Set: post series

Aelita let her head rest against her hand as she stared out the window of the rec room, watching as a light dusting of snow fell across the campus. The rec room was nearly silent, save for a peppy sounding tune playing at a low volume on one of the radios in the room. It was a strange sense of calm compared to how busy things usually were at Kadic. But, that was just the time of year, she supposed.

She sighed. The holidays were upon them once again. And she didn't know how to feel about them.

One one hand, she loved so much about the season. The music, the decorations, the tacky apparel and TV specials, the food, the general goodwill and cheer the time seemed to inspire in people, she loved it all. It was a welcome change of pace from her everyday life.

But... on the other hand, it was so bittersweet for her. Because with the holidays came memories.

Memories of wolves. Of men in black. Of screams.

Memories of cold, stinging tears stuck on her face. Memories of her confusion and fear. Of questions

Memories of a mother that suddenly vanished.

And memories of a father that was no longer alive.

She blinked back a few tears that had tried to form, then rubbed what remained of them away on her sleeve. She wanted to chide herself for thinking about those sorts of things; not now, this wasn't the time or place to do so. But she knew it was impossible to completely keep away such thoughts around this time of year. She'd learned as much last year.

Last year, staying with Jeremy had been a wonderful time, and even better distraction from her fragmented memories trying to haunting her. Jeremy's parents had been so kind and welcoming to her, and she'd had so much fun getting to spend time with Jeremy when he wasn't so focused on work for once that she'd barely had time to give her past any thought. And in the rare moments she did—because as much as she tried to ignore them, the feelings still occasionally slipped through—Jeremy had been right there to help her.

But that was last year. And this was this year. And she was not with Jeremy. She was still at Kadic, where she would remain for the entire break.

It wasn't due to a lack of an invitation on Jeremy's part. She let out a small chuckle as she recalled Jeremy's attempts, her breath fogging the window a bit. Jeremy had been eager to extend an invite to her again for the holidays, practically bouncing on his heels as he told her that his parents were more than happy to act as hosts again. He'd been so eager, in fact, that she nearly accepted the offer once again.

But then she stopped and thought about it. About how she'd already spent last winter with them, and a good portion of the summer as well, and staying again might look a bit suspicious to them. After all, if she spent so much time with them, when would she see her parents? It's not like they knew her history, they had no reason to assume anything. And she didn't want to impose anyway. So she declined, deciding to stay on campus this year.

And so here she was, sitting the nearly abandoned rec room, trying to distract herself from memories of holidays long since passed. And evidently failing quite miserably at it. She let her forehead rest against the cold glass of the window and huffed. The window fogged up again. She started to absently doodle on it with her finger.

Boredom, she was quickly realizing, was going to be her greatest enemy for the next few weeks.

Maybe she should go and find Sissi. She wasn't supposed to leave until a few days from now, and conversations with her never failed to be... enthralling, at the very least. She pulled herself back from the window and—

SLAM!

She startled as the door swung open and crashed against the doorstop. A hand flew to her chest as she turned around to find...

"Ulrich?" She couldn't keep the surprise out of her voice at the sight of him. Last she'd seen him he had been waiting at the gates for his parents to come get him, and that had almost been an hour ago. Surely they wouldn't have taken that long?

If he'd heard her, he didn't acknowledge it. He had a scowl plastered on his face as he trudged over to the couch, letting his bag fall onto the floor with a thud.

She frowned. This couldn't be good.

He didn't say anything as she moved over from the window to the couch, instead busying himself with pulling off his gloves and shaking off some loose snow on his shoulder. She carefully avoided said snow as she took a seat next to him.

"Ulrich?" she tried again. She reached out to touch his shoulder, but thought better of it after a moment, and just let her hand hang awkwardly just above his shoulder instead. "What are you doing here?"

"Not leaving, apparently," he grumbled, yanking his hat off.

"What?"

He didn't answer at first. He fished his phone out of his pocket and opened up what appeared to be some kind of message he'd received on it. His glare intensified at it. He looked almost ready to hand the phone to her, but hesitated. He let out another grumble and clenched the phone tight in his hand, plastic squeaking as he stared down at the phone again, rereading whatever message it was.

He kept his gaze down as he spoke. "My dad," he spat the words out like they were poisonous, "decided that I need to work on my grades more, and that coming home would be 'too much of a distraction'," He said, using air quotes, then glared at the phone again. He looked about half tempted to throw it, and she was concerned he might actually would.

She let her hand finally reach his shoulder to shake him out of his stupor. "'Too much of a distraction?'" She repeated, seeking clarification.

Ulrich lowered his arm and shrugged. He still refused to make eye contact. "He thinks staying in an 'academic environment' without the distraction of my 'good for nothing friends' might actually help my grades for once. So I'm stuck here." He shook his head and laughed a humorless laugh as he finally turned to look at her. "Joke's on him though, I guess," he said with a nod toward her.

Her expression fell. She gave his shoulder a soft squeeze. "Ulrich, I'm sor-"

"Don't be. I'm not." He interrupted her, pulling his shoulder out of her grip. He glanced down at his phone again, shook his head, and forcefully stuffed it back into his pocket. At her tilted head, he added, "I hate spending the holidays with him. It never goes well; we always end up yelling about one stupid thing or another, or we-" He stopped himself, then shook his head. "Never mind. I don't care. Just wish he'd warned before now. Wouldn't have had to try and pack everything. It's just like him, the jerk..." He gave his bag a light kick with the side of his foot as he grumbled under his breath.

They sat there in silence for a few minutes. The wind howled outside as it started to pick up in speed. There was supposed to be more snow on the way, if the weather report was to be believed. She gave another glance out at the window, then back to Ulrich.

She didn't know much about Ulrich's dad, it just wasn't a subject he liked to talk about very much. She faintly recalled him saying something similar about the holidays last year too, about how his father was around that time of year. Ulrich had gotten up and left the car to come help her without much complaint, hadn't he? Come to think of it, the few other experiences she could think of Ulrich's father weren't exactly positive either...

A small part of her wanted to ask more, but she knew better. The fact that Ulrich hadn't immediately gone back to his room to sulk on the matter was a good sign. She didn't want to waste that. If he ever wanted to tell her, she could wait till he was ready.

In the mean time though...

She reached down and pulled Ulrich bag onto her lap. At the sound of her unzipping it Ulrich's head snapped toward her. A look of confusion overcame him.

"What are you doing?" He questioned. He reached to grab the bag, but the hand she held up stopped him. She ignored the stare she could feel he was giving her and continued to search the bag.

It takes a minute to find what she's looking for—his bag was a complete mess to comb through—but eventually she did. Moving aside another one of his shirt revealed what she had been searching for: a small package wrapped in a festive shade of green wrapping paper, topped with a small red bow. The small tag on it read 'To: Ulrich, From: Aelita'.

"Here," she said, and handed it out to him.

He gave her a strange look. "What part of 'we'll open them after break, for real this time' didn't you understand?" He snarked. She fought a smirk at that.

She instead rolled her eyes at him and held it out again. "Just open it, Ulrich. I think we could both use the distraction."

At her words, his brow furrowed. His mouth opened, as it he intended to say something, and she braced herself for the inevitable question, but it never came. Instead, he silently reached for the gift and pulled it out of her hand, muttering a small thanks as he did so. The room was silent, save for the music still playing in the background, and now the sound of tearing paper as Ulrich pulled at the wrapping around the gift.

As soon as he could see what it was he let out a gasp. The latest version of a fighting game series he enjoyed playing. "This game's been almost impossible to find since it came out! How did-?" He cut himself off when he looked over at her. She whistled innocently. He shook his head and grinned. "Thanks, Aelita."

She smiled back. "Of course. Now..." she pulled the game case out of his hand and opened it, pulling the disc out. "are you ready to get your butt whooped at this version too?" she asked.

He was already moving toward the drawer where the controllers were held. After she loaded the game up, he held out a controller to her, a smug smirk on his face. "As if," he declared. "Last time was a fluke and you know it."

"Let's find out, shall we?" She laughed as she took the controller from him. The song on the radio switched to some jazzy cover of another holiday tune she couldn't quite remember the name of. It was soon drowned out by the sounds of the TV as they began their many brawls in the game. The first night of many to come over the break, she was sure.

The holidays were probably always going to be bittersweet for her now. And maybe they were never going to be the most pleasant for Ulrich either. She suspected both of them had plenty of negative memories they could be dwelling around this time of year.

But if this was what they did to keep them from getting too much to handle? Well, she could live with that.

Maybe this years holiday wouldn't be so boring after all.

I actually meant to do one set during their winter break last year, but I got distracted by some other writing work and well... I just never got to it and just ran out of time. I suppose there was nothing saying I had to do one like this in December but... it felt weird not to, y'know?

...In retrospect though, I kind of wish I hadn't done two in a row that were set in the rec room, but oh well. Not rewriting it now.