"Now, please give a warm welcome to the Men's Choreography Team!" The announcer called, stepping down from the platform and signaling someone to cue music. The men were crouched low, waiting for the beat. Summer waited expectantly, and smiled when the Christmas melodies rang out in the square.
They rose, leapt and pranced across the snow, gracefully landing on their feet and twirling in time with the music. She rocked back and forth as they did their routine. The ten men, dressed in fancy suits, giving them the appearance of royalty, smiled and waved to loved ones as they went, and several girlfriends called out to them in encouragement.
"Think you could ever dance like that?" Summer asked Shachi, and he waved it off.
"Pfft, of course I could. These guys are amateurs. Their twirls are too fast to match the music, and they're not pointing their toes." He answered, eyes widening and hands clapping over his mouth before he could make things worse. Summer's mouth was open in shock, slow changing into a sly grin.
"And how do you know that, Shachi-kun?" She questioned provocatively. The others were leaning closer, smirks of their own in place. He glanced between his friends, seeing no mercy in any of their eyes.
"I…may have…takenballetclasseswhenIwasyounger." He finished in a rush, closing his eyes in an effort to stop the humiliation. The others laughed, rolling onto their backs.
"Dude," Parker wiped tears from his eyes, chuckling with painful sides, "you've totally lost your man card."
"My mother made me! I was six! And it's not as bad as Penguin's secret!" He cried, throwing his friend under the bus. The man in question grabbed him by his neck and tackled him.
"Don't you dare say anything!" He threatened, shaking him up and down. The others wrestled the two off each other, with Shachi clutching his neck.
"What's your big secret Penguin?" Blake asked curiously. Penguin crossed his arms, turning his head away with a pout.
"No way. Not gonna say anything." Shachi pointed to his best friend.
"When Penguin was ten, he got his tongue stuck on a frozen pole in front of the school. Everyone saw and that's how he got the nickname popsicle!"
"You know I hate that name!" He cried trying to get the engineer, but his friends held him back.
The others were all busting up, unable to control their sides from hurting. They rolled around on the roof in amusement.
"One time, I thought chickens were called cluckies, and so I would always ask if we were having fried clucky for dinner. My mom told the whole town and they always brought it up after that." Blake recounted, a small smirk on his face at the ridiculousness of it all.
"What about you, Liam?" Summer asked, and he scratched the back of his head.
"I accidentally went into the girl's room in my preschool, and all the girls stayed away from me after that."
"Reid?" Summer turned to the mechanic. He chuckled, thinking back.
"One time I got my hands on a bottle of food coloring, and I thought it was 'magic dust' when I was little, that's what my mom always called it, and I thought that by putting it into the town well it would give everyone the ability to fly. I actually just made everything they used water with green."
"Oh my God, really?" She asked, and he nodded critically.
"Oh! I've got one!" Parker spoke up. "When I was 2, I used to think I was a superhero, and so one day I got ahold of my mom's underwear, put it on my head, and ran around the whole town with a cape screaming that I was 'Captain Wedgie.'" Everyone wailed, sides hurting worse from laughing so much. Summer was surprised the townspeople below hadn't started questioning things, though the music and applause was rather loud.
"What about you, Summer-chan?" Liam asked, and she slowly calmed down from laughing.
"Me?" She thought long and hard, trying to come up with something.
"Oh, right." He scratched his head in embarrassment, forgetting about her tragic past for a moment. "Sorry…It's alright, Summer, I just forgot is all…" She laughed, waving it aside.
"No, actually, I just thought of something, though it's not really of when I was a kid." They all listened intently. "When I was in Impel Down, when I was escaping, I wasn't sure how to escape. I was still wearing my prison uniform and…"
She went on to describe her escape, how she had to strip down to her underwear in front of killers and dangerous criminals, how the elevator code was 1-2-3-4, and how the guard said that she was the very definition of what it meant to be a marine. That seemed to be the best part.
"He told one of the most wanted pirates that they were the definition of 'justice?' Oh, that's priceless!" Shachi rolled around on the roof, unable to contain his amusement. The rest were doing similar things, holding their sides and banging on the wood. Suddenly, the cheers and claps from the crowd below signaled that another act had ended, and the announcers voice came back over them.
"I wonder how many more acts there are." Summer said, and they shrugged. Either way, the show was proving to be very good. Though, admittedly, they were mostly entertaining themselves with stories and whatnot, though no one was actually complaining about that.
"I wonder why the Captain and Bepo didn't come." Parker rubbed his chin, pondering his own question.
"Captain doesn't like Christmas, right?"
"That's just ridiculous, Penguin. Who doesn't like Christmas?" Summer shook her head.
"No really, the Captain never seems to like the holiday." Penguin continued. "He let's us celebrate, but he's always on the sidelines."
"Maybe he's had a bad experience with Christmas?" Reid suggested.
"Who knows? All I know is that Captain tends to keep to himself. A real Christmas miracle would be to get him to celebrate with us." Penguin settled himself back on the roof, intending to watch the rest of the show.
Those words had Summer thinking. She thought about the sweater, and how she'd thought it was the perfect gift. Now, with this new information, she wasn't too sure. The Captain didn't like Christmas? Then why did he participate in the gift exchange? Everyone up to this point made it sound like he enjoyed it with them. All of a sudden, the small article of clothing just didn't seem like enough.
Putting herself in a more comfortable position, she dangled her legs off the side of the roof, but the heels of her boots hits something hanging there. Looking down when it jingled minutely, she saw it was a decoration. A sprig of mistletoe attached to a tiny bell to be more precise.
She glanced around. Everyone else was focused on the show below, and so she reached down and detached it from the roof, secretly stuffing it into her pocket. It wouldn't do to have one of them know she had it, lest they try to kiss her when she least expected it. That would do no good at all. She doubted Law would approve.
Then a thought crossed her mind, though it had before on several occasions. What exactly…were they, her and Law? They were obviously more than friends, as the evident few instances they'd kissed proved. The thought alone made her blush, though the cold temperatures would mask that fact. For once, she was thankful for the frigid air. Still, Summer didn't know what kind of…thing, she had going on with the Captain. Did he even know? It would be too embarrassing to directly ask him…
She sighed inaudibly, everything was too complicated. Though, her resolve to make this Christmas a memorable one for a certain pirate hadn't lessened. In fact, perhaps it would give her the opportunity to test the waters. Deciding that she needed to man up, or woman up in this instance, she set her mind to not care about the emotional part of the issue. She would get the answers she desired, even if she would die of embarrassment in the process.
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