Bryant Park was a dazzling flurry of light and festive colours. Jin-kyu couldn't help but smile as he walked through the gates with Sammy and a massive flask of eggnog in tow.
Jin-kyu could actually smell the alcohol from where he was standing. Sammy had been somewhat over-enthusiastic in his vigorous pouring of the rum. Especially when Jin-kyu had explained to him that alcohol was to, 'make people happy'.
Jin-kyu had, however, then experienced a slight crisis of conscience as to whether he should let Sammy actually drink any of the hearty beverage. Jin-kyu assumed that Sammy was whatever age Jin-kyu had in mind when he was sculpting him, so he figured...early twenties?
Probably legal.
Jin-kyu decided it was Christmas after all.
Sammy's sweater that day was activity themed and bore the knitted motif of ice-skating Christmas elves. Jin-kyu had wanted to point out how maniacal and bloodthirsty the elves looked, skating after a gaggle of reindeers like they were on the hunt for Christmas lunch.
Sammy, however, was clearly besotted with the design as he kept giving all the elves names. Annoyingly, most of them seem to be called Jin-kyu.
"There's so many people!" Sammy exclaimed excitedly, gaping round at the usual bustling crowds.
"Yeah, welcome to the holiday season in New York," Jin-kyu muttered before he noticed someone wearing an excruciatingly bright neon pink hat and waving at him like a lunatic.
"Spotted Sun-hee," Jin-kyu sighed, grabbing Sammy’s sleeve and pulling him and the eggnog over towards where Sun-hee and Will were waiting.
"Baby bro!" Sun-hee shouted excitedly as they drw closer, "I've got tickets for all of us and oh my god Sammy I love your sweater!"
"Thank you," Sammy grinned shyly, looking so incredibly proud of himself you'd think he had knitted the damn thing himself.
"Dad used to wear ones just like that didn't he?" Sun-hee smiled brightly at Jin-kyu before a brief look of concern flashed across her face. She normally made a point of not mentioning their parents too much in front of Jin-kyu as she worried it exacerbated his depression.
"Yeah he did," Jin-kyu replied quickly, doing his best to look like he was grinning. Weirdly enough, it felt less forced than usual. "Although I think the elves on Dad's looked a little less psychotic," Jin-kyu added.
Will snorted loudly as Sun-hee screeched and reached out to bat Jin-kyu's arm before scolding him.
"Don't listen to the Grinch, Sammy!" she laughed, "let's me and you go have fun and leave these two on their own to mutter 'Bah humbug!' as much as they please!"
"I know that!" Sammy announced enthusiastically, "that's Scrooge! We watched that movie last night,"
"Oh fantastic!" Sun-hee smiled.
Jin-kyu's heart clenched strangely as he looked from Sun-hee to Sammy and then to Will. Everybody appeared so genuinely happy to be here, even with 'grumpy Jin-kyu' in tow.
"How much eggnog did you guys make?" Will asked a moment later, raising his eyebrows bemusedly at the extra large SAS-gear Thermos flask that Jin-kyu had managed to root out of the back of his cupboard.
"Enough to make people happy!" Sammy declared. Sun-hee and Will appear to find this hysterical as they both started choking with laughter until Sun-hee was positively red in the face.
"Oh Jesus, Jin-kyu please keep this one," Sun-hee managed to say as she coughed into her gloved hand. "I think he should be your 'for life' model if you know what I..."
"We should skate!" Jin-kyu announced loudly, interrupting his older sister who merely grinned toothily back at him and gifted him with an oh so unsubtle wink.
"Otherwise it will get too busy on the rink," Jin-kyu continued to explain lamely as the others turn to him in surprise at his outburst of seeming enthusiasm.
"You mean you might start bulldozing small children and the elderly?" Sun-hee snorted before going to link her arm with Sammy's, handing the Thermos flask across to Jin-kyu who was actually rather glad for the warmth as he forgot gloves. Again.
The ice rink was as packed as it ever was but Sun-hee still dragged them all out onto it with a burning enthusiasm that never seemed to dim. Sometimes, Jin-kyu worried that Sun-hee was the way she was because she was trying to compensate for him?
"Argh!"
Jin-kyu flinched at the scream from behind him, spinning round quickly on the ice to see a half collapsed Sammy clinging to the support railing for dear life.
"Jin-kyu!" Sun-hee yelled angrily, "it's Sammy's first time remember?!"
Jin-kyu felt his face heat up as a group of teenagers started laughing as they skated past him in the process of getting told off by his sister.
"Sammy, give me your hand," Jin-kyu instructed, trying to sound patient and helpful when he was practically dealing with Bambi on ice.
Sammy extended his mitten so that Jin-kyu could wrap his fingers tightly around it, pulling Sammy gently forward. "Okay now the other one," Jin-kyu said as he cautiously led Sammy away from the safety of the railing.
"It's really slippery," Sammy whispered, "I don't understand,"
"It's okay," Jin-kyu sighed, "I didn't really understand the point either at first, but when you get good you can go fast and do tricks,"
"How long will it take for me to get good?" Sammy asked, looking around nervously at the fast skating patrons circling around the frozen rectangle. Jin-kyu smiled, "Not long I'm sure, you're a fast learner Sammy."
Sammy looked up at Jin-kyu with such a hopeful expression that for a moment Jin-kyu forgot that he was meant to be balancing both of them and a second later they crashed to the ground in a tangle of limbs and profanities (mainly from Jin-kyu).
"Ooh one Kim down and the other still standing!" Sun-hee shouted as she whizzed past them. Will subsequently skated round to them and offered his hand in help as Jin-kyu struggled to pull Sammy upright, his limbs flailing in all different directions.
Half an hour later of slow and steady circles whilst holding Sammy's hand tightly, the younger man announced that he wanted to try a lap on his own.
Jin-kyu asked if he could just skate alongside Sammy to be there if he fell but the responding petulant glower he received was enough to make him stop in his tracks.
"I can do this Jin-kyu," Sammy huffed petulantly, "I'm a fast learner remember?"
"Yeah...sure," Jin-kyu murmued, wincing as Sammy began to slice his skates noisily across the once smooth surface and swerved off in the opposite direction.
"Well at least he's going the right way round this time," Will shrugged before seeing the look on Jin-kyu's face, "maybe I'll just skate behind him for part of the way," Will added, gliding off gracefully as Sun-hee cackled with laughter.
Half way along the oblongish rectangle Sammy nearly lost his footing when trying to avoid a couple that had stopped to kiss. Jin-kyu darted forward, as if meaning to cross the rink diagonally but he relaxed a moment later as Will was already there to help steady Sammy.
"Geez bro, would you chill?" Sun-hee snorted, "He's not made of glass you know? He won't exactly break into a million pieces if he falls!"
"Ceramic might," Jin-kyu muttered, shaking his head as Sun-hee frowned at him. "Nothing," he told her.
Jin-kyu turned back round, ignoring his sister's thoughtful look as he found himself waving back to Sammy who, it turned out, was just pin-wheeling for balance.
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