CHAPTER TWELVE: DAY EIGHTEEN
--Snowmen--:Denzel and Marlene are smart.
A/N: I like Denzel and Marlene. So I decided to write another chapter featuring mostly them. This is not one of my more brilliant works. Inspiration has left me because school has already eaten away at it. Yes, school is eating me, so I can only afford to write a little interlude like this. Sorry for the wait, guys. Thanks for bearing with me. And yes, I will be continuing this fic all the way to new years.
"You're making her head too small!"
"What would you know, you're not even tall enough to see her head."
"I can too and it's too small. And her feet are crooked."
"Fix them, then. You're closer. And his head is not too small and stop bothering me."
"Denzel…" Marlene huffed, contemplated throwing a snowball at his head, thought better of it, and crouched down to the snowman's feet to pack in a little more snow. It was hard work on snowshoes. She wound her multi-colored scarf that Elena—yes, Elena—had knitted for her out of affection and boredom more tightly around her neck.
Denzel had his eyes squinted to contemplate the head.
"How should we do her hair? It'll be kinda hard…"
Marlene stuck her tongue out at him. "What do I know? I'm not tall enough to see her head."
Denzel frowned at her. "Work on the other one, then."
Marlene sighed and ignored him, taking her time to correct the feet. Finally made them just the right length, and clomped over to work on the other snowman. She took two painted coals to squish them into the snow to make the eyes. There. That was perfect.
On the other side, Denzel had decided to use black yarn to make the hair. Marlene's eyes widened.
"Denzel, why're you giving her a beard? She doesn't have a beard."
"It's not a beard, that's the back of her head!"
"No, it's not. That's her face." Marlene rolled her eyes before hurrying over to help before everyone got home. Boys. They couldn't do anything right.
"Are they coming yet?"
Denzel obligingly peeked his head around the corner of the shed. "I can't tell… there they are!"
The two children giggled, their previous argument forgotten, and hurried around to the safety of the building so that the adults couldn't see them, peeking their head around the corner so they could spy on their reaction.
"D'you think they can tell who it is?" Denzel asked, critically eyeing their handiwork as the adults of Seventh Heaven approached, back from working on the helicopter. Marlene drew her eyebrows together and didn't answer.
"Hey, what is that?"
The other ones followed Elena's finger to two pillars of snow in the front of Seventh Heaven. Tifa rubbed her eyes. "I think they're… snowmen…"
As they approached, they could clearly make out two snow people: the first, what appeared to be a girl with long black hair looking surprised. The second, another person with blond straw hair and blue eyes, holding out a box of some sort. Tseng stomped closer, inspecting the second snow person as he rubbed his chin.
"Is that Elena? I think it's Elena…"
Reno suddenly guffawed. "It's Cloud!" He pointed at something. "See, that's the sword on his back. A sword made of sticks… interesting, yo." He was laughing so hard by now he had tears in his eyes, and was doubled over. Elena was studying the first person. "I think this is Tifa… what's Cloud holding out to her?"
"Chocolates? Yea, they're chocolates… it says so." Rude pointed at an inscription written on the box that read, "CHOCOLATES."
"I think this is some sorta hint, yo." Reno said snidely, clapping Tifa on the back.
Tifa felt her cheeks warm and dared not look at Cloud, who was standing quietly by her side.
Cloud raised his eyebrow, the corner of his eye catching two little giggling figures disappearing behind the shed. How did they know about the chocolates? So much for the surprise.