DRAWINGS [jaeyong]

[13]

[THIRTEEN]

"Ring ring, I don't feel like coming to the phone today, everyone should just leave me alone. I don't feel like coming to the phone today, but I don't feel like being alone. I can't deal with the chills on my own, freezing all night long. I can't tell what's real or where I belong."

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JAEHYUN somehow made his way back home, his whole body being engrossed in rain water during the trip. As he drove through town, he couldn't help but gaze at all the glimmering Christmas lights set up around the city's lamp posts and red, green, and white decorations dazzling a few houses here and there.

If he was being true to himself, he actually did like the holiday — notice the word without the plural. Christmas was really the only grand occasion he could somewhat tolerate, which was quite dismal to others, but every single other holiday just seemed kinda bland and in his eyes and was almost a waste of money and time. The same could be said about Christmas he supposed, but he grew up in a household that didn't follow the tradition of giving gifts every year. Instead they got a few small things in their stockings, and yeah, they'd set up the Christmas tree and all that jazz but it was more casual.

He preferred it that way. He couldn't imagine the anxiety that came with getting almost every single one of your relatives gifts, and not to mention, the Black Friday shopping that came along with it.

Totally not something he was interested in.

Jaehyun enjoyed the calmer atmosphere that his family held about the month of December — things he could remember, and that usually happened every year, was sitting by the fire and making egg nog and hot chocolate. He and his dad would have snowball fights in the backyard while his mother would set up the lights outside the porch.

Jaehyun liked things that were small and pretty, so when he grew to be the age of six, he pleaded to his mom to help decorate the house as well. She offered him a warm smile, and next thing you know, the boy was tangled in wires and tripping over bobbles scattered across the ground from the mess he made out of the ornament box.

It took a lot of convincing to ever get his mother to allow him to 'assist' her again.

Once his parents got divorced, Christmas changed. Hajoon's family followed more of the traditional way of buying a ton of gifts and inviting a load of people over during the special day, usually to drink wine and open presents. It was so chaotic the first time Jaehyun was forced to go Black Friday shopping with his mom, he swore to himself he would never accept any invitation of the sort the years after unless he wanted to get run over by a shopping cart that held a 86" TV or help children find their parents.