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Branzy looked around the ski hill, bored. He was waiting for Chief and Rek to get back from their first ski run.
Branzy had gotten to the hill several hours earlier, and snowboarded around for a bit before getting bored. Of course, he decided to call in his two closest friends to come and join him. While Chief had downhill skied before, Rek had not. So to compensate, Rek and Chief were doing the bunny hill for a while.
Since the magic carpet has a grudge against Branzy specifically, he had decided to wait for them at the bottom of the hill to become one group. Because it had already been twenty minutes, Branzy unbuckled his snowboard and moved to the side to sit down.
Branzy sighed, took off his goggles and pulled down his balaclava, and enjoyed the not freezing cold air.
And then…
Whoosh!
Branzy closed his eyes as he was sprayed with snow.
When he opened them he saw Rek standing on his skis off to the side and Chief standing in front of him, laughing.
“Got you!” Chief exclaimed.
Branzy smiled and nodded. “Yeah, you did.” He stood up. “But I will get my revenge.”
“Are there many easy runs here?” Rek asked as he hobbled up to the other two.
Branzy smiled, mischievously. “Oh yes. So many easy ones. And you’ll know that they are easy because they should say black diamond next to it.”
Rek looked at Chief for confirmation.
Chief sighed, “Black runs are the hardest runs. They aren't gentle ways to get down, and require more advanced skills. Black runs are usually steep, narrow, icy or have moguls.”
Rek nodded. “Okay, so not that.”
“What you should probably do is a green run. It's like the one you and I already did.” Chief recommended.
“Boring…” Branzy complained. “What if you two do a green run this time while I do a blue one to see if Rek might be able to try it?”
“Well, you can try it. I doubt that Rek will be ready for one today though.” Chief said.
“Uh- What's a blue run?” Rek asked.
“It's harder than a green run, but easier than a black.” Chief explained.
Rek nodded. “Okay.”
Branzy did up one end of his snowboard, and the three of them slid down to the chairlift.
***
Somewhere on the backside of the mountain was Clown, Minute and Leo. Clown was faster than them so he usually had to wait at the bottom.
Except this time he decided to wait at the top. As he sat on the ground with his snowboard next to him he decided to watch the people come off the chairlift.
This one guy in particular caught his eye. He was dressed mostly in violet with some black and white accents so Clown assumed that was why he couldn't take his eye off him (No other reason. He definitely did not have a crush on him).
There were also two others that came with him but he was too distracted by the cute snowboarder.
Clown turned his attention back to the other chairlift and discovered that his friends were about two chairs away from getting off. The perfect amount of time to get his snowboard on.
***
Once Branzy and his friends got to the top, they shuffled over to the map.
“So,” Chief pointed to a longer green run that wrapped around the back of the hill, “Rek and I will take this one so that he can get more practice.” He moved his finger over to a blue one that ended at the same place, “And Branzy can take this one, that way we can meet up at the bottom.”
“Great plan, but Chief,” Branzy said as he pointed to the same blue run. He traced his finger down the run to where it split off into two very different runs. “The run diverges into two, a black and another blue. Only the blue path will spit me out at the same place as you.”
Chief nodded. “Good point.”
“What if we just meet at the top?” Rek proposed. “That way, even if we don't meet at the bottom we will still be able to ski together.”
“Yeah, let's do that.” Branzy agreed as Chief nodded.
***
Well, Branzy’s lost.
He had followed his friends to the top of the run they were doing, wished them well, and went off to go find his assigned run.
All was well and he found it. He began to go down.
And then he got to the split.
Branzy stood there, trying to remember which one was the black diamond, and which one was the blue run.
“It has to be the left one. The blue one has to be the left one…” Branzy mumbled to himself, before going down the left path.
As it turned out, the blue run was not the left one.
Branzy had to make tight narrow turns on his snowboard and weave between moguls.
Once he finally reached the bottom he had no idea where he was, but he could see a chairlift so he undid his bindings and hobbled over.
***
Since Clown was the first one of his group to reach the bottom of the hill, he got in line to ride the chairlift up.
His friends knew that they would meet at the top of the hill, like they always did.
The snowboarder that he had seen earlier was also in line waiting to ride the chairlift, and it looked like they were going to ride the same one.
Clown looked over to the other guy as the two of them got on the same chairlift. He wanted to talk to him.
“Hello.” Clown settled on after some thinking.
“Hey.” the snowboarder responded, sounding casual.
“Sure is a nice day today.” Clown blurted out. Did he just talk about the weather?
“Yeah I guess it is.” the snowboarder responded.
“So… do you come snowboarding here often?” Now Clown feels like a runaway truck. Did he just give him the do you come here often line?
The snowboarder smirked. “No, not usually. Thought I’d check out a new place”.
Clown is panicking now, fishing for a way to pull victory from the jaws of defeat. What does he say? Nothing hacky or cheap. Okay think. What are we doing? Snowboarding. Ask him if he comes here No he did that already. Okay . Focus. Snowboarding. Snowboarding.
“What run are you thinking this time?” He asks.
“I haven’t done Dragonrend yet.” the snowboarder said.
“Cool. I haven’t done that one yet today.” A lie. He’s done it 3 times. “Mind if I tag along?”
“Sure”.
“Alright. I’m Clown. What’s your name?”
“I'm Branzy.”
***
“Where is he?” Rek asked at the top of the hill.
“I'm not sure…” Chief said as he looked around. “I assumed that he would have beat us here.”
Out of the corner of Chief's eye, he sees Branzy approaching the top of the hill.
“Never mind, I see him.” Chief says and points Rek to the chairlift just in time to see Branzy get off with a random man.
Branzy and this guy go to a hill and snowboard down, leaving Chief and Rek without even acknowledging them.
“What?” Rek asked Chief, confused. “Who was that?”
***
The sun was setting as Clown and Branzy took off their snowboards.
“That was fun.” Branzy said, smiling at Clown.
“Yeah, it was.” Clown smiled back at Branzy, “We should do it again sometime!”
“Yeah.” Branzy said before adding, “What’s your number and we can set something up.”
They exchanged numbers and stood awkwardly for a few seconds.
“Well, I should be going”. Clown said. "I really enjoyed today"
Branzy stood there, flustered, as he watched Clown walk away.
“Had fun, did you?” Branzy heard someone ask from behind him.
When he turned around he saw Chief and Rek, standing there with teasing smiles on their faces.
“So much fun, and I got a guy's number!” Branzy said.
“Really? Is that the same guy you snowboarded with all day?” Rek asked.
“Yes, him.”
“Nice, we skied with his friends. Turns out you both left people in order to go on a date.” Chief inputted.
“Well I'm glad you weren't alone.” Branzy said as he and his friends began walking back to their cars. “Did you fall lots?”
Rek shrugged. “More than I expected to, but the bunny hill was the hardest.”
“I understand. One time when I was trying to do the bunny hill, I got on the magic carpet and I didn’t stick. So I was sliding down it, that was until the edge of my snowboard got caught on the side. I fell before I even made it up to the top.” Branzy said.
“Rough. Am I the only one of us who can actually do the bunny hill?” Chief said.
“Quiet skier.” Branzy commanded as they got to their cars. “It's Reks' first time today, so we will see if you really are the best when he is more experienced.”
They opened their cars and loaded up their gear before saying goodbye to each other and driving home.
On the entire drive to his house, Branzy was buzzing with excitement for the fact that he got Clowns number.