After Snow

Freezing (T)

It's another snowy day. Flakes of pure white gingerly flutter from the sky to the ground, where they glisten like crystals. It deserves to be the center of attention, something so fragile and unique deserves to be talked about and adored. I thought that. No, I think that. I do. Yet seeing certain sights in the snow gives it the beauty it holds. The freshly fallen snow that stretches out in a yawning abyss of possibility. A child could play, an adult could slip, or Kiragi could laugh in front of it.
Kiragi is a normal student. He sits in his chair and sleeps on his desk like anybody else. He talks to everybody with a smile on his face, his eyes darting from the board to his notes with a childish vigor. He can answer the teacher's questions when called on, and then ask anybody in the class what they want to do after school. He's like a mirror, reflecting what they want to see. The only time I can see him as himself is when he's flashing between faces. After he's laughed at a friend's joke, but before he turns to answer the teacher's question. After he's taken some notes but before he's realized his friends are passing him a note.
Between his smile and his frown, his surprise and his indifference, his innocence and guilt, what face does he actually show? Why would somebody like him try to come talk to me? If somebody like him was laughing while talking to me yesterday, what am I? I'm cold, somebody who whirls about like a blizzard and is fragile as the snow. Shouldn't he have acted the same back? Yet he didn't, he doesn't. If that's so, maybe there's some part of me hidden away under the cold. Something that's warm, and can laugh or smile just like him.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

"I could never be like you." His head tilts at a thirty degree angle, his eyebrows raising in innocent curiosity. "You're wrong," I state bluntly, making myself abundantly clear to him. He was wrong. He tried to be a mirror to me and was wrong, I'm icy cold and indifferent. My walk home continues by myself now, as he pauses and falls behind me. It gives me time to breathe and think clearly. My breath sends steam cascading into the winter land in front of me, small shards of ice seem to hang suspended and glittering in the air as the brisk winds suspend them from gravity.

"Wait!" He dashes to catch up with me. It's something he's insisted on doing ever since yesterday. I thought he would forget today, but I turn around and see a face filled with a touch more determination than I gave him credit for. It's unnerving how happy he seems to be. How he smiles even now, catching up to me. "UWA!?" He slips trying to come to a stop by me, falling on the slick snowfall and sending some of it flying up into the air. "Hahaha! Sorry sorry! Snow's pretty slick Y'know! Hard to pin down." He rises back to his feet with a small blush decorating his cheeks, and eyes that glitter with ceaseless optimism. When he talks about snow...does he mean me? I can never tell.

"You don't have to follow me home. You probably shouldn't. My parents wouldn't like it." He chuckles. A hand falls on his waist while the other rises to point a gloved finger at me.

"Aha!" A triumphant air exudes from him, and his bravado forces a small blush birthed from embarrassment to spread across my face. We're in public and he shamelessly acts like a detective! "You're deflecting!" I am? "You said your parents wouldn't like it! So, that means you yourself would be fine with it!" What!? Well, I mean, I guess that, technically he's right. Or at least from what I said, but...

"W-Well what if I was only saying that to be nice! What if I only said that because I didn't want to hurt your feelings by admitting that I don't want you to follow me home!"

"Well, that's possible, true." He leans in a little closer to me, grinning broadly and with a smug undertone to his face. "For anybody but you." He pokes my forehead and giggles while making some space between us. "You try to be really apathetic to people, and distance yourself, but have no problem saying you dislike them. People even call you the blizzard of our class, so there's no way you'd phrase it like that." I guess he's right...Maybe he pays a little more attention than I give him credit for. I had no idea they even called me that. Not that I have an issue with it. I am a blizzard, one that whips cold air around until everybody leaves me be. "Plus," He tears me out of my thoughts as he keeps talking, "You phrased your whole rebuttal using what-if's, so they're definitely not true!" He teases while sticking his tongue out at me.