a/n: annual secular holiday fic! if you're looking for some winter cheer might i direct you to the tellofilms features season of love and i hate new year's, both of which are so good and so gay
Kumiko had no clue how long she'd sat at the top of that hill, just waiting, watching. The snow fell, as it'd been falling for hours, and the whole sky was gray, and she wondered how long it would take for the snow to cover her completely.
Morbid, sure. Maybe this was what Reina had meant, about good-girl skins and all the rest.
All Kumiko knew was love, love, that strange thing. Love was what had taken her here, up to this hill, and maybe she had been here a million years ago, maybe she had never been here at all. She scrunched up her face, tried to summon the memory, but nothing was really coming up, beyond the vaguest sense of deja vu. There were other places they could have met, warmer places, but that was Reina for you. Kumiko's cheeks flushed red just at the thought of her.
"Kumiko!" Reina ran up the hill, breaths coming out in puffs of misty air. Kumiko felt strangely nostalgic at the sight, wanted to wrap Reina in her arms right then.
Reina beat her to it, as it turned out, hugged her tight.
"It's only been two weeks," Kumiko whispered in her ear, as if she wasn't thinking such mushy thoughts a minute earlier.
"I know," Reina said, standing back, still holding her arms.
"A-and now we've got - what is it, another week - until you're back on tour?"
"Something like that." Reina didn't have her trumpet case with her - which made perfect sense, really, not as if she'd be playing it outdoors in this weather anyway - and Kumiko wondered when it was she'd grown to know this girl so well that something like that…appeared, in her mind, when it had become so persistent. "Six days," Reina added.
"Ah." Kumiko paused, looked at the milky-gray sky. "Uh, why here? I mean, why'd you ask to meet here?"
"It's a nice midpoint from the airport to your house." Reina started on her way down, her boots making precise imprints in the fresh snow.
"That's Reina for you," Kumiko laughed to herself. "You've always got a reason."
"Not always."
"I guess not."
They kept walking. Kumiko held Reina's hand, the easiest thing in the world, and it still brought a blush to her face, something she'd have been able to blame on the cold easily enough if she was still denying things.
As it was, though? She didn't have to deny anything at all.
Kumiko's apartment - legally Kumiko and Reina's apartment, but it was Kumiko who spent most of her time there - wasn't massive, but it was cozy in its smallness, and the heater worked fine, so there was that. The couch sagged under the pair's weight, surrounding them, and Kumiko imagined sinking into it further until it was just her and Reina, the world a million kilometers away…
"You're thinking something strange again," Reina said, no judgment in her voice, as she looked out at some distant point. Kumiko shrugged.
"I'm just cozy," she murmured.
"So am I." Reina tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. Kumiko's heart jumped again, and she planted her chin on Reina's head, stayed like that for a moment. When had she become so clingy? When had she become such a romantic?
On the mountain, probably. On that night when everything changed. She still replayed it quite a bit, and she knew that Reina did, too, and they were so, so far away from that now but still…still together, after everything.
"I think I might fall asleep." Kumiko smiled. "Next to you, like this. I didn't think I could ever have this."
"But you do."
"But I do."
Kumiko woke, probably hours later, before Reina did. Her chest rose and fell in perfect time - of course it did, Reina worked in a rhythm even in her sleep - and she let out little wheezes as she breathed. Kumiko thought she had never seen anyone more beautiful.
The snow had stopped, piled up as it was in fluffy clumps below.
What a time, Kumiko thought, and teared up a little. She'd never felt cozier.
Reina would wake up soon. Kumiko would be there; they'd face the snow together and that, she thought, was nothing short of beautiful.
a/n: anyone here listen to the new taylor swift album? i'm gay