Theme: Christmas

Characters: Kai, others

Warnings: language

There were very few words that could adequately summarise his feelings about tonight in general, but in a moment of angry petulance he managed to find two that summed it up quite nicely.

"Bloody hell," Kai swore, ignoring Riku's scandalised spluttering. Tonight of all nights, Kai felt that he deserved to swear, was entitled to rant and rage till the cows came home and then some, and was in fact looking forward to abusing said privilege the moment he had breath to spare.

It was friggin' cold out.

The seat of his jeans was soaked through with mud and snow.

He had a shallow but bloody gash in his arm that was becoming difficult to ignore.

He and the other members of the Red Shield had been fighting Chiropterans for hours…

And it just so happened to be December twenty-fifth, ten in the evening.

Merry flippin' Christmas, indeed.

Diving to the side, Kai narrowly avoiding being skewered by a stray Chiropteran limb that had come sailing through the air like a javelin ("Watch where you throw those things!" he yelled at Saya, who shrugged apologetically before once more being drawn into her fight), before glaringly pulling Riku along behind him as he forced his way through the knee-deep snow. His legs quickly becoming numb, the irate boy once again cursed under his breath. "Riku," he grit out from between his clenched teeth. "Feel free to unleash any super-spectacular Chevalier abilities, any time soon!"

"I don't know any," said Riku desolately, absently tugging his brother a little to the side so that he wasn't hurt by a Chiropteran's jagged claws. "You have a gun, don't you?"

"No ammo," Kai grunted. "Maybe if I –"

"Ammo," chirped Riku helpfully, pressing the newly-acquired belt of magazines into his brother's hands almost before Kai had finished talking. Chevalier speed had its advantages. "David had some spare."

"Brilliant." Kai deftly emptied his pistol's spent casings onto the blood-spattered snow with practised efficiency, and after inserting the fresh magazine with a click he cocked the pistol and began to fire. Even with their combined efforts, it took a good while before the Red Shield had successfully disposed of all seven Chiropteran.

"At last," Kai yawned, stretching his arms to the sky and groaning when his joints creaked. His tired but satisfied smirk froze when he heard the distant bleeps of someone's watch, and risked a disbelieving glance at his own wrist-watch to be sure.

It had just struck midnight.

"What the hell?!" Kai spluttered. "Christmas is over already? But we spent the entire day fighting Chiropteran!"

Only Riku looked disappointed, the others just shrugged tiredly before piling into the van. Kai couldn't believe it. While it wasn't an event largely celebrated in Japan, they always used to make a big deal of it back at home because their Dad had believed so strongly in the ideals of the occasion – namely, the sharing of gifts, the bonding of family, the making of a Christmas dinner that all family members had to in some way contribute to – and Kai had been looking forward to feeling that sense of… family again, even if they were a long way from home. But they'd spent the whole bloody day fighting bloody Chiropteran!

The moment the van arrived back at head-quarters Kai stormed wordlessly off into the building's bowels. He found the kitchen after a few tries and managed to whip up a half-hearted omelette, but only stared at it for a moment unblinkingly before snorting and covering the thing in plastic-wrap, shoving it into the fridge with slightly more force than necessary.

He went to bed in a sour mood, ignorant of the two people who watched his retreat with understanding in their eyes.

Kai groggily opened his eyes, only to scream and furiously back-pedal to the edge of the bed at the sight of Haji's upside-down face looming over his own. The Chevalier drew back slightly, his eyes narrowing and his lips curling slightly in distaste. "Saya has requested that I inform you of her, and the other Red Shield's members', regret that they could not be here with you," the pale skinned man recited coolly. "They were called on another mission, but didn't see the need to bring you along with your… 'injury'."

Making sure that his use of inverted commas – and thus his implication that Kai's injury was barely a scratch, hardly noticeable, would have healed by now if he had the superior blood of a Chevalier – was noted, Haji waited patiently until Kai's eyes sparked in rage before abruptly concluding his message. "She says that her apology is waiting for you in the kitchen."

His assignment evidently complete, Haji strode out the bedroom door.

Shaking his head at the weirdness of it all, Kai winced as he remembered just why he was so upset today. Christmas. Right.

Trudging into the kitchen and feeling distantly grateful that he'd saved the omelette he'd made last night (he was not in the mood to cook right now) Kai had to do a double-take when he passed the kitchen table, openly gaping at what was there.

The kitchen table was piled with food. Where everyone typically sat there was a dish they had made – at Saya's seat there was a green salad tossed through with tomatoes and cheese, at Riku's a bowl of boiled eggs, at Julia's some sort of cheese and pasta dish, at David's a stack of hamburgers with filling spilling from the sides, at Lewis's a rich stew, at Akihiro's a tray of large mugs brimming with steaming coffee, and at Mao's (here he had to stifle a snigger) a couple of slices of burnt and lumpily buttered toast. Where he himself sat perched his omelette from the night before.

"Surprise," a quiet voice said from behind him, and whirling around Kai was shocked to see Saya standing there, a soft smirk adorning her pretty features. "Merry belated Christmas."

"Wha– I thought you were out fighting," said Kai dumbly. Saya just giggled, walking up to her brother to fling her arms around his shoulders.

"We were," she said into his neck. "Haji flew me back, though. I wanted to be here when you discovered your surprise, everyone did, but… well, you know how it is."

"I do," said Kai wryly, slowly returning the embrace. "Believe me, I do."

"Well," said Saya brightly as she drew away, clapping her hands together. "Do you want to wait for everyone? Your new family will be disappointed if we eat before they arrive, but they'll understand if you don't want to wait…"

Kai sighed tiredly, then grinned. Aw hell, who was he kidding? It was oddly fitting that he had to wait so long to celebrate… After all, he'd had to wait and work for everything good in his life, why not reflect his sweat and slog in a Christmas celebration? Sharing an understanding smile with his sister, the two got out the plastic wrap and began to cover the food.

"By the way, what's up with Haji?" Kai asked curiously. "He was a little –"

"–cranky?" Saya finished, giggling. "Haji's cooking is worse than Mao's, would you believe. Which is understandable, I suppose, since he doesn't eat at all… Still, the rule is that everyone has to contribute in some way, so we compromised…"

At just that moment Haji walked into the room, adorned in a cutesy frilly apron and wearing a pink rubber glove over his un-bandaged hand. Seeing the pair he gave a shallow bow to Saya and a cool glare to Kai, before stalking into the kitchen and awkwardly collecting all the dirty dishes and placing them in the sink.

Kai laughed so hard he fell over.

Word Count: 1293