First Snowfall

"It's getting really cold." Those words escaped my mouth alongside visible breath.

The low temperature was getting to me and I rubbed my arms in a futile attempt to warm myself with just friction alone. This shouldn't have been too strange with it being December and all, but here is the punchline: We were inside our new apartment.

"Mhhhm." Adachi was making a strange noise that was stuck halfway between acknowledgement and exhaustion. Her face was quite sweaty from exertion, so she most likely didn't share my frigidness. The reason for her red face and hunched back was dropped to the floor with little care and perhaps some spite. "This… huff… is the last one." She used her long sleeve to wipe sweat from her forehead, seemed to realize how unrefined that action was and immediately hid her arm behind her back, finally giving me the most adorable guilty smile.

Just as Adachi said, the last box had been carried into the new place and put down next to a mountain of its siblings. For a family they all sure looked rather unrelated, being boxes with extremely varied labels, materials and conditions. If they were humans they would probably have been a crowd of children from an orphanage and one that didn't have the money to pay for decent clothes at that.

The cold was really getting to me, because that was the least confusing comparison that went through my mind all day.

"Thanks Adachi, you really are super strong. I'm exhausted just watching you." I pushed my bangs aside and grinned when I saw her fidget around awkwardly. She was never good at taking compliments.

"I-it's nothing. The movers carried the heavy stuff for us." She mumbled under her breath and closed her hands several times to loosen them up. "You are cold, right? Let me turn on the heater!" She hurried off to find the dial for the apartment's A/C. Always keeping herself busy, that Adachi. Apparently realizing the wall controls were still not installed, she was going through a box to find the remote instead.

I caught myself staring at her twitching back far too long and shook my head a few times. The cold and fatigue were getting to me, but for just a moment I had forgotten all about it. If I was even half as active as my new roommate I would have probably never been cold again. Oh well, it wasn't worth the trouble if I could just let the heater do the work for me. With that mindset I flopped my entire body on the long black couch in the center of the living room.

Looking up from the soft folds revealed a white ceiling, completely pure and untouched by anything. It had that fresh paint shine to it and the smell that came along with that was permeating the entire apartment. It was an entirely unfamiliar scent to me. I had spent my entire life in the same house, my family's home. We had never moved, never strayed too far from that house. Sometimes in summer we would go on a trip to my grandparent's place in the countryside, but their house was much older and the walls smelled of earth and grass…

I already felt my eyes giving in to the heaviness of exhaustion. It had been a long day. From morning till noon I had been diligently wasting my time at work, doing my best to finish a work load meant for the entire day. Then I had hurried over to my home… No, to my family's house. There I coordinated with the movers and loaded everything on the truck. Adachi had already been there and helped where she could. Dad also came by to give us a hand, but returned back to work when we were finished. My mother on the other hand just watched us. What were all those muscles even good for if she didn't use them?

Mom and my little sister had waved after the truck as we drove off into the new neighborhood. It was only a short goodbye for the day, so we hadn't treated it like a big deal. Right now it hadn't really settled in yet, so I merely had the same feeling you would get when having a sleepover at a friend's place. Kinda like when I stayed at Adachi's apartment. Although now it was already empty and going to be rented to someone else, wasn't it? I wondered how Adachi felt about that. Knowing her, she would probably not give it a second thought. She always seemed to be so collected. So quick to accept how things had become. This entire thing was her idea after all.

My eyes fell shut and I could feel my mind drift into the familiar comfort of darkness…

"Shimamura?"

My eyes flew wide open and I looked into the nervous face of my now roommate.

"Haa-what?" I suppressed a yawn and raised my face up slightly.

"I can't find the remote." She said with forcibly neutral countenance.

"You're kidding." I sniffed and was reminded of my red nose.

She shook her head (which let her short ponytail dance across her shoulder). Why was she always giving me this look like a puppy that was about to get yelled at by its owner? It was seriously cute, I'm pretty sure everyone would have agreed with me there. Usually Adachi was quite cat-like with her unimpressed glares and constant loner aura, but that image quickly dissolved once one moved past her outer shell. At least I experienced her presence that way. The longer I knew her, the clearer it became to me that this was the true Adachi. Someone who would do all the heavy lifting and still feel responsible for something she had no power over.

"We could… get a portable heater from the store." She was thinking so hard about it, all because I was looking like a snow woman.

"Don't bother. We'll just call the electrician to take a look at it." I grabbed her hand before she could rush off like she usually did.

"But it's past their service time." She pointed out after looking at her phone.

"Tomorrow then." I didn't let go of her hand. Even I had no idea why I was so stubborn about it. Getting a heater or two wouldn't put a dent into our savings, so it wasn't a big deal. Yeah, that was one way to look at it. But if Adachi left now I would have felt pretty lonely in this unfamiliar, white sheened, odd smelling place. I could only hope she wouldn't pry that embarrassing motivation out of me.

Thankfully she just nodded and sat down on the couch as well. Maybe I was imagining it, but she seemed awfully close. The couch was so big that even with my full body length I didn't fall over the edge and there was still enough room for her to sit comfortably. Despite that I felt my head press against her warm leg. She was basically radiating heat. Talk about a natural portable heater.

And our hands were still connected.

"Will you get off work early tomorrow?" I asked quietly as I forced my eyes to stay open.

"I will try."

That was a surprisingly vague response from her. I had gotten too used to Adachi's straightforward decisiveness in regards to the adult side of our lives. Yup, Adachi was a real model adult. Unlike the person who was slightly disappointed by that answer.

"If you don't have any other plans you are invited to our family's party." I said with a swipe of my hand as if tracing a sparkling rainbow. My voice was not nearly as flamboyant, though. The reason was the expected silence that followed after my proposal. This was actually the second time I had invited her. The other time had been a whole month prior.

Adachi softly pulled her hand out of my grip and put it to her neck. From my awkward angle I could only see one side of her face, which she slowly turned away. Her silky black hair hanging from her pale ear was all I could see now. It was like she intentionally hid her emotions from me, because if I had just gotten a look at her it would have been possible to make an educated guess. My manual for Adachi's body language was growing ever more complete. My brain really was not working well in cold climates.

"I don't know." She pressed out.

"So you got plans? An office party?"

"No."

"Some old friends from school invited you for a reunion?" I kept needling her mercilessly.

"Nope."

"A second job I don't know about?"

"What?" Now she gave me a confused look. Our eyes met. She hastily averted her face again. "That's not it."

"…you got a secret lover you're going to spend a lovely evening with?"

"Eh?" Adachi's shoulders were raised and her neck cramped up.

What's with that suspicious reaction? I narrowed my eyes and turned my body on the side to look at the mountain of boxes. I had surprised myself with how frosty the question had sounded, but Adachi's response was making me feel even colder than before. I felt so drained. My eyes closed on their own.

Tomorrow was the 24th, Christmas Eve. Somehow our schedules had aligned in such a specific way that we had only managed to move one day before Christmas. Technically here was still the 25th after it, but everyone I knew celebrated tomorrow. It wouldn't have bothered me so much if Adachi really was attending a party with her work colleagues. I had the perfect excuse to reject the polite invitation email everyone in our office got each year, because my family was always celebrating together. And I intended to keep that tradition going, because of how convenient it was. I would never say no to a nice home-made dinner either.

Mom had most likely already assumed Adachi would come and was preparing her share of food for tomorrow. I hadn't broached the topic at all, so that was on her. It's not like Adachi was part of the family, so she didn't have any obligation to come over. She was always uncomfortable with social meetings like that, so I didn't blame her if she just didn't want to come. That was what the reasonable parts in me claimed, but I was still bothered. Something at the edge of my perception kept grating against my gears.

She could at least have given me an honest rejection.

"You… don't have someone?"

In my half-asleep brain those words made no sense at first. Like last week's news, I had already forgotten what we had talked about. Human brains didn't have a convenient rewind button, so I had to focus a lot to go through our previous exchange. When I arrived at the correct part I squinted my eyes again.

"Where would I hide someone like that from you?" I muttered in exasperation.

"Right. Right." She repeated the word several times, even sounding uncharacteristically happy.

I would never manage to figure her out even if I studied her for a hundred years, the realization struck me like a diagonal line in Bingo. Adachi was my personal mystery box that would never open up from any haphazard inputs. Unlike with most people that I didn't understand because I couldn't care less about their secrets, with Adachi I could see myself fumbling with the lock forever, just wanting for a single peek inside.

How bothersome… I had become.

I woke up with a sneeze.

My back was like a giant sore spot, so I rolled around with a loud groan. The couch was soft, but not nearly comfortable enough to compare it to a real bed. The fact that I was not an icicle was thanks to the three layers of blankets someone had piled on top of me. They all slid down my shoulder as I raised myself up with a long yawn. The room was fresh as the morning breeze. The heater was definitely not working yet.

Judging by the sparse fringes of light outside the window, it was probably early morning. If there was one thing you could count on, it was my ability to sleep through any situation. It was impressive, if I may say so myself. The time on my smartphone was disturbingly early, but I also fell asleep somewhere before ten, so that was a really long nap.

Adachi hadn't woken me up to get me to one of our new beds. I was happy for the sentiment of letting me snooze undisturbed, but with how my body creaked right now, I'd still have chosen to walk through the cold once to get to a soft mattress. Probably.

Speaking of her, just where had she gone? I assumed she would be in her bed, but through the open bedroom door I saw only empty, unmade beds. For a heartbeat I considered whether she may have left the apartment to run off somewhere, but then I noticed a weirdly deformed pile in front of me. The pile was snoring.

"Adachi?" I raised a dubious brow and leaned forward to take a closer look. The pile was made of a blanket and some randomly placed clothes on the armchair from Adachi's old place. Sticking out from one side was a foot with a cat themed slipper. I snorted. "Your sleeping posture is even worse than mine."

I had no idea how she managed to sleep like that, if she hadn't suffocated by now. The gentle snoring could have just been an echo or something. Instead of the how I was getting more curious about the why. She obviously had the energy to cover me up, so why did she choose to cocoon herself up on that small armchair?

Had she been… watching me?

Yeah right. There should have been limits even to my imagination. Then again, I had weird dreams about alien girls and stuff like that, so could there have been a novelist slumbering deep inside me? If so I would prefer not to write weird stalker stories involving my friends.

I cracked my sore neck and put my feet on the ground. A move I immediately regretted as the cold seeped into my soles and up my legs. I shivered intensely and pulled my legs up. As a kid I had often played games like 'The floor is lava', but this was the exact opposite of that. To traverse this field of ice I would need some good protection. Luckily my shoes were still placed next to the couch and ready for me to slip inside.

They were also cold, if less so then the laminated floor. I toughed it out and walked over to my Sleeping Beauty. She was not so beautiful when I pulled away the top layer of the fabric pile, as she was drooling all over herself. From what I remembered of our last sleepover together… She was usually not that dorky looking during her sleep. Maybe. I sometimes wondered if people would make different faces depending on whether they napped alone or with someone else watching them. It's one of those things you could never be sure off unless you videotaped the whole thing. Back to the stalker ideas…

I felt a bit mischievous, so I leaned my head close to her ear and whispered directly into it.

"Merry Christmas."

"Mahrray… Kurisumasu…" The modern mummy with a cute face replied in her sleep. I smiled.

The worries from yesterday had been blown away in one fell swoop, so I stretched my arms a little and wondered what I should make for breakfast. The smell of something warm and tasty would naturally awaken the slumbering princess and hopefully make up for her fervent vigil.

I rubbed my red nose again and suppressed a sneeze. Motivation drained quickly with the falling temperature of my skin and I soon pined for my trusty blankets. Even though the sun was rising slowly, somehow the kitchen seemed darker. It was getting hard to see already. My head was getting split open by some incessant pounding. My hand missed the handle of the cupboard and passed by it.

I was on the floor. Strange.

"Shimamura!" Adachi's distorted call made me turn my head upwards long enough to catch a glimpse of her worried face. "You're so hot." Her cold hand was pressed against my forehead as she pulled me up.

Personally I felt like it was exceptionally cold, but she was right that my head was going through hot waves with increasing frequency. Why hadn't I noticed it until now? My limbs were still cold, but her embrace was warming me up already. I just surrendered to that feelings and closed my eyes again.

I had drifted in and out of consciousness repeatedly for the next few hours, if that was even an accurate estimation of how much time had passed. My head was pounding and I had trouble breathing, so my dreams were equally chaotic and superficial. Whenever I opened my eyes I just saw blurry shapes move in front of me.

"Can you swallow?" Someone asked me with a distorted voice and put a cold glass to my lips. After an agonizingly long time I managed to nod lightly and opened my mouth. Whatever it was tasted horribly bitter and I nearly choked a few times. Didn't help that my caretaker's hands were shaking like twigs in a storm.

I breathed heavily for a while as the medicine started taking effect. The drum like pounding in my head receded a little and made way for a constant and numbing pressure across my temples. I was feeling so hot that the blankets on top of me should have been set ablaze by now, but they stayed suffocatingly unchanged.

"We should go see a doctor, but you look so weak." The person was sitting at the bed and leaning on it with their head. "Is the medicine working at all?"

I was drifting off too much to reply. It made me feel guilty, but it was hard to stay conscious. Eventually I was dragged back into darkness. When I was spat out again it was significantly hotter than before. This time I seriously couldn't stand it and pushed some of the blankets off. My blurry vision had become more stable again and I realized what caused this jump in warmth. Two large portable heaters had been placed inside the room and were giving off dry summer levels of heat.

My delirious mind was already questioning if this was real when someone entered the room again. This time I managed to recognize Adachi, even if I couldn't raise my head to show her I was better. She was carrying something in her arms and looked at me with unrestrained worry. I had never seen her this way, not even when we had visited her old house. Just another hidden super rare Adachi expression for my collection.

"Do you feel hungry, Shimamura?" Unlike her jittering hands, she had managed to get her voice in line and sounded halfway reassuring.

"Not… really…" My throat was horribly dry. The glass of water to my side was empty already. After noticing as much, Adachi immediately panicked again and set the bowl down on the nightstand to exchange it with the glass.

"I will get you more water!" She exclaimed as she rushed off.

My head still felt like it was split open, but at least I was stable enough to inspect the bowl next to me. The contents were so indiscernible that I questioned whether my eyes were still blurry. It turned out that this was really just what the food looked like, though. If I had to make a very liberal guess, it might have sort of resembled porridge.

"Maybe… it tastes better than… it looks." My words were for my own encouragement alone. If I wasn't hungry before, this definitely killed my appetite completely. Nonetheless I knew that Adachi had slaved away over this with all her effort. Who else could have made this after all?

My hand was shaking (mostly due to my exhaustion at least) as I brought the spoon to my mouth. Swallowing hurt a lot, but I managed. It tasted like nothing in particular. There was no seasoning, so I could only compare it to bland wet rice. It only took a few spoonfuls for me to feel close to bursting. Food was totally not good for me I decided.

My head heavily fell back into the pillow. We hadn't hung up any curtains yet, so my gaze drifted to the cloudy sky outside. It was the middle of the day already.

"I got you some carbonated water and some tap water. I didn't know which one you preferred, so, uh, here." She put down two full glasses next to the half-empty bowl. "Oh." She seemed genuinely surprised that I had eaten some of it. Such a funny expression. I almost chuckled, but that really hurt my throat, so my body refused.

"Thanks." I managed to push that much out of my throat before I coughed up a storm.

"Are you feeling a bit better?" With how haggard she looked one might have assumed she was the sick one.

"Can't say." I responded dully. The fact that my brain was this slow to comprehend anything was a good sign that I was still not better. "What about… work?"

"I called your office to tell them you're sick. Sorry, I had to use your phone." Her eyes were plenty shifty for someone who just did a business related call. If I wasn't half-delirious I definitely would have wondered how many things I didn't want people to see on my phone. Or how she knew my lock sign.

"But what about your-?" I closed my eyes when a wave of dizziness ran me over.

"I took the day off." She assured me and put a hand on my forehead to check my temperature. "Should have bought a thermometer at the store." She grit her teeth slightly after whispering to herself.

Although I was not quite there, I still could feel a sense of guilt envelope me. Taking a day off on Christmas wasn't easy in our line of work and Adachi had her position to consider. That's why we hadn't even been sure if she would be able to leave early today. Yet here she was sticking around to nurse me back to health. It seemed almost comical how much I had worried about Christmas with the family now that I was unable to go home.

It struck me just then. I was sick and far away from home. Whenever I fell sick before I would stay in my room and mom would have checked up on me, making fun of me all the way, but always caring for me unquestioningly. She would call the school for me to inform them that I would not be coming that day. Eventually my sister would come home and check on me with an awkwardly worried look and stroke my head when she thought I was asleep. Dad would come home with some cough drops and pickled plums, the old family recipe to get the sickly back on their feet.

Soon enough I would be back on my feet and eat dinner with everyone. We would all share a super nourishing meal that tasted horrible, but was nutritious. Even though only I was sick, they would all eat it without complaint. Those would come the next day when I was back to full strength.

None of that was happening here. These unfamiliar walls, these new covers and the strange view outside the window – they were all wrong. Why was I here? I just wanted to go home.

"I'm sorry, Shimamura." Adachi was pushing her hands against her legs and looked at her feet. The chair she was sitting on creaked lightly. "I have never taken care of someone and and and-" She smacked her cheeks loudly with both hands to focus up. "I'm sorry that you can't go to that Christmas party."

"Why?"

"Huh? Because… I thought you were looking forward to it?" She stared at me in confusion. She really had no clue what I was thinking.

"Not… that." I took a few sharp breaths and my chest heaved under the blanket. I got a little angry and even sadder. Feverish thoughts were just amplified by a feverish mind.

"You need to stay hydrated." She brought the full glass to my face and I begrudgingly indulged her kindness. The sooner I got better, the earlier these turbulent emotions would calm down. That's what I wagered on for now.

No, I seriously couldn't stand waiting.

"Adachi, why-"

BZZT BZZZT BZZZT!

Adachi nearly fell off her chair in surprise, but barely caught herself on the backrest. She pulled the phone out of her pocket and held her breath for way too long. Eventually she let it down and exhaled. On closer inspection: that was my phone.

"It's someone from your office I think. Taro?" Apparently such a bland name defied her common sense, but I didn't mind that and snatched the phone from her hand.

My unfocused eyes glazed over several times as I tried to decipher the message. All I could gather was that he needed some important documents and he needed them today. Probably some deadline I missed. It took some colossal effort for me to remember what the project he mentioned was about, but I did figure out that the files were in my bag. The bag that was carelessly thrown over some chair in the living room. We didn't have a scanner set-up yet, so there was no way for me to send them to him now. My fingers slipped off the keypad and Adachi caught the phone reflexively.

"Could you send him a reply for me? I can't do it today." I resigned myself to reality, even if future me would suffer the consequences.

"He already sent three more messages." Adachi said with furrowed brows and a glare. "He isn't taking no for answer."

The project. What project so close to the end of the year was this again? It was one of the busiest times of the year, so it was probably important. Again I was reminded that this was all on me for ignoring my deadlines and taking the files home with me.

"Ugh." I downed the second glass of water and then pushed my legs over the corner of the bed.

"Shimamura?!" Adachi's eyes were wide as platters.

"Sorry, gotta make a short trip." My all-recovered act was apparently not very convincing. Adachi determinedly pushed me back into bed.

"Stop that, you can't get up yet."

"I'll be back soon and then I'll rest forever, promise." My legs finally obeyed me again for another attempt.

"Stop it!" This time Adachi got loud. I tensed up involuntarily at that uncharacteristic outburst. "I am not good at taking care of people, but I will do whatever I can. We are... together now, so please rely on me." Rather than angry, her eyes were pleading with me.

"…alright, whatever." I rubbed my hot face and pointed at my bag. Adachi got it for me and I pulled out the relevant folders. Then I carefully instructed her how to get to my office.

"I will be back quickly, so please rest as much as you can. Here's more water!" She put down five glasses of water next to me. She never did things halfway, huh?

I breathed slowly and deliberately to give her peace of mind before she closed the bedroom door. Afterwards I could faintly hear the sound of the main entrance being shut and then I was returned to all-encompassing silence.

Sleep was now all I had left.

No matter how much I slept, there was nothing to see. It was like I had forgotten how to dream. Sinking through starless space was no fun at all. The comfort of zero gravity would not set in without something to orient on. I could sense the bed below my shoulders, so the illusion didn't work. Was I really asleep? It merely felt like my eyes were closed.

So I opened them to find out. It was still dark, although not nearly as much as before. The room was covered in shadows, as the weather outside got worse. It was probably about to rain. Just my luck. Good thing I wasn't out there today.

Laying on my side I listened to the ever so quiet hum of the heater close-by. I felt really stupid now. What was I getting so worked up for anyway? The one who had to worry about the weather was Adachi who was moving around for my sake. Just like she carried those stupid heaters here this morning and bought the ingredients for the porridge she made.

We had only lived here for one day and I already imposed on her this much. I got myself sick because I fell asleep on the couch like an idiot and now Adachi carried the burden. Yet all I could think about in my weary mind was how much I wanted to be home instead. I didn't think myself a truly callous person, but the way I treated Adachi was pathetic. Even if I was not thinking straight due to the fever, I…

No, I was already acting this way before that. As my head cleared up I felt a rush of honesty in my maze like mind. The desire to go home and be spoiled like a child was definitely part of it, but that didn't explain why I had treated Adachi so badly. She was so supportive and kind and…

My chest hurt. It was way worse than any cough fit or the headaches. It was so bad that I thought maybe I suffered from cardiac arrest. That would have been the greatest punchline. Hougetsu Shimamura died in her bed from a heart attack, all alone. If that was written in my obituary I just hoped that nobody I knew would read it. Especially not Hino and Nagafuji. After our last talk it would have been so awkward if they had to go to my funeral.

I was doing it again. The distractions, losing the thread, getting hung up on meaningless details. I didn't need a fever to do that, it was my purest essence. Deep down I knew what I was doing, but it's hard to be honest about that kind of thing, I'm sure most people had some part of themselves they just didn't want to acknowledge either. I just had several of them.

The strain on my chest eventually dissipated again, but it was still tight. The five glasses of water seemed to reflect only guilt.

Clack.

The front door was unlocked. The hairs on my neck stood up and I immediately pretended to sleep. It was total reflex, nothing else. The reflex continued to keep me paralyzed as Adachi poked her head into the room and then quietly moved inside. She was really falling for my second-rate acted snoring?

The chair creaked as she sat down and checked the water and bowl. I hadn't consumed anything more since she left, which probably worried her. I could hear her exhale a few times and then she pulled off her scarf. I squinted my eyes and opened them just a tiny bit. Adachi's clothes were covered in white spots. I couldn't help myself and turned my head fully around.

Behind her, outside the window, I saw a gentle stream of white cover the world. It was snowing!

"Did I wake you?" She asked quietly. Her front was covered in shadows which stood in stark contrast with the white behind her. None of the lights had been turned on, so it really was just the low natural light giving her contours.

"Nah, I just woke up anyway." I mumbled almost too quietly for her to hear.

"I delivered your files. Mr. Kunigawa was very… thankful."

Kunigawa? I had no idea who that was, but Adachi's tone sounded less than sincere about that last part. I couldn't care less about work right now, though. Instead I just kept watching the rare snow covered neighborhood. It hadn't snowed all month and the last years it had always been just light snowfall in general. But this? This was a real white Christmas.

And Adachi brought some of that snow with her. I stretched out my hand and touched her arm. Cold snow was melting on my touch.

"Was it cold?" I asked like someone who still had a light fever. Definitely the fever's fault.

"A little." She replied meekly. Then she seemed to gather some courage and grabbed my hand. The snow between my fingers had already melted and Adachi's warm hand was replacing the cold instantly. "Here, I got this for you." Her hand pulled back and left something in my palm.

I stared at the small wrapped present and got stuck in a daze. There were no thoughts going through my head. My weak arm eventually dropped down of course, but Adachi caught it. She gently pushed my hand towards my chest and then got up to pull off her jacket. In the meantime I stared at the present some more. Sure, it was Christmas, but wasn't this just unfair?

"Unfair."

"Hm?"

"You're so unfair Sakura." I whispered and clutched the present to my chest. I had no desire to open it at all.

"I just saw it on my way home and it reminded me of y-you." She swallowed. "If you don't want it, I will r-return it later."

"Santa doesn't take back presents." I frowned.

Question marks were basically appearing above the poor woman's head. My behavior was not exactly sensible, I knew that. Still, she was the one in the wrong, that was what I had decided.

"Shimamura, what can I do to make it work?" She sat back down and lowered her head. I couldn't see her expression in the dark.

"What do you want to fix?"

"I- You- C-can we continue to live together?" She asked as if she had been holding it in the entire time.

"Hahaha." I chuckled weirdly and pushed the present against my slightly warm forehead.

"Please, I'm serious."

"You always are. Way too serious!" I agreed while suppressing the next wave of laughter. "And earnest and kind and easy to read and really slow on the uptake."

"Hey…" Now she pouted a little. That was my favorite expression.

"Did you think I wanted to leave you?" I gave her a short glance.

"I got you sick on the first day." She spoke with self-derision. "And I couldn't do anything to make you feel better. I said that I would support you, that we could help each other out, but look how that didn't work out." She dug her nails into her legs as her arms tensed up. "You helped me so much already, but I can't even stop my selfishness for a single day."

"So will you tell me the reason you didn't want to come to our Christmas party now?" I sounded pretty neutral, I was almost sure of it. But Adachi seemed to take it like a blunt hit. She actually physically recoiled a little.

The tension building between us was almost palpable.

"If I tell you…"

"Yeah?"

"Will you tell me too?"

"I didn't go to the Christmas party, because I got myself a nasty sickness." I replied with a smirk.

"Not that." She pushed one hand through her hair and sucked in the air. "I want to know why you agreed to live with me!"

I could not deny that I was a bit surprised. On the other hand, I was also in a weird state of mind where surprise wasn't so surprising. It was like I could see our conversation from above, like watching a puppet play. Being a spectator would have made this a lot easier on me, but alas, a puppet couldn't pull its own strings. Time to return to the stage.

"Fine, then you go first."

The snow reflected the light and directed it inside, which half-illuminated Adachi's pretty face. She was bracing herself so much that her face turned red. She was close to exploding, I could sense it. This was probably worse than my genuine fever this morning.

For a moment I felt pity for her and wanted to tell her it was fine to keep her secret. But no matter how much I wanted to spare her, my curiosity won out. The apathetic me had long since died in a ditch and been readily replaced with someone who looked exactly like her, but who was infinitely more interested in the world. Only that world had shrunken into a tiny person, a single woman.

She raised her hands and was about to slap her cheeks again, but this time I managed to lean forward and grab her wrists. My grip was not too tight, because of my weakened body, but Adachi couldn't even break that flimsy hold. Our eyes were reflecting each other in the pale light.

"Shimamura, I don't want you to leave."

"Mhm." I nodded to encourage her to go on.

"I'm not talking about the roommate thing. I mean the party." She bit her lower lip, but seemed to overcome her inner resistance. "I wanted to spend Christmas with you! Only the two of us! I thought because we were finally together I could have you to myself!" She shouted. And it really was one hell of a shout. I let go of her wrists by pure instinct.

"I see."

Her eyes were wide and she covered her mouth. Seems she had said too much without wanting to. Talk about an awkward person. Super awkward. Who could be so selfish and in such self-denial at the same time?

I looked at my twitching fingers. I had let go a bit too easily. Scratch that, I was a total coward for letting go after so little.

"Okay, my turn." I looked out the window, focusing on the snow. That had a soothing quality for sure, but it could hardly balance out my rising fever. It sure was tough being this sick. Adachi swallowed nervously. Maybe she didn't expect me to just bulldoze through that revelation so quickly. "You wanted to know why I agreed to go with you."

"Er… y-yes." She nodded frantically.

"You have the silliest concerns. You made me sick? You didn't make me feel better? You want me to yourself? Actually, you are really annoying." I let out a little bit of spite, knowing full well how much it hurt her. I was just that kind of person in the end, so she had to face that too. "It's annoying that you have so little faith in me."

"Faith?" She drew a blank. Annoying indeed.

"I chose you. You make it sound like we only got here because you mooched off me or something, like it's all about you! Well, guess what? I'm a really selfish person, so how about you give me some of that attention as well? Look who you are talking to! I'm not your Shimamura, I'm not some easy girl who just wants to be pampered and will then give you what you want!" I grabbed her shoulders and looked her directly into the eyes. My fever was so strong that I could feel my entire body heating up to the boiling point.

"A- bu- Yo- Me?" Her eyes were close to vibrating.

"Sakura, I wanted you. You are the one who keeps messing me up. So what if you got me sick with this… this dumb fever? Maybe I am losing my mind, maybe not. All I know is that I wanted you with me. You are my Adachi. Get it? It was always… the other way… around."

Strength left my arms and my head began slacking. I seriously used up all my energy for a confusing rant, as expected of a person so deeply sick. She caught me in her arms again. This overly protective and dense idiot was probably not even aware how contagious she was.

"Shima… mura…" She was looking at me with a mix of concern and wild emotion.

"I stayed with you… haaah… because you wanted to be with me… and because I wanted to be with you." My eyes were swimming, I was close to passing out. "Do you need any more reasons?"

She shook her head tenderly.

"Great. Now that… you got your present." I huffed as I pulled myself up on her arms. "Now that you got me all to yourself… on Christmas…. Just as you wanted." Our flushed faces were as close as they could be without touching. "Can you guess what I want in return?"

Her shimmering eyes were reflecting only me. I could see my disheveled face in full detail. Maybe she was reflected in my eyes the same way.

Adachi did not say a word in response. She had long since passed the point where she could keep up with her own emotions. It seemed that to the very end I was the biggest coward of all for making her move my way. If she knew how much this fever consumed me, if she tasted even a sliver of it, she may have stopped hesitating long ago. That's how incredible she was, my Adachi.

She may not have been sick yet. Perhaps this was all on me. But at this moment I decided that I would pass it on no matter what.

I moved my face forward. In the trance of the glimmering snow.

Her lips welcomed mine without hesitation and we both sank into the sweet delirium of our own making.