What Becomes of Snow

(Remembrance of Things Caught)

Starbrigid

When snow melts, what does it become?

Yuki woke up, looked out his window, and saw snow. The weather stations hadn't said anything about this, and he hadn't had to change his calendar to January yet, but nevertheless, as if to spite human logic, the Earth was laden with snow, nature proudly bearing its glistening testimony to a magical night. It made the sparse winter land beautiful, swallowing the Souma grounds with a brilliantly clear white. The trees, stripped black and bare by the harshness of the changing of days before, had been covered again, frosted with crystal instead of the crumbling rust leaves that had been their last burden. Somewhere outside the window was a deck with a table snow piled straight down upon, a table wrought of thick, stubborn glass that refused to even bend under the weight. Haru had once stuck a ruler, Yuki's third-grade ruler with the protractor and compass on it, into that table's snow, and that had told them how much had fallen. Yuki would have said there was more than a foot outside, the intruder creeping up his paper doors just so, but if Haru didn't measure it, measure the tower Yuki was sure their table bore, he would never find out.

The sun that had woken him glinted off the waves of white, rolling over them like they were really moving to the beat of the moon's tide, waves of the sea Yuki had never seen. He padded over to the sliding door and drowsily shoved his weight against it. It fell open, slamming against its holdings, and a chill invaded the room, biting and vicious. He breathed out and saw the wet condensation of his breath against the invisible air surrounding him, watched the smoke it made fade away and be replaced again. He leaned against the door, folding his arms around himself, and was forced to shiver, eyes at last ready to open fully, shocked clear.

He looked up to the main house and beheld the icicles that had formed all along its ledges and corners, turning their ancient family's abode into a magical castle. The whimsy of the hanging ice looked like dribbled wet sand to him, the entire world changed into a huge playground, but something about the harshness of the sky made its sudden change hurtful. He leaned down and dipped his hands in the snow, the white stagnation shrouding the remains of the red azalea bush he'd used to sleep to, and it melted from the heat of his body, a physical pain like burning; that was, a fiery sort of cold. He thought about how the other places he knew and remembered must look, the hills he'd used to slide down with other children, then story-book images of streets with lights and power lines and people hurrying heedlessly down alarmingly slippery sidewalks, very few adequately prepared to deal with the wind that ruled over their city. He slid down, sighing ever so faintly, that same wind stroking the skin his sleeping kimono failed to protect, and wished futilely for someone to play with again.

The purity of this landscape would soon be marred by humans, little children stomping across it, unable to resist leaving their mark upon beauty for the sake of their simple, mindless fun. There would be snowballs and snowmen and snow forts and snow everything, the celebration of the temporary cessation of hostilities towards kids, namely the relaxed requirement of school attendance, and then there would be mothers to help them in and press hot chocolate between their stiff, twig-like mitten fingers, to bake them brownies while they watched the fire with shining eyes, making fun of their little brothers and rubbing their feet, confident of friction's ability to warm them again... Then there would be the teenagers and adults, heaving snow out of their driveways to go drive and buy things with put-upon groans, plows clearing the way to the return to work and school, and the snow would diminish and change to slushy brown entrapped in yellowed grass and the withered remains of fall, and would not be gone until everyone was well sick of it...

Today was the day Yuki had decided on for his announcement, so how strange that today would be the first day of winter. The cold melted its way through his blood and made him carelessly scornful. He was leaving this cursed place, he had to extricate himself, and if no one noticed, all the better, but Akito would of course, but... it was fine for Yuki if he could just let himself disappear.

Was the sky the ordinary world Yuki wished for? Was it the sun? He lay on his floor and felt a familiar dread sweep through him, fragile and sickening and pathetic. His eyes opened and closed, opened and closed, and his heart plodded along a little faster, as if he could suddenly feel the world spinning beneath him. Surely, if the snow would begin to fall again... Akito's anger and disappointment were already paralyzing him, just the anticipation of them, the sick, greedy, violet dark... hurt, fear, loneliness. Akito... What is this curse? The rat let his teeth chatter and eyes dilate, pass out of his control, but he had already decided, and this anxiety meant nothing. He couldn't bear to be powerless anymore- Nausea, sickness, degradation, cold, fear, cruelty, hate, loneliness... blood and spots of color... the word no... fingers, chase, catching, caught, worthless, worthless, hopeless, pride, crawling, madness, loss, helpless, loneliness, shame, want, isolation, alienation, disappear-

Yuki looked at the snow, caught breathless, and, a little hesitantly, let himself laugh. Well, today was the day.

The next today was New Year's Eve, and Yuki was leaving the main house. Akito had agreed to let him go. He still didn't know why, but did it really matter? He was leaving. It wasn't like Akito could even have stopped him by now. He'd found his freedom, liberation, "from all that constrained him." A new year, a new start, a new chance, a new identity- everything wiped away. He was a walking cliche, and couldn't make himself despise himself for it.

He walked down a path to his new destination, loomed over by sakura trees. Even though bare, they might as well have been in full bloom, because they were storming above him, a snow as constant and fast as a rain of petals as he made his way down their cobblestone tunnel to his new school. The sky wasn't dark yet, a pink-orange sunset not quite faded against the heavy clouds streaked across the sky. He couldn't see anyone, but surely someone would come into view soon- boys his own age, boys who didn't know who he was, children he couldn't be kept away from. They might be his friends, maybe. He was almost smiling, and his teeth felt the daring coolness of the snow. He darted forward and caught a snowflake in his mouth. Though the delicate, individual patterns of snowflakes that adults had told him about weren't visible, he was sure they were there somewhere.

He felt kind of faint, like he was about to pass out. Hatori would have made him stop and sit down, but the thought that he didn't have to made him start running, boots slamming so loud and squishing and skwelping so wonderfully against the snowflake-shaped puddles of ice- everything being so much so that he felt as though he was the sun orbiting the Earth. Running as fast as his legs would carry him, he wished these thoughts would last for eternity, hoped to permanently replace his usual mildness and resignation. He slammed his fist into a tree, and it hurt, that contact, but he felt the tree shake from the blow, and no one scolded him for doing it, and it was direct, intellectual proof that he was alive, and was here.

He imagined the other boys looking at him and seeing him and feeling their eyes on him. He hoped he could be just like them, those normal happy people, and he wanted them to accept him and let him become one of them. He was gasping for breath, but his mind refused to acknowledge it, so it didn't even hurt, and when he almost slipped, the usual flash of preemptive fear didn't make him blind, just made his coldness break open into an uncharacteristic, anticipatory excitement. Long ago, he'd decided only naive, stupid people had any strong feelings. He could have been floating.

New Year's Eve! Shigure had said the boys came back to school that morning, because Mugen Gakuen had a special celebration at midnight. Maybe there would even be fireworks. There definitely wouldn't be a banquet or a dance. He pushed away his memories of how he had started the previous year, the revived sensation of squirming disgust, eyes watching him dance for the year of the rat, and pictured boorishness and un-self-conscious music, an anonymous, universal celebration. Shigure had spoken of Yuki's dance and reminisced of it with silly fondness. Yuki had snapped at him for it, of course. His thoughts were all a jumble. He might miss everyone at the main house a little, just because he was used to them being near him. They weren't, anymore. Sakura-colored fireworks exploded in his head, the colors of the most perfect autumn. Maybe tomorrow, he'd join in with the others and have a snowball fight. Maybe he wouldn't even win it.

The entrance of the building was easy to spot even in this weather. Mugen Gakuen was emblazoned in big letters, both Japanese and English. The doors to the main hall were red and gold, the school's spirit colors. Yuki wondered if the uniforms were that color, and hoped so, for an interesting change. He skidded to a stop, barely avoiding a collision with the glass. After taking a moment to steady himself, he wrenched the tall doors open, and another set, and was inside.

A middle-aged man was waiting for him. Yuki tried to steady himself once more and pulled his hands out of his pockets, offering one to the man in the American way of greeting. He was probably the headmaster, since Shigure had said the headmaster would come to meet him personally. He didn't look like anyone Yuki had met before, wrinkled and mustached with a face framing an unusual bone structure. He was Asian but still foreign, not Japanese. Yuki was startled at something even that exotic, but made himself bow slowly and politely, keeping his hand stretched out in perfect respectfulness.

"Greetings, sir. I am Souma Yuki, a new student. I ask your kind regards, if you may." His voice was quiet as usual, yet sounded strangely breathy to his ears, his throat having been cut raw from exertion and the unusual adrenaline he now felt. The entry hall was as grand as a society mansion's, awards and portraits and statues lining the walls, a central staircase with beautifully carved railings winding up to a much higher second level that couldn't be seen. A huge gold-bronze chandelier above made the lights flicker and brought together the feel of a photograph, a three-dimensional painting that deserved to have been black and white.

The headmaster looked harassed and impatient upon closer inspection, providing not the stately, grave welcome Yuki had expected to receive but a different kind entirely. "You're Souma? Gods, you're late! Do you know what time it is?"

Yuki blinked, startled. "Does it matter? I thought your party didn't start until a lot later."

The man grabbed him by the arm and hauled him towards the left, huffing indignantly. "That's true, but have you no sense? You're a performer, you need to get ready. Come along, we've been waiting for you!"

"I'm performing?" Yuki blinked again, and pulled his arm out of the man's grasp, stopping. "What?"

"Yes, of course you are," the headmaster said. "Your family said you're very skilled, and will perform a New Year's dance for the school as a service to us. I am Tojita, and I ask for your kind regards in return. Welcome to Mugen Gakuen, Souma-san. I hope you are as skilled as they informed us."

Yuki let himself be pulled along. Akito must be having him do this for a goodbye present. Identical rich halls whipped past him as his face hardened. Whatever. Only this, then he could start where he'd planned again. These were all boys, so there was no danger of his curse being found out, but... to be set apart so early... and how could he just dance without any instructions?

His stomach dropped and the headmaster's harried directions faded from his attention as he remembered a few of Shigure's words- "Man, I suppose a snow dance is redundant." So casual, he hadn't understood, but he did now. Shigure, such an easygoing dog but Akito's, really... Alright, then. He'd dance for the coming of the snow.

He got his first glimpse of some teenage boys as he was herded outside. He only saw a few flashes of black and turning heads before he'd been palmed off to the gym teacher and pulled into a grove of trees to talk. His heart was thudding, but better than usual. "Is the assembly going to be held out here?" Yuki asked. He'd love that. Who would even notice his dance among the beauty of actual snow? The stars had come out against the black air and Venus was particularly bright, navy clouds casting magic on the pine trees and winter landscape. There would be some big clearing where everyone would gather-

"Come on," the gym teacher said, an old man who'd actually been scolding him for a while, Yuki just hadn't noticed. A new place unfolded around him as his legs propelled him towards it, a valley with a summit, hundreds of folding chairs adorning the slope upwards. Snow had half-colored the whole natural arena, the tallest pines Yuki had ever seen looming over the whole circle and impregnating the air with their gently crisp fragrance. The night made everything bluish, the sudden emptiness that was the absence of other people. He heard the gym teacher's words, explanations about changing into his kimono and practicing before his time came, but it was completely impossible to imagine the chairs before him filling. There was no place on Earth more than this one that could possibly feel more alone.

Yuki waited behind the trees for what seemed like forever, one of the teacher's extra coats covering him from the softly continuing elements. They hadn't let him sit with the other boys, made him wait instead, hidden from view. He didn't understand why, what the point of this was. He peered out at all the flushed faces, so many different kinds, young and old, so many feelings- boredom, disdain, excitement, exhilaration, wonder, happiness, entrancement, responses to the bands that had come before him, the singing and speeches, the banner two little boys had waved. He assumed it must have been a sports banner, because everyone had cheered a lot just at seeing it. He didn't know for sure, though. He was cold. He wanted to be in the audience.

He watched the sky for a while as a jazz band played, let the easy flow of the saxophone transcend him to an imaginary, formless world. He didn't even have any shoes. He missed his room and bed. He didn't recognize this place. Everything was really funny. Even his hair must look black now, all the snow melting in it turning to water and little drops landing on his face and sliding down. No one could see him, but he could see them, and he felt like a voyeur or something, like if anyone saw him, they'd call the police and drag him away, screaming. He watched everyone, but then he got tired of them, so he lay down and made a snow angel. The cold burned him, but he sat next to the indentation he'd made in the snow, so an angel watched the festivities with him.

He heard his name and rose, standing. "-a new transfer student to the first year, Souma Yuki, is a member of a very old traditional family, and has been trained in dance for many years. To end our festivities, he will perform a New Year's dance for us. Everyone may leave afterwards. Souma-san?"

Yuki straightened his clothes, leaving the angel-shape behind, and walked out onto the very top of the very summit, unspeakably far above all the other boys, a faceless mass of black with eyes. He waited a second, wishing to feel nervous like anyone else would, but he wasn't. He just didn't want to do this, he didn't want to set himself apart-

Akito said, "There's something about you that rejects people, Yuki."

There was no music now, but he was used to dancing without music. He liked it better that way, really. He hoped he blended into the snow, his kimono being plain white silk, and soaked at that, but even skin as pale as his couldn't match the sheer color of nature's purity. The snow continued, but was falling more slowly and contemplatively now. Alright, so he'd already made the snow fall, but how about a blizzard? Is there such a thing as a snow God? If there isn't, I'll take that role.

Yuki knew this dance as well as he knew how to talk, the first dance he'd ever been taught. A precocious three-year old, he'd loved it even then. Yuki was his name, and so it was his dance, the dance for the coming of snow. He forgot everyone's eyes on him quickly enough, forgot everything except what the movements of his body meant. He pulled the dark coat off him and gently set it aside, exposing himself to the frigid wind, and began.

Yuki could not have known how graceful he was, his bare feet gliding over the snow, arms caressing the air as if they were but streams of water. He could have not known how beautiful he was, his dripping ultramarine mane of hair, his wide, bright purple eyes, his flushed face and slender form, kimono sash flying as he, a creature from another world, abandoned himself to the spin of nature, naked in the touch of every snowflake.

He'd imagined words for the dance, back when he was still a child. Those words were still clear in his mind, and were still what he danced to.

"So, this is Christmas. This is the New Year. This is winter. Another passing, another turning. The age-old cycle begins again.

"The Earth has turned cold, and bitter, and has no strength left. All the green has gone, all the leaves have crumbled, the flowers have withered, and the sun only flickers for a second at midday before fading away again. Blight has snuck down upon us, a blight on everything true or bright. We have no grace left. There is no one named God here anymore.

"Life is impossible in a place like this. There's no point in remaining here now. A warm place... a warm person... these things never came. These hopes were never realized. Faith was never justified. Nothing will ever thaw this cold. What was the point of even wishing for warmth? I don't want to wish for that ever again.

"Snow, please. I don't care if it's light at first. No matter how long it takes, just cover everything. Not with an ordinary snow, but a new kind, a flood. Make everything so cold that no one can even feel the cold anymore, no one can know the hollowness that makes cold hurt. Extinguish every fire, every flame, every spark of change. Bury everything alive. Have no mercy, because the only real mercy is just this simple- It has to snow. The Earth is crying for snow. Because I'm alone. It's not like I want to be. I tried to find someone else. I remember trying, but- Let's all softly fall asleep. Each snowflake, after all, can be different, but they'll all pile together the same. Snow down such a snow that it will never leave, ever. Snow down numbness, so even life, every single awkward, hurtful part is stripped down to eternity, so then- then mother can bring hot chocolate and light a fire and we'll all have a good reason to stay inside- Why keep fighting when there's nothing to fight for? Is anyone even listening? Will anyone understand?"

"I've just been trying so hard."

Yuki woke up in an unfamiliar place, but wasn't frightened. He had gone to bed late the last night, so he was kind of tired, but he wasn't in the Souma house, so that woke him up. His new room was small, but he didn't care. He didn't have a roommate. He wasn't sure what to feel about that.

Breakfast would be soon. Breakfast actually "would be" two minutes ago. Maybe he wasn't completely awake yet.

Would he meet someone who'd be his friend? Would anyone like him? Would they think kindly of him? They wouldn't recognize him from the dance, would they? He couldn't even remember what they'd done after the dance, just remembered himself dancing and leaving. He hoped they wouldn't recognize him.

He got dressed in his new, all-black uniform and walked out. He got lost a few times, bumped into a few things, but finally made it to the cafeteria by tracking a good deal of noise to its origin. He wasn't used to such loud places... it woke him up a little more. He walked in, and the noise stopped.

Yuki had been just going to go in and get food, but he had to stop once in the doorway, caught by the hundreds of eyes all upon him. started. Yuki forced himself not to wince, walked over to the lunch ladies, and got his breakfast. It looked disgusting, American-style pancakes and sausage both drenched in a honey-colored syrup. More frightening, though, were all the stares that bore into him as he turned to look for a seat, undefinable stares but unsettling ones. The smell of the syrup and the feel of the eyes and all those people made Yuki, something inside him disappointed resentful quiet turn him around and leave to have his breakfast somewhere else, by himself.

Souma Yuki was the new transfer student, the one everyone at Mugen Gakuen knew. He was the smartest one in all his classes and probably the smartest boy in the whole school, even above the juniors and seniors. Well, no one had ever seen him get anything besides hundreds on tests, or not know the answer to a question- and no one had ever seen him even study. That wasn't all, though. He was also the best at sports, the amazing player in his gym class who did all his tasks effortlessly, known to be courted by all the sports teams but never willing to try out being on any of them. He was beloved by teachers, known to come from an old, powerful family, was unfailingly polite, and never showed very much emotion. For these things, his male classmates dubbed him Mugen Gakuen's Snow Prince. For a prince, though, Souma Yuki had surprisingly little company. He ate lunch alone, walked the halls alone, and had no one whom with he was particularly friends. No one talked to him, for whatever reason, except to remark at his skill at something, or out of some trivial necessity. He was the most hallowed and most isolated student in the entire school, all within a month of coming to Mugen.

February came. Another striking trait of the Snow Prince's was his beauty, which was almost feminine. The boys at Mugen were not allowed to see girls the entire year and were very carefully monitored. The Snow Prince became than just a distant idol for some of the third-years, but a prize to win as well. Yuki couldn't have pinpointed when it all started, but the words probably came first. The rich sempai were used to getting what he wanted, and he found himself bombarded by proposals from boys he didn't even know. It didn't take long after that for the bigger boys to start cornering him, first just "accidental" collisions in the ends of hallways and brushes on his arms and shoulders, then every once in a while, anonymous hands on his hair, then stomach, legs- pinches, slaps, made poignant by the blind, hurtfully intense adoration constantly leveled at him at the same time.

Yuki became expert at avoiding his sempai by taking paths to classes and places where no one else was, or where teachers were watching. He felt like he'd been robbed of being a boy at times like those. When he did everything else so effortlessly, and he heard once again the others' constant mantras of praise, he felt inhuman as well. Sometimes he was so, so lonesome he wished he were dead, words he'd stolen from an American book he'd read a long time ago and couldn't remember. No one wanted to see anything of him besides the rat, the beautiful face and sharp mind. No one wanted to know anything for than that. He hated himself more than them, though, for being unable to fit in or be honestly liked, for being unable to reach out to people, for being unable to seek out what he wanted. And if they weren't going to be his friends, couldn't everyone just leave him alone?

He kept on going, though. He wouldn't give Akito the satisfaction of giving up. He couldn't leave this place no matter how much he wanted to, because that would be giving Akito victory. He didn't deserve happiness, anyway, he was the rat, the trickster. But, being the rat, there were certain things he had, no matter what happened.

Souma Yuki got his revenge in far more hurtful and lasting ways, revenge on everyone he saw or got near. He started studying, and it turned the easy intelligence he'd never particularly cared for into a weapon. It got him into higher and higher classes, finally the top classes for seniors, and in doing so he humiliated all the other students, making them feel stupid and worthless in comparison to someone like him. Those soft words of his, genuinely kind, could have been knives, striking straight at weaknesses in all the other boys' minds. He hated everything, but-

He wasn't really that unhappy. Things weren't any worse than they'd been at home, were much better if he really thought about it. He had his comforts. He'd secretly started keeping a garden in the greenhouse, azaleas and hydrangeas that in time got so bright and brilliant and triumphant they made him feel something new. He had books, some sort of new discoveries for him, old prose and poetry collections he took out from the library and started to read obsessively, books that changed him, let him escape, and sometimes, gave him pride in being who he was.

There was pleasure, after all, in just being able to exist, in feeling the sun and the wind and being allowed to look up at the sky. There was pleasure in having a body, in walking, in running, in moving, in fighting, imaginary fights he went through in the kendo dojo when no one was there, the pleasure of tradition. He was happy with being able to be around lots of people, even if they didn't know him, and he was happy he got to learn and be educated. Sometimes he felt like he'd explode from the sheer beauty of life here, of the surprising pleasure he got from basketball and sports when he wasn't thinking about what reactions his skills caused in everyone else. He might explode, sometimes, from his dreams, of becoming normal, of becoming liked, of having friends, of getting to know people, things he'd been sure would happen once he got to this place, but hadn't. He wanted to die from the beauty of the sakura trees, sakura that sprouted in March in anticipation of the end of the snow, wanted to die from the beauty of that time he was alone and just rolled around in piles of sakura and felt like a part of something besides himself. But-

It was a cold Wednesday in May. It had been warm the past few days, but a front had swept in from the sea, so it was cold again. Yuki stayed inside because of that, his asthma having been acting up lately. He wouldn't go back to the main house to see Hatori for it, though. No one was allowed to know. Yuki knew it was stupid, but he felt good keeping a secret.

It was lunchtime, but Yuki had already gotten food from the vending machines. It was Saturday, after all, so he had no reason to go into the cafeteria- because even though he could get real food there, it was easier to avoid the cafeteria- even though it hurt him a little to be alone, so. The only trouble was, he was dirty, and could feel it. He hadn't showered for ages, so he should, now. With a sigh, his favorite emotional denotation, he put down the book, some book he felt such an affinity to but whose name he could never remember.Catcher in the Rye? Remembrance of Things Past? He should write some haiku, sometime, he thought, getting his robe and striding down the hallway, but he wasn't sure. Something about the idea annoyed him as much as it caught his interest.

He didn't shower much, because it made him feel vulnerable, but he had to at least a few times a week or he'd be unable to stand living with himself. Contrary to what most of the boys probably thought, Yuki smelled bad quick. He walked into the communal shower room, and found it empty. Lunchtime was a great time, no one was ever there.

Hot water was such an incredible feeling. He felt like the torrent of water pouring upon him was instead a conflagration, branding every inch of his skin. He sighed, a different kind of sigh, sighing at the almost sensual pleasure the feeling gave him, the relief it brought his overly tight, way too wound-up muscles. He leaned back, drank a little water, getting the bad taste of miscellaneous junk food out of his mouth- but then he started coughing- but that let up a little soon enough. His asthma fits lasted a while, but they weren't important.

The doors of the showers opened, squeaking a little as they parted to admit someone. Yuki didn't particularly care, leaning against the wall, kind of tired from the impact of his sort-of attack, the wracking that possessed his body. Yuki looked up when the water switched off, felt the heat given him turn to pure ice. A senior had leaned in and turned off the water, a boy he recognized as being on the student council, and the boy's friends were walking in, grinning the same grins. Their faces turned to leers when they saw Yuki. Unlike him, they were all fully dressed, some in their uniforms, others in sweaters and jeans. There were no horns or pointy tails, just the same things everyone else wore. There were maybe eight or nine of them. The tallest one was the student body president, the only one whose name Yuki could remember, the richest boy in the school, Horaki something. Yuki didn't really care. He didn't really worry about that.

Yuki's mouth opened, and he found his voice, managed to keep himself from shivering too much. "Shouldn't you take your clothes off first?" he said coolly, and reached for his towel to cover himself. It wasn't there, of course. Yuki's right hand spasmed.

"We're not here to take a fucking shower," one of the uglier boys said, taking a step closer. "Bitch," he said, and tried to push Yuki. Yuki dodged his hand, stepping further back. The rat let out a whine.

"It's only your own fault, really," the president said, stepping forward and taking charge. Yuki tried not to breathe hard. Did they-

"Whore," the boy spat, and he and all his friends started forward.

Yuki wasn't afraid. He landed his foot in the vice president's face and his fist in the president's. At first, he was confident, the idea of being forced ludicrous. It felt good, fighting for real, loved the feeling of knocking the bigger boys down, of being untouchable. Then one of the boys got a solid hit in on him, and it wasn't so amusing.

There were nine of them, and they were all bigger. He slipped on the wet mat, and they were all on him at once. He bit one, landed his feet and got another, then they had his feet and his wrists and were holding him down. Yuki couldn't- he writhed, panicked now, trying to push them off him, but he couldn't, because the president had kissed him. Yuki bit him and spit at him, and President cursed, pulling back. Someone laughed, and Yuki's vision blurred. Yuki couldn't push free, because there was a tongue pushing down Yuki's throat, so he gagged, so his asthma kicked in again. Suddenly, there was a hot coal in his lungs, and he was gasping desperately for air, but there wasn't any, there wasn't enough. There was so much weight pressing down on him. They just couldn't do this-

Hands, hands on his bare skin this time, on his face and neck, down his nipples, slapping and pinching them, on his stomach, up his legs. Yuki slammed his head into the president's mouth, trying to wrench himself up again, and didn't have the breath to yell. He was being violated, insects crawling up his body, gnawing, biting, defiling him. Inhuman faces above him, monster grins and leers, boys he'd seen everyday for months reaching to undo their pants and make him- make him- Yuki felt like he was going to throw up, and wished he could turn into the rat, but for the one time he wanted to, he couldn't. It hurt so much, he could never have imagined anything could be, this much- they were going to- put themselves inside him- wanted to rip him apart- the leeches were sucking, eating away at him, eating him alive- he couldn't breathe- a boy was spreading Yuki's legs and was going to-

Then there was the invincible rat, back to help him, but not its body, its spirit. Yuki couldn't breathe, but his body finally could, the body that just had to get cornered at the one time it couldn't support itself, much less defend itself, except it could, suddenly. It wasn't hard with a few select twists to wrench himself free at last, driving through the weak points in their grips, and the roundhouse kick that flattened the president's face made the other boys falter a second. Yuki used it to plow into them, vicious and desperate, thus deadly. He came to himself again, that was the words he thought, I'm back, and he punched a pretty one so hard he cracked the wall he was sent flying into. He shivered as his slender, pale arms blocked strike after strike, as his slippery feet spun hook kicks into guts, and as everything, every hurtful movement he made blurred into speed, the words "escape velocity," 2GM/r. Somewhere, there was blood, but it didn't merit attention.

Then the door had opened, and teachers were running in, men and women staring, shocked. They found a group of seniors scattered across the floor in various positions of pain, some unconscious, some groaning, all hurting. They were all in sweaters and jumpers, and the shower's water had gotten them soaked. The shower was running again, the hiss as steam poured out filling the whole room. Souma Yuki, still completely naked, was bent under the stream of hot water, heat thundering down over his body. The shower, half-broken, was spewing out water harder than ever, and the slippery linoleum adorning the floor had at least a few inches of water sloshing across it. The softest sound but the easiest one to hear, Yuki was gasping- crying or laughing, none of the teachers could tell which.

The boys were being pushed away, dragged downstairs to who knew where. Yuki slumped down further, and he was laughing. Eyes on him again, his math and science and Japanese teachers, all so horrified and confused. Yuki stared up at them, laughing, and shrugged. One of the men, Tsukioka-sensei, had the presence of mind to hand him a towel. Yuki wrapped it around himself, panting and shivering. Tsukioka was his history teacher, and he was Tsukioka's favorite student.

"Souma-kun..." one of the teachers finally gasped, her horror broken with words. "What happened?"

"What?" Yuki asked softly. "I'm fine, aren't I?" He pushed himself to his feet.

"Souma-kun?" Tsukioka asked, face almost comical.

Yuki pushed them aside and walked into the hall. In a few staggering steps, he'd made it home and closed the door behind him.

"I am only a small part of this world."

It was one in the morning, and tomorrow had become today or something, or so some poem he'd read said, he'd heard something like that. It was rare for him to stay up this late, he was usually more responsible than that, but he hadn't wanted to go to sleep yesterday, and once midnight had passed...

And it wasn't like there was a moon or stars or either in this sky. It wasn't even snow that blocked them from view. No, it was rain, louder and more common, but strange in this unusually cold winter. It was dark outside, a very dark blue, so much so that the deluge was just a distortion before darker clouds, but that didn't make each drop's impact any less abrasive to him, the percussive drone they formed as smothering a pillow as any one he could have folded around himself, the misty feeling that pervaded through to his room an appropriate companion. For so long he'd thought that it would thunder and roar outside, but everything had just stayed the same. He was actually very tired, immeasurably weary, not in that constant placid way he'd always felt, but a tiredness that seemed to impregnate every cell of him, and he knew he was lucky there wasn't anything he had to do. He listened to the rain and didn't think, and it was maybe just resignation, but it felt like a gift to him now, completely by himself. One is all, and all is one, some anime had told him when he'd been a child. One is all, so all is one.

I showed them. Tomorrow, I'll show everyone.

"I'm so lucky. I have so many different futures. There are so many paths leading to somewhere else! I have so many different ways to break free!"

What becomes of snow?

Snow becomes spring.

"Sometimes it takes less courage to die bravely for a cause than to live humbly for one."