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“Supplies are gathered!” Leon barged into the room, a wide grin on his face. Hiro was walking next to him; hands filled with bags carefully placed on top of each other. Red and green tinsel peaked out from the edges. Sayaka let out a laugh as she walked in after the two boys, carrying only a few bags herself.
Byakuya’s lips twitched as his silence got interrupted. He closed the book he was reading and put it on his lap, looking up at the trio. “Supplies for what?” He asked as he looked at the bags, trying to discern what they were for.
“Christmas, dude! We gotta decorate the house!” Hiro answered, voice slightly muffled due to everything he was carrying.
“And that’s a need?” Byakuya raised an eyebrow, head tilted slightly to the side.
Leon nodded. “Duh!” His grin stretched even wider than before. “Don’t say ya don’t do Christmas…”
Well, he hadn’t. At least not in this way. His Christmas was more often than not attending a charity event where he would be stuck talking to people he did not like nor knew well. The whole time he would be waiting until it was done, or for the rare interesting person to talk to.
“My father didn’t see the point in such activities,” He answered as he pushed his glasses up.
“Oh…” Sayaka had a sympathetic look in her eyes. For a moment, it looked like she was going to say something else, but then her mouth closed with a soft click.
Hiro began to put the bags down, almost letting them fall to the ground before managing to catch them at the last moment. There was a slightly nervous smile on his face. “He really is just like the Grinch.”
“Or Scrooge! Maybe we should go dress up like those ghosts-”
“No,” Byakuya interrupted with a stern glare.
The last thing he was going to do was let them anywhere near his father. That would only cause for more problems in the long run. Problems for him because he would have to be the one that had to listen to his father.
Suddenly, Makoto’s head peaked from around the corner. “What’s going on?” He asked, using the same slightly hesitant tone he did when he thought there was an argument going on. “Did… something happen?”
“We got Christmas decorations, ‘Koto!” Leon responded before anybody else could, pointing to the large number of bags that now all lay on the floor. “Oh, and Byakuya apparently never had a good Christmas.”
“Hm. That isn’t exactly unsurprising,” Kyoko said as she too appeared out of nowhere. More likely than not, she had been Makoto. “But we don’t have a tree.”
“Sakura and Hina are getting one right now. Most of the things we are got are for around the house though,” Sayaka responded as she clasped her hands in front of her. “We got so many cute things!”
Great. Just great. Honestly, Byakuya shouldn’t have been surprised. He really shouldn’t have been.
A sigh left his lips. “And how did you manage to afford all of this? Actually-” He continued before anybody could answer. “Don’t tell me. I think it’s better if I don’t know.”
He did have a feeling though. A feeling he was quite sure was correct because it wouldn’t be the first time for Leon to use his card to buy stuff.
Leon let out a laugh, one that got stuck in his throat. “Yeah…” He paused, smile tightening slightly. “But let’s get decorating! I’ll go get the others, gonna be the most fun if we all do it together!” With that, he left the room, pointedly ignoring the look Byakuya was shooting him.
His money had most definitely been used for these decorations.
“Alright! Let’s get started! These-” Sayaka pointed to a group of four paper bags, “-are for the tree, the rest is for around the house. We got some tape too, the kind that won’t ruin the walls!” She shot Byakuya a smile while saying that. He would be lying if he said his expression didn’t soften at that.
“Very well, the sooner we get this done with, the better.” He stood up from his chair, making one of the bags float towards him with a flick of his wrist. It was filled with multicoloured lights- a mixture of red, blue, yellow, and green. “Those are for… on the walls, I assume?”
Makoto nodded. “Yeah! We used to have those at home. It was always hard to get them high up… Well, for us.” He let out a laugh, smile spreading across his face.
Something about this holiday made everybody be in a good mood, huh?
“I’ll go hang them up in the main hallway then,” He responded, walking out of the room soon after. Truth be told, he… really didn’t get the need for all these decorations, but everybody else looked quite excited by them. That in turn made it so… he didn’t hate them, even if they were still very much unneeded in Byakuya’s opinion.
But he would just hang these up as quickly as possible and then go back to reading his book as he had wanted to do. He really wasn’t sure what to think of all of this.
“Byakuya!” A voice called from the top of the stairs, stopping Byakuya in his tracks. The bag stopped in the air behind him. “You’re helping too?” Chihiro asked, eyes shining just like everybody else’s.
He nodded. “I figured I would just get pestered until I helped, so I decided to take the initiative.”
“Oh… That’s still nice though!” The smile on Chihiro’s face didn’t fade, not in the slightest. “I mean, doing all of this together is the fun part. It’s what Christmas is all about.”
“Is that so?” Byakuya hummed softly, looking away already. He lifted the light up to the sealing, making sure that they were high enough before holding them in place with one hand.
As he turned around to grab the tape, Chihiro was already holding a piece of for him. “Mhm! It’s just about getting together with everybody, at least that’s how I always saw it…”
Byakuya… wasn’t quite sure what to say in response to that. All thing considered, it didn’t sound all that awful, it really didn’t. After all, he would consider most of the others his friends by now.
So, he instead just stayed quiet, focusing on the lights. Using his other hand, he lifted the piece of tape up and stuck it to the lights. That process got repeated a few more times, with Chihiro handing him the pieces of tape whenever he needed them.
There was one more item in the bag though. One that made Chihiro let out a little gasp. “A mistletoe!” They looked up at him. “We have to put this somewhere good!”
A mistletoe? What was that- Ah, right.
Byakuya remembered now. It was the thing that would ‘make’ the two people under it kiss or something ridiculous like that. He was sure it had some mythological meaning, but it was still utterly pointless to him. Moreso than the rest of the decorations.
However… Chihiro currently had a very bright smile on their face, cheeks coloured a light pink. It was clear that they were excited about this, as pointless as it might actually be.
He let out a soft sigh. “Where do you suggest?”
“Well…” Chihiro put a finger on their chin as they thought about it. “Somewhere a lot of people would go… maybe the kitchen?”
“Very well, the kitchen it is.” Like before, Byakuya flicked his wrist and let the bag float behind him, with Chihiro walking next to him. They were fairly quiet, only humming softly.
Once they reached the kitchen though, that changed. “Oh, Makoto and Kyoko are there! That’s perfect!” They said, as they pointed to the pair. The two were just outside of the kitchen, decorating the living room with a mixture of lights and tinsel.
“Perfect…” Byakuya repeated as a thought formed in his head, a smirk making way onto his face. “Perfect indeed.” It was perfect because as stupid as this tradition was in Byakuya’s eyes, he now had a way to form it into something fun.
Kyoko wasn’t exactly the type for that kind of public affection, not out of nowhere. And how could he pass up an opportunity to tease Kyoko in that way?
Like before, he hung up the mistletoe, with Chihiro handing him the tape. Once it had gotten safely secured, the two shared a look, Chihiro’s eyes bright and filled with mischief as they met Byakuya’s amused ones.
He then looked away, over at the couple. Makoto was currently standing on his toes as he tried to tape some lights to the wall, with Kyoko talking to him- presumably to ask him to switch but he was stubborn as always. “Makoto, Kyoko, could you two come over for a moment?” He called out, voice just loud enough for the two of them to hear.
“Huh?” Makoto immediately looked over at them. “Oh, sure!” He shot them a smile and began to walk over to them. Kyoko, however, remained for a while longer, without a doubt having caught the smirk on Byakuya’s face.
However, he had long made sure that the mistletoe was high enough that it couldn’t have been seen from that side. So, she too walked over.
“What do you need our help with?” She asked as she stood in the open doorway, eyes scanning over the kitchen- which had already gotten decorated.
His smirk widened a bit. “Oh, nothing. But I would look up if I were you.”
“What do you-” The girl cut herself off as she looked up, a hint of realization forming on her face. “A mistletoe.”
“And you and Makoto are standing under it!” Chihiro responded, voice just a bit more cheerful than mischievous.
Makoto’s cheeks went a bright red as he realized what that meant. “O-oh, so we…” He trailed off, embarrassed as though Kyoko wasn’t his girlfriend.
“I suppose so, yes.” Kyoko nodded, voice a bit too calm for Byakuya’s liking. Her eyes didn’t leave Byakuya as she spoke. “Not that it’s anything new.”
After that, Makoto opened his mouth to respond but never got the chance too. Kyoko took a step towards him before kissing him on the lips, causing the boy’s whole face to turn red. Through it all, Kyoko was still looking at Byakuya.
Ugh.
Immediately, Byakuya realized why. He knew that she wasn’t the biggest fan of this, but neither was he. Romantic displays like that always succeeded in making his eye twist, albeit for just a small moment. Kyoko knew that, of course.
“Damn, Kyoko! Ys really went from it!” Leon’s voice came from further in the living room. Somehow in the small time that had passed his hair had gotten dishevelled and he wore a piece of red tinsel around his neck like some kind of scarf. He was the only one of the trio of him, Hiro, and Sayaka who looked like that.
Kyoko pulled away from the kiss. “It’s the tradition,” She simply responded, shooting Byakuya a barely concealed smirk.
An unneeded one for sure.
“The decorating is a better one,” Byakuya responded with a roll of his eyes. The words left his mouth before he completely processed them.
Leon’s grin grew. “Ha! Knew ya would like it!” He then turned to Hiro. “See, told ya. His dad is the Scrooge, not him.”
Byakuya didn’t even know what to say to that. Nothing that wouldn’t just make things worse and made Leon even giddier than he already was. So, he just shook his head. “Idiots. All of you…”
“And yet you still hang around us!” Hiro responded, a grin on his face that matched Leon’s.
That he did. That he did indeed. Because for better or worse- that latter was much more likely all things considered- these people were indeed his friends. And, sappy as it sounded, he wouldn’t like it any other way.
His smirk softened in what some would in fact say was a smile. “Indeed, I do.”