Winter Wonderland
In the very centre of a huge garden surrounded by various plants, trees and a rather large hedge, someone stood staring intently at the grey and cloudy sky. He was wrapped up warmly against the cold wintry weather, but the long red and black striped scarf, matching hat and thick black coat couldn't hide the growing smile as the boy watched a snowflake drift slowly down and onto his outstretched, gloved hand.
"It's snowing…," he said rather quietly, still staring at the tiny white snowflake before he cried out in utmost joy, "IT'S SNOWING!"
"Well done, Joey," someone shouted back. "We're all so proud of you for figuring that out, but if you hadn't noticed it's been snowing for the past three days now!"
Joey turned in the direction of the voice and grinned at Tristan who was building a snowman with Duke.
Since it had been snowing for a while and the wonderful white stuff had settled on the ground until it had piled up rather high, Seto Kaiba had grudgingly allowed Joey to come over and make use of his large snow covered garden in order to have a little wintry fun. Unfortunately for Seto, he hadn't expected Joey to bring most of his gaggle of friends and was therefore rather surprised when not just Joey appeared on his doorstep, but also Tristan, Duke, Yugi and Yami, although Yami looked distinctly unhappy about being out in such cold weather.
Now, the white blanket of snow on the Kaiba Mansion's back lawn was covered in the footprints of several pairs of winter boots as well as the occasional snowman.
Duke and Tristan were the ones to first start making the men of snow, which had quickly turned into a contest between the two boys until they decided their creations didn't look human enough. That's when they managed to corner Yami who was carefully treading through the cold fluff that was so new and strange to the Pharaoh since snow wasn't really seen in Egypt. The pair had finally talked Yami into helping them and the spirit had agreed, but didn't realise 'helping' meant getting covered in snow by both Tristan and Duke.
Nearly finished now, the Yami snowman had coated the Pharaoh's legs, arms, a body and even a small Millennium Puzzle with a thin layer of snow, but still had Yami's head, which was looking positively freezing and was tinged with a light shade of blue.
Yugi was gazing at his other half with a concerned look upon his face as he took a break from his energetic frolicking across the large patch of grass, until he was knocked over when he was struck on his head by a snowball.
"Hey!" he cried angrily before he made a snowball himself with the icy stuff he'd fallen on, jumped back up and chased after an already running Joey.
"Are y..y..you done y..y..yet?" Yami asked, his teeth chattering loudly and his whole body shivering.
"Nearly," was Duke's answer as both Tristan and himself dumped a large pile of snow on Yami's head and started to mould it into place, making sure to leave a small hole that the spirit could breathe through.
Being very careful in order to make the shape of the snow Yami's hair perfect, the two boys styled the fluff into the large spikes.
"Alright, we're done," Tristan said, rubbing his hands together to knock the specks of white off of his black gloves. "You can go now."
The inside of the snowman where the Millennium Puzzle was suddenly glowed brightly and then faded, signalling that the spirit had removed himself from within the snow sculpture. He reappeared again inside the Kaiba Mansion on a comfy chair next one of the large windows that overlooked the garden. He quickly grabbed the bunch of blankets that were held out to him by Seto who was already seated in a second chair with a mug of hot coffee.
"Thanks," Yami said to Seto as he huddled in the warm blankets to quell his shivering.
"Hmmm," was his answer as Seto took a sip of the warm liquid.
Yami reached in between their two chairs and wrapped his fingers around the handle of another mug full of hot chocolate that had been prepared of him. He took a big gulp of the drink, and then nearly spat it out when he found out how hot it was.
Seto smirked and asked, "Hot enough for you?"
With a nod the stuck out his burnt tongue in the direction of Seto while gasping mouthfuls of air in an attempt to cool down his mouth.
A cold gust of air suddenly entered the room as the back door, which led to the garden, was opened and Yugi rushed in.
"Are you alright?" he asked, headed over to Yami, his face contorted with worry.
"He will be if you close the door!" Seto almost snarled, shooting the shorter boy an angry scowl.
Yugi said a quick apology, ran back to close the open door, then made his way back to Yami where he wrapped his arms around the shoulders of the spirit and started asking concerned questions like, "Are you ok?", "Do you need another blanket?" and "Can I have some of your hot chocolate?"
Yami answered with an, "I'm fine," before handing the mug over to his other half.
To Seto's extreme displeasure, the back door opened again and Joey entered the warm room as well, his gloved hands held behind his back.
"Can we help you, mutt?" Seto asked teasingly, annoyed that Joey was just standing in the door way instead of coming in and closing the source of cold air.
Joey's only reply was a big grin before he asked, "Care to come out and lay in the snow, Kaiba?"
"Not really," Seto replied, raising an eyebrow curiously.
"Well, we'll have to bring the snow to you then, won't we?"
Before anyone could do anything, Tristan and Duke jumped through the door too and they all launched a barrage of white snow balls at the body of the millionaire.
Of course, Seto was furious and as he watched the three boys run of back into the garden and across the lawn, laughing their heads off, he got up, grabbed his winter jacket and gloves, and followed them out.
It wasn't long before a full scale snow war had begun between the four of them and balls of the cold, wet ice were hurtling through the air from every direction.
Yugi and Yami simply chuckled from their place in the warm mansion. Instead of taking the spare chair, Yugi was perched on Yami's lap as they watched the hilarious show through the window.
Although, everyone was still pretty damp by the end of the day as darkness descended on the garden, the boys' belief that winter could bring out the child in anyone and was defiantly one of the more fun seasons was unanimous.
Ahh! How I love winter!
M. Joey: Me too!(throws a snowball at M. Tristan)
M.Tristan: Hey! (Chases after M. Joey into the snow covered garden)
Can't you just sense the love? Well, I've gotta go catch the little scamps before they need to be defrosted. Read and review!