#this is probably wrong

TW: Mentions of suicide (successful suicide, but it’s not of Dazai, or Chuuya, don’t worry).

The clock finally struck midnight, and Chuuya had long since gone to bed. But me? I didn’t even bother, instead I sat on the couch, staring blankly at the clock, everything about Christmas was just… horrible.

Was that a weird thing to think? Yeah, probably. But I never liked Christmas. 

Christmas’s had my parents arguing, not that they didn’t do it most of the time, but it always seemed worse around the Holidays. 

Unsurprisingly when I joined the mafia it didn’t get much better. At least I didn’t have to spend it with anyone.

Even when Chuuya joined the port mafia, it’s not like the red head was eager to spend it with me

And I didn’t really want to spend it with Oda either, didn’t want to spoil his holidays—or that of the kids he watched.

And when I joined the agency that still didn’t change. I was invited to spend Christmas with just about everyone at one point or another, but I always made up an excuse, or just straight up said no.

And then there was this year. I couldn’t exactly make an excuse to not celebrate Christmas when I lived with someone else—that someone else being my not-boyfriend Chuuya Nakahara.

I had half-hoped that Chuuya would have to work on Christmas, but alas it seemed Mori was going to be a tolerable person for once, so I would be forced to deal with Christmas Day.

At least we have lots of alcohol in the house.

Alcohol I had already consumed too much of. I hoped I would be blackout drunk for all of Christmas, but maybe I should have started drinking after the clock struck midnight, rather than as soon as the Chuuya went off to bed if I wanted that.

I sighed, just another twenty-four hours until December twenty-sixth, when I could put this whole thing behind me, and never think about it again.

Er, never think about it until next December.

Until then, I got to be haunted by all my memories, yay. 

I’m sure most people like the nostalgia that comes with the holidays, the memories of past Christmas’s.

Well those people never woke up to find their mother had hung herself. Great way to start Christmas, huh?

I found my eyes growing heavy, from the alcohol, from the late hour, and just from general lack of sleep.

Before I knew it, I’d passed out on the couch.

The dreams that awaited me weren’t that bad, no worse than normal, anyways.

Which, admittedly, was still pretty bad. There was a reason I was always getting such little sleep.

***

“Oi.” I woke up to a red-head chihuahua shaking me. “If you don’t wake up I’m going to poor boiling water on your face.”

“So mean,” I whined, eyes fluttering open.

Chuuya just rolled his eyes at my, quite frankly, reasonable comment. “Yeah, yeah. Do you want breakfast?”

I would have said no, but he never took no for an answer when it came to me eating. Something about starving being bad and all that. “Sure,” I told him, sitting up and rubbing my eyes.

“You’re not eating it on my couch,” he deadpanned when I made no move to get up.

I put a hand on my chest and let out an over-the-top gasp, which also had him sighing. “But it’s Christmas, isn’t the mess the fun?”

“Not when it’s syrup on my expensive couch. Unless you want to buy me a new one?” I made a face at that.

“I’ll pass.”

“Then get your ass up,” Chuuya snapped.

I swung my legs over the front of the couch and made my way, shoulders hunched, to the dining room. My head hurt, did I mention I’d had too much alcohol?

“How much did you drink last night?” he asked, stepping around a stray bottle.

I shrugged. “It’s a Christmas Eve tradition.” Which wasn’t technically a lie; my dad loved getting drunk on Christmas Eve… and Christmas… and pretty much all other times as well.

He side-eyed me as I sat down. “Interesting tradition,” he mumbled, sounding like he didn’t know whether to believe me or not.

He placed a plate of waffles in front of me, and a glass of water, and some medicine, which I took without fuss. He then sat down in the chair across the table.

“Any other ‘Christmas traditions’ I should know about?” he asks, his attention still mostly on me.

I pretended to think about it, looking at my food that I didn’t want to eat at all. “Other than the frogs I put in your bed last night? No.” There were no frogs, and from the look on his face he knew that.

“Was the whole sentence a lie? Or just the frog part?” he wondered, taking a bite of his food.

I shrugged and smirked. “Who knows?”

“You do,” he deadpanned, and I just giggled. He pretended to be annoyed, but I saw the quirk of his lips at my laugh.

***

It was easy to forget about how much I hated Christmas while I was eating breakfast, but as soon as I made my way back to the couch I started feeling all bad again.

If Chuuya noticed he didn’t comment…

For about twenty seconds.

“Are you even listening?” he snapped, trying to keep up a facade of annoyance that did little hide the concern.

I smirked, but I could tell from his face it wasn’t doing much to convince him I was okay. “Were you talking? I was under the impression dogs couldn’t talk.”

He stared at me for a long moment, before he decided against pressing, and set a carefully wrapped gift in my lap.

“What’s this?” I asked, it had been a long time since someone had gotten me a gift, in my defense.

“Open it and see, dumbass,” his voice lacked any true annoyance.

I did as requested, tearing through the wrapping paper, I find a box of letters, Chuuya’s handwriting was clear in them.

I look at him, but he’s looking away, so I turn back to the gifts and pick one of them up.

All of them, every single one, was clearly written in the four year gap after I left the mafia, but before he found me.

Had Chuuya really thought about me enough to write all these?

“There are more boxes,” Chuuya admits, and I look at him again, but he still wasn’t looking at me.

“I wasn’t planning on showing them to you, but I did technically write them to you,” he went on, finally meeting my gaze. His eyes widened in surprising, probably because I was crying.

“Sorry,” I don’t even really know what I’m apologizing for; I almost never cry in front of people.

“It’s… okay,” he responds, scooting closer to me.

“I didn’t realize you… no one’s ever really cared… thank you.” I’d never been one to get tongue tied, but I’d also never been one to get gifts at all.

Chuuya cupped my face, the feeling of his bare hands sent a shock through my system since he almost always wore gloves.

“Merry Christmas,” he whispered.

In our solar system Venus is considered the most dangerous planet, and we have seen in the series that Joel is incredibly vicious and dangerous the last I had checked he had the second highest kill count, though that could have changed (I'm not crazy enough to keep track), and he probably could've been THE most dangerous player if it wasn't for the fact that he gets overzealous and/or desperate when he gets on his red life (it's easiest to see in Last and Limited Life).

so like.. Yknow that NPC that pomni noticed was watching them in episode 5? I think it was in other episodes too but ehh it doesnt matter

anyways what if the NPC was actually ribbit? bc we know that one of the lines from episode 9 is "it's you" (if goose isn't lying to us) and everyone thinks it's probably Jax talking to ribbit. So that. Would make sense

It doesn't have to be ribbit either! It could be Queenie or kaufmo or another abstracted human. But yea, regardless of who it is, I feel like this would make sense. That NPC won't just be there for nothing, so what if it is one of the abstracted humans watching over their friends? Or maybe planning something more menacing... 🙃