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“Not shocking. We all hate missing the celebration, not to mention seeing our family.” He moaned. “Gods, I want some songpyeon right now.”

“Those are good,” I commented. We’d found some at a Korean market last summer, and Chris had demanded I try them, not that it took much convincing.

“Anyway,” Carter said with a shake of his head. “What about Chuseok?”

“I was thinking we could celebrate it here.”

He stared at me for a moment. “Like the Chuseok that is technically on Friday? This Friday?”

“Is there another one?”

“Nope, so you mean Friday. Cool. Cool. Cool. That’s not rushed at all. Do you know anything about Chuseok?”

“Not really. It’s like Thanksgiving, right?”

“In the barest sense that it’s a harvest festival and focused on family,” Carter replied. He moved toward the grass and plopped down beside a tree, then waved a hand next to him. I quickly sat down near him. “Look, I don’t think it’s a bad idea. I really don’t.”

I smiled. Thank the monster god.

“But,” he said before I could get truly excited, “I think one, you need to learn more about the holiday so you fucking know what you’re doing, and two, you need to keep your expectations low. Very low. This”—he waved around—“is never going to be like going to my grandparents in South Korea and seeing all our cousins and aunts and uncles.”

My shoulders hunched up.

He rested a hand on my arm. “It’s not a bad idea, Jaxon, and I’m sure Chris will love it. But yeah, it won’t be the same. However, saying that, it doesn’t mean we can’t have fun here, okay? Chuseok is about family and honoring those who came before us. We might not all be blood-related, but you and our friends are all family.”

“So you’ll help me?”

“Of course, man.” Carter laughed. “Samantha will too.” He looked around like someone was spying on us and bent forward. “Never tell her I told you, because she says she won’t be relegated to the kitchen just because she has a vagina, but Sam is an amazing cook. I could probably bribe her to make food. We’d have to help, of course.”

“Of course.” I would do whatever I could to help. I didn’t want this all to fall on Carter and Samantha. Besides, I wanted to make this special for Chris. I wanted to show him I was listening and that I cared. I also made a mental note to read some blogs and watch some videos on Chuseok. Carter was right; I needed to educate myself on it.

“Also, we need to figure out who to invite,” he said.

I paused. “Is that something you can do?” The thought of having to actually speak to people almost made me not want to do this.

“You’ll need to help.” He chuckled. “But yeah, I can take care of actually inviting people.” He pursed his lips. “Tate will have to come. Oh, and that transfer student Luc. He has to come. Seth for sure. Maybe Aaron.” The longer Carter mused out loud, the more my stomach clenched. This was going to be a rather large get-together.

“Maybe we should hold it outside?” I offered.

He nodded. “Probably a good idea. Your room is way too small for this.”

I was coming to see that.

“Chuseok takes place over three days, but it’s actually on Friday. I think we will just have to stick to celebrating the one day.”

Yeah, we couldn’t hold a three-day party. As Carter had said, this wasn’t going to be the same as celebrating with his family, but I was determined to make it the best that I could for Chris. He deserved it.

“So Chuseok is really old,” I said as Sam threw even more stuff into the cart. At this point, I was no longer keeping tally on the cost. Chuseok was about abundance, like most harvest celebrations, and I wasn’t about to be miserly. Thank the monster god my parents gave me a healthy allowance.

Sam snorted. “Yep. Korea’s old.”

The last few days I had been doing research on the holiday, and yeah, it was old, old. Like over two thousand years old, though, if I recalled correctly, it had only been a formally established holiday for six hundred some years. It was mind-boggling to my American self.

When she chucked even more stuff into the cart, I dutifully ignored the growing pile while steering the full cart around the small market. Sam had found an Asian market about an hour away, and we’d made the trip. Well, after she’d begged to borrow Carter’s car. He’d been terrified of something happening to his “baby,” but in the end, he’d let her take it.

“So where’d you learn to cook?” I asked.

She shot me a withering glare. “You are going to help, right?”