Work Text:
Sidewalks, stairs, benches, even most of the trees had been covered in a beautiful pure white. The sole exception was one that could just barely be seen, poking out above far away buildings: A single shock of green, with all manner of Christmas lights wound around it whose warmth could be felt even from this school on the edge of town.
Riku couldn't wait until school was out, he had to go see it up close. All throughout class he'd watched, waiting for the signal that the tree was done... And now that the lights were on, he was buzzing with excitement. Whatever else the teacher had said after that point was lost on him, so focused was he on how many pictures he was going to take as soon as he could.
"Nanase-san..." A hand waved in front of his face. "Nanase-san!"
He blinked, rubbing at his face - after staring at something far away for so long, he was having trouble adjusting to seeing something so close. "W-whuh?" He asked.
"Honestly... Just how out of it are you?" The blurry face in front of him shook from side to side. "Don't tell me you were so out of it you missed the final bell..."
"The final bell?!" His classmate and friend Iori came into focus, his disapproving frown plain to see. "Then, we can go right?! It's fine if we go?!"
"Huh? Obviously..." Iori looked as though Riku had sprouted a second head. "Who asks if it's okay to go after being told school is out...? What an odd- hey!" Riku had grabbed Iori's hand with his right, and his own backpack with his left. "Nanase-san?!"
"Let's go, then!" Riku cheered, slinging his backpack over his shoulder.
"W-wait, I didn't...!" Iori protested as Riku dragged him out into the hall.
"You said it's fine if we go!" Riku explained once they were on the stairs, having to slow his mad rush down so they didn't fall.
"You meant it like that?!" Iori couldn't help but whine. "Nanase-san, you need to be clearer with your words when you're asking someone something...!"
"Huh?" Riku stopped suddenly when they got to the bottom of the stairs, looking up at Iori. "Do you not want to go see the tree...?"
"I..." With Riku looking up at him with those big wide puppy-like eyes of his, there was no way he could refuse. "...was planning on going to see it, yes. It's tradition, after all. I was simply planning to go by my..."
Riku's giggles drowned out the rest of Iori's words. "Then what's the big deal? It'll look better if Iori's there, after all!"
"Huh? What, what are you- Nanase-san!" But before Iori could finish asking Riku to clarify what he meant, Riku was dragging him along at the speed of light again.
"We're here!" Riku finally let go of Iori's hand once the base of the tree was in sight, rushing forward to stare up at it. "Whoa...!" He hadn't been able to make them out back at school, but now that he was standing right beside it he could see the ornaments of all shapes and colors hanging off the giant fir's branches. "So pretty...! How does it keep looking better every year?!"
"I imagine the concurrent increase of tourists has something to do with it..." Iori mumbled, knowing that Riku wasn't looking for an actual answer. Now that he was no longer being dragged along, he'd slowed down a lot. He wasn't sure how his fellow classmate managed to have so much energy even in the cold of winter... Oh, speaking of. "Nanase-san!"
"Iori?" Riku looked back to see Iori jogging up to him.
"Please lend me your backpack." Without waiting for a response, Iori had already unzipped the loosely hanging backpack and was rifling through Riku's things.
"H-hey?!" Though he yelped a token protest, he didn't make any effort to actually get Iori away from him.
"Here!" He slipped Riku's backpack off of him as he pulled something out of it. "You're going to catch a cold if you don't put this on!" Riku blinked a few times, realizing that in his rush to run out he'd forgotten to put on his coat.
"Ah!" He took it from Iori in a hurry, sliding his backpack off into Iori's waiting arms. "I completely forgot! Thanks, Iori!" He tugged the sleeves over his arms, fiddling with the buttons as he tried to snap them together in a hurry.
"You really are..." Iori sighed, slinging Riku's still open backpack over his shoulders as much as he could while still wearing his own. "Let me see." He shooed Riku's hands away, bending down slightly to help him button his coat up.
"Hey! I can do that myself, you know!" Riku whined, trying to shake Iori off. Iori responded simply by stepping on the toe of Riku's boots to keep him in place. "Iori!"
"If I left it to you, you'd be staring down your front so long you'd hardly have any time left to actually admire the tree!" Iori huffed, securing the final button and stepping back. "There. I'm already done."
Riku huffed, refusing to look at Iori after he manhandled him like a child. But it was hard to stay mad in the tree's presence, not when it was so bright and warm.
While Riku was distracted, Iori knelt down to continue rooting through his backpack. However, the object of his search, the mittens he was so sure that Riku's parents would have sent with him, were nowhere to be found. "You left them behind again..." He grumbled, Riku choosing not to hear him. "When you catch frostbite and your fingers fall off," He zipped the backpack back up, and stood up. "I'm telling your family it was your fault." He thrust the backpack at Riku, standing between him and the tree.
"Iori..." Riku sighed, beside himself with how much his friend was over-reacting. "I'm fine." He took the backpack, sliding the handles back over his arms. "Besides..." He looked down at Iori's pale hands. "You aren't wearing anything either."
A spark of mischief flashed across his face, an idea coming to him. Taking Iori's hands in his, he whispered conspiratorially, "Maybe I should tell Mitsuki that Iori's trying to catch frostbite?" He grinned, holding their hands up between them.
It didn't make any sense to Iori why Riku's hands were so warm, not when they had just been running through the freezing cold. And not only were they warm, they were also surprisingly soft... and... nice feeling...
No, he couldn't let himself get carried away! "Na-nanase-san!" He ripped his hands out of Riku's grip, holding them close to his chest. "I- Need I remind you that you were the one who dragged me out of school before I was ready?! I didn't have a chance to put my gloves on!" He backed away, his backpack rustling the tree branches behind him.
"Huh?! You brought some?!" Riku blinked, surprised. Iori had already put his coat on by the time he'd called out to Riku back at school, so he'd assumed he was all ready to go and just didn't have anything to cover his hands with either...
"Of course! Don't put me on the same level as you." Just as he started to reach back to unzip his backpack, Riku surged forward to take his hands once again. "Nanase-san?!"
"But! I didn't! So-!" Riku had acted without thinking, some subconscious part of him sad to imagine Iori covering his hands. "So! You should! Help me keep them warm! And, and, if you put your gloves on... That'll, uh, smother your own warmth! So, it's, like, counter-intuitive!" He crowded Iori up against the tree, clenching Iori's hands in a death grip.
"H-huh?!" If Iori's face had heated up the first time Riku had grabbed his hands, that was nothing compared to how red his face was now. "N...Nanase-san, just so we're both on the same page..." Iori's gaze was focused on their hands, not on Riku's own increasingly red face. "You... want me to be your... mittens?"
"Yup!" Riku chirped, nodding his head forward because seeing how red Iori was was only making him more embarrassed. "I-isn't it a good idea? Iori's way warmer than some stupid mittens...!"
"Well..." Iori closed his eyes, trying to ground himself by counting his breaths. One... two... three... "I suppose your logic is sound, even if the end result is... a bit odd..."
"It's not weird!" Riku protested, even though he knew the way he was acting went beyond the regular boundaries of friendship. "I mean, um... Yeah, remember how Tenn-nii made you promise when he accepted that exchange student thingie? That you'd totally keep me safe and stuff? This is just part of that! So it isn't weird!"
Iori sighed, resting his head against their conjoined hands. "No. If that brother of yours saw us now, he'd definitely object." Even the thought of it made his head hurt...
"No way! Tenn-nii'd definitely be happy! I'll prove it!" Riku let go of one of Iori's hands to reach around to his backpack, his hand immediately feeling colder for the loss of Iori's. "Um, it's..." Eventually he found the zipper he was looking for and unzipping one of the smaller outer pockets of his backpack. "Here!" He pulled out his phone, presenting it to Iori. "We'll take a picture, and he'll see how happy we are, and he'll be all like, whoa! They look really happy! I'm happy too!"
"Absolutely not." Though he couldn't exactly escape given that they were still half holding hands, Iori pressed his free hand against the phone's viewfinder. "Every time you decide to prove something about your brother, I always wind up with at least a half-dozen threatening texts from him."
Tenn preferred to speak to Iori as little as possible, for the most part communicating with Iori solely by emoji. Iori wasn't sure how Tenn made a smiling emoji feel that threatening, but he didn't want any more of the cute little pictures ruined for him. He would pass on any unnecessary communication with the older twin, thank you very much.
"Geez!" Riku whined, trying to wrest Iori's hand off his phone. "Tenn-nii isn't threatening you! You're so weird, Iori! He'll be happy, I promise!"
Iori really wished he had Riku's optimism, but, unfortunately, he knew better. If he let Riku take a picture of them holding hands, and let him send it off to his brother with a joyful message of, 'Iori's keeping me warm!', then he will have to sleep with one eye open for the rest of his life.
"How about this, Nanase-san?" Thanks to the walking reminder of his own mortality that Nanase Tenn was, Iori had completely forgotten about his previous embarrassment."I'll take a picture of you in front of the Christmas tree, you'll keep your hands behind your back so he can't see you forgot your mittens, and then we can send your brother a nice picture of you smiling that he'll actually like, rather than forcing him to see my face too."
"What's with that? Iori's face is nice!" As he was saying, thanks to the walking reminder of his own mortality that Nanase Tenn was, Iori had completely forgotten about his previous embarrassment. "The picture won't look right if Iori isn't in it!"
"That's-" Just picture Tenn's face, Iori. Picture him looking at you like you're a cockroach to be stepped on, and live. "That's just how you feel. I'm sure he only wants to see you..."
"But I want to see Iori!" A cockroach... He was a cockroach... Wait, what was the point of this exercise again?
"I, uh-"
"Come on, Iori! It's Christmas!" Riku squeezed Iori's hand, and that was it for Iori's sense of self preservation.
"We'll take two pictures!" Iori shook Riku's hand off of him, and tried to step back only to find he was as far back as the tree would let him stand. "One of just you, for your brother, and one of the both of us, to make you happy!"
Riku had looked hurt for a moment when Iori shook off his hand, but he brightened up at Iori's compromise. "Okay!" Of course, he'd be sending both pictures to his beloved Tenn-nii, but if Iori was embarrassed then he didn't have to know that!
"Good. I'm glad that's settled." Iori sighed, slowly extricating himself from the spiky pine needles he'd found himself caught in. "We'll take the one of you by yourself first."
"Okay, but..." Iori's extraction looked kind of hard... Some of the needles had really pierced into his backpack while both of them were distracted with each other. "Do you... need help?"
"No, I-" Just as he was about to deny Riku's offer, the two boys heard a loud rip and froze. "-don't, know what that was."
"Um..." Riku leaned around Iori to look at his backpack. "It... doesn't look that bad?" He offered hopefully, before placing his phone in his mouth to use both his hands to try to free Iori's backpack from the giant Christmas tree that really, really wanted to keep him. However, as he did so, the tear grew bigger... Thankfully Iori's backpack was pretty thick so nothing was in danger of falling out, but the cool and sharp look was definitely ruined.
Though he had been freed, Iori was scared to take his backpack off to examine the damages. He took a few more timid steps forward before kneeling down to slide the backpack off. He breathed, resuming his counting game from earlier. Four... Five... Six... Seven... Not letting himself wait any longer, he picked the backpack up and set it down in front of him. "Ahhh..."
"I-it's okay! A new year is a really good excuse to get a new backpack! Nobody else even has to know!" Riku consoled, waving his arms about. "A-and, there are, like, end of the year sales! It'll be a cool, new backpack, and a cheap one too!"
"...I know." It wasn't as though he was particularly attached to this backpack, having only bought it just before the start of the school year last spring. It was just an embarrassing reason to have to buy a new backpack, was all. Even if the only other one who knew was Riku.
"It's...! It's fate!" Riku blurted out, his attempts to cheer up Iori starting to take on a strange turn. "They say this tree's over a thousand years old, after all! So if it broke your backpack, then, it must be for a really good reason! Maybe something good'll happen when you go to buy the new one...!"
That at least caused Iori to lift his head up to stare incredulously at Riku. "Nanase-san. Please don't act like my fate is so bromidic as to be tied to a backpack."
"Ah!" Riku froze, realizing how ridiculous he was sounding. "That wasn't what I was trying to say! I just wanted to cheer you up!"
"I know." And he did, even if he thought Riku was being especially ridiculous about it. "Thank you."
Riku made a little eek of happiness at the back of his throat, and fell over Iori's back to wrap him up in a hug. "Yeah!" Iori was usually too easily embarrassed to say such sweet words as thank you very often - Riku's inane backpack fate idea must have been so ridiculous it completely caught him off guard for him to have uttered it so easily.
"Wh-what are you doing?!" Iori squirmed, trying to stand up out of the hug. "Did you forget?! I'm supposed to be taking a picture of you, you know! I can't take it if you don't get off of me!"
Riku giggled, squeezing Iori even tighter for a moment before popping off of him. "Okay~!" He hopped a step back, holding two peace signs up against his cheeks. "Cheese—!"
Iori breathed a sigh of relief once Riku was off of him, squatting back down to unzip his backpack and pull out his phone. "Alright..." He zipped the backpack back up, and stood up. "Now- hey?!" He huffed upon seeing Riku's pose. "What did I say about keeping your hands hidden?!"
"Oh, right!" While he may be willfully ignorant to his twin's feelings towards Iori, he at least understood that he'd worry his brother if he sent him a picture of him underdressed out in the snow. So even though he was disappointed that he had to give up on his original cute pose, he still acquiesced to lowering his hands and clasping them behind his back. "Okay! I'm ready now! Cheese—!"
Iori was relieved that Riku gave up so easily, and wasn't about to look this gift horse in the mouth. Without wasting any time, he was backing up and holding his phone up sideways to take the best picture he could. "Hold the pose... One, two... three!" He snapped the picture, staring at the preview of it in the corner of the app for a few seconds before opening it up to see it in full.
"So?" Riku asked, dropping his hands to his sides. Iori didn't respond, still examining the photograph. Riku hadn't noticed before, but Iori's face sure was red, huh? He must be feeling colder now that they've separated. "Iori?" He called again, walking over. That seemed to do the trick, Iori finally looking up at him.
"Yes. It turned out well." He held his phone out for Riku to take so he could see the picture.
As Iori had said, it was a nice picture of Riku smiling that also got a fair bit of the tree in. Riku couldn't imagine a complaint his brother might have with it, other than his own complaint of- "So now we'll take one together, right?"
"Right. For Nanase-san's personal use." Riku giggled at Iori's insistence - he understood the intent behind it, of course... But well, his brother was also a 'Nanase-san' after all. Iori really should take Riku's request to call him by his first name more seriously!
"Right!" Riku chirped simply, handing the phone back over.
"Then..." After taking the phone in his left hand Iori wrapped his right's fingers around Riku's still offered hand, and led him to stand in front of the tree again. "Um..." He flipped the phone's camera feed over to the front facing camera, so he could see what kind of picture he was about to take before he took it. Seeing his and Riku's faces so close like this was a little embarrassing, though...
On the other hand, Riku didn't look the least bit embarrassed. He was beaming even brighter than he had been when Iori had taken the first picture, much to the detriment of Iori's pounding heart. He really hoped he couldn't feel it through their connected hands. Speaking of which, Riku was trying to pull his hand up so their linked hands would be in frame of the picture...
"Why are you doing that?" Iori asked, glancing away from the screen down at their hands.
"Huh? What do you mean 'why'? Because it's part of the memory, duh!" Riku tugged at Iori again, Iori being forced to lose the battle so as to not fall over.
"Aren't you even a little embarrassed?" Iori shot out as he was attempting to hide his own embarrassment.
"It's nice!" Riku replied without answering Iori's question, focusing his attention back on the phone. Iori knew he wouldn't be getting anything more out of him, so he returned his attention to the screen as well. His own face looked out of place next to Riku's bright smile, and he tried to smile as big as he could to make up for it - but it just looked awkward to him. Telling himself it was just for Riku's sake, and he'd be pleased no matter what picture he took, Iori hit the photo button.
[7:18 PM] Riku: Tenn-nii!!
[7:19 PM] Tenn: Riku. Were they able to finish setting the tree up today?
[7:19 PM] Riku: Yeah!!! Look!!
[7:20 PM] Riku:
Attachment file type: Image
image709.png
[7:22 PM] Tenn: You look happy. Who took this picture?
[7:22 PM] Riku: lolololol
[7:22 PM] Riku: Don't tell him OK??
[7:22 PM] Tenn: ?
[7:23 PM] Riku:
Attachment file type: Image
image710.png