Reindeer House pt.16

One ridiculous tradition that no one quite remembered starting was their movie night weekends, where they’d binge-watch a few sappy Hallmake Christmas movies back-to-back. Kometto would get teary with happiness at the endings, Donaa would silently pat Kometto’s head, Rudorufu would sit there silently with dead eyes, Dansaa would take selfies, Puransa would take notes on the plot, Kyuupiddo would get a sugar high, Dashaa would loudly insist he wasn’t enjoying it (while watching very intently), Bikkusen would rate the outfits, and Buritsen would spill something,

Chaotic? Yes. An all-round great time? Also yes.

But tonight?

Tonight was true and utter madness.

“How many movies do you think we can watch until we physically can’t go on?” Kyuupiddo asked sweetly, already clutching his third gingerbread man.

“I bet I can stay focused way longer than any of you!!” Dashaa declared, unknowingly sealing the fate of everyone in the room.

And so the challenge began.

After the first five hours, they lay sprawled across the lounge like fallen nutcracker soldiers. Kyuupiddo groaned from too many sweets, Puransa’s pen scribbled furiously in his notebook, and Dansaa and Kometto half-whispered predictions about the plot — one of them (Dansaa) spectacularly wrong, and the other (Kometto) terrifyingly accurate.

Rudorufu desperately wanted to go to bed, but the idea of leaving the others unsupervised filled him with dread, so he stayed.

By five-and-a-half hours, no one was even watching properly anymore. The movie played on in the background while the deer resorted to card games, arm wrestling and other slightly dangerous activities, just to stay awake.

Kyuupiddo — who everyone had assumed would be the first to pass out — was instead sprinting laps around the room, giggling wildly on a sugar high that was absolutely going to crash at some point.

After ten more minutes, the movie finally ended, and most of the deer surrendered and shuffled off to bed.

All except Rudorufu, Dashaa, and Kyuupiddo — the latter two now staring intensely at the screen as the next movie’s title appeared.

“If you’re trying to outlast each other,” Rudorufu ventured hopefully, “I can go to bed, right—”

“NO!!” they shouted in unison. “You’re the ref!! Stay!!”

Rudorufu stared at the screen.

The screen stared back.

“…I hate being responsible,” he whispered, as the opening jingle of yet another all-too predictable Christmas romance began to play.

To be continued...