It was Friday.

  And that was an extremely special thing.

  Because that meant winter break was coming!

  “Tristan! Tristan!” I exclaimed as I poked at Tristan’s shoulder.

  We sat in the cafeteria, waiting for our first period class to begin.

  “Yeah?” Tristan responded as he read a book.

  “Christmas is coming! Aren’t you excited?” I beamed.

  Tristan looked up from his book and stared at me.

  “Nah.”

  My eyebrow twitched.

  “You’re such a damn buzzkill,” I muttered.

  Turning my attention away from Tristan, I focused on another individual.

  “What about you, Nishimoya? Are you excited?” I asked, now looking towards Nishimoya.

  “Yes, I really am. But my parents are going to make me study like crazy for the regents…” Nishimoya replied.

  “Hey! Don’t worry about that! Right now, we’ll celebrate together!” I declared proudly.

  “But how? We're still in scho…” Nishimoya began to say.

  “Yeah, yeah, don’t worry about that. We’ll figure out the specifics of it later,”

  Nishimoya made a disapproving frown but didn’t question me any further.

  After that, I began to interrogate Nishimoya about Christmas facts until we had to go to our first period class.

  Like every Friday, I had phys ed as my first period.

  However, in light of the holiday spirit, we had free play and didn’t have any specific sport skills to learn.

  So that was a huge booster to my mood.

  But that wasn’t the end of the holiday effect.

  In science class, we also tried something new since Mr. Bostav had us create ice cream in the lab for an experiment.

  That was especially fun since Mr. Bostav even brought in toppings for our ice cream.

  Honestly, if it wasn’t for the fear of getting in trouble, I might’ve stolen some of the other student’s ice cream for myself.

  Anyway, after science class, I had art.

  Unfortunately, we didn’t do anything special for that class period.

  It was still fun though because we got to listen to Christmas songs as we worked.

  If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.

  For my 4th period class, I had mathematics which was boring, as usual.

  It was a sharp contrast to the fun I had in my other classes causing my boredom to be amplified.

  However, nothing was able to be done about this so I sucked it up and continued on with my day.

  Then, lunch time arrived.

  “Merry Christmas everyone!” Soriel exclaimed as she slammed her hands on the cafeteria table.

  Looking at her, I noticed something was different about her.

  Her stomach was massive.

  “Oh I didn’t know you have a little one on the way, congrats,” I said with a deadpan expression.

  Soriel looked at me and frowned.

  “Excuse me? I am not pregnant! I am Santa!” Soriel retorted as she pouted.

  “Ah, that makes sense!” I replied with a look of revelation.

  “But if you’re Santa, where’s the rest of your costume?” Nishimoya asked.

  Soriel let out a slightly embarrassed smile.

  “I only thought of looking like this last period so I didn’t have any Santa clothes,” Soriel said dishearteningly.

  “Bad decision. I just thought you were becoming a mother,”

  “Welp, alright then,” Soriel replied,

  Soriel sighed in disbelief and took out a bunch of shirts from under her uniform, making her belly return to normal.

  “Anyway, it’d be cool if we could do something special since Christmas is coming. Like make Christmas music or something,” I suggested.

  “That would be really nice,” Nishimoya agreed.

  Soriel’s eyes lit up when she heard this.

  “That’s great because that's exactly what I wanted us to do!” She chirped.

  I tilted my head in confusion.

  “How?”

  “We’ll into the music room and use the instruments,

  “We can do that?” Nishimoya asked.

  “Yes, I asked the school music instructor earlier,

  “Then let’s go!”

  Everyone got up from their seat…except for Tristan.

  “I’m not g…

  “Shut up buddy,” I interrupted as I grabbed Tristan by the back of his uniform.

  I dragged Tristan up and we all headed over to the music room.

  “Alright, so how do we decide who does what instrument?” I asked as we entered the room.

  “Hmm…” Soriel muttered as she thought deeply.

  Tristan, who had been released by me, stood up straight.

  “Simple. Soriel will do the piano, Nishimoya will do flutes, I’ll do electric guitar and Elliot can do the drums,” Tristan said nonchalantly.

  “You know how to play an electric guitar?” I asked.

  “Yeah, I used to play in middle school, remember?” Tristan replied.

  ‘Oh yeah, he was a bit interested in music before…’

  After remembering that detail, I turned my attention to Nishimoya.

  “You know how to play the flute?”

  “I’ve read books about it,” Nishimoya said.

  ‘Her parents made her study that too?! Wait…am I the only one here who knows nothing about instruments?’

  Coming to that devastating realization, I half heartedly walked over to the drums in the corner of the room.

  “Let’s get started…” I said in a depressing tone.

  “Is he okay?

  “I have no idea…

  Once everyone got to their corresponding instruments, we began to play.

  Initially, Soriel took the lead and we played a few songs.

  They were a bit wonky due to my and Nishimoya’s inexperience for playing actual instruments.

  However, we made slow improvements with each song.

  Tristan even began to help guide us for a few different songs.

  It was a lot of fun.

  And so we played for the rest of the lunch period, enjoying our time with one another.

  After all, that’s what friends do.

  **

  The school bell rang, signaling the end of the school day.

  I left the social studies classroom and headed out of the school building.

  And as I walked away from the school, I took out my phone.

  — Me: Hey Soriel

  The typing symbol appeared for a couple of seconds before a message was sent back.

  — Soriel: Hi!

  I stared at my phone for a couple of seconds, thinking of what I wanted to say.

  Coming to a decision, I sent a new message.

  — Me: Do you wanna hang out tomorrow? To celebrate the holidays?

  Looking at my message for a couple of seconds, I grew a tiny bit worried.

  ‘Wait, will she think I meant like a date? A romantic one? Oh crap that’d be bad! What if she rejects it?’

  As I was about to type another message, clarifying what I meant, Soriel replied.

  — Soriel: Definitely! Where to?

  I heaved a sigh of relief and typed back.

  — Me: No idea. Do you wanna choose?

  Soriel spent a few moments thinking before finally sending a message.

  — Soriel: Sure. Just give a few to think about it

  — Me: Sounds good

  Turning off my phone and putting it away, I let a smile appear on my face.

  ‘Today was a great day.’

  I got to eat ice cream, make music with friends, and I had scheduled a hangout.

  Such a combination made for a wonderful day.

  And I was so very grateful for that.