#captainxan

After putting Shion’s leftovers in the fridge and feeding their pet rats, Nezumi settled down on their couch with a new book Shion had gotten him a few days prior. The other man had told him that while hurrying between meetings, he had seen it in a bookshop window, which made him think of Nezumi, and bought it immediately. 

Nezumi had gagged at the sappy story, but he knew (and knew that Shion knew) that he would read the entire thing, cover to cover, even if it was the absolute worst piece of garbage ever written, and give Shion a full literary review to prove that he had. 

As smart as Shion was, he didn’t like to read as much as Nezumi did.

What he did like was listening to Nezumi retell him the stories, head resting in his hands, nodding along, and asking clarifying questions as if he couldn’t just read it himself. 

“I like the way you describe things,” he had once said in his stupidly honest voice, and at that moment, Nezumi knew he was well and truly fucked. As much as he liked to pretend to be put off and bothered, he couldn’t say no to Shion in any capacity. 

“I’m home-” a soft voice called out as if summoned by Nezumi’s thoughts. 

“Hello, beloved,” Nezumi responded sarcastically, and he saw Shion jump in surprise. 

“Nezumi! I didn’t expect you to still be up at this time.”

“And I didn’t expect you to come home so late. I guess we’re both confused.” 

“Are you…mad?” Shion asked hesitantly, toeing off his shoes in the doorway. 

Nezumi sighed, setting down his book and gesturing Shion closer, “I’m not mad. I just-” 

“Just-” Shion prompted, sitting next to him on the couch and resting a light hand on Nezumi’s knee. 

“Karan says you should visit more. You haven’t come by the bakery in almost three weeks,” he said, reaching out to flick the other man on the forehead. 

“And what about you?” 

“What about me? I live with you.” 

“Have you not missed seeing me around as often?” Shion asked, batting his eyelashes prettily. 

“Not particularly,” he said, shrugging. “Karan is better company, anyway.” 

Shion let out a whine before throwing his head back against the couch and closing his eyes in exasperation. 

It was only while his eyes were closed that Nezumi let himself smile at the other's antics. 

“So does that mean you won’t care that I’m taking all of tomorrow off to spend more time with you? Or would you rather spend that time with my mother too?”

“I didn’t say that. Taking tomorrow off? Whatever shall we do?” Nezumi asked, leaning forward and smirking suggestively.

Shion placed his hand directly over Nezumi’s mouth before he could close the distance between them.

“I thought we could go Christmas shopping? Oh! And maybe we’ll have enough time to catch the tree lighting too?”

Nezumi carefully wrapped his fingers around Shion’s wrist to lower his hand away from his mouth. 

“You want me to take the day off work so we can walk through packed department stores and then watch a tree get plugged in?” 

“...yes?” 

Nezumi sighed, “I’ll text Karan now.” 

Shion gave him a wide smile before practically tackling him onto the couch.

*

The next day found them in the overcrowded mall, weaving through people who had also waited until the last minute to go Christmas shopping. 

Nezumi would have been more annoyed, probably start griping about just taking their chances with online shopping, but Shion’s hand in his own, and the very large cup of hot chocolate the other man had gotten him were staving off his complaints for now. 

“Nezumi! Look at that!” Shion suddenly said, pointing. 

“What?” he asked, looking around confused.

“You’re looking right at it! That sweater!”

Nezumi wrinkled his nose at the monstrosity Shion was currently pointing out to him- a bright green fuzzy sweater decorated with garland and small ornaments to look like a Christmas tree. And if that wasn’t bad enough… it was a two-person sweater. 

“We have to try that on!” 

“I’d rather die,” he responded flatly. 

“Nezumi come onnnn- Christmas only comes once a year!”

“It’s not Christmas yet,” he countered, choosing to be difficult. 

“Don’t be a Grinch! Let’s go!”

And though small, when determined, Shion could be pretty strong. He gave Nezumi a hard yank toward the open door leaving the other man with the choice between spilling his hot cocoa while letting himself be manhandled or just going along with the insistent pulling.

With a groan, he followed Shion into the brightly lit store, which was playing some shitty song Nezumi had probably heard at least five other times in the past couple of hours alone. 

Shion immediately zeroed in on the double sweater and made a beeline to the rack, holding it up with a triumphant smile. 

“Shion, I would rather you just shoot me than have that anywhere near my body.” 

The white hair man pouted prettily before turning toward the nearest store employee to ask if they had a dressing room. 

When they pointed it out, Shion looked at Nezumi expectantly until he let out a long-suffering sigh and followed him across the store to the fitting room. 

Once they closed the door, Shion wasted no time stripping out of his outer layer to slide into his half of the sweater. He gave himself a satisfied nod in the mirror before holding up the side Nezumi was supposed to fill. 

“Humour me, please,” Shion said, batting his impossibly long eyelashes, and Nezumi found himself praying to any god that would listen to give him the strength to not fold at this moment.

“What did I just say literally five minutes ago?” he asked, trying to find some way to avoid getting into the awful sweater. 

“I was hoping you would have changed your mind. You’ve already done half the work by getting in here with me!” Shion pointed out before using the hand that wasn’t currently swallowed by the sweater to pull on Nezumi’s leather jacket. 

He tried to hold out, but after a solid minute and a half of Shion whining like a damn baby, Nezumi tsked and began shrugging out of the jacket. 

“Fucking fine-” he said, feeling defeated. 

Shion cheered as he helped him into the sweater, their arms pressed close together, and their fingers seemed to lace together almost on their own. 

He took a moment to examine them in the mirror, and he had to admit…

It looked even uglier than it had on the mannequins in the store window. 

Nezumi looked and felt like Christmas had vomited all over them. 

While distracted by the bright green atrocity, he vaguely registered Shion whipping out his phone just a moment too late to stop him from capturing a burst of photos.

Nezumi cursed loudly, reaching out to grab the other’s wrist, but Shion found a way to keep the phone just barely out of reach. 

“Shion, I swear to god, if those photos ever see the light of day, I will kill you.”

“What was that?” Shion asked, holding his phone up high and snickering, “I can’t hear you over the sound of me making this my phone background.”

Nezumi had to fight the urge to wrap his fingers around the other's neck.

“Don’t be mad-” Shion said when he finished, pressing kisses to the side of Nezumi’s face. 

He tensed, pretending to be unaffected, until Shion started trailing his lips toward his neck. 

Nezumi turned his face to meet the other’s eyes, “I’m not mad, stupid,” he leaned forward to punctuate his sentence with a kiss. “We’re not wasting our money on this shit, though.”

*

The newest thing Shion had bribed Nezumi with to keep him in check was a giant candy cane that the absolute menace kept leaning over to take licks of, even though Nezumi had told him to just get his own. 

The tree lighting was taking place in a big (equally as crowded) plaza full of vendors selling food, clothes, trinkets, and other useless shit. 

Shion was determined to visit what seemed like every single one of them. 

They were at a crystal stand selling a variety of brightly colored gems in different jewelry forms. 

“Do you think Inukashi would like this?” Shion asked, holding up a piece of what Nezumi thought was possibly Lapis Lazuli. 

“I don’t think they like anything outside of dogs.”

“Hmm- you’re right. I wonder if we can find anything dog-related,” he said absentmindedly before starting to trail off again. 

Before he could get too far, Nezumi stopped him with a sharp tug on his hand. 

“What is it?” Shion asked, tilting his head. 

“I think Karan would like this,” he said, pointing to one of the necklaces. “It’s the same color as the flower you’re named after.”

“You’re right! Let’s get it,” Shion said, quickly reaching for his wallet. Nezumi felt vaguely pleased as Shion simply handed over his card without even asking about the price beforehand, confident that his mother would enjoy it because Nezumi said so. 

Once the necklace was wrapped up, they came across a stall selling art prints, other small trinkets, and handmade items. 

Nezumi waited a bit as Shion absentmindedly flipped through some prints, even willingly offering up his candy cane, before deciding to have some fun. 

“Are you going to get anything for Rikiga?” he asked conversationally. 

Shion suddenly crunched down on the candy cane, frowning hard at hearing the name of his moms ‘friend’. 

He shoved the candy back at Nezumi and quickly looked around the stall, picking up a small knickknack seemingly at random. 

“I’ll get him this,” Shion said, holding the tacky keychain as if it would summon the middle-aged man if he weren’t too careful. 

Nezumi snickered at the reaction, going back to flipping through his own stack of prints as Shion went to pay. 

It only took him a moment to locate the prints he was looking for: a series of prints depicting colorful pastries accompanied by absolutely terrible puns that he knew Karan would love. 

He had already gotten her a deep blue scarf that was sitting at home, and Shion had just bought that necklace, but he couldn’t stop himself from wanting to get her a little something extra. 

He could already see them hanging up on the bakery wall. 

“What do you got there?” Shion asked, leaning his head against Nezumi’s shoulder. 

“New prints for Karan,” he said, turning the stack so he could see the one on top. 

Shion hummed, “if you keep this up, you’ll become my mother's favorite.”

“It’s too late for that. I already am,” Nezumi responded, smirking. 

*

Once he paid for the prints, they wandered around for a bit more before finally finding a stall of promise.

“How about this for Inukashi?” Nezumi asked, holding up a dog collar, “We can get their name engraved on it and everything.” He gestured to the bone-shaped name tag. 

Shion let out a loud laugh, “That’s mean.” 

“This?” Nezumi asked again, this time offering up a bright green dog bowl, “Or maybe this instead?” A rubber chew toy.

By this point, Shion was wiping tears from the corners of his eyes. 

“Nezumi, stop,” he took the bowl and toy from his hands and set them back down on the table, still smiling widely. 

“Then how about this?” he said, choosing to stop being difficult and pulling out a flat parcel to hand over to Shion. 

Shion took it in his hands with a curious face before reaching inside to pull out a print of a dog that eerily looked like the one Inukashi sometimes referred to as their mother. 

Shion cooed, “This is perfect. When did you get it?”

“Maybe you should pay more attention to me,” he said, shrugging and sticking out his tongue but refusing to give away all of his secrets. 

Shion hugged him, “Thank you for finding this.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Nezumi brushed him off, rubbing his hands up and down the other’s back a couple of times before pulling away, “Now- let’s go find a good spot for the tree lighting, yeah?” 

Shion smiled, grabbing Nezumi’s hand and leading him toward the stage where the tree was set up. 

Once Shion settled on the perfect viewing angle, he tucked himself into Nezumi’s side, wrapping his arms around his waist. 

Nezumi resisted for a moment before giving in and draping his arm across Shion’s shoulders, bringing him in closer. 

Shion hummed happily, and Nezumi rolled his eyes at how easily pleased the other was. Not that he was complaining. 

He was too caught up in the feeling of Shion in his arms to pay attention to whatever the speaker on the stage was saying. 

Something, something, my honor to something…

It all faded away to background noise as he watched Shion, eyes sparkling and practically vibrating out of his skin with anticipation as a countdown started. 

Nezumi finally turned his attention back to the stage when the tree was turned on, the lights traveling up the pine needles in various shades of red and green, gold and white.

“This is nice,” he murmured amidst the cheering that had started up around them, leaning his head on Shion’s. 

“Oh?” Shion asked, pulling back to look at Nezumi teasingly, “What’s this? Are you enjoying seeing a tree get plugged in?”

“I…admit to nothing,” he grumbled in response. 

Shion laughed, pressing a quick kiss to Nezumi’s shoulder.

“That’s fine. I can admit it for both of us. I’m glad we were able to do this today. I love you,” he said softly, right up against Nezumi’s ear. 

Nezumi pressed a gentle kiss to Shion’s temple.

“I love you too,” he said, drawing the other man back in for a hug, “Should we start heading home?”

“Can we look at the tree for a bit longer?” Shion asked.