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“Fade- F-Fade! Not again, Fade! Please, d-ddon’t–”
An instinctive whimper came from Neon as Fade’s hand slid out of her grasp, the warmth leaving as her girlfriend drew away. Without Fade, Neon suddenly felt frail, legs trembling violently as she struggled to keep herself standing; one wrong step, and it felt she might keel over. With her breath frozen to smoke, the cold had already begun to freeze the poor girl, the tip of her nose prickling numbly along with her ears; her hands too felt colder without the comforting grasp of Fade’s hand, frozen with dread as she anxiously shuddered with instability– as if she were incapable of moving at all without Fade. And Fade knew it too, all too well with that mockingly affectionate grin of hers.
“Fade, please , please- I can’t!– ”
Again, Neon wobbled precariously, but this time, despite a valiant effort to recalibrate her balance with shaky arms, she promptly fell with a yelp, cringing from the brutal contact of her hip and the ice.
Fade laughed at the fall, and with a light push of her foot, she was soon at Neon’s side. Huffing out a quick curse, Neon begrudgingly let the Turkish woman pull her back up to her feet– though, not without a few slips with her knees banging against the ice.
Ouch.
Hissing at the pain in her kneecaps, Neon clung desperately to Fade’s arm as if she were glued to her girlfriend. The bitter cold wasn’t helping the pain at all. “This is terrible… I miss not-slippery ground. It feels like I’ll never be able to walk again, Fade.”
“Noooo, don’t say that Neon. It’s fun!” With the raised, baby-voice pitch of Fade’s normally harsher voice, the questionable, forced pout Fade put on made Neon cringe with a snort– and was painfully exaggerated in an effort to draw out hateful affection Neon had for Fade, even in her most mocking moments. “You’ll never be able to say you’ve really skated; you’re doing just great , promise! Baby -”
“Okay, okay!! God, you know you sound the WORST when you talk like that.”
Fade cackled at the insult.
“ Please - You’re just sO- Oh God –” Clearing her throat to break the tension holding up her forced change of pitch, Fade made a face before speaking again, with an extra gravelly edge to her voice. “As I was saying: You’re just too much fun to tease. I can’t help it.”
Staring suspiciously at Fade’s grin, Neon squinted before suddenly gripping onto Fade tighter.
“You’re gonna leave me hanging again… aren’t you?”
“... What makes you think that?”
“Well… yo- Hey!! ” Nearly falling right back over as Fade aggressively pulled her arm out of Neon’s grip, the Filipina shrieked, catching the nearby attention of a few other people who happened to be witnessing Neon’s icy crisis. Somehow, she managed to stay on two feet, knees bent and arms spread with visible stress as she did her best to not jeopardize her knees to the ice once more. “FaaAADE–”
“Don’t be such a baby, Neon. It’s barely been two seconds without me holding your hand, and you look like you’re about to cry!”
“I MIGHT CRY.”
“... Don’t cry?! Come on– I’m right here, Neon. It’s just a few steps, really; it’s not all that bad.”
Looking up, Neon noticed that Fade’s extended hands were just out of reach, only a few steps away from grabbing distance, just as Fade had said. But to be honest, Neon was slightly suspicious of the gesture, suspecting Fade might pull back her hands without any warning just to make Neon fall on her face, and she couldn’t help but frown.
“You’re not going to pull anything?”
“I won’t, promise.”
With Fade’s sealed promise set in place, Neon hesitantly waddled closer, each breath stuck in her throat, and it was only when she was tightly gripping onto Fade’s forearms for support that she was able to breathe again. She huffed when Fade giggled at the shaky success scrawled across her nervous face.
“Don’t mock me right n– now –!” Squeaking mid-retort, the Filipina felt her body lurch, balance rapidly falling out of her control as her foot slid out from under her. She was half-expecting to end up on the ground again, maybe even breaking her knee this time, but to her relief, Fade firmly held her arms, preventing the Duelist from falling over and making a complete fool of herself (again). Despite the chilliness freezing her skin, a hot rush of embarrassment managed to start thawing Neon’s cheeks and ears as another laugh came from Fade.
“You’re the worst.”
“I’m sorry– you- you’re just- God , Neon, you’re just too cute.”
Warm lips contrasted the chilliness numbing Neon’s cheek, and flushing at the loving gesture, she looked up to meet Fade’s affectionate gaze, only to have all the air punched out of her lungs at the sight of Fade looking so… happy.
Fade was so pretty when she was happy.
The grim deadpan she always wore had been temporarily removed while watching Neon’s failure to ice skate, giving way for such warmth that must’ve been locked away for so long. Her appearance was still in its uninviting, sharp condition, and yet… there was such a breathtaking sort of joy that Neon fell in love with all over again. All she could do was just stare, smoky breaths shaky as her cheeks tingled with renewed feeling, thawing from the heat of her blush.
It was such a… a moment. She wanted to call it perfect, but it felt so distant, so reminiscent that it couldn’t be perfect; it felt more like a dream– or a memory . So familiar and so sickeningly addicting, this single nanosecond of the universe, frozen.
Spinning, so slowly, so calmly, so full of an emotion she couldn’t even begin to describe. A strange feeling, that feeling of being stuck in time, trapped in a moment that would pass too quickly, yet stay too long- forever, if Neon hoped enough. Every frame was captured, burned into her mind, and later, she knew, the memory of being here, staring into Fade’s eyes would be stuck spinning in her mind, circling around like clockwork, drawing in and out as she might try to focus on whatever she’d be doing, only to fail.
It was as if she were hopelessly infatuated– whether it was the unfamiliar situation, the cold weather finally reaching her mind, or just the lack of space between the two, Neon was frozen.
Dizzy.
If she didn’t know any better, she’d say she were high.
So off, so right, so perfect and wrong in every way that made her heart pulse so embarrassingly loudly.
To snap herself out of her odd trance, Neon hesitantly swiped her tongue over her chapped lips, shivering as the saliva immediately dried in the frigid air.
What had Fade said last?
Neon couldn’t be sure.
“Uh– Yeah. Sure. You’re… You’re pretty too.”
If possible, her face burned an even more vivid crimson as Fade pecked her again, this time on the forehead with a soft chuckle.
“Aw, thank you. I think you are as well.”
Before another word could even form in Neon’s mind, the moment melted away like sand. Visceral panic burned through her body when Fade began to slowly move backwards, gently guiding Neon forward by the arms while the younger female momentarily wobbled, gasping.
“Fa-ade- I think I’m gonna fall–”
“I’ve got you, tatlim. Don’t worry. Just try to relax.”
The only response was an apprehensive chew of Neon’s lip as Fade leisurely pulled her along the ice, the cold filling the empty, frigid air along with the underlying crunch of their ice skates’ blades sliding through the ice.
It felt… nice. Once the fear melted and drained out of Neon’s thoughts, a heart-thudding excitement filled the emotional vacuum left behind, rendering everything to a blur. It became more than just a moment- but a scene, infinite moments merging and blending to create a lovely, animate memory. More indescribable emotions and thrills, joy as the air moved past them.
Maybe, Neon might call this perfect.
Or at least, until Neon’s skate caught on a small cavity, and she fell with a screech, dragging her unsuspecting girlfriend down onto the ice.
But despite the bruising pain of falling on her knees, she couldn’t help but love the moment, the scene, of her lover laughing at their misfortune, the memory wrapped in such an odd sense of familiarity that Neon both craved and loved.
She smiled warmly, before surprising Fade with a tight hug.
“You’re right. I’ve had so much fun.”