I didn’t know how
thankful your love was
I thought it would
stop once it ended

Minseok struggles to pull a sack of Christmas decorations from the attic to his living room, turning his face away so as not to catch dust. He unties the ribbon on the sack and pulls stems of the old Christmas tree that she bought that year. He doesn’t even plan on putting it up again but Christmas comes and so, he would like to think that she’ll come, too.

He takes everything out of the box and looks around the living room, wondering where we’ll be the perfect place to put the tree up. Settling on that space at the opposite side of the room across his sofa, he places the foot of the tree and starts building.

“Oppa, let’s build this Christmas tree in your living room,” she brightly chirps in that high-pitched tone Minseok would never admit to like the moment he opens his front door to let her in.

He scratches his neck and follows her inside, forgetting to pull the door back like she always does and Minseok always closing it behind her. “What?”

“I said,” she says, looking up from sitting on the floor, her round, owl-like eyes twinkling at him. “Let’s build this Christmas tree!”

“You brought that?” Minseok slouches himself on the sofa, raising his eyebrow at her.

“I kind of did,” she murmurs after thinking for a moment.

“What do you mean you kind of did?” he asks furthermore, raising his eyebrow yet again.

“Well,” she starts, “I asked Mama to buy one little tree for you…”

Minseok is silent and she knows why. Her intentions are pure but Minseok doesn’t like this, she always buying things for him, always being the giver and him being the receiver. He is the boyfriend; he’s supposed to be the one giving stuffs to her.

But life is difficult. You don’t just meet your match and sometimes, who you meet isn’t even your match at all.

He loves her and she loves him, too, so he tries to understand that even on their very different social status, their love will help them survive but sometimes, it just gets too much for him to take – especially when whenever he thinks of those things she’s giving him, the memory of her mother calling him a “cheapskate” and a “social climber” ruminates on his mind.

“Oppa, do you know what this tree is?” she asks, meticulously putting on each and every branch. “It’s a fir tree. This tree symbolizes everlasting life.”

Minseok nods her head – his mind still on her mother though seeing her and listening to her explain things like this, he would like to think that the tree she’s building would somehow symbolize their everlasting love.

“Do you know why Christmas’ color is red?”

“Love?”

“No,” she chuckles, “I knew you’d say that, oppa. Red is for sacrifice; symbolizing how Jesus’ sacrifice himself for the human race.”

“What about bells? What do they symbolize?” he asks, kneeling down beneath the tree to help her build and decorate it – their tree.

“It symbolizes how the shepherd guides the sheep back to the herd; like how Jesus calls us, guiding us back to him,” she answers, ringing one of the bells before putting it on the tree.

“And the bow?”

“Remember that legend I told you about the red string of fate?” she asks and Minseok nods. “It’s almost the same. We’re bound, all of us, together because we’re all children of God.”

“And the candle?”

“It’s the star which guided the three kings to reach Jesus on Christmas night.”

“And the wreath?”

“It’s the never-ending love. See?” she holds a wreath for him to see. “It just goes round and round; thus, it never ends.”

“Okay, last one,” Minseok stands up, slightly massaging his numb knees from kneeling down too long on the ground. “What does the star symbolize?” he shows her the star to be put at the top of the tree before tiptoeing and trying to put it perfectly.

She leans back, admiring the beautiful Christmas tree they just build and smiles at him.

“The star is my favorite.”

“Why?”

“It symbolizes hope. There’s a Chinese proverb and it says, ‘As long as there’s hope, there’s love.’ I’d really like to pray that that’s true, oppa. That no matter what happens, no matter what the situation is, as long as we have hope in our hearts, then our love will survive.”

He only smiles at her but Minseok prays for the same.

Minseok need not to tiptoe know; he has outgrown that little Christmas tree and as he places that same star that he did five years ago, the last of the decorations she brought him one day of December, he thinks of her and hopes that maybe, just maybe, she’s thinking of him, too.

Four days before Christmas.