I hadn't planned on ending Advent with
another instalment of this AU, but it's been lingering in the back of
my mind.
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“You're still here,” Raidō said in
greeting.
Harry nodded as he adjusted the last of
the extra lights he had put in the room. “I still have to tell you
about everything here for the party.”
“No need to tell me if you stay
here,” Raidō replied.
“I'm not staying,” Harry said.
“You should,” Raidō retorted.
“It's not hard to know where
everything is,” Harry told the older man. “I don't need to stay.”
“You need to stay,” Raidō said
with a stern look, completely at odds with his words.
“But I want to sleep,” Harry said,
unable to hide the whine in his voice.
“Did you even eat?” As though
knowing that Harry hadn't eaten since morning, Raidō said, “You
need to eat something before you sleep.”
Harry stared at the ninja with an
incredulous expression.
Raidō paused as though replaying his
last few words and grimaced. “Don't tell anyone I used a mom tone.”
“I will if I get to go home before
anyone comes here,” Harry said.
“Ah,” Raidō rubbed the weal-like
scar on his face. “Did I forget to mention that I changed the party
time to much earlier?”
The door to the room opened, allowing a
group of ninja to appear before Harry could so much as blink.
Harry sighed. He couldn't escape the
room without the other people seeing him.
At the centre of the group entering, a
man with red-rimmed sunglasses looked at the table right by the
entrance and grinned with delight. “No way!”
One of the other newcomers looked at
the interior and then at the table with resignation. “We're all
going to have to wear those, aren't we?”
“Of course,” the first man said as
he tugged off his red-rimmed sunglasses and grabbed one of the
modified sunglasses from the table. Shaped to look like birthday
cakes with candles on top, the rainbow-coloured sunglasses looked
ridiculous. “It's my birthday.”
“Why do we have to suffer because
it's your birthday?” the other man asked, even as he reached for a
pair of sunglasses shaped like yellow butterfly wings. Another ninja
reached for the same pair, leading to a squabble.
While the rest of the group ended up in
even more squabbles about who got to wear which glasses, Harry moved
to the man with the cake shaped sunglasses. “Aoba?”
“That's me,” the man said as he
pushed up his sunglasses.
“Happy Birthday.” Harry handed him
a bag.
Aoba looked into the bag and snorted
with laughter.
“What is it?” Another ninja asked
even as he triumphantly put on a pair of gold-rimmed sunglasses
shaped like coins.
Aoba emptied the bag, showing a pile of
gold chocolate coins.
When everyone turned to him for an
explanation, Harry shrugged and said, “The person celebrating their
birthday should start the poker game with an advantage.”
“No advantage will stop them from
losing in the end,” the man with the coin-shaped sunglasses said.
“Shut up Genma!”
Harry turned to get a better look at
Genma. “You're the reason he's getting more coins in the first
place.”
With a senbon between his teeth and an
unrepentant grin, Genma pushed up his gold-rimmed sunglasses. “Did
Raidō complain about me getting all his birthday coins?”
“Yes,” Harry said.
“What a sore loser,” Genma grinned.
Raidō replied with a rude hand gesture
that made Harry's lips twitch even as Genma chuckled.
“Oi, party-planner,” Aoba called
out from the other side of the room. “Can we start with the cake?”
Surprised at being asked such a
question, Harry said, “It's your party. Do what you want.”
Aoba cheered, grabbed the knife beside
the cake and cut into cake.
Even as the other ninja in the room
cheered, Harry blinked. “But what about the candles?”
From beside Harry, Raidō snorted.
“Aoba doesn't want to admit how old he is, especially in front of a
teenager.”
“But I'm the one who bought the
candles,” Harry pointed out. “I know how old he is.”
Raidō hummed. “Everyone here also
probably knows how old he is. But it's nice to let him pretend. It is
his birthday after all.”
“Did you use the candles on your
cake?”
“I even put in a few extra to confuse
the others,” Raidō said.
Before Harry could ask why Raidō had
wanted to confuse the others, Aoba called out, “Party-planner, what
kind of cake is this?”
“Yam,” Harry replied.
“A yam cake?” Aoba said. “I've
never had this before.”
“Raidō said you liked yams,” Harry
replied.
“And this cake proves that I was
right to love them,” Aoba said as he took another bite of the cake.
“Take a shot before you eat another
piece of cake old man,” one of the ninja jeered Aoba.
“Shut up,” Aoba said, but he took
the proffered sake bottle and downed a sip even as he took another
piece of cake.
“Since the cake is cut, it's time for
food,” Raidō said, steering Harry to the buffet table that Harry
had set up earlier.
Not seeing any chance to escape, and
more hungry than annoyed now, Harry loaded up his plate and grabbed a
seat that would let him eat in peace.
Now sporting sunglasses in the shape of stars, Raidō sat down next to him with his own plate.
Genma wasn't far behind.
It had been a while since Harry had
eaten with other people, so he kept his head down and concentrated on
his food.
“You know, you're not quite what I
expected when I heard you were a party-planner.”
Chewing his food, Harry stared at Genma
in silence.
“You're a workaholic,” Genma
stated. “Doing all this on your own must have taken up all your
time.”
Harry shrugged. Genma's words were
true. Harry had spent almost every moment preparing for this party.
The only time he hadn't worked was when he had been sleeping.
“You're too young to be a
workaholic,” Genma said. “And you need to party some more to live
up to your job title.”
“It's my job to plan parties,”
Harry said.
Genma shook his head. “This is the
most tragic thing I've heard.” He prodded Raidō. “Isn't this the most tragic thing you've ever heard, Raidō? A young kid came all the
way to Konoha just to work.”
Harry interrupted. “I didn't come
here to work. I didn't even think I'd have any work here are a
party-planner.”
“Really?” Genma said in surprise.
“What were you going to do if no one asked you to plan parties?”
“I have some money my godfather left
me,” Harry said, glad that his voice stayed even. “I'd have
figured something out eventually.” At the heavy silence, Harry
glanced up just in time to see Raidō's disapproving look at a
sheepish Genma. Harry grimaced. Apparently, his voice hadn't been as
even as he had thought.
“So you haven't seen any of Konoha's
sights since you got here?” Raidō asked.
“I saw the mountain,” Harry
replied.
“I can't believe you're making me
agree with Genma,” Raidō said with a sigh. “I never thought that
party planning was so labour intensive.”
“It's tragic,” Genma reiterated.
Raidō ignored Genma as though he
hadn't spoken. “You need to find something to do, other than work.”
I was supposed to be searching for
Uzumaki, Harry thought. But he said, “I don't have any parties
coming up.”
“Great!” Genma said, “Then you'll
have a chance to actually act your age.”
A bearded man stopped beside Harry and
asked, “You're the party-planner?” When Harry nodded, he continued, "Are you available to plan a party?"
Genma groaned. “Asuma!”
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Happy Holidays!
Polar
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