Snowflakes

By Atreyu452

The whiteness swirled, surrounding him a flurry of snowflakes. The snow flew sharply around him as if he was standing in the center of a frozen whirlpool. He reached out to touch it, but the tiny shards of ice jumped away as if they moved with conscious thought, mocking him with their frenzied, taunting dance.

He should feel cold, he thought. The wind should be bitter and piercing, even if the snow chose to evade his touch. Yet it was not. He could feel no cold, nor the brush of the slightest breeze. Certainly he could not feel the whirling, whipping wind. He was, in fact, forever separated from the world of the white storm that filled his vision. All that beauty wasted, for he could not touch it. He could not be among it. For all the uniqueness of each flake, he could not help the malicious, curious desire to catch one and watch its special existence melt in his hand. He reached for the swirling whiteness again; his fingers touched nothing.

He sighed, tired of the fruitless game. Besides, he was getting dizzy. “Netto-kun! Cut it out!”

“It’s Christmas time!” the excitable boy shouted. “It’s snowing!” He stopped spinning at his navi’s request, but his head was used to swirling, and his eyes refused to believe the world was still not turning. Hikari Netto fell back into the snow, overwhelmed and a bit nauseated by his impaired vision.

“Boys,” Meiru mumbled, briefly considering getting the drop on her best friend with a well-aimed snowball. Dismissing the idea as mean and unfair (although he would have done it in her place, she knew), she helped the brown-haired boy back to his feet.

“Can you believe it, Meiru-chan?” Netto jabbered excitedly, his mood unaffected by the tumble he had just taken. It took a lot more to get Hikari Netto down. “We’re in Hokkaido! Look at all the snow!”

“Netto, we’re missing school to take this trip,” Meiru reminded him. Despite the bite in her words, she could not hide the smile creeping into the corners of her mouth. “Mariko-sensei will be upset if we don’t finish our homework before we get back.”

“We have plenty of time!” Netto declared.

“We have four days, including the time it long trip it will be to get home.”

“We have plenty of time!” Netto declared again.

Meiru sighed and shook her head, but the infectious nature of Netto’s words soon got to her, and she began to smile as broadly as he was. It had been really nice of the Hikari family to invite her along for the trip, and she was very grateful for being here (if not a tad dismayed over the loss of schooldays she would suffer). Netto had many reasons to be excited; his father was had taken time off for this trip, a pleasant surprise.

“Netto-kun, I can’t see,” Rockman complained loudly.

“Oh!” Netto reached for his PET and hurriedly brushed away the clumps of snow sticking to it. “Sorry, Rockman. It’s not damaged, is it?”

“The PET is waterproof,” Rockman replied. His fingers were twitching slightly. Now that his vision of the snow was unblocked, he wanted to touch it again. “But don’t even think about testing it by dropping me in bath water.”

“I wouldn’t!” Netto protested, his tone and expression a model of innocence.

“Does that mean he wouldn’t do it, or he wouldn’t consider it?” Meiru asked Roll in a mock whisper. The net navi giggled, covering her mouth with a pink hand.

“Hey!”

“Meiru-chan, we’d better catch up with Hikari-san,” Roll said worriedly. “They’re leaving us behind.”

Netto squinted at the distant figures of his parents. His mother was laughing, his father smiling at her. “They look fine to me.” He started to drift toward a large snowbank, his expression mischievous.

“Oh no, you don’t!” Meiru grabbed Netto by the wrist and pulled him along, yanking him out of his dreams. “This is the last place I want to get lost. What if they turn a corner?”

Netto squawked in protest, but quickly turned the hurry to catch up into a race. Rockman went back to watching the snow fly by. Unseen by the others, he again futilely tried to catch it.

-ooo-

“I’m worried about Rockman.”

“Hm?” Meiru looked at her navi with sudden surprise, a piece of toast dangling from her mouth. Realizing how unladylike that looked, she hastily bit off more than she intended and began to gag on it. Roll watched the proceeding coughing fit with a mixture of guilty horror and vindictive amusement.

“Meiru-chan?”

“I’m okay, really.” Meiru washed down the remnants of her breakfast with a glass of water. “What did you say about Rockman?”

“I’m worried about him,” Roll said again. “He seems like he’s been distracted this whole trip. He so distant when I talk to him… sometimes he doesn’t even realize I’m there. I think he may be depressed.”

“Depressed?” Meiru repeated, blinking. “Rockman?”

Roll shrugged, giving her operator a perplexed look. “Maybe that’s not the right term for it, but I don’t know what else to call it. He’s just not his normal, cheerful self.”

Meiru paused to think about it. Roll had a good point. “Have you told Netto?”

“Netto knows. He acts like he doesn’t notice, but haven’t you seen him watching Rockman when he thinks no one is looking?”

Meiru had seen Netto casting more glances toward his PET than usual. She had attributed it to the lecture Dr. Hikari had given him on getting his PET too wet. She thought he had been making sure the PET wasn’t getting exposed to the snow, lest the white, icy powder find its way in the casing’s cracks and damage the inner circuitry. It seemed like an empty fear, but one could never be too careful.

Meiru herself had not noticed a change in Rockman. She hadn’t paid much attention to him; there was so much to do in Hokkaido in the short time they were here. Already two days had past, and she was determined to not put the rest of the trip to waste. Yesterday they had spent fruitless but fun hours trying to make snow navis (Roll had been too fat and there was a panicky moment when Rockman’s head had fallen off).

“It’s the snow.”

“Gah!” Meiru almost fell over in her chair. She glared at Netto as she untangled her legs from their foolish position around the chair legs. “Netto! Knock before you come into my room!”

Netto stared out the window, his ears unhearing. The snow had stopped falling for a moment, but the sky was still dark with the threat of more.

“What did you say?” Roll asked, giving her operator a sheepish look. She knew that if she didn’t say something before Meiru did, the two would get into an argument and the original subject would be lost.

“It’s the snow,” Netto repeated. “He can’t touch it. That bothers him.”

“Why?” Meiru asked, her head cocked to the side in confusion. “I mean, it’s never bothered him before, not being able to interact with the outside world…”

“It has, he just doesn’t like to talk about it.” Netto left the window and sat down on Meiru’s bed—without her permission, she noted with a twinge of irritation.

“I… don’t understand,” Meiru replied, puzzled. “Most other net navis don’t seem bothered by it. I mean…” She glanced at her PET. “Roll?”

“I’ve never felt left out or limited by cyberspace,” Roll said. “There’s plenty of things for a net navi to do online, and I’m as involved in your life as I could ever be.”

Meiru smiled. “That’s good to hear, but it doesn’t explain Rock.”

Abruptly, Netto stood up and headed for the door. “I know someone who can,” he stated flatly. Exchanging a look with her net navi, Meiru followed.

-ooo-

Rockman put his hands out and whirled, trying to imitate what he saw Netto doing earlier. He felt nothing, and with a sigh, let his hands fall to his sides. It wasn’t the same without the bitter chill of ice-filled wind sweeping past his fingertips. And he would never know how that felt.

“Rockman?”

The blue navi jumped, startled out of his thoughts, and whirled to stare at the window that showed the outside world. “M-Mama!”

Hikari Haruka smiled down at the navi, holding the PET between knitted hands. “Surprised to see me? I came along for the trip too, you know. Rock, what’s the matter? You aren’t yourself lately.”

Rockman scuffed his feet against the gridfloor, producing the odd noise that was somewhere between a clang and an almost organic sound. He was hoping that no one had noticed his lapses. “I’m fine, Mama.”

“Are you?” Haruka smiled, giving Rockman a knowing, motherly look. “You’re worrying Netto.”

“I am?” Rockman blinked. His operator was usually… ‘dense’ was not a word he wanted to use, but it applied nonetheless. The navi had grown used to it, and it was nothing more than an irritation at time. Netto couldn’t be blamed for the faults of youth. “I didn’t mean to worry him.”

Haruka leaned on the table and put her chin against her arms. “Rock, is it the snow that bothers you? It’s not very fun if you can’t play in it.”

“Ah!” Whoops, caught. He could give anyone else an excuse, but it was hard to come out and lie to Mama. “I—It doesn’t bother me that much…”

“Maybe, but it is bothering you.” Haruka gave him a concerned look, bringing the PET closer. “It’s not just the snow, is it? You can get snow in cyberspace.”

“No,” Rock admitted. More foot scuffing. “I wish I could… be out there, with Netto. I can do a lot of things with him, but I can’t do something simple, like playing in the snow.” There, he said it. With a sigh, he sat down and leaned his head against his fists.

Haruka watched him for awhile before answering. “Oh, Rock, is that all?”

Rockman nodded, blinking at her. It seemed like a pretty important issue to him. How could you be a best friend to someone you couldn’t even touch?

“Do you think it matters to Netto?” she asked, watching him closely.

“Well…” It didn’t seem to matter to Netto, in fact. The boy would run around with that boundless energy of his, waving the PET around so that Rockman could get a decent view. He never said anything about the navi not being able to physically play with him.

“I was watching all of you when you were building those snownavis,” Haruka said. “You seemed to be having fun then, especially when ‘your’ head fell off.”

Rockman smiled at the memory. Netto had been jumping up and down and shouting, while he had been trying to explain where the boy went wrong and how to fix it.

“Did you feel like you couldn’t play with him then?”

“No.” Rockman paused to think about it. “I was having fun. It didn’t matter that I couldn’t help him build it.”

Haruka smiled encouragingly.

“And it’s never mattered to Netto,” Rockman continued slowly. “He’s always been happy that I’m there, no matter what I can’t do.”

“Do you feel better?” she asked.

Rockman looked out the window again. This time the snowflakes didn’t seem so far away, so untouchable. With Netto around, he could do anything, no matter his limits. “Yes, Mama.”

“Good!” Haruka said brightly. “Now it’s time for breakfast. Let’s make sure Netto doesn’t eat it all before we get there, okay?”

“Okay!”

-ooo-

“Why didn’t you ask your father?” Meiru whispered, nudging her friend. They were watching from a crack in the door.

Netto gave her a cheeky grin. “Mama always knows best,” he said, motioning for her to come away from the door. Rockman would be fine. As soon as breakfast was over, he’d show the net navi the snow cave he was trying to build.

Author’s note: This was a gift fic for Izumi I started two years ago. It still is, but it took me so dang long to finish she’s probably given up on it. The ending was particularly hard to hash out, and I still can’t figure out why. Oh well, a little snow for the coming winter.