WE TRIED TRANSLATIONS

Translator: ZERO_SUGAR

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◈ My Platinum-Blonde Childhood Friend Is Too Pretty ◈

Chapter 69: 25. Traveling Sweden with Elli -3

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Sigtuna, Sweden felt like a village straight out of a fairy tale.

True to what the aunt had said, the Christmas market made it fairly crowded, but that did nothing to hide the beauty of the place.

And the best part was that the people passing by didn't send obvious stares toward Elli. A few did glance at me here and there, but not many.

Because of that, we could wander around sightseeing with a peace of mind I hadn't felt anywhere else.

"There are so many Santa souvenirs."

"It's Christmas now. The market opened up, so."

"But it's similar to Stockholm and yet different. That place had a bit of the same vibe, but here feels even older, somehow. Is it because it's a smaller town?"

"It's just that it's been around longer. Sigtuna was Sweden's very first city."

"Oh, really? That explains it."

"That atmosphere itself has become a tourist attraction."

Every now and then I caught bits of Elli talking about Sweden and Sigtuna.

She had actually been living in Korea since she was five, and the number of times she'd been back to Sweden since then didn't even reach ten, but the way she explained everything as though she were a Swede herself was charming.

Even now, with her mannerisms and the way she talked being a perfect match for a Korean high school girl, her affection for the country she was born in was clearly not something she could just switch off.

I understood that feeling, in a way.

Setting aside how beautiful Sweden was, just the fact that it was the country Elli was born in was enough to fill me with fondness for the place.

"Hey, Elli."

I brought it up almost playfully, speaking to my platinum-blonde childhood friend, who was just as pretty on a foreign street as anywhere else.

"Don't you think it'd be nice to live somewhere like this for about a month someday?"

"A month? Why?"

"Just for the change of pace. Just the two of us. Walking around arm in arm every day like this... taking it slow. Doesn't that sound good? Not forever, but a month feels about right."

"......"

About ninety percent of it was genuine, just not for right now.

I was thinking about after we were both adults.

By then I imagined we'd be stuck to each other in ways that went beyond a daily kiss, and that was what made me say it.

Of course, the plane fare alone to get here wasn't cheap, and I had no idea how much a month-long stay for two would run, so whether it would actually happen was another question.

Still, it wasn't such an unromantic thing to say, was it? I looked over at Elli.

But the moment she heard it, she creased her brow.

Hmm. What did I do wrong.

"Hey."

"Yeah."

"Do you want to die?"

"Sorry."

Watching her cheerful face twist into something severe, I apologized immediately.

Fortunately, she told me the reason right away.

"Is that your idea of a proposal? Are you seriously saying that with a straight face? I'm going to kill you."

"Ah... oh, oh! Absolutely not! If I'm proposing, I'll put in the effort, like when I gave you the ring."

"Hmph."

"It wasn't a proposal. I meant like, living together before marriage, here at this place..."

"If you're living together you're basically married. What do you mean before marriage? Do you want to lose your life?"

"......Right, fair point! Then, how about thinking of it as a trial run for our married life, staying here together... is that okay?"

"If that's what it is... sure, fine."

It was a little unreasonable to be angry about, but the fact that she treated living together with me, or marrying me, as something obvious and inevitable made me happy.

The reason her fuse seemed shorter than usual, I thought, was probably that the word "marriage" still made her embarrassed.

That made her even cuter and more loveable. The way she glared at me with a faint blush on her cheeks made me want to kiss her all over, right then and there.

But with this many tourists around that was out of the question, so we refocused on exploring the town.

"Should we buy souvenirs here? What about that one? The thing with just the nose sticking out from under a Santa hat. It's cute, isn't it?"

"It's ugly."

"You don't think it's cute...?"

"Give that one to Seong Min-jae."

"I wonder if there are any Santa girl dolls. Minjae would love something like that."

We fell easily back into the rhythm of a date. The surroundings were different from being in Korea in a lot of ways, but in the end the two of us were still together, and that made it feel like nothing had changed at all.

Looking at it that way, maybe coming all the way to Sweden wasn't strictly necessary.

As long as we had each other beside us.

"Elli."

"What."

"I want to kiss you."

"......"

"But there are too many people... where are you going?"

"Around the back of that building over there, people don't usually come by."

That was all it took.

* * *

The first day wore us out with the long flight, so we wrapped up sightseeing after a light stroll around the village.

Back at the house, all of us gathered around the big table and had dinner together.

I was marveling at the many dishes and tableware completely unlike anything at home in Korea, and the moment I took a bite of what Grandma Vera and Auntie Ye-rin had made.

"......"

"Too salty?"

"A little...?"

"The food here is like that."

It was quite salty. I tried each dish one by one and most of them were the same.

Aside from the potatoes, pie, and cabbage, the salt was intense. Not so much that it was inedible, and the novelty of it made it interesting enough to be tasty in its own way, but eating it every day would be a stretch.

Elli spoke about it casually, but she seemed to have trouble eating much of it, probably because her palate had been so thoroughly shaped by Korean food.

"It really is salty. Oppa, it's way saltier than that place we went to in Itaewon, right?"

"Ten times saltier, at least. Mark used to mention sometimes that Korean food tasted a bit bland to him, and now I think I get it."

"Koreans eat pretty salty food too. But not quite like this."

Mom and Dad were also shocked by the saltiness, but they took it in stride, in a this-is-what-eating-abroad-feels-like kind of way, and enjoyed the meal cheerfully.

"Do-yoon. What do you think of Swedish cooking?"

"It's delicious. It's different from Korean food so it's interesting too."

"Hoho, eat plenty. Was the walk with Elli fun?"

"Yes. The village was so pretty that just looking around was enough to enjoy it."

"I'm glad Sigtuna is to your liking."

Over dinner I talked a lot with Grandpa William and Grandma Vera too. They seemed very fond of Elli, and hearing that I was her boyfriend seemed to make them take even more interest in me.

The food was salty, but it was its own kind of good, and somewhere in the middle of holding a conversation in Swedish I found myself quietly amused at the situation.

There were moments I didn't quite catch, or when even simple words slipped past me, but even that was fun.

After dinner we drifted to the living room table again for tea and more conversation.

How beautiful it was in summer too, how it would be even prettier when snow fell, how the hustle of this season was lovely but the quiet times had their own charm.

Not watching TV or scrolling through phones, just sitting together and talking in a calm, unhurried way to close out the day. I loved that too.

And late that night.

I was settling into the cot Grandpa William had thoughtfully set up for me in the basement room that felt like a secret hideout, when.

-click

Elli slipped in quietly.

We hadn't said anything about it, but I knew she'd come. We hadn't done our goodnight bisou yet, so she was guaranteed to show up.

I wrapped my arms around her as she came naturally into my embrace, and.

-peck

After a short kiss on the lips, I opened my mouth.

"Your braid looks pretty. It really suits you."

"Grandma did it."

"I should learn before we leave. I'll do it for you back home."

"If you don't learn it properly, I won't let you."

"I'll do my best to learn it. It's so cute and pretty that I think I'll want to see it again when we're back."

"That's obvious..."

Elli's hair was neatly braided into one plait and draped forward over her left shoulder. It suited her wonderfully.

Seeing her like that in a loose, slightly oversized pajama dress, she looked like a beautiful village girl from a cozy little movie town. The blush that spread across her face at my honest compliment was utterly adorable.

I kept telling her how cute she was, then just like usual we kissed under the pretense of a bisou, and I lay down on the bed with her still in my arms.

We lay on our sides facing each other, my arm looped around her, and talked quietly.

"I'll come again tomorrow night, so wait for me."

"You're going to come the night after too, aren't you?"

"I will."

"I'll be waiting every night then."

"Of course you will. But wait even more tomorrow."

"......? Okay. I'll wait lots."

Something about that seemed a little off, but I let it go.

Tomorrow was Christmas Eve, and by this time tomorrow we'd be crossing over into Christmas itself. So I figured she wanted the two of us to spend even more time together. That made sense.

Come to think of it, I'd heard that Christmas Eve night was the night people did all sorts of things, worldwide.

I doubted she meant anything like that, but even so, I was looking forward to it.

Even if we just kept kissing all night, I'd be perfectly happy with Elli.

* * *

The next day.

On Christmas Eve, all of us went sightseeing in Stockholm together.

My family, Elli's family, and Grandpa William and Grandma Vera on top of that.

If Sigtuna had the feel of a classic old village, Stockholm had something that made you think of the Middle Ages, in a way you couldn't quite pin down.

The style of the buildings in general, and especially the streets of Gamla Stan, the old town that preserved the look of Sweden's past, made that feeling even stronger.

Because of that, my parents and I gasped at practically every block we turned and kept busy taking photos everywhere.

"Let's take a family photo here. Do-yoon, come stand by Mom!"

There were photos of all eight of us together, and then under Mom's lead, some just of the three of us.

But into our family photo.

-shuffle

"Elli. You know you're not part of this family yet, right? Where do you think you're sneaking in?"

"...Hmph."

"Ji-eun~ Elli is still our future daughter-in-law, don't be so cold~"

"Honey, a daughter-in-law is still family, she should be in the photo."

"Oppa, stay out of it! Future, future! She's not official yet!"

"I agree with Ji-eun. Not yet. Do-yoon being our future son-in-law is true, but future is the key word."

Elli quietly trying to slip herself into the frame, and the way the word daughter-in-law came so naturally from both sets of parents, gave everyone a small, warm laugh.

Then Auntie Ye-rin pushed back by saying.

"Do-yoon, come take one with us too~ You're family."

"Sure!"

"Who gave you permission to put my son in your family! No way!"

It went back and forth like that for a while.

In the end there were photos of Elli slotted into our family, photos of me slotted into hers, photos with the grandparents, and photos at every tourist spot we'd looked up together before the trip, from the cathedral and the royal palace to various museums.

And even all of that was nearly enough to fill the whole day. In winter, the sun in Sweden starts to set around three in the afternoon. Before long we were heading back to Sigtuna.

My dad had come to Sweden with only Stockholm and Sigtuna in mind from the start, so no one rushed. Just those two places had more to see than we could take in anyway.

Back home earlier than expected, we started putting up all the Christmas decorations we'd picked up while wandering around.

Everyone worked together to dress the house up in a Christmas atmosphere, hanging this and arranging that, and Grandpa William brought out a small Christmas tree from somewhere and set it up in the living room.

"Should we put some decorations in the basement too? So you can see them when you sleep."

"Yes, please!"

I worked with Grandpa William to hang various decorations in the basement room as well.

"This is so nice..."

When it was all done, I sat in the living room staring blankly at the house and those words came out of me without thinking.

At home, we'd go out to eat or do something to mark Christmas, but decorating the house like this was something I hadn't done since I was a little kid.

It was a lot of effort and a hassle to take down afterward, so we never even thought to bother, but actually doing it together turned out to be a lot of fun.

Maybe part of it was that the village and the house itself suited Christmas decorations so naturally, but whatever the reason, it was wonderful.

Then we sat down to a dinner even more abundant than the night before, with Mom lending a hand this time so Swedish dishes and Korean dishes were mixed together on the table.

-clink!

At some point the adults had broken out drinks, and caught up in that full, happy atmosphere, everyone lost track of time talking and laughing together.

Mom and Dad didn't know much Swedish, so there was interpreting woven in here and there, but the conversation was lively and fun all the same.

By the time the hour grew late and we started clearing up, I felt a lingering warmth in my chest that left me a little reluctant to have it end.

After washing up and going back down to the basement room, a kind of hollowness settled quietly inside me.

My family, Elli's family, Elli's grandparents.

The image of everyone laughing and happy together wouldn't leave my head.

Even so.

-thud, thud...

The sound of footsteps coming down the stairs from outside the door brought me back.

Thinking about my pretty girlfriend, who had shared in all of today's happiness, coming to curl into my arms and kiss me just like last night, the hollowness eased a little.

-click!

And when the door opened.

I had been picturing the same sort of pajamas as last night, loose and oversized in the most endearing way, and standing in front of me.

"......Huh?"

"...Merry Christmas."

The prettiest Santa in the world had come to find me.

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