The night of Christmas Eve arrived.

Izuru and Ibuki, with Tate by their side, awaited in front of the Ban family's apartment, holding bags filled with snacks and drinks Ban asked them to bring on their way there. Sadly, none of them was a pizza with banana slices. Christmas won't be blessed by the blonde monkey.

And of course, they had some fresh fried chicken with them, acquired through a last minute scheme that included Ryuuga, Ryuzaki, an angry russian lady who went to GEN and a promise of KFC x Raw Potato collaboration, completly done off-screen and to never be mentioned again.

"Fried chicken, fried chicken, fried chicken~!" Tate happily sung. "I can't believe that lie actually worked! Rossiya-chan was the best!"

"That russian woman is crazy..." Ibuki muttered, shivering at the thought of their special helper. "I didn't know russian women were that buff..."

"She kicked me in the nards but I'm fine with it. We got fresh fried chicken, that's what matters." Izuru coughed, holding to his sides.

The price of crispy goodness is a big one.

"You sure you're okay? She landed on you pretty hard." Tate asked.

"I may never have kids in the future, but that's a small price to pay for the great present Rossiya-san gave me by accident."

W-what the hell happened at KFC?!

"You should stop talking about some other woman touching you before the harem gals show up." Ibuki sighed.

"H-huh? O-oh right, that thing still exists, doesn't it..."

"Ahahah..." Tate made an awkward chuckle. Ibuki shot down any chance he had to be Izuru's wingman before they joined the others. "I-i wonder what's taking Katsu-chan so long. Oi, we're here, Katsu-chan!"

As Tate knocked on the door like a child, the door opened, revealing something that shocked the three teenagers that waited outside.

"THE BLONDE MONKEY!" Izuru and Tate exclaimed, hugging each other to hold their hype.

"I'M NOT A BLONDE MONKEY!" Ban yelled. He was dressed like Santa, only missing the big chonk and the beard.

Yeah, it wasn't that blonde monkey, it was just Ban.

"They beat me by one second." Ibuki deadpanned. She also wanted to call Ban a blonde monkey.

"You guys got the stuff?" Ban asked.

"More fried chicken that you can eat in your life. And by that, I mean just enough for everyone, that's why we got a metric fuckton of other snacks." Izuru explained.

"KFC only agreed to sell us this much. Not even getting Yung White House and senator Mikitaka on the line managed to get us extra fried chicken." Tate sighed. "They got some policy after this brit went there with a cardboard shank."

"Still, we grabbed more than enough to leave me smelling of fried chicken until the end of the year..." Ibuki deadpanned.

"Right, sorry for that. I'll get you guys some good presents tomorrow, I promise. Oh yeah, come in, the girls got here already." Ban said, moving out of the way for the trio to enter.

Inside the house, the rest of the Heiwa crew sat on the living room, around a table with snacks, some small batches of fired chicken Rio made with what was around the house, and of course, Christmas cake.

And even better, Yumi, Rio, Minami, Kasumi, Chika, Takami and Ako were all wearing special red and white dresses made for Christmas. Only Aimi, Yukiko, and Ibuki by extension, came wearing normal clothes.

Tate was mesmerized by the amount of shoulders and cleavage he could see, and Izuru was shocked by the amount of red high thighs around. They only didn't get down on their knees to thank god for the beautiful view since they knew Aimi and Yukiko would beat their asses on the spot.

That, and Izuru was still clinging to the hope of Christmas mingling with a special white haired girl.

"Eyes where I can see them, ding dongs." Yukiko snarled, stacking some pillows on top of Kasumi's lap. 

"Yukiko-san..." Kasumi sweatdropped.

"Tch, they keep falling off whenever I get to the tits. I thought I nailed on the pillow stacking but the continous expansion of your tits keeps ruining my plans."

"Y-YUKIKO-SAN!"

"Yukiko-senpai, you've been ranting about Kasumi-senpai's growing breasts since summer..." Yumi sweatdropped.

"She has a reason. Those things are criminally huge." Minami replied.

'I should have spent Christmas Eve with my parents...' Izuru and Tate thought. Fighting through the tough night ahead of them would prove to be a hardous battle.

But Tate would be soon be taken out of the war.

"Tate-kun~!"

Ako hugged Tate's right arm while Tamaki took the left. All he could do was take a glimpse of Izuru and give him a nod. Wingman Tate would now be retiring himself from duty.

"It's treason then..." Izuru growled, looking at Tate as he was taken to the couch by his ex-girlfriends while giggling like a child.

"You guys are weird." Ibuki deadpanned and sat down next to Chika. "Ooh, I didn't expect you to be in full Christmas cosplay either, Chika-chan!"

"Y-yumi-san and Yukiko-san forced me to..." Chika sweatdropped. "I would have prefered a cozy wool sweater like yours, Ibuki-san."

"Eheh, I truly have an impacable taste! Sweater stretchers rule supreme!" Ibuki laughed.

'Please shut up, don't make this harder than it needs to be...' Izuru thought and sat down next to Yumi, who was playing video games on the Ban's massive teleivison. The lucky rich cunts. "Holy crap, I never thought you'd be one to play Faer Automatic, Yumi."

What kind of bad parody name is that supposed to be?

"Oh, me too, but my boy- N-neighbour introduced me to the game and I got hooked!" Yumi exclaimed, blushing at the accident she barelly avoided.

"Man, you two couldn't be more obvious..." The asakusan deadpanned. "Did you know that if you make the protag's ass big enough in character customization, one of the mid bosses will choke on her after doing that eating move it does when at mid health and instantly die?"

"Eh? F-for real?"

"For real." Ban nodded.

"It's the funniest shit I've ever seen!" Izuru laughed, but soon shivered at the presences looming behind him. "W-what I mean is-"

"How do you know about that easter egg?" Yukiko asked.

"It doesn't sound like something you'd find by accident." Aimi nodded.

"...m-mer- SHIT!"

The two girls teamed up and threw Izuru out of the apartment. Good thing the two girls that kick his ass aren't wearing dresses.

"A-anyway! I got a big announcement to make!" Ban exclaimed, clapping his hands to grab everyone's attention.

"He's gonna say the thing everyone knows, isn't he?" Minami asked through whispers.

"Either that or he's gonna announce that he bought a pet pelican or something." Ibuki replied. She was spending her time petting Ban's dogs, Mona and Lisa.

To no one's surprise, Yumi joined Ban in the big announcent, and the two placed an arm around the other. The tsundere path is finally about to come to an end.

"We're together!" The lovebirds declared to no one's surprise. Not even the dogs had a reaction.

"Hooray..." Ibuki weakly applauded.

"I had no idea..." Kasumi continued, also applauding.

"O-oi, at least pretend it's a surprise, this took tons of guts to admit!!" Yumi exclaimed, turning redder than her own clothes.

"MY BROTHER WON'T DIE ALONE!" Rio cheered, applauding wildly.

"AND KATSU-CHAN WON'T TURN INTO A WIZARD WHEN HE TURNS THIRTY! WOOHOOOOOOOO!" Tate screamed.

"You might want to take that back, Tate-kun. I don't think Yumi-san is into beastiality." Aimi commented.

"Ah?! What gives, pres?!" Ban asked. He expect tons of people to call him a blonde monkey, either directly or indirectly, but Aimi sure wasn't one of them.

"Shut up!!! You dropped all your work on me, I'm still duing council work four days into my winter break! You got no human rights, you blonde monkey!" Aimi weeped.

Endo finally gave the student council a target of who to hate. 

"I've never seen her this heated up..." Minami sweatdropped.

"She's right, you only keep sending pains in the ass our way!" Izuru exclaimed, returning to the apartment. 

"YOU SHUT UP TOO, YOU DROPPED YOUR PAPERWORK ONTO ME TOO!!!"

"Oh yeah..."

"Man, you suck." Ibuki deadpanned.

"Yeah, I know..." Izuru sighed and fell on the couch. "Hey Ban, did you invite Airi?"

'Tch, why did you had to bring her up...' Ibuki thought, biting her lip.

"Yeah, we invited Nijimura-san too. She said she'd come, so I thought she'd have gotten here by now but it looks like she's running late or something." Ban shrugged.

"Airi-san hasn't texted me or anything. I hope everything's alright with her." Yumi hummed, looking at her phone.

"Maybe she got stuck on traffic or something? Traffic's pretty whack during Christmas Eve." Tate suggested. "Or maybe Endo-san called her or something?"

"No, that idiot took the chance that I wasn't gonna spend the eve with him to go with Risei-san to that hot springs inn we went some time ago." Minami sighed.

"Mom said she was going with Yu-san and Shouto-san to the Christmas festival at the Dark Zone." Aimi said, looking through her phone.

"Oh yeah, I forgot Ryuuga was doing one of those." Izuru said, getting off the couch. "I'll try calling her something."

"M-maybe she's busy, so don't go annoy her or something, you idiot!" Ibuki called out.

"Sheesh, no need to insult me so soon. It's not Christmas yet." The black haired sighed and stepped out of the apartment.

"That came out of nowhere. Is everything okay, Ibuki-san?" Chika asked.

"Y-yeah, don't worry about it! I'm fine!"

Ban and Tate shot a glance at each other and smirked. They knew what was up, but it was something Ibuki and Izuru would have to sort out among themselves.

After a short two or so minutes, izuru returned inside to get his jacket.

"Airi got lost on her way here, I'm gonna go see if I can meet her on the way here." Izuru sighed.

"Want us to help?" Tate asked.

"Nah, she asked for just me to go meet her. I'll be back soon, the cold has nothing on me."

Lies.

Soon after Izuru left, Ibuki stormed out of the apartment in silence, leaving most of the guest confused. She ended up reaching him right outside the building, right as he was about to go meet Airi.

"Wait!" Ibuki called out.

"Hm? Sup, Ibuki? Did I forget something back at the apartment?" Izuru asked, touching his pockets.

"You..." She muttered. "Are you sure it's a good idea to just wander around in this cold?! Just tell her to use google maps or something, she'll be fine!" 

"Please, don't go after her."

"Actually... I'm not going to look for her. That was just an excuse." He admitted, rubibng the back of his head.

"Stop talking."

"I'm gonna meet Airi at the riverbank near here."

"Stop..."

"I'll be back soon, don't worry about it." Izuru chuckled. "I know it isn't Christmas yet, but I wanted to give you this." He said, taking out a necklace and placing it in Ibuki's hands. It had a small hummingbird pieced atatched to it. 

"Eh...? W-what's this...?"

"It's a hummingbird. In some cultures, it signifies one finding their path back home. You're a pretty annoying gremlin, but you'll always have a home with me, Ibuki."

"...I see... Thank you..." She muttered.

"I'll be going off now. Seeya soon!"

As Izuru ran out of her sight while waving, Ibuki fell to her knees, holding onto that necklace like her life depended on it.

"You're a terrible person, Sawada Izuru... You make feel these feelings... These feelings I never asked for... Or never wanted to ever have... And then you ignore them as if they didn't exist... You talk about some other girl... You go after her... And then... A-and then... You give me something like this... Those lying weather reporters... They said it'd be cool... Then why is face so warm..." Ibuki cried, forcing herself to ignore her own tears.

After roughly twenty minutes of standing in the cold all alone, Ibuki got up and began moving forward. First she walked, then she walked faster, and then she began running, towards the riverbank. 

"I can still reach him... I can... I can tell him how I feel!" She exclaimed to herself, even cracking a smile. She repeated those words to herself as she ran.

She tripped and fell many times, one time even in the middle of the road, but she forced herself to get up and keep running.

Ibuki ran, and ran, and then ran some more, thankfully not for three episodes.

And then, she reached the riverbank.

"I can tell him how I feel, I can tell him how I feel, I can-!"

She reached the riverbank too late.

Amindst the falling snow, she could only see Izuru and Airi holding onto each other.

"I... Lost again... Harui... Izuru... Whatever I get attached to... I'll always lose it all... Won't I?"