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“...I’m sorry, say that again?”
Ookurikara, with absolute certainty, did not want to say that again, especially not when Fukushima, Kasen, and Izuminokami were all staring at him with incredulity, but it was pretty clear he didn’t actually have a choice anymore. He sighed, looked up at the ceiling with great determination, and gritted out, “I said, can any of you teach me how to make a Christmas wreath. Not for me,” he added, a little waspishly, just to make sure they didn’t get the wrong idea that he was suddenly into making festive crafts for his own enjoyment.
It was Fukushima who had asked for this peculiar request to be repeated, and now he looked at his companions with an expression that seemed to say, I’m still not sure he said what I think I heard. “Just to be sure, you—” he began.
“Look, if you can’t help me, I’ll look somewhere else,” Ookurikara snarled, feeling his patience wearing thin. He was embarrassed enough already as it was.
“No! No, we can help,” Kasen piped up quickly, while Izuminokami sighed and said, “No one’s forcing you, dude. Chill.”
Ookurikara only scowled some more and didn’t respond. He already felt out of place, standing at the doorway of Kasen’s room, far enough away from Shokudaikiri’s usual haunts that he was sure he wouldn’t be discovered here, lest the surprise be ruined. But the whole vibe of this room was just…not his thing. Ikebana arrangements, scrolls with haiku written in flowy handwriting hung up on the walls, tea and dango laid out on the table. Even the paper napkins beneath the cups looked fancy and pristine. Definitely the kind of crowd who would know how to make something like a Christmas wreath.
To be clear, Christmas wasn’t really Ookurikara’s thing, either. Neither were wreaths, let alone making them. But Sadamune had made an offhand comment about them, Shokudaikiri had laughed and responded that he’d been meaning to get one but hadn’t had the time, Tsurumaru had kicked Ookurikara under the table in a subtle (see: conspicuous) manner, and now here he was.
“Luckily for you, we do still have leftover materials from when the Saniwa was making Christmas wreaths with the tantou.” Kasen glanced at Izuminokami. “If you could help me with getting those materials from the storeroom…”
“Oh, yeah, ‘course.” Izuminokami got to his feet, Kasen following after him, and Ookurikara only gave a grunt of acknowledgement as they left the room.
In their wake, Fukushima surveyed him curiously. “So, this is for my cute little brother, eh?”
“I’m not here to make friends.”
“No, you’re not. You’re here to make a Christmas wreath.” Fukushima chuckled. “It’s alright. I know how it is. If my opinion matters at all to you—”
“It doesn’t.”
“—I think you and my brother make a great match,” Fukushima finished firmly, as if Ookurikara hadn’t spoken at all.
Ookurikara elected not to respond to that, and Fukushima didn’t seem to have anything else to say, so for a couple of minutes they only sat in silence. Then, suddenly, Fukushima spoke again.
“You know, he told me about the moment he fell in love with you.”
Oh boy.
Fukushima nodded to himself. “He’d seen you around the battlefield, of course, and you guys hung out with the others sometimes, but he said it was when the Saniwa brought in an air hockey table, and Taikogane-kun had been nagging you to try it, and so Mitsutada came back from a sortie to find you losing hopelessly against Tsurumaru-san - but refusing to give up nonetheless. At air hockey.”
Of course Ookurikara remembered that. It was hard to forget: Tsurumaru’s obnoxious cheering, Taikogane’s stifled laughter - and the smile on Shokudaikiri’s face when Ookurikara spotted him by the doorway, watching the entire thing. That had been the moment for him, too.
Though he wasn’t sure why Fukushima was telling him all this like it was some kind of flex. “Okay?”
Fukushima only smiled at him. Jeez, did nothing faze this guy? “I’m just glad you’re doing this for him. I’m sure he’ll be delighted.”
Thankfully Ookurikara was saved from having to reply by the return of Kasen and Izuminokami, both of them carrying boxes with leaves and wire poking out over the top. They brought with them a strong scent of pine trees, sharp and refreshing, as the boxes were set down on the table and Kasen began taking things out and laying them in front of Ookurikara.
“Right, this is all we had left,” Kasen said briskly. “Pine, fir, cedar branches…lots of pinecones, we have no shortage of that…there’s some dried flowers here as well to add a bit of colour.”
“And cinnamon sticks, for some reason.” Izuminokami stared at the packet of cinnamon sticks, then shrugged and put them aside.
“And plenty of frames left to work with.” Kasen took the circular wire frames and handed one to Ookurikara. “Making wreaths sounds harder than it is. Once you get the hang of it, it’s actually quite fun. Did you know that wreaths—”
“How about we get started while you tell us about it, hm?” Fukushima cut across Kasen, noticing the expression on Ookurikara’s face.
Kasen looked at the benign smile Fukushima was giving him and clicked his tongue. “Oh, fine. Hand me the scissors, Izuminokami. Let me cut the branches to size as I talk. And you better pay attention.”
And so they got to work. All four of them sat together at the table, and even though it was Ookurikara who wanted to learn how to make it, it looked as though Kasen was teaching Izuminokami just as much as Fukushima was teaching Ookurikara, so thankfully Ookurikara didn’t feel as shameful not being able to handle the more minute details on the first try, such as properly tying the bunches of leafy branches to the wreath frame with the paddle wire, or remembering to stop every now and then to hold up the frame and see if the wreath looked properly even on all sides.
“There’s no need to be worried about tying the wire too tightly around the branches,” Kasen was saying to Izuminokami, in a way that was obvious he wasn’t talking directly to Ookurikara, but that his words could be taken as advice for him as well. “As the weeks go by, the wood and leaves will go dry and shrink, so they’ll slip out of the wreath if you don’t secure them tightly enough.”
Though he didn’t want to admit it, Ookurikara appreciated that the other three weren’t being weird and cagey around him. They continued chatting amongst themselves, only occasionally asking Ookurikara a question that warranted one-word answers, and otherwise seemed plenty preoccupied, especially whenever Izuminokami made a mistake on his wreath and would nag Kasen to fix it for him. It always lead to a tirade of chiding and whingeing between the two, and which would either result in Izuminokami’s win where Kasen would give in and fix the error, or Kasen’s win where Izuminokami would give up his whingeing and finish the task by himself.
And in the midst of that, Fukushima would act as the mediator, both trying to resolve the issue and to calm the bickering at the same time. The sight of them reminded Ookurikara of Tsurumaru, Sadamune, and of course, Shokudaikiri.
Izuminokami made an annoyed grunt as the bouquet of fir boughs tipped out of his wreath frame for the umpteenth time, toppling back onto the table. “If Kunihiro were here, he’d do these for me.”
“And that is exactly why I’m making you do it yourself,” Kasen sighed, without looking up.
“Eh…hey, Fukushima-san, help me out here!”
Fukushima chuckled. “Sorry, you won’t get anything out of me.”
“Geh!” To Ookurikara’s horror, Izuminokami then turned to him. “Ookurikara, I’ll trade you my sparring duty tomorrow if you make this for me? I know how much you want to fight Chougi—”
“ABSOLUTELY NOT.” Kasen snatched the half-made wreath from Izuminokami’s hands and whacked him upside the head with it, causing fir boughs to rain all over his head and making him splutter. “Pay him no mind, Ookurikara. You’re doing a remarkable job with your wreath and would do well to continue accordingly. You, on the other hand, are on thin ice.”
“Sorry, Nosada,” Izuminokami answered sheepishly, bending beneath the table to pick up the fallen boughs.
Ookurikara rolled his eyes and Fukushima laughed.
When they’d all filled their wreaths with leafy green boughs, they went on to decorating. Izuminokami went (see: escaped) to the kitchen to get more tea for all of them, while Fukushima told them all about different flower symbolisms as they picked through the bunches of dried flowers, and Kasen taught them how to bind pinecones together in groups of three and space them out across the wire frame.
At long last, Ookurikara found himself putting the finishing touches to his wreath and taking a moment to stop and look at it. It had been decorated with the basics: several red poinsettia flowers, gold bulbs, and bunches of pine cones. A gold felt ribbon, instead of red, adorned the top of the wreath - Ookurikara had thought that would be a nice touch that was more unique to him, and to Shokudaikiri.
“And you’re done.” Fukushima touched the wreath carefully, nodding in approval. “It was hard work, but…I think, just as it’s the same with making food, everyone thinks something that they made by themselves is better than anything you could buy ready-made from a shop.”
He was right. Ookurikara’s fingers hurt from working with wire all afternoon, but he felt a strange glow of pride as he looked over his finished wreath. It was slightly misshapen on some sides, but hey, at the end of the day, he wasn’t doing this really for any festive reason: he was doing it to make Shokudaikiri happy.
“Alright, go on then, before Shokudaikiri gets back from his sortie and wonders where you are.” Izuminokami patted Ookurikara on the back. “We’ll clean up here. Nothing else you need, right?”
Ookurikara glanced over the table one last time, and his gaze fell upon the packet that had lay forgotten by Izuminokami’s elbow this whole time.
“Not quite,” Ookurikara said, and reached for the packet.
Still, Ookurikara felt a bit silly walking back to his and Shokudaikiri’s room, his hands not shoved in his pockets like he usually did, but holding that wreath in his hands. Halfway there he decided to hold it in one hand by his side while his other hand remained in his pocket, so that he looked a bit more nonchalant about it. It was mostly just because he really didn’t want to run into a certain loud-mouthed white-haired menace, who was most certainly going to be obnoxious about it and/or mess with the wreath and potentially wreck it, so Ookurikara picked up his pace and hurried back into the empty room, just as he heard Shokudaikiri’s voice around the corner.
“—I’ll get that report to the Saniwa as soon as possible. I’ll rest, don’t worry! You guys take care as well. Great job today!”
It suddenly struck Ookurikara that he hadn’t even planned what to say. He was never very good at talking to people. Would Shokudaikiri find it weird that Ookurikara, of all people, went and made a Christmas wreath for him? Maybe he should just leave it in the room and come back later so that Shokudaikiri would start the conversation about it.
Yeah, that sounded like a good idea. Quickly scooping up the wreath and the hook that Kasen had given him, Ookurikara approached the door to tug it open, only for the door to slide open just as his hand reached for it, and there stood Shokudaikiri right in front of him.
He wasn’t sure why, but somehow, Ookurikara thought that Shokudaikiri didn’t quite look the same as he used to after they got together. Somehow, Ookurikara felt like he had never noticed how tall Shokudaikiri was, or how his gold eye shone with happiness whenever he looked at him, or how brilliantly he smiled when he talked to him.
Like now. “Hey, Kara-chan! I’m back!”
“...Welcome home.” The words, uttered reflexively, had barely left Ookurikara’s mouth when Shokudaikiri’s gaze went to the wreath in his hands. Shit.
“What’s that? Where did you g—”
Ah, screw it. Stifling a sigh of resignation, Ookurikara thrust the wreath at Shokudaikiri. “Here. Take it.”
“For me?” Shokudaikiri asked in surprise, looking down at it. “Did you—wait, Kara-chan, your hands!”
Too late Shokudaikiri grabbed Ookurikara’s wrist, ignoring Ookurikara’s grunt, raising it to eye level so that he could see the small nicks and scratches all over his palms and fingertips. It didn’t take long for Shokudaikiri to put two and two together as he looked at the scratches, then at the wreath, misshapen as it was, and then back at Ookurikara.
“You made this for me?”
Averting his gaze, Ookurikara nodded, imperceptibly. What if Shokudaikiri thought it was weirdly uncharacteristic of him after all? Or that the wreath was ugly? Maybe he should’ve just—
“...Thank you, Kara-chan.” Ookurikara looked up, and Shokudaikiri was smiling at him, his gaze gentle. “This is a lovely Christmas present - and even more so because you made it for me.”
Ookurikara let out a breath he didn’t realise he was holding. He’d always thought himself as a calm person, but recently his heart wouldn’t stop beating a mile a minute whenever he was near Shokudaikiri. As if every beat only served to stir up the deep feelings lying inside him, making words that he normally never said rise to his lips.
“...Merry Christmas, Mitsutada.”
Shokudaikiri laughed, and pulled Ookurikara into a one-armed hug, the other hand still clutching the wreath. He pressed a gentle kiss to the top of Ookurikara’s head, making Ookurikara’s face burn. “Merry Christmas, Kara-chan. This was a splendid surprise. Let’s put this up at our door then, shall we?”
“Mm.”
They stepped out to the engawa together, Ookurikara holding the wreath while Shokudaikiri stuck the hook used to hang the wreath onto the wooden panel of their room door, and when the tachi reached for the Christmas wreath again, he paused, staring at it, and chuckled.
“...What’re you laughing about?”
“Oh, I was just wondering about these.” Smiling from ear to ear, Shokudaikiri touched the sticks of cinnamon that had been tucked in between the batches of pinecones. “Not a common decoration choice for wreaths, I think. Why did you pick these?”
“...No reason.” No way in hell was Ookurikara going to admit that the scent of the spices reminded him of Shokudaikiri and his cooking hobby. He was just glad to have noticed it on the table after Izuminokami tossed it aside. “Just thought it’d suit you. Do you hate it?”
“Of course not! It helps to give a very Christmassy smell, that’s for sure.” Having finished hanging the wreath onto the hook, Shokudaikiri stepped back to admire it. “Now that’s what I call art.”
He glanced at Ookurikara next to him, who was just barely hiding the twitch in his mouth threatening to morph into a smile, and chuckled, “Now I can’t wait for you to see my present for you.”
Ookurikara stared at him in shock. “What is it?”
Shokudaikiri grinned, a finger to his lips. “That’s a secret. You’ll find out later.”