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INUMAKI REMEMBERS THE FIRST
Christmas they spent together.
They had been awaiting midnight, where Christmas Eve would meet Christmas day and the night would blend into their own quiet festive merriment. Christmas has always been her favorite time of year, he knew, and he'd made sure everything was perfect, not a hair out of place.
In fact, they'd both been buzzing with excitement all week in the run-up, and being so close was an almost painful torture as the clock struck eleven. She had unveiled an almost comical groan from where she was on Inumaki's side on the couch.
Since being their own, Christmas had become even more exciting. The only time they left Inumaki's flat at all all Christmas Eve was when they set off to attend Christmas dinner at her parents' house (her family was largely Polish), where Inumaki had been welcomed warmly — he just hoped his parents would be as open towards her as her parents had been to him. The rest of the day, both before and after that, and the final days before the holiday, which she had booked off work to spend with Inumaki, had resulted in much festivities, spending their days wrapped in blankets, watching holiday films from their childhood.
It was picture perfect.
Christmas couldn't be better.
"Why does time always pass so slowly when you're waiting for something?" she'd ask no one in the particular as they watched the minuted churn by agonizing slowly. The TV screen before them was dark, the two having finished watching How the Grinch stole Christmas. Now, it would just be a matter of waiting.
"It's only been 15 minutes," Inumaki had said with a low chuckle, pressing a loving kiss to ber temple. "Don't be so impatient."
"I can't help it," she'd replied with a cheeky grin. "Impatient is in my blood."
"Everything is in your blood." Inumaki had rolled his eyes affectionately.
"It's true, Tunaboy," she'd said, faux mockingly with his embarrassing nickname. She enjoyed teasing him about it, the running bit dating back to their high school years.
"I thought we'd agree to never talk about that—"
"You know I was going to do it anyway," she'd said with a grin. Inumaki had smiled, and brushed a stray piece of hair off her face to tuck it behind her ear. There was something about Christmas that brought a sparkle to her eye, one that lasted from beginning of December to the start of January when the new year stress began to set in.
His phone had buzzed with a notification, the screen lighting up.
Perhaps that had been the Beginning.
He could have ignored it to spend the next fifteen minutes with his girlfriend, but he didn't. He picked up his phone, and with one arm still around her, he replied to a text, and then another, and then another.
When the clock struck twelve, he didn't put it down. When a grin blossomed onto his girlfriend's face, he didn't put it down either. When she looked up at him, his phone was still in his hand, his eyes glues to the glowing screen. It was only when a quiet, "Inumaki," was spoken that he'd let his phone leave his hand.
"Sorry," he'd said with no real hint of apologeticness. "It won't happen again."
Of course, that wasn't true, and she knew it.
But she smiled anyway. "It's okay. It's twelve."
"So it is," Inumaki had said, still mildly distracted by his buzzing phone, but it had been placed on the couch armrest and his fingers didn't move to pick it up.
He switched it off with a quick click of the power button, awkwardly cupping his girlfriend's cheek, but he didn't want to kiss her. He was so much better with curses than he was with people — curses don't care. They didn't judge.
"Merry Christmas," he said softly.
"Merry Christmas, Inumaki."
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YOU ARE READING
𝐂𝐡𝐫𝐢𝐬𝐭𝐦𝐚𝐬 𝐋𝐢𝐠𝐡𝐭𝐬, Inumaki Toge
Action"Those christmas lights, light up the street." 𝐈𝐍 𝐖𝐇𝐈𝐂𝐇 he loses her in a time of merriment. - INUMAKI X OC
