Archive of Our Own ^beta

A Wonderlands x Showtime show on Christmas Eve! It had been one of Tsukasa’s best ideas, if he did say so himself. Most people spent Christmas Day with their families, but many, including Tsukasa himself, found the day before to be too empty. What better time to put on a show for the whole family but Christmas night? As long as they didn’t finish up too late, it would be fine for kids to come to before bed – and Tsukasa got to hang out with his best friends in the whole world! A win-win situation.

The others had received his idea with enthusiasm, but it soon transpired that there could be all sorts of roadblocks to this kind of performance. For one, Phoenix Wonderland would be on reduced opening at the time, so they would have to get special permission. Emu said she could handle that. Rui had to pull together some of their performances for a reprise sort of thing, since the event would be so close that they could hardly create an entirely new routine. Nene had been helping Rui with that too, adding in a few more Christmas touches, and they’d all been practicing like crazy.

So that left Tsukasa with perhaps the simplest, yet most strenuous task – clear off the snowed-in Wonder Stage.

Like most people, he had been childishly overjoyed when the snow had started halfway through December, but the longer it continued, the more worried he had become. Usually, Phoenix Wonderland hired people to shovel snow out of the way of the paths, but the Wonder Stage had been somewhat neglected since Wansho became a travelling group, so on their return, they found the whole stage and audience area covered nearly a foot deep in snow!

Needless to say, Tsukasa was less enthused about how much snow they had got once he had been trying to shovel it out of the way for almost an hour – and he hadn’t even got started on the stands!  

To make matters worse, his nose was running. Tsukasa sniffed for what felt like the thousandth time. He definitely hoped this wasn’t going to make him catch cold. The work warmed him up a bit, but even in a hat, scarf and coat, he felt a bit shivery. Plus, being alone made him sad! It wasn’t like his troupe members could have helped – they were working on other aspects of the show, of course – but the cold just felt so much colder when you were by yourself.

After clearing the surface of the stage, even the ever-energetic, world future star Tsukasa Tenma felt the need to rest. He let out a sigh, sitting down on the edge of the stage with his legs swinging, and gave a sigh. He felt like lying down, but the surface of the stage still felt wet from its previous snow covering. Instead, he just tipped his head back, closing his eyes.

Tsukasa couldn’t believe he was already this tired… hadn’t he worked harder rehearsing for shows before? But something about this task had more kick. In fact, he was nearly on the edge of considering something so shameful as giving up (unthinkable!) when an oddly familiar voice cut through his thoughts.  

“Senpai? What’re you doing here?”

“E-Eh?!” Tsukasa turned to see the source of the voice – one Akito Shinonome, leaning over the fence outside of the park. He actually hadn’t seen him since school closed for the holidays… Tsukasa couldn’t quite tell, but maybe he got his hair cut? It definitely felt like something was different about him. Maybe it was the sight of him in winter clothes… or in trousers that actually covered his calves. Whatever it was though, he had been scrutinizing Akito for a little too long now – the guy in question was tilting his head at him.

“A-Ah, Akito! It’s wonderful to see you. However, I could certainly ask you the same question. What brings you here to Phoenix Wonderland?”

Akito laughed a little, for reasons Tsukasa couldn’t quite tell. “You first! I asked first.”

“Oh.” Tsukasa’s face dropped a little, but he jumped off the stage to pose dramatically in front of Akito as usual. “Well! Wonderlands x Showtime will be putting on a show tonight, for Christmas! And I, the future star, have been given by far the most important task – ensuring the venue is perfect for our best performance yet!”

Akito still looked amused. “Oh, right. So you’re shoveling snow.”

This only earned him a frown from Tsukasa. “…Yes. Well, answer my question! Why did you pass by, Akito?”

Akito sighed, putting his hands up as if in surrender. “Alright. Ena asked me to pick something up for her… but…”

“Huh? Why are you stopping here then, you know the shops are way too busy at this time of year!”

Akito grimaced a little. “It’s not that important… still, I wasn’t gonna, but I noticed you here doing your impression of a wet cat all cold and alone.”

Tsukasa scowled, and walked over to Akito properly. “Hey! I wasn’t doing any impression like that!”

“You look all cold and alone.”  He laughed again, then seemed to compose himself a bit, not meeting Tsukasa’s eyes. “I guess what I’m saying is… do you need a hand?”

To his credit, Tsukasa was surprised. “E-Eh? Really…? But… you still need to go get… whatever Ena asked for.”

Akito’s only answer was vaulting over the fence – casually, as if it was nothing. “She’ll live. I’ll probably still be able to get it once we’re done. Got another shovel?”

“I… I guess so.” Tsukasa still looked a little bewildered, but smiled at Akito. “Thank you.”

“No problem.” He brushed it off, just taking the shovel that Tsukasa gave him.

---

Around thirty minutes later, Akito was starting to understand why Tsukasa had been looking so cold and wet. Obviously he’d shoveled the driveway before, but the volume of snow around the stage was incredible. The snow was melting onto his jacket, it felt like they weren’t getting anywhere, and besides, it was boring. Unfortunately for Tsukasa, though, he had just had an idea.

The next time Tsukasa looked up, trying to see what Akito was doing, he was hit square in the face by a snowball.

“Gaaah!” he exclaimed, his feet slipping and sliding almost comically before he fell backwards into a snowdrift.

“S-Sorry!” Akito’s voice sounded muffled, probably from the amount of snow which now was seeping into Tsukasa’s ears. “Wasn’t meant for your face! Do you need help?”

The now snow-covered boy grumbled a bit, and managed to stand up again. “What a thing to do to the future star…” He looked down at the floor, seemingly offended.

Akito frowned, genuinely a little worried he had hurt Tsukasa. “I’m really sorry, I just got bored, and- Aah!” In a surprise attack, Akito’s words were cut off by a snowball Tsukasa had hidden in his hand, and he stumbled over just like Tsukasa had.

“Ha ha ha! Retaliation!” Tsukasa grinned widely, but Akito wasn’t going to be bested so easily.

Regaining his feet, he gave a cheeky smile. “Oh, it’s on.” With that, he hurled another snowball at Tsukasa’s, who barely dodged, the projectile smashing on the edge of his jacket instead. In turn, he bent to the ground to grab another snowball, but was hit a second time, this time hitting his body squarely.

It didn’t take long before the two were exchanging blows with vigor, as if the snowball fight was life and death, ducking and dodging and getting knocked over. Though neither of them had brought gloves, the sting of the cold could never dull pure adrenaline. Akito ducked behind a half snow-covered bench, popping up only to throw snowballs, which worked pretty well. Until Tsukasa ran behind the stage.

“Hey! That’s out of bounds!” Akito protested.

“Says who? Come get me!”

Akito wasn’t stupid. He knew it was a trap – but he certainly could counter-ambush! He picked up a few more handfuls of snow from the ground, his hands almost stinging from the cold, and crept around the side of the stage.

His few hidden snowballs could have been a real asset had Tsukasa been planning to try and hit him with the same. They could still be useful even if Tsukasa’d had time to stockpile far more than he had behind the stage. So Akito was fully prepared to dodge a snowball. What he wasn’t prepared for, however, was to dodge Tsukasa himself.

“Yaaah!!” Tsukasa yelled, laughing and launching his body right at Akito. He knocked them both right back into the snowdrift Tsukasa fell into earlier. Almost to add insult to injury, once they landed, Tsukasa dropped a particularly melty handful of snow right onto Akito’s face.

“Ughhh…” Akito groaned, the snowdrift only having done so much to cushion his fall. “That’s a dirty trick.”

“It was a dirty trick when you started this by catching me off guard!” Tsukasa moved to Akito’s other side with a bright, triumphant grin, as Akito tried to sit up. “A win is a win.”

Akito rubbed the snow off of his hair somewhat dejectedly. “That’s not a win, that’s just another new way you’ve given me a headache. Just literally this time.”

“Awh. So mean.” From his place on the floor, Tsukasa turned to face Akito, and their eyes met. It held for just a second before they both burst out laughing.

“Hahaha! You should have seen your face!”

“Ahaha! Look at you, you’re covered in snow!”

“So are you!”

Looking down at his jacket, Akito saw that Tsukasa’s words were true. “…Ah.”

Tsukasa giggled a little more, covering his mouth to try and stifle it, his cheeks and nose rosy from the cold. “Aah. That was fun.”

Akito tried to stifle his smile as he looked at Tsukasa’s similar predicament, but failed, both his face and heart feeling warm. “Yeah… it was.”

They lay there in the snow for another minute or so, just looking up at the sky, before Tsukasa bolted up, as quickly as if he had been fired out of a cannon. (In all fairness, Akito had it on good authority that this had happened to him before, so clearly he had the practice.) “Wait! We can’t keep just lying here, we still didn’t finish clearing everything!”

“Oh, right…” Akito replied, begrudgingly picking himself up with far less urgency than his companion. “I might’ve had an idea for that, actually…”

“Hm?” Tsukasa perked up a bit, his eyes brighter, if that was even possible.

“We’re nearly done, so… Let’s build a snowman?”

Oddly, the snowball fight had probably actually helped with the snow shovelling job. At least now a lot of the snow was in small chunks rather than all over the place. It didn’t take long for the two to collect them all together, then Akito took the last two and handed one to Tsukasa. “You do the head, I’ll do the body.”

“What?” Tsukasa looked so appalled that Akito wondered if he’d accidentally wished ill upon the entire Tenma family. “You must be speaking in jest, Akito! You need two body sections! Snowmen are made of three parts!”

“Eh? Are you crazy? Body and head. That easy.”

“Your snowmen must be very disproportionate.”

“You are crazy! Snowmen don’t have any defined proportions…” Akito shook his head as if in exasperation. “Anyway. My defense of my way is that it’ll probably help us clean up faster.”

Tsukasa sighed, and conceded. “You have a point…”

Akito just smiled at him, and took his snowball over to the back of the audience, rolling it around to pick up all the snow. At some point, Tsukasa must have finished with his own snowball, and just stood watching him. Akito squinted at him. “Hey, we still need sticks and rocks. For the face and arms.”

“Oh! Right.” It didn’t take long for Tsukasa to find some suitable sticks, but he was still crouched down in the gravel by the time Akito had finished his snowball. He left it behind to go and check on Tsukasa, who was examining every rock very carefully.

“What’re you doing?” Akito tilted his head. “Just pick one…?”

“Rock choosing is a very serious business, my dear junior,” Tsukasa proclaimed, looking up at Akito. “Ah! Here we are. Now they match.”

The two rocks that Tsukasa held up did match impressively well, so they both moved over to construct the snowman.

“Ah! You were right, Akito, it’s all cleared now.”

“Right, and now the snowman can be a decoration.” Akito put the head on the body, moving to let Tsukasa make the face. If he pulled his scarf further up to hide his blush at the slight compliment, that was his business.

Once he’d put the face, though, Tsukasa reached back into the snowdrift for two more handfuls, placing them on top of the snowman’s head. He squashed them into more triangular shapes, then stepped back to admire his handiwork. “Look! Now it’s a cute cat snowman.”

Akito raised his eyebrows, surprised. “Its neck looks too thin without a scarf. Yours would kind of match, I think…?”

“Of course!” Tsukasa’s eyes lit up, but then he came to a realization. “But then… I wouldn’t have my scarf. I’ll catch cold! I have a performance tonight, you know.”

“Just take mine,” Akito replied, shrugging like it was nothing.

Tsukasa’s eyes widened, and he almost stumbled over his words. (and did his face get redder?) “B-But… then you’ll catch a cold!”

“I’ll be fine, don’t worry about me!” Akito leaned over to gently untie Tsukasa’s scarf, holding it up high before he could react. He replaced it quickly with his own, not quite making eye contact.

Tsukasa still looked a little bewildered, but he stood up almost comically straight and bowed lightly to thank him. “Thank you! I’m indebted to you, Akito!”

“D-Don’t say that… It’s really nothing…” Akito mumbled, instead busying himself with putting the scarf onto the snowman. “There you go. Much nicer.”

“You’re definitely going to catch a cold, though… we’re all soaked!” It was true. The snow from earlier had melted off their jackets, and Akito could feel it trying to seep through his sweater as well.

“So could you, in that case.” Akito rubbed the back of his head a little sheepishly. “Well… ah. If you’re going to fuss… I don’t live too far from here? If you don’t mind, I have spare coats.”

“Really? You’re okay with that?”

“’Course. Why wouldn’t I be?”

“Well then!” Tsukasa beamed, as if he had just won the lottery. “Onwards, my dear junior!”

“Y-You seriously have to quit calling me that… Akito is fine…”

---

“…And so I told him to go get something for me, right? To quit moping around the house and go find someone to go out with – he called me a hypocrite for that, by the way, like he ALWAYS does – and he actually managed it! Ugh, this is so unfair.” Ena complained, messing with her mic to try and get it to work properly. “Come on, tell me you think it’s unfair, Mizuki!”

On the other end of the call, Mizuki laughed. “No way? ‘Lil’ bro’ is better at finding people to hang out with than you?”

“Hey! You count as someone to hang out with.” She turned on the kettle to make some kind of hot drink for herself, pretending it didn’t make her as miffed as it did.

“From your outrage, I’m kind of getting that it wasn’t just Toya?” There was a trace of a laugh in Mizuki’s voice.

“Not even! Maybe I would’ve expected that, they’re practically joined at the hip half the time, but he came back with Tsukasa! Tsukasa, Amia! It’s got to be my own shortcoming!”

“I don’t think so, Ena…”

“But still! Not only did they hang about here for way too long — and he’s wearing Akito’s clothes now, can you believe it? — he’s off at some show that guy’s group is doing. I know it ended nearly an hour ago! They have to be on a date, and if not, as good as. You can’t go out with just one other person on Christmas Eve and escape… the allegations…”* She dropped a teabag in a mug and poured the hot water over it, having decided on tea.

“What, like us?”

“That’s different! You and Yuki actually did go out today, that’s what it’s like.”

Mizuki pretended to be offended by the remark. “Well, still! As friends, doesn’t this also count? Is it so bad to just spend the night talking to me?”

Ena sighed. “Of course not, Amia. This does count as hanging out."

“Hehe! Merry Christmas, then.”

“…Merry Christmas.”