Chapter 3

Shishido slid to a showy stop, the edge of his board ploughing into the soft snow at the bottom of the slope and spraying flakes of it everywhere. He grinned as a passing skier on his way to the chair lifts was hit with the spray, and turned to curse him out in a language the Japanese teen didn't recognize.

Giving the older skier a cheerful wave, he toed the releases for his boots and stepped off the board. Picking it up, he slung it over his shoulder and made his way towards the lifts that would take him back to the top of the slope.

Hmm, actually, I wonder what time it is, it occurred to him. Shifting his grip on the board he peeled back the sleeve of his jacket and the bottom of his glove, and squinted at his watch.

"What?" he exclaimed aloud, shocked at the reading. "That can't be right... did I forget to change it for the time zone?" He hadn't forgotten, though - he very clearly remembered resetting it as the plane had landed and the captain announced the local time. Besides, if he'd forgotten it would have been more than just a little off - Switzerland was a long way from Japan.

"Shit," he swore, shifting the board again and breaking into a trot. He was late to meet Ohtori, by at least an hour. He'd totally lost track of time. The half-pipe runs here were fantastic, snow packed just right and more than deep enough, and he'd been having so much fun he'd forgotten himself. Ohtori was probably starting to wonder if Shishido had forgotten about him.

It wasn't far to the regular ski hills, though he caught sight of more than a few glares in his direction by people on skis when it became obvious he was heading for 'their' chair lift. Skiers didn't tend to think much of snowboarders - well, the same was true in reverse, too. But they didn't need to worry, he wasn't planning to show off or anything, just keep his partner company while the younger boy got used to skiing.

Once he's got the hang of it, I should teach him to snowboard, Shishido thought with a grin. The others've got no reason to heckle him for being new at that, since I doubt anyone other than me, Mukahi and maybe Jirou are any good at it. Well, and probably Atobe, but the Diva is good at anything he puts his mind to regardless of whether he's had any practice at it, damn him. Shishido respected his captain well enough - it was hard not to respect Atobe, ego or no ego - but that didn't mean he liked the boy.

He reached the bottom of the green slopes, and cast around for signs of his partner. There was no glint of sunlight off silver hair, no sound of the voice he knew almost as well as his own. Eh, he probably got bored of waiting for me and went to do some runs on his own, Shishido decided after a moment of looking. He'll have to go to the chair lift at some point, I'll wait for him there and that way I can't miss him.

He made his way to the line-up for the lifts, noting that the lodge had put up a couple of little outbuildings nearby for washrooms and a cafe that served hot drinks. Dropping his board beside him, he leaned up against a wall with his arms crossed, shoving his goggles up to give him a better view around him.

Almost half an hour had gone by according to his watch, and he was just starting to wonder if maybe Ohtori had gotten tired and gone back to the lodge or something when he finally spotted someone familiar. It wasn't Ohtori, but at least it was someone he knew.

He couldn't resist a chance to poke at his least favourite teammate. "Oi, Mukahi," he called, raising his voice to be heard over the chatter of other skiers. "Don't tell me you're sticking to the baby slopes?"

The burgundy head swivelled, searching for him, and Mukahi made a face when he spotted Shishido against the wall. "Don't be an ass, Shishido," he snapped back, leaving his place in line to wander over to the taller boy. "Of course I'm not, these lifts go up to the jump slopes as well. What're you doing here?"

"Waiting for Choutarou, have you seen him?" Shishido asked, shrugging. "I was supposed to meet him here a while ago, but I lost track of time and I'm late."

An evil smirk crossed the smaller boy's lips for just a fleeting moment, before Mukahi's expression settled into something resembling innocence. "Yeah, I saw him a while ago - invited him to come jumping with me, or at least watch, but he said he had to meet you."

Other people were often fooled by Mukahi's ability to make himself seem a harmless, innocent child; but Shishido knew what real innocence looked like. He saw it often enough, shining from his partner's eyes. Besides, any of the Regulars knew to be wary of that particular look, since it generally meant their acrobatic genius had pulled off a particularly good prank, and you never knew when you might be the victim.

"What did you do to him?" Shishido growled, uncrossing his arms and straightening to loom over the smaller boy. Unfortunately Mukahi was not easily intimidated by taller people, since almost everyone was taller than he was.

"Nothing," the redhead replied sweetly. Inwardly he was both gloating and a little nervous. His prank had gone off perfectly, it looked like, but Shishido wasn't going to be happy when he found out what Mukahi had done. "Anyway, good luck finding him, I haven't seen him since then," he concluded, trying not to seem hasty. "I'm going back up for another run before the sun finishes setting and it's too dark to ski."

He started to move away, but a strong hand snapped out and caught his jacket sleeve before he'd taken more than a step. He winced; he'd forgotten how bloody fast the dash specialist was. "What?" he demanded, going on the defensive. "You're wasting my daylight!"

"You wouldn't have any idea where he might be, would you Mukahi?" Shishido asked, his voice polite on the surface but with an undercurrent of warning to it. That subvocal tone promised dire retribution if he found out later that his teammate had lied to him.

"Eheh." Mukahi tried to twist out of Shishido's grip; failing that, he glanced back over his shoulder to judge the taller boy's expression. Shishido's face was neutral, but his eyes had gone dark with anger and warning. Oh, well, it was fun while it lasted...

"Well, I might have mentioned seeing you earlier up on the higher slopes," he said after a moment, making one last ditch effort at saving himself. It was even true, he had run across Shishido at one point. "Maybe he went up there looking for you?"

Shishido's grip tightened, making Mukahi squirm in pain even though his arm was padded by the insulating layers of his jacket and sweater. "He wouldn't have gone up there on his own," the dark-haired boy declared, positive of that much. Ohtori gave his all to everything he tried, but he wasn't the sort to take unecessary risks, and there was no reason whatsoever for him to have gone looking for Shishido up there when he knew his partner was planning to join him.

Unless someone had led him to believe differently...

"Mukahi," he gritted out through clenched teeth, squeezing his hand hard enough to make the smaller boy yelp in pain. "Tell me the truth, damn it. What did you say to him?"

"Oh, all right, all right!" Mukahi gave in gracelessly. "Let go already! That's my racquet arm, damn it." Finally yanking his arm out of the taller boy's grip, Mukahi scowled and rubbed at the sore area. "I told him you'd asked me to tell him to go meet you," he admitted sourly. "He didn't look like he really believed me, but he went off in that direction."

"You what?" Shishido shouted, incensed. "Mukahi, you idiot! He'll go all the way to the top of the damn mountain looking for me!"

"Yeah, so? He'll get a nice view of the sunset," Mukahi said, shrugging. "You've got a whole week to spend with him, losing this one afternoon isn't going to hurt either of you. It's not like he's stuck up there, one of the lodge workers will take him back down."

Shishido turned and squinted up the face of the mountain, as if in defiance of physics he would be able to spot his partner if he only looked hard enough. "How long ago was that?" he demanded, trying to keep the fear out of his voice. The slopes up there were hard, much too hard for someone of Ohtori's non-existent ability. "Shouldn't he have come back down by now?"

"So maybe the lodge person made him wait until the lifts were closed so he wouldn't be abandoning his post," Mukahi pointed out, shrugging carelessly. "Or maybe he figured you'd have gotten tired of looking for him, and he went back to the lodge already."

The quiet background noise of the lift mechanism ground to an abrupt halt, and Mukahi looked up with a scowl. "Aw, damn it! You made me miss my chance for one last run!"

"You've still got the rest of the week," Shishido threw his own words back at him, unsympathetic. "I guess you're right, he's probably already back at the lodge by now." Sighing, he picked up his snowboard and shouldered it once more. "We might as well go back down together, I guess."

They walked down over the snow-covered slopes, and it didn't take long before they were embroiled in a discussion of the relative merits of different brands of snowboards. Shishido couldn't quite manage to shake the bad feeling that was settling deep in his gut, though. Ohtori wouldn't have just gone back to the lodge, would he? He'd have kept looking until he found Shishido, so his senpai wouldn't worry.

Of course, when he couldn't find Shishido he might well have assumed that the senior was the one who'd gone back to the lodge without him. Or maybe the worker who helped him back down the mountain had taken him straight to the lodge, and he hadn't seen any point in going back up the slopes only to turn around and come down again. Yeah, that was probably it.

They joined the stream of people going into the lodge, stamping slush off their boots onto the already soaked mats in the lobby. They met up with Oshitari waiting for the elevator, which made Mukahi happy at least. Shishido was mostly quiet, leaning his snowboard against his leg and watching the number indicator inside the elevator climb as they rode it up to the top.

Atobe's parents were apparently no less inclined to want the best of everything than their son was; they'd booked an entire suite of rooms on the top floor of the lodge for the boys. They each had their own small single room with a tiny bathroom, a communal 'living' room and kitchen, and a larger bathroom that housed a Jacuzzi tub big enough to fit four of them in at once.

They found Jirou and Hiyoshi sprawled out on two of the couches in the main room. Jirou was fast asleep of course, one arm dangling off the side of the plush cushions as he snored delicately. Hiyoshi was attempting to find something good on the television, flipping through the endless satellite channels. He looked up as they entered. "Hey," he greeted them.

"Yo," Shishido replied, glancing around. The doors to the bedrooms were mostly closed, including Ohtori's. "Is Choutarou back yet, did you see him come in?"

"Haven't seen him," Hiyoshi shook his head, raising an eyebrow. "I've been back for almost an hour - Jirou was falling asleep on his feet, and I was tired so I volunteered to bring him back."

The sinking feeling in Shishido's gut got worse. "He's not here? But then..." he turned a glare on Mukahi, who ducked quickly behind his taller doubles partner, hands raised in a gesture of defence.

"Hey, he's probably on his way back right now," the redhead insisted. "Like I said, maybe they made him wait until they were off duty to bring him back." Shishido growled and advanced a step, and the smaller boy 'eeped' and edged further behind his partner.

"What are you two on about?" Oshitari drawled, blinking at them. It didn't take a tensai to be able to correctly interpret Shishido's anger and Mukahi's defensiveness, however. "Gakuto, what have you done?"

"I didn't do anything, Yuushi!" Mukahi exclaimed. Another growl from Shishido made him hastily amend his words. "Well, not much. I tricked Ohtori into going up to the high slopes. It's no big deal, even if for some reason he can't just take the lift back down again, the lodge worker will bring him back!"

Hiyoshi had stopped playing with the remote and was looking at them in surprise. "There wasn't a worker in the booth at the top when we took our last run," he said, jerking a thumb at the snoring Jirou. "The snowmobile was gone too; he either left early or was on an emergency call. Atobe went back up to try to get one last run in before they closed the lifts, but he said he didn't think he was likely to make it to the top before it closed."

"Well, how was I supposed to know that?" Mukahi demanded, using anger and defensiveness to cover the feeling of guilt that was trying to take hold. Honestly, it wasn't like he could have predicted the worker wouldn't be where he was supposed to be! "I'm sure he's fine."

"Fine?" Shishido all but shouted, fists clenched in fear and fury. "How the hell is he supposed to get back down the mountain?"

"Oh, for crying out loud, it's not like those ski runs are killers or something," Mukahi snapped back, scowling. "So he'll work his way down, fall a lot, have some bruises to show for it, and be able to say he made it down a diamond slope! Hell, maybe he'll even realize he's ready for them."

Shishido was far from appeased. "Are you blind? Or just lethally stupid?" he snapped, beyond merely furious now. "He'd never been on skis in his life before today, Mukahi! The top slope is a triple fucking diamond, he'll never make it down in one piece!"

"He... what?" This time it was Mukahi's turn to yelp in shock, his face going pale as all the blood drained from it. "What do you mean, he's never skied before? How could he not have skied before? That's... that's crazy!"

"His inexperience was fairly obvious, Gakuto," Oshitari murmured, frowning down at his partner in a rare display of non-solidarity between the two. Mukahi stared up at him, stunned that the taller boy wasn't taking his side like usual. "He was barely managing to stay on his skis when we first went out. That really was rather careless of you."

"Yuushi..." Mukahi's next words were interrupted when Shishido stormed by him, headed for the door. "Hey, where are you going?"

"To find him," Shishido snarled, casting a venomous glare at the shorter boy. "He's probably stuck up there, all by himself, scared half to death! I'm sure as hell not gonna just leave him up there!"

"The lifts are closed," Oshitari reminded him flatly. "You won't be able to get up there short of walking up the slopes."

Stopping just short of the door, Shishido swore loudly and punched the wall, putting his fist neatly through the plaster. "Well, what the fuck am I supposed to do, then?"

"We tell the lodge people," Hiyoshi replied calmly, standing from the couch. "They've got rescue teams specifically for this sort of thing, Shishido. And Atobe's going to make you pay for that, you know."

Mortified, Shishido stared at the hole he'd made in the wall as he drew his fist out. His ears felt like they were burning, which probably meant he was blushing. "Oh. Right," he agreed lamely. Gods, he really was an idiot sometimes. Ohtori kept telling him he needed to learn to think things through rather than just reacting with his temper. "Well, what are we waiting for, then?"

Explaining the situation to the people at the front desk was a little more difficult than they'd anticipated. For one thing, while several of them had decent grades in English class, passing a class and actually speaking the language were two different things. Especially when dealing with someone else who was a non-native speaker. Atobe, the only one reasonably fluent among them, was probably still making his way back from the last run down the slopes he'd taken.

With much gesturing and hand-waving - and swearing, on Shishido's part - they finally managed to convey to the workers that there was an inexperienced skier stuck out somewhere on the top slopes.

Once the concept had finally been understood, Shishido was at least a little gratified to see the workers all but leap into action, loading up first-aid and cold weather gear onto several snowmobiles, maps being spread out and sections assigned for searches. He paced back and forth in a short arc as the preparations were made, worry gnawing at his gut.

He wasn't the only one upset; Mukahi felt like a hundred thousand caterpillars were trying to crawl up his throat out of his gut, wriggling the entire way. The serious, almost grim looks on the rescue workers' faces when they'd explained how long ago Ohtori had been sent up the mountain scared him, as did the not-so-subtle preparations being made in the lodge's infirmary.

It was just a stupid prank! he wailed internally, blue eyes wide as he watched Shishido pace back and forth like a caged lion. I've played a million pranks worse than this! It wasn't supposed to happen like this!

"Ne, Yuushi?" He didn't really like the way his voice came out, rough and a little high, but he couldn't seem to fix it. "Ohtori'll be okay, right? I mean, all this... it's just in case, right? Just to be prepared for the worst?"

"He'll be fine," Oshitari assured him, resting a hand briefly on his shoulder. His words were clearly directed at Shishido as much as at Mukahi. "He's smart, and while he may not be experienced at skiing, he is an athlete of high calibre. He might be a little cold when they bring him in, but he'll be fine."

Still trying to shake off the foreboding that had hit him the moment Mukahi admitted what he'd done, Shishido nodded. He had to believe Oshitari was right. He had to. The idea of Ohtori being something other than fine was just... more than he could handle.

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

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