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It was January 17th: the day was a Sunday, sometime towards the distant daylight but not exactly early within the morning, late enough that crowds of people wouldn’t swarm the shops and early enough before the shop had closed its doors to the outside public. Yoisaki Kanade had a goal in mind that she was persistently attempting to clear: go clear her driveway to drive to the store and get the groceries she needed in the car for her and Mafuyu.
She was wearing the dark puffy coat that she owned for the occasion of going outside with her usual purple undershirt, black pants that alleviated the feeling of the pain from the cold with a scarf that Hoshino-san had gifted her— as a gift, she had worded it, to stay warmer in the cold weather they’d been receiving as of late. She had such flimsy boots on that one step in the snow had caused her to sink deeper. Yoisaki Kanade was undeniably unprepared for the cold atmosphere and environment on January 17th.
Wisps of snow covered the driveway in a calculated manner, sinking Kanade’s flimsy boots deeper into the snow and causing the chill from the cold air blowing to chatter her entire body. She’d been out here for a while now, clearing piles of snow that always came back no matter how much it seemed to melt. It was temporary— an alleviation that the snow being gone would mean that this frost would soon clear up, that life would return to normal at last. But judging by the way the snow relentlessly fell each and every single day, turning leaves into an infested snow wonderland, it wouldn’t leave any time soon.
It’d continue to fall, no matter how much she shoveled the snow to clear the driveway or how much snow seemed to dissipate. More always piled on eventually: even the smallest bits left over fossilized into large amounts, clumps of snow for the eyes. But still, she didn’t want to accept that this snow would exactly come back. She’d keep pushing it away, back into tall piles. Tall piles that always melted seemingly slower than if she hadn’t touched the snow at all.
The temperature was at an alltime low among the usual cold and frigid winter days that blurred the windows, making each day feel longer and somehow more ephemeral than the previous. Each day passed by slowly, but today was no different either. Blankets of snow danced outside of the window, the hues all stained white with purity and the warmth of the first unexpected blizzard: devoid of any kind of sense of contingency that was predictable.
Another sharp gust of wind blew, causing her to take a deeper and more shallow breath as to steady herself. Her hands shook when she held the shovel; the cold was turning her warm fingers into a red hue that burned and simultaneously numbed every inch she continued to shovel. As she continued to struggle henceforth, her back now beginning to ache and entire body shiver worse, idle thoughts entered into her mind, ones she denied wanting to contemplate in the first place.
How much more would this snow continue to evaporate and fossilize, yet never dissipate with persistence and hard effort? How much more would she stand here in the snow; how many more hours until she would feel her hands split open and break, on something invisible to an outsider’s perspective, she wonders.
How much more effort of shoveling this snow would continue to not haunt the impending guilt and doom inside of her? How much more of not saving something as small and as selfish as the snow on her driveway being impossibly hard to clear and the desire to give it a cozier environment haunt her internally?
If she shoveled this snow, her feelings about it could perhaps fossilize. These memories and the weight of the snow would continue to drip endlessly. Over and over again, this snow might resurface everywhere she went, a very possibility that she understood, she knew her goal: to keep shoveling and persevering.
Even if her body aches every single day until the end of time, she mustn’t let herself or her heart weaken. She must keep going and continue to live her goals, the legacy that her father set up for her and the same legacy she managed to destroy and turn into the faintest bit of a gift and her curse. Even as small as over something snow.
She must go tirelessly through the motions. Yoisaki Kanade doesn’t know the difference between shoveling snow and her memories that she threatened to throw out into the piles of snow and leave it there, abandon it there to let it melt and dissipate. This is the way she must go to uphold her curse and her purpose in life.
She needs to shovel past these piles of snow every single day and morning. Just to survive another day to do the mundane.
There’s a sudden drive of determination, a sharp pain. Her hands are hurting the worse they have ever been but her hands were functional and she couldn’t let anyone perhaps fall hurt by these piles of snow. Nobody would see these piles of snow, but still, she must shovel. Shovel it. If she was born something, then for being born something this was her being born. Her being born to do a task, to help, her purpose in doing so. Even when the dark of her mind surrounds her, this sudden light embracing will make sense.
In the end, she finally finds the path cleared, piles of snow across the entire driveway in a manner that lacked artistry or grace. She starts the ignition in the car in the silence that has now fossilized, filtered heat warming up her cheeks and her fingers, still subdued from the glacial snow. No music plays.
She’d keep shoveling.
That was the bare minimum.
Later in the evening, Yoisaki Kanade lays in bed. She has gotten the groceries and has done her Nightcord meeting: only for Enanan to scold her for the dark circles surrounding her eyes, being even more quiet in the last few meetings, which she declared was “so unlike her that she was getting seriously concerned” and Amia simultaneously interrogating her about her sudden change.
Yuki hadn’t said anything but her keen eyes bore into her afterwards. She had refused any sort of change when they kept persisting: she hadn’t changed in any way, she hadn’t changed.
Those thoughts were back again, as she laid in bed. She could hear the downspout dripping in the dark of her room, continuing. Again and again, the snow kept her awake in the dark of the hours of night, near Mafuyu who was asleep peacefully for once, hair brushed to the side from her earlier. No strain in her peaceful face.
She’d gone through so much. She missed her father the most in the silence of these moments. But then she was reminded of exactly the monster she was, hiding underneath the skin of a teenage girl that felt bruised and scarred all over. She felt dirty, her hands cursing the one gift that she and her father embodied, possessed and shared. Grief consumed her every moment of her waking hour but nobody could see this sadness. Nobody would see that sadness she had, in the depths of her eyes. Everyone was outside of the door and they knew, everybody knew, but she’d never let one in.
Her purity was gone. Just a chipped and broken pink opal, as she was. The dog that bit back and hurt, therefore isolating itself for it. The music note that hangs in the air and is drowned out by the beauty and warmth of everyone else. The temporary warmth and the relief of a smile she had allowed herself to indulge in, fading away from her surroundings and enjoying greedy eyes.
Just like a Pearl Diver. The light of her world was soon fading and she was watching an idealized dream. When she’d break, she’d finally go on break. She’d finally never burden another soul again with her selfish impurities and desperate thoughts: or with the thoughts of wanting to disappear and be swallowed wholeheartedly. She’d write speeches in her head about the great future it’d serve if she finally broke, the thousands of hands that would appear in the dark clapping for her finally once more. The composer’s self-inflicted achromatic final. Her perfect, elegant and beautiful demise.
Her father would finally rest without her. He’d wake up and make his dreams. Nightcord would pass on without her knowing that she left a legacy behind. Replacement would be the option, nobody would be able to mourn and grieve and cry for her. She’d make sure that would never happen. She’d keep her memories and those feelings of pain forever sealed to herself.
Now, she may finally break.