A/N: This is just a Christmas gift. It's still related to the main story, but there's just more Christmas fluff. Merry Christmas everyone, and hope y'all will enjoy this chapter :D
christmas: a contradictory season, where one feels warmth from love and feels cold from weather
Before any of them could've guessed it, the academy was transformed into a snowy landscape. Snowflakes cascaded down the sky, accumulating on the ground to form a blanket of fluffy snow. On one end, there was a steep slope of snow, and on the other a flat surface. Other than a ski storage rack, no building was in sight, allowing the wind to breeze past the ten figures.
"Guess what time it is? It's Christmas, everyone!" Yu exclaimed, jumping around with fervent excitement. At the sight of the snowy scene, Shiori and Yui immediately slid through the snow, letting out screams of bliss. In contrast, simultaneous groans could be heard from the other vampires. Tamiko only blinked, staring at the snow with wistfulness. She thought she could almost hear the tittering of church children and the pattering of their feet against the snow.
Christmas was a season for the Christians. It was a season for reunions, gatherings and laughter. But to her, it was an alarming reminder that the world had forsaken her, and her world was frigid and frozen in time. She had no basis for her intuition, of course; she had no memories to recall. But right then, her instincts were the only light guiding her.
"So it is. How does that explain the fact that we're here out in the snow?" Reiji questioned, his nose scrunching in distaste.
"Ugh, it's so cold… I can't sleep in this environment," Shu complained.
"Teddy doesn't like this cold. Bring us back this instance," Kanato commanded, hugging his teddy bear close to him.
Yu folded his arms, shaking his head in disapproval.
"Don't be such party poopers! The fun of Christmas is about doing things in the snow, you know?" he said. Flashing a cheeky grin, he rolled a ball of snow and threw it at Ayato. Ayato flinched, the snow decorating his shirt with white.
"…Are you provoking Yours Truly, you little imp?" Ayato growled, his eyes glowering at the perpetrator of his coldness. Yu only shrugged; his smile remained plastered on his face as a form of a taunt and jest.
"If you're mad, then catch me if you can, Ayato-sama~" he chortled, picking up another ball of snow to aim at Kanato- or more precisely his teddy bear. Just as he predicted, Kanato immediately shrieked, brushing away the snow from his beloved teddy bear.
"TEDDDDY!" he howled, clutching the teddy bear protectively into his arms. Then, he sent a brazen glare to the boy a few centimetres shorter than him. As Yu caught sight of the snowball that was about to be sent his way, he hid behind Subaru, causing Ayato to throw the snowball towards Subaru.
Subaru, his body turning as white as his hair, was not the least amused. He directed his anger to the clear culprit.
"Oi, I'm already sick of you calling yourself 'Yours Truly' all the time. Now you even plan on challenging me? Just you wait, Ayato!" he yelled, hurling a snowball at the redhead with penetrating force.
When the snowball splattered all over him, the redhead turned his fuming gaze to the albino.
"Hah, and you think you can win Yours Truly? Look at this, kidnapper!"
As he said so, a flurry of snowballs were casted towards the albino. The intense exchange of snowballs carried on as Kanato continued to send his own snowballs to the shorter kid at an alarming rate. However, he sacrificed his accuracy for speed, and Yu's petite figure allowed him to be more agile and flexible when dodging the weapons aimed at him. Many of the snowballs ended up flying off trajectory or towards another unknowing target, such as Shiori.
The red-haired girl now had a creepy smile on her face. Her eyes crinkled in amusement as she watched the white splotch on her chest.
"Ohhh… I'm getting so fired up. Watch my special technique, the 'Super Snowballing Throw'!" she babbled, posing dramatically while launching the snowball into a high arc. The ball of snow hit the purple-haired boy's nose spot-on.
Meanwhile, Kanato returned her smile with an equally creepy one of his own.
"Silly mortal woman… Such an antic is not enough to faze me. I shall bury you with snow, and let you freeze in this cold weather. Mmhmm. Such a punishment is only right, no?" he sweetly answered her provocation, returning her attack with a swift slam.
Yu chuckled at the sight of chaos in front of him, occasionally inciting the 'conflicts' and using others as shields when he himself was being targeted.
The uninvolved watched on, some with mirth and others with sceptism. Tamiko should be part of the latter, yet a sense of warmth enveloped her, ironic to the cold sensation of snow amidst her fingertips. She felt like she was close to rediscovering something she had lost before.
"How childish," Reiji commented as he clicked his tongue. Yui only smiled.
"How happy," she noted. Something flashed across the other four's eyes, Tamiko noticed—something that had long been buried before. In Yui's frenzy, she jogged to the ski storage rack, beckoning the other four to follow her.
"Instead of joining in and getting cold, let's go skiing instead!" she proposed, punching her fists together. Her enthusiasm was returned with indifference from the three.
Shu yawned, mumbling, "Too much of a hassle." Reiji scrutinised the blonde, his lips pressed thin in a firm line.
"Of course, everything is a hassle to a deadbeat. I would not be surprised if you don't even know how to ski properly," he said, a biting edge to his voice.
And then, a miracle was born. Shu stood up; his usual eyes that were hardened with apathy lit up with a fire of defiance.
"Do you?"
Not sensing the tension between the two, Yui piped in, "Only a competition will tell."
And so, the three strode off to the skis. Yui was the slowest of them all, causing Shu to rebuke her for being a slowpoke and Reiji comparing her speed to that of a turtle. And Yui had protested vehemently, saying that they didn't have to put it in such a horrid way. Eventually, Shu won the skiing competition to Reiji's dissatisfaction, which Reiji expressed through snide remarks.
Tamiko watched the scene unfolding in front of her. It was slight—very slight—but for a moment, she thought something awakened inside them. It wasn't so much of happiness, but something more of longing, as if this instance of being in each other's company was a scene so distant and foreign.
"Ah, who knew Shu would react in such a way, right bitch-chan? Fufu~ Now, what shall we do?" Laito purred. He remained as an observer, but the way he jutted up his lower lip didn't go unnoticed from Tamiko's line of vision.
She never really liked Laito. Other than being too loquacious for her liking, he possessed a flippant attitude towards everything. Above it all, his volatile nature unnerved her. She had this feeling that he was not as shallow as what his image appeared to, and he was merely observing everyone with those watchful eyes of his.
Yet, at that point of time, they were just two outsiders sharing the same deficiency of not being able to understand the bliss of celebrating festive seasons like Christmas. And so, this caused her to do the unthinkable—converse with him.
"What is the meaning of Christmas?" she asked, more to herself than to her companion.
Laito raised an eyebrow at her question. For a moment, his smile wavered, but he maintained his crude farce.
"Pft. Christmas is a day for lovers… to do things together, of course. Other meanings are irrelevant to me. After all, what other business would a vampire have with a human event?"
His answer was as shallow as she imagined. Then again, her definition of Christmas was equally shallow as well. Although she didn't want to admit it, they were practically two peas in the same pod. Was that the reason why the dream spirit chose to summon them?
"All I know is that Christmas is cold. Very cold," she mumbled. But the familiar warmth nuzzling inside her was telling her otherwise. When was the last time had she felt such warmth again?
"Want me to warm you up, bitch-chan?" he teased her.
She smiled faintly.
"You can't. You're cold too. Both physically and emotionally."
She ignored the blank look that Laito cast her way. Instead, she rolled a gigantic ball of snow.
"Let's build a snowman. We'll make it look like Yu, and then destroy it," she initiated. It was a preposterous and immature suggestion. She would never suggest it in normal conditions. But, for a moment, she wanted to see if she could find this emotion which she had lost. To be able to indulge herself in a period of foolishness… How would that feel like exactly?
Laito's eyes widened, tilting his head slightly. Then, he laughed.
"You're surprisingly open, bitch-chan. Have you fallen for me already?"
His laugh was hollow and empty.
She curtly replied, "The day I fall for you is the day when pigs fly."
Laito pouted.
"How cruel."
Knowingly, he picked up the pebbles on the ground and planted two inside the ball of snow. His finger slid across the snow, forming a wide jagged curve underneath the pebbles. Tamiko supposed it was his attempt of making a smile on the snowman.
"Look, this is midget-chan," he shouted towards the dream spirit. The dream spirit looked back, gasping dramatically at the sight of the collapsing ball of snow.
"Hey, I don't look so ugly! Plus, I look like I'm about to fall!" he protested. Laito's eyes only crinkled.
"Fufu. Goodbye, midget-chan."
Then, he smashed the ball of snow, causing the lump to collapse over.
The wailing of a certain dream spirit could be heard even from a distance.
This time, Tamiko let her laughter loose, her dimples blemishing her otherwise stoic face. Maybe she shouldn't have found it so funny. Laito was a sadist, and it was highly likely that he did that for his own amusement and nothing else. Yet, this exchange between them allowed her to remember the mutual affection friends showed each other, which was teasing and harmless.
Something inside her nagged at her. Laito isn't harmless, and you know that. But, if they were laughing in Christmas, she almost wanted to believe in the impossible.
The warmth continued to stir inside her. She surely couldn't classify this feeling as 'happiness'. It was too shallow to be that. But maybe, she could classify it as comfort. Because for once, even if she was with possibly the most annoying company ever, she wasn't alone anymore.
Ten shaking figures sat near a fireplace, which was eventually created by Yu after many complaints from the aforementioned ten. Christmas songs played in the background, setting up an amiable atmosphere.
"Ugh… Now thanks to you, Yours Truly is cold," Ayato lamented, his voice strangely weak for once.
"Tch… Why do we still feel cold if we're not even living? The rules of this world are so screwed up…" Subaru groaned as well.
"But you guys had fun, didn't you?" Yu asked innocently.
"Fun? How ridiculous," Reiji muttered. The rest of the vampires nodded in unison.
Shiori giggled, muttering to the girls, "They're all tsunderes, I bet."
Tamiko let a small smile surface on her face.
"It was fun."
"Miko-chan! You understand what's the meaning of fun?" Shiori asked, gasping in possibly the most exaggerated manner ever. Tamiko rolled her eyes at the redhead's response.
"Don't be overdramatic. I'm merely stating how I felt," she plainly stated.
The faint smile never faded from Tamiko's face. As the sizzling of the fire continued, and the group began to bicker over the most nonsensical things ever, the warmth didn't stop spreading inside her.