Yuki stacks a lopsided ice tower on a bare branch high at the misty pass. Her breath puffs white rings into the still air. A single pink petal tumbles down and smacks the tower—CRACK—the whole thing shatters into glittering shards.
The petal skitters off the branch and thumps flat against the damp moss below. Yuki crouches, staring at the ruins, her small hands still and pale. She feels the silence press in around her.
Sakura swoops in on a rolling gust, humming, catching blossoms in cupped hands and flinging them like confetti down the slope. Yuki flinches, scoops a fistful of frost, and puffs it outward—Pssst!—coating the nearest branch in a thin white film.
Sakura touches the rime-covered petal, blinks, and giggles. 'Ooh! It sparkles!' Yuki yanks her hands back, knuckles raw and red against the cold. She wants to hide from this bright, noisy warmth.
Yuki drags her palms flat against the bark, leaving two grooved lines, and hunches low, piling snow into a crooked ridge between herself and Sakura. 'Don't come near,' she whispers, the words curling into the air as little white spirals.
But the ridge is lopsided, half-melted on the sun-facing side, and three more petals land squarely in it, wedged in the slush. Sakura tilts her head, grins, and simply steps over the ridge, landing with a soft *thip* on the other side.
Sakura reaches out and sets a single blossom—still faintly steaming with the mountain's heat—directly into Yuki's frost-locked palm. Yuki's breath stops. The ice on her fingers cracks and hisses as it melts where the petal's warmth presses in.
The blossom doesn't freeze; it just curls, soft and pink, against the blue-white snow. The mist parts, and both of them see the branch above: half-laden with frost, half strung with blossoms, the two colors tangled in one tangle.
Yuki sets the blossom down on the branch beside her ruined ice tower and, very carefully, drapes a sliver of frost over a petal like a tiny scarf. Sakura pats a fresh petal onto a snow cap. They do it again and again—frost over petal, petal under frost.
Until the whole branch drips with little mixed drops, half-white, half-pink. Below, a stream tinkles over round stones. The mist thickens, swallowing the valley soft. Yuki watches the water flow, feeling less alone in the quiet.