Disclaimer: I don't own the characters. Konomi Takeshi does. I'm merely playing with them for the moment.
A/N: Just a little something that has been in my mind for a long while now, ever since I walked to the uni on a very beautiful morning. (Yes, I am actually sometimes up and about before 9 AM.)
Shades of Snow
Being around Akutsu was, Dan sometimes thought, quite similar to the experience of walking down a street on a cold midwinter morning somewhere far in the north.
There was the sky, arching over in a soft palette of powdery blue sliding into a hint of rose and lavender, shades that might have been considered gentle had they not also been so very cold, the deepest tones of blue right over his head reflecting the shadows cast on the whiteness of the snow. The shadows on the snow were never gray; they were soft and blue and sometimes almost purple, revealing bulges and contours where the eye might have otherwise only seen a level blanket of icy flakes.
Dan could imagine himself walking down the street, eyes dancing over the trees rising on each side of him, their branches brought down low by the weight of snow, looking like any moment now they might either break under the weight or spring up violently, scattering the snow everywhere. At the slightest touch of wind there were crystals in the air, swirls and clouds of glittering wind as light danced on the flakes shaken free from the trees, twirling around before finally landing on the ground or on him, clinging to his eyelashes and the thin white coating forming at the very ends of a lock of hair hanging over his face.
The air was crisp, cold and clean, every breath he drew reminding him of the sharp reality, the cold burning if he drew too deep a breath, pinching at his cheeks and making his back ache as he found himself tensing against the cold. Yet he couldn't quite help but admire the purity of it, the ease with which it carried sound, the clear sky overhead without a hint of clouds to cover the soft mix of colours.
It was a strange world, one where one could never quite forget you shouldn't trust a stranger, but really that didn't matter much anyway because there were no strangers in it. In this world of snow and ice, Dan was alone in walking down the street with nobody meeting him on the way. If anyone ever walked by, their gaze was locked straight forward, hunched form wrapped in clothes to keep the warmth inside, perhaps a single glance cast aside to note him, if even that. It was a lonely world, lonely and distrusting, with curtains and blinds drawn over the windows even as he knew with utmost certainty there was warmth hiding within.
He could see it all before him, could see the snow and the sky and the trees in their tension, the empty streets and the ice clinging around the thinnest branches, yet he also couldn't help but see the simple beauty of it, the strange manners in which something so harsh and cold could simultaneously seem so incredibly gentle.
Akutsu gave him an odd glance and asked why he was smiling so stupidly. Dan said it was nothing, still smiling.
Come to think of it, he'd better buy a scarf.