Disclaimer: I do not own GA or any of its characters.

Author Note: Thanks a lot to everyone who has been reading Shalom II again. I have written after the part where I left off last time, and it will be different. I hope that it is a good different. It will take me a few more chapters to get to that point though.


Chapter 7

Mikan's POV:

I woke up feeling woozy. I don't even think I should have been awake feeling like that, but my throat was parched so bad that it was actually hurting. I tried to sit up without opening my eyes, only to realize that I was in someone's arms. I unglued my eyes somehow, hating even the faint light coming in through the window, and looked at the guy whose arm I was using as a pillow and whose other arm was around my waist.

"Just Ruka." I muttered to myself as I moved his hand. Wait. What? Ruka?

Thinking about it made my head hurt, and so I moved his hand away, and tried to sit up again, only to realize that another arm also rested at my waist. I somehow managed to turn and came face to face with Natsume. This was getting weirder by the minute. I moved his arm as well, and finally sat up.

By this time, the fog in my head had cleared up a bit. I stared at the two sleeping guys and somehow managed to smile. I needed to take a picture of this. Hotaru would pay to see this. I slid off the bed, and it was not easy at all, considering that I did not want to wake them up, and they had been almost glued to me. (So were now really close to each other.)

I finally stood up, and groped my pockets for my phone. I didn't find it but Natsume's phone was on the table in front of me. I picked it up, took the picture and emailed it to myself and Hotaru, before pocketing it. I turned and almost fell, but somehow caught myself, and staggered to the washroom.

I was feeling better when I stepped out of the washroom, and now I went to the kitchen to get some water. My throat was still parched, not to mention, I was sure my stomach would not be able to handle anything more than water anyways, so food was out of the question. I filled my glass with water, and took a sip as I turned around, and then promptly spat it out.

Grandfather was asleep on the couch in the living room. He had a blanket and a pillow, but that was still a couch, and that was still Toushrou Hyuuga. Glad that I still had Natsume's phone, I took another picture. Then I drank my water, and walked completely into the living room, taking my surroundings into account.

The kitchen counter that extended into the living room had been turned into a bar. I had failed to notice that when I had been in the kitchen. There were too many bottles of hard alcohol, as well as a LOT of cans of beer. Most of the bottles were empty, and the cans had been used to make a pyramid. Right. In one corner of the living room, there were several small suitcases, and next to them was a pile of boots. Winter jackets were in another pile.

The table in front of the couch where grandfather was even now peacefully sleeping had bags of chips on it, and I was sure they were empty, as well as the remains of the cake that Natsume and I had made. Well, actually, I could only tell because of the plate, and the smudging of icing, everything else was gone. When we had eaten it, and I was sure I had also been one of them, we had literally devoured it, and I think the only way we could have finished it off more cleanly, would have been if we had licked the plate. Who knows, maybe someone had.

I stumbled off to take a peek into the other rooms as well. In the den I found uncle Misaki sprawled on the couch, and he did have a pillow but was using a winter jacket, maybe his own, as a blanket. I clicked another picture. Come to think of it, there had been no blanket on Natsume's bed either. No wonder we had all been cuddling together. I smiled as I realized that, that was probably the reason I had been sleeping between those two.

My next stop was the extra bedroom. I felt my eyebrows rise in surprise at the scene in there, but that was all I could muster at the moment. I took another picture, and then smiled at it. Uncle Narumi and Aunt Kimiko were cuddled together under a comforter. It seemed weird to admit but they did look kinda cute. I stepped out of the room, and closed the door gently behind me.

I was clear headed enough now, that last night was coming back to me.

Flashback:

Natsume left me to open the door, and so I got up, and pulled one his shirts over my tank top. It matched well with my cotton capris. Then I headed out to see who it was, when I heard a lot of people yell 'SURPRISE' at the same time.

I grinned broadly at the stunned look on Natsume's face, as everyone entered, almost in single file. Everyone had one small suitcase (small enough to be carry on in a plane, though I knew that they had flown here in Grandfather's personal jet) and one shopping bag full of alcohol. Ruka came in first, followed by Aunt Kimiko, then Uncle Narumi, then Uncle Misaki, and the last one to enter was Grandfather. By this time Ruka was giving me a hug, and so I looked away from Natsume.

"Whoa!" I said as Ruka spun me around, and he laughed.

Then he placed his suitcase at one side of the living room, and tugged off his boots. The Aunt Kimiko was giving me a hug, and then a kiss on my forehead. She had already gotten rid of her stuff, and only had the bag of alcohol. I grinned at her, before I was pulled into hugs by both my uncles. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Grandfather ruffle Natsume's hair. Say what?

"Mikan, where do you wanna make the bar?" Ruka asked, snapping me out of my amazement, and I pointed at the kitchen counter. He gave me a thumbs up and started emptying his bag of booze. He had a 24 pack of beer, and a bottle of tequila. Next was Aunt Kimiko, and out came at least 12 bottles of Bacardi Breezer, and three bottles of Glavya. Uncle Narumi took out more beer, and a bottle of Absolut Vodka, and Uncle Misaki had beer and vodka as well, except he had brought Grey Goose.

Dear God! When had my entire family turned into alcoholics?

"Hey Mikan!" Grandfather said to me, and I turned to him, still gaping at the amount of alcohol. He chuckled. Wait. Toushrou Hyuuga chuckled? What was going on?

The grandfather gave me a hug, and then he headed off to the bar (there was no way to call it anything else now) and placed his own contribution there. Two bottles of Jura (scotch).

I jumped as Natsume wrapped an arm around me, and he gave me an understanding smile. I guess I looked a bit overwhelmed.

"Merry Christmas Mikan." he said to me and I smiled and mouthed 'you too' before we were swallowed up by the tide that was our family.

Flashback Over

I went back to Natsume's room. Both him and Ruka were still sleeping. Since I was already swaying, I figured, I should also be sleeping. I hadn't even checked the time yet, and honestly I did not want to. I pulled out a huge comforter from the cupboard. I guess we had been too drunk to remember that Natsume did have this in here last night and carried it to the bed and spread it over both of them. Then I crawled back between them, this time facing Natsume, and went back to sleep.

Just as I was about to fall asleep, I remembered Natsume's toast from last night.

"To the mother of all hangovers on Christmas morning. Merry Christmas!" he had said. We had all laughed. It was going to be so true.


Natsume's POV:

Somebody was moving next to me. That was all I could think of as I woke up. I opened my eyes and winced at the light, even though I knew it was almost dark in the room.

I glanced at the figure snuggled into my arms, and inspite of the headache that was beginning to form, smiled. Mikan looked adorable, and behind her Ruka was out cold. So she must've been the one moving, and had woken me up. I noticed the comforter over us and frowned slightly. If I remembered right, we had gone to sleep without a blanket last night. I glanced at Ruka. Nah, it must've been Mikan. She usually could wake up early after drinking, though unlike us, she would be hungover tomorrow as well.

I slowly sat up, but even that made my head throb in pain. Whose bright idea was it to get trashed last night anyways? Honestly, considering the amount of alcohol they had shown up with, you'd think we were all hardened alcoholics.

I smiled slightly though. I had been happy to see everyone. Then my smile widened at what Grandfather had said to me last night as he had greeted me.

"There is no way I was letting my grandson spend Christmas alone. I have my faults, but I am no Scrooge." he had said to me, before ruffling my hair. I had never been so stunned in my life. 'Who're you and what have you done with my grandfather?' I had almost blurted out, but thank god, I had managed to keep my mouth shut.

I could see that his hug had amazed Mikan just as much. Really, I wondered what had gotten into him.

Once we were over the shock of everyone showing up just like that, it had turned out to be a lot of fun. I grinned as I remembered Ruka's idea that instead of toasting many times during the night, we make a toast only for our first shot, but each person gets to make a different toast.

I had toasted to the hangover we would all have today, but there had been quite a few unexpected ones as well. Shrugging, I slid out of bed and headed to the kitchen to get some water. Now that I was up, I needed to give my dehydrated body as much water as possible if I wanted to make this less painful.

As I drained my glass of water, I really considered staying up and making breakfast for everyone. Then I shook my head, winced as it hurt, and headed back to bed. We'd order in for breakfast. Either eggs, waffles, pancakes and stuff from Denny's, otherwise there was always pizza.

I climbed back into be and realized that Mikan had moved away from Ruka. I grinned as I now pulled her close to me before closing my eyes.

"To a Christmas that grants our hearts desires." Narumi had toasted last night. Well, it seemed to have worked for me.