Chapter 1

They couldn't have asked for a better day, Ohtori reflected as the Regulars tramped out into the snow under the clear blue sky. The air was thin, so high up the mountain, but their breath still fogged before them in the cold dryness of it. The sun glittering on the snow was almost blinding, even with the shaded goggles he wore to protect his eyes.

Looking out over the mountain skyline, seeing the contrast of snow, dark trees, and sky, Ohtori felt his chest tighten for a moment at the sheer beauty of it all. He'd been to the top of Mt Fuji, and of course the scenery around the Atobe summer 'cottage' was breathtaking. But none of it had compared to the stunning vistas he was seeing now. In that moment, he was beyond glad that Shishido had talked him into coming.

"Wow, look at that!" Jirou exclaimed, bouncing up beside him. The normally sleepy boy was wide-eyed and hyper, his cheeks flushed with the cold air and excitement showing in every over-stated gesture he made. "Ohtori-kun, isn't it pretty?" He tipped his head back, shading his eyes with one gloved hand, and whistled. "Atobe-san! Atobe-san! Look at the people up there! Wow, it looks like so much fun, I can't wait!" He abandoned Ohtori to glomp Atobe instead.

Their captain was in a rare indulgent mood it seemed, since he merely stepped out from under Jirou's weight rather than shoving him off or having Kabaji remove him by force. "I'm going to warm up on the double diamonds. Anyone else going to join me?" Atobe asked casually. "Yes, I know you're coming Jirou, I meant other than you," he added before his bouncy shadow could start babbling again.

"You're warming up on the doubles?" Mukahi asked in disbelief. "Gods, Atobe, is there anything you aren't... no, you know what? Forget I asked that," he said in disgust as Atobe just smirked at him. "I already know the answer. All right, all right, we're in awe of your 'beautiful skills' already."

"I'll go with you," Hiyoshi said as he double-checked the fastenings of his skis. "I suppose we might as well stick together if we're all doing the harder runs."

Seeing that nobody else was about to volunteer, Atobe nodded and adjusted his grip on his poles, pushing off in the direction of the lifts that went to the top of the mountain. Jirou and Hiyoshi followed just behind him. "We'll see the rest of you tonight at dinner, then," their captain said, lifting one pole in salute.

"Well, I'm starting with the single diamonds," Mukahi declared once they'd gone, his tone daring anyone to accuse him of being a coward or a bad skier. "Then I'm going to the jumps. I might try a double after that, or maybe later in the week. It's been too long since the last time I did this, I need to get the hang of it again."

"That sounds good, though I may try the slalom when you go to the jumps, Gakuto," Oshitari commented, adjusting his goggles. For once he wasn't wearing his glasses beneath them; everyone on the team knew the frames held nothing but plain glass, and they made wearing the goggles awkward.

"I'm for the snowboard half-pipes," Shishido said, hefting his board over his shoulder. "I'll switch to skiing later when I get tired. Thought I saw you had a board too, Gakuto?"

"I do, maybe I'll challenge you tomorrow," Mukahi agreed with a smirk. "That'll give you enough time to practice so you can't claim you only lost to me because you were rusty." Shishido growled at him and kicked a clump of snow in the smaller boy's direction, which the other senior deftly dodged.

"I'm staying on the diamonds," Kabaji said, his low voice seeming to rumble over the snow. Laughing, Mukahi gave him a thumbs-up.

"Wow, Kabaji and Atobe split up, you don't see that very often," the redhead snickered. "All right, let's hit the slopes!" Almost as energetic as Jirou, the doubles player shoved off in the same direction Atobe and the others had gone. "Hey, Ohtori, you coming?" he asked over his shoulder as he belatedly noticed Ohtori had made no move to join them.

Grateful that the red in his cheeks would be attributed to the cold, Ohtori shook his head. "I'm staying on the lower slopes for now, senpai," he said respectfully. "I'm not ready to tackle a diamond run yet." Truthful enough - he just wasn't admitting how unready he was.

Thankfully, it seemed Mukahi had taken the bait. Maybe because he was still sensitive about Atobe's casual demonstration of his superiority, the redhead didn't tease Ohtori for his inexperience. "Still stuck on the blues?" the older boy asked, almost sympathetically. "Ah, well. We'll have you on the diamonds by the end of the week, no worries!"

Unlikely, Ohtori thought wryly, but the sentiment was appreciated. "We'll see," he demurred, tugging at his gloves to make sure they were on snugly before he picked up his poles and got awkwardly to his feet.

"I'll meet you in a couple hours, Choutarou," Shishido called back as the four of them started off again. "I'll be ready for a break and an easier run by then. See you there!"

"Have fun, Shishido-san," Ohtori called after them, waving. "Try not to break anything!" Shishido only laughed in return.

Waiting until the others were well out of sight, Ohtori sighed and turned to head for the lift that would take him to the bunny slopes. He'd already quietly arranged for a few hours of private instruction when the others weren't looking, and Shishido had assured him that would be more than enough for him to be ready to face at least the green slopes on his own.

"Hell, Choutarou," he remembered his partner's words, "you are an athlete. You'll be on the blue slopes by the end of the week with no problems, you'll see. And the others'll never know you'd never been on skis before in your life."

Given the difficulty he was having just in reaching the ski lifts, Ohtori reflected now, he wasn't so sure about that. His left ski went sliding out from under him again, and he barely managed to avoid landing flat on his ass. A little despairing, he struggled onward and finally made it to the chair lift.

Getting on and off the lift was an adventure in and of itself, he quickly discovered. Getting on wasn't so bad, being mostly a matter of timing and aim, but his ski went sliding out from under him again when he tried to get off, and he nearly tripped the person who was getting off behind him as he tried to scramble out of the way.

At least the view during the ride was almost worth it, he thought with a sigh as he went looking for his instructor. From up here the slopes back down looked awfully steep, and he did his best to avoid looking at them. Even here on the easier slopes, everyone around him seemed so very much more graceful than he did, and it was embarrassing.

It's even worse than when I first started learning to play tennis, he mused, not without some humour. Remembering his first awkward attempts at a serve or a volley, he had to smile. I was just as bad at tennis then as I am at this now, but at least everyone around me was bad, too!

Ohtori spent the next two hours learning to stop, to fall (and get up again), and to turn, those apparently being the most important things you needed to know in order to be able to ski. The lessons were a bit of an exercise in frustration, since English was the only language he and the instructor had in common and neither of them was particularly proficient in it. Perhaps a native English speaker would only have found the older man's accent quaint, but it rendered him almost incomprehensible to Ohtori.

Despite that, however, he found himself quickly getting the hang of it. As Shishido had promised him, it really wasn't all that complicated. His natural athletic ability let him pick up the basics quickly, and he had plenty of strength and stamina after all his tennis training. By the end of the two hours he felt more than confident enough to tackle the green slopes, and he was starting to think maybe Shishido had also been right about him being able to face the blues by the time the week was over.

His partner hadn't yet made an appearance by the time his lessons were over, so Ohtori decided to brave the slopes on his own. His first solo run down the green slope felt almost like flying, and suddenly he could definitely see the appeal in the sport. He was laughing aloud by the time he hit the bottom, the delighted sound drawing smiles from the other skiers around him.

Making his way back to the ski lift, he was surprised and dismayed to catch sight of a familiar shock of deep burgundy hair. Mukahi was coming towards the lift from another angle, apparently having gotten tired of the higher, more difficult slopes. If he invited Ohtori to go down with him, there was no way he could get out of explaining to his senpai that he wasn't capable of handling the blue slopes yet.

He considered turning away and waiting to take the lift until after his teammate had passed, but at that moment Mukahi spotted him and waved. "Oi, Ohtori!" the smaller boy called out, changing direction slightly to meet up with him. "Isn't this great? Man, I'm really glad Atobe invited us all to come!"

"Me too, senpai," Ohtori admitted, and that at least was honest. He really was having a good time, and the scenery was beyond merely beautiful. "Where's Oshitari-senpai?"

"Oh, he got tired of watching me show off on the jump, so he went to the slalom run like he said he was gonna," Mukahi shrugged carelessly. He was a little put out at not having anyone to show off for, and even more put out that his partner had abandoned him so easily, but he was still having too much fun to really complain about it. A brilliant idea struck him - Yuushi wasn't the only one who could appreciate his jumps! "Hey, you wanna come watch? I'll even teach you the basics of jumping, if you want. It's fun, it's just like flying for real!"

Ohtori hoped his face didn't go as green as he felt at the idea of voluntarily sending himself over what amounted to a cliff edge. He was nowhere near ready yet for the sight of empty air under his skis. Thankfully, he did have a way out of this. "I'd love to, senpai, but I'm supposed to be meeting Shishido-san," he declined with a polite smile. And he was actually a little disappointed, because he had no doubts that watching Mukahi-senpai jump would be impressive. "Maybe I could come watch you later, or another day?"

"Yeah, sure, if you like," Mukahi agreed. Having an audience later was better than having none at all, and Ohtori would probably drag Shishido along with him, too. Then he'd have twice as many people to show off for. And Ohtori, unlike Yuushi, would probably be vocally appreciative. Next time he asked, he wouldn't offer to teach Ohtori, he decided. From the look on the kid's face, it was that more than anything that had decided him against going to watch.

A wicked idea came to him then. Despite what some people said, Mukahi really did try to be a good senpai most of the time. Honestly, was it his fault Ohtori was so sweet and trusting and, well, gullible? The boy just begged for pranks to be played on him, really he did. How could Mukahi resist?

"Oh, I forgot," he said, tapping his pole into the snow. "I ran into Shishido on my last trip down, he said if I saw you I should tell you he's waiting for you. Up there," he continued, gesturing at the other chair lift, the one that went much higher up the mountain. The one the rest of them had taken to get to the diamond runs.

"Up there?" Ohtori repeated uncertainly, turning wide eyes to the upper face of the mountain. The diamond runs, what could be seen of them from their position below, looked twisted and steep, and more than a little dangerous. Mukahi could see the hesitation in those wide, brown eyes. "Why would he want to meet me up there? Aren't the diamond runs up there?"

"Not all of them," Mukahi answered. Truthfully, even. There were a couple of diamond runs on the lower slopes, but that wasn't how Ohtori would take what he said. He'd assume Mukahi meant that not all the runs up there were diamond runs. "He said you really ought to see the view from the top. It's amazing," he enthused, his eyes lighting with genuine excitement. "I've never seen anything like it out here. They just don't have mountains like this back home."

Ohtori was a little skeptical. He was well aware of his acrobatic senpai's penchant for pranks, though the awareness hadn't often saved him from being the victim of said pranks. He couldn't imagine why Shishido would have decided to change his mind about where to meet without telling Ohtori himself.

Though... maybe the view up there was just that beautiful, that Shishido had decided Ohtori needed to see it. And if he'd known Mukahi was going down to the area where Ohtori was anyway, it might have made more sense to ask him to relay the message than to go all the way down himself, only to turn around and go back up again.

"Shishido-san really said I should meet him up there?" he asked doubtfully.

Hiding his wicked grin through long practice at looking innocent, Mukahi nodded. "Yeah, he did. Honestly, Ohtori, don't you trust me at all?" he asked, careful to sound annoyed at being doubted.

"Well..." Still hesitating, Ohtori chewed on his lower lip, tasting the lip balm he'd spread over it before he'd gone out on the snow. Mukahi's expression was really just a tad too innocent... but then again, maybe that was just Ohtori's own suspicions painting him in a bad light. "If you say so, senpai."

"You better hurry, or he'll figure you didn't get the message and come looking for you," Mukahi said helpfully. "When you're done, come watch me jump!"

"Sure, senpai," Ohtori agreed, swinging around and heading back the way he'd come, towards the other chair lift. He raised one pole in a farewell gesture, and Mukahi echoed it before getting into the line for the lift Ohtori had been waiting for.

The sun was just touching the horizon as Ohtori rode the lift to the top of the mountain. The eight of them had arrived at the lodge in the late morning, settled in and ate a late lunch, and then decided they might as well not let the afternoon go to waste. Some parts of the mountains around them were already in shadow, the sun being blocked from their slopes by other peaks. As he climbed higher, Ohtori's reservations about the whole thing began to fade.

I can only imagine how beautiful the sunset will look from up there, he thought, smiling softly. Yeah, I can imagine Shishido-san wanting to share that with me. I'm glad Mukahi-senpai found me in time.

Not that anyone else would ever have believed Shishido Ryou would do something as 'soft' as wanting to share a beautiful sunset with his doubles partner. Ohtori was the only one who got to see the gentler side of his best friend. He suspected Shishido might have just the slightest bit of a crush on him, and he wasn't quite sure what to do about that. He was confused about his own feelings, young enough that he was only just beginning to really understand what the whole 'attraction' thing was all about. And Shishido would be leaving in just a few short months, moving on to Hyoutei's affiliated high school, and Ohtori wouldn't see him again for a year.

That thought was painful, so Ohtori tried not to think about it too much. And truly, he wasn't even sure Shishido did have a crush on him - maybe it was just that Shishido trusted him more than anyone else, and so allowed Ohtori to see his more vulnerable side. Either way, the older boy had never said or done anything to indicate that he wanted his partner to know how he felt. Ohtori had sort of decided to let things lie until they met again in high school, when they'd both be a little older and hopefully he'd be more ready to face the potential that lay between them.

The lift continued to rise, high enough that Ohtori could feel his breath coming a bit short, his body working harder to compensate for the thin oxygen levels in the air. Below him he could see the occasional skier on the narrow diamond slopes. At one point he thought he recognized Hiyoshi's jacket, but he couldn't be sure.

Every so often the lift he was on would end, and he would get off to look around for Shishido. His partner wasn't waiting at any of the lower courses, and Ohtori had to assume the older boy would be in plain sight so that Ohtori would know where to get off. His heart sank as he continued up the mountain, one lift at a time, and there was still no sign of his partner. It looked like Mukahi had been putting him on after all.

At least I'm a little better at getting off the lift now, he reflected as the chair deposited him at the last stop. Otherwise I might have slid all the way back down the mountain.

Casting around, he looked for any indication that Shishido might be there. Not only was there no Shishido, there was no sign of anybody else, either. With some apprehension, Ohtori saw that the little booth where a lodge worker had sat at each of the other stations was empty. Moving forward slowly, he peered through the window, but the booth was locked and there was no sign that anyone might be coming back.

There's... there's gotta be a way down other than skiing, he reasoned, trying to ignore the anxious pounding of his heart. Surely people come up here by mistake.

He looked over at the lift, which made its way back down the mountain from this point. The benches went down on the other side of the circular wire mechanism, but getting back onto them would be difficult at best. After reaching the landing where people got off, they went a little higher up rough terrain, then swung out over a cliff before heading down again. If he'd simply stayed on the seat he'd have been fine, but he didn't think he would be able to get back on without falling.

Wide-eyed, he turned to look down the ski slope. He didn't need the little sign beside it with three black diamonds on the picture to tell him that it was much too hard for him to even think about trying it. It was narrow and twisty, with boulders, icy patches and even cliffs lining it. One wrong move, and he'd be lucky if the worst he got was the proverbial broken leg.

"I'll just wait here," he finally declared aloud, just for the sound of a comforting voice. The words fell into the curiously flat silence, fading away without bringing any of the comfort he'd hoped for. Surely someone will come along, and tell me how I can get down from here. Surely.

The sun continued to sink as he waited, and he could see the shadows creeping up the mountainside. It truly was breathtaking, but he wasn't in the right state of mind to enjoy it. The cold crept up on him, sneaking into the seams of his jacket and chilling his flesh. He started to shiver, and still there was no sign of anyone coming.

What do I do if nobody comes? he wondered, watching the shadows continue to move up the mountainside. There were no lights on these slopes, which meant no night skiing. Which might very well mean that the booth person had gone home for the day - and there would be no more skiers until morning.

I can't stay up here until morning, he knew. He looked around to see if the workers might not have an easier way to get down the mountain, but if there was, he couldn't see it.

Which meant there was only one way down. Swallowing hard, he turned back to the ski slope. Triple diamond or not, it was the only way down the mountain, and he would freeze if he tried to stay up here.

Maybe if I took my skies off and just walked down? He hit the releases for his skies and cautiously stepped off them. Almost immediately he discovered the problem - the snow was icy up here, and his boots had no more traction than his skis did. At least on the skis, he had some semblance of control. He quickly refastened the skis to his boots.

Taking a deep breath, he reached up and adjusted his goggles, making sure they weren't going to come loose and obscure his vision. Gripping his poles tight enough that his knuckles were probably white under the gloves, he pushed off and started working his way down the dangerous slope.

Almost immediately he ran into problems. The turns were tight, and the icy snow made it hard to go as slow as he would have liked. He fell several times, and quickly discovered that some of the cliffs weren't lining the path, they were part of the path.

When he fell right before one of the cliffs and slid straight over the edge, landing hard on his side on the ice below, he lay there without moving for a long moment. I can't do this, he despaired, feeling slow tears trickle down from under his goggles, freezing on his cheeks. He struggled back up onto his skis again, breathing hard and wondering if he would ever be able to make it down without seriously injuring or even killing himself.

Without warning he hit a patch that was actually ice, not just icy snow, and he lost control entirely. His speed picked up as he hurtled towards one of the sharp turns, and he panicked for a moment as he tried to get control back.

The words of his instructor came to him... 'Remember, if you run into trouble, just sit down!' Frantic, he all but threw himself backwards, planting his ass in the snow and sliding to a stop just short of the edge of another, much higher cliff.

Exhausted, panicked and on the verge of despair, he clung to the nearest tree, trying not to hyperventilate. Oh gods, I'm going to die up here, he thought wretchedly. Mukahi-senpai, how could you?

Prologue Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 4 Chapter 5 Chapter 6 Chapter 7 Chapter 8

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