"Your population is faced with famine, your treasury is emptied, but" —Mr. Manalo looked up from his computer screen, one thick eyebrow raised— "you've amassed quite the army this turn, Kobayashi."

Yuki tapped her notebook with a pencil, wishing her teacher would keep his voice down a little. She'd worked out a deal with Sila Devi, the girl lucky enough to be running the USSR, and she didn't want anyone to get wind of her scheme. "Are there consequences if I run out of food?"

Mr. Manalo clicked into another window, his mouse skimming across its grey pad. "No."

Perfect. "How does that saying go?" Yuki smirked mischievously. "Let them eat cake?"

With a sigh, her teacher waved a hand in dismissal. She supposed he couldn't encourage such flagrant disregard for the game's realism but if there was no consequence for committing what amounted to a war crime, why not do it? The next student took the seat by the teacher's desk to see how their turn had played out, while Yuki returned to hers.

As the most lax of the teachers, Mr. Manalo often allowed his students to talk during class provided their work was done and they weren't disruptive, something which Rhett took full advantage of as he slipped into the chair next to Yuki. "We making our move on the next turn?"

Yuki smiled at Rhett as he pushed his glasses up his nose, though inside she trembled with a nervous energy. She had to ask him today. Had to ask him before Sophia snapped him up like a flower not yet bloomed. "You think you'll be a convincing boy who cries wolf?"

"I'm not a theater kid just because I can sing," Rhett replied before frowning in thought. "Okay well, Mrs. Rana might've been won over by the singing, but I can assure you that my skills extend into the acting realm too." He rose and flourished an imaginary cape before settling into a bow, while Yuki applauded quietly. 

Only on the stage did Rhett's aversion to attention fade. He stepped into each role he played whole-heartedly as if he'd been born to them. Yuki adored every play he'd put on, every private concert he'd treated her to as kids. Rhett's brand of genius couldn't be bought by hours of practice under an instructor—it was the kind of talent that burned like the sun next to the cheap imitation of fluorescent lights.

But whenever jealousy had threatened to taint their friendship, Yuki only had to ask him to play any sport involving a ball and balance would be restored.

"Wanna go grab ice cream together after school?" Yuki asked, twirling a strand of hair around her finger. If Rhett had noticed her new haircut, he hadn't mentioned it. Hadn't remembered her birthday either.

He leaned back in his chair. "Isn't it kinda cold for ice cream?"

Yuki's eyes locked on his, a familiar twinkle glimmering in their grey depths. "But ice cream," she said again.

"Hot pie," Rhett replied, his chin tilting up in mock superiority.

"Iced coffee," Yuki dead-panned.

"Hot coffee."

"Cold noodles."

Rhett held up his finger and waited a moment before retorting, "Hot noodles."

"Compromise?" Yuki said, offering their customary olive branch.

"Convenience store run." Rhett nodded and it was like they'd jumped back in time. "You get rice balls, I get kimbap?" He still remembered that at least.

"Of course," Yuki said while Mr. Manalo called for the class to pay attention to whatever he'd pulled up on his projection screen.

"It's a date then, Snowflake," Rhett answered on the way back to his desk.

And Yuki's heart—the treacherous thing—fluttered in her chest, soaring up like a kite in the wind.

──────༺༻──────

"Your new hairstyle is nice," Rhett said as they walked to their favorite childhood haunt, a small family-owned store run by a man and his wife who all the neighborhood kids lovingly referred to as Grandpa and Grandma Kim.

"Do you really like it?" Yuki asked, plucking yellow dandelions from the cracks in the pavement to weave into a flower crown. She already had a complete one hanging on her arm, ready to adorn Rhett's head. 

Rhett sucked in a breath, shoving his hands in his pockets. "If I'm being honest, not as much as your old one."

"When are you not honest?" Yuki said, tossing aside a flower whose stem had snapped. "Rhett Tudor never lies."

"And Yuki Hime lies all too much," he said easily. She hadn't riled him. She rarely could. 

"Yuki Kobayashi," she corrected, stopping to gather more flowers.

Rhett spun on his heel and halted to wait for her. "I'd like it more without this princess motif you've got going on. Since when do you like going dress shopping and painting your nails? You always hated your parents calling you 'Snow Princess'. If I recall correctly, you got shipped out here during the summer because you were too much of a tomboy for them to handle."

Rising to her feet, Yuki stared at Rhett as if she could shoot him down with a glance. Her fingers curled into a fist, hiding the silver nail polish Sophia had painted on yesterday. "So what if I was a tomboy? Why do you care? People mature. People grow up."

"If it's your own choice then I don't care," Rhett fired back. "But I'd hate to see you mold yourself to someone else's standards. You never did before and that's what I most admired about you." His voice softened, as if he didn't want to edge even close to yelling at her. She almost preferred it if he did instead of the gentle disappointment in his words. "I'd hate to see Yuki Kobayashi be more of a spoiled princess than Yuki Hime ever was, just because she fell in with the rich kid crowd. The same crowd who used to beat her best friend up and call her names."

A couple years ago, Yuki would've felt the burn of tears in her eyes, but now she simply stood there, numb. "They're not as bad as you think," she said.

"Are they a better friend to you than I was?" Rhett asked, shooting her through the heart. "Does Era invite you over to study? Do you go out for ice cream with Sophia?"

No. No, they don't, she wanted to say. Those are special things. Things I only do with you. 

Instead, she swallowed down the truth and spat out a lie. "I think the problem is you don't understand who I am now compared to the me you knew before. Maybe I like being popular for once. Feeling pretty for once. Maybe I can like those things and still be me."

"I never said you couldn't," Rhett said, the setting sun behind him spilling out over the lines as a back light. "And maybe you're right. Maybe I don't know you anymore. Because the Yuki I knew has always been pretty, like snow. She said she liked iced coffee even in the winter, maybe because her heart always kept her warm. But the Yuki you are now isn't just beautiful like snow, but cold like it too."

Yuki stood in frozen silence, watching in horror as tears formed in Rhett's eyes and leaked down over his cheeks.

She'd made him cry. 

By everything warm and beautiful and kind in this world, she'd made Rhett—the boy she'd vowed to never let anyone else hurt—cry.

I'm sorry. But the words wouldn't come out. They stuck in her throat like a bitter pill. She should tell the truth. She should fix this somehow. Someway.

But she'd hurt him already and an icy pain speared her gut as she remembered her father screaming at her in the rain, another memory of a midnight where her life changed forever. An earlier one, before the time she fell asleep in the car and woke for a split second, still drowsy, eyes glued to the glow of the clock as another vehicle collided with theirs head-on.

Yet, the excruciation of broken ribs, a fractured wrist, and a concussion didn't compare to the anguish of texting Rhett—

I'm sorry but I can't talk to you anymore.

All because she hadn't wanted him to get hurt. Yet here they were.

Rhett brushing past unfroze Yuki from the crystal caverns of recollection. 

"Where are you going?" she choked out, flowers held limp in her hand.

"I'm going home," he answered, not looking back. And his voice still stayed gentle, sunlight hitting his hair and shoulders as if leaving with him.

She stared at his retreating form, taking a couple steps to run and follow before stopping herself. She'd made her decision years ago, so why was she questioning it now? Why care so much if he shed a few tears?

Maybe because even though she'd believed she'd do anything for Era's scholarship, there had been one line she hadn't wanted to cross. One invisible, tiny line. And maybe Era had known it. Hadn't she practically said Yuki could have Rhett's friendship and the scholarship too? She didn't have to reject him, didn't have to break his heart.

But she'd crossed the line today, for the second time in her life. She'd hurt Rhett and there was no taking it back.

At the convenience store, Grandma Kim helped her at the register as she purchased some egg onigiri and a container of vegetable kimbap, Rhett's favorite. 

"Oh, it's your birthday, isn't it, dear?" the elderly lady asked, peering at the paper pinned to the wall where she'd written down the special days of all the children who'd frequented her store. Her grandchildren. "Let me get something for you." She shuffled to the ice cream freezer and fished out a popsicle in a pink wrapper. "Strawberry. I know you're partial to this one."

"You really don't have to, Grandma," Yuki said.

"Birthdays are to be celebrated when you're young," Grandma Kim said with a wink, handing her the bag. "Happy Birthday and say hello to your grandparents for me."

"I will. Thank you." Yuki passed through the store's sliding doors, unwrapping her popsicle. On the walk home, with no one to see, tears slid down her face until the sweetness of  the strawberry mixed with salt. When she reached her grandparents' house, a basket sat on the doorstep, filled by a fluffy blue blanket, a bag of butter spritz cookies, and a white teddy bear.

Yuki crouched down, noticing a button on the bear's paw that said "press me" so she squeezed it.

"Happy Birthday, Snowflake," Rhett's voice said. He hadn't forgotten her birthday after all. "I really hope this day is special for you. I've never been able to celebrate one of your birthdays with you before, so I hope you don't mind that I didn't have anything big planned. But...there is something I want to ask you."

Yuki didn't breathe and when she heard his next recorded words, she almost dropped the bear. 

"Yuki, will you go to winter formal with me?"

Chapter Word Count: 1791