#and how about some good old toumaki

[rafyki]

I want to start writing fanfics again... I NEED to start writing Yowapeda fics again, but I also need some inspiration and I have none :')

[toumakibangs]

°*TouMaki - Advent Calendar 2018*° DAY 10 - “SHOPPING” (”Character A has to dress up as Santa for Christmas”) by @midotaka-is-destiny Title: Your presence is my present

Mod’s Note: Serendipity is a thing, and Christmas working its own magic is a universally accepted cliché in itself. One I’ll never tire of, probably.  Thank you for your lovely entry, @midotaka-is-destiny, and for reminding us that little sisters always know best!

The moment Makishima opened his eyes, he was greeted by the familiar scent of steamed rice – a comforting smell that he’d missed during the past two years he’d spent in England. It took him a few seconds to register where he was; the flight back to Japan had left him jet-lagged and groggy. He had arrived on his family’s doorstep at one in the morning and had barely greeted his family members before making a beeline for his old bedroom and falling asleep fully clothed.

“Ah, you’re awake!”

At first, Makishima could hardly believe that the girl at his bedside was his younger sister; in the two years since he’d seen her, she had grown so much. He grinned crookedly, pushing down the sudden pang of nostalgia. “Seiko-chan! You’re so tall! How old are you now, thirty?”

Seiko crossed her arms and pouted. “I’m six, nii-chan! Don’t be silly!”

Makishima barely had time to blink before Seiko launched herself on top of him, enveloping him in a tight hug that he’d missed more than he’d realised. He’d spent three years in England now, having only returned to Japan once, over two years ago, to watch his high school cycling team’s Interhigh competition and briefly visit his family.

He had intended to visit in order to celebrate New Year with his family but had ended up coming back to Japan in the few days before Christmas. His family, like most others in Japan, didn’t celebrate Christmas a religious holiday, but because it was a big deal in England, his university break started earlier, so he figured he might as well return to Japan a little earlier than originally planned.

“Come shopping with me today!” Seiko pleaded, tugging on his arm in an attempt to drag him out of bed. “I wanna see Santa at the shops!”

Makishima yawned and propped himself up on his elbows. “Let me eat first, Seiko-chan. I just spend twelve hours on a plane, and the food was terrible.”

Seiko made a sound of dissent, but left his bedroom, calling, “He wants food!”

Twenty minutes later, Makishima emerged from his bedroom, having finally showered and changed out of the clothes he’d been wearing for the past day. His parents’ faces lit up as he wandered into the kitchen, but they seemed surprised when he wrapped them each in a tight embrace.

“What was that for?” wondered his mother, who knew that Makishima usually tried to avoid physical contact as much as possible.

Makishima shrugged, shovelling rice into his mouth. “I just… missed you both. It’s been such a long time, and I’ve been really looking forward to coming back home.”

“Is everything alright in England?” his father asked, his eyebrows furrowing into an expression of concern.

“It’s fine,” Makishima assured them. “It’s just good to be back.”

I must be getting old, he thought with a wry smile. I was never this sentimental during high school. Maybe I need some competition to stop me from going soft…

Against his will, the thought of competition prompted the image of his old rival, Toudou, to spring to his mind. As he finished eating, Makishima tried to dispel the thought of Toudou, but the guilt of losing touch with his old friend refused to leave.

At first, they had remained in correspondence, although Makishima had a tendency to ignore phone calls. With time, that habit spread to him not answering emails or even texts, and soon enough, Toudou stopped sending them. As much as he had tried to forget about Toudou after realising it was his own fault they hadn’t stayed in contact, Makishima had to admit that he was curious as to what Toudou had been up to over the past three years.

“Nii-chan, can we go now?” Seiko demanded, her clear voice abruptly breaking into his thoughts. “It’s nearly midday already! I don’t wanna wait in a long line to see Santa!”

Makishima sighed and rose from the table. “I guess so.” He shot an apologetic glance at his parents; he would have loved to catch up with them properly, but that would have to wait.

~

When they arrived, the shopping centre was crowded with people rushing in and out of shops in a desperate attempt to get their last-minute Christmas shopping done.

“Let’s find Santa!” Seiko declared, tugging on Makishima’s hand and jumping up and down on the balls of her feet in excitement.

Makishima gave a grudging smile. “I don’t know where Santa is, Seiko-chan. I haven’t been here in years.”

Seiko pouted, but quickly brightened when Makishima pointed out the steady stream of children dragging their parents into one of the larger department stores. “Maybe Santa is this way,” he suggested with a gentle pull on her hand. “Let’s follow them and have a look.”

They stood in line behind a crowd of restless children for what felt like an eternity, and Makishima had to try his hardest not to wander off and look at the rather nice crockery display set up in a section they’d just passed, because if Seiko got lost while he was distracted, he would have no chance of finding her among this frantic bunch of whining kids.

After around forty minutes, Seiko had had enough of waiting. “I want to go home,” she muttered, barely loud enough for Makishima to hear. “I’m sick of standing around!” Her voice started to wobble.

Makishima bit his lip and hoisted Seiko onto his hip. “Come on Seiko-chan, we’re almost at the front of the line,” he reassured her, struggling to carry her with the sudden realisation that a six-year-old was a lot heavier than a three-year-old. “You can tell Santa what you want for Christmas! Isn’t that what you wanted?” He tried to keep even the tiniest hint of frustration out of his voice and stay calm; a wailing Seiko was the last thing he wanted right now.

Makishima was so preoccupied with trying to prevent Seiko from crying and throwing a tantrum in the middle of the shop that he didn’t even notice that they had finally reached the front of the line.

“Merry Christmas!” A voice that sounded a little too young to fit the image of Santa Claus broke into Makishima’s thoughts, and Seiko squirmed out of his arms at the sight of the man seated on the raised plastic throne.

“Santa!” she squealed, leaping up the carpeted steps to grab hold of the man’s hand.

The man dressed as Santa seemed to have a youthful face beneath the fake moustache and full white beard that obscured most of his features. Under the brim of the man’s red hat and the bushy stick-on white eyebrows, Makishima could just make out a somewhat familiar pair of eyes that seemed to be a mix of violet and blue. Having caught only a glimpse of the barely visible eyes, Makishima didn’t have much to help him work out where he’d seen them before, but he cast it out of his mind as he turned his gaze to Seiko to make sure she didn’t do anything stupid.

“What’s your name?” the Santa impersonator asked cheerily, his voice bright and a little sharp. He patted to his knee. “Come up and tell me what you want for Christmas!”

Once Seiko had settled herself on Santa’s knee, Makishima turned away to watch the tiny moving Christmas village display on the ground below Santa’s throne, strangely captivated by the figurines spinning around in the model ballroom.

He only started paying attention to Santa again when he heard Seiko’s voice. “I’m here with my brother!” Makishima looked up to see Seiko pointing at him from her seat on Santa’s lap, and to his surprise, Santa’s barely visible eyes had widened in shock.

“Well hello there,” Santa said, his voice lowering into something that almost resembled a silky croon directed at Makishima.

Shocked by the sudden change in Santa’s behaviour, Makishima took a step back. “Hi…?” he offered as a feeble response. “I… uh… I’m just here to bring my sister to visit you. She said she wanted to come–”

“Why don’t you come and sit on my lap too?” Santa interrupted in a smooth voice, raising a furry white eyebrow that seemed to make the peculiar atmosphere even stranger. “What do you want for Christmas, I wonder…?”

Makishima nearly laughed out of utter confusion. “What?” he spluttered, his face heating slightly at the absurd request. “Sit on your lap?”

Seiko giggled.

Santa clicked his tongue in what Makishima presumed was exasperation. “Of course.” He dropped the affected tone and said in a more natural voice that Makishima knew better than any, “I wasn’t expecting to see you here… Maki-chan.”

Santa pulled the elastic band of his beard down, letting it hang loosely around his neck as he revealed his face. Despite the moustache and eyebrows, Makishima could tell straight away that the man dressed up as Santa was none other than his high school rival.

“Toudou… what are you doing here?” he wondered out loud, bemused as to how Toudou, a man so obsessed with his own image and reputation, had stooped so low as to become a Santa impersonator in a department store.

Toudou laughed, but it was laced with a hint of bitterness. “I really should ask you what you’re doing here,” he responded without any of the peculiar flirtatiousness he’d had before. There was something different about his voice, Makishima thought as Toudou continued, “You just stopped replying to any of my texts and you never returned my calls. Didn’t it occur to you at all that I wanted to talk to you?”

Hurt, Makishima realised. It was hurt that he could hear in Toudou’s voice, the pain of being ignored and slowly forgotten. “I’m sorry,” he said weakly, knowing that it was a pathetic apology. “I just–”

Toudou waved a hand in dismissal. “It doesn’t matter now,” he said blithely, adjusting Seiko’s position on his lap. “You forgot me. I’m sure it was all for the best–”

“When I was waiting for him to wake up this morning, nii-chan said your name in his sleep,” Seiko piped up, her childish innocence causing her to be oblivious to the tension between the two, much to Makishima’s utter mortification and Toudou’s immense shock.

“WHAT?” Makishima demanded, not sure whether to be angry or laugh out of embarrassment. “What the hell, Seiko-chan? You didn’t tell me that this morning!”

Toudou shook his head in mock disappointment. “You really need to watch your language around children, Maki-chan,” he chided, his eyes lighting up with amusement and his previous bitterness cast aside for this captivating piece of information.  

Makishima glared, and he wasn’t sure which of the two it was directed at. “Anyway, so what? I talk in my sleep every so often, so don’t be too flattered. I was probably talking about how annoying you are.”

Toudou didn’t seem to have paid attention to a single word Makishima had just said, and from the glazed expression on his face, Makishima could tell that Toudou was deep in thought. “I guess I’ll have to take back what I said before, then,” he eventually declared with his trademark smirk, apparently extremely pleased. “It seems you certainly haven’t forgotten your fated rival, Maki-chan! I guess I’ll give you one more chance, then!”

Makishima was about to respond when a parent in the crowd behind him called out, “Could you hurry up? All of our kids want to see Santa too!”

Toudou rolled his eyes and quickly handed Seiko a candy cane he had pulled out of his pocket. “Merry Christmas, Seiko-chan,” he said with a grin, pinching her cheek and making her giggle before she jumped off his lap and returned to Makishima’s side.

They turned to leave, but Toudou had one last thing to say.

“Maki-chan,” he added, making the hand signal of talking on the phone and flashing Makishima a wink, “call me?”

~

On their walk home, Seiko pestered Makishima with questions about Toudou. “Why was Santa flirting with you?” she asked, causing Makishima to redden and stop walking with a jolt.

“He wasn’t flirting with me,” Makishima protested, picking up their pace. “He’s just got an irritating personality. He had a lot of fans in high school and spent all his time boasting about it,” he babbled. “Don’t think anything of it.”

Seiko narrowed her gaze. “Then why was he so happy when I told him about you talking in your sleep?” she demanded, crossing her arms and declaring with a giggle, “He likes you!”

Makishima rolled his eyes. “Don’t be ridiculous. I’d like to know what kind of romance films our parents are letting you watch. Six-year-olds shouldn’t have these sorts of notions.”

“I’m nearly seven!” Seiko retorted with a pout. “I’m old enough to understand love!”

Makishima snorted. “No, you aren’t. You’re old enough to know better than to be influenced by something you see on TV.”

Seiko huffed and pulled her hand out of Makishima’s grasp. “You’re really silly,” she announced with a toss of her hair. “I know why Toudou thought you didn’t like him anymore.”

Makishima shook his head, but despite what he said to Seiko, he found himself wondering what the truth really was.

~

That night, when Seiko had gone to bed and their parents were watching an old movie that was playing on the television, Makishima sat on the edge of his bed, turning his phone over in his hands. Toudou’s voice saying “call me” repeated in his head, until Makishima began to have second thoughts about calling Toudou. He really had sounded quite hurt earlier when he claimed that Makishima had forgotten him, so now Makishima couldn’t tell if his sudden cheeriness afterwards had just been a façade.

Makishima shook his head, trying to dispel these thoughts. It was only natural for Toudou to be mad at him – after all, Makishima had practically cut him out of his life – but that didn’t mean Makishima didn’t have a chance to reconcile their friendship. Sighing, he scrolled through his contacts list until he reached a name that he hadn’t called in years – partly because Toudou was the one who had always initiated their conversations.

Toudou answered after the first ring, his voice somehow sounding quieter and more subdued than Makishima remembered it being during their calls in the past. “Maki-chan?”

“Hi, uh, Toudou,” Makishima replied, feeling somewhat uncomfortable for calling for no reason. He swung his legs onto the bed. “You said to call you, so I did…”

Toudou’s laugh crackled through the phone. “Ah, Maki-chan, you know that’s the first time someone’s ever actually called me when I told them that,” he admitted, and Makishima could just imagine his smug smile on the other side of the phone.

“Okay then,” Makishima muttered, feeling foolish that he’d fallen for what was apparently a cheap flirting tactic Toudou used for his fans. “I can just hang up if that’s what you want. I guess–”

“No, Maki-chan!” Toudou interrupted. “I didn’t mean it like that. I… really do want to talk to you. It’s been such a long time since we’ve spoken.”

“Yeah,” said Makishima, leaning back on a pillow and remembering their high school days where he could never seem to be able to avoid Toudou’s calls. “It really has. So, ah, how did you end up being a department store Santa, anyway?”

Toudou gave a muffled chuckle. “Who knows? I guess everyone’s got to earn money somehow.”

Makishima knew straight away that Toudou was evading the question but he couldn’t stop himself from pressing further. “I thought you were going to work at your family’s hot springs.”

Toudou’s sigh was audible even from the other side of the line. “If I did that, I’d probably end up working there for the rest of my life – and Maki-chan, that’s not what I want to spend my entire life doing. I’ve got other plans, and they don’t involve growing old in a hot springs resort.” He lowered his voice slightly. “I don’t know… It probably sounds stupid that I’d want to give up a perfectly good job just because of that, but… I don’t know,” he said resignedly, trailing off with another heavy sigh.

This side of Toudou was one that Makishima had rarely encountered, and it made him a little uncomfortable – he wasn’t used to dealing with these sorts of conversations – but at the same time, Makishima realised that in the three years they had spent apart, Toudou had changed. He certainly didn’t seem so arrogantly sure of himself as he had in high school, but, Makishima figured with a wry smile, that was probably just part of the responsibilities that came with being an adult.  

“I think you should just do whatever you think is right for you,” Makishima said a little awkwardly. He really hadn’t been prepared to have such a serious conversation and was starting to regret bringing up the topic of Toudou’s job.

Toudou laughed softly, and was silent for a moment before suddenly blurting, “Hey, did you want to go out somewhere?”

Makishima blinked, not expecting Toudou to suggest something like that. “What? It’s nearly ten already.”

Toudou paused again and Makishima could hear him breathing. “It’s the 22nd already; everyone’s probably still out doing last-minute Christmas shopping. I’m sure there’ll be someplace that’s open.”

Makishima sighed but got up to pull on his coat and wrap his scarf around his neck. “Alright.”

~

They sat across from each other in a nearly empty café along the main street of the shopping district. By the time they met, it was just past ten o’clock, but somehow, Makishima didn’t really feel tired. It was probably the effects of the jetlag changing his sleep cycle, he realised.

“So,” began Toudou, sipping his tea and resting his chin in the palm of his other hand, “I guess this is the first time we’ve been able to talk properly.”

“Yeah,” murmured Makishima, brushing a rogue strand of hair out of his face. “If you don’t count when you were dressed up as Santa and told me to sit on your lap.”

Makishima had meant it as a friendly taunt, but to his surprise, Toudou’s face flushed a shade of pink Makishima had never seen before.

“That – that didn’t mean anything, Maki-chan!” Toudou stammered, suddenly unable to meet Makishima’s gaze. “I was just being stupid.”

Makishima bit his lip, smiling slightly. “I know; I was kidding.”

He gazed out the window, watching the people wander past and the glowing city lights flicker. There was something comforting about being back home, and as Makishima stole a glance at his friend’s still-pink cheeks, he started to realise that he’d missed Toudou more than he had originally thought.

“What’s life like in England?” Toudou asked, his voice holding a hint of something Makishima couldn’t name.

Makishima shrugged. “It’s nice, but it isn’t like Japan. I’d much rather live here, but I guess going to England was a choice I made.”

“I would have wanted you to stay,” Toudou said suddenly, putting his mug of tea down and staring seriously at Makishima. “It sounds selfish, but riding isn’t as fun without you around. It was nice having a rival.”

Makishima pensively twirled a lock of hair around his finger. “I know.”

They sat in silence for some time, simply enjoying each other’s company – something neither had experienced for three years – and Makishima reflected on how riled up he used to get by Toudou’s constant teasing and phone calls and general personality. Somewhere along the line, things had changed, he realised, because as they sat opposite each other now, Makishima felt none of that old irritation that used to plague him.

“I really should have called you,” Makishima said after what could have been ten minutes or longer. His tea was starting to go cold, but he paid it no attention. “I – I’m sorry.”

It felt strange, apologising to Toudou. It seemed weirdly formal, especially considering how they always used to be so open and straightforward with each other. There had been no apologies when they were younger, and this strange sense that there was something still unspoken between them had never existed.

Makishima sighed and was about to say something when Toudou reached out and took hold of the strand of hair Makishima had been twirling. Makishima felt his eyes widen in shock, completely surprised by this behaviour of Toudou’s. He had noticed how Toudou was acting less cheerily arrogant than he used to, but this was totally unexpected.

What was even more unexpected was when Toudou leaned even further forward, close to knocking over his tea, and cupped Makishima’s face in his palm. “I missed you, Maki-chan. A lot.”

In a state of shock, Makishima just sat there, his mind whirling. Seiko’s words – “He likes you” – echoed through his head. Everything started to fit into place now – from Toudou’s peculiar behaviour when they first encountered each other in the department store to their old rivalry that had led to what Makishima had considered to be some sort of friendship but perhaps had been something else.

With this thought, Makishima closed his eyes, relaxed, and let Toudou kiss him.

Toudou’s lips were soft and tasted like a hint of green tea, and Makishima wasn’t sure why he hadn’t kissed him earlier. When they broke apart, Makishima moved from his seat opposite Toudou to squish next to him on the bench against the wall, their shoulders gently touching as they leaned into each other, each savouring the contact they had longed for in their own ways.

As his eyes flickered up to the tinsel decorating the window, Makishima clicked his tongue and murmured, “I would have gotten you a Christmas present back in England if I knew we’d see each other.”

Toudou’s eyes crinkled into a smile as he laced their fingers together. “Don’t worry, Maki-chan,” he whispered, leaning his head on Makishima’s shoulder. “You can be my present.”