• CHAPTER 26 - VAMPIRES CELEBRATE CHRISTMAS?

    It's strange how much more you can learn about a family full of different colors. No matter how different they may be by what they are, they could still do a lot that they have in common.

    I was losing track of the days. With all that had been going on, I couldn't tell up from down or left from right. I only knew how many days have passed since the last incident, which was two. I didn't even know if another new year had started yet or not...until Kai had to wake me up abruptly early in the morning.

    "Arisa! Hey, Arisa, wake up!" he sounded giddy.

    Kai shook my shoulder roughly, only pissing me off more. I swatted his hands away from me and covered my head with the comforters and groaned. Kai also groaned immaturely and jumped onto the bed on top of me. He pulled the covers off of me down to my waist and coiled his arms around my shoulders and laughed. I had never seen him act so immature.

    "Come on, wake up!" Kai smiled and pressed his lips against the temple of my head.

    "Lay off the crack, Kai," I groaned, barely audible.

    "No way, Arisa. It's Christmas." he sounded so excited and when he said that last word, my stomach dropped.

    I pryed one of my eyes open and peeked at Kai from the corner of my eye, "Christmas?"

    I really was losing track of the days. The last I thought about Christmas was what, over a week ago? I froze where I was and stared at Kai.

    "Vampires celebrate Christmas?" I interrogated, opening both eyes and wiggling myself under Kai so I could flip myself onto my back.

    Kai pursed his lips together and then boomed in laughter. He lowered his head onto my shoulder and continued to mock me with laughter. I sighed in irritation and beamed in anger.

    "You never cease to amaze me," he grinned, patting my head then messing up my hair even more.

    "But it doesn't make any sense," I complained, forcing myself awake as the conversation continued, "Christmas is a holy holiday, isn't it? And Vampires are almost the farthest thing from holy. And I didn't know Vampires liked to have fun either." I frowned.

    "That 'having fun' part kind of hurt me," Kai frowned, "Besides, anybody can have Christmas. We just like to get presents."

    Okay, I had to laugh at that part, "Vampires like presents??"

    "Some Vampires used to be humans, you know," Kai pointed out.

    Oh, he was right. I had never thought about who or what would be able to actually celebrate holidays. Of course, it probably makes sense for this family to celebrate Christmas since there's two Angels that live here and they're as holy as you can get.

    Kai tapped my cheek with his knuckles, knocking me out of my train of thought, "Are you going to get dressed or not?"

    "Let me sleep," I groaned and gripped his face with my left hand.

    Kai grasped my wrist and unwrapped the bandages around my hand with his teeth and examined the crescent-shaped wound that was nearly healed, which looked like nothing more than a faint scar, "How does your hand feel?"

    "It's still kind of sore. He got into my tissue or muscle or whatever that soft spot is."

    "And your neck?"

    "It's fine. You can remove the bandages." I allowed, even though Kai started removing them before I answered his last question.

    After Kai removed the bandages, he disappeared in thin air, making me jump up a few feet while lying down, and reappeared just as quickly. He stripped the covers off of me completely, grasped my right bicep, and jerked me up so I was sitting upright. I thrashed my arm from Kai's grip and rolled my shoulder around, feeling as though it was almost removed from its socket.

    "Kai, that hurt," I complained.

    "Sorry, I don't know my own strength," Kai grinned.

    I slid out of the bed slowly and cranky. It was seven in the morning and I'd usually be asleep for another good five or six hours. I waved my hand towards Kai while rubbing my eye, signaling him to leave.

    "I'm going to get dressed. Leave." I yawned.

    Kai left without any hesitation and I knew he would be leaning against my door, listening to everything I'm doing. Just when I thought he couldn't get any more protective, he starts going overboard. I honestly didn't think it would be possible for him to guard me any more than he has, but he will find a way, I know he will...damn it all.

    As I continued to complain to myself about Kai in my head--hoping he wasn't listening--I felt the need to dress a little more formal since it was a holiday. It felt weird to celebrate Christmas again, seeing I haven't had a Christmas since Aya died...so it's been around three years since my last holiday I celebrated.

    "You almost done?" Kai seemed to be in his cocky and pissy mood whenever I wasn't within eyesight.

    I rolled my eyes, "Yes. You may come in."

    I was throwing my clothes in the hamper when Kai came back in. He watched me with his hands in his pockets as I made the bed and straightened out the room...for some odd reason. Kai glided towards me without me knowing and grabbed my hand.

    "Let me show you something," a smile crept upon his face slowly as we stared at each other for a moment.

    I burrowed my eyebrows together and cocked my head as he pulled me closer to him and looked down at me, "Close your eyes," he smiled wider.

    I sighed and obediently closed my eyes and nearly freaked when the feeling of teleportation took me by surprise. When I opened my eyes again, we were standing at the front door inside of the house.

    I glared at Kai, "That was pretty pointless," I huffed.

    "Look above us," he continued to smile coyly.

    I glared at him for another second, angry at the fact that he scared me with his sudden teleportation to the front door where we could have had no problem walking. I finally took the time to look above us and as I did, Kai wrapped one arm around my waist and pulled me close to his torso. I stared in awe at what was hanging above the door; a single mistletoe.

    "It's...," I started. I felt as though I were hit ouside the head and I glared at Kai, "A mistletoe." I hissed.

    He kissed my forehead, "Yup. I put it up last night."

    "It's pretty. Now take it down." I demanded.

    "I can't," he grinned, "Not unless it's used."

    "No, not a mistletoe kiss," I hissed again.

    "Why not?" he raised an eyebrow.

    "They're too cheesy. They're too classic. They don't seem right." I could have gone on longer, but I didn't want to annoy Kai when he was already having a great day.

    "Just one kiss?" he begged childishly.

    I pouted and looked away from him. I had never wanted a kiss under a mistletoe. It never seemed right to do that. I couldn't lay my finger on it as to why, but I didn't like the idea. Well...it's a kiss from Kai...

    "Fine," I answered dully.

    With his free hand, he firmly gripped my jaw and pulled me up so our lips matched. If it's a kiss from somebody like Kai, then I'm more than happy to accept it. I slid my arms under his and locked my fingers together behind him and pulled myself closer. I was surprised when I realized that our kiss kept a pretty slow pace and it didn't speed up as usual. We pulled away after a freakishly overjoyed Takeuchi teleported right next to us. I broke up the kiss by screaming when Takeuchi appeared with a loud "BOO!" bursting from his chest.

    I backed into a corner with my hand on my chest and my face heating up from anger and embarrassment as Kai and Takeuchi laughed histerically with each other. I beamed and glared at the two companions as they continued their comedy feast. They finally calmed down and Takeuchi slapped Kai on the back which almost sounded like he was cracking cement in half but it didn't seem to faze Kai.

    "Oh, that was priceless. Did you see her expression?" Takeuchi wiped a tear from his eye.

    "Hell yeah I did. You even made me jump a little." Kai grinned widely.

    "So, have you gotten lucky yet?" Takeuchi teased.

    The aura turned ominous as Kai paused, a grin frozen on his face. I held my breath, waiting for Takeuchi's oncoming beating. Kai punched Takeuchi on the top of the head and grabbed him by the collar of Takeuchi's shirt.

    "Let's not bring something like that up again, m'kay?" Kai demanded with the grin still frozen on his face.

    "Yeah, whatever, Kai. You know you want it." Takeuchi pushed, somehow not fazed by Kai's punch to his cranium.

    Kai grabbed Takeuchi by his shirt collar and threw him down the hallway and Takeuchi tumbled a couple of times, still laghing his head off. He stood up and straightened out his shirt and reentered the living room. Kai glanced at me for a quick second and turned away, blushing.

    "Takeuchi is retarded, don't acknowledge him," said Kai.

    "Um, y-yeah," awkward conversation.

    Kai smirked at me again, "So, how was it?"

    I glared at him, "It was fine. Now take it down." I scoffed.

    Kai sighed and reached up and removed the mistletoe. He waved it above my head, "One more?"

    "No!" I swiped it from his hand and blushed, "I don't like these!"

    "Okay, Kai, you and Arisa may come in," I heard Matsuda call from the living room.

    "What is he talking about?" I whispered to Kai.

    Kai's face glowed, "Presents,"

    I had never seen him so hyper and happy before. It almost scared me, but he's just like a kid; he's just excited for Christmas. Huh, his one hundred and seventy-sixth Christmas...I would have been sick of it by then. Kai grabbed my wrist with my hand that was still holding a mistletoe and held my hand above my head. Before I could escape his grasp, he pecked me on the lips quickly.

    "Gotcha," he smiled.

    I ignored him and walked into the living room after releasing Kai's grasp on my wrist. I gasped as my eyes trailed over to the Christmas tree which was now drowning in an ocean of presents wrapped in burnished gold, silver, red, and green wrapping paper and red and green striped bows surrounded them elegantly. Takeuchi already took his place on the ground with his own pile of presents, on the verge of ripping off the culminating wrapping. He looked back at us and grinned widely.

    "Come on! I'm getting impatient!" he hustled.

    "There's...presents," I muttered.

    Kai pat my shoulder and sighed, "I told you some Vampires celebrate Christmas and like presents," he said, "Damn woman." he muttered under his breath.

    I made my way warily to the tree after stomping on Kai's foot, hurting mine rather than his. He sighed again and followed me with his hands tucked into his pockets. He must have gotten fed up with my pace because he walked right past me at a faster pace. I sat down on the ground right next to Kai and near Takeuchi. Takeuchi smiled at me and pushed some presents over to me from his pile.

    "I was keeping hold of your presents. I was about to open them instead."

    "Open the big one," Kai nudged.

    "I want to wait for Takeuchi," I smiled.

    "You're the guest," Kai stated, getting irritated.

    "But Takeuchi's the youngest one," I also stated.

    "Yay!" Takeuchi exclaimed and in a flash, he massacred a present and I nearly lost it when he held up a giant toy dog bone.

    Takeuchi's face fell and after a second, he glared at Kai and Kai smiled back childishly, "Merry Christmas, mutt,"

    "Funny," Takeuchi grumbled, although I could tell he was about to laugh too. He reached farther into the box and pulled out a sack of B-B-Q dog treats and that's when he lost it.

    He laughed his head off like crazy, and his laughter was contagious, "How did you know, blood-sucker?!" he asked sarcastically.

    Kai shrugged with his arms crossed and continued to smile, "I just know these things,"

    After about five more minutes of Takeuchi's ambush on his presents, Kai finally pushed me to open mine.

    "Come on, they won't bite,"

    "I just feel guilty that you guys are spending money on me," I blushed, "And I didn't get you guys anything."

    Kai rolled his eyes and pushed a large box in front of me and smiled, "Merry Christmas,"

    .:{{Kai's Perspective}}:.

    Arisa finally caved in and slowly pulled off the ribbon and unwrapped the present cautiously. Her carefulness was really starting to annoy me, but of course, I'm not used to a human pace still. She removed the lid after thrity seconds of careful unwrapping and she lost her concentration for a moment and zoned back on in the present. She didn't move as she continued to concentrate on the small creature that crowded the box. She reached inside and pulled out a small kitten, only a couple of weeks old.

    "A...kitten," she mused.

    The kitten was freaking tiny and was pure black except his front two paws had little white on them and he had a white diamon patch of fur on his forehead. I was pretty proud of myself at the fact that the furball didn't ruin the bow I wrapped around it's neck (yeah, I wrapped a bow, so what?). Arisa held the kitten up to her chest and looked down at it like a mother with a newborn.

    "So, what's the name?" Takeuchi interrupted.

    Arisa seemed to struggle, not knowing what to name it. I leaned in to her ear and whispered a name and she giggled...great.

    "Momo?" she asked me.

    I pat her on the shoulder and smiled widely, "Good thinking, Arisa. That's a nice name."

    She frowned at me and continued opening her presents, keeping the kitten now called Momo in her lap the whole time. With every present she opened, she became more and more overjoyed. Matsuda and Orihime finally took the cat from Arisa so they could go feed him. I looked over at Takeuchi and he was eating his extra-large bag of dog treats like they were candy and I sighed at him and rolled my eyes. Arisa took my hand and stood up and I stood up after her. She pulled me towards the stairs and we started heading up them, and she wasn't telling me why.

    "Hey, what's going on?" I sighed.

    "I want to ask you something," she sounded as though she were about to tear up and cry.

    We got into the bedroom, with the door shut afterwords of course, and she turned towards me and tears were brimming her eyes. Okay, what did I do now?

    "Thank you, Kai," she breathed, "I didn't think I'd ever have a time like this again and all thanks to you, it's happened again...and it was amazing."

    I couldn't help but think that sounded cheesy, "It was all Matsuda and Orihime, though,"

    She shook her head, "The tag on the present with Momo said it was from you,"

    "That's just one," I said. Two, actually, but I haven't given her the second one yet.

    Arisa approached me slowly and coiled her arms around my waist and pressed herself against me and her head against my chest. I could feel the heat in her face as she blushed.

    "Thank you again," she said, "Now can I ask you something?"

    Here we go, "Yeah, of course," I rubbed her back, "Anything."

    "I-I know what I want to do with my life," she started. She gripped onto my shirt, "I still want to go to college and everything, but I want to stay with you for as long as possible."

    "What are you saying?" I didn't know what she was getting to, and I was pretty sure she wasn't going to do what was on my mind.

    She looked up at me confidently and took a deep breath, "Kai, will you propose to me again?"