Monochrome Days
Chapter one
Snowy Spirit
That year, winter came to Hokkaido as meekly as a timid kitten. As though winter had lost its breaths, the usual violent blizzards were substituted by very light snowstorms and windless snowfall from the pearly white sky.
Devoid of its usual intensity, winter was quite a bit more bearable this year to anyone who wasn't accustomed to it just yet.
A young boy with raven hair was one of such number. Usually not a big fan of heat, he wasn't quite used to earnest snowfalls and blizzards of the region since he grew up in Tokyo which only saw dusting of snow occasionally in late winter.
His father worked for a rather wide-spread business company and just recently had been transferred to the Hokkaido branch office.
The ravenette looked as though he was still in primary school; with his average height and rather chubby face (and body, to a surprisingly lesser extent) and black eyes, one could say he had a generic baby-faced look.
He was currently looking out of the fogged-up window of his new room with his forehead pressed against the cool glass.
He was bored. The bed was disheveled and strewn with different books and manga he pulled out only to see that he had read them all a few times already.
Yes, he was an unusual primary school kid in that way. His introverted and quiet nature, coupled with his hatred of loud noises and lack of aptitude for sports makes him the kind of person who'd rather spend his leisure perusing books, manga and games rather than the usual hijinks one would expect from a boy his age.
In essence, one could say he was a budding hikikomori. But to his parents' relief he didn't show apprehension when faced with the prospect of leaving the house to such extreme extent. But they still occasionally encouraged him to go outside of the house and socialize.
This was one of the rare occasion that the boy himself had an urge to go outside. It was a new town, so he hardly knew the streets outside the route to his school so naturally curiosity rose in him.
He was especially attracted by the thin blanket of snow on the roads that were rather dark for around noontime.
His onyx eyes scanned the road, occasionally following a passerby who looked interesting. He was still debating whether or not he should go outside, when fate made the decision for him:
"Yume-kun!" His mother called in her bell-like chiming voice from downstairs. He quickly scrambled outside his room and answered, "Yes, Mother?" in a childish voice befitting his appearance.
"How long do you plan on staying cooped up in your room, dear? Why don't you go outside?"
The boy was quite astonished, did his mother somehow sense what he was debating internally?
"Um... Okay!" He replied, sounding a bit hesitant.
"Kurosawa Ayumu, I don't want any excuses! Boys your-"
Kurosawa Meiko, his mother, stopped abruptly mid-lecture. The sound of footsteps climbing the stairs to the first floor.
"3... 2... 1.."
Kurosawa began to count down mentally, and just as he reached "0", his mother scurried into sight.
He closed his eyes, begging her to not create a scene he associates with badly written comedy.
"Are you feeling alright?" She asked worriedly, checking his forehead for his temperature with the back of her hand.
To Kurosawa's surprise, this was quite a mild reaction compared to what he had expected.
Maybe she wasn't as stressed as she usually was, seeing how his father and sister had went to visit his grandparents. (his father's parents.) It was common knowledge for the Kurosawa siblings (and their neighbors, who were courteous enough to act otherwise) that their parents had an astounding lack of tact (read: common sense) when speaking to each other, thus leading to (very loud) misunderstandings on very trivial matters.
"Um, no Mother, I'm fine." He said in his soft, almost inaudible voice.
"Looks like it." She said matter-of-factly before giving him a puzzled look for about 5 seconds.
"...Can I go now?"
"Um, oh. Hahaha, sorry dear. You go on." She said awkwardly before leaving, still thoroughly confused. "Oh, and please be back before it gets dark." she said with a back glance.
"Yes." he replied obediently while thinking, "Sure, I'm really the kind of person likely to stay outside late."
He gave a theatrical and somewhat pointless sigh before getting dressed in his winter things. The thick protective layer of clothes made him look a bit larger than he actually was, but his round face really made it seem like he was a bit overweight (which, given his adversity to physical activities, wasn't totally inaccurate.).
Before leaving, he tidied up his room a bit, he dreaded the lecture he would face if his mother found his bed in that state of disarray. And with an afterthought, decided to take a bit of extra money with him just in case of emergencies. (He couldn't help but admire the amount he was able to save up in these four years.)
As he went through the front door a cold breeze hit his face, making him shiver slightly and screw up his eyes. It wasn't the best feeling for him, but he would take this over the stuffy feeling he got during the summer in his school uniform any day.
The front of their house, with the sole exception of the path leading to the road. When he reached the sidewalk, he looked left and right in confusion.
Kurosawa, being the shut-in he was, was only familiar with a small part of the city. He had a working knowledge of the roads around the neighbouring shopping district and the area around his school out of necessity, though.
He fiddled with the bangs that fell to his forehead while thinking. Where was a potentially interesting place in this city that he could quickly check out?
"Let's see... The park?" He thought, picking the first obvious place, "...I can't believe I even bothered considering it. I mean, seriously."
Interesting landmarks... He had been able to steal a glance of a river when they moved to this city. He remembered a vast field on its other bank that led to the forest and neighboring town. He didn't recall the town's name, but remembered a school named Hakuren was located in the town.
Most people would find it odd that he remembered the name of the school in it rather than the town itself, but there was a valid reason for this. Though the town he lives in, his school, the neighboring town and even Hakuren itself was quite plain and easily overlooked, Hakuren had become famous for having a team with a formidable forward.
He was said to be quite the athlete; he played multiple winter sports along with soccer, and his nickname was "Bear-killer" which Kurosawa found highly intimidating. The person was supposedly only a year older than him! He could not imagine what kind of person he was, nor what kind of physique he had. He just knew that he did not want to meet him, much less run afoul of him.
But that was out of question. Just too far away for his tastes.
He unconsciously began to walk towards the nearest bus stop, thinking that he might as well visit that unusually popular soccer field about ten minutes from there.
He was able to get on the scarcely populated bus within a few minutes and took a seat in the mid section, beside the window. Yes, he did prefer window seats.
He was met with the uninteresting sight of a small town during a rather snowy winter vacation. Very few people were actually outside, and the only crowd one would be likely to find would be in the shopping district and commercial area with lots of cafes, businesses and the likes.
He suddenly noticed many people around the soccer field he wanted to visit. Pressing his cheek against the cold glass, he was able to see many people watching an ongoing soccer match.
The players were all around his age, and so were most of the spectators. He couldn't help note how obsessed most Japanese people were with soccer these days for no particular reason.
So he paid the fare and jumped off the bus (literally, he had a habit of skipping over a step when climbing up or down stairs.) before walking over to the corner of the field, careful to keep a good distance from the kids sitting in groups around the field and cheering loudly.
The score was a whopping 6 to 0 goals, which greatly surprised Kurosawa. As far as he knew, it was exceedingly hard to score that many goals in soccer. And apparently, it was still the first half. He stood behind the losing team's goalpost on the far upper left corner of the field.
He almost suspected to see some older kids in the team that was in the lead as he scanned the players carefully, but it was quite the opposite. The team without a single goal to them were the ones with at least three middle school kids in their ranks, but they were still being utterly destroyed.
And it wasn't like the other team was strong either. They were arguably the worse off, sans one person...
Kurosawa's eyes widened as he saw a blur of white steal the ball from one of the middle school kids who were playing as forwards beautifully and with unbelievable ease.
Was it really a human? Or was it a blizzard incarnate? Those movements were so enthralling, yet so savagely devastating. One would not be blamed if he assumed that it was a Yuki-anesa, a snow demoness said to be as beautiful, yet as ruthless as pure ice.
But it wasn't a female, but a young boy around his age, although delicate looking.
With unrivaled speed and finesse, he dominated the field, and as soon as he was able to get within twenty feet of the penalty box, he kicked the ball upwards and spun it with the sole of his feet and it became encased in ice.
"Eternal-"
With a smirk that seemed so out of place on such a kind face, he kicked the ball towards the goalpost with an impossible amount of strength for such a frail looking boy.
"-Blizzard!"
Kurosawa looked on in awe, almost feeling jealous and inadequate at the same time... It was very likely that the ball would go in!
But two of the middle school kids, their face showing determination, ran up to the ball and they attempted to redirect it-
"Zephyr's Shield!"
They both went into sliding tackles with golden wind trailing behind them. The luminous slipstreams converged in the form of an "X" before spiraling into a dome shape of shifting wind.
The ball hit the wind and was seemingly stopped for a second before completely breaking the shield and sending both of the opposing players flying.
But the ball wasn't able to completely neutralize the winds, and a small gale made from the broken shield sent the ball off its trajectory.
It missed the goal by a few feet and bent in an odd angle... And it was heading right towards him!
He only noticed at the last moment since the ball was so fast it was very difficult to distinguish the path its likely to take.
With only enough time to curse his fate, Kurosawa could only mutter "Crud..." before the ball hit him squarely in the face, making him see stars.
He vaguely registered people yelling and the sound of scrambling footsteps as he fell to the ground, his fall mercifully broken by the layer of soft snow on the outskirts of the field.
The world dissolved itself in a wave of nausea and pain as Kurosawa's consciousness faded.
I remember one time I complained that there weren't enough friendship fics, and someone told me to write my own if I wanted to read the genre so badly. So here it is with a watered down Kurosawa.
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