Chapter 7.

Mi Nyeo came back in a depressed mood after trying to talk to Tae Kyung.  When Jeremy asked her if she was all right, she just shook her head as if nothing had happened.  She was subdued while helping the others put up the decorations for the Christmas party, and she didn’t eat much when Mi Nam pulled out snacks.

It was Jolie that got the first laugh out of her with her antics.  The golden retriever had sensed the excitement in the air straight away, and she wanted to join in too.

Jolie couldn’t decide which of the humans to hang out with first.  Shin Woo was carrying around boxes of bright shiny things that he put around the walls.  Mi Nam was also hanging up strands of glass that seemed to light up when he pressed something on the wall.  Mi Nyeo was blowing up a life-size reindeer to go with Jeremy’s life-size Santa.

Jolie grew more and more interested in the reindeer as Mi Nyeo made it grow bigger and bigger.  Being a naughty dog, Jolie decided to play tug-of-war with Mi Nyeo to see if the little human would let her have the reindeer.  She sank her canines into the reindeer’s leg and began to pull.

“Ah!”  Mi Nyeo grabbed another leg just as Jolie predicted.  The two wrestled for the toy, and Jolie thought it was great fun because the little human was not very strong.

“Jolie, noooooo!” cried Jeremy.  “Why do you always do this to my party decorations?”

“Mong!” replied Jolie, letting go of the reindeer and sending Mi Nyeo tumbling backwards.  All three of the band members ran to catch her at the same time, and they all wound up falling on each other like dominoes.  Mi Nyeo fell on Shin Woo, Shin Woo collided with Jeremy, and Jeremy fell on Mi Nam, who ended up taking the brunt of the fall.

“Argh!” groaned Mi Nam.  “I think I landed on a decoration or something.  Get off me!”

“Are you talking to me?” asked Jeremy.

“I’m talking to everyone.  Everyone, get off me right this instant!”

As everyone climbed to their feet, Mi Nyeo spotted Jolie observing them from a safe distance.

“Why Jolie?” Mi Nyeo said with a laugh.  “Maybe Hyung-nim is right about you being troublesome.”

“Be more understanding, Mi Nyeo,” said Shin Woo with a smile.  “Jolie is like me, she gets bored and needs something interesting to happen every now and then.”

“You have become good friends with Jolie over the past year, haven’t you?”

“I’d ask her to be my girl, but according to Jeremy she already has a boyfriend,” he teased.  “Just between us, I think Jolie likes me better.”

“Hello?  Can someone help me up here?  I think I might be paralysed,” whimpered Mi Nam.

Shin Woo and Jeremy sniggered, but the three of them got Mi Nam to his feet and dusted him off.  Apart from a couple of bruises, he was unharmed.

“What am I going to do about a reindeer?” Jeremy grumbled.

“Mi Nyeo always played Rudolph in the Christmas plays at the convent,” suggested Mi Nam.

“Hmm.”  Jeremy inspected her pretty face and grinned.  “Okay.”  He walked over to the box of decorations Shin Woo had been putting out, and found an old pair of reindeer antlers.  He stretched out the band so that it wouldn’t dig in her head and popped them on her.

“Cuuuute,” he murmured, wanting to give her a big hug.  “What did you do for a nose?”

Mi Nyeo thought about it.  “I used to wear a clown nose, but it smelled funny and my nose went numb by the end of the show.”

“I have a better idea,” he said, grabbing her wrist.  They went back inside to the kitchen where it was warm.  He found the jam they’d been using on their toast that morning and then pulled a spoon out of the drawers.

“Hold still,” he warned, putting a small dollop of strawberry conserve on the tip of her nose.

Mi Nyeo’s face crinkled up in a smile.  “It smells so good.  Can I-”

“Ah!”  Jeremy caught her hand before she wiped the jam off.  “If you want to be a reindeer then you can’t it off.”

“Just a small taste.”

“Yah!”

Mi Nyeo giggled as she tried to reach the sugar on her nose.

“You are worse than Jolie!”  He forced her wrists down and pinned them to her sides.  “There!  What are you going to do now?”

“I will get the spoon instead.”  She tried to lift up the hand holding it, and the two went back to arm wrestling each other.  Jeremy tickled her sides and she jumped forward with a little shriek – straight into his chest.

Jeremy winced and laughed, knowing that his favourite jumper was now covered in jam.  Mi Nyeo pulled away and gave him a horrified look.

“I’m sorry!”  She wiped the sugar off with her fingers.  “I’m so sorry.  I will clean it for you.”

“Worry about your nose.  Your nose is gone.  I have no reindeer.”

“He would never forgive me if I did this to him.”

Jeremy’s face fell at the subtle mention of Tae Kyung.  He gently pulled her sticky fingers from his chest and clasped them together.  “Mi Nyeo, it’s okay.”

She looked uncertain.  “It is?”

His eyes scrunched up as he smiled.  “Mm.”  He nodded.

The conflicted look was still on her face.  “Jeremy, I-“

“Hey!  Stop slacking off you two!  I’m not doing the rest of these decorations by myself!” Mi Nam shouted from the porch like an old man.

“Ah.  Coming!” Mi Nyeo shouted.  She grabbed Jeremy by the sleeve and led him back outside.  Shin Woo was about to make a comment about the jam on them, but Jeremy’s glum face made him decide against it.

“It’s better if I let them work it out for themselves,” he told himself.

Beside him, Jolie made a grumbling noise.

Coordinator Wang arrived with her secret lover, Manager Ma, not long before midnight.  The group had decided to take the same car to church, and the two elders had brought enough disguises to camouflage an entire fan club.

“Blond hair!”  Mi Nam ripped out a wig and took it over to the microwave to see how it looked.  “I bet I’d look better in blond hair than Jeremy!”

“Nobody does blond better than me,” said Jeremy.  “Here, you’ll look better in the ghost costume.”

“But it’s just a sheet with two eye holes.”  His brows drew together.  “You .”

“Don’t worry,” said Shin Woo.  “We’ll find something to help hide the double lids as well.”

Coordinator Wang covered a smile with her bejewelled hand.

Mi Nam grimaced.  “You all ...except Tae Kyung, because he’s not here.”

“That’s right.  Where is Tae Kyung?” asked Manager Ma.  “Is he coming with us tonight or not?”

Jeremy and Shin Woo gave awkward shrugs.

“Mi Nyeo.  Is your boyfriend coming?” asked Coordinator Wang.

The older woman’s bangles clinked in the unexpected silence that followed her question.  Mi Nyeo dropped her unhappy gaze to the floor.

“He’s working hard on the new album,” said Shin Woo.  “I’ll text him the address so that he can meet us there.”

The older couple nodded, and nothing more was said on the subject.  They questioned Jeremy about the strange white tree with green decorations, teased Mi Nam about avoiding Yoo He Yi’s family, complained about the cold weather when they drove to mass, and loudly praised the church’s Christmas decorations including the nativity scene near the front entrance.

“We’d better get some seats at the back to be careful,” suggested Manager Ma.  “Come on Mi Nyeo.”

She shook her head.  “I’d like to stay here and wait for Hyung-nim.”

Jeremy didn’t like it.  “But you’ll freeze out here.  Mi Nyeo please come inside.  We can save him a seat.”

Again, she shook her head.  “He won’t want to come in by himself.”

“Okay.  We’ll see you inside then,” said Mi Nam.

Without asking or being asked, Jeremy followed Mi Nyeo down the steps to wait for Tae Kyung.  When she stopped, he stood beside her and admired the warmth of the nativity set.  The faces were painted porcelain, and the clothes were real – probably made by a dedicated church-group.  Fur trees, Christmas lights and pine cones formed the background of the display, giving the miniature barn a cosy look.

“You don’t have to wait out here, Jeremy.  It’s cold out here.”

“I don’t mind.  Besides, you’re right about Tae Kyung.  He might need a nudge to get him through the doors.”

They waited in silence for a long time.  Jeremy could hear people getting to their feet inside the church.  The mass had begun.  The first song was being sung.

Mi Nyeo wiped her face, and he saw that she was crying again.  It made him feel ill.

“Don’t cry.”  He put an arm around her.

“I’m sorry.  I can’t help it.”

“Want me to call him?”

“No...I...no.”

“Please stop crying.”  He tucked her long hair behind one ear.  “You’ve been sad too much since you’ve been back.  Please be happy.  There are so many things to be happy about.”

“I’m sorry.”  Her apology was muffled when she suddenly hugged him, burying her face in his coat.

He felt something tickle his cheek, and quickly brushed it away before she could see it.  “I don’t care what makes you happy, okay?  You just...you just tell me what would make you smile so that I can make it happen.”

She leaned back and lifted his fingers to her lips.  Her wet lashes hung low over her eyes.  “Let’s go inside.”

Without letting go of his hand, she took him through a side door in order not to disturb the mass.  They found the back-row seats that the others had saved for them and they sat down together.  It was a shock for some of the group to see her discreetly holding hands with Jeremy, but Mi Nyeo failed to notice their reaction.  She leaned her head on his shoulder and listened to the sermon about family.

It was a sweet and sour moment for Jeremy.  Having Mi Nyeo wanting to be close to him was so amazing that he couldn’t concentrate on what the man in the robes was saying.  He could smell strawberry jam on her, and he wondered if she’d forgotten to clean her nose.  However, she was still so sad that he could be nothing but sad too.

He was going to kill Tae Kyung – stick him with his foil so many times that the skinny elder looked like a slice of Swiss cheese.

Towards the end of the mass, someone’s phone played a popular ANJell ringtone.  People looked around to see who had been stupid enough to leave their phone on.

“Hyung-nim,” Mi Nyeo whispered.  “He’s here.”

Tae Kyung was standing in the shadows at the back of the church.  He switched off his phone and gave the curious onlookers an embarrassed grimace, which was his idea of an apologetic expression.  Mi Nyeo lifted her head from Jeremy’s shoulder and beamed at her Hyung-nim.  Tae Kyung gave her a stiff nod in return.

Jeremy was quiet on the drive back to the dorms.  While the others celebrated the first hours of Christmas in the lounge, he went to hide in the kitchen.  He pulled out the white Christmas cake and stabbed it with some sparklers.  When he was able to paste a smile on his face, he carried it into the living room and placed it on the coffee table for lighting.

“Where’s Mi Nyeo?” he asked.

“She went upstairs with Tae Kyung,” replied Mi Nam.  “Which reminds me, what was going on tonight?  Why were you holding Mi Nyeo’s hand?  Are you and Tae Kyung fighting over my sister or something?”

Shin Woo lit a match near Mi Nam’s face, making him flinch.  “Since our guests still have to drive home, I suggest we light this now.”

“That’s a lot of sparklers, Jeremy,” commented Coordinator Wang.  Shin Woo lit them all, and the group clapped and cheered until the coloured flames burned out.

Generous pieces of the treat were passed around.  Manager Ma ignored his partner’s pleas for a small piece and fed her a large mouthful of cake.  Mi Nam had to pat her on the back when she choked on the crumbs.  The burnt metallic smell still hung in the air while they had second helpings and even thirds.

Under the pretence of washing his sugary fingers, Jeremy snuck out and went upstairs not to check on Mi Nyeo and Tae Kyung.  He stared for a long time at Tae Kyung’s closed door, imagined what they were doing, and then wished he hadn’t.  Feeling like he was falling down a black hole, he ignored his unusually clean bedroom and the girl’s pyjamas folded on the chair opposite the bed to get to his ensuite.