Past the Pirouettes and the Bets (Hiro X Reader--Short Christmas Story)

Chapter 1

A smile graced your lips slightly as you hummed a cheery tune to yourself in your lab at SFIT, picking up a tool and working on your invention again as if your body was set on autopilot. All the while, big white snowflakes started to fall and swirl around gently outside the big circular window of your lab, giving you the sense of being trapped in a snow globe, the world slowly turning white as the snow landed on the ground lightly. Winter was on its way, and with it were the thoughts of Christmas. Your smile widened into a grin as you thought about the Christmas ballet production you were doing with your ballet studio...oh, the desire to just put on your pointe shoes again and practice, alone, in the lab...but alas...

"Hey (Y/N)! Out here!"

You spun around from your invention to see one of your best friends in the college, Honey Lemon, wave from outside your lab door, and you chuckled as you opened the door for her.

"Hi Honey Lemon," you greeted her, nodding in approval at the choice of Christmas sweater she chose to wear today-a green tacky sweater with a couple reindeer knitted onto it, and a couple snowflakes decking the top part of the sweater. Red leggings complemented the outfit, along with black high Mary Janes. Though you would contradict the use of complementary colours in an outfit, you were amazed that she was able to pull it off.

"Hey!" Honey Lemon greeted back with a wave. "Ahh, doesn't it surprise you how quickly Christmas is coming?"

"You can say that again," you nodded with a laugh. "Look at the snow outside!"

Honey Lemon nodded and laughed in agreement. "I know. That's why I came to see you!" She leaped into your lab and twirled around once, gracefully. "Isn't it all so beautiful?"

You nodded again. "Yeah. For sure."

"And to think that the holidays are coming!" Honey Lemon added. "Oh, all the joy there will be to it." Suddenly, she caught sight of something peeking out of your backpack, and curiosity got the best of her as she started to go over to it.

"Hey (Y/N)...what is that?" Honey Lemon asked, gesturing to the pointe shoe that was sticking out of your backpack.

"Hmm?"

You were suddenly surprised at the pointe shoe sticking out of your bag, and you shoved it deep into your bag now, beating Honey Lemon to the bag as you turned back to her with a laugh. "It's nothing!" you assured her, your hand still in the backpack. "Nothing important. Trust me."

"You sure?" Honey Lemon asked, eyeing you with slight suspicion.

You nodded. "Yeah. Don't worry about it."

"Oh...okay then," Honey Lemon relented, shrugging it off, as inside you breathed a sigh of relief. "Well, I just wanted to mention, Fred's inviting us to his place for a slight de-stress before exams come by. Would you care to join us today?"

In your heart, you knew you wanted to. The moment you stepped into SFIT, they all warmed up to you instantly. They even introduced you to your now closest and best friend in the school, Hiro Hamada, who also turned out to be your age. For the last 2 years, you all hung out together, and your hidden secret had never gotten in the way of things. But this year, it did. And it hurt you to say that you wanted things to be normal the way they used to be, but with something super important coming up, you just couldn't.

"I'd...I'd love to," you admitted. "But I'm busy today."

Honey Lemon raised an eyebrow. "Why's that?"

You shrugged as you tried to come up with a lie. "Well...I promised my mom I'd start going Christmas shopping with her. It's never too early, right?" you said, giving what would hopefully pass as a convincing smile.