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“Wait wait wait wait wait. We’re getting totally off track. Aya, remember what your goal is. Do you really think that filling Hatori’s bedroom with glitter balloons is going to accomplish that goal?”
“But of course, Gure-san! Who wouldn’t be swept away by the majesty of hundreds of twinkling lights? It’ll be like waking up in the Milky Way!” Ayame flips his hair.
Shigure leans backwards in his computer chair and sighs. “That’s what you would like. You have to think about it in terms of what he would like. Think it through - is he actually going to appreciate it, or is he just going to be annoyed that his room is filled with garbage that he has to clean up?”
“Who could possibly be annoyed by something so beautiful?”
“Aya, answer my question.” Shigure runs his fingers through his hair.
“Which one?” Ayame bats his eyelashes.
“What is your goal?”
“To help Tori-san have a nice holiday even though he’s depressed about losing Kana?”
“A noble goal indeed - but not one that glitter balloons will accomplish. If you make plans with yourself in mind, you’ll only burden him.”
Ayame sniffs. “I guess you know him better than I do, then?”
“Yes, I do. Not because we’re closer - I’m pretty sure he likes you better than he likes me. But Aya, I know everyone better than you do. I probably know you better than you do.”
“You do not!”
“Yes, I do. Case in point, I knew that you weren’t going to think about what Hatori would want while you were planning this, so I took the liberty of compiling some suggestions for you.”
“That’s not knowing me better than I know myself, that’s predicting my behavior. I also knew that about me, Gure-san.” He flops down dramatically onto Shigure’s bed. “What are those suggestions?”
Shigure pulls a spiral notebook out from his desk drawer, and hands it over. Ayame clutches it to his chest. “I’ll leave the rest to you,” says Shigure. “Just remember that the goal isn’t to tire him, but to relax him.”
~`~`~
As he waits at the bus stop near Shigure’s house, Ayame flips through the notebook. The thin, slippery pages are difficult to turn, and the contents aren’t easy to deal with, either.
None of Shigure’s ideas have any pizzazz, so it’s hard for Ayame to get excited about them.
Bringing him dinner at home and then leaving would be a lot more interesting as a trip to that fancy restaurant that just opened up where the employees and patrons dress like Victorian nobles, and a gift certificate to a local spa would be much better as a trip to Hawaii. With his beloved Hatori so depressed, all Ayame wants to spoil him. He has the funds to drown him in seasonal goodness, so why should he be limited? Isn’t the best way to shake somebody out of a funk to get them to go out and experience life?
But Shigure isn’t wrong.
While Hatori would look delicious in regency dress, he would find it trivial and irritating at the best of times. Right now, when he’s mired in grief and wracked with eye pain, is not the best of times. And while a trip abroad sounds like a great way to relax to Ayame, for Hatori there are far too many questions to consider. Who will care for his patients while he’s gone, how will Akito react to a defection? Hatori would be too stressed out to enjoy the trip.
What, then, can Ayame do for Hatori? He loves him more than almost anybody in the world, and while he can’t change the trauma he just endured, he can at least ease the pain. But not if he doesn’t consider Hatori’s needs.
As Ayame steps onto the bus and sits down, he realizes something else: Shigure isn’t entirely right, either. Yes, Hatori needs something relaxing that won’t trouble him, but he also needs something that will sufficiently distract him.
Dinner at home + leave him alone = opportunities to mope. Hatori needs to keep his brain active so he won’t ruminate on how he would have spent Christmas with Kana.
Ayame looks out the window, scanning the shops they pass. He sees nothing that piques his interest until a woman darts across the street with a pair of red ice skates slung across her back.
He leaps up, white hair flying wildly around him, and darts off the bus at the next stop. To go through with his plan, he’ll need the bus in the other direction.
~`~`~
“Gure-san, prepare to be amazed! I found the perfect gift for our beloved Hatori.”
He presents his gift with a flourish, smiling as hard as his lips will allow.
The gift, which is displayed on Ayame’s worktable at the back of his store, is a pair of ice skates - but not just any ice skates. Ayame had purchased a plain but well-made pair from a local shop, and had taken them home for some modification.
Knowing that Hatori doesn’t like flashy things, he’d added some simple designs. Both skates were periwinkle blue. On the left skate, Ayame had engraved a group of seahorses, and on the right skate he’d created a dragon. The designs were highlighted with cobalt and navy inlays, and the white laces were replaced with colors that matched.
“Besides the skates, I bought him a seasonal pass to the local skating rink,” says Ayame proudly.
“These are beautiful - you did the designs yourself?” Shigure picks up the Dragon skate and examines it.
“I wasn’t blessed with artistic brilliance to keep it to myself, was I?”
“I cannot imagine a universe in which you would keep your brilliance to yourself.” Shigure laughs, then turns serious. “Has Hatori ever even been ice skating before? I remember you and I going out skating when we were kids, but he always turned us down in favor of studying.”
“Exactly! He’s been under an obscene amount of pressure for his entire life. First he had to dedicate every moment to becoming a doctor, then he had to actually be a doctor, and once he finally finds somebody that brings him genuine joy, he has to give her up.”
There’s physical pressure building behind Ayame’s eyes, and pretty soon it’s spilling out in the form of tears. He hopes that they’re sparkling and that he looks elegant, but he has a feeling that his face just looks puffy and damp.
“I just want him to be happy,” Ayame says, threading his fingers together. “Ice skating is something fun that he’d never choose to do on his own, but it isn’t something that he’d find troublesome or ridiculous. Also, it’ll force him to get out of the house and do something. He needs a distraction, don’t you think?”
“Yeah, I do. You might get a little resistance, but I think this is a thoughtful gift.” Shigure ties the laces into neat little bows and places them inside the skates. With a grin, he says, “I’m sure what you’re getting me will be equally thoughtful?”
With a booming laugh that swallows his tears, Ayame says, “Gure-san, I’ll be giving you my body, of course!”
“Ah, of course. The greatest gift you could possibly give me.”
~`~`~
Though buoyed by Shigure’s affirmation, Ayame is still nervous about giving Hatori his gift.
Since Akito blinded Hatori and forced the end of his relationship with Kana, Ayame has barely seen him. Aside from his job, which apparently cannot be paused for any amount of time, Hatori has been alone in his house, not doing much of anything. Once, Ayame invited himself over and found Hatori laying in bed surrounded by empty bottles of beer. He hadn’t wanted help cleaning up, and he hadn’t been happy about what he said was an intrusion.
Ayame is used to rejection - he gets it all the time from his brother, and his mother too. It stings, but he never lets it stop him from doing what he knows is right for the people he loves. Not if there’s a chance that he could surprise and delight them.
But it does sting. Ayame knows that he’s often seen as ‘too much’ by the more subdued people in his life, and he doesn’t want to be ‘too much’ for Hatori. He wants to be exactly the right amount. If Hatori shuts the door in his face, he’ll smile through it, but he will be hurt. How could he not be when he loves him so much?
When Ayame dresses up in a sparkly outfit and threads tinsel through his hair and heads to Hatori’s house with his gift in tow, he knows he’s risking psychic injury. He does it anyway.
Hatori opens the door after Ayame knocks three times and calls his name. His face is unshaven, and his visible eye is ringed and bloodshot. The other one is heavily bandaged. He’s wearing plaid pajama pants and a white t-shirt with the logo of his medical school emblazoned on the front. It is one of the only t-shirts he owns - usually, Hatori favors a more formal style.
After taking a deep breath, Ayame puts on his most dazzling smile. He says, “Greetings, Tori-san! It is I, your very best friend in the whole wide world! I have come bearing the glad tidings of the season!” He holds out the skates, which are packaged in a blue carrying case and wrapped in sparkly silver paper.
“Oh,” says Hatori, rubbing his injured eye on the heel of his hand. “Right - it’s almost Christmas, isn’t it. I haven’t been keeping track of time. I didn’t get you anything.”
“That’s perfectly all right! I know that this has been a trying time for you. I don’t need anything from you except for you to open my gift.”
“I can do that,” says Hatori, his voice deflated. “Do you want tea or coffee or something?”
Ayame isn’t in the mood for a drink, but he agrees to tea on the grounds that it will give him an excuse to spend a little more time with Hatori. He walks into the living room, which is littered with used tissues, dirty clothes, and, once again, empty beer bottles. He clearly hasn’t cleaned at all since the last time Ayame was here, and he hasn’t been letting servants in, either.
While Hatori fixes the tea, Ayame collects the garbage into a plastic bag and puts the clothing in Hatori’s laundry hamper. Once he’s finished, he sits down on the couch.
“You cleaned up,” Hatori says, handing Ayame his tea. It smells like peach matcha, one of his favorite flavors.
“Of course I did,” says Ayame. “I know you like to keep a clean house.”
“I would have cleaned up myself if I knew you were coming.” Hatori crumples onto the couch.
“I’m not judging you, Tori-san.” Ayame sighs. “I know what you’re going through. I just want to help, that’s all.” After a tense moment in which neither one of them says anything, Ayame hands Hatori the present.
He opens it carefully, making sure not to tear any of the wrapping paper. After unzipping the carrying case, he pulls out the skates and looks them over, his expression utterly blank.
“Do you like them?” asks Ayame, his heart in his throat. “Of course you do, how could you not? They’re exquisitely designed by none other than yours truly!”
“They’re very nice,” says Hatori, turning them over in his hands. “I’m not sure how much use I’ll have for them, but I appreciate the artistry. Thank you for thinking of me.”
“Oh, but you will have use for them. Look at the card.”
The card, which is hand-painted and dotted with gold and silver leafing, contains the season pass to the skating rink. Hatori squints at it.
“You can go whenever you want until the rink closes in the spring,” says Ayame. “I’d be happy to accompany you whenever you’d like, but if you’d rather go alone, that’s fine too.”
“Hmm,” Hatori says, zipping the skates back into the bag. “I appreciate the effort, but I really don’t have the time for something like that right now. Maybe you should give this all to someone else who will be able to use them.”
“Who else would I give dragon skate to? No, Tori-san, I’m giving them to you. You don’t have to use them right now or even think about it, but I want you to have that option. You need to get out of the house and do something fun, and I think you’d like skating if you gave it a chance.”
“I don’t even know how to skate.” Hatori takes a sip of his own tea.
“I’m more than happy to teach you!”
“This time of year is extremely busy - everyone gets sick at least once, and I have to deal with it. I don’t have time to skate.”
“But you have time to lay around your apartment and drink?”
As soon as he says it, he wishes he hadn’t. Obviously that’s taking things much too far. Hatori will be angry, and the whole endeavor will have been a waste.
But Hatori doesn’t react with anger. Instead, he says with a sigh that Ayame is right. “I haven’t been handling the whole Kana thing especially well,” he says. “If one of my patients were acting the way I am, I wouldn’t allow it to continue. I’d probably want them doing something active on top of a whole lot of other lifestyle modifications. I should have the same standards for myself.”
“That’s the spirit!” says Ayame, pumping his fist into the air. Then, quieting down, he says, “I know this isn’t easy. I just want what’s best for you, that’s all.”
Hatori unzips the bag and takes the skate with the dragon on it out. “This is beautiful. The least that I can do to thank you is go skating.”
~`~`~
Even though Ayame wants the alone time with Hatori, he invites Shigure as a matter of course. Shigure says that he has an upcoming deadline and declines. This is almost certainly not true, but Ayame doesn’t question it.
Instead of pajama pants, Hatori is dressed in his usual suit and coat. He’s also shaved his face and combed his hair. It’s nothing like Ayame’s outfit, which is a sparkling turquoise bodysuit, but Ayame never expected Hatori to wear something like that anyway.
All Ayame wants is for Hatori to look like himself. Aside from the eye bandage he does, and for that Ayame couldn’t be happier.
“I know I look like a professional, but I’m not actually any good at ice skating,” says Ayame, laughing into the back of his hand.
“I thought you said you’d be able to teach me?” Hatori steps onto the rink, gripping the walls with both gloved hands.
“Of, of course I know the basics! It’s actually quite simple - all you have to do is put one foot forward, glide on it, then catch yourself and do the same thing with the other foot.”
Ayame steps onto the rink and demonstrates. He tries to brake and fails, so he stops himself by grabbing the wall. “You’re supposed to be able to stop by turning your foot sideways, but if that doesn’t work, you can just do what I did.”
Hatori doesn’t reply, but steps onto the ice and glides forward. When he tilts his head to the side, Ayame can see the hint of a smile pricking at his lips.
“You’ve got it!” Ayame yelps, skating over to his friend and linking arms with him. “Keep this up, and you’ll be an Olympic champion in no time.”