Summer days we have picnics by the lake. She wears a floral dress and white sandals and rests her head on my shoulder. Her eyes slip half-closed, but I can see the green, sparkling like the water. We eat little sandwiches and walk by the water and she teases that she is going to push me in. We both fall in.
Summer days we have dares of who can go the highest. He gets far ahead of me and my legs tremble, and the wind whips my hair around my face. He laughs and holds out a hand and pulls me up with him and we sit, birds on a branch (if a branch were metal and our skin were feathers). We don't fall in.
Summer days my phone dings with a picnic text and a climbing text and I don't know what to say and what am I supposed to do and I say that I am busy but I'm not busy I'm just at home with the windows drawn and face buried in knees and if they came and checked on me I would be here and they would know that I lied and I'm not a liar and what am I supposed to do?
Stop.
Autumn is when we rake the leaves outside of his house. We make piles as high as we can and he dashes into the house to get a ladder. He comes back with his hair tangled and his eyes shining and we climb up the ladder and jump in and the leaves are everywhere, ready to go again. It's nighttime when we stop.
Autumn is when we spend hours cutting fabrics and threading needles and scheming. She laughs when her mother calls her ("too old, too old, kura!") and she rolls her eyes and tosses her hair and keeps working. We dress up as knights and princesses and cats and witches and wizards and everything else. We start at night.
Autumn is when there are always new leaves to rake and always new ideas to sew and even for next year and the year after that and what if I change sizes and what if he gets hurt and what do I say when both are on the same day and maybe it would just be better if I'm at home because then none of us can get hurt except me because I'm hurting myself but I don't mean to, help.
Stop.
During winter the whole house smells like cookies. We sit at the table and press gingerbread pieces together and I pretend not to notice that she sneaks little pieces of candy every fourth bite. Our eyes meet and our hands meet and I suggest we start a fire in the fireplace. We fall asleep by the fire, curled up in blankets.
During winter the snow falls in thick sheets, like it did when we were little. We put on hats and scarves and mittens and jackets and rush out once it's settled, scooping up snow and packing it into balls. We shriek like children as we throw sodden ice at each other. We go inside, exhausted, and sleep passed out over each other, like the other is the bed.
During winter you just don't know if you want to be outside or inside and how are you supposed to choose when one wants one and one wants the other and neither knows what the other wants because it isn't like you have told them because how are you supposed to tell that how do you even begin and maybe I want cookies and snowballs but I can't take one's thing from the other… Can't I?
Stop.
Spring brings walks through the park and mini daisies growing from the ground. I pick them and put them in his hair and laugh because he looks so bemused because it's so girly. He rolls his eyes and showers me in daisies and so we both laugh and fall on each other and kiss and rain falls but we don't notice.
Spring brings days of new dresses and photos that I want need to take because she should be remembered forever. She braids daisies and puts them in my hair and in her hair and makes me try and take a picture of both of us at once. It doesn't quite work, and we laugh at the picture of our foreheads. First our foreheads kiss, then our mouths.
Spring brings worrying about one seeing the other and accidentally scheduling both and how would they even know and how do I make sure and….
They both like daisy chains.
Maybe…
They both like picnics and perching in summer. Leaf piles and costumes in autumn. Cookies and snowballs in winter. And daisy chains.
Start.
My dear followers, if you remember me... I'm glad that you cared enough to open this new story! I hope you enjoyed this little oneshot, and, as always, I'd appreciate some comments about what you thought about it in the review section!
A little debrief: The narrator is Toris (Lithuania) while the girl he talks about his Felicyta (fem!Poland) and the boy is Aleksandr (male!Belarus).
Unfortunately, for those of you that recall my story Playing With Fire, it is unlikely that I will return to it. I have lost the muse for it and honestly just don't know where I was going with it. But, as with everything, there is always a chance. If you're super upset with me for not updating in over a year, fret not, it may happen.
The review button is yours to press, should you choose to! And for those of you that are new, welcome! I hope that you enjoyed my little bit of writing and feel free to look at my other stories (just not Playing With Fire or And the World Comes Crashing Down because I wouldn't want you loving something that I'll never return to. That's just cruel).