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Bingo was the classic method of facilitating gift exchanges at a Christmas party...supposedly. I’d only just heard of it, since I had zero familiarity with this kind of thing.
If you were exchanging gifts with a particular friend, then you could give each other what the other person actually liked. The fun part of a gift exchange with a large number of people, on the other hand, was getting to interact with people you wouldn’t otherwise give a gift to...and seeing who ended up with the gag gift.
“Wait, what in the world is a gag gift?” I asked, putting a stop to Hitoshi’s explanation of the practice. According to him, a gag gift was a present that didn’t have any practical use—in other words, something that seemed like something you’d need, when it really wasn’t.
For example, a gag gift could be a rather expensive decorative statue in the shape of Santa Claus. Or perhaps a flashy-looking mini Christmas tree that came already decorated. They might look nice, but if you were to actually receive them, you would be at a loss for what to actually do with them.
Apparently there were also gag gifts in the form of ugly sweaters with strange designs, or cookies with people’s faces on them. It seemed the fun was in seeing how people reacted to the gift. The best kinds of gag gifts were ones that expanded the general definition of what a present could even be.
“Shucks, I bought a pricey tin of cookies instead,” I confessed.
“Me too. I bought a set of cute socks,” Nanami also muttered.
She and I had chosen rather normal presents, and at that moment, we regretted that we hadn’t chosen more interesting items. It was too late for that, though.
“Oh, no way. Normal presents are perfectly fine. That guy’s just saying weird stuff,” Otofuke-san said to us.
“Yeah, we brought regular presents too. Mine is a hand cream from a brand that I like,” Kamoenai-san said as well.
“Oh, hey guys,” Nanami said as she turned toward her two friends. “Don’t you need to help out with the bingo game?”
“It’s fine. The class reps are totally stoked about it. They told us to leave it to them,” Otofuke-san said, looking over in Hitoshi’s direction with her bingo card already in hand.
As expected, Otofuke-san and Kamoenai-san were both wearing Santa costumes.
Otofuke-san was wearing a pair of shorts à la Santa. She had on a separate top, with her six-pack peeking out from between the two pieces of her outfit. She was also wearing knee-high socks. All in all her entire outfit seemed to prioritize ease of movement.
Kamoenai-san, on the other hand, was wearing a Santa outfit that looked almost like a bikini. I thought I spotted her wearing a giant Christmas tree costume earlier, but apparently this was what she was wearing underneath. It wasn’t as revealing as an actual bikini, but this was arguably her act of charity for the guys in the class—though she didn’t fail to mention she was going on a date with her boyfriend tomorrow, thus throwing them into a pit of despair.
“Shirishizu-san really is into it, huh?” I muttered.
“Ah, yeah. Apparently Teshikaga-kun complimented her on her outfit,” Nanami replied.
No wonder, I thought, glancing at Shirishizu-san as she served as Hitoshi’s assistant for the game. She, too, was wearing a Santa costume.
Her outfit, though, was probably the sexiest of all the outfits tonight. Its silhouette was similar to the one Nanami had on, but the skirt was attached to what looked like bondage rope. The outfit was completely open in the back too. And to top it all off, she was wearing bunny ears on her head.
“An assistant should always wear bunny ears, don’t you think?” she had apparently said as she put them on. Teshikaga-kun seemed very concerned, though; currently he stood right next to her like a sort of paranoid bodyguard.
The game was being run, therefore, by three people: Hitoshi as emcee, Shirishizu-san as his assistant, and Teshikaga-kun as her bodyguard.
Ever since Shirishizu-san and Teshikaga-kun started going out, no guy was dumb enough to approach her with even a little bit of questionable intent. But despite that, Teshikaga-kun still seemed pretty worried some guy would do it anyway.
In any case that was our big bingo game. All the presents were numbered, and every time someone completed a bingo on part of their card, they could draw a number and get a present.
I never knew people regularly went to such lengths for a gift exchange, with the bingo cards and everything. I, on the other hand, was pretty certain this was the first time I’d held a bingo card in my hands, ever. Saying as much to Nanami, though, just got me a gentle pat on my head. Wait, what’s going on? Everyone else is giving me pitiful looks too...
“All right, let’s get this thing started!” Hitoshi yelled then, signaling the beginning of our game.
“I hope we win something nice,” Nanami whispered.
“Same. Looks like everyone’s strategizing too,” I responded.
Our bingo game-cum-gift exchange proceeded smoothly. Teshikaga-kun selected the numbers with Shirishizu-san announcing them. Hitoshi poked fun at everyone throughout, while everyone teased Hitoshi back. I see, so this is what a Christmas party is like.
“I can’t get a single bingo... Why can’t you guys pick better numbers?” Nanami wailed.
“Don’t be ridiculous, Barato,” Hitoshi replied. “What about your hubby? How’s he doing?”
“He’s not getting anything either,” she said.
“I’m pretty much a deadbeat,” I said.
I knew I was the one who said it, but I couldn’t believe we were having such an exchange. Still, neither Nanami nor I was getting any of our numbers called, while others seemed to have punched open several spots on their bingo cards already.
In the end, she and I didn’t get our presents until late in the second half of the game.
“What’d you get?” I asked her.
“Let’s see, I got...oh, hand cream. I don’t think I’ve used this one before,” she said.
“Oh, you got mine!” Kamoenai-san exclaimed. “It’s really good. I totally recommend it.”
Nanami seemed to have drawn the number for Kamoenai-san’s present. Hand cream, huh? Nanami seemed excited by it, so I made a mental note about a potential present for her.
I wonder what I got, I thought as I opened the rectangular bag in my hands. Inside was...a book. A novel? I asked myself. I’d been mostly reading manga ebooks lately, so it had been a while since I last held a physical book like this. And outside of book reports, I almost never read books that didn’t have illustrations. I looked at the cover and the spine, trying to figure out who had brought the present—but of course, the book itself gave no such indication.
“That one’s mine,” Teshikaga-kun suddenly said.
“Huh? From you?” I asked, mildly surprised.
Though I hadn’t noticed, he and Shirishizu-san had made their way over to me. Wearing a Santa costume just like everyone else, Teshikaga-kun was looking at the book in my hands with undeniable joy sparkling in his eyes.
Unable to help myself, I looked back and forth between the book and Teshikaga-kun’s face. I mean...I know I’m being rude, but...I really wasn’t expecting this.
“Yes, it is. For the novel I chose to make its way to you makes me really, really happy. Please do read it. I tried to choose one that was relatively easy to understand,” he explained.
So this was a book geared toward beginners. But it still seemed rather...or, quite difficult to get through. There were no illustrations, and the cover only had letters and a few design elements. Still, if he was recommending it to me, then maybe I should read it.
“Thank you,” I said to him. “I’ll check it out.”
Teshikaga-kun seemed delighted by my response. Wow, this really is unexpected...
“So, you like reading, huh?” I asked.
“Yes, books are wonderful. Please let me know if you like it; I have others I can also recommend. I read basically anything—light novels, manga, what have you,” he replied.
Wow, what he looks like and what he’s actually like are almost night and day. But maybe this makes perfect sense, given that he’s going out with Shirishizu-san.
Shirishizu-san herself was looking at Teshikaga-kun, who seemed rather bashful about our current exchange, with gentle warmth in her eyes. Er, actually, it wasn’t so much warmth as it was a kind of ravenous heat...
Let me just pretend like I didn’t see that.
Just as I was starting to think we might be at the end of the gift exchange, Hitoshi began passing out another round of bingo cards, all by himself. Everyone else, who also assumed that the gift exchange had ended, seemed to be wondering what Hitoshi was doing...until someone noticed something.
“Wait, is there still one present left?” that person asked.
There was one lonesome present left on the table, where we all thought there was none. It was a small envelope, with no particular markings or wrapping on it.
Even with the question in the air, Hitoshi didn’t explain what the envelope was and just continued passing out the bingo cards, so a few of us decided to help him out. Once we’d finished passing out cards to everyone, Hitoshi stood before the crowd and cleared his throat a single time.