Author's Notes: I know it's reckless to start yet another story, but I desperately wanted to write a romance about my OCC and Cliff. I always thought he was interesting to write about. I haven't and won't be able to write often and much at all because of my AS coursework and exams, but I am gradually writing chapters in what little free time I have. If you enjoy my stories, I'm really grateful at how patient you are with me to update them. It always puts a smile on my face when I check my emails and I have one with a review or such and people are showing interest in my fictions.
Everything this evening seemed so brand new. The snow in the pitch-black backdrop radiating against the faded street lights in soft flurries, as I walked past the blanketed farm at the bottom of the ice-capped mountain. It looked so magical. I felt tempted to try and stick my tongue out and catch the tiny icicles, and let them melt in revenge to the ones that stung faintly against the tip of my nose and the surface of my cheeks.
I continued walking, listening to the crunching under my boots, which was the only noise that could be made out against the silence that echoed through the valley. Standing on the small bridge over the small river that ran underneath, I took a moment to look downstream at the ocean not far in the distance. It looked like the perfect moment for a dazzling snapshot. I couldn't fight back smiling into my soft fluffy scarf that engulfed half of my face. I stared for a brief moment before turning to carefully continue my path towards the farm that my parents had given to me as my own responsibility. I moved my weight forward to take the first tentative step when a dark figure caught my attention in my peripheral vision. Shocked, I stumbled back losing balance. It felt like I was falling in slow motion as I desperately tried to persuade my brain to recover my balance. No matter how many times I screamed in that short half a second, I could just feel myself falling back. I closed my eyes expecting coldness to surround me.
It didn't. I waited a second to open my eyes. Had I just passed out without recollection of the last second of the fall? Slowly, nervously, I opened my eyes. The pitch-black sky and sparkling white snow was scattered in places over me. Adjusting my eyesight, a dark figure loomed around me, and after a moment, I could feel a small gentle pressure around my waist and on my shoulder blades through my coat. The figure in front of me stared down at me. Almost protectively. It took only a moment to realise the man was still staring. Dark brown hair covered the top of his face, but I could make out the soft shade of his purple eyes. They looked as scared as I felt. I tried to open my mouth to thank him, but only puffs of my choked breath escaped. Embarrassed, I tucked my head down as I felt my cheeks burn and the pit of stomach knotting itself.
The man's arms broke their grip around me and he stiffly stood back, rubbing the back of his neck. At a closer inspection, I could see his large maroon coat with a fluffy lining in the hood, and the brown scarf he had his hand tucked beneath to reach the back of his neck. He was significantly taller than me, though I was barely five foot two, but he looked like he was at least late teens or early twenties, if that, looking at the delicate features of his face: a gentle but firm shape to his jaw and cheeks, and the beautiful set to his eyes that looked back at me. I breathed out, my mouth even more exposed to the cold from when he pulled away.
"T-thank you," I breathed, trying to pull as much of my voice out as possible, but looking away as very little probably reached him as the freezing wind picked up around us, stealing my voice away.
He stared at me for a moment before looking away and walking off. I watched him for a moment, he walked towards a large building; some of the room lights on each of the three floors were lit. Biting my lip, I fought to gain composure, and trying to figure out what I had possibly done wrong. From what I could tell, a few minutes had already passed when a familiar man ran through the piled untouched snow towards me calling my name.
"Hollie, I've been waiting for you. It was getting late so I was worried about you so I came to see if maybe you were lost. Come on, let's get in the warm," the man called between heavy breathes. His name was Takakura, and lived on the farm I was going to live on. He was an extremely close friend of my Dad's, despite a seven year age gap between them. My father being younger.
He wrapped an arm around my shoulder and led me to the farm, opening the front door of the small farmhouse. Stepping inside I looked around: a single bed sat tidily in the left hand corner with an equally small bedside table next to it. A small round table sat in the centre of the room with two small matching chairs on either side. In the left corner near the door, a small trunk was open ajar with the head of an axe sticking out and other contents barely on show. In front of it near the bed a small wooden drawer stood with a small phone on it, on the side near the wall, with space for small decorations on the free space. On the far right hand side of the back wall, there was a door to what Takakura explained to me was a small bathroom. The entire room looked like it hadn't been touched in many years, but nothing about it said you couldn't live in it. I took a few steps inside and took as much time as possible as I could make of a few short seconds to take in all these details, flicking the light switch I spied in the porch wall as I walked in.
"I realise it's small, but you can do what you want with it. It's your home, you know," Takakura said snapping me from my daydream. I looked back and nodded. "There isn't a kitchen at the moment, but you're free to visit for breakfast until you can have one installed and such."
I nodded again, and thanked him. I forced as big a smile I could, my lips and cheeks still slightly numb from the cold. Looking at the table I stepped over and dumped the heavy bag on it's small surface, listening to Takakura saying that he was going to leave me to settle in and get some rest. I peered over my shoulder pushing my hair back to look at him more clearly and thanked him again, and bidding him goodnight. Opening the bag by the frustrating zip that was partially snagged against one of woollen jumpers, I poured about a quarter of the contents on to the table, putting the bag on one of the chairs as I did so. A small wall mirror fell out onto my clothes. I picked it up and hung it on a small hook by the thread on it's back above the bedside table as I discovered a useful place to hang it. I stared at myself for a moment in the mirror. My dark brown hair was a mess: my fringe was matted and soaked in places from the snow, and bits stuck up in ugly cowlicks unnaturally from the cold wind. Pulling my scarf off, the rest of my hair fell on my shoulders. In places the different layers wrapped around the long layers in curls like barbed wire. Sighing, I searched through the bag for the hairbrush I knew I had packed. I brushed my hair in a rushed fashion. My hair looked better, but still not decent enough: I certainly wouldn't go out to meet people like this. Yuck.
When I finished, I stared for a moment and breathed out tiredly, my hot breath steaming up the mirror a bit. I sat down on the edge of the bed, adjusting myself to sit comfortably. For a while I just sat hunched over in thought, later leaning over and onto my back with my head on the pillows. I allowed my mind to race. I knew my parents planned on calling in the morning to check up on me after a good night's rest. My mind then returned to the event that had only happened just over half an hour ago. That man. I couldn't hold back the thoughts: who was he? Why was he there? Why did he even help me? What's his name? What kind of person is he? Will I ever see him again? These thoughts raced in cycles in the invisible space on the ceiling until I fell asleep.