Learning to Love | Kakashi x Reader

Lesson Fifteen

You politely waved to the last patron out and lock the doors behind you. Finally, the library was closed early, and it was time to begin set up. 

It was Christmas Eve, and for the past several weeks you had been preparing for the holiday party you promised you would put on. You had been truly determined to make it the best you could be. Decorations, donations, food, gifts - you had taken charge of it all. That was the condition your boss made in exchange for utilizing the library as the venue. 

There was no way you'd be able to fund it all yourself. Thus, you had gone around to several businesses asking for donations of food, clothes, or money to help support the party and the children. It was disappointing when several declined, but that didn't stop you from seeking out other avenues. In the end, a restaurant nearby agreed to cater the dinner, a bakery agreed to make the desserts, a few places donated goods such as clothes or small toys, and several others agreed to donate money to help the orphanage continue to operate. The campaigning was a lot more work than you anticipated, but you were excited that it seemed it was all coming together.

You had also spent the past several weeks gathering and creating decorations for the party as well. You could make basic crafts, but for this, you wanted to get better. You ran through many trials-and-errors in order to perfect them to be exactly what you wanted. Each one you carefully created, paying more attention to detail than you ever did in any of your classes. At one point, Kakashi had offered to help you, but soon the two of you discovered that he was less artistically inclined than you were. 

You had finished all the preparations for the decorations a day just before school let out for winter break, just a few days ago. You had a little bit of respite in your schedule, but you still had to work. You would stay after your shifts to carefully clean the library so that it was ready to go Christmas Eve and all that would be left is set up. 

When you returned home each night, you had taken to the kitchen table (your base of crafting operations) in a new project to create homemade cards, personalized for each child, and wrapping the gifts you had collected. You felt a little guilty, because Kakashi hadn't had a kitchen table to eat at for the past several weeks. You promised him you would return the space once you were done with the party. 

With the doors locked for now, you returned the keys back to the hook and got to work. You did one last clean through, and you and your boss worked together to set up the tables and chairs for the celebration. Then, you pulled out your box of decorations and went to work pinning up the streamers, the garlands, the paper lanterns, and setting up the table cloths, centerpieces, and so on.

Your boss stepped out as she got a call, and you continued on your own for several minutes until she returned. 

"Hey, you talked to that publishing company about donating books and getting them sent here, right?" She asked when she came back into the room.

You stepped off the chair you were standing on and walked over to her. "Yeah," You confirmed.

That was the part you were most excited about. The orphanage was organizing gifts for their Christmas morning, but for you, you felt the party would be incomplete without providing gifts of your own for them. Thus, you had planned to give the clothes and toys to Nonou to give to them in addition to their other gifts Christmas morning, and for your Christmas Eve gift to them, you had called publishing companies to ask to donate or discount copies of books based on wish lists the children put together. 

Most companies you talked to only offered discounts, and even with the lower pricing, in the end, it was too expensive to manage on your own, even with you picking up extra hours to help fund the party. Finally, one company agreed to talk with some of their authors to see if they would be willing to donate copies of their works for free. Many of them agreed, and even offered to sign them as well. Those that weren't willing to give them totally for free, you could manage the price much better now that many were willing to donate.