Lisa Mishima groaned internally as she hugged her school bag to her chest, careful not to break the small chocolates contained in two almost identical cellophane bags. Nine and Twelve walked behind her, eyeing her with concern as they balanced several bags and boxes of chocolate and candy as they began the upstairs walk to their shared apartment.
She should have known.
She should have foreseen this.
"We should have dumped these on our way here," Nine muttered "We can't possibly eat all this candy,"
Twelve shook his head at Nine "Of course we can, you can't just throw perfectly good chocolate in the trash," he cocked his head trying to get a look at the face of the black haired girl walking a step ahead of him, but she kept her features deliberately hidden behind a curtain of hair, "isn't that right, Lisa?"
She nodded, not saying a word.
She should have given them the chocolate before they left the apartment this morning. Before dozens of girls flocked to Nine and Twelve presenting them with carefully decorated Valentine's day offerings. Cards, ribbons and sparkling ornaments made her two unembellished bags of chocolate pale in comparison. If she gave them to the two boys after all the perfect presents they had received they would laugh at her, surely.
She was ashamed of her gifts, she had never before paid much attention to how much other girls fussed over the chocolates they would be handing out. Then again, she never had anyone to give chocolate to; not to friends, not to acquaintances, and never to a crush. She had never been on the receiving end of such a gesture either.
And now that she had two very important people that deserved such attention she had messed up, badly. The presentation, the timing, even the type of chocolate, which looked cheap and unappetizing compared to the other chocolate they received, it was all wrong.
She felt so pathetic.
Twelve looked back at Nine after Lisa's muted response, but the bespectacled guy only shrugged one shoulder and frowned down at all the boxes piled carefully in his arms. "You know they'll expect us to return the favor next month,"
Twelve laughed, a little too loud, sensing Lisa's uneasiness and wanting to lighten the mood, "We'd go broke if we did,"
Lisa hurried ahead of them, and fumbled for the keys inside her bag, careful to avoid making any noise with the cellophane and wincing whenever she failed and it crinkled way too loudly. She heard Twelve hurrying to catch up after her and bit her lip.
Even if they didn't care about the presentation of her chocolate she would no longer be giving them anything special, anything worth more than a curt thank you. She'd just be adding to the pile of gifts now. What was the point?
Finally, she was able to open the door just as Twelve reached out to touch her shoulder, and she rushed inside the apartment, kicking off her shoes before either of the two guys had the chance to say anything to her.
"I'll go change," she announced loudly without looking back, and locked herself in her room.
Twelve sighed and dumped his presents unceremoniously on the small kitchen table. "Did we do something to upset her?"
"Valentine's day can be a sensitive day for girls, maybe she gave chocolate to someone and got rejected,"
Twelve didn't say anything for a long moment, swallowing the sudden knot that had formed in his throat,"Heh," he sat heavily on one of the chairs and began unwrapping one of the boxes, discarding the card and wrapping paper without really looking at them "Guy has to be an idiot to reject someone like Lisa, then again, that school is full of stupid, mean people."
Nine arched a brow at Twelve, "Does the idea of Lisa confessing to someone bother you?"
"Doesn't it bother you?" the brunet shot back under his breath, grimacing slightly at the childish tone of his voice.
Nine looked bewildered for a moment and shook his head, even as a small protective side of him protested much the same way Twelve was doing "Of course not, why should it?"
"Right," Twelve muttered sarcastically, and scanned with little interest the assortment of chocolates inside of the box before pushing it to the side and moving to unwrap another one.
"Don't open the boxes if you're not going to eat the contents."
Twelve deliberately ignored him.
Before long their small apartment smelled sickeningly sweet and the table was covered with naked boxes of untouched chocolate.
"I hope you're happy with yourself now," Nine chastised from his desk, having decided to put some distance between himself and his sulky best friend.
Twelve scowled and got up, collecting all wrapping paper and bunched up cards to dump them in the trashcan, away from their sight.
He was forcing the lid of the bin closed when Lisa's bedroom door opened and she peeked out into the living area and kitchenette. "Um, Nine, Twelve…"
"Lisa!" Twelve turned to beam at her, all signs of his foul mood suddenly gone "Come here,"
She stepped out of her room, her hands behind her, carefully hiding the two bags of chocolate. "I'm sorry I acted weird on the way back from school."
Twelve waved one of his hands dismissively "Don't worry about it. Whatever happened, it's going to be okay. How about we start eating all this chocolate together?"
Lisa approached the table slowly, mindful of the bags hidden behind her back, and her eyes widened "This is …too much."
"Not for three people."
"But these are yours…and Nine's, I shouldn't—"
"These are yours as well." Twelve glanced at Nine and the taller guy sighed, moving over to join them at the table.
"You should have known we would share with you."
"Ne, which kind do you prefer? We got a wide variety in here," Twelve moved closer to her and Lisa took a step back, afraid he'd see the bags.
"Actually, I—" No point, Lisa thought. No point in dragging it out when they were going out of their way to be this nice to her, as always. "I got you two chocolate as well,"
She pursed her lips, waiting for their bored reactions but Twelve's face illuminated with joy, while Nine looked genuinely surprised.
"Nine, Lisa got us chocolate!" Twelve threw his arms up in celebration, eyes going big with delight when the girl produced the two plain bags, both tied with thin colored laces: one red and one blue.
"I know you probably don't care for it right now, but—"
"Which one is mine?" Twelve asked enthusiastically, deliberately interrupting her, and then grinned "it's the red one, isn't it?"
Lisa nodded, handing it to him and then stepping over to Nine "Will you accept this?"
Nine nodded, at a loss for words, and took it from her, murmuring a thank you.
"I'll pour us some milk," she said, turning around, flustered by Twelve's eagerness and Nine's oddly pleasant expression when he received the gift.
Her cheeks pinked when she heard the rustle of cellophane behind her and she prayed they would like the chocolates.
She set the glasses in front of them, surprised that even Nine was reaching inside his bag.
All those other more appetizing looking chocolates in front of them were going completely ignored as her small gifts got all the attention. They were truly too good to her, she thought, smiling.
She watched in anticipation as both bit into their respective chocolates.
But then…two things happened at once:
Nine made a small noise of approval, lips curving slightly into a weak smile just as Twelve spit a chunk of chocolate and gagged.
"Are they that bad?" Lisa pouted at Twelve.
"They're fine," said Nine, frowning as the brown eyed downed his glass of milk. "What's the matter with you?"
"Lisa… where did you get these?"
The girl didn't respond, looking nervously down at her hands.
"Hmm," Twelve zeroed in on Nine's bag of chocolates, and before either of the two could protest he snatched one of the small chocolates, popping it into his mouth and chewing carefully. "Hey, these are not the same!"
"They are identical to yours, Twelve." Nine stated, thinking it was ones of Twelve's jokes to tease Lisa.
Lisa averted her eyes and sipped from her glass of milk "Of-of course they are,"
"No, these are delicious and mine are…salty."
"Salty?" The poor girls ears reddened, but there was guilt in her eyes "How could they be salty?"
Nine sighed and reached over to Twelve's bag to grab one of his chocolates but Lisa pulled it away from his reach. "They're the same as yours, I promise."
Twelve's eyes narrowed to slits, taking in Lisa's every gesture and her evident discomfort "Is this your way of saying you prefer Nine? He gets the nice chocolates and I get prank ones?"
"Pra-Prank?" Dismay turned to insult and Lisa raised her voice "They are not prank chocolates!"
"Are you telling me the store sold you salty chocolate?"
"I—I, no, I—"
Nine sighed, understanding, "I think I know what's going on here. Lisa did you make Twelve's chocolates yourself?"
Lisa looked down into her glass of milk and drank again, letting her silence speak for itself.
"But they look just like yours, Nine." Twelve's tone was skeptical but softer now.
"I used the ones I bought for Nine as reference," the girl said under her breath, defeated and embarrassed. She had hoped Twelve wouldn't be able to tell the difference. All her sneaking after school to prepare the chocolates and make them identical to the ones she had bought for Nine, had been for nothing.
"So this is…" The brunet's eyes went huge as realization settled in "HO- HONMEI-CHOCO?"
Lisa let a tiny high pitched sound at Twelve's exaggerated reaction and turned scarlet.
The boy's lips curved into a smug little smile, obviously pleased with the situation "I didn't know you could be so direct, Lisa."
Lisa's lips trembled, her face felt hot and tingly and she no longer felt in control of her own mouth. Twelve's words were barely audible over the loud hammering of her heart as she swallowed thickly. "It's not…I mean…it is… but I…" she began, but Twelve was already turning to Nine.
"As your chocolate is obviously not homemade I'd say it's safe to assume it is merely Giri-choco,"
Twelve saw insult cross his friend's features for the briefest moment and he burst out laughing.
"That's not true!" Lisa waved her hands in a panic, shooting mildly irritated looks at Twelve "I wasn't…. It's just that—I thought I'd try preparing at least one batch of chocolate myself and—"
Nine shook his head at Lisa calmly "It's quite alright, I know your gesture was genuine, Twelve likes acting like he's five occasionally."
"I can't believe I was afraid I stopped being her favorite for a moment there," Twelve continued, talking to himself and ignoring Nine's comment.
"Twelve!" mortified Lisa slapped at his arm half-heartedly "Sto-stop it."
Nine adjusted his glasses "It's all a matter of perspective, really."
"Huh?"
"As I see it, Lisa cared enough about me to give me chocolate safe for human consumption. I believe that speaks volumes."
"Nine!" Lisa brought a hand to her face, sighing deeply as Twelve immediately retaliated, arguing that what mattered was the effort put into the present, but Nine cut him off, requesting that he remember that when he's puking his guts out in the bathroom.
She let them bicker for a couple of minutes until finally, tired of the ridiculous competition, she slammed her palms against the table, turning their attention to her.
"They're both Honmei-choco! You're both important to me and I love you both just the same!"
Running on her sudden burst of confidence, face burning but full of determination, Lisa grabbed one of the chocolate boxes on the table for herself and stormed off to her room.
Taken aback, Nine and Twelve stared after her in silence, grimacing in unison when she slammed the door.
After a full minute of silence Twelve turned to Nine. "You know she only said that so that your feelings wouldn't get hurt, right?—wait are you blushi—mmph!"
His brown eyes popped wide open as several small heart-shaped chocolates were shoved into his open mouth by Nine, who was looking uncharacteristically flustered after Lisa's brutally sincere statement.
"Shut up and eat your salty chocolates, Twelve."
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Notes:
Giri-choco: means 'obligation chocolate', it is usually given to coworkers, teachers or casual acquaintances.
Honmei choco: means 'true feeling chocolate' and is given by girls to their significant other or crush. After some research I found out that even though 'Honmei' sounds like Homemade, the actual origin of the word comes from horse racing, referring to the favored horse of the race, which is what inspired me to add that little competitive scene between Nine and Twelve at the end.
I'd also like to give my sincerest apologies to those who follow my other fics. I've been battling with writers block since sometime around Christmas and have not been able to produce anything worth reading. Please bear with me though, I do intend to update my other fics and even if Christmas is already over I will try to update as the ideas come to me, I don't care if it's suddenly June and I'm still writing Christmas prompts.
Special thanks to the lovely TheRoseShadow21 for always encouraging me with her reviews, one of the Christmas prompts will be dedicated to you, thanks so much again for always taking the time to leave a kind word.