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Okay, pizza or ramen. This was a very, very, extremely important question. Komi only had money for one—besides, two would be an overkill. Wouldn't it? Yeah, it would be. So back to staring he was, lips making a different shape every two seconds while he hummed not very quietly, probably inviting stares from strangers passing by. Japanese people should go for ramen! Or something. Right? But uuuugh, cheese. But naruto! But pepperoni. Damn, this was hard! He hadn't thought it would be this hard!
Komi finally turned his body away from his choices, sighing loudly, arms folded. Time would run out if he kept being indecisive! He didn't want to do this, he always took pride in his choices even for the smallest things, but it was almost closing time and he still couldn't decide. Desperate times called for desperate measures.
With a determined look on his face, Komi reached to his pocket and took out a 100-yen coin.
There were too many cute things...! Seriously, Kaori almost forgot what her objective of coming here was, she got distracted by basically everything else. But no, no, gotta do her—ooooh this was cute... No! She gotta do her thing, but wasn't that skirt really cute?! Yeah, for her. Or maybe—no, Kaori.
She clenched her fists, taking a deep breath, closing her eyes for one moment. Huffs. Okay, no more getting distracted, she was going to find it once and for all! Determined, she strolled around while trying to not not look at that really cute shirt or those adorable scrunchies...
And lo and behold! Her perseverance paid off within 5 minutes of looking around. She immediately turned his head when she caught it in the peripheral of her eyes, quickly grabbing it to see it closer. Oooh, wasn't this one perfect? Being a school with 'owl' as part of its name, the bird had now kind of unofficially become their team's logo, so wasn't this perfect?! It was, wasn't it?! Actually it was so perfect that it felt kind of scary.
Kaori didn't think twice before grabbing it and walking away to—oh, right, those scrunchies! Now that she'd done her goal she could take a look at them! And maybe she could try the skirt on as well?
A smile tugged Kaori's lips as she walked with her objective in hand, skipping and calling out one of the clerks, "Excuse me—"
Once you got to know Washio Tatsuki, a lot of your stories about him would probably start with 'despite his face...', and this one was no different.
Despite his often called stiff and scary face, Washio enjoyed a lot of things that always surprised people. Gardening was one thing, playing with children was another.
This was one of those surprises. He'd first learned this from his mother, who apparently had learned from his father. His brother learned about it afterward as well, and somewhere along the way it had become a family thing—something that they did while talking about things, from school to a random thing they'd seen that day. It was something that he would always associate to wonderful memories.
Sadly, between school, volleyball, and helping in his parents' shop, Washio hardly had time to do it anymore lately. Sometimes he'd come home and remembered how enjoyable it was to do it again, but he was either too tired or had too many things to do and ended up not doing it.
That was why, when he realized that he'd found a reason to have to make time to do it now, he was more than happy to. With a small smile on his face, he moved his arms to start again. It had been a while but he hoped he hadn't forgotten anything!
Hmm, Akaashi thought to himself as he stepped a little to the side, hands moving from one to another. This one looked nice—oh, maybe not this one, it was a bit too... bristly, that wasn't good. Maybe this one, then? But plain black was a little bit too... Hmm. Should he experiment with more colors? Like that one? But would that be too tacky?
Akaashi paused his actions for one second, looking at the things in front of him, then continued to absent-mindedly trailing his hand around. He knew that there were times he needed to go out of his comfort zone, but this wasn't one of those times. He wanted this to be something from his heart, not something he chose out of an awkward attempt to expand his world. It would be rude, and besides—oh?
His hand stopped moving as he blinked. Hmm. He tried what he did again... Huh. Yes, this was perfect. Beige was a little too plain, perhaps, but that person had always told him to 'follow his heart', and it felt like this was what his heart was telling him to go for.
He nodded to himself, a barely noticeable smile curved his lips as he walked toward the cashier, steps a little more cheerful than usual.
Ever since he'd heard it from the captain, Sarukui had known what he wanted to get.
There was a small alley behind the station that he liked to visit every now and then, as a lot of the stores there had a variety of things with prices that didn't hurt a high schooler's wallet too much. He liked to stroll around, whether it was for when he was looking for something, or when he just had some time to kill (which—with school, volleyball, and four younger siblings to look after—was very rare, but it existed, somewhere.)
The very first time he'd seen it, he thought the color would really make a good match! The colors were vague, which he'd thought would complement the guy's vibrant personality well. It was the right density, not too much and not too little, it was just right.
So now he walked with a smile on his face—not that it ever left his face in the first place—straight to the shop, then straight to the aisle, then straight to rack... Oh, thankfully, it was still there! Thank goodness, he knew that it was unlikely for them to get out of stock, but you just never knew.
He looked at it again, hand touching it gently. The smile on his face softened as he imagined how he would look like with it.
It was perfect.
If asked what she liked to do lately, Yukie had a few answers at hand but her first response would be DIY! She might be the best at it, but there was a sense of satisfaction every time she finished making something, especially if it were turning unused things into something useful. So far she'd recycled two pairs of old slippers into new, brighter ones, had made a pencil case from a worn out shirt, and had turned glass jars into colorful plant pots.
The one she found in today's magazine was perfect. She was thinking of buying one before, but what could be better than making one of her own? So there she was, with an old hoodie that was too small for her, a pair of scissors, needles, threads, and a magazine article laid out in front of her. Alrighty! She was gonna do this!
First, cut the hood—oh whoops, that side, huh... But no worries, no worries, it was just a little cut! Okay, now flip it to the side, and then this side to that... So far so good! Let's see, what was next... Okay, so this... Hmm? Wait, it wasn't—hmmm?! The text said this but it didn't really look like the guide, maybe this way then? No? Uh, okay. Just stitch it close and it'd look okay!
...Uh, it... kinda turned out different that the picture, but it was... okay! Yeah! It was totally okay! She could totally picture it, this was totally fine! And it was different but it wasn't... bad? Actually, didn't it look even cooler like this? Yeah, it did! It really did, okay!
Grinning to herself, she held her newest masterpiece proudly above her head and stood up, swaying herself around in circles, giggling in between.
Hmm. Hmm? Hmmmmmmm. Okay, okay, that had looked really good but if Konoha got it, wouldn't it be too... typical? He couldn't stop thinking about it ever since he'd laid eyes on it yesterday because it was just good, too good, almost like it was made especially for him. But exactly because it was so good that it would be too predictable to get it! Aaaargh, this was frustrating.
...Fine, you know what? He could just get off the train here to go there and look at it once again before he made the final decision.
So he strolled his way there, going straight to the section as he knew the shop's blueprint like the back of his hand, and... Huh?! Wait a minute, it wasn't there anymore!? Oh, crap. He looked left, and right, then walked along the aisle... It really wasn't there! He knew he'd still been deliberating if he'd wanted it or not, but now that it wasn't available anymore, he suddenly thought that it was just the perfecest thing.
Aaahh crap, that thing was the only thing on Konoha's mind now—he had other alternatives before, of course, but right now his brain was just going 'you weren't gonna get something better than that one!' Dammit. It was hard to compromise now. What should he do? He could ask if they had some stored in their storage somewhere, or—
—or wait a minute, there was something under the pile—
Ah, ah, there it was...! There was still one left hidden under the others, thank goodness! His lips curved a smile in relief, that turned into a slight frown not a second later. Was he just panicking a little because of that guy? Ugh. Fine, whatever, now that he'd found it that meant he gotta buy it, right? Right?! Fine.
Dammit, that guy better be thankful of Konoha later.
Have you ever seen something and immediately thought how perfect it would be for someone else? That was what happened to Onaga three days ago. He was passing by it while walking in the mall and just thought, 'this is it.' So, with a big smile on his face, he grabbed it off the display and marched to the cashier, buying it without thinking anything further.
"What? You got him that?!" a classmate of his said with an expression of disbelief when Onaga told him about it. The blocker blinked his eyes, confused.
"Yeah I did..." he paused as he continued to observe his friend's face. "...Is it weird?"
"Well, if I had to choose between weird and not weird, then I'll go weird," his other classmate joined in, taking a bite off his sandwich. "I mean, I don't know if I'd give something like that to a friend, and this is just..."
Onaga's shoulders dropped. Was it really weird...? All he thought when he'd seen it was how happy the recipient would be, but... Two of his friends said that, so maybe it really was weird. What should he do? He really hadn't thought much when he bought it, and he couldn't do anything about it now because it was for today right after practice...
He fell quieter for the rest of lunchtime, debating between giving it and deemed weird by his seniors, or showing up without a present at all.
"I can't believe we all got Bokuto the exact same thing."
Komi, with a shrimp tail coming out of his lips, grinned while rolling his eyes. "Well, at least the rest of us got him something kind of different... Unlike you and Suzumeda, who really got the exact same thing." Konoha frowned.
"How would I know Suzumeda had the same idea as I did?"
"Hey, that should be my line!" Kaori protested. "Besides if you bought the last one in the store, that means I bought it first before you, right?!"
Konoha groaned, and Komi's grin curved upward even more. "Shots fired, Konoha."
"And well," Washio said in an attempt to pacify the situation, chuckling slightly, "Bokuto kept complaining about it like he's asking for one, so we can't really help it that we all ended up getting him the same thing."
"That's true, I felt that it was in my subconscious to get him one..." Akaashi said quietly, his face somehow had a slight expression of 'I've been had...!'
Kaori giggled. "But it's really surprising that Washio-san can knit, huh!" she said, looking at the blocker in admiration. "You like gardening and can cook too, I envy you...!"
"Rather than envying him, I'd like to take him as a wife," Yukie chirped in, grinning. Konoha laughed.
"Last week you said that about Saru because you said he takes good care of people!" Konoha said. "Think of his feelings, man!"
"Well," Yukie, too, couldn't help but join in chuckling. "He does take good care of people, plus really, really attentive."
"I don't know if getting a scarf for someone who keeps saying 'aaaaaah my scarf is worn out, I want a new one...!' over and over again can be called 'being attentive.'" Sarukui laughed softly.
A couple of meters from the lively conversation, the cake, and all the food, was an unusually quiet Bokuto Koutarou stuffed in eight layers of scarves, his eyes brighter than ever.
Standing near him was Onaga, looking a little nervous for some reason.
"B-Bokuto-senpai!"
Bokuto's voice was immediately loud and a little cracked, inviting turned heads from the happily conversing group. "Yeah!! What is it, Onaga!!" Calm down, Bokuto.
The freshman scratched the back of his ears. "I, um—" he paused as he bowed his head forward. "I'm sorry!"
Bokuto, and the other members who had now stopped talking to each other, blinked their eyes.
"What for?"
Onaga's hand moved to hesitantly scratch the side of his neck. "Um, I didn't realize until today that my present is... um, too much." Bokuto's eyes glistened in confusion, blinking one, two, three more times before he broke into a big grin,
"What?! Of course not! I absolutely love it!" the captain said, turning his body to show one big scarf covering his entire back with a drawing of a pair large wings on it, making him look like he actually had wings sprouting from his body. "It's sooooooo cool! I've never had something like this before in my life, can you believe it?! Don't you think it suit me so much?! I can't thank you enough, Onaga!"
Onaga's eyes widened open slightly in relief, a smile formed his lips. "Really...?"
"Yeah, really! And of course I love everyone's too!" Bokuto turned his head to the group, beaming. "Washio's feels really warm, Yukie-chan's little stitches are really cute, Saru's looks great with my hair, Konoha's and Suzumeda's are adorable, Akaashi's feels nice to touch, Komi's looks amazing and delicious! Thank you!" he stopped, eyes blinking in awe and excitement. "I'm gonna wear all eight tomorrow!"
There was one short second of silence in the room when everyone stopped even their slightest movements, before they all snorted and sighed and chuckled at the exact same timing.
Komi was the first one to smack the back of Bokuto's head. "Don't eat mine, okay?! I mean I know the pizza looks good, but don't eat it."
Akaashi, too, couldn't help but adding his comment, "You always complain you feel hot all the time, you're going to melt if you wear all eight, Bokuto-san."
"Akaashi! Don't say it like that! I'll do my best, okay!?"
"No, that's not where you should 'do your best' at..."
The party was just beginning but already it was getting lively as there was a smile, ranging from tiny to whole wide, on each of the faces in the room. Their initial reactions when they saw that everyone gave him the same thing might have been different, but now they all had the same thing in their minds:
'I'm glad to have gotten him that present.'
