Archive of Our Own ^beta

The cold snips at his face as he stares at the mountain.

The snow truly isn’t freezing in the Summer Ski Network, but the weather around the lodge is a little crisper. A minute adjustment in programming, a bone to throw at those who liked winter — or perhaps just an attempt to sell more hot cocoa.

It’s not cold enough to stop Synchro from standing outside, and it’s certainly nothing like the oppressive, all-encompassing cold of a few days ago, the one that knocked the air out of his lungs and invaded him outside and out.

He wishes they could have skipped this network.

“Doggy!” Yui calls, and he turns to see her coming down out the path, hands on her waist.

She looks… slightly cross, and he doesn’t know why. “What happened?”

“Doggy, please tell me you haven’t spent the whole afternoon holed up in the cabin,” she replies, and oh. Of course. “It’s a ski network!”

“I wasn’t feeling like skiing. I’d rather watch. Honestly.”

“And you did watch?”

“Of course I did.” He doesn’t add that he’d watched only for a short time before getting fed up and leaving; there were only so many times he could watch Control rolling down the ski track before it started getting boring.

She seems to get it anyway, and lets out a sigh. “You’re not really enjoying yourself, are you.”

She came up with the idea in the first place, organizing trips to networks they saved from the Beagle virus. To protect the ComNet, you have to love it, she said, and how are you guys going to love it if you only get to see it when everything’s gone to hell?, and not even Control could argue that point.

She has been nothing short of adamant ensuring they go through with their planned weekends, trying to get the lot of them to have fun, of a sort, and he doesn’t want to disappoint her.

“Seriously, Yui, I’m fine,” he lies through his teeth. “You don’t have to worry about me.”

There is a doubtful look on her face, but it’s soon taken over by a soft smile. “There’s nothing wrong with me worrying, you know. Friends worry about each other.”

He grunts, not really in disagreement, and her smile widens.

“You do worry about me, don’t you?” Her tone is teasing.

“That’s different.”

“How is it different?”

It is different in that he’s a software, a corrupted software, to boot, one among eight among a thousand others, and she is human, unique, and completely and utterly irreplaceable.

He knows better than to voice these thoughts, however. “Just different,” he says, avoiding her eyes.

He expects her pout, maybe pester him to say something significant — maybe storm off — but she merely sighs, now with that fond little smile, and circles his arm with her own.

“I think there’s a bench over there,” she says, and pulls him along like it’s only natural.

He has to admit that it is.

They find the bench just a little to the side of the path; it offers a good view of the mountain and the ski track, and all the skiers racing across it.

She still hasn’t let go of his arm. “I’ve never really liked the cold, you know? I think I’m more of a summer person. But this place is nice.”

“I suppose so.”

“Haruna and the others actually invited me to come here with them that day too.”

“And you didn’t want to?”

“No. I was feeling — well, bummed, I guess.”

“…I’m sorry I compared you with Corrector Ai.”

“No, no,” she shakes her head. “It was fair. I let you guys down because I wanted to throw a tantrum, and you could have — well, you could have —”

“Nothing happened,” he says firmly. “You found me, and later on Freeze found us, and we’re fine now. What’s not fair is for you to keep — keep yourself in pain, because of something that didn’t even happen.”

“But it’s been bothering you, right? That’s why you’ve been so tense.”

She looks at him, and he knows she’s not just talking about their latest fight with Beagle anymore — and his first instinct is to deny the idea, to close off and keep gnawing on himself from within.

But she is looking at him, with that clear gaze of hers that drew his interest from the very start; those eyes, that can look at him and see him, and still somehow never find him lacking. He is very ill-equipped to deal with those eyes.

“It’s just — it’s hard to forget,” he mumbles. Hard to look at these monstrous hands and not remember how they’d turned against her, and the Professor, and his brothers in arms. How, when he was dying, a part of him thought he deserved it. “I hurt you.”

“You weren’t yourself.”

“I still hurt you. I still can’t forget hurting you.”

“It wasn’t your fault, Doggy, you know that.”

“But I still did it. And I can’t help but think — I could have resisted more, couldn’t I? I understood you were special. Why didn’t I understand that I had to protect you?”

“Doggy—”

“And this — what if this infection gets worse? What if I lose my mind again, what if I hurt you and everyone else all over again? I can’t trust myself — not like this, maybe not ever.”

She says nothing, and he sinks his head between his hands, nails pressing on each side. He hates being like this, hates, hates, hates this, and hates himself even more for letting his composure fall apart, for exposing this open wound and causing even Yui to run out of words.

He is in the process of collecting himself — trying to think of a way to dispel the impression of misery he must have left just now — when a mass of wet, powdery snow is poured on his neck.

“What the hell!” he shouts, jumping out of the bench and outside of arm’s reach. The snow is warm, but it melts all the same, and it’s all sliding inside his armor and argh—“Yui!”

Because Yui is wiping the snow off her hands, giggling to herself all the while.

“The snow really isn’t cold, is it?” she says. “Not like last time.”

“That doesn’t mean you can just do that!”

“Sorry — I mean, not really — I wanted you to feel how it’s different. Do you feel how different it is?”

Her eyes are earnest, like there’s a point. He hopes it’s a good point at least.

“Yes, it’s different.”

“Right? A few days ago, we were flying through the snow and I’d never been so cold in my entire life. I couldn’t breathe. And the avalanche — I could tell you were carrying me, and I knew you had to be getting tired, but I couldn’t even tell you to leave me behind. I didn’t even have the energy to be scared.”

“Yui…”

“But now — now it’s different!” She reaches down, takes a handful of snow and crunches it between her fingers. “It’s the same place, and I think it’s the same snow, but now it doesn’t hurt.”

He thinks he can see what she’s getting at. “Yui, it’s not really the same thing.”

“But it is! Don’t you see? It’s something that was scary, something that was out of control, and now it’s something we can just… have fun with. It’s nice. And right now we still remember the blizzard, but — but IR and Rescue are building a snowman on the mountain, and when I was leaving Control was almost getting the hang of skiing. Maybe, with time, we’ll only remember things like that?”

And she reaches out to him, takes his hand between her own.

“You’ll get better,” she says. “I know you will. But until then, let’s make so many happy memories you’ll have no space left to remember bad things, all right?”

Synchro… Synchro doesn’t really have any words to answer that. He feels like he could talk and talk and never scratch the surface of what Yui — Yui’s acceptance, Yui’s warmth — means to him.

So he does the only thing he can possibly do; he drops to his knees, quickly scoops a handful of snow in a ball, and throws it at Yui’s leg.

“Hey!” she protests, jumping herself. “I wasn’t ready, it’s not fair!”

“You didn’t say anything about fair,” he chuckles, already scooping more snow off the ground. “You only said they had to be happy memories.”

He can see she’s trying to hold on to the pout, but there’s a smile halfway onto her face. She starts scooping snow herself. “If that’s how’s it going to be, then it’s on, Doggy!”

Later on, when Professor Inukai asks Synchro how the trip went, the sound of her laughter is what he’ll remember the best.