Itsuki was stoked to host the family's annual Christmas Eve party. So much that she got new decorations for Yumeko. She almost felt like her mom setting out the fruit bowls and peanuts. It reminded her of all the parties they hosted at their mansion when she was a kid.
She was lounging on her couch when someone knocked on her door. "It's open," she yelled.
Ryota opened the door as announced, "Yumeko and Mary are right behind me, but it wasn't smart to put mistletoe in the elevator." He placed three shiny red gift bags on her marble counter.
"I didn't put it there. It was the landlords."
"You own the building."
"And what about it?"
Ryota sighed as he sat on the couch. The Peanuts Christmas special was playing. "The superior Christmas movie," Ryota grinned.
"It was until I got cast as Sally in my elementary school play."
Ryota chuckled, "It fits you though!"
"Shush! It's not funny! They called me Sally for the rest of the year!"
Mary opened the door with Yumeko on her arm. Yumeko waved with three bags in her hands. "Merry Christmas Eve!"
"Ryota said y'all were literally behind him."
"We were behind him, in the elevator," Mary answered.
"I fucking knew it!" Itsuki pointed.
Mary groaned as she made her way to the couch. "Peanuts?"
"There's also peanuts in the kitchen," Itsuki flattered herself.
"I know!" Yumeko walked to the couch with a couple of peanuts on a napkin.
"You're turning into your mom," Ryota jabbed.
"Doesn't she have a peanut allergy?" Yumeko asked.
"Yeah, that's why my dad would put them out instead of her."
The rest of the group ohh-ed in understanding.
"Anyways, we should get started!" Itsuki clapped her hands together.
"What are we doing?" Ryota questioned.
Itsuki giggled to herself before explaining, "First, we're going to have a gingerbread house contest. Then, we're going to exchange gifts. And finally, we're going to watch a movie."
Yumeko bounced her toes in excitement. "Sounds fun!"
"Better be prepared for me to kick your asses!" Mary flipped a twin tail behind her shoulder.
"We'll see," Itsuki challenged.
===
It has as every man for themselves. Itsuki allowed them to check the rooms and ingredients for fairness, really just Mary and Yumeko. They would pick their ingredients and run to a different spot in the apartment. After that, they would have 45 minutes to decorate their houses. The winner would be picked through a vote.
"On your marks," Itsuki drew out. They each stood in a line prepared to take their house and ingredients.
"Get set!" She made sure to add time between each word.
"Go!"
They were off! Running to claim as many ingredients as they could in a small plastic bag. Itsuki tried taking multiple items from the bowls of candy but got knocked away by Yumeko and Ryota. Yelling in frustration she noticed Mary stealing M&M's from a bowl to herself and pounced. Mary saw this coming and backed away laughing as she trotted to the other bowls.
Everyone filled their bags to the brim and set off to their separate rooms. Itsuki chose her bedroom. Ryota chose the bathroom. Yumeko was in the laundry room. Leaving Mary in the living room.
As they worked on decorating their houses, Mary ran out of gumdrops. It wasn't something she could just replace either. It was the trimming of the roof. Her lightbulb went off. Nowhere in the rules did it say she couldn't go back for more, so that's what she did. Confidently, she walked into the kitchen, grabbed a handful of gumdrops, and went back to the living room.
As she was walking back, Itsuki walked in. She needed an extra gummy bear after all.
It was 5 minutes until the time was up, and Yumeko walked into the kitchen with her completed house. As she stood there waiting, she noticed how perfect the red M&M's would look on her red Sour Patch Kids chimney. Stealing some icing from her house lining, she took some of the circular candy and stacked them on the chimney. Stepping back to look at her all-red design, she felt pride for her clean work. Just enough icing to make the candy stick. Each candy cane was perfectly spaced on the sides of her roof.
Ryota came out of his room next. A bit startled to see her presence, he laughed and placed his house on the table. "Your's is so neat."
"Thanks, I really like yours. It's very creative." Ryota made a traditional house. The mint window at the front of the house had slid down. The color scheme was all over the place but in an artistic decision way. No two colors were next to each other. "I had too many colors to make a pattern."
"Ahh, I see. It still looks nice." Yumeko peered at the snowman made out of marshmallows he placed.
"Are y'all prepared to lose?" Mary burst through the door to the living room. Her house had a yellow and orange color scheme.
"Those aren't Christmas colors, Mary," Ryota pointed out.
"So yellow, blue, and purple are?"
"I ran out of red and green."
"You could've just gotten some more."
"Yeah, Ryota. Nowhere in the rules did it say that you couldn't get more candy," Yumeko giggled.
Itsuki creaked her door and announced, "Ladies and gentleman, are you ready to behold the winning gingerbread house contest?"
"You're the only one who hasn't seen my house, Suki," Mary boasted.
"Shut up, Mary. Now, here is Itsuki Sumeragi's glamorous gingerbread house!" She walked through her door and presented her house.
"Where the actual fuck did you get that glitter?" Mary laughed into her hand.
The house was covered in icing and glitter. The entire roof was painted in white icing covered by silver glitter. The sides were decorated with different candies also covered in glitter. In the front was a sliver gummy bear family.
"Itsuki- I- oh my gosh," Ryota was gasping for air.
"Don't hate because I just won the whole-ass competition," Itsuki carefully placed the house down on the counter.
"I have to say it looks really pretty," Yumeko admitted.
"Thank you, Yumeko! Someone can appreciate art!"
"Suki, literally all you did was put glitter on it!" Mary's laughed muffled her words, "Where did you find all that glitter?"
"My room, of course."
This caused the roar of laughter to crescendo.
"Can I at least explain my vision?" Itsuki rolled her eyes.
Ryota attempted to bring his laughter to a halt and nodded.
"Y'all have to stop laughing," As much as Itsuki wanted to be annoyed, she was proud of her decision.
The group's noise level went down, but the grins on their face could break at any moment.
"Okay, I wanted to be different. I knew that y'all wouldn't think of bringing any extra ingredients, and nobody would expect glitter. Because mine was original, y'all would pick mine." Itsuki confidently smiled.
The other three's laughter was on their tongue. Itsuki sighed, "You can laugh now."
They took no time to finally start again.
"Why do you have that much glitter in your room?"
"Is this what you spend your money on?"
"How're you supposed to eat that?"
"Oh my gosh! Do y'all want to go or are we voting now?" Itsuki leaned on the counter.
"Fine, fine. I'll go next because, obviously, mine is the best." Mary pushed her house forward. The house's siding was lined with candy canes. The rest was yellow and orange sour candies, except for the door which was covered in yellow tiny gobstoppers with an orange for the handle.
"As we know, Christmas isn't my favorite holiday. I think that yellow and orange are way better colors. So to represent that, I made my entire house yellow and orange."
Ryota raised his hand.
"If it's a stupid question, I'm going to burn your house down."
"Which one?"
"Both."
"If your theme was yellow and orange, why are there red candy canes?"
"I'm getting my lighter."
"No, that's a valid question," Yumeko pondered.
"You're supposed to be on my side!"
"I'm not justifying the Christmas slander."
Mary groaned placing a hand on her forehead. "It's because red is a warm color and so are yellow and orange."
"You're entire point was to have that set color scheme though." Ryota teased.
"Okay, Roygbiv? How about you explain your mess of a gingerbread house?"
"I ran out of red and green!"
"You could've gotten more!"
"I didn't know that!"
"I actually really wanna hear where you were taking this," Itsuki smirked.
"I have an explanation. So I was gonna have this really festive house with a snowman family in the front. It was going to model like a movie Christmas home, but I don't know how to use icing."
"There's only one snowman," Yumeko questioned.
"I ran out of marshmallows."
"Wait is that what the pulled marshmallows are on the ground?" Itsuki gasped, "You killed the poor snowman's family!"
"Itsuki, no-"
"Hide your gummy bears, I think he's gonna go on a rampage!" Yumeko warned.
"Not you too-"
Mary wanted to interject, but she was hunched over on the counter trying to control her laughter.
"Fine, yes I did turn the marshmallows for the family into the snow."
Itsuki and Yumeko gasped at the same time.
"Yumeko, please go before you try to call the police."
"If you promise to spare the children." Yumeko wiped a fake tear from her eyes.
"I don't want to get glitter on my hands, thank you."
"Not those children." Yumeko pulled the crushed candy cane roof off her house and revealed a living room with two Hershey's kisses on a snickers couch. Two chocolate chips in front of a green Sour Patch Kids Christmas tree. A red wrapper was sculpted to look like a fire.
"A wonderful home deserves a loving family. Red and white have always been easy colors to work with. I hope it wasn't too much!" Yumeko beamed at her creation.
The other three stood there speechless. Her details were neat and precise, and she had the story to back it up.
"Should we start voting?" Itsuki deadpanned. "Who votes for me?"
Yumeko raised her hand cheerfully.
"Yumeko!" Ryota and Mary shouted.
"I'm not voting for the Christmas hater and a murder."
"Mary?"
Silence.
"No taste." Mary scoffed.
"Ryota?"
He raised his hand proudly.
"It's an unspoken rule that you can't vote for yourself." Itsuki grinned knowing she was about to cause an uproar.
"See! It was also an unspoken rule that you couldn't get extra ingredients!"
"But half the people did it, so it's officially a loophole," Mary corrected.
"You didn't?" Itsuki asked shocked.
"You did?"
"Oh my gosh," Ryota facepalmed.
"And Yumeko."
It was unanimous.
"Aww, thank you so much! You did a wonderful job Itsuki!"
"Thank you! Congratulations!" Itsuki matched Yumeko's joyful expressions while the other two rolled their eyes.
===
The group now sat in the living room preparing to open their gifts.
"Okay, since Yumeko won. She'll open our gifts first," Itsuki handed her a red and white striped large bag.
"Aww, thank you, Suki!" Yumeko grabbed the bag and pulled away the sparkly tissue paper. Her face lit up when she peered into the bag. Bouncing her legs she pulled out a black cat stuffed animal wearing a Santa hat and a reindeer collar in a laying down pose. It's sharp eyes were deep red. "Ahaha, Itsuki! I love it! Thank you!" Yumeko and placed the bag on the ground and hugged the cat.
"It looks like a panther," Ryota commented.
"Name it Scrooge."
"Mary!"
"It fits!"
"It also will fit right on your side of the bed if you don't be nice to your son."
"Oh my gosh, they get one kid, and they're already fighting!" Itsuki sat back in her seat laughing.
"Wait, name him Christmas Cat, but with two k's so you can call him Kiki," Ryota suggested.
"Ryota that's perfect! Just like from my Animal Crossing island!" Yumeko exasperated.
"Oh, I'm so glad you didn't think it was stupid. I thought hard about that."
"Hehe, Kiki Saobami." Yumeko patted the cat's head. From the corner of her eye, she could see Mary blushing.
Itsuki was not in the mood to feel lonely so she interrupted with, "Who's next?"
"I can go," Ryota handed Yumeko a box was shiny red wrapping paper.
"Thank you, Ryota!" Yumeko carefully tore the paper to reveal a pack of "cute tarot cards."
Yumeko beamed as she ran her fingers across the edges and giggled at the pictures.
"This is also my confirmation that I'm going to start gambling with you again."
Yumeko's eyes widened as she looked up at Ryota. "You don't have to gamble you know. That's your decision, and it doesn't change how good a friend you are."
"No, I'm sure. Besides watching you guys play made me learn a ton, so I'm going to beat everyone now."
"Keep dreaming, Car-man," Mary scoffed.
"You didn't get the tarot cards just because they're cute right?" Yumeko asked after laughing at Mary's comment.
"We used tarot cards from the first time I ever gambled with you." Ryota reminded, but he knew Yumeko already remembered the event.
"Thank you, Ryota," Yumeko flashed a smile.
"I bet Mary's gift isn't as good as ours." Itsuki snickered.
"Definitely not," Ryota added.
"Yumeko, all I have to say is," Mary handed Yumeko a red matte bag. "don't kill me."