I won't be able to post this on actual Christmas as I will be without internet connection, so here, have some early, culturally inaccurate Christmas fluff! Yay!
Warnings include shounen-ai, grammar mistakes / errors, the fact that I am aware that Christmas in Japan is nothing like Christmas in the States but chose to ignore that, a complete lack of real plot in favor of senseless, tooth-rotting fluff, pretty raw / unedited writing because I've been ridiculously busy, etc.
Enjoy! – Luna
A Very Kuroba-Kudou Christmas
Shinichi opened his eyes on the first of December and found that he was lying underneath a duvet printed with snowmen, Christmas trees, and demented-looking elves brandishing candy canes. Upon closer inspection, he discovered the rest of the comforter set was much the same, including his pillowcase. This was made more alarming by the fact that Shinichi distinctly remembered going to sleep on plain white sheets and a respectable plaid blanket.
He did not remember his sheets being changed.
Suppressing a sigh, Shinichi burrowed back into the blankets before he accidentally made eye contact with a particularly demonic-looking elf wielding a basket of gumdrops with the sort of deranged fervor that Shinichi usually associated with serial killers. It was mildly horrifying. "Kaito?" he called, slightly strangled as he forced himself to look away.
There was the sound of footsteps pounding down the hallway before Kaito entered the room. "Yes, Shinichi?" he chirped, and Shinichi took a moment to note that he looked as if someone had mistaken him for a Christmas tree and wrapped him with tinsel and fairy lights. Shinichi discovered, to his detriment, that he found the sight more endearing than anything else.
"What happened to my sheets?" he asked instead of saying something stupid like "how are you a real human being that actually exists and wants to be my friend?"
"Oh, I don't know. Hidden," Kaito answered shiftily, staring at a spot beside Shinichi's head. He did a double take and then winced, eyebrows drawn together. "I really should've just gotten the one with snowflakes. The elves are kind of creepy." He motioned at one next to Shinichi's ankle. "That one kind of looks like it wants to eat a family of rabbits or something."
"I know. How do you think I felt, waking up to that?" Shinichi rubbed at his temples. "And don't try to distract me. Why did you do this?" He almost asked how (after all, Shinichi was a fairly light sleeper and he definitely should've woken if someone tried to change his sheets), but then he realized whom he was talking to and decided it wasn't worth.
"Um, because it's December," Kaito answered slowly, as if Shinichi was the lunatic who'd changed his housemate's sheets in the dead of the night, while the housemate was asleep on the aforementioned sheets. He spread his arms, around each of which spiraled a string of multicolored lights that blinked sleepily at Shinichi. "It's officially Christmastime, Shinichi."
"In case you haven't noticed, Kaito, most people in Japan don't exactly… do this," Shinichi reminded him. He'd been expecting maybe ordering a Christmas cake and lighting a pine-scented candle, like literally everyone else they knew did for Christmas.
Kaito huffed. "Well, I do. And I don't know why you're so surprised." He paused for theatric effect as Shinichi flinched, knowing what was coming. "Oh, wait, that's because last December you abandoned me to go chase down a bomber in New York, because you're a horrible best friend –"
"Okay, okay," Shinichi cut him off, sighing in defeat. He already felt guilty enough thinking about how he'd unceremoniously left Japan (and subsequently Kaito) for almost the entire month of December last year to track down an alleged bomber in the States. Kaito had already wormed an extra birthday present and a lot of free dinners out of him by exploiting that guilt, but apparently he was also going to get free decorative reign over their shared house. "Do what you want, Kaito." He even managed a weak smile.
"That's the spirit," Kaito grinned, and did a truly tragic dance as he wrapped a line of tinsel around Shinichi's neck, Shinichi spluttering incoherently at him all the while. Kaito winked before sauntering out of the room, leaving Shinichi alone with the elves and his own depression over just how easy he was for Kaito.
"Why do I actually like him," Shinichi asked the elves, despairingly. Predictably, he received no response and eventually rolled over to bury his face in a grinning snowman.
A little under two years ago, just after they had graduated from Touto, Shinichi and Kaito had decided to move in to the old Kudou mansion together. Why not? They'd been good roommates when they were sharing a dorm (save for a few small-scale wars over sock pickup and appropriate study hours) and the Kudou mansion was located much closer to the theater that Kaito would be performing his magic shows at. Shinichi had simply been trying to be a kind, helpful human – he had wanted to help out a friend, and the house was three stories and far too large for just one person. That had been all.
Apparently that had not been all, according to how Shinichi's friends had reacted when he broke the news to them.
"I have an announcement to make about Kaito and myself," Shinichi had begun during dinner, only to be cut off as four pairs of eyes swiveled to stare at him.
"You're engaged," Ran had guessed.
"You're adopting eighteen children together," Hattori had suggested.
"You two finally confessed your undying love for each other and need honeymoon suggestions. May I recommend Los Angeles," Sera had said.
"You're already married and only telling us now so that we don't try to plan your wedding, which, by the way, would be awesome, and you're an idiot for not letting me and Ran do it," Sonoko had offered.
"We – what, no," Shinichi had sputtered, blinking at them across the table. "Where did you even – no. He's moving into my house. That's all."
"Already moving him into the ancestral estate?" Ran had remarked in a way that had meant she had been watching too many regency dramas. She had leveled him with an unimpressed look and gone back to spearing bits of her caprese salad.
"We're not like that," Shinichi had insisted, but Hattori and Sonoko had made twin sounds of amused derision and Sera had only looked mildly thoughtful. "No, really, we aren't," he had attempted to convince her, because no, they weren't together-together. Sure, Kaito had been (and still was) sort of ridiculous and charming about one hundred and fourteen percent of the time and Shinichi might've found himself thinking about what it might've been like if they – but no, they'd been (and always would be) Just Friends.
When Shinichi had pulled himself from his reverie, he had found that Sera had been watching him with eyebrows raised. "Whatever you say, Kudou-kun," she had shrugged and returned her attention to her yakiniku, and that was that.
By the time Shinichi managed to steel his nerves sufficiently and journey out into the kitchen, he was simultaneously amused and horrified to find Kaito baking gingerbread cookie as acoustic Christmas music played in the background. He froze in the doorway, debating hotly about whether he should try to restrain his soppy smile as Kaito did a stupid shimmy and dug a star-shaped cookie cutter into a flat sheet of dough.
Kaito noticed him as he glanced over his shoulder. He grinned. There was a strand of fairy lights around his arm that he evidently had yet to remove and a smear of flour across his cheek. "I was wondering when you'd come out here. You can help then." He tossed a copper cutout of a Christmas tree at Shinichi before humming along to "All I Want for Christmas Is You."
With a sigh, Shinichi stepped towards the counter. Among the veritable army of cookies already arranged on the baking tray, he spotted a Kid insignia and a pair of glasses separated nonsensically by a lopsided heart. He tried not to read into it too much. To distract himself, he asked, "Why are we baking cookies? There's no way we can eat all of these."
"They're for the Detective Boys," Kaito told him, wiggling his eyebrows as he rolled out more dough. "I think they'll like them, won't they?"
"I think they'll like anything you give them," Shinichi answered dryly, completely serious. All of them, including Haibara, had some form of respect for Kaito, something that they unfortunately lacked for Shinichi. Ayumi in particular was rather taken with Kaito, actually.
"You think?" Kaito reached for a knife to artfully cut out a rose, going so far as to delicately detail in the curves of the petals. Shinichi watched, impressed, as he glided the tip of the knife in a wavy pattern until the rose was depicted flawlessly. When he caught Shinichi watching, Kaito grinned and twirled the knife in a way that gave Shinichi heart palpitations. "You want this one?" he asked.
"I'm not one of your – one of your conquests. I don't need your wooing," Shinichi sniffed as he vindictively jammed the tree shape into the dough, but Kaito just laughed and set the rose on the tray beside the glasses.
The Detective Boys, as expected, were thrilled when Shinichi and Kaito showed up at the professor's house laden with boxes of cookies the following afternoon. Genta practically lunged for the containers while Shinichi was still taking off his shoes and ended up knocking Shinichi flat on his back. Shinichi winced as he banged his head on the ground. Well. This was embarrassing.
Predictably, Kaito had a bit of a panic attack, cradling Shinichi in his lap to check for any manner of debilitating injury while Genta made off with the cookies. His hands were warm and gentle as they clutched at the back of Shinichi's neck, bracketing his ears. Shinichi shuddered, and not from the dull ache spreading across his back.
"Shinichi, are you all right?" Kaito asked with panic befitting a heart attack rather than an unceremonious fall. Shinichi glared at up at him.
"I'm fine," he told Kaito with some irritation, shaking off the throbbing at the base of his skull. "I've had worse." For example, a bullet to the stomach when he was six years old in body.
"Yeah, but," Kaito's expression darkened, "you shouldn't have had to."
"Kaito," Shinichi said with some bewilderment. Kaito had always been a bit odd when it came to Shinichi's safety and health, and Shinichi had never pretended to understand why. He thought it might have started around when Shinichi had to be hospitalized after for broken ribs and a punctured lung during an investigation a few years ago, but he wasn't too sure. "Honestly. You're overreacting. This is nothing."
Kaito's expression shuttered closed, going paper-blank and unreadable. "Sorry if I don't like seeing you hurt," he muttered, and Shinichi knew he'd said something wrong. Somehow.
"I didn't mean that I didn't appreciate your concern," he assured Kaito, lifting one hand to catch at where Kaito was withdrawing his fingers from Shinichi's hair. "I just – I don't want to see you worrying too much about me."
The hard look in Kaito's eyes faded, and he smiled faintly as he helped Shinichi into a seated position. "It's hard not to, sometimes," he admitted, and Shinichi rolled his eyes but brushed a hand over his cheek, warmth spreading through his chest and across his cheeks. Kaito might've been more openly sentimental than Shinichi, but Shinichi still didn't know what to do in the face of his – his acting as if Shinichi was something special.
"That wasn't very nice, Genta-kun," Agasa called as he came over to glare at where Genta was cowering behind the tower of boxes. "What would you do if Shinichi-kun got seriously hurt?" Genta looked miserable.
"I'm completely fine," Shinichi intoned as he got to his feet. "If anyone cares."
"That really was a terrible thing to do," Mitsuhiko added, lowering the magazine he'd been reading to give Genta a judgmental look. "What would you have done if you hurt Shinichi-san around the holidays? He wouldn't be able to celebrate with Kaito-san."
"Again," Shinichi said, a little more desperate, "I'm absolutely fine."
"And wouldn't it be sad if Kuroba-kun had to spend Christmas alone again, without his darling Kudou-kun to keep him company?" Haibara remarked from where she was curled up on the couch beside a blushing Ayumi, smirking sadistically at Shinichi when he turned a glare on her. "After all, Christmas is a couples' holiday."
"Shut up," Shinichi groaned, rubbing at the tender small of his back as he stalked across the room. Kaito followed, one hand gravitating up to press between his shoulder blades, a comforting weight as Shinichi stopped in front of Genta to reclaim the boxes. "We all know that Kaito and I aren't like that."
"Oh, of course. We totally believe you," Haibara responded in a tone that implied she definitely didn't believe them. Shinichi resolved to give her the most burnt cookies he could find.
Genta looked mournfully up at Shinichi. "I'm sorry," he said in a small voice. "I didn't mean to break you and Kaito-niichan up for Christmas. I was just excited for the cookies."
"We're not – never mind. It's fine." Heaving a sigh of resignation, Shinichi sat down on the couch next to Ayumi. Kaito sat on his other side, humming under his breath as he absently tapped out a rhythm on the ball of Shinichi's knee. "Do you guys want to eat the cookies now or later?"
"Now!" Ayumi insisted, finally finding her voice as she beamed up at Shinichi and Kaito.
"Well, if Ayumi-ojousama wants them now, I guess we'll have to have them now," Kaito grinned, reaching out to ruffle Ayumi's hair. Ayumi squawked and went to fix her headband, but she smiled at him all the while.
"I'll make tea, then," Agasa offered, and disappeared into the kitchen to do just that.
Shinichi opened the first box as Genta and Mitsuhiko crowded close. There was much cooing over the miniature Ayumi, Genta, Mitsuhiko, and Haibara cookies that Kaito had made, mostly on the parts of Mitsuhiko and Ayumi. The stars in Ayumi's eyes were only growing as she stared at up Kaito, and Shinichi couldn't help but smile fondly as Kaito laughed and teased Genta and talked to Mitsuhiko and charmed Ayumi and snarked along with Haibara. He just – Kaito was such a great person, and he really – really –
"Oh!" Ayumi exclaimed when she rummaged to the bottom of the box. Shinichi glanced over, attention momentarily diverted from the story Kaito was telling a riveted Mitsuhiko and Genta about a princess he'd met (as Kid, obviously, but no one needed to know that), to find her staring wide-eyed down at the rose cookie, cheeks pink.
"Kaito made that one," he told her, smiling when she turned amazed eyes on him. "You can have it, if you want." It would probably make her day.
Ayumi's eyes went wider, if that was even possible. "No, no, I couldn't!" she insisted with surprising vehemence as she pushed the box at Shinichi. "It's for Shinichi-niichan!"
"I – what?" Shinichi said eloquently, blinking, and Kaito leaned over to wrap an arm around Shinichi's shoulders and drag him into his side. Shinichi went with it – Kaito had always been a tactile sort, and Shinichi was well accustomed to his need to physical touch.
"That's yours, Shinichi," Kaito murmured, fingers tracing little circles along Shinichi's bicep as his lips brushed the edge of Shinichi's ear. "It's for you, remember?"
"I thought I told you I wasn't a girl you need to woo," Shinichi grumbled, but he did take the cookie, holding it carefully between his thumb and forefinger as he marveled at the detailing. It really was impressive.
He bit it viciously in half when Haibara gave him a confusingly smug look.
"Kaito," Shinichi called carefully, staring into the depths of his unfamiliar wardrobe, "where are my shirts?"
"What?" Kaito trotted in, holding a glossy red bauble patterned with swirling snow. He was wearing a truly unfortunate Christmas sweater that depicted Santa riding an anatomically impossible reindeer, and he grinned widely when he saw Shinichi staring blankly into his closet. "Oh, do you like them?"
"Why have you exchanged all my perfectly respectable shirts with – with Christmas sweaters?" Shinichi asked slowly, enunciating perfectly to distract himself from the growing urge to curl up in the fetal position and not move for a few hours.
"To get you in the Christmas mood!" Kaito exclaimed, throwing his arms out wide. "Your shirts were all so boring. And anyway, almost all of those match mine." He clasped his hands to his heart. "We're sweater buddies! Isn't it great?"
"Where did you even find these?" Shinichi managed numbly, eyeing an eye-searingly lime green monstrosity with a sequined penguin in mid-step on the front. He couldn't imagine any reputable store selling them. "Where are my shirts?"
"Somewhere safe. Don't worry about them. I'll give them back once Christmas is over," Kaito hummed, walking over to leaf through the hangers. He examined a marginally less horrible burgundy top with geometric Christmas trees printed on it before he tossed it at Shinichi. Shinichi caught it dully as Kaito winked. "Try this one. It'll bring out your eyes." He batted his eyelashes and sashayed from the room, whistling.
Shinichi wondered how a maroon sweater was supposed to bring out his eyes when his eyes weren't anywhere near red, but he decided he had bigger problems on his hands. For example, if he was actually going to capitulate and wear awful Christmas sweaters for the rest of December. It would be an all-time low.
In the end, he pulled on the sweater and trod into the living room. Kaito's whole face lit up when he saw Shinichi.
Reluctantly, Shinichi decided the sweaters were worth it. Even when Satou and Takagi exchanged knowing looks, Yumi laughed and called him whipped, and Chiba smirked and fist-bumped him out of seemingly nowhere when he stopped by the police station to help out an investigation the follow week while wearing a hideous snowflaky blue jumper.
Whatever. None of them had witnessed the power of Kaito beaming at them. That was all he could say.
Shinichi had gotten comfortable with the idea of Kaito celebrating Christmas obsessively. He's long come to terms with watching silently as his house turning into a near-exact replica of Santa's workshop. He had been prepared to wear awful Christmas sweaters everywhere he went. He accounted for every possibility he could think of.
However, he had not considered the – experience of Kaito trying to ice skate.
Until this point in his life, Shinichi hadn't really thought ice skating was particularly difficult or that it was possibly to end up with one skate behind your head and the other tangled up in our scarf while on your back in the middle of the rink. He was going to have to reconsider, because a, Kaito apparently could not skate to save his life, and b, was currently in that exact position.
Pressing his face into his hands, Shinichi skated back over to where Kaito was disentangling his limbs. "I really didn't think ice skating was going to be the one thing that you can't do," he remarked as he skated a slow, meandering shape around Kaito's prone form. Several small children skated past, boggling shamelessly.
Kaito looked on the verge of a horrendous sulk. "Stop laughing at me," he groaned, crossing his arms across the front of his Santa-suit-wearing polar bear sweater and sitting up. His cheeks were flushed pink. "You're a horrible friend."
"You're the one who wanted to go ice skating," Shinichi half sang, but he relented and skidded to a halt. He extended one hand to help Kaito to his feet. "Look, okay, I can help you if you like."
Once he was on his feet, Kaito went abruptly baby deer-legged as his feet slid apart, nearly overturning a huge-eyed toddler who was dragged past them by a mother who was trying desperately not to make eye contact. Shinichi grabbed him by the forearms and steadied him, trying not to let Kaito throw him off balance.
"Okay, here's what we're going to do," he decided as Kaito's expression got closer to petulant. Carefully, he moved his hands to clasp one of Kaito's in each of his. Kaito's eyes were sunlit and bright when Shinichi looked into them. "I'm going to skate backwards and pull you along. Once you've got your balance, I'll let go."
"You mean like them?" Kaito nodded at something over Shinichi's left shoulder. Shinichi turned just in time to see a pretty girl in an emerald green coat being towed along by a handsome, parka-wearing man, both of them giggling hysterically. Right before they disappeared behind a group of high schoolers, they embraced each other and began to make out. Very enthusiastically.
"Um," Shinichi choked, turning back to gape at Kaito, who was smiling innocuously at him. "Kind of, I guess."
"Excellent," Kaito answered brightly, and signaled for Shinichi to start skating.
When Shinichi let go of his hands three minutes of skating in circles later, Kaito immediately went down, limbs going in a multitude of disturbing directions. Shinichi blinked. He hadn't been aware your leg could bend that way without breaking.
"Let's try again," he sighed, and Kaito smirked up at him and held out his hands.
A few weeks passed in relatively blissful peace. Shinichi solved a few minor cases (while clad in his unfortunate new wardrobe, even though he was pretty sure his deduction shows lost impact when he had a herd of embroidered reindeer traipsing across his stomach) and Kaito decorated the house with increasingly ridiculous decorations. One Tuesday, Shinichi walked unsuspectingly into the dining room to find that Kaito had procured a set of reindeer plates and matching mugs from – somewhere. Shinichi honestly did not want to know.
And then Shinichi woke up on the twentieth to find a text from Ran waiting for him. It read r u aware that Kaito-kun is planning a Christmas Eve party and no, Shinichi was not aware because he had not been consulted, although that would explain the plethora of lacy snowflake doilies that had been cropping up mysteriously.
He clomped into the kitchen, giving Kaito the sternest look he could manage while sporting some likely idiotic bedhead and a wrinkled t-shirt. "What's this about a Christmas Eve party?" he demanded, putting his hands on his hips.
Kaito, in the middle of making pancakes, turned to smile beatifically at Shinichi. "I thought it would be fun," he said brightly. "We could invite Mouri-chan and Aoko and Hakuba and Hattori and everyone. Maybe even the police officers." Satou and Takagi, unsurprisingly, adored Kaito.
Shinichi squinted at him, suspicious. "Are you sure you're not secretly American? Because Christmas parties aren't very Japanese."
"Shh," Kaito shushed, waving a spatula at him. He shifted his attention back to the stove, narrowing his eyes in concentration before he flipped a pancake with a deft flick of the wrist. Shinichi was unwillingly impressed. "Where's your Christmas spirit?"
"Nonexistent," Shinichi answered, taking a seat at the kitchen table to watch the line of Kaito's back in a completely non-creepy way as he finished flipping a few more pancakes.
"I always knew you weren't to be trusted," Kaito commented, snapping the stove off before carrying two plates of pancakes to the kitchen table. He set one in front of Shinichi, and Shinichi couldn't even muster any indignation at the sight of a Santa face made from strawberry jam and whipped cream on the top of the stack. He stabbed at Santa's chocolate chip eye viciously.
Shinichi was halfway through the first pancake, having smeared Santa's beard and hat into an indistinguishable mess, when Kaito asked, "So can we have the party?" with a hopeful smile.
Seeing as Shinichi wasn't exactly in the business of denying Kaito anything, he gave a sigh, wondering where his iron resolve had went in the few years he'd been friends with Kaito, and nodded. "If it's completely necessary," he conceded, feigning more longsuffering than he truly felt, and Kaito beamed across the table at him.
"You're the best, Shinichi," he grinned. "And I'm glad you are. Because otherwise I would have to return all the elf place settings I got."
"What did we say about the elves," Shinichi groaned, resisting the urge to manfully bury his face in his pancakes. Every time he subtly tried to change his sheets, he woke lying on the terrifying elf sheets again anyway. He suspected Kaito snuck in to check every night, which definitely should've been terrifying, but instead just made Shinichi feel – odd.
Humming, Kaito just smirked and neatly bisected a pancake.
As it turned out, the current state of their house was not adequate according to Kaito's Christmas Eve party standards, which alarmed Shinichi, because there were wreaths of various shapes and sizes on nearly every door and some version of "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas" playing in the background at any given moment. He didn't quite understand how Kaito was going increase the Christmas-ness of the place.
He returned from an inheritance-motivated murder on the twenty-second to discover that the front entry had been sieged by an army of snowmen and a small snowdrift. Shinichi prodded at a particularly tall snowman to discover it was made of Styrofoam. Upon closer inspection, the snow on the ground appeared to be synthetic.
"Kaito?" Shinichi called as he shed his scarf and snows and walked cautiously into the living room. He nearly tripped over a miniature forest of Christmas trees that had been placed by the doorway. "I swear to God, Kaito –"
Kaito came barreling out of the library, practically vibrating with excitement when he saw Shinichi. He skidded to a stop beside him, grinning widely. There was fake snow clinging to the tips of his eyelashes and spots of color across the crests of his cheeks. "What do you think, Shinichi?"
Shinichi stared into the living room with an odd feeling in his stomach. On one hand, there was tinsel hanging from everything and a truly ridiculous amount of elf-themed décor and – was that a miniature Polar Express looping around the coffee table? But on the other hand, Kaito was smiling at him, which was (secretly) all Shinichi wanted in the world, so he smiled wryly and gave Kaito a shrug. "I guess it's pretty okay."
"Always a critic, tantei-kun," Kaito sighed theatrically, reaching up to pat Shinichi patronizingly on the cheek, but his gaze darted up towards the top of the doorframe and his hand stilled a centimeter away from Shinichi's face. "Oh, uh…"
"Hm?" Shinichi glanced up. He blanched when he saw the delicate bundle of red berries hanging from the frame. "You – you actually put mistletoe up?"
"Well, I mean, I thought it would be funny to catch people underneath it at the party," Kaito explained, one hand rubbing at the back of his neck. Shinichi wondered why he'd put it up so many days in advance, then decided that trying to figure out the reasoning behind any of Kaito's action was a lesson in futility.
"Do you –" he began, just as Kaito said, "If you –" They both broke off, making uneasy eye contact. Shinichi, obviously, wasn't exactly averse to the idea of kissing Kaito, but Kaito – who knew what he was thinking?
"I – you know, if we don't – you know, kiss, we'll supposedly have bad luck for the whole year," Kaito mumbled. He had gone a pleasant pink color, eyes averted as he studied a nearby stocking decoration with much more concentration than necessary. This might've been the first time Shinichi had ever seen him anything close to bashful, Shinichi realized.
"Well," he began, trying to sound put upon as he exhaled slowly. Kaito looked at him from beneath his eyelashes, and Shinichi faltered before he said, "I mean, if only to avoid bad luck," with far more confidence than he felt. Before he could lose his nerve, Shinichi reached out to cradle Kaito's waist in the hinge of one arm. Kaito's eyes went electrocuted wide before Shinichi dropped a kiss on the center of his mouth.
It was innocent, just a dry press of lips to lips, and it barely lasted a second, but when Shinichi pulled back, Kaito's face was doing something – interesting. He looked torn between confusion and surprise, and Shinichi backtracked so quickly he toppled an ornament-laden Christmas tree with his elbow. He righted it at the last second.
"I guess we'll be lucky this year," he muttered before he fairly ran from the room to have a private freak out in the privacy of his own bathroom.
Shinichi spent half an hour panicking as he sat on the edge of the bathtub (why had he even done that? They couldn't brushed it off or – or pretended it hadn't happened, and instead – now what if Kaito knew Shinichi actively wanted to kiss him ninety-eight percent of the time? What would happen then? Kaito would probably leave him, wouldn't he? Or at least look at him differently) before he splashed cold water on his face and came out of the bathroom warily.
He shouldn't have bothered, because Kaito was waiting for him, hands on his hips. Shinichi abruptly felt the bottom of his stomach drop out.
"I don't know why you felt the need to run away the second you kissed me," Kaito snarked, eyes narrowed in a way that spelled foreboding in capital neon letters, "but let me assure you that I'm not that bad of a kisser."
"That isn't," Shinichi started, but trailed off when Kaito looked pointedly over Shinichi's head. He followed Kaito's gaze to discover that during his panic attack, Kaito had tacked up a sprig of mistletoe over the bathroom door. His brain went offline. "Oh."
"Oh," Kaito agreed emphatically, and moved forward to kiss Shinichi senseless.
Oh, Shinichi thought dumbly a few minutes later, when Kaito gave him a self-satisfied look and sauntered off, whistling "White Christmas" and clearly pleased with himself, his hair even more of a mess than usual. So that just – happened.
And it kept happening, oddly enough. Shinichi found himself walking into doorways and getting orally assaulted at least once a day at most. After the first five times it had happened and Shinichi was left gaping as Kaito scuttled off to rearrange the colony of snowmen in the entry area or stick more snowflake magnets on their refrigerator, Shinichi resigned himself to the fact that Kaito was one stubborn asshole, and apparently Shinichi had ignited his competitive streak when he'd freaked out that first time. It got to the point that Shinichi just sort of – went with it when he walked into the library and ended up making out with Kaito for two minutes instead of reading The Sign of Four as he'd been planning. He might as well enjoy it, even if it didn't really mean anything to Kaito. Right.
The day of the Christmas party came around soon enough. Shinichi awoke to the sound of "Silent Night," staggered into the kitchen, was summarily kissed for a solid minute, and then handed a knife and told to chop carrots. Kaito was a slave driver in the kitchen, despite that he knew Shinichi couldn't cook to save his life.
The first to arrive were Hakuba and Aoko. Revoltingly sweet newlyweds that they were, they arrived pink-cheeked and giggling together at five o'clock, bearing a bottle of expensive-looking wine and matching cashmere sweaters that had nothing on the snowmen jumpers Kaito and Shinichi were wearing, in Shinichi's quiet opinion.
Hakuba's eyebrows actually went up upon witnessing the grandeur that was the living room. If Kaito had been there to witness it, he probably would've taken a picture. "Kuroba-kun really went all out, didn't he," Hakuba remarked, and Shinichi nodded.
"I never knew he was so into Christmas decorations," he sighed, watching the little Polar Express locomotive chug determinedly around the side of the couch. Kaito had set up an impressively complicated set of tracks. "I guess that's what I get for not being around last Christmas."
Aoko blinked, apparently bemused. "Really? This was all Kaito?" She glanced around the room, her eyes lingering on the stockings pinned above the back of the sofa. "He's never put this much effort into Christmas before. I thought he didn't like it because it's kind of a couples' holiday."
"I've been waking up on elf sheets and eating off reindeer head plates this whole month," Shinichi informed her dryly. "I think it's safe to say that he's pretty into Christmas."
The look on Aoko's face didn't dissipate. Shinichi was about to mention the gingerbread and sweaters when Kaito breezed into the room, sweeping Shinichi into his arms to give him a slightly-not-appropriate-for-polite-company kiss before he took a step back. He didn't loosen his grip around Shinichi's waist, though. "Hey, you two. There's food in the kitchen, if you want."
Both of the Hakubas appeared frozen, though Hakuba looked mostly traumatized and Aoko looked – unpleasantly surprised? It was hard to say.
"I – yes, I think I'll be going now," Hakuba murmured before darting off towards the kitchen, probably to try to locate some brain bleach. Shinichi mentally apologized to him.
"Kaito," Aoko said in a hushed tone, as if trying to keep Shinichi from hearing. Her gaze vacillated wildly between the two of them. "Are you –"
"It's the mistletoe," Kaito cut in loudly. The weight of his arm disappeared from its place around Shinichi, leaving Shinichi unexpectedly bereft under the weight of Aoko's intent stare. There was something fundamentally wrong with his expression, something too fragile and flustered in a way that Shinichi didn't associate with him. "There's mistletoe over the door. That's all."
The look in Aoko's eyes didn't fade. "Kaito, are you sure –"
"Oh, I think I hear Mouri-chan," Kaito announced and hurried off, leaving Aoko and Shinichi staring wordlessly at each other. Shinichi shifted awkwardly from one foot to the other. "Jingle Bell Rock" ended, only to be replaced by "O Come All Ye Faithful."
Looking concerned, Aoko leaned forward. "Shinichi-kun," she began, concern coloring her voice, "are you two togeth – have you talked about this? Has Kaito done anything? Said anything?"
"Uh, not really," Shinichi answered. "I mean, the mistletoe thing was just him being competitive and stuff. It's not a big deal, really." At least not to Kaito, he assumed. Shinichi himself was a completely different story.
Aoko opened her mouth, presumably to say something else, but it was at that moment that Ran, resplendent in a bright red cocktail dress, and Kaito, smiling at something she'd said, entered the room. Shinichi's eyes widened as they paused in the doorway. The back of his throat closed up. Oh, no.
"Mistletoe," he called, trying not to sound too unenthusiastic about it. When Ran blinked, he motioned at the doorframe above her head. The smile on his felt waxy and decidedly artificial. "If you don't kiss, it's bad luck."
"That's right, Mouri-chan," Kaito chirped, and Shinichi experienced a brief moment of sad horror. Right. Kaito kissing him didn't mean anything; he'd do the same to Ran, just because that was how Kaito was –
He pushed down a surge of pathetic no as Kaito leaned in to kiss Ran… on the cheek, patting her on the shoulder and smirking as he pulled back. "I think tradition's fulfilled, don't you?" he said cheekily, and Ran smiled and laughed as she entered the room and came to stand beside Shinichi.
"Wow, this place looks great," she remarked as she observed the decorations. "Kuroba-kun did a great job, didn't he?"
Shinichi couldn't bring himself to answer. He was too fixated on watching Kaito's back as he disappeared in the direction of the kitchen. What did – what?
At his other side, Aoko gave a sigh. It sounded frustrated, almost. "That idiot," she mumbled before storming off. Ran watched her leave with some bewilderment.
"What's going on? Shinichi?"
"It's – it's nothing," Shinichi hurried to inform her, once he snapped out of it. He tried for a smile. "Sorry about that. It's really nothing."
"By which you mean it's a Kuroba-kun thing," Ran nodded sagely, eyeing him contemplatively. "Have you two finally sorted yourselves out and realized that you're way too codependent to be just friends? Like, honestly. You guys are wearing matching sweaters. You're way past the friends phase at this point."
"The sweaters were his idea," Shinichi told her. He ran a hand through his hair. "I don't know what's going on."
"Well," Ran suggested with a shrug, "I think a good place to start might be to tell him how you feel, like you should have three years ago instead of doing this weird dancing-around-each-other thing for so long."
"I don't want to ruin anything," Shinichi half-whined, dropping his face into his hands. He was feeling lost and confused, things he usually didn't experience. Logic solved everything, usually. But not now – he had no idea what he was supposed to do in this situation. "We're best friends, Ran. What if… you know. It's all in my head."
Ran just shook her head at him. "I'm telling you that that's not the case, as someone who was here last year when you weren't. Kaito didn't care about Christmas at all. He just moped around the house all of December and didn't show up to Aoko-chan and Hakuba-kun's New Year's party." She paused for emphasis, eyebrows lifted. "Because you weren't here, and he was too lonely and depressed to celebrate."
"You can't be serious," Shinichi insisted weakly, but Ran just shook her head at him and went to get the door when Hattori and Kazuha rang the doorbell.
Shinichi spent the rest of the evening skulking about with a spiced chai clutched in one hand, trying not to stare moonily at Kaito. He was only somewhat successful, if Hattori's unsubtle jabs all throughout dinner were any indication. In his defense, he was kind of trying to reconsider his entire relationship with Kaito. He deserved a minute or two of staring blankly at the wall behind Kaito's head.
The party was winding down when Shinichi excused himself to go hold his head in the bathroom, thereby escaping the slightly confused and very kicked-puppy looks Kaito had started shooting him around the time everyone had their after-dinner coffee. He stared at the towel rack, which was covered in a collection of gaudy hand towels patterned with Santa hats and smattered with pom-poms, and tried to suppress a sigh. He had no idea what he was doing. There was a possibility that Ran was right, but at the same time, did he really want to risk it?
When he'd gathered himself enough to brave conversation and steel himself to Kaito's pouting, Shinichi opened the door to the bathroom and came face to face with an anxious-looking Kaito, who was wringing his hands and pacing the half-meter of carpet the hallway offered.
Déjà vu, he thought frantically, and almost backpedaled straight into the shower.
Instead, Shinichi squared his shoulders and arched an eyebrow. "What's wrong?" he asked, marveling at how his voice actually sounded partially normal.
In the dim hallway lighting, Kaito looked uneasy. "I – well, you were acting kind of weird, earlier." He shuffled his feet, clearly uncomfortable. "Was it – the whole mistletoe thing? Because I can stop, if you want –"
"That's not it," Shinichi rushed to assure him, wincing at the alarm in his own voice. Way to be obvious, he thought despairingly as Kaito's brow crinkled in confusion. He waved a hand. "I just – Nakamo – Hakuba-san and Ran said something weird. That's all."
Kaito was immediately on guard, his expression darkening and the corners of his mouth pulling taut. Someone wearing a sweater emblazoned with a snowman should not have been able to look that worried. "What did they say?" he asked quietly, taking a single step forward and then seeming to waver.
"They…" Shinichi sighed, running a hand through his hair. "Well, they said that last year – and I guess the years before that – you weren't this excited about Christmas. And that you're only like this because I'm here. But I know that's not true," he hurried to tell Kaito. "Really, I…" He trailed off when Kaito blanched and then went candy apple red in the cheeks. It wasn't the reaction of someone surprised or horrified at the suggestion. It was someone who had – who had been found out. "Kaito?"
"What if they're right," Kaito said, so gruffly and quickly that Shinichi almost couldn't comprehend what he meant.
"Wait," Shinichi stammered, and then couldn't go on as words deserted him.
"They're kind of right, to be honest," Kaito admitted, peering fixedly down at his holly-patterned socks. "Last year, I was miserable because you left, and – and I guess this year I was just really excited about spending Christmas with you. Like – you're my best friend, you know, but I also just – I adore you, okay. You're the best person I've ever known, and maybe – maybe I was kind of thinking about what it would be like to be with you. Together. As a – like, a couple."
Shinichi found he couldn't move. He stood frozen in the middle of the doorway, Kaito's words echoing in his ears.
"And so I went overboard with it, maybe," Kaito continued, looking as if the words were being physically forced out of him. "The gingerbread, and the sweaters… and the mistletoe." He flinched. "I shouldn't have gone that far, I know, but you did it first, and then it was really tempting and I… at first I just wanted to know what it'd be like, since I'd probably never get to experience it again, but then it was hard to stop. And I – well, I didn't want to." He took a deep breath, mouth drawn tight. His hands were knotted in fists at his sides. "I'd understand if you didn't want to live with me anymore. This is kind of creepy and weird for a friend to do, right, and I can move back to my mom's –"
"We're standing under mistletoe," Shinichi blurted out. He pointed at the wilted sprig still hanging from the bathroom doorframe. He hadn't removed it since the first time Kaito had kissed him.
Kaito was staring at him, mouth partway open. "Uh, yeah?"
"I think you should kiss me," Shinichi told him, and watched as Kaito's face lit up. He'd never get tired of that, he decided. Knew for a fact.
"Really?" Kaito breathed, taking another step closer. There was hope in his eyes, bright and dancing like candlelight. "You – really?"
"We'll have bad luck otherwise, won't we?" Shinichi grinned, and Kaito laughed and kissed the curve right out of his lips, his hands molded to the cut of his jaw and fingertips warm against the spaces behind Shinichi's ears. His horrible Christmas sweater prickled Shinichi's palm when Shinichi lifted a hand to grab at where the snowman was leering, and a string of fairy lights on the ceiling that had apparently not been secured well chose that moment to fall and nearly strangle Kaito.
Nonetheless, Shinichi decided that he loved Christmas almost as much as he loved Kaito. Even Ran's knowing expression and the knowledge that she was going to laugh at him for the next eighteen years weren't enough to ruin that when the two of them returned to the party, hair mussed and hands intertwined.
Merry Christmas, everyone!
Apologies for being so inactive lately (life has been busy and I've been working on some original fiction). If you enjoyed this, please consider dropping me a review, and I'll see you all soon (hopefully)! - Luna