Chapter Three: “The Clod of Earth Dreams of Snow” — Part Thirteen
Well, I suppose that’s that, Kai’s expression seemed to say, looking up at me with a wry laugh.
“Honestly… an erotic Santa isn’t bad at all.”
“…There was someone here a minute ago complaining I wasn’t erotic enough.”
I set down my things and sat on the sofa by the window. Even closed, the window let a thin edge of winter through.
“Is there any other Santa who gets a welcome this bad?”
“Merry Christmas, that’s the right thing to say, isn’t it?”
“Merryyy Christmaaas.”
I propped my cheek on the sofa back and offered the greeting with as much enthusiasm as I could fake.
“Don’t sulk, Santa-san.”
“After buying an entire Santa costume I’ll never wear again…”
“You could just wear it every day.”
“Who exactly pays Santa’s salary anyway?”
Sulking, I noticed Kai drop to her knees on the floor. And then, further, pressed her whole forehead to the carpet in a full formal bow.
“I sincerely apologise. From the bottom of my heart.”
“Idiot, stop that, get up.”
I hurried down and pulled her back up. Kai, forehead reddened from the floor, looked at me.
“Will you forgive me?”
“…Fine. I will, so never do that again.”
Just watching her do that crushed something in my chest. My own mind, always imagining her past for her, was to blame.
“…Yes. I won’t apologise to you again, then.”
“That’s not quite the lesson I meant.”
Started off as some nonsense about a mini-skirt Santa, and somehow ends with me the one feeling guilty. Kai might genuinely be some kind of devil.
“…You’re not exactly a good kid, mind you. But, do you want your present?”
Light rolled across Kai’s eyes. That same familiar movement, déjà vu again.
Ah, right, I remembered.
That was the look the cat near my old house used to give me, when I held food out to it.
“There’s really a present?”
“I’d be a sad excuse for a Santa who showed up empty-handed.”
Kai put a hand to her chin, studying my costume up and down.
“Lovely fake beard.”
“Thanks. Try finding something else to compliment next time.”
I carried the gift bag through to the room with the table.
“I thought about the present a lot… genuinely, a lot.”
Something too elaborate in clothes or accessories felt like it might unsettle her, and I had no real confidence she’d actually enjoy any of it anyway, so after agonising over it, catching myself mid-work day thinking what am I even doing more times than I could count, what I settled on was wanting to give Kai the experience of Christmas itself, first and foremost.
“So. Christmas cake.”
I set the box, wrapped in festive paper, on the table. A little too much for two people, a standard family-sized order. Family. There was no family here. What there was, was something hard to fit into any existing word, a relationship between a fourteen-year-old and a thirty-eight-year-old.
Kai examined the box and read the shop’s name aloud.
“A cake from Grandeur. Fancy.”
“You know it well.”
“I’ve looked at the prices from outside the shop plenty. Never eaten one, though.”
Kai finally turned a real smile toward her disappointing Santa.
“I’ll make coffee. Suite rooms come with the ground coffee as a service.”
“You told me that before, you know.”
Perhaps Kai was a little more excited about this than she let on. I smiled, and my beard, swayed with the movement.
Is this all right? I wondered, sitting down, something like unease pressing in. Enjoying this, enjoying Kai’s company, before I even sat down to cake with my own family. Do I enjoy being with Kai?
Some part of me insisted I shouldn’t let myself feel that honestly. And yet with Kai, something in my chest genuinely did fill with something forward-looking, hopeful. Every glimpse of Kai’s unguarded, childlike side made me want to build her a place inside that peace. Once, I’d been able to do so little for a cat. How much more could I actually give Kai now?
Looking up, I caught my own reflection in the window, dressed as Santa.
Getting carried away, are we? I thought, and gave the pompom on my hat a little pat.
Then, alongside the coffee Kai had prepared, the cake came out of its box. Strawberries and cream, sponge layered with cream between each tier. Strawberries arranged on top, with gold lettering wishing, I assumed, a merry Christmas, though I couldn’t quite make out what it said. I cut a slice for each of us first.
Kai received her slice with a soft, almost dreamlike look, as though gazing at something out of a dream.
“Thanks for the food.”
“Go ahead.”
Breathing in the scent of the coffee she’d poured, I brought a bite of cake to my mouth.
“Mm… good.”
It had been a while since I’d had one, but this shop’s cake really was well made. A refined taste, something almost proud of itself. Neither the cream nor the sponge overreached. Perhaps the perfect flavour for something meant to accompany a celebration.
“Kai, this is good…”
“Yes.”
She held out a strawberry, speared on her fork, toward me.
“What’s that for?”
“You can have it. I’m not fond of strawberries.”
The red of the strawberry against the green marbles of Kai’s eyes behind it made for a striking contrast.
“You could’ve said that before I bought a cake covered in them.”
“I didn’t know you were bringing a cake, so…”
Fair enough, honestly, unreasonable as my own planning had been. I reached to take the fork, and Kai pulled it back. I reached again, she retreated further.
“Don’t play games.”
“I’m not playing anything.”
When I pulled my hand back, her fork returned to its original position. From that held distance, I understood exactly what she was after.
“…Don’t tell me you want me to just eat it like that.”
“Ahh~n.”
“Don’t make it sound like that.”
Rolling my eyes at her deadpan delivery, I let out a sigh and leaned in with my mouth instead of my hand, and Kai didn’t pull away this time.
I bit down, catching embarrassment and strawberry together between my lips. The strawberry’s juice, mixed with the cream, tasted sweet and faintly sour with it. I chewed quickly, swallowed, and looked back at Kai with forced composure.
I’d never done anything like that with my husband. The fake beard, on top of everything, made eating properly a genuine struggle.
“Is this fun for you?”
“It’s fun.”
True to her word, Kai’s smile deepened faintly. More colour in her cheeks than usual.
Perhaps, unexpectedly, she simply liked this kind of playful closeness.
Not that we were being playful. I took the fake beard off for a moment.
“Oh, you got younger all of a sudden.”
“Back to a passable twenty-five?”
“Might even be my age now.”
“Quiet, you.”
I rolled a strawberry off the cake with my fork, chose one small enough to fit Kai’s small mouth neatly, speared it, and held it up.
“Here.”
“What’s this?”
“You don’t like strawberries, right? So, this is spite.”
I brought the speared strawberry to her mouth. Kai took it without a trace of embarrassment. The strawberry she supposedly disliked, she ate with her eyes narrowing in evident enjoyment.
“Do you actually dislike strawberries?”
“Sweet, sour, goes so well with the cream… I really don’t like them.”
“…I forgot. You’re a liar.”
I swung the empty fork gently up and down.
What am I even doing? The same familiar thought that always visited me around Kai, returned once more.
But.
Hearing Kai’s easy, thaw-soft laugh as she brought the cake to her mouth, I found myself thinking, oh, fine. It settled into me the same way the fine cake dissolved effortlessly on the tongue, sweetly, and without resistance.