“What are you doing, learning nursery songs so seriously?” Professor Yang asked, upon seeing Myungsoo in the suffocating music room. “And on the day before your break, on top of that.”

   He sat down on the amplifier in front of the student, and he could’ve sworn he smelled cigarettes. “Do you not have any perfume to cover up that scent?” Myungsoo asked. “It’s irritating.”

   Professor Yang playfully raised his hands in surrender. “Oh, how can I forget? You’re my only student who doesn’t smoke. I’m sorry.”

   The younger one shook his head in disdain.

   “But you haven’t answered my question, Myungsoo-yah. What’s with the cold nursery rhymes?”

   “It’s for a short program,” he replied, his voice low.

   “A program,” Professor Yang repeated.

   “Charity,” Myungsoo briefly explained.

   With this, his teacher chuckled. “You have to do better than that, though. With a serious face like yours, the children in there will cry. Loosen up.”

   No response.

   “Think of that person who helped in melting your heart,” he finally said, before standing up to leave Myungsoo in the stuffy room which already smelled of cigarettes. Sighing, the student took the can or air freshener from a wooden drawer and sprayed it towards the ceiling.

<:>

   “Hey, Sang Moon-ah, which story would the children like?” Suzy asked, while looking through the box she found in their storeroom. It was filled with fables and other bedtime stories alike. “Cinderella? Jack and the Beanstalk? Sleeping Beauty?”

   “Noona, you have to remember that there are boys in there, too. Do you expect them to sit still while listening to a damsel in distress getting rescued by some prince in a faraway land?”

   She pouted. “So should I settle for Jack and the Beanstalk, then?”

   Sang Moon closed the manhwa he was reading, and sighed. “Don’t try so hard by yourself.”

   He gave her sister a friendly pat on the back before stalking off. Suzy stared at the old books in the box, and noticed a Bible. It was Sunggyu’s. She picked it up, and flipped through it randomly. A tiny smile graced her lips upon seeing the highlighted verses. There were tiny captions at the margins, and from his penmanship Suzy figured out that he was already a university student when he had the Bible.

   She reached the New Testament, and saw a heavily highlighted passage. An arrow was pointing at the title, saying, ‘Favorite parable’. It was the Parable of the Good Samaritan. Suzy then began to wonder why, and as she dwelled on her thoughts, she was finally able to decide on the story she would tell to the children.

<:>

   “Hyung,” Daehyun whispered. He looked at his older brother with a pair of sad eyes. “My parents aren’t going to pick me up, are they?”

   Myungsoo shoved his phone back in his pocket. He had just finished conversing with Daehyun’s mother, and she explained how things in their place were still messy. Once again, she asked if Myungsoo could keep his brother for a little while longer.

   “It’s okay,” he said. “We’ll go to your Sunshine noona’s house for Christmas, remember? We should sleep now, since we’ll have to leave early tomorrow.”

   Daehyun’s face brightened up. “We’re going to the charity?”

   “Yes, we are. Now, sleep.”

   The younger one led the prayer, and while holding hands, the brothers drifted off to a peaceful sleep.

<:>

   “Hyung?”

   “What is it now, Woohyun?”

   He stirred in his bed to face Sunggyu. “You’re so cold,” he teased.

   “What do you want from me at two in the morning?”

   “But you’re still not asleep,” he pointed out.

   “We don’t have work tomorrow, after all,” Sunggyu replied.

   “Why are you still awake?”

   No reply.

   Woohyun let out a short laugh. “You miss her?”

   “Who?”

   “The person you’re thinking about.”

   Sunggyu closed his eyes, and thought of Suzy. “I suppose.”

   “Ever had any favorite stories when you were still a kid, hyung?”

   “Why this question all of a sudden?” he shot back.

   “It’s nice,” Woohyun pushed, completely amused. “And you have to bear with me. You’ll have to spend Christmas with my family, after all, and they’re worse.”

   The older one stirred in his bed, before replying, “The Good Samaritan.”

   “Why?”

   Sunggyu smiled a little. “I can just relate to the wounded man, is all. Robbed, stripped and left alone to die, only to be rescued by a Samaritan who doesn't have anything to do with him.”

   Woohyun paused, before asking, “Hyung, how did you end up in the orphanage?”

   “My social worker said I was found in a closet somewhere in Jeonju, where a married couple hanged themselves in an apartment. No other relatives could be found, so I ended up going to an orphanage in Seoul. I got adopted when I was four.”

   “The orphanage named you?”

   “No. My name was printed on the cot, so they didn’t change it, hoping that someone would claim me one day,” Sunggyu smirked, and added, “That’s why I used to hate my name.”

   “You used to hate your name,” he repeated.

   “It stopped when Suzy started burbling it out,” the other one explained. He looked at Woohyun. “That’s why when I first heard of the Good Samaritan’s story, I couldn’t help but like it.”

   “How can you narrate a very dark story with a calm front?” Woohyun inquired. “You really are brutally honest.”

   “I’ll take that as a compliment,” Sunggyu said. “What about you? What’s your favorite story?”

   “Peter Pan.”

   “Why?”

   “Because I never wanted to grow up, but I did anyway. Kids shouldn’t read such stories. It makes the real world look dull. It’s heartbreaking.”

   “But the ones we read in fairytales have a sense of reality to it, though,” Sunggyu pointed out. “Writers base their stories from the real world.”

   Woohyun laughed a little. “Now that’s an even scarier thought.”

<:>

   The children stayed in the orphanage’s recreation room while the adults were in the lobby. Suzy, Myungsoo and Sang Moon, together with other volunteers similar to their age, stayed with the children to play games. Suzy then received a text from her mother, telling that dinner would be delayed by a few minutes and so they needed to buy more time.

   “Kids!” Suzy called out, while clapping her hands together. “Are you hungry?”

   “Yes!” they chirped.

   She smiled, and said, “Dinner will be ready soon, but before that, let’s play a final song, okay?”

   Suzy looked at Myungsoo, and called him over. The student took his guitar with him. While sitting down on the stool, she whispered, “Do the song about the three bears.”

   “Got it,” he replied. He tapped the guitar’s wooden body with his pick three times before strumming. While Suzy danced, the children and the volunteers followed. All the while, Myungsoo couldn’t help but look at the girl beside him, who seemed to carry summer’s warmth in the midst of the bitter winter.

   And when he thought his heart couldn’t melt any further, it did.

<:>

   It was two days after the charity when Myungsoo and Daehyun visited the Bae household once again. It was Christmas Eve, and Daehyun decided on making a poem for each member of the family. Myungsoo, on the other hand, bought several notebooks and pens for Suzy; a brooch for Mrs. Bae and a tie for Mr. Bae. As for Sang Moon, the student opted to buy him a pair of decent soccer shoes he found to be on sale.

   He had no idea why, but he bought his father a watch and a silver bracelet for his wife. He sent it to their house, along with Daehyun’s presents. That was his first gift to them ever since he moved into his apartment.

   The brothers arrived in the afternoon in order to help the family prepare. They placed their presents beneath the tree, and Daehyun looked at his older brother. “Hyung, I’m happy I  get to celebrate this Christmas with you.”

   Myungsoo smiled, and he tousled his younger brother’s hair. “Me, too. We’ll celebrate it again together the next year, and the year after that.”

   Daehyun grinned brightly. “Okay.”

<:>

   It was already three in the morning when the Bae family called it a night. The dishes were washed and all of them were able to talk with Sunggyu, who was in Woohyun’s place to spend the holidays. Mrs. Bae fixed Sunggyu’s room that afternoon for Myungsoo and Daehyun.

   Suzy kept on twisting about, trying to sleep, but she simply couldn’t. Scratching her head out of frustration, she took her new notebook and pen before heading downstairs. There, she saw Myungsoo in the living room. He had his earphones on, with several open books in front of him. He seemed to be writing something.

   Myungsoo looked up, and yanked the buds out of his ears. “Did I wake you?” he whispered.

   She smiled, and shook her head no. “I just can’t sleep. What about you?”

   “Same reason.”

   Suzy sat down on the vacant spot across him. She crossed her legs, and placed her notebook on the table. “Did you have fun?”

   “Yeah,” he answered, smiling. “And Daehyun enjoyed it, too. Thank you.”

   “We’re glad,” she said. “That the both of you celebrated Christmas with us. It’s a nice change.”

   Myungsoo put his pen down, and Suzy couldn’t help but stare at his notebook. “What were you doing earlier?”

   “I was trying to do my homework,” he said.

   “Then you should carry on.”

   He shook his head no. “It can wait.”

   They both looked at the tree, and Myungsoo blurted out, “To be honest I’m relieved that the people from the subway are now in a better place. At least they wouldn’t have to suffer from the cold.”

   “They were really happy when they saw their new home,” Suzy added. “Especially Ai. She’s going to be in a special education program this spring, as well. I heard it from my mom.”

   “That’s nice,” he said.

   “The people from the orphanage are quite friendly with you,” she pointed out.

   “Oh, are they?”

   “Yeah. As if they already knew you.”

   He looked at his books, and shrugged. “They’re well acquainted with my mom, since she was a social worker, as well.”

   “I see.”

   This comfortable silence shrouded them, yet again, and as if some invincible force was urging him, Myungsoo opened up his heart. “It was during the summer when my mom died.”

   Suzy sat still, her honest eyes fixed on him.

   “To be honest, sometimes I hated her job. It felt like the other children were stealing her away from me. I’ve always thought that she spent more of her time playing with them. She’d always tell me that it wasn’t the case, and I knew it wasn’t. But I was too selfish to let my jealousy go.

   “One night I had an opportunity to play the guitar in a local concert. It was only an intermission number, but there was a chance for me to get scouted. I told it to my mom, and she promised that she’d watch me. In the end, she visited the orphan she became close with because she had something to discuss with him. They were close up to the point that he learned the ‘Summer, Sunshine’ greeting from her. I knew, because that was how they greeted each other over the phone.

   “She didn’t come. My part was finished when she called me to tell that she was on her way. I told her it didn’t matter anymore. She apologized, but I didn’t listen. I got so mad I said I hated her, and I wished she wasn’t my mother because she’d rather spend her time with the orphans. She didn’t reply, so I said more hurtful things to her.

   “The next thing I knew, there was a loud crash, and the line went dead. I had no idea what happened next, but I was running like a madman until I reached the General Hospital. My mom was there, wearing a black dress. I tried to hold her, but my hands became bloody and I felt sick all over. She didn’t make it.”

   Tears were already flowing from Suzy’s eyes, and she couldn’t find the right things to tell Myungsoo. With the way he looked at her, however, she knew that he didn’t need her words.

   “And that orphan I was so jealous of,” Myungsoo choked out. “Is Sunggyu.”

"Feed the hungry,
and help those in trouble.
Then your light will shine out from the darkness,
and the darkness around you will be as bright as noon."

- Isaiah 58:10