Sleeper 1972 (Crispy Secret Santa '12)

To: Mehk
Love: Lunch


Sleeper 1972


Outside, it's cold. It's dark. There's almost a foot of snow, and harsh winds sweep and storm through the grounds of Yamaku Academy.

The deserted halls aren't much better. A bitter chill persists, punishing any who dare venture from their dorm rooms, heedless of any reasons or excuses. Emi Ibarazaki has both. The cold does not care.

When she had first arrived back in the spring, she'd been glad to find that her room came with a heater. And here, now, she could stay, she could crank up the knob and bury herself beneath her blankets. But then she would go back. Surely she would fall asleep again and she knows, she knows she'll go back.

She doesn't want that. Won't do that. So instead she'll go forward. It's Christmas Eve, it's pitch dark outside and right now, it's the perfect time for a run.

Emi tries not to think as she attaches her running prosthetics, as she grabs a jacket and throws it around her shoulders. Thick enough to get her to the track, not so much as to slow her down, to make her too hot once she gets going. She selects a similar pair of gloves and snowpants, and for only a moment she laments that they're all the same shade of orange. A... nice color, a perfectly fine color, it even looks good on her. But blue would be better.

He would say so, anyway.

Emi tries even harder not to think, she grabs a scarf, a pair of earmuffs. And then she slips out into the hall, grateful that the metal of her leg blades doesn't directly touch the stumps that are her shins and she can ignore the cold that lingers outside. She walks, hands thrust in her pockets and head down, although there's no one else around at this hour. They're all asleep, warm and dreaming of tomorrow, dreaming of spending time with their friends and their family. With loved ones.

Tomorrow, she'll be with her family. She'll be with her mother but at this moment she's alone. Emi exits the dorms and steps outside, it's dark and bleak and still snowing out here, by all rights it's awful. But she's wearing a smile that's almost real by now, this isn't just a distraction. It's more than that. It's a challenge.

She'd been the only member of the track team to beg and plead the staff to keep the track clean, clear and salted when the weather took a turn for the worse. They'd looked at her like she was crazy, even her teammates had balked. But then she ran. And they watched, and they didn't see a tiny little crazy girl with no legs. They saw track star, they saw a legend in the making.

No one saw a tiny little girl who misses her father. And she wants to keep it that way.

She's here now, she's at the track. She's going to keep it that way. Emi does a few quick stretches, grateful for the hardworking groundskeepers who made sure her sanctuary had been plowed and shoveled during the day. The staff at her old school would never have done that. She didn't even really expect them to go through with it anyway, she had been prepared to run in the thick snow.

Pleasant surprises. Good surprises. She does one more stretch before crouching down into a starting position, never mind the fact that snowflakes are still being shaken from the clouds above, they're still tumbling down and there's no sound, it's all been swallowed up.

Emi's body is tensed like a spring, like an animal but before she can snap into motion, before she can throw herself into her run and forget everything else, something moves in the corner of her vision. She turns her head to look.

In the stretch of field between the track and the paths that lead across the grounds, a figure is kneeling in the snow. The form is small, it's completely bundled up but almost camouflaged from all the white that has come to rest atop the many layers of clothing.

Judging from their size, it's a first year. They're there, all alone when the rest of the world is silent, dead and gone, and they're building a snowman.

Emi can feel the track calling to her, her heart and soul yearn to be in motion and the memory of her dream is still fresh, still raw. But something else is pulling her along. It lifts her to her feet, makes her take step after crunching step, until she's standing behind the lone person in the snow.

Standing this close, she call tell that the figure is a girl, probably a first year like her. She has a thick scarf wrapped around her face and the hood of her jacket pulled low, but that's not what draws Emi's attention. That's not what she notices first.

It's the way her hands tremble as they pat and smooth the round segments of the snowman. The love, the care. The longing that each movement holds.

Emi's footsteps have come to a halt, but the snow can't consume every sound anymore. The girl is still there, still kneeling down. And Emi can hear her crying.

The movements are automatic, Emi doesn't think, she just does. She turns and walks away, coming back moments later with a few sticks. She offers them to the girl, who doesn't look up, who flinches before gingerly reaching out to accept them. Emi leaves again, this time to collect a pair of stones from alongside one of the paths through the grounds. When she returns, the snowman has arms. Now it has eyes.

Emi joins the girl in the snow, picking it up and packing it onto the man that they continue to craft and carve. It's cold, but that's not why her hands are shaking. Their creation is crude, cliché, it's every snowman anyone has ever seen.

It will never have his smile. It will never have his warmth. She doesn't stop.

They don't have a hat. That's okay, Emi's father never really cared for them. She glances at the girl next to her, did her... did whoever she...

Again, the girl flinches away, covers her face with her gloved hands. She's crying, sniffling, trembling, and she won't look at her. She won't look up. Emi doesn't blame her, won't blame her. She returns to the task of putting the finishing touches on the snowman--her snowman? Their snowman?--and when she's done she sits back, she looks up at the form before her, painted in the glow from the vanishing moon and the lights that still shine across the grounds.

It's just a snowman.

It's just a snowman.

It's not enough.

There's movement next to her, the girl is sitting up. She's rolling a ball of snow between her gloves. She's sobbing now, her small frame is shaking like a leaf but she keeps packing snow together, placing it right next to the snowman they'd just finished.

She's making another one.

And now Emi is crying too.

More snow, more snow. More branches, more stones. It's not enough. Two snowmen now, a father and a mother. They're not enough. When they're done, Emi throws herself on the other girl, she wraps her arms around her. She holds her trembling form and cries and she prays, she prays that it's enough.

That, some day, it will be enough.

The snow keeps falling.










“Sleeper 1972” is a song by Manchester Orchestra.