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 Posted: Tue Dec 29, 2009 9:18 pm
"Khalla...her name is -Khalla" he said -again- as he walked up the last bit of the way to her house, he could even see her door, gift in pocket and Dem armed with a box of chocolates he'd handed him to give as a 'thanks for having me over' gift. MUCH safer, he thought than what Dem might have picked, glow sticks weren't for everyone after all.
"We met at the grocery when she helped me get something off a shelf, she's taller than me..." He said it like it was a 'duh'... most everyone was. Well... not the red-head from the other day, but he hadn't mentioned her yet.
"Ok....ready? I'm gona knock in a minute..." He said glancing back at Dem as he climbed the steps and paused in front of the door.
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Posted: Tue Dec 29, 2009 9:26 pm
Oh but that present wasn't safe. One Demetri Wright -without- a glowstick was something rather unheard of, and somewhere along the epic journey to this 'Khalla's' house he had hooked a glowstick to the box of chocolates.
Clearly it looked better now.
"You...met someone by them helping you get something off a shelf? Dude that's kind of wei---I'm ready!"
And here he was holding the chocolates out with a very obvious grin across his face. They looked better now right? Right. Of course they did! Z would be proud. Very proud. A box of chocolates armed with a glowstick held by a kid who's fashion sense was 'raver on crack' was going to be the best thing to find upon opening that door.
And then there was Z too, of course. What a lucky girl this 'Khalla' was.
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Posted: Tue Dec 29, 2009 9:39 pm
Before Z's first could lay one little knock on the door, it swung open to reveal a very enthusiastic Khalla standing on the other side. "I'm so glad you guys made it!" Well, at least it looked like Khalla. The bruises on her face had faded and all that was left of the gash in her nose was a small cut, but now she was sporting dreads of all things. They fell around her shoulders and framed her face, not tied back as she usually wore them. She simply smiled at them, even offering a small laugh as she realized she'd probably startled poor Z, whose hand was poised to knock. "I'm sorry, I saw you guys walking up the walk through the window," she made a dismissive motion with her hand in the direction of the house's front window, all decked with candles and garland.
"Come on in, don't stand in the cold, I wouldn't want you to get sick," she waved them both inside the house, stepping back to let them in but waiting by the door so she could close it behind them. The inside of the Anselm house was warm and filled with the aroma that only came from a well-cooked Christmas dinner. "I'm afraid Gran won't be joining us, she doesn't feel very well and decided to stay in bed," despite this terrible news, there was a hint of mirth in her voice, "I think she stayed up too late with her poker buddies, myself."
With a shake of her head, one that sent the pale locks flying, Khalla extended a hand to the boy she had yet to meet. "I'm sorry, where are my manners? I'm Khalla. You must be Demy?"
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Posted: Tue Dec 29, 2009 9:44 pm
"HI!" He said in surprise and then his eyes widened to see her...dreads? Well, that was new. "I um, wow...your hair is..." He was speechless. Should he compliment it?
"kinda cool." He admitted after a moment as he slipped carefully inside and let Dem follow, then elbowed Dem to make sure he had the gift ready.
"I um... brought you something.... we both did, as you know, a thinks for having us." He said fishing the little grey box out of his pocket and offering it.
Not so much wrapped as it had a bow on it.
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Posted: Tue Dec 29, 2009 9:52 pm
Demy found Z being startled -hilarious-. So hilarious in fact that he actually burst out laughing at his poor little friend. Thankfully for Z it didn't last long! There was, afterall, shiny new hair to be amazed over.
"DUDE like...your hair! It's...it's...."
Moving out of the cold to follow Z inside, Demy quickly whirled around to continue looking at the hair.
"It's so cool man what prompted you to get dreads? Don't see them on girls often, it doesn't usually look right but it looks awesome on you and..."
Here a very well timed elbow got him and the ramble was cut off. This was likely a very good thing. Once he started it was usually pretty hard to get him to stop.
"Demy, yep! That's meeee! Hey Khalla, Z was telling me about you and...did you really help him get something off a shelf? Was it a high shelf? ...Though I guess most of them are high for Z..."
Ouch.
Shifting the box to one hand Demy quickly shook Khalla's hand, then released it to hand over the box of chocolates.
"Thanks for having us over!"
At least he hadn't noticed the cut. His own bruises were gone, minus some telltale signs around his ribs. The cold weather had permitted him to easily hide those.
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Posted: Tue Dec 29, 2009 10:07 pm
Khalla shut the door behind the pair of them, hiding the slight frown on her face as she turned her back to them. She'd already had an earful from her Gran over her hair. Turning back around, she offered them a pleasant smile - one that was actually truly amused as Z became speechless and Demy became, well, the very opposite. She laughed and waved a hand up between them, trying to stave off the 'compliments'. "It wasn't my choice, really," she reached up to run a finger one of the dreads closest to her face, rolling her eyes up to stare at it. "It was kind of a bet? Sort of." She'd won the bet, but this had been the consequence.
With that out of the way, she tried to focus on Demy's babbling. He really was hyper, Z hadn't been joking. "It was a very high shelf, the top one" she said in an attempt to defend Z's honor, but there was no hiding the pleasant smile now. She could see why he liked Demy so much.
"You guys didn't have to," she said with a small tsking noise, "you really didn't!" But she took each present as they were offered to her. She gave Demy's a glance over, stifling a small laugh at the glow stick hanging off the end. "That'd be your handiwork, right?" She threw a glance at Demy and a small smile before she lifted the lid to give it a little peek. Then she set them aside, mostly because she didn't feel like ruining her dinner. She stared down at the small box Z had produced, sparing a suspicious glance in his direction.
"Oh Z, these are beautiful," she half said, half gasped as she cracked the lid back. She looked honestly surprised as she stared down at the little amber earrings, her smile widening. She set the box down on the table long enough to undo them and fix them in her ears, toying with them for a moment before turning her smile on Z again. "Thank you so much," reaching down to give the glowstick a small flick, she added, "both of you."
"That reminds me though," she turned around to walk towards the Christmas tree in the corner of their living room, stooping to pick up two presents. Yes, two - she'd remembered to get one for Demy too. "I was going to wait until after dinner, but since you two surprised me." She held them out to the pair. Z's was small, put in one of those easy-to-open bag with lots of colorful tissue paper. Demy's was bigger, much bigger, and in a wrapped box that looked like it could probably fit a six-pack of soda.
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Posted: Tue Dec 29, 2009 10:16 pm
He shot a look at Dem over the shelf statement, god, yes he was short but did he -really- have to put it -that- way?
And... and oh god she got him something, what if his wasn't comparable?!
"Speaking of didn't have to..." He said wide eyed at the bag, oh god and one for Dem too, at least she seemed to like the earrings?
"I... should.... I open it? or..." oddly he wasn't sure, yes he'd given her her own but all the same, it had been a long time since he'd really done a 'gift swap' and then it had been family, cousins and stuff.
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Posted: Tue Dec 29, 2009 10:38 pm
Demy had caught the look, but that didn't mean he caught the meaning behind the look. All he offered back was a statement of "Z, man, I told you you could take me shopping with you! I'd get things down...but then you wouldn't have met Khalla and she seems super nice and.."
Waaaaait...
Really he should have realized the tiny box likely contained jewelry. But...really? Jewelry? From -Z-? It seemed so out of place that he never would have guessed it. But there it was, right in front of his face! Z giving jewelry to a girl
....A girl.
"Glowstick is totally my handiwork! I love em...guess Z told you huh?"
He grinned at Khalla, but the look he shot Z spoke volumes more. Jewelry. TO A GIRL. Wasn't that something you gave to oh...a significant other? What the hell was going on here? Just how close were these two?
The mental train was quickly derailed by the presence of a gift. A gift for him! Demy gave Khalla a quick "you're welcome!" for the chocolates (it was hard to do much else, Z had picked them out anyway), and then directed his attention to his present. His friend of course had to ruin it by asking whether or not to open it now. Well DUH you were supposed to open it now! But...well now he'd have to be polite and wait for an answer. Damnit.
"Dude like...really? A present for me? Thank you!"
The grin was genuine, excitement momentarily pushing aside the thoughts of jewelry and girls. They'd be back later. Likely with a vengeance.
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Posted: Tue Dec 29, 2009 10:45 pm
"Z and I had a nice talk about you," she said with a small, knowing smile. Well, really, Z had done most of the talking but Khalla had listened - she was really good at listening. She'd also been fortunate enough (if you could call that night fortunate) to see Z walking home with the present he'd gotten him. She would have commented if she had an idea whether or not he'd already given it to him.
"No, no, go ahead and open them," she waved her hands forward at the pair, trying to urge them to open their presents. "I got to open mine, it's only fair, isn't it?" she smiled and crossed one arm over her chest, bringing the other up to toy with the amber earring in her ear. She really did like them. She'd had no idea Z had paid that much attention to her.
She supposed it was only fair, though. She had paid enough attention to Z to realize he loved music, and on top of that, to realize that Demy loved pixie sticks. Demy's gift might not have been as expensive, but she was willing to bet that if he loved them half as much as Z implied, a whole giant box full was, well, perfectly acceptable to say the least.
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Posted: Tue Dec 29, 2009 10:50 pm
Z's jaw dropped as he lifted out the little grey ipod. He stared at it, then her and back flabber ghasted. "I... t... thank you." He said stunned. Oh hell he should gotten her a bracelet or something too, had he ever seen her wearing a bracelet though? No just the amber. Oh god it was too much... but it was, awesome.
"Thank you it's, you shouldn't have it's... oh god... He's never going to sleep again."he said with a laugh that was half nervous and half still stunned from the gift.
He was going to have to find some way to keep Dem from eating them -all- before the end of the night.
"Wow... I, I really don't know how to thank you."
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Posted: Tue Dec 29, 2009 11:07 pm
"You guys talked about me...?"
He hoped it wasn't embarrassing stuff. Like his busted rib, or how he sang off-key in his sleep at times, or....well any number of things that'd be horrible to tell a Demy-newbie.
Much like an excited child on Christmas morning, little more than a 'yes' was needed for Demy to tear into his present. And excited? You bet your behind he was! Pixie stix were pretty high on the 'love' list for this particular blonde. Not quite up there with glowsticks and guitars...or even -Z- for that matter, but daaaaamn close to the top. Damn close.
"Pixie stix! And hey man I don't need sleep, never do! Never never never...thank you Khalla!"
He was even hugging the box, though that was likely a protective move to keep Z from snatching it and enforcing some kind of pixie stick curfew. That would majorly -suck-.
The iPod earned a rather confused look that traveled between both Khalla and Z. Those...were not cheap. Demy should know, he had one of his own that was usually glued to his head when he wasn't doing anything important (IE: playing Guitar Hero). So what kind of 'friend' gave something like that? Especially when they met in a -grocery- store because Z was a shorty short who liked things from the top shelf?
Just WHAT was going on here?
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Posted: Tue Dec 29, 2009 11:55 pm
Khalla was happier over the reactions she got from them than she was to the gifts she'd been given. Not to underestimate how much she loved the earrings (or even the chocolates) but Khalla absolutely loved to please others. That babbling and the expression on Z's face? That was the best gift she could have gotten, even if that sounded terribly cheesy. Now she just needed to find some time to steal Serah away.
"No, really, it wasn't that big of a deal!" Sure, it looked like a lot, but when one looked at the fact that Khalla didn't really buy much of anything else and had a habit of saving her funds (plus super saving cards to every store imaginable) it wasn't that much in her eyes. "You're both more than welcome." She was still smiling, and for what it was worth, there was really nothing other than the gifts being exchanged between her and Z.
"Oh, well, I really hope he doesn't eat them all now," she managed a laugh, crossing her arms, completely oblivious to whatever was going on in Demy's head. "Especially since I have food ready to eat?" She dropped her hand from where it was toying with her earrings and started towards the doorway that led to the dining room. She'd laid out the meal - complete with a Christmas ham and a gob of all sorts of things that there was no way the three of them could eat.
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Posted: Wed Dec 30, 2009 12:00 am
"Hollllly...." Z said in awe... "Did....you make this -all-?"
He was an fair cook but my god.. most of his cooking skills were learned out of self preservation and trying to keep his cousin from adding strange ingredients to things... like.... lysol.
She -meant- well but, you learned fast not to let some people cook.
He reached out and brushed a hand absently at Dem's arm. Unlike him to do such things in public but he was really quite astounded.
"I... I should have helped or... something." He added turning a light pink.
God this was so much better than anything he could have whipped up at the dorm.
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Posted: Thu Dec 31, 2009 8:30 am
"Hey I'm not gonna eat them all now because food is goo----whoaaaa."
Demy stood beside Z, staring in at the spread. Really? He had -every- reason to be in shock. It had been one heck of a long time since they had had a proper meal. School cafeteria food was.....well it was 'special' to say the least, and while fast food was good it wasn't a home cooked meal.
This...this was something they didn't see very often, and it was almost more exciting than a gift full of pixie stix.
"Dude...Z! You didn't tell me she could....."
The feeling of a hand brushing against his arm brought him to silence.
...Followed quickly by hugging the smaller boy. Z was his, and he was going to make that known! That and he really was just an affectionate kid, clearly hugging was the right thing to do at the sight of their 'Christmas miracle' right?
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Posted: Thu Dec 31, 2009 11:20 am
"I didn't make all of it, no," she shook her head with a pleased smile, "Gran made the pies yesterday, and she got the ham going early this morning and simply left me directions to watch it." She waved a hand dismissively at it, "it's really not that hard, just recipes to remember. We do it every year." They always made enough for an army, even if it was only the two of them, because they never knew who might show up. Khalla even held out hope that maybe her parents would surprise her one year, but it had yet to happen.
She crossed through the threshold of the doorway, turning her back on them as Demy hugged Z. She thought she knew her awkward little friend enough to know that he wouldn't want an audience for any PDA. "Z told me that you two were planning on staying at the school all day, and even I don't like eating cafeteria food." She busied herself with fixing the alignment of the silverware, determined to make her display perfect. You know, before two teenage boys came in and destroyed it all in their ravenous hunger for a good meal.
"Alright, enough standing around," she said in a tone that was all too motherly, clapping her hands a little to denote she meant business. She pulled out a chair at the circular table, then sat and waited expectantly for them to join her.
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