Instead of a Calendar

Chapter 1:
The People

Let me tell you this: I am not a fan of giving or getting presents and gifts. It's just not my thing. But sadly enough, it seems like it's other people's thing, so I am forced to play along with their petty games.

Okay, so I'm not your typical teenage boy. I dislike presents - I hate them. I never know what to choose to give.

And since it was driving me crazy, I simply decided not to give people presents. It would be easy - I'd just avoid going to their birthday parties.

Easy?
WRONG.

I mean, it's not easy to decide that you won't come to your best friend's birthday party just because you don't have a gift to give him . . . so I went to it in that one fateful night when he turned nine, and ever since then he's been repaying me with giving me calendars.

What's the joke, you ask?
My birthday is the first of January.

The jerk is older than me by half a month.

And it's been like that for years, him telling me not to forget his next birthday or I'd simply get another calendar.

EVERY YEAR, EVERY SINGLE FUCKING YEAR, he gives me a calendar. But I hang it on the wall next to my bed anyhow, when I manage to get it back from my younger sister's clutches, mind you.

Do you want to know who I'm talking about? My name is Thomas; my sister's is Katherine (and the friend in question will be mentioned later). Yes: our parents are very original with names. With my name they wondered which I would like better: Cedric or Barbara.

Yes, Barbara. Luckily for me, an aunt that I will forever admire suggested that the boy in question, me, would appreciate a different name, like Thomas. And oh, was she right. After hearing the story about what my parents had planned for me before she trudged along, I was ready to kiss her feet and scream to the whole world 'THANK YOU, LORD!'. I'm pretty sure I did it in my sleep, though; Kate was complaining about noise coming one night from my room.

My sister got out of the bad-naming 'ritual' pretty easily, since our parents went straight to the Wise Aunt of ours. She hates her name, even after I tried to explain to her that without our aunt's naming skills, Mum and Dad would've called her Pierre or something.

She and I, we look kind of alike, except for the gender thing. I'm a male, don't get it wrong. She's a female, and I get a proof of that side of her body once a month for several days, when she breaks my door with an ungodly kick and looks for me to beat me up senseless. Then I spend the nights (and days) at James', my mentioned friend.

Kate's hair and mine is reddish-brown, with several dark blond-like streaks. Our eyes are dark green and, because of our mother's 'exotic' heritage, our natural skin complexion is dark cream - compared to the pale people that lived in our town, that is.

When Kate and I walk together down the street (which doesn't happen fairly often, let me tell you), people A) think we look like twins, and B) ask where the cameras from our modeling agency are.

Sure, being considered a model is sort of nice; but being told that you and your fourteen year old sister are twins, when you're a guy that's about to turn seventeen soon, isn't much to be proud of.

She likes to think that she's sophisticated, and while having people say that she looks like she's seventeen or sixteen helps her ego, it doesn't help mine. So I'm a bit short. I'm still growing. Slowly, but growing nonetheless. And I'm still much taller than she is. But having James telling us that at times I looked like the younger sibling, now that's annoying.

And now, James. Light brown hair, pale blue eyes, has an almost sickly white complexion. Third child amongst four; his two older siblings, a brother and a sister, have already moved out, and his younger brother, Steve, is still at home and being a nuisance. People saw James as outright beautiful, and it was easy to understand why.

I don't think I said it, but I think it's quite clear that my sister has a crush on James. Why else would she bother to steal the calendars he's been giving me for years?

And why do I, you ask, fight to have them back?

Because, sadly, I also have a crush on him, sniffle, sniffle. It's sad, two siblings of two completely different genders having a crush on the same person. Sad and disturbing. But unlike her, I manage to mask my feelings a tiny bit better.

I hope.

After I've finished telling my tragic and melodramatic (here you're supposed to shed and wipe a tear, faked or not) life story, it's time to go back to the main subject.

I dislike presents. I don't like giving them to people, and I don't really like receiving them, because people never know what I really want. Not that I knew, because if I did, I would've told them what I wanted a long time ago. But I don't, so end of story and the continuation of the Circle of Hate.

But as James' birthday (and my birthday two weeks after that) drew closer, the hands of Tradition haunted me again and pushed me to the direction of several stores, making me look at the exhibition windows of several lovely shops. Temptation almost took its step in making me buy something I knew James wanted. But, a principle is a principle, and Pride raised its proud head and made me walk away from the store.

I really wanted to see what kind of calendar James would bring me this year. He was almost always original, except for one time when he brought me a school calendar at the beginning of September, four months before my birthday.

I wondered if I'd get to keep it that year. I'm sure as hell not planning on letting Kate have it to mark the days she's having her menstruation cycles with that red pen of hers. A few days before that . . . thing . . . she's awfully strong, and I always have trouble hitting her back while she's having PMS. Then, I'm at James' - remember? - shuddering until she stops ringing the bell and stops demanding me to come out and face her like the man I wasn't.

I'm going to drop the subject now, if you don't mind.

So, with my ramblings having explained why I was walking in the streets of my snow covered town, looking at various shops, not paying any attention to anything, because, well, I'm busy telling you my story.

So that's when I collide with something and fall to the snow with bags - which weren't mine, I swear! - falling with me.

I look up, and see James peering down at me with astonishment in his blue eyes.

Surprise!

Authour's blabbers:
I'm ashamed at how long it sat on my HD, so lonely. Ever since August. But no! I was cleaning my files, and here it was, begging for me to work on it! This is a mini-story; won't have more than four chapters. ^^ Well then. Thank you notes go to:

Proofreader: Hota
Proofreader's Underling: Calorn
Proofreader's Underling's Underlings: #sakura-crisis
Special Thanks: Calendar no Nee-chan, who would hate to see her name in a shounen-ai fiction. *grins*