Written for HitsuKarin Week 2019. Credit goes to tayloswrft for the image cover.

WENDYBIRD CHRONICLES

I. SNOW DAY

Eleven, and Karin thinks that she has a crush.

It's silly, but there's something about seeing Toushirou against the backdrop of snow laden hills that takes her breath away.

(Maybe it's the scarf that brings out the blue in his eyes.)

"You're the one who wanted this snowball fight, Kurosaki," Toushirou drawls, another snowball already in his hand. "I thought you said you were a snowball expert?"

"I am not the one with the home turf advantage," Karin mutters, heat flaring in her cheeks despite the bite of the cold wind.

"This is my home turf?" Toushirou arches his eyebrow, unimpressed. "Karakura Town? Really?"

"Shut up," Karin flushes, because that's not what she meant — she just got the words mixed up, and now she has to explain herself. Cripes. "I mean. You've got your… ice thing."

"Good one, Karin," Toushirou says, condescendingly, and Karin rolls her eyes at him. "My ice thing."

"Yeah, your ice thing," Karin crosses her arms, refusing to be cowed as she continues. "And your… jump thing."

"What this?" Toushirou asks, vanishing in an instant, and landing yet another hit on her, and then reappears a second later in a completely different direction. "That jump thing?"

"Unfair! That is cheating, you brat!" Karin hollers, wincing as some snow slips past her jacket and slides down her back and she is powerless to stop it. "Cheating!"

This was supposed to be a fair fight, dammit, in reality, it's anything but.

"Yes, that jump thing!" Karin huffs, indignant, after she's shaken the last of that snow out of her clothes. Her temper reignites full force because he's smirking at her and nobody smirks at her like that and gets away with it. Arms akimbo, she glares at him. "How am I even supposed to have a chance at winning if I can't do that?"

He opens his mouth and closes it.

"You may have a point," Toushirou concedes, tilting his head to the side. "Alright. No shunpo."

"Alright then," Karin says, scooping some snow up and crafting a decently shaped ball. "Let's try this again!"

And lobs it at his head.

She misses, but only barely, and it starts to feel like they're finally playing on an even level now.

It's different to before, Karin thinks, as she dodges and weaves and tries to suss out the difference between their snowball fight in winter to the soccer matches they had in summer, and why her perception of him has changed.

He's… happier, somehow. More comfortable in a way that he wasn't before. Maybe it's because they stayed in touch, with her impulsively sending a text after insisting that they should exchange numbers and him replying tentatively after a couple of days. They've gotten closer since then, she supposes, even though she still likes to send him memes that probably mean nothing to him, but he'll reply quicker and he'll try and do his own variation of memes, which Karin is almost completely certain that Matsumoto helps out with. Not that he'd ever admit it if she asked.

Somewhere along the way, she began to look forward to his texts, daydreaming what she should send him next.

Do shinigami even know how to have snowball fights? Karin had asked when she'd seen snow beginning to fall outside her window, and grinned to herself when he'd replied of course they do and that they should meet up soon and have a snowball fight.

She'd been happy to see him again, of course, but she didn't expect her heart to flutter when he'd arrived and smiled at her.

(Again, though, maybe it's just the scarf that sits pretty around his neck.)

A snowball grazes her ear.

"Holy crap!" Karin shrieks, and flails, trying to get her ear warm again.

"You're distracted," Toushirou points out, and furrows his brow, trying to suss her out.

"Am not," Karin shoots back, and successfully lands a hit on him. "I've just been biding my time."

"That so?" Toushirou asks, silkily, and there's something about his grin that sharpens into savagery, Karin thinks, watching him. "I wonder. Might just be luck."

"You take that back!"

It doesn't matter if it takes ten-fifteen minutes to prove him wrong, she gets him good and it's worth it seeing him splutter and turn red faced as she proves to him, in fact, that it's not just luck after all.

The point is, they're having fun.

So what if it's a crush, and Karin's chest warms at the sight of his flushed cheeks?

It's just a phase.

Crushes come and go all the time, and she's certain that this will be like any other; he's distracting her for the moment, and then, later, she might remember, and call herself for foolish for feeling this way about him.

Only —

Only sometimes, when his eyes sparkle and his hair is in disarray and Karin's breath catches, she wonders how different things might be if he was just a regular human being or she was a shinigami enjoying a playful snowball fight with her friend.

How different would things have turned out then?