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Day 01: Festive

"Yuki," Shouichi started in his usual tiresome drawl. "Why did you have to choose baubles?"

Yukio stopped and gave him the stink eye. "It's because you never wanted to pick! Stop complaining!"

It was the winter holidays and with this season, in came the festive spirit. All throughout Japan one could see a myriad of lights decorating the environment. People became even busier at this time of the year, shopping for their loved ones, friends or themselves.

That said, out and about were the boys of RimFire, Tanaka had sent them out on a mission to gather Christmas decorations. The man had just brought home a massive Christmas tree, but alas, he had "forgotten" to pick up the décor —lights, baubles, stockings, wreath etc. So, having nothing better to do since school was out and Winter Cup and streetball competitions were done with, RimFire got to work.

Since the eight boys had split up into pairs to cover more ground, they had to choose what they'd buy via lottery. And as such, Yukio had drawn baubles. But Shouichi had a feeling that the lottery was rigged, in Yukio's case. He knew that the Blue Elite was a bauble fanatic; even his parents had admitted that ever since he was a young boy, Yukio has had a rather keen interest in that type of ornament.

"We'll be done before you know it. I mean, how hard can picking baubles be?" Yukio grinned, upon entering the mall. Quickly, he navigated through the fairly thin crowd —as Christmas drew closer, there'll be more people—to end up at the store he was looking for.

Pushing the door open, both his and Shouichi's eyes were assaulted with a wide array of colours; neither of them knew where to start. There were decorations everywhere, from miniature snowmen; to giant Christmas trees…they had it all.

"Now that I think about it, we could have all just shopped here instead of splitting up." Shouichi voiced out, the two walking further inwards the store.

"That's what I was saying but you know the boys, they were too eager to listen." Yukio shrugged.

The two then turned left and continued down that direction, looking at the aisles to see if they had what they were looking for. Soon, after passing four aisles, they arrived at the one which housed the baubles. And when they arrived, Yukio's mouth dropped open. Baubles galore! He saw green, red, gold —the standard colours that he's used to—but then he saw that there were purple, blue, orange…and many more colours. Before he had moved to Tanaka's, he and his family decorated their house for Christmas like everyone else. But they've never used the latter colours mentioned.

Seeing his best friend's face, Shouichi let out a sigh. "I pray for your pocket, Tanaka-san." Yukio walked down the aisle, and with every step, he took up about three boxes of baubles which housed six of the round ornament of the same colour and design.

"What are you doing, Shou?!" Yukio barked at him from the centre of the aisle. "Get your ass down here!"

"Hai, hai…" Shouichi sighed as he walked down the aisle to his bauble-obsessed best friend. I hope the others are having more fun than me.

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Elsewhere, Tetsuya and Shige were shopping for wreaths. So far, so good when they've stumbled upon a shop called "The Wreath Specialist". As the name suggests, its main product were wreaths, not only for Christmas but also for other occasions such as funerals.

The boys entered and were looking around. There were so many to choose from that Tetsuya and Shige were stumped. As if seeing their indecisiveness, a worker trudged up to them with a smile on his face. "Hello, how may I help?" he asked politely.

"We'd like your opinion on which wreaths to buy." Shige replied. "We can't choose between —" He broke himself off when he saw the confused look on the worker. "Are you okay?"

"Uh, what do you mean by "we"?"

"Me and Tetsu. He's right here." Shige said, stepping aside so that the worker could see Tetsuya. But even so, he didn't.

"Hello." Tetsuya said, scaring the man out of his wits.

"Oh shit! I didn't see you there!" he screamed.

"He's been there the whole time though." Shige grinned.

"R-right." The worker stuttered, a part of him believing that Tetsuya was a ghost.

When everything had calmed down, Shige started up again, "So, which wreaths should we get?"

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Tatsuya and Shuuzou were probably the only duo that didn't cause a stir wherever they went since they had gotten the easiest of the decorations —the lights. They didn't go into specialized store like Tetsuya and Shige, nor did they go into a mega mall like Shouichi and Yukio but rather, they entered a run-of-the-mill appliance store, asked a worker if they sold Christmas lights and bought the amount that they needed.

Tanaka-san had given the exact amount, not only for the massive tree in the living room, but for the entire house. The landlord knows that his boys were extra, and would have pestered him to decorate the house anyway.

"Is that everything?" Tatsuya asked when they were at the cashier.

"It's just lights, Tatsuya." Shuuzou drawled. "What else could we have possibly gotten?"

"Just asking. I don't know if you personally wanted anything."

"Pfft!" The power forward chuckled. "If I wanted anything I'd buy it online and wait for it to be delivered at my door."

"Lazy bastard."

"I just can't be bothered with these crowds."

…

The energetic duo of Kazunari and Kotarou had gotten the stockings to purchase and it turned out to be an all out war between the two. Kazunari loved the red stockings with the cute white snowflakes on them, while Kotarou wanted to get the green ones with the plaid pattern.

"We're getting the red ones! What the hell are we doing with the green ones!? Who do you think we are?! The Grinch!?" The hawk-eyed teen roared.

Kotarou drew back and gasped. "How does the Grinch come into this?!" he barked back. "We aren't wearing the stockings!"

"We're getting the red ones!"

"No! The green!"

"Red!"

"Green!"

"Red!"

"Green!"

Even the workers were troubled by their argument and even the manager threatened to throw them out if they persisted. However, when he got an understanding of the situation, he made a suggestion for them instead.

"Since you can't choose between them, why not get them both?" he said. "Here," he handed them two stockings for reference. "We have red, green and even white knitted stockings. So there's no need to start an argument."

Kazunari and Kotarou looked at each other as if saying, "why didn't we think of that before". Seeing that the two boys were beaming from the happiness, the manager heaved a sigh of relief. But he made sure to remember their faces; he was too young to be dealing with those two.

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Tanaka hummed as he busied himself in the kitchen. The house was extremely peaceful since all the boys were out, and the man couldn't remember when the last time he's had such peace. But, he didn't mind the noise and ruckus the eight brought. They were all healthy teenage boys who'll fight and argue and honestly, he found their bickering most amusing.

He looked to the clock, and immediately his brows furrowed. They knew what they were going to buy, and how much they should buy, so why aren't they back by now?

"Maybe I should call them." He said, fishing his phone out of his pocket. But the instant he did so, he heard loud chatter.

"Jesus Christ, I can't believe you!"

"I can't believe you!"

Oh dear, they're arguing. Tanaka sighed. He padded into the living room to see Yukio and Shouichi, along with Kazunari and Kotarou. And, indeed the four were arguing.

"Why on God's green earth did you buy those ugly stockings!?" Shouichi nearly screeched. "They're disgusting!"

"They're not! Kazu has the best taste in stockings! Don't you dare insult his choices!" Kotarou barked, grabbing Touou's captain in the collar. This was rather ironic, given how he and the point guard were arguing in the store earlier.

"You have five seconds to release his collar, Kotarou." Yukio hissed. "Or else,"

"Or else what?! Tell him to apologize to Kazu!"

"Oi! Oi! Oi!" Tanaka intervened quickly before things got nasty. He pried Kotarou from Shouichi and stood in between the two pairs of boys.

"What's the issue?" He asked in a stern voice.

"The stockings they bought are terrible! Just look at them!" Shouichi said with disgust.

"No they aren't!" Kotarou defended.

Tanaka sighed. "I can't believe this." He dragged a hand over his face. "Look, the stockings are staying, and they're not all bad."

"Tanaka-san, how could you?"

"They're not bad. Come on…"

"They're —"

"Tadaima!" a very perky voice came from the genkan. "And we've bought the wreaths! I can tell that you're going to like it!"

Shige and Tetsuya entered the living room and felt the stifling atmosphere. And judging from Tanaka-san's stance, they knew that something had happened between the boys and he was doing damage control. Awkwardly, they placed the wreaths on the table, and marched up to Tetsuya's shared room with Kazunari. Whatever happened, they didn't want to get caught in the crossfire.

"Alright, what don't you like about the stockings?" Tanaka started up, forcing them to sit in sofa.

"The designs." Shouichi deadpanned. "What is that?" he asked when he pointed on a pattern seeming to shape like a reindeer.

"A reindeer, you blind fool." Kotarou snapped.

"Reindeers don't look like that!" He argued. "And I'm not a blind fool!"

"Shit…" Tanaka couldn't deal with this right now. And what's worse, Yukio and Kazunari weren't being helpful either. "You know what, I have a handcuff so it wouldn't kill me to cuff you two together."

Shouichi and Kotarou looked mortified. "No…" they gasped out.

"Plus, you're both males so there's nothing to worry about."

"We have our dignity!" they screeched.

"Then stop this senseless arguing over stockings! If I so hear a peep out of any one of you, I'll go for the cuff."

"Yes Sir."

The quartet marched upstairs in misery, but at least, they weren't going at each other's throats anymore. When Tanaka returned to the kitchen, the last duo, Tatsuya and Shuuzou arrived, and they were so quiet that he almost didn't realize when they had returned.

"At least I don't get headaches from those two." He sighed. But he just knew that as the days go by, his peace wasn't going to last.

Thank you for reading~!