“Have you ever seen that?” Donghae called pointing to heart shaped sweets.

We were strolling in the market. Mostly it was Donghae asking me questions and pointing to the stuff that was mostly imported to Korea just like the whole Christmas celebration. But I didn´t mind and patiently answered all his questions. Sometimes we would stop to buy something delicious or to look at the beautiful crafts. The snow kept falling and the time was passing.

“Yeah, I did. When I went to Europe on Christmas two years ago, they had them everywhere,” I answered and gave the seller a few coins in exchange for the sweets. I was sure Donghae would like to taste them.

“You were in Europe?” He asked me and opened the paper bag with the sweets.

“Yeah, many times,” I answered and opened my mouth widely. Donghae didn´t need to be told what to do and in a second I had one heart in my mouth.

“Is it that easy to travel nowadays?” He asked me quickly so he could stuff one heart into his own mouth.

“Pretty much,” I shrugged, “if you have money or a job like me, you can travel freely.” I explained and gestured widely with my arms. “But some foreigners are really huge, you feel like a kid next to them.”

“Yeah, I can tell,” Donghae snorted.

“What do you mean?” Was he pointing to something or has he ever met a foreigner?

“I had a part time job during the Olympics and had to distribute bottles with water to the western athletes. Just like you said, they were all twice the size of me,” Donghae said as if nothing but I stopped in my tracks to swallow the information.

“Olympic games?! Like those in 1988 in Seoul? You were there?!” I exclaimed and a few people turned to look at me.

“Yeah, you weren´t?” Donghae asked me casually.

“My dad says that we went together but I have no memory,” I whined, “I was only two years old, Donghae.”

“Uh, sorry. I haven´t thought of that,” Donghae gave me a pitiful face and patted my back, “but I missed quite a few things too. Since when do we have a female president?” I had to chuckle.

“Park Geunhye is our president since last year and is giving quite hard times to Abe,” I joked but Donghae didn´t catch the joke of course. “Japanese premier,” I added and only then he smiled too.

Then we went to buy some decorations because Donghae insisted we have a Christmas tree this year. I didn´t protest and only later realised that he wanted to stay in the apartment for at least three more weeks. Even then I couldn´t bring myself to say anything against that. I learned my lesson today. It´s better to have the mirror man around than to be all alone. I´m slowly getting used to Donghae and I have no idea what to do with that.

“What are you thinking about?” Donghae asked me on our way back because I was deep in thoughts and probably didn´t react at something he was saying.

“Just some stuff,” I tied to shrug it off.

Donghae was the last one I wanted to share my thoughts with. I was thinking about how wrong it was for me to get attached to him. It wasn´t healthy, not even the slightest. I was at the age to look for a long time partner, to get married and give my parents some pretty grandchildren. Instead I was roaming around all the best clubs in useless branded clothes. And now when it seemed that I was finally settling down, I had to start preferring Donghae over a woman. Don´t get me wrong, I don´t mean it ually or romantically. It just feels easier to have him in my house because I´m not alone, I have a company during my meals and lonely evenings and I don´t have to deal with a female brain. Girls are different and although I´m pretty good at sweet-talking, I´m not sure how would I be able to lead a family.

“You are spacing off a lot, are you tired?” Donghae asked again and only then I noticed that we were already exiting the park.

“No,” pushed a hand that wasn´t holding any paper bags to my pocket, “I´m just being moody, don´t mind me.”

“What´s wrong then? I do care about your moods, you know,” Donghae wasn´t giving up.

“Fine,” what can happen if I open the topic a little? “I just feel like I´m disappointing a lot of people. Mostly my parents and myself too.” What a great son they have, did you catch that irony?

“Why? It´s not like you have to be ashamed of yourself, right? It´s not like you´re a criminal,” Donghae put his hand on my shoulder in a friendly manner.

“Maybe I´m not a criminal but there´s nothing to be proud of either,” I hid most of my face in my scarf so only my eyes could be seen. I must look like a mushroom with my hairstyle.

“What are you talking about? You grew up to be handsome and independent man. You have a big heart and you work hard at your job. You even bought a house!” Donghae shook his head as if I said the most stupid thing ever. And I´m sure I said sillier things before, though.

“Yeah but even in that house someone else has already been living,” I snorted. What a failure, really. I´m so embarrassed that I can´t even invite my mom.

“Hyukjae wait,” Donghae grabbed my arm and we stopped in the middle of the pavement. It was almost dark by now so not many people were out to see the scene in front of their houses.

“Donghae, it´s alright. You don´t have to say or do anything. It´s not your fault that I´m not capable to do things right. I can even live with the thought that I´m not good enough, it´s not such a big deal. It´s just in times like these that I become sentimental,” I smiled at him to reassure him. His face screamed worry. “Just a glass of wine and good night sleep and everything will be fine. Sorry for ruining your evening.”

“Are you even listening to yourself?” Donghae didn´t calm down and looked even more desperate. “You are the most capable person I´ve ever met and I wouldn´t want any other person to take me out of the mirror but you. I don´t know how I got out but I´m one hundred percent sure that it was thanks to you, Hyukjae,” he shook my arm and I couldn´t interrupt our eye-lock. Those dark eyes were back but were telling a little different story than usually. “Don´t you ever dare to say that you´re not good enough because if you aren´t, than nobody is, got it? And stop apologising to me. Don´t you remember? It was me who ruined your day in the first place. I got greedy and wanted to have you for myself, you have no idea how happy I felt when you found me on the bench.”

I had hard time understanding the hasty and accented speech and even harder for me was to comprehend the thought. But I got one message. Donghae was full of feeling that I didn´t know he had in him and that I failed to intercept. He felt sorry and also grateful, he respected me and he was worried about me. All the things that I needed to hear the most, he had them all and he made me hear them out. I think I even cried at that moment.

“Let´s just finish this stupid year together, huh,” I mumbled from under my tears and the huge scarf. Who cares, it´s just about three weeks only.

 “And happy, Hyukjae.”

Hi! Well, this chapter is a little bit too sweet maybe T_T I didn´t have time to check for the mistakes yet, I´ll do it later. Today I was at the library until its closing time and the next days should look about the same (good I have some written chapters saved for later, muhehehe - I just hope I won´t run out of stock). Wish me luck and I´ll do the same :D Thank you for reading and once again nice Advent! - PandaHero