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A guy like Ryoma shouldn’t be putting up decorations for Christmas. And he certainly shouldn’t be enjoying himself…
Years of gloomy prison Christmases, with the staff making only a few cursory efforts to recognise the day, which did nothing except remind everyone of what they were really missing out on, had convinced him of that. There’d been no joy in stringing up a few paper chains inside his cell, or in the cheap, processed turkey dinner they’d served up at lunchtime, and certainly not in the church service they’d put on to remind them all to focus on penitence and redemption… even the extra slice of cake in the evening had done nothing but make him wish fondly for the times when he could have gone to the fridge and helped himself to whatever leftovers he’d fancied.
But it had been alright. A guy like him didn’t deserve to have a happy Christmas.
But this year was different. This year he was at Hope’s Peak, signed on as the Ultimate Tennis Player, and surrounded by naïve kids who were all relishing the freedom to decorate however they pleased and getting into the holiday spirit, which involved asking Ryoma what he was doing to celebrate the day… and then getting concerned when he told them the truth, that he hadn’t been intending to do anything at all.
He’d been inundated with suggestions about what he could do to celebrate, invitations to join them on the day, offers of surplus decorations for his room… all masking the obvious worry he’d given them that he might end up alone and miserable on a day when everyone else would be happy and celebrating with their loved ones…
He’d given in, in the end. Not that he was going to intrude in anyone else’s plans for the day, but he could easily put on show of enjoying the day by himself, if it made them all stop wasting their concern on him. So he’d bought a pack of cards to write to people and given them out before anyone went home for the holiday. And today, on Christmas Eve, he’d put up a small, pre-lit and decorated tree in his room, even though he wasn’t expecting to get any presents to put under it. And he still had some cheap garlands to hang up across the walls, and a wreath to hang up on the door. All just in case anyone decided to come to his room to check on him on Christmas Day, of course…
But, now he was actually in the process of hanging the last garland up, with the flickering lights of the tree behind him illuminating the wall with a bright array of colours, and the cold weather outside lining the walls and buildings he could see through the window with a shiny, white layer of snow, he was actually finding this charade… enjoyable! The decorations made a nice change to the monotony of his school dorm… and there was some comfort in knowing that the main reason they were up was because people had been thinking about him… even if they shouldn’t really be.
Perhaps him celebrating Christmas wasn’t such a bad idea after all… Hmm, but what other traditions were there, that he could do today…? It was too late to organise presents, and if he suddenly gave them out he’d probably make anyone who hadn’t got him one feel guilty about it. But perhaps he could put out milk and cookies for Santa, like he’d always done as a boy. And while he was out in the kitchen getting them, maybe he could reserve himself a small turkey leg and some potatoes to cook up in the oven tomorrow, assuming no one like Teruteru or Kirumi insisted on taking over the kitchen and preparing some over-the-top feast for everyone at lunchtime… Although perhaps going to something that wouldn’t be so bad either…
In the end, it turned out there was a big Christmas meal going on tomorrow, put on by the school itself, so Ryoma contented himself with bringing back some milk, plain shortbread cookies and some shredded carrot to put out on the windowsill of his dorm room… supposedly for Santa Claus and his reindeer, but in reality the birds would probably enjoy the food, along with the bowl of water he added to the display. It’s not like anything else would be visiting his window while he slept tonight…
Tap… tap tap tap… rattle…
What the…? What was that noise…? Whatever it was, it had been loud enough to wake him from his sleep at 2am and was coming from his windowsill…
Ah, right. He’d left food out there yesterday. Well, perhaps if he was slow and careful enough, he’d be able to open the curtains and watch the birds eating without scaring them all off…
Ryoma shoved the covers off his bed off and headed to the window, keeping his breathing shallow as he crept towards the side of the window and slowly lifted the curtain away from the wall, so he could see outside without his face being visible to the…
…Cat.
What was a cat doing up on his windowsill? Well, obviously it was helping itself to the milk and water he’d put out, but why was it outside on a cold night like this? And how desperate must it have been to climb all the way up here for food…?
“Meew?” The cat finished lapping up the small glass of milk he’d put out and spotted him staring at it. But instead of getting skittish and running away, it just pawed against his window, staring up at him pleadingly…
It took Ryoma less than half a minute to open the window, coax the cat into his arm and shut the window while the cat rubbed against his pyjamas, purring at the warm of his body…
He took the chance to inspect the cat in more detail… It’s fur was a nice tortoiseshell colour, but messed up by what Ryoma guessed was a few days of being outside, despite the cardboard tag that had been tied around its neck, which Ryoma checked, expecting to find an address of phone number, so he could tell the owner that he’d found their cat…
‘Free to a good home. Turns out my girlfriend’s allergic!’
WHAT!? Geez! How irresponsible could you be? Buying a living animal for someone who hadn’t explicitly wanted it, and then just dumping it outside in this weather by itself, when you found out it wasn’t going to work as a present…!?
“Prrrrrr…” And it was such a friendly cat as well… More than happy to be stroked and petted, especially once Ryoma gave it some more milk, as well as some bits of chicken out of the fridge he kept his snacks in. It seemed to want nothing more than to curl up in Ryoma’s lap and fall asleep.
But it couldn’t stay there. A guy like him shouldn’t be keeping a pet… he’d be going back to prison in a couple of years, for starters…
But it wouldn’t hurt to spend Christmas Day looking after it. There’d be plenty of turkey available at the dinner for the cat to eat. Then he could spend Boxing Day ringing around a few shelters and finding the cat a better owner… assuming there were any people looking at this time of year, and there wasn’t a surplus of unwanted cats after the holidays…
Hmm… There was a chance he might have ended up getting a Christmas present, of sorts, after all…