Twelve Months of Kristal: 50 Loving States Maine

“Oh, you know…” she says with a chagrinned grimace. “Because I’m an elf, and I only get to live in this dimension for twelve days a year.”

5

Bacchanoeling

KRISTAL

I wait for him to respond with a heavy heart. Tonight’s dinner date has been so much fun. Real human, as us elves sometimes say, and I’d hoped to leave it on that note. With him, thinking I was just weirdly obsessed with People magazine—which I totally am. Other than manga and gourmet meals, it’s the thing I miss the most the other fifty weeks of the human year.

I wish he hadn’t asked me a direct question. I might have gotten out of here with a halfway sane impression left behind if he hadn’t. But Santa’s elves are incapable of lying. If someone asks me a question, I have to answer it truthfully. Just like I can’t not draw and then give someone a picture of a future departed loved one. But now, my honesty means this lovely real human feeling has to go away.

I already know how he’ll respond. It happened so many times when I decided to try out a dating app at the last twelve-day break that I’ve pretty much memorized this sudden end-of-date script.

Dates would be going okay. Then inevitably, they’d ask what I do for a living. And I’d have to tell them I’m an elf. And they’d laugh because they’d think I was joking…then they’d realize after asking for several clarifications that I’m dead serious.

The thing is, I’m not cutesy like my cousin Krista, who still manages to attract plenty of guys, even after she enthusiastically admits to being an elf, often without even being asked. She looks and comes off like a living, breathing anime character. In contrast, I look like somebody who just watches a lot of anime at home. None of my dates have seen me as zany but loveable. To them, I appear to be a grown woman who not only still believes that Santa is real, but that he employs her.

But I believe Santa is real because I know he is. For a fact. And I know that fact because I’m one of his elves. It’s as simple as that for me.

Not so much for my human dates.

Another reason I should probably take Jae-Hyun up on his offer. How nice would it be to answer the “what do you do” question with a reply that wouldn’t make someone decide I’m crazy before quickly asking for the check.

Speaking of which…I once again hold out the cash to Hayato. “Now, will you let me pay for my own meal?”

A beat ticks by, and then he takes the money from me.

My heart sinks with both relief and sadness. I won’t owe him anything, but I also won’t—

My thoughts halt when instead of pulling out his wallet to tuck the money in, he places the messy stack of bills back into my purse.

Then he raises his dark gaze to meet mine as he says, “You’re aware that I also contracted Eloa for sex tonight?”

My mind…I can’t exactly say for sure what it does. It’s like it blinks out for a few seconds. Then comes back online, only to stumble over quite a few of this dimension’s static time units while I try to translate the words that just came out of his mouth. I’m pretty sure he spoke to me in English, but it feels like I’m speaking another language as I realize out loud, “You…want…me…to…have…sex…with…you…”

“Yes,” he says, his answer as instant as my realization was slow.

Oh, dear Christmas…

My eyes drop again as I try to figure out how to respond. Like I said, Grandpa Claus doesn’t raise his adopted elves with any sexual hang-ups whatsoever. In fact, since us elves consider ourselves family, we’re often encouraged to engage in what we all call “bacchanoeling” over the twelve days of Christmas when eligible humans are available. Basically, eating, drinking, and being merry in whatever way our hearts desire before returning to the North Pole.

I’d tried bacchanoeling the year I turned twenty-one just to see how I’d like it. I hadn’t. Fumbling one night stands fueled by too many drinks paled in comparison to an evening curled up in my own bed, with a bunch of People magazines and the stack of new mangas that Jae-Hyun always has waiting for me on December 26th.

But guys like Hayato Nakamura never happened to elves like me.

And though we’ve shared a few pots of sake, I get the feeling he won’t fumble around in the dark.

This might very well be a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.

Should I take it?

6

I Should…But I Don’t

HAYATO

She’s here with me, but she could run at any minute.

This uncertainty is another feeling I’m not accustomed to, and it makes this new song that much more intriguing. I loosen my tux tie as Kristal explores my hotel’s penthouse suite in the financial district. I watch her take in the view of San Francisco and its sparkling bay, the large receiving room big enough to host a holiday party or a business meeting, and the rest of the suite, which takes up an entire floor of the Tourmaline San Francisco. Her eyes remain wide with astonishment. Looking the same now as they did when we walked out of the restaurant together, after her quiet, “Okay.” Then took a technically short but emotionally long ride in my hire car back to the hotel.