Warning: Rated "C" for the clichéd plot. Rated "F" for the fluffiness. And, finally, it ain't rated "R" for nothing, ya know. Ooh, lah, lah…! XD

Symbols: ',' -- are for the breaks in the story. Yeh, I wanted something that looked cool...

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A D.N.Angel Side Story

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Out of the Snow

By Orion Velvet

Chapter 1

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Well, well…it seems life is like a merry-go-round. Events circling part your eyes becoming more familiar than the last time it zoomed by. Colors swirling together…round and round you go, when you stop nobody knows…

How many times do they have to take those blasted school trips? These things were always ruined by the end of the day. Or rather, in the middle of the day…

Hell—he swore that God or some other divine being had placed him where he was now.

And where was he, exactly? Stuck in a raging blizzard, and blinded by snow and flying debris with an incapable airhead struggling more than he a few feet behind.

The howling winds blew loudly around him, but her voice managed to rise above the din.

"Hiwatari kun! Wait! I…" Before she could finish, the knee-high snow managed to pull her down accompanied by a sound of a soft thud.

He barely caught a word that resembled "wait." After dragging his feet against the wind for who knows how long, turning to face the source of the sound almost knocked him off his feet. He looked around through the opening of his ensemble of scarf, hat, and jacket until he spied a barely visible yellow spot in the snow. The temptation of leaving her to find shelter was a small temptation that nagged in his mind. But nevertheless, he trudged over to where she was and looped his arm around her free one.

Her hair had escaped the neat placement underneath her own scarf and was blowing wildly in the wind. Her gloved hands wiped the snow from her pinkish face and sputtered a few times, choking from the fall. But it was futile as the snowstorm picked up even more speed and hurled the snowflakes like little darts on her face. She held on to his arm with an iron grip, almost succeeding in pulling him down while she bawled over and over how lost they were and how they would never make it out alive.

A sudden gust pushed him on top of her, turning her whines into a cry of pain. He lay there, quickly realizing how warm it felt against the merciless cold. But that was a little too much for the blue-haired boy as his ghastly face took on a very slight tint of pink. He rolled over onto his back and groaned.

He hated to admit it, but she was right. They were irrefutably lost.

His self-realization was cut short when he felt his arm was being shaken.

"Look!" she yelled. "Look! I-I think it's a-a sh-shelter!" Risa shook his arm even faster.

Satoshi pushed himself up with his left hand and shaded his eyes from the snow with his right. He squinted through his frozen spectacles and barely made out a dot in the distance. He blinked a few times and calculated the distance from where they were to where the supposed shelter was.

"It's about…100 yards away!" he yelled. His voice cracked under the strain. But what if it wasn't a shelter? Maybe it was a tree stump and the snow was toying with their desperation, making a mirage to tease their helplessness.

"Let's go! We can make it!" Bending over, she stood up against the wind's force and began moving.

Foolish girl. She was just throwing herself headlong into something she wasn't even sure of. However, if moving around was the only thin border of preventing them of having a cold grave, so be it. He struggled to his feet and followed from behind.

','

Time was lost to the poor souls that wandered in the snowstorm. Half an hour passed, but it seemed like days or maybe even weeks have gone by. Thirty minutes turned into an hour. An hour turned into two. Still, they trudged on slowly in silence. There was no point in conversation. They had to focus their energy on battling against the wind.

Satoshi wasn't even aware that he felt light-headedness or his vision getting even more blurry by the minute. All his attention was placed in putting one foot in front of each other. His movements were mechanical, the cold froze his joints which added the finishing touch of a picture of a marching robot.

Risa wasn't faring too well, either. But she was in a better condition than him, for all she knew. But she was totally unaware and staggered around a bit as her foot caught an unseen root hidden by the snow. Were they there yet? Sometimes, when she happened to look up, despite the flying snow marring her vision, the shelter would disappear. She'd blink a few times to remedy this hallucination and it would reappear. Or maybe the shed was a hallucination in itself? What if it didn't exist? What if this snow didn't really exist? What about her own existence? Did she exist for herself or does herself exist for her? And why was she asking these philosophical questions?

She shook her head the best she could and brought herself back to reality. They'd better be getting close to the shed, shack, whatever it was, or else she'll just get a head start on an early grave. Risa glanced up and gaped at the vision that was the center of her attention.

They reached the shed! The wonderful, blessed, shed! It was still a few feet away, but it was enough to give her an energy boost.

"Hiwatari kun! We made it!" She turned around. "We made…" She stopped herself when she realized that there was no sight of him anywhere. "Hiwatari kun?" She looked around with great effort from fighting the pounding of the wind on her back. "Hiwatari kun!" Panic gathered like butterflies in her stomach. What could have happened to him? If he had ditched her, there would be hell to pay…

Certainly, he wasn't the kind to do that to her, right? What if he got separated? What if he turned another way? That meant…she was alone. The thought forced her to look for him more than concern for his safety. She hated to be alone. She would rather sit with a geek than to be devoid of any form of companionship. Her foot struck something solid and sent her falling face first in the snow. She had been too busy contemplating a possible fate worse than death that she absolutely missed the dark blue jacket of Satoshi that already was half-covered by the snow. Risa scrambled around and crawled near his face…preferably his ear.

Screaming, she pointed out the closeness of the shed. No effect. She shook his shoulders a little, but he didn't respond.

"Oh, my gosh…no…no!" She pulled him up, his pallid face close to hers. "Hiwatari kun! Wake up! Please! Hiwatari kun?! Hiwatari kun! SATOSHI!!"

'Please don't leave me alone…'

Little ice cubes of tears were rolling down her face. She forced herself to keep her wits about her and focused on the dimming hope that he was alive. She knew she had to get him into that shed. With a strong determination, she dragged his limp body twenty feet through the snow.

When they reached the shed, she forced the door open with her shoulders and it creaked loudly, hinting at the infrequent use of the hinges. The interior proved to be even less inviting. Cobwebs hung not only in the corners, but also in scattered patches along the ceiling and the crusted windows. The dust, mimicking the snow, covered everything inside. Risa would have shuddered violently at the sight, but her attention was on the unconscious Satoshi, his body being pulled into the shed. With a kick, she shut the door behind them, shutting out the cold breath of the blizzard.

The floors groaned underneath their weight as she scuffled across. Oblivious to the tiny fireplace, she laid his body near it. Risa placed her hand underneath his head and tried to recall how to feel for a pulse. At first, she pressed her index and middle finger hard against his wrist that was buried underneath the big coat sleeve. However, her anxiety prevented her from feeling anything. Then, she tried looking for a pulse on his neck. It was faint, but it was there. She breathed out a sigh of relief and let her hands fall on his coat. She suddenly jerked them back. His coat was beginning to be soaked from the melting snowflakes.

Oh, great. If she left him in his wet clothes, she knew he'd catch his death of a cold for sure. But then…that…meant…

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A/N: Hi there! Hope you enjoyed this chapter of Satoshi and Risa pairing! Sorry for any mistakes. It's hard typing and watching Fresh Prince at the same time… heh… Ahem. Finally, I got some semblance of a satoshi/risa fanfic! It's not much, but here you go.

I mean, come on. It's not really a ground-breaking, highly-intelligent fanfic. A small shed, a guy and a girl trapped inside by a snowstorm? I laugh at my own pathetic attempt to write this…this cliché XD …oh well. Enjoy it, anyways.