can only mean one thing." The handwriting From Santa on the gift tags is blocky and unfamiliar, but it's all too like their father to disguise his affection.
"I think you resent him more than you know," Jeok-yeon says, laying her warm hand against Doha's face. "At least he's reaching out first, this time."
Despite her warmth, Doha frowns. "I'm opening this now. Tomorrow is for us, not him." He tears into the paper, revealing several books wrapped in green-and-white ribbon. The scent of old leather fills the room.
"Oh, are those first editions?" Jeok-yeon asks, peering around Doha's shoulder.
The books creak softly as Doha flips them open. "Yes," he says, fingers lingering on the pages. "How did he..."
"Maybe he was paying more attention than you thought," Jeok-yeon says, smiling. She tucks the small package under the scented boughs of a tabletop tree twinkling over its pile of gifts. "I'll open m ine tomorrow."
Jeongwon sits in the dim light of his moonlit greenhouse, sipping his spiced chai. Before him on a round patio table, a huge, graceful aloe plant catches the pale light on its spined leaves. A cardboard box perforated with a dozen air holes snuffles in the dark. Claws scratch softly on the inside.
He can imagine what A-yeon will say when the younger man comes home from his shift at the veterinary emergency room. "What kind of idiot would dump a rabbit on someone's doorstep in the middle of winter?"
Jeongwon has a pretty good idea who, though the doorbell camera had caught only a blurry glimpse of a tall, shadowy figure dropping the packages at the door.
"I wonder... if I tell him, will A-yeon finally get mad?"
Jeongwon's phone chimes with a text notification.
Yeong-gyeong: Who the heck sent me a congratulations card for graduation! That was months ago! Is this some kind of joke because it took me two years to finally pass that godawful ethics class?!?!
He smirks into his tea. Swiping across the keyboard, he replies, You know our father was never very good at keeping up with all of us...
The resulting explosion of misspelled profanity soothes his own irritation at receiving his tenth - identical - aloe.
"You'd think he'd learn to be more creative after all this time," Jeongwon says.
Setting down his empty cup, he lifts the plant from its plastic wrapping and places it neatly at the end of the row of spiky succulents.
The morning dawns clear and bright at the resort where Choran and Hae-eon are spending Christmas this year.
"These are quite possibly the ugliest earrings I have ever seen," Choran says, dangling a pair of lumpy clay earrings in the light falling through the window. "Is this a fingerprint? Did a child make these? I don't even know any children!"
Hae-eon looks up from his mountain of shredded wrapping paper. "I have no idea," he says.
"That's because you never keep track of who gives you what," Choran grumbles. "These just said 'From Santa' rather than anything useful."
Shrugging, Hae-eon tosses an empty envelope aside. "Ah, tickets to the sculpture exhibit opening! How... thoughtful."
"The sculpture exhibit you don't need tickets for because you're the artist?" Choran snorts.
"Well, it's the thought that counts," Hae-eon says smugly. "Someone was thinking of you, too, Choran, you should be happy!"
Choran only sighs and rolls his eyes, but he doesn't bother to hide his smile.
Bare branches rattle against pale blue sky as a brisk breeze swirls icy crystals against rows of silent granite. Heuk-yeong nods as Jeok-yeon and Doha pass through the cemetary gate, their long peacoats flapping against woolen slacks, hands shoved deep into pockets.
A long sarcophagus stands in lonely isolation on the hillside overlooking the city. Fresh garlands of pine drape across the hard stone, gold and red ribbons fluttering.
"I thought we might find you here," Jeok-yeon says, rounding the corner to find Hwa resting against sun-warmed marble. "Merry Christmas. And thank you." She pulls a hand out of her pocket, a delicate card gripped in her fingers. A donation in your name has been made to...
Hwa looks up and smiles tiredly. "I thought about donating to your campaign, but then I thought... she would have suggested the shelter, instead."
"I don't need your help to win the election," Jeok-yeon says, tucking the card back in her pocket. "This means more to me."
Silently, Doha wraps an arm around her shoulders. Somewhere in the distance, car horns echo off glass and steel.
"Well. Merry Christmas, you two," Hwa says, turning his gaze to the bare tree.
"Merry Christmas," Jeok-yeon murmurs. Out of the corner of her eye, she glances at Doha, her expression inscrutible.
"...Father," Doha says.
Hwa startles, his wide eyes whipping to Doha's.
"Come have dinner with us," Doha says.
"Oh, I-"
"Heuk-yeong is invited too," Jeok-yeon says. "Biseol and Baek-rang are coming over as well."
Something like relief flashes through Hwa's tired yellow eyes. "I wouldn't want to intrude on your gathering-"
"Maybe it's time you did," Jeok-yeon says, and she smiles. "We don't have forever, after all."
Later that night, gazing through the floor-to-ceiling windows in Jeok-yeon's apartment, Hwa imagines he can see Rim laughing along with Jeok-yeon at one of Baek-rang's jokes. But when he blinks, all he sees is the transluscent reflection of their son, smiling with her face.