Clothes and style weren't typically on my mind. Whatever jeans I pull out first, and one of my three hoodies during winter is usually the extent of my outfits. But today, I really couldn’t decide.

Jeans and a hoodie – looks way too chill. Like I don’t care! I do care! Admittedly way too much considering I’m very briefly hanging out with someone who might be the anonymous person leaving me slightly weird love notes!

A few outfit changes later and I go back to my hoodie like a guilty puppy with its ears draped all the way back.

“Oh my god, are you done yet?” Aaron groaned, melting against the doorframe of my bedroom with tired eyes. His clothes almost matched mine, save for the colours. I should've known I wouldn't be dressed any different. 

“I took like 10 minutes.” I retorted, slipping some trainers on. 

Aaron shook his head, speaking louder as he descended the stairs. “Of course, you can't read a clock. I don't know why I thought you could.” 

“Says the guy who only uses a 12-hour clock! ‘What's 18 mean? 13:24?? That's impossible!’ We live in England!” I stumbled down the stairs fast, trying to catch up to him. He left the door open for me and I slammed it shut as I raced down the driveway.

“Why would you need to clarify that it's 2 PM if we're all outside in the sunlight?”

“Saying you have plans at 8 the next day does not clarify a thing!” 

“Yes it does, why would I get up for 8 AM on a day I'm not in school?” He scoffed as if I was being ridiculous. Yeah, sorry I'm the total idiot.

I can't say we stopped our bickering, right up until we made it to the grounds of the Christmas fair.

Laid across a field in a small neighbourhood, not far from the local shopping centre, stood rows of wooden buildings. Warm lights dangled from each block and a dusting of fake snow had been painted onto their roofs with a glittering white. They sold fried food and sweets, gifts and toys, and tickets for the rides dotted around.

We stopped by the rotted wooden fence lining the field where the bushes no longer grew. We had to speak loudly over the blaring Christmas music and vibrant chatter of the people flooding the grass.

“My friends are over there,” I pointed to a booth with pools of water circling it, yellow ducks wearing Santa hats bobbed around.

Aaron took a quick glance. “I'll be off elsewhere. I'm gonna have fun before Sammy shows up.” He said with a deadpan expression.

I curtly nodded, steering myself towards Jacie and Dan, who by the look of things, had won a stuffed reindeer. 

A dim voice breached my head, in the know-it-all tone Harvey had mastered. “Your opinion affects his too.” Yeah right. I'm never the one to bring Sammy up, yet conversations about her always start negatively.

“Elfie! Look what I just won!” Jacie held the reindeer up as if the sun were about to cast it in its godly golden glow. It didn't. The skies were grey and the breeze cold. 

Dan raised a brow, but a smile had captured his face. “You won?”

“I told you which duck to get, so I won it by proxy.” 

“Sure. But I get naming privileges.” His smile became more of a smirk. Jacie’s face fell and she shook her head. “Turp.” 

“No!”

The expression on my own face certainly wasn't positive. “What is Turp?”

“What he calls everything I get.” Jacie sighed, lowering the teddy in defeat. 

“It's a good, strong name.” Dan said with his hands on his hips, and his chest straight and proud. 

I draped an arm on his shoulder to dampen his  shine. “God help any kids you spawn into this world.”

“You wouldn't want to be little Turp’s uncle?” He asked with round eyes. The warm lights of all the chaos around us only helped his innocent, pleading look as it twinkled across his eyes.

But it didn't help enough. “Definitely not.”

“That's so rude, man.” 

“Come on! Let's go eat, I'm starving!” I ignored his terrible attempt at a pout and threw my arm through his, locking our elbows and dragging him away. 

Jacie kept up despite paying more attention to the new reindeer in her arms than us. As she's said before, there's nothing like a fair to bring out the quickly-shrinking inner child of a teenager. It seemed to be a place she could be a little childish without worrying about other people's thoughts.

I think I got it too. I mean, my arm was linked with Dan's and we kept telling each other crude jokes just to crack a dubious smile onto one another’s face. 

“Maybe Rudolph is actually a huge jerk, and that's why the other reindeer didn't like him.” Dan began, he held his free hand up in explanation.

I shook my head. “Sounds victim blamey.”

“Yeah, you're right. Besides, he'd be called Rude-olph if he was.” He finished with the dumbest, smugest expression ever. Not even an award-winning comedian would wear that confident of an expression. 

We'll ignore the fact that it made me laugh. I shook his arm to wordlessly say how stupid I thought the joke was. 

“It'd be a better name than Turp..” Jacie mumbled from behind.