Winter came back the way it always did in this town, quietly, without announcing itself.
One morning I opened my curtains and the roofs across the street were white. Not deeply. Just a thin dusting, like powdered sugar someone had forgotten to shake off. But it was enough to make me stand there in my pajamas for a full minute, breathing against the cold glass.
Nine months.
That was how long I had been back.
It didn't feel like nine months. It felt like something shorter and something much longer at the same time.
My phone buzzed on the desk.
Himeya: Morning. It's cold.
I stared at it.
Alicia: That's your message? "It's cold"?
Himeya: It's accurate.
Alicia: You could have said something poetic. You're the one who writes stories.
Three dots appeared. Disappeared. Appeared again.
Himeya: The sky is grey and the world is quiet and I am cold.
Alicia: ...That's worse.
Himeya: You asked.
Alicia: I take it back.
Then, before I could put the phone down, it buzzed twice more.
Nanase: ALICIA. SNOW. LOOK OUTSIDE.
Nanase: Also I forgot my English worksheet is that a problem
Mio: it's a problem
Nanase: MIO
Mio: good morning
I laughed out loud, alone in my room, at seven in the morning.
That was the part I still hadn't gotten used to.
Nanase and Mio had happened by accident, the way most good things do.
It was back in June. Yuina-senpai had entered three of us in a small prefectural sketch competition without warning, she'd simply announced it one afternoon and then refused to discuss it further, which I later learned was her method for everything.
Nanase Kotoha was the first-year who'd been assigned the easel next to mine. She talked constantly while she painted, entire monologues about nothing, and produced enormous, violently colorful canvases that looked like someone had put a summer festival into a blender.
Mio Sagara was in class 1-C. She barely spoke. She drew tiny, precise ink illustrations of insects and mechanical parts, hunched over a sketchbook the size of her palm, and she once went four club sessions without saying a single word to me before suddenly asking, "Do you want half of my melon bread?"
I said yes.
That was it. That was the whole beginning.
By August, we had a group chat.
By October, Nanase had assigned us all nicknames I hadn't agreed to.
By December, they were the reason I stopped flinching when someone called my name in the hallway.
"So," Nanase said, dropping into the seat across from me in the art room on Monday of exam week, "I have a theory."
"You always have a theory."
"This one is good." She slammed her textbook down, which was the least studious motion I'd ever seen a person make with a textbook. "Himeya-senpai, sorry, Himeya-kun, he's our year, I keep forgetting because he acts like he's forty..."
"Nanase."
"—is in love with you."
Mio, without looking up from her notes, said, "That's not a theory."
"It is."
"A theory requires uncertainty."
Nanase gasped. "Mio."
"I'm just saying."
I put my head in my hands.
"Can we study."
"We are studying," Nanase said. "We're studying him."
"That's not a subject."
"It should be."
Mio turned a page. "You'd fail it anyway."
"MIO."
I laughed so hard I had to put my pencil down, and the sound echoed off the cold walls of the art room, and I remember thinking, very clearly, in the middle of it, this is what I was missing.
Not just Himeya.
This too.
The stupid, loud, ordinary warmth of people who had decided, for no particular reason, that I was theirs.
Kousuke found us an hour later, wandering in like a man lost at sea.
"Alicia-chan. Save me."
"From what?"
"Math."
Nanase immediately sat up. "Oh! Basketball guy!"
Kousuke pointed at her. "Paint girl!"
"That's not my name."
"That's not my name either."
"Fair."
Mio looked up, assessed the situation in one glance, and quietly moved her notebook three centimeters further from the chaos.
"You know," Kousuke said, dropping into a chair, "Himeya's looking for you."
"He knows where I am."
"That's what I told him. He said he knows. He just wanted to confirm." Kousuke shrugged. "He does that a lot, huh."
I paused.
"...Does he?"
"Constantly." Kousuke leaned back. "Ever since spring. 'Is Alicia in the art room.' 'Did Alicia eat lunch.' 'Is Alicia—'"
The door slid open.
"Kousuke."
"AH."
Himeya stood in the doorway holding two cans, expression perfectly flat.
"What were you saying?"
"Nothing."
"You were saying something."
"I was reciting poetry."
"You don't know poetry."
"I'm learning."
Nanase was already grinning at me with an expression I would have paid money to erase.
The art room emptied properly after that.
Nanase left for cram school. Mio left because Nanase left, which was how those two worked. Kousuke left because Himeya threatened him with a spicy word.
Then it was just the two of us at the window table, the way it had been most of the week.
"It's freezing in here," Himeya said.
"The heater's broken."
"You've been sitting in a broken-heater room for an hour."
"I have a scarf."
He looked at me for a moment.
Then he set one of the cans down beside my notebook.
Hot milk tea.
Warm enough that I felt it through the metal before I even touched it.
I stared at it.
"Take a break," he said.
Something in my chest tightened, in a good way.
"You always do that."
"Do what?"
"That." I pointed at the can. "The milk thing."
"It's tea."
"It's the same principle."
"It's a completely different beverage."
"Himeya."
"Hm?"
"Sit down please."
He laughed and sat down across from me.
We studied like that for most of the week.
It wasn't romantic. Nobody tells you that studying with someone is mostly silence, mechanical pencils, and the occasional sound of a page turning too aggressively.
But I liked it.
I liked that he didn't fill the quiet.
I liked that when I got stuck on a kanji reading, I could just slide the paper across the table and he'd write the furigana above it without commenting on how long I'd been staring at it.
On Wednesday, he fell asleep.
I noticed halfway through a history question, the room had gone too still. When I looked up, his head was resting on his folded arms, his pencil still in his hand, his notebook open to a page of neat, small handwriting.
I sat very still.
The window light had gone soft and blue. Snow had started falling outside, thin and slow, drifting past the glass without any sense of urgency.
Before I could think about it, my hand had already reached for my sketchbook.
I drew him.
It took eleven minutes.
Then—
"You're drawing."
I nearly launched the sketchbook across the room.
"How long have you been awake?"
"Since you said 'don't move' out loud."
"I did not say that out loud."
"You said it about six times."
"That's slander."
"It's testimony."
I shut the sketchbook.
He looked at it. Then at me.
"Can I see?"
"No."
"Why?"
"Because it's bad."
Himeya sat up properly. And then he said something that stopped me completely.
"Alicia. I've seen the one in the hallway."
I went still.
"...What?"
"The display case outside the staff room." He said it evenly, like he was reporting the weather. "The winter exhibition. Third piece from the left. The ocean at dusk, with the railing in the corner."
My mouth opened.
"That's not signed."
"I know."
"Then how—"
"Because I've watched you draw since we were seven," he said. "You do the same thing with light. You leave the brightest part empty and let everything around it carry the weight."
I stared at him.
"You noticed that?"
"I noticed it when you were eight." He shrugged, uncomfortable now, looking anywhere but at me. "You drew our street after it rained and you didn't draw the puddle. You drew everything reflected in it and left the middle blank. I asked you why. You said the light didn't need help."
I had absolutely no memory of saying that.
But it sounded like me.
It sounded exactly like me.
"Yuina-senpai told me you almost didn't submit it," he added.
"Yuina-senpai talks too much."
"She said you stood in front of the entry box for six minutes."
"Yuina-senpai talks too much."
"You submitted it, though."
I looked down at my hands.
"...Nanase pushed me."
"Physically?"
"Physically."
Himeya's mouth twitched. "I like her."
"Everyone likes her. It's exhausting."
He was quiet for a second. Then,
"Alicia."
"What?"
"You've been drawing again."
I opened my mouth. Closed it.
Because he was right, and I hadn't noticed it happening. Not in a single dramatic moment. Just a window in April. A cup in June. Kousuke mid-jump in September. Nanase asleep on her own canvas in October. Mio's hands, twice. The sea from the rooftop in November.
And now this.
"...Yeah," I said. "I guess I have."
"Since when?"
I thought about it honestly.
"Since someone put a carton of milk on my desk and refused to explain why."
His ears went red.
"Drink your tea," he said.
"Yes, Mom."
"Don't."
The last exam was on Friday.
Mathematics. Which is, I'm convinced, a punishment invented specifically for people who like drawing.
When the bell rang, I put my pencil down and stared at the ceiling for a solid ten seconds.
Kousuke turned around in his seat, eyes hollow.
"I think question eighteen took a piece of my soul."
"There were only fifteen questions."
He froze. "...What?"
"There were fifteen."
"Then what was I doing for the last twenty minutes?"
Himeya, packing his bag, said flatly, "Praying."
Kousuke slammed his head onto the desk.
I laughed until my stomach hurt.
Outside the classroom, Nanase was already waiting, bouncing on her heels, Mio standing beside her with the expression of someone who had been dragged there.
"ALICIA."
"How was it?"
"Don't ask. Ask Mio."
"It was fine," Mio said.
"She got everything right."
"I didn't say that."
"You implied it with your face."
Mio adjusted her scarf. "My face doesn't imply things."
"Your face implies everything."
Nanase grabbed my sleeve. "Anyway! Winter break! We're doing a sketch trip. To the sea candle. It's decided."
"By who?"
"By me."
"That's not how deciding works."
Mio, quietly said "It's how she does it."
I looked at the two of them, Nanase already talking about snacks, Mio already calculating tickets on her phone and something in my chest did a small, unfamiliar, wonderful thing.
"Okay," I said.
Nanase blinked. "Okay?"
"Okay. The sea candle."
She screamed. In the corridor. During dismissal.
Mio pretended not to know her.
Afterward, I climbed to the rooftop.
The door was heavier in winter. Cold metal, stiff hinges.
When I pushed it open, the wind hit me immediately, sharp, clean, carrying snow that had begun falling again in earnest.
And he was already there.
Of course he was.
Then he turned. Not startled. Not abrupt. Like he'd known.
"Alicia."
"Himeya."
I walked over and stood beside him at the railing. The ocean was grey today, blurred at the edges where the snow met the water.
"You can't see anything," I said.
"I know."
"Then why are you looking?"
He thought about it.
"Because it's still there."
I let the snow land on my scarf.
"Do you remember the first day?" he asked.
"You said I'd changed."
"You had."
"And now?"
He was quiet a second longer than usual.
"Now you laugh before you decide whether it's okay to."
I felt something in my throat.
"That's a weird compliment."
"It was an observation."
"It was a compliment."
He didn't argue.
I pulled my sketchbook out of my bag and opened it to Wednesday's page. Him asleep. The window. The undecided snow.
I held it out.
He didn't take it. He just looked.
For a long time.
"It's bad," I said quickly. "The proportions—"
"Alicia."
"What?"
"It's good." He glanced up. "And you know it's good. That's what's different about you now."
I opened my mouth to deny it.
Nothing came out.
Because, irritatingly, impossibly... he was right.
"Explain it," he said.
"What?"
"You told me art doesn't work like that. That I have to hear the reason."
I looked down at the page.
"...I used to be afraid of drawing people," I said. "Because if you draw someone, you're saying you want to keep them."
He didn't say anything.
"After Mom, I stopped wanting to keep things. Because keeping things means you can lose them."
The wind moved between us.
"But you were sitting there, and it was snowing, and I thought, I want to remember this exact afternoon. Not a big one. Just a Wednesday where the heater was broken and you fell asleep and nothing happened."
I closed the sketchbook.
"So, I drew it."
Himeya was very quiet.
Then, "That's a good reason to draw."
I laughed, shakier than I intended. "You said that in April too."
"Because it's still true."
I wiped my eye with the back of my glove and blamed the wind.
"Nanase says I should enter the spring exhibition," I said.
"You should."
"You're supposed to say 'only if you want to.'"
"I've said that for nine months." He looked at the invisible horizon. "You want to. You're just waiting for someone to say it out loud first."
"...That's annoying."
"Yeah."
"Stop knowing things about me."
"No."
I laughed again, and this time it came out fine.
Then, casually, in the exact tone of someone who had rehearsed it and was pretending he hadn't.
"Mom's making nabe tonight."
"Is that an invitation?"
"It's information."
"Himeya."
"...It's an invitation."
"Did Haru-nee already ask me?"
Pause.
"Yes."
"I knew it."
"But I asked her to ask you."
I stared at him. He stared very deliberately at nothing.
"...Okay," I said.
"Okay?"
"Okay. Can I bring Nanase and Mio?"
He turned his head slowly. "How many people are coming to my house."
"Four? Five with Kousuke."
"Kousuke's coming?"
"Haru-nee invited him."
"She said that to you?"
"Yep."
He exhaled a cloud of white into the cold and, after a moment, gave up entirely.
"Fine."
I stepped away from the railing. Then stopped.
"Himeya."
"Hm?"
"Last spring, you said 'welcome home.'"
He turned around.
"I did."
I smiled at him through the snow.
"I think I finally understand what you meant."
He looked at me, really looked, the way he did when he was choosing words carefully and probably wouldn't use any of them.
Then he walked over, stopped beside me, and said, simply,
"Good."
"That's it?"
"What else should I say?"
"Something."
He thought about it. Snow settled on his shoulder.
"Then I'll say this," he said. "Let's go home."
Let's.
Not I'll walk you.
Let's.
I looked down so he wouldn't see my face.
"...Okay."
At the shoe lockers, three people were already waiting, and all three of them started talking at once.
"FINALLY—"
"You took nineteen minutes."
"Mio counted?"
"Mio counts everything."
"Oi, Himeya, am I allowed to bring my own meat or not—"
"No."
"HARU-NEE SAID—"
And then, off we go.
The snow was pretty.
It had been pretty in Canada too. I remembered thinking so, standing at a window in a country that had never quite become mine, watching it fall on a street where nobody knew my mother's name.
But this snow fell on a street where five of us walked in a loose, noisy line, arguing about hot pot ingredients, and one of them checked without looking that I was still there.
Nanase linked her arm through mine. Mio walked slightly ahead, pretending she wasn't listening. Kousuke talked to Himeya, catching up the news.
I pulled my scarf up over my chin and smiled into it.
Exams were over.
Winter had come.
And for the first time in a very long time, I wasn't counting the days until something ended.
I was just walking home, and this time, I wasn't walking alone in any direction at all.