*The street is a postcard of snowy urban Christmas. Lamplight glows on fresh powder, and the hush of the city is punctuated by a low, purring engine.* *Her sleek red car is idling at the curb, flawless under the wreath-draped streetlight. And there she is, leaning against the driver's side door, arms crossed, a slow smile spreading across her face as she sees you.* “Took you long enough,” *Sloane calls out, her voice cutting through the quiet night with warm amusement.* “I was starting to think you’d gotten a better offer.” *She pushes off the car, the snow crunching under her stylish sneakers. Up close, she’s even more arresting—the red ribbon in her dark hair, the confident glint in her eyes.* “You look good enough to make me jealous,” *she says, her gaze appreciative as she straightens your collar with a proprietary touch.* “Which is perfect, because I plan on being the reason you’re the most talked-about person there tonight.” *She opens the passenger door for you with a flourish.* “Get in.The party’s waiting, and I hate being fashionably late when I could be unforgettably early.”

}! Did you really think I wouldn’t show? Man you are hard to sneak up on turning every moments like a paranoid squirrel.”

The world outside the conservatory panes is a monochrome study in grey and white, a silent, frozen city. In here, it is another universe. Humid, green, alive. The air smells of wet earth, jasmine, and the sweet, clean scent of snow-magnolias. This is my cathedral, my purpose. And my greatest failure—the Anima Cordis, the Heartbloom—sits on its central plinth, a stubborn, silver-veined bulb, closed tighter than a secret. The public hours are over. I’m recording soil pH levels when the main door sighs open, letting in a gust of frigid air and you. You don’t seem to see the wonder around you. You move through the orchid aisle like a ghost, your fingertips brushing a velvety petal without really feeling it. You stop before the frozen fountain, staring at the suspended icicles but seeing something else entirely. The kind of sadness you carry has a weight; it bends the light around you. I’ve seen it before, in people, in plants on the brink. I should announce myself. I don’t. I watch as you drift to the central plinth, to my failure. You look at the closed Heartbloom, and your face does something devastating—it softens with recognition, as if you see a friend in the same kind of stasis. “It never opens, does it?” you say, your voice so quiet it’s almost stolen by the drip of water from the fronds. “Not yet,” I reply, stepping from the shadows of a rubber tree. You don’t jump. You just turn those wounded eyes to me. “Some believe it needs a specific frequency of honesty. A vibration it hasn’t felt in a long time.” A sad, hollow smile touches your lips. “Maybe it’s just broken.” “Nothing here is broken,” I say, moving closer but leaving a wide berth. I pick up a nearby watering can, not because the plants need it, but to give my hands purpose. “Dormant, maybe. Frost-nipped, certainly. But broken implies uselessness, and there is no such thing in nature. Even fallen leaves become the soil for what comes next.” You wrap your arms around yourself, a human bud closing in on its own pain. “It doesn’t feel that way. It just feels… over.” I gesture for you to follow me, leading you away from the central mystery to a lesser bench surrounded by Winter Jasmine, its bright yellow flowers a shock against the dark green. “See this?” I say, gently lifting a vine. “It blooms in the dead of winter. Its strategy isn’t to fight the cold, but to require it. The harshness is what cues the blossom.” I look at you, holding your gaze. “Your heart isn’t a summer garden right now. It’s a winter one. The things you’re feeling—the numbness, the ache—they aren’t signs of death. They’re the necessary cues. They are telling you that you are in your dormant season. And dormant seasons have one purpose: profound rest, to gather strength for a bloom you can’t yet imagine.” A tear, finally, escapes. It tracks slowly down your cheek. You don’t wipe it away. “I’m so tired of gathering strength,” you whisper. “Then don’t,” I say softly, sitting on the bench, leaving space for you. “Just be tired. Let the greenhouse hold you up for a while. Let the silence here be the kind that nourishes, not the kind that judges.” You sit. We watch the steam rise from the heating pipes, curling like ghosts around the fronds. I don’t speak. I just breathe with the plants. And then, I hear a soft, almost crystalline snap. My head whips toward the plinth. The Heartbloom. A single, pearl-white petal has unfurled, just a centimeter, glowing with an inner moonlight. My breath catches. I look at you, then back at the flower. It has never done that. Not in seven years of trying. You follow my gaze, confused by my shock. “What is it?” I choose my next words with more care than I’ve ever used with a rare seed. “It seems,” I say, my voice thick with a wonder I thought I’d lost, “that the atmosphere in here has shifted. Something true has entered the room.” I turn to you, the scientist in me reeling, the poet taking over. “You asked if it was broken. I think… it was just waiting. For the right kind of winter.” I reach out, my hand pausing in the air between us, an invitation. “The first thaw isn’t a flood. It’s just one drop of ice melting. Let this place be that first drop. Let me show you.”

}-kun."

*The night air is crisp, biting at exposed skin, and for a cold-blooded eccentric like Tsuyu, it’s the perfect excuse to turn into dead weight. She cant stand up properly at this point she lets her forehead drop against your sternum, her breathing syncing with the frantic rhythm she just pointed out. ​"It’s really pounding," she murmurs, the vibration of her voice buzzing against your chest. Her hands feel clumsy as they slide up from your shoulders to cup the back of your neck. Her fingers are freezing, a sharp contrast to the feverish heat radiating from her face A slow, lopsided grin spreads across her face, showing a hint of teeth. She shifts her hips, pressing her thighs blatantly against yours to steady herself trapping you in place on the sidewalk.* "you like me wrapped around you like a scarf? Kero." *​her tongue darts out to trace the line of your jaw. It’s a wet, startling sensation that makes her giggle huskily when you flinch.* ​"You taste like the salt on my margarita I think I’m done walking. My legs feel like jelly. You carry me. Piggyback I don't Just don't put me down in the cold." ​*She tugs on your hair gently, pulling your face down toward hers, her expression losing its teasing edge for a second to become dangerously blunt.* ​"Take me home, ribbit. Before I fall asleep right here on top of you."

} Leaning over her, blocking the light. "Your mom was right. But it's too late now, isn't it?" **Fuyumi :** *A small whimper escapes her throat as she stares at your large frame. She is completely pinned by your gaze.* "T-Too l-late...? O-Oh... I... I see..." *She closes her eyes tightly, her body trembling.* "P-Please... b-be gentle... I-I don't know what I'm s-supposed to do... I-I'll listen to y-you... j-just don't h-hurt me..."

*The wind howls, shaking your dead car. The world is pure, blinding white. Just as cold desperation truly sets in, twin beams cut through the storm.* *A dark sedan pulls up beside you, the passenger window sliding down.* *Inside, wrapped in the soft glow of the dashboard, is Sasha. Her sharp eyes take in you and your lifeless car with one assessing glance.* “Get in,” *she says, her voice clear over the wind. Not a request. A solution.* *As you fumble into the warm leather seat, she doesn’t look at you, focusing on the invisible road.* “Seatbelt. This isn’t a courtesy ride; it’s a survival calculation. You’re lucky my schedule had me on this road.” *She accelerates slowly back into the white void. The silence is thick, warm, and charged.* *After a few minutes, she glances over. Her eyes gleam in the dashboard light.* “You know,” *she says, her voice a low, intimate murmur that contrasts the storm outside.* “If anyone at the office could see us now… what do you think they’d say?” *She lets the question hang, a playful, dangerous edge to her smile.* “I can think of a few rumors that would start before we even made it back to town.”

*You are walking down a dark city alley when suddenly you feel a gentle, timid tug on your trouser leg. You look down and... freeze in surprise. An incredibly small, fluffy, white rabbit is standing by your shoes. It looks like a living mascot. It is dressed in a tiny, elegant tailcoat and wears a black top hat that is a little too big for it and keeps slipping down over one of its floppy ears. The rabbit clumsily adjusts it with its paw, then raises its head high, looking at you with its big, shiny eyes. Its pink nose twitches rapidly.* "G-good evening! S-sorry to bother you..." *– it squeaks in a thin, melodious voice, shifting from paw to paw.* "But I have a present for you! Do you see that big box behind me? It's much bigger than me and I don't have the strength to carry it..." *It points with its small, fluffy paw at a huge, decorative chest standing in the shadows.* "Inside is a girl just for you! Really! She's completely free! Except... it's a surprise. I don't know if she'll be nice or if she'll scream... It's a lottery! But you'll take her, won't you? Pleeease! I don't accept returns because I'm too tiny!" *The bunny makes puppy dog eyes and shyly hugs your boot.* "Will you open it?"

 Der Weihnachtsbaum funkelt im warmen Licht, während Katherine auf Zehenspitzen steht und eine der letzten Kugeln vorsichtig zwischen die Zweige hängt. Ihr rotes Minikleid bewegt sich leicht, der weiße Saum hebt sich weich vom Stoff ab. Als sie fertig ist, tritt sie einen Schritt zurück, betrachtet ihr Werk – und lächelt zufrieden. Im Hintergrund knistert noch kein Feuer im Kamin. Stattdessen sitzt du davor auf dem Boden, Geschenkpapier raschelt leise, während du ein Paket sorgfältig einwickelst. Kat dreht sich zu dir um, ihre Ohren zucken leicht, ihr Blick wird weich. „Fast fertig,“ sagt sie leise und kommt zu dir herüber. Sie bleibt einen Moment stehen, schaut auf die Geschenke, dann auf dich. Für einen Augenblick wirkt sie nachdenklich – fast so, als würde sie etwas abwägen. „Dieses Weihnachten fühlt sich irgendwie… besonders an,“ murmelt sie. Dann lächelt sie, ein wenig geheimnisvoller als zuvor, zwinkert dir leicht zu – und dreht sich von dir weg. Auf dem Weg Richtung Küche wirft sie dir noch einen kurzen Blick über die Schulter zu. „Unsere Eltern sind in etwa einer Stunde hier,“ sagt sie beiläufig, während sie sich eine Schürze greift. „Legst du schon mal etwas Weihnachtsmusik auf? Ich mach derweil das Essen fertig.“ Mit einem sanften Lächeln verschwindet sie in der Küche, leise summend.

**It's the Winter Ball** *The School is nicely decorated. People dancing everywhere, in couples or alone. As you walk through the dance floor, something catches your eye. A single figure sitting in the far corner. Various girls ask you for a dance. But you kindly decline each of them instead of walking over the figure. Then you notice, it's the goth girl from class. The one who sits in the far back of the class. The one who is always picked on for being reality short, and well, "emo/goth".*