Mao opened her eyes slowly and blinked a couple of times. She rolled over and looked at her alarm clock. It was 7:30, miles too early too be up on a Sunday morning. But she had fallen asleep early that night, and wasn't that tired, not tired enough to want to go back to sleep anyway.
She gazed out of her bedroom for a few seconds, listening to the sound of a blackbird singing in a tree just outside her house, before getting out of bed and turning on the hall lights.
She walked quietly through the house, treading softly so she wouldn't wake her mother, and turned on the kitchen lights. She turned on the grill and placed two slices of bread inside it, then walking through into her living room while she waited for the bread to toast.
Her pet cat, Cornflake, came down the hallway and followed her through. She bent down to stroke him, and stood up again when she saw the swirling white snowflakes falling past the window. She walked to it and looked out at her back garden, it looked pretty, snow covered everything, perfectly smooth and white except for one area that was covered with footprints. She leaned further forward, wondering if whoever had made them was still out there. She couldn't see anybody, but now that she had moved forwards, she could see the dark red stains in the otherwise spotless snow.
She stared for a few seconds, making sure that the crimson blotches were what she thought they were, before darting back out to the hallway, pulling on a coat over her pyjamas and running out into the garden. Someone was probably out there, the footprints looked fresh, and whoever it was had been bleeding.
A teenage boy, not much older than her, was staggering around in the snow, blood trickling from a shallow cut on his ankle. His hair was quite long, and so white that it blended in with the snow surrounding him.
"Um…are you alright?" Mao asked nervously, wondering if he was drunk.
He turned his head to look at her, and opened his mouth to respond. But before he could say anything, he staggered forwards and fell to the ground, unconscious.
Mao stared at him, tugging nervously at one of the furry blue cat ears protruding from her head, something she did a lot when she was nervous or unsure what to do. If she brought him into the house, her mother would definitely be confused, and would probably throw the stranger out. But she didn't want to leave him lying around in the snow, it was so cold out there, and if she kept him out of her mothers sight until she left for work, then she could keep him in the house until he woke up and could leave.
She rubbed her cold feet against each other, wishing that she had put shoes on before coming out, and grabbed the white haired boy's wrists, attempting to drag him towards the back door. She managed a few steps before dropping him again; she was freezing and not strong enough to get him the all the way to her room without stopping. Remembering that he must be much colder than her, she held on to his hands again and pulled, stopping and laying him down again when she reached the steps leading up to the door.
Lifting him up slowly, and almost dropping him several times, she carried him up the steps and into the house.
As soon as she entered the hallway she began coughing and almost dropped him. Placing his sleeping body on the soft carpeted floor, she ran to the kitchen and turned of the grill, pulling out the ruined pieces of toast and throwing them in the bin. She scratched her ear with one of her aching arms and waved the other one about to clear the smoke.
Returning to the unconscious boy in the hallway, she felt extremely grateful that her bedroom was on the bottom floor so that she would not have to carry him up any more stairs.
A few minutes later she lay him down on her bedroom floor, having pulled him along the hallway and fetched a plaster from the kitchen to put on his ankle. She took the blanket off her bed and threw it over him, running out of the room when she heard her mum calling her from the upstairs landing.
"Have you burnt something Mao?" Her mother, Yuka, asked when she reached the bottom of the stairs. "And why are you wearing you coat indoors?"
"Um, I went out to see the snow, that's why the toast got burnt, I forgot that it was there while I was in the garden." She said honestly, it was the truth, just missing some parts out.
"Okay then." Yuka said, sounding slightly confused. "But I thought didn't like the cold?"
"Um, yeah, I, um, just wanted to see it, um, I wore the coat because of me not liking the cold." Mao said, tugging on her ear slightly.
"Well, okay then…" She sounded tired now. "Well, I'm going back to bed now that I know the house isn't on fire." She turned and walked back to her room, leaving her daughter standing at the bottom of the stairs.
Mao walked back into her room, throwing her coat onto the bed; she would need it if she went out later. She turned to look at the white haired stranger, and saw him sitting up on the floor, staring at her with dark, russet brown eyes.
"Um, hi?" Mao said, scratching her ear again and looking at him uncertainly. "Um, you were, um, in my garden, and you fainted, um, I brought you in because it was cold…
"What, so you put me in your bedroom?" He asked, sounding irritated. "How did you even get me here, my back hurts like hell so whatever you did probably wasn't sensible."
"Um, sorry, but you were too heavy to carry the whole way…" She muttered, blushing. "I mean, um, isn't it better than being out in the snow? Even if I did make your back hurt."
"Well, its not as if I was going to die out there is it?" He said sarcastically. "I would have been absolutely fine by myself."
"Well…yes, but, you were bleeding, and you really did look like you needed help…" She said, upset by the way he was acting. "And um, why were you even in my garden?" she asked, suddenly realised how strange it seemed that he had turned up there, and that she hadn't seen any footprints leading into towards where he was standing.
"I don't know!" he snapped, lying back down again. "I was just-" He stopped halfway through his sentence when Cornflake, who had entered the room unnoticed, climbed onto his chest and lay down, purring. "Why the hell is that thing sat on me?"
Mao blushed and fiddled with one of her ears. "Erm, that's my cat…Um, I think he likes you…" She said sheepishly.
"Oh, great." He said, sounding sarcastic again. He looked up at her. "And what's with those ears anyway?" he asked.