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Beep.
Beep.
Beep.
Beep.
Sana’s alarm clock lets out the repetitive beeping in fixed, unchanging intervals, but why does every beep feel slower?
well, since it’s so slow, maybe a short nap wouldn’t hu—
“—no, self, stay awake!” Sana motivates herself in a whisper, under two thick blankets.
It’s been an intense staredown between Sana and her digital alarm clock for the past few hours since her parents tucked her to bed unusually earlier this night, but did they really expect their oh so stubborn child to sleep at eight pee em?
On a Christmas night?
The digital alarm clock might as well be stuck at 11:11PM for ages and Sana’s body seems to be moving on its own as she carefully gets out of her bed, gets out of her room—moving the door painstakingly slow so it doesn’t creak— and tiptoes her socked feet down their wooden stairs.
The usual child would get scared of how dark their living room was, with the usually blazing fireplace inhibited by charcoals and cinders and the lively Christmas tree that’s now devoid of color.
But no, Sana isn’t the usual nine-year-old and manages to plug the lights up the Christmas tree without getting electrocuted—she’s been watching her dad set it up for this specific occasion—so Santa won’t get disappointed when he visits Sana’s home for her share of gifts.
The next thing she does is she quickly makes her way to their kitchen as quietly as possible and reaches for the cookie jar on the counter and places it on the coffee table for Santa to munch on.
Sana puts her hands on her waists and proudly looks at the comfy, welcome sight she’s made of the living room. Then, she notices the fireplace, well, more like the sharp charcoal chunks in it.
She knows by heart that Santa comes visit through the chimneys and falls on the fireplace, but wouldn’t the charcoal hurt his bum? So she gets all the pillows on the couch and puts them in the fireplace to make sure Santa’s fall wouldn’t hurt.
She takes one final look and crawls under the Christmas tree, in a position where she can watch the clock on the fireplace,
“Operation Meet Santa is on a go.”
The first few minutes Sana managed to keep her eyes open, but a stubborn child is an impatient child, so it wasn’t long until the soft ticking of the clock and the odd warmth under the tree lulled her to sleep.
She has no clue how long she slep—napped, but she knows a clunking of things in a bag and soft thud in the fireplace woke her up.
SANTA! HE’S HERE! She screamed to herself because Sana couldn’t afford to squeal and make Santa flee; she rubs her eyes and gets a better look in the fireplace.
A gigantic maroon sack with lots of blunt edges jutting out filled the fireplace—that must be the gifts, Sana thought— and suddenly something beneath it moved.
The sack looked like it was starting to get dragged and Sana was trying her hardest to contain her exc—
That’s not Santa.
He surely doesn’t wear ragged, pointy elf boots fit for a 10-year-old, right?
Surely a kid doesn’t have anything to do with naughty-kid-extermination, right—
I need to get out of here, Sana thought.
But how could she? Those pair of boots were marching straight towards the Christmas tree.
The marching stopped and the snowy boots were now in front of her, the maroon sack that’s been carried was dropped as she heard a rustling of pages.
"Let's see here.. Minatozaki—oh here, Sana.. pretty— Anyway, shiba inu stuffed toy, okay—"
Huh? But that's what I want for Christmas, how does she know? Sana thinks while she hears rummaging ang quacks from the maroon sack.
Despite her being a devout believer of stranger danger, she crawls out under the Christmas tree and approaches the stranger girl.
Now that she has a better look (well, of her back), this stranger doesn't really look like a danger, she looks Sana's age, looking like an elf with her red-green outfit and with a huge leather backpack, all caught up with rummaging the bottom of the sack for Sana's gift.
Sana taps the girl's side, "Hey, are you an elf?"
The girl yelps and almost falls face first in the sack, before straightening up and facing Sana.
The usual child would get disappointed that it’s not Santa Claus they witness in the Christmas midnight, but Sana isn’t complaining at all.
“Y—You’re not supposed to see me!” The girl panicked, “What are you even doing here in the middle of the night?”
“Waiting for Santa, what else?” Sana ruffles the girl’s bangs, “Well? Are you an elf?”
“No, they’re in charge of looking after the gifts,” the girl seemed to calm down and rubbed the back of her head, “I’m a Junior of Claus’ Christmas Courier Crew, Japan branch.”
Sana sits on their coffee table, “And what do you guys do?”
“We help Santa deliver gifts all over the world,” the girl found herself smiling, “you’re actually the first kid I’ve delivered gifts to.”
Sana’s never felt so special; Suddenly, the girl perked up, "Oh, speaking of gifts—you're Sana, right?" Sana nods and the girl grabbed something from the maroon sack,
and holds out a shiba inu stuffed toy to Sana, "Here's yours."
The latter takes the plushie with an ear-to-ear grin as she's almost brought to tears.
"Would you.. like to put a wrapper around it?" the girl asks.
Oh, right, how would Sana magically have her gift before her parents make her open it this morning? So she nods and gives the dog stuffed toy to the girl.
She takes off the bulky leather backpack and puts the plushie inside it, and Sana doesn't know if it's the Christmas lights' trick but something inside the backpack glowed. Momo opened the leather flap and pulls out an oddly shaped thing—her shiba inu stuffed toy—wrapped in maroon paper and christmas tree designs.
The glow from the backpack seemed to be in Sana's eyes now, "Magic.."
The girl opened a compartment infront of her backpack and got two small bottles filled with snow, well, not just average snow, one bottle had snow that apparently sparkled the colors of the rainbow, and the other sparkled an ominous mint green.
"My job here's done," The girl put her backpack on again, "but you really weren't supposed to see me tonight," she takes the cork off of the bottle with the mint glint, "so I have to make you forget all that happened."
"W—Wait, no! Don't make me forget! Why do I even have to forget?"
"Just," the girl actually looks sad, "no one knows we exist. Only Santa. We should just keep it that way."
"Well, one, I want to remember you, two, what kind of reason is that?" ever-hard-headed Sana pushes, "I'll make sure you are a secret between me and you, deal?"
Sana extends a hand, and it takes the girl long before she puts the mint-glint bottle on the coffee table and shakes Sana's arms, "Okay."
Sana felt like she just won Christmas, not only did she debunk the centuries-old myth of the existence of Santa Claus, she's even made friends with a cute— girl who works for him!
"Well, I better get going now, there's only about a few million kids left in the Kansai region," the girl says with a sad smile and opens the bottle with rainbow snow.
"Will you deliver my gifts next Christmas?" Sana asks as she helps pull the maroon sack to the fireplace—she's surprised of how light it is.
"You'll see," Sana finally sees the girl grin, warming Sana's living room more than the fireplace she's in.
"Well, see you later, elf!"
"I have a name, y'know."
"And have you said it already?”
"Momo," Momo finally reveals, "Hirai Momo."
"Then see you later, Mo— WAIT!" Sana rushes to get the cookie jar on the table, turns Momo around and put it inside her leather backpack.
Momo giggles and it makes the room light up ever so slightly, "You do know you just got the jar wrapped, right?"
"Then that makes it a Christmas gift from me to you," Sana says.
"That's supposed to be my job," Momo playfully rolls her eyes.
"Merry Christmas, Sana," was the last thing she said as she threw the rainbow powder and let her fall on her, making her vanish in thin air.
Sana went to sleep with a smile on her face and pretends to be as amused when she opens the gift by morning as her mom asks her where the cookie jar was.
The following year, Sana wishes to have a real shiba inu dog. She’s decided she wants to have something she can really interact with, something she doesn’t need to deep voice herself.
It was driving her insane how she needs to keep her mouth zipped for Momo and the delivery crew's sake (well, more for Momo), but she can't help but feel superior among her friends when they're debating over whether Santa is real.
Christmas came too slow yet too soon, and Sana finds herself under the Christmas tree (even if she doesn't need to) an hour before midnight for the second time around.
Oh, she finds herself sleeping again and being awaken by rustling in the chimney.
She crawls out a bit to get a better look, but something inside her was wrecked when green-panted legs unmistakably longer than Momo's and leather pointy boots dropped in the fireplace.
The green-pants person got out of the fireplace and stood in front of it, as if waiting for something; suddenly a familiar maroon sack fell on the pillows—Sana didn't forget to put pillows on the fireplace despite getting a hearing from her mom about their pillows looking burnt—.
The green-pants person pulled the sack out and hears the familiar flipping of pages, Sana's come to think it's probably the wishlist agenda.
"So this is her place, huh?" the green-pants person is now a green-pants girl, "Minatozaki Sana..
..Come out, I know you're under that Christmas tree."
Sana froze. How does she know?
"I also know you know of us.. y'know.. Claus' Christmas Courier Crew?"
Oh, she's like Momo, she thinks, there's no point in hiding anymore so she crawls out under the tree.
Standing beside the coffee table was a person who had similar clothing to Momo, wearing a dark red cloak covered in snow and a fern green vest and baggy pants in the same shade, with a Santa hat to finish it off. She looks like she's in the shorter kind, but she's definitely older than Sana and Momo.
"Where's Momo?" Sana asks, she even surprised herself by how downcast she sounded.
The older girl flips a few more pages in the thick, hardbound wishlist, "Oh, my sister?"
"Yeah, whe— sister?" Sana was dumbstruck. Well no wonder she looks like Momo who time travelled.
The older girl hummed, "Juniors won't be delivering gifts this year; it's all up to the Deft-Gifters."
The room suddenly lost color and Sana's never felt this devastated before, the older girl walks towards the maroon sack,
"But hey," Momo's sister opens up the sack and what pops up was a breathless Momo, "that doesn't mean they can't celebrate Christmas."
The Christmas lights were never this vivid, "onee, I nearly died—"
"MOMO!" Sana tightly hugs the girl who looks like a saggy jack-in-the-box, half out the sack and melts into Sana's warm hug.
Sana pulled away and helped Momo to stand, "You came, you actually came back!"
Momo steps a candy-cane-print-socked-foot on the carpet, "I never said I wouldn't."
Though I shouldn't, Momo thought to herself.
Sana takes a look at the inside of a sack, seeing a sea of toys and color, "Jeez, how can you even survive in there? Isn't it uncomfy in there?"
"Not really," the oldest Japanese says, "it's something magical so you can put anything in there without it getting full. It's Momo just complaining about anything as usual."
"Yaa, Hana-chan!" Momo shot an annoyed glare towards her sister, Hana, and Sana notices how Momo looks shorter than last year's visit.
Maybe they're really part elf? Sana kept to herself.
Momo walks back to the sack and pulls out a little crate that contains the cutest little shiba inu puppy in existence, sleeping.
To be honest Sana forgot she even wanted a dog the moment Momo bursted out of the maroon sack.
Both girls sit down on the carpet as Momo places the crate on it, "What do you wanna name him?"
"Santa." Sana says without second thoughts, it makes Hana chuckle a bit, "That's what I named my shiba inu plushie."
Hana gets something from under her cloak, and Sana sees it doubles as a toolkit as she took a fancy pair of pliers from it and gave it to Momo.
"What's that?" Sana asks.
"These are Modi-Pliers, look," she spins around the plier's handle and it changed in color, it stopped in pink and she squeezes an odd metal bit sticking out of the crate with the pliers.
Sana couldn't believe what she's seeing, she's seeing bits of the crate pulverize and fly apart and glow in pink—all the while the puppy slept—and all that pink glitter come back together and form a box wrapped in pink paper.
Sana's pretty sure her mouth looked like an 'o' throughout the demonstration. Momo smirks, "Now that is something elves see everyday," she emphasizes elves.
"Does Disney work with you guys?" Sana's eyes were now the ones sparkling.
"Eh, we're way cooler than them," Momo said proudly.
"I'm gonna go deliver now. Have fun, you guys," Hana walked in the fireplace and flared a smile towards the younger girls, "I'm picking you up at 3 or something, okay?"
"Alright, stay safe!" Momo bid.
Hana looked at Sana, "Sana, you're really not supposed to know of the Courier Crew's existence, consider yourself a lucky one—oh, and also thanks for the pillows." A familiar splash of rainbow made Hana disappear with the air.
"So," Sana starts, "Where do we start, elf?"
Momo rolls her eyes and grins, "Well, what do you wanna do?"
"Tell me everything about bei—" just then, something inside the pink box rumbled.
"Oh, Santa," Momo takes the pink lid off and lets the lively puppy pop up.
He jumps off the box and claimed Sana's lap, already liking her right off the bat. Sana runs her hand on his golden brown fur and he stands up licking Sana's chin.
"Yaa, calm down!" Sana giggles as Santa keeps licking her chin. Momo watches in awe, feeling all warm and fuzzy inside.
"Do you want to give him Rest-Zest?" Momo offers.
"No thanks. I like him this way." Sana says with a smile as Santa sniffs her around, "Come on, let's go to my room."
Sana holds Momo's hand as they quietly tiptoe up the stairs—except Santa, his short claws echoed as he followed them—and into Sana's room.
Sana decorated her room so it looks like North Pole as much as possible, with garlands in the ceilings with colorful Christmas lights and even a little Christmas tree on her desk. The three plop onto Sana's Christmas-themed bed and began their neverending exchange.
Sana found out Momo's eleven years old and Sana's about to turn eleven a few days after Christmas, Sana teases Momo on how she looks like a normal kid wearing a plain white t-shirt and red plaid pyjamas and not her usual elf uniform—"We're not elves!"—and how Momo probably is one because of her height; she tells Sana all about the winter wonderland that is North Pole and her time as a Junior in C4, how she encountered twenty-seven more kids like Sana but she made them all forget. That made Sana feel like the most special kid in the world. Momo attends delivery and snow-charm training in the North Pole on -ber months. Then they went to talking about their favorite things, Sana liked gingerbread and chocolate while Momo liked candy canes, how Momo seemed to like summer more and both haven't noticed time flew by and the younger drifts off to sleep.
In the morning, Momo was already gone and she opened Santa's pink box the second time around.
For Sana's eleventh Christmas, she didn't know what to wish for so she just asked for four cardigans and four smaller ones for Santa.
Some of Sana's friends don't believe in Santa Claus anymore, catching their parents wrapping their gifts or something. Maybe those gifts their parents wanted to gift themselves, Sana convinces herself.
Christmas came and Sana didn't hide under the tree anymore, thinking it's pointless, and just waits for Momo on their beige couch with Santa. Of course she falls asleep and just lets the clunking in the chimney wake her up.
But instead, shaking of her shoulders and soft barking woke her up.
"Sana, wake up," Sana forced her drowsy eyes to open up and sees a person with a dark red neckwarmer covered in snow.
Sana wanted to scream but her throat said otherwise, and instead pushed Santa towards the figure.
"S—Santa, fight him," Sana whisper-shouted but her dog didn't budge, heck, it even seemed to have sided with the intruder.
Then, the stranger took off their mask and showed the worried face of someone with bangs she'd been waiting for, "It's me, Momo!"
She took a sigh of relief and hugged Momo weakly, "You almost gave me a heart attack!"
"Sorry, it's been a busy night, and the snowstorm didn't help at all," Momo says, then she pulls away and grabs something from the maroon sack, Sana notices the clock saying it's two in the morning, "Here, the cardigans as you imagined it."
Sana received the cardigans already in a box, a bit saddened she won't get to see the lightshow of Momo's leather backpack again.
"I've got to go, I'm really sorry," Momo puts her mask back on and hugs Sana one last time, "I'll make it up to you next Christmas, okay?"
Sana couldn't do anything other than be disheartened and weakly ruffle Momo's bangs, "Okay."
Suddenly, Santa sprang from the couch and blocked the fireplace, as if sensing Sana's emotions begging for Momo to stay.
"Santa, please move a bit," Momo asks of the dog as she crouched down and patted its head.
Santa moved aside, sadness apparent as Momo made her way to the fireplace and took off the cork of a small bottle.
"Wait," Sana suddenly says, the powder glowing on Momo's gloved palm.
"You're real, right?"
It's probably the iridescent powder's trick, but a glint of something flickered in Momo's eyes.
"I'm as real as you believe me to be," Momo finally says, throwing the powder on her and vanishing.
But Sana was starting to doubt these days.
Hana got back to their cabin at the North Pole at seven in the morning, this year's delivery was nothing like before, she even thinks this year's sack was a bit heavier than last year's.
Hana pulls the door open, "Tadai—"
Loud sobbing from Momo on the couch cut her off. Hana pulled her neckwarmer down and ran to her sister.
"Yaa, what happened? Did you fall off th—"
"Sana," Momo forces out and hugs her knees even tighter, "I—I, she's.."
Hana rubs her sister's back, Crying Momo isn't an unusual sight for her, but something inside her feels like this time's different, heck, it's about Sana, "Shh, calm down. Breathe. What did Sana do?"
It took a while but Momo seemed to calm down ever so slightly, "She's—She's.."
Hana saw it coming. This is why it's in the code to make sure no kid knows of their existence.
"I think she's starting to doubt."
Sana is twelve now. For kids her age, they're concerningly skeptical and concerningly curious about everything around them, and it's about time she starts questioning about the matter of Christmas.
"Yaa," Sana starts as they eat lunch at their school's rooftop, "how are you guys so sure Santa doesn't exist?"
"Are you seriously asking that?" Yuta chortled.
"I am." Sana said seriously.
"We just.. know, Santa is just a made-up person who made our childhood a lot more colorful," Yuta properly replied, poking at his food with his chopsticks, "until we found our parents wrapping our gifts or when they made us look at it being bought.."
"Sa—tan, we're twelve-year-olds now," Mina says, "Do you still really—"
"I befriended a girl who helped Santa deliver gifts," Sana snapped, "there's even a whole crew of them! They even carry backpacks that gift-wraps everything put inside of it, and they have these bottles that have glowing.. snow."
Everyone in the circle looked at her as if she's grown a red nose. There Sana realizes why the crew had to throw mint snow to make kids forget.
Because it all sounds so stupid.
"Nevermind, it's probably just a dream.." Sana fought off the tears gathering in her eyes and distracted herself with an onigiri.
Sana still holds onto the hope that maybe, just maybe Mo—Santa exists. So she writes a letter for her.
"Let me get this straight, kiddo," the man in the post office said, "you want this sent to the.. Claus' Christmas Courier Crew Cabins in the North Pole?"
Sana eagerly nodded.
"Kid, how old are you?"
"Twelve."
The man looked pretty shocked, "Look, kid.. I hope you'll take this news easily but, Santa, he's not real. It's your family that's behind your gifts. Aren't you supposed to know that at this age?"
Sana felt tears creeping out and anger in her throat, "Why does everyone say that?! I saw with my own, naked eyes the magic that they worked up—just, please, send this for me.."
"That was probably just a dream, kid.." guilt filled the postman as he pushed Sana's letter away, "I know it's a bummer but.. we have to grow up."
That hit Sana square in the face, completely shattering the remaining hope she hung onto.
"Okay, sir.." Sana holds onto her tears and the letter, "sorry for the disturbance.”
Sana rushes to her house so she can finally cry. Santa—she regrets naming him that—comes up to her bawling infront of the door and sits beside her.
"Santa.." she calls inbetween her sobs, "you saw her too, right?"
The dog laid down the wooden floor with a blank expression.
"I'm so stupid—this is stupid," she forces out, "why am I crying over someone who's not even real?"
Sana couldn't take it anymore. She wasted no time to get up the stairs, Santa trailing behind her and goes into her room.
Sana pulls open her desk drawer, shoved the letter to its farthest corner and grabbed something that broke her all over again.
She takes the cork off the bottle that contains the snow that glows in mint shades. Santa lunged onto her as if trying to stop her, but it didn't work.
"I should've just let her made me forget a long time ago," Sana says.
Sana takes a deep breath and sprinkles the snow on her.
It felt like forever before she opened her eyes again. Sana feels the need to look at her hands, it was dusted with a bland, white powder. She wipes it off on her black pyjamas.
For some reason she doesn't know, Santa's looking at her with sad eyes.
"Yaa, what are you sad for?" Sana crouches down and carries the growing shiba dog, "You want some treats, don't you?"
Sana feeds a sulking Santa on the couch, but that didn’t seem to cheer him up.
Sana was content with what she has, so she wished for nothing on her twelfth Christmas and went malling with her friends.
Though she didn't wish for anything this year, it didn't stop Momo from visiting Sana's house.
Sana was snoring deeply under two thick blankets when Momo clunked through the chimney.
She fell on the fireplace with an unusual sting, what—
There weren’t pillows on the charcoal.
Momo already knew something was off and the darkness of Sana's living room verified it. The Christmas tree that usually greeted her with warm colors is now pitch-black and lifeless.
Something suddenly flashed in the back of Momo's head.
She starts her death march towards Sana's room, her mind getting clouded by this impending train of thought.
Sana.. hasn't, right? The thought of it makes Momo want to throw up.
Momo turns the knob of Sana's room quietly, and she wishes she never opened it.
Sana's room wasn't how it looked like the last time Momo saw it, it didn't have flamboyant garlands and lights all around anymore. Even if it doesn't look like a winter wonderland anymore, it looks cold.
And Sana was just sleeping this night like it's not a special night she’ll spend with an elf.
It hurts Momo how Sana didn’t even bother to celebrate for this night like she doesn’t even care about Christmas.
How it’s like she doesn’t believe in its spirit.
Doesn’t believe in them anymore.
Momo feels something freezing roll on her cheeks.
How Sana doesn’t believe in her anymore.
Momo rushes to get out of Sana’s house.
Christmas didn’t seem that colorful for both girls that year.
Sana's friends were simply shocked when she stayed over at Mina's house for their thirteenth Christmas.
"Merry Chr— Sana?" Mina rubbed her eyes making sure it's not an illusion, "Ah, Merry Christmas, Mr. And Mrs. Minatozaki."
"Happy holidays, Minari!" Sana said as she casually made her way in Mina's residence, while Sana's parents greet the girl back.
"Yaa, Minatozaki! Is that really you?" Even Yuta paused the heated Mario Kart race with his younger brother Riki and Aeri.
Mina shut their mahogany front door as Sana's parents make their way to the backyard, "You never came over back then," she giggled, "what's with the change of heart?"
"I don't know," Sana answers, "maybe puberty?"
She knows there's a real answer for that, but it's tucked somewhere in the farthest corners of her mind where she can't remember.
"No elf girl coming this year?" Aeri jokes.
"Oh, stop it with that." Sana playfully rolls her eyes.
"Us? Quit it with you and your Santa delivery girl that you've made friends with that has lots of bottles of sparkly snow?" Yuta replies and crashed into Luigi in the large TV, "YAA! THAT'S UNFAIR!"
"Have you seriously forgotten?" Mina giggles, "It's crazy how you were so fervent in seeing it with your own eyes."
Santa delivery girl and suspicious bottles of snow rang all the wrong bells in Sana's head,
"Crazy, right?" Sana smiles sadly, feeling her heart become heavy for some reason, "I bet it was just a dream."
"A dream we'll never shut up about," Mina teases, "but we're glad to have you here, Sa—tan."
"Ready to get your ass beaten in Mario Kart, Nakamoto?" Sana challenges as she hops on the couch.
"Oh, it's on," Yuta offers Sana a fancy wireless controller and the night begins.
Sana had the happiest Christmas in a long time. What a waste of her past Christmas nights, just what made her stay in her home and miss out on this?
Next Christmas, Sana and her parents were about to go out into the Christmas night to Mina's, Santa gently bit Sana's hand and lead her to their fireplace and barked at it. Sana doesn't really put it to mind and pats her dog's head.
Santa did it every Christmas.
That much time has passed and Sana and her friends are now on their sixteenth Christmas. For this year, they decided to go camping in Kyoto.
They plan to leave a week before Christmas so here was Sana in her room, packing her things for Christmas. Not even twenty minutes into packing she already has the clothing section packed up; clothing were Sana's thing. Now the accessories, this took her relatively longer because she just had too many. After a while of critical decision making, though, she has it all sorted out.
One last thing, her camera. She pulls open her desk's drawer and pulled out a purple Instax her parents bought her for her fourteenth Christmas. She was about to push the drawer back but something she never saw before stuck out from its farthest corners.
What's that? Sana thought. She picked it up.
It was a white envelope, Sana turns it around and sees her messy handwriting on the back and jam-packed with fading Christmas stickers.
"Claus' Christmas Courier Crew Cabins, huh.." Sana smiles as she reads the address, "What an imagination, eleven-year-old me."
Then, her eyes wandered on the text written in bigger, wobblier letters,
"Hirai Momo..?" Sana reads.
Santa suddenly springs from his place on Sana's unmade bed and goes to Sana's side, as if prompted by the name.
"Now, who's this Momo person, Santa?" Sana jokingly asks the dog beside her, "sounds like one of Santa's elves—not your elves."
Sana decides to open the envelope and sees a letter inside. She reads a way messier handwriting about how her friends don't believe in Santa anymore and senses how desperate past Sana was about a Christmas wish: spending Christmas with Momo.
Sana knows it's just her overactive imagination that made up this girl and their stories, but something about it made her shudder and return the letter back to the depths of her drawer.
The imaginary girl named Hirai Momo bothered her more than she should.
"Wake up, sleepyhead," Mina gently shakes the shoulder of the sleeping girl beside her.
Sana just seems to sink her cheek deeper into Mina's shoulder.
"Yaa, we're in Kyoto now."
Sana stretched and yawned almost instantly, "Yeah, ohayou," taking a look outside the moving van's windows with blurry eyes.
It was like something out of a movie, they were running through a quiet road in the middle of a sakura forest, its falling petals painting the scenery with a soft white glow.
The way the petals seemed like floating ivory sparkles that form a bigger picture brings a distant memo—image back in Sana's mind.
It felt magical.
Sana made sure it’s captured in a polaroid.
They got out of the forest too soon and stop in the parking lot of some cozy, wooden inn village beside a placid frozen lake.
They went through the glass doors of the main building and rings the bell, and almost immediately a shorter woman comes behind the counter.
"Ohayou, I'm Hirai Hana, what can I do for you?"
Hirai. The surname echoed throughout Sana.
It doesn't help that she thinks she's seen this woman before sometime in a special night.
"How many people can a cottage shelter?" Mina's dad asks the lady, since he's the one who'll pay for the week.
"A smaller inn can shelter a family of four," Hana eyes the lot of Mina's group and Sana was sure Hana's expression shifted for a split second when she laid her eyes on her, "but, considering your lot.. I guess one of the larger cottages can suit you all."
Sana felt something odd stir in her stomach when she had eye contact with the woman. It felt like she owes her something she doesn't know. It makes her want to leave.
"The largest cottage it is, then," Mr. Myoui fishes for his wallet as Hana hands her the keys and a map and makes their way to their holiday home.
If Sana's group didn't leave so soon, she would've seen a girl with bangs go through the wooden glass doors for her last day of school.
Sana spent the rest of her morning on the cottage's bed staring at the ceiling, trying so hard to remember anything Momo.
"Ittekimasu," Momo tiredly called out as she lazily slipped her feet in brown converse shoes.
"Yaa, Momo-chan." Hana replied and Momo turned her head to Hana, "what if I told you that.."
Hana shakes her head, "Nevermind."
"What is it?" Momo's puffer jacket lightly crunched when she crossed her arms.
"It's really nothing," Hana convinces, "I'll be leaving later midnight. The elves say it's going to be a tough year."
Momo was unfazed but just drops it, "If you say so."
"Enjoy your bland, human, high school life, loser. Stay safe," Hana says instead as Momo goes through the glass doors.
Hana slumps down the chair. Momo spent a wish, became a normal human for exactly this to happen, but Momo could've almost wished for something that will hurt her more than the first time.
Oh, Momo..
Sana's group decides to mess around in the snow at sunset. It felt like they were kids again, laying around and making snow angels all over the place, making snowmen versions of themselves and get into a heated warfare with snowballs—even Mina went savage as she full-on barraged Yuta with snowballs.
After a while—that means two hours—their bodies couldn't keep up with their spirits and went back to their cottage. They played Mario Kart after eating and all of them are knocked asleep; well, except for Sana. Not when Momo rang non-stop in her head.
In no way is she going to sleep like this, so she gets out of bed a few minutes before midnight, wears the thickest jacket laying around and enters the cold Kyoto midnight.
She walks around on the snow-covered gravel path, hoping her worries will be left with her footprints. But of course that doesn't work. It makes her want to remember more.
Everything was quiet and only a few cottages were warmly lit, the chirps of the winter crickets taking over. She wishes she brought her camera.
Then, Sana hears murmurs from the main building.
Those voices sounded painfully familiar.
"Stay safe, onee," the voice made her want to cry for some reason.
"Nah, you stay safe," it sounded like the lady in the front desk earlier.
Sana's hand pushes the door on its own.
Sana would've noticed the faint, colorful sparkling in the fireplace if she didn't have her eyes on a familiar girl with bangs standing in front of it.
She might as well think time stopped, maybe this moment is special, maybe it's like a pivotal scene in a movie where the answer finally clicks and her life takes a U-turn back somewhere.
"What are you standing there for?" Sana breaks the silence.
The girl shakes her head—her bangs shook too—out of a daze, "What are you standing there for?"
"I don't know, I've heard people talking in here," Sana leans on the doorframe, "so I guess there's some elfery gifting going on here."
The girl smiled and her eyes softened and Sana can feel her chest tighten, "Elfery? What are you, ten?"
"I'm sixteen, but yeah," Sana walks forward to the girl, "I wonder just what made me believe in Santa and his courier crew until I'm prepubescent."
Sana doesn't know why all she's saying comes so naturally, like she's meant to have this conversation. She's now in front of the girl and notices she's only as tall as Sana's chin.
"And what are you," Sana suddenly says, "an elf?"
The girl twirls a finger in Sana's newly-dyed pastel pink hair, "Coming from Princess Bubblegum."
Sana jokingly hovers her hand on the girl's black hair, "Coming from an elf."
"I have a name, y'know," Sana feels like this conversation happened before.
"And have you said it already?”
"I have, and you forgot," Sana knows this.
"Can you tell me what it was again?"
The girl embraces her and mumbles a name her mind forgot but her heart remembers.
"Momo," Momo's arms wrapped around her tighter, "Hirai Momo."
Sana sank her head onto Momo's shoulder, maybe it's the lights' trick but she sees flashes of fragments of what she thinks are memories, how there are blurry lights around a green figure, a red block of brick, a blob of something golden brown, and a warm silhouette of a girl in red and green.
This moment alone proved two things in the letter Sana wrote a long time ago.
One, this is real.
Two, maybe her wish of spending Christmas with Momo will be granted this year.
But Sana makes another wish for this Christmas. She might’ve forgotten, but she’ll make sure she’ll remember this time.