Komi Komi Literature Club!

Chapter 39: The Joys of Winter

Greetings, everyone.

"I hope that you are all enjoying the Winter season, and staying safe and warm in this weather. Before the season comes to an end, I would like to have a fun day in the snow one more time. If you are available next Saturday, it would make me very happy if you could come over and spend some time outside with me. My mother has offered to make hot chocolate for everyone who comes (it's the delicious and the bestest~!)

I look forward to it.

Sincerely,

Komi

Komi wanted to review what her mother had typed up for her before it was sent out, so she was hit with a hot flash of embarrassment when she saw that her mom had already sent the message (and included a weird comment in parenthesis).

Nevertheless, people quickly started to respond, letting her know that they would be there: Tadano, Naijimi, Nakanaka, Onemine and her siblings, Monika, Yuri, Natsuki, Alex, and Yamai – she included in her response that she would be bringing Komi a souvenir from her holiday trip to Hawaii.

Komi spent the whole week feeling nervous about the gathering, mentally preparing herself for the big crowd that would be coming. Since she had practically her whole class come to her house during Christmas, she had a better sense of what the energy would be like.

Still, she hoped that everyone would get along, including her fellow literature club members.

She could hardly sleep the Friday night before, her head was filled with hypothetical scenarios, anticipation, and the excitement of getting to see her friends outside of school again. She could hardly stand it but she couldn't wait.

Saturday morning came and Komi was up bright and early. She ate breakfast, got herself bundled up, and stepped outside. She waited for awhile for her friends to come. It took awhile, but Naijimi and Tadano were the first to arrive; not surprising since they lived the closest.

"Morning, Komi!" Naijimi sang, "Ready to play?"

"Mhmm!" Komi nodded excitedly, her cat ears popping out as she did so.

"Heheh, what would you like to do first, Komi?" Tadano asked with a smile.

"Hmm..." Komi thought to herself.

"We should try and build the biggest snowman possible!" Naijimi suggested, "I'll start rolling up the first snowball!"

So the three of them got started on preparing a snowman. As they started rolling the first snowball, packing it with extra snow as Naijimi meticulously rolled it across Komi's front yard, some more of Komi's friends started to show up: Onemine and her trio of siblings.

"Hey, Komi! How's it going? Good to see you! You too, Tadano, Naijimi." Onemine greeted them pleasantly, waving in their direction.

"Quiet Komi! Hey quiet Komi!" The other Onemines ran in circles around Komi, excited to see her again. They laughed and ran around her, causing Komi to freeze up and panic. She wasn't sure what to do or how to respond.

"Looks like you got yourself a little fan club going!" Alex said with a laugh as he made his way into the yard with his hands in his coat pockets.

"Hey, Alex! We're making a giant snowman!" Naijimi waved to him.

"Well well well, good to see you too, Alex. How've you been?" Onemine asked, smiling sideways at him.

"Not too bad. How 'bout yourself? Those all of your siblings?" He asked curiously, pointing to the kids who were either talking to Komi or helping Naijimi with his snowman project.

"Unfortunately, yeah, heheheh. If they give you a hard time, you can just push 'em over," She joked, resting an arm on his shoulder. "Hey, guys! This is Alex from school. He's from America."

"What?! America?!" Her siblings all gasped and ran over to Alex at the same time, excitedly bombarding him with questions about what America is like.

"Hm...I will have to consider what sort of things I could contribute. I'm a big fan of storytelling, but I'm hardly a writer. Nevertheless, I'd be happy to channel whatever skills I can acquire from my reincarnation cycle." Nakanaka said, chatting with Monika and Sayori as they walked up to Komi's house.

"I didn't understand what you said at the end but if all that meant you'll try your best to do some writing for the club then that's great!" Sayori said with a smile.

"Hey, everyone! We made it. The fun can start now." Monika giggled, greeting the others as they joined with Komi and the others.

"Hey, guys! You're just in time for the snowball fight!" Naijimi said happily.

"Snowball fight? I thought you wanted to make a snowman." Tadano pointed out.

"It's not exactly coming together...so it's gonna be a snow fort instead!" Naijimi decided.

"Alright, snowball fight!" Onemine's siblings exclaimed excitedly.

"Mm! Mmm..." Komi paused for a moment, not saying anything. She looked down and began to shake a little.

"Haha, don't worry, Komi! There's no reason to be scared of a little snowball fight." Naijimi laughed, patting her back consolingly.

"Actually, she's thinking that we should probably wait until the others show up before we have the big snowball fight. Right, Komi?" Alex said, nudging her with his arm.

"M-Mhmm..." Komi nodded slowly, her gaze staying low to the ground. She was honestly nervous about the snowball fight too, but Alex was also right.

"Do you know who else is coming, Komi?" Tadano asked her.

"Mm...mhmm." Komi nodded.

"Komi! So sorry I'm late! I was busy packaging your gift!" Yamai said as she ran over, making her way into Komi's yard with a small wrapped gift box in her hands, "Here! I've been so excited to give this to you! Go ahead! Open it!" Yamai urged her, clasping her hands together excitedly.

Komi's eyes widened a little as she looked down at the gift box. She carefully unwrapped it and opened it. Inside was a small bracelet decorated with shells, a starfish, a flower, and a thin metal plate with the engraving, "Komi Ku'u Lei" written on it.

"Do you like it?" Yamai asked hopefully, shifting side to side in anticipation for how she would react to this gift.

Komi's eyes widened in surprise. This was actually a nice gift with a surprisingly minimal amount of strangeness to it. She looked up at Yamai and nodded enthusiastically, showing that she was pleased with this gift.

"Yes! Oh good, yes! I'm so happy!" Yamai giggled cheerfully, "I hope you'll wear it sometime when the summer season comes back around. Please, please where it and be sure to show it off to everybody and let them know that your bestest friend ever, Yamai, gave it to you!"

As Yamai was talking to Komi, a random snowball whizzed past Alex, missing him and plopping on the ground behind him. He looked up strangely and realized that Natsuki and Yuri had gotten here. Natsuki had tried to hit him from the other side of Komi's fence.

"Aw man! Almost had you!" Natsuki grumbled and swung her arms in front of her to convey her disappointment.

"Womp womp." Alex chuckled.

"Hello, Alex. Hello, everyone. We aren't too late now, are we?" Yuri asked.

"Nah, you're fine. We've all just been hanging out." Alex replied.

"Mm!" Komi noticed that Yuri and Natsuki had arrived and walked over to greet them with a happy wave.

"Hey, Komi! Good to see ya!" Natsuki smiled.

"Thank you for inviting us to come over and spend some time with you and your friends." Yuri said politely.

"Mhmm!" Komi bowed her head appreciatively in return to thank them for coming.

"Come on, this is boring! Let's hurry up and start that snowball fight already!" One of Onemine's brothers groaned.

"Yeah, snowball fight!" Onemine's younger sister exclaimed in agreement.

"Snowball fight! Snowball fight!" Naijimi chanted.

"Kids! The hot chocolate is ready!" Komi's mom opened up the door and called to them. Everyone turned towards her.

"Hot chocolate! Yay!" Onemine's siblings cheered.

"Alright, hot chocolate first! Then snowball fight after!" Naijimi decided.

Komi's mom made sure that everyone had a mug of hot chocolate to drink from. They all decided to hang out in the yard, either sitting and standing as they drank.

The quieter ones of the group (Komi, Yuri, Monika, Onemine, and weirdly Alex) listened to the others talk: Naijimi chatting with Sayori and Natsuki while Yamai and Nakanaka bickered back and forth. And all the while, Onemine's siblings were trying to finish their hot chocolate as quickly as possible so they could go back to playing.

By the time they had all finished their hot chocolates, some more of Komi's classmates had arrived at her home just in time for the big snowball fight that Naijimi was now taking the liberty of arranging.

With almost a full class of people now present in Komi's front yard, it took no time at all to get two sides divided and set up for a full-on snowball war. And while everyone wanted to be on Komi's side, they eventually decided to have both sides fight while Komi looked on and chose which side to bestow her blessing upon.

In the end, Komi decided to do a little bit of playing on both sides: first one then the other, so she could spend a little time with everyone there.

At the end of the day, while everyone was cooling off and taking a break before they dispersed for the day, Komi's mom called her to the door to speak with her.

"Komi! It's starting to get late, honey. Your friends should probably start heading home soon. I don't have enough food to feed the mob." She whispered her joke to her daughter, giggling afterwards.

"Mhmm." Komi nodded in agreement.

"Alright, everyone! Thank you for coming! It's about time for Komi to come inside now!" Her mom called to the group to spare Komi the embarrassment of having to send them away herself.

"Aww, alright. This was so much fun though!" Sayori said.

"I'm glad we got to do something like this before snow melts. I hear the weather will be changing again soon." Monika said.

"Yeah...what season comes after Winter again?" Alex asked.

"Spring, dummy." Natsuki nudged him.

"Oh yeahhh...flowers and stuff." Alex nodded absently, standing up now.

He looked around cautiously as he reached down and scooped up just a small handful of snow. He made his way towards the front door as Komi was waving goodbye to some of her friends. He chuckled a little to himself, sidling up next to her.

"Hey, Komi! Thanks for the invite! This was fun!" He said, wrapping an arm around his shoulders. He clumped up the snow that was still in his hand and squished it against her neck, causing her to shriek loudly and almost slip as she pulled away from him.

"Eeep!" Komi scrambled to try and brush the snow off of her neck, but her frantic movements was causing the snow to trail down under her shirt, making it worse. She kept scrambling, which only made Alex laugh at her more.

"Hey! How dare you mess with our great goddess Komi?!" Yamai exclaimed, grabbing a snowball and quickly pelting with him. Very quickly, most of Komi's classmates started to pelt him with snowballs while he curled up on the ground covering his head.

"Ah! Ah! Help!" Alex shouted.

"Hahaha, serves you right!" Natsuki laughed...