Featuring Faithshipping (Yusei x Aki)

Oh Lord, who would ever think this was a good idea?

Aki stared at the sweater. It was the ugliest thing she had ever seen in her life – a gaudy mix of silver and gold sparkles combined with bright red and green designs that may have been meant to be elves but came across more like the results of a fever dream.

She was super glad that whoever that had sent her this was not in the room because she wasn't sure she would have been able to smile and say thank you.

She held it out in front of her, dangling between her finger tips, as though that would make it look any better from another angle. Nope. She wasn't seeing it. Although it was rather soft but...goodness, the design...it was making her head hurt...

"Aki, did you...oh. She got you too, huh."

Aki glanced up. She found a blush creeping over her cheeks, although from her own embarrassment or second-hand, she wasn't entirely certain.

"Yusei...um...what are you wearing?"

Yusei had on a sweater that looked even more ridiculous than her own. It was absolutely covered in knitted designs of bows in various colors, red, blue, green, white, purple...it didn't even look Christmas-y.

Yusei grimaced.

"So she sent you one too," he said. "It's from Martha. If you couldn't find the tag."

"Martha?" Aki said, surprised. "Martha sent this?"

She had seen Martha's knitting, and she was far better at designing things than this. Yusei didn't seem to be able to keep his smile in.

"Yeah. She's given everyone the ugliest Christmas sweaters she can find every year since I've known her. I think she thinks it's hilarious. You should see what she made Jack wear."

Aki tried to imagine Jack in anything other than his usual jacket and failed, although the idea of Jack in a horrible Christmas sweater was in fact hilarious.

"It's a running joke," Yusei said. "Although back in Satellite it was great just to have anything warm during the winter, no matter what it looked like...still, you should have seen Martha when she finally had access to the City's shops. She had a field day finding the ugliest sweaters possible."

Aki laughed softly. She looked over the sweater again. It was really soft.

"I suppose I'm going to have to wear it?"

"For a little while, at least," Yusei said. "Well, I mean, you don't have to, but..."

Aki shook her head, smiling.

"If everyone else is going to, I want to match, then," she said.

She pulled the sweater over her head. It got caught on her hair roller, but she felt Yusei's soft hands gently help her tug it up and over that.

"Oh," she said. "It really is warm."

Yusei smiled.

"You look...pretty cute in that, Aki-san."

Aki flushed.

"Stop it," she muttered. "I do not."

"No, really."

Aki wished she could control her blush, but just smiled anyway.

"Well, you look cute in yours," she said, teasingly.

Yusei looked a bit miffed at being called 'cute', but his smile grew anyway, and he gave her a quick, gentle hug.

"Well...want to go see Jack and Crow? Their sweaters are terrible."

"I have to see that," Aki laughed.

His hand slid into hers, and they headed out into the hallway.