“Whoa… that looks fun!”, “OH! We’ve got to take that!”, “Hurry hurry! We need to take them all before the park closes!”… While Geun Young did expect Jeremy to be excited about the trip today, it turns out that his extreme hyperactive state was still too much for her to handle.

“Oh look! They’re selling caramel popcorns over there!” Geun Young blurted and pointed in a random direction.

“Where? Where? I don’t see it,” Jeremy uttered and was momentarily distracted by the activation of his sweet tooth radar.

Using the brief moment of freedom to her utmost advantage, Geun Young quickened her footsteps and plopped down onto an empty bench, in the midst not forgetting to drag along an innocent Donald Duck mascot by the shirt to block herself from the view of the crazy alien bursting with unlimited energy. Upon sensing slight resistance from the mascot, she gave a cold stare before uttering just loud enough for him (or her) to hear, “Stay still” The sudden transformation of character probably caught the poor person under the costume by surprise as evident from how he (or she) stopped fidgeting almost immediately upon command. It sure is tough being a mascot nowadays.

Jeremy’s POV

“Geun Youngggg,” I called out her name repeatedly upon realizing her disappearance. Underneath that seemingly honest-looking appearance, she is quite a sneaky character. Fancy lying to me like that. Gee. I pouted while continuing to search for that goldfish.

“Moon Geu-,“ I stopped short in my tracks. Something seems fishy here.

I stared at the awkwardly positioned Donald Duck mascot barely two metres away from me and he (or she) stared back, or so I think it did. One minute, two minutes … The mascot just remained in the same position, despite trembling a little from trying to balance on one foot due to its weird standing position – of leaning slightly backward as if being pulled by some mysterious force. With a smirk, I slowly crept up to the Donald Duck before swiftly reaching out to grab the hand behind it, causing it to loosen its grip on the poor mascot. Before Geun Young could react, the mascot had disappeared from sight. I swear I have never seen Donald Duck ran that fast in my life before.

“Gotcha!” I exclaimed in sheer victory as I narrowed my eyes in disapproval at the sneaky, lying fellow.

“Ahh…” Geun Young responded in exasperation with sinking shoulders. Her lethargy seems to resulted in her giving up the false pretence of maturity she tries to put on every other day. With a slight pout, she looked at me pleadingly before adding, “Must we really go on more rides? I am really really really tired.”

She is kinda… cute. The random thought caught me by surprise as I quickly looked away to hide my gradually tinted face, disguising the act with a few well-enacted coughs.

“But- but you promised to spend the day with me,” I half-stuttered my reply.

“Well,” I felt a tug at the corner of my shirt.

Tilting her head a little, she looked up at me with puppy eyes and added, “Can’t we just sit here and enjoy the surroundings a bit? Looks like the sun is setting already...” Her voice trailed away as if she just fell deep in thoughts. Or maybe it was simply a result of lethargy. I attempted moving away only to see her eyes droop in disappointment.

“I’m going to get us some drinks and snacks over there. You haven’t eaten in a while,” I uttered before walking off. Hopefully that would lift her spirits a little.

Geun Young’s POV

Sipping on the iced tea Jeremy bought me, I was staring blankly at the night sky, thinking about how the day had turned out and how he had been surprisingly gentle and sensitive when something struck me.

“Hey, it seems like you never really told me much about you, did you?”

“Well, you never asked” He put the blame on me as usual but this time round, I did not really have much of an argument against it.

“I guess that’s true too,” I said sheepishly before adding, “So where are you from?”

“North Pole”

Squinting my eyes, I inched my face a tad bit closer to his and scrutinized it.

“W-what?” He stuttered and I swear I could see his face turn a light shade of pink even under the faint lighting of the street lamp. I laughed and moved back a little to save him from the embarrassment. He is quite shy actually. Quite unlike the guy I hated on the first day of Christmas. Quite different – a good different.

“So what is North Pole like? How’s your family like?” I turned my attention to the beautiful night sky as I asked. I figured that I should just play along. This whole “north pole” thing is afterall quite a funny joke. At that point, a brief flashback of our moment of encounter and the injuries I caused him brought a smile to my face.

“It is a pretty place,” His gentle voice interrupted my thought. “I have a very big family and Santa is my dad.”

I stifled back a laugh when I looked at his serious face. He seemed to mean what he said. Ahh… an experienced storyteller? Or is he just real good at lying?

“Big family? Like five kids?” I played along.

Laughter broke the silence of the night. No, it was not mine.

“More like a few hundred thousands?”

“Now you can’t be serious!” I laughed and punched him jokingly in the arm.

“Well, maybe I should have stated beforehand that Santa is not my real dad,”

Duh. I knew that but I was still curious about how he intend to tell this little story of his so I let him continue.

“I’m an orphan,” This time, he was the one who looked away a little awkwardly at the night sky.

I admit that caught me by surprise and it is hard to believe that he was lying about it from the way he acted. He can’t be that good at lying, could he?

“You can think of North Pole as a big orphanage. We are all orphans there. Santa adopted us over the years and so we grew up there,”

I nodded silently.

“We are not like aliens or anything. Everything is rather similar to here. We just grow up in a different place that’s all. Actually, some of the people most involved in philanthropy in ‘your world’ used to be from mine,” he flaunted a cute smile before continuing, “some people moved out eventually but out of these, a few were inspired enough to continue Santa’s spirit of philanthropy in ‘your world’. These people are pretty famous. You would be shocked.” He reached out and tapped my nose lightly. I was too engrossed in his story to evade in time.

“My home is really not that different from yours. Well, maybe except for magic and flying reindeers,” he added with a mischievous grin. “You don’t really believe what I’m telling you now, do you?” I thought I caught a glimpse of sadness in his eyes but he quickly reverted to his usual cheerful state.

“Well it’s all right!” he shot up from the seat before I could say anything. “Time to head home! The park is closing soon.”

Before I could react, he lightly held onto my hand and pulled me off the bench.

Maybe it was the unusual atmosphere of the place for I did not pull my hand away and he did not release it either. Somehow, without bickering, we left the park, lightly holding on to each other’s hand. Without saying anything, just like that. I felt strangely at ease though from time to time, I could not help pondering over which parts of his story were true.