Till We're Buried

The snow had been unusually heavy over the past week and hadn’t stopped for even a moment. It had piled up outside, already several feet in height.

Juurou had only gotten as far as the gate before accepting that going to work was even less feasible than the previous day. It took him ten minutes to get that far, and even his muscles were starting to resent him for trying it. He could only turn back around and walk back through the footsteps he’d left behind.

The snowdrift followed him in covering the hall in snow, only for it to melt the second he closed the door. The house was still warm at least. Even the shock of opening the door wasn’t enough to let all the heat out. He hung his hat, scarf, and jacket up by the door, watching the droplets disappear from them as well.

He went through to the front room, finding Tarou sitting at the door with a sketchpad. However, his focus wasn’t on drawing but on outside the window.

Yomi stood in the garden, re-potting some of the flowers. Despite the lack of a roof, there wasn’t any snow in the garden. The walls had kept out the worst, but there had been a couple inches when Juurou had gotten up that morning. They seemed to have all melted while Yomi was out there tending to the plants.

Juurou only opened the door as wide as he needed to slip through, closing it again so Tarou wouldn’t freeze from the cold. Despite appearances, the snowstorm howled overhead, whistling as it slipped through statues that had no protection from its wrath. Even when it wasn’t hitting him, when the temperature around him was almost mild, Juurou instinctively wanted to wrap his arms around himself. Yomi turned to him, tilting his head ever so slightly.
“Could you not get to work?”
“The snow is too high,” Juurou confirmed, though it felt silly to say when the flowers were as vibrant as ever under Yomi’s expert thumb. Yomi nodded and put the plant he was holding down, wiping his hands off on his apron. He looked to the gate, the only sign of the wall on the other side being the crack under it.

“I could walk you to work.”
“I don’t think there will be anyone there.”
“I guess that’s true,” Yomi laughed and put his hands in the pocket of the apron. He didn’t say anything as he led them back inside, gently nudging Tarou out the way of the door.
“Yomi!” Tarou squeaked at him, giving an exaggerated shiver. “It’s cold.”
“It seems we’re snowed in.” Yomi picked him up, carrying him deeper into the house, paying no mind to Juurou as he followed them both.

Snowed in…

Snowed in with Yomi…

Juurou followed them into the theatre room. Tarou jumped out of Yomi’s arms, digging his way into a pile of blankets on the couch before giving another dramatic shiver.
“If you do that, you’ll fall asleep,” Yomi warned him. Tarou made a whining sound, but Yomi ignored him, instead going to the projector with one of the reels.

Tarou had once said the same thing to Yomi and Juurou. The snow had been a lot milder then, but enough that the radio had said the school would be off for the day.

They’d sat under the kotatsu, Juurou peeling oranges and handing them to Yomi. Enough oranges that their aunt scolded them that they’d make themselves sick. Juurou had apologised, but Yomi had continued to stare at the oranges none the less. It took him a while to look away, seeming to accept that Juurou wasn’t going to peel him any more now that he’d been told off. So, he’d slipped under the kotatsu instead. His head still sticking out, so he looked like a turtle with a kotatsu shell.

Under the blanket, his body had melted, and a tentacle wriggled its way up Juurou’s leg. It squeezed in the space between the table and his body, trying to make its way unnoticed to the oranges in the centre of the table. Juurou had scrabbled to push it back down, only for the tentacles to elongate in desperation. Then, they turned on him. Wrapping around his hands and body so that he couldn’t keep grabbing at them as another made its way above the table, rapidly approaching the oranges.

“If you do that, Yomi, you’ll fall asleep,” Tarou had called through the doorway. He could only see Yomi’s turtle head, but the tentacles whipped back under to kotatsu as he walked towards the room. He’d reached under the kotatsu, slipping his hands under Yomi’s armpits and sitting him back upright.

He’d brought the projector through to show them.

Yomi flicked the projector on, it flickering to life as it started to roll as he took his seat beside Tarou on the couch.

Juurou went to the projector, closing the reel’s case and setting it aside as he looked over the movies Yomi had brought over. Happier ones than Juurou usually picked when he was watching alone.

Yomi seemed to have a thing for stories where love won in the end.