…

…

Day 02: Decorations

The next day, as soon as the sun rose in the sky, the eight boys of RimFire were wide awake. The reason for them getting up so early on a holiday was simple; they were going to decorate the Christmas tree. Yesterday, Tanaka-san had told them this, and surprisingly, they had managed to sleep despite them being so excited.

So, after they had freshened up and had breakfast, they immediately went for the decoration box and headed to the tree.

"Are you ready, guys?" Yukio asked from atop Shouichi's shoulder. He had a light and bauble in his hand.

"Of course!" the others shouted, in a likewise position as Yukio.

Tanaka-san was outside putting up the lights, so he left the massive tree to his eight boys. And as is customary, one should start decorating the tree from the top and as tall as they may be, the tip of the thing was almost at the ceiling ―which meant, neither of them can reach it without tipping or climbing onto something.

So, they came up with the idea of sitting on each other's shoulders to decorate the top and proceed as normal when they reached the middle. As it is, Yukio sat on Shouichi's shoulders, Tetsuya was on Shige's, Kazunari was on Kotarou and Shuuzou was crushing Tatsuya.

"En garde!" Yukio barked. "En garde mine Chevalier ! »

The boys moved off towards the Christmas tree and so far, everything was going smoothly. The ones sitting on the shoulders placed their respective baubles wherever they felt like, they wrapped the lights around the tree with smooth swiftness. However, Shuuzou and Tatsuya encountered a little difficulty because the former was too heavy for the latter.

The power forward had to stretch to the tree because Tatsuya couldn't even lift a foot.

"Come on Tatsu! Closer!" Shuuzou nearly screamed. "Closer!"

Right now, Tatsuya was cursing his horrible janken skills. "You bastard." He hissed. "You're as heavy as a sixteen wheeler, you know that?"

"Really?" Shuuzou feigned shock. "Then, I take you can lift a sixteen wheeler."

"You…!"

"Come on, just one step more, Tatsuya." Shouichi urged. "Come, take my hand." He said. He offered his hand to their shooting guard (sometimes he plays as centre) and in the instant he took it, Tatsuya misstep and staggered sideways. Naturally, not wanting to end up on the floor, Shuuzou grabbed a hold of the nearest thing to him, who happened to be Yukio.

The captain struggled to stay upright, but with the weight of the two boys suddenly coming down on him, Shouichi lost his footing and the four were going down.

But, it was like a domino effect.

With hands and feet flailing about, someone else was bound to get caught, and that was Kazunari. Yukio had grabbed him in his waist, his face nuzzling into the boy's ribs. And with this sudden action, Kazunari had grabbed hold of the tree, fretting for his life. Shouichi, on the other hand, held Kotarou's shirt firmly in his grasp which was almost serving like a rope to keep him from falling.

At first, a dreaded silence hung in the air, as if something terrible was about to happen. All eyes looked to the tree, silently praying that it could withstand their weight. But seeing that nothing did, the eight heaved a relieved sigh.

"Thank God," Yukio breathed out. "I thought I was a goner back there."

"You? What about me?" Kazunari said, eyeing Shouichi, who was still holding onto his shirt.

"Heh, what can I say?" the bespectacled teen grinned. "If Yuki and I are going down, someone else has to tag along."

"How evil!"

By this time, Shuuzou dismounted off Tatsuya's shoulders, the Yousen student looking like his life has been sapped dry.

"Never again," he rasped out. "Shuuzou is a ten ton elephant or something."

"I thought you said I was a sixteen wheeler."

"Is there a difference?"

"Yes. One is an animal and the other is a vehicle."

"Oh, shut up." Tatsuya groaned out.

The others broke in joyous laughter before they noticed something amiss. Actually, they heard something strange.

Screaming.

Loud, boisterous and "manly" shrieks could be heard coming from the Christmas tree and looking up; they saw Tetsuya with a nasty grin on his face, his phone in his hand.

"Ho, ho, ho." He grinned. "Santa's caught you clumsy boys on tape for his entertainment."

"Tetsuya…" Shouichi gasped out, disbelieving that while they were struggling to stay on their feet, the light-blue haired teen was videoing them for his own fun? How could he?!

"Hand that to me." Yukio hissed.

"Nope." Tetsuya smiled rather childishly. He gripped onto Shige's hair, knowing full well was about to go down.

"Capture him!" Kotarou screeched.

Shige bolted for the door with Tetsuya still on his shoulders but realized that they couldn't go outside without proper winter wear. Which meant, he had to make it upstairs, and maybe lock themselves in one of the rooms.

"Don't let them escape!" Yukio ordered.

But suddenly, they heard a sound.

They didn't know what it was, but all eyes went to the Christmas tree. Then, as if in slow motion, the massive thing tumbled down, all eight running towards it to stop it. However, they failed miserably.

Meanwhile outside, Tanaka heard the screaming and shouting and decided to take a look. He hoped that they weren't killing each other in there, because explaining shit to the police was not on his to-do list this winter.

Entering the house, ruckus had stopped, but he could feel in his bones that something was amiss. Making his way to the living room, he saw all eight boys, sitting and watching TV without a care in the world.

"Boys, are you done decorating the tree?" he asked.

"What's a tree?" they all came out with.

In that moment, Tanaka learned the hard way to never let his boys decorate a Christmas tree, ever again.

Thank you for reading~!