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001
winter
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He doesn't like the winter.
It reminds him of his past, first of all. It reminds him of days spent quivering in fear and learning what happens when you bite the hand that feeds you. Winter stings like hunger pains, sometimes, when all you want is some warmth and someone who cares for you.
It also reminds him of his hard heart. Not that he doesn't feel, of course. He's known too much pain, too much heartbreak to not feel. But he knows that leaving himself fully exposed, open to those who would stab him in the eye, would be a foolish, rookie mistake.
And he's gone too far for rookie mistakes.
Winter reminds him, strangely enough, of his pokemon. After all, that's how he acted towards them for the longest time. He only melted due to the words of a person who actually cared for him. There are only a few of those left, after all.
Most of all, though, it reminds him of a girl, the only girl, whose heart is as white as snow. A girl, whose weight is ethereal but ever-present, binding him to his past and condemning his future.
Onward he marches, with an invisible set of footprints alongside his own.
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Author's Note: Dedicated to The Finesseful X, whose knowledge of exactly how good I can be on my good days, as well as her love of ChosenShipping, made this exceedingly difficult to write properly. Yeah, this one's not my best. I'm not feeling it tonight. Sorry it's so depressing, dear.
This piece is the fourth part of the ten-portioned series 'Boxes of Chocolates'. Each encounter is a private love note, and each of the separately–published stories will cover a different shipping. Each chapter is a different drabble about the shipping; I'll do five per story, possibly more.
The full list: SpecialShipping (Ambiguous), AgencyShipping (Menial), FranticShipping (Tenacious), ChosenShipping (Exploitable), PanderShipping (Retrospective), CommonerShipping (Parametric), FeelingShipping (Harmonic), OldRivalShipping (Stoic), MangaQuestShipping (Vivacious), and HaughtyShipping (Loquacious). I'm perfectly well aware that the publishing format I ended up deciding on is annoying, but I figured that dividing it up by shipping would be the best way for everyone involved to pick and choose which ones they would like to read, without being 'exposed' to opposing shippings.
Please take a look at the others, if you like this one, and enjoy. (For the record, they won't be published until I actually finish writing the first drabble for each of them. I didn't want to spam the forum completely, so… just keep an eye open, I guess. They'll be in the order above.)
Also, I should mention that these aren't necessarily sequential. I write what I can, based on the theme I'm given.