Betwixt and Between

Chapter 7

DECEMBER - II

"Silent night, Holy night,
All is calm, all is bright" ~

Quite contradictory to the Christmas carol being sung by a group of teens wearing long red robes and Santa Claus hats (probably much against their will), the city streets are definitely not silent or calm, packed to their maximum capacity with people of all sorts. Excited little kids jumping around on a permanent sugar-high; annoyed teenagers with their hands in their pockets who sigh loudly and roll their eyes at their embarrassing families every now and then; couples walking hand-in-hand and showing a little too much PDA for anyone's liking as they make out under shining Christmas lights; seemingly lost tourists who ask for direction every five minutes; and last but not least, young adults like ourselves who have nothing better to do but just roam around Brooklyn city on this year's Christmas Eve.

We've sort of formed a little random family now; with Fleur as the mom of the group, Tae as the crazy uncle, Rania as the cute and childish little sister, me as the nonchalant middle sister, Kookie as our designated pet rabbit (because as college students, we didn't have the luxury of affording a dog and Kookie's bunny teeth were a perfect resemblance anyway) and our newest addition, the responsible oldest sister, Areum. None of us could particularly be considered to be social butterflies - we did have a few friends outside the main squad but none of them were really close to us, so we ended up spending a majority of our day around each other. I wasn't going to complain, because I honestly couldn't ask for a better group of friends than this odd bunch.

Which is how we ended up together, once again, mindlessly walking through the streets of Brooklyn, illuminated by endless rows of Christmas lights which shone mainly in contrasting hues of red and green. Right now, Kookie and Tae are out hunting for some Chinese takeout food for us to eat, while the remaining four of us stand in front of the giant Christmas tree in front of the Brooklyn Borough Hall Plaza.

I stare at the huge decorative tree as I finally take my time to admire it, and comment, "Wow, it really is magnificent". It's always refreshing to see an entire country get so hyped about a single day, focusing on something that brings everyone so close together. It isn't something I'm entirely familiar with, since Christmas isn't even a national holiday in Taiwan, and it's not exactly my kind of thing either, since I'm more of an introvert, but it's nice to be a bystander witnessing all of this nevertheless.

"Yeah", Rania and Fleur reply simultaneously, then scream "Jinx! No, double jinx!". This continues for a while until octuple jinx, when Rania is a bit too late as she catches up her breath. "No fair! I needed to take a break!", Rania replies, frustrated, for which she earns a pinch on the arm from Fleur. She shrieks in confusion, and Fleur simply rolls her eyes as she explains, "You just spoke and that's your penalty, silly".

While this whole exchange is taking place, me and Areum back away a bit and silently laugh at the crazy duo quarreling over seemingly useless things. As the silence around us grows, I start up a conversation with my so-called older sister, who I've found out is a great listener and one of the few people I can talk to without thinking things through a hundred times in my head.

"So....how's it going with you and Tae?", I ask a little teasingly and full of curiosity.

"Hm? Oh, Tae? Yeah he's a sweet guy, I guess", she says, trying to keep up a fake wall of confidence which could easily crumble down at any second.

"You guys seem to have gotten awfully close so fast. I mean y'all looked like you were basically stuck together at the ice rink the other day", I smirk, and internally give myself a pat on the back for my excellent conduct of facial expressions which I picked up from my continuous association with Kookie.