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The day Kotoko had been dreading for quite a while now has at long last come to hit her directly in the face with a feeling of uneasiness as she stood alone in front of a bus station on a cold winter afternoon. It was difficult to tell whether the reason she was trembling so much was because she was standing outside on a snowy day wearing clothes that definitely weren't appropriate for the cold weather or if it was more so because she felt somewhat nervous about the fated meeting she'd been awaiting for quite a while now. She'd made arrangements with her girlfriend to meet up around Christmas time in order to finally spend some quality time together after the two had been too busy to go on dates as of late. The two had only started dating a few months prior and in all honesty, Kotoko had pretty much no relationship experience prior to this so she had all the reason to be worried about how a Christmas date of all things would go, especially with how dense she could be at times.
Having began wondering for how long she'd been waiting at this point, Kotoko quickly slid one of her hands into her jacket's pocket and pulled out her phone to check the time.
3:10PM.
Mahiru was supposed to have arrived at five past, so seeing that that time had already passed a little while ago, the young woman couldn't help but worry a bit. It didn't show, of course, she wasn't one to let her emotions show much on the outside, much like how her nervousness surely was greatly overshadowed by her brooding and stone-faced appearance, but still, a thing that most people wouldn't know about her is that she could actually be quite a worrywart at times. Whenever something seemed to be amiss, she would often fall into a spiral of overthinking all the possible reasons as to why something bad could've happened. Did Mahiru get hurt? Did she eat something bad and have to stay at home after all, unable to meet up with Kotoko? Did someone attack her on her way to the two's meeting place? She's not sent Kotoko any messages to update her on how her situation was looking yet, so it was easy for her girlfriend to jump to the worst of conclusions in her head.
As she pondered over all these different possibilities, a small figure crept up behind her before quickly throwing their arms around her shoulders and pulling her into a hug.
"Kotoko!" An all too familiar voice called out from behind her as she was pulled into the mysterious figure's embrace. This action seemed to have startled Kotoko greatly as she quickly tensed up and prepared to turn around and face whoever was trying to sneak up on her, which seemed to have caused the figure to retract their action awkwardly as they pulled their arms away from Kotoko.
"Mahiru." She finally managed to turn around to see who exactly was this mysterious figure and as soon as she took a closer look at the hugging attacker's face, her body relaxed a bit and her expression softened. "You startled me." Her words didn't seem to have had any malicious intent in them, she didn't seem angry by any means, in fact, her face still didn't seem to reveal too much about her emotional state as she spoke, but to Mahiru it would've been easy enough to pick up on the fact that she seemed glad more than anything now that she knew who she was dealing with.
"Sorry, I just saw how much you were trembling and thought you looked like you were cold so I--!" Mahiru crossed her arms over her chest as she said this and let out a small sigh. "I didn't mean to scare you or anything..." She cast a sheepish glance over at Kotoko now, feeling rather awkward about the fact that she caused her girlfriend to react like that. This in return led to Kotoko wanting to cheer Mahiru up but not really knowing how to do so very effectively, so instead she just moved closer to her and pulled her into a hug, a proper and almost protective one this time.
"It's alright, I'm glad you got here safely." A small smile made its way onto the corners of her lips and her hug tightened now that she had finally had the time to process that Mahiru was finally with her again and the two could spend some quality time together from this point on until it was time for them to go back to their daily lives again. In all this commotion, Kotoko was far too preoccupied by the fact that she was finally able to see Mahiru again to notice that the smaller woman had actually brought some kind of a gift bag along with her. That was, until the two stopped hugging and Mahiru suddenly extended one of her hands in Kotoko's direction.
"Here! Since it's Christmas and all I thought I'd get you a little something... I don't know if you'll like it much, but a little while ago you mentioned that you didn't have any warm winter scarfs at home, so..." She shook her hand alongside with the bag gently and smiled as she waited for Kotoko to take the gift from her. The issue here, however, was the fact that just as this happened, something clicked in Kotoko's brain. She's spent the past few days, not even that, the past month or so, constantly planning out how the two's meeting would go ever since they'd made aarrangementsto go on a Christmas date together. She thought about every single detail, from how she'd dress when she'd go out to finally see Mahiru again through the different things they could do together and places they could go all the way to how her apartment should be decorated in order for it to have that nice, homely atmosphere to it when Mahiru came around. The thing she didn't consider on the other hand was what kind of a gift she would get for her girlfriend this Christmas season or if she'd be getting her any gifts to begin with. The reason for that was partly Kotoko's hhyper focus on all the less important details of the two's meeting and in some part the fact that it has been years since she'd spent Christmas with someone like this and did a proper gift exchange. Kotoko, being the lone wolf she was had simply forgotten that giving each other gifts on Christmas is a common thing for couples to do and it's not very nice when someone's gift giving isn't reciprocated.
Panic seemed to have settled in her eyes as she blankly stared at the gift bag in front of her, her mouth slightly ajar as she realized the terror of her mistake. She'd spent so much time trying her best to ensure that Mahiru would have a great time during the two's meeting and yet she managed to forget about something so crucial. How stupid could she be? What was she going to do now? Things were surely going to feel awkward now that this has happened and---
"Ah, could it be..." Almost as if reading her girlfriend's mind, Mahiru spoke up after a moment, putting one of her fingers up to her cheek in a thoughtful manner as she did so. "You forgot to bring a gift with you? That's alright though, I mean--"
"Is it really alright though? You've gotten me something nice, and yet I have nothing to give back to you." Kotoko frowned slightly while saying this, as if in disagreement, but still managed to hesitantly take the gift from Mahiru's hands despite her self doubts. She took a quick look into the bag and noticed that the only things there were a fluffy looking winter scarf and what appeared to be some Christmas themed chocolate bar.
"Mm, it's super alright! I know you're very busy with your work and all, so I thought getting you something like this might be nice... you don't have to return the favor though! Just being able to be here with you like this is enough of a gift for me, really!" Try as hard as Kotoko could, she couldn't really fight against Mahiru's enthusiastic attitude towards the situation. Still, she couldn't accept defeat that easily, not just yet. She may not have brought a gift, sure, but she could try to return Mahiru's kindness in a slightly different way. Sure, Kotoko still struggled quite a bit with physical intimacy, especially when it came to doing things together with Mahiru in public but... yes. This was as good a time as any to try and get over this nervousness of hers and try to show Mahiru just how much she really meant to her in her own way. With that in mind, Kotoko pulled the scarf she'd just received out of the gift bag and gently placed it around Mahiru's shoulders, much to the other woman's surprise. Before she had any time to doubt herself or worry about how this would look to any onlookers out there, Kotoko pulled Mahiru close to her using the scarf as a means to drag her in her direction and leaned down to kiss Mahiru on the lips in one smooth motion. She then quickly pulled back away and began to scan the surrounding area for... something to distract her from what she'd just done, hoping that the faint blush on her cheeks could easily enough be explained by the cold weather rather than her own embarrassing actions.
It seemed like the kiss itself must've had its desired effect on Mahiru too as she was now staring at Kotoko with her face red and her hands pressed up to both of her cheeks in a somewhat shocked manner.
"This will have to do for now, I think. I promise I'll get you something nicer as soon as I can, alright?" Mahiru shook her head in response to Kotoko's words. To her, there really was no need for Kotoko to go out of her way to give her a nice gift, especially not after she'd done something so romantic out of the blue just like that.
"R-right, well, umm!" It took Mahiru a moment to compose herself, but once she did, she moved closer to Kotoko again, this time to interlock the two's arms together and then to stand up on her tip toes as she placed a small kiss on Kotoko's cheek. "Thank you for the gift, I'll make sure to treasure this moment for the rest of my life~" As per usual, Mahiru was quite dramatic when it came to her talking about love, but Kotoko didn't mind that. In fact, hearing her say that caused her to let out a small, barely audible chuckle.
"Then I suppose I'll treasure this scarf as well" Having said that, she once again took hold of her brand new scarf and wrapped it around her neck with her free hand. "It's getting late now, should we get going?" She cast one final glance at Mahiru before turning around to look in the direction the two had previously planned to go in together.
"Right, let's go then!" Mahiru's smile turned into a big grin as she said this and she tightened her hold on Kotoko's arm briefly before leaning against her girlfriend a bit. With the gift exchange out of the way, the two headed out into the city, ready to spend Christmas together and to make new memories of the two together as the two of them spent Christmas as a couple for the very first time.