Years end, pass by, each beginning a fresh start, a new cycle, a way to be freed of old worries and past evils. The first day of the year is a very auspicious one, believed to be representative for the entire year just commenced. The day is full of joy, free of stress and anger, and everything is viewed as being simply…happy.
New Years, Shogatsu, is an important holiday; schools and businesses close, and homes are decorated with pine and bamboo. It is the time for people to return to their families; and so it was that the host club mamagoto gathered.
They decided upon a pleasant hilltop park to watch the hatsuhinode, the new year's first sunrise, and spent carefree hours sharing traditional foods and laughing at commoner otoshidama. Sticky mochi had been prepared by Haruhi with her father the day before, and was passed around to be eagerly accepted (though Kyouya politely declined, citing death by choking in the elderly population the year before). Twins were scolded for eating the decorative kagami mochi and daidai, amidst playful laughter and jokes. Mori had brought a hand-made kite for takoage, and Honey had found a traditional koma to spin. Fukuwarai, however childish as some view it, was also a game the group played; Tamaki brought the most laughter, foolishly listening to the twins' directions and creating a face like no other.
In a few hours, they will wrap up and prepare for their first shrine visit, hatsumode, and they will grow quiet in respect. They will spend some time there before parting ways to their own true families.
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The twins will return to their mother, who has taken time off from her New Year's line of clothes; she will dress them up and listen to the stories they share. She'll laugh in a very Hitachiin way (it is clear that her sons inherited her nature), and will make sure to remind her quiet husband to speak up and participate more during this important time for family. Together, they will share the traditional foods each had suggested earlier, and they will smile and joke and laugh and have a good time.
Shogatsu is a time for family; this one shall spend time together properly, and not just as two boys with a mother never there and a father never approaching.
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Honey and Mori, being cousins, will also return to the same home. There, they will greet their younger brothers who will be arguing (and fighting) over when to perform hatsugama, and the Haninozuka tradition of fighting upon meeting will be waived for once. Together, the four will go inside to join the rest of the two families, and they will simply talk about the new year, what it will bring, and what they should plan. For once, Honey will not be criticized for his childish habits, and Mori will be reminded that he need not distance himself among family. Chika will not throw half as many angry looks to his brother, and Satoshi's admiration for his own elder brother will only grow.
Shogatsu is a time for family; this one shall take the time to strengthen bonds, and to remember that they are family even through harsh tradition and everything else pressed upon them.
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Kyouya shall go back to the Ootori mansion and will sit with his three siblings. They will see their mother for the first time in a while, and their father will be there as well. Yoshio will begin by asking (commanding) each to share how they spent the coming of the year, and he will smile at each retelling. He will then ask the eldest how things are going with his fiancee (things are going well, father), and then will nod and turn to the second brother, who will provide a similar response. Then he will turn to his third son, and Kyouya will speak truthfully that relations with the Suoh family are remaining well (and while saying this, he secretly hopes this was the response his father was searching for, because his brothers spoke about their upcoming marriages while he had no parallel of his own). His father will nod, and then turn to Fuyumi, reminding her to go back to her own family to spend the rest of the holiday where she will be needed. She will simply murmur agreement, before joining her brothers in turning to gaze at the other woman at the end of the table. None of the four siblings will miss the fact that their mother has not spoken throughout the entire meal.
Shogatsu is a time for family; this one will not express the way each cares for the other, but all will know that it is understood to be there beneath the cool rivalry, tension, and bitter, steely coldness.
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Tamaki will, for once, head to the First Suoh Mansion; he will be greeted by no one, as Antoinette is back at the Second Suoh Mansion, and all the servants have already gone home to their own respective families. His father will be there, and so will his grandmother; a lonely three that he convinced himself would one day accept each other and work as a family. Tamaki will let himself inside, greet the other two who are already seated at the long impersonal Western table, and uncertainly take a seat in the center (where exactly does one sit at such a table when there are an uneven three present?). He will then remember something important, and will rise to give to his father a gift he purchased on the way back from the shrine. Yuzuru will smile and thank him, and give him an apologetic look that spoke lengths and lengths; Tamaki knows what it means. Neither can say more in the presence of the family matriarch, and both understand. So Tamaki will then turn to give his second gift to the harsh woman he knew would accept him one day. He will give her his best smile and hold out the small box to her, but she will simply turn away and sniff.
He leaves the gift beside her anyway.
Shogatsu is a time for family; this one is strained, painful, and terribly, achingly empty, but one will work to bring everything together, one is battling her hatred to find begrudging acceptance, and one has absolute faith that everything will work out to be just fine.
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Haruhi will return to her apartment, now noisy with the chatter of many families crowded into one building; cheerful talk and the clatter of plates can be heard through the not-quite-soundproof walls. She won't mind the noise-- indeed, she'll smile a little at it as she lets herself into her own room. Upon entering, her father will look up from the traditional meal he's somehow (somehow) managed to make and will immediately begin to fire questions about his daughter's wellbeing and the group with which she has spent the year's beginning. After a smile and recounting, they will spend quality time as father and daughter, and when they recall memories of her mother, it is with fondness rather than bitter sadness. They spend a simple holiday together, nothing elaborate or fancy, but it is enough. Shogatsu is a time for family; this one knows well the love that runs so strongly between them, and they do not need anything more than that.
A family can be literal, through blood and ancestry. A family can be metaphorical, a close group of friends tied by many strands of care and trust. The coming of the new year is a-
-a very special time-
-to be spent with loved ones.
And one should never miss the opportunity to spend the time to strengthen such familial bonds.
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mamagoto -- to play house; play family
otoshidama -- traditional practice of giving small gifts (monetary). The host club laughs because it is typically pocket change, really.
mochi -- I hope we all know what this is! The typical, traditional mochi is very sticky, and there actually are reported deaths by choking. So be careful…
kagami mochi & daidai -- decorative mochi and bitter orange. You know, those stacks of two round mochi with the orange or tangerine on top? That.
takoage -- activity, flying kites
koma -- spinning top
fukuwarai -- a children's game in which a blindfolded person attempts to place features onto a paper face. So like…they have a paper nose, eyes, mouth, etc., and they have to put it onto a blank face. I personally find this game endlessly amusing with older people.
hatsumode -- first shrine visit (of the new year)
hatsugama --first tea ceremony (of the new year)
Phew. Sorry for using so many terms like that; it's just that I have a hard time expressing them otherwise (since I have grown up with many of such traditions, it comes easy). As you can probably tell…this was written from the point of time at the first party with the host club; it goes from past tense to future tense. A writing experiment, hope that's okay. Also with a circular way of writing; sorry if it gets repetitive, let me know if it does.
Sorry this is so late, and, Happy New Year!
And silly site, with your errors with italics. :)