"Look at the roses, Moomintroll, aren't they beautiful?"

Moominmamma was just trying to make him feel better, he knew. Nothing had to be said for her to know something was off. But the roses were only a reminder of the fact that no, the roses weren't beautiful, because Snufkin wasn't there yet and nothing was beautiful.

Snufkin didn't have to be there yet, because it was only two days into Spring. But Moomin couldn't help but hope with all that he had (which was everything, where Snufkin was concerned) that there would be no more waiting come Spring, and that the aching pain in his chest at the end of Autumn would go away, and not come back for another year. He had tricked himself into a miserable false sense of security.

"Is there anything you want to talk about, dear?" Moominmamma snapped him out of his melancholy spiral of thoughts.

"Y-uh, no. Nope, what would there be to talk about? I'm perfectly fine." And just to show his Mother how fine he was, he leaned in close to smell the roses, and promptly fell into the bush with a yelp. Looking half as miserable as he felt, Moomin sat among the rose thorns and wished even harder to hear even just a shred of harmonica. And with that thought in mind, he sighed, and said (a little pathetically, he lamented)

"I miss Snufkin."

The truth spoken out loud settled like a very heavy rock in the pit of Moomin's stomach, but he felt all the better for finally saying out loud. His mother gave him a pitying but ever gentle look, and asked if he'd like to tell her all about it while they walked home, and she would make him his favourite for dinner and then perhaps he might feel a little better.

It was a very beautiful day, and was one of the first things Moomin noticed upon waking up the next morning. He just had a sense for these things. The next thing Moomin noticed was the bright, jolly sound of a harmonica creeping through his window. He was practically falling out of his window before he even knew what he was doing. Moomintroll took one look at Snufkin, and the valley exploded. It was as if his travel-worn fingers had coaxed the birdsong out of every bird in the valley, and caressed the flowers out of the earth, and for the first time that Spring Moomin felt alive. Everything was beautiful again, and he realised too late that he was picking Snufkin up and spinning him, and spinning him, and he was laughing, and his eyes were that beautiful golden brown they got when the sun hit them just right, and oh how Moomin loved him. He finally put Snufkin down after the mortifying realisation that he had accidentally interrupted the little dance they did at the beginning of every spring. The one in which they both pretend they hadn't missed each other at all, and acted cool. Oh dear, Moomin had really smashed that to smithereens, hadn't he? Snufkin in any case didn't seem to mind, and it was as if nothing had been broken at all.

"Moomintroll." He hadn't quite forgotten how Snufkin's voice sounded like honey (he didn't think he ever could).

"Snufkin." Moomin hoped his voice didn't tremble.

"How was your Winter?"

"I missed you."

Oh. oh. Oh nononononono. Moomin had been thinking it, but it was not supposed to be said out loud! Least of all to Snufkin! But still, it was true. He really had missed him, and it ached and it ached and somehow it ached even still, with the person Moomin wanted right in front of him. He found himself pondering for perhaps the thousandth time that Spring if this was how friends were supposed to miss each other. If this soreness in his chest that he carried with him like a weight was always supposed to be there, or if perhaps this was something more. Goodness, Moomintroll loved Snufkin so very much. It was nearly overwhelming, and when Snufkin's fingers brushed against his he knew he mustn't have said something wrong despite the fact that he clearly had.

"I missed you too, Moomin."

They held paws and watched the water, and pondered a great many things, but mostly each other.