I don't know what's gotten into you, but you resemble Chewbacca quite a lot these days . Especially with the kitchen mop you're calling a haircut.
It took me a while to decipher my brother's text. Apparently, that was the response to my villain question. Despite his little hairy looks, as far as I remembered, Chewbacca was one of the good guys, right?
He is one of the side-side characters; his entire personality limited to barking into the camera…although on second thought, this is surprisingly fitting, Putin remarked.
"Thank you ever so kindly," I responded, turned to my stomach and readjusted my blanket before scrolling through all the other messages I had ignored earlier. One was from Frieda. When will you be coming in tomorrow?
Was planning around ten am, I replied thinking that she might need my help in the morning. But at the same time, I couldn't really bring myself to sacrifice too much sleep.
I didn't have to wait long for a response.
Ten is perfect, Frieda wrote, followed by two Santa and two Christmas tree emojis. Which reminded me…
Do you need me to wear a funny and funky Christmas Jumper?
Many workplaces—especially in the social and retail sectors made their employees wear this kind of clothing to spread some fake Christmas cheer. Or so I heard. Three dots appeared below my message and remained dancing there for a while. Frieda seemed to be writing and deleting her response over and over. Or she wrote a full fucking novel. I couldn't recall my question being that complicated, but this was Frieda. She could get hung up over the weirdest sort of things. I mean...she was the type of person that wore sensible shoes!
If your jumpers are just as humorous as your face masks, I'm not sure whether they're all too appropriate for our residents, was the response I received in the end.
Ah… so my slightly socially awkward colleague worked hard trying to be as politically correct as possible. That was fitting.
You don't need to be that formal with me, I texted back. A quick 'to hell with your crude humour' would have done the job. And would have saved you at least ten minutes.
There was no further response, and I cocked my head. I knew Frieda thought my masks were hilarious, and so did some residents. The others—to put it into politically correct terms—were simply too innocent or old-fashioned to fully appreciate them.
"Christmas jumpers," I mumbled. Now there was an idea. I should perhaps expand my side hustle a little. Especially, now that it had granted me such great fortunes. "Alexa, please add a hundred white and a hundred black hoodies to my shopping list," I told the cylinder-shaped loudspeaker-lookalike that probably transmitted each of my nightly wanking sessions to secret agents of at least fifteen different nations, but then scratched my head. Christmas was all about cheesy colours, right?
"Alexa, cancel that shit and put fifty white, fifty black, fifty maroon, and fifty forest-green hoodies on my list."
I had to repeat my request a couple of times before that stupid AI understood what I wanted. Whether any of those fifteen secret agents turned the volume up at that, I didn't know. I was sure at least one of them suspected some sort of weird crime behind a former druggie ordering a total of two-hundred almost identical jumpers. Two hundred almost identical jumpers…perhaps I was still a little off track? Heck, why the fuck was the festive season ever so complicated.
"Christmas Jumpers aren't made from hoodie material, are they?" I asked the AI, who decided to google the entire history of Christmas Jumpers for me and proceeded to read it out loud with the enthusiasm of spoiled milk.
I wasn't listening. Rather, I was busy looking up some items on my favourite online shopping site. "They're hand-knit, or well… machine-knit at least." Where there fuck was I supposed to find time for this, unless…
A Cheshire cat-sized grin split my face in two as an idea hit me like a lightning bolt.
"Alexa, cancel all the jumpers, and instead order a pack of maroon-coloured wool, a pack of forest green-coloured wool…and—I counted on my hands—ten sets of knitting needles." I had wanted to learn how to properly knit anyway. Here was my chance. I would start working on my first jumper tomorrow, put it up on the website on Friday, and then jump straight into the post-Christmas sale on boxing day. Gosh, I was a marketing wunderkind! Someone hand me an award immediately!
By Saturday, I should be done with two jumpers, at least, and gift Frieda with the other one. She didn't seem to be the Christmas jumper type and this needed changing.
Now, I only had to come up with a cheeky rather than naughty slogan to earn her seal of approval.
I put my phone aside and then checked the clock. Min Hungry and ChimChim had left to pick up some freshly-made street food from—was it Jenny's Kitchen? Jinny's Kitchen? I couldn't remember and it didn't matter. The new restaurant at the end of our street surely couldn't be missed thanks to its bright yellow walls that stood out like artificial sunburn in our grey little neighbourhood. My stomach performed little happy dances in anticipation. I didn't even remember the last time I ate Tteokbokki when sober.
(You'll probably hear more about this restaurant in the future because ChimChim had walked in there the other day and demanded a job—and got hired as an intern. He would be starting the Tuesday after Christmas.)
I shook my head. Not having eaten all day required me to distract my yodelling stomach, until the food arrived. Otherwise, I might end up biting into my pillow in desperation. Down feathers probably tasted awful. They had an oddly dry look to them…although depending on their age they might be covered in hair oils, skin cells, and ear wax. Not a very tasty combination, if you asked me. Nevertheless, I carefully licked the corner of my pillowcase then closed my eyes. The taste was a hundred-percent fabric detergent, and I couldn't decide whether I liked it or not. I was still hungry.
To distract myself, I decided to look up knitting patterns. I didn't want my Christmas jumper collection to look boring. A bit old-fashioned—to add to the geeky-vibe I was going for, and a bit of granny's curtain frills—to showcase the skill I had yet to acquire, would work as the perfect canvas for middle-finger swinging or bum cheek juggling Santas, angels, and Grinches.
Knitting jumpers was going to be great. In fact, it would be awesome. I found that woolwork was distracting me perfectly from whatever other shit was going on inside my head. Because this other shit seemed to be building a fucking movie theatre inside my head while playing trailers on demand.
The scene from outside the hospital seemed to be my subconsciousness' favourite. Star, taking a couple of steps back. Ensuring to always remain outside my reach.
The young girl had genuinely believed that diseases like mine only existed in the media. But here I was, living proof that things like this can happen in the real world. That something like that might have happened to her…
Perhaps my little round of shock therapy had proven too much for her? Darn…why had I not followed my doctor's advice? They would have talked me out of ideas like this. Probably, for this very reason.
"But I only wanted to…help," I told no one in particular, as another fear grew within me. What if, instead of helping Star, my actions made things worse?
I hadn't mentioned the story to anyone yet. Neither my brother nor Min Curious, nor Wan Hanjoo, or anyone else… well, there wasn't anyone else in my list of trustees, to be honest.
Somehow, I had gone from social butterfly to cocooned caterpillar in the last few years. And didn't think most former allies even remembered my name… But, to be completely honest with you, I failed to be sad about it. Because I couldn't remember their names either. It dawned on me then. I had surrounded myself with meaningless acquaintances then. Now, I had friends. Proper friends. The kind of people I could call at three am on a random Tuesday to tell them I just woke up in Jeju wearing nothing but a Fez, and they would come to pick me up with no questions asked.
Skip that.
They would ask a million questions. And would take just as many pictures. But they would not complain. And it felt fucking great to have this kind of friends in my life.
I shook my head and decided it was finally time to get out of bed. Shuffling into the bathroom, I turned on the shower, but before I jumped under the hot spray, I used the nozzle for some highly-necessary cleaning. ChimChim seemed to have been a few seconds late for the toilet and didn't aim for perfection if you get my drift.
Weirdly enough, I didn't mind finding a waterfall-induced toilet seat every morning. All things considered, ChimChim did well, and demanding perfection wouldn't be fair on him. Demanding perfection isn't fair on anyone, Hermione chimed in, although no one had asked her to.
So, with a quick spray and wipe, the bathroom was squeaky clean again, and I could start my morning (late afternoon) routine.
My face had started to resemble a war zone, I noticed upon my first glance in the mirror. I had some breakouts, and the left side of my face was covered in four shiny and sparkly new pimples. I was also overdue a shave and desperate for a haircut. I guess my brother hadn't been off with his Chewbacca comparison. All I needed was a black nose, and I could be the stunt double.
I cocked my head from one side to the other. Malfoy-blonde would look good on me; the only thing left to decide was whether I wanted to rock a Lucius or a Draco. But perhaps, I could leave this decision to the hairdresser.
I hadn't taken care of my locks for so long, I didn't even have an address for a renowned hair designer anymore. Not wanting to go by online recommendations, I texted my brother, who suggested an emergency spa day as he was overdue a little grooming session himself.
At first, I wanted to reply with some macho man comment but decided against it. With his approximately eighty-hour working week, unhealthy running obsession, and coffee addiction, my brother should be encouraged to take a spa day and not be ridiculed for it.
Great, I responded instead. Perhaps we can add massages and facials to that. My skin looks like the surface of Mars these days. A massage would be great indeed. My calves started to ache in anticipation. Would it be weird to ask a random stranger for a bum-massage? My backside was always too tense of my liking.
Are you hydrating enough? You need to drink at least two litres of fresh spring water daily. Don't get the plastic bottled stuff. You don't know what kind of chemicals are infused into your drink…
I rolled my eyes. That was such a Jin response. And I knew for a fact that he didn't follow his own advice, not based on the number of coke zero bottles in the back of his otherwise pristine car. I could only assume Daeun was standing next to him, reading the messages over his shoulder. Miss Yoga, Pilates and Clean Eating was all about chemical-free, freshly sourced, natural sunlight-grown ingredients—no matter whether we talked about food or cosmetics.
I shoved my phone aside. Finally getting undressed, I assessed my reflection in the oversized bathroom mirror. I had gained a little weight and no longer resembled a scarecrow on a cornfield. My legs looked a bit stronger, and there was a little comfort pooch between my hip bones. "You need a name," I told my tummy, but I wasn't able to come up with anything on the spot. Perhaps, I could as ChimChim for advise later.
Thanks to my meds, there were no longer any purple patches on my skin or other visible reminders of my disease.
Star wheedled her way back to the forefront of my mind, and I stopped myself a millimetre short of smacking my forehead against the tiles. I needed distraction.
Although I lived in the country with the fastest online-shopping-shipping in the world, it was not fast enough for my taste. My wool and knitting needles wouldn't arrive before the following morning. And who knew for how long ChimChim and Min Unable-To-Make-Quick-Decisions would be gone.
Defeated, and still unshowered and naked, I strolled into the living room, where my gaze fell onto the crooked Christmas tree in the corner that seemed to be in constant danger of toppling over due to the humungous amount of ornaments it was forced to carry. It was a stark contrast to the tree at my brother's house, where every detail was colour-matched to the artwork on the walls, and each ornament carefully placed ad polished.
The decoration here was all handcrafted from various household items. It was fairly easy to tell which ones were designed by ChimChim (rainbow-coloured and wonky) and which were made by his brother (black and pristine). Although, neither seemed to have an eye for aesthetics. Don't get me wrong, it felt homey and comforting, and I wouldn't have wanted a Christmas tree to look any other way. It had a certain charm, despite looking like something first-graders could have produced.
But I wondered whether I should have only ordered eight sets of knitting needles. In my head, I could already see the quantity of my Christmas jumper production dwindling by twenty percent.
I could advertise my job, you may think…but then people would expect to be paid for it. I needed free labour to get my business rolling, thank you very much… but hey… what about your knitting skills? Please send your free sample (one jumper in each colour and size) to:
The one and only (soon to be) Knitting Grandmaster Kim Taehyung-ssi,
Patient number 19951230 (you mustn't forget this—there are five other fuckers with the same name)
The Seaside Therapy Centre, Wing B
Yeongdo-gu
Busan
I cocked my head. As much as I liked the aesthetics of the Christmas tree, something was missing. And that something was…me.
I would have loved to contribute some crafts to the motley mix. And I doubt ChimChim or Yooooooongles would mind.
I went to my room where I retrieved my backpack and rummaged through it until I found some somewhat useful items. There was a rock, two safety pins, an old train ticket, some crumbs, most likely potato crisps, a mix of different coloured yarn ends, a computer mouse—I completely forgot about this one, one of Minho's toy cars, and a crochet hook. Crocheting wasn't my strong suit, but I could easily and swiftly whip up some simple designs.
I don't want to brag (I totally do) but last week, it had only taken me twenty minutes to create a coaster set for each of my favourite nurses.
For this tree, I decided on a few little figurines: a blue bear (for me), a red chicken (that somehow reminded me of ChimChim), a purple cat (Min (I-Secretly-Love-Pastels would be pleased) and a grey whale (which somehow seemed to befit Frieda)—and a pink alpaca (no idea where this had come from) if I found time for it.
"Let's get cracking," I told myself. I should be done with at least one of my four (or five) ornaments before the brothers returned home with the food. But first, I really needed that shower.
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