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Hinata walked herself up to her apartment with a heavy heart. She didn’t know if she wanted to participate in this again next year.
The girls thought it would be fun and cute if they had a secret Santa ornament exchange amongst their friend group, but seemed to fail to realize how much harder that would be to do now that they weren’t in school anymore. There was no good time for them all to meet around the holidays. Some of them had kids, but now some of them had moved away. The only time that they would realistically all be able to get together would be mid-January, and by then, kids would be back at school, and people would be at work, and it would be almost harder than around the holidays because everyone had their own commitments.
So everyone was expected to give their gifts individually. There wasn’t really a problem with that. They were all friends. She had just come back from having lunch with Choji, whom she had pulled for the exchange. She had spent a long time thinking about what she was going to give him. There was an extra level of difficulty in the fact that they were meant to be making these things, but crafting was never a skill that she had.
Shikamaru thought it would be a good idea to just give him a mini donut charm on a string or buy it because he didn’t really care much for the handmade rule.
Hinata eventually made herself a crude mini chip bag out of a blank portion of a normal chip bag, stuffing it with fluff and sealing the edges with a flat iron. She had to draw on a logo that looked awful, and she was disappointed with it overall, but Choji seemed very happy with it, or at least, if anything, he was good at faking it, so she didn’t feel bad.
On top of being disappointed in herself, she still didn’t know who her secret Santa was. They were each meant to reach out to each other before Christmas so that they could have them on their trees, but they were getting incredibly close, and no one had messaged her yet.
She wondered if she had been skipped. She didn’t think that it would be the case that it would happen twice.
The last time they did this was last year of school, and there had been a mix-up where her name wasn’t in the basket, but someone else’s name was put in twice. They tried to switch one of the gifts to her, but by the time they had realized it was too late, and these gifts were made custom, it wouldn’t have made sense for her to get one made for someone else.
No one reported getting a second gift, so maybe her name was just forgotten again.
She let herself into the door. Shikamaru was on the couch like he normally was, and there was a Christmas movie idly playing in the background. He probably didn’t put it on. It was just what was there when he turned on the TV. Hinata kicked off her shoes, hung up her coat, and padded across the room to stretch herself down over him and lay her pout down on his chest.
Shikamaru slid his hands over her back. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing.” Hinata lied.
Shikamaru knew that she was lying, but he didn’t challenge her on it. He reached over to turn the Christmas movie up and adjusted himself to be a little more comfortable before settling his hand back on her back and drawing circles there.
“How did lunch go?” Shikamaru hummed. “Did Choji like his ornament?”
“He acted like he did.” Hinata voiced, knowing that she was revealing her insecurity and her word choice.
“He’s not a very good liar, you’d be able to tell if he didn’t,” Shikamaru assured her. “Why haven’t you opened yours yet?”
Hinata let her eyes drift close. “I don’t think I’m going to get one.”
“What makes you think that?” Shikamaru asked.
“No one’s reached out about it,” Hinata explained. “It’s probably fine. I’m not sure what anyone would have done for me anyway, and I’m worried that someone who didn’t know me very well would have received my name and got stressed out about it.”
“I didn’t think I needed to reach out because we live together,” Shikamaru commented idly. “I felt like texting you about it would be silly.”
What? Hinata lifted her head to look at him.
Shikamara raised his eyebrow.
“Did you get me?” Hinata blinked at him.
Shikamaru simply nodded his head over at the tree. “It’s been there for the last week. I thought you would have noticed by now.”
Hinata lifted her head higher to see what he was talking about. She crawled off of him and searched the tree, finding an ornament that she didn’t recognize at eye level. A silver ball with a seam and a clasp. She pulled off the tree. It was clearly not something he crafted, at least not the ball itself. “We were supposed to make these.” She reminded him as she sat back down.
“I don’t think you would have wanted it if I had done that.” Shikamaru sat himself half up on the side of the couch.
“Is there something inside?” Hinata asked. Knowing him, it could be either.
Shikamaru nodded his head at it. “Open it.”
Hinata leaned on his chest, holding it between them. She fought to figure out how to open the clasp for a moment before she got the silver ball open and got a glimpse of what was inside. She squeaked, jumping back and covering her face, dropping the ornament altogether.
Shikamaru snorted and picked up from the couch where it rolled down to his side. “That was about the reaction I was expecting.”
Hinata peeked at him through her fingers. “Why is there a ring inside? Why is there a ring inside?!”
Shikamaru grinned. “Why do you think?” He pulled the ring out and held it up, letting it and his eyebrow linger in the air, asking the question for him, or at least that’s what it seemed like.
Hinata pressed her lips together because she thought he was asking… but she didn’t want to assume that he didn’t just get a ring to make up for the fact that he didn’t make an ornament, and he didn’t really think that much about what a ring would mean and…
“It is a proposal you can stop panicking.” Shikamaru released her from her internal spiraling.
“Okay,” Hinata told him. “I mean… yes.”
Shikamaru took her hand and slid the ring onto her finger. She was suddenly overwhelmed with the feeling of absolute delight. She put her hands on the side of his face and pulled him closer to kiss him.
“It’s lovely, thank you.” She told him.
“I thought I had to make up for last time,” Shikamaru told her. “Since I got both gifts last time.”
Hinata blinked at him. “It was you.” She even remembered.
Shikamaru circled his arms around her and pulled her back down to his chest, wanting his cuddle time resumed after it was interrupted. Hinata flattened herself out and adjusted her weight to be mainly between him and the back of the couch, laying her head on his shoulder and her hand on his chest. She tilted the ring and it glittered in the light coming in the window.
“I really like it.” She voiced. It was an odd shape, a tiny teardrop.
“Make sure you tell Ino that because she was pissed that it was so small,” Shikamaru grumbled. “But I knew you wanted a unique shape and I knew you wanted it to be small so it wouldn’t catch on things.”
Hinata rubbed her hand in place on his chest and lifted her head to smile up at him. “It’s perfect.” She was incredibly happy with it. She never had any doubt that he would know just what she would have wanted.
Shikamaru leaned down what his head would let him to kiss her, but she had to wiggle her way up to meet him, before she lay her head back down to listen to the jingling of the sleigh bells as Santa swooshed past on the TV.