The Shiz - .:coughs:. Okay, wanna know the truth? Doesn't make a lick of sense. I'll probably end up deleting it in exchange for something that has a point.

Warnings - A few swear words, religious themes.

Disclaimer - Not mine, hoes.

Someone figured out Manjyome needed a bit of company...

I do believe this Christmas I'm going to stick to bashing my head against a door and telling myself that I'm not getting a present. I didn't get one for my birthday, so what reason would Shouji and Chosaku have to change their minds now?

Okay, so I'm cynical. Bite me - I don't really much care. I've never been big on holidays, but they've always been the things I've held to so dearly and forced myself to rely on, even if, in the past, it was to retain what little humanity I had left remaining in me (Though, Juudai claims that I've gained a soul ever since my rendavous in North School and ever since my return to here - he seems to believe I wouldn't see the Ojamas if the case was any different, and sometimes I wonder if my "new-found soul" is a good thing after all. Normally, however, I just say something nasty and get back to whatever I was plotting). I've never been one much for religion, mind you - it's just always been difficult for me to accept that there's some guy up there who had to let his son die because I'm a terrible little bastard, but I suppose that if someone created the universe that entire little story had to be true, right?

But I really don't know why I care. The old fart could have just as easily forsaken all of us and not have been in the wrong. It was awkward for me to think about someone actually caring about my feelings and opinions, and I had long decided that while I could admit it had happened, it wasn't as if I had to act on it or something, right? Of course.

I'm sitting here, writing Christmas cards. Yes, that's right. I do it every year - through Duel Prepatory and when I was at North School for the winter holidays, and there is simply no reason to break habit. No reason to forget than I was still a little bit human, right, as I steadily become more and more as I continue to be stuck with these guys for so much longer? Shouji and Chosaku had responded to them before - they hadn't when I sent them birthday wishes at the beginning of the term. They hadn't really talked to me over the entire summer, really, either. But it was always worth a shot, and maybe they would possess the Christmas spirit I'm likely to never have and have the heart to keep me from becoming megalomaniacal (Well, at least in an incredibly bad way) again. I chew on the top of my pen, starting to become a perfectionist once more and wonder what exactly to tell Shouji and Chosaku.

I decide to stick to classic cliches and merely wish them a "Merry Christmas." I'm sure, if they even bother to look at it, they won't mind it looks identical to the one I wrote up for okaa- and otou-san.

I'm in the student lounge of Duel Academia - it's the only place I can get to that has heating without imposing on the goodwill of Daichi, whom I'm still a bit too distant with to even bother with talking to anymore. Juudai, Shou, and I's dorm has lost it's heating ages ago - and while the empty Headmaster dorm of Osiris was open and, by the notice of Kabayama-sensei, able to be occupied by us until it could be fixed, I'd rather hang around somewhere that I could pretend that I was still someone at Duel Academia. No one's talking to me - I'm rather unsurprised, and I prefer it. I'd rather not have to think about all of the things that they'd like to say to the former Obelisk that had opted to stay in Osiris, and honestly, I don't think any of it would be good.

Yeah, I'm still an egotistical bastard. Bite me. I want to be known as the best - I've simply got to get around to proving it. I listen to the roaring of a fire and am reminded, if it is a bit odd, of my wonderful VWXYZ-Canon Dragon coming to life. And then I recall the quirky little Ojamas and an interesting idea I had had in mind - and I chuckle lightly, gaining the attention of no one, as per usual. I've nothing better to do, really, then re-realize strategies over and over again - it is, really, what I do to take up time in the long, lengthy and terrible painful hours.

"Uhm... Is there a Manjyome Jun in here?"

Of course, I'm completely confused, and everyone else is, too - who on Earth would be looking for me besides Juudai and company (And if it was them, they would never bother to send some scrawny little Osiris Red boy to take me down to them - they would certainly find me themselves)? So as I blink stupidly, everyone else is pointing towards the black-haired young boy with a pen sitting half-way out of his hand and with a stack of Christmas cards sitting haphazardly on top of the table he had occupied. The little rat-of-a-boy seemed content enough for the response - he whipped a small package out of absolutely nowhere, practically threw it into my lap, and then scurried off to attend to his friends for this wonderful, completely snow-filled afternoon.

My brow furrowed - who sent me a package? It wasn't Mother or Father or Chosaku or Shouji; anything from them would have been given to me by Daitokuji-sensei, as it was against the rules for students to handle their schoolmate's mail. So, as everyone reverted back to their respective tasks, I shoved what I was doing out of the way and absently tried to open the box.

Wtf?

A decently-sized bible was sitting in it - a certainly unexpected present. My family had been publicly Buddhist but really practiced nothing and no one had much cared what I truly believed, any ways; I had seen one only on a occasion, seeing as I rarely bothered with religion (Though, I suppose, Christianity appealed to me the most - even if there were points that disturbed me). With a frown still on my face, I opened it up carefully, and blinked once more at a small piece paper sitting in it.

"A friend is one who knows us, but loves us anyway. --Fr. Jerome Cummings

Have a very Merry Christmas, Thunder."

I grinned. Apparently, she didn't think I knew her hand-writing.

As the snow outside twinkled, inside a Ra Yellow dorm room, my friends laughed and laughed as I settled down to read a good book...