"I'm cold." For about the sixth time that day, Cocoa walked in complaining.
"Join the rest of us," Nico grumbled back in response, pulling her blanket off from her legs and offering her little sister a niche in it. She was currently huddled up on the couch watching TV, and already, Cotarou was on one side of her dozing off. She supposed it wouldn't be a big deal if she had two of her siblings there. Sharing body heat was a good idea, anyways, wasn't it?
Cocoa crawled onto the couch, taking care to make sure her ice cube hands touched everywhere Nico's skin wasn't covered. The little prick. She closed the blanket back around her and the younger girl sighed contentedly. Nico unpaused the TV show.
One, two, three – "I'm booorrreeed." Cocoa whined.
"Then get out of the blanket and go play with something."
"But then I'll be cooollllllld..." She insisted, aiming pitiful eyes up at Nico. "Can't you give me the blanket?"
Nico frowned. "No, then me and Cotarou would be cold too. He's the youngest, he needs to stay warm or he could get sick."
"But Niiiiiiicooooooooooooo…!" Cocoa whined planatively, as the mentioned elder sister's resolve took hit after hit. Must. Not. Give. In. The younger girl began to tear up. "Why is our heater still broken? None of my friends have broken heaters! Are we really that –"
"Take the blanket." Nico said tersely. "I'll get another from mama's bed."
Cocoa accepted the blanket shyly, and, knowing that she won, wandered off to her room with the good blanket. The really really soft one. That Nico bought with her own money, specifically for herself, specifically to keep warm when they found out their heater was broken, that she swore she wouldn't let any of her siblings use and ah, shit, whatever. Noticing that now Cotarou was shivering, she groaned and got up to grab the blanket from her mother's bedroom. She wasn't home right now, so it wasn't like she was using it.
Damn her stupid heater and damn their stupid rent and damn how goddamn expensive it was to fix it.
She tugged the blanket off and dragged it over to Cotarou, then sat down to watch TV again. Ugh, this sucked. She shouldn't be confined to the couch in her own home.
The doorbell rang twenty minutes later and she groaned accordingly, not wanting to leave her small cocoon of warmth. But alas, nobody would do it for her, so it would seem she had to get up.
She opened the door to find Maki, and strongly considered closing it just to piss her girlfriend off before deciding it wasn't worth it. "Don't let the cold air in, get your ass in here," She said, tugging the younger girl in before she had a chance to say anything. Once she'd shut the door, she looked at Maki expectantly.
"You seem crankier than usual today," She noted dryly. "Do I want to know why?"
Nico laughed nervously. "Ehh? What are you talking about? The great Nico-Nico-nii is never cranky. I just have to deal with you and lose some of my enthusiasm."
"Hilarious." Maki said, in exactly the tone of someone who didn't think something was hilarious. "But I'm serious. I only came over here to give back that movie I borrowed. I even told you I'd bring it today, remember? So why are you being so hostile and stubborn?"
"Hostile?" She said, tactlessly, feigning innocence. "Me? Really?"
Maki was completely deadpan by this point. "Nico."
The older girl sighed, and ran a hand through her hair. "I'm in a bad mood because it's cold out. My heater is broken, so even getting up to do things is an inconvenience, and my little siblings keep stealing my blanket so more often than not I'm freezing cold anyways." She listed off. "So yeah, I'm maybe, possibly, just a little bit grumpy.
The redhead blinked. "Oh. I didn't know your heater was broken."
"And I didn't know it was supposed to be common knowledge." She replied sarcastically. Then she sighed. "Ugh, but seriously, this is a hassle. Sorry to bug you about it - thanks for bringing the movie back."
Maki looked troubled. Nico steeled herself to reject whatever she was going to offer. Don't fall in to temptation, she had to watch her siblings and also Nozomi would never let her hear the end of it. "You know, if it's that cold you can come ov-"
"Can't, sorry." She said quickly. Maki raised an eyebrow. Nico gestured loosely to the rest of the house.
"Siblings." She said by way of explanation. "You know how they get, heheh. And I couldn't leave them alone even if I wanted to spend time with your tsundere ass."
"They can come too," Maki insisted, apparently opting to ignore the bait. "Seriously, we could have a movie night or something. I'm sure my parents won't mind. You can borrow some extra blankets when you leave, too."
Nico was just going to say no, or that her mom would mind or something, and the interaction probably would have ended around there – if Cocoro hadn't chosen the absolute worst time to be listening in on them. "Wow, really? That would be really fun! Nico, Nico, can we go have a movie night at your friend's house? Can we?"
Defeated, the older girl slumped under Maki's victorious gaze. "….Yeah, go get Cocoa and Cotarou ready."
Cocoro cheered. Nico sighed.
It only took about a half an hour for all three of Nico's siblings, having an entire mansion full of cool shit ripe for exploration, to decide to do exactly the opposite of that and settle down in front of a TV that was probably roughly the size of Nico's bed. She tried not to act as butthurt as she felt about that.
After that half hour, it took approximately one more half an hour for Nico to get tired of watching Christmas specials and to slip off to another room.
It took Maki all of zero-point-two seconds to get up and follow after her.
She raised an eyebrow at the younger girl while she kept on her way to the computer room. "You're awfully attentive today," She said, mild amusement showing through. "If you'd gotten off of that couch any faster I'd have guessed someone was making spaghetti nearby."
"I don't only think about tomatoes, you know."
"Yeah, 'course not." Nico snorted, nodding her agreement. "After all, if you did, then how would you still have time to fantasize about me? Don't worry, the great Nico Nico Ni will –"
Maki cut her off. "Will what?" She asked skeptically.
Nico coughed, realizing she couldn't conclude that sentence without admitting she'd had time to think about it, too. "Nothing, nevermind. I'm just going to check something online."
"I'll make sure you don't somehow break the computer, then." She replied disdainfully, arms crossed.
The older girl rolled her eyes. Some excuse. "Are you sure you don't just want to make out?"
"Wh-what would make you think that?! I'm just supervising – I – I mean, it's not like….." She gradually lost her vigor. Eventually she was mumbling.
Nico smirked. "You're an opportunist, I know that. You basically fell over yourself for a chance to get at this," She gestured to herself.
Having recovered, Maki looked her over with a critical eye. "If that was supposed to be attractive somehow, I've missed it. You have the form of a prepubescent middle schooler. I really just wanted to help you warm up, honest."
She gaped, offended, and ignored the last (admittedly really cute) part of that response. "I do not! Take that back!"
"What, it's true!" she insisted. "If anyone was going for figure they'd go after Umi, or Nozomi or – god, don't even get me started on Eli –" The redhead prattled on, feigning obliviousness to Nico's protests.
The black haired girl scowled. "Are you trying to start a fight?"
"You could start a fight in an empty room. I'd hardly call this trying." Maki said smugly.
"Shut up," Nico said grumpily, unwilling to concede even a single 'point' to the other girl. "The point is, you're absolute garbage at setting the mood."
"I pride myself on it." She said dryly. Then she looked as if something had occurred to her and she leaned in closely, Nico backing up slightly in anticipation. "But, I guess if you really want something romantic…" Her eyes closed. Nico closed her eyes too.
She waited a full five seconds before she realized she heard footsteps absolutely sprinting down the hall. "Maki, you're the worst!" She called irritably, eyes snapping open as she decided to give chase. Maki was taunting her. Smug little shit.
They wound up passing the computer room and made it into a room that Nico wasn't sure she knew the point of having, but did know contained a pool table and a gaming console. And a couch. She was quick to go for the most important feature of the place – that being her garbage girlfriend – but Maki wormed out of her grasp just as quickly as she'd caught her, heading off for another room and laughing all the while.
That. Little. Shit.
Nico ran again, repeating the process as they effectively went in a giant circle in the downstairs. Occasionally they'd pass by the room with the TV and Nico's siblings would watch curiously, but the older girl trusted them not to get in the way if they heard them running, so it was fine.
Eventually, with her superior speed, Nico caught Maki in one room, keeping a firm grip on the bunched up material of her jacket. "Gotcha!"
Maki laughed sheepishly, and the way she giggled almost sent Nico into a full on blush again. "Okay, you did. Now what?"
The two of them were still flushed with exertion, so Nico grinned devilishly and pulled Maki's head closer using the front of her jacket. "We pick up where you left off."
The redhead looked suddenly sheepish. "Uh, are you sure you don't want to-"
"No weaseling out of it this time!" She said insistently. Maki tried not to look embarrassed. It didn't work.
"R-really, you might want to pick a different place-"
Nico rolled her eyes and leaned up to give her a completely undeserved kiss, hands at the back of Maki's head and encouraging her to reciprocate. She did, too, eventually moving her hands to the small of Nico's back, but she still seemed hesitant, fumbling the motion a few times.
She only tolerated that for a few seconds before parting with an irate expression. "What's with the-"
Maki coughed, tipping her head in one direction as she did, as if she didn't dare look over there herself. Nico had no such problems, but she paled when she noticed what her girlfriend had been trying to point out to her.
Standing in the middle of the kitchen, Cocoa dropped her juicebox.
Shit.
After about two seconds of staring at each other in silence, Cocoa's gaping mouth gradually turned to a beam. She sucked in a deep breath. "COCORO! GUESS WHAT I JUST SAW! NI-"
"Nononononononono-" Nico said hastily, rushing her youngest sister and hurriedly putting a hand over her mouth. "No."
Cocoa licked her hand. Unfazed, Nico kept it there until she tried to bite it. "Cocoa, that's naughty!"
"Not as naughty as-" Nico put her hand back over Cocoa's mouth.
"If you tattle on your adorable older sister, Santa might give you coal this year."
Cocoa huffed into her hand, but stopped babbling. She set the younger girl down, and she skulked back towards the room where her other siblings were waiting. Maki raised an eyebrow. "I think it would take more than tattling on you to put her on the naughty list. Santa is very forgiving."
Nico tried her hardest not to curse as Cocoa immediately grinned and booked it into the next room.
"Maki, you're sweet, but I really hate you sometimes." She sighed.
"What?" She replied, in that 'what-did-I-do' tone of voice.
She sighed again. "Nothing."
Even though Cocoro had given her an extremely skeptical look, Nico's damage control didn't actually take that long. They were all tired and full of cookies from the kitchen, she could have convinced the younger two that the sky was purple.
The five of them settled onto the couch and, even though this house had a heater, she found herself in a very similar position to earlier that day: under a blanket watching TV.
Maki had dozed off somewhere between the movies, and was snoring lightly, head resting on Nico's shoulder. All her siblings were sleeping too, using Nico as a pillow in various ways. Cotarou was sitting in her lap. Cocoa was curled into her side and all the way underneath the blanket, small arms wrapped around her torso. She was pretty sure that to get that spot she had to be sitting in Maki's lap - though how she convinced the redhead to let her sit there, she'd never know. Cocoro was in a similar position on the other side of her, one arm draped over Cotarou protectively.
"What a bunch of babies," Nico muttered, pressing a brief, careful kiss into Maki's hair before finally allowing herself to doze off as well.
A pleasant warmth filled the room.
Later, Nozomi teased Nico relentlessly about something she'd heard from Cocoa.
AN: Just a quick little one shot, both to celebrate my finals being over and also to put on the trash blog my friend suggested I make. Unrelated to my other story, but if you want, you can consider it canon for after they start dating! Anyways, here are the magnet gays in wintertime. Look at 'em. It brings a tear to my eye.
Fun fact: That kitchen kiss was the first kissing scene I've written that extended beyond a peck on the cheek. Did I do alright?
Haha, that aside, thanks so much for reading, I hope you enjoyed this! Drop a review or a favorite if you want, and see you around, hopefully! If you want to encourage my trash lifestyle, you can come yell at me about gay idols at trashikino on tumblr. See you around!