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Nijika was still only half awake when she climbed out of bed.
The usual morning routine – get up, get dressed, get coffee, and then prepare breakfast for everyone. Nijika doesn’t even remember when it started anymore, but she’s been doing it this way for as long as she could remember (though before she moved out of her family’s place and in with her girlfriends, the coffee hadn’t been part of the routine).
Sometimes she questioned why she was the one responsible for doing it all the time, but to be fair, she got to sleep in on the weekends, and sometimes her partners would take over for her. It was frequent enough for her to feel like they weren’t just pushing the duty on her, at least.
Still, usually there was some occasion for it, so when Nijika entered the kitchen, she wasn’t expecting to find –
“Ikuyo.”
“Ah!” Kita immediately turned around and gave her a bright smile, far too much so for this early in the day. “Good morning, Nijika!”
Nijika squinted to at least avoid most of the Light Elemental Damage being dealt to her. “Good… morning? What are you doing up this early?”
“Nothing in particular,” Kita said with a smile that said there is something particular. Still, it didn’t look like she was going to fork over an answer so easily (for her standards, anyway), and Nijika had little interest in pestering her at the moment.
“Did you already make breakfast?” she asked instead before letting out a long yawn.
“Not yet, but the coffee’s on the table already!”
That was something at least, but Kita’s ever brightening expression only invited more suspicion. Nijika checked her chair before sitting down, the cup sitting on her coaster, and the coffee inside.
At this point, Kita was radiating enough light to replace the lamp in the room. For a moment, Nijika thought about hanging Kita from the ceiling instead, before realizing how morbid that sounded.
Oh well, early morning thoughts.
She took a sip of coffee. It tasted normal. There was no strange aftertaste or anything, and Nijika was ready to assume the surprise was still waiting for her, but after a few seconds of looking at Kita in confusion, Nijika was shocked to see her face fall.
“What?” Nijika asked, genuinely at a loss.
“Did you really not notice anything?” Kita asked, disappointed. “Anything out of the ordinary today?”
Nijika felt a little tempted to roll her eyes, but decided to humor her and retraced her steps. She sat down, took the cup from her coaster, and…
…Since when did they have color-coded coasters?
She looked down in front of her, and yeah, that was a knit yellow coaster for her cup. There were three other ones in pink, red, and blue for everyone else.
They didn’t look particularly high-quality, to be honest, but – wait, were these handmade?
Nijika lifted her cup. There was a Dorito sticker in the middle of her coaster. Kita snorted.
“You’re an idiot,” Nijika fake-complained, not able to keep the smile off her face.
“Sorry, sorry,” Kita chuckled, “it was just too easy of a joke to make.”
“I would’ve hoped you’d put a little more thought into your jokes.”
“Ryo’s the one going overboard with her antics. I’m aiming for something more low-key.”
“What a contrast to both of your personalities,” Nijika sighed, drinking down the rest of her coffee in one go. “But anyway, I didn’t know you knitted. Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I didn’t tell anyone,” Kita said. “Because I wanted it to be a surprise.”
Nijika hummed and kept looking at Kita. Kita looked away. Nijika raised an eyebrow.
For just a moment, there was an awkward silence in the room, but Kita was well aware that Nijika could keep this up for a while if needed, so she folded rather quickly.
“A-And,” she began, shifting from one foot to the other, “I just… wasn’t sure I’d stick with it. Didn’t want to get your hopes up for nothing if I ended up abandoning it again.”
Ah, Nijika just made. Yes, that did make sense.
“But I finished this much, at least,” Kita continued. “Because I wanted to make something for all of you.”
The smile crept back onto Nijika’s face. She stood up and pulled Kita into a hug. “They’re great, sunshine. Thank you.”
Kita returned the hug, her breath a bit shaky as she buried her head in Nijika’s neck.
For a few moments, they shared a comfortable silence. Eventually though, Nijika broke it again.
“Is it possible to still remove that sticker somehow?”
Kita barked a laugh.