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“I wanna catch Santa Claus,” Tooru said, and the stick in Hajime’s hand snapped.
The two of them had been drawing on the soil in front of Tooru’s house with sticks for the past hour, and Tooru had been complaining about being cold for the past fifty minutes. Maybe even fifty five. Hajime thought that it was stupid, since it had been Tooru’s idea to go outside and wait for snow in the first place. Tooru swore he could figure out when snow was coming by looking at the sky, and by the smell in the air — Hajime had to admit that the sky was looking more and more white as time passed, but the snow was yet to come.
Hajime dropped the remaining half of the now useless stick and scratched his neck, uncomfortably itchy from the wool sweater his mother had forced him into.
“You wanna what?” he asked, looking around for another stick he could use.
“Catch Santa! We have to, Haji-chan!” Tooru’s voice rose, as it always did when he was feeling passionate about something — which happened often. Hajime looked up and saw that his friend was handing him a perfect stick — thick enough to resist Hajime’s forceful scratching, with a sharper edge that was sure to scrape into the ground.
Hajime grabbed it with a mumbled ‘thanks’ — his mother would have been proud, he thought, since she had been nagging him about his manners for a while now. She had been very upset when the teacher had called her in one day: Hajime had pushed Tooru at school, and everyone had let themselves be too moved by Tooru’s big, tearful eyes to even listen to Hajime explaining that Tooru had stolen his toy, so it had been his fault really. Also, he hadn’t even been hurt, he was just pretending to cry not to be punished.
Still, after that day Hajime had been told to behave ‘properlyknight-like’ around Tooru because, as everyone said, ‘he was smaller and weaker’— nothing could be further from the truth, in Hajime’s opinion, because obviously no one except himself had ever received one of Tooru’s mean punches to the gut, and they would all surely change their mind if they did. Still, now that he was seven, Hajime had to behave like the brave little man he was, and apparently getting punched by Tooru was how one did that. Stupid Tooru.
“So, what do you say?” said stupid asked, and Hajime furrowed his brows, trying to write his name in the ground. “Don’t break that one too, Haji-chan. You look like a caveman.”
Hajime crossed his arms and straightened up. “No.”
Tooru had stopped drawing on the ground for at least half an hour, his gloved hands too clumsy to hold anything, and Hajime had had to bite his tongue not to make fun of him. He had probably thought about catching Santa out of boredom, or probably because of the cold getting to his brain.
“Don’t be stubborn, Haji-chan. He always comes out of… wherever his hiding spot is this time of the year, we must strike now and get to the bottom of it.”
Hajime rolled his eyes. “He brings us presents, stupid. We don’t want to upset him.”
“That’s because he wants you to be his friend!” Tooru’s voice rose again, and Hajime knew that if he didn’t calm him down now he would gather attention on them, and their parents would start asking them questions.
“But he’s good, everyone says so,” Hajime said, trying to talk some sense into him.
“That’s his plan! Come on Haji-chan, do you want to catch him or not?”
“No, I don’t.” Hajime didn’t want to get in trouble. Plus, if he had to be honest, Santa scared him — just a little bit — and he didn’t want to get on his bad side.
Hajime’s father had once told him that, no matter what, one must never show fear to dogs, because they could smell it, and that’s when they attack. When Tooru leaned into him, locking eyes with Hajime, their noses almost brushing, Hajime thought — not for the first time — that Tooru was just like a dog. He leaned back, but he knew it was too late: Tooru had seen the fear in his eyes, and he was now going to strike.
“I know you’re scared Haji-chan —”
“I’m not.”
“— but there’s no reason to be. All the volleyball training has paid off, we’ve never been as strong as we are now. And we’re smart, or at least I am. We have two whole days to come up with a plan —”
“We’ll be even stronger next year, and we would have a whole two days and a year to make a plan, then.”
Tooru crossed his arms as his face became dangerously red. “Stop interrupting me, mum says it’s rude! We can’t wait for next year because we don’t know where we’ll be next year! He could have already caught up with our plan and he could try and stop us, we shouldn’t postpone what we can do now!” Tooru took a big breath, and the cloud that formed from the exhale looked distinctively like a snail to Hajime. He watched how Tooru’s face relaxed before he came closer to Hajime once again, nose to nose. “Don’t you have faith in me, Haji-chan? Because I believe in you.”
Hajime leaned back again, narrowing his eyes. “Why would we even catch him?”
A wide smile spread on Tooru’s face, as if he already knew he had won. “I just want to question him.”
“About what?”
“About aliens!” Tooru exclaimed, and everything was suddenly clear for Hajime.
“I knew it, it’s just your obsession for aliens again! What would he even know about aliens? He’s a human like us, he has nothing to do with them.”
Tooru cackled, and Hajime felt very upset. He thought about his mother telling him not to push Tooru and crossed his arms. It’s going to be very hard, being his friend, he thought.
“You’re so easily tricked, Haji-chan. Don’t you see, that’s what he wants us to think! He’s an eternal being able to defeat all laws of physics and deliver presents to all the kids in the world in a single night, and he chose to travel all over the Earth during the winter, at night, when it’s too cold for anyone, let alone an old man. And he’s not even wearing a scarf! He can’t be human, so he’s either a demon or an alien. Either way, he must know a lot about weird things, included aliens! So I want to question him and find out who he really is.”
Tooru’s eyes were wide and bright, and Hajime felt a shiver traveling down his back. “You’re scary. And weird.”
“And you’re rude! I’m just a curious scientist who’ll catch Santa Claus and learn everything about aliens! So, are you in?”
“Will we get in trouble? I don’t want to be grounded again.”
“Don’t worry, no one will even know what we’re doing.”
Hajime finally huffed. “Fine. What’s the plan?”
Tooru giggled and hugged Hajime, who let out a squeal and felt a rush of inexplicable anger, but didn’t dare push him away. He didn’t trust their mothers not to be looking at them from the window.
Tooru finally detached himself. “You won’t regret this! Come on, let’s go inside, we need to write it down and we can’t do that on the ground, the snow will cover it. Also, I’m cold.”
He quickly got up on his feet and held his hand out to Hajime, who didn’t let go of it once he was up, following Tooru as he rushed inside.
They were in this together. And they had a whole Santa Claus to catch.
“Okay, time?”
Hajime grabbed his friend’s wrist and tried to peek at the time on his digital watch, before Tooru hastily pulled his arm away.
“Hey! I told you we’d need watches to coordinate the operation! Where’s yours?”
“My mum said we don’t have one my size, and I can’t read the watch yet anyway.”
Tooru huffed and Hajime knew, even in the dark, that he was squinting at his own wrist. “I can’t see the numbers… there’s supposed to be a button you can press that —”
Hajime heard the faintest click before a halo of neon, green light hit Tooru’s face, and they both gasped. “There we go! It’s… 23:50, we’re early. Do you remember the next part of the plan?”
Hajime heard another faint click and the light went off. “Isn’t it just… go and catch Santa?”
“Hajime! No, it’s… we wait until 23:55, we go downstairs, and then we go and catch Santa!”
Hajime nodded. It was a foolproof plan.
“I’m glad our mums agreed on letting you sleep over tonight, Haji-chan. I couldn’t do this without you.” Hajime could swear Tooru’s voice sounded almost shy, then he felt their hands brushing.
Hajime grabbed his hand and he realized, for the first time that night, that his friend was also probably scared. He squeezed Tooru’s hand, hoping to be reassuring and ‘properly knight-like’, like his mother said. “It’s going to be okay, the plan will work.”
Hajime felt Tooru squeezing his hand in return, then he gasped again. “Wait! I forgot something!”
He let go of Hajime’s hand, who listened to the sounds of his friend rummaging in the dark through the box under his desk. He finally came back and handed him something. “Here! Wear this, for protection.”
Hajime felt the mysterious object: it was cold, so it had to be metal, it was rounded and it felt both smooth and rough. “What is it?”
“It’s a pasta strainer! Put it on your head, it’s almost go time.” He handed him something else. “And this is a wooden spoon. In case we have to hit him.”
“I don’t want to hit anyone!” Hajime felt suddenly anxious about the whole ordeal.
“Come on, you hit me all the time! How did you think we’d force him to talk?!”
Hajime was just about to explain in detail how those two things were totally different when he heard a loud thump coming from downstairs. Tooru let out a piercing scream before Hajime could press his hand to his mouth to silence him.
“What was that?” he asked, his mouth still against Tooru’s mouth.
Tooru grabbed Hajime’s hand and held it tight. Hajime couldn’t see much, but the white of his eyes, bright in the darkness of the room, told him how startled his friend was.
“He’s… he’s early!” Tooru choked out when Hajime took his hand off. He frenetically looked at his watch, the green light hitting once again. “It’s not midnight yet! He can’t —” He took a deep breath, and Hajime saw his eyes settling before it got dark again. “We have to go. We have to attack him now.”
Hajime nodded. “We run on three. One…”
“Two…”
“Three!” They screamed at the same time and moved together, still holding hands.
Tooru pushed the bedroom door open with his spoon — Hajime heard it crack and hoped that Tooru’s mother wouldn’t get mad if it got broken — and they stumbled downstairs. In the commotion Hajime missed a step and fell, and he was briefly thankful Tooru had insisted on them wearing their volleyball knee pads.
“There!” Tooru pointed to the light in the living room, brandishing his spoon like a sword.
They sprinted towards the room and there, kneeling by the tree, all covered in demonic red, Hajime saw him.
Santa Claus.
He left Oikawa’s hand and let out a war scream — he had seen it in movies and he had always thought it was cool. Santa got alerted by the sound and he jumped backwards. He ran to the door, heading towards the hallway, Tooru and Hajime following him closely.
Santa’s pants started to fall as he ran and he slowed down to keep them upright, but it was enough for Tooru to reach him, jumping on his back right when Santa was in front of the kitchen, just a few steps from the front door. Hajime jumped on Santa’s back too, finally making him fall to the ground, defeated, and Tooru grabbed his hat, pulling it off of him.
“We got you!” Tooru cheered, raising his hat, victorious. Hajime, still panting from the run, finally managed to properly look at Santa, and was surprised when he saw that he didn’t have white hair like he thought so. Tooru must have noticed that too, and Hajime heard him gasp.
“What are those?” Hajime asked, pointing to two white strings that run from his beard to his ears.
Tooru pulled on them and they snapped on Santa’s face, making him whine in pain. “They’re elastics! It’s a disguise!” He pulled on his beard and lowered it.
At the same time, Hajime heard a scream from atop the stairs and both boys turned to see Tooru’s sister — who was running down the stairs with an alarmed expression on her face — followed by Tooru’s mother — who was instead laughing.
“What are you doing?!” Tooru’s sister approached them first, kneeling next to them. “Masashi? Are you okay?” She shook Santa, who groaned weakly, then she turned towards Tooru. “What were you thinking? You could have killed him!”
Hajime finally recognized the man, and realized that it was Tooru’s sister’s boyfriend, who had been invited to dinner for the first time that night.
Hajime could almost see the cogs turning in Tooru’s brain. “But… if he isn’t Santa…” he muttered, then he got on his feet and grabbed Hajime’s hand. “Santa’s still out there!”
They sprinted back to the living room and, to their surprise, there were now gifts under the tree.
“He tricked us!” Tooru pointed to Masashi, who was still laying on the floor. “He’s working for Santa!”
“Come on, boys.” Tooru’s mother seemed to have finally stopped laughing, and she had now reached them in the living room. She took the pasta strainers off their heads, then took their wooden spoons too. “You didn’t really think you could fool Santa Claus, did you? You know he can see everything!”
“But I wanted to question him!” Tooru protested, his lower lip trembling dangerously.
“How about some hot chocolate, and then you two get back to bed?” His mother smiled, warm, and Hajime felt the adrenaline from the evening dropping suddenly, leaving him tired.
He reached for Tooru’s hand and pulled his friend towards the kitchen. “Come on, we can try again next year. I’m sleepy now.”
Tooru yawned loudly. “We’ll make a better plan, Haji-chan,” he grumbled, following him.
Hajime nodded. “I’m happy he still brought us presents, even if he knew we wanted to catch him.” He pulled out a chair at the kitchen table, but Tooru sat on it before he could.
“Thank you, Haji-chan,” he said, poking his tongue out at him. “I guess that was nice of him, but we shouldn’t let our guard down.”
Hajime sat down next to him. “We’ll catch him one day, I’m sure of it.”
Tooru mindlessly hummed a nursery rhyme as he finished massaging the hydrating lotion on his face, then he grabbed the hand cream tube and spread an even coat on his hands. He put his glasses back on and finally headed towards the bedroom, checking if all the lights were out.
Hajime seemed to have already fallen asleep, the book he had been reading open on his chest and his eyes closed. Tooru finally got under the covers and put his glasses on his bedside table. He carefully peeled Hajime’s fingers off the book and put that on the table, too, placing a bookmark where Hajime had stopped reading.
“Baby?” Hajime muttered, and Tooru cuddled close to him, laying his head on his husband’s chest.
“I’m sorry I woke you up, you fell asleep while you were reading,” Tooru said, not feeling sorry at all.
“It’s okay, I was waiting for you.” He leaned his face close to Tooru and kissed the top of his head. “You always smell so good when you get to bed, how is it even possible?”
“It’s the seven step skincare routine I’ve been doing, Shou-chan sent me some new products. Sakusa-kun got Tsumu-chan hooked on them, and now the whole JVA is, too. I’m surprised you don’t know about it, you should try it.” He raised his head to look at Hajime’s face, who was clearly struggling to keep his eyes open. “I love your rugged good looks, but some moisturizer isn’t gonna hurt you, Iwa-chan.”
“You’re the pretty one here, I could never steal your spot on the podium for that.”
“Oh, Iwa-chan, you could never —” Tooru was rudely interrupted by Hajime playfully slapping his butt. “Hey! That’s an Olympic gold medal ass you’re hitting! Be nice to it!”
Hajime chuckled low in his chest — Tooru felt the vibration of it with the hand he was resting on his heart — and made amend by gently patting said ass.
“Ayuka’s excited for Christmas, it seems.” Hajime started rubbing circles on Tooru’s lower back.
Tooru sighed, relaxed. “Her classmates are talking a lot about it, apparently. She seems to be very excited about Santa Claus…”
Hajime laughed. “I guess she takes that from you, then.”
“Maybe we could give her a bit of a Christmas surprise and let her see Santa.”
“Of course you’d say that… I’m not doing it.”
Tooru whined. “Iwa-chan! It has to be you, I’m too pretty to be Santa, you said it yourself. She’s too smart, she would never fall for it.”
Hajime hummed. “It would make her really happy… just don’t let her attack me. I’m still surprised Masashi stayed in the family after what we did to him.”
“Don’t feel bad for him, he said it was a good test run for Takeru.” Tooru leaned up to give Hajime a brief kiss. “Thank you, she’ll love it. Now sleep, you have to leave early and get a costume tomorrow.”
“Shouldn’t you be going, since it was your idea?”
Tooru gave him a longer kiss. “But Haji-chan is such a gentleman…” He kissed him once again, then two more times for good measure. “Doesn’t he want to make me happy?”
Hajime’s hand sneaked up and tangled in Tooru’s hair. “I know what you’re doing, you brat.”
Tooru hummed, pleased. “And is it working?”
Judging from the light blush on Hajime’s cheeks, it was.
Hajime leaned in for another lingering kiss, then over Tooru, who giggled instinctively.
And then it got dark.
Tooru whined. “Iwa-chan! You tease!”
“I’m sorry baby, but it’s a big day tomorrow. Also, I’m tired and I don’t want to fall asleep on top of you like last time.”
Tooru pouted in the dark. “That was really rude of you.”
“I know, and I don’t want a repeat. Forgive me?”
Tooru cuddled as close as he could to him and yawned. “Fine, you’ll make it up to me another time. Sweet dreams, Hajime.”
“Sweet dreams, Tooru,” Hajime whispered and gave Tooru one last kiss.
The next morning Tooru entered the kitchen to his daughter and his husband fighting.
“I swear it’s true! They moved while I was sleeping!”
“That’s not possible, Ayuka-chan. Toys don’t move.” Hajime took a sip of his coffee. “You just forgot where you left them the last time you played.”
“I don’t forget! Dada said it’s possible that they moved!”
Hajime sighed. “Of course he did —”
“And it’s true,” Tooru interrupted him. “Fairies sometimes play with toys, everyone knows that.”
Ayuka cheered as Hajime got up to fill Tooru’s cup with hot tea, and Tooru took his chair.
“Thank you, Iwa-chan,” he singsonged when Hajime placed the cup in front of him and a kiss on his cheek.
“You’re welcome, you chair thief.” He kissed his daughter’s cheek. “Papa has to go on a special Christmas mission now. Be a good girl and check that Dada doesn’t make any trouble, okay?”
Ayuka nodded and hugged Hajime’s neck. “I will be the best princess ever, Dada.”
Tooru waited until Hajime was out of earshot before leaning on Ayuka’s shoulder conspiratorially.
“Ayuka-chan, do you wanna catch Santa Claus?”