Takata Mashiho Oneshots

Feel like Christmas

"This Christmas is pretty fucking lame, isn't it?"

You whip around at the sound of his voice. "Oh, hey. I didn't hear you come in."

"I figured," Mashiho chuckles, bending his head down as he crawls through the open window to join you on the fire escape. The temperature is freezing and the wind is stinging your skin, but it didn't really feel right to be spending tonight inside. "Saw the window open. Thought you might be here."

"Yeah. I was probably gonna head inside soon, though." In the hopes that you would be curled up in your bedroom before Mashiho even got home. Seeing him lately has been hard. "How did your final go?"

"It was alright." You don't have to keep looking at him to feel Mashiho taking a seat next to you, crossing his legs over each other as he stares out into the city below you. It snowed a few days ago, and the sidewalks are still covered in that dirty slush that always lingers, wet and cold and black from car tires. Just being beside you makes your heart race, makes your chest tighten. "I was pretty stressed out about it, but then I just sort of remembered that I did my best and that was all I could do, you know?"

"That's good." You wish you had that mindset. You spend days studying for an exam and once it's over, you spend days dwelling on all the things you might have gotten wrong. It's a philosophy you apply to most aspects of your life. Why you did the thing you did. Why doing the thing you did was the worst thing you could have done. How you will recover from it. If you even will.

Mashiho sighs. You turn to look at him, just briefly, glance at his side figure, and notice he's wearing nothing but a giant zip-up hoodie. Isn't he cold? "It doesn't really feel like Christmas."

"Yeah." You don't have anything else to say to that. It doesn't. Which is a damn shame, because you and Mashiho spent the entire beginning of this month turning your tiny, two-bedroom apartment into a winter wonderland. You got a tree to put up next to your TV and decorated with the weirdest ornaments you could find. You hung up those dangly white Christmas lights on the balcony of your fire escape, the ones meant to look like icicles dripping from the metal railing. And yet.

It's not hard to wonder why this Christmas is such shit. Your spring internship fell through a week ago. Your parents rented a lake house and assumed you wouldn't be coming with. All of your other friends have gone home already. And Mashiho, perhaps the last person in this whole goddamn city you would have wanted to spend time with, you can't even bear to look at.

"How did your finals go?" Mashiho asks, trying to keep the conversation going.

"They were fine." At least that torture is over. But living with Mashiho, seeing him every day and knowing that what you have done you can never undo-it's endless.

There's silence. It's like the two of you simultaneously have no idea and know exactly what to say. Like the words are lingering on the tips of your tongues but your lips are sealed shut. Opening them won't be like a can of worms. It will be a dam, a waterfall of I'm sorrys and What nows. One week ago, in the heat of the night and in the haze of drink after drink, you and Mashiho made the worst mistake two roommates could ever make.

"Are you going home this break?" You blurt out the words before you can stop yourself.

Mashiho sighs. "I'm not sure."

"It's okay if you want to." I get it. I'm not sure if I'd want to hang around and see me either.

He shrugs. "I just haven't decided yet."

He knows that you're staying. The two of you were so looking forward to spending Christmas together. Now look at you. Mashiho was the perfect roommate. Then everything changed.