Friend or Lover: Life goes on (Saku x Kaku x Sasu x Yukino)

Lose- Part 21

Over the week, after getting back on his feet, he wasn't in his 20's anymore that's for sure, they slowly started shopping through the city together to pick out new ornaments they wanted for this year's themed trees. It was a Thursday, and she had already gotten out of class at about 3 pm, not having much of a lecture since most of it was just reviewing for the big final coming up, they were planning to go cut a tree together. He left work early, and picked her up from the university, and as soon as she got in the car and turned to him, she right away saw the tired expression on his face.

"Hi love." he tells her.

"Hey..", they both lean in and give each other a light kiss. "How was work?"

He sighs. "It was work. Shall we go?" Hearing the tone that he didn't seem to be all that up to it, she decides to say,

"Only if you want to....we don't have to..." He doesn't say anything, and drives off. They reached the tree farm at about 4 pm, picked out a tree together, cut it down, then went on their way back to the city to shop at a few more boutiques they hadn't check out yet, and finding some things they wanted. Hitting 7 pm already, they stop at the ice cream parlor he had first taken her to on their 3rd date back in the day. Getting her cherry and strawberry scoops as usual, and him picking some mango sorbet this time, they sit and rest off their feet. Thinking about the past few days of all this Christmas shopping, she had to tell him so it didn't eat her up.

"Kashi..I'm sorry I never bothered to ask you, but...is this...boring for you?" He looks at her without smiling or reacting, then looks down to dip his spoon into her ice cream, getting a huge piece of a cherry.

"Have I complained?" he says as he eats his spoon full of pink cream.

"Well, no...but-"

"Then I'm fine. Believe me...I'll let you know when something bothers me." She looks at him with her big green eyes, then dips into his bright orange cream, gives it a swirl, and places it in her mouth.

"Okay. But." she pauses due to the cold cream laying on her tongue, "You know Kashi...I know you more now...and I could see you're tired...and sometimes you don't tell me until later. So...please..." she swallows, "...if you don't want to keep doing this...we can stop, and just do it over the weekend...or even next week." He only exhales and continues to eat his ice cream. He didn't like to admit it, but she was right. He was fucking tired. He had just gotten over his horrible hangover, he had continued working at the office with a mild headache, and going shopping during the past evenings was taking a toll on him considering he usually would have had all of this done for him. He did bottle things up a bit at times and didn't let them go, or talk about them until it was too much, and too late, suffering in silence. Taking a deep breath, he takes another taste of her pink cream, looks at her and says,

"You know what.....fuck it. You're right. I am exhausted. But..." he lets out of his cold breath, "..it's Christmas time, and I want to keep this tradition with you. And seeing that we've been staying in on the weekends, or more so...you've been going out...we haven't caught up in decorating. Last year you did say you and I should do it ourselves....so...here we are." She doesn't say anything at first, and continues eating. Then he adds, "Besides....the trees will be delivered on Saturday. We have what we need now to start decorating, and I wanted the houses to be done by this weekend...so....it's fine. It's not a big deal. I'll catch up on sleep tomorrow, before we start everything." She sucks on her bottom lip, listening to him, watching his sexy lips move, seeing him being so patient when he didn't have to be. He could've just thrown in the towel and said no to everything and had his people take care of everything while he went to relax at home. But no...he was doing this because she wanted it this way. Though it was making her feel a bit bad....still....it was sweet that he remembered what she had said to him last year...and took it seriously to heart.

"I love you, Kashi." she tells him as she swiftly got up, leaned over the table and gave his icy lips a peck. "Thank you."

He smiles with his tired smile, and his little bags under his eyes, and replies back. "I love you more."