Chapter 1 - A Little, Snow White Lie

Christmas has never been my favorite holiday. Even so, I don't have anything against it. The decorations are cute, and the light displays are always a welcome sight to combat the early setting winter sun, so aesthetically, it's true that I don't have any reason to dislike the season. It's simply that growing up, in the years that one is supposed to get excited over the idea of a strange man bringing you presents and cookies, my home was missing a certain element that I've heard called "Christmas cheer". No one in my household observed the holiday in an orthodox sense, and there was little effort spent on frivolous displays like dragging trees inside or putting up fake greenery, so I was fourteen and living practically on my own before I really experienced my first Christmas. Even now, after four winters with Rinko, I must admit that the holiday is still rather confusing - though I'm open to the possibility that this is due to having spent four Christmases with Rinko more than some flaw inherent in the holiday itself.

    For example, the food. Our first winter together I was sure to research a traditional Christmas meal, and spared no expense hiring a chef to prepare us a feast. A roasted turkey with brown gravy and mashed potatoes with cream and butter. A bread and sausage dressing, along with roasted vegetables. I even ordered an entire platter of traditional cookies - ginger, sugar, and shortbread - from a bakery in the city that specializes in foreign recipes, along with a strange, rather horrid cake filled with dried fruits and nuts that - after verifying with the internet - turns out to be, for reasons unknown, a legitimate Christmas delicacy. It was, aside from the cake, a rather fine meal, if not exceptionally heavy and rich, but it had been nothing like what Rinko had been expecting.

    "Where's the fried chicken? And the strawberry cake? Er, it still all looks really good though!"

    My second faux pas was surrounding the tradition of gift giving. To my recollection I had never been the recipient of a proper Christmas gift. Small tokens as a child from the staff, usually candy or other sweets, but never what one would call a proper exchange. Still, I knew that the exchanging of gifts was a common enough part of the festivities that I needed to be prepared with something just in case it was a part of Rinko's expectations. And it turned out that it was. The afternoon of the day before Christmas she had grown tired of waiting and gave me my present. She had made, with her own hands, a little clay star, festooned with easily an entire jar of silver glitter and threaded with a length of white ribbon.

    "It's an ornament! So when we get a tree next year we'll have something to put on top!"

    I had gotten her a pair of imported Italian suede boots. Very expensive, but I would come to learn that for Rinko, in the very best way, it's the thought that matters much more than the cost. Of course I would also learn that this was primarily down to two causes. Her parents had never spoiled them as children, so Rinko had no high expectations in the first place. Also, those sorts of gifts were the kinds of things you got from Santa Claus, not from your parents.

    "You let Santa know you moved, right? Don't worry. I told him we were living in the same place now just in case!"

    Her question had struck me as nonsensical. It's common knowledge that Santa is a nom de guerre adopted by parents to make the holiday seem mystical for their children. In all my years I had never received a visit from Santa and that was, to my mind, ample proof against his existence. Not so for my roommate. She had gotten annual visits for as long as I hadn't, and to her Santa was a verified fact. What could I do, the evening before she expected to wake up to a second lovely gift, when all she wanted was to curl up in front of the fire while I read her Christmas stories?

    The answer was to wait until she fell asleep and then send out a flurry of emails promising a generous compensation for immediate delivery. A lesson that stuck with me as surely as the smile on her face when she opened her new reindeer shaped pajamas.

    My phone chimed, as it's been doing all day. All week, really. I sighed and ignored it. There's still nearly a week until the holiday, and what had started as an innocent white lie years ago to make my roommate happy was now snowballing out of my control. Rinko, wearing her special holiday sleepwear like she does every year around this time, stopped trimming the tree to check her phone, giggle, and type out a reply. My phone immediately chimed again, though luckily Rinko never pays attention to how unusual it is that when her group chat with "Santa" gets a message my phone makes a sound.

    Now, this may seem unusual, but I promise that like most things that escalate out of one's control it was born entirely from my good intentions. Three Christmases ago I had been wracked with anxiety over the possibility of having to scramble again at the last minute, so I dispensed with making guesses and asked Rinko exactly how it was she wanted to celebrate the holiday. For the most part this worked. On Christmas Eve we would exchange small gifts - no more footwear - and go for a walk to see the displays of lights. One year we went caroling in the park, though we've been equally likely to end up at home watching one of Rinko's silly holiday specials she loves so much. On Christmas morning we would open our gifts from Santa and, in the evening, feast on fried chicken and strawberry shortcake, the significance of which I've given up on trying to understand. They make Rinko happy, so it's a tradition I'm perfectly happy with, and that's the only meaning that matters. The one thing that couldn't be clarified, no matter how many times I asked her, was exactly what it happened to be that she wanted from Santa. So, I had an idea…

    "Junko! Look at this!"

    "What is it, Rinko? Some kind of advertisement?"

    "Better! Read for yourself!"

    The flier, printed on festive green paper, described a set of rules and regulations for Santa's many helpers. Printed at the top and bottom in large block letters was the phrase "TOP SECRET", and Rinko was excitedly pointing at a section near the bottom which outlined, in part, an email address for helpers to send their findings once they'd met with children in the area. The entire flier was, of course, something I had made myself, though Rinko never questioned exactly why it was that such a flier had gotten wedged in our door. And it worked. Rinko disappeared into her room, making me promise to keep her discovery a secret, and less than twenty minutes later the account I had created especially for her received its first email from one of "Santa's helpers", singing the praises of one young miss Hanazawa and asking for a pogo stick. Or a hula hoop. Or, if Santa were feeling extra generous, a pogo stick and a hula hoop, which turned out to be a very poor idea on Santa's part. In fact, every year after that Rinko has gotten exactly what she's wanted from Santa. She even emailed the first week we moved into the dorms, just to make sure that he updated his list promptly. As I said, the look on Rinko's face each Christmas morning is more than enough to justify a small amount of harmless deception. Except that now…

    My phone's alert went off three times in succession, just like Rinko's.

    Except that now, somehow, it seems like nearly the entire group has gotten ahold of the address, and they've decided it'll be easier for Santa if they put all of their gift ideas in a group chat.

    "Rinko, you haven't accidentally shared Santa's email address, have you? I saw a report that there's been unusually high Internet traffic to the North Pole this year."

    My roommate's face flushed nearly as red as the caribou's who inspired her pajamas. "N-No! I know that's top secret information! I'd never do that!"

    "Good. It's be terrible if you got yourself on the naughty list this close to Christmas. Remember, Santa needs time to go shopping, so you'll need to make up your mind soon or you risk being disappointed."

    "Junko, Santa doesn't go shopping. His fairies build all the presents."

    "I think those are elves, not fairies."

    Rinko shrugged, making the soft antlers on her fleece hood flop about. "Elves, fairies, yokai, what's the difference?"

    What is the difference? It's an interesting question, and one which could make for a very interesting lecture on comparative folklore, but since Santa's helper is, in fact, a Junko and not any other sort of small magical creature, it's a question which turns out to hardly be relevant.

    "Just make sure to send your final email tonight. Rumor has it that Santa has a busy week."

    "Ok…" A grumpy, pouting reindeer. How cute. "I know what I want to ask for, but I'm afraid Santa will say no." There was a slight nervous quaver in Rinko's voice. She hung the final ornament on our tree - a small, synthetic evergreen which had taken over much of our desk - which happened to be the ornament from our first Christmas together, placed proudly at the top of the tree.

    "As long as it's reasonable, I'm sure he'll do whatever he can. He hasn't let you down yet, right?"

    "Yeah… Thanks, Junko! Now I know exactly what to ask Santa for!" She giggled with her newfound resolve. She ducked into her bunk, and I could see her antlers collide with the bed frame and drag for a moment before pulling the hood down completely. She has a hard enough time not hitting her head on the top of her bunk without antlers, and with them she's downright hopeless.

    While I waited to receive my holiday shopping list, I caught up on the latest in Rinko's chat. Selling the magic, of course, had required joining in to support Rinko's claims to the others, just like I had been forced to buy myself a small something each past Christmas so she wouldn't be suspicious. This year, Santa will be bringing me a new tube of facial scrub that smells of magnolias and citrus, a combination I've recently grown to enjoy quite a bit. Some of our group mates are nearly as easy to please. Our friend Yume only wishes for the chicken dinner to be plentiful on Christmas evening, which is an easy enough order to accommodate since we're all dining together. Chiyo has asked Santa for a new running ball for Momo, preferably in a color other than green. Some new hair ribbons for Anette, in reds or pinks, or anything else so long as it's cute. Of course many of the girls seem to only be humoring the others, such as Megumi's mention of a festive kanzashi or Akira's idea for new ankle weights, but the most difficult are the ones who simply aren't playing along, like Kazue - who asked Santa for a pet cockroach from the North Pole - or Eimi, who didn't even join the chat no matter how many times Rinko's mentioned it to her directly. She's one idol who may end up on the naughty list this year.

    As I made note of the many things necessary to keep my illusion going, I received the email I had been waiting for. In just the past week Rinko has weighed asking for her own hamster, a new pair of comfy pajamas shaped like a sloth, and new running shoes, in violation of her own rule. In the end, Rinko had decided on none of those things.

    "Dear Santa,

    I hope you're doing good at the North Pole. I've tried to be really good this year, and so many wonderful things have happened that I can't possibly list them all, but that's ok because I know you see everything anyway. That's why this year I'm not asking you for any presents. Instead, I need you to use your magic to do me a teensy little favor. I know it's not normal! But… you're the only magic person I know. I've made so many great new friends this year, and I love them all so much, and we have so much fun! But Christmas just isn't the same, even though Junko tries really hard to make everything perfect. Santa, all I really want this year is to…

    Mr. Santa, you see… This time of year, more than anything else, I really miss my little sister…"

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