Disclaimer: I don't own PoT.


Christmas with the Kikumarus

December 24th Part 3

After dinner Kagome and Akira came running over to where Eiji was sitting on the couch talking to Oishi.

"Uncle Eiji! Come have a snowball fight with us! You can be on my team!" said Kagome.

"The Mafia Man can come too, he can be on my team!" announced Akira. Eiji gave a snort of amusement at Oishi being called 'The Mafia Man'. "He's gotta be really good! Everyone knows that to get into the Mafia you have to pass the snowball fight test!" announced Akira as if his word was law.

"You'll come right?" Kagome asked Eiji again. He glanced over at Oishi who shrugged his shoulders.

"Okay!" he said and allowed himself to be dragged over to the front door by his oldest niece as she pulled on her boots and coat. Akira followed suit and Oishi came walking over only a few steps behind.

"The Mafia Man?" teased Eiji with a grin.

"It's all your fault from what I hear," replied Oishi with a grin of his own as he too grabbed his coat and gloves before following Eiji and his nieces and nephews out into the snowy yard. Apparently the teams were the girls and Eiji, and Oishi was on the boys' team.

---

"Isn't that sweet," smiled Chiyo as she watched, the kids, and Eiji and Oishi out in the front yard having a snowball fight.

Hikari joined her at the window and watched in amusement as the little kids threw snowballs willy-nilly, no one actually successfully hitting anyone else. Then of course there were the two bigger kids, Eiji and Oishi, who were targeting each other. She laughed as she saw her little brother get behind his doubles partner and shove a handful of snow down the back of his shirt. Oishi for his part jumped, whirled around and gave chase as Eiji ran to the other side of the yard. He easily caught him and brought him to the ground. He then yelled something to the kids, who all came running over and tackled their poor uncle even deeper into the snow.

"They're going to make great parents some day," sighed Chiyo as she smiled. Hikari looked at her stunned, and then slowly grinned.

"You know."

"About them?… yes, I've known for a while, a couple of years at least" she nodded. "… How long have you known?"

"Well I don't know when it started, but the first time I realized they were together was back when they first started going to college, you know how Eiji used to get all depressed, it was pretty obvious what the source of that depression was," smirked Hikari. Chiyo looked surprised.

"That puts them together for seven years," she whispered. Hikari nodded solemnly.

"I know, and who knows how long they were together before I figured it out… I think Eiji is afraid to tell everyone," sighed Hikari. Mrs. Kikumaru came up behind her two daughters and put an arm around their shoulders and smiled out the window at her grandchildren. Hikari and Chiyo tensed. Had she heard them?

"… he shouldn't be" she remarked after a Moment.

"Mom?" asked Chiyo shocked.

"All I've ever wanted is for you all to be happy," she said as she pulled her daughters closer. "And you've all found such wonderful spouses" she smiled at her daughters.

"…when you were younger I used to stand here and try to imagine what kind of men you two would marry, and what kind of women your brothers would fall in love with, and I never could come up with a good picture… but then one day that little boy was pulled into our house," she said nodding to Oishi who was back to actually having a snowball fight, apparently his prey had escaped. "And suddenly… no matter what kind of woman I tried to imagine for Eiji, I couldn't get a image of him out of my head, I decided then that Eiji would need to find a girl exactly like Oishi… but I guess he did better, he didn't need to find a girl, he just needed to find Oishi." Smiled Mrs. Kikumaru.

"So…. You're okay with it all?" asked Hikari just as surprised as her older sister. Mrs. Kikumaru smiled and nodded.

"You should tell Eiji that," said Chiyo. "Then he could start bringing Oishi to family things, and Oishi could officially become a part of the family-"

"He's been an official part of the family for years," sighed Mrs. Kikumaru. "I was trying to be subtle, letting Eiji bring him on his own,"

"Mom, This is Eiji were talking about here. He doesn't understand subtle," said Hikari.

"Or does he… They've been able to hide their relationship from everyone else for at least seven years, I'd say that qualifies as a great example of subtly," said Chiyo.

"Seven years?" asked Mrs. Kikumaru. "I've only known about them for three,"

"Yeah, they've been getting more and more obvious lately… I think they're really starting to get serious," said Hikari. Chiyo shook her head and once more disagreed with her little sister.

"No. They've been together for seven years, I have a feeling they became serious long ago." She sighed.

"Does Dad know?" Hikari asked her mother.

"I don't think so… but I didn't know that you two knew,"

"Would Dad care?" asked Chiyo. Mrs. Kikumaru was proud that she was able to smile and answer her girls.

"No…. he won't care… If your brother ran off, joined the circus and came back with a gorilla as he spouse your father wouldn't mind as long as Eiji was happy."

"You guys are just great," said Chiyo as she fought back tears and hugged her mother. She really did have a wonderful, loving and understanding family. She was most definitely proud to be a Kikumaru.

"Honey what's wrong?" asked Jiro coming over to Chiyo noticing that his wife was crying.

"Nothing, nothing's wrong… in fact, everything will be right," she smiled as she released her mother and hugged Jiro. Jiro looked confused but patted her back soothingly.

"Has anyone seen Harata, Megumi or Kinta?" asked Junko as she came over to the group by the window with Tomo following closely behind. "Oh there they are… they really do love their Uncle Eiji," she said as she spotted her three older children having a snowball fight. Then she saw Eiji do some kind of jumping dive and knock Oishi's feet out from under him, knocking him down into the snow. His gave Oishi a smirk that clearly said payback. Then he shoved Oishi's face down deeper into the snow. Tomo gave a chuckle at seeing that.

"Who exactly is he?" asked Junko.

"Who? Oishi?" asked Tomo as if he thought it was obvious who Oishi was. "Oishi is… Oishi is… well, he's just Oishi… there's not really a way to explain him," said Tomo with a shrug. "He's Eiji's friend… He's always been there, and always will be… Back when they were in middle and high school, they were both in the Tennis club and were a doubles pair, what were they called again?" Tomo asked his sisters.

"The Golden Pair," said Hikari with a smirk, Tomo may not realize it, but he had basically just placed Eiji and Oishi together forever, as one inseparable entity. He may not realize that they were together together, but he did understand that they were closer than best friends. Shiro, Jun and Mayu then came over to see what the group was talking about.

"But the word you're looking for is soul mates," said Chiyo with a smile. Junko looked over at Chiyo surprised and then turned to glare at Tomo.

"Tomo! Why didn't you tell me!" she demanded. Tomo looked confused.

"Tell you what?"

"That your little brother was gay," said stated matter-of-factly. Tomo looked at her as if she had just grown a second head.

"What?" asked Jun looking just as flabbergasted as his older brother.

"We should have seen it sooner," Mayu told Junko, "Now that I think about it, it was rather obvious that he didn't like the women we showed him, any of the women… but if you guys had told us earlier we could have set up with a different category of our friends"

"Oishi makes sense now too, you know the old adage. All the perfect ones are gay," sighed Junko.

"Wait a second," began Jun but Shiro cut him off.

"So does that mean he's going to get interrogated now?" The Kikumaru siblings all blinked at him, and Mayu, Junko and Jiro nodded in agreement to Shiro's statement, they'd all gone through the Kikumaru inquisition, so this man had to as well.

"No. He's Oishi… there's no need to interrogate him, we already know what he's like…and, well, he's Oishi," said Chiyo failing at her attempt to explain the family's relationship with Oishi.

"Besides which, we spent his entire childhood teasing him, he got traumatized by us way earlier," added Hikari.

"Back the truck up!" said Tomo suddenly, as he held up his hands to stop the conversation. "Eiji's not gay." Jun nodded, there was no way there little brother was gay.

"What do you mean he's not gay? He's obviously flirting with that man out there," said Jiro pointing his thumb over his shoulder at where Eiji still had Oishi pinned in the snow.

"What Tomo and Jun are trying to say is" began Chiyo cutting into the argument "… well, Eiji's not exactly gay…. He and Oishi have just always been together, they're meant to be together, there was never another person to even consider in their lives… so it never was a question of being straight of gay, they just always had each other," said Chiyo. There was a Moment of silence as everyone allowed the conversation to sink in.

"You guys are taking this pretty well," Hikari told Tomo and Jun.

"It really should surprise us… it's not everyday that your find out your little brother is dating a man," said Jun.

"But then again… it is Eiji and Oishi, you learn to expect the unexpected with them," added Tomo.

"I've known your little brother for 8 years now… how am I just now finding out about this Oishi?" Jiro asked.

"Do you have a problem with their relationship," said Chiyo fixing him with a stern look.

"No." he said, "Not really, I just find it odd that this relationship suddenly appeared."

"That's what we've been trying to explain," said Mrs. Kikumaru softly. "This was not something that just happened over night… they've been like this for years… I guess you could say they've been slowing falling in love with each other since the day they met." The Kikumaru children all smiled at the truth behind their mother's words, she'd hit the nail on the head. That was exactly what had happened with them. That was another reason that they all failed to be stunned by the sudden realization, they'd grown up watching the two get closer each and every day.

"That's so sweet," sniffed Mayu as she turned to look at them once more. This time Oishi had gotten away and they were standing on opposite sides of the yard, Oishi was hiding behind a tree and Eiji was ducking down below a bush, both readying to throw a snowball, no doubt perfectly in sync with the other.

"So…" began Hikari as she looked at the majority of the family assembled in front of her. "No one actually minds that they're together right?" Of course she hadn't been expecting any disagreements from her brothers, but was glad to see that Mayu and Junko looked positively ecstatic at the thought of her brother being in love. Jiro leaned over and put an arm around Chiyo's waist.

"Well, he's happy just like you wanted… and I guess, that's all that matters," he said, and Chiyo began to sniff again at her husband's ready acceptance of her brother's situation.

But the one Hikari most cared about had failed to respond, Shiro let out a sigh and then smiled at Hikari.

"Of course I don't mind, you know I have my fair share of gay friends." Hikari smiled and hugged him tight.

"Now all that needs to happen, is for them to announce it, and we have to let them announce it for themselves, it has to be their decision," Mrs. Kikumaru informed her family.


A/N: Okay…. I know the whole family thing is still kind of confusing, but I figure that most people really don't care except for the fact that they're non-sue OC's that really have no purpose other than to fill time gaps…. So if you're just dying to know you can just recheck on the first chapter.

Thank you again to all my lovely reviewers! Reviews honestly do make my day when I get one, be it "I loved this", or "your story sucks the plot could be better if you did this…"