Chapter 9: December — Christmas

On Christmas Day, when she opened her shoe locker to go home, a small, neatly wrapped pouch sat atop her outdoor shoes.
She felt her heart give a quick throb, but she closed the locker once and took a deep breath. Then, she looked around.

Each time a student leaving for home opened the entrance door,
a cold gust of wind blew in.
She was exposed to the chill several times,
but it seemed no one was watching Tsumugi.

Opening the locker once more,
she slipped the pouch into her bag so that no one would see,
and hurried home.

In her room, before Tsumugi as she sat, lay the small pouch placed upon the table. The first face that came to mind was his usual one—
but if he had been there, he would surely have peeked out from behind the shoe locker, just enough to be found.
For some reason, Tsumugi was certain of that.

If it wasn’t from him, she had no other guesses, so she decided to check what was inside.

She had thought there might be a message from the sender within,
but what came out was only a single pair of socks with a cat-leg pattern.

It was just to Tsumugi’s taste, and a smile naturally found its way onto her face.
But there was a faint feeling that something was inside the socks.
Thinking it might be a piece of padding, she took it out—and there, printed on it, were the words:
“Christmas presents belong inside the socks, right?” along with a QR code. 
“...Ugh.”
The sound slipped from her lips, and his face surfaced in her mind.

After hesitating for a moment, she opened the site on her own phone.
On the screen, an icon labeled “Takayanagi Shingo” was moving across a map.

—The reverse of last month?

Feeling the crease forming between her brows,
Tsumugi let out a small sigh and put the socks away in her closet.

A few days later, when Tsumugi asked Shingo, who appeared before her triumphantly, he replied, almost bursting with excitement, “I just wanted you to know where I was.”

“Stuff like that’s gross, so stop it.”
She said with a glare, let out a small sigh, and took a tiny wrapped package from her bag.
“…Here. It’s a return gift. Homemade cookies.”

Shingo’s face instantly lit up.
“Thank you so much! I’ll keep it as a family heirloom!”
“Eat it!”
Tsumugi shouted, but as usual, none of their classmates paid any attention.

“Everyone! Merry Christmas!
Thank you for your support!”
When Shingo suddenly shouted, the classmates responded with applause and voices like,
“Merry Christmas!” and “We’re not even supporting you!”

“Just get back to your classroom!”
At Tsumugi’s irritated shout, Shingo waved with a smile and left her classroom, humming to himself.