12 Days of Christmas Shipping Challenge

Christmas List - Shinsuka / 치에카사

6. Person A actually believes Santa exists. Person B tries to disguise themselves as Santa to make them feel better.

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Ever since mid-November came around, Shinji went and got himself hired at the nearest mall so that he could do something while he was recovering from the injury on his back from firefighting. Because of his sheer size, he was immediately hired until Christmas to be the mall Santa and entertain small children.

Shinji had to wear a wig, a fake beard, and padding around his stomach to appear overweight, and he naturally exerted a friendly aura around children, so even more lines of excited children and their patient parents were appearing to meet the giant, friendly Santa. Since the firefighter already had a deep voice, some young people mistakenly believed that he was the real Santa.

Of course, Shinji had no complaints about the job, but he never specified to his girlfriend Setsuka what exactly he was doing to earn money at the mall until he recovered. Nonetheless, she continued to support him and remind him to not push himself too much.

At the end of November, Shinji woke up as normally one day and went downstairs to get breakfast before he went to work. "Hey, honey." He greeted Setsuka as she waited for her toast to finished.

"Good morning, Shin." The billiards player greeted with a smile, leaning over to kiss him, which he eagerly returned. "Are you heading to work today?"

"Yep! Even if my injury hasn't healed yet, I don't do well with boredom!" The firefighter joked, and Setsuka giggled as she teasingly pushed him towards the coffeemaker. Shinji happily poured himself a cup before opening the fridge, grabbing a leftover sandwich, then went out the door.

Once he got outside, he hopped into his car and drove off to the mall, same as everyday. He arrived at the mall, changed into his costume in a bathroom, and went to the centre of the mall to sit on the 'Santa throne' and get ready for the day. It was half an hour before he saw the first kid approach him.

His day continued on like that, asking children if they've been good and what they wanted for Christmas. This continued until it was nearly closing time, where Shinji was running down the clock until he got to go home and see Setsuka again. Unfortunately, speak of the devil, he spotted her skipping towards the throne with an excited smile.

"Oh, Christ." He quietly muttered.

"What's wrong?" One of the elves whispered.

"That's my girlfriend." Shinji replied. "And I know for a fact that she believes in Santa."

The elves tried their hardest not to laugh as Setsuka waited her turn to go onto Shinji lap and started spouting off things that she and her boyfriend wanted, not realizing that Shinji was in a costume under her. Even so, the firefighter continued to act the part until her time was up, and she got up to let the next child have a turn.

After a while, the mall finally closed and Shinji was finally able to change out of his costume and go back home, where hopefully his girlfriend wouldn't bring up her trip to the mall that day. Unfortunately, that didn't seem to be the case when she kept fangirling over her trip to the mall and seeing Santa.

Shinji didn't have the heart to ruin her excitement, so he just continued playing along and pretending to be disappointed that they didn't see each other that day. In the end, he just hoped that she would continue to not recognize him in the Santa costume in the future.

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Art credit: vvaotea on twitter