Of Love and Death.

The Present Chapter 11: A Snowy Day Pt. 3

      Shu pulled his knees up to his chest. He knew he should have packed his long jacket! But he hadn't exactly been expecting snow in the few days he was in Japan. He'd even checked the weather to make sure he was prepared for whatever may be coming his way. Then frozen water had started falling from the sky and the Comets and Victories had dragged everyone visiting to the park. Aside from Reina, Kit, Ilya, and a few others, all of whom Shu hadn't seen since they'd helped drop him and Valt off at the latter's mother's.

      The fiery blader was still upset that the consensus had been to take his friend home, and not to a hospital. Which he felt may have been the better idea since Valt had quite clearly fainted. No matter what Venice had said about exhaustion, he was suspicious something was wrong. At least Valt was okay right now.

      "Shu I'm freezing," Valt grumbled next to the red-eyed blader. Shu was about to suggest going back inside, despite it only having been about five minutes, but the words died in his throat. Valt, for some strange reason, had decided that the best way to warm himself up was to press his whole side against Shu.

     Admittedly, perhaps it was not the strangest of reasons. Shu could light himself on fire at will. If there was anyone who was going to be a source of warmth, it was going to be him. But still, it was unexpected,  not unwelcome. However, Shu had absolutely no idea what he'd been thinking about a moment ago, and was instead wholly focused on how Valt was literally leaning against him.

     The cold could have completely disappeared, Shu had forgotten it was there. That being said, he still felt mad at the snow. Which was a strange little habit inside his mind that had been with him since he was a kid. Apparently, when he was two, his aunt had walked outside on a snowy day to see him yelling at a snowman. About what, she hadn't known. But he had supposedly been very mad.

      Shu agreed with his two year old self.

      "Aren't you two gonna join us?" Shu looked up to see who had spoken. It was the red, pineapple haired Hizashi brother, Hyuga. He was clearly enjoying the snow. Considering the fact that he was covered in the stuff. It looked like he had made a snow angel with his face, multiple times. Which was probably exactly what had happened. "You're just sitting there! C'mon, I want to have a giant snowball fight!"

     Opening his mouth, Shu was about to explain why he had no intention of setting a single foot off of the raised platform for the bey stadium. However, Xander beat him to the punch. "Don't bother Hyuga," the giant called, "Those two have hated the cold with a burning passion since the day I met them. No idea why, but there's no use fighting it!" Shu smiled gratefully at his second longest friend. Xander got it. Even if he didn't understand, the material arts master had learned to just accept Shu and Valt's weird hatred of anything even a little bit chilly, as well as their occasional weird flashes of deja vu or speaking in the wrong language.

     Hey, you good? Spryzen's voice popped into Shu's head, and the ghostly image of the bey appeared lying on his side the ground in front of the bey stadium. Shu's partner sounded highly concerned, but there was no need to be. Just because he was unreasonably tense surrounded by ice and snow when there was probably no danger wasn't any cause for alarm. He was just being careful. He'd had one too many nightmare's about ice snuffing out his life to ever relax in the snow.

     Or Shu had died in an avalanche in a past life or something. Perhaps Valt had been with him, and that was why they both shared an equal sense of deja vu and hatred of cold. Although, that was a bit of an out there theory. Shu wasn't quite certain that reincarnation was even a thing, much less that it would have happened to him.

     For some reason, Spryzen burst out into a fit of awkward coughing. Shu raised an eyebrow, but the bey didn't supply a reason for his outburst. Normally, Shu would think that his partner just had something in his throat. Except for the fact that Spryzen didn't have a physical throat for something to get caught in.