The first snowfall of the year was fall from a gentle dusting. A nasty blizzard swept through the area and blocked all the roads in town for a couple of days, cancelling school and work. Roma Antiqua took advantage of the days off to play with his grandsons. Chibitalia enjoyed building snow-people of their classmates. They begged Grandpa Rome to build a snow-Germania, but he refused for some unknown reason.
After being stuck in the house for two days will snow continuing to fall, Grandpa Rome realized there were no tomatoes in the house whatsoever. Furthermore, the pasta supply was running low. Since he couldn't leave his adorable grandsons at home all by themselves, Roma Antiqua bundled the boys up and dragged them to the store on a sled. It was absolutely freezing the whole walk to the store. Chibitalia and Romano brought their ice-skates with them, hoping they would be allowed to skate on the little pond in the town centre even though Grandpa Rome had already said no.
When Roma Antiqua finally got to the town centre where the store was, he realized there were a decent number of children skating on the pond, and the pond really wasn't that far away from the store. His grandsons realized this too and started begging him again. Roma Antiqua found himself giving into his grandson's pleas and they hurried off the sled towards the pond only to get stuck in a snow bank. Laughing, Grandpa Rome pulled them out and deposited them safely on a nearby bench.
Chibitalia took a long time to tie his skates. By the time he toddled out onto the ice, Romano was already being chased around the pond by Spain. America was playing ice hockey with Canada, who was actually beating him. Japan was teaching Taiwan how to skate as he carefully navigated her around the other skaters. Naturally, the First Grade Friends Trio was there, throwing snowballs as they raced each other around the perimeter of the pond. Holy Rome was practicing figure eight's by himself, gracefully gliding around the pond. Everyone's laughter filled the frigid air.
It had been a while since Chibitalia had last gone skating, and his little feet kept sliding out from underneath him. Eventually, someone gave Chibitalia a chair and he pushed around the pond, gradually getting better footing on the ice. Holy Rome hadn't noticed Chibitalia right away because he was preoccupied. When he did, though, he made a quick loop around the brunette. This surprised Chibitalia so much he promptly fell down again, his chair sliding away from him. Now, Holy Rome felt terrible about making Chibitalia fall so he turned around to help his friend up. As Chibitalia stood, he started falling down again because he was a bit too reliant on that chair. Holy Rome tried to catch Chibitalia.. but ended up just grabbing "her" green skirt, pulling it up to accidently discover Chibitalia was wearing frilly white underthings.
Chibitalia knew Holy Rome wasn't intending to do that and therefore wasn't terribly upset, but Holy Rome was so embarrassed his face turned a nasty tomato-sauce red. Chibitalia convinced Holy Rome to skate with him, and the pair clasped hands as they slowly skated around the pond. Eventually Holy Rome convinced Chibitalia to get off the ice with him so they could play in the snow (which had much less potential for embarrassing moments). They promptly started building a snow fort to protect themselves from the First Grade Friends Trio who were still pelting snowballs at everyone.
Chibitalia huddled close to Holy Rome to keep warm even though it wasn't windy anymore. They sat behind the poorly constructed fort for some time in complete silence until Holy Rome started talking.
"Chibitalia- we should run away together" said Holy Rome, looking deep into Chibitalia's eyes.
"But Holy Rome, where would we go?" asked Chibitalia. Poor Chibitalia was very confused.
"We can go to my playhouse by the sea together! Together, we could be grown-ups all by ourselves. What do you think?" he replied.
Chibitalia's eyes filled with tears. "No, Holy Rome. I can't."
"Why?" Demanded Holy Rome.
"CHIBITALIA! ROMANO! It's time to go" called Grandpa Rome.
Chibitalia jumped up, then looked back at Holy Rome. Holy Rome wasn't there anymore, though. The black-clad child had disappeared into the frigid white world.
The whole sled-ride back to Chibitalia's house, the little green clad child was lost in thought.
Oh Holy Rome, why did you leave? I never got to answer you when you asked why I didn't want to run away to the playhouse… I guess it was because I don't want you to get hurt as a grown up. I like Holy Rome the way he is. I hope he's not mad at me.
AN: Hello! Please forgive me for not updating this in a while- I've been horribly busy recently and also I had a difficult time with this chapter. I still might edit it a bit... it's not my favourite. Anyways I hope you like it and thanks for reading ^_^
This story is on hold until after finals, which are next week. I'm deeply sorry, but I have to study :(