A little something I wrote during my lunchbreak to cheer myself up from a lousy day at work (and just a lousy day in general). Wasn't exactly planning on publishing it, but it's Christmas-y and I haven't published any fics in a while so why not ~

"Leonardo! There's a package for you!"

The call echoed from the hallway, up the stairs and through the door of Leonardo's bedroom. His sleep-deprived mind had only picked up on his name, and so it decided that it wasn't worth getting out of bed for. His head fell back onto the pillow and he grunted in response even though there was no one there to hear it. But when the word "package" was repeated, his eyes shot open and he hurried out of bed, which resulted in him gracelessly rolling out of bed with a quiet "oof-!" from hitting his forehead against the nightstand table.

"Coming!" Leo crawled across the floor to pick up his sweater and pants, dressed himself and then, as fast a child running to the tree on Christmas day, he rushed downstairs to where his father was standing with a rather large box by his feet.

He frowned upon seeing his son in such a hurry and already trying to drag the box back to his room. "Did you order something from the internet again?"

"No, it's a gift from a friend." Leo glanced up and gave him a quick smile before resuming to his attempts at lifting the package off the ground. Man, it was heavy!

His father's frown deepened. "A gift? From Japan?"

"Yes- wait! How did you…?"

Glancing up again, he caught sight of an envelope between his father's fingers, his expression showing that of obvious doubt and in need of his son to explain himself. He wasn't going to, however. Not now at least. And so he simply snatched the envelope away from his father's grasp, put it in his mouth in order to give his arms free reign to wrap themselves around the box and finally pick it up, completely ignoring the burning strain of his muscles and the glares shot at his back.

Only when he was in the safety of his room did he bother to give the package a proper look. Stickers covered the whole exterior, most of them being in Japanese, and the edges were so rough it barely made a cuboid shape anymore.

Well, as long as the inside is still in good shape, Leo thought and began fiddling with the duct tape. He immediately stopped at the sound of his message tone, breathing out a curse as he threw himself over his bed to look for his phone hidden somewhere under the covers. The screen lit up again, notifying another new message, and Leo swiped the screen.

[Karai (08:42) Are you awake?]

[Karai (08:43) Just letting you know that I won't be able to talk much today]

Despite the last message being less than a minute old, Leo typed his reply as quickly as his thumbs would let him.

[Leo (08:44) Yeah, I'm awake. Hey, I got your christmas gift :D]

[Karai (08:46) Amazing. It's just one week late. Did you open it?]

Leo looked at the package in the middle of his room. He felt guilty for letting his excitement get the better of him, only then remembering the promise he'd made that they would open their gifts together. But his gift to Karai had arrived more than two weeks ago; had she waited all this time? He sent her message asking that.

[Karai (08:48) A promise is a promise]

Oh. The answer made his heart flutter unexpectedly, and he found himself grinning at his phone.

[Leo (08:49) Then let us open them together! Want me to call you?]

[Karai (08:49) Sure]

Leo's grin grew wider. He scrolled through his apps until he found the right one, tapped the symbol and put the phone down beside him. Beep after beep kept ringing, and by the sixth he started to wonder what was taking her so long. Maybe she'd somehow figured out how nervous he felt right before every call and was just messing with him.

Hm, nah, that sounded a bit far-fetched - even for her.

Eventually, Karai did pick up and, as usual, there was a weird static before her voice became clear enough to hear.

"Hello? Can you hear me?" Karai spoke in a very thick accent, but she had never shown any shyness caused by it, not even when Leo made her repeat what she'd just said because he couldn't quite understand. She sounded a lot more confident than him, and older as well. Leo pointed it out to her once ("are you actually an old lady trying to prey on young boys?") and she'd responded with a joke about how his voice tended to crack whenever he went into a ramble ("are you actually a kid just wanting to impress girls older than you?").

"Y…yeah, I can hear you. Do you have my gift with you?"

"It's right here."

"Alright." Leo leaned over the box once more to remove the tape. It was insistent to keep it sealed shut; he grunted in annoyance after a minute of scratching at it.

"Are you still trying to open it? Go get a knife or something, I've already opened mine."

"Wait, hold on!" He got a pair of scissors from his drawers and, finally, managed to open the box up, revealing another one inside. Only this one wasn't sealed in tape, and it was black with a lid.

Growing more eager, Leo didn't wait any longer to fully open his Christmas present. And it didn't disappoint one bit.

His eyes were drawn to the glistening twin blades inside the box, so shiny they reflected him as perfectly as a mirror. They didn't quite match in length, but the handles, strapped in red bands that framed golden details, were exactly alike. They were meant to come in a pair.

And that wasn't all either. Under the black box was the reason for the heavy weight; a thick book (in English, hopefully) with samurais and Japanese landscapes beautifully illustrated on the cover.

But turning the attention back to the swords, Leo wondered what they were called - maybe that's what the book was for. Most importantly… were they the real deal? He poked at one of the blades and - ouch! yup, they were definitely real.

"Karai, these are amazing! How did you manage to get these through the postal service?" Leo asked with genuine interest. Of all the things she could have given him, he could never guessed the gift Karai had acted so thrilled to send would end up being real, actual Japanese swords. Not that he was complaining. Not. At. All.

"I have my ways," was her response, always so drowned in mystery and Leo could tell she was smirking.

"Was your mafia family at work again?"

Karai laughed, "I told you, it's not the mafia."

"But something 'similar'."

"Something like that, yeah. Did you get the letter too?"

Right. The envelope that had blown his cover. It was just within reach and, as Leo tried to make out the writings with his limited knowledge of Japanese, realised everything was handwritten.

"You wrote this?"

"Um, yes? That's the point of a letter, isn't it?"

Now he was curious; what was inside that was so special she couldn't send it through a text or say out loud on the phone. And after ripping it open, he still didn't know. All of it was, once again, in Japanese.

"How am I supposed to read this," he groaned. "You're just teasing me now."

"Maybe. Though, you did say that you wanted to learn the language one day. Now you have something to look forward to when you learn how to read."

"That wasn't a promise," Leo argued.

"It is now."

He scoffed. It was most likely something really unworth the effort, like a cheesy poem she copied word for word. But, the thought would still be there, he supposed. Even better if it was a love poem, then he could finally have something to tease her about. The thought alone served as a pretty good motivation.

Then he suddenly remembered, "You haven't said anything about my gift yet."

There was a pause. A long one. Too long. He stared down at his phone, waiting for the smallest signs of a response, but he only got background static. "Karai?"

"You're too adorable."

His cheeks flared up into a crazy blush and he swallowed thickly, feeling the embarrassment gnaw at the back of his throat. "Y-you told me you were wanted to read one… to know what the fuss was all about and… and yeah."

"And so you went out of your way to get me the very first issue." She said it like it was an unbelievable thing to do, like Leo shouldn't have bothered, like she wasn't the one who'd just sent him two real, expensive-looking swords.

Maybe she meant that he'd put too little effort into her gift; he hadn't thought of it prior to sending it. He had received two swords and a huge book to entertain himself with during the rest of the holidays - and she got one lousy Space Hero comic.

Ugh, what was he thinking?! Karai wasn't into that kind of stuff, of course she would become disappointed and he was stupid for thinking anything else-

"You know I'm only kidding, right?"

"Huh?"

"I'm kidding! I'm really glad you got this for me. It's like witnessing the beginnings of your nerdom."

"You…" Leo shook his head, and he couldn't help himself from smiling, "you're horrible."

"I know," she chuckled, and then with a lowered tone, "Look, I need to go. I don't know when I'll be back."

"That's alright," turning off the speaker, he put the phone against his ear as his gaze travelled around the room, looking for a good and empty space where he could place his new swords, "be careful with whatever it is you're gonna do, come home safe and all that."

Karai snorted, probably rolling her eyes in a mock contemplation at that. "Oh stop it. But sure, and you take care as well. Please refrain from using those swords when fighting with your brother."

"That's horrible. You're horrible."

"Yeah, yeah." And with that, there was a beep signaling that she'd disconnected from the call.

The rest of the morning dragged on for a while. His father was up in arms about the way he'd acted, not to mention so extremely nosy about this "mysterious, Japanese friend." He made the mistake of telling him that it was a girl, and of course his brothers snapped up on it and wanted to know every little detail. How old is she? How did you meet? Will she ever come for a visit? Are you a couple?

And they wondered why he hadn't told them anything sooner.

Because of that, It wasn't a huge shocker that Leo decided to spend the rest of the day locked up in his room, on his bed flipping through the pages of the book; most of it were just pictures of Japanese weaponry and small descriptions beside each one. He found a picture of twin swords that looked exactly like his gift, slightly curved blades and differing lengths. Wakizashi, he read out loud, glad that Karai wasn't there to hear his lousy pronunciation.

Speaking of which; Leo fished his phone up from his pocket to see if there were any new messages. None. He sighed and continued to read on, then repeated the motion thirty minutes later. Still nothing. He waited an hour before looking at his phone again, letting out a heavy sigh when it showed the same, empty screen.. Oh how he was impatient.

[Leo (20:03) I'm really loving the book. And the swords. They're so awesome]

[Leo (20:32) We should have a videochat tomorrow. Lemme know if you can]

[Leo (21:20) Okay I'm going to bed now. Goodnight :)]

The phone was placed right beside his head, like it so often did whenever Leo waited for Karai to message him back. It was silly, but he knew he wouldn't be able to have a good night's sleep unless she'd made sure that everything was fine over at the her end. Safe and all that.

His eyes stung from staring at the lit screen for too long and so he slowly closed them. But just as he was about to fall asleep, the phone's message tone rang.

[Karai (21:41) I finished reading the comic. It was so cheesy and weird. Bet the tv show is a lot better]

[Karai (21:42) Something to think about for my birthday ~]