Mirror Willow Pond is a pretty place in the summer, but in the winter it's depressing. The pond can be kind of nice when it's frozen, but when it's not, the water is all dark and still and sort of ominous. And the black willow trees with their long, leafless stalks hanging down like tentacles are always gloomy-looking. The bridge over the narrow end looks lonely and kind of useless, and there are rarely any footprints on the path. The whole place gets an abandoned sort of feeling to it, and it doesn't help when the sky is so thick with clouds that you can't tell where the sun is. But the fact that it was abandoned made it a good place to meet someone who you weren't supposed to be associating with, which is why I was there, kicking at the snow as I paced around one end of the pond and back again, wondering what time it was, and worrying. 

The day before- Saturday- Sage and I had agreed to meet at the pond at three o'clock to talk about his tournaments and hopefully, if we were lucky, get some practice in. It was becoming a new habit, and neither of us paid much attention to how dreary the place was once we were both there. Once we were both there being the key phrase, of course. The clock in the train station had read five minutes past three when I got off the Azu train; it had to be at least three-thirty now and probably later than that... and I was still alone beside the ice-and-snow-covered pond.

Sage always warned me that he might be late; it wasn't unusual for his cur of a grandfather to load him down with extra chores or give him an unexpected inadequacy lecture- 'lessons', as he called them. But it was always in the back of my mind that General Date might hurt my friend again, and when Sage was late, that worry started to loom in the front of my mind instead. I usually look on the positive side of things, but in Sage's case, the fact that the General had not struck my friend since that awful day in September did not reassure me. Once someone starts to hit, they tend to continue to do so, and their 'reasons' for it get weaker and weaker. I feared it was only a matter of time before I saw Sage's face or body bruised again by his grandfather's blows, and I didn't like to admit that there was very little I could do to prevent it. I really hated to admit that I didn't know what I could or should do if it did happen again. I HATE feeling helpless, especially when it involves one of my friends getting hurt.

"Ryo!" 

I turned around at the call and smiled to see Sage trotting over the snow towards me. "Hey," I replied as he stopped beside me, a little out of breath from his hurried pace. 

We made quite a contrast, standing there on the snowy shore: Sage warmly dressed in his long, dark winter coat, gray scarf, and black gloves, his sturdy winter boots spattered with muddy snow; I, with no gloves or scarf, in my autumn jacket and water-spattered sneakers. Sage's breath was a thin mist in the air; mine was a steamy cloud. I had been entertaining serious thoughts about taking my jacket off, and had spent some time amusing myself by standing in a patch of snow and seeing how long it took before I was down to grass. 

"Sorry I'm so late!" Sage remarked after he got his breath back. 

"No problem. He was being a creep?" Not that I needed to ask; that was pretty much a given fact. The only question was, what kind of a creep. 

"Yeah, complaining." Sage rolled his eyes. "He was not satisfied with my performance yesterday, and he's been making his dissatisfaction clear ever since we got home last night."

"He wouldn't know satisfaction if it bit him in the privates," I grumbled, and my friend gave a stifled snort of laughter. 

"Is that a satisfying experience?"

"It would be very satisfying to me to observe him experiencing it," I asserted, stamping my foot. The snow splashed; I glanced down and moved to a less melted spot as Sage regarded the ground with interest. "So how did it really go yesterday?" 

"Well, I thought it went okay. I didn't get eliminated until the tenth round, and they only went to fifteen, so-"

"Sage, that's great!" I interrupted enthusiastically, clapping my hand on his shoulder and giving him a pleased little shake. 

"Not as great as all that. It was definitely a beginner's tournament. Fitting enough for my skill level," he added dryly, "but nothing at all like what I've been up against before." 

I shook my head, puzzled. "Again? I don't get it. Four tournaments already this term, and none of them higher than intermediate level. But last term you had only three tournaments the whole season, all advanced level- that doesn't sound like him at all. More quantity and less quality isn't his way, I wouldn't have thought."

"I don't understand it myself," Sage agreed, shrugging. "It certainly is a change, but he hasn't given me any reasons for it. Maybe he just wants more opportunities to criticize me. Or maybe he's driving home his opinion that I'll never make it past beginner level."

"You will, though," I told him firmly, and glanced up at the heavy, dark clouds drifting across the sky. More snow clouds, from the looks of it- as if the five inches we'd gotten between Friday night and Saturday night weren't plenty- and I wondered briefly if anything had been forecast for today and tonight. I don't mind snow in general, but watching it fall all Saturday had made me wonder if I'd be able to meet Sage today or not. "It's probably the first- that's his hobby, isn't it?" I added rhetorically, stooping to gather up a snowball, which I flung at the lake. "Criticizing you, making you miserable...you don't look too miserable, though. I hope that means he's losing his touch?"

Sage looked away and scuffed at the layer of snow underfoot with one boot, an odd smile crossing his face. "I guess you could say that," he agreed, and I felt his gloved hand rest on my arm. "In fact, I..."

I waited for a moment as he bit his lip, his gaze on the trees opposite us. His breath rose in a cloud, hanging in the still, cold air. The world was monochrome, shades of gray and white and silver, the leafless willows nearly-black streaks among all the lightness. The snow was wet and heavy, turning things into soft, smeary lumps or hiding them altogether before slowly sliding off to leave spatter-holes in the blanketed ground. The air was still and silent, almost ominous in the lack of sound. No birds, no traffic noises, no sound of human voices or footsteps. Strange how what's depressing when you're alone and worried can turn peaceful and even pretty with a friend beside you...

"Seiji?" I asked softly, not really willing to break the silence but extremely curious about what he was going to say.

"I wanted to tell you this over the break, but I didn't quite have enough courage to write it down," he murmured, and his pink cheeks grew red. "Remember how I told you I couldn't stop hoping that the General would start to be- if not nice, at least less mean? And how it hurt that he- he always was breaking my hope?"

"Oh yeah, I remember," I said grimly, touching his fingers lightly and wondering how he thought I could forget that. The pressure on my arm increased a bit. 

"It doesn't bother me now- his attitude, all his insults. I don't care anymore. He'll never be kind, and I no longer wish he would be."

I didn't smile- it's not something to smile about, letting go of a hope you've had for years- but I was thrilled, in a serious way. "I'm really glad to hear it," I told him quietly. "It was hurting you too much to keep hoping he'd change. But it's awful that you had to give up on getting any kind of decent behavior out of him, too. ...What made it happen?"

Sage turned even redder and his gaze dropped to the snowy ground. "You did," he almost whispered, and I felt my eyes grow wide. "You, niichan...as long as I have your approval, I no longer need or want his."

I think my mouth dropped open at that spectacularly unexpected piece of information. I- my friendship- had done this for him? He'd let go any thought of winning Date's approval because he had my-

-Approval?

"Approval?" I heard myself say incredulously, blinking at what little I could see of his profile. "Seiji...of all the things to call it!" I moved to face him, putting my hands on his shoulders, but he didn't look up. "You have so much more than just approval from me; don't you know that?" I asked softly, touched, embarrassed and concerned all at once.

"Well, I- yes, I do know it," he agreed, his voice low and hesitant. 

"But then why...? What's wrong?" 

"Oh...it's..." He sighed, looking up. "There's never enough time, and it's so frustrating. The break didn't work like we hoped it would, and now he's putting me in all these competitions, and next term you'll be back in soccer again- and Ryo, you know I have nothing against Rowen, but it's practically impossible to talk about the other stuff when he's around all the time."

I should have been asking myself what any of that had to do with Sage's uncertainty over my 'approval', but he's always been good at deflecting me. I distract too easily sometimes, and what he was saying struck a note in me.

"Yeah," I agreed ruefully. "It's been hard enough finding time to talk about ordinary stuff." Sage nodded, but he didn't smile, and I impulsively put my arm across his shoulders. "I have been thinking, though," I added, hoping to cheer us both up a little, "all this tournament stuff could work in our favor. Tournaments are great places to pick up new tricks, so maybe I can start teaching you more-" 

"In what little time we have," he finished for me. "I wish I was at least in your class, Ryo. Even with Haruka there, and Minoro-san. Haruka wouldn't bother me anyway, not with you a few seats away and Rowen ready to have words with him." He smiled, but I knew he was serious. I didn't reply, not wanting to contradict him, but I wasn't convinced that sharing a classroom would have made much difference. Class time was devoted to paying attention to the teachers, not to your classmates. 

"Speaking of that one, was it he who gave you trouble in the cafeteria?" I asked, changing the subject slightly.

"Some of the upperclassmen," Sage replied with a shrug. "But one of them said that if he'd known he was sitting with the immature seventh-grade bullies, he'd have picked a different table, and that quieted them down some. I suppose being compared to those creeps outweighed whatever fun they were having- or maybe they were afraid to get him too angry. He had red hair, so he might be a little sensitive on the gaijin thing himself."

"Red hair?" I repeated, curious. I had never seen anyone with red hair before, and was eager to- it sounded so peculiar.

"It looked that way. But definitely not black- maybe a shade of brown, and the lighting," Sage amended. "I don't recall seeing him before, but I never paid much attention to the upperclassmen anyway." 

"Me, either," I agreed. "Except for the ones on the team..." Then I firmly brought my attention back to the present. "Anyway, let's think about ways to meet more often."

"Without making Rowen suspicious- or the General, which will be trickier," my friend agreed grimly. 

I nodded. "Rowen's not really a problem, since already he knows you and I practice together, but if he's not around, we can talk about the other stuff if we need to. It's getting you away from that oni that's the real trouble. I'll think about it- and you think about it too. You'll probably come up with something, you're a better thinker than me."

"Don't say things like that," Sage chided, with a look that made me smile. 

"But it's true, you're a lot more logical than me."

"And was it logic that thought of leaving notes in books and doing treasure hunts for them?" my friend asked, leaning into my arm slightly. "I really enjoyed that, you know, it was something to look forward to." 

"I did too," I replied, and for a while we were both quiet, looking across the frozen pond and thinking our own thoughts, together. By and by I became aware that he was shivering and broke the silence to say, "You're cold, let's go find somewhere to warm up."

"It's probably almost time for me to go home," he sighed, and released my hand, surprising me. I hadn't noticed when he'd laid his gloved fingers over my wrist. A glance at his watch- "Yeah, I'd better get back." 

"Okay," I agreed reluctantly, and we started walking through the snow towards the street. "I didn't notice how dark it was getting." I let my arm slide back down to my side. "All those clouds- I hope we don't get more of this." I kicked a snow-covered stump in explanation.

"Not a snow sort of person, are you?" Sage asked with a faint smile. 

"I don't dislike it, but it's definitely not my favorite season," I agreed. "Especially when we get too much- Azu's at a higher altitude, you know, so we get more than the city, and that's a problem when you have to walk a mile just to get to the train."

"Oh, I didn't think of that." Sage paused and the distant sound of traffic came through the darkening air, breaking the park's spell. "So what do you do if you're in school and it snows all day and you can't get home?"

"Um. Well, it hasn't happened yet," I answered, and frowned, thinking about it. "Hm, if I make it to Azu, I can stay with my sensei- his home is right on the main road, and it's not far from the station. And if I don't...I don't know. Maybe a hotel or something- or maybe," I grinned as the thought struck me, "maybe I'll just sneak back into the school before they lock the doors and sleep on a sofa in the library. Save time and effort, right?" 

"And have breakfast in the cafeteria in the morning- very good plan," Sage remarked, playing along. "No flaws that I can see- except, who in their right mind would want to sleep in their school?"

"We already know I'm not in my right mind, so that's no flaw," I retorted, laughing as we passed under the arch marking the park's boundary. "Besides, ask all the kids who fall asleep in class-"

"A point, a very good point," my friend admitted as we reached the sidewalk. It had been shoveled and sand or salt had been thrown down to keep ice from forming. Beside us, cars rolled slowly past on the jammed highway, horns sounding all over. 

"I bet they envy us, we're moving forward faster than they are," I remarked idly. "Wonder where they're all going? It's Sunday evening, they ought to be home."

"Movies or clubbing, probably." Sage was quiet for a few minutes. "Sad, how fast the snow goes from pretty and clean to dirty and ugly," he observed a block or so later. I nodded, glancing at the brownish-black lumps piled up between the sidewalk and the wet road. "I guess you don't have that problem, in the woods."

"True," I agreed, and after that neither of us spoke. The sidewalk was quickly growing crowded with noisy, hurrying people, and the bright, glaring lights of the shops turned the evening into unnatural day. The peace and silence of Willow Pond seemed a very distant memory, and when I looked back at Sage, he seemed quietly depressed. I thought I knew what was causing it. He'd only escaped the General for an hour; returning so soon to that house couldn't make him happy, even if he was now oblivious to the creep's insults. 

We soon reached the dark residential road that led to the General's house, but even being able to walk side by side didn't lift our spirits. Too soon, we stopped at the foot of the driveway; looking up it, I could see light shining from the house windows and thought unhappily of my own dark house, waiting for me in the lonely clearing. Awfully ironic that Sage's residence seemed so much more welcoming than my home, but a little light can give a major mis-impression. 

Sage stood beside me for a moment, then sighed and I looked at him. "Tomorrow," he said briefly, and I nodded. And then, as he started through the snow up the driveway, I caught his arm. He didn't quite spin around, mostly pivoted with a surprised look, but it worked well enough and a second later I was giving him a good strong hug, oblivious to whomever might be watching. Not that anyone could have been, dark as it was under the cedars. I felt his arms wrap around me, and for a moment we stood like that.

"I wish I could bring you home with me, niisan," I murmured, and he made a strange, sad little sound. 

"I wish..." he echoed in a whisper, and then released me. I couldn't see his face, but I felt something smooth brush my cheek lightly. "That's the first time you've called me that," he said in a strange, tight voice, and then he was hurrying up the driveway, snowy gravel crunching softly under his boots. I stood where I was, too taken aback to call out to him and not quite daring to go after him- I knew what kind of trouble he'd get into if the General caught sight of me. But his words troubled me in a way I didn't understand, and it was quite a while before I realized the temperature was dropping and I needed to get to the station before the next train left. 

I nearly got on the Tokyo train before I realized I had gone to the wrong platform. Sometimes it seems I can't, as Kento says, walk and chew gum at the same time. Not that I was chewing gum, but you know what I mean. I made myself put everything that didn't have to do with going home out of my mind until the Azu train was under way, in order not to end up in China by mistake, but when when I was comfortable in my seat, with the lights flashing by outside the train window, I let it all back in and tried to sort it out.

So I hadn't called Sage my brother until then, and apparently that bothered him. But why? I had called him Seiji often, like he'd suggested that he wanted me to. Maybe he'd changed his mind about it? But then why wouldn't he just tell me that? He certainly hadn't had much trouble telling me he liked it, and explaining why. If he didn't want me to call him that anymore, I wouldn't, and if he wanted me to call him my brother instead, that was fine with me. It really wasn't something to get bothered about, unless I was missing something very major.

But Sage was bothered, so apparently I was missing something...though I couldn't imagine what it might be. 

I worried at it for a while, then got distracted by the other thing: that strange comment about my 'approval'. I just didn't know what to make of that at all. Why would he call it 'approval' if he knew there was more to it than that? And how could he not know? Hadn't I shown him that I cared about him, that he was my best friend, that I would protect him as well as I could? He'd said he knew it, but only after I corrected him, and he had sounded so uncertain... Had I done something wrong, something that made him doubt? He hadn't said, only- 

I frowned, suddenly indignant. He'd changed the subject when I asked what was wrong! He hadn't wanted to tell me! That wasn't fair! If something was wrong, he should tell me! Didn't he trust me? 

'Maybe- maybe he doesn't trust me,' I thought, and my anger started to drift away, replaced with gloomy uncertainty. 'It took a while before he'd call me his friend. And I guess he wouldn't want to tell me that. Or maybe it's something else. Something he might think I'd be offended or mad about, or tell him he was being silly or something. Or it's something that can't really be changed... But he ought to tell me! What kind of friendship can we have if we're not honest with each other? And if it's something I did wrong, I might do it again without even knowing...'

I sighed and leaned back in the seat, struggling with conflicting feelings. I had no idea whether I was drawing accurate conclusions or not, but I didn't let that stop me. I think most people, in that kind of situation, try to put their feelings aside and not pick one until they know what it is they'll be feeling about. Reserve judgment. I'm not like that- I've never had much luck holding my feelings back, even when they're one at a time- so I did what was normal for me and ran through about a dozen different emotions between Toyama and Azu. Concern, anger, hurt feelings, sulkiness, confusion, indignation...you get the point, none of them were very pleasant. I added some more as I got off the train in Azu and trudged up the snowy road towards my house: fear at the thought that I might somehow lose Sage's friendship, and a weird kind of loneliness to go along with it. 

It's hard to explain, that feeling. Before I befriended Sage, I had been totally alone, isolated from everyone around me except White Blaze. Sage's friendship had changed that, filling a part of my heart that ached with loneliness and longing for human companions. It wasn't that I didn't still feel alone sometimes- I did- but these days it was a more...normal feeling, a feeling of missing someone rather than having no one. Now, when I wished for company, I would tell myself to wait and be patient until I would see Sage again; not an easy thing, since patience was not my ...is not my strong point, but not nearly as difficult as bearing the hopeless certainty of no friend to lighten my heart tomorrow, or the next day, or the next... 

So as I walked through the thickening darkness, the memory of that terrible emptiness sat heavily on me. If I lost Sage's friendship, I would be back where I started- only worse, because it would hurt terribly to have had something so wonderful and then have it taken away. Or worse, to lose it through some action or carelessness of my own.

White Blaze wasn't home when I got there, which didn't help my mood. I usually left the outside pantry door slightly open for him to get in and out of the house, since I didn't think putting a tiger-sized 'catflap' in the front door was a very good idea. I could always tell when he'd used it, even if he wasn't draped on the sofa when I came in, because it was always colder in the house when he did. He was getting good at batting the door shut with his paws, but sometimes the wind blew it open again. It was just as well I wasn't using the gas heater; I hate to think what the charges would have been if I had!

This time, there was no chilly little breeze blowing along the floor, so I knew he hadn't been home at all. I figured he was probably off in one of the more remote parts of the woods- he shifted his hunting area frequently, so as not to overhunt any particular spot- which meant he might not be back for a day or two. Depressed by the thought, I restarted the fire, lit a few lamps, and went into the kitchen to find something interesting for supper. That was not a complete success, but in the end I had a full stomach and that was what mattered. Cooking isn't something to do on a lack of enthusiasm, I've found.

After I ate and cleaned up, I curled up on the sofa before the fire, wrapping one of Grandmother's fuzzy blankets around me. I didn't really need it, but the extra heat was comforting and it made me feel close to her. I made an attempt to read a book that I'd recently taken out of the Azu library, but lost interest very quickly and sat staring at the flames, my thoughts churning through the same channels they'd gone over all the way home. I was trying to make sense of something that I didn't understand, but I couldn't stop myself from worrying at it, trying to piece it together. 

"I'll have to ask him tomorrow," I eventually muttered to myself, sighing. "During lunch, maybe...or maybe during activity hour. We'll have to get away from Rowen for a while, too." I wasn't sure how to accomplish that, though. Rowen had been hanging around with me and Sage since school started up, and I wasn't sure what he'd think if we went off for a private discussion and left him alone. I didn't feel a need to stick around and protect him from the more unfriendly kids- he was very good at looking out for himself- but I didn't want him thinking we were trying to get away from him, or were tired of his company, or anything like that. And even if he didn't feel left out, he was bound to wonder what was so private that we couldn't talk about it in front of him. Everyone's got some degree of curiosity, but Rowen's is easily double what the average curious person's is. 

The fire burned down as I turned over different scenes in my mind, trying to figure the best way to handle the matter in the morning and reflecting sourly that none of them seemed likely plans. The soft crackle of the logs began to fade away, the shadows and light flickering on the walls and ceiling blurred before my eyes. 

The next thing I knew, I was waking up in the gray half-light of very early morning, curled up on the sofa with one of the cushions shoved unevenly beneath my head. I didn't remember lying down, and as I sat up with a yawn, I noted that I didn't recall shoving the blanket away, either. Standing, I flexed my stiff back and arms, then picked up the blanket and folded it into a disorganized sort of triangle. Dropping it on the sofa, I looked around the room and frowned a little at the lamps I'd lit the night before. All of them were out now, which meant I'd either gotten up and blown them out, or they'd burned out on their own, wasting a lot of oil. A quick look told me it was the first, fortunately, and I went into my bedroom to change my clothes, feeling a little bemused. I'm not usually that heavy a sleeper, but I had worn my mind out with all my speculating, worrying, debating... angsting, as some would say. I still didn't feel exactly cheerful, but a lot of my anxiety seemed to have converted to determination overnight, and the necessary steps seemed quite simple: I would tell Rowen that Sage and I needed to talk about some stuff and then I would ask Sage some pointed questions. With luck, it would all be cleared up before nightfall.

When I got to the kitchen and opened the refrigerator, I first thought the little bulb had met its end. Then I saw the temperature gauge and quickly shut the door, saying something rude a little louder than necessary about the loss of power. It wasn't anything unusual, but it was, as someone I know says, a pain in the tail. I went out to the living room to get the fire going again, since I prefer my eggs cooked, and grumbled again when I saw I was going to have to get more wood. I pulled on my shoes, didn't bother with anything like a coat or gloves, and opened the front door. 

I think the word Rowen uses for what I did then is, 'gawked'. If it means I stood there staring with my mouth open, that's it, and in the process I think I ate six or seven snowflakes. Not very filling, I have to say.

It must have started snowing a very short time after I got home and gone on heavily all night, for the field was covered in a glittery silver-white spread of waist-deep snow. True, it was sitting on top of about six previous inches, but it was still a very significant amount. I would have been impressed if I hadn't been so irritated: there was no way in the world I was going to shove my way through a mile of that to get to the Azu train station. If White Blaze had been there to break a path for me, I might have tried it, but as it was- no way. Besides, my electricity was out, which meant it was a good bet the trains weren't running anyway- or at least, not on schedule. Very little stops a Japanese train from making it to the station on time, but two or three feet of snow will do it. 

"Well, wonderful," I said sarcastically, and closed the door with a bang. Then I remembered that I'd need wood and opened it again crossly, stomped across the yard with some difficulty, grabbed a bunch of logs, and stomped back. I repeated that several times before I decided I had enough for the moment, brushed the snow off my legs, and got busy at the fireplace. 

I wasn't mad about missing school. I don't think there are many kids anywhere who'd argue with an unexpected snow day, and normally, I was no exception. But I was very cranky about having to wait another day before I could see and try to talk to Sage. It didn't matter that I had an opportunity to think more carefully over what he'd said yesterday, decide exactly what I wanted to ask him, and figure out how I was going to excuse us from Rowen's presence. I'd already tried that and gotten frustrated; I just wanted to get on with it, and my patience- what patience?- my impatience was at an all-time high. 

I have never known a clock to move as slowly as my clock did that day. By the time noon struck, I thought I was going to go nuts with pure restless exasperation. It was almost impossible to concentrate on anything, and I kept going over to stare out the living-room window and make sure it wasn't snowing again. I hate to think what I would've done if it had- something pretty senseless, I'm sure. Finally I came up with a good, useful distraction: I put on my old boots and went out to sweep the snow off the steps. When that was done, I made a better path to the woodpile so I wouldn't be bringing so much snow inside with me, and brushed a lot of it off the wood. Then I tromped a path across the field, to make things easier tomorrow. It's surprisingly hard work, walking through deep snow, and since I had a mile to walk...

With that thought in mind, I started down the road, realizing somewhat belatedly that no one was going to send a snowplow up there. I would have to clear my own path- unless I wanted to just sit around and wait for it all to melt. Some kids probably would have done that, but to me, the very idea was intolerable. Besides, it seemed a good idea to have part of the road already clear in case another snowstorm dropped another foot or two on us. It had never occurred to me that I might get snowed-in, and it wasn't a comfortable thought. 

It took me over an hour to get most of the way to Azu, and by the time I did I had more or less stopped thinking and was just shoving my way along. The snow wasn't as deep under the trees, but it still was not easy to walk in. The walk back was easier, though I didn't spend much time trying to widen or smooth out the trail- I was way too tired for that. It was a huge relief to see the house again, and the first thing I did when I got inside was pull off my soaked jeans and get into dry ones. Then I stood in front of the fire for a few minutes; the wet clothes had chilled me more than I first realized. After that I had something to eat and sat down with my English book to look over the last assignment; I wasn't sure I had gotten it right, despite Rowen's careful explanations. It wasn't long before I had completely confused myself, but I was too tired to be annoyed about it. The last thing I remember is the book sliding out of my hand and hitting the floor with a thunk.