"Speaking"

"Thoughts"

Singing

There was a small group of children playing with tops near his house. He just wanted to play with them, but when he approached them they were frightened and ran away. Tear tried to force their way down his cheeks and he sniffed as he turned away to leave—before Ao found him outside and yelled at him again—when a high-pitched voice drew him back, "I'll play with you." He jerks back around and standing a few feet away is a girl only a little bit bigger than he is—with big, fluffy, white hair and dark red eye—holding a plain wooden top that looked rough compared to the tops the others had left on the ground. The girl noticed his scrutiny and flushed slightly, bringing a hand up to rub the back of her head, "It's still not quite done, but I'm pretty sure it will still spin," she explained sheepishly. He franticly waved his hands in front of him, "N-no, i-its ok. I-I d-don't mind," he stuttered softly—hoping not to scare off the only person other than Ao that would talk to him. She smiled back at him, closing her eyes as she did so, before picking one of the abandoned tops and and tossing it to him. He fumbled with the top a little bit—juggling it from one hand to the other—before closing his hands around the unfamiliar toy. He looked a bit uncertainly from the top to the girl and back again before clumsily trying to wind the sting around the top to make it spin. The girl giggled softly, the sound reminding him of the Ao's bells, and she shook her head at him, "No silly, you have to wrap it like this," she demonstrated easily on her own unfinished toy. "A-ah," he replied as he struggled to copy the girl's actions with the top. Seeing his problem, the girl closed the distance between them and reached out to grasp his hands in her own. "Here," she said kindly, "You have to make sure the string doesn't overlap itself." The girl moved both their hands, slowly winding the string around the top. "She's cold," he thought as she finished showing him how to wind the top. "Thanks," he murmured quietly as she let go of his hands and pulled her own top back out of her pocket. "Ah," she looked up in surprise—almost like she had never been thanked before, ". . . no problem . . ." She smiled at him again, but it was an off kind of smile this time. He didn't like this smile. "Come on, lets play," she told him—readying her top to spin it. He startled slightly before nodding and copying her position. "On three, ok," she asked/told him and he nodded again, "Ok: one, two, three!" The two of them pulled and the tops stared spinning but there was a clear difference. The girl pulled her string with well practiced motions indicating that she had clearly done this many times before, even though her top wobbled as it spun unsteadily. He had pulled the string with a jerk, causing an off start even as his borrowed top steadied itself out as the top spun slower than it should. He watched the tops spin for a while, not believing that he had actually got the top to spin. "Opps," she commented as she watched her top wobble more, "I guess it is not really ready to spin right." They stayed silent as the tops slowed further and finally stopped. Suddenly, her head jerked to the side as she straitened and half turned to her right. "Ah, it's getting late. I better get home before someone comes looking for me," she offered him a gentle smile as she collected her top from the ground. "You should probably be getting home too, shouldn't you?" He stiffened, "Oh no, I forgot about Ao." He nodded franticly and turned to leave before hesitating, "C-can I pl-play with you a-again," he asked. She blinked at him a couple of times before smiling bindingly at him, "of course you can, silly, we're friends now." He blushed underneath his mask and shuffled in place a few times before asking his second question, "W-what's your n-name?" She looked at him, her head cocked to one side as she came to some kind of decision, and she smiled softly at him as she replied, "I'm Yuki." He nodded, and ran back to Ao's house to try and not get in trouble for leaving. "I finally found a friend, I'm so happy. Thank you Yuki." The girl watched him as he ran until he was out of sight with a sad smile on her lips and a resigned look in her eyes,

"Oh, Shin-ah. . ."