.
4.
On the fourth day of Christmas,
My true love sent to me,
Four calling birds.
"Deck the hall with boughs of holly, fa-la-la-la-laaah, la-la-la-laaaah! 'Tis the season to be jolly, fa-la-la-la-laaah, la-la-la-laaaah!"
Yuugi stared at the three figures on his doorstep.
"Don we now our gay apparel," Otogi warbled. He paused. "Is that really the correct translation? I feel mightily exposed singing that line when I'm the only well-dressed male here, and we all know what the common stereotype is for a well-dressed guy amongst your roughneck, jeans-and-a-tee-shirt types."
Yuugi continued to stare.
"Tough crowd. Oh well." Otogi shrugged and threw one arm around Honda's shoulders, extending the other like an opera singer about to regale the street with an aria. "Fa la la, la la la, la la laaaaaah! Troll the ancient yuletide carol, fa-la-la-la-laaah, la-la-la-laaaah!"
Honda threw off the arm. "Are you drunk? I knew you smelled weird when you picked us up."
"It's called cologne. And deodorant. You might want to try the last one sometime. You smell pretty ripe yourself."
"Bite me."
"No matter what the carol makes me sing, I'm not actually gay, so in your dreams." Otogi sighed. "A fine thing when festiveness and spreading good cheer makes people ask if you're inebriated at –" He checked his watch. "- ten in the morning." He lightly punched Honda's shoulder. "You big Scrooge."
Honda rolled his eyes. "He's been singing since he picked us up at Ryou's apartment."
Ryou nodded in agreement. "The traffic was really heavy. Ryuuji drives a Cadillac. A Cadillac is a really enclosed space." His smile was brittle, his hair even frothier than usual. He was the only one who called Otogi by his first name. Since he came from Britain, he was still more comfortable using first names, since over there to use someone's family name even after you got to know them was rude. Additionally, it had been such a momentous thing for him when his friends started calling him by his own first name, he made a point of repaying the compliment even when it wasn't necessary – or asked for. Jounouchi and Honda had both had to tell him to quit using their first names, since only their parents did that.
Otogi rammed his fists against his sides. "Scrooge and Grinch. Where's your holiday spirit?"
"You murdered it when you hit the high notes in Silent Night." Honda looked pleadingly at Yuugi. "Can we come in, man? And please say you've got AC. It's roasting out here."
"Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow –"
"Otogi, we've had our differences over the years, but I consider you a friend, so I hope you take this as a friend should: if you don't stop singing, I'm going to punch your lights out."
Yuugi gestured them into the house and closed the door to keep out the heat – or tried to. In fact, as he pushed the door shut, it caught on the foot that had suddenly appeared on the threshold. Yuugi peered around the frame to see a man in a black suit and sunglasses glaring impassively down at him. He was roughly the size of a cement truck, with a jaw you could have used to grind thumbtacks into paste if you were missing a pestle for your mortar.
"Um, yes?"
The man held out three pink and white striped hatboxes, each one bigger than Yuugi's entire head plus hair. He held them easily, though when Yuugi tried to take the top one he nearly dislocated his shoulders. He struggled, staring at the other two until Otogi reappeared at his shoulder and nodded at the guy.
"Thanks, Jeeves. Just put them down any old place. I can take it from here." He gestured to the step and then kicked the door shut behind the behemoth's retreating form.
"Jeeves? Jeeves?" Jounouchi was standing behind them, shaking his head incredulously. "You had your butler bring your … whoa, damn it, what is this stuff? Feels like tubs of concrete."
"Dumb mutt. Jeeves isn't my butler," Otogi said in the voice of one long-used to dealing with cretins, imbeciles and the intellectually challenged. "What do you think I am, a troglodyte?"
Jounouchi blinked. "Yes?" he said hopefully.
"Jeeves is my bodyguard. He was following behind the Caddy because there was no room for him inside."
"I'm not surprised. Did you see the size of that guy?" Jounouchi muttered to Yuugi. "He could've driven you into the ground like a lawn dart, man."
Yuugi wasn't comforted – especially when he flicked back the curtains to see Jeeves sitting in a black 4x4, parked some way down the street. He was little more than a pair of sunglasses pointed straight ahead, expression blank as polished steel. "Is he going to just wait out there like that?"
"It's what I pay him for," Otogi said blithely. "Mostly he's a visual deterrent. There haven't nearly as many attempts on my life in the last year compared to the last. I'm thinking he's a big reason for that. Kidnappers who see him think twice about trying to kidnap and try to ransom me to my company."
"People actually try to do that?"
"More when I was a handsome teenager. I'm getting past it now I'm in my twenties. There are so many younger child business prodigies for them to choose from these days – though none," he added, glancing up from the first box he'd lifted the lid off, "nearly as stylish as I was at their age."
"Are you sure you're not gay?" Honda muttered.
Jounouchi peered at the box's contents. "Tree decorations?"
"Yuugi invited me to help decorate his tree, so I brought decorations." Otogi's look fell just short of a glare. "They're from Kyasshu," he added, naming the most expensive store in Domino. Yuugi couldn't have afforded to hire one of their shopping carts, much less put anything in it. Since they had a dress code to shop there, Jounouchi would have been thrown out before he put one grubby sneaker on their side of the revolving door.
Yuugi knew he should be grateful and impressed at Otogi's generosity. He even pasted on an appreciative smile. However, a chill spread through his chest at the sight of the luxurious reams of purple tinsel, gold stars, tassels and beads. Huge furry dice had been made into baubles on shiny thread. Strands of fabric sprinkled with glitter had been laced together and strung with tiny pink and silver bells. An angel with a porcelain face and what looked like real hair stared up from a mass of bubble wrap. Beneath her, Yuugi could see an intricately fashioned Santa Claus riding a reindeer with a jewel-studded bridle. It was all lavishly expensive, but about as classy as a burger and fries – and there was so much of it!
Jounouchi sucked in a breath between his teeth. "Wouldn't want to be you when Mai and Shizuka see all this."
"Why?" asked Otogi.
"Because they went out especially last night and bought a crapload of decorations."
"Where did they get theirs?"
"I dunno. I was just there to lift and carry stuff. They gave me a bag of doughnuts to shut me up and I was happy not to ask questions."
Otogi raised his eyes heavenwards. "Why am I not surprised?"
"That's a rhetorical question, right?"
"Dumb mutt. Whatever they bought, it can't compare to Kyasshu's stock. Don't you agree, Yuugi?" He held up a row of gingerbread men wearing crowns of thorns, a bizarre and unnerving mixture of the various Christian stories behind this holiday.
Yuugi's friends from abroad, most of whom he'd met through Duel Monsters, commented on how Christmas was an even more commercial affair in Japan than in their own countries. They always said this with sadness, which motivated Yuugi to point out that in Japan, Christmas wasn't actually a national holiday, so it was bound to be more about materialism than any religious celebration. Most Japanese people didn't even know the nativity story, and wouldn't see any reason to know it if quizzed. Christmas was about gift-giving, eating special cakes, and visits from Hotei-osho, the Buddhist monk equivalent of Santa, who had eyes in the back of his head so he could watch out for naughty children. Non-Japanese found that story unnerving in the extreme, but to Yuugi and his friends, even though they were too old for Hotei-osho anymore, it was an integral part of their Christmas traditions. Nevertheless, the sorry little gingerbread men pushed the boundaries of good taste to their limit.
"Um …" Yuugi wondered how to voice his opinion without causing offence. And not just his opinion on the gingerbread men. Were those rubies amongst the thorns to simulate drops of blood?
"Kyasshu means quality," Otogi went on without waiting for an answer.
"And tackiness," said Mai, striding down the stairs. Her gaze was rooted on the three boxes. She slid into the argument like a mother tigress guarding her fairy-lit cubs. "Our decorations may be cheaper, but at least they don't make people want to vomit."
"Speak for yourself," Otogi muttered, even though he hadn't actually seen them yet. "Yuugi's tree deserves excellence in its ornaments."
"Exactly."
Jounouchi backed away like he expected them to fly at each other with sharpened fingernails. He caught Yuugi's eye and his eyebrows jumped, noting how Yuugi was barred from getting at the rest of his own home by the two wannabe interior designers. To get away from the front door he'd have to pass between them, which put him right in their line of fire. They would demand him to choose between their decorations, and he would be obliged to give the answer that solved nothing and offended everyone. Compromise had never been a strong suit amongst his friends – not until they'd had time to cool off and see reason.
He sighed. Decorating the tree had seemed such a simple thing when he suggested it. He had wanted a distraction, and had hoped it would be a bonding experience for everyone. They needed that more than ever after the past year. Instead, it was turning out to be far more stressful than he could have anticipated.
"Yuugi, you decide – his tacky garbage or –"
"Or her even tackier garbage!"
Inwardly, Yuugi groaned.
To Be Continued …
.