HereComesTheSnow — Roleplayer Guild

Sterling Johnson

"... Chalk it up to growing pains for now, huh? I've got Jorie. No sense waiting around and moping out here in the wastes." the now-un-stunned brawler offered, shifting their diminutive, and still very-much knocked-out leader's weight upon his shoulder. Apparently having learned his lesson from the flash, his aviators were now resting squarely upon his face, leaving his eyes unreadable.

However, he didn't conceal the fact that the good humor had left his face. A moment's lapse in judgement was all it took for them to go from salvaging the situation, to...

To running at a dead sprint from a horde of Grimm they knew was in their way. They were careless.

He was careless.

And it nearly cost the driver, Lilac, and his team their lives.

"Dunno about you guys, but I'd rather die back in Beacon. At least there's air conditioning there."

With the most humorless quip of the day, Johnson began to walk.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

Luke Schwarz

Meanwhile, far away from situations quite so far down the drain, Luke Schwarz found himself utilizing an oft-disregarded affinity of his.

They'd just wiped out the last of the ambush, after ironing out minor kinks in the plan and communication thereof, and were now making their way through the room at a much more respectable pace than they'd started. It seemed the continuous ambushes after sitting around and talking for too long had lit a similar fire under everyone's rears.

However, they weren't rushing blindly forward. That is to say, the trio were still very much cognizant of their surroundings, and wary of any new stimuli that might suggest a new threat or change in the situation.

And as it just so happened, a moment of sheer convenience occurred in something of that nature, for tumbling down the vents and into the room were the sounds of screams, shrieks, and other such noises...

And they're  g i r l s !

Now, to clear the air here, before anyone took things the wrong way, there were entirely innocent reasons for the team hit-sponge's receptiveness and immediate recognition towards the vocalizations of distressed females. 

You see, he grew up in a house with two younger sisters, and as anyone who had a sister knew, little sister screamed a lot. Whether yelling at you for not letting them have their way, to distracting them from their homework, to even correcting your form on how to punch, little sisters always aired their dissatisfaction with maximal volume.

Therefore, it was perfectly sensible that he be able to distinguish a girl screaming at moment's notice, and it betrayed nothing at all about his character beyond a heroic tendency to help girls in need.

At all.

Seriously, it's not like I have anything to be defensive about.
I'm a coward anyway it's not like I'd do anything
I'm a perfect gentleman. End of discussion.

"Sounds like we're getting close. Let's get this thing open..." he said, drawing up to the door and proceeding to try and do so.

Before you ask if I've weebed out on you with this work's title, First off: Yes. Secondly: It's descriptive of the story, trust me. It's some entry-level cheeky wordplay in the style of the author I set out to emulate with a certain expressive-haired hero, and speaking of which, it's in first-person for this go around. Hopefully it'll give some insight as to where he comes from.

Enjoy.

>If you’re off at the park like always, stick around. I wanna talk.

“…”

It was a pleasantly cool winter afternoon, in one of the many parks located within the Suburbs of Vale. A Saturday, giving me the particular freedom to retreat here from the lofty heights of Beacon Academy. Of course, it actually was a rare weekend where I did so to begin with, being stuck in the quagmire of hard study necessary to keep on top of the sudden spike in educational demands, especially those in wholly unfamiliar areas.

However, today, was an outlier. That is to say, today was a particularly special Saturday. One that really only came around once a year. One that was important for me, and every other young man or woman who was honest with themselves.

It was February the 14th.

Valentine’s Day.

And I was seated alone, on a park bench, during it. Again.

I breathed out a weary sigh in acceptance of the fact. It seemed that, even when I was well-integrated within the almost infectiously amorous community of Beacon Academy’s first-years, I still was always going to find my way here to the neighborhood park. Granted, that wasn’t for lack of trying. On my way here, I’d noted Lauren giving me a look with such a mischievous glint in her eye that I could immediately rule out it having anything at all to do with chocolates.

I didn’t need to get mixed up in hijinks right now!

I turned my eye down upon the screen, staring at the Scroll in vexation. Of course I couldn’t get mixed up in any hijinks with Lauren right now. I had a bigger, much more pressing breed of them to deal with on my plate already. It had sent my mind racing as soon as I’d gotten the message, and driven me out of what was arguably my best chance to receive chocolates for today, even if they were courtesy chocolates only. It was a conundrum of dire importance.

What could she have wanted to talk about?

Why did she need to talk about it with me?

How the heck did my little younger sister even know about me and this park?! The whole point of me always going here is privacy with my thoughts!

The one time I wasn’t planning on it, too…

Fate simply can’t leave a guy well enough alone, can it?

“Good, at least you’re actually here.”

“Ah—”

I blinked, looking up, and there she stood. A young girl of a mere fourteen years old, clad in her favorite kimono, an elegant dress with a “Morning Blue” coloration that I could only call that because I’d get my ear screamed off if I called it “muted blue-indigo-ish”, and a yellow hibiscus pattern. Held in place by a red obi sash tied perfectly at the back, this was apparently her favorite “genre” of clothing, if you will—

Because she would wear these things everywhere she could get away with it, as I was (especially now) convinced. It and the yukatas in the summer were her favorite loungewear, to be certain, and I was fairly sure I could only recall one other type of garb I’d ever seen her don.

Her school uniform.

Otherwise, her fixation on traditional dress continued to make my conservatively average “it’s a jacket and jeans kind of day” style look downright drab.

“Twintails, huh?”

I opened with a casual observation towards her other fixation. My littlest sister, unlike her partner-in-crime who was older by barely a year, had a strange tendency to experiment with new hairstyles every month or two. For instance, I was fairly certain she had a short little pixie-cut last time I’d seen her before moving into the dorm.

Gratia would have a field day with this girl. After all, she had the family ahoge just as her siblings did. If we added in a general hairstyle being in flux, I was sure the foul-mouthed Mistralian would blow a gasket.

But, not the point.

“Yeah.” came her terse reply, as she sat with slightly puffed up cheeks next to me, kicking loose her geta with a pout.

So she was mad about something.

My little sister was mad about something on Valentine’s Day.

Oh boy…

“What’s it like being alone today so much, big brother?”

A hard-hitting question already? You couldn’t have pulled your punch a little, at all?! Why are you taking you anger out on your loyal onii-chan?!

“Well, uh… It’s certainly something, Dawn.”

“‘Something’?” she repeated flatly.

Give me a second to think!

“Well, it’s a little hard to talk about. That is to say, hard to explain. At this point, I’m kind of, you know, used to it. It’s doesn’t bother me as much as it did when I was you or April’s age, I mean. It’s not too bad.”

She managed to mix a pout with a grimace and deliberately leaned away from me.

“You managed to make that sound so pathetic, I don’t want to keep going down this road for advice.”

Oh, leave me alone!

I shot her a defensive glare.

“You’re the one that chose this path. Why are you antagonizing the sibling you asked to talk to, anyway?”

I looked ahead again, propping my arms back upon the edge of the bench.

“If you’re going to just make fun of me, go bug your sister instead.”

Now it was her turn to sigh.

“I can’t talk to her.” she mumbled despondently. Now that piqued my interest, as it would any big brother’s. I looked at her sidelong, studying her expression carefully as she twiddled her thumbs just outside those voluminous sleeves, appearing almost smaller than normal. Which was a bit of a marvel, seeing as she was roughly Cian’s size.

Or perhaps it’s more a marvel that Cian is the size of a fairly average middle-schooler…

“Well, what is it then?” I asked, reigning the conversation in. “What can you talk to me, but not her about?”

“Well, we both planned dates with our boyfriends for today…” she explained, taking on a bit of an embarrassed tone.

What exactly was I supposed to do with that? Come on, Dawn, I’m not an ace detective like you and April think you are!

“Okay, and?” I urged her to continue.

“Were you even listening, big brother?!” she demanded, going from demure to incensed in the blink of an eye.

“I was!”

“Were you really?”

My ears work, you know!

“Yes, I was! I’m a good listener, Dawn!”

“Then what did I just tell you?”

“Ha!” I scoffed, folding my arms triumphantly. “Your ultimatum won’t work against me, foolish girl! Your exact words were, ‘Well, we both planned dates with our… boyfriends… for today.”

oh

Oh.

“Exactly.” she replied with a nasty scowlpout that kicked me while I was down, and folded her arms in turn as she continued through clenched teeth. “Just like Mom says, you hear, but you don’t listen at all.”

M-Mom would never throw me under the bus like that, right? I know misery loves company, but why are you just tearing me down over and over?

“So he didn’t show, then?” I asked.

“No, and I don’t even know why.” she replied, deflating a little. “He said he’d be happy to go when I told him about it in class…”

So that was what it was after all. I could imagine why she didn’t want to talk with April about this, being the more typically “social butterfly type” of the two and having nothing to show on the most romantic day of the year, failing where her less popular, albeit nominally so, older sister had succeeded…

Well, needless to say that as much as the two loved to gang up on me, she still was understandably reluctant to give ammunition for a Glorious War of Sisterly Rivalry, even one founded simply upon lighthearted teasing.

Although for that matter, I was surprised she found me a safer option, considering I’d managed to drive April into a week-long depression spell with a thoughtless comment once…

Wait, was she thinking I’d be more understanding thanks to my constant bachelorism?! What kind of assumption is that, that you could take advantage of my own sorry state?! That’s an outrage! An insult! Slander! Libel!

I turned my head upward, thinking.

It was also, well, not entirely wrong. Damnable prodigies I had for sisters.

“In class, huh? Do you think something came up between now and then?”

“No, I wouldn’t say there was much chance…”

“Why’s that?”

24 hours was plenty of time, you know.

“Because we hashed out all the details last night, and he told me it sounded good! There wasn’t any indication he’d stand me up!”

I raised my hands, as if urging a hysteric animal to calm down.

“Okay, okay. So it wasn’t anything out of the blue.” I agreed, injecting a note of soothing into my voice. “And he told you he was okay with the plan. Where did you say to meet? Maybe he’s having trouble finding it?”

She seemed to mull that over.

“Hmmm, I dunno. I only asked him to meet me outside the school gates…”

Okay, do you just think guys in general are dumb? I’m pretty sure he knows where his own school is, you don’t need to think about that one that hard!

“Huh. I’ve got nothing.”

“You…”

That didn’t sound good.

“Eh?”

“You’re the most useless brother ever! I want a proper consultation, not some oaf giving me dead-ends! Aren’t you supposed to have experience and wisdom?! I would have just texted April if I wanted idle chatter that went through everything I already thought through! You’re a dummy! A dummy, a dummy, a dummy! I’m platinum mad at you for being such a dummy!”

Mayday, mayday! Full-bore assault on the front bow! This was a more fearsome sight than a murder of Nevermores, and I’d seen one of those!

“Okay, okay, I get it! Just stop hitting me!” I pleaded, shielding myself with my forearms. If she kept pounding those little fists against my chest, I was gonna get bruised!

Almost reluctantly, she ceased her attack, and resigned herself to fuming. “You deserve it for trying to blow me off…”

“Alright, so you say you’ve run through everything you can think of, right? Everything from the location to his willingness to even contingencies popping up.”

She nodded. “Yes, that’s right. I went through everything I that could have logically been wrong in a logical manner, and ruled them all out by way of logic.”

“If you keep repeating ‘logic’ so much, it’s gonna sound like you didn’t actually do it with any logic.” I pointed out.

She steamed at that one. “Are you calling me a liar? I can’t tell if you want to help or not!”

“So, every possible problem’s ruled out…”

I placed my hand on my chin. Maybe I needed to call in some help here, and look at things from another angle…

“Why don’t we go there?”

“Hm?”

“Why don’t we go there ourselves? Take me there.”

She looked at me, perplexed. “What for?”

I smiled, rising from the bench and relishing the stretch in my legs and lower back, and held out a hand.

“Just humor me.”

If I was gonna phone a friend, I’d need stalling time, after all. It’d be a bad look if an older brother was really so helpless in giving advice to his little sister, you know. This would give me time to plot and reach out for any semblance of a solution I could find.

“Okay, I guess…”

Taking my hand, she slipped her feet back into her geta and rose in her own right, looking uncertainly up at me.

“It’s a nice day out. If we calm the nerves being out in this weather, we might think of something, right?”

A plausible-enough sounding theory, at least to my ears. It’s something Dad would say, probably.

“Oh, I get it.” she said at length, “That sounds like a good idea after all.”

“Of course it is.”

A sly smile crossed my face.

“I have experience and wisdom.”

And so, we began our trek. Dawn and April both went to a different middle school than I had, as it opened up right as I started my Freshman year, so my memory of the path was hazy at best. Especially considering it was from the park in the neighborhood, to boot. Thankfully, Dawn was more than happy to lead me along, leaving me free to follow and shoot a quick text to Lauren, hoping she was still free enough to respond.

As we walked, I couldn’t help but be cognizant of the couples milling about the streets of our little town. It was as if we were being reminded of what day it was, walking through a cosy little town full of an air of… whimsy, I suppose. And if I noticed it, there was no doubt Dawn noticed it too.

If that was the case, I really needed to commend her for putting on a brave face, even as some of her friends as well as some of mine chatted the two of us up around town. It was only through familial bonds that I could notice the hint of wistfulness in her smiles.

I may not be the best role model for an elder sibling, I’ll admit it readily, but I couldn’t help but feel for her. Any brother would.

And now, for the punchline of this story.

We drew up to the school in tandem, both having managed to come up with a fat wad of nothing. I was about ready to move from the stage of offering consultation to consolation, and she had just about become forthright with the gloom she truly felt—

And then we saw him. 

A lone, well-dressed young man standing at the gates of the school, black hair done up sharply yet still swaying every time he scanned the sidewalk, and a small bouquet of flowers in hand.

Our eyes both went wide in surprise even as he checked his watch with barely disguised franticity, looking for all the world to be hoping he wasn’t late.

Wasn’t too late. He was hoping that he wasn’t too late.

Immediately, my phone buzzed, right as it all clicked to place in a moment of universal synchronicity.

>When did she say to meet?

“Dawn.” I said in a sharp whisper, even as she scrolled through her messages in the IM app that we also had on the family computer. “You said he needed to meet you here at 1:00PM, right?”

“…”

That silence didn’t sound like she had a good answer.

“Right?”

“I maaaay have accidentally typoed and put in 4:00 without noticing…”

For reference, by now it was nearly quarter to 5:00.

“Numpads, right?”

I felt a vein pulse in my forehead, and my arm lashed out with the speed of an angry cobra—

And flicked my little sister between the eyes. Prodigy, Schmodigy!

“Ow!” she hissed in pain. “What was that for, big brother?!”

“Stupid girl! You had me really feeling for you when it’s your fault to begin with!” I roared quietly.

“It was a mistake! It was an honest mistake!” she indignantly insisted.

“What happened to ‘going through everything logically’? Did you not check your own message?!”

My arm lashed out again.

“So I forgot one thing! That doesn’t mean you get to abuse m—Woah, woah, WOOAAH!”

She staggered forward from me clapping her on the back, right on the knot of her obi. The combination of her hard footwear clacking against the sidewalk and un-whispered yelps of trying to regain balance were enough to draw the young man’s attention over, presenting him with one Schwarz regaining her balance, and the other already turned and about to walk away.

“In that case, Dawn, you’d better make it up to me.” I said over my shoulder.

“Huh?!” she warbled, head darting from me, to her approaching boyfriend, to me again.

I felt for her indeed. It was a rare girl who had to deal with such a poor example of a brother as me, you know.

“You’ve made your one mistake and forgotten your one detail already, so don’t screw this up or I’ll never let you hear the end of it.”

I must be pretty useless in regards to romance, after all.

“Have fun for me, got it?”

Not waiting for a response, I began to walk, leaving the two to their devices with just a wave.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

At eleven, I promptly collapsed onto my bed, not wanting to look at another letter of anything involving Psychology.

My escapades through the day had been, for lack of a better word, absolutely exhausting. After I’d gotten back, Lauren immediately started hounding me about guns, hair, and quiet one-armed girls so quickly that I couldn’t even think straight as she tried to play matchmaker with me.

Let alone everyone else she felt like pairing up after that…

“Insane…” I groaned, stretching luxuriously. “Today was just insane. Valentine’s Day as a whole is more trouble than it’s worth…”

My scroll buzzed. A message from Dawn.

>Hey Luke?

>Yeah?

>Thank you.

In spite of myself, I smiled.

Okay. 

Maybe it wasn’t.

HereComesTheSnow Member

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