My secret santa fic for is the first time I've written Hyotei without it being from Ryoma's perspective, so I really hope I've written them all okay... They're all adults now btw, or, rather, they're all old enough to legally drink.
Atobe was a very extravagant person by nature. It was very lucky he'd been born into a very wealthy family. He enjoyed buying people things, no matter what the price tag. Most of his friends had just given in and decided to accept the gifts, knowing that Atobe was doing it to make them happy, not to show off his wealth or make them feel bad about themselves.
And so, that Christmas, he'd taken his old tennis team skiing in the French Alps.
The chalet was owned by his family's company and had staff living in it throughout the season. It was used when his father wanted to entertain business associates and Atobe had been taken there quite a few times when he'd been growing up in England. So, the chalet was free for Atobe to use any time (as long as he booked it in advance), but Atobe arranged the flights on the private plane and helicopter for his team (as they were paid for by the company) as well as paying for ski hire and lift passes and such and called it his Christmas present to them all.
(Of course, he'd bought them all presents as well, but he wasn't going to tell them that till Christmas Eve).
The flight from Japan was long and full of Shishido complaining and asking why they couldn't just go skiing in Japan. Eventually, he fell asleep and Atobe was left with trying to ignore Oshitari and Gakuto's less than subtle attempts to sneak away and join the Mile High Club. He was just glad they were in a private plane, he'd flown on a commercial airline once before and had sworn never to again. He liked being surrounded by his own staff and having lots of legroom with no loud strangers disturbing his rest. He was seriously considering sending Gakuto and Oshitari home in economy class if he heard so much as a peep from their sexual escapades.
Snuggled up against him, with his head in the crook of Atobe's arm was Jirou, fast asleep as usual. No doubt sleeping to prepare himself for the two weeks of skiing ahead. Atobe smiled down fondly at him and squeezed him gently. He was looking forward to spending the next two weeks with Jirou without having to sneak around his family. He was a straight forward person, but he knew that this was going to be a very tricky subject to bring up with his parents.
After landing they transferred to the limo waiting for them and the hours long journey into the mountains. Finally, they arrived at chalet and the air of sleepiness lifted off of the group. Atobe went to talk to the staff and discuss what they would been needing over their holiday whilst the others ran around exploring the chalet.
"There's a hot tub out here!" Gakuto cried as he went out onto the terrace, "it's huge!"
Once they'd all finished exploring the chalet and they'd all found their rooms, they decided to go out into the town. Much of the afternoon was spent getting skis, snowboards and boots and then dragging them back to the chalet. Most of his friends had chosen to snowboard, Atobe had never tried it before and hadn't wanted to in front of all his friends just in case (and it was a very small possibility in Atobe's mind) he wasn't any good at it. So, he stuck to skiing, which he'd been doing since he was three years old.
After all their equipment had been safely stowed away in the boot room they went back into the town to check out the restaurants and bars. Or, that was the plan, they didn't even get to one bar before Jirou and Gakuto saw a souvenir shop and they were all dragged inside.
The shelves were stuffed with cuddly toys of various mountain animals and tacky souvenirs with the towns name plastered all over them. Atobe gave them a look of disgust and followed Oshitari and Gakuto into the centre of the shop where a model cable car was moving back and forth across the ceiling.
"I want one of those!" Gakuto said, watching it almost mesmerised.
Atobe tuned out their conversation about where in Gakuto's room the cable car could go and Gakuto snapping when Oshitari teased him about putting one of his soft toys in it. Or, at least, that's what Atobe thought what Gakuto's shouting was about, Oshitari had brought up a stupid name and Gakuto had got angry.
Of course, this being Gakuto and Oshitari, the argument turned into a make out session that was cut short when Atobe cleared his throat to remind them where they were.
"Sorry Atobe," Oshitari drawled with absolutely no regret. Atobe was just happy that his room was far away from theirs. Gakuto didn't apologise.
"Atobe! Atobe! Look!"
Atobe turned around and saw Jirou and Kabaji coming towards them, each carrying a very large stuffed toy. "Aren't the cute?" Jirou asked, holding up his St. Bernard, which was almost the size of him. Atobe looked at Kabaji, who was holding a large mountain goat (which Atobe knew was a chamois because then he could show off his knowledge one day), the toys were indeed pretty cute, especially when held by his boyfriend and best friend.
"I'll buy them for you," Atobe said.
Jirou looked taken aback, "we were just showing you how cute they were!"
"They are cute," Atobe agreed, "that's why I want to buy them for you. Isn't that right, Kabaji?"
"Yes," Kabaji agreed and Atobe took them to the till.
The next few days were spent on the slopes during the day and in the clubs at night. Atobe preferred the skiing and found clubbing to be a very tiring experience, but all his friends enjoyed it and he was quite happy to do it for a few nights, just not every night.
The late nights clubbing were catching up with Shishido and Gakuto and it was getting harder and harder to get them up in the mornings. Only the knowledge that they would get left behind got them up in the mornings.
Once they'd eaten and walked to the nearest chair lift (which was a ten minute, uphill walk from the chalet) they were much less hungover and ready to spend a day sliding down a mountain.
"Is everyone here?" Atobe asked at the top of the chairlift once he was sure everyone was there.
"You know we are," Shishido grumbled loud enough for Atobe to hear.
"Excellent. Kabaji, the map," Atobe ordered and Kabaji appeared at his side with the piste map. "Today we are skiing over to this lift here," he pointed along a run and to a chair lift, "then we will be going up this series of lifts," he pointed to each in order, "to the top of the mountain and then we shall be skiing down these runs," he pointed at them.
The rest of his friends watched the daily briefing with a sense of amusement, the route had been planned the night before, but Atobe enjoyed doing this, so they humoured him.
The views from the top of the mountain were spectacular with snow covered mountain peaks and tree lined valleys as far as the eyes could see. The pistes spread out below them, covered in tiny black specks that were their fellow skiers.
"Is everyone ready?" Atobe asked, looking down the extremely steep slope in front of them, and adjusting his goggles.
"Let's do this!" Shishido yelled.
"Keep your voice down, idiot," Gakuto snapped, "you'll cause an avalanche. Anyway, last one down has to pay for the shots tonight," he said and then pushed off down the slope.
"That's cheating," Shishido yelled after him as the rest started off around him.
"Come on, Shishido," Ootori urged him.
Gakuto's head start didn't do much good as he caught an edge and landed flat on his face, sliding to a stop a little way down the hill.
"Looks like you're buying the drinks!" Atobe shouted at him.
Oshitari helped Gakuto back to his feet and Atobe soon had a determined redhead on his tail wearing a hideous pink and orange leopard skin hat with ears pulled over his helmet.
Atobe tucked in his arms and bent down, making himself as aerodynamic as possible. The steepness of the run, one of the trickiest in the resort, didn't bother him at all as he sped down the run, putting in a few turns here and there to control his speed.
He got to the bottom of the hill first closely followed, to his surprise, by Hiyoshi. He could have sworn Gakuto had been in second place. He looked back up the slope and saw Gakuto on his butt, being passed by Shishido and Ootori.
Gakuto came in last place and, to his credit, didn't complain too much about it over lunch despite Hiyoshi and Shishido making snide comments.
That night he bought them all the cheapest, nastiest shots on the menu.
Atobe couldn't quite remember the rest of the night, other than he'd drunk a lot of alcohol and may have ended up grinding against Jirou on the dancefloor. He was sure if he had been shirtless whilst doing it too.
His pounding headache and the creeping embarrassment made him want to never leave the bed, especially since he had Jirou curled up against him. He wrapped his arms around him and hugged him tight, hoping that he would ward off his headache. It didn't work, but it was nice anyway.
"Atobe?" Jirou muttered sleepily, Atobe couldn't tell if he was awake or just sleep talking.
"I have the worst hangover," Atobe said and Jirou hummed sympathetically. He was awake then. "I need to get rid of it before I see the others."
"You need to be perfect at all times."
"Exactly," Atobe said, "Oshitari would enjoy seeing me hungover far too much."
"We should sleep some more," Jirou said, "that always makes me feel better."
Atobe nodded and kissed the top of Jirou's head before drifting off to sleep again.
Thankfully, the rest of Hyotei were thoroughly hungover as well, all except Kabaji, who didn't drink alcohol. It was snowing heavily outside, so they all lounged around in the sitting room all day watching the DVDs that came with the chalet. They were rubbish, but no one was in the mood to care.
Sometime in the afternoon, Shishido suggested that they go in the hot tub. It was a very large hot tub, but it had not been designed for seven grown men, so it was a bit of a squeeze. Atobe made sure to suggest to the manager of the Atobe's holiday homes to buy a second hot tub for the chalet. Space was saved somewhat by Gakuto sitting on Oshitari's lap, but it was still a squeeze. It was nice sitting in the hot water, the steam rising off it into the cold air as it continued to snow around them.
A member of the chalet staff came out and offered them all champagne, which they all accepted. As it arrived the snow slowed to a stop and by the time they were on their second glass, the clouds had cleared and the snow capped tops of the mountain were dyed an orange-y pink by the sunset.
"This is nice," Ootori said, "thank you for bringing us here, Atobe."
"It's more than nice," Atobe said, "It's perfect!"
They were awoken the next morning by a scream.
Atobe leaped out of bed and pulled on some clothes (he was not going to see what was going on whilst naked!) before dashing out of the bedroom and down the stairs to find a snowball fight had broken out on the floor.
"What the hell is going on?!" He shouted and then was hit in the face by snowball from Oshitari.
"Sorry Atobe," he drawled, not looking at all sorry. No one else seemed bothered by Atobe's presence, certainly not bothered enough to stop throwing snow and actually explain what was happening.
Right. If that was how they were going to play this.
"Kabaji," Atobe said and Kabaji appeared at his side with his arms full of snowballs.
The ensuing snowball fight lasted half an hour. The snow, it turned out, was coming from the windowsills, where it had gathered over night. After Atobe had pelted Oshitari with as much snow as he could, he had realised that his fight was very much on the periphery of what was going on and the real fight was between Gakuto and Shishido, a fight that Gakuto had very much won judging by how wet Shishido was by the time Atobe and told them that they had to stop.
"He put snow in our bed," Gakuto snarled, pointing a furious finger at Shishido when Atobe demanded to know who had started it.
"He threw a snowball first though," Shishido countered.
"You can both clean up then," Atobe said, "I don't want a spot of water anywhere on the floor!"
Gakuto and Shishido glared at each other, but did as they were told. Atobe watched over them to make sure the hallways and rooms that saw the events of the Snowball War were thoroughly dry before they went out on the slopes.
By lunchtime, all was forgiven between Shishido and Gakuto and they were merrily discussing the morning's snowboarding and the jumps they'd managed to land. Atobe didn't quite understand how their friendship worked, but it did and he was glad of that. He didn't want to have two people who couldn't stand each other in his group, especially if it meant choosing between them.
When they got back to the chalet, they were greeted by warm glasses of mulled wine and a sparkling Christmas tree in the living room.
"It's Christmas Eve tomorrow, isn't it?" Ootori reminded them all.
Atobe's family had never treated Christmas as anything important. There had been presents, of course, but Atobe had opened them with his nanny and Kabaji, not his parents. He'd only seen his parents at lunchtime, where they would sit and eat in silence before his parents went to spend the rest of the day in separate places. Atobe had never thought it was weird, not until he'd grown up a bit and realised that most families spent Christmas together.
And then his family had moved back to Japan and Christmas had paled into insignificance compared to New Year. His parents were rarely around for that either.
Christmas had only become a 'thing' again to Atobe when he'd started to date Jirou and it gave him a nice excuse to take him out to dinner and buy him presents. He bought his team mates presents as well (because he really did enjoy buying people presents), but he put the most thought into Jirou's.
The previous year, he'd taken Jirou to New York and they'd somehow managed to run into Echizen, who was full of cold and spent the whole time complaining that Tezuka was too ill to play tennis with him. Why anyone would want to spend Christmas Eve planning tennis was beyond Atobe, but he'd long since given up trying to understand Echizen.
The rest of the trip to New York had been a lot less mystifying. They'd taken in all the sights of the city in the snow, from walking in the park and ice skating to going to art museums (which Jirou had fallen asleep in, leaving Atobe to wake him up every time he wanted to move to another room) and going to the top of every skyscraper they could.
This year he got to spend Christmas with his boyfriend and his friends. Friends that he considered as good as family. They'd certainly been there for him far more than his parents.
They spent the morning of Christmas Eve on the slopes, it was a bright and sunny morning, but the clouds were building and by lunchtime it was snowing so hard that the visibility was as good as nill and they were forced back to the chalet where a roaring fire was awaiting them.
The DVDs were rifled through and all films that could be classed as 'christmas movies' were picked out and one was put on the TV.
Atobe had no idea what film they were watching, but it was weirdly soporific despite the numerous action scenes. This was not helped by the warmth of the room and soon everyone was either asleep or drowsy. Gakuto, Hiyoshi and Shishido had long since given up trying to make fun of the film, Gakuto was watching Oshitari play on his phone, Hiyoshi was watching the film blearily and Shishido was fast asleep on Ootori's shoulder, snoring softly.
Jirou was also fast asleep, warm and heavy in Atobe's lap. Atobe looked down at him and smiled softly, brushing some loose locks of hair out of Jirou's face. Tonight, he'd sneak back into this room and put the presents he'd brought along under the tree and then, in the morning, feign ignorance about where they had come from. He'd even bought one for himself, to alleviate any suspicion from himself.
Yes, tomorrow was going to be a good day, Atobe thought to himself as his eyelids began to feel heavy. They might even get some skiing in if the lifts were open. If not, then maybe they could build a snowman or something. He'd never built one before. His eyes slid shut and he fell asleep.
He woke up a few hours later to find someone had drawn a moustache on his face.