Nuovo act in arrivo su...

So it's Christmas soon, and Nowaki suggests they spend some time together on Christmas Eve, 24th. Hiroki is surprised that Nowaki suggests that because for the years they've been together, they never spent time on a special occasion like Christmas. Hiroki agrees anyway, and Nowaki promises that he'll definitely turn up for their meeting together.

We then have a scene shift to Usagi, who's once again stopping by Hiroki's office. Despite Hiroki trying to get Usagi to gtfo, Usagi nonchalantly stays and requests for coffee. Usagi mentions that it isn't bad having such parties every once in awhile, and Hiroki realizes that Usagi would never say such things. He vaguely wonders if Usagi's 'tenant' (i.e. Misaki, lol) has changed Usagi in some ways (which he then also realizes he forgets to ask about).

Back to Egoist, we see a moment between Nowaki and Hiroki back home and Hiroki notices that Nowaki's hands are very dry. (Poor guy... D:) Anyway, Nowaki agrees and confirms that he'll definitely meet with Hiroki.

We get to peek into Hiroki's thoughts a little here. He's troubled with what he should get for Christmas gifts. He feels these cake shops, jewelry shops etc are not things any adult should be so easily excited about, and he gets all defensive, thinking and claiming to himself that he was only just following the fashion to do all these sorts of celebrations. Nevertheless, he continues to wonder if he should buy red wine or champagne etc back. (And no, he didn't buy the rings, sadly.)

Even though he (claims he) doesn't like all this festive celebration stuffs, inside, he feels rather happy. He recalls that they did have a celebration for Nowaki's birthday before, but an unwanted guest turned up. Ahaha, unwanted guest, i.e. Tsumori. He's aware of their work schedules, and that work should always come first for Nowaki as well, and that he won't grumble or complain about it. However, he would sometimes feel like telling Nowaki to fork out some time with him. But, knowing this is Hiroki, he won't say it so as not to trouble Nowaki, and as he claims, his pride won't allow it.

Aaaaand it's Christmas Eve! Nowaki's called to say he'll be slightly late, but they'll meet up at 7pm at the place they agreed to meet. Hiroki decided to kill time by going to the bookstore (it's always a disaster but it seems he's all right going there now!) before meeting with Nowaki.

We shift to Nowaki who's just finished his shift at the hospital and is getting ready to leave. But, as usual, another 5 emergency patients popped up. Tsumori wanted Nowaki to go back and turn 2 down and accept only 3, but Nowaki insisted to stay to help.

And it seems Hiroki ended up waiting for...quite a long time. A little depressed, but he decided to pop by the hospital, give Nowaki his Christmas presents and then head back home.

And what do you know, he bumps into Tsumori, who immediately guesses he's there to deliver Nowaki's Christmas presents. Hiroki asks if Nowaki has been held up due to emergency patients, to which Tsumori is surprised that Nowaki didn't contact Hiroki about it.

(Aaand this is the point when Tsumori starts to become a little annoying...) Tsumori warns Hiroki that if he's the type who thinks about "I just want to be with the person I love" then he should break up with Nowaki. Tsumori continues to say that Nowaki is the type who places work as his priority, and personal stuff comes after. It'll be even more so in the future. Tsumori claims that he has also been in the same position as Nowaki - unable to balance between 'love' and 'work', so he ended up having 'work' instead. He predicts that Nowaki and Hiroki won't last long.

Tsumori, is however rather spot on about what he describes next. He guesses that Hiroki's not very happy most of the times because Nowaki seems to be letting him down with his promises and that he says Hiroki would repeatedly tell himself to not get his hopes up too high and that Hiroki's getting tired of all this. Hiroki replies that he's used to this.

But, Tsumori goes on to say that those couldn't possibly be Hiroki's true feelings.

Hiroki thinks to himself that because he was too excited before, so now he's just a little disappointed, but he knows that this sort of situation will recur again in the future. However he says that he really wants to just spend one day with Nowaki. (Maybe he's spewing randomly again, otherwise he wouldn't say such things. Well, his pride doesn't allow it, harhar!) The comforting hand (....I dunno, it seems to give off Sumi-vibes...?) reaches towards Hiroki, and...

Is stopped by Nowaki who appears and shouts (very possibly at Tsumori), "You should say those words to me instead!"

Welp, they leave and Hiroki comments that Nowaki sure knows when to arrive. (No duh, a manga!) Nowaki apologizes about his inability to keep his promise today, but yet at the same time he's happy as he was able to hear Hiroki's true feelings. In fact, he's rather happy that even though Hiroki never actually complained, Hiroki still wanted Nowaki to spend time with him (just earlier, remember him blabbering to Tsumori about how he wishes to have Nowaki to just spend a day with him).

To Hiroki, that was still a complaint of some form, and he called Nowaki a masochist (ahahaha! Sorry, I just died reading this part!), which Nowaki does not deny and in fact agrees on the possibility. Hiroki begins to ramble about how unsatisfied he is with Nowaki - him not taking care of himself properly etc. And this pops up:

Aww. And now Hiroki's taking back what he said, adding on frantically that Nowaki's to place his job as his priority. To shift away from the topic, Hiroki shoves the bag of presents to Nowaki, and as revealed, they're all hand cream and a pair of gloves. (Oh my shit, BEAR HAND. /dies)

Nowaki has a suggestion, that because of their schedule differences with work, he decides he should cherish Hiroki more. (...Really? I dunno if it's just the way the Chinese phrased it, but yeah that's what I got. Then again Nowaki says the silliest things so...) And he promises he'll be more...passionate with Hiroki when they get back. Aaaaand they share a pair of gloves, romantically. Their bare hands (bear hands...OHH NO I DIDN'T) locked and those lonely hands with the gloves~ And they race for the last train home.

Before we cut to the smexy scene, Hiroki's thoughts: "Nowaki's words // shattered my pride." (I must say, I gushed at this line. I really did. Powerful words that renders a character vulnerable.)

Smexy scene, I don't need to explain...! Hiroki just feels so elated (and not to mention excited...ufufu) and Nowaki, as Hiroki noted, seemed to have an expression overwhelmed by happiness that he had never seen before.

Anyway, next day... Nowaki apparently also prepared presents, and what better than those couple cups? xD;; Nowaki then leaves, and Hiroki checks his phone, and realizes he had a call to Usagi for 5 hours long last night. He calls Usagi back, and apologizes that he called for 5 hours and he didn't manage to remember much about it, and Usagi replies that it was fine, and in fact he was thankful for the call since it gave him materials to work on. Hiroki wondered about that, but never found out.

Well, that's until a few months later. Another Junai Egoist installment - the theme is "Work and me - which is more important?"

From this, Hiroki has begun to hate Christmas.