[WC 2007]

Keahi had not signed up for this weather. While he was studying weather forecasting and knew this was coming he still found himself on the do not want list. The Hawaiian native was bundled as if he was visiting Alaska.

Keahi was very well aware that there was an arctic low moving in but he had not expected the city to be so cold. Nor had he prepared himself for this sort of bitter cold. And yet here he was, freezing from head to toe dreaming of the island weather. The dreaming and desire of warm weather had also lead him to start to debate if he wanted to go back to the island for winter. Even though he would need to figure out how to do his job remotely.

It was weird to him however, to wear boots with closed toes, not to mention he had also layered a few layers over his shirt to keep himself from freezing. The beanie that sat upon his head he felt like it was not doing enough so he had also pulled the hood of one of the jackets over his ears a well. "Why is it so cold!? This was not the misery I forecasted."

Keahi muttered to himself as he was walking through the streets of the city. He knew he needed to finish some shopping for the holidays and send the packages off in time they would make it to Hawaii before Christmas. His goal was to look for some gifts to send back to the island for his mother and other people he knew that still lived there. It was going to already be a rough Christmas he did not want to get a call stating how he had forgotten them because of his fancy job.

To start off his shopping Keahi had picked up some post cards and planned on leaving notes with the gifts. One note of which was to say that while on TV and postcards snow and the cold looked magical it was anything but. No one on the island should wish for this sort of frozen hell. That was going to be to the whole family, while he had different post cards for his mom and his sister and her family. He made sure to pick a fun post card for his niece as he thought she deserved having her own special card.

Keahi did not mind summer, fall or even spring, but the in between was proving to be quite the source of his displeasure. He stopped into a toy store to pick up his niece a squishmallow and some blind boxes, he was pretty sure the lafufus were fine with her, plus he picked a box that he thought looked cute. He hoped the craze was not over by the time she opened the present on Christmas.

His next stop was a trinket shop where he picked up some little glass figures for his mom and sister. He also had plans to stop and pick up some goodies from a local bakery that he enjoyed the sweets from. Surely they would appreciate that more than a fruit cake right? There were scones that were orange with cranberry and white chocolate; and then he also grabbed some cherry scones with coconut and chocolate. Along side of that he had picked up some candied cherries, coconut and orange peels. He also found himself having picked out a few rose and lemon flavored tea cakes. These were not things they normally fixed or had on the island so he thought it might be fun.


Keahi also decided to pick up a couple bars of some fancy chocolate that everyone was going crazy over here. He did not see the appeal in it but he thought his sister might enjoy it. After all she always liked chocolate, he made sure to get a few other bars as well just in case she did not care for the fancy chocolate.

When Keahi moved away from the sweet shop he found himself pausing in a cafe to buy a hot chocolate and a coffee cake. He usually drank coffee but it felt like a hot chocolate type of day to him. He had also ordered the marshmallows and chocolate sprinkles for the hot chocolate figuring it was the holidays and that the empty carbs would not count. Keahi also found himself hoping it would help him feel warmer and able to finish his errands for the day before retiring to hibernate. Well hibernate as much as one could who ended up being expected to be social in this sort of weather.

He was looking at his list before venturing back into the cold and debated on what to get his brother in law. Keahi also knew he needed shipping boxes, wrapping paper and boxes for the actual gifts which he had forgotten to add earlier onto his list so he made sure to pencil that in. He was looking at the postcards he had picked up. They made the cold look so magical, he wondered how they could get away with such a lie. Keahi had learned in his time here that snow was only magical on TV. In the city he found it was fine when it was fresh but after everyone began to bustle about it just looked like a sludgy mess mixed with the smog from the cars and mud from roads that did not have side walks or shoulders. There was also nothing fun about having to shovel snow, this was a hard lesson he had learned while working here. Specially when he needed to shovel out his car.

Keahi however, was glad he lived in an apartment but he consistently found that it was kept on the chillier side. He needed to figure out how to warm the apartment more if he could not get the landlord to agree to let him turn up the heat a degree or two. The Hawaiian thought that maybe a heated blanket was in order and to see if he could swing a heat lamp or a small personal heater, maybe it would keep him from feeling so blue while the sun stayed behind the snow clouds.

Granted, this was probably going to be his first Christmas without family to surround him. Decorating their house and the pier was one of his favorite things to do. He sat sipping at the last of his hot chocolate before sighing and getting up to go back out and brave the cold that waited him. After all Keahi had spent enough time sitting and thinking about the past and how cold it was currently.

It was not long before Keahi stopped at a clothing shop and picked up a shirt for his brother in law that said 'welcome to destiny' and he spent some time browsing the random gift sets that were there. He had managed to find a small grilling set he thought his brother in like might enjoy. Then before moving on to a local store that sold different sorts of sauces for barbecue and marinades. He stopped to look into a window of a newly opened shop to make sure it was not anything he had wanted.

Keahi picked out a few different bottles to send once he got to the sauce store. Hopefully this would make a fun present for his brother in law. Hoping that the other did enjoy grilling as much as Keahi had thought he did. Once he rang up the items and paid for it he found himself looking at this list again. There was one more thing though that he wanted to get before he made his way to buy the shipping boxes.

Keahi was making his way to a little science shop that was out of way, which he slightly regretted by now because even in the boots he'd worn and the thick wool socks he found himself becoming quite cold. When he arrived he found different ornaments that had the constellations as well as other trinkets that were related to weather and to astronomy. Keahi had picked up something for everyone on his list before humming and nodding, he had managed to find cute little ornaments that he thought everyone would like..

AFterwords he found that it didn't take that much time to walk back to the shipping store. Keahi often used this particular place for all his shipping needs and often thought about mentioning the place to his friends. Keahi then started picking out boxes that he would need for shipping and packing up the presents. He arranged for a pick up from his apartment so he did not have to worry about coming back out before he had to go back to work. Which was a huge relief to him.

Once home Keahi settled in and had started water on the stove to boil so that he could make ramen. He also rummaged through his own pantries and fridge looking for things to add to the ramen. It wasn't long before he found himself turning on the frying pan to fry up some spam for supper. He had plans to probably split this when he made sure to flip the span.

It was still too chilly in his apartment for him. However Keahi did not let that bother him as he turned on his little Christmas tree that he had picked up. It was just large enough to fit on the table top beside his arm chair but it was better than not having a tree at all. Keahi had this idea he was toying with when he picked out a small cypress that was still living in it's own little pot. He had plans to plant it after the holidays so that he could recycle the little tree, which would help purify the air some.

Keahi finally paused in his thoughts to look at the ramen and decided to also boil an egg for it so he could have something else with it. He was glad for the stove helping warm his apartment. Keahi wasn't sure if they'd entertain him or not, but he knew that he needed to at least try and ask them if they'd turn his heat up before it froze the pip[es.

When everything was cooked and Keahi had dumped the ramen into a bowl, sliced the boiled egg and added spam as well. It was time to eat. Humming as he sat the left over spam to the side he could make rice for spam musubi tomorrow or just have the spam for breakfast with eggs and toast. He was debating as he sat at his little table and ate which one he wanted to try and plan for tomorrow even though he was pretty sure he would do the same thing tomorrow as today.

After he had his fill of ramen Keahi spent the rest of the night working near his tv. Keahi had plans to turned where the tv was into an actual fake fireplace. Currently he was just letting music play Christmas songs and wrapping the presents he had bought and writing on each post card before packing them into the boxes for shipping and making sure the shipping labels were correctly placed.

It was going to be another quite night as he finally finished his work and looked outside. Deciding it was too cold to go out to patrol he pulled the curtain over the door to his balcony closed before settling in to watch a movie, he pulled up Lilo and Stitch, debating if he wanted to watch that or if he wanted to watch and old Elvis movie.

Keahi was hoping that his packages would easily make it safe and sound to the island of Hawaii. It was still where longed to be but knew, he needed to be here instead of running home when he felt homesick.

For the night though, he decided to turn in and get some sleep.