It’s started to snow a little these past few days. Korea usually doesn’t get a lot of snow but, even though I hate the cold, it reminds me of home so it’s enjoyable. I promised to meet up with friends today at the mall so I force myself out of bed and shower. I get dressed, grab a cup of coffee and am out the door by 9:00am.

                I hug my coffee cup as I walk down the paved sidewalk leading away from my home. I watch as little kids play in the snow. Some making snowmen while others just try to eat it. I always played in the snow with Kibum when we were small. We played outside for hours and then would run back inside to have hot chocolate.

                Once I get to the mall I run inside and search through the crowds of people to find some familiar faces. After a while I find Eli close to the small cafeteria where we first met. “Hey.” He greets me with a warm smile. “So…where did Dongho want to meet us?” I ask and we both scan through the crowd again. “Let’s check out some of the stores and maybe we’ll find him.” Eli leads the way and I follow.

                We walk in and out of a few small stores looking around not finding anything too interesting. I don’t really get why we even decided to meet here of all places. We wander through the crowds of people some more until we come across a small store completely decorated in Christmas decorations.  It’s a little early for Christmas, but since I’ve always loved Christmas shopping I loop my arm through Eli’s and lead him inside

                 We admire some Christmas trees with colorful, glittery ornaments and light up angels on top. The isles are filled with small Christmas and winter knickknacks and everything is just so colorful. “Oh~” Eli leaves my side and I turn to see where he’s going. In the very back of the store there’s a huge selection of candy canes. I follow after Eli and we admire the many different kinds of mint candy canes. “Yum…” We decide to buy a few different kinds each and once we finish paying we walk out to a nearby bench and sit down. As we eat our candy canes together we watch more people walk by. We trade favors and start feeding each other gaining a few stares but it’s fun so we don’t care.

                 After a while someone in the crowd runs up to us. “Annyeong!” An excited looking Dongho approaches with a large smile on his face. “Dongho! We’ve been looking for you!” We blurt out at the same time. “Oh sorry, we got here a little later than planned.” He apologizes.

“We?” Soohyun runs up from behind Dongho and knocks into him. He flings a glittered covered ornament in Dongho’s face with a goofy smile.  Dongho cutely smiles back at him and admires the ornament the latter presented to him. It’s kind of odd…they didn’t seem to really like each other last time. “Did you see the Christmas stuff?” Dongho asks.

“Yeah we just got candy canes.” Eli says and offers them each a candy cane which they both gladly accept. 

“There are a lot of Christmas stores a little ways back, do you want to check them out?” Dongho asks and we all agree. As me and Eli throw away our candy cane wrappers I watch as Kiseop trudges up to our group grumpily on the straw to his smoothie. “You left me.” He glares at Soohyun, “And I don’t want to hang out with Kevin.” He turns his glare towards me.

“Well…I want to hang out with Dongho…” Kiseop and Soohyun glare at each other. Kiseop finally gives up after a few minutes of mutual staring and pouts as we walk throughout the mall. “Stupid Kevin…” I can hear him murmur behind me every few minutes. I walk alongside Eli as Dongho and Soohyun are chatting away in front of us and being all touchy. Me and Eli give each other a few ‘looks’ every now and then. After one day of hanging out, Dongho and Soohyun seem to be the best of friends.

                We come to the section of the mall where there are dozens of Christmas stores. We all follow each other in and out of each store examining every decoration.  We come to one store with a ton of mistletoe. Soohyun grabs a few pieces of it and runs over to Kiseop. He holds it above his head and yells “Kevin, come here!” and starts laughing. Kiseop gets irritated and shoves Soohyun away and gives him a warning look. I ignore them and find Eli again checking out a section of Christmas hats.

                There are Christmas hats, Elf hats, and Reindeer antlers. Eli puts on a Santa hat and puts an elf hat on me. Dongho comes over chewing on another candy cane and starts looking at the hats with us. Soohyun comes and takes Eli’s Santa hat and puts on his head, he takes my hat and puts it on Dongho, and then puts another Santa hat on me. People start to stare at us, I guess we probably look rather childish obsessing over Christmas hats. Kiseop comes and takes a look at what we’re doing and soon joins us. He takes my hat and puts in on his head and then puts reindeer antlers on my head. “…I liked the Santa hat…” I glare at him. “You’re not qualified to wear the Santa hat.” For some reason Soohyun starts cracking up and we all to turn to look at him. “What?” I ask.

“Kiseop wants you to be the reindeer so he can be Santa and ride you.” He starts cracking up again and so do Eli and Dongho this time. Kiseop gets pissed and shoves  Soohyun so hard he almost falls to the ground. It takes a few minutes for everyone to stop giggling and then I say, “I didn’t get it.” That causes everyone to start laughing, even Kiseop this time. “Oh my god Kevin, your mind is so innocent.” Eli jokes as he hugs me from behind.

                “I’m hungry. “ Kiseop says bluntly and walks away.

                We stop after a while to get some lunch. We’ve looked at almost every store but haven’t found anything good enough to buy. As we continue across the mall we come to an area with a Santa Claus next to a Christmas toy shop. Little kids wait in line to sit on his lap and tell him what they want for Christmas. We eat various types of potato chips we continue to stalk the Santa Claus with the little kids. Dongho, Eli, and I share chips while Kiseop hogs his and doesn’t share. Soohyun seems to have taken a liking in feeding Dongho. And a little kid has decided to cling to Kiseop’s leg and doesn’t let go until his mother pulls him off.

                After our lunch break ends Soohyun keeps telling me to go sit on Santa’s lap. “Kevin, go tell Santa what you want for Christmas.” Soohyun seems to like annoying me. After 15 minutes of annoying nagging from Soohyun I finally say, “Alright. I’ll go sit on Santa’s lap.” I strut my way to the Santa sitting in the big fake-snow covered, red chair. I make my way through the crowd of tiny children and hop on the fake Santa’s lap. Surprisingly this Santa is skinny and doesn’t wear a beard. He looks only a few years older than I am, and he’s actually quite attractive. He gives me a sly smirk and wraps his arms around my waist. “Have you been a good boy this year or a naughty one?” He says in a rather seductive voice. I turn and see Eli, Dongho, and Soohyun staring with their mouths agape looking dumbfounded, and Kiseop just looking extremely angry for some reason. Turning back to the y Santa I say, “I’ve been naughty.” Something in his eyes change and for some reason he frightens me a little. “Well, I should punish you then.” His hand discretely travels up the back of my shirt and along my back. Oh , this went a little far.

                Suddenly, Kiseop comes up and yanks me off the Santa’s lap in one strong pull. He grabs my wrist and drags me back to the crowd hurting my arm a little. “Don’t be so stupid! That’s how you get !” He yells at me, which I find a little unnecessary. He storms away and I’m dumbfounded. What’s his problem? I look at the others and Soohyun starts hysterically laughing. “Oh-my-god! That was epic!” He yells out between his fit of laughter. He grabs Dongho’s hand and starts walking after Kiseop. I just stare at Eli and he walks over and pats my head, then he follows after the others. After they all leave me I yell after them, “What just happened!?” I’m so confused. I chase after them.

                Kiseop’s been avoiding me as we continue to aimlessly walk about the mall. We take another small break and just sit on a small bench. We listen to the soft background music and watch random people walk in and out of stores. Soohyun leaves us to go buy a soda and when he comes back he’s also holding a small piece of mistletoe. He shyly raises it between his and Dongho’s head and then the most shocking thing happening which leaves us all staring at them.

                Soohyun gently raises Dongho’s chin with his hand and once Dongho is facing him, he closes the space between them and passionately kisses him right on the lips. Everyone around us stops to stare and Eli and I are once again dumbfounded. Kiseop just rolls his eyes and walks away. After a minute, Dongho pulls away and looks around embarrassedly, even though there’s a hidden smile on his face. Soohyun smiles and wraps his arm around Dongho’s waist and pulls him close. The people around us carry on with their own business.

                After a few awkward moments of silence Eli says, “I’m going to go to the restroom.” He stands and starts to walk off.

“I have to go too!” Dongho yells after Eli and then follows after him in the direction of the bathrooms.

                I’m left with Soohyun, and for some reason I want to ask him a lot of questions. Finally I ask, “So…are you and Dongho…a couple….?” Soohyun turns to look at me.

“Yeah,” He answers bluntly.

“So…you’re…gay?” I hope I wasn’t being rude by asking. Soohyun takes a few moments to think and then says, “I guess. I think I could be bi-ual, but I’ve always just taken more of an interest in guys. I’m sorry if that bothers you. Most people are uncomfortable with it.”

“Oh no, it doesn’t bother me. I was just curious.” It honestly doesn’t bother me. I always had a feeling that Dongho had a thing for Soohyun. There actually quite cute together. “What’s it like being openly gay…I’m sorry if I’m being too personal.” I ask again.

                “It’s fine, I’ve been openly gay since middle school. At first it started out as a big confusing conflict in my life. I always thought there was something wrong with me. I never found girls that attractive and I started hating myself for not being normal. I always knew people looked down upon homouals, like they were a freak of nature, but after a while it just became something I couldn’t hide from others. First I told my parents, they weren’t thrilled about me being gay but they still loved me for who I was. I lost a lot of friends though, it made them all uncomfortable. I got bullied a lot, and after a little while I just got used to not having any friends.”

                 ”Things got easier when I met Kiseop. He used to always hang out with the popular crowd, but after his mom got sick, he drifted away from them and became somewhat of a loner like me. He didn’t care that I was gay, he just wanted someone to talk to that he thought could relate to the troubles he was going through. Soon, I became the only one he hung out with. He lost a lot of friends for hanging out with me but he didn’t seem to care. For that I’ll always be grateful, he made everything easier. I no longer felt like I was alone.” When he finishes he gives me a somewhat sad smile. I slide closer to him on the bench and give him a hug, not carrying that people stare. I never knew that Soohyun went through such a hard time in his life, and I respected him for all the problems he conquered. And for some reason I even seemed to respect Kiseop a little more. Soohyun hugs me back and after a few moments we release each other.

                “Kevin, if you don’t mind me asking…but, are you…gay?” I’m slightly taken back by his question. I guess I never really stopped to think about. I never thought I was, but I don’t really find girls all that attractive. I don’t really worry about having a girlfriend, they just don’t seem that important. I’m suddenly overcome by a wave of confused emotions. I can’t be gay.

“I don’t know…” I say and for some reason I can’t look him in the eyes.

“Kevin, just know it’s alright if you are.”  He says trying to reassure me. His words make me feel a little better, but the subject still bothers me.

I think I need to figure a few things out.