Word Count: 2,407

Sasha pulled open the door to her orthodontist and stepped inside, shivering. She shook the few snowflakes that hadn't instantly melted upon entering the toasty warm building out of her reddish-brown ponytail and clomped over to the reception desk.

"Stupid inconvenience powder," she whispered as she pulled a fake flower out of the vase– a pen was attached to the end– and scribbled in her name and time of arrival on the sign-in pad.

The receptionist, who had come to recognize her after coming to this particular orthodontist for the last three years, month after month, took the pen back from her. "Why don't you let down your hair? You'd stay warmer."

Sasha vigorously shook her head. "Honor," was her only reply before she walked away plopped down on one of the multiple empty seats in the waiting room. It was almost empty. Other than herself, there was just a tired looking mother watching over her two young kids in the corner with the toys.

Huh, she thought, Baldie isn't here. That's unusual.

Baldie was the nickname she gave to the kid around her age who always seemed to have orthodontic appointments at the exact same time as she. It was equal parts creepy and amusing. For some reason, they had never given each other their names, but had become good friends during their once-a-month meetings at the dental office.

A blast of wintry air hit her in the face as the door opened again, stinging her nose and cheeks. Blinking, she glanced at who walked in. "About time!"

Baldie flashed a smile at her– she remembered when it was full of snaggle teeth and gaps, just like hers had been a couple years ago– before sauntering over to Sasha and plopping his butt down next to her. "So, Princess, what're you in here for?" he asked, his regular greeting that started their friendship and every conversation.

Sasha huffed, pretending to be offended at being called Princess, when in actuality she had gotten used to it after their third, seemingly coincidental, meeting. "Never mind me, worry about yourself! Basketball shorts, white t-shirt! All the extra you've got on is a beanie over your bald-as-a-butt head!" She tugged on his hat for emphasis. "It's snowing outside! How are you not freezing?!"

He poked his tongue out of her, putting a hand up to his head to keep his beanie on. "Hey! At least I'm not wearing sandals! And I have some hair! It's just buzzed short," he answered.

Sasha snorted and tried to yank his beanie down over his eyes, but Baldie leaned back just in time. "That doesn't explain your mysterious lack of clothes."

"That sounded wrong."

"Shut up, you know what I meant."

Baldie suddenly sneezed. "It was a dare, actually. My friends are idiots. Bet me twenty bucks I couldn't go the day without actual snow clothes, and I mean, I'm not going to turn that down; I don't have much pocket money 'cuz my parents don't trust me with anything."

Sasha rolled her eyes. "I wonder why," she sarcastically said, giving him a pointed glare.

"Okay, I only lost your backpack once. Once!"

"How?"

"And I found it before you got picked up!"

"Baldie, there is literally no way to lose a backpack that big that fast! I was only in the restroom for a minute!"

"I know this isn't a library, and that you guys only see one another once a month, but I'm going to have to stop you two's voice raising before it gets to yelling. We're indoors. And there are children here, both of which can probably hear you loud and clear," the receptionist cut in.

"Sorry," Sasha and her friend whispered.

"And also–" the receptionist pointed at Sasha– "The orthodontist's ready for you."

"Gah! I'll be there in a sec!" She fished her phone out of her hoodie's kangaroo pocket and tossed it at Baldie. Though she didn't trust him with much, her phone was secondhand and pretty junky anyway. Besides, she didn't trust it around x-rays. "Don't lose it or else," she warned before darting away.

"Wouldn't dream of it, Princess."

"All right, Miss Braus, did you bring your retainers this time?" the orthodontist gently asked her after about fifteen minutes of waiting.

Sasha shoved her hand into her hoodie pocket, feeling around for her retainer case, but came up empty. She smiled sheepishly up at the doctor. "Sorry, ma'am, but I forgot them again."

The doctor sighed, exasperated, and lowered the chair Sasha was sitting in to let her out. "Reschedule your appointment at the reception desk, and for Pete's sake, remember them next time."

"Will do, ma'am!" she called back in reply as she hopped out of the dentist's chair and skittered out the door.

"Back so soon?" the receptionist asked, sounding only mildly surprised when Sasha showed up at the desk.

"Forgot my retainers," she explained, then felt a tap on her shoulder. When she turned around, Baldie was there, handing her back her phone. She smiled– and a little smugly, too, for no apparent reason– and took it gratefully back from him. "Good that you didn't lose it," she said as she took the little card with her next appointment written on it from the receptionist.

Baldie grinned back at her. "Like I said, wouldn't dream of it. Merry Christmas, Princess."

Sasha laughed and poked his cheek. "You too," she replied as she walked back out the snow. She opened it up, a flurry of snowflakes stinging her rapidly cooling cheeks, expecting it to be locked for the next half hour or so (since whenever she lent it to Baldie, it always came back locked and almost always with the receptionist, but the latter was because he had his own appointment to go to), but it wasn't. Surprised, she typed in her passcode as she walked down the yet unshoveled sidewalk, and it let her in.

That's a first, she thought, now suspicious. She scrolled through her apps– they all seemed untouched, except that the phone icon had one new notification. She looked up, just to make sure of where she was headed, dodged a pole, and opened up the app, and the first thing she saw, right under her friend Annie's name was a new contact named Baldie, with a grinning selfie of the bald boy himself in the waiting room as his picture.

"What?" she said aloud, just before she walked straight into a telephone pole from being so distracted. She looked around while rubbing her forehead, just to make sure that no one had witnessed what had just happened, then casually leaned against the pole, switching to the voicemail tab, where the notification was.

Baldie … 10:37 AM

Mobile …... 0:30

Now completely baffled, she opened it up.

"Hey, Princess!" Baldie's voice chirped. "I've been meaning to do this for a while. Uhh, I'm not sure how much time I have, so I'll keep it short. Uhhhh…" There was a brief pause as the usual pep slowly died out of his voice. "I know we usually just hang out at the dentist waiting room, but, uh, could you meet me at the mall on, like, Saturday or something? You don't have to! It's just, uh… you know what? Just meet me there, if you can, at the Christmas tree in the center. I'll wait there 'till twelve-thirty. If you can go. It's okay if you can't. Okay-this-is-getting awkward– BYE!"

What? Sasha pulled the phone away from her ear and looked at it again. She was very tempted to just play the voicemail again, but– what? She played the voicemail again, shifting her weight around on her feet so that they wouldn't get so cold. It said the exact same thing as it did before. So she played it again and again, receiving the same message every time, until she practically had the message memorized.

Mall. Saturday. Twelve-thirty.

She had to admit, this situation had the most romantic potential out of any she had ever been in, though she doubted it would end up like that. After all, she and Baldie were just friends. Still, whenever she imagined something like this happening to her when she was younger, she thought her mind would be buzzing with excitement, with questions. Instead, it just repeated those three phrases over and over again:

Mall. Saturday. Twelve-thirty.

But Baldie wasn't exactly the boy her childhood self dreamed about. He wasn't tall and charming. Heck, he was four inches shorter than she and his charm, if you could call it that, came from his dumb jokes. Still, a stranger (ish), whom she barely knew (ish), wanted to meet with her outside of their regular place. She checked her phone for the date.

And on Christmas Eve?

Child Sasha would have fainted from excitement. This really did seem like something straight out of the climax of some cliché romance novel.

Mall. Saturday. Twelve-thirty.

She pocketed her phone and continued walking home through the snow, a little extra spring in her step.

Mall. Saturday. Twelve-thirty.

"Bye, Dad!" she said as she stepped out of her dad's truck into the cold. Her father simply nodded in acknowledgement and drove off, having work to do on their house for the afternoon, leaving Sasha standing in front of the town's small mall. She checked her phone: 12:03, it read.

I'll wait there 'till twelve-thirty.

She played the voice mail again as she walked inside, even though she had it memorized at this point, just in case she missed something the first million times she listened to it. It was exactly the same as the other million times, so she nervously stuffed it into her jacket pocket and looked up at the high, translucent ceiling and the decorations hanging down from it.

The Christmas tree in the center of the mall.

Sasha rarely came to the mall in the first place– she preferred to get her clothes from thrift shops, and the trinket shops were overpriced– so she didn't really know her way around. Granted, the center of the mall was just that, the center, but she still had a bit of time to either spare or kill; it wouldn't hurt to look around a little bit. Plus, she hadn't been there since summer, for a hangout with her friends Annie and Mikasa, and was dying to try out a new little cheesecake restaurant she that she read about in the school newspaper.

She jangled a little as she walked, from a handful of coins she had brought with her (along with a small wad of cash) to spend, and it drew some stares from one or two nearby children. She poked her tongue out at them, then laughed.

She checked her phone again: 12:11. Okay, that was enough of wandering around; she had to meet Baldie now.

She wove her way through the crowds, nervous energy building up in her belly full of butterflies, feeling more and more excited for what really was no good reason. Her legs began to skip and jump as she broke into a run, grinning as she latched onto a pole and spun around. She let out a laugh as she slowed to a stop; random strangers were staring rather blatantly at her, but she honestly didn't care. Feeling much more relaxed, she rounded a corner and caught a glimpse of the enormous tree in the center of the mall.

She stopped completely just to take it all in– the metallic red, and gold globe ornaments hanging delicately on the boughs, the thin silver tinsel tangled in the branches, and of course, the star at the tippy top– before walking, almost as if on air, towards it. Jingle Bell Rock played softly in the background, atop the many murmured conversations, and when added her overall calm and wonder, gave the entire room a surreal feeling.

When she finally tore her gaze away from the top of the tree and actually looked where she was going, she recognized Baldie hunched over on one of the benches in front of the tree. She grinned again, and silently sprinted (it wasn't easy to sprint silently, but Sasha had mastered it with a couple years of practice) the rest of the way. She slowed down a few feet away and crept up behind him.

"Boo."

Baldie jumped up and turned around, looking wildly around until his eyes settled on the laughing Sasha. He cracked a smile right back at her and picked his phone up off the ground, checking to see if it was cracked.

"You're just lucky this place is carpeted," he said as he sat down at a different angle so that he could face her.

Sasha flopped down over the back of the bench. "So," she began. "What're we in for, Baldie?"

"Anything you wanna do, Princess?"

Sasha slid off the bench, got up, and sat on it, though this time she sat on the arm next to him. "Maybe some introductions? After all, we've known each other for three years and are still using nicknames. M'name's Sasha."

Baldie paused for a second. "You know, I'd say that Prince Charming is never named in any of those princess movies, but then… there's The Little Mermaid. Curse ye, Eric."

Sasha laughed and leaned on him, using his head as an armrest. "So what's your name, Baldie?"

He ducked so that she couldn't use him as her armrest anymore, scooting a good few inches away so that she couldn't do it again. "Connie," he cheerfully answered.

"Connie?"

"Connie. Sasha?"

"Sasha."

They were quiet for a minute, letting each others' names sink in.

"You know, after three years of nicknames, it feels so weird knowing your real name," Sasha finally said.

"Yeah, I know. It feels like a nickname instead of a real name."

Sasha snorted. "Baldie."

Connie poked his tongue back out at her. "Princess."

Author's Note i. Springles just doesn't get enough love. I mean, they're in the background of every fic, but the center of none. So I wrote this. Part two coming out... soon. Leave a follow or favorite if you enjoyed (or don't; I'm not your mother), and happy holidays!~