Every winter, in Winchester England, a thick, white film of snow coated the earth. It always snowed. Always. Without a fail, the round puffs of snow began to fall by January every year. Just like the sun rose every morning and fell every evening, the snow fluttered down in January. It was a fact. Like simple addition, where two plus two will forever equal four, in January, it snows. An absolute.
And for children like those in the Wammy House who held onto their facts like life, an absolute like the gentle fall of snow was gladly welcomed. They came to anticipate the fall of snow, placing bets of chores down on to guess which exact date they would come to see the first batch of the white innocence. In the end, in never mattered who had to wash the dishes that night, for when the snow did make a welcoming appearance, all of the orphans ran outside and spent the day playing in the snow. From the teens building forts and having heated snowball fights, to the younger ones building lumpy snowmen, everyone spent the first day of snow outside. Like an unspoken rule. A ritual. Another absolute.
It was a ritual before Near and Mello's reign in the Wammy House. Closer to L Lawliet's first years in the orphanage as a small, nervous child, the orphans would gather small groups of their closer companions (because having true friends were a rarity in the competitive orphanage) when the first batch of snow fell and spend the sunlight hours taking actions similar to the children that resided outside of the protective steel gates.
Snow days were the few days, if not the only, in which the competitive atmosphere melted away and the children became equal. Momentary truces formed between enemies and the results from education was not a matter to decide the worth of each individual. More than Christmas or any other holiday, the first snow of the year was the most anticipated day of the year. None of the other celebratory holidays seemed to compare to it. As the holiday breaks were more often simply seen as extended periods of self studying, than actual breaks, the constant stress weren't relieved from the students.
The orphan L Lawliet was the only known orphan not to participate in gathering in the snow during his childhood. He only watched through the windows blankly, wondering how the flakes of crystalline water could be worth the undeniable shaking that would overtake his entity.
It snowed in Winchester. That was a fact. It predictably snowed every year, around the same month. A faithful sign of winter that became the origin of the rich tradition that followed into the second generation of Wammy kids.
Everyone went outside on the first day it snowed when Matt first arrived in the orphanage, must to his surprise. In his oblivious state, struggling to settle into the foreign atmosphere of the immensely competitive founded by Wammy himself, he nearly missed out on his first snow day.
Mail Jeevas, called Matt in the Wammy House, was still scrambling to fit into the unconventional orphanage on the first day it snowed since he had first arrived. He had been transferred from a generic orphanage with a heavy religious influence from Cardiff, Wales months before the snow fell. Most of the children grew interest in Matt when he first set foot past into the large black gates. For the children who never saw passed the debatable borders of Winchester, a child who'd been as past as Wales was unheard of.
They wanted to know what life was like outside the gates. They wanted to know what color the sky was, what the air tasted like, how the people acted and talked. The children, who were famed for their capability to solve college level calculus problems at a middle school age, were starved to know how the world revolved on the other side of the orphanage gates.
And Matt, who never noticed his surroundings, or rather never bothered to take the time to observe the surroundings which he thought were never to change, never took the steps to see amongst the surroundings and the people and the life he took for as a granted absolute. If he took the effort, he had the capability to recall the slightest of details from the beginnings of wrinkles on the young lady who came to take care of the orphans twice a week and study her religious ties. He could have remembered and told the other Wammy orphans of how the entire orphanage used to smell like the rich aroma of curry from one of the more talented cooks made every Tuesday night.
So it really didn't take long for Matt to run out of the things to say in his shy, Wales accent and slowly, the other children stopped asking. Before he realized it, he ended up alone. The other orphans had greedily scavenged him of the little information he was able to withdraw from memory and ran off with it almost immediately after. They were gone. And he was alone.
Forced out of the world, I was atop an incredibly thin needle.
Matt didn't let the absence of others bother him though. He actually found it easier to breath for the first time since he could remember. Matt, who came from a small orphanage in big city Cardiff with heavy Catholic influence, finally felt the comforting experience of solitude. It was slightly lonely at first, without the caregivers who gave up their dreams of being nuns running around, and it was quiet without the children overfilling the building laughing and shouting and being young. The hours spent studying was never started without a prayer to God. References of Him were made throughout nearly every class before he the Wammy House took him in.
It was different at Wammy's, to say the least. Education was taken very seriously. As was the competition between students. He was shocked at the fact that the students were ranked and publically known throughout the orphanage. Those at the top were treated with more respect, got away with more things, and took their rank with immense weight. Hours after class were often spent studying for hours on end with minimal breaks. Even on the holiday break, students kept their textbooks opened and scribbled with notes to try to one-up those above them. For Matt, the entire concept seemed ridiculous.
Even L, who all of the orphans seemed to worship like the workers at his own school used to worship God, was labeled unimpressive to Matt. Really, he did have immense respect for him. It was impossible not to, but he just didn't understand why the orphans strived to be like him. Why would the children labor through years of studying advanced courses to replace a man who risks his life habitually? Matt didn't care. He actually did well in class. He found the class work intriguing and different from the ones back in Wales. He scored high on tests, which was how the orphanage took ranks. He found himself doing well, without the additional studying, without the hours of sleepless nights grasping at threads for half a hope to move up and be noticed by L. Surely, the test scores that he attained without studying didn't help with making friends.
What he noticed the most though, more than the orphans with high iqs and little experience, more than education and ranking system, more than the god figure of a detective, he noticed the sudden space and emptiness that took hold of the orphanage.
The room he was granted seemed more than he deserved compared to the one he used to sleep in. In the Catholic orphanage, there were always too many children compared to the small living quarters and lack of workers. He shared a room meant for two with three other boys. He was the youngest out of the four and therefore exposed to things that average ten year olds don't often experience. He was no longer a stranger to alcohol at the age of seven, three years after he arrived and three years before he left the orphanage. His dorm mates smoked cigarettes and though the offers were frequent, the numerous small burn marks of spotted brownish red jewels across his arms that he hid with long sleeve shirts prevented him from ever accepting one. Joints though, were another story. The orphanage with heavy Catholic influence didn't have enough staff to keep close tabs on its occupants.
In the Wammy House, the students didn't have any interest on the taboo items. They had their studies they needed to focus on and anything and everything else was a distraction. Especially such destructive things. Yet, if they wanted, there were numerous bottles of fine wines and liquors ready to be stolen that were used in the meals that were served for special occasions. The head of the orphanage, Roger, probably did just that, as there were more than just alcohol used for cooking poorly hidden in the kitchen cabinets if any of the children were curious enough.
Matt didn't even think of sharing a room with only one other boy a possibility. It was unthinkable in the last orphanage. Yet there he was. Matt, with a room larger than the one he was accustomed to with only one other boy. He was older than him, which was just fine with Matt. The boy, as far as Matt could tell, only ate chocolate and studied. He never heard the blond say more than the occasional string of high quality curses under his breath after all nighters of studying a test he would for sure ace.
He thought his roommate's name was Mellow (perhaps an ironic joke on his intensity), until the entire orphanage occupant's ranks were published for everyone to see. A crowd gathered around the long list of papers hoping desperately for their name to be closer to the top than their last ranks. Some stalked away with their heads held low, while others screamed out to the crowd their newly achieved ranks. Most didn't bother to look on the first page out of the many because the top ten, which was the number of names on each sheet, almost never changed people. Simply, the same ten orphans went up and down the ranks on their own accord. The only two positions that never changed was the first and second. Near and Mello.
The third ranked member though, had changed to a completely foreign member. Number twenty was off the first sheet. Matt, who really didn't care one way or another about the ranking system or his place in it, was ranked the third. He was third at Wammy's, the most educated, competitive orphanage in Great Britain. The gap between third and fourth was large, more than a ten point difference separated him and number four, a girl with brown hair and kind eyes. Most numbers were distinguished by fractions of a point, just like the first and second ranked members of the orphanage, Near and Mello. Mello (not Mellow) was listed bellow Near's by a fifth of a point. Matt's name was isolated from Mello's by a full five points. He was separated from everyone.
On Christmas day, nearly two months after his arrival in the orphanage, he still stumbled through the halls alone. Mello rarely spoke to him, as he now saw him as competition rather than a roommate that takes up space, not that the treatment had really been different as before. Matt was another obstacle for Mello to overcome in order to become L's successor.
On Christmas, there were no classes but the students hid in their dorm rooms catching up or reading ahead in their criminal psychology or perhaps medical terminology textbook. There was no orphanage assembly to hold a group prayer. Rather, the true meaning of the holy holiday seemed to be forgotten throughout the entire orphanage. But as Matt returned back to his shared room after a quick wander through the orphanage he still believed to be too large, he saw the blond boy with his nose angled toward a worn, leather bound book with discolored, dog-eared pages that clearly wasn't one that the orphanage provided for studies. Holy Bible, the front page read in faded gold cursive.
I was using the tips of my fingers to balance, until they touched you and I learned I wasn't alone.
Mello gave him a warning look silently, almost daring Matt to judge him. Did he expect Matt to ridicule him? A trace of a smile fell onto the red head's cheek. Something he recognized, though it seemed out of place in the hands of the boy with piercing blue eyes.
"Say something, I dare you," Mello advised with a threatening tone. And so he did. Before he could stop himself, he recalled the words his God fearing caretakers had told him every Christmas. "She will bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins." Matt said slowly, careful not to stumble upon the holy words and not thinking of the words that fell out of his mouth until they came out. He paused, peering intently at the slight shock that grazed Mello's face. "Matthew-" "Matthew 1:21, I know," Mello cut him off. "Damn…" he whispered. "Better if you don't tell others of your religion. Roger sees it as a distraction from succeeding L, so don't let anything slip to that atheist bastard." Mello spoke quickly, with an air of confident intensity.
"Isn't there a class for religion?" Matt said, his voice sounded smaller. "Yeah, but that's more for general principle. Lots of criminals and riddles make references to the Bible so it's an offered class but it's not expected for anyone to believe anything it says, which is complete bullshit, if you ask me."
Matt didn't ask him. And he wasn't planning to in the first place. But he nodded his head smoothly in agreement. Really, he wasn't sure if he believed the words written in the bible, but he wasn't about to let his roommate, who was the only one he held a conversation with in recent terms, know that. Religion became a thread that connected the two. And it was a thin, white thread, but it was still a connection the two boys tied between their fingers in secret.
Each of us having just one crooked wing, the only thing bestowed upon us.
At the end of the day, the Wammy House presented Matt with a gameboy with a small assortment of game sd cards for him as his first Christmas gift he received. His last orphanage, run on government funds that weren't ever seen as a priority never had the money to provide more than a special dinner where the children were granted seconds on the chef's special chocolate cake accompanied with a hearty scoop of ice cream. His housing before that, with his decaying parent… A gift was something unthinkable back when he lived with his abusive drunkard of a mother.
The day ended with Mello ending his studying early and reading aloud his favorite passage of the Bible to Matt and as days had been, that Christmas day would be the one he would look back on for years to come.
Mello's mood swings weren't to be underestimated though. It didn't take much longer before he remembered his roommate was the third most fit to succeed his role model. Mello didn't take it out on the red head, which was rare. But he studied at a more frivolous pace and as for their shared Catholic ties; Mello told his roommate where he hid the Bible and rosary. It wasn't until when the snow fell did the conversations between the two begin again.
He awoke much later than Mello did, which wasn't much of a surprise, but he panicked as his caught the hands of the clock and saw how late he slept. Classes at the Wammy House generally started around eight or nine, depending on the orphan's schedule. It was eleven, almost noon. He scrambled out of his bed and forced himself into his ripped jeans and a long striped shirt. He ran into his second period class (basic computer decoding) quickly coming up with a plausible excuse only to find it empty.
It was almost serene how empty and quiet the classroom was, or the entire orphanage in fact. The calming silence that Matt still found personal and treasured. He looked out of the large glass windows to be littered with powdery whiteness.
It was snow. Something that he saw every winter in Wales. He had a sudden desire to go outside but found himself with no real garments to. He didn't have anyone to borrow a jacket from or own one himself, and it was much too cold outside to be in a thin shirt, no matter the sleeve length. Simply, he watched the snow flutter from the sky. He gave a small sigh. The strange nostalgic feeling would be forgotten with his most current addition to a certain gameboy he was stuck on. Matt turned to head back to his dorm room and play his video games and perhaps take an additional few hours for sleep.
The moment he walked out of the doors his entity was slammed against a blonds'. He cursed loudly, they both did. It was Mello. Outside of the dormroom, outside of class, without a textbook or packets of information that a class may have made a reference too. A ten year old boy running in the halls. For Matt, it was unbelievable to see that it was his blond roommate. He looked too much like his age, the critical look in his eye melted away.
"Why aren't outside?" Mello asked, breathing audibly. "It's too cold." The blond gave him an odd look and took him into their room. "Put this on. You can keep it I don't care." Mello threw Matt a vest with fur trimming. "It's too big for me. And I'm into leather. Not that. I don't think Halle got the memo. Not that I asked her to get me anything anyway." He said more to himself than to Matt. The younger boy put the vest on and felt the warmth it would provide him in the cold. He muttered a thanks to which the blond pretended not to hear.
Outside, the snow felt familiar. Something that stayed the same hundreds of miles away from the house he spent the first handful of years in his life. Something he remembered playing in with the older boys at his last orphanage. It seemed overwhelming. This feeling, whatever it was, was calming and filled with memories.
He felt it on his tongue, the soft coolness that chilled his entity. It was gentle, it was something well known to him. And suddenly he felt an abundance of delight wash over him. Matt couldn't help it, it had been too long since he had felt the blithe, wonderful feeling. This snow, at least for one day, could take him back to Wales.
And then a snowball, formed in a perfect sphere, hit his new vest, leaving a pale layer of crystalline residue behind. It left Matt speechless for a moment, unable to throw any words out. It was Mello who threw the snowball at him. His competitive aura still thriving in the cold, but with a different purpose. He had a confident ghost of a grin resting on his lips, and his icy, blue eyes inviting Matt to throw one back. So after a moment of self recollection, Matt threw a large lump of snow in Mello's direction.
From the time you're born until death, "What do you want to do before you die?" Iask.
It grazed the blonds' shoulder. His eyes widened slightly, his impressed state translucent. And soon, the apple sized servings of snow packed tightly exchanged between two roommates spread across to most of the orphans. A free throw of white snow tossed in all directions. Some children, soaked in their moist jackets and scarves from the melted snow.
Matt and Mello's snowball fight stayed between them though. Perhaps the others could feel the intense 'friendly rivalry' between them. None of the orphans seemed to want to be involved with the heated match the two shared. It was only for them two, with no vacancies available. And in the mix of the packets of snow flying through the air with the hopes of landing on flesh, a rare occurrence in the Wammy House seemed to form with each snowflake that nipped and bit at each successful hit. Matt and Mello seemed to grow closer than rival and roommates. An unspoken rule was broken. The beginning of many.
Near, making a fairly impressive snowman with Linda off to the side of the enclosed orphanage, watched the mass of friendly chaos take place. He noticed Mello in the midst with the snow littering his hair and clothes he took heavy pride in. Mello was smiling. And not the cocky, overconfident teenage boys smirk, but an honest one. An innocent, pure joyful smile that was impossible to fake. It had been the first time Near had seen his supposed competition smile in such a way.
But all you do is laugh, like an angel.
And at the end of the day, after the orphans peeled off their soggy mittens and socks, hanging them to dry on the radiators (screw fire hazards), the cooks made hot chocolate to satisfy the shivering children. Matt and Mello had theirs in their room. Mello quickly drained his so Matt gave him his share. They sat on the hardwood floors talking comfortably, trying so hard to ignore the itch to ask what'll happen when they wake up from a well deserved sleep the next morning.
Matt knew by then, the meaning of the annual first snow in the Wammy House. How it melted away the tension and competition between the children. One day a year, everyone could get along before they quickly became re-submerged into their studies and the competitive air became chokingly thicker. He didn't want to lose the connection the two shared. He didn't want to simply smile and act as kids do only once a year. The loneliness was too unbearable, too inconceivably despondent to simply watch their friendship melt away with the snow.
Mello was too involved in his studies to give it up. He loved L too much, he hated Near too much to let the possibility to let the world know his greatness shine slip away because of snow. He couldn't stand to be considered inferior, especially to the overgrown, misshapen snowball. So in the morning, as much as Mello may have benefited from having a friend to turn to in times of unendurable frustration, he would have to prioritize his studies and beat Near as the successor to L. Matt was the third smartest after all, Mello would have to study harder to insure that Matt wouldn't snake up past him in ranks.
The words exchanged were soothing, different, and at the same time, bittersweet. Already they were aware that this conversation would be a memory they would look back on, thinking, calculating the possibilities where it could be one of many throughout the years.
They crawled into bed hours past curfew, trying to salvage as many friendly words between them. It was late. So lying in their beds, opposite sides of the room, they pretended to sleep. It was Matt, who reached out to Mello with words that pierced the dark silence.
Until we descend, pulling that trigger at the very end.
"I don't want to succeed L," he stated simply. Mello said nothing in return, but he knew that he was awake, hearing his words. It was more than a statement. Matt sent Mello a plea, a prayer. And it was all he could do, hoping that Mello would accept it in the morning. Matt fell into a dreamless sleep.
And in the morning, it was okay. Mello could never give up trying to become the best and Matt accepted that. He took the sacrifice, which really, he didn't mind. If there was someone to exchange more than just a few words of formalities, he was alright. They were two ten year olds with realities bigger than most adults. They needed someone to lean against.
Outside, the snow continued falling, coating the earth and hiding the previous day's holes and mounds from the grand snowball fight. The white blanket awaited patiently for the orphans to recreate imperfections in it, just as the children eagerly anticipated the following year's first fall of snow.
Then winter will come to cover everything in snow.
AN: I'm planning for this to be a two chapter story. I'm so sorry I haven't had the time to write recently. I'm just so overwhelmed with school and band and clubs. Anyway, reviews are this websites currency, so I will happily take any donations you can spare!