Written for alldana on tumblr
Contains implied (?) A/C
Sunlight filters in through window blinds, sharp and blinding in the darkness. A-ya recoils, balling his blanket into his fist and yanking it over his face to protect him. He opens his eyes and blinks, slowly growing accustomed to the light. Taking note of the soft blue flashing coming from his phone, he sits up, moving his legs over the edge of the bed, and stretches. He glances at a wall clock – it's eight O'clock, not that early all things considered – and stands to make his way to the bathroom to take a shower.
He emerges a handful of minutes later, now fully awake and hair damp. A-ya snatches up his phone, checking over his messages. There's two from his parents, both of them sending their regrets for not being able to be with him during the holidays, but there's never not enough work to be doing, and the trains are clogged around this time, and there's always next year, and, and, and…
There's a text from B-ko with a link to a forum that he'll check out later, and one from C-ta asking him if he has any plans for the day. A-ya sends a quick 'thanks' to B-ko, and 'no' to C-ta.
He gets a reply from his childhood friend as he's walking to the kitchen, and he ignores it until two pieces of bread are slid into the toaster.
"Can I come over? I want to give you your gift so you can put it under the tree and open it on Christmas."
A-ya frowns; the Occult Club had agreed to get each other cheap gifts and exchange them on the last day of school. He had received an empty journal from C-ta, homemade cookies from B-ko, and socks from D-ne. Why would C-ta have gotten him something else?
"i guess, but i don't have a tree" He types out and sends. A-ya hadn't gotten something else for C-ta, but maybe he'll think of something to give.
"You don't have a tree? What about the one in your storage?"
"its still there i just haven't put it up." The toast pops up; he butters it and moves over to the dining room table.
"If you get it out, I can help you decorate?"
"you can come over after nine" A-ya types, nibbling his breakfast. It'll be a pain to get the tree set up, only to take it down a few days later. Maybe he could convince C-ta to come over after the holidays to help him put it away.
"Okay, it's a date." He cringes at his friend's message, then puts his phone down to concentrate on his breakfast. Once everything has been eaten and the plates are washed, he travels to the storage room. It's dusty in there, and filled with boxes of various sizes. He knows from experience that the Christmas decorations are all the way in the back. Luckily, everything is labeled and it doesn't take long to navigate his way over to the holiday section.
The box holding the plastic tree parts is nearly as tall as he is, and he is forced to shuffle things around so he can drag, not lift, it out and into the living room. Next comes the bins full of mismatching lights and ornaments.
He unpacks the tree, setting the four sections onto the ground, then decides C-ta can deal with fitting all of the pieces together since he was the one who wanted to do this. A-ya checks the time on his phone and sees he still has a while to go. He wastes time untangling the Christmas lights and listening to the news on the television, then later flips to a slasher movie.
At precisely 8:59, the doorbell rings. A-ya takes his time moving to the front door, pausing to turn down the volume. He unlocks and opens it. C-ta is smiling in a way too cheerful manner, but he lets him in anyway. He's holding what appears to be a box wrapped in blue wrapping paper, with a neon yellow bow on top.
"Good morning, A-ya."
"Hey. Want me to get you something?" There aren't many snacks in the house; he's been putting off grocery shopping for the past few days, and he's been surviving off of spaghetti and plain rice for a week. He might be able to find a few packets of tea though.
Luckily, C-ta shakes his head as they make their way to the living room. C-ta grimaces at the gruesome scene on the television, a depiction of what happens to someone when their legs are cut off below the knee, and snatches up the remote to find the Christmas music channel. The present gets placed on the ground to the side, out of the way.
"We, I see that the tree is still in pieces, so I suppose we should start working on that." C-ta stands over the parts for a second, trying to decide where to begin.
A-ya perches on the couch. "That thing there," he points, "is the base. The other pieces are coded. 'C' is the largest and goes on the bottom." He watches as C-ta stands the base up, then figures out how to attach it to 'C.' Next goes the middle 'B' piece of the tree, then the last one, 'A.' C-ta has to stand on his toes to reach the top. Humming the tune of some Christmas song, he steps away from the now assembled tree, glancing at A-ya.
"Now what?"
A-ya frowns; shouldn't C-ta already know how to properly put up a tree? As far as he was aware, his family did something similar every year. "You need to spread the branches. See how they're sort of twisted together? There shouldn't be big gaps, and the ones on the top shouldn't be standing up like that." He directs, giving a vague gesture.
C-ta smiles and does as ordered, smoothing out the branches so they're no longer clinging together. "Like this?" He asks, looking back.
"Yeah, but they need to be spread out a bit more, and you need to do it to the whole tree, not just the side that's showing."
"Oh, okay. Want to help?" A-ya shakes his head and leans back against the cushions. "That's alright." C-ta disappears behind the tree for a moment, getting the branches on the other side. When he's finished, it appears to be nearly as poofy as the tree on the image on the box.
"The lights come next," A-ya says before C-ta can ask. "We have two types, rainbow and white."
"Which do you prefer?"
He shrugs, and after a second of contemplation, C-ta picks up the white lights. He plugs them into the electrical socket, checking to see if they all work. They do, and he begins wrapping them around the tree, starting at the bottom. When he gets to the middle, he turns to ask A-ya, "is this right?"
A-ya nods absentmindedly, his eyes flicking back and forth between the blank television screen and C-ta. He taps his fingers against his knee, wondering how rude it would be to start playing on his phone. Typically, ignoring a guest was sacrilegious, but it was just C-ta, and he probably already expected this kind of behavior from A-ya.
He slides it out of his pocket and checks the link B-ko sent him earlier. It leads him to a horror forum he's frequented in the past where users tell of their experiences with occultic rituals or games. The great majority of the stories were pure bullshit, either because the author wasn't good at suspense or writing in general, or because it was obviously made up. Occasionally, however, it was possible to find gems among the dirt, and B-ko had apparently discovered one.
"What's got you smirking?" C-ta asks, flopping down beside him to peer over his shoulder.
A-ya looks up at the tree to find it fully covered in twinkling lights. "A forum post someone told me to check out." He doesn't mention B-ko, knowing C-ta had little interest in discussing their fellow club member. "It's about the Three Kings ritual. It looks interesting; I might try it while school's still out. The lights are nice."
"They'll look even cooler at night. Do you have any ornaments to hang up?"
"Everything is in those bins." A-ya sets his phone down as C-ta gets up to pop the top of the closest one. He pulls out an ornament covered in tissue paper and unwraps it.
"This is cute," he says, inspecting the miniature horse in his hands. "Hey, since it seems all of your decorations are wrapped up, how about I unwrap them and you put them up?"
The thought of standing around a plastic tree for a questionable amount of time certainly did not sound appealing, but A-ya forces himself to his feet anyway and steps over to take the ornament from C-ta. He hangs it near the middle, then accepts the next bauble that gets handed to him. They work in near silence, C-ta continuing to hum to the music, as A-ya systematically places ornaments onto the tree. More than a few ugly or hand-made ones get put up near the back, where they won't easily be spotted.
"That's the last one," C-ta tells him, handing over a purple orb. "There's just the topper left."
A-ya hangs it near the bottom. "Let's skip the topper and call it a day." He goes to sit back down on the couch, and C-ta joins him. He fiddles with the remote, turning off the Christmas music and returning the channel back to the slasher movie. They watch as the antagonist falls into his own trap and dies a very bloody death, and then the credits roll.
"Once the holidays are over, you're going to help me put all of this stuff back in storage, right?" A-ya asks, glancing at all the open boxes littering the floor. His present is still sitting to the side; he'll have to move it later.
"Sure. When are your parents coming back?" His question is met with an uninterested shrug. "Well, I was hoping to see you on your birthday anyway, so I could come over on the eighth?"
"That works, I guess." A-ya was hoping to take everything down a lot earlier, like at the end of December, but if C-ta was offering to help anyway, then he supposes it can wait. "You have to bake me a cake, though. Since it'll be my birthday."
"Of course."
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