AN: Still trying to get used to FF... Thank you to those who were kind enough to drop me a review :) hope that you will enjoy this one shot as well! Constructive criticism welcomed.
Disclaimer: Again, I don't own ghost hunt. Ono Fuyumi does, and I wouldn't have it any other way.
Snow
It was snowing.
The flakes were falling gently from the sky enveloping everything it touched in a thin blanket of white.
A small little hand reached out to catch the flakes as they fell.
"It's cold…" said the owner of the hand in a quiet voice to no one in particular; a little girl of about the age of four or five with brunette hair that reached just over her shoulder. Her big brown eyes wet and moist, it seemed that she must have been crying earlier and stopped to stare at the falling snow in wonder.
Her breath coming out in wisps of smoke as she continued to try to catch the snow flakes with her little hands; her eyes gazing upwards to the sky, a small smile starting to form on her little lips.
"Hey" a young male voice calls out to the little girl.
The little girl as if woken from a trance, broke her gaze from the sky and turned towards the owner of the voice.
"What are you doing out here?" asks the owner of the voice, a little boy, probably about the age of five or six.
"Watching the snow?" says the little girl uncertainly, tilting her head slightly to the side as the boy slowly closed the distance between them to stand next to her.
The little girl looks up at the boy, who is slightly taller than her, with dark hair and blue eyes.
"You are going to catch a cold, where is your mother?" the young boy chides her as he removes his green scarf and wraps it around the little girl's neck.
She shakes her head, "don't know… puppy chan brought me here…" the little girl's eyes started to water up.
"So… you are lost…." The little boy answers with a sigh.
"Hey, don't cry" he soothes as the tears trickled down the little girl's face. Removing one of his mittens, which were the same colour as his scarf, he wipes her tears away.
"You are cold" he frowns, he averts his eyes from her face to look at her hands, taking them in his hands he glanced at the little girl.
"You are going to get frost bite," he chides again, as he takes both her hands and starts breathing on them, his breath coming out as wisps of smoke.
The little girl stops crying as she watches him warm her hands.
"It's warm," she says, a small smile forming on her lips.
"Of course it is" he replies and puts on his mitten that he had took off on her hand, taking hold of her un-gloved hand with his, he puts both their hands into his coat pocket.
"Where was the last time you saw your mother?" he asks the little girl.
"Hmmmm~ Mama was at the shop, she told Mai that she will get Mai something warm to drink while we wait for daddy" answers Mai with a tilt of her head, her mitten-ed hand at the corner of her mouth.
"Then what did you do as your mother was getting the drinks?"
"Mama asked Mai to stand next to her as she took the little bag out of her big bag"
"And you obviously did not listen to your mother" sighs the boy.
"Mai did!" pouts the little girl. "But…"
"But?" the boy prompts as he starts walking with Mai in tow.
"Mai saw puppy chan outside the shop."
The boy turned his head and looked at the little girl with a raised eyebrow.
"And what does that have to do with you not listening to your mother?"
"But, but, Mai thought it was cold and wanted to bring puppy chan into the shop to warm puppy chan up, but when Mai went near puppy chan, puppy chan ran away"
"And I'm guessing you followed it?" the boy said as he stopped walking to turn and look at the little girl walking with him.
The little girl called Mai just nods her head.
With a sigh and a shake of his head the boy said "and then?"
"Puppy chan suddenly disappeared, and Mai was all alone here…" Mai's big brown eyes started to tear up again.
"Don't cry" the boy quickly says, his voice sounding a little frantic. "If it's a shop that sells drinks, there is one near here; I don't think you've gotten too far from your mother." He said as he resumed their walking.
"Kazuya kun!" a male voice could be heard calling out a little way ahead.
"Kazuya kun!" the male voice repeats in a strict voice as the owner of the said voice caught sight of the little boy.
"Ojii chan…" winced Kazuya, as an elderly man who looked to be about in his late sixties, his greying hair hidden under a hat and with round-rimmed glasses briskly approached him. Ojii chan, or rather Grandpa didn't look too happy and his stern face looked even sterner, if that was even possible.
As Kazuya's grandfather walked up to the two children, a voice similar to Kazuya said "see I told you that you didn't need to worry jii chan, he's right at the park, just like he told me."
"I also told you I was on my way back Jin, did you tell ojii chan that?" Kazuya replied with a scowl as a boy that looked exactly like his mirror image caught up with grandpa.
"I did, but he didn't believe me when I said I was talking to you" answers Jin, his blue eyes wide, as if to portray his innocence.
"Kazuya kun, you know better than to walk around like that, we already need to search for Kei kun's daughter, and you getting lost as well… oh?" as grandpa admonished Kazuya he suddenly noticed the little girl hiding shyly behind Kazuya and stopped in surprise.
"You really found her?" Grandpa said, his eyes glancing at Kazuya for a while before turning back to the little girl. Kazuya just gave his grandfather a confused look as grandpa crouched down so that he was at the eye level of the little girl; he spoke gently to her "Are you Mai chan?"
Kazuya could feel Mai's hand grip his tightly in his coat pocket as she continued to hide behind him.
"Yea, her name is Mai, she told me she last saw her mother at the store, so I was bringing her back there" Kazuya answered for her. "You know her ojii chan?" Kazuya asks.
Grandpa turned his gaze to Kazuya and nods, "remember that I told you we were going to meet Kei kun and his family? Well, while he was waiting for us, his wife went to get something warm to drink, and as she was paying she said thier daughter wandered off and got lost. They were frantic"
Kazuya just nods as Jin peered curiously at the little girl from behind grandpa's coat.
"Come, let's get Mai chan back to her parents and all of you warmed up back at the house" Grandpa says as he takes Jin's hand in one hand and Kazuya's free hand in the other.
"Mai chan!" a woman's voice exclaimed as grandpa and the children neared the shops.
"Mama!" cried the little girl as she was scooped up into her mother's warm embrace. The mother, a pretty brunette with brown eyes who seemed to be in her early to mid thirties, was in tears as she hugged her little girl tightly.
"Don't you dare do that to mama again" she admonishes in a quiet voice.
It was easy to see that Mai took mostly after her mother, and would grow up to be as beautiful as her mother, if not more.
"There, there Tomoe san, it's alright, Sensei found her" said a relieved sounding male voice belonging to a man who looked to be in his mid to late thirties with black hair and kind brown eyes, as he put his hand on Tomoe's shoulder, the other hand gently ruffling up Mai's hair.
"You really gave us quite a scare there Mai chan, don't do that again" he admonished the little girl in a strict but soft voice.
"Hai, sorry," murmured Mai in her mother's embrace.
"Well it's thanks to Kazuya kun finding her actually" sensei replied, the two boys still holding on to each of his hands.
"Oh? They were twins?" exclaimed the man in surprise. "Hello there, I didn't see you earlier" said the man as he crouched down to the boys level.
"Ermm, actually you saw me earlier, but not him" said the boy as his head gestured to his twin.
"Ah, my bad Jin kun" laughs the man as his gaze turned toward the other twin.
"There now, introduce yourself," Grandpa says with a gentle tug of his hand.
"My name is Himura Kazuya, nice to meet you" says the little boy with a slight bow, his eyes seemed more interested in watching Mai who was still in her mother's tight embrace.
"Taniyama Kei, nice to meet you too, Kazuya kun" smiled the man.
"Kei kun, I think it would be advisable for us to get out of this snow and back to the house to warm up, let me get a taxi" grandpa says as he turned his eyes to the road trying to spot a taxi he could hail.
"Ah sure, it's a good thing that we found Mai chan fairly quickly" Kei says as he tilted his face up from his position to look at his sensei.
"I recall you saying that your brother had gone to the park to check if she was there right?" Kei asks as he faced Jin, who replied with a nod.
"My brother said he saw a little girl walking in the direction of the park alone, and he was worried that she might have been lost, so he went off on his own to get her, and told me to tell jii chan"
Sensei or rather grandpa merely shook his head. "Sometimes I wonder how they do that," he murmured.
"You didn't tell me that you knew the people looking for the girl," Kazuya said as he glared at Jin.
"Well you didn't ask" Jin replied while sticking his tongue out at his brother.
"But I did ask them to wait, and that you would bring the little girl you found here." Jin proclaimed. Kazuya merely scowled and looked away from Jin just as Tomoe had finally calmed down, freeing Mai from her embrace she put the little girl back on her feet.
"Ahh~ Mai chan, you gave mama a huge scare back there… eh..? Whose scarf is that? And you have a mitten on?" Tomoe seemed perplexed at her daughter's extra attire, looking at her daughter's own scarf and mittens, which were in her hands.
Pointing to Kazuya with her un-gloved hand, "He warmed Mai up and lent them to Mai" Mai said with a little smile towards Kazuya's direction. Kazuya blushed and averted his gaze, seemingly finding his sneakers suddenly interesting.
"Kazuya kun is it?"
Kazuya looked up to find a smiling Tomoe crouching in front of him and nodded.
"Thank you for finding Mai chan… Mai chan, here, come say thank you to Kazuya kun too" Tomoe gestured for Mai to come closer.
Taking her red scarf and matching mittens from her mother's hand, Mai approached Kazuya, with a big smile plastered on her face and all traces of tears gone, she wrapped her scarf around his neck and placed her mitten on his un-gloved hand and the other on her hand, "Thank you for finding me Kazuya chan."
Notes:
1. "puppy chan" basically Mai is meaning the puppy, in Japanese the word "chan" is added behind, a name sort of to say Mr puppy instead of just puppy. In Japanese "ワンコちゃん" (Wanko chan). "Chan" has a similar usage to "san", "kun" etc.
2. It's not uncommon for young children, especially little girls to refer to themselves in the third person, hence Mai's speech "Mama asked Mai to wait" etc. usually some of them grow out of it, while some may continue using it to a certain age, as it is deemed cute.
3. "Ojii chan" basically grandpa. "jii chan" is basically the shorter version of ojii chan, think of it as 'gramps', if you will. Not to be confused with "oji chan" which has one "i" less and means 'uncle'. Similar to uncle from the first chapter, grandpa need not necessarily be related.
4. "Sensei" basically 'master', sometimes also used to mean, teacher, doctor, lawyer as it is used for someone in an honourable profession. In this case, it's being used to refer to the term "master".
5. "Hai" basically Japanese version of 'yes', but also used as an acknowledgement, that you heard what a person was telling you, or to indicate that you understand what was spoken to you. Also used in place of "okay".
ノート
麻衣と和也はここに始めて会った。十二月の一週間ぐらい、冬。
麻衣はこれから五歳だけ、和也は六歳。
和也は幼稚園です、でも来年の春は小学校一年始めます。
-「夢見サヤか」-