"But that's not fair!" she retorts, frowning distastefully.

"The game won't work if we do it like that! That's why-"

"Why can't we just play it like we used to?"

He sighs. "I don't want to! It's my game!"

"Well, it's not nice if I can't decide things too! I don't want to play with you anymore!" Sticking her tongue out in spite, she storms out of the boy's room.

The only sounds surrounding us – besides the awful wind – are the regular rhythms of our axes ploughing into the ice and our footsteps following shortly after. As usual, we don't make much conversation when we're trying to stay alive on a sheet of ice, but even so, today feels painfully quieter than usual.

It hurts to know that it's my fault that things are a bit awkward at the moment. Which is quite stupid, because even though I know it, I won't allow myself to even utter a word to make conversation. I don't know if it's because I don't feel inclined to, or if my selfishness just wants Nana to fix all my problems for me.

Even so, most things these days are irreversible.

Understandably, she gave up on trying to talk to me after a while, considering how stubborn I've been for the past three days. (More stubborn than her? I'm not sure myself.) Part of me is weirdly hurt by that, as if I'm annoyed enough to want my friend to keep talking, even if it only irritates me more. At this point, her voice and presence are some of the only things I have to rely on now – when you're friends for as long as we've been together, it's bad enough for me to say that it feels like a necessity, because Nana's almost always been with me. For her to suddenly be cut out just wouldn't...work.

"Let's rest up here for a little while."

Setting our packs and mallets down against the limited section of cliff wall we have available to us, we pause our trek up the mountain. Thankfully, the snow isn't as ridiculously roaring as it had been earlier, and there's the right amount of fog surrounding us so that we can observe the ground below us from our current vantage point. The mountain we're on now is significantly further away from our home village than the next one over, which we'd stopped at a few nights ago to restock on supplies, but having this scope still seems to be comforting in a way. The clouds overshadowing us are floating across the same sky that blankets home, and it's enough to remind me that maybe home isn't so far off after all.

For the first few minutes, neither of us utter a word to each other. I almost feel a sour taste in my mouth, because I know the reason this is even happening is that I decided to get stupidly worked up over nothing. But it wasn't nothing. It was so much more than that, and I desperately want to kick myself so badly or find something – anything – just so maybe I can satisfy myself that I've been punished rightly.

I raise my gaze from the ground to the space in front of me. I don't stay like that for long, though. After a few moments, I have no choice but to turn to face Nana's stern eyes and their determined stare; her glowing, bright, purple eyes intent on illuminating my deep blues.

"Talk to me."

The silence only grows awfully awkward, at least for me: she appears unfazed by my lack of an immediate response, yet still persists.

"Please, Popo."

I sigh.

"What do you want to talk about?"

"I just want to talk to you." She hesitates. "I don't like being ignored, you know."

"Sorry," I mumble quietly.

Nana turns away for a moment, and I instantly feel a pang of guilt again, but my voice refuses to let itself be heard. My lips remain pursed.

"You need to get over it."

The sour taste on my tongue suddenly twists into a scalding bitterness, my head shooting up so I can glare at her properly. She only stares back, eyebrows furrowed, hands clenched into fists. Gusts of wind sweeping past us fill any silence that clouded us.

"...Excuse me?"

She repeats, in a staggered patronising tone: "You. Need. To. Get. Over. It."

"I'm sitting here, expecting you to say something that's actually comforting, and that's the kind of bull you think I want to hear?"

"I think it's exactly what you need to hear, Popo. If I don't tell you, who can?"

My head feels like it's going to break down so, so badly. I've lost enough. I don't need to lose anything or anyone else, not my head, not my life, not my friends. Not Nana. I can only feel myself shuddering at the thought yet shivering horribly from God knows what. Maybe it's the cold or the fact that I can feel the rain about to come again, or maybe the fact that I need to punch something or someone very hard is what's making my whole body quiver this awfully. The last thing I need is this.

"You really want to rub it in my face, don't you?"

Nana's face flashes with shock for just a second, her eyes widening, but still, she continues.

"No, I don't. I...I'm just trying to-"

"Trying to comfort me? I don't know what your definition of 'comforting' is, but it must be very different from mine if you think that's making anything better. I don't understand."

"..."

"This is the one time I need you to be a friend for me, really, and here you are-"

The ground loudly thumps when Nana's clenched fist pounds the ground; her stamp of (dis)approval engraved into the thick whiteness. And now, when I next look at her, her eyes don't seem to be glowing anymore, at least – not with that gentle glow she keeps about her, despite her loudness. It instead seems to reflect just that.

She sucks in a sharp breath. "Listen here, chief boy. Don't you dare and try to make it sound like you're the only one who's lost someone. You think I'm saying that because I don't know how the hell you feel, huh? That I'm trying to mock you?"

"And now you're trying to justify yourself. Nana, come on, I don't get how you're still carrying on saying all this. Just drop it." I hate the raise in volume I hear leave my mouth, the mute I'm trying to keep on starting to slip off and expose my flurry of emotions right here, right now.

"No, no I won't drop it. See who's being stubborn now, hm? Listen to me. Listen to what I want to say-"

But I can't. It's too late for that.

"What have you got to do with any of this?! Are you that stupid? Yet you go around all the time, calling me an idiot left-right-and-centre about everything I do, especially since I'm the one leading here?! God, sometimes I forget how much nerve you have."

I really have let the avalanche plummet, and now our whole mountain is crumbling. Nana's expression is now one of frustration, disgust - whatever it may be, it hurts but purges any bottled feelings I might have left in my sanity. Before I know it, her shouts are louder than mine.

"This is the last thing either of us needs, Popo!"

I have to try and resist grabbing her and screaming right in her face.

"You don't say, huh?"

"You're no more than I am bereaved. You lost your mother as much as I lost my father. She was your mother, not mine, but she was mine when she needed to be. But of course, I couldn't have possibly developed some kind of connection with her, right? Because my real mother, a real one like yours, doesn't even exist anymore! What else could I have felt?"

"She was my mother!"

"You're not the only one who's lost someone. I'm here, you know. So talk to me! Tell me how you feel!" she spits.

Oh, she wouldn't believe how much I'd love to. It's those last words in her last sentence that sting, paralysing me, leaving me unable to respond. I can only glower back at her in disdain.

After the silence finally invades, and the distaste of the words we'd exchanged lingers within it, Nana shakes her head.

"Forget it. Let's just go."

She gets up first, grumpily grabbing her possessions and resetting her climbing equipment on the few ropes and belts she has on her waist. The whole time, even though I know she feels my faint scowl looming over her, my mind still trying to process this blizzard storm passing over us, she doesn't return my glare. Not once.

I know "sorry" won't cut this ice sheet now.