Work Text:
Taichi had been to some amazing photo shoots with Shinobu, but this one was pure bliss.
Reason 1: Beautiful models.
Reason 2: A free trip to a beautiful ski resort.
Reason 3: Niseko was cold. Wonderfully, perfectly cold.
Of course, the actual shoot was inside the hotel; the heat had been turned down a little to accommodate all the lights and equipment, but it still ended up being too hot for Taichi inside. Unlike a lot of Shinobu's jobs, though, this one meant that Taichi just had to pop outside for a few minutes to cool down completely. He was hardly missing anything!
There were downsides, of course. It was the first time Taichi had been to a ski resort since the accident that killed him. But as long as he didn't actually go skiing or anything he was just kind of a little uncomfortable instead of freaking right out.
Also, while Shinobu never minded too much that he liked to look at the other models, sometimes someone would actually flirt with him a little and Taichi had to shut that down really quick without actually pissing her (or sometimes him) off. He didn't want to be responsible for Shinobu messing around with anyone's memory (he was anyway, like a lot, but sometimes he could avoid it). But rejecting famous models and actresses and singers was even weirder than having any of them flirt with him in the first place!
This time it was actually one of the director's assistants that was hovering around Taichi. He figured that the guy was actually just watching him to make sure he didn't cause any trouble--he was just Shinobu's tagalong "cousin," after all, even if he'd been on more sets than mostly anyone who didn't work in the industry by now--but Taichi started to feel Shinobu's glare on his back every time the assistant got near him, so obviously Shinobu thought it was something else.
"So how old are you, anyway? You look like you're still in high school, but you'd be missing class to be here so that can't be right." The assistant was definitely standing a little too close, now. Damn. Maybe Shinobu was right. The whole "being dead" thing meant not aging, which was nice in theory but was kind of a problem with people like this.
"I'm nineteeen," Taichi admitted warily. Sometimes knowing he wasn't actually a high school student was enough to make them lose interest, and sometimes it only made the creeps more interested.
"Oh." The assistant's face fell a little, but then he perked right back up. "But I bet you still fit into your old uniform. You're so slim."
Oh, ew. Maybe Taichi would let Shinobu have at this one.
"You're not looking well, Taichi." Speak of the devil! Taichi looked up at Shinobu in relief, then over at the interrupted remnants of the shoot. No one looked too mad, or even surprised that Shinobu had wandered off in the middle to go talk to his nobody "cousin." Word had gotten around about Shinobu's quirks, probably.
They had no freaking idea, really.
"Feeling a bit hot. Was just gonna step outside."
Shinobu's glare at the director's assistant could have frozen molten lava. He skittered off as Shinobu took Taichi's elbow, pretty much dragging him outside into the sweet, cold mountain air.
"Whew. Thanks for the save."
Shinobu's expression softened marginally, and he relaxed enough to lean on the balcony railing. Still, his voice was suspiciously flat as he said, "He wasn't bad looking."
"He was a creep." Taichi joined Shinobu by the railing; he was already feeling 1000% better, out here in the cold air. His body wasn't getting any worse at tolerating heat, or anything, but it wasn't any better, either. Shinobu said his condition (i.e., zombie) was basically stable, but Taichi worried sometimes anyway. "He wanted to see me in my old high school uniform."
(Actually, Detective Takayanagi could be like that, too. But he was cool enough to get away with it!)
Looking over at him, Shinobu arched one eyebrow. Taichi rolled his eyes. "Like I could compare to how you looked in that uniform anyway. I don't know why anyone pays any attention to me in a room full of models."
Completely ignoring the fact that any of a couple dozen people could come out here to fetch him at any moment, Shinobu bent to kiss Taichi. His lips were as cold as the mountain air, and Taichi leaned into him. Shinobu thought he was beautiful, for whatever crazy snowman reason, and even after all this time it still made Taichi's head spin a little.
Shinobu suddenly stiffened and broke the kiss, glaring off at something in the distance. Taichi only saw snow, and trees. "What the...? Shinobu?"
"Back inside." Shinobu was pushing him, with more urgency than Taichi remembered him showing... well, ever. Taichi was too confused to resist.
When the balcony door closed behind them, Shinobu said, "You don't go outside alone again."
"Shinobu, I'll fall apart if I have to stay in here too long!" People would notice if bits of Taichi started dropping off, probably.
"I'll cool you off when you need it." Shinobu's glare silenced Taichi's protests. This was really going to mess up the shoot, but there was no arguing with Shinobu when he got like this.
"You'll explain later, right?" Shinobu had gotten a little better at actually telling Taichi important information, lately, but he still didn't always have the same idea of what information was important.
"Fine. Just stay where I can see you." Shinobu gave him one last Look, and then finally actually acknowledged all the people trying to get him back to work.
"Okay, okay." Taichi slumped against the wall, annoyed and already a little too warm.
Shinobu's constant disappearances from the middle of a shot meant that things went on for hours longer than anyone had planned. No one tried to kick Taichi off the set for being a distraction, though. Maybe they figured Shinobu would just abandon the set completely to follow him (he would, too--inhumanly pretty people could get away with anything and still get hired, apparently). But they got some good sunset and firelight shots that they hadn't planned on, so by the time the shoot wrapped up for the night everyone but the models seemed exhausted but actually kind of happy. The human models just seemed exhausted; Shinobu looked as cool and fresh as he had when they started the shoot.
Around the time they started wrapping things up, Taichi started needing to go to the bathroom. Like, now. He'd been guzzling cold drinks in between cool-down visits from Shinobu, trying to keep his temperature in the safe range. The other models were clustered around Shinobu like a wall of intimidating beauty, probably trying to convince him to go drinking with them, and finally Taichi couldn't hold it anymore. The bathroom wasn't outside, even if it was out of sight of Shinobu. It would be fine.
Washing his hands afterwards, Taichi stared at himself in the mirror. He really did look exactly the same as he had in high school, huh? How was that going to work, long term, anyway? Shinobu didn't age, either, and his whole hypnosis mind control schtick couldn't alter photos or video. He was a famous model! It's not like he could blend in and disappear from the public eye once the photographic proof of him not aging got too damning. Would he have to go back to his mountain? Was Taichi supposed to go with him, then? Or would Shinobu get bored of him by then?
Taichi was so wrapped up in thinking about the stuff he usually tried really hard not to think about (and so used to weird temperature changes) that he didn't notice the bathroom getting colder and colder until the water on his hands froze into a thin layer of ice. "Shinobu? I know you wanted me to stay put, but I was seriously going to piss my--"
The mirror had frosted over so he couldn't see the reflections in it, but the difference in the atmosphere finally hit Taichi. It was snowing inside. Shinobu was pretty free with his powers, but this was crazy.
The one standing behind him was definitely not Shinobu.
He started to turn around and caught a brief glimpse of long, black hair and a white kimono before something hit him like a sledgehammer and everything went black.
***
The first thing Taichi noticed when he woke was that the room smelled wrong. It was cold, like always, but Shinobu's unique smell was missing. Next he noticed that he wasn't lying on a bed at all, or actually even in a room. When he opened his eyes, all he saw was snow.
Sitting up didn't hurt at all, his head felt totally fine, and Taichi wondered for a second if he'd imagined that whole thing in the hotel bathroom. Maybe his brain had finally rotted and he just went crazy and wandered out into the cold and ended up lost on the mountain somewhere.
Maybe he'd imagined the last several years, and he was still dying alone on a mountainside.
Panic seized up Taichi's chest for a second and he couldn't breathe. Actually, he hadn't been breathing at all for a while now, and that thought broke through the panic a little. He wasn't just dying, he was dead. He was wearing a t-shirt and jeans, not ski wear, and there was no sign of blood or anything on the snow. The stars were cold and distant in the night sky and it was moonlight reflecting off the snow instead of the bright winter sun. This was a totally different mountain, a totally different time.
"So, you're not just a doll."
Taichi started, and looked at the source of the voice. He knew what she was right away. The snow inside thing had been a pretty big clue, sure, but it was more than that--she had the same inhumanly beautiful bone structure Shinobu did. Her hair was white, too, now. Taichi was pretty sure it had been black before, but now it was like Shinobu's and she blended right into the snow. No wonder he hadn't noticed her at first. "Huh?"
"You can move independently. I had wondered. You were just lying there for a while, but as soon as I fixed your head you popped right up." She cocked her head to the side, looking at him like he was a slightly interesting bug. "Not very smart, though."
Taichi bristled. "Well, so what! Not everyone can be a genius! That's what 'average' means!" If she was just going to insult him, why did she kidnap him in the first place?
Actually, that was a really good question. Why did she kidnap him? "Uh. So. What's the plan, here, exactly?"
"Plan? Hm. I don't suppose I had one. My territory was invaded, so I investigated. I'd never seen something like you before, so I took you." The Yuki-Onna looked at him, expressionless in a way that made Shinobu look practically human. "I don't understand why he made you. The maintenance must be so much work."
Taichi blushed and looked away. The answer Shinobu always gave was way too embarrassing. "You'd have to ask him."
"Do you think he'll come into my domain to get you?" A little actual interest showed on her face, at that.
She was interested in Shinobu? Wait, she'd talked about territory, before. Crap. Shinobu really should have told him something about how snow-monster territory worked before they came to a snowy mountain, shouldn't he? Taichi scowled at the Yuki-Onna. "He's just here for work. He's not invading or anything." Probably. He'd seemed surprised, on the balcony--he must have sensed this Yuki-Onna, and not have expected her.
"Work? He goes that far in pretending to be human?"
"Uh. I guess?" Taichi inched away from her a little, wondering if there was a way out. He didn't know what information was safe to give her. Damn it, Shinobu! Not telling him anything, again. "I think he just gets bored otherwise?"
"Yet he doesn't return to his domain."
It was so hard to read this Yuki-Onna, her face was so blank most of the time. Was this what Shinobu had been like, that first time? Taichi barely remembered the accident, but Shinobu definitely showed more emotion as time went by. Was this more... normal, for his kind? Taichi shivered, even though he was never cold anymore.
Arms wrapped around him from behind, and Taichi closed his eyes in relief. Breathing in Shinobu's scent, he leaned back against his snowman.
"Why should I go back to that lonely mountain, when I found something so much more interesting?"
Shinobu squeezed Taichi tightly for a moment, then let go and said, "Get behind me, Taichi."
Snow was starting to swirl around them on a cold wind, and the Yuki-Onna's hair was floating ominously, so Taichi figured arguing with Shinobu was probably a bad idea right now. He moved behind Shinobu, but peeked around the taller man so that he could still see what was going on. If he was going to die (again, for real) here, he wanted to at least see it coming.
"You think you can threaten me, in my own domain, when so much of your power is tied up in keeping that corpse animate?"
Shinobu just shrugged, which only made the other snow-monster angry. He probably had that bored I'm-too-good-for-this look on his face, too. "Are you sure you should be making her mad, Shinobu?"
Weirdly, that seemed to completely confuse the Yuki-Onna, and the snow started to fall lazily instead of whirling around in a blizzard. "Shinobu? Shinobu of Echigo? But you can't be!"
Great. Shinobu was famous in snow-monster land, too.
Shinobu just shrugged again.
"But... why? Why would you debase yourself with this... corpse?"
"I'm not telling you. He's mine, that's all." Shinobu's voice had that sulky quality it sometimes got when Taichi was talking "too much" with Detective Takayanagi. The snow started to dance in a spiral around them, and the alarmed look on the Yuki-Onna's face said that she wasn't the one doing it. "Be content that I have no interest in your territory. Don't touch my things again, and we won't have a problem."
The snow got so thick it was like a wall around them, and when it settled again they were on the slope above the hotel. "Wait... what? WHAT?" Taichi turned around, seeing where they were, but not quite believing it.
Shinobu gave him a bland look, like freaking teleporting was totally normal. "I told you to stay where I could see you."
Taichi scowled up at Shinobu and crossed his arms over his chest. "I needed to piss. I stayed inside the hotel. And anyway, you never told me there was one of your kind on this mountain."
Looking back up towards the mountain peak, Shinobu's expression turned thoughtful; his face really was much more expressive, compared to that Yuki-Onna's. "I didn't know. There wasn't, before."
She'd said he was Shinobu of Echigo. Taichi didn't want to ask how long ago 'before' was. All the stuff he'd been worrying about in the bathroom--how long this would go on, what would happen to him in ten years, twenty, a hundred, if Shinobu didn't get bored of him before then--weighed on him again when he thought about Shinobu being alive that long ago.
Shinobu wrapped himself around Taichi in one of those possessive, clingy hugs that would have been suffocatingly warm from a human. "I'm not letting you out of my sight again."
Whatever. Shinobu wasn't bored of him yet. Taichi would just enjoy this weird, wonderful unlife with Shinobu for as long as he had it, that was all.
-fin-