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Getting through a door that only opens at Arabic and closes after 5 seconds with a seven foot fake Christmas tree and all the trimmings that you bought is not as easy as it sounds. I stuck the tree box to prop the door open and started tossing the decorations in as gently as I could. At least the non-glass ones I tossed. The glass ones I put on the straining box and tried shoving everything through with myself not getting hit by the door, and still it blared an alarm to the twins.
That’s how I found myself facing my fiancé pointing a gun towards me and a pale dumbfounded look on his face, his brother looking murderous behind him hitting the alarm off switch while holding something long and potentially heavy since he was not allowed firearms. And I am still bent over in the position of pushing the box. A bag slipped off and I heard a small tinkle. Well, there goes at least one ornament.
“I see you didn’t check the cameras, guys,” I nervously chirped at them. Still, guns are unnerving. I slowly stand up. “Um, if you could point that somewhere else, Saeyoung…”
“Oh! Uh, yeah,” he pointed the gun to the floor and ran a hand through his hair, and tucked the gun in the back of his jeans for the moment. “Um, nice hat.”
I beamed in gratitude at him when Saeran griped, “Why didn’t you fucking call for some help? That would have been less freaky.”
“I wanted to surprise you both with something festive!” The angsty looks on their faces as they took in the scene though, I made the wrong decision. Saeyoung had told me that they didn’t celebrate as kids. I know they didn’t really do much as adults on their own. And all I wanted to do was bring some of the joy of the season to them. My face fell as I started to apologize,“I-I’m sorry. I could have gone about this better.”
Conflict still shadows Saeyoung’s face as he refused to look at me. “It’s… alright. I’m going to go lock this up again. Saeran, can you help her bring things in better?” And he bolted into the other room where the safe was.
My eyes watered with unshed tears, but I had to hold it together. I did not expect this all to go so disastrously. Lips thinning to a line, I became as stoic as I could as I started to move things inside better. Saeran was stiff and breathing awkward as he picked up bags without a word and started walking them over to a corner away from the front door.
“S-Saeran, I’m sorry. I-I-I got too excited, I didn’t mean…” My hand reaching out in remorse but he stayed out of reach, his hand holding me off with the air of rejection.
“Whatever,” he cut me off. “Just…” he breathed a couple times. “Q-quiet. Please.”
All I could do to that was nod, and silently help bring in the decorations. My holiday mood understandably dampened, once we had everything inside, I just went to the bedroom to try to collect myself from my fuck up. There I could let the tears fall, but still keep quiet and not make things even more chaotic and wrong. If I was going to turn around their opinion of the holiday at all, there was little more I could do to epically fail, short of setting the bunker on fire with the lights. Oh god, I hope I don’t set fire to the bunker.
I hear some muffled conversation where only the words “ran away” filter through the door. A few moments later, there’s a gentle knock. Quickly I wipe away my tears and runny nose, and my voice trembles more than I would prefer. “Yeah?”
Saeyoung slips through the open door and latches it behind him again. Gingerly, he wraps his arms around my middle from behind to press a kiss to the top of my head. Careful though he is, I can still feel his heart racing against my back. “Hey,” he rasps. The guilt hits me tenfold again, and I start crying against my will.
“Hey,” is all I can manage for a watery reply.
“I might want to upgrade the alarm system so as to avoid future…” he trails off and his arms tighten around me. A strangled sob escapes my lips. Tugging me around, I find my face squarely in his shoulder as he makes soothing sounds while I struggle to gain my composure again. I focus on the way his hands stroke my back and the sound of the shushing like coddling a baby.
“I’m sorry I fucked up, Saeyoung,” I muffle into his chest. “I didn’t mean… I just wanted…”
“I know, babe. It’s okay. I fucked up too.” I look up to see a very fragile smile on his face. “I did just… on my fiancée… It’s okay though. We’re all okay.”
“You sure?”
“Yeah, Saeran will take some time for the rest of the evening to calm down, I think, but he knows you didn’t mean anything by it. It’ll just take him some time to sort out his head. He’ll probably be in his room all night, so if you want to go in a couple hours to apologize again, you can.”
Grimness colored my face. “And you?”
“I learned to recover quick?” His half smile was a sign that he was trying to be okay at least. But I think he was looking for forgiveness too. I cling to him, unable to look at him more through the weight of my guilt. “Hey, come on. Look back at me,” he tilts my chin back up and, even though I don’t look up, kisses me with lips that taste of forgiveness.
When he pulls back again, I try looking up. “It’s okay,” he smiles gently and kisses my forehead before pulling me to sit on the bed. “I guess you recover quick too if you’re not scared of me now.”
“I trust you, I knew you’d never shoot me,” I blurt out. Okay not the smartest reaction, but it’s true. At the time I didn’t even flinch because it was just so odd. It was when they didn’t quite react with relaxation that everything was fine that I realized how much I had messed up.
Lips quirk into a rueful smile, one side pinned by his teeth. His fingertips brush my hair back on one side. Clearly, something is going through his head, but I’m not really sure what. I’m hoping he’s not disputing in his head the likelihood that he could shoot me in his head. Not without saying anything to me about the worries in his head. Regardless, he takes the impetus to change the topic. “Now. What on earth was all of that that you brought in? And how did you get it here?”
“Um, taxi, and I got Christmas decorations,” my hands start fidgeting. “When you told me that you never really had celebrated Christmas, either with your family or the RFA, I thought maybe I could help bring some happy memories along with that. I… I guess I failed at that.” I can’t help it, I look down again.
He holds my hands and ducks his head down to smile at me. “Bringing stuff home is only one part, and you have lots of enthusiasm for the holiday I see. Can I drag you out of the bedroom again and you can show me what you got?” I nod timidly. His infectious smile broadens and I find myself smiling as he places my Santa hat back on my head, having apparently fallen off when I fled to the bedroom.
One more kiss and he pulls me out of the room to get the tour of all the new goodies.
***
Strewn with boxes, the living room looks a bit like a department store stockroom that was ransacked by Santa. Every box of ornaments has its own surface so they can be chosen at will. There were far more sets of ornaments than were obvious from the copious bags I had brought with me.
I hand Saeyoung an ornament to hang higher up where I’m pointing. “I don’t understand why you went with a pre-lit tree,” he teased.
He gets the ornament in exactly the right place though and I nod. “Trust me, strings are a pain to deal with. They always get tangled.”
“You have denied me the joy of detangling them!” Saeyoung gestures with his half eaten candy cane, Santa hat askew on his head. Every time I tried to correct it, he tugged it back off kilter so I had given up. I had not expected Saeyoung to get so far into this. Just keeping him focused though was a bit of a challenge. “Come on! You’ve seen the displays out… Let’s compete, right here in our living room!”
I frown at the thought of having to find even more of these decorations. I had to not wipe out the provisions completely so as to be fair to the people who needed to also buy decorations. “I don’t think I can find that many more lights. It was hard enough finding what I did. You can work on the garland though.”
“How did you get all of this anyway? I’ve never seen half this stuff before.” He comes behind me to wrap his arms around my belly and rest his head on my shoulder. I thwack the hat poof to the other side and it bops me in the back of the head. But at the very least it’s not in my face.
I lift the candy cane in his hand to my mouth and take a bite. Mmm the sweet pepperminty flavor cools my mouth. “The Commissary Store at the Garrison. I told you my dad’s Korean-American, right? Christmas was always a little… different for us than the typical Korean. I just visited with them and Mom helped me shop. They bring in special stuff for the holidays to make the Americans more comfortable.”
I look back at him and see he has a mock frown on his face from the bite. He leans over and steals a kiss from me anyway, bringing a smile back. The stress lines near his eyes are still there. I really screwed up earlier; he has been looking off since then. The cheer a little too extra strong, like he had been before we started dating and he would play around trying to distract himself from his life. The similarity is just too close and I can’t help feeling guilty.
Arms tighten around me. We gently sway. His voice is as warm as his breath against my ear, “Hey babe, you got quiet. What’s up?”
My voice feels small. “Are you sure you’re okay?”
“Yeah,” he exhales. “And even if I’m not, I need things to be just like this to be okay. Okay? Normal is good, even if it’s a new normal.” Soft kisses litter my temple and hair. When he stops I glance back to see his eyes closed and his face looking more at ease with a smile. He had talked to me before about how I should most of the time accept what he says he’s feeling.
“Okay,” I whisper. A deep breath and I straighten up; he follows and loosens his arms. More resolutely, I say, “We should finish decorating.”
With an American military salute, Saeyoung nods. And goes to start picking out a couple more ornaments. His face lights up, “You got CAT ORNAMENTS!”
A relaxed smile spreads across my face. “Of course! This one is me, this one you, and this one…”
“Saeran!” Saeyoung supplies. No, he calls past me. I look back to see his twin lurking at the edge of the hallway, arms crossed. He pushes off to head towards the kitchen. “Hey, do you want to put your ornament on the tree?” Saeyoung calls to him.
The look on Saeran’s face could only be described as WTF. “Don’t want to bug the happy couple.”
“You wouldn’t be, Saeran. Christmas doesn’t have to be couple time. I-In my family it was family time instead.” I hold out his ornament with a hopeful look. He’s looking a bit better than he had been when he went back to his room, but he still looks uncertain. “Please?”
He rolls his eyes and takes it from me. Surprisingly though, as he looks at the tree, he looks thoughtful, looking for the right place. Which turns out to be about half way up. “Perfect!” I exclaim. He just starts to walk off to the kitchen and I offer, “When you’re up for it, the candy canes here are sweet too. If you want one, you can just take them off the tree.” He stops and his eyes narrow with suspicion. “Really. It’s cool.”
“Minty flavored even,” Saeyoung joins in. I have to poke him for that, and he giggles.
Saeran just grunts and swipes a candy cane from the box before continuing his walk to the kitchen. I turn back to see this complicated yet sentimental smile on Saeyoung’s face that he only ever gets when interacting with his brother. “He took one,” he whispers, probably louder than he should have.
“Shut up!” Wafts from the kitchen. We silently shake with laughter together for a few moments. The sound of pots and pans clanking tell us he must be getting started on dinner, since it’s his turn tonight. That’s a good sign as well. I wonder what he’s making; I hope it’s his tteokbokki - he does fabulously with that.
Back to decorating though, we both step to the tree and find places for our individual ornaments too.
“The priest at church when I was a kid, Rika, V, they always talked about hope and promise at this time of year. Never really got the big deal before. Seemed to be for other people,” Saeyoung’s mutters, pitched clearly to me only.
I go around the tree again to hug him again. “There’s always signs of hope, even when things are dark and messed up. It can just take some hunting sometimes.”
“Seems easier these days, if you ask me.” We stand like that for a bit. “You know, we should probably finish these and get to dinner.”
“Oh!” I exclaim and break away, startling Saeyoung a little. “I got one more thing for you, since I didn’t think you would have one but it might be important to you.” Shuffling through the couple of bags left until I find the box I wanted, I bounce back over to my love, his eyebrow raised in silent question.
“I… I know I’m not Catholic, but…” I run out of words and just thrust the box at him. He receives it like I’m handing him a baby bird, in complete contrast to the vigorous presentation I gave him. The box is white with no indication as to its contents. I half expected him to shake it like my brothers always did with presents, but I suspect he never received enough to take things for granted like that. My heart clenches to see the care he breaks the seal with.
Inside are a bunch of items individually wrapped in tissue paper. Carefully, he puts the box down on the table and plucks one out to unwrap with his lithe fingers. The first thing he unwraps is a porcelain lamb. Eyes widen as he realize what it might be, if I had been Christmas shopping. “A nativity?” his breathy voice cracks just a little.
I smile and nod.
Gingerly he places it on the table, and I am enveloped one more time in his warm arms.
“I did okay?”
“Yeah. You did better than that. Hope and promise, right? Thank you.”
“Merry Christmas, Saeyoung.”
“I love you, too.”
The scent of Saeran’s cooking starts to waft from the kitchen, and our stomachs both growl. It may not always be easy. But the new normal reasserts itself in the arms of our loved ones in the face of our mistakes with hope and promise.