yuki-onna

Christmas at the Eighth was always a pain in the ass, but this year was worse than most. Everyone but me was determined to make up for every Christmas the witches might cost us this time; it meant weeks of catching Mary and Sab snuggling and drinking chocolate or, fuck me, loitering under the mistletoe. Weeks of Annie, Lily, and Dorothy singing the same six Christmas carols door to door, even though we had our own dorm and we could hear them perfectly goddamn well from anywhere in the building. Weeks of pretending a giant, cackling shitstorm wasn’t coming in a month and change.

Nico hung around whenever she didn’t have anything better to do, which was always, and Nakajima pranced around in her doofy reindeer costume for the whole month. She dragged her sister into it, too, and managed to con V and the new girl, Everett, into playing along. Turned the whole thing into one big, autistic sleighride.

…Everyone else always seemed to have so much fun, but it just left me feeling lonely, I guess. She probably didn’t need to put up with this crap. Probably didn’t even realize Christmas was coming up. Hell, she was in Japan, she probably didn’t care either.

Wasn’t much better once the actual day rolled around. Went to mass with my dad – we’d been trying to patch things up, then. I never hated the guy, he still loved me…family crap, I guess. Not many magical girls still got to have that. That’s what Miss Tomoe said, and I could never say no to Miss Tomoe. It didn’t really make sitting in a church for a thousand fucking hours any less painful, though.

After I got away from him, I ended up sitting and sulking at the Wonderland Corps’ Christmas party. Did my best to ignore the Christmas cheer, but between the little puffed-up marshmallows in my hot chocolate and the fluffy red sweater Dorothy’d thrown at my face when I came through the door…well, it was hard.

…It had a cute little snowman on it, one that looked like he didn’t give a fuck about anybody. Probably one of the better gifts I’ve gotten – I like sweaters, I guess. I usually wear one when it isn’t too hot, which is basically never in Cali.

Mary was most of the way to trashed by the time I got there, with Sab acting as her leather-covered pillow and occasional tongue-warmer. It’d probably piss me off on any other day, watching them grope each other like that, but I could let it slide for once. They looked happy, and with Blackburn, that was kinda rare.

Amber and her sister were flitting around in their outfits serving drinks and snacks, handing out gifts, and dodging everyone’s best attempts at grabbing their asses. Nico started it, and Annie joined in pretty quick, something about maids and an impossible ideal, some weird anime crap. I could swear I saw Dorothy swat at them a few times, too, in between leading carols. She might have been the only one out of the three that could tell them apart, though.

…Shit, I couldn’t either, not without a good look at their eyes.  Didn’t even realize they looked so much alike until they-

BANG.

“WENDY!” The door flew open and just about put a crack in the wall next to it, and a voice I…seriously didn’t expect to hear today croaked out my name. One choked by way too much liquor and cigarettes for a…sixteen-year-old? Fifteen? Shit, I didn’t know. What I did know was that seven highly-trained Eversors, a Vindicare, an assassin, and a maid all snapped to attention at once, all of them reaching for a weapon. Kong had a pistol out a millisecond later.

…Crazy assholes. All of them were crazy assholes. They all stared at each other for a second as I pushed myself up out of my seat and made my way toward the door, then pulled that stupid, stupid asshole into a hug. A tight one.

…I wanted to see her. I’d kinda given up on it, though – the Ninth was doing more prep than anybody for Walmart Night, it sounded like. I could hear Nico start to say something, then stop. I’d have to explain this later, I guess, but it was worth it, to feel her bury her face in my awesome snowman.

“…Got you something,” she mumbled into my chest. …She really didn’t wanna let go. I glanced awkwardly back toward the others just in time to take something soft and green to the side of my head. Managed to catch it in one hand before it hit the ground, though.

“I made one for her too~” Dorothy chirped.

---

We excused ourselves from the party pretty quickly, hurrying away from a chorus of catcalls and Nakajima’s squeaky reminder to use a condom and a dental dam. They’d all made it pretty awkward, and Kong seemed like she was trying to bury her face in the collar of her new sweater. …Pretty cute. Maybe cuter if that was all she-no. …Maybe later. Maybe.

She awkwardly took my hand as we got closer to my room, and she hurried forward, tugging me along. Probably figured we were still being watched, she’d always been somebody that jumped at shadows. Maybe I was, too. Don’t think anyone could blame either of us, though. Even I’d admit, there was a real feeling of relief once I locked the door behind us.

…My room felt really crappy, all of a sudden. Didn’t make my bed or wash my sheets or anything, and I barely kept anything in here – a bunch of shitty paintings of bad dreams and an old famicom hooked up to a piece of crap TV. And the manga in the closet. Shit. Couldn’t let her see that. She was pretty dense, but not retarded, it was going to look pretty crazy if she knew how much Murder Mayumi stuff I had.

Least she went for the paintings first.

“You do these?” she grunted out after a minute or two. “…They’re weird.” I caught her eye, which was a relief. Hell of a lot easier to read her expression that way than listening to her voice. Or looking at her face. She was confused, I…think. I mumbled out something about dreams, parroting the contents of some session or another with Mister Masada, way back when. Other outlets for the subconscious.

“Oh. So you paint the shit you see in your head. And it helps get it out.”

…Yeah. Something like that.

“Why are there body parts everywhere. ...What do those numbers mean. What the hell is this even supposed to be, a vagina?” She cocked her head to the side and leaned in toward one of them. …I didn’t want to spend Christmas answering questions like this, so I just hugged her from behind instead, and rested my chin on her head.

“You had something for me?” I kinda…wanted to see what she even came up with, too. Didn’t usually bother with the gift thing, and I didn’t think she did either. She nodded a little as she leaned back into me. We stood there for a minute or two, just kind of enjoying it while I played with an uncharacteristically pleasant on her sweater a little. I started to guide her back toward the bed…

…No. Too, ah…too suggestive. I cheated a little instead, and kind of…forced a couch to exist, I guess. A weirdly-shaped one that I came across in my dreams sometimes. She looked up at me as if to ask if I was fucking kidding her, but we settled in pretty quickly. It was…really something. I didn’t think I’d see her again before Walmart Night at all, and she…

Shit, she came to visit me all by herself and everything. Love this girl, she always…as much as she fucks it up, when she does things right, it’s just…

Man.

We cuddled up together in my winter scarf for a second before she messed with her shield, pulling a box out of her inventory…thing. Probably a box. It was hard to tell, it was more like a little bundle of paper and tape.  I reached over to take it, but she just made that little noise she liked to make and hugged it to herself.

“…Too hot.” …Yeah. Between the sweaters and the scarf. No problem. Didn’t even have to get up.

Kong gave me the weirdest look as I cuddled in and closed my eyes, focused on draining the heat in my body away. Started to doze off a little, too, but that was good. Made it easier, when I could nail that sweet spot between awake and asleep. My blood felt like it had begun to slow, and most of my body started to numb…

“H…hey. Are you…?” I nuzzled into her neck to reassure her a little bit. My skin was snow white by now, I was sure. She jumped a little, and I felt her looking up at the ceiling. “…Is it snowing? You can make it snow?”

I nodded. It was one of my many awesome, useless powers.

“…You’re really cold.” I nodded again. That was what she wanted, right?

“…Homu.” She looked away, as she shoved the ball of paper and tape into my stomach, jolting me out of half-sleep. Eh. I could hold it either way, and watching the soft, fluffy flakes tumble from the ceiling was sort of fun. Should have tried this earlier, shit.

It was harder than I expected to tear the paper off with my hands as numb as they were, but I managed after a minute, and inside the box…

Four orange bottles of pills. …Prescription sleeping pills. How did she even…?

“…I looked it up,” she mumbled, almost inaudibly. “You have trouble sometimes, so… …use them.” After a second, she perked up. “I brought whiskey, too. For us. To share. …Merry…”

“Merry Christmas!” She belted it out all at once, loud and awkward. I laughed, and I threw my arms around her, probably freezing the hell out of her in the process. Too cute. She was way too cute. And I loved her for it. Next year. Next year I’d do something this nice for her. But for now, we still had all night…