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Christmas morning had never quite felt like this. Perhaps it was because for the first time in years, he wasn’t waking up alone in an empty house or because he finally had people to celebrate with besides his grandfather. It seemed to be a perfect Christmas morning, with a gentle snowfall and crisp air. A comfortable silence settled in the building, surely to be broken by the excitement when everyone woke.
Yuji crept out of his dorm room, clad in tiger-print pajamas and slippers, before anyone’s normal time of getting up. Today, they might have woken up earlier, but they wouldn’t be leaving their rooms for a while. Gojo had told them they’d only be opening presents at seven when he got back to Jujutsu Tech after doing something.
(From what Yuji could tell, it wasn’t a date despite yesterday being Christmas Eve, but something more sad and solemn. He didn’t ask, but he could see the complicated expression on Megumi's and the second year’s faces when they were told. That told him enough.)
When Gojo said seven, he really meant eight thirty and not a minute sooner. For once, it was actually in Yuji’s favor. He could spend that time preparing a lavish breakfast for everyone in the dorms.
He prepared the dough first, a batch for pancakes, another for waffles. Then he collected the other things he needed. First, he retrieved the chocolate chips he hidden in the back of a cabinet, knowing that if Gojo found them, they’d be gone within seconds. Next, he cut up several fruits that he had bought last night: watermelon for Nobara, pears for Megumi, blackberries for Inumaki, Pineapple for Maki, along with strawberries and apples for variation. He wasn’t quite sure what fruit Panda or Gojo liked. He still wasn’t sure if Panda ate at all.
The majority of pears, blackberries, strawberries, and apples were used for danishes and plopped into the oven as he moved on. He thought about using homemade dough for those, but store-bought puff pastries would suffice.
He was mid-way through beating eggs when Megumi, who was wearing his wolf-pattern pajamas, walked in.
“It smells good in here,” He hummed sleepily, rubbing his eyes. “What’re you making?”
“Breakfast,” Yuji responded. “I have some danishes in the oven and when everyone wakes up i’ll start on the rest. I’ll fry up some sausage and some scrambled eggs, then the pancakes and waffles. Do you want anything else?”
Megumi stole a slice of pear and looked over the spread of ingredients on the counter. He raised a brow. “No, this is more than enough for me—for all of us. Are you trying to feed an army?”
Yuji huffed. “You never know! Both Maki and I need a lot of calories and protein! Plus, pancakes and waffles can also make an easy lunch or snack!”
Megumi sighed, shaking his head fondly before stealing another pear slice.
Slowly, the rest of them filtered into the room, attracted to the smell of fresh pastries. The danishs didn’t have time to settle before they were snatched up and stuffed into waiting mouths.
“I didn’t know you baked,” Maki said, finishing an apple danish. “Cooking, I knew, but not baking. These are pretty good.”
“Salmon Salmon,” Inumaki punctuated. Yuji didn’t know if that was supposed to mean anything beyond agreement.
“You should definitely make these more often,” Nobara added, picking up her second Danish.
“I just added some fruit onto some puff pastry,” Yuji explained, feeling his face heat slightly. “It wasn’t hard or anything.”
“Stop it with that self-deprecating crap!” Nobara complained. “Ugh, just take the compliment!”
Yuji huffed and threw a lukewarm pancake onto her face. “It's called being polite, you ass!”
Nobara sneered and whipped the pancake back at Yuji. It went far above his head and hit the top of a cabinet door. It remained there, not sliding down an inch.
Yuji stood there, his hand on his hips as he looked up at the pancake and paused.
“How’d you do that?” He asked quietly.
The only answer he got in return was laughter.
Gojo came into the room at eight forty-five, but he didn’t come alone. Trailing behind him were Yaga, Ieiri, Nanami, and Ijichi. Yuji chuckled at the sight.
Everyone in the room was wearing matching pajamas, though the animals represented on them were all different. The second years had pajamas with different types of bears: Panda had pandas, Maki had black bears, and Inumaki had polar bears. The first years were more varied: Megumi had wolves, Kugisaki had foxes, and Yuij had tigers.
Gojo’s pajamas were covered in white cats, Ieiri had mice, Nanami had grumpy-looking golden retrievers, Ijichi dobermen, and Yaga had gorillas. All were clearly Gojo’s gifts, and his satisfaction was evident on his smug face.
“What's all of this?” Gojo asked, his nose wrinkling his blind fold as he sniffed the air dramatically. He ignored Nobara’s noise of disgust and continued, “It smells good!”
Yuji was glad he had prepared extra.
Especially because Gojo finished off all the dainshes before Ijichi could grab one. Yuji just made sure that Ijichi got first dibs on the second round of pancakes when they were done.
With the extra mouths, the food practically vanished.
“Thank you, Itadori,” Nanami said, wiping his face clean with a napkin.
The others echoed his response. Gojo’s muffled by the handful of leftover chocolate chips he stuffed into his mouth.
“Ew,” Nobara scowled. “How can you eat anything more? You…”
There was an insult on the tip of her tongue, but the Christmas spirit held it back.
Maki patted her shoulder, either congratulating her on holding back or trying to soothe her nerves.
“It's chocolate, not more food,” Gojo excused.
“There's something wrong with your logic there,” Megumi shook his head.
“It's because it's the logic of a toddler and not an adult,” Nanami joined in.
Nobara snorted, and others’ laughter followed,
“That wasn’t a joke,” Nanami looked around the table, before hiding his smile in his cup of coffee.
Gojo sighed dramatically, tossing his hands in the air. “It sounds to me like you don’t want your presents!”
“That couldn’t have hurt your feelings that badly,” Nobara huffed.
“Tuna mayo, Salmon.” Inumaki drawled.
Panda crossed his arms.“What he said!”
Megumi met Yujis eyes and slowly shook his head in disbelief. There was a level of camaraderie there that was well appreciated.
Maki leaned over, cupping a hand to cover her mouth as she whispered into Nobara’s ear. Something sparked to life in Nobara’s eyes. Once Maki was done, Nobara leaned back in her chair, tapping her fingertips together.
“Yes, that should work,” She nodded to herself, considering the idea with great seriousness. “Yes, it will.”
Gojo stared at them before getting up. “Present time then! Woo! Yay!”
“Threatened by children,” Nanami shook his head in disbelief.
“You don’t know what she’s capable of,” Yuji sighed.
The Christmas tree was overtaken by presents that had not been there the night before. He could recognize the gifts he and his classmates had wrapped for each other, but not nearly ninety percent of them. Gojo splayed out on the couch, listing what color wrapping paper was for whom. They gathered their gifts into piles and quickly began opening them, uncaring for Gojo’s camera being trained on their every moment.
“Ijichi helped pick that one out,” He said every once in a while, gesturing to the gift he was referring to.
When it came to clothes, especially for the girls, it was “Shoko picked that one out, don’t blame me if you don’t like it.”
Everything was perfectly suited to them. The majority of Nobara’s gifts were expensive clothes and makeup, but there were also several gift cards for her to go shopping with. Megumi got a majority of books, and though his reaction wasn’t extreme, there was a glimmer of satisfaction in his eyes and in the curl of his lips. Maki was gifted a variety of things: Clothes, running shoes, a new spear, and a short sword, but also beads and string for bracelets. From what Yuij saw, Inumaki was given several things for throat soothing, and over a dozen pairs of shoes. Panda was given a lot of panda merch, from oversized clothing to a foot-tall statue of a panda. He didn’t seem upset about that.
Yuji took the longest to open presents, too preoccupied watching his friends open gifts. He received multiple hoodies, a few of them with tiger prints on them, then shoes, posters from his favorite movies, all three Bleach box sets, and his last present was another pair of pajamas.
“You’re growing pretty quickly,” Gojo explained. “So I thought it was time for a couple of sizes up before you outgrow those.”
Yuji's eyes trailed the fabric, the tigers larger than before, and under their eyes lay another pair in red.
It really was the perfect Christmas.