tallulahgs (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
tallulahgs) wrote2016-12-28 06:53 pm
tallulahgs) wrote2016-12-28 06:53 pm
Entry tags:
On the third day of Christmas
my true love sent to me
three special treats
In which three groups of people make the best of celebrating with what they've got.
[Title] Christmas
[Fandom] Battle Royale (manga)
[Rating] G
[Notes/Summary] All Shuuya and Noriko want for Christmas is each other.
Their first Christmas they crept off the trawler into a port filled with shipping containers. The sky was cloudy and thick and dust whipped around their ankles. Then there was hitchhiking for days, the road turning into one long line, their eyes sandy-aching, clutching each other’s hands and praying the English questions directed at them weren’t I know what you did, I know who you are… By the time they’d stopped travelling and opened their eyes, it was January. New York was full of filthy snow.
Their second Christmas was still rough. They were working but they only had enough for food if they wore several layers in the apartment. There certainly wasn’t going to be any presents or fried chicken or decorations.
But they went back to Times Square and they stood in the centre of the lights holding hands and Shuuya bought her a hot chocolate and they took alternate sips. It started to snow, and now when Noriko thought of snow she thought of cold through the holes in her shoes, and shivering, and the apartment smelling of damp clothes, but seeing it spiral down, golden in all the lights, made her feel like a child again. And that song, that one about all I want for Christmas is you was blaring out of a café. Shuuya put his arm round her shoulders and sang along to the bits he knew. It started off as a joke, and somewhere along the line it became real and they were both singing it, with the snow catching on their hair and eyelashes and melting on their battered old coats. Singing as if they really meant it.
[Title] New Year's
[Fandom] Akira
[Rating] G
[Notes/Summary] Tetsuo isn't enjoying New Year's much. Kaneda tries to improve it.
New Year’s had never been much to speak of. Sometimes in the children’s home they did some of the special cooking but it always tasted the same as everything else, and it just kind of made it more obvious you weren’t doing all the family things like gifts and going to the shrine and talking about your first dream of the new year and stuff. You were a loser whose parents had ditched him and run away and you were eating soggy soybeans in the canteen and trying to pretend you were having fun when really you were so angry and sad you could barely swallow.
Kaneda knew. Sometimes when you were sad he’d call you a baby and tell you to cheer up, and you thought if he did that this time you might actually hit him (you almost weren’t too scared to) but he didn’t. He dragged you off after dinner and talked at you about Gigantor, trying to talk you into feeling better, and it didn’t work but at least he was trying, even though you both knew you were way too old to still be caring (either about Gigantor or New Year’s). Still, you wondered if Kaneda was kind of sad about not having a proper New Year’s too.
Then after lights-out you went to sleep figuring you’d pretend it wasn’t a special night at all, but then suddenly Kaneda was shaking you awake and hissing, “Come on. Keep quiet. Put a jumper on or something.”
He’d found the stairs up to the roof. All dark and quiet and squares of no-colour sky on the windows but then he shoved open the door and you stepped out into a swirl of icy air and all of the colours. It was a jewellery box or a computer game or thousands and thousands of eyes and the city was all around you and it was almost singing.
“See, we can stay up here til midnight,” Kaneda was saying. “See all the fireworks.” He sat down and pulled out some sweets, chocolate bars and mochi, from his coat pockets. He had the blanket off his bed wrapped round him, and he put a fold of it round you, too. “Like a tent. Gotta stay warm.” And it was cold but you didn’t mind. Up here the world stopped being bad and scary and was just pretty lights, and when the fireworks finally started going off it was like throwing a stone into a lake. Up til then you’d been dozing off and Kaneda kept prodding you awake and making you eat more chocolate but every time you opened your eyes the city was still always there, all around you.
[Title] Thanksgiving
[Fandom] Jet Set Radio
[Rating] G
[Notes/Summary] The GGs attempt Thanksgiving for their American contingent.
Gum had run in and yelled for Cube and Combo to come help her because the Poison Jam were trying to take back the furthest edge of Kogane-cho, and Cube dashed right out, happy to have something to think about that wasn’t Thanksgiving and remembering. She only worked out what was likely happening when they got to Kogane and it was full of nothing more than winter sunlight and disgruntled street sellers, as per usual.
“Doesn’t exactly look like a turf war, kid,” Combo said.
“Mm. Oh well. Guess we should go back. Maybe Prof K’s been trippin’ on something.”
Cube wanted to laugh, but she also didn’t want to let on to her suspicions in case it turned out they were wrong. Then she’d look like an idiot and (this was secret, but) she’d probably want to cry. Back in Grind City, the family who ran the greasy spoon café in Bantam Street had made them turkey-and-stuffing-and-cranberry sandwiches every year ‘cause their eldest son had been at school with Combo. And Coin had always put together a day-long set list of music I’ve been thankful for this year. Today was really silent and she didn’t need the absence of more holiday cheer, thanks very much.
But when they walked into the garage the air smelt of roasting meat and the walls were covered in various graffitied interpretations of the Stars and Stripes and as everyone else stood in the room waving little flags and yelling, “Surprise!” Cube realised she might be going to want to cry anyway. Luckily then Beat said, “Hang on, do we yell surprise? Isn’t it Happy Thanksgiving?” and Garam was like, “Pretty sure it doesn’t matter,” and Yo-Yo was saying, “Can we please eat the turkey, we’ve been staring at it for hours –” and Cube could swallow and blink and say, voice steady, “Where did you even find a turkey in Tokyo anyway?” They crowded round her explaining how Slate’s brother’s friend had scoured the markets and knew a guy, and that there were tinned cranberries and lychees and pickled plums (“Because we could only find, like, a few tins of cranberries so we had to go Japanese for the rest of it,” said Mew) and potatoes which were not quite roasted and not quite boiled but were cooked all the way through at least and all the pumpkin-flavoured desserts they’d been able to beg, borrow or steal.
The turkey wasn’t cooked until midnight (“Seriously, no,” Tab said, “It’s not done yet, I told you we should’ve started the day before, told ‘em we’d killed Onishima and were gonna eat him – ”) but they danced and drank and painted more America-themed tags and ate the pumpkin-flavoured desserts. It was when they were finally carving up the roast that Combo said, “You guys didn’t have to.” He was looking kind of stunned so Cube figured he too actually cared a whole lot more about this than he was going to admit. “How much of our budget’s gone on turkey and them little flags when y’all aren’t even American?”
“Uh, hello?” Gum said through a mouthful. “It was an excuse for food, pretty much everyone here bought into it once they worked that out.”
“And drinking,” said Piranha, pouring more sake into the mix of plastic cups and pre-owned glasses.
“Besides, we’re thankful for you guys,” Beat said. “You hadn’t shown up when you did, the world would’ve been taken over by a giant rhino demon. Least we can do.”
No one needed to say, And it sucks when you always celebrated a thing and one of the people you partied with isn’t there now. “We never had an actual roast turkey before,” Cube said, and that was all she could say about before but it didn’t matter. “You guys have knocked this out of the park.”
three special treats
In which three groups of people make the best of celebrating with what they've got.
[Title] Christmas
[Fandom] Battle Royale (manga)
[Rating] G
[Notes/Summary] All Shuuya and Noriko want for Christmas is each other.
Their first Christmas they crept off the trawler into a port filled with shipping containers. The sky was cloudy and thick and dust whipped around their ankles. Then there was hitchhiking for days, the road turning into one long line, their eyes sandy-aching, clutching each other’s hands and praying the English questions directed at them weren’t I know what you did, I know who you are… By the time they’d stopped travelling and opened their eyes, it was January. New York was full of filthy snow.
Their second Christmas was still rough. They were working but they only had enough for food if they wore several layers in the apartment. There certainly wasn’t going to be any presents or fried chicken or decorations.
But they went back to Times Square and they stood in the centre of the lights holding hands and Shuuya bought her a hot chocolate and they took alternate sips. It started to snow, and now when Noriko thought of snow she thought of cold through the holes in her shoes, and shivering, and the apartment smelling of damp clothes, but seeing it spiral down, golden in all the lights, made her feel like a child again. And that song, that one about all I want for Christmas is you was blaring out of a café. Shuuya put his arm round her shoulders and sang along to the bits he knew. It started off as a joke, and somewhere along the line it became real and they were both singing it, with the snow catching on their hair and eyelashes and melting on their battered old coats. Singing as if they really meant it.
[Title] New Year's
[Fandom] Akira
[Rating] G
[Notes/Summary] Tetsuo isn't enjoying New Year's much. Kaneda tries to improve it.
New Year’s had never been much to speak of. Sometimes in the children’s home they did some of the special cooking but it always tasted the same as everything else, and it just kind of made it more obvious you weren’t doing all the family things like gifts and going to the shrine and talking about your first dream of the new year and stuff. You were a loser whose parents had ditched him and run away and you were eating soggy soybeans in the canteen and trying to pretend you were having fun when really you were so angry and sad you could barely swallow.
Kaneda knew. Sometimes when you were sad he’d call you a baby and tell you to cheer up, and you thought if he did that this time you might actually hit him (you almost weren’t too scared to) but he didn’t. He dragged you off after dinner and talked at you about Gigantor, trying to talk you into feeling better, and it didn’t work but at least he was trying, even though you both knew you were way too old to still be caring (either about Gigantor or New Year’s). Still, you wondered if Kaneda was kind of sad about not having a proper New Year’s too.
Then after lights-out you went to sleep figuring you’d pretend it wasn’t a special night at all, but then suddenly Kaneda was shaking you awake and hissing, “Come on. Keep quiet. Put a jumper on or something.”
He’d found the stairs up to the roof. All dark and quiet and squares of no-colour sky on the windows but then he shoved open the door and you stepped out into a swirl of icy air and all of the colours. It was a jewellery box or a computer game or thousands and thousands of eyes and the city was all around you and it was almost singing.
“See, we can stay up here til midnight,” Kaneda was saying. “See all the fireworks.” He sat down and pulled out some sweets, chocolate bars and mochi, from his coat pockets. He had the blanket off his bed wrapped round him, and he put a fold of it round you, too. “Like a tent. Gotta stay warm.” And it was cold but you didn’t mind. Up here the world stopped being bad and scary and was just pretty lights, and when the fireworks finally started going off it was like throwing a stone into a lake. Up til then you’d been dozing off and Kaneda kept prodding you awake and making you eat more chocolate but every time you opened your eyes the city was still always there, all around you.
[Title] Thanksgiving
[Fandom] Jet Set Radio
[Rating] G
[Notes/Summary] The GGs attempt Thanksgiving for their American contingent.
Gum had run in and yelled for Cube and Combo to come help her because the Poison Jam were trying to take back the furthest edge of Kogane-cho, and Cube dashed right out, happy to have something to think about that wasn’t Thanksgiving and remembering. She only worked out what was likely happening when they got to Kogane and it was full of nothing more than winter sunlight and disgruntled street sellers, as per usual.
“Doesn’t exactly look like a turf war, kid,” Combo said.
“Mm. Oh well. Guess we should go back. Maybe Prof K’s been trippin’ on something.”
Cube wanted to laugh, but she also didn’t want to let on to her suspicions in case it turned out they were wrong. Then she’d look like an idiot and (this was secret, but) she’d probably want to cry. Back in Grind City, the family who ran the greasy spoon café in Bantam Street had made them turkey-and-stuffing-and-cranberry sandwiches every year ‘cause their eldest son had been at school with Combo. And Coin had always put together a day-long set list of music I’ve been thankful for this year. Today was really silent and she didn’t need the absence of more holiday cheer, thanks very much.
But when they walked into the garage the air smelt of roasting meat and the walls were covered in various graffitied interpretations of the Stars and Stripes and as everyone else stood in the room waving little flags and yelling, “Surprise!” Cube realised she might be going to want to cry anyway. Luckily then Beat said, “Hang on, do we yell surprise? Isn’t it Happy Thanksgiving?” and Garam was like, “Pretty sure it doesn’t matter,” and Yo-Yo was saying, “Can we please eat the turkey, we’ve been staring at it for hours –” and Cube could swallow and blink and say, voice steady, “Where did you even find a turkey in Tokyo anyway?” They crowded round her explaining how Slate’s brother’s friend had scoured the markets and knew a guy, and that there were tinned cranberries and lychees and pickled plums (“Because we could only find, like, a few tins of cranberries so we had to go Japanese for the rest of it,” said Mew) and potatoes which were not quite roasted and not quite boiled but were cooked all the way through at least and all the pumpkin-flavoured desserts they’d been able to beg, borrow or steal.
The turkey wasn’t cooked until midnight (“Seriously, no,” Tab said, “It’s not done yet, I told you we should’ve started the day before, told ‘em we’d killed Onishima and were gonna eat him – ”) but they danced and drank and painted more America-themed tags and ate the pumpkin-flavoured desserts. It was when they were finally carving up the roast that Combo said, “You guys didn’t have to.” He was looking kind of stunned so Cube figured he too actually cared a whole lot more about this than he was going to admit. “How much of our budget’s gone on turkey and them little flags when y’all aren’t even American?”
“Uh, hello?” Gum said through a mouthful. “It was an excuse for food, pretty much everyone here bought into it once they worked that out.”
“And drinking,” said Piranha, pouring more sake into the mix of plastic cups and pre-owned glasses.
“Besides, we’re thankful for you guys,” Beat said. “You hadn’t shown up when you did, the world would’ve been taken over by a giant rhino demon. Least we can do.”
No one needed to say, And it sucks when you always celebrated a thing and one of the people you partied with isn’t there now. “We never had an actual roast turkey before,” Cube said, and that was all she could say about before but it didn’t matter. “You guys have knocked this out of the park.”