She walks in the room on her new chelseas like if she isn't late *

Ma buonasera! O buongiorno! And ,most of all, buon anno! What are you saying…? Can you repeat, please? The new year started, ehm, almost ten days ago? Ahaha, wow, we ladies always being late never checking calendaries and clocks…!

Ehm. *cough* *cough* I know, I know, guys. I had made promises, I haven't punctually respected them and I'm sorry, I am. Indeed, for some days I also felt a bit frustrated about how December and its holidays brought along a vivacious fantasy for drawing that completely shadowed my writing ideas. I also passed philology with an unexpected success and I guess my mind just wanted to go on a strike for a while, since I couldn't even read anything during these free days. I realy wanted to evade from intellectual activities. All my respect to art, but drawing has never stressed me as much as writing does XD (I love you, my writing hobby).

Anyway, now I'm here. Junzumi Santa found a bit of traffic up there but is here to give you all her New Year's gift, which is, guess what, some new nonsense story!!!!

[ Context: Junpei and Izumi met again in Parma four months ago and have started hearing from each other more often. The calls Izumi shares with him and Takuya instill in her a sense of nostalgia that takes her back to Italy sooner than the boys had expected. She couldn't miss a snowy trip to Val di Fassa organized by a Kouji who could have never imagined he would spend holidays with the whole group.

The story is set during San Silvestro, on the 31th of January, or better, some minutes after it because anything can happen in the first beats of a new year, even to Junpei. ]

XXX

{ Restarting again from a brainstorm}

"I like this song, y'know? It would be nice to go dancing it together, eh eh."

"Va bene! What a great idea, it will be fun!"

…

Every spell was meant to wear off at the stroke of midnight and his, whatever it had consisted in, hadn't been an exception. However, he hadn't been warned by the usual, sumptuous bells of a clocktower, but by the screech typical of a CD that has been abruptly interrupted, so by one of those awful noises that could really spoil even the best weather.

And yet, the music had kept on going, indifferent to the lancinating stridor never ending in his ears, to the stasis it had frozen his mind in despite thick pillows and big stoves, to the wince of slight fear he welcomed, once he gulped at what had sounded like the first heart pulse he had ever heard in his life.

Confused and disoriented in his own world and skin now that the enchantment had taken off, without even giving him the chance to ask for a little, if not minuscule, concession. After all, it wasn't like he would have praid for the miracle of a reverting night, of stars spinning backwards to disappear behind Val di Fassa's mountaintops, of the Moon diving in some dark lake like a biscuit dipped in a mug of chocolate. He would have simply settled for just a crumb of what it had stolen away from him too soon. All that boldness, recklessness, that hint of arrogance too which would often often fog the meaning of life in the mind of some during the first hours of the new year.

It was a special kind of nonsense inebriety coming after having gobbled down one or two drops of Teroldego or having left a glass of spumante full to the brim on the table. It would allow people to do what they would never do in other occasions, because it would bring along an accentuated sensitivity to the flow of time, the dash of the years, the succession of the songs.

It was the common sight of the shadow mounds of grey swabs project on Earth.

So, yeah, he guessed things might have gone a bit differently. Endowed with those special gifts, guided by such a magic and urged by the awareness it wouldn't last forever, he would have grabbed that hand at once. And , maybe, he would have also managed to look into the eyes of a beautiful cyclone without pushing his gaze downwards, not certainly at the level of those fingers and their flashes of violet, but even more downwards, on his thighs which his palms had attached themselves to with a refound stickiness.

" Su !" Izumi exclaimed and he could only reply through an awkward chuckle, reaching out to try dragging her along with him, down into a dive in his universe of perplexity and bubbles transforming certainties into ambiguities.

Thus, he soon felt her arm hesitantly pulling away, then her parting from him with some steps backwards taken on her ticking boots. By doing so that rapidly, she gave him the impression of a gradual suck of air draining him of the freshness of the still distant spring, with the consequence that he got left inert in the asphyxiating embrace of his body's heat.

Fortunately, she spoke again as soon as she returned onto her seat, in front of her coca cola and its munched straw, at the opposite end of the table…Or so he believed she had, at least, not expecting he would find himself stranded below a marine sky having just opened above the Alps like an unexpected aurora borealis.

"Oh, I see," After having occupied the chair Kouichi had been on, until he, - the quiet, sober Kouichi in the flesh!-, had been incredibly persuaded by Takuya and Kouji, and Tomoki too, to join them for another toast, she seeked for satisfying comfort in the sinuosity of a contorted pose. With her head resting on her knuckles and bending to a side to follow the bending of her lips, she giggled through an echo of embarassment which he was so used to seeing on the reflection of his face, in the opaque mirror of a bottle, but he wasn't when it came to hers at all. "I think I got carried away by the general excitement. You weren't serious, were you?"

There might be a pinch of irony in the fact that for the whole duration of that dinner, that one had been the only instant he had spotted clarity in both words and thoughts, and the mere reason what that she was right…Like always, needless to specify that.

Actually, when he put a certain amount of effort in picturing a dimension in which he had brought himself to accept her invitation, - as if he hadn't been the one who had invited her in a first place!-, he gasped at the realization he had no idea how that story would have unfolded next.

From experience, some sixth sense whispering from inside his chest reassured him he would have made a fool of himself. Therefore, he immediately grimaced at the fantasy of a nightmare dotted with stutters, forced coughs and sneezes, hands rubbed against the checkered feast of yellow on his waistcoat as, of course, they would have grown so sweaty at invisible touches grazing the rosy fabric of a pretty winter dress. Oh, and a final, sonorous face-plant that couldn't miss to coronate the performance, one drawing the attention of everyone present the hotel hall after having spoiled their jubilation.

In truth, he couldn't remember a single party during which he had ever messed up that terribly. Indeed, he couldn't really remember a party during which he had messed up in a first place and hadn't attracted each single spotlight over him. He had also danced with his fellow sopranos during the celebrations of their successes and he hadn't only managed to carry out the delightful task brilliantly, but he also had also taken their squeals away by putting on display his surprising skills, -and for the record, those were the words of the ladies in question!-.

Still, when it came to Izumi, he was aware it would be totally different. Everything was in her company…Especially the reliable, confident, eloquent, gallant young man he had grown into, that person she hadn't regrettably got to meet yet in those four months of frequent videocalls. He had hoped she would in those days of holiday in the cold Trentino, but she hadn't had that luck over there, either. On the contrary, she had stayed by the clumsy Junpei's side for the whole time, included on those occasions he had slipped on ice and had created impromptu snow angels by frantically agitating his limbs out of frustration.

Honestly. What the hell was I even thinking!?

A little overwhelmed, he sighed and gave up on controlling his shoulders' resigned sagging: his brain seemed to want to work only to sabotage his plans, or better, him himself. Staring at the glass in front of him, he decided to finally pick it up, but he did just to fiddle with its content, make the precious liquid rotate, generate little waves that failed to make the foam on its surface fade at each lap.

" Now that you've asked me, I'm not sure whether I was or not."

Nevertheless, he still attempted to clean the one floating on its conscience, though he made sure to occasionally send strained laughters in Izumi's direction, certainly not as fleeting as only hers could be. Actually, the very first of them, already heavy and lumbering, ended up dwelling on her flickering petals for more seconds than he had planned, waiting for them to completely open and uncover the majestic scenario from before. When he forced it to hastily return on that thin, transparent edge off which it was easy to fall off in the thick mist stretching below, he felt like something had changed but his absent focus couldn't seem to want to sharpen that perception.

"I had figured as much, but I didn't want to make assumptions. It…Would have been rude to let your words hang like that. So, I came and tried."

"Had you because you believe I can't dance?" However, since those lilac buds could open the door to the only place in which he was convinced he could retrieve the transparency he had been longing for, that's where that smirk went back, plunging the tip of its curve in alcohol just to be carried away by the tide, in a journey through libeccios, lightnings and, inevitably, thunders.

As soon as he woke up on a dreamy shore, the sensation that something was so different from what it had been lately came before the one of pinkies twitching, dim colours reigniting, gusts of a strong breeze whistling. "Eh eh, that wouldn't have been rude at all. Many think I can't dance and, I mean, I can't blame them: I'm aware I hardly look like someone who can."

"I have no reason to have got doubts. Many, me included, also believed you weren't able to sing, and yet…?"

Then, he sat up, no matter where he exactly did, whether on humid sand or his chair, because in both dream and reality he eventually smiled at the crystallinity of a clean sky, though in the latter he didn't with with the immense relief of a castway, but with the goofy grin only Junpei could crack.

Especially at Izumi.

"And yet what ah ah…?"

"Don't act as if it's hard to predict what I was implying," She retorted in a steady tone while hugging her torso, her natural frankness making him lose teasing duels before they even began. Yet, probably unluckily to her, it was right because her orbs were soaked in so much honesty that they themselves betrayed her, by showing him new unusual signs of that shyness his ears had previously been tickled by. "And whatever, who cares if you're also decent at dancing, right? The song you said you like finished ages ago."

Never stopping staring at each other like if they had been condemned to live as statues together, they blinked in unison as they listened to the slow duet that was currently advancing in the heart of the room.

" Oh mio Dio ," Izumi trusted her giggles with her comment. She didn't add anything else, except a millimeter of tongue she promptly hid behind her hand.

"Yeah, you can absolutely say that," His amused reply followed immediately afterwards, babbling about opinions that hadn't been phrased, -and to him, they had never needed to be for their gist to be grasped-. "It's from a cult movie I watched as a teen. It's mushy, but I remember it gets very catchy as it progresses."

While diverting his pupils from her after what had felt like so long, no desire for more determination, courage, impulsiveness, stupidity and whatever else you could add as ingredient for an illusion ever crossed his mind. There was only he and the dear struggle of imagining her hand in his, of trying again and, like that, a spell that had never existed, one which, most all, he had never needed, definitely broke. If he had asked her once, he could do it for a second time, glueing his nose on the same wood, taking the same deep breath, inhaling in the same warmth, pronouncing the same stammering question.

More or less.

"I-I like this song. Just a bit, though, I promise I'm not sentimental! It would be nice if, y'know, we could-"

"Go dancing it together?" Actually, she cut him short, and happy as he was, he allowed himself to get persuaded she had completed his sentence not because she had already heard it, she had been invited to dance twice, but because she had got the glimpse of pure honesty in his ponds of honey as well. And…Maybe, why not, of something else too, which poured red wine she had never tasted in her cheeks.

"Uh, y-yes! Exactly!"

He stood up as soon as he felt smooth velvet caressing his palm, tenderly mocking her intention of lifting his big size. Still, he allowed himself to be led to the dance floor by her as if he was as light as a feather, free from all his trivial worries, futile complexes.

Marching, clapping, spinning and rumbling next to that tornado she was, he wondered if someday he might come to find limpidity in the tempest they could assemble together, in the clouds of a storm.

But for now he, indeed, they would go on dancing, not wanting to waste further time, other seconds of that night, another single song from that party.

XXX

Buon anno, Junpei. Buon anno, Izumi. Buon anno a tutti noi!

Because, of course, I wish you all spent a good beginning of this promising 2025, -we always have to hope in good things!-.

Hm, I had ideas about a Christmas oneshot, but then I found myself in my father's car listening to "The time of my life" from Dirty Dance and I thought I didn't want to treat it as a coincidence. Of course, I didn't want to explicitly mention it at the end, but just know that song has been my mental theme for this oneshot, along with Enjambre's "Impacto" during these last days, so you can imagine how many times I've rewritten this trash, as I'm never satsified. But after many stories written by me and consequently many prefaces and final comments, you should already know what I'm like. What do these songs have to do with this oneshot? Basically less than nothing, but they contributed to generate this mess, this tempest in my head. I wish, you know, I could write stories that feel more down-to-Earth than jumbles of dreams, but I guess I have to open my arms in resignation at the fact my style is this. Patience ahaha, but I promise when I return on Kou's chapter I will touch the ground with my hands and feet. I *promise* and I could promise something out of the box for this collection too, because, of course, I want to experiment a lot this year as well, so brace yourself!

Italian notes (not many this time, another present!)

• I want to start from a note about the title, as here come they, the beautiful language gaps. Brainstorm, which I 've found an ideal term for what is happening in Junpei's mind for well-known reasons, is not a term I can translate in italian with the same "pun". We have got nothing similar here, so I had to be lamer in my own language merely replacing it with a simple "Tempest in the head". However, I love how the whole thing sound in my head tbh. I love the random rhyme (I hadn't planned it lmaoooo).

• Va bene!: The longer, italian " OK! " In my head it sounds like the same Izumi pronounced at him in Train of Hope, when he tells her he has got a present… *puts thousand of heart emoticons *.

• Val Di Fassa: A valley of Dolomiti, mountain groups dominating the Eastern Alps. Val di Fassa is precisely in Trentino, in its north-east.

• Teroldego: red wine typical of Trentino. The end. Ah listen, I don't drink just like the Izumi of my stories, so I know nothing about this stuff, even if my father is a wine sommelier lol. Now that I think about it, I could ask him about more details tomorrow.

• Su!: Common exhortation to push someone to do something. A bit like c'mon…?

"Oh mio Dio": Oh my God. It's always that, but I don't want to skip any clarification despite repetitions among chapters.

Before bidding you a good night, I want to say I'm very happy you liked the story of Junpei and Izumi meeting again in Parma. I have got a lot in store for them for this year, stories to also put in the middle of what happens between this and that chapter, so, yeah, if you want, stick with me through 2025 too and thank you for your Junzumi excitement like always!

Grazie! And see you very soon!

Zura-