Title: Solstice
Author: hermithole
Summary: Christmas always brings out the nice things in people.
A/N: Merry Christmas everyone! My short break in writing has reduced it to what it was previously: subpar & crappy. So let's take this drabble as a gearing-up-for-more of sorts, and that there will, really, be more to come. Here's hoping that your Xmas holidays are turning out a lot better than mine (hello, more assignments) and that where you are living is snowing a whole lot more than where I am. I haven't seen snow in 14 years, for which I sob pathetically. Also, I very much hope to celebrate a real Christmas perhaps some time in future, for Christmas is my absolute favourite time of the year! Enough of my rambling... onward to an extremely short drabble!
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'Solstice'
Christmas always brings out the nice things in people. This is what Sakura thinks as she treks her way back to Konoha. The mission has been easy, almost too easy, and perhaps on any other day Sakura might have raised doubts about whether the Hokage was losing confidence in her abilities, but this is Christmas. This is Christmas that brings out the best in people, even for her shishou drunk on a bottle of sake, or her teammate gorging himself over a bowl of ramen. This is what Sakura thinks as she reaches Konoha, and gazes at the landscape with appraising eyes. There is something about Christmas that lifts corners and overturns frowns, something about the way it goes that every street and house sparkle with the very life of it, like a grand image frozen over a glaze of ice, frozen and surreal and still.
This is Christmas donning every inch of Konoha: from its bright, flickering lights to the variant baubles hanging in rows off every telephone line, for the way voices crackle like glowing fire over Christmas stockings and candy canes, and the white, white snow that crunches under Sakura's feet and lingers on the thatched roof planes.
Happiness on Christmas day comes gift wrapped and packaged. This is what Sakura notices as Naruto, bubbling and boisterous, skids to a stop next to her.
"Sakura-chan!" his breath drifts out in icy mists, cheeks flushed from the cold. "You're back from the mission!" Almost as an apology for a poor greeting, he shoves a box into her hands, eager, hankering, perhaps a little too overzealous. "Merry Christmas!" he gives an embarrassed laugh and scratches the back of his head. "Hi'a'ta-chan spent all night wrapping them because I wasn't too good at it, but you'll— you'll like it!" There isn't time to reply, because Naruto is already off. "Now to give Sasuke-teme his gift!" he yells back to her, and pulls Hinata along as he bounds off in the opposite direction. "M-Merry Christmas, S-Sakura-san!" Hinata calls out. "Hope you like your g-gift!"
Alone, Sakura fingers the present. It is lukewarm in her hand, corners folded and fingered with meticulous precision under a tape smooth and flat.
No, she thinks to herself. In the distance someone is calling out her name and someone is waving at her and someone is smiling at her under the great winter sky.
Christmas in Konoha isn't a frozen glaze of ice.
It is a warm cup of sake, flushed and snug and glowing.
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