My Childhood Friend And The Christmas Party

According to my childhood friend, “honestly, I like my chicken un-fried better than fried,” apparently.

Then again, I hear the whole fried-chicken-at-Christmas thing is a Japan-only deal, so you may as well just eat whatever you actually feel like.

And how’s this childhood friend of mine, Sakura Ayuri, doing right about now…?

“That bright-red-nosed little rein~deer~♪”

(She’s off singing something again.)

“Hmm-hmm~, hmm-hmm-hmm~”
“Did she… forget the lyrics?”
“…and so, at last, that night, he was over~joyed~♫”
“She just skipped a giant chunk and slapped an ending on it.”

There’s a limit to how vaguely you’re allowed to remember a song.

Anyway, out in the wider world, it’s currently December 24th, or in other words, Christmas Eve.

The same old crew had gathered as always, everyone fired up for a Christmas party. Only this time we weren’t at Hina’s place, where we usually pile in, but at Ayu’s. The reason being…

“Beho~ld, the cake I have procured for you all. Now — everyone, rejoice, weep, and work yourselves into a frenzy.”
“All she did was reserve a cake and let it sit at home, and she talks like it’s some grand feat.”
“Well, she did actually pay for the cake, so…”
“Even though she tweaked the chicken and the other dishes to make it all even out, so~”

Since borrowing Hina’s place every single time had always left us feeling a little guilty, this year Ayu had been the one to speak up.

“Let’s do the Christmas party at my place this year!”

She’d volunteered, all on her own.

Apparently she’d checked with all of us first, then gone and properly reserved the cake and the chicken. We rounded it out with a bit of extra food from the supermarket, threw up some light decorations, and the party was off in no time.

“Here, Gin-chan gets a slightly bigger slice. And a chocolate plate, too.”
“Thanks.”
“You’re today’s guest of honor~”
“Technically that’s tomorrow, though.”

Tomorrow is Christmas Day proper, and it also happens to be my birthday, so at my request, today’s party doubles as an early birthday celebration for me. Which is why the relentless pushing of food on me, and the preferential cake treatment, are a yearly fixture.

“Oh, Gin-chan, put this on.”
“…”
“It’s the Guest-of-Honor sash! Gin-chan, you simply must wear thi—… hey?! Don’t just chuck it aside without a word?!”

…This, too, happens every year. And every year, she does a commendable job of hanging on to it instead of tossing it out.

◆◆◆

“Oi. If you’re gonna treat me like the guest of honor, then quit stalling and hand over the present.”
“Say what you will, I do love the way you put the sash on for me, Gin-chan.”
“Yeah, yeah. Worship away.”
“As you wiiish!”

I’d told them to keep it modest, that I wasn’t setting the bar high while I waited… but a birthday present is a birthday present, and getting excited over one is simply human nature. I keep trying to tell myself not to expect much… but the second you know your friends pooled their money and hashed it out together to settle on the thing, you can’t help wanting to get a look at it as fast as possible.

“So then… Gin-chan’s birthday present for this year is… over here!”
“The fridge? So it’s food?”

Now then, if it were cake, we’d only just cut into the Christmas one a moment ago, so what on earth was coming?

“Haaaappy biiirthday to~♪”
“Just sing it normally.”
“…Happy birthday to you~♫”
“And now the fact that she’s genuinely good at it is somehow its own kind of infuriating.”
“That’s hardly fair…”

Still singing, Ayu opened the fridge and drew something out. What she held up in her hands was…

“Happy birthday, dear~♩”
“Giii~n-chan~♬”
“…Hm?”
“Happy birthday to youuu~♪ …Happy birthday!”
“…Thanks. What is this — meat?”
“It’s a premium meat set. Fancy, expensive cuts inside.”

What Ayu drew out of the fridge was a pack of frost-dusted, unmistakably high-end-looking cuts of meat, bundled together into a set.

…Is this really what you give a high-school girl for her birthday?

“…Is this really what you give a high-school girl for her birthday? …Oh. That slipped out.”
“Well, Gin-chan, you’re always saying you want to eat pricey stuff every now and then, so…”
“I do say that, admittedly.”

I’m well aware I go around fairly often saying I want shabu-shabu, or matsutake, or hey, even yakiniku… but isn’t that the sort of thing the birthday kid begs their parents for? Not something one JK hands another JK for a birthday present, surely.

“Uh, what? Are you gonna grill it for me right now?”
“Gin-chan, your birthday’s tomorrow, so please eat it at your own house tomorrow.”
“Ehh…”
“C-come on… fancy meat like this is probably better off not left to us, anyway…”
“I’ve already run it by your mom, Gin-chan~”
“You cleared it with her, huh…”

Well, if she’d already cleared it with Mom, then I suppose it’s fine… and sure, it’s leagues pricier than the weird cushion the rest of us chipped in for Ayu this year… but I couldn’t shake it, this faint, lingering sense of not-quite-satisfaction. What even was that?

◆◆◆

“Right! Now that our stomachs are getting nice and full… let’s do the Christmas present exchange! Clap, clap!”
“Clap, clap~”

As we chatted and worked through the aggressively Christmas-themed spread, Ayu cut in with that just as the food was starting to run low.

Incidentally, having already received my birthday present, I’d pulled rank and forcibly declared the early birthday celebration over; naturally, I stripped the dorky sash off the instant I could.

“Allow me to explain the rules once more!”
“Ye~s.”
“Minimum one thousand yen, cap of three thousand, no worn-out old junk, ya hear!”
“Well… with this group, I think we’ll be fine, though.”

Each of us fished the Christmas presents we’d prepared in advance out of our bags, their contents still hidden for now. They came in all sizes, apparently: Sumire-san’s was on the small side, Ayu’s middling, Hina’s a bit bigger, and mine the biggest of the lot.

“Set the timer for however many seconds, whatever, and the four of us make a circle and pass them clockwise. If it lands on your own present at the end, you shift over one, that’s the deal!”
“The classic~”
“‘I bought something right at the max, but the one that came to me was barely scraping a thousand yen…’ — getting mad over that kind of thing is a no-no, ya got that? Goes without sayin’, doesn’t it?”
“What even is that character you’ve been doing this whole time.”
“Alright, here we go! Timer, start!!”
“Hey, don’t ignore me.”

The instant Ayu flicked the timer switch, we sent the presents circling. Quite the frantic little game, this, ya hear… ugh, crap, it rubbed off on me.

“…Aren’t you normally supposed to play music for this sort of thing?”
“Forgot about that! I’m using the alarm app I use every day, so there’s nothing like that, ya hear!”
“Ehh~? Then Ayu-chan, you sing~”
“Uh… Run, run, little sleigh~♪ Swift as the wind~♩”
“Sounding good…”
“…Hmm-hmm-hmm-hmm~, hmm-hmm-hmm-hmm~♫”
“You went vague on the lyrics way too fast.”

Still, she really is good even just humming, this girl… and so, bobbing along a little to the rhythm of it, we kept the presents going around for a while, until…

— Rrrrring!!!

“Okay, stop!”

The alarm brought the passing hands to a halt. In mine sat… one of the bigger ones… and this one was, if I remembered right, Hina’s.

“Mine is… Sumire-chan’s!”
“Mine is… Ayuri-san’s.”

Ayu’s, it seemed, had ended up with Sumire-san.

“…”

…It’s not as though I especially wanted Ayu’s. It’s just that hers was the most middling of the bunch, size-wise, and seemed about right, seemed like a good fit. That’s all. And I’ll say it again: it’s not as though I particularly wanted Ayu’s present.

“Alright, let’s get straight to opening them! Who wants to go first?”
“Smallest first is probably good~”
“Then I’ll start… this is… a pen!”

The Christmas present Ayu drew from the bag, courtesy of Sumire-san, was… a rather nice-looking pen. A mechanical pencil, probably.

“Oooh, to someone like me, who basically only ever buys the four-to-a-pack mechanical pencils, this looks super pricey!”
“It’s only about two thousand and change, though… I use one too, and it’s really easy to write with.”
“Thank you, Sumire-san! I’m gonna use the heck out of it!”

Looks like Ayu scored herself something pretty nice. Then again, the matching one she’d bought with Hotaru-senpai ages ago was worn out by now, so the timing seemed just about perfect for her.

“Then I’m next… what is this, I wonder…”
“What’s this~? A sushi ornament~?”
“So glad you asked! My Christmas present is… an aroma candle!”
“Are you serious.”

The present Sumire-san drew from the bag, from Ayu, was shaped like a piece of sushi, but according to the girl herself it was an aroma candle. Look closely and, sure enough, there was a wick fixed right where you’d light the flame.

…Oh, and a teacup came out too.

“Huh, that’s actually pretty interesting.”
“Right? Right? I’ll lend you the special dish that goes with it, so tell me what you think! It’s uncharted territory for me too!”
“Don’t go putting something like that in a gift exchange.”

…Yeah, that one I might not really need. …No, hold on, maybe I’m a little curious after all….

“Then I guess I’m next.”
“Whaat could it beee, whaat could it beee~”
“This is…”

The present that came around to me, from Hina, was… a cat-shaped humidifier. Set against that gag-stuffed gift from a moment ago, it looked a solid twenty percent cuter by comparison.

“Huh, nice.”
“Mm-hm, it’s the dry season, after all~”
“Cute!”
“Cute…”

As expected of Hina, her taste in this sort of thing is top-tier. A certain idiot who picks weird stuff purely because “it’s funny” could stand to take a page out of her book.

“I’m last~, and it’s the biggest one~”
“Well, you can probably tell just from how light it is, though.”
“Light… which would mean…”
“It’s a plushie~!”

The Christmas present from me, the one that landed with Hina, was… a game-character plushie I’d snagged out of a crane game. A pretty sizable one, at that.

“It’s big~, all cute and fluffy~”
“For this size, isn’t three thousand nowhere near enough?”
“It’s from a crane game, so we’re safe.”
“Really? You really won it for under three thousand?”
“…”
“Gin-chan?”

…Probably. It should be within three thousand. Though I do have the faint feeling I got a little too into it partway through and lost track of exactly how much I fed the machine.