Commentary: Much gratitude to lostinhersong for the word that inspired this flicker. =)
Ten minutes, a thousand words.
Happy holidays, everyone, and thank you.
Word One: SNOWMAN
"It's crooked."
"It is not."
"…definitely crooked. Malformed. Hideously ugly."
Michiru swatted her lover's arm, sending up a puff of powdery frost. She pouted, "Don't make fun of our snowman, Haruka. You'll give him image issues."
Lips pursed behind the fringe of her checked scarf, Haruka cast skeptical eyes over the sagging snow-person nearby her elbow. "Look at him, Michiru," she nudged. "He's all… shlumpy on that side. He should have image issues. He's the Quasimodo of our winter wonderland here. All he needs is a cathedral and some big holiday bells to ring—"
"Keep tormenting him and you won't be ringing my holiday bells," threatened Michiru. Her brows drew together in a scowl under the shadow of her partner's encircling arm.
"Oh, for—!" the other woman sputtered. "He's made of snow!"
"And you, Haruka? You are made of ice. Or your heart is." Slush crunched underfoot as the smaller of the pair gestured emphatically. "Look at him! He's adorable! How could you even begin to think there's anything wrong with him?"
Dubious, Haruka permitted herself another glance at the snowman: at his misshapen middle, at his uneven cedar-chip eyes. She looked at Michiru next, the violinist's face all indignant petulance. Sucking in a breath, the wind soldier opened her mouth to list all the flaws of the snowman—
"We made him together," Michiru interjected, a final warning.
Haruka's jaws snapped shut. She was stubborn, sure, but not stupid, and she hadn't spent years fighting otherworldly demons only to walk into a deathtrap set by her own partner.
"He's"—and oh, it hurt to say it, knives in her throat and nails on her tongue; she spat it out anyway—"kind of cute."
Michiru beamed. Hooking her arm through Haruka's, she gave it a gentle tug. "I thought so." Not one to rub salt into raw wounds too vigorously, she pressed on, "Why don't we go inside now and warm up? Or," she squeezed Haruka's bicep, teasing, "did you want to try to hit me with a few of your famous snowballs again?"
Reaching aside, the blonde took up a handful of the signature white stuff in her mitten, spun the smaller woman sideways, and dumped her fist's contents down the back of the available sweater. Michiru shrieked, half-laughter, half-curse. Dancing on tiptoe for the trickle of cold on her spine, she chased her smirking counterpart into the parking garage beneath their apartment building. They slipped on the ice at the walk together—they clutched at one another to keep from falling. Eventually, per Michiru's suggestion, they slipped back inside.
Some hours later, a mug in hand and a new sweater pulled over a flushed torso, Michiru crept to the window and looked out across the complex's courtyard. As Haruka, hungry still, drifted near to taste the back of her neck, the violinist sipped her tea and observed, "Look, Haruka—you can see him from here."
The note of fondness in Michiru's voice drew Haruka's gaze reluctantly aloft. Rocking on the ball of her foot to see over turquoise curls, she glimpsed Michiru's subject: their snowman, a lumpy dark silhouette in the courtyard's pale gray haze. She squinted. Unease and discontent prickled in her belly. Before she could stop herself, she muttered, "Something's wrong there."
A pause: a palpable decrease in the room's temperature too. Stepping neatly from Haruka's touch, Michiru turned to frown at her friend. "What?" she pursued.
"I—"
Holding up a hand, Michiru shook it—just once!—and said, "No. Never mind."
"But—"
"No," snapped the smaller soldier. Hurt unmistakable in the sea of her eyes, she withdrew from the slant of faint light by the window and stepped back into the bedroom they shared. She closed the door behind her.
Snick, admonished the lock as it clicked into place.
"Shit," agreed Haruka.
Sighing through her nose, she aimed a glower at the creation in the courtyard below. The sight sent another pang of restlessness crawling through her insides. Her chest tightened; her palms itched. For several moments she stared through the window, trying to determine just what about the snowman was bothering her so badly.
When she finally saw it, she exhaled between clenched teeth and, resigned, moved down the hall to wiggle her feet back into their boots.
She came back into the apartment at sundown, her face a numb sheet and her hands taut with cold in the clutches of her mittens. Checking the clock on the stove, she nodded and called, "Michiru! We need to leave now if I'm driving you to practice!"
Seconds ticked past—but Michiru, ever prudent, emerged soon enough from the bedroom. Instrument case clutched in hand, scarf wound about her throat, she looked ready to take on winter. She also, Haruka realized, looked to be in no mood for conversation.
She reinforced this image by saying nothing to Haruka on the ride down the elevator.
Quiet persisted despite Haruka's best efforts at civility: an arm extended for Michiru to clutch in their progress across the ice; a car door pulled open for the violinist; a pair of warm gloves waiting on the passenger seat.
They pulled out of the parking garage and rolled past the courtyard. Michiru said finally, "Stop the car."
Haruka obligingly stopped the car.
"Why are there two snowmen out there now?" demanded her partner after a short, startled pause.
"I told you there was something wrong there," Haruka replied. Beneath her fingers the clutch idled; frigidly irritable, the engine gave a low sputter too. Her cheeks burned. She continued, "He looked lonely. So I gave him a—a friend."
Another pause.
"But Haruka," Michiru murmured, wondering, "he's made of snow."
"Yeah," grouched the blonde. She threw the car into gear again—they crunched resolutely forward. "And my heart's made of ice."
Michiru's hand covered hers on the clutch. With a squeeze of her partner's chilled knuckles and a soft laugh, she looked at Haruka sidelong and professed, "Oh… maybe not."