#((Romeo's is understandably very Taiga x Romeo coded lol))

[ficoandleo]

For both: What do you like to do for the holidays?

"Which holidays? Like, all of them?"

"They mean Christmas and New Years."

". . .Oooh, you're some kind of. Westerner or whatever where you still think everyone in the world celebrates Christmas because you do. Wow. Okay, brace yourself, may wanna sit down for this one?" Leo pauses a bit for dramatic effect. "This is Japan. We're not a Christiancountry. We don't really celebrate Christmas here."

"He's right. It's not even a public holiday here. Nobody gets the day off unless you need it for religious reasons and winter break usually starts the day after for students. Most Japanese people don't celebrate Christmas in a major way unless they're some kind of Christian or they've got foreign family."

"Well Christmas is like a 'hang out with your friends or your lover "holiday"' so I always spend it with Sho-chan?" Of course, Leo spent most days with Sho before coming to Darkwick. Even after coming, they spend a lot of time together. "And I like doing streams for it--I've done a gift opening stream, I've made videos showing off and rating what's in the year's KFC Christmas menu with Sho-chan and our friends, I've done little walks around Christmas markets and showing off lights and displays, I'll show off whatever Christmassy food Sho-chan made if it looks like it'll trend. . . . I mostly just use it as a vaguely 'special stream' day. If people don't have friends to spend the day with, they can hang out with me and Sho--before we spend time with our friends, obviously♥

"Christmas Eve though is like a romantic day because. . .capitalism and the economy or something. It's actually cooled down in recent years but there's always stuff going on then to capitalize on couples, like really nice light displays and promotions in stores and restaurants. It's kind of like Valentine's Day for Japan. So I like to stream then too--for the singles. It's like going on a little 'date' with me. . .♥ I let the audience decide what we should check out for a while at a market or what light displays we should go see. But I've hung out with Sho-chan on Christmas Eve streams too--adds a little fuel to the 'oh my god they must be dating!!' fire and gets some buzz and rumors going~ Once the stream's done I'll do something with Sho if he wants--like we'll take advantage of couples gifts and promotions and stuff in shops or walk around and see if there're any cool decorations and displays to look at and take pics or whatever. We don't do a ton because restaurants are usually booked or super busy and Sho wants to cook for the impending Christmas party with our friends anyways, and he makes a ton of food so he gets started the day before when he can.

"After that I basically don't eat until like New Years because I had way too much food even when I'm not eating that much of it and I have to make up for it. But then it's New Years and I go see my parents--or, they came over last year--and we spend time together doing whatever they want. They still like to give me otoshidama even though I'm a grown man, but some of my fans do it too, digitally, so whatever. Aside from that we watch the first sunset and we do a shrine visit to get our fortunes and make wishes--trad stuff. But sometimes they wanna do stuff we didn't really get to do when I was young--so we'll fly kites or play games or just whatever they're in the mood for during the four day new years period.

"I don't normally stream at all with them, but they said they'd like to be on stream with me at least once so. . .maybe if I can't do anything cool for Christmas this year since Darkwick's shaping out to not have much to see, I can get a permit and do a New Years stream with them. It won't get many views but people might go for it since I don't really talk a ton about my family on stream? I might save it for after graduation."

". . .since coming to Japan the traditions are very different. Like Kurossa said, Christmas Eve is a sort of romance-focused day, so. . .ugh." Romeo scowls, glaring off to the side for a moment. Finally, he decided to open up, closing his eyes, pale cheeks dusting with pink. "The Boss doesn't really go for things like that. Highly romantic displays. But he would do things for me anyway, even after we got to Darkwick. We would go out, or he would give me gifts with more. Amorous intentions. And I enjoyed that, even if it wasn't traditional for me. . .I'm not expecting anything to happen this year, though. Christmas was more lowkey but he still let me enjoy Japanese Christmas traditions despite not being very interested in anything but food and presents anyway.

"Back home in Italy we had an elaborate nativity scene we would put together on the 8th--probably my favorite part of the Christmas season aside from gifts. It had moving mechanisms, even pumps for water for a moving river, and it wasn't just the manger in the barn, but essentially a whole town surrounding! We put up a tree too, of course, but that was far less interesting!! We would visit Christmas markets and so on too, and on Christmas Eve we would have fish for dinner--an old Catholic tradition where you abstain from meat for that day--and gifts were exchanged, and then we'd go to midnight Mass, of course. On Christmas we ate meat. They always made sure I ate far more than I ever wanted to. . . . The entire atmosphere is very different from Japan's, aside from the abundant decorations and lights. . . .

"New Years is even more different. Still he indulged me with things like shrine visits and fortunes, despite being able to guess what my fortune would say. Let me experience Japan's most important holiday. We even bought kimono for it. It's quite a bit. . .fancier, or maybe more solemn than Italian celebrations of the new year, where we have fireworks and parties in the streets. Ah, I still wear red underwear though."

"Yeah? Does your fancy, special new years underwear stay on your ass by the time the new year rolls around?"

". . .he keeps it on as long as he can bear it, and we've always made it to midnight before they end up somewhere else or ripped apart."

"Wow, proud of him!"

"Of course, since coming to Darkwick things are a little different. If we're still in probation I'm sure they'll have some sort of fortune slip giving and shrine set up in Hotarubi like they did last year, and I'll still go for my New Years Wish. I suppose watching the first sunrise from the deck of the ship will be nice too. We'd have a Christmas party with the rest of Sinostra, or drop by other Houses to see our friends. We'll exchange gifts. . .but the way I've been spending Christmas since I got here was trying to catch that fucking Reindeer. . . ."

"Oh yeah, you did mention there's some kind of rein--"

"The present-giving Reindeer! I'm going to catch it this year!! This will probably be my last chance, so it has to be this year!! Of course it manipulates time, so I always still have time for the party itself even after failing to catch it the previous years. . .but this year, I have to catch it. . . ."

"You're so fucking loud sometimes, I swear. . . . Anyways I think that covers everything? TL;DR: I stream and hang out with my friends on Christmas and spend time with my fam on New Years, and Romi-sama has a party and tries to catch some Christmas anomaly on Christmas, and then just does Japanese traditional stuff on New Years with Tai since he's here."