Day 9: Hanging Out With Friends


Gilbert sneezed, wiping at his nose with a gloved hand. "I wanna go inside!" he whined. "It's way too cold out here!" He hugged himself and scuffed a the snow blanketing the playground.

"Awww, but Gil! We're gonna have a snowball fight!" Madeline was sitting in a snowbank, wearing a coat far too thin to be considered winter attire. She was carefully making snowballs with her small mittened hands, forming them into delicate balls. Beside her, Ivan sat too, also making snowballs, though his were bigger and denser.

"Da! A fun snowball fight with our friends. My team will win. We will crush you!" Ivan grinned at Gilbert, who shivered and looked away, frowning.

"I don't care. It's cold, and snowballs are cold, and I wanna go inside!"

Francis sighed, shoving his hands into his coat pockets. "We can't go inside anyway, Gilbert. Recess isn't over yet." Francis had resigned himself to the imminent snowball fight, though he was just as ready to go inside as Gilbert was. He watched his friends amass their arsenal, shifting from side to side. "Are you done yet? How many snowballs do we need?"

"A lot," Madeline replied without glancing up, her eyes trained on the ball in her hands. "Like, a lot a lot. Tons."

Their friend Pahki, a girl with long, dark hair, shook her head. "Why are you always so happy in the snow? The snow's cold and boring! Can't we find something better to do? We could climb the jungle gym!" She turned to Gilbert. "Gilbert, come on! Let's go do something else. Leave them to their snow. Come on, pleeeease?"

Madeline looked up then, watching them. Gilbert wasn't going to leave, was he? Sure, she would still have Ivan, Francis, and Carlos, but Gilbert was her best friend (and she liked Pahki, too). Her hands stilled on the snowball she was making, and she bit her lip, worrying.

Gilbert shook his head with a sigh. "No," he said resignedly. "We promised we'd play, so we have to stay. Ya can't break promises, Pahki." He looked back at Madeline, who was now beaming at him, and frowned. "Just hurry up and make your dumb snowballs, okay?" He shivered again.

Beside them, Carlos was juggling a hard, compact snowball back and forth between his gloved hands. "Don't worry, you guys. We'll go in soon." He grinned at Pahki, who huffed and crossed her arms.

"I think we have enough now!" Ivan said happily, surveying his and Madeline's piles. "So it's time to pick teams! Who wants to be on Madeline's team?" He looked around at everyone with a big grin, expecting everyone to join his team.

"I will!" Carlos and Gilbert called at the same time, turning to glare at each other.

"I wanna be on Maddie's team!" said Carlos, clenching his fist tightly around the snowball.

Gilbert shook his head. "No, I wanna be with her! The knight always protects the princess." He smirked at the darker-skinned boy. He would win. He was always on Madeline's team for whatever they were doing!

"You can both be on my team!" Madeline interrupted. "Me and Gilbert and Carlos against you guys! Francis and Pahki, go to the other side of the snow bank!" She grinned widely, standing and pulling her teammates over to her pile. "You gotta dodge their snowballs! Ivan made his too hard. And don't hit anyone in the face! It's mean. Okay?"

Gilbert nodded, picking up a snowball and turning to face the other team, who were already in place. "So…when do we start?" he asked, frowning.

A ball of ice hit him in the shoulder then, he let out a yelp of pain, glaring at Ivan. "Hey! No fair! Nobody said 'Go!'"

"Go? Okay!" Grinning, Ivan threw another snowball at him, which he thankfully dodged this time. Laughing, Madeline handed Carlos a snowball and picked one up for herself, aiming at Ivan and hitting him directly in the chest.

She loved snow. She loved snowball fights. She loved her friends, from Francis all the way up to Gilbert.


Yay! More characters are introduced! :D Pahki is Fem!India, and she's friends with Gil because India and Prussia are apparently friends in canon. Wow! Carlos is Cuba, who's friends with Maddie because he and Canada are friends in canon. Francis is friends with both Gil and Maddie for obvious reasons, and Ivan is friends with everyone (or at least, he thinks he is). I don't know how often they'll be showing up after this, but I'm sure they'll appear again later.

I'm going to make this AN a little longer than usual today and discuss body type headcanons! :D Ivan here is a real chubby kid (he likes sweets a lot). Francis is short and kind of on the scrawny side. Maddie has some baby fat, making her look adorable and a little chubby. Pahki is of medium height and very slender. And Gil is all arms and legs. :D

That's it for today! Feel free to leave a review! Constructive criticism is welcomed and requested, as I am doing this to try and improve my writing. Thanks for reading! :D