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Iruka knocks on the front door of the Hatake house with a nervous belly, a small, brightly colored gift bag hanging from his hand.
Music and laughter filters through the door, and through the glass pane Iruka sees a familiar figure walk up. Iruka straightens himself up, the smile on his face brightening reflexively at the thought of his favorite person.
“Hey,” Kakashi smiles at him, his large plaid scarf wrapped around his neck so high Iruka can hardly see his full face.
“Hi,” he smiles back, feeling a little shy and intimidated at meeting the rest of the family. “I brought a gift to play,” he holds up his bag.
“Awesome, I’ll show you where to put it. But first...” Kakashi steps fully out onto the porch and closes the door behind him. He looks down at Iruka, who is only a couple inches shorter, damn his genes, with a hopeful expression, eyes wide and eyebrows raised. “Un beso?”
Iruka can’t help but laugh at his boyfriend, rising just a bit to comply with the request of a kiss. It’s been a whole two days since they shared their last one, afterall.
From inside the house, hoots and hollers can be heard, and Iruka breaks away with a furious blush, embarrassed. Kakashi’s face is just as red, if not more considering how pale the young adult is, and they both laugh awkwardly, trying to dispel the tension. “Sorry,” Kakashi says, only sounding partly apologetic, tugging at Iruka’s hand. It’s warm.
Inside, Kakashi’s house is filled with people where it usually stands empty, all separated into small congregating groups and dressed in various holiday gear. Kakashi leads Iruka, still holding his hand, to the living room where a table had been set up to hold the gifts for the white elephant game to play that evening. “Here,” Kakashi sets room aside for Iruka to place his gift down. “You want something to drink?”
“Sure--”
“Iruka!”
Iruka turns around only to be immediately pulled into a hug. “So glad you could make it, honey,” Sara Hatake says right into his ear, plaserting kisses onto both his cheeks before stepping back with a large smile, her teeth pearly and shining in the warm light of her home.
“Thanks for having me,” Iruka smiles at her. If he didn’t already know she was Kakashi’s mother he wouldn’t have ever guessed--the woman was darker than Iruka by quite a number of shades and her textured hair had so many curls in it, Iruka feels a neck-strain just thinking about the maintenance it probably required. It’s why he’d decided to give himself an undercut around his head, leaving just a mop of curls atop his head to deal with.
“Always, baby, always. Kashi, you treat our little Iruka right now, okay? Dinner should be ready soon,” she leans over and presses a kiss on Kakashi’s cheek, who gives her one right back.
“Alright, ma. Iruka, let’s go grab some drinks?”
They head out to the back yard, less populated but with a few groups and couples standing around the wide, grassy space. The few trees that spot the yard have string light wrapped around them, spiraling up high into the branches and giving everything a warm, christmas glow.
“So...” Iruka starts as Kakashi sneakily pours just a bit of whiskey into their cocoa. “This is your entire family, or what?”
Kakashi laughs. “No, well, mostly,” he hands Iruka his plastic cup, made with extra marshmallows just like he enjoys it. “A lot of my parent’s work friends came with some of their family. It’s a whole thing every year.” The tone of Kakashi’s voice suggests he doesn’t really enjoy the size of the festivity.
Iruka smiles at his boyfriend, though his heart gives a little twinge, too, nostalgia heavy in his gut. “It’s nice though. Reminds me of my family growing up.” Iruka’s family had been large enough to fill a house like this ten times over, and he misses them all dearly. He can’t even remember the last time they had gotten together, sadly enough. The hurricane that passed through when he was young forced his parents to leave the island, their family and move to Florida, where his parents ended up dying from a car accident just a few short years later. Iruka has been on his own ever since, jumping from foster family to foster family, until he’d finally aged out and gotten his own place.
“Yeah?” Kakashi squeezes his hand a little, a small comfort Iruka greatly appreciates.
“Yeah, except with way more ratchet music and drunks,” Iruka laughs, looking around the space filled with what looked like to him more affluent people, diverse in color and backgrounds as they were.
“Oh, yeah, we keep it very white suburban style here,” Kakashi nudges Iruka with his own and leads him to the edge of the yard where the light doesn’t reach as far to the metal swing set hidden behind a garden wall, vines of honeysuckle trailing up the trellis.
They sit on the swing and sit close together, Kakashi bringing Iruka under his arm for warmth and cuddles. Their hands almost automatically slip into Kakashi’s coat, the pockets large enough to accommodate them.
“Thanks for inviting me over,” Iruka tells him, feeling the cocoa and whiskey warming his belly. He turns of legal-drinking age next spring, but Iruka’s been drinking here and there since he was probably way too young. It started as a more cultural thing before it delved into a more unhealthy habit in high school, but since graduating and starting his classes at the community college, Iruka’s dropped the unhealthy coping skill.
Having Kakashi in his life has helped a lot, too. They’ve been dating for eight months, but every day has felt like a gift accumulating up to a lifetime with just how much he means to Iruka, with just how much Iruka loves him.
“I’m really glad you came,” Kakashi leans over to nuzzle their cheeks together affectionately.
They talk until they finish their cocoa, get more, then until they run out of that, too. When they head back to have a third cup, a voice yells out from inside the house to announce dinner was ready to be served. They fall in line with the crowd, Kakashi whispering names of peoples with small backstories attached in Iruka’s ear, his breath tickling the sensitive skin there.
“That’s my uncle Jiraiya. He’s this famous writer, but I’m pretty sure he writes porn on the side.”
“Oh, there’s my aunt Hana--she just announced she’s gay and is divorcing her husband. My mom won’t stop talking about it.”
“That’s my uncle Minato and his wife Kushina, they have a son Naruto, who’s probably around here somewhere...”
After dinner everyone settles around the main room for the white elephant game. Iruka squeezes himself between Kakashi’s legs, his boyfriend seated on the couch and Iruka on the floor.
“Alright, alright--we’re going to start this...Has everyone played? Yes? No? Okay, well everyone will pick a number from here,” Sara waves a large santa-hat in the air for everyone to see. “Which will give us the order to go through...once your number is called, you can either pick a gift from the table or steal a gift from someone else. A gift can only be stolen twice! If you have your gift stolen you can pick again but you cannot steal the same gift back. Good? Let’s start!”
The hat gets passed around and Iruka nervously picks his, never one to be completely comfortable in a large crowd. Luckily, he’s one of the high numbers and will be able to watch the game for a bit before it was his turn. Kakashi, on the other hand, is one of the first ten, and when he walks up the room erupts in whistles and shouts.
He waves his hand at them in quieting motions, well used to the tradition and picks out the gift bag Iruka had brought. Iruka feels himself flush in anticipation as he and everyone else watches as Kakashi pulls out a wad of Christmas themed socks with puppies printed all over the fabrics. Iruka feels himself flush and laughs with everyone else, the crowd saying things like “was meant for Kashi” who volunteered at the local animal shelter every week.
The rest of the game floats by in joyful laughter and a sense of good-spirited companionship.
Just as the last person finished their run and all presents were declared taken and ready to bring home, loud footsteps echo from the roof, right above where the family and friends were gathered. Iruka looks up at Kakashi questioningly, who just rolls his eyes, cheeks faintly painted pink, but with a smile. “He likes to do it for the kids,” he says, shrugging his shoulders.
Iruka tilts his head at his boyfriend. “Who?”
The front door opens, letting in a gush of cold air down the hall. “Ho, ho, ho!” a very familiar voice rings out loudly, and Iruka whips his head back to watch as Sakumo Hatake walks down the hallway with a large velvet bag slewn across his back, dressed up as Santa, painted cheeks and all.
Iruka laughs, looking back to Kakashi who had a hand over his eyes, hiding his face. “You did not tell me your dad does this!”
“Ugh,” Kakashi mumbles, peeking through his fingers. “It’s just, like...not the best thing...”
“Are you kidding? This is great!”
Sakumo sits on a chair as the few children attending crowd around him, faces open and awe and voices high as they scramble in their excitement to talk to Santa. The adults around them laugh, make light-hearted jokes, and take pictures. Of all the children, Iruka thinks the little blonde haired boy with blue eyes has to be the cutest, climbing on top of Sakumo and demanding his attention to listen to his wish list by tugging at his hair.
“You wanna go back outside?” Kakashi asks him, standing. Iruka follows him with a smile and in agreement. The cool air is nice on his skin and he hums, hugging himself, as he looks up to the very faint twinkling stars in the sky. He had been worried that he would be alone again this Christmas, but standing here in the backyard with the faint low-hum of voices from inside in the dark, Iruka doesn’t feel alone at all.
Feliz navidad, Mami, Papi, Iruka thinks, his smile only growing as arms come to wrap themselves around him.
“Happy christmas,” Kakashi murmurs into his ear, pressing a soft kiss to the side of his head.
“Merry christmas,” Iruka turns and gives him a proper kiss on the lips, feeling very happy indeed.