The person you made me

8. Human smoke in snow

"Hi."

I turned round.

"Hi", I said.

The snow crunched beneath Madara's thin shoes as he walked to stand next to me, looking up at the moonlit sky. The smoke rising from the crematorium created a beautiful contrast to the marine velvet sky. It's smell did not match its beauty; it smelled of burnt muscle and fat and skin and bone.

"How can we live like this?" I asked Madara. "We could be part of that smoke within a week, an hour, a day. How can we like in a world where we beg that they shoot us before they will decide to gas us?"

Tears fell down my face. Madara took my hand. He was also looking at the human smoke.

"Like you have already done", he said. "By surviving. One day at a time. So that you and me and your Will can get out of here and continue living."

"Do you think Will wants to live with me?" I asked.

Madara turned around and I did the same. Behind us, we saw a group from our chambers walk to an open square where we sometimes gathered on Sundays.

"Yes", he said. "He loves you. But you have to be honest with him."

"About what?" I asked.

I knew what he was going to say before he said it.

"About how you got me here, for example. About why that General of yours keeps putting bread beneath our pillow despite the risks it must pose to him."

I swallowed. I was ashamed I hadn't even considered how dangerous it was for Tobirama himself. I had only considered the dangers it posed to us, if the soldiers found it or if the other captives realised we were favoured.

"I will speak to him."

Me and Madara walked to the square where the others had gathered, and for the first time, in the snow, this place looked magical. The whiteness covering the ground enabled you to pretend it was just any normal street, and even if the icy cold made us freeze, the snow seemed to lift the spirits of the captives. We heard laughter and bantering reaching up towards the stars, visible now the snow clouds had passed, providing a crispness to the air that made it feel as if you could open your mouth and take a bite.

Will waves at me, and I suddenly felt shy, smiling and looking away.

"What are you hiding from?" he asked coyly and slung an arm around my waist when he reached me.

"You", I said, blushing.

I loved this dynamics between us. When I was dominant, he melted beneath me. But when I became shy, he took control completely.

"You never need to hide from me", he said and I blushed. "You look lovely in the snow, by the way."

"I..." I swallowed. "I want to tell you something."

He nodded, and we started walking together, both of us feeling the need to move. Our steps were slowed down by the constant starvation, but the crunch beneath our feet was satisfying.

"General Senju... Or Tobirama. You've noticed he's been helping us."

"Yes", Will said and there was no judgement in his voice, even if I heard some hurt in there. 

"I have not slept with him", I said. "I don't know what he wants. I honestly don't think he wants anything in return. He has never asked for anything. But..." I took a deep breath, stopped and turned to Will. "I asked him to move Madara to our chamber. I asked a nazi a favour. Please, don't hate me."

Will grabbed my face.

"Izuna, I don't care. As long as you're safe, I promise to do my best not to judge you for what you choose to do to keep me and those you love alive. But..."

Will bit his lip and looked at the stars. I put my hands on his face to bring his attention back to me.

"Talk to me, Will."

"Does he love you?"

His voice cracked at the word love. I gaped. Tobirama? Love me? The thought was absurd. I was a fix thought, something he had just decided on and followed through. Love had nothing to do with it. It was almost as unthinkable as...

"Wait, Will, are you jealous?" I asked and smiled. He looked away with a blush. "You are!" I couldn't help but laugh.

"Of course I'm jealous!" he said. "I lo-" He stopped, and I gasped. Then, he took both of my hands in his and kissed them. I suddenly felt incredibly blessed, despite everything. "I love you."

I looked around me. Certain nobody saw, I stood up on my toes and kissed him quickly on the lips.

"Let's go back to the others", Will said. "These stolen coats don't do much to keep us warm, perhaps it's time to go in."

But as we walked back, Will was suddenly hit in the back by a snowball.

"What the-"

"Got you!"

It was Madara, and he ran away laughing hysterically.

Will bent down, picked up some snow and quickly formed it into a ball before throwing it. But he accidentally hit someone else.

"Oops", he said. "Have I told you I'm rubbish at sports?" he then said, turned to me.

And suddenly, there was a full snowball fight. We rolled snow into balls, threw them at each other, got hit, shrieked and laughed. It could have been any playground or a school yard but it wasn't; it was Auschwitz and we were adults. All borders between us were erased; it didn't matter if we were Jews or homosexuals or disabled or in any other way not deemed satisfactory by the government that ruled Germany. Instead, we were just a group of men, and even some women, who played and had fun, forgetting all about hunger and cold and fatigue.

Maybe, or almost most certainly, the snow we used for our play was covered in a layer of ash from human bones, but this was our rebellion. To live, and continue living, instead of just surviving.

"Ouff!" I huffed as I was thrown to the ground.

It was Will, and he landed on top of me, laughing as he tried to put a snowball inside my collar as I shrieked. I wrestled him, and since I was stronger even if I was shorter due to the physical work I was forced to do, I was soon on top of him instead.

Suddenly, the world around us disappeared as we saw the stars in one another's eyes. We were so close, so close, yet the space between us contained the entire universe. I parted my lips and he breathed against them.

We forgot to be careful. We forgot to look around us to see who was watching. But our lips touched, and it was as if our souls were touching as well.

I couldn't have said how long the kiss lasted as it was both just a breath and a lifetime. But I could say what made us stop. It was the feeling we were being watched.

There must have been something, something that could be explained about that feeling because both of us turned at the same time.

A distance away stood Tobirama, dead still, handsome as ever in his uniform, his short, white hair slicked back on the right side where he used to pull his fingers through it.

And he started at us with a frown.

Shit.

I couldn't move. Will couldn't move. I suddenly felt terrible. If it was regarding Will or regarding the general I couldn't say. We had been uncareful, forgotten where we were and who we were, lured into safety by the snow and the play around us.

Finally, Tobirama tore his eyes away from us and walked away.

Me and Will lay still for a while longer, holding our breaths, before we dared to move.

That night, there was no bread beneath our pillow.