(Long A/N coming your way)
Guess who's back, back again…
Three months. Three freakin' months. I lost track of time. That's kinda the understatement of the decade. "See you in one or two weeks from now" my foot. Thanks to DarkAster945 for reminding me that I was taking far too long writing.
Life happens, I guess. School wants to kill me, and so does my job. I mean I guess now that I'm on Christmas Break, I can spend a bit more of my time mindlessly attempting to write. That's another thing, I suppose. Don't hate me, but I haven't really been into Demon Slayer much lately. Falling out of the fandom, you know? Doesn't help that the manga is over as well.
I'm really sorry, and you shouldn't count on me to be consistent. I hate myself for it, but I definitely will have more of a sporadic schedule. That's kinda why I made this so incredibly long, as some sort of apology.
Holiday Special Time. Note that this IS NOT canon to the actual story as of yet (unless you want it to be, then go ahead). I mean, it's not even the right season in the canon timeline at the moment. Also, this is being based off of my typical Christmas traditions (I'm Canadian, by the way) and not off of Japan's version of the holiday. I just don't want to get something wrong if my research isn't actually factual. Also there is snow, because that's a necessary plot point.
This little set of 8 one shots/drabbles can take place pretty much anywhere you want, if you feel like making this story canon. Just note that Kanao hasn't realized she is crushing on Tanjiro yet (and vice versa). Some of these shots are kinda long, some are really short. They are all ideally 8 consecutive days, with "Blizzards and Blankets" being the day of the 24th.
On with the special, which is your (slightly late) gift from me!
TTTTT
/-/ Memories
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Kanao sat up straight on the couch in her apartment, flipping through the channels on the T.V. as per Shinobu's request to find that one show her sister always liked watching.
Aoi dashed into the room out of nowhere and jumped onto the couch next to Kanao. "Hey, Kanao! Guess what?"
The raven-haired girl tilted her head in question. Aoi seemed overly excited, and had been all week. It was a bit odd.
"It's Christmas soon! In…" The younger girl counted on her fingers for a moment. "Eight days! Are you ready yet? I mean, I guess eight whole days isn't really that soon…"
Kanao shrugged. She was pretty much ready, as she had all the plans for her gifts and simply had to go out to buy them, but she didn't really see any reason to get so excited. Whenever it was Christmas with her… other family, the only present she got was a minute or two off her total working time. And really, that was being rather generous. She didn't have much reason to like the holiday. Everyone else seemed to love it though. Of course, this wasn't her first Christmas with Shinobu and the others.
The first time, she had sat there bewildered as beautifully-wrapped gifts were presented to her. She didn't even open them until she was practically ordered to by Shinobu. Kanae had taken a more gentle approach, encouraging and even helping the raven-haired girl open a few of the presents. Most of them, as expected, were supplies and decoration for her room. She was new to the house, after all. She'd need some necessities before she could have anything extra. Not that she'd even want 'extra'.
After everyone opened their gifts, they sat down on the couch and watched rather unrealistic and corny holiday movies. Kanao didn't even watch the T.V. though. She was focused on the strange feeling of warmth and safety that spread throughout her like wildfire. Was this what it felt like to be loved and wanted? All her life, she never expected to be taken care of. Fending for herself was the only way she could stay alive, as her parents wouldn't give two cents about her as a person. They saw her as a tool, as a machine.
What did Kanae and Shinobu see in her? Why didn't they walk by, ignoring the small and malnourished girl like everyone else did?
The girl decided that it didn't really matter at the moment, and burrowed deeper into the blanket they all shared. This feeling of comfort was enough for now. She never wanted to let it go.
"Kanao? Hello?"
The raven-haired girl blinked. Aoi was waving a hand in front of her eyes rather comically. "Oh, you're back. I was just talking about what I should get Shinobu this year. What'd you end up with?"
And so they talked (well, talked is a bit of a loose term. It's more like Aoi firing questions away, while Kanao answered with the help of her coin) about what gifts they were getting for the other members of the family (was she supposed to call them her family? She didn't want to be… nevermind). It was almost fun for Kanao to debate things like whether or not Sumi, Kiyo, and Naho should all have one collective present or if they each get one of their own. They should probably each get their own...
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/-/ Late night calls
(this one isn't really a Christmas story per se, but I decided to throw it in here. This is something I wrote a little while ago for this story, but it never got placed in a chapter because I couldn't figure out where it should go. There are also a few things here that aren't exactly in the main story yet, such as Kanao having Tanjiro's contact. Yes, I was planning on writing that at some point.)
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Sleep didn't come too easily to Kanao.
Every time she closed her eyes, she saw things she didn't want to. Her parents, battles she had long since fought and won but still couldn't get out of her head, Kanae's grave. The list went on and on. The dreamless nights were scarce, and the nights with good dreams scarcer. It seemed nightmares always found her.
Tonight seemed like one of those nights. Kanao closed her eyes and drifted off anyway. She couldn't just stay up all night. She's already tried that and if anything it made the nightmares worse when she couldn't stay awake any longer.
She was hiding in a tree again. It was Final Selection, probably the fifth or sixth day. Her ankle was sprained, but she hasn't been caught by that mafia member yet. Everything hurt, but Kanao could feel the adrenaline racing through her veins to help her keep going. Still, she couldn't help but feel helpless.
Something was wrong though. The raven-haired girl glanced down to the base of her tree, where a regular stranger should have been standing. Instead, she saw Tanjiro there. She tried to cry out, but both her memories and her dream stopped her from alerting the boy below. She knew exactly what happened in reality to that poor stranger. Now it would happen to her frien- to Tanjiro.
A mafia member crept up to the boy, staying in his blind spot. Tanjiro only saw the man when it was too late. He tried to pull out one of his knives, but was quickly disarmed before he could. The man pinned Tanjiro to the trunk of the tree, then looked up directly at Kanao. "See, you little bitch? You can't save anyone. You can't do anything right, for that matter. Not even save yourself."
He pointed the barrel of his gun at the side of Tanjiro's head. The boy was breathing shakily, seeming to have given up hope. No, that couldn't be right. He never gave up. Kanao always saw it. No matter how many times he failed, he'd get right back up and try again. It was one of the things she liked about him best.
To see him barely even trying to struggle made a cold hand close on her heart. She tried to do something, to move, but she was frozen in place.
"Say goodbye to your little friend. Don't worry though, you'll join him soon enough." The man smirked with malice, and pulled the trigger.
Suddenly, Kanao could move. She drew her pistol and Kanae's knife, then leapt to the ground. Landing on her good foot and tucking into a roll, she stood up and instantly took aim. The man was already getting away, and she shot at him a few times. She did end up grazing him, but that was all she seemed to be able to do.
She slowly turned to Tanjiro, who she knew was dead as soon as the trigger of that gun was pulled. Her shaking hands dropped her weapons to the rough ground, and only moments later her knees followed, hitting the cold and damp terrain as well.
I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry…
She silently murmured the words, not able to actually speak. What else was there to say? She couldn't- no - didn't save him.
The cocking of a gun behind her head briefly startled her, but she decided that she didn't care. She just wanted to be done. The shot rang out and she felt herself falling forwards, everything going black and numb.
Kanao sat up, breathing uneven and shallow. Without really thinking, she took her phone from the bedside table and opened it to Tanjiro's contact. Her finger hovered over the 'Call' button. She shouldn't though. He had to be asleep, since (checking the time) it was about 12:30 in the morning.
She sighed, setting the phone down. As soon as she did, it quietly began to ring. Confused, she saw that Tanjiro was the one calling. She took out her coin and flipped it quickly, then pressed 'Answer' on the screen when the results read 'Tails'.
"Kanao? Are you safe?" He sounded worried.
Confused, the raven-haired girl chose with her coin to talk for the rest of the call. "Yes, I'm fine. Why do you ask?"
A sigh of relief. "Nothing. Bad dream, I guess. It's not important."
"Do you… want to talk about it?" So he had a nightmare as well? That was odd.
"It's just…" He sighed. "I was back at Final Selection and watched you die. That's all. I wanted to know if you were okay, so I called."
Her eyes widened slightly. We had the same dream, but our places are swapped. "Don't worry, I'm fine."
They talked about nothing and everything into the long hours of the night. Kanao chose not to tell Tanjiro of her similar nightmare. Hearing his voice through the phone on that snowy evening and knowing he's okay was enough.
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/-/ Stores filled with everything except what you're looking for (based on a true story)
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"Here too? No way…"
Aoi and Kanao were out shopping for gifts. They were just about done, with Aoi finished and Kanao just needing to find her gift for Tanjiro. She was planning on getting him this one painting she saw online (she won't admit it, but she instantly thought of him when she saw it). The only issue is it seemed to be sold out everywhere. It was fairly new, so she didn't have much surprise. That didn't mean it wasn't annoying though.
"Alright, let's go to store number 5." Aoi sighed, leading the way through the giant mall the two chose to go to for the gift shopping.
Naturally, store number 5 didn't have anything. Hooray. Scrolling through the rapidly shrinking list of shops she could still look at, Kanao quietly sighed. Selecting the one at the top of the list, she and Aoi began the hike to their 6th store.
Much, much time later, the two finally found a place (store number 12) that had the painting in albeit low stock. It was about two minutes to closing time, so they had to hurry, but they did manage to get it in time. Exhausted from wandering around the entire day but glad they finally had everything they needed, Kanao and Aoi headed home.
Once they got there, Kanao went straight to her room to lie down while Aoi explained to Shinobu why the two of them were so late coming back. Overall though, it wasn't considered a bad day by either of the girls. In fact, it was kind of entertaining when they thought back on it.
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/-/ Advice (sort of)
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"You got the gift?" Zenitsu questioned.
Kanao nodded, holding up the box she had neatly wrapped earlier that day.
"Alright. So what you're gonna want to do is make a card to go with it. You have to make sure it matches your wrapping paper, but it also needs lots of romantic-"
Kanao raised an eyebrow in surprise as Rose tackled him. "You will not tell her before she realizes it! This situation is delicate!"
"Will you please be a bit more delicate?!" Zenitsu whined. "Besides, it's so obvious that she's in love with-"
"Nope, no talking! Inosuke, you mind getting that roll of duct tape out of my bag?"
Kanao, in the meantime, wondered if she should make a card. It wasn't a bad idea.
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/-/ Baking supplies
(It's been so long, I forget if the triplets call people 'Miss' and 'Mr' or not. It'd be helpful to just read the manga again, but I cancelled my Shonen Jump subscription and that's a pain to get going again sometimes. Just because, I assumed they do add formalities when addressing others.)
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"Miss Kanao, let's make cookies!" Naho called, clearly excited. "We're going to surprise Miss Shinobu!"
Kanao nodded, unconsciously taking the sort-of question as an order. She turned from where she was absently staring out the window at the city below, and followed the younger girl to the kitchen. Kiyu, Sumi, and Aoi were all sitting at the table already. Supposedly Shinobu was on some sort of mission. At least that'd give them time.
Wait, did any of them know how to make cookies?
Aoi seemed to have read her mind. "So, um, I guess we just search up a recipe, right?" She pulled out her phone and started typing.
Meanwhile, the triplets along with Kanao were searching the cupboards for possible ingredients. Sugar, flour, salt, eggs, milk… cooking oil probably also counted. Kanao furrowed her brow. Was yeast for bread, or was it for cookies…? Maybe it was for cake or something else as well? She placed the packet on the counter anyway, thinking it wouldn't do too much damage.
Aoi groaned, all but tossing her phone onto the table. "I think our internet's out. I can't seem to get a signal. We can probably just eyeball the ingredients though…" She trailed off, tone slightly uncertain.
They all stood around for a bit, ingredients still sitting on the counter. Sumi finally broke the silence. "We should at least try, this is for Miss Shinobu after all." It was still rather nerve-wracking, considering it was usually Shinobu or Kanae who would bake, with one or two of the others helping out occasionally.
Agreeing, the five got to work on what they hoped would be the best batch of cookies in the world (as said by Kiyo).
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The baking didn't exactly go well for the girls. At all, in fact.
It all started when there was confusion among them about how many cookies they were actually making. Kanao thought they were going to make about 10, Aoi thought 25, and the triplets thought somewhere around 15, 20, and 30 respectively. As such, the different ratios of all the ingredients were… interesting at best. But since none of them have really made cookies alone before, nobody knew that it wasn't right to have 5 cups of sugar and 2 cups of flour.
The next piece of chaos happened when Naho tried (and basically succeeded) to drink a bit of the vanilla extract. She then had to run to the sink and drink water straight from the tap for a minute or so. Then Aoi attempted sneaking a spoonful of cinnamon (wait, why were they even using cinnamon?) into her mouth. She would've gotten away with it if she hadn't spat it out immediately afterwards, cringing from the bad feeling in her mouth.
"Hey Aoi, I found an empty container in the cupboard. Uh, it says 'Baking Soda'. Is that important in cookies?" Sumi turned her head to the side in confusion, eyeing the container curiously.
"Probably is, but we're out. 'Baking Soda', was it? How about we use regular soda?" Aoi turned to Kanao for confirmation, who just shrugged. Taking that as a 'sure, why not?', they poured half a can of soda into the mixing bowl with everything else.
Arguably the easiest part was scooping up the batter (despite the wacky proportions, it wasn't actually too powdery or too liquidy) and placing it onto a pan they found.
Of course, they had no clue how long the 'batter' should go in the oven for. Eventually they decided on half an hour, which at least didn't burn the house down by the time it was done baking.
The main issue was that the cookies they attempted to make weren't exactly cookies. Unless you count the extremely brittle and odd-looking lumps that were on the pan.
The five stared down at the pan dumbfounded until Shinobu came back from wherever she was before and approached them. After a bit of "You really shouldn't have done that" talk, Shinobu simply laughed and said they could all make a proper batch of cookies together, with an actual recipe this time. It seems the girls completely forgot about the cookbooks that were sitting on a nearby shelf the entire time.
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/-/ Training drills and musical scores
(apologies if this isn't Christmas-y enough either, read what I said for one shot #2.)
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Kanao was back in the training room, firing a few rounds into a target. Even though there weren't any missions that she knew of at the moment, and for that matter it was the holiday season anyway, she couldn't just stop training. Once you stop something for too long, it's difficult to pick back up.
Her hair, instead of being in her trademark ponytail, was braided neatly across the back of her head and over her shoulder. She should probably trim it at some point as it was getting rather long. Strands of the braid fell out and brushed gently across her neck as she swiftly turned to each of her targets.
She felt a familiar hand on her shoulder, and turned to see Shinobu. Taking off her noise-cancelling headphones (gunshots were quite loud, after all), she tilted her head slightly in curiosity at her adoptive sister.
"Come with me, there's something else I'd like to possibly teach to you. You shouldn't be down here training right now anyway. Relax for a while, who knows when you'll be able to again." Shinobu smiled faintly, and led Kanao towards her room. It wasn't often that the raven-haired girl was in there, so she assumed it was likely something important.
Shinobu's room couldn't be described as anything other than stylish. The room had a black and white theme, with splashes of varying shades of purple scattered about. Now that she thought about it, Kanao supposed that every room in the apartment had a totally different style. It was interesting, and gave her a sense of home no matter which personality-filled space she was in.
Her adoptive sister led her to a closet, where a black case rested against the back wall. Shinobu pulled out the case and opened it, revealing a polished wooden violin. "Here, take it out of the case."
Kanao met her eyes in silent question, but all she got was "Just do it, I'll tell you why in a minute".
Once the sleek instrument was properly placed in her hands, Shinobu handed her a matching bow. "I'm just going to teach you some basics." Confused but complying, Kanao listened to Shinobu as she carefully placed the bow on the strings.
Kanao didn't know it at the time, but she would continue those lessons for a long time. Shinobu never did tell her why she chose to give the violin to her. Somehow, she thought Kanae would've had something to do with it. That's just how the woman was.
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/-/ An outing with friends
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"Hey, it's snowing!"
The group (consisting of Kanao, Tanjiro, Zenitsu, Inosuke, and Rose) was going for some sort of walk/hike in the park. They hadn't really been able to spend that much time together, so they all collectively decided to do an activity.
Tanjiro had pointed out the small white flakes falling from the sky. There was already quite a bit of snow on the ground to begin with, as there had been consistent patterns of snowfall over the past few days. The park was cold, but a lovely sight in winter.
Kanao enjoyed the scene. It was one of those little things in life that wasn't anything important, but made it just a little bit more beautiful. She surveyed the area, shivering a little from the crisp air but not really caring.
She wasn't paying attention to the others, who were in mild chaos.
Inosuke, at some point, had balled up a bit of the snow on the ground and thrown it at an unsuspecting Tanjiro. "Take this, Tangoro!"
The snowball hit the other boy in the back, making him turn instantly. "What do you think you're doing?"
"Fight me!"
"No!"
"Yes!"
Suddenly, another snowball whizzed by Tanjiro's head. "Wha- who threw that?!" He turned in the other direction. Rose and Zenitsu were pointing at each other in blame, while Kanao was standing off to the side examining the landscape.
"I don't even care who actually threw it, you're both getting snowballs in the face." Tanjiro scooped up some snow and started shaping them.
"Excuse me? It was her! I thought you were my friend, Tanjiro!" Zenitsu dashed behind a tree as Tanjiro threw the snowball with precision at him.
"Nope, it was you Zenitsu! I won't let you pin the blame on me!" Rose took her own bit of snow and threw it in the blonde boy's direction just as Tanjiro threw his second snowball at her.
Inosuke, in the meantime, was building an entire snow fortress to protect himself. Frankly, he was doing really well. He also had already made a large stack of snowballs, which was scary considering the short amount of time he had to make said stack. "All of you are dead, I'm the master of snow wars!"
The three slowly turned and simultaneously started running as Inosuke threw snowball after snowball at them all. "Guys, we need to take him down first! Then we can fight each other!" Tanjiro explained.
"Fine by me!" Rose peeked out from behind a tree.
"What's the plan?" Zenitsu was unsurprisingly hiding behind Tanjiro.
"We need to storm him from all directions. I'll go middle, Rose can go left, Zenitsu can go right." Tanjiro then made a few more snowballs and started running. "Come on!"
As the three of them attempted to flank Inosuke and his fort, Kanao finally turned around. She almost laughed at the sight of them, but cut herself off. She still couldn't really… do it. Not without bringing back bad memories.
She pulled out her coin and flipped it. Okay, so she'd be joining them on their little 'quest'. Making sure to stay hidden and be quiet, the raven-haired girl scooped up some snow and dashed from tree to tree.
Tanjiro, Zenitsu and Rose were all firing snowballs at the fort and at Inosuke to no avail. The boy was laughing, at least until he got hit directly in the head with something. A snowball?
Everyone turned to look at Kanao, who had climbed a tree while carrying snow in order to snipe out Inosuke. The funniest part was probably the fact that she looked grim and determined, like some kind of actual war was going on. Then, she smiled a little.
It was only a tiny smirk, but Tanjiro felt happy that she was enjoying herself. He knew that her minimal expressions could actually mean the biggest emotions, and that she rarely ever smiled. He could still clearly remember that day so long ago at a certain crosswalk on a busy street in the city, where he first met the girl whose amethyst eyes told a sad story.
"- Tanjiro, you in there?" He blinked. Zenitsu was poking him in the shoulder. "Yes, I'm 'in here'. What is it?" He responded.
The blonde boy simply pointed to a spot behind Tanjiro. He turned, only to get a face full of snow. Shockingly, it was none other than Kanao who threw the snowball. She still had that small smirk, but the eyes he was thinking about earlier shone with amusement rather than sadness. Tanjiro couldn't really help but laugh. "Oh, it's on. You shouldn't have messed with me, Kanao!" He balled up snow and began throwing it at her.
"Guess this is a true, chaotic snowball fight then. Let the war truly begin!" Rose ended her little speech by throwing two snowballs, one at Zenitsu and one at Inosuke (who was still recovering his pride from Kanao's hit).
"Rose, why?! I'm cold enough as is!" Zenitsu counterattacked with snowballs of his own. Inosuke did the same.
Hours later, the five returned to their respective homes with pink faces and freezing hands. They were all happy though, so the almost-frostbite was okay with them.
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/-/ Blizzards and blankets
The finale of this collection, containing the most Tanjiro x Kanao content. And a teeny bit of ooc stuff, so apologies for that.
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"Did… did we really just get snowed in?" Tanjiro asked, dumbfounded by this point.
Kanao shook her head, shrugging. She was about done with the sheer number of times that they kept getting stuck together in the weirdest situations.
Such as this situation.
A little while earlier, Tanjiro and Kanao had arrived at D.S. Academy in order to do some volunteer-type work. Just a few hours prior, they had to head outside and into a not-so-nearby portable classroom (for the regular students, it seemed. There wasn't anything irregular inside, so that made the most sense) to organize and clean. Why there was a portable classroom so far out from the regular school, neither had any clue. Probably some type of nature or science class would be going on in there, where the students would be in natural surroundings to study.
Thanks to the raging blizzard that started outside while they were still cleaning, and the distance it would've taken to walk all the way back to the school in said blizzard, the two decided that they should probably just wait out the storm inside the classroom.
That certainly didn't mean they were fine with it. The small building, despite the little space heaters already plugged in and running, was getting increasingly freezing. Even for the two being used to such temperatures with Tanjiro having lived in the mountains and Kanao having lived… well, quite literally nowhere, the decreasing climate was taking its toll on the two.
Kanao sat in one of the chairs shivering, wrapping her arms around herself like she did when she was younger. The last time she was like this was a time she didn't want to think about, but her mind wanted her to see anyway.
"Winter isn't a damn excuse to do nothing but sit there, get moving! You will work until you collapse!" And collapse, she did. Kanao's tiny body simply fell sideways while she was trying to fetch firewood in a snowstorm. Her parents eventually did find her, laying there in the snow, freezing but unable to slip into unconsciousness. But they didn't comfort the girl once they picked her up and brought her home. No, they yelled at her for "Falling asleep" on the job. She was staring ahead into nothingness as a shadow came up behind her and-
Wrapped a blanket around her shoulders?
Kanao went stiff in surprise, turning to see a sympathetic Tanjiro still holding the corners of the sheet. "You had that look in your eyes again. And, um, you looked cold so-"
Before Kanao really knew what she was doing, she had thrown her arms around the boy. Maybe it was the cold getting to her head, maybe she was shaken by the brief flashback she was having and needed comfort from someone she could trust. Either way, she didn't even realize that she hadn't used her coin. She was shaking, but not only from the crisp air around the two.
Tanjiro glanced down in shock. This was probably the most emotion Kanao had ever expressed, although he wasn't entirely sure what said emotion was. But that didn't matter. He embraced her back, noticing that she had unconsciously given him some of the blanket. They stayed like that for a while, even as Kanao finally realized what she had done and was silently panicking.
Why wasn't Tanjiro pushing her away? For that matter, he seemed to have accepted her, for lack of better words, hug. She should step back, it was probably confusing for him. All he did was give her a blanket, after all. Nothing special. She couldn't though. Being in his arms gave her the feeling of warmth, safety and comfort that she had sorely lacked all her life. She wouldn't- probably couldn't - step back into the cold and more than occasionally cruel world. Not yet.
So they stayed like that, in the comforting silence, until the blizzard slowly stopped and a soft snowfall took its place. Even then, the two waited as long as possible before finally separating and beginning to pack up the supplies they had taken with them. Neither said a word the whole time, as they simply didn't need to.
Actions were worth a thousand words, after all.
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/-/ End
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TTTTT
And there you have it folks. Have a Merry Christmas, and if you don't celebrate Christmas have a lovely Holidays.
See you around.