Title: A Winter's Tale
Chapter Title: December 24
Author: Nina/TechnicolorNina
Fandom: Yu-Gi-Oh!: GX
Genre: Humour/Romance/General
Pairing/Characters: Jyuudai, Yubel, Asuka, Fubuki, Johan
Word Count: 6 624
Spoilers: Post-series.
Story Rating: PG-13
Chapter Rating: PG-13
Story Summary: The folks with nowhere else to go all gather at Asuka's for Christmas. It transpires that Yubel doesn't know what Christmas is, Asuka's pile of term papers just keeps growing, and something odd is going on with Fubuki and Johan . . . who just wants to get away from jet lag and Edo Phoenix.
Chapter Summary: Fubuki makes a decision. Asuka grades papers. Johan and Fubuki try to cook. Oh, and there's a duel for once. Kind of.
Notes: None
Feedback: There may be something out there that's better than a review containing concrit, but if there is, I haven't found it yet. So if you have two minutes and you wouldn't mind? Please? Arigatou. (And concrit is cool. Flames are not.)
Special Thanks/Dedications: This chapter is dedicated to Higuchimon, Seda, and Lydia, who kindly provided the absolutely atrocious examples of sub-par term papers that you will find in this chapter.


I don't want a lot for Christmas
There is just one thing I need
I don't care about the presents
Underneath the Christmas tree
I just want you for my own
More than you could ever know
Make my wish come true
All I want for Christmas is you.
~ "All I Want For Christmas Is You," Mariah Carey


"Johan, please tell me I'm not the only one with students like this," Asuka sighs. Johan looks up from an e-mail.

"Hm?"

"These kids," Asuka says. "I ask them to write four pages on a cohesive deck and I get 'these monsters work really well together because their all cute and cuddly. No one will be able to withstand my super cute deck!'" She slaps her pen down on the paper and brushes her fringe off her face. "What does that have to do with how the monsters work with the traps and spells? How do you even grade that?"

"Zero," Johan answers promptly. "Kid didn't complete the assignment."

"I can't fail her!" Asuka gives him a shocked look. "She wrote the four pages, she just—"

"—didn't do what you asked of her, which is the same thing as not doing it at all," Johan interrupts. "Give her a zero and she won't do it again. I do."

"She'll fail the class."

"Not your problem." He glares at his e-mail. "Unless you happen to have an international celebrity in your class who thinks he can get through school on his looks."

Asuka smiles at him, just a little mischief lingering at the corners of her mouth. "He can't?"

"Not in my class. I distrust blue-eyed men on principle." He looks up at her, and Asuka makes a face when she sees the mischievous, teasing light in his eyes to match the barest edge of a grin still lingering on her mouth. "You should know better than to suggest something that unprincipled, Professor Tenjouin."

Asuka starts laughing. Her pen slides off her papers onto the floor, and she leans over to pick it up. Johan eyes the stack of papers.

"Want help?"

She looks down at the papers. "I don't know," she admits. "I know it's probably just a case of combined senioritis and holiday fever, but—"

"That doesn't exempt them from doing the assignment. My History II kids got holiday homework and half of them already have it turned in online. If you show them you mean business, they'll buckle down and do it. It's really that easy." There is a buzz, and he reaches into the pocket of his borrowed jeans and pulls out his phone to shut off without even looking at it. Then he glances at the screen and sighs. "On Christmas Eve. Come on."

"Edo?"

"Edo," he agrees. "Come on, pass them over. You've got to have something better than 'my manager says' in there somewhere."

She finally agrees, cutting her stack in half and giving him the ones from the bottom. Johan takes one of her pens, then starts methodically correcting spelling errors. Then he stops and blinks at the page.

"Asuka? How heavily do you grade on spelling and grammar?"

"It depends on how bad it is."

"Apparently . . . ah . . ." He flicks back to the first page. "Jason Cooper thinks 'trap card' is spelled T-R-O-P."

Asuka lets out a sound that is not exactly a groan. "Please tell me you're joking."

"He hasn't figured out yet that if you're using 'them' it needs to come after a plural, either." He sighs and shakes his head. "English is my third language and I could still do better than this. When I was ten. Before I was dueling native speakers."

Asuka holds out her hand. "May I see?"

"I'm not sure you want to." He hands her the paper all the same. Asuka looks at it and sighs as her eyes light first on the sentence "that makes it hard to draw any strong monster, and also then when you do draw them you cant summon them since you don't have any low-level ones out."

"I don't know what to do with this."

"I can tell you what I'd do."

"Fail him?"

"And put it in the requirements for the next paper that if you don't run a spelling and grammar check, your grade gets lowered accordingly." He picks up the next paper in the pile. "This one looks like it might be better. 'The most important thing to remember when structuring a cohesive deck is that intuitive strategy is not always the best strategy to use. For example, some monsters do damage to the player whose field they sit on, but it may be possible with a good combination of traps and spells to place the monster on the opponent's field so the damage effect is their penalty instead of your own.'" He pauses, then offers it to her. "Want one that's actually decent?"

She reaches out to take it. "Thanks—"

There is a loud thump from the hallway, and then Asuka's gratitude is interrupted by several hundred pounds of dragon and world savior hitting the floor just inside the living room door. Johan scrambles to his feet and yanks out his deck, reaching for the duel disk Asuka stowed under the end table. Then Jyuudai starts laughing.

"No fair tickling, Yubel, come on!"

Asuka stares as Jyuudai tries to roll over and finds himself blocked by the horned edge of a wing. He ducks beneath and Yubel tries to make a turn under her own leg, only to find herself pounced on from behind and subjected to revenge-tickling. She makes a strange sound that seems to be part hiss, part squeal, and part speech, and then the two of them roll over twice and come to rest against the wall, Jyuudai pinning Yubel's wrists above her head with his hands while she purrs and tries to squirm out from beneath, her wing bent up against the baseboard. He sits up to let her go and then offers a sheepish grin to the pair on the couch.

"Hi, guys."

Yubel draws her legs to her chest, still purring and now with her face a much darker shade than it normally appears. Johan grins at her. Asuka glances at him. Yubel catches sight of his grin and hisses at him. Johan makes a hideous face and hisses back at her before answering.

"Same to you."

Jyuudai stares up at the couch. "How do you do that?"

The grin gets wider. "It's this thing with your tongue—"

"Shut. Up." Yubel folds a wing around Jyuudai and glares, the effect spoiled somewhat by the deep rumbles still coming from somewhere in the region of her chest. Johan's expression doesn't change when he speaks.

"All it really takes is practice."

Yubel starts to get to her feet. Jyuudai puts a hand on her arm.

"Come on, Johan, quit it. She hasn't done anything to you. Lately."

Johan makes a face and picks up the next paper in his pile, muttering something mostly unintelligible about mating season. Jyuudai makes a face at him in return, then turns his attention to Asuka.

"Is there anywhere we can go outside for a couple of hours? Or like outside?"

"There's the gym, if you just want somewhere to run around," she suggests. "It's supposed to be locked over break, but I have a key for it."

Jyuudai smiles his usual sunny grin. "That'd be great."

"Make sure you lock it again when you leave," she says. "I need to get through these and then I need to go help—"

"Sis? Do you have any eggs?"

"Behind the pineapple under the rice I made for sushi."

"Is that rice even any good anymore?"

"Probably not." Asuka rubs at her eyes with the heel of her hand. "Don't use the carrots. I need those."

"I wasn't planning to." Fubuki disappears back into the kitchen. Asuka calls after him.

"Can you see if it needs thrown out?"

There is a long pause before Fubuki speaks again.

" . . . . Asuka, how long has this been in here, exactly?"

"A week?"

"Is that why it all looks kind of green?"

Asuka grimaces. "Just throw it out, Fubuki, please."

"I was just asking."

"When was the last time you cleaned out your fridge?" Johan asks, raising his eyebrows. Asuka picks up another paper of her own.

"Just before midterms. I haven't really had the time." She looks down at the paper. Then she puts it down and rubs at her temples. Johan picks it up.

" . . . . what does this even say?"

"I didn't even try decoding it yet."

Jyuudai looks up from grabbing Asuka's keys. "What is it?"

"A term paper. I think. It might be a text message in paper form."

Jyuudai trots back and looks over Johan's shoulder. my dek iz vry cohesiv & afectiv b/c i got it frm dr. brown & he sed it wuz gud & wen i ply w/ my roomatez i always win, he reads.

" . . . I don't get it."

"I don't either." Johan grabs the pen and scrawls a large 0/40 at the top of the paper. "But 'I got it from Dr. Brown' isn't an answer to why it's a good deck." He looks up at Asuka. "Do you want me to go through the rest of these and give you a break?"

"How many of my students are you going to fail?"

"As many of them as chose to not complete the assignment." He looks up from the paper about Dr. Brown's deck. "You'll thank me this coming semester. Promise."

She shakes her head. "I can get them. But I'll keep it in mind." She smiles at him. "Thanks."


It's that time of year when the world falls in love, every song you hear seems to say "Merry Christmas," the radio informs the kitchen. Johan stirs a pot of candied yams. Fubuki checks it from behind him, leaning over his shoulder to look, and then goes back to poking at the turkey in the sink.

"Do people eat this much food in Norway for Christmas?"

Johan pauses. "My family didn't when I was growing up," he says at last. "North School had a really elaborate Christmas, but there are people there from all over Europe."

"What's your family doing for Christmas?"

"I don't know." Johan's tone isn't unfriendly, but there's an edge to it that makes Fubuki wish a little he hadn't brought it up. "My mum hasn't mentioned what she and Annalise are doing. Henrik's probably staying home with a Bible and an economy-sized bottle of Ketel One's finest."

Fubuki spits it out before he can stop himself. "Who's Henrik?"

"If you asked a DNA test, he's my father." Johan stirs somewhat harder than strictly necessary, and a bit of sauce spills on the stove. "Annalise is the kid who was supposed to replace the defective one."

Fubuki reaches out to put a hand on Johan's shoulder, wishing he had a way to say aloud that there is no need for the embarrassed, angry flush on Johan's face. Johan tenses. Then his shoulders fall, and he takes a deep breath that ends in a shaky kind of smile. "She's a great kid, though. She just turned six last month and she's speaking English already."

"She's your . . . . sister?"

"Yeah." The candy-sauce foams up, then boils quickly down. Johan turns down the heat and reaches for his back pocket to pull out his wallet. "Here."

He pulls out a picture of himself sitting on a sled that is clearly not made for adults, legs cocked off to the sides to make space for the little girl sitting in front of him. There is a bright blue and white hat jammed down over her hair and he is holding her hands in his because she, unlike he, has not bothered with gloves, but both of them have jettisoned their coats for what Fubuki assumes is probably a Christmas card photograph. Fubuki studies it—their hair is the same colour, but their eyes are different—and then smiles.

"She's cute."

"People keep thinking I'm her dad."

Fubuki can't help snorting laughter. "Boy, are they off."

Johan tucks the picture carefully back where it belongs and puts his wallet back in his pocket. "You're telling me. Did Asuka say anything about what she was doing with the beans in the fridge?"

"They go in the oven with the pie."

"When does the pie go in?"

"When I open the box."

It's Johan's turn to laugh. Then he stretches. "Feel like taking a break?"

Fubuki glances at the kitchen timer. "Let me go ask Asuka what needs—" He breaks off halfway across the living room. Johan pokes his head out.

"Okay?"

Fubuki turns back around long enough to put a finger to his lips. Then he quietly approaches the sofa and swings Asuka up and into his arms, shifting so her head rests on his shoulder. Johan sees the limp arms when Fubuki turns around and mouths a single word: sleeping?

Fubuki nods and skirts the couch, trying to keep an even pace as he heads down the hall and bumps Asuka's bedroom door open with his knee. One of her house slippers falls off, and he makes a mental note to retrieve it. First, though, there is something more important—finding a way to pull down the covers so he can put his kid sister to bed properly.

At last he settles for pulling up the coverlet at the foot of the bed—Asuka is fully dressed and the thermostat is set to a daytime temperature, and if she's truly cold, she should be able to find her way beneath the covers herself. He snugs the coverlet around her shoulders and pulls off her remaining slipper to put at the foot of the bed before retrieving its mate to set by its side. Then he kisses her forehead and smoothes the blanket before leaving, closing the door as quietly as he can behind him.

"If that's what staying over a break does to you, I'm glad I never do," Johan says when Fubuki comes back to the kitchen, pitching his voice low. "Is she okay?"

"Just tired, I think. She fell asleep with a pen still in her hand."

"I kind of get the feeling she took me too literally." Johan pulls the stopper on the teakettle and pours water over a pair of teabags. "If it's that bad, they should be able to figure out for themselves why they didn't get marks. You shouldn't have to correct every single misspelling if you just write 'spell check' on the front."

"You don't know Asuka very well." Fubuki takes Johan's mug and sets it on the table next to his own. Johan grabs the sugar bag, then pauses and brings the bag of potatoes to the table to peel, as well. "Your kids aren't this much of a problem?"

Johan shakes his head. "But you have to start early." He takes a sip of tea. "Otherwise they'll walk all over you. Most of mine are great."

"Sounds like you have an easier time than Asuka does."

Johan laughs a little. "Asuka doesn't have to deal with dating four different guys every week, depending on which tabloid you're reading." He puts down the peeler long enough to take another sip, and Fubuki picks it up. Johan reaches for it, then gets a paring knife to cube with, instead. "There's nothing more embarrassing than having to teach a sex ed class because you're the only member of staff who actually knows something about safe gay sex and having someone ask you in questions 'how do you have sex with someone that much taller than you?' and there's some two-year-old picture of you and Ryou Marufuji sitting at the same table at an award ceremony getting passed around the room."

Fubuki can't help snorting into his tea. "Ryou's straight."

"Tell it to the National World Weekly. I keep meaning to call him and tell him he owes me a steamy weekend in the Bahamas, but I'm not sure that'd go over too well."

Fubuki glances up at him. "You'd do that?" he asks, and Johan shrugs.

"I might have when I was sixteen. Now I just read the magazines I confiscate in class and try to figure out how Johan Andersen's love life can be so much more interesting than mine." He takes another sip of tea. "A couple of weeks before term started there was one from Britain that said I was dating Edo when we hadn't even been in the same country in over a month. That was awkward."

Fubuki makes a face. "Photoshop is one of the world's greatest evils when it's put into the wrong hands."

Johan gets to the end of the peeled potatoes and gets up to run water over the cubes. "I saw a picture of you and some girl with red hair and Asuka's body a few months ago. I wasn't sure if I should laugh or just wonder what kind of sick human being takes a picture of a pair of siblings and then pastes in somebody else's head as a way to go 'hey, look who's screwing this week!'"

It's Fubuki's turn to make a horrible face. "Please tell me you made that up."

"I wish I could. I was trying for three or four minutes to figure out why this girl didn't look right and that's when I realised I recognised the bracelet she was wearing." He puts the rinsed potatoes in a covered bowl and comes back to cut more. "Some people just don't know when to quit. Sex sells, I guess."

"You're not dating anybody they can sell papers with, huh?" Fubuki puts a freshly-peeled potato in Johan's pan. Johan shakes his head.

"Not dating period. Last year I ended up with this guy who started doing things like being pissy if Jyuudai came to stay and telling me I shouldn't call my mum so much because it racks up the phone bill—it was my phone and it was once a week, just for the record—and then he started calling every night at eleven to find out if I was in bed and that was it."

"Short pier, long walk, find one and take the other?" Fubuki asks, and Johan nods.

"Pretty much. I'm twenty years old, I think I can put myself to bed, thanks." He stares at the potato cubes, then puts his knife down next to the pan. "After that I just kind of said forget it. It's not worth the circus."

"Maybe you haven't met the right guy yet." Fubuki takes the pan, knife, and peeler to the sink. Out of the corner of his eye he sees Johan shaking his head.

"Actually, I met the perfect guy. Just one problem."

"He had a boyfriend?"

"He had a wife." Fubuki tries not to laugh. Out of the corner of his eye he sees Johan grinning. "Go ahead. I know. You're not the first one to tell me."
"Maybe there's another one out there you haven't met yet."

Johan looks up from his cup. "What, do you have somebody in mind?"

"Actually—"

"We're back!" a voice calls from the living room. Both of them jump, and then Jyuudai walks into the kitchen with a much calmer-looking Yubel behind him. Johan grins at them.

"Have fun?"

Jyuudai turns on the flame under the teakettle. "Yeah. They have a rock wall over there." He grins back. "I didn't think I was going to get Yubel down."

"It's a cheap imitation of a situation too complicated for a human being to handle," Yubel says. None of them are fooled by her dismissive tone of voice. "I suppose it's adequate when nothing else is available."

Jyuudai smiles at her from over his shoulder as he gets out a pair of mugs. "Where's Asuka?"

"Napping. She fell asleep grading papers."

"Oh." Jyuudai peeks curiously at the yams on the stove. "Are we making dinner, then?"

"You can make dinner. I've been standing over that damned stove all day long," Fubuki answers. Johan holds up his hands.

"Don't look at me, I have been too."

Jyuudai pokes his head into the fridge. "Is there even anything in here that's not for tomorrow?"

"I think there's TV dinners in the freezer," Fubuki tells him. Jyuudai opens the freezer and looks, then pulls out a box and looks at the back.

"It takes an hour."

"An hour's not bad," Johan protests. "You should see some of the stuff I make at home when I actually have time to cook."

"Yeah, but I'm starving now!"

Johan and Yubel roll their eyes in perfect unison behind Jyuudai's back, for once in perfect agreement.

Asuka isn't the only one to think some things will never change.


"I attack Air Hummingbird with Sapphire Pegasus—"

"No, you don't, I've got a trap!" Jyuudai flips up a card on the mat they've borrowed from Asuka. "Negate Attack."

Johan makes a face. "Turn end."

"My turn!" Jyuudai declares gleefully. "I use Darkman's effect to summon Neos in attack mode and attack Sapphire Pegasus—"

"And I activate a trap." Johan turns over a card of his own. "Rainbow Life." He discards and adds 700 points to the pad of paper to his right. "Thanks."

Jyuudai sticks out his tongue. Johan snorts laughter. Yubel, sitting to Jyuudai's left, makes a horrible face. "Turn end."

"My turn." He examines his cards. "I summon Amber Mammoth—"

"It's ten to eleven, just so you know," Asuka says, coming into the kitchen with a large tray of sugar cookies. Behind her is Fubuki, balling up the last of the waxed paper they frosted on. Johan jumps.

"It's what?"

"Ten to eleven," she repeats. "If you're still going tonight—"

"Damn it!" He glances back at the duel mat. Jyuudai sweeps together Johan's field.

"I can help Asuka finish food tonight. Rematch tomorrow. I'm still going to beat you."

"Don't count on it," Johan tells him, squaring his deck and putting it back in its worn leather case. "You haven't seen me duel in over a year."

"Except on TV," Jyuudai answers. "I still get to one every once in awhile, you know."

Johan shakes his head and slides his feet into his boots. Then there is a touch on his shoulder, and he looks up to see Fubuki standing next to him with a pair of coats draped over his arm.

"Mind if I go with you?"

"If you want." Johan stands up and reaches for his coat. Fubuki holds it out, instead, and after a moment's pause Johan slips into it.

"Thanks."He glances up at the clock and almost curses again. "Aww—"

"You know, I can drive," Fubuki says. "Even in snow."

"In a snowstorm?"

"Sure."

Johan glances at the clock again. With the front door of the flat open, he can just hear the sound of the church bell. At last he nods.

"Come on, let's go."


To Fubuki, the world of the church is both unusual and in some ways downright alien. There are stained-glass windows that would be beautiful if not for the scenes of unbelievable violence shown on them—a man in a robe being beaten, thrown to the ground, and finally hung contorted and limp from a gigantic wooden cross. There is a white statue of a woman with a scarf over her head, holding out her arms and with the image of a heart carved in a circle on the front of her robes. Fubuki wonders if this is the Little Therese Johan called his favourite. There are candles all over the place, and several men at the front in odd white robes. Johan looks serene enough when he sits on one of the high-backed benches, but Fubuki is reminded strongly of the point in time where he genuinely thought he might lose his sister forever to madness. Johan leans over to whisper in his ear.

"They're just liturgical robes. Relax a little—"

"Peace be with you," a voice booms out of nowhere, and Fubuki's head jerks up for a moment before he realizes someone has rigged a wireless mic. To his right he hears Johan answer—"And also with you"—and then everyone stands, reaching for the books sitting in the racks on the back of each bench. Johan turns to the necessary page almost without looking and indicates the prayer the priest is reading. After a few moments Fubuki gives up on following it and simply looks around quietly, trying to soak in the candles and statues and odd things he has no names for. Then Johan is sitting again. Fubuki follows suit. Then he hears the priest tell everyone to stand and turn to page 398 in the hymnal located in the seat back. Is this church or an exercise class?

Johan opens the book and turns the side of it up. Fubuki reaches over to pull it down where he can see. He has just enough time to recognise that he knows the song from the Christmas movies that have been playing almost nonstop on television since American Thanksgiving, and then someone cues up an organ.

Johan does not sing in English, although the words he is singing—glade jul, hellige jul, engler daler ned i skjul—match the melody of everyone else around them. Fubuki tries to find a way to disprove what Johan has said about his musical talent and can't. I might be able to carry a tune in a paper bag, but I wouldn't know what to do with it—it is an honest description of the voice he is hearing, which is reasonably on-key and close enough to the notes indicated on the staff that anyone with a layman's ear for the music would never hear a difference. He considers trying to pick up in the middle of the verse and doesn't—he could probably do it, but it doesn't take a genius to interpret the faint dull flush that appears on Johan's face when Fubuki traces down the staff to find the English lyrics, and so he stays silent.

The music comes to an end. Johan touches his forehead and makes a motion across his shoulders and bows his head. Fubuki watches him out of the corner of one eye, aware that the others in the sanctuary are almost completely silent. Some murmur, but it is a quiet and private sound.

Then that booming everywhere-all-at-once voice suggests to the people around him that they share in the sign of peace. He turns to ask Johan what the sign of peace is, exactly, and is just in time to see Johan being embraced and welcomed by a tiny, fluffy woman who might as well have "grandmother" tattooed on her forehead in bright neon letters. As far as Fubuki knows, Johan's never met the woman in his life. He really wasn't kidding when he said Americans are weird about religion.

The ceremony goes on, the second half of it no more comprehensible to him than the first—readings from books and what seems to be quite a lot of praying. There is something oddly melodic about the sound of English behind him and Norwegian off to the side of him, both speaking in the same rhythms and patterns, and so when he tires of trying to follow—Yubel is right, he thinks, there's something really very odd about this whole virgin birth thing—he simply listens to the way the two lines of speech flow together, two different languages saying the exact same thing.

Then there is another song, and the people in the front stand and begin a processional toward the priest. Johan shifts.

"You okay?"

Johan nods. "Communion. They probably do it by rows so the priest doesn't get mobbed." He hands his hymnal to Fubuki and stands up. Fubuki tunes back into the words, gloria, in excelsis deo, as Johan takes his turn walking down the aisle. Fubuki watches, but six rows back is too far, and although he can see there is some exchange with the priest he has no idea what it is. Johan comes back and takes his seat.

"What was that?"

"Like I said. Communion." Johan reaches for the hymnal. "It's a . . . kind of like a reenactment of the Last Supper."

" . . . the what?"

Johan opens his mouth to answer, and then the music changes. "I'll tell you later."

Fubuki listens again, still quiet, while the people around him sing that rocks, fields, and plains repeat the sounding joy. Then the music ends, and people start filing into the aisle to greet each other. Johan slips easily through the crowd and out. It takes Fubuki a little longer, but he does get there—eventually.

"That's midnight Mass, huh?"

"Yeah." Johan looks out the window at the snowbanks piled up on either side of the street. Fubuki glances at him out of the corner of one eye, then slows to a crawl to get over a corner with no cinders laid yet. "It must have been pretty boring for you."

"Nah." He stares at the road. There's new ice below the thin scrim of snow—not something to be ignored. "It was kind of interesting to watch. Even if it didn't seem very . . . the word I grew up with is 'enlightened.'"

Johan doesn't turn his eyes away from the few snowflakes still skirling down. "What do you mean?"

"Who was being beaten on those windows?"

"It's the passion of Christ. His trial and his death." Johan finally turns, although only enough to look at Fubuki from the corner of his eye. "How is that unenlightened?"

"It just seems really violent."

"The person Christianity's based on wasn't like that. Just the people who killed him for walking around telling people to love one another."

"Screwed-up people."

"No kidding."Johan opens his door almost as soon as Fubuki pulls into the faculty parking lot and manages to get halfway across in spite of the ice before Fubuki can even get the key out of the ignition.

"Hey, wait!"
In spite of Fubuki's call Johan doesn't stop until he reaches Asuka's door. Then he rattles the handle.

"It's locked."

"Locked . . . ?" Fubuki reaches out a hand to try the knob himself. No, it isn't stuck; even a stuck knob would move a little. But the lights are on, and looking through the window, across the living room and into the kitchen he can see the light on the radio, still playing. He turns his key in the lock cautiously, ignoring—with effort—the part of himself that wants to bull through the front door and find out what on earth would possess his sister, quiet, careful Asuka, to lock the door when her car is still sitting in the parking lot, doubly so when she knows what time he and Johan were set to return. He opens the door, letting it swing quietly, and touches his deck in his pocket to be sure he has it to hand before calling his sister's name.

Asuka does not answer, but there's no sign that anything in the flat has been taken or moved. Asuka's duel disk is still sitting under the end table, Jyuudai's jacket is still on her coat rack . . . and Asuka's boots are still sitting beneath her own coat, dry and untouched. Johan heads for the kitchen. Fubuki looks down the hall. Asuka's bedroom door is shut, but the others are open, and there are no lights in the bathroom or either of the guest rooms.

Maybe she went next door for something.

Fubuki follows Johan into the kitchen, taking the pitcher of green tea out of Johan's hand to pour himself a glass. "Are you okay?"

There is a long moment during which Johan does not speak and the only sound Fubuki can hear is the radio—we'll frolic and play in the Eskimo way, walking in a winter wonderland. Then Johan sets his glass on the table with a muffled thump.

"You know, I know what I sounded like. You didn't need to rub it in."

Fubuki blinks at him. "What?"

Johan turns around. "I wasn't in time with everyone else. I know. You didn't have to point it out."

Fubuki stares for a moment. Then he remembers touching the page of the hymnal, searching for the place in the music where he could start, and shakes his head. "I wasn't pointing anything out. That song's been all over television for weeks and I thought I might know the words well enough to sing it." He puts his own glass down. "I was just trying to find the right spot in the music, Johan. That's all."

"You changed your mind."

Fubuki nearly asks why it matters. Then he more closely examines Johan's face. I wonder—

"I kind of had the feeling if I started singing people would know who I was. I figured you wouldn't want the attention." He shrugs a little. "I know I can be loud."

He reaches out to take Johan's hand before he can otherwise occupy it with his glass of tea. Johan looks up at him, and Fubuki reaches for his other hand.

"I went because I wanted to spend time with you. Not so I could decide whether or not I wanted to be your talent agent. Everybody's got something they're good at that makes them happy. Just because your thing isn't the same as mine doesn't mean it's worth less."

Johan tugs his hands away restlessly and reaches for his tea. Acting hastily in fear is as bad as acting hastily in anger or love, if not worse, Fubuki hears a voice in the back of his head say. He barely considers this advice. Sometimes a bad choice is the only one you can make, Yubel, he thinks.

Johan's face is not as smooth as it looks—there is a prickle of five o'clock shadow where Fubuki's lips touch his cheek, and the skin beneath it is just a little windchapped. Then he pulls back and waits to either get hit or get questioned.

Johan picks the latter. "What—"

"I was going to ask you earlier before Jyuudai came in if you'd go out for something to drink with me tomorrow night." He can see the "no" forming on Johan's lips and holds up a hand before Johan can give him the automatic rejection notice. "I've wanted to ask you almost since we met up again when I was doing that damned movie. No strings. If you like it and want to do it again sometime, we could. If not . . ." he shrugs. "If not, we don't have to. It's your choice."

Fubuki is very aware that for the first time in his life, he is asking someone who is far more likely to say no than yes. He can see it as clearly as if someone had penned it on Johan's face with one of those gigantic markers with a wedge for a tip. He lets his hand fall and waits. At last Johan opens his mouth.

"On Christmas?"

Fubuki shrugs. "It's not like we're doing much of anything after washing up from dinner tomorrow."

Johan studies him, his eyes trained on Fubuki's face. Fubuki wonders what it is he's trying to see there.

"All right."

Fubuki smiles at him, a grin bright enough to light up the entire kitchen. Then he hears a door slam.

"—never again!" Asuka's voice says. "And I'm warning you now, Yuuki Jyuudai, if you even try—"

The end of whatever Asuka is saying gets cut off by Jyuudai's laughter. Then the pair of them walk in, each with a plastic shopping bag, Jyuudai holding together the back of Asuka's light summer halter, which seems to have come apart at the ties.

"It wasn't on purpose," Jyuudai protests. Asuka tries to reach for Jyuudai's shopping bag and ends up having to make a mad scramble for her top, instead.

"Don't do that!" She drops her own bag. It hits the floor with a dull thud. Fubuki grabs the ties at the back of her neck and pulls them closed again.

"Sis, do I want to know—"

"Don't mind them, they spent the last twenty minutes getting hot and sticky under a palm tree," Yubel tells him from the doorway. Fubuki hears Johan try to laugh and instead end up choking on his tea. Asuka flushes. Jyuudai doesn't let go of the back of the halter, although he does attempt shooting a look back over his shoulder. Yubel raises a brow on one side.

"Don't look at me that way. I was there, I saw it."

"Asuka ran out of sugar," Jyuudai cuts in, before Yubel can get well underway. Asuka feels the strings at the back of her neck and then stands up.

"Do you know there isn't a single store in this town open at a quarter to midnight on Christmas Eve?" Asuka asks. Fubuki raises his eyebrows.

"You look like you found one pretty easy."

Jyuudai sticks his free hand in the pocket of his jeans and fishes around. Then he pulls out a scrap of paper and hands it to Fubuki.

"Food Lion—Honolulu?" Fubuki stares up at him. Jyuudai shrugs sheepishly.

"I figured we could try somewhere it wasn't really late yet as long as we tried to blend in. I'm just . . . not really used to going through with someone who hasn't got any kind of energy I can use to pull them through with and it kind of . . . " He pulls something else out of his pocket. Fubuki recognises the string that ought to have held the halter together up the back. "I think I might owe you a new shirt, Asuka."

"Right now I don't care as long as I get out of this one so I can cook," she says. "Every time I move it keeps trying to swing open."

"I'm trying to hold it, I think part of it got turned inside out when we crossed time zones—"

"I'll get it," Fubuki cuts in, and he takes the side of the halter. "C'mon, sis. You've got goosebumps already."

"What are you putting in?" Johan asks, and grabs Asuka's shopping bag off the floor. Asuka does not allow herself to be herded, exactly, but she does step a little closer into Fubuki's arms. The clothing she is wearing is not meant for the kind of weather even the radio acknowledges in the plainest terms: baby, it's cold outside.

"Beans. And sweet potatoes. And the pie. The sugar's for something else. But thank you."

"No problem." His phone rings, and he rolls his eyes. "Come on, Edo—?" He frowns at the number, then picks up. "Hello?"

Fubuki watches a grin spread across Johan's face. "Yes. Yeah, I—uh-huh. Yeah. Just a minute." He cups a hand over the mouthpiece. "Is it too late to go to the airport?"

"It'll take fifteen minutes at this hour," Asuka says. "Why?"

"They found my suitcase."

Fubuki starts laughing almost hard enough to lose his grip on the edge of Asuka's shirt. Jyuudai grins.

"Seriously?"

"Yeah!" The grin fades just a little. "I just don't want to keep everyone up—"

"There's keys in my jacket," Fubuki tells him. "Be careful."

Johan gives him a look worthy of Yubel. "I grew up in Norway."

" . . . point."

Fubuki sees Johan's face out of the corner of one eye as he leads Asuka off to attempt untangling her from the mess of fabric Jyuudai has made of her shirt (an attempt, he suspects, that will end with scissors). Johan leans over to speak almost into Jyuudai's ear.

Jyuudai answers. Johan laughs. Yubel rolls her eyes.

They set the bags on the table, and Johan turns his head just enough for Fubuki to see him smile.