You sat on the ground of her shared apartment, slowly putting up the lights to the tree before her as she waited for Riko to join her.
The tree was a bit beaten down and it barely reached her waist when You stood by it. It was a rather small tree compared to what she had before as a child. If anything, the tree could've been a child with its size.
However, being in college, a big tree simply wasn't in the budget. Instead, Riko and You pitched in what they could from their side-jobs to collectively pull together just enough money for a tree and its decorations. Something that neither girl knew though was just how expensive those things were, meaning there were a lot of sacrifices to be made.
With You keeping her attention to spacing the pink and light blue ornaments perfectly apart, Riko brought over the hot cocoa she had been cooking on the stove. Before she could rest though, Riko picked up her phone, putting on the playlist she had made during class of all of the couple's favorite Christmas songs.
With the music filling the room, Riko finally looked at the situation before her. She couldn't believe after all of their hard earned money THAT was the biggest tree they could afford, one that barely matched up to You sitting down. Christmas no joke when you had to buy decorations and gifts within such a short time frame.
There was nothing she could do though, as she would instead have to think early for the next year to not repeat the same mistake.
Plopping herself down beside You, Riko handed over the piping hot beverage before helping place the ornaments onto the tree.
The task ran by faster than expected, especially with holiday tunes to pass the time. Hearing one another sing along to the songs they each knew brought holiday cheer to their hearts, almost forgetting the falling apart tree in front of them.
Before they knew it, the entire tree was decorated and flashed the perfect combination of their favorite colors. You plugged in the lights for the final touch before sitting down beside Riko once more.
With their knees touching, You and Riko sat in silence, only the soft tune of Riko's phone to fill the space as they stared at their hard work.
"Hey, You, did you remember the star?"
Riko asked out loud to You as she kept her eyes on the tree. You's bright mood instantly paused though.
They left out that part in their budget.
With their remaining 2.19$ for Christmas though, it was a bit too late.
Rather than admitting defeat though, You had a better idea. Without saying a word, You got up as she rushed into their room with a mission on her mind.
Riko watched but before she could get up to see what was wrong, You quickly came back with a smile across her face. She balanced her hot cocoa in one hand while holding onto a picture frame with a single paper clip on top of it in the other.
"What are you doing?"
"Hold on, I have an idea."
You put down her beverage quickly before tearing at the picture frame, pulling what she needed away from it. As the picture rested in her fingers, You grabbed the paperclip before positioning the picture at the top of the tree.
Clipping it into place, You sat back onto the ground by Riko, quickly grabbing her beverage for warmth again.
Riko looked up only to see a picture of the couple from over a year ago clipped to the top of the tree. It was taken after one of You's many diving competitions. You had her arm over Riko's shoulder, hair still a little damp from the dive, with her post-competition clothes on to warm herself up, as well as a first place medal around her neck. She had on the brightest smile, with a light pink blush just noticeable to those around her. Riko held her arms around You's waist and with the diver's team jacket around her shoulders, Riko planted a kiss onto You's cheek.
The couple had kept that picture by their bedside for a while, as it was just about a mutually favorite photo for both of them.
Looking over, Riko smiled at You before placing one of her hands onto the floor between them,
"You know, that was a great day."
You looked over at Riko, reaching down to interlace their fingers, before beaming back,
"Yeah, but you made it the best day."
Not dead (yet) ! Just been busy lately trying to knock out Chapter 5 of Infected (currently at 10k words) and doing some other drabbles here and there. I posted this in the Idol Fanfic Hell Server a couple days ago for the event going on and forgot to post it here ;-;. Anyways, enjoy and hopefully Infected Chapter 5 will be up by next week. Yousoro and out ( ‾▿‾ )ゞ
