Work Text:
Shinka dug her hands into her pockets and tugged her jacket tighter around her.
“So much for the warmer winter…” The morning walk to school was chillier than ever. She glanced at Sanae to see how she was holding up, but pursed her lips before she laughed again.
When Shinka showed up at Sanae’s door that morning to walk with her to school, she couldn’t help laughing as the tiny girl stepped out in a puffy bubble jacket easily three sizes too large, and who knew how many long-sleeves stuffed under that, plus two pairs of gloves on her hands which she stuffed under her arms to insulate further. As Sanae announced with all her usual pep that she was prepared to face this elemental trial, she hiked her bag up over her shoulder since it kept slipping off. Shinka stifled a giggle with difficulty, finding her outfit adorably hilarious. More like hilariously adorable, actually.
“You really don’t like the cold, do you?”
Sanae growled at Shinka’s question, though she knew she was asking genuinely rather than teasing.
“It saps my power more than anything else, even through the mana barrier I put up, to the point that I start going through withdrawal and start shaking uncontrollably. This eldritch curse of annual cold is as primordial as the world itself; sadly, any way to dispel such ancient magic has surely been lost to time.”
“And you really don’t care if you walk into the school looking as silly as you do right now, do you?” Shinka asked as they joined the students commuting toward the front gate, hoping to convince her to take off that ridiculous jacket before they became the center of attention. Shinka had a bad feeling that a picture of them could easily end up in the yearbook under “Best and Worst Dressed” if Sanae walked in wearing all that.
“Don’t be foolish,” Sanae snapped back. “Appearances matter not when it comes to preserving the dregs of your magical energy in a dangerous environment. You should know that better than anyone, O great Mori Summer,” Sanae said sassily. Despite Sanae finally acknowledging her as the real Mori Summer, Shinka still wasn’t used to the genuine praise and almost corrected her.
“Shh! Not so loud…” Shinka glanced at the students around them to make sure no one overheard the name Sanae just uttered. “But while that may be true, I do have an image to preserve as the freshman representative, after all.”
“I understand,” Sanae whispered, stepping closer to Shinka. “Your image is that of a courageous pioneer of the magic arts, inspiring mages both apprentice and accomplished. That the great Mori Summer can shrug off the elements so easily is a testament to that, and goes to show that even I, the great Dekomori, still have a long way to go in my training.”
“You at least know how to bundle up well,” Shinka remarked, choosing not to bring up how her bag kept slipping off her shoulder as a result. She'd lost count of how many times Sanae had pulled it back up.
A brisk gust of cold wind blew in then, and over its howling Shinka heard Sanae whimpering behind her. She’d stopped walking entirely to endure the chill. Shinka sighed, wondering how a hothead like her with so much energy could possibly be so vulnerable to the cold. She walked around to Sanae’s other side to take the brunt of any further breezes for her.
“Th-Thank you…”
“Don’t worry about it,” Shinka said dryly. She would have carried her bag for her as well, but… “We’re almost there, so stay strong, alright?”
“Uh-huh…” Sanae sniveled.
Sometimes Shinka wondered if Sanae’s miserable responses to the cold were pleas of pity, to get her girlfriend to move closer to keep her warm. Shinka would have already, if not for that comically giant jacket, but she already planned to once they got inside anyway. Not that she was going to ruin the surprise for her little cuddlebug by telling her beforehand.
“It’s a lot warmer inside, at least,” Shinka noted once they stepped in the building. “You should probably take off that jacket before you start melting in it, don’t you think?”
But Sanae shrank even further inside it.
“Not when I’ve only just begun to thaw. I must expel the last of the curse clawing its icy way through my veins before it reaches my heart.”
Shinka huffed out an impatient sigh, wanting to be the one to reach Sanae's heart first. Not only could she beat the cold there, but she could expel it for her much faster in a much cozier way, if not for that stupid jacket getting in the way… she spent the entire walk to the school brainstorming ways to convince her to take it off once they arrived, but arrived only at the same conclusion as always: force. It was the only way Shinka knew how to get Sanae to listen to her about anything, whether it was drinking milk or calming her down when she got too enthusiastically lost in her chunibyo delusions.
“Oh, Dekomori, that reminds me! We need to make a quick stop at the clubroom before class!”
Shinka grabbed Sanae’s hand and dragged her away before she could protest, using the opportunity to finally intertwine their fingers now that Sanae wasn't hiding them under her arms.
“What for?” Sanae asked curiously behind Shinka before running up next to her. “Are we going to perform a ritual to amplify our synapses for today’s session of training?”
“You could call it a ritual, but it has nothing to do with that.”
“Is it for communing with spirits to ask them-”
“Just wait and you’ll see!”
It wouldn’t be nearly as exciting as whatever fantastical things Sanae was imagining, but at the same time she had yet to turn down any of Shinka’s cuddles, or accept them with anything less than the widest of grins. So Shinka wasn’t too worried. Up two staircases and down the hall with Sanae remaining remarkably patient along the way, they walked in the clubroom and shut the door behind them. Sanae scanned the room curiously.
“I don’t see anything special laid out….” She searched for a moment longer, then hopped and spun around, pointing a finger and a smile at Shinka. “Am I going to get a chance to spar with the great Mori Summer?!”
“Something like that,” Shinka half-smiled back, beginning to lose her patience. “Now will you take off that comically oversized jacket already?”
“I’m on it! Now that we're within the protective ward around this building, it's fire elemental property is cancelling out the cold and I can lower my barrier…”
Sanae managed to drag the zipper down after fumbling with it, but could hardly get either of her arms out of the sides. She grunted as she used one hand to pull on the end of the other sleeve, but she couldn’t work past the thickness of the jacket and the layers of shirts squeezed inside it. It almost looked like Sanae was fighting against herself as she thrashed her arm around and started explaining that this was the first time she had tried using this spell.
“It must not have been casted correctly…”
“So this is the first time you’ve worn such a big jacket and so many layers at once.” Shinka stifled another laugh as Sanae flapped her arms around and wailed about how she was trapped in her own barrier.
“Will you help me?” Sanae blubbered, holding her arms out helplessly to Shinka.
“Yes,” Shinka said now that Sanae had finally given up. She couldn’t help but smile while she held the sleeves so that Sanae could slip out of them. “You know, you should practice a spell to see if you can actually cast it correctly before you put it to practical use.” Shinka said as she tossed it on top of their things by the door.
“I know, but it at least performed the function that I needed it to. And I knew that you, the great Mori Summer, would have my back as always in case something goes wrong.”
“That’s what I’m here for.”
Now that the accursed coat was finally gone, Shinka stepped closer to finally wrap her arms around Sanae when she gasped and jumped away, grabbing her twintails and spinning them.
“Hah! You really thought that I, the great Dekomori, wouldn’t notice, but even a lesser mage could see through your phony pandering Mori Summer! You could have easily taken care of me while I was helpless under my own spell, but you assisted me in order for me to lower my guard!”
“Huh?” It was true that Shinka wanted her to lower her guard, but, not for this… “Wait a minute, Dekom-”
“Aha!” Sanae gasped again. “So that was why you wanted to come to the clubroom: to sneak in a sparring session now that my full range of movement has been restored!”
“What? No!” Shinka groaned, upset that Sanae had devolved the situation so far so quickly. “No, that’s not-”
“Your lies will no longer have any effect on me now that I know your true intentions! If you truly have anything to say to me, say it through battle!”
If Shinka hadn’t had other intentions and wasn’t pressed for time to fulfill them before class started, she probably would have entertained Sanae with the fight she was so stubbornly looking for. Thankfully, she knew how to translate to chunibyo to try to get through to her first.
“Hear me out, Dekomori.” Shinka placed her palms out to indicate her lack of malice. Sanae merely narrowed her stare, shifting back into a slightly more defensive stance but still twirling Mjolnir. “While you may be able to move freely again, what would be the point of sparring when your energy isn’t fully restored?
Sanae stopped swinging and let her hair fall, mulling over Shinka’s reasoning. “I suppose that does make sense. Well if that’s not the ritual you were talking about, what is?”
“I could have told you a lot sooner if you hadn’t gotten so excited,” Shinka said while she walked past Sanae to the other side of the room by the windows. She picked up the heavy blanket that Kumin always left there and returned to Sanae, who tilted her head up to look at the taller girl.
“Your hands, around me,” Shinka said as she pulled Sanae’s arms around her waist. “Now throw this on,” with a flip of the blanket around them, “and sit down.” Sanae held onto Shinka mostly in a daze as she was pulled down into her lap.
“Wh-What’s with this sudden show of affection?” Sanae asked.
“You’re free to think of this as an affectionate form of sparring if you want. I’m helping you warm up. Er… restore your magic reserves by sharing my own. Plus, I like you, silly. Do I need any other reason?” Shinka asked while hugging Sanae back, hoping that would get the message through her thick skull. She pecked her on the cheek to make sure it would and spied a little blush blooming in her cheeks, along with a smile. “See? Warmer already.”
“I-It’s true that I can feel my strength returning… Mori Summer is every bit as compassionate as she is prodigious,” Sanae sniffled as she snuggled into Shinka, holding on tight to the warmth spreading from her.
“Of course I am. Why else do you think I walk with you to school every day? Or even bothered to write and share the Mabinogion?”
“I know! I’m not worthy of such generosity!” Sanae wailed.
“Of course you are,” Shinka said with a kiss to her forehead. She could hardly believe how Sanae had turned from scrappy to sappy so quickly. ‘She’s all bark and no bite, as usual.’ Shinka smiled and squeezed her tighter, however Sanae groaned in response. “What?”
“There’s only ten minutes before class starts… I don't wanna go.”
“Neither do I, believe me. But we'll have plenty of time after class today.”
“After we withstand that ferocious blizzard again…”
“Yes, but look at the bright side,” Shinka said, despite not looking forward to walking out there again herself. “It won’t be as cold as it is now, plus I'll be right there to warm you up afterwards. If you won't try to drag me into combat, that is.”
“I won't,” Sanae giggled. “Though, I might need your help with the barrier again.”
“I will, until we find you a spell that works, that is. We’ll work on that later. For now…”
“Yeah,” Sanae sighed, melting blissfully under the blanket and in Shinka’s arms.