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Sayuri was feeling highly nervous as she watched Theo open his present.
She knew that Theo had more money than she could imagine, he had so many beautiful things already. Therefore, when she was picking his present, she had a hard time finding something meaningful that he would like it.
Theo opened the box and had a surprised face when he saw what was inside it. His eyes shone with excitement and his face showed a happy expression.
Knowing that the others wanted to know what it was, he showed it to them without much delay.
Before long, everyone was able to see a manga, but the curious thing was that no one ever heard of that manga.
The cover had the image of a glowing tree with children playing around it. On the top of the cover, it read 'Yorokobi no Ki' in Yamatese language.
This meant 'Tree of Joy' in English.
"Is this what I think it is?" Theo asked in an excited voice.
Sayuri replied with a smile, "Yes, it is a manga adaptation of the first tale of 'Yorokobi no Ki'."
Theo became even happier when he heard that.
He looked at Sayuri with emotion and a grateful smile, "Thank you so much, Sayuri! You have no idea how much this means to me."
"That's why I did it." Sayuri replied with a smile as the two of them hugged each other.
Sayuri knew how much this novel meant to Theo when he talked about it with her. He saw his eyes full of emotion, and when she read the novel, she saw a masterpiece novel filled with so many emotions.
As she read it, she could feel the love and partnership between everyone in the orphanage, it made her yearn for that type of companionship.
When she got Theo's name in the secret atlanta, she struggled for a long time with what to give him. It was only after a while that she remembered this novel that he wrote.
An idea popped into her head to make a manga adaptation of the novel, she figured that he might like it.
She asked for help from her employees at the publishing house, and they put in motion this project. But as time was tight, they did not have enough time to adapt the whole novel, so they could only adapt one tale of the novel.
But even though the manga was short, it had the same quality as an official and ready manga to be sold.
Aurora was the only person who knew what was going on, so she explained it to everyone.
After she was done explaining, everyone was impressed with the effort that Sayuri placed into her gift.
She made an entirely new manga!
It was such a thoughtful gift that they had to admit that it was one of the best gifts so far.
The game went on as each person received and gave amazing gifts.
Delicious food and great drinks were a great combination as they had fun with the secret atlanta.
And when the last person received her gift, everyone was surprised by the level of the presents in the game.
The gifts were expensive or meaningful.
For example, June's gift to Sayuri didn't cost anything, but it was a meaningful gift nonetheless as the worth of the first edition 'Seldarine' was priceless.
Or Theo's gift to Ryoko, even though it was a plane ticket and hotel reservation that could be bought with money, what mattered was the thought as Ryoko was so happy that Theo cared enough for her to take her with them on the vacation. It made her heart so warm.
Long story short, everyone received gifts they liked, and no one was left unhappy with what they got.
"We gotta do this next year." Sam exclaimed happily as she hugged the first edition of 'Rabbit Turtle Tales'.
"Agreed!"
"Let's do it again!"
"I'm going to put my gift on my bag, I don't wanna leave next to you guys when you all get drunk."
"I'm going to do the same to protect my gift from your drunken claws."
Everyone laughed and stood up to place their gifts in a safe place.
They could imagine that they would get drunk again later, and they didn't damage their precious gifts during their drunk state.
Shortly later, everyone was back and ready to continue the party.
"Wow, it's already over 11 PM." June exclaimed in wonder.
"We spent over one hour in the secret atlanta?" Kumiko asked in surprise.
"It seems so, we were having too much fun." Sam giggled.
"Yeah, you guys couldn't stop talking when someone was giving their gifts." Lauren commented.
"You're so shameless, you are the person who talked the most." Kumiko snorted.
"I don't recall that." Lauren denied it with an innocent face.
"You were talking all the time saying that everyone had got your name and that you would even receive more than one gift." Shoko commented in a low voice.
Everyone laughed when they heard Shoko's words.
Lauren had a shocked face as she said, "Shoko-chan, how can you betray me like that? Where's my cute Shoko-chan?"
"I just said the truth." Shoko replied with a blushed face.
Everyone couldn't help but laugh out loud at their interaction.
"What are we going to do now then?" Ryoko asked as she sipped a glass of white wine.
Everyone subconsciously looked at Theo to know what he thought of it.
Theo smiled as he put down his glass of red wine and said, "There is less than one hour to midnight, why don't we just stay here talking and drinking and when the clock hits 11:50 PM, we can go outside to wait for midnight to watch the fireworks. Afterward, we can get inside again to have dinner." He suggested with a calm voice before taking a bite of a snack.
Everyone nodded in agreement with his plan when they heard it.
"But are we even going to be able to watch the fireworks from here?" Gwen asked in doubt.
"Yeah, that's a good question." Max agreed.
"The Tinuviel River is on the other side of the city, after all." June chimed in.
"On another hand, we are on top of a high hill, it is possible to see the fireworks, but I don't know how much we would be able to see." Sam commented.
It was a tradition to see the fireworks on the New Year, so they were worried that they wouldn't be able to see it.
It was only then that Theo smiled, "Oh, we will be able to see plenty of fireworks." He said with a mysterious smile.
What plans did he have to be so mysterious?
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