Snow & Hot chocolate

This is the first thing I've posted in so long! Wow...so it's Boys Love if you squint really really really hard, but it's nothing too bad. It's the last sentence really x3 But I couldn't resist~ Also, the cover is temporary, just until I find a better one. It wouldn't let me change it this time, so I'll try again later.

One more thingthing, this is extremely short, it's more of a drabble than anything. Hope you enjoy this. (Or attempt to anyway...I know my writing can be a little confusing sometimes.)

The snow always seemed to want to freeze everything; freeze time and keep all the humans, keep life itself, at a complete and absolute standstill. Aito wondered if things would be better off that way. 

The city was busy. Despite it being winter, it didn't slow anyone down. People were hurrying and rushing around, scarves and toboggans covering their faces like masks and hands warmed by worn out mittens. Aito wasn't any different. He followed the faceless crowd of people until he reached his destination. A bridge, old and deserted. No traffic, no nameless passerbies. Just him and himself. This was where time came to an abrupt stop. 

He placed mittened hands onto the railing and gazed out at the tiny, crystal-like flakes swirling over the placid face of the water. The sky seemed to be smiling. Gray smile. Gray, lonely smile. 

A cup was placed by his hand, but he didn't startle. He all but tore his gaze away from the sky to study the dark green lable. Starbucks. Steam was rising from the lid and making wispy shapes in the air. It matched the sky. 

"Hot chocolate," a quiet, slightly hoarse voice said. "I know you don't like any of their coffee."

"Thanks, Hyosuke," Aito muttered in reply, taking the steaming hot chocolate in his hands. He smiled at the way the heat warmed his palms. 

The snow started falling faster (almost like a dance), but neither noticed, both too lost in their own thoughts. The silence that surrounded them was heavy, almost suffocating, not at all like the comfortable quietness they used to share. 

"They want you back, ya know. They..." Hyosuke paused to draw in a deep, shaky breath. "They miss you. Especially Taku. No one else babies him the way you do."

There was an amused chuckle, and suddenly Aito was brought back to just a few months before. Back to useless fights with rival schools, pool at the arcade, skipping class when the weather was nice just because they could. Back to swings and short conversations at the park, stupid arguments settled with jan-ken-po, blowing the little paychecks from part-time jobs on Shonen jump issues and chocolate bars. Acting tough and trying to grow up, but really wanting nothing more than to be a kid. 

Back to when things were normal. A routine he'd grown to love. 

Before the cold shoulders and and sympathetic stares. 

Before he lost his friends. 

"Yeah," Aito said with an air of nonchalance, but Hyosuke knew it was Aito-speak for, 'I know. I miss them, too. I miss all of it.'

A smile danced on his lips as he watched his younger friend reach out a hand to catch the dancing snowflakes, only to have them pitifully melt in his fingers. 

"Then let's go back."

Aito finally looked at Hyosuke, cinamon brown meeting chocolate, and suddenly he felt like an elementary kid again. An awkward, scrawny kid with dreams too big to carry on his own. 

They walked back into the city, following the path they knew by heart to the arcade. Aito thought he was smiling, but his cheeks were too numb to be sure. 

Time wasn't frozen. Not anymore. Life went on, huddles of bundled up people passed by without a care, the snow continued to fall. 

And Aito liked it this way. He liked the brief smiles painted on the faces he passed, and the way the snow danced around him in a well-practiced way. 

A familiar hand was entwined with his own.