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After everything that’s happened since coming to Japan, a country Lucy knew practically nothing about prior to being flown out by her previous boss, she didn’t think that her nerves would be so rattled by a Secret Santa event with her co-workers and the Armed Detective Agency. Well, perhaps it wasn’t the festive event that’s causing her anxiety per se. Sure, it’s her first time participating in such things, but really, her cause of distress was more so who she received as her giftee.
Atsushi was what was written in slightly messy hand-writing on her slip of paper, signed with a scribbled smiley face at the end. Lucy admitted that it was cute, until she realized that she was basically calling him cute, to which she hastily folded the paper (as opposed to her original plan to crumple it up) and shoved it in her pocket.
Just to be clear, she didn’t hate Atsushi. Nope. Far from it, actually.
Moving past her initial hostility towards the weretiger allowed them to bond over their similarities, ultimately leading to them becoming somewhat friends. It was difficult for her to welcome someone like him, someone so openly caring and accepting of all her flaws, into her life, but looking at their relationship now, she’s glad that she did.
Truthfully, the problem lied in the fact that she liked Atsushi a little more than friends should. Or at least, she thought she did.
There were times in their occasional outings where she found herself simply staring at her silver-haired friend, wondering if the light that shone in those uniquely bi-colored eyes ever looked at her as intimately as she did him, ever considered the poor girl as close a friend as all the others he had at his Agency.
Surely, he wouldn’t continue to invite her out on their shared day-offs, if he didn’t regard her as one.
Like now, for example.
“You want me to go Christmas shopping with you?”
The boy in front of her nodded his head, beaming.
Sighing, Lucy placed the cup of steaming hot cocoa down on the table--a big upgrade from when she used to slam all of his orders down without a care for his or the table’s well-being. She then briefly scanned the area, searching for the girl that always seemed to tail Atsushi like a lost puppy.
“What happened to your sidekick?” she asked, mentally racking her brain for her name. She knew it, but she’s never held a complete enough conversation with the other girl to fully recall it. It started with a ‘K,’ that much she knew.
“Ah,” Atsushi’s hands went to wrap around the ceramic mug, relishing in the heat from it to soothe his chilled hands, “Kyouka-chan is going out with Ozaki-san tomorrow. Besides, I figured you’d be the perfect person to go to.”
At that, Lucy raised one eyebrow up, prompting Atsushi to explain what exactly he meant by that. Flattered to be the chosen one or not, she needed to know what she was going to get herself into.
“Well, you’re a girl, right?”
Okay. So, maybe it might not have been flattering at all.
A dry laugh, followed by a slamming of her serving tray on the table had Atsushi jumping a few feet in the air.
“You better enjoy the rest of your stay, sir, or else I’ll strangle you to death,” she said through gritted teeth, a crooked smile etched onto her face as her eyes scream murder.
Now, Atsushi’s a little desne, so while the redhead stomped away, silently seething, he mulled over his words in his head countless times, recounting their conversation to find out where he made a mistake. It didn’t take a detective--even though he was one--to deduct that he basically questioned her femininity and, thus, offended the hell out of her.
It took multiple apologies and back-aching bowing, before Lucy became flustered into hearing him out once more.
“Fine.” She crossed her arms over her chest, staring him down with her most intimidating glare. “Convince me before my shift ends, and I’ll think about clearing my schedule.”
Frankly, she had no schedule to clear, but it was worth witnessing the boy tripping over his words and attempting to converse under pressure.
What she could make out from his poor attempt at a business bid was that one, his giftee happened to be of the same gender, and two, he trusted her judgement the most out of everyone else. Why so much trust was put in her, she didn’t know, though it did soften her glare a tiny bit.
Atsushi’s final point, however, caused not only her glare to harden but also her crimson flush to return at full force.
“Plus, you smell really nice!”
Unsurprisingly, the weretiger was unceremoniously chased out of the cafe by a flying chair, with the addition of Lucy screaming at the top of her lungs about how much of a pervert he was for sniffing her.
“I’m sorry! It’s really not like that!” he tried to explain. Alas, his pleas for mercy fell on deaf ears as another wooden chair was lifted into the air and thrown his way with herculean strength.
Opting to text Lucy the details later, Atsushi saved himself from a concussion by making a speedy escape away from the manic, yet fairly reasonable, display of utter destruction, not forgetting to hastily throw down the exact change for his drink on the countertop. In his wake, he left a blushing waitress, whose mind was swirling with the same shameless declaration of,
“Plus, you smell really nice!”
It was absolutely disgusting, a show of deviant behavior and a clear violation of her body.
Lucy? Possibly catching feelings for a pervert like that?
Preposterous!
That must be why her heart was beating so damn fast.
~
In spite of the inevitable awkwardness that would come with confronting the source of her restless night, Lucy swallowed down her natural response to scoff at the text from Atsushi about the meeting place and time and decided that she may as well get the whole ordeal over with, so that she could rush back home and scream into her pillow.
Armed with a thick winter coat, a baby pink, wool scarf, and a matching pair of gloves, Lucy trudged her way through the few inches of Yokohama snow, stumbling every once in a while when her boots sunk deeper into the blanket of white than she expected. Along the way, she would slow down to admire her first winter in Japan, awed by the beautiful picture created when the scenic city view combined with the lightly falling crystals of white.
Dare she say, it’s one of the most awe striking things she’s ever seen.
Perhaps the only thing that could rival the beauty of such a sight would be the equally blinding smile that she was given by the boy that was happily waving to get her attention.
“Lucy!” he called from under the shelter of one of the shop’s overhang. “Over here!”
“I’m so glad you came. I thought for sure you wouldn’t.”
Rolling her eyes, she joined him under to take a break from all the trudgin she’d done. “I already said I would, so I had to.”
“Still, thank you.”
“Wh-Whatever!” She pointed an accusing finger in his direction. “Don’t think you’re off the hook for being a creep.”
Atsushi physically deflated, shoulders hunching in on themselves. “Like I said, it’s really not like that.”
“Hmph. How else is it supposed to be?”
~
“Geez, you should’ve just told me you needed advice for perfume.”
Ah, yes. The previously suspected pervert was not sniffing the redheaded girl for kicks, rather, his heightened senses that could smell her perfume from a mile away gave him the impression that she’d know her way around choosing the perfect bottle for his giftee. Lucy’s unimpressed expression was more than enough to shame Atsushi for keeping such a vital piece of information from her, which could have dispelled the incriminating stamp as a grade A degenerate altogether at the start.
“I didn’t know how to bring it up without sounding weird,” Atsushi weakly defended once Lucy finished staring him down.
“Too late,” she mumbled as she perused the glass cases that displayed all kinds of misshapen, multicolored bottles.
Getting right down to business, Lucy started the quest with a simple question of, “How old is your giftee?”
Easy as it was, Atsushi took to tilting his head to one side, eyes wide in wonder. “Is that important to know?”
“Of course.” Lucy inspected a sparkly, diamond-shaped bottle, awed at the way it shined under the shop’s fluorescent lights but cringed at a brief whiff of the equally glistening liquid. A shame, considering it was that pretty. “It’ll give me an idea of what they might prefer.”
“Oh! Then, I believe she’s in her twenties.”
A hand cradles her chin. “So, we’re shopping for a mature one, huh?”
She makes a sharp turn to the right, moving away from the heavily scented perfumes with the overtly flamboyant designs and to the tamer area of the shop. There was a vast difference between this section and the last, the most prominent being that Atsushi’s senses weren’t assaulted at the get-go.
“Mature women tend to prefer light fragrances,” Lucy dutifully put into words. Picking up a familiar bottle, she passed it to him to smell. “This one also has a lingering scent that’s pleasant to the nose.”
Atsushi shouldn’t have been as amazed as he was. The stars in his eyes after seeing for himself that the perfume had left its mark said otherwise.
“You really are an expert!”
Lucy really wasn’t, but she did pick up a thing or two from her time with the Guild.
The duo agreed to split up to lessen the workload, and even then, there remained way too many perfumes for it not to be a tedious task. The mix of fragrances in the air wasn’t very helpful to their search, so they had to test each one that caught their eye, spraying some on a thick piece of cardstock, then wordlessly handing it to the other to gather a second opinion.
Some were too candy-like.
Some were too strong.
Some weren’t strong enough.
Some were plain disgusting.
There were definitely a few that they kept in consideration, however, there wasn’t a special scent that caught their eyes--or noses--yet. Continuing their hunt was their safest course of action, unless they wanted to settle for subpar.
They were just reaching the one hour mark when Atsushi suddenly rushed over, excitedly waving one of the cardstock in his hand and asking Lucy to test it.
Taking the paper from him, Lucy shook it a couple of times before bringing it near her nose, taking little whiffs so as to not overwhelm her already tired nose. (They’ve been sniffing so much perfume, it’s a wonder neither of them have passed out yet.)
Fearing the worst, as referenced to Atsushi’s streak of his penchant for...disagreeable perfumes, she was pleasantly surprised to find that she loved the smell. Right away, she’s hit with the muskiness of ambroxan, the floral sweetness of jasmine, the subtle, earthiness of moss, and the beautiful musky-sweetness of ambrette. The perfectly balanced level of each scent melded together to form what could possibly become one of her favorites... if it passed the skin test.
Lucy rolled up the sleeve of her coat and proceeded to spray the perfume on the underside of her wrist, waving it around in the air to really let it settle in her skin.
Atsushi watched in anticipation as she brought her wrist up to her nose and repeated the process of taking in what might be a completely different fragrance. As she explained to the confused weretiger earlier, it was important to try it on the cardstock and skin, because lots of perfumes may develop differently depending on where it’s sprayed.
For instance, one of the stronger floral aromas that Atsushi presented turned out to smell downright repulsive when applied to skin and was, thus, quickly discarded in their evergrowing ‘Hell No’ pile.
“Can I…?”
Wordlessly sticking out her arm, Lucy repressed the urge to scream, strike, and run when Atsushi gingerly lifted it up to his nose. It helped that he wasn’t squeezing her or anything, simply resting the pale limb in his hand as he closed his eyes to immerse himself in the different tones of the perfume.
“Well?” she unintentionally demanded when she couldn’t stand the delicate breaths that ghosted over her skin or the damned goosebumps that appeared all over her arm.
While she did internally curse herself for allowing her tone to come out that harsh, she also was bewildered by how long Atsushi was taking to assess the perfume.
She knew she passive-aggressively told him to hurry it along, but she didn’t expect those unfairly captivating purple-gold eyes to open and look down at her with that same warmth and gentleness that had long since captured her wretched heart.
“It’s perfect.”
And for a second, Lucy was lost in her own world, fantasizing about those exact words being said directly to her about her, not about a bottle of perfume.
“What does the expert think?”
“I do.”
The sight of Atsushi blinking confusedly at her broke the spell that bound her to her personal version of Anne’s Room, and she became mortifyingly aware of what she said when the boy tentatively asked her to elaborate.
“I--!” An indiscernible, otherworldly sound involuntarily escaped her mouth instead of an comprehensible response, causing her cheeks to flare up more than they already were. Honestly, it didn’t get as embarrassing as that.
Finally, in a final spurt of activity from her single working brain cell, she yelled, “I’ll be outside!” and fled out through the exit, leaving a clueless kitty behind to wonder what he did to make Lucy react like that (again).
It happened a lot more than he’d like to admit, and he just hoped that she didn’t still hold a grudge towards him. He liked her, irrational shows of what he thought were unprovoked assaults on his person or not, so he could only pray that one day, she’ll come around to liking him, too.
For now, baby steps were what they both needed.
People like them, raised on abuse and emotional manipulation, deserved all the time they desired to warm up to each other, and he’d gladly take his time as he strolled down the street of their obscure relationship.
After paying for the gift, he thanked the generous shop owner that offered to wrap it up for free. It saved him time and money, which is always a pro for someone on a budget. A sigh of relief from having gotten another task checked off his list was cut off when bright red entered his line of sight.
True to her word, Lucy was waiting just outside the shop’s door, instantly straightening up when the chiming of the overhead bell rang. Noticing the reappearance of her companion, she handed out a cardboard to-go cup to him.
“Hot chocolate,” she murmured, eyes focused on anywhere but him, the bottom half of her face concealed by her scarf.
He didn’t bother to hide his smile, wholeheartedly accepting the gesture of kindness and wasting no time to sip on its chocolatey contents.
“Thanks, Lucy.”
All he received was a low hum.
It was a short step up from an indignant hmph, meaning it was progress.
In time, he thought to himself as he allowed himself to be led further into the shopping district, the distance between them gradually decreasing with each passing second, they’ll both be ready.
~
“You can afford to get a scarf but not a sweater?”
The question had Atsushi halt in his movements, arms frozen from where they were crossed over his chest, hands twitching to continue rubbing at his arms to keep warm.
“Ah… Kyouka-chan and I could only pool up enough money to buy scarves. Two for the price of one.” The words were delivered with shifty eyes, almost as if he were embarrassed to reveal his poor financial situation.
In truth, it was nothing to be sheepish about. Many people tended to struggle with money, Lucy included, so naturally, the stretch of silence that followed, coupled with the notable depressing mood from her companion, made the redhead feel a tad bit bad.
On the bright side, at least she had an idea that would, hopefully, be worth its while in the long run.
Meanwhile, Atsushi was quick to dispel the gloominess around him, partly due to Lucy taking the initiative to urge him into an older shop hidden in the outer portion of the alleyways, away from the blinding Christmas lights.
Contrary to the unsettling exterior that ‘encouraged’ the teen to huddle closer to Lucy, the interior was warm and welcoming. And upon closer inspection--or what was an explosion of indisputable color--he found that they walked into a yarn store.
There was thick yarn, thin yarn, shiny yarn, fluffy yarn, and so much more that his amateur mind could not comprehend behind the typical descriptions of wow, that looks like it’d make a comfy blanket or that’s what grandmas use, right?
All in all, the newly discovered world of yarn was fascinating to Atsushi, who had never seen so many rolls of the stuff in all his years of life. (Granted, he was holed up at an orphanage for the majority of it, but still.)
It probably wasn’t a good idea to leave a curious kitty to play by himself, but by the time Lucy was finished speaking with a sales associate about the specific items she needed, he had already disappeared into the abyss.
Oh well.
~
Okay, listen.
Lucy knew Atsushi’s Ability turned him into a tiger or whatever, but really?
She turned around for a minute , and he somehow managed to end up tangled up and bound by the very yarn he was murmuring praises to moments before disaster struck. It took a true klutz to achieve that state of pitiful distress.
“You couldn’t hold yourself back, could you?”
The picture painted by Atsushi face down on the floor, struggling against his bindings and only accomplishing worsening his predicament resulted in a small bubble of giggles to erupt from Lucy. Giggles turned to muffled chuckles, but when a series of failed attempts to free his legs ended up causing more rolls of yarn to unravel onto him, further entangling him in an endless supply of tiger-suppressing material, Lucy burst out into full-blown, belly aching laughter.
“You’re an i-idiot!” she said between breaths, hunching over when a particularly painful cramp in her side struck, though that did nothing to cease the joyous sounds coming out of her mouth.
Atsushi had never heard her laugh.
As he was staring up at her, watching as she freely expressed herself in the form of the most natural of reactions, he couldn’t help but think of how nice it sounded to his ears, high yet not at all piercing. Using the same words when describing perfume, he’d say it was pleasant, but rather than leaving a lingering scent, her laugh left a lingering warmth, a butterfly effect that had him smiling, even if the source of her laughter was his own stupidity.
He’d say losing face was worth getting to hear something so sweet.
After Lucy got her fill of serotonin, she gladly helped Atsushi out of the maze of yarn, her version of thanks for making her laugh so hard, she playfully quipped.
“You should do it more often.” Occupied with digging through her purse for her wallet, she didn’t hear him. It’s the next ones that had her entire body going to fight-or-flight mode. “‘Cause you have a pretty laugh.”
Atsushi knew the risks of outright complimenting Lucy, but he didn’t think she’d try to run away with a basket of unpaid items in her arms, refusing to look back as she yelled, “I’m going home!”
Luckily for the both of them, they avoided jail time as a young woman called out to her.
"Ah, Miss! You forgot to pay for that!"
Lucy thought spitting gibberish in front of Atsushi was bad. She wanted to dig a hole, crawl inside, and never come out again, for the shame that curled inside of her as she profusely apologized to the sales clerk was devastatingly intolerable.
If her suffering amounted to anything, at least she got to hear Atsushi's own laughter when she furiously told him to shut up. Her words did zero damage with a face as crimson as hers.
" Now I'm going home!" she repeated, just as confidently as before, this time with the intention of fleeing the scene as fast as she could, for the laughter that rang behind her only fueled the emotions that continued to grow for the silver-haired idiot that had no idea what he was doing to her.
~
Two weeks go by in a flash, and within a blink of an eye, it was Christmas Eve. In that span of time, the Agency (read: Kunikida) had been running around, preparing for the party that would take place in their office, and after nag after nag after nag from the systematic king of ideals, they could finally let loose.
Needless to say, with Kunikida’s coordination skills and the people that actually helped set up--meaning, everyone except Dazai--the party was a success.
Gifts were exchanged, food was shared among the eager beavers that ate like it was their last meal, and more alcohol than was previously allowed was consumed.
For Lucy, it was the best party she’d ever experienced.
Socializing wasn’t her forte, and although she fought tooth and nail against the tipsy Yosano, who she recognized was wearing the same perfume that she helped pick out, she was secretly glad to be included in the festivities. They had parties back at the Guild, but it never quite felt as homely as this.
She liked it.
Speaking of liking things…
“Lucy, there you are! I’ve been looking for you.”
Atsushi, who was happily equipped in his new honey sweater and matching mittens, took the seat beside her, ensuring that he wasn’t too close, lest he scared her away.
They match his eyes, was the first thing that came to mind at the yarn store, and she’s glad that the color complimented him better than she expected.
“I wanted to give this to you earlier, but Dazai-san tried to sneak me sake again,” he explained, procuring a gift box from literally thin air.
Too astounded to really do anything, she asked, “For me…?”
And Atsushi just nodded, shyly pushing the box towards her.
“It’s not much,” he tried, a faint red hue spreading across his cheeks, “but I hope you like it.”
‘Like’ would be an understatement.
When she moved past the shock of having received something from Atsushi, she opened the box to find a sunhat inside, the kind with a floppy brim. On it, there was a baby blue, satin ribbon wrapped around it, styled to the side with a bow. There was also a single white rose placed right on top of it, adding to the hat’s simple charm.
There’s no immediate reaction from Lucy, other than her picking it up to admire the woven details. Her eyes were literal emeralds, gleaming in awestruck enchantment as her fingers brushed along its intricacies.
“I, uh, assume you like it?” was nervously asked after a while.
And because he said she had a pretty laugh, she allowed a soft, anxiety-dispelling one to reach his ears.
“I love it.”
A brand new level of their relationship was unlocked then, a mutual understanding of acquaintances that were ready to take another step deeper into what they had.
Lucy looked down at where Atsushi’s hand was resting between them, exactly halfway as though fully ready to withdraw it, if she so desired. In the past, she’d already be yelling at him, telling him to scram for daring to even look in her direction. But now, underneath the warmth of their very first, proper Christmas, she thought that maybe her feelings for him weren’t so scary after all.
She couldn’t bring herself to move her hand any closer than it was, but from the tender smile that graced the boy's lips after a brief glance down, Lucy knew that it's alright that her hand only moved down from her lap to rest beside her thigh.
There's still a few hurdles and miles of space that separated them, a modest representation of how far they still have to go. Lucy didn’t know where the silly little skipping of her heart or rosy cheeks would lead her, but wherever that was, she’s sure that she won’t regret it.
"Merry Christmas, Lucy."
With the strange tiger boy that shared the same painful past as her yet managed to be kinder than anyone else, she knew she had nothing to worry about.
“Merry Christmas...Atsushi.”