Black Steel and Worldly Wisdom

Snowflakes and Kisses

By Mystic Dawn

Summary: (Set one year after Kurogane first met Tomoyo) Kurogane sneaks off into the night and is followed by Tomoyo. He finds out that he might not be as alone as he originally thought. Written from Kurogane's point of view, even though he's not speaking for himself.

Warning: Do not read unless you have read Volume 13 of the manga (or seen Episode 40 of the anime), or unless you have an idea of what really happened in Kurogane's past. Otherwise, you'll feel very confused.

Kurogane heaved a sigh and scuffed lightly at the snow with his boot. A single, solitary snowflake drifted down from the sky, unnoticed, right onto the tip of his nose. Noting the sudden chill, he squinted at the slowly-melting snowflake, then snorted in disgust. He brushed it away irritably and crossed his arms over his chest. The cold seeped through the material of his clothing and chilled him, and his breath was a white plume in the air. He gingerly fingered his nose with a gloved hand. He could hardly feel it, and his ears felt equally numb.

How he hated winter.

It was all her fault, he thought bitterly as he cast the telltale girl a dark look through the corner of his left eye.

The tiny Princess Tomoyo was unaware of the anger directed towards her as she played in the snow with childish abandon, her long black hair streaming behind her. She was quite busy sifting through the snow with her gloved hands, apparently digging some sort of pit for some reason or other. Her otherwise pale cheeks were flushed with the cold, and her breath steamed in the air as she laboriously went about her task.

He had been forced to accompany her because no one else had had any time to spare. What with recent talk of demons on the move and a mysterious force preventing their efforts to thwart them, every ninja had to be on the alert for a surprise attack. But not Kurogane. On the contrary, he had been assigned with the 'honor' of 'keeping an eye' on the princess. After all, the princess was the second most important person in Nihon, and needed constant supervision.

Kurogane sighed again and leaned against a frozen tree, deciding to wile the time away by counting how many leaves had remained on the tree's branches. That form of amusement didn't last long, however. When only three leaves have remained in the heart of winter, it's rather difficult to continue counting. He exhaled irritably and closed his eyes. He supposed that he would just have to suffer in appropriate silence.

Fwap!

"Hey!" Kurogane spluttered and coughed, wiping furiously at the snow dripping down the left side of his face. Silvery peals of laughter filled the air. The sound was coming from his left.

"It's about time I got a reaction out of you," Tomoyo smiled smugly, crossing her arms over her chest.

Although she was a good two heads shorter than him, Kurogane knew better than to loose his temper with her. That was, after all, what she wanted, and to stoop so low would only prove that she had gotten to him. However... it was a difficult feat.

"Tell me, Kurogane," she continued, a mischievous glint in her deep-violet eyes. "Do you really hate the snow so much?"

"It's not the snow that bothers me," he mumbled, averting his gaze from her face. He always felt weak and insignificant when he looked into her eyes, and it was a feeling he didn't like.

"The what is bothering you?" she prompted.

"Nothing," he grunted.

She pursed her lips and lay a forefinger against her cheek in thought. "Hmm... then there must be some other reason to your sullen behavior. Could it be the cold addling your personality? Or could it be that too much oxygen has rendered your mind a blank?"

He gaped at her incredulously, his eye twitching in annoyance.

Tomoyo suddenly grinned. "Or perhaps it's just that you're tired of looking after little old me!" she suggested brightly.

Kurogane fell over in shock. Did she have the ability to read other people's minds? He had the funny feeling that she could.

"That's it, isn't it?" However, instead of bearing cheerful and teasing notes like before, there was a definite difference in the sound of her voice. She sounded more subdued, and... maybe even a little hurt?

Damn, that was all he needed. For Tomoyo to think that he hated her. All right, he'd be the first to admit that she set him on edge and annoyed him like hell with her merciless teasing—a regular nuisance—but he didn't hate her. After all, if it hadn't been for her, he knew very well that he would most likely not be standing here before her today. And although he would never admit it to another living soul, he was genuinely fond of her. She would always be the one he could tell his troubles to, the one he could always turn to whenever he had a problem, and the only person he could always speak his mind to without worrying about the consequences.

"What-whatever gave you that idea?" he stuttered, getting to his feet.

"Well..." she said softly. "You're not as attentive as usual... I just thought that you didn't like my company..."

She looked so miserable, twirling the corner of her winter cloak between her fingers, that he had a sudden impulse to wrap his arms around her and to breathe in the exotic scent of her hair...

"Argh!" he exclaimed—more to himself than to her—as he pulled at his hair in aggravation. Stupid, stupid, stupid! Stop thinking about her like that! That was the real reason he hadn't wanted to get close to her today, the one he would never reveal even under pain of death. The reason behind the excuse of wanting to train like the other ninjas was only a cover-up, a flimsy—yet believable—excuse not to be alone with her.

There was an awkward silence.

"My mind's just a little preoccupied," he hastened to explain. "You know... what with the rumors of demons and everything..."

"Yes, you would be preoccupied about that," she agreed. "But with your mind elsewhere, I'm not having as much fun as I had hoped," she added sheepishly.

"What do I have to do with you having fun?" he asked in bewilderment.

Tomoyo smiled faintly. "Nothing... I was just hoping that we could play with the snow together. I would always have so much fun whenever I would play with Onee-sama! We would throw snowballs at each other, make snow angels, catch snowflakes on the tips of our tongues... Didn't you ever play with the snow like that?"

Kurogane looked down at his feet, and kicked at some snow lightly. "I used to..." he said almost inaudibly.

Tomoyo's eyes widened and she covered her mouth in horror. "Oh, I'm so sorry!" she gasped.

It was left unsaid why she was apologizing, for which Kurogane was grateful.

"It's okay," he said gruffly. He noted that Tomoyo looked even more melancholy than before. "Really... it's okay."

Her eyes mirrored her doubt in his words.

"Really," he said more firmly. He tried to force a smile, but it felt awkward and out-of-place on his face.

Tomoyo snorted with laughter. "You're not good at smiling," she said critically.

He shrugged helplessly. "Well, we ninjas can't be good at everything."

Tomoyo rolled her eyes and grinned. "You're not a ninja yet," she reminded him.

"But I'm going to be soon," he protested. "I'm way more skilled than all of those fleabags put together. If it wasn't for my young age I bet I'd have already been a ninja a long time—"

Thud!

"Hey! What the hell was that for?" Kurogane bellowed angrily, mopping up the snow on his face.

"To remind you that no matter what your skills may or may not be, it is my decision whether I actually let you become a ninja or not," Tomoyo countered, throwing another snowball at him.

It was a very well-aimed snowball, and got him full in the face. "Hey! Stop that!"

"Catch me if you can!" she dared as she turned on her heel and ran from him, laughing.

He gathered snow and ran after her, chasing her around the trees as he pelted her with snowballs. Although some of his throws were wide-ranged and well away from the mark, most of Tomoyo's throws found their goals—usually getting him on the head. He had to grudgingly admit that her size was quite an advantage when she dodged behind trees to avoid his hits. But there was no doubt that he was the faster runner, and it wasn't long before he caught up with her. He snuck up behind her, determined to wash her face with snow, but he was thoroughly taken aback when she turned around, threw her arms around his neck, and gave him a kiss full upon the lips.

A number of conflicting emotions surged inside of him at their close—extremely close—contact. Her lips were small and warm, her cold little nose rubbing against his cheek as her hands drew him closer into her embrace. He hesitated, the lone snowball he held falling unnoticed to the ground, and he could feel his knees weakening. He was at a loss how to react, but foolishly did not realize the full extent of her deceitfulness until she had stuffed a good amount of snow down the back of his shirt. Then she ran away from him again, gasping with laughter while he tried to shake the snow out of his shirt before it all melted.

"Caught you off-guard, didn't I?" Tomoyo teased as soon as he came back to her side, blushing furiously. It was difficult to tell whether he was blushing from anger or embarrassment. "Anyhow, it's getting late. We should head back or else Onee-sama will start worrying."

And so, she took off at a leisurely pace, Kurogane trailing along behind her, scowling darkly. Why had she kissed him just now? He snorted, answering his own question. She had done it on purpose, of course, just so she could win the game. Then why was it bothering him so much?

It only came to him hours later, while he was lying on his sleeping pallet in the soothing darkness of his small room in the middle of the night, that he would never be able to forget their kiss, for although he did not know if it meant anything to her, to him at least, it meant the world and more.

He would never be able to forget the feeling that that one, simple kiss had awakened inside of him for as long as he lived.