Conrad watched with a smile as everyone experienced the joys and tribulations that came with ice skating.
"What are you laughing at, Weller!?" Wolfram snapped while clinging to the wall for dear life.
"If you'd like, I could teach you how to skate." Conrad laughed, causing Wolfram to glare at him.
"As if!"
Behind Wolfram, Yuuri was teaching Greta with the patience of a saint. Nearby was Ken, who was smiling and faring rather well.
Then there was Gunter who appeared to be a natural as he glided across the ice like it was what he was born to do. Which was a stark contrast to Gwendal who stiffly marched behind him, looking embarrassed and miserable.
"Let me off this damn thing!" Gwendal snapped, reaching the wall where Wolfram was.
"The exit is on the opposite end." Conrad said with a smile as Gwendal stared in disbelief of how far the exit was from his current position. He briefly considered jumping the wall to escape, but dismissed it a moment later when he realized he would have to forfeit all dignity to achieve his goal.
Conrad took another sip of his hot chocolate.
"Yuuri! Wait for me!" Wolfram huffed, pulling himself along as Gwendal made eye contact with Conrad.
"Get me my shoes." Gwendal quietly ordered his brother, who laughed at him.
"Come now, Gwen- perhaps Gunter can teach you how to skate?"
"Conrart."
"Ahh, Gwendal! This is simply marvelous! We must bring this to the people of Shinmakoku!" Gunter sighed dreamily, skating up to Gwendal and linking arms with the man.
"Don't touch me!" Gwendal snapped, grabbing hold of the wall once more.
As Gunter pulled Gwendal away once more, Conrad sighed.
"Feeling blue, Lord Weller?" Jose chuckled as he appeared behind Conrad and took a seat next to him on the bench.
"Blue?" Conrad asked.
"Sad." Jose informed, "You look a little lonely over here."
"I'll be alright." Conrad shrugged. "I'm happy if I can watch."
"Doesn't mean you're not lonely." Jose said knowingly, leaning into his friend's side. "Say, you and I haven't caught up. Tell me, how was quitting cigarettes?"
Conrad huffed at that. "I wish you'd never introduced them to me, it was awful." he grumbled, fingering the cup in his hand. "They don't have anything like them in Shinma. I craved them for weeks."
"Hey, it wasn't me-! That was all Shouma's fault." Jose defended.
"You didn't warn me..."
"Ah, my bad... Well anyway, would you like a cigarette?"
Conrad simply gave the man a look as Jose laughed.
"Just don't get addicted to those pain pills, the ones the doc prescribed to you, okay? Those are harder to kick."
"Noted..."
"Uncle Conrad, look!" Greta screeched with excitement, waving at him. "Look, I'm skating!"
"I can see that." Conrad said as he waved to Yuuri, Ken and Greta.
"It's amazing, isn't it?" Jose sighed wistfully. "To think not long ago we were holding those boys in the palms of our hands."
"To be honest, I don't like thinking about it." Conrad said softly as he watched the boys get off the ice and make their way to the bench.
"Haaa~ I'm exhausted!" Yuuri sighed, flopping down on the bench next to Jose. "That was a lot harder than I remember..."
"You did really well, Shibuya." Ken grinned as he took off his skates.
"Did you see me, Uncle Conrad?" Greta asked, looking up at the man as he picked her up with some difficulty and set her on his knee.
"Yes, fawn you did very well."
"Yuuri! You didn't wait for me, you insensible lout!" Wolfram shouted, out of breath as he trudged his way to his fiance.
"Ahhhh! R-Restroom! Be right back!" Yuuri cried, leaping to his feet and taking off in the direction of the restrooms before Wolfram could grab him.
"Augh!" Wolfram snapped in irritation as he watched Yuuri run off.
"Don't take it to heart, sweetie- he's always like that." Jennifer giggled as she made her way to the bench with her husband in tow.
"I'll follow him." Shouri grumbled. "I need to use the restroom too."
"Oh, that was wonderful~" Gunter swooned as he sat down and began removing his skates. Conrad looked up in time to see Gwendal trudging towards him on unstable legs.
"Gwendal, did you see me? Did you?" Greta chirped as the man sat down next to her.
"Yes, I saw." Gwendal tried to smile at her before shooting Conrad a stony look.
The entire day transpired in a similar fashion.
Whether it was making snow men, having snow-ball fights, eating lunch, painting ceramics or making mochi- Conrad would watch and everyone else would enjoy.
He was happy.
He was glad they were all together and it was enough. It should have been enough. However, Conrad found himself sighing more than usual and his smile hard to maintain.
Now they were paying visit to a shrine before heading home and Conrad took comfort in the fact that he didn't need his arm to walk around a shrine.
That is, until they reached the entrance.
There was a water basin sitting by the front gate that Yuuri stopped in front of as he began to explain to the group how to go about washing one's hands and mouth before entering.[1]
Folding up his umbrella and stashing it within the umbrella stand at the entrance, Shouma turned to Conrad to help the man wash his hands the best he could with a cast on. When the group was finished, they approached the gate only to be stopped at the entrance.
"Pardon sir, I regret to inform you that no injuries can enter. They are impure." [2] the man said, holding a hand out to prevent Conrad from entering.
"Oh, I forgot!" Yuuri groaned. "I'm sorry Conrad, in certain shrines they won't let you enter if you have injuries as they're a sign of impurity. Instead, we'll enter and pray for you." he explained.
Conrad wanted to laugh, but thought against it as he bowed respectfully.
"Not to worry, Yuuri. I'll wait for you outside."
"Sorry, Conrad- we'll just be a minute!"
With that, Yuuri followed his family inside and Conrad turned around to walk back down the small path leading to the dirt parking lot. Once he reached the vehicles, he realized Shouma had the keys- so Conrad did the only thing he felt he could do and leaned against the car with his arms crossed.
He had to admit it, he wasn't handling this very well.
'I'm miserable.' Conrad thought, hugging himself to keep warm. 'I never realized how completely useless I am without my hand... to make matters worse, it hasn't stopped throbbing or itching all day.' Conrad sighed, trying to will the itchiness away.
"Oi, Weller."
Conrad's head snapped up as Shouri emerged from the path, marching towards him.
"Hello, Shouri... Did you forget something in the car?" Conrad asked.
"No, I finally have a moment to talk to you alone." he grumbled. "Stop being friendly with my mother!"
"..." Conrad closed his eyes as he wished to be left alone once more. Being lonely and miserable was better than being lonely and miserable and having to deal with Shouri Shibuya.
"Shouri... Jennifer and I are friends, nothing more."
"I'm telling you to show her respect! Call her Shibuya-san for now on, got that!?"
"As you wish." Conrad said simply, "Is that all, Shouri?"
"No, while you're at it, stop being so friendly with my brother! He's your king, isn't he? I hate how informal you and your brothers are with him-"
"Unfortunately, Shouri, Yuuri insists on informality."
"I noticed that he makes you correct yourself when you call him 'majesty' but that doesn't mean you should give in. You and your demon friends should be less chummy with him."
"Shouri... if you can convince Yuuri to be less informal with us, then we will be."
"Fine, I'll talk to him- but remember what I said!" Shouri spat.
He smiled at that, knowing a talk with Yuuri about proper titles would be wasted breath. "Understood." Conrad said simply, absently rubbing his arms to prevent the cold from seeping in. "Is that all?"
Shouri seemed to pause for a moment as if trying to come up with something else.
"No, that's not all... my mother gave you my best winter jacket."
Conrad fought the urge to roll his eyes as he took the jacket off and handed it over.
"I aim for peace." he said quietly, eyeing Shouri who was already wearing a jacket and didn't know what to do with the extra one now that he had it.
"Good man." Shouri smirked, reveling in how easy his objectives were met. "Ja ne!"[3]
Conrad watched him go with mild irritation. "Shouri... you use to be so cute when you were a child. What happened?" he muttered to himself as he watched the younger man fade from view. "Why me? You don't seem to give Gwendal any grief..."
Several minutes passed by, then thirty, then sixty before Conrad began to wonder how much longer the group would be. To add some icing to the cake of Conrad's life: it began to snow. He sighed in a resigned way as peered through the car window before walking around both cars, trying all of the door handles.
No luck.
So, Conrad walked back up to the entrance of the Shrine to retrieve Shouma's umbrella from the umbrella stand so he could wait comfortably.
Standing in front of the multitude of umbrellas, Conrad stared in silent contemplation.
'Was it blue... or black?' he thought to himself as he shifted through the umbrellas there. 'Well, I truly can't remember, so black it is.' he sighed, picking up an umbrella.
The man who had turned him away from the gate was standing nearby and stared at him while he made this decision. Conrad politely nodded to the man before opening the umbrella and turning back down the path so he could wait on the only bench around.
While sitting on the bench, that was mostly just a solid wood plank, Conrad waited.
And waited.
... and waited.
The longer he waited the more he began to feel his lack of sleep catching up with him. 'It shouldn't be much longer.' he thought, absently rubbing his numb fingers. 'I would walk to a store, but I have no way of letting the others know...'
"Excuse me, sir?"
Caught off guard, Conrad leapt to his feet, tossing the umbrella down as his body went into defense mode, hands clenching into fists before he had a moment to process the situation.
"Woah, stop right there!"
Conrad was surprised to see two police officers standing in the snow, one had his hand firmly gripped around the baton at his waist and the other looked just as shocked as Conrad.
"My apologies, officer." Conrad said, visibly relaxing. "I didn't hear you approaching."
"Take it easy, we only want to ask you some questions." the officer said in a commanding yet calm voice.
"Of course," Conrad smiled. "How may I help?"
Conrad's reaction must have truly disturbed the officer because no matter how un-threatening Conrad tried to be, the man remained tense.
"We're looking for someone, we'd like to see your I.D. please." the officer said as Conrad nodded in understanding.
"Alright," he said, looking back at Shouma's umbrella which was slowly rolling away down the incline they were on. "It's in my wallet, hold on one moment..."
Conrad froze when he suddenly realized his wallet was in the pocket of the jacket he'd been wearing.
The jacket Shouri took with him.
'What did Jose say about police officers...?' Conrad thought, trying to remember the different etiquette and what rights civilians had and didn't have when dealing with police. 'I can remember the names of everyone playing for the Boston Red Sox, but I don't remember anything about dealing with police.' he thought miserably as he smiled at the men.
"Ah, unfortunately it seems I have misplaced my wallet..."
The officers gave each other a look- one that Conrad could tell didn't bode well for him.
"We're here because we got a call about a man was trying to break into cars. Then we got another call describing a similar looking man who stole an umbrella from this shrine."
Conrad stared in silence for a moment before looking back at the umbrella that was three quarters of the way down the hill, laying on it's side.
'Was Shouma's umbrella blue, then?' he wondered as he looked back at the men.
"They described him as a tall foreigner with a handsome face."
"Well, that's kind of them." Conrad chuckled. However, neither man seemed to find it funny in the slightest.
"It's snowing out, sir. Why don't you ride with us to the station where we can talk to you in more detail."
Conrad sighed. Although he couldn't remember anything at all about the police of this world, he knew if he was innocent he had nothing to hide and that it would be foolish to fight them. So he nodded and gave them another small smile. "Alright."
"We're going to handcuff you, but it's only procedure. Please understand." the officer said, producing handcuff and approaching Conrad who was almost a foot taller than him. Conrad nodded as he held out his wrists.
The left handcuff went on just fine, but the right one wouldn't fit over his cast. After a moment of struggling the officer sighed and handcuffed Conrad's left arm to Conrad's belt loop.
"Please follow me." the officer said, directing Conrad by the arm to their vehicle.
Once he was in the police car, Conrad leaned against the window and watched the second officer pick up the umbrella and take it with him.
He tugged on the handcuffs around his wrist, feeling claustrophobic. He hated being bound- it gave him intense anxiety. Being put in shackles back in his home world almost always meant dealing with life and death situations.
The car pulled out of the lot a moment later and all was silent once more.
[1] Some shrines have you wash and rinse your mouth before entering. Not all Shrines do this.
[2] In some shrines it's not proper to enter if you have an open wound as it's deemed 'impure.' I don't think they would actually turn you away for something like a broken arm, but for the sake of the story I rolled with it.
[3] "Ja ne!" roughly translates to "See ya!"