(open) hanging on in quiet desperation—

[coherer]

WHO: jonas and you
WHERE: all over stygia
WHEN: the duration of december
WHAT: event and notice board chaos
WARNINGS: smooches and anxiety, random possibility of shadow shenanigans

Comments

[coherer]

(half-asleep on his ratty old couch, jonas issues the door a classic "alright, alright, hold your horses," channelling his inner sixty-year-old dad.

when the door opens a minute later, his face presses into the crack in a way that dents his cheeks. he takes a look up at the sprite, then down at the box in ichigo's arms, and decides that he does have the mental strength and social acuity to deal with this situation today.

he pushes the entrance open wider, swinging aside to invite his friend—plus one—in.)

Hey, Peter, Tink—where's Wendy?

[zangetsu]

（ local english lit nerd understood that reference, and ichigo just groans in response. ）

Don't even start.

（ so far the pest hasn't done much but be annoying, chirping insults at him, but his patience is wearing thin. even tsubaki doesn't piss him off this much. ）

Anyway, you're the only American I know, so...

（ it's funny, you know? most people in japan don't celebrate christmas, at least not in the ways they do in the west. he and his sisters and dad usually just get a king's feast of kfc, close the clinic to everything except emergencies, and spend their time piled on futons watching cheesy old movies on the twenty-fourth.

but the tradition of christmas was one of those things chad missed from his time in mexico, and ichigo had gone out of his way to learn where those traditions intersected after one disastrous misstep wherein he'd asked chad what the hell the weird little figures he kept on his desk around the holidays were (spoiler warning: nativity scene).

which is what had given him the idea here.

so, when jonas opens the box he'll see a variety of little knick-knacks. a little poinsettia that's been strung with a popcorn garland, other assorted 'clearly handmade and/or acquired by rogue banditry' type stuff. decorations, clearly christmas themed — albeit, if selected by a guy who has clearly never taken the time to put a star atop the murdered corpse of a pine tree. ）

It's not like the days here correspond to anything back home, but it's cold as shit and that's good enough for me. Sorry we can't do Los Pastores or anything.

（ he just confidently assumes jonas will know what the hell that is because north america is clearly a monolith of culture, right? right. anything that important to chad has to be known by all, that's just how it works. ）

[coherer]

Is it a box of burgers? (jonas asks wryly, closing the door when all bodies are inside. his place doesn't smell like coagulating blood anymore, but it still looks like a nineteen-year-old boy's living space. combined, these facts yield a net positive—yay.

ichigo shouldn't mind.

jonas stops in front of him, hands intent on the flaps of the box.

words do reach attentive ears, although he ignores them for a moment, too busy lifting a few items. a tiny reindeer with a red nose made of birch tree and sticks, fairy lights ichigo's sprite seems uncannily interested in, the poinsettia, which looks old-fashioned wearing its garland—to name a few. the gesture means a hell of a lot more to his expression might suggest; brow pinched, he looks almost confused. it's been difficult lately for him to stem tears, missing home and father, and he just manages it, feelings staying knotted tightly in his throat instead.

that doesn't stop him from forcing his head into a jerky nod, overwhelmed. with nowhere to direct the energy but forward, he brings an arm around ichigo's shoulders, mindful of the box and its contents, and gives him a brief squeeze of a hug.

sorry, dude.)

Thank you. I... I don't know what Los Pastores is, man, but Christmas is—it's important to me, you know? (drawing away, the box comes with him, placed on a lone chair gathering dust.) I never liked it before, it's just—I miss it now. This means a lot.

(the sprite, ignored and bitter about it, folds their arms with an indignant sigh.)

[zangetsu]

（ okay, but how about: he's being hugged and making absolutely zero move to hug back. that's a normal human thing to do, right? he hasn't exactly frozen, or tried to shunpo away, but he's sort of just... ignoring? it? stop being weird, jonas. ）

Los Pastores... it's a thing in Mexico. A play about the nativity, the birth of Jesus or whatever? You don't do that in Oregon?

（ look he understands the geography just fine, where his comprehension falls down is on matters of scale. y'all, north america is just real fuckin' big, okay? ）

[coherer]

(with the hug ignored on ichigo's end, he's quick to draw back. a bit embarrassed, the cute little poinsettia is immediately whisked to the kitchenette by jonas to be given a drink of water and to be sat in one of the prettier spots of the shack. the royal treatment.

popcorn string is fussed over, adjusting segments that might've slid into a tangle beneath the leaves.)

Oh, right, yeah. There's a pretty big latino community where I used to live, but we don't celebrate Mexican holidays. We do our own version, I guess... even though my family was more into church services about the birth of Christ than plays about it. (jonas wonders if he should learn spanish, then wonders if he could learn spanish. he never was any good at studying.)

... Can I get you a drink or something? I've got coffee and tea, I think. The coffee's the instant stuff, but... it gets the job done.

[zangetsu]

We just eat KFC in Japan. At least in the big cities. And it's kind of a romance thing too, I guess. Like Valentine's.

（ the box is set gingerly down, and he does trail after jonas to the kitchen — proof, at least, that his strange reaction to the hug is more about the hug itself than about jonas' company. ）

Coffee, sure.

（ he likes tea just fine, but also: does he trust someone from america to make it properly??? no, no he does not. ）