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This Christmas revolves around not just one, but two very important matters.
One is much more personal, the other, somehow work-related, despite them being strongly connected to each other. So strongly that Mori spends way too much of his time in the office just holding a pen over yet another sheet of paper, frozen in place, deeply immersed in thought. Elise cheerfully roams around the room every now and then, sticking her (now Christmas-themed) drawings to the walls with glue or colorful tape that he bought to pack presents, completely unfazed by the man’s indifferent state towards the real world.
Once, on a particularly cold and snowy day, Chuuya enters the office with a blazing red puffer coat thrown on his shoulder. The vividness of the clothing is what finally pulls Mori out of his never ending stream of thoughts, but at the same time, it forces him to rub his eyes a couple of times before he is able to look at the executive.
“Chuuya,” he starts, a half smile being a sign of his struggle. “What an… unconventional choice of color.”
The shorter man frowns, unsure whether that is a compliment or not, but he sighs and gets closer to the desk. His eyes wander to Elise for a second, but seeing the ability occupied by gluing some kind of a Christmas ornament to the wall, he turns away without further questions.
“Good morning, boss,” he reaches for the pocket of his coat and pulls out two envelopes. “I got a letter for you. Two letters, actually.”
The envelopes are identical, ivory white; the executive carefully places both on the desk as if something were to happen to them during the two steps that it takes to cross the distance between them. Mori picks one carefully, looking for any signature of the sender.
“Who gave you them, Chuuya?” the man frowns after acknowledging that the paper is completely empty.
The man scratches the back of his neck in an indecipherable gesture; at least that is what he is trying to do. Mori immediately notices the way his eyes quickly wander away from the desk and his boss’ face, as a sign of embarrassment orinsincerity. Chuuya is way too easy to read sometimes.
“The guys in charge of organizing the Christmas party,” he says, with just a hint of doubt in his tone. Perhaps the puffer coat covers his posture pretty well, but the voice and facial expression is enough to decide which words are true and which are not. “I think they made a summary of the expenses, or something like that.”
Judging by the way the executive stands, he knows that Mori is aware of the fact that he’s not telling the whole truth. On the other hand — lying to the boss so boldly must have some kind of an extraordinary motive.
He simply goes over it and waits for what is to come.
“Alright, thank you. If that’s all, you may leave now.” Mori sort of expects that Chuuya will give him a firm nod in response, turn on his heel and quickly remove himself from the office so that the man can be back to overthinking something that may or may not influence the upcoming two days of his life.
Despite that, the young executive does not leave. He seems quite uncertain on his feet, looking sheepishly at the boss as if he wants to say something. Mori lifts an eyebrow to this strange behavior, awaiting anything, but ultimately, Chuuya just sighs.
“Ane-san’s quite sick. I’m not sure if she told you, but I thought I could let you know anyway,” he says quickly and then realizes that perhaps he’s missing something. “I mean, I saw her today and she’s pretty unwell. I just informed you in case she feels too bad to do so.”
“Oh,” Mori replies, and his grip on the envelopes tightens. He deeply hopes that his subordinate didn’t notice the quick while of weakness, but Chuuya seems too immersed in his own thoughts, fortunately. “Sick, you say? Well, hopefully she gets better before the party on Saturday,” he manages to speak while forcing a small smile.
“Yeah, I hope so.”
Then, Chuuya finally leaves and Mori has no choice but to overthink his last meeting with Kouyou — the two envelopes lay untouched on his desk when Elise giggles in the back.
❄
“I’m back,” Chuuya exclaims after he closes the door behind him gently. There is no response, but it’s quite understandable. He had enough interactions with his former mentor this morning to acknowledge that she is definitely not in the mood to talk about trivial matters.
Kouyou is sitting on the small terrace in the back of her house, where she can peacefully watch over her garden with a cup of tea in hand. There is not much to see during winter, as all of the cherry trees and her precious flowers are under a thick barrier of snow, but she still rests on the cold wood with only a thin blanket draped over her shoulders.
Chuuya purposefully doesn’t leave his coat on the rack — he steps through her corridor and the living room to get on the deck, wincing when the cold air hits his skin.
“You’ll freeze to death,” he says and gently wraps the coat around Kouyou’s figure. The woman gives him a dumbfounded look in response, but accepts the gesture gratefully while holding onto her cup tightly. Then the younger executive sits in front of her, trying to ignore that his every breath turns into a small cloud of steam.
“It’s nothing,” she responds quietly, turning away from him and staring at the garden instead. “Did you give him the letter?”
“Yeah, and I told him you’re sick, but it seems like it won’t be a lie soon,” Chuuya rolls his eyes, trying to figure out what exactly she is trying to see, besides the thick layer of snow. “Will you tell me what happened now?” he asks hesitantly after a moment of silence.
Initially, Chuuya was not going to visit his boss in his office this morning. He planned to drop by Kouyou's house for an hour or so, talk about their upcoming Christmas party, in which all mafia members were supposed to take part, and then leave, continuing his search for an appropriate suit — but no, he just had to discover that his mentor is feeling particularly bad. Considering that she did not make it obvious too often, it was something indisputably important. And getting it out of her involved doing a small favor.
“I suppose I should,” she sighs quietly, putting her cup of tea on the floor of the terrace. Her every gesture feels much less reserved and from Chuuya’s point of view, it's strange. They're close, they even have developed a sort of a familial relationship. There's no need to be reserved. “I'm sorry for being rude to you earlier.”
She takes a deep breath and stares into the cold wood for a second, avoiding his eyes. It seems like a hard topic and as a result the man feels a little uncomfortable too, waiting for the story to unfold.
“You would've realized either way or I would've told you someday,” she begins with a hidden sadness in her tone. Then, she lifts her head up and looks straight into Chuuya's eyes; her expression seems numb, but her eyes are slightly reddened and unbelievably miserable. “We are in a relationship. Or rather were, I told him we should take a break from each other for now,” she concludes with a wistful smile and although a name did not appear in the confession, Chuuya knows exactly who she is talking about.
His boss' tight grip on the envelopes when he spoke about Kouyou. The forced smile, the way he immediately tensed up after that.
It's quite unusual and shocking news, but somehow, the executive doesn't feel too puzzled at all. Maybe he wouldn't say that they were obvious, because that was not true, but it was pretty predictable. The small, affectionate looks during official meetings or the way they started to spend a lot of time together at some point — it all seemed to form a clear picture.
“So you two had an argument?” he asks carefully when she keeps staring into the wood.
“Not exactly,” she sighs again, crossing her hands over her chest. “We just… had to discuss whether we should keep hiding it.”
“You… wanted to?”
“I didn't care, honestly. I'd be happy with what we had until now.” The second sentence comes out much quieter and the man can almost sense the sorrow in her tone. Strangely enough, his arms start to feel stiff when he realizes he doesn’t know how to answer.
Fortunately, Kouyou doesn’t seem to need an immediate response to her confession and simply turns away to look at the garden again.
“I just wonder if I’m being selfish,” she continues broodingly, not paying attention to her companion for a moment, as if she was talking to herself only. “Is it wrong of me to want him for myself?” Two slender fingers tap on the wooden floor, seemingly distressed.
“I don’t think so,” Chuuya says gently, because that’s all he can come up with. “It’s fine. Feeling like that, I mean.”
“I can’t help it,” Kouyou mumbles apologetically. “I know I will never be that important to him. He doesn’t have to tell me, even. There’s the mafia and there’s the need to maintain stability in Yokohama. I know,” her voice sounds like she’s about to cry, but there are no tears in her eyes. “But I wish he could just… have different priorities.”
❄
On the next day, Mori is dragged by Elise to the venue where the Christmas Eve party is going to be held hours before the actual party, albeit in full, festive attire: a red suit matched with a black shirt and tie. It’s a nice, pretty large and luxurious penthouse with a magnificent view of the city that’s currently covered in snow. It required a lot of money passed under the table to even rent it in the first place.
Mori's subordinates are taking care of decorating the main hall pretty well, immediately bowing down whenever they see their boss and his ability passing by. He greets them with small, forced smiles, occasionally adding good job!to those particularly engaged in preparing the rooms.
“I think this wall is too dark,” Elise complains, pointing to the particular area which is covered in Christmas tree lights equally as the others. The three mafia members, dressed in neat suits seem to stiffen up in a second. If Mori was in a better mood, he probably would yell some kind of a reprimand, more or less harsh, but this time he just pats the girl's head to calm her down.
“Don't worry about it, Elise-chan. I'm sure you'll like it better when the decorations are complete,” he says and the ability pouts, while the subordinates seem to breathe out sighs of relief.
Elise is seconds away from throwing a tantrum, so Mori simply wanders away from the single soldiers that he doesn't know, heading to Hirotsu who stands in front of the glass walls of the venue. The older man is the coordinator of the whole unit responsible for the decorations, but contrary to others, he's not invested in anything right now.
The boss steps closer to him, because Hirotsu's presence doesn't require much talking and if he's in the mood for anything, any kind of conversation is especially excluded from the list. Although most of the documents related to the party have been taken care of yesterday, he had to sacrifice a couple of hours meant for sleep in order to manage somehow.
It was almost hurtful how he felt Kouyou’s absence from his daily life. There was no one to hang around his office with a cup of tea, no one to drag him to bed when it was getting too late and no one to stand behind him and gently massage his shoulders to prevent them from getting too stiff.
“The preparations are going well, I see,” Mori speaks to Hirotsu in order to somehow distract himself from thinking about Kouyou – every thought brings the faint memory of her comforting smell that he is now longing for. “You did a fine job.”
“I was merely providing some guidance,” Hirotsu responds, humble as ever. “But thank you nevertheless, boss. We hope that everything will be in order for today's evening.”
“I have no doubts that it will,” Mori comments and briefly pats his shoulder.
The older man nods and silence falls over the two again.
Mori can’t help but imagine Kouyou by his side right now. Undoubtedly, she would accompany him to the venue – Elise would have requested it herself, as she has grown fond of the woman’s frequent presence nearby. Knowing her impeccable taste and perfectionism, she would definitely be wandering around the halls to arrange the decorations how they should be in her opinion. They would talk about the upcoming party, maybe about wearing some matching accessories as they used to when it came to such fancy festivities. They still had those matching rings from a mission a couple of months ago – Mori wore his much more often than he anticipated, always hiding it under his glove.
“Hirotsu,” he says mindlessly, because he again needs something to keep his mind off Kouyou. “I have a question for you.”
He does not, in fact, have any of such kind, and while he realizes that he spoke before thinking, it’s too late. His subordinate looks at him questioningly and Mori does all in his might not to show the frustration on his face.
“How would you define love?” he asks with a forced smile, closing his eyes so that he doesn’t have to see the man’s reaction. Fortunately Elise’s running somewhere behind their back, so she doesn’t laugh at his strange attempts of interaction. “It’s a silly question, I know… But I’m quite curious how you would answer that!”
Hirotsu looks a bit puzzled when Mori opens his eyes, but he maintains a cheerful look to convince him that the question is serious. It was the first topic that came to his mind, perhaps a bit cliche and even stupid, but any kind of answer might have been sufficient. That was the purpose of such questions, to elicit a long, exhausting answer to help time pass.
“Well, shall I somehow relate it to today’s festivities?” the older man clears his throat. “Or is that you want a general answer, boss?”
“Oh, do as you wish. I’d simply like to hear your opinion on the matter,” Mori dismisses the doubts with a gentle wave of his hand.
“That is not an easy question, naturally,” Hirotsu says and stops for a second to glance over the city. It’s going to get dark soon, meaning they don’t have much time left before the party – on one hand it’s great news, because Mori is not sure how much he could endure in his fancy suit. The mafioso gives himself a long while to think. “There is more than simply one type of love. There’s familial love, between a parent and their child, or between siblings, for example. Even between friends, some kind of familial love can be observed.” It sounds a bit awkward with Hirotsu’s embarrassed tone, but Mori listens anyway, because although he never thought about the definition of love exactly, he can agree so far. “Self-love is also important. That’s another type of love that is often dismissed, but I believe it’s significant.”
“And that is because?”
“Many people argue about that,” Hirotsu stops again, but a hint of a smirk appears on his face. “But it seems that one can never love another person, if they do not love and accept themselves.”
“That’s an interesting point of view. I’ve never heard about it before,” Mori comments with a polite smile. It truly sounds like a noteworthy perspective, but perhaps he could give it some thought on another occasion, when he has the time and strength.
“Love that one has for another person is what most people consider love in its purest form,” Hirotsu explains slowly, trying to carefully choose his words. “It’s very complicated, if I were to speak.”
“Oh, it truly is,” the younger man says, having a particular executive in mind.
“Perhaps it’s when you put another person’s needs and comfort before yours, although you’re, in theory of course, not connected in any way. Maybe it’s when you remember about every little thing they do, all their habits. You always miss them when you’re separated and can’t seem to think about anything else but them,” Hirotsu concludes shyly, turning his head back to his companion. “Does that answer satisfy you, boss?”
Mori doesn’t answer for a good while. His thoughts are occupied by trying to reminisce about Kouyou’s complex routine of doing her hair in the morning and what it takes to prepare her favorite tea. His subordinate stands and waits, while the boss discovers that he remembers everything, step by step, as if her voice echoed in his mind, explaining everything to him for the first time she stayed overnight.
“Yes, of course,” he says mindlessly, as if he was speaking through mist. “Thank you, it was very interesting to hear your perspective, Hirotsu,” he answers almost mechanically, then stiffly walks away, frantically searching for the door.
He glances at his watch; it’s almost four already. Chuuya should be hanging around somewhere, as he personally asked to take over the preparations shortly before the party was supposed to start and it seemed that there were more responsibilities that he was about to take over.
“Chuuya!” he exclaims when he sees a familiar hairstyle heading through the long corridor. The young executive immediately freezes in place and turns around, almost dropping the bottles of expensive wine on the floor; fortunately, his ability is very useful when it comes to carrying delicate items. “It’s good that you’re here. I need you to do something for me.”
Chuuya frowns a bit, looking a little dumbfounded with his boss’ sudden reaction, but he immediately strengthens his posture to show that he’s waiting for orders.
“I have some errands to run,” he explains briefly, searching his pockets thoroughly. “I’m not sure if I can make it to the inauguration on time.” Finally, a small, folded sheet of paper appears inside his right palm. “Here. I’ve written a short speech. If I’m not here by eight, deliver it yourself.”
“Wait, boss, why…?” Chuuya tries to ask while the paper is shoved into his hands.
“Nevermind. That’s an order. I will explain it when I come back. Please take care of Elise for the time being too,” he pleads and pats the man’s shoulder encouragingly, not allowing him to cut in and speak. “I’m in a little bit of a hurry, so I have one last question for you. Do you perhaps know if Kouyou is going to be here tonight?”
Maybe it’s just an illusion, but Chuuya’s eyes seem to widen in understanding.
“I don’t think she can make it. She’s still sick, to be honest,” the young executive answers, his grip on the written speech tightens, as if he somehow realized the connection.
“That’s a shame! Nothing we can do about that,” Mori shrugs and before Chuuya can even comment, he already rushes out of the door.
The redhead simply sighs and turns around. If he has to babysit Elise once again, it’s better to find her before she causes trouble somewhere. Again.
❄
For Kouyou, Christmas Eve is mostly a sign of another year passing. She has never been particularly religious — not at all, actually — and being born in early January meant that every Christmas, she felt the date approach quickly, along with her growing age.
She usually attended all of the official parties organized by the mafia and hung around the venue either followed by Chuuya or talking to Mori, even before their relationship evolved. He was a particularly nice company, always managing to find a moment for her, pour her a glass of exquisite wine and converse for a little while before Elise dragged him away by force.
Perhaps the last Christmas Eve party was a catalyst, the small spark that ignited the fuse that was their relationship. The polite gestures towards each other that evolved into much bolder ones, long kisses and warm touches.
An expensive, black and red dress that she hung on the hanger in the open closet seems to glare at the woman reproachfully. She never got to wear it, after all, deciding to stay in her house for a particularly lonely Christmas Eve.
Maybe it would be nice to get blackout drunk , Kouyou thinks, glancing at the bottles in her mini bar (that was funded mostly by Chuuya, always giving her expensive alcohol for every occasion). To avoid any attempts of contact.
She never gets blackout drunk. It did happen once, but the person that took care of her then was the one she wanted to avoid now — not that she expected him to reach out. Mori is difficult to figure out. Kouyou should have taken that into consideration before it was too late and she fell for him completely.
Not thinking much, she summons the Golden Demon. The ability floats in the air, staring at her. It does not have a face, only two eye-shaped holes that could be perceived as eyes, and right now these eyes seem dumbfounded.
“I need to talk,” she explains briefly. “And you’re a good listener.”
The demon nods and pats her hair with its phantom hand. A gesture of affection from her own ability is a strange occurrence; the Golden Demon is not Elise, who is pretty much unrecognizable from a normal human, but the small pat makes Kouyou feel a little better.
“Do you think he’ll call?” she asks quietly, although the ghost can’t answer; it just shrugs, so the woman sighs. “Am I being too naive?”
Golden Demon shakes its head and pats her hair once again, twice. It’s somehow endearing too; Kouyou tries to remember if it did anything like that for her when she was younger. Probably not, her ability was very violent before she finally managed to tame it, but the mere concept of the Golden Demon doing something like that to cheer her younger self up was nice.
One of the ghost's flaws is that it's probably not being objective, so although it feels comforting, Kouyou doesn't feel like she can rely on its opinion too much.
“Maybe it was wrong of me,” she continues, because there is no better option. “Maybe I made a mistake.”
The demon shrugs again. There is not even a possibility that it would understand human emotions in any way, so Kouyou doesn't blame it for it; instead, she blames herself for falling for a man that is absolutely out of her reach.
She glances at the clock; it's half past seven, so the party starts in half an hour. The drive to the venue is forty minutes long from her house, so now there is no way that she could make it on time.
“I do miss him,” she confesses quietly. “I don't care about Christmas. I just wish I could see him. Not officially. I don't want the boss of the Port Mafia.”
This time, there is no reaction from her ability. It makes her feel guilty for announcing her wish so loudly, but as she looks up for a second, she notices the Golden Demon stare into the corridor. Not questioning its senses, Kouyou gets up in a second and grabs her katana from the nightstand, just to be safe. Her house is well-equipped to prevent any breaking and entering, but considering there are many ability users in this world, it's better to be careful.
It turns out that perhaps she doesn't really have to, because the thief, if they are an actual thief, rings the doorbell.
Kouyou, a little puzzled about the concept of someone visiting her on Christmas Eve, steps towards the door and opens it, still holding the katana in her hand.
“Merry Christmas,” a familiar voice announces; Mori in the flesh stands on her porch, his face all red from the cold. The signature scarf along with his cloak are thrown over his shoulders carelessly, covering a neat red suit from the falling snow. “It would be a shame if you had to spend Christmas Eve all alone, wouldn't it?” His lips quirk up in a small, sincere smirk and Kouyou feels like its reserved only for her — maybe it's just an impression, but it doesn't make the pleasant warmth in her chest any less noticeable.
“Why aren't you at the party?” she asks after she lets him into the house and watches the man put the cloak on the rack as if he were at his own apartment. “I heard you were supposed to give a speech at the beginning.”
The small talk is what keeps her from throwing herself at him and buys her time to decide how she wants to react to this surprise visit; right now, she acts as if nothing had happened.
“I was, indeed,” he nods and takes off his shoes, looking at her. The comparison of their outfit is strange, he's wearing an incredibly fancy (and probably expensive) suit, perfect for a formal party in a luxurious penthouse, while all she has is a plain white yukata. “But I had to run some errands, so Chuuya took over.”
Kouyou immediately smiles at the mention of her protégé. What would they do without him?
“And what has brought you here?” she lifts an eyebrow, crossing her arms over her chest.
“An important person that I must talk to,” he answers immediately, looking her straight in the eyes.
It's convincing enough, so Kouyou ends up making tea for the two of them and placing it on the table in the living room. The snow on the outside doesn't allow them to sit on the terrace, but perhaps it's for the better — she would hate to be the cause of his nice suit being ruined. She has to admit, he looks particularly well in it.
When the two hold the steaming cups in their hands, the Golden Demon slowly fades into thin air and Kouyou's katana rests in the corner of the room, the tension in the atmosphere is clear; they need to talk.
“I got a gift for you,” Mori says out of nowhere, taking a small box out of his pocket. “I thought the old ones were a little outdated now.” Kouyou hesitantly takes the box from his palm and opens it, encouraged by his glance.
Inside, on the silky little pillow, lies a ring. A delicate, thin, golden ring, adorned with a small line of rubies on the exterior. The man shows her his other palm; he's already wearing his. It takes a second to realize that these are matching wedding rings — similar to what he got for her after they were supposed to pose as a married couple on one of their missions.
“Can I?” he asks sheepishly and she lets him without thinking much. Mori gently puts the jewelry on her ring finger, then watches it for a second. “It suits you.”
The executive finally lets a small smile appear on her face.
“Is that what you came for?” she asks teasingly.
“Mainly,” he shrugs, relaxing a little. “A speech at an official party is not a big sacrifice, if I were to be honest.”
“Maybe not for you,” she points out, leaning back. “For the mafia — it definitely is.”
“They'll manage without me for a couple of hours, don't you think?”
“You can never be so sure about it.”
It's an unnecessary, silly conversation, as it leads nowhere and they are both well aware of it, but it serves as a disguise for their real intentions right now: the careful, slow moves towards each other, the way their faces get closer and the moment in which Kouyou’s hand travels to grab his.
They do what they both have been longing for — their lips finally touch, gently, shyly, the gesture filled with uncertainty and doubt.
“I missed you,” she confesses into the small space between them when they break apart for a second.
“I did too,” Mori says, leaning closer so that their foreheads touch. “You mean a lot to me.”
“I was happy with what we had until now,” she whispers, repeating what she said to Chuuya the day before. “It can stay the same. I don't mind,” she adds, holding his hand tightly.
“So let's have it as it was for now,” he decides, pulling away a little. “As your Christmas present. Don't you have a Christmas tree somewhere around here?”
“I haven't had much time to buy one,” she says apologetically. “You can't really feel the Christmas atmosphere around here.”
“That's a pity,” Mori sighs, but he doesn't seem to mind much. Instead, he gets closer to her and wraps his arms around her waist as they sit on the floor, in front of the giant window. “Well, I believe it would be rude to go back to the party right now, so logically, it would be better if we stayed here.”
“I personally don't mind,” Kouyou rests her head on his shoulder and smiles. “But don't you have Elise to pick up later?”
“Chuuya will take care of it.”
Kouyou simply laughs and leans into the warm touch, watching as the piles of snow in her garden slowly get bigger with the falling snow.