Here's a little one-shot I threw together for the holidays. It isn't very long, but I hope you like it all the same.
Disclaimer: I don't own Love Hina. If I did, the series would never end. I make no money from this story.
Santa
Shinobu Maehara was by no means a crybaby, she was just easily upset. Especially whenever she had the misfortune to catch her beloved sempai, Keitaro Urashima, being punished for or committing one of his so called 'acts of perversion.' It wasn't her fault she could be driven to tears so quickly or that she was sensitive. That's just who she is. So when the girls who almost always pick on her at school decided to harass her for still believing in Santa Claus, it was only natural for her to end up in tears. Of course she managed to hold them off long enough to get back from school, otherwise that would only provoke them into teasing her more.
Once inside the familiar walls of the Hinata Inn, Shinobu ran up the stairs and to her room. On her way up, she passed Keitaro who noticed the moist tears threatening to escape her violet eyes. Worried about the young girl, he followed her to her room. Shinobu had run inside and thrown herself onto her bed, letting her tears fall freely accompanied by soft sobs.
Reaching her door, Keitaro knocked on it gently. After waiting a moment and getting no answer he tried again, carefully opening her door and peeking inside afterwards.
"Shinobu? Are you alright?"
Shinobu sat up, pulling her face from her pillow which was slightly wet from her tears. She wiped her eyes and gave him a small smile, although it clearly took some effort because she was still a bit upset.
"I'm fine sempai. I'm only a little upset because of what some girls said to me at school, nothing to worry about."
He opened the door fully and walked inside the room, taking a seat next to her on her bed. "What was it that they said to you?"
"I was talking about how excited I was with Christmas almost here and when I mentioned Santa they laughed at me. They called me a baby and said it was pathetic that I still believed in such a dumb fairy tale."
She fought back another tear as it tried to escape her eyes, still slightly hurt by what those other girls had said. Keitaro could sympathize with her. He had actually went through a similar thing when he was her age, having to put up with other kids harassing him just because he still believed in Santa Claus. It only made sense that as some children got older, they stopped believing for whatever reason. Of course that didn't give them the right to ruin the belief of others; at least that's what he thought.
Placing his hand on Shinobu's shoulder he gave her a reassuring smile, "Don't let what they said get to you Shinobu. Just because they don't believe anymore doesn't mean you should stop believing too."
Shinobu returned his smile and brushed his hand away as she stood up, "Thank you sempai, but you don't have to worry about me. I guess I'm getting to the age when I should stop believing fairy tales like Santa. It's kinda silly really." She took his hand and pulled him to his feet, "I'm going to make some Christmas cookies. Want to help me?"
Keitaro nodded and went to the kitchen with her. He felt a little disheartened having heard what Shinobu said before. Even though he knew a lot of people lost their belief in Santa Claus as they got older, he didn't think it was right for that to happen to Shinobu. She should be able to believe for a little longer. Even if this was the last Christmas she could do it. Feeling inspired to preserve the younger girl's faith in the holiday he resolved to ensure she was able to believe again. He'd just need a little help.
After helping Shinobu bake the cookies he excused himself and went outside. A fresh blanket of snow was beginning to coat the ground, countless snowflakes still falling from the grey clouds that covered the sky and adding to it. Keitaro made his way down to the teahouse his aunt, Haruka Urashima, ran near the Inn.
As he entered the small shop and allowed himself to enjoy the warmth that greeted him after having put up with the cold weather outside. He saw Haruka sitting at a table and reading the newspaper, the rest of the shop empty; it looked like it was slow today. Probably a good thing, this way he wouldn't be bothering Haruka while she was working. He went over to her, clearing his throat to catch her attention.
"Auntie, can I talk to you for a minute?"
Her immediate response was to smack him over the head with her paper fan. "For the millionth time, just call me Haruka."
"Sorry auntie,"
She smacked him again, "Baka, what do you want?"
Keitaro told Haruka about what occurred with Shinobu and how he wanted to help her. He came up with a simple plan to do it too, but he needed her to do him a favor. After listening to what he had to say, along with hitting him for calling her 'Auntie' again, she agreed to help him. His request was pretty simple anyway, the only real reason he needed her help was because he was so busy.
The next week passed by fairly quickly, Christmas Eve arriving before anyone knew it. At last it was time for Keitaro to initiate his plan. Last year he had learned that Shinobu loved to watch Christmas movies the night before Christmas and usually stayed up until midnight or until she fell asleep, whichever came first. So while Shinobu was up late, absorbed in her little movie marathon, he'd come out and surprise her disguised as none other than Santa himself.
Dressed in the red suit, extra large to stuff a pillow into to simulate Santa's large belly, a pair of black boots with gold buckles, the belt, also with a gold buckle, a red Santa hat and finally a snow white Santa beard to top it all off. Keitaro kept his own glasses on and checked out his disguise in the mirror. It looked very convincing, now all he had to do was sneak downstairs sometime between Eleven and Midnight, when Shinobu would be the only one in the living room left. By that time everyone else would have gone to bed.
Checking the clock on his desk he found that the current time was…4:19 PM. He still had nearly seven hours before he could put his plan into action. Chuckling nervously to himself, he changed back into his normal clothes and tried to find something to keep him occupied for the rest of the day.
Hours later he redressed himself in the Santa outfit, having checked to make sure the others were all fast asleep first. With the coast clear he crept down the stairs and into the living room. As he expected, Shinobu was lying on the couch in front of the TV. An old black and white Christmas special was currently on and Shinobu had drifted off to sleep while watching it. Keitaro looked at the sleeping girl for a moment, noticing how cute she looked right now. Reminding himself he was on a mission, he went over to the couch and knelt down next to her.
Knowing that Shinobu was a light sleeper, all he had to do was ever so carefully disturb her from her slumber. Something that was easily accomplished by merely tucking her in. The young girl stirred, her eyes opening a tiny bit. She realized what was going on and gave Keitaro a soft smile.
"Thank you Santa, good night." She closed her eyes again, about to fall back asleep when something clicked in her mind. Her eyes shot open and she sat up, staring at the person in front of her in shock and awe. "S-Santa!?"
Keitaro laughed, disguising his voice to make it sound older and he even managed to pull off Santa's unique laugh quite convincingly. "I'm sorry Shinobu; I didn't mean to wake you."
She stared at him, still surprised at what was going on. "Y-you know my name?"
Keitaro laughed like Santa again, "Of course I do. It's part of my job! I know everything about all the boys and girls in the world. For example, I know that recently you've lost a little of your faith in my existence, haven't you?"
Shinobu blushed, "Um, well…"
"Now, now. There's no need to explain, I understand. I've seen it happen more than enough to know what's going on. Some children just stop believing me and ridicule others because they still do. I honestly don't have any control over whether or not some children just stop believing or not. But I do like to think that I can still keep the belief alive in the others, the ones who don't just stop believing."
"But, doesn't it sadden you to know some kids don't think you're real?"
"A little, but that doesn't change the fact that I am real. Now, it's rather late and you really ought to go back to sleep. I'll need to be going as soon as I finish up here, good night Shinobu and Merry Christmas."
Shinobu giggled, "Okay. Good night…Sempai."
Keitaro froze, completely caught off guard. He could have sworn he had the Santa impression down pat. Yet somehow Shinobu saw though it, he could tell by the look in her eyes. She knew it was really him and not Santa at all.
Letting out a sigh he pulled off the beard. "What gave me away?"
Shinobu reached up and took his glasses off. "This is how I figured it out. I knew these were your glasses when I saw them Sempai."
"So I didn't fool you at all?"
"Well when you first woke me up you did, but after that it pretty obvious."
Keitaro let out another sigh, feeling like he failed. Shinobu probably had less faith in the existence of Santa now than she did before. The young girl saw the dejected look on his face and hugged him.
"Thank you sempai, it was really sweet of you to do this for me. But I think that maybe it's time for me to grow up."
"But, just because you're growing up doesn't mean you have to stop believing you know."
"It doesn't?" Keitaro nodded, "Sempai, do you still believe?"
"Yes…I do still believe. I like to think that as long as you believe in Santa, that he is real. That maybe just believing; makes him exist."
Shinobu took a moment to absorb his words and then giggled, "You're silly sempai!" She got up and took his hand. "Come on, I hid some of the cookies from Su so she wouldn't eat them all. Let's have a little snack before bed."
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Christmas morning had come. Well technically it had started not long after Keitaro and Shinobu had finished their midnight snack and gone to their respective bedrooms for the night, but the sun was up now. It climbed higher into the winter sky; casting light across the blanket of snow and making it sparkle.
Inside the Inn, all was still quiet. All the tenants and the manager asleep, that is aside from a young blonde girl. Sarah McDougal had, like many kids, woken up early on Christmas day and had immediately run down to see what was under the tree. When she got there, she was met with a surprise. Unable to believe it she stared into the room for a minute before running back upstairs to tell everyone else what she had seen. The first place she went was to Motoko's room to wake up her friend Kaolla Su.
Sarah burst into the swordswoman's room and ran up to the bed, kneeling down and shaking the sleeping form of Su.
"Hey wake up! You gotta see this! It's amazing!"
Kaolla stirred, not liking being woken up so roughly. Once she remembered what day it was though she was suddenly her usual energetic self and went to help Sarah wake up everyone else. Gathering all the other girls they went back downstairs to see what Sarah was so worked up about. Entering the living room, they quickly understood why.
Beneath the tree were numerous presents of all shapes and sizes. Far more than they were used to seeing during the past few Christmases they had been at the Inn. All of them went over to the tree, still astounded by the sheer number of gifts that there was. They just couldn't figure out where they had all come from.
Almost as if to answer their curiosity, Keitaro entered the room holding a sack of gifts. He was dressed up in the Santa outfit like he had done for Shinobu only hours ago. The young girl quickly realized what had happened and felt a swell of admiration for the boy. Sarah and Su however were under the impression that Keitaro was the real deal and tackled him, knocking him to the floor. Keitaro sat up, slightly winded with his fake beard askew and the hat having fallen off. Needless to say the two girls were somewhat surprised.
"Keitaro! You're not Santa!"
"Aw, it's just the dork."
Getting up, Keitaro was met by another tackle from Shinobu. The girl hugged him tight and thanked him for being so generous. The other girls offered him praise as well; even Motoko was touched by what he did. Keitaro couldn't understand why they were being so grateful until he himself saw all the gifts under the tree. He stared at it, just as shocked to see it as the others had been. Haruka, already smoking a cigarette came over and smiled at him.
"I have to admit Keitaro, I'm impressed. To think you'd go through the trouble of doing all this. I can see why you wanted me to get that Santa outfit for you now."
Keitaro smiled sheepishly and scratched the back of his head. "Um, thanks. But I only really had enough money to get everybody just one present this year. I have no idea where all these others came from."
The room went dead silent, all the girls looking at Keitaro. He didn't get them all these gifts? Then who? Over by the tree, Shinobu had picked up one that was for her. Taking a look at the tag it read,
To: Shinobu Maehara
From: Santa Claus.
End.
Well, that turned out to be a little longer than I thought it would be. Hope you liked it and Happy Holidays.