Log Completed - Part 1

[hottesthoushi.livejournal.com]

When; Friday, after the snowball fight.
Rating; PG
Characters; Kitty (kittyjones), Miroku (hottesthoushi)
Summary; Kitty and Miroku go out to make snowmen and end up playing in the snow. :3
Log;

Kitty was cold. All right, that was something of an understatement. She was freezing. She'd been out for the whole day taking part in the snowball fight, running and jumping and doing various highly dangerous things with flags. With this in mind, whilst she was cold, she was also having the time of her life. And now she was scuffing her heels by the edge of her forest, sticking her tongue out in a vain attempt to catch a snowflake, waiting for Miroku. She had plans.

Miroku made his way to the edge of the forest, the rings on his staff jingling as he did. It was very, very cold outside. So cold. Still, the snow was nice, and he did enjoy spending time with Kitty-san. He reached up with one hand to feel his hair. It was a bit strange wearing it down, but he had promised, hadn't he? Besides, it wasn't a big deal. He wasn't exactly the best monk to begin with - what would taking his hair down matter now? He saw her familiar figure standing there near the trees and sped up, waving. "I'm here, Kitty-san!"

At the sound of his voice Kitty immediately gave up her misguided attempt to eat snow - apparently the flakes were determined to fall everywhere except in her mouth. Clamping her jaw shut, she turned to look at him with a grin. "About time!"

There was something odd about him as he approached though, what was...

She gaped, she couldn't help herself. He'd actually gone through with it! She'd thought he was just joking when he said... Unable to stifle a little laugh of triumph and glee she raised her eyebrows at him, one hand on her hip, the other gesturing to his hair. "Now if that's not dashing, I don't know what is!"

"Ah, you think so~?" Miroku reached up again and laughed a little. He did figure himself to be pretty dashing, but hearing it was nice, too.

"So," he said, dropping his hand and giving her a warm smile. "How did your game go, Kitty-san?"

"I know so!" She reached up to ruffle his hair with her hand. Her attempts to make it a fashionable unruly mop rather failed, but she supposed it was the thought that counted.

"I've been out in the snow all day, I'm covered in bruises in places bruises have no right to be, I wouldn't be surprised if my nose has fallen off from frostbite, and..." She paused here, cheeks flushed at the memory of victory, "We won!"

He gave her a proud grin and took her hand off his head. "That's great! Congratulations," he said, squeezing her hand. "When we're done here, I'll buy you something hot to drink in celebration, how's that?"

"Thank you," she smiled back at him, "And is there any other way to celebrate? Especially when us two are concerned. Not that we're alcoholics or anything, perish the thought!"

His words drew her attention back to where exactly they were, and she remembered why she'd dragged them both out here into the middle of nowhere, during a very cold snowstorm. "As for what we're actually doing here... I think you'd better prepare yourself."

Here her face suddenly turned very firm very serious, both her hands now coming up to hold Miroku's one in an almost reverent fashion. "I fear this may be the hardest task you will have yet to face."

She took a deep breath, swallowing, pausing for dramatic effect, before looking up at him, her eyes sparkling with amusement. "We are going to make snowmen."

"Not at all!" he said seriously. "Why, I've gone literally hours without a drink before."

Miroku blinked down at her hands as they came over his, and he cocked an eyebrow. What was she talking about? Weren't they going to do something fun? ...Oh! "Snowmen!" he said, grinning. "I've done that!"

"Once," she gulped here, as though it was very hard to say, "once I had to go a whole day."

His expression almost made her laugh out loud, it never ceased to amuse her how the monk could be so naive at times, even after he had had a good long while to get used to the sort of sarcasm you would expect from Kitty Jones. "You have? Brilliant!"

She grabbed his arm, and pulled him right to the edge of the woods, were there was a little clear, flat space just before the labyrinth of trees began. "But Miroku," she said as they walked (well, she walked, he was dragged), "these will not be ordinary snowmen. These will be... the ultimate epitome of snowmen. The perfect, most harmonious combination of snow and man every made. In years to come they'll look back on this day, and thank us."

Miroku took a fake gasp. "My word! You poor, brave woman!"

He looked strangely at her as it looked like she was going to pull him into the forest, but realized what she was doing when they came to the clear spot. He smiled and nodded, rolling up his sleeves... Then immediately rolling them down again. "Let's do it, then."

A grim expression matched his gasp, slightly pained, as though hiding some deep emotional pain too great to bear. Or she was just being sarcastic again. One of the two, at least. "I know, I know. It was dreadful. But the experience made me the strong woman I am today!"

She rolled her eyes at his pushing up and down of his sleeves, "Yes, let's." And then she sort of... stood there for a moment. How does one just launch into building a snowman? It had been ages since she'd done anything like this, years. "Right", she spoke assertively. "Errr... right. So. Errr. Snowmen." All right, perhaps not that assertively.

She knelt down on the ground, pushing some snow into a small mound, which presumably was meant to be the beginnings of her great construction. Grabbing a handful of the stuff she held it out to Miroku, "Need some snow?"

Miroku squatted down and gathered a ball of snow, patting it into a perfectly round shape before throwing it back at the ground and looking at it seriously, thoughtfully. He waved her hand away when she held the snow out to him, and he put his hand over his mouth thoughtfully. What to do, what to do... Ah!

"No, I'm fine!"

Kitty cast a pseudo-critical eye over his work, and came to the conclusion that his shape-mound-thing was decidedly more circular than hers, which was more of a lump than a shape. Ah, well. Both of her eyebrows raised at his reaction, as she struggled to keep from smiling, "Are you sure? We wouldn't want you to run out!"

"There's plenty over here," he said, gathering up more snow and beginning to go to work. Kitty-san was right - This would be the best snow sculpture ever. He was sure of it.

It was quite endearing how focused he was on his work Kitty thought, as she too began to pile more snow into her starting lump. She was building up the body (which was taking a rather odd, cylindrical sort of form), when a thought occurred to her, and she stopped to look at her companion "Errr... say, Miroku? What exactly are you modelling your snowman on? I mean, personally I'm completely stumped about the future evolutionary process of this," she prodded her still-being-created-snowman gingerly with one foot, "thing of mine."

He looked up at her with a smile and tapped his head, as if to say that it was something in his head, and went back to working. This was going to take a lot of concentration and hard work.

She rolled her eyes again (it seemed to be something of a fixture whenever he was around) and returned to her own work. She had rather overlooked her own lack of artistic ability when proposing this idea. Still, nothing but to crack on at this...

It was actually looking more like a snowman, now she came to think of it. The body had flattened out, and those were shoulders beginning to form at the top, unless she was very much mistaken. Just a head, a couple of sticks for arms, stones for buttons and a carrot for a nose (though she might have to improvise with another stick)... and voila. But she remained curious about what exactly the monk was trying to do. "Go on, a hint?"

"No," he said cheerily, patting down the snow as smooth as he could get it. It wasn't even beginning to take shape, but he knew what he was doing. Really. Best snowman ever, and all that.

"You're mean," she pouted at him, as she carried on with her own work. Then, grinning slightly as the idea took her, she spoke under her breath, but just loud enough for him to hear... "I bet you'll manage to make it perverted. Somehow."

Miroku shrugged. "I could, but I don't think I will," he said, carefully arranging a pile of snow on top of what was already there. He looked down at his fingers - they were red and beginning to go numb - but simply wiped them on his robes and continued working.

"Maybe that's a wise decision. We wouldn't want to shock anyone who stumbled across these." She was shaping the snowman's head now, and it was coming on a lot better than expected. I mean, it wasn't falling off or anything. She began to smooth down the sides of the thing, refining its shape till it began to look definitely humanoid.

Glancing up she noticed his hands were practically glowing red - if they were still out here after dark they could probably see their way home just by using them as some kind of lamp. Didn't he have any gloves? "Least now I know what to get you for Christmas."

"Isn't that the best part of life, though, shocking innocent passersby?" he asked casually, patting more snow down. He hummed a little as he worked, then looked up at her interestedly when she spoke.

"Christmas?"

"No, not the best, " she spoke slowly, as though deeply considering her words. "Comes in at a close second to corrupting virtuous monks." Using her finger she began to drill a little hollow on one side of the head for where she could slot one of the eyes, and was about to make the other matching one when...

"Has nobody told you about it yet?" Her expression was incredulous, to say the least. "That's why all this stuff's been going on! The snow, that party that's coming up... it's a festival!"

"Oh, right, I'd forgotten about that one," he said. "Do you know where we might find any?"

A festival? "No, they haven't... What is it about?"

"I don't, no," she shook her head sadly, "it appears there's something of a shortage of them within the City."

Kitty supposed it had been silly of her to assume he'd know what she was talking about - after all, feudal Japan was unlikely to be a hotbed of Christian theology. "It has a religious base, about a baby and a stable and a star... oh, and there's a donkey too. Everyone who's anyone was there, you know the drill. But nowadays it's more about..." She broke off, trying to find the right words. "It's more about family, and friends, and celebrating the end of the year. There's presents and parties and cards and... food. Lots and lots of food!"

Miroku snorted, grinning at her. "A shame, that."

A baby, a stable, and a star... ...and a donkey. Did all Europeans have such strange holidays? First, someone tried to blow up their leaders, so they celebrate it. Now... "I see," he said. He didn't really, but... "What would you like for Christmas, then, Kitty-san?"

It sounded pretty weird to her now she thought about it, she had to admit. And she hadn't even begun to mention the three wise men. Well, it didn't matter. Like she'd said, it more about family, about things like... presents? "For me? You don't have to get me anything! Really, there's nothing I need, just..." She fell silent, before blurting out, "Just not octopus, in any shape or form."

"I want to get you something though," he said, smiling. After all the things she'd done for him, he couldn't help but feel like it was the least he could do. "Not octopus, alright..." He went back to his snowman for a moment before looking back up at her. "Would you help me pick out something for Sango?"

Try as she might, she couldn't help but give out a little sigh of relief when he agreed that octopus was off the list for this year. She really didn't understand how he could eat it. It was... urg. Just... urg. She had been about to draw a smiling face to go with the eyes when he spoke again.

"Of course I can," she smiled. "Although, you know... I think you'd probably have a pretty good idea of what to get her anyway. Don't sell yourself short."

"Yeah, but you're a woman," he said somewhat sheepishly. "And you're kind of like Sango, you might have a better idea..." Miroku looked back down at the snow and began to shape it again. He had been so focused on the snowman, but now his mind was in other places. What did you get for a woman like Sango? Most women could be showered with perfume and silks and would have been in heaven, but Sango... It wasn't that she wouldn't be grateful for whatever kind of gift he got her- She might even be embarassed to be given something expensive, he figured - but he wanted whatever he gave her to be perfect.

"D'you want to know an true secret about the female mind? Course you do," she answered before he could, shuffling around to sit cross-legged on the ground.

"Secret is, despite what you may believe, we don't actually have one communal hive-mind. And there isn't some huge plot to confuse the male gender." (Of course there wasn't a huge plot, it just happened naturally.) "What I'm trying to say is... you know Sango best. You are her fiancée, after all. Just think about what she likes, it's not that hard. And to be honest, the thing she really likes, or rather, what you both really seem to like," she smiled knowingly here, " is each other. So you can't lose."

"I don't know, maybe you just haven't been let in on the hive-mind," he said, giving her a glance before looking back at his snow. "Kagome and Sango always seemed to have something like it."

He paused in his molding of the snow to take in her next words, then slapped some more snow onto the sculpture. He began to round the top as smoothly as he could, then looked at her again and nodded. "You're right... But you're still going to come with me and help me, right?"

"No, no, no," she shook her finger here, "that wasn't the mythical hive-mind at work. That's just basic woman's intuition. Though I suppose, seeing as you're a bloke," she shot him a pitying glance, "they might as well be the same thing to you."

She brushed away the excess snow from by the base of her snowman, making the surrounding ground smoother. "Of course I'm coming don't be an idiot. As if I'd let you go out shopping on your own. It's not safe!" To further impress the point into his mind she grabbed a handful of snow from the little side-pile she'd been making, and threw the rudimentary ball straight at his head.

Miroku held up his arm to protect himself from the flying snow and laughed a bit. "Of course. It's certainly dangerous, going out to shops in broad daylight. What was I thinking?"

He pulled his arm down and looked at her with his eyebrows raised. "If you keep throwing snow at me you won't get to see what I'm making."

"I have no idea what possessed you! When I think what could happen to you... oh, it's just too horrible to bear!" The back of her hand was pressed against her forehead here in a stereotypical fainting pose, her eyelids fluttering, as though utterly overcome.

Soon she'd perked up again though. "I'm not merely throwing snow at you. I'm making snowballs to throw at you! There's a radical difference!" She had been planning to attempt to show him the differences between the various apparent types of snowball (through first hand experience, naturally), when he spoke again of his snowman.

"All right, I'll shut up. A hint though? Not even a tiny, little one?"

"You won't like it," he said simply, smoothing out the round head one last time. He then took a generous amount of snow and began to pat it into a sloping circle around the outside of the head.

"All right, now I'm far more than curious. Come on, please?" Her hands were pressed together in a mock-prayer position here as she watched him beseechingly. "Otherwise I'll have to start going on with the snowballs again. And I warn you, I'm not adverse to stuffing snow down inside the back of your robes."

"Go work on your snowman," he said, pointing with one hand. "I'll show you when it's done."

She glared at him. Men. Honestly. Still, this time Kitty did actually do what he said for once, and without a single verbal complaint. Picking up various stones off the ground, her figure soon had eyes, mouth, buttons down the front. Three sticks meant he had two arms and a nose into the bargain. Deciding he looked far too cold to be allowed, she yanked off her gloves with her teeth, before making two 'hands' out of them.

"There you have it," she smiled proudly, "a very old-fashioned snowman. The best kind."

And, even if she did think so herself, it didn't look that bad at all.

While she had been working on her snowman, Miroku hastily finished his - carving eight long, curvy tentacles from the extra snow around the bottom of his creation, and giving it a goofy smile. He swept the last bits of snow away and then dusted off his hands. "There, I'm done."

Kitty looked up eagerly with a smile. She'd been so concentrated on her own work that she hadn't been paying attention to what he'd been doing. Was it a man? A woman? Was it...

It was...

Her mouth opened and closed, but no words came out. After a minute, she only began to splutter out a mere fragment of a sentence.

"...Oh, you didn't."

"I did," he said, putting his hands on his hips and giving her a big grin. "I told you wouldn't like it. But, why don't you tell me what you really think? In your own words."

"You..." she was still spluttering, "you... you did. You... how..."

She took a deep breath, closing her eyes. Oh, he was not going to live this one down in any sense of the phrase. "In my own words? You know what? In my own words, Miroku, I've come to the conclusion that you are rather like one of those octopus you do so love to eat."

A pause, and her eyes snapped open, her eyebrows furrowed. "In the sense, monk, that you are both dead meat."

And with that she grabbed another lump of snow from the ground, and flung it at his face once again. He was going down.

Miroku tried to dodge the snowball, but failed miserably and laughed as it hit his face. "I'd say my work is done then," he said, reaching down to scoop up some snow as well. "What, you really don't like it?"

She felt a rush of satisfaction as the snow hit him squarely on the face. Yes, this was definitely the way to go. "No, really, I love it, Miroku," she muttered darkly as she walked towards him, still clutching some snow in her hand, "at least, that's what I'd say if we somehow slipped into a parallel universe where day is night and love is hate."

She had reached him by now, and he was still bent over, trying to gather enough snow to make an effective defence. Too slow. She had absolutely no qualms in carrying out her earlier threat. In one swift movement she took the snow... and shoved it down the back of his neck. Ah, there it was again - that familiar rush of satisfaction. She could get to like this.

Miroku dropped the snow in his hands and let out a rather undignified yelp, standing up straight, reaching down the back of his robes to get at the snow. "You're terrible, Kitty-san!" he said, arching his back and contorting his body into strange positions in a futile attempt to get the snow off of him. "I'm a man of religion, that's not nice!"

Kitty had been planning to launch a second offensive on him after that, but at his strangled cry she leapt back, momentarily concerned. However this concern soon gave way to utter, hysterical, mirth. Her glare became a grin almost instantaneously, and she burst into giggles, clutching her sides as she bent double in her laughter.

"You... you... a man of... r-relig... hah..." She couldn't even speak properly, she was laughing so much she was only about to stutter out various words and point vaguely at the strangely twisting man, with a hand that shook each time she chuckled.

Miroku stopped squirming enough to be able to pout at her. "It's not that funny," he said. "I should do it to you."

His pitiful face only made her laugh more, if that were even possible. "On the contrary, it's hilarious!" She wiped away tears from her eyes with the sleeves of her coat. Choking back further hysterics she managed to proclaim in an mocking voice, "Do it to me? I'd like to see you try!"

Ah. So it was a challenge, then. He didn't normally like to do this sort of thing to ladies, but... He quickly scooped up a handful of snow, then reached out and grabbed her around her stomach, pulling her close and pinning her to him. "I'll do it!"

"What are you - hey!" All right, so it wasn't exactly the most articulate comeback to the situation, but Kitty rather thought it was justified considering she'd just been grabbed and yanked about by the waist. "You wouldn't, would you? I mean, you certainly wouldn't if you had any respect for your personal safety."

"Ah, dearest Kitty-san~" Miroku said, tightening his grip on her and bringing the snow closer to her. "I'm going to be married to Sango, which means I spent a rather sizable amount of time around her - Which means she's chased me for miles over the course of our relationship, swinging something that could hardly be beaten by anything you've got." He raised his eyebrows. "I definitely would."

This was infuriating. Kitty could think of half a dozen ways to break out of his grip, but all of them would involve actually hurting him, which she was rather reluctant to do. "Just because I haven't got some massive weapon to beat you up with, doesn't mean I can't hurt you." She raised her own eyebrows in turn, perfectly aware that she was about to tempt fate to extreme levels. "After all Miroku, you of all people should know full well that it's not the size that matters, but what you do with it."

Miroku was silent for a few seconds. There was something just so terribly wrong with that statement, but he couldn't put his finger on i-... "H-hey!" he cried, looking completely offended. "I'll have you know...!!" Oh, that was it. He shoved the snow down her collar, then made sure to smear it against the skin of her back before drawing his hand out and preparing to run.

For Kitty these few seconds seemed to tick by with increasing slowness. Was he going to laugh it off, or shove snow down her back? Laugh it off, snow down back? Laugh, snow? Laugh, snow? Laugh, sn-

Snow. SNOW. FREEZING BLOODY SNOW.

Following on from that lovely train of thought, Kitty let out a yelp very similar to the one Miroku had given previously, only (to her disgust), she found herself yelping twice - when he pressed the snow against her skin it was so cold that she couldn't help doing it again. Deciding he'd done such a good job of pushing the snow in there was no way she was going to be able remove it, she began to press her hands against her back, melting as much of the snow as she could.

So it was dripping wet and shivering with the cold, that Kitty fixed Miroku with what could only be called a "death glare". Without saying a word she grabbed at his retreating form, taking hold of his robe and giving it a sharp yank back towards her.

Miroku regretted what he had done the minute he felt his robes getting pulled back. He fixed her with his best "I'm cute please don't hurt me" sort of look, and smiled sheepishly. She had insinuated very bad things and while he wanted to continue being smug, but, uh. Well. He was familiar with angry women, unfortunately, and knew that this was the best course of action to take.

Oh. OH. So that was his game, was it? He thought that silly little-boy-lost look was going to win her over? "You... you cannot seriously think that..." She shook her head, she shouldn't be speaking. Not when she was positively fuming with rage, the heat of it providing a nice contrast to the actual temperature she was feeling, with was very, very cold.

"You." That was all she could bring herself to say. "You!"

With that she yanked at his robe again, pulling him round to face her, the only purpose of which really was so that she could glower at him more fiercely. However, this didn't quite work out as she planned. Perhaps she pulled a little too hard, or he was a little too surprised by the movement, but whatever the reason, when she pulled him towards her she slipped on the snow, toppling backwards and dragging him with her.

Miroku gasped and braced himself for the fall when he felt her slip. He stuck his hands out to keep himself from crushing her, and winced as they hit the cold, rough ground. After a few seconds of thought to make sure he was okay, and a few seconds of internal debate, he opened one eye up to see if 1). Kitty was also okay, and 2.) if she was going to hurt him. "Are you okay?"

It sounded clichéd, but it all happened so fast. One moment Kitty was perfectly upright, perfectly angry, and about to enact a very perfect revenge on that monk, and the next thing she knew she was very horizontal, very not-really-thinking-anything-at-all, and the monk in question was... very much on top of her.

"I'm fine!" She blurted the confirmation out nervously. Well, her back was freezing, she was lying on snow, but that wasn't really an issue. "A-are you? I'm sorry, I... didn't mean to..." It was at that moment the fact that Miroku was very much on top of her really made an impression on her mind, and all words failed her.

"I'm fine," Miroku said. He realized his breathing was hard and panicked. The pull had really caught him off guard. He swallowed and nodded. "No, it's okay..." The fact that their position was a bit... compromising didn't register in his mind.

"Oh. Good. Good! I..." She could hear his heavy breathing, and that really didn't help how she was feeling. Or the fact that how she was feeling was making a physical manifestation. In other words... she was blushing. Her cheeks were burning red, despite the snow all around them. This was all made worse by the fact that he didn't exactly seem to be moving.

"Errr... M-Miroku... could y-you..." She couldn't bring herself to say it, but her eyes flickered up and down pleadingly as she lay quite stiff beneath him.

"What...? ...OH!" Miroku sat up immediately and ended up falling backwards onto his rear from his quick movements. Oh, oh jeez. Had he been...? It was an accident, sure, but still! He shook his head. "I'm sorry!" he said. He was the flustered one now. "I didn't mean to... I mean, it was an accident!"

If she had been able to blush any redder... well, they'd have had to take out whatever definition there was for "red" in the dictionary and replace it with "Kitty Jones". At least Miroku was sounding just as embarrassed as her now. "No, it's not your fault!"

She drew herself up sharply from the floor, winced a little at the sudden movement, and then hastily busied herself by fiddling with her hair, tucking loose strands behind her ears. "It was my fault, really, I should have... should have watched where I was putting my feet, that's all!"

She noticed a second later that the hair she was fidgeting was sopping wet. Reaching around to feel her back she realised that... yes. She was utterly soaked. With freezing, melting snow. Brilliant.

Miroku watched her and shook his head. "I'm sorry, I got you all wet..." He stood up and held his hand out to her. "Let's go get that drink, okay? Or we can go home and I'll get you something there and you can dry off. I'm sure Sango would love to see you."

"No, really, it's not your fault!" Tentatively she reached out and took his hand, murmuring thanks as he helped her get up. "I... that sounds like a brilliant idea. I'd love to see her too, just not when I'm all, errr, wet. Yes. Dry off. Good plan."

Looking up at him, breaking her gaze from the floor (where it had been permanently fixed for the last few minutes), she managed to give an awkward smile. "See? This is where octopus will get you!"