all-american :: jotaro x reader

piece six :: snowkids

Never had she seen the land turn white so quickly.

The girl looked outside, the valleys in the distance frosted over with the substance, the roofs of the houses around her were capped with it, and the ground below here was wrapped in it. And it just kept coming.

Her hands and forehead were pressed against the icy glass window of her bedroom as her still-drowsy eyes took it all in, ignoring the brightness affecting her vision and just looking around, here pupils almost as wide as her scleras. Her mouth hung open. Something deep inside her stirred, re-awoken by the sight of the scenery on a late November morning.

The familiar feeling of winter euphoria in Japan.

She dashed out of her room, eager to experience the first snow for herself, the anticipation of listening it crunch under her boots, the urge to throw it up into the air and watch it shower down on her like powdery confetti, the need to feel the snowflakes on the tip of her tongue.

Throwing the sliding door to her parent's room open forcefully, she chose her mother, the closest target to the door, and began to shake her back and forth "Mommy, mommy, It's snowing!" she shouted, tugging her as if she needed to be quick or else she'd miss it. Her mother rubbed her eyes, slurring out a "what, child, what?" before succumbing and finally deciding to get up.

Her father lay in bed, motionless with sleep.

Her mother let the girl drag her to the living room window, jumping up and down and pointing at the snow on a Sunday at 9AM. All her mother could do was nod and sigh, smiling at her daughter's untainted excitement for the weather. "Do you wanna go outside?"

She reacted like a Labrador, jumping up and down so hard she almost she almost barked.

And in no time (and much effort), she was geared up and out the door.

She stood in her front lawn in awe as the cold nipped at her ears and nose, looking up t the white sky and letting the snow collect on her eyelashes.

And with that, she fell backwards.

The snow caught her like a pillow, and she let her arms and legs flail about, giggling at the snow seeping in through her hair and teasing at her scalp. She was intent on making the first snow angel of the season perfect. And so it was.

Everything was perfect, in fact. She stopped when she felt the grass rub against her calves, and the girl laid there letting the cooling feeling of the snow mingle with her body heat, and it felt perfect. She let herself close her eyes.

Winter silence was the best silence, in her opinion.

"What are you doing?"

Well, that was until someone interrupted it.

She sat up. And smiled. "Makin' snow angels."

She met eyes with the boy next door, her best friend, staring down at her from her outstretched position. He stood in the snow with his hands in his pockets and his hair powdered, the familiar curl dangling in front of his eyes damp with melted snow. "Can I try?"

She beckoned for him to lie down next to her. And he fell backwards alongside her, and together they flailed about in the front lawn, their snow angels losing their pristine quality and turning more so to messy imprints of snow devils, one could say. But they didn't care. As long as they were together, to her, nothing mattered.

Out of the blue, he asks, "How about we try making a snowman?"

"Okay."

They both sit up, and each cup the snow in their hands, compressing it between their gloves before dropping it and letting it disappear into the powdery blanket they were sitting on top of. They fished their respective snowballs out and started to pack more.

"Did you get up early too?" she asks, pushing her mound back and forth.

"Kinda," replies the boy, "My mom woke me up." He pushes his mound, Now a decently sized snowball. "Not gonna lie, I was exited."

She nodded her head as well, detaching her own snowball from its base in the snow. "I got up early. My daddy told me it was gonna snow yesterday so I got really exited. It almost feels like Christmas, doesn't it?" She looks up a the sky yet again - she couldn't get enough of it - and sighs. "I love winter. I hope I never have to leave."

"I don't think you've gotta," the boy says, standing up. "But what you do gotta do is help me push this snowball."

And so they did. They used their backs for lack of effect using pushing with their hands - from the front. Eventually, there was snow tracks cross the front lawn of the girl's house, winding around and bumping into each other, and eventually, leading to the backyard, where a snowman was born.

"You've gotta push harder!" cries the girl, watching her best friend haul the final tier of their snowman up. The boy was using all of his strength pushing it upwards, telling the girl to simply stand back and watch as he pushed the snowman upright. She didn't believe him, but he sure did. And he seemed to underestimate himself, because less than halfway up, he looked at her, his eyes just asking for some assistance. And she just had to take the chance to laugh at him before she delivered.

Eventually, with much toil, they were able to stand back and admire their work. It was lopsided.

They stood hands-on-knees, their breath fogging up before them and the sweat upon their brows collecting above their eyes and on their hair. She help out a hand, and he returned the gesture with a high-five. "We did it," she heaved, "but it doesn't seem done yet."

"It doesn't have a face," the boy replies. "but that's okay."

"No it's not," says the girl, running to the pine tree at the corner of her property, scooping up three pine cones from the ground. She runs up to the snowman and embeds them in its concave face in the best smiley face she can put together, and then rejoins the boy to admire their hard work.

"Should we run into it?" asks the girl.

The boy looks at her as well, sharing the same mischievous thought. "yeah."

And they did.

It seemed to evaporate under their weight, the moment their bodies hit the mounds it seemed to unpack and fall around them in either a fine power or soft chunks.

The girl fell on top of the boy, who lay looking upwards at the sky. The sound of laughing filled the void in the winter sky.

It intoxicates them, happiness.

She lay her tired head on his chest and he puts his hand on her shoulder, and they lay there together, feeling each other's breathing.

For all her life, the word "like" was a shallow term. It was a step down from the more serious "Love", and thrown around as an insult among her fellow grade schoolers, connecting two people who never wanted to contact with each other. To her, it had lost its meaning - until now. She now understood how it felt to "like".

And for the first time, she though maybe, just maybe, she liked him.

She'd have to wait and see.