12 Days of Ramenzo

winter homecoming

The white blanket on the ground appears untouched, a week's worth of snowfalls masking the footprints of schoolchildren playing here before classes let out for the holidays. The playground has been apparently deserted since.

Kaizo shuffles his feet through the snow, his sneakers soaked after burying in frozen water with each step. He shakes them off uselessly and sits down on a lonely swing, curling his freezing fingers together and digging them into his pockets.

The swing creaks as it sways back with his added weight, and he stares ahead at the playground equipment, and the field behind it, ending with the school on one side and a gently rolling hill to the other. It's hard to make out the details in the dim glow of sparse lamp posts, but the image is engraved in his memory.

Everything about this place aches with familiarity, and yet he feels like a stranger within it.

A snowshoe hare leaps by out of the corner of his eye and he turns, scanning the tiny tracks its paws leave in the snow. His eyes focus and he notices footprints have appeared in the snow, too, but in the opposite direction he came from.

He looks up to see the blond - no stranger - in a hoodie and jeans, but his feet warm and dry in heavy boots.

Ramen raises a hand, ungloved, and waves. Kaizo simply stares, quite aware of the hour of night and the desolation of the scene.

"I heard you were back in town," Ramen explains, then adds, "the innkeeper - he told everyone."

Ah, figures. Kaizo had only just checked in earlier today, and has yet to show his face in public, but news sure traveled fast here.

So he nods. "Yeah..."

"It's been a while since I last saw you," Ramen says. "Been in LA ever since you left?"

"Never came back," Kaizo admits, "till now, anyway, I guess."

"It's nice to see you again." He sits down on the swing next to Kaizo without permission, angling his body to face him.

"Did you come looking for me?" Kaizo asks, surprised.

Ramen shrugs. "What can I say? I missed you," and there's a clear lack of hesitation that's so quintessentially Ramen that Kaizo drowns in the nostalgia for a moment.

So he nods again and stares at his shoes. His hands tighten into fists, the last semblance of sensation left in them fading rapidly, and he inhales sharply at the sudden rush of cold.

Ramen raises an eyebrow as he shivers. "You never were one for the cold, but California softened you, eh?"

"I'm weak," Kaizo mutters through gritted teeth, closing in on himself to preserve body heat.

"Here," Ramen offers his hand, and Kaizo stares at it for a few moments, before extending his own.

The other wraps his numb hands in his surprisingly warm ones and presses both around his, like a panini press. It doesn't quite bring back the feeling in his fingers, but it sends an extremely pleasant rush of heat through his hands.

Kaizo pulls his hands back, awkward, but Ramen takes them again and holds them with no hint of intention of letting go, and the warmth isn't unwelcome, so Kaizo gives in.

"How did you find me, anyways?" he asks.

"I tried the hotel but they said you'd gone out, so I checked the square but no one had seen you, so we got the car and drove around till I saw someone walking towards the school alone, and it turned out to be you," Ramen explains, probably aiming to end Kaizo's relevant train of questions.