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“What the fuck is that?” Aki scowled at Denji who came in dragging a ragged pine tree behind him.
“A Christmas tree!” the idiot chirped all too happily.
“Uh-huh,” he hummed, unimpressed. “Why?”
“‘Cause it’s Christmas, duh!”
Denji didn’t even stop to take his shoes off before pulling the tree with him to the living room, leaving a trail of snow, pine needles and cold air as he went. Power skipped in behind him, equally as nonchalant to the mess they were making.
“I got the decorations!” she proclaimed, with buzzing excitement.
There were always going to be moments when Aki would regret not standing his ground against Miss Makima and her decision to leave this chaotic duo in his care. But okay, fine, a Christmas tree, he could handle that. There’d be more to clean with the pine needles and then there was the whole ordeal of getting rid of the tree after the holidays, but he could work that out.
Though, there was one teeny, tiny detail.
“And where did you get the tree?”
“The forest!” Denji replied while lifting the tree up, inspecting the damages it had taken being dragged up the apartment stairs. “I just,” he imitated the sound of an engine and made a motion with his hand to illustrate how he had cut it down using his own arm.
Aki sighed. He had done that a lot since Denji and Power moved in, which was to be expected. What he had not been expecting though, was the hybrid starting to steal trees from an unknown landowner.
He shifted his gaze to Power who was holding a plastic back seemingly full of baubles and tinsel.
“And the decorations?”
“From one of the decorated trees by the mall,” she said like she had no idea how wrong that was even though Aki had mentioned, multiple times, that stealing is considered a crime.
“Right,” Aki said for lack of better words.
“Hey, why won’t the tree stand?” Denji asked, brows pinched in a frown as he tried to balance the tree on its stem. “I thought I cut it straight.”
“You’ll need a stand for it,” Aki explained
“A stand?”
“Yeah, it’s a device you put the stem in and pinch it in place, and you fill it with water too, or the tree will die.”
Denji looked horrified at the realization. “I don’t have that.”
“Figured.”
“Aki! Do you have one?”
“No.”
“Where can I find one?”
“You can buy them at the store,” he emphasized to avoid anymore theft.
Aki could practically hear the gears turning n Denji’s head as he pondered the idea.
“Yeah, no. I need my money for this week’s Jump,” Denji concluded but then his eyes lit up as an idea came to him. “I’m sure you have something that could work.”
Denji dropped the tree unceremoniously and disappeared to the closet. He returned moments later with the bucket they use when mopping the floors. There was some water that sloshed over its edge as Denji carried it back over to the tree.
Aki watched curiously as Denji put it in the inner corner of the living room, between the big window and the door to Aki’s bedroom. With the bucket in place, Denji put the tree into it and let it lean against the wall for support.
“That’ll do!” Denji admired his work with unwarranted pride.
To tell the truth, it looked sloppy and absolutely terrible but it was better than stealing a stand, Aki mused.
Power got up from her place by the kotatsu with her hands full of dangling ornaments that she’d picked out from the bag. Her eyes shimmered with delight. Aki could almost feel a small smile tug on his lips when watching her hang them seemingly at random. Denji was quick to follow suit with a string of tinsel that he draped haphazardly over the dark green branches.
With dumb and dumber busy decorating the tree, Aki leaned against the counter that divided the kitchen area from the living room and watched them, for safety reasons, chaos was bound to ensue after all. It had nothing to do with the warmth he felt when seeing their happy expressions.
Since his family’s passing, Aki didn’t celebrate Christmas, unless a few drinks shared at a random bar with Himeno would count, and he guessed neither Power nor Denji had been celebrating much either. So, even though they managed to make the Christmas tree look messier with every new ornament they put on it, maybe this wasn’t such a bad idea after all. Maybe they even deserved it? Maybe Aki did too?
“Oooh!” Denji’s sudden gleeful exclamation pulled Aki out of his thoughts.
Denji was inspecting a tiny green bouquet of twigs with small red berries in it, all tied neatly with a ribbon just as red as the berries. “I know what this is! It’s one of those— uhm, what’s it called— Aki! What’s this?” he waved it in the air for Aki to see.
“A mistletoe?”
“Yeah!!” He pumped his fist in the air triumphantly. “You kiss under it, right?”
“Oho!” Power’s eyebrows shot up in interest. “You wanna kiss someone?” There was a mocking tone to her voice that didn’t register in Denji.
“I’m gonna hang it in the doorway in case Miss Makima stops by!” He pretty much dashed to the kitchen where he found some tape before he hurried to the entryway and hung it right in the middle over the door. “Let’s invite Miss Makima later!”
Aki made a mental note to warn Miss Makima of Denji’s trap the next time he saw her.
There was a sudden crash followed by Power’s panicked voice shouting, “Nyako! No!”
Power leapt across the room but not fast enough as the cat had already attacked the tree and was now trying to claim another bauble as its prey. Power managed to sweep the cat up in her arms where Nyako stayed for exactly one second, before she used all her power to launch herself from Power’s shoulder, heading straight for the tree again. Denji came to the rescue trying to shield the tree and Aki had a feeling it wouldn’t be standing so much longer. Still, it had been nice while it lasted.
During the chaos it was a small wonder that Aki even heard the soft knock on the front door. He turned his attention away from the two cat chasing idiots and answered the door, hoping whoever it was could ignore the commotion going on behind him.
The first thing that his eyes registered upon opening the door, was strawberry red hair and white wings of an angel. Light snowflakes danced in the cold air around him. Aki’s blue eyes widened in surprise at the man outside his door.
“Angel?” They hadn’t made any plans to meet up today, and there was currently no mission for them that acquired them to meet. Had something happened? “What are you doing here?”
Instead of answering the question, Angel’s chestnut eyes drifted to the scene in the apartment and then slowly upwards, zeroing in on the mistletoe.
He felt his breathing catch in his throat as his cheeks started to heat. “Ah, uhm, it was Denji’s…idea,” he tried to explain but it came out sounding lame.
It was always like this when Angel was involved. Aki tried to act his best and seem collected but he failed every time and came out looking like a complete fool instead.
“Okay.”
Aki was just about to sigh in relief that Angel didn’t make a big deal out of it when said person suddenly got up in his tiptoes, making them almost the same height. Aki barely had time to register how long Angel’s lashes were as they brushed against his cheekbones, or how soft his pink lips looked before those very lips were suddenly pressed against his own.
He blinked once.
Twice.
And then it was over.
Angel leaned back and pushed past him into the apartment and Aki was left frozen, dumbfounded in the doorway, with only the sensation of the kiss. It had only lasted a moment but in that short time Aki had been to heaven and back.
For a while now, Aki had been harboring what could be considered romantic feelings towards the bewinged man, but he had never thought about acting on those feelings. He had another goal in life, the Gun Devil, and love and romance was not compatible with that. Therefore he had left those feelings and thoughts as merely just that.
But now, after having tasted the sweet touch of Angel’s lips, there was a part of him that considered shifting his priorities a bit. A part of him that wanted nothing more than to experience that sensation again. To map out those lips and commit them to memory.
“Hey,” Angel drawled from where he had made himself comfortable by the kotatsu.
Blue eyes cleared out of their haze.
“I’m freezing. Make me hot chocolate,” his eyes shifted upwards like he was pondering something before he added, “and a bagel if you have. ‘m hungry.”
“Hot chocolate!” Power called, the Christmas enthusiasm still present despite the current state of their victimized tree.
“Me too! Me too!” Denji chimed in with some blood trickling down his cheek from a fresh scratch from Nyako.
Aki closed the door to the cold world outside, the snow no longer bringing the comforting feeling it had when he was a little boy. Instead, he now thought he could find solace in the warmth of his home, and the people in it.
He stayed with his back turned against them for a moment longer, giving himself some time to smile fondly in privacy.
“Aki?” Angel’s soft voice cut through the chaos of his apartment, of his mind and his heart.
“Alright, alright,” Aki sighed for the umpteenth time since that morning, only this time it was more out on contentment than exasperation.
They all deserved this, didn’t they?