KRISTAL
The second day of Christmas
“You’re staring, daughter.”
Darnit! Jae-Hyun caught me. I was keenly assessing his features, searching his face for any clues about how my humble Korean mentor could be connected to an international Japanese playboy billionaire.
“Sorry,” I mumble, quickly dropping my eyes down to my drawing pad to work on the tougher-than-tough assignment he gave me tonight. Three full manga—or as Jae-Hyun calls them manhwa pages with actual people doing realistic, non-fighty things. And they must all be interesting.
I return to sketching, my pencil moving in sync with “Fun, Fun, Fun” from The Beach Boys, Shut Down Vol. 2 album, spinning on the 60s era Bush portable record player I gifted him six December 26s ago after finding it in the workshop’s archive room.
I hate sketching people. If it were up to me, all my graphics would only involve non-humans or anthromorphs with animal heads. Usually, Jae-Hyun is cool with that. He’d encouraged me to develop my own point of view and style when he first started mentoring me.
But this morning, he’s in a strange mood. Demanding I draw real people, living real life. Not animal anthromorphs, but real people doing real things. Plus, it has to be interesting.
Maybe he knows he doesn’t have much time left?
I don’t realize my eyes have drifted from my notepad up to my mentor again until he coughs and sets down his pencil. He wears his usual daily uniform of a basket stitch cardigan with a dress shirt buttoned up to the top. But he’s aged heavily in the year since I saw him last. His hair is more white than black now, and his face has become extra craggy with a new set of wrinkles.
“Is there something you would like to talk with me about, daughter?” he asks, dipping his head to peer at me over his cloudy reading glasses. He still speaks with a thick and halting accent even though he’s been living in the States for at least a decade.
My throat lumps up at his question. The “daughter” is what gets me. Even though Brian Wilson is now imploring me in a high falsetto not to worry on the record player, guilt roils my stomach.
Why did I get in that fight with Hayato? Ruining any chances of…what exactly?
I once again scan Jae-Hyun’s face, trying to pick out any kind of resemblance to the Japanese billionaire who suddenly reappeared in my life last night.
Jae-Hyun is Korean, and Hayato is Japanese, but could they be related somehow?
Maybe…I think. Even before he got sick, Jae-Hyun looked way older than what I’m guessing to be his sixties, based on his love of 60s era California rock. He drinks too much, doesn’t get enough exercise, and eats terribly—if food isn’t pre-packaged or takes more than a few minutes to heat up in a microwave, it doesn’t go in his mouth. He already has a slightly hunched back from all the non-ergonomic drawing and a semi-permanent cough, thanks to all the smoking he does when I’m not here—which is three-hundred and fifty-five days out of every year.
Yeah, sorry, Brian Wilson. I’m definitely worried.
I lower my eyes back down to my barely drawn on pad as I consider how to broach the subject of Hayato and whatever possible connection he and Jae-Hyun might have.
“Jae-Hyun, have you ever been or lived in Japan?” I ask. “I mean before you came to California?”
He frowns and shakes his head. “I came directly to California from Korea. Why do you ask?”
I look around Jae-Hyun’s overstuffed apartment, trying to decide just how much I should share.
Because I’m not crazy, but Jae-Hyun…well, he kind of is. The room beyond the dining table we’re sitting at is stuffed with boxes, which are themselves stuffed with comics, most of which Jae-Hyun has already read and will never read again. Rather than get rid of or sell his precious comics, over the years, Jae-Hyun has stacked all the boxes in neat rows from the floor to the ceiling and arranged them so that there are three hallways.
The first hallway leads to the front door of the apartment. The second hallway leads to a small bathroom. And the third hallway leads to a kitchen. I’ve seen the kitchen. It’s also filled with boxes with only enough room left over for a dorm fridge and a microwave. Supposedly there’s a bedroom somewhere off the kitchen, but I have my doubts about whether Jae-Hyun actually uses it.
I once got here a little too early on a December 26th and used the key he gave me to let myself in when he didn’t answer the doorbell’s buzz. He was awake and in the apartment, not downstairs at the shop, as I’d thought when I originally came in. I could hear the shower going somewhere in the apartment. But he hadn’t gotten around to cleaning up for me yet.
There were bottles of Soju rice wine scattered about the table, along with several porcelain ashtrays filled with stubbed out cigarettes. Underneath the long table, which only ever hosted two chairs, one for me and one for him, I could see a sleeping bag with a Korean light novel turned upside down on top of it.
Jae-Hyun had never explained the way he lived. Why he never left his little shop, or why he’d filled his living spaces with already read comics.
That had been our relationship from the start after he’d agreed to mentor me after The Elemental Outpost’s closing hours. He was the teacher who never left his shop. I was the student who only appeared for ten days every year. We didn’t ask each other many questions outside of drawing, and we both liked it that way.
But he had looked aghast when he’d come out to find me standing over his Christmas mess. He’d apologized several times with bows and everything. And though I’d kept assuring him it was all right and even offered to help him clean up, it had been hard for me to keep our usual status quo going after seeing how he really lived when I wasn’t around.
For him, too. We somehow managed not to talk about it. But by the end of that annual ten-day installment, he’d begun calling me daughter. That had also been the first time he brought up the possibility of me moving into the empty apartment next door to his.
We’d started talking about me beginning my real adult life above his shop, without him really knowing who I am and without me understanding why he was the way he was. And I’d been alright with that. I’d loved that he didn’t have to know anything about me, to both refer to me as and treat me like a daughter.
However, today is different. Today feels like I’ve once again stumbled upon his Christmas mess, and I find myself struggling with the status quo we both liked so much.
“Jae-Hyun,” I say. “Do you have any family?”
“No,” he answers right away. “My family is all gone. It is just me in this world now.”
He’s in the same situation I would have been if Santa hadn’t adopted me into his tribe of elves. No wonder his work resonated with me from the moment I read the first volume of his manhwa, Nobles and Samurais.
Still, I have to press. “You’re sure? There’s nobody else?”
His face tightens, and his eyes hollow in a way that makes me feel like I’ve tripped off a land mine inside of him. Cue even more anti-Brian Wilson worry.
“Yes, I am sure,” he answers before quickly picking up his Staedtler Mars mechanical pencil to return to his panel of Nobles and Samurai.
I resume sketching, too. That was more conversation than either of us are used to having during class time. I’m not sure what else to say anyway, especially with Hayato refusing to come to meet Jae-Hyun…
I lightly outline my first human for the panel. A man, tall and elegant in a suit, appears underneath my pencil, sitting at a table. You’d think he was skinny underneath his suit, and that makes you feel self-conscious about your own curves. But no…the suit hides a body covered in lean muscle.
I outline the face, then pause for a second before filling in the hair. His hair is combed back into a modern pompadour, the kind that’s always on-trend. But it’s longer than it appears underneath that expensive hair gel and precise cut, and you’ll be surprised when you see it in its natural state upon waking the next morning. Longish curls hanging over eyelashes so thick, you almost reach out to check if they’re real.
If he’s real.
If the best sex of your entire life really happened.
He is real.
If you didn’t know that morning. You definitely found out last night when he cupped your face in both hands and kissed you like you were the girl of his dreams….
The pang of that very real recollection pulls me out of my usual second-person art story daze.
I squeeze my eyes against the memory, then look up at Jae-Hyun, whose face remains tight as he sketches out his panel, much quicker than me.
I hate this. Hate that Jae-Hyun’s all alone. That I seem to be all he’s got, even though I’m only here for ten more days. I’ve got to get him some real help. But Hayato had been so adamant about not coming here. About not wanting any kind of long-term relationship…with Jae-Hyun or anyone else, including me.
Getting him more time should have been enough. But it isn’t. I’ve got to figure out how to fix this.
“Jae-Hyun,” I say, still sketching. “If I asked you to come somewhere with me, would you?”
I hear Jae-Hyun’s rapid sketching slow. “Is it somewhere outside of this shop?”
His question is soft but feels loaded.
“Yes,” I answer, nonetheless.
“Why would you ask that of me?” He still hasn’t stopped sketching, but the scrape of his pencil strokes have slowed to the point that each one is seconds apart.
“It’s hard to explain, but…” I look up from my pad again. “There’s someone I’d like you to meet. Someone, I think you need to meet.”
“As you know, I cannot leave this shop. Perhaps you could bring this someone here?”
I wish. “Um, no. I tried, but I can’t. He’s staying at the Tourmaline, I believe. It’s just a short distance from here. We could walk up to California Street and take a cable car. Get some sun.”
Jae-Hyun’s already shaking his head. “I’ve been feeling poorly these past few months. I do not believe going outside is a good idea.”
Yeah, I bet, I think to myself guiltily. I don’t know what’s going to kill him. But I’m guessing it’s some sort of cancer. Liver or lung. Who knows? And Santa can’t keep him alive forever. “This person I want you to meet might be able to help you with that sickly feeling.”
“Ah, I see,” he says, setting his Staedtler Mars down again. “You want me to see a doctor. You are a good daughter to worry about me. But I have read about your Western medicine. I do not like it. The poisoning. The dying anyway in a hospital when I can do the same right here in my home. Thank you, daughter, but I will not leave my shop to meet with your doctor.”
I open my mouth to tell him it’s not a doctor I want him to see, but a man who loves him enough to trigger my soon-to-be-dead portrait gift—yet claims not to have any idea who he is. However, just thinking those words makes me close my mouth again. Seriously, even my shut-in mentor isn’t crazy enough to believe that story.
“Tell me about your cousin, Krista,” he says, once again picking up his pencil. “Has she made any love matches this year?”
Okay, I shouldn’t have said Jae-Hyun didn’t know anything about me. He’s been curious about my elf cousin, Krista, ever since she match-made one of his shop employees with a struggling musician named Lawrence Shephard. Yes, that Lawrence Shephard, the lead singer of The Leaping Larrys.
These days Lawrence receives plenty of coverage from magazines like People and even serves as one of the All-American Music Star judges. But believe it or not, just a few years ago, Lawrence was a down-and-out musician who answered Krista’s ad for 10 Leaping Larrys, the day ten installment of that year’s annual 12 Days of Christmas panoply. Jae-Hyun had been down in the store when Krista had announced that Lawrence and one of the Elemental Outpost’s then clerks were a True Love match. He was tickled by my cousin’s antics and has been demanding stories of her matchmaking adventures ever since.
“Who was this year’s Christmas match?” he asks me now, as he returns to sketching at his usual pace.
Which makes it that much weirder when I have to answer honestly, “Actually, it was me.”
He completely stops drawing, all his wrinkles converging into a mask of astonishment. “You!”
“Yeah, me,” I admit, deliberately dropping my eyes down and returning to my sketch. “But I’m pretty sure her matchmaking gift is broken due to her pregnancy. She matched me with this guy who was way, and I do mean, way, out of my league. He doesn’t believe in true love, only hookups, because he doesn’t do relationships. So, trust me, it’s not going to work out.”
My heart feels like it’s cracking a little as I say those words, but I know they’re true.
“Is that him?” Jae-Hyun asks, reaching across the table to tap a crony finger against my drawing on my pad.
I glance down and realize... “Yes, that is him.”
Sometime during our conversation, I’d filled in all of Hayato’s features, down to the nose I was sure I’d never get right.
But I got it right. That and everything else. The man in my sketch is beautiful…a Josie hero come to life and save for the 2D nature of the drawing, an exact representation of the man I met on the eleventh day of Christmas.
An idea occurs to me then. “His name is Hayato Nakamura,” I say, turning the pad around so that Jae-Hyun can see it better. “Do you know him?”
Jae-Hyun frowns at the drawing and says, “No, I do not know that man. But he does not seem out of your league to me, daughter. I think he would be lucky to have your true love.”
My heart melts with appreciation for Jae-Hyun’s sentiment, but then immediately re-sinks with guilt and confusion. Hayato says he doesn’t know Jae-Hyun, and Jae-Hyun says he doesn’t know Hayato. So why did Santa’s gift, which was only supposed to apply to loved ones, make me draw a picture of Jae-Hyun for Hayato?
The door’s buzzer interrupts my jumbled thoughts.
“Did you order dinner?” I ask Jae-Hyun, just as the melancholy intro for “The Warmth of the Sun” comes ah-ahhh-ah-ah-ah-ah-ing across the record player.
“No…” Jae-Hyun’s face has gone tight again. He doesn’t like strangers at his door. He’d given me a key to the apartment almost laughably early into my mentorship, just so he wouldn’t have to answer it.
“I’ll get it,” I offer, hope suddenly filling my chest.
If Jae-Hyun isn’t expecting someone after comic shop hours, maybe that means Hayato has finally come to his senses! I rush down the box hallway to open the door. But when I do, my heart sinks.
It’s not Hayato, but a man I vaguely recognize from that strange eleventh day of Christmas night. The silent male driver who ferried us from the restaurant to the hotel. He has a linen bag with The Tourmaline San Francisco stamped across it, hanging off one beefy arm.
“Hi,” I say, glancing in both directions to see if his boss is anywhere in the vicinity.
“Hey, Mr. Nakamura sent me to find you,” he answers, revealing a run-of-the-mill American accent. “I went to that Pier 22 looking for you first. But I ran into this woman, who I guess is your cousin, but was dressed in a bird suit, along with her husband, and a bunch of other people. And they were all kissing for some reason.”
“Yeah, that would be Krista,” I tell him, easily filling in the gaps. “She does a 12 Days of Christmas panoply every year. And this year, she did Two Lovey Doves as her second-day display.”
“What’s a panoply?”
“Kind of like a collection of things—it’s hard to explain, but that’s what she calls it.”
Hayato’s driver scrunches his face, obviously still confused. But since I doubt there’s anything I could say to make him less baffled by my wacky cousin's annual display, I move on to the next question. “You said Hayato’s trying to find me? Is he here with you now, waiting in the car downstairs maybe?” I ask, hope surging once again. I mean, surely Hayato would be willing to come up for a minute or two if he was right outside.
“Nah, he’s still back at the hotel. Business, you know. But I guess you left your drawing pad in his messenger bag, and he wanted me to give it back to you.”
“What?” I quirk my head, totally thrown off by this new development. “No, I didn’t leave my drawing pad in his messenger bag. I’d never—”
I cut off when the driver pulls the special pad I use to draw all my soon-to-be-departed portraits out of the Tourmaline bag. It’s already flipped open to the brown cover, where I can see the words written in my own hand:
“Hi! This pad belongs to Kristal Kringle, and it MUST be returned to her at Pier 22. As you know, Santa sees you when you are sleeping or awake, and he can hunt you down, but he is a terribly busy man, so please don’t make him do that. Be a good citizen and return this pad as soon as possible to its True and Only Owner.” Happy Holidays, Kristal
My cheeks heat. Because yes…yes, that is definitely my soon-to-be departed pad. I’d assumed it had been in my backpack the whole time I’d been over here receiving my after closing hours drawing lesson from Jae-Hyun. You know, where it always is because I only ever take it out to draw pictures of soon-to-be-dead people.
So how had it ended up in Hayato’s bag?
The answer comes sure and swift. Santa. The man, who’d quietly listened this morning, as the other elves quizzed me up and down about the human Krista had matched me with at breakfast.
I should have known his silence was too good to be true. Santa is a ridiculous romantic with a total soft spot for my matchmaking cousin, who hooked him up with his own true love last Christmas. He’s never seen anything wrong with going totally Parent Trap on any of the reluctant couples who don’t jump right into each other’s arms after Krista declares them a true love match. I still couldn’t believe how many tricks he pulled on Krista’s former non-believer husband, Hugh, to get him to come around to being in True Love with an elf.
Obviously, Santa’s up to his old tricks.
“Sorry,” I mumble to Hayato’s driver, reaching out to take my pad. “This has been a huge misunderstanding…”
But the rest of that sentence dies in my throat when the urge to draw overtakes me as soon as I touch the pad.
Which is how, less than twenty-four hours after declaring I wanted nothing more to do with Hayato Nakamura, I ended up at his hotel door with his driver, Declan, standing beside me.