(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]

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. ）