Mid-December and the student council members were in the meeting room working away as they always did, making sure everything was in order before winter break officially hit in a few days. Shirogane and Shinomiya were looking over some of the club listings leading into the next semester and allocating new budgets now that sports seasons were changing, and Fujiwara was sitting close to Ishigami, plotting out schemes for the upcoming days. At this point, after three and a half years, the artificial gap between Shinomiya and Shirogane was getting old. Neither of them could convince anyone in the school that they weren't dying for one another, let alone interested in each other, and it was far beyond time to end the game. But, with the two most intelligent members of the school to face in a feat of intelligence and planning, Fujiwara was hopeless to develop a foolproof scheme, and knowing those two it had to be foolproof.

Fujiwara took a pen and wrote on a small piece of paper, "Follow after me in five minutes, I'll be at the west-side entrance", and handed it to Ishigami before turning around to speak to the president and vice. "I'm leaving now, my ride is here."

"Okay Fujiwara, have a goodnight," Shirogane replied, looking up from his papers long enough to do so, and Fujiwara left.

Once a few minutes passed, Ishigami stood up, walking over to Shirogane's desk and bowing his gloomy head a little. "I'm going as well. Working this late without my games makes me want to die."

"Oh- That's alright... But, don't die."

Ishigami also walked out the door, trying not to draw suspicion to himself by leaving too quickly. It must have worked, because neither of the remaining council members followed after him. He arrived at the west end about ten minutes after Fujiwara and was suddenly yanked by his arm the moment he made it outside. Fujiwara rushed him toward a set of bushes that lined the steps of the school, pulling him through the branches without much time for reacting.

"We should be safe from being heard here," she started the moment they were sat down and surrounded by the foliage.

"You know, this reminds me of the times I used to think Shinomiya was going to kill me. Every time she dragged me somewhere I thought I was done for right then and there. Anyway, what did you want to discuss?"

"You're going to help me force their relationship closer together."

He looked at her, the atmosphere around Fujiwara warping to the chaotic energy that seemed to emanate from within her soul. There was a half-smirk half smug look in her eyes. "It won't do much good. They've been at it for as long as we can remember. If you ask me they enjoy being in this stalemate."

"I can't keep calling myself the love detective knowing that the two most obvious love-birds in the world won't get together because of their pride and status. There must be some way to get them to crack."

"As long as they have that pride they won't budge. They'll keep waiting until the other fesses up."

"That's why-" She leaned in and started whispering into his ear.

Slowly the expression he made shifted from confused to terrified to broken, and when she was finished he stammered out, "A-Are y-you trying to g-get me k-k-killed?!"

"No, but you may be on the line for expulsion."

"You don't sound like you're concerned at all..."

"Everyone will be gone by that late in the day anyway, so the chances of anyone noticing is low. Even if they did, they wouldn't know it was you since you rarely talk to anyone."

"Are you sure they're computer-controlled?" She nodded confidently. Trust in your colleagues, that's what Shirogane always told him, right? "Okay. I assume you have everything from that point on?"

"Mhmm, with any luck they'll have no choice but to admit love to each other."

"Luck isn't a source of power you should rely on. Especially not with those two."

~o~

Six o'clock on the day before winter break and the room seemed more tense than usual. Of course, why wouldn't it be? When it was the first snowfall the city had this season. Shirogane and Shinomiya were finally wrapping up the last details of the next-semester budget and both Fujiwara and Ishigami went home two hours earlier. On cold, blizzard stricken days, it was custom among couples to walk home together, and since many of the girl's school uniforms were thin and required skirts, a boy would often offer to share his jacket to help the lady. In even more extreme cases, they would even hold each other closer to share each other's warmth, a more intimate form of sharing an umbrella with someone. The two of them had been planning for this day all week, looking through all the fine details of how to force the other into a situation where they would need to offer or ask for the warmth of the other. In Shirogane's mind, getting Shinomiya to ask him to hold her would be just as good as a confession, and to Shinomiya, guilting Shirogane into offering to hold her would be as close to an act of love as she needed to feel as though she'd won the war.

"That's it Shinomiya, every last club accounted for. We do good work as always. Not a second to lose either," Shirogane stated, looking out the window to see the snowfall had started mere moments ago. "About time we started heading home then. Hope your ride doesn't take too long to arrive."

"I was actually planning on taking the train today. Our family's car is in the shop today getting the transmission replaced and won't be repaired till Tuesday." This was a lie. Hayasaka convinced the driver that she would be taking Shinomiya home, but wouldn't be coming.

"Ahh, I see. Bad luck for weather like this." He couldn't ask her if she wanted to walk home with him, that would be too damning of a request. Perhaps he could force her to make the first move. "In any case, my sister will be worried if I stay much later. I best be on my way now." He got up, grabbing his bag, and started to walk toward the door.

Shinomiya bit her lip, irritated, but followed after him hoping he wouldn't be selfish enough to leave her to walk alone like this. Trying to analyze his tone of voice, she didn't hear any of the usual nervousness in his statement. Maybe he really was really concerned for his sister's well being. She needed to bide her time for a moment.

They reached the unlit front entrance and Shirogane started to grab his shoes from the small locker compartment. Once they were on, he moved over to the coat hangers and open his eyes in shock when he realized his coat was gone. Shinomiya arrived in the room a few seconds later, staring at the empty hanger on the rack.

"Did you forget your coat Shirogane?" She smirked in a devilish fashion. Now it all made sense, she thought. Of course, he didn't actually forget his coat. That was merely a ploy to start a request to hold her.

"No, I certainly brought it today. It appears someone decided to steal it."

"Are you sure that you didn't, instead, purposefully forget your jacket so that you'd have reason to ask me to accompany you home? There isn't a single person in this school who would dare to steal from a council member, so your that idea is flawed at best."

He pulled out his phone and started to dial the principal's number. "Hello, yes, it's Shirogane. Someone stole my coat it seems."

She winced at this action. How far was he planning to take this story? He even had the principle in on it? Maybe it's true that he had it stolen, but if that's the case then could she offer him her's without it seeming like a romantic gesture. While he was on the phone she opened her bag and looked for her own jacket, only to find it also wasn't there. "Sh-Shirogane... Someone stole mine too."

The room went silent except for the wind outside. "This isn't good," was all he could manage to respond with.

She needed to conjure up a ride somehow, however, after lying to him, there was no way she was calling Hayasaka. "I'm sure it will be fine. Maybe we can call a couple taxis. It's not too late in the night yet."

"Good thinking. Principal, I'll need to get back to you on the missing coats. Yes. Not a problem. Have a goodnight." Then he went to dial a cab company, but before he even input the number his signal went down. "Hmm? What the hell's happening?"

"Something wrong?"

"I suppose the weather must have knocked out the network inside the school. I have no connection and it seems we're in a dead zone without it."

"Here, my device might still be- Nevermind, mine's down too."

"This is not a very opportune time to be weathered down. 'Least we don't need to deal with a panicked crowd of students on top of this." He leaned his back against the wall, fingers intertwined as he contemplated the situation. This is a rather convoluted plan to get them both stuck here. Certainly, she had to have planned this all to happen, it's all way too convenient. Should he accuse her of having a hand in this, or leave it to pan out a while longer? "Shinomiya, are you-"

"Is it getting colder in here?" She cut him off, and for the first time he noticed it too.

"I think it is. Hold on a second." He took out a key from his pocket and used it to flick a switch in the wall. What was supposed to turn on the lights did little more than make a small clicking noise. "The entire school's power is down."

"Eh? Why doesn't this school have backups for stuff like that?"

"Not sure, but we need to find ways home before everything gets worse. There's a lost and found in the front office that may have some forgotten coats or even some additional layers of clothing we can use to brace ourselves for outside. If not there, the gym locker rooms may have some items laying around. Perhaps some of the art clubs have fabrics that can be used as well."

~o~

They spent more than an hour searching throughout the school for any articles of clothing and came up with nothing. The lost and found was empty, none of the lockers were open, and their keys didn't work in any of the art room door handles. By the time they returned to the council room, the entire school had dropped in temperature, Shinomiya was shivering where she sat on the couch, and Shirogane's breath was frosting in the air as he stared out the window at the oncoming snow storm. The weather wasn't going to let up any time soon and both of them were incredibly agitated by their circumstances. In both their minds, the other had to have planned for this to happen. Everything was fine tuned to set up this situation, and they were furious that the other wouldn't just make their move already.

"Shinomiya, I don't think the storm will be ending anytime soon."

"Oh? Yes." She didn't pay much attention to his words as she was preoccupied with rubbing her hands along her arms in a vain attempt to keep warm. "We're not going to be stuck here all night, are we?"

Was this her move? No, she's probably just concerned. "If we stay too long it won't matter if we stay inside or go out, we'd freeze either way. Then again, I assume some of our family members will become concerned enough to seek us out at the school. No bets on that happening for another few hours, though. Are you willing to wager hypothermia on your house's attention to detail?"

Was this his move? Is he trying to push for us to venture the storm together? Shinomiya looked at her phone's digital clock and it was nearing on eight. "The only person I would trust to notice my absence is Hayasaka, but I thought she would've realized by now."

"Unless, she's purposefully ignoring your absence."

She turned around with a blank stare that pierced the back of his head. "What exactly are you implying?"

Shirogane fired the first shot. "I'm implying that this entire mess was your idea and your execution."

"Oh, really?" Her head tilted and her eyes filled with a blood red fury. "How cute. I was thinking the same thing. But, go on, what reasons might you have for coming up such an unfounded thought."

"The only reason I'm still at this school is because my coat was stolen, a feat that could've easily been accomplished by you over the course of the school day. As for you, however, there are too many factors that have lined up too perfectly. You don't have a ride, your coat was also stolen, and Hayasaka hasn't noticed anything as of yet, which is uncharacteristic of her. Plus, we had the budget set up two days ago. You were the one who suggested we redo it to add more funding to Fujiwara's tabletop gaming club which is the only reason we got caught in the blizzard to begin with. It all lines up too perfectly."

"Give me a break. I've been by your side all day. At what point would I be able to steal your coat to begin with? You get to school later than I do, so you had the ability to hide your coat while I wasn't around. I bet you've been keeping it somewhere this entire time, but you couldn't bear the thought of missing out on the first snowfall without snuggling up to me like some sort of pervert."

Shirogane's face turned red and flustered. "Calling me a pervert was uncalled for, besides, if anyone looks like they're wanting to be held its you, sitting over there and shivering like that. You've been trying to tempt me to make a move all fucking night."

"No, I'm freezing because someone decided to shut off all the heating systems. I know it was you because the president's key chain is the only one with the ability to open up the administrative office doors to shut down the power. Clearly, you're the one who set all of this up before coming to this room in the morning!"

His anger was caught off guard by her statement. But that meant none of this would've worked without the other's involvement. "Wait," he said, his head snapping around to meet Shinomiya's gaze. "How do you know that?"

As she spoke, Shirogane was pulling out the key set and flipping through them without finding the one labeled for the central control office. "Because Fujiwara asked if I could help her turn up the heat in the school yesterday, but none of my keys worked on the..." Her voice was gradually growing quieter as she spoke until eventually she muttered, "Fujiwara?"

"Fujiwara."

Both of them bolted out of the door and started rushing across the school, the chilled air rushing past them as they ran through hallways and ascended staircases. Their steps echoed throughout the area with ferocious booming noises as they quickly approached the administrative room. Neither of them were completely sure if their conviction of Fujiwara was right, but they needed to make sure. They reached it, and both their bodies slammed against the wall, banging their arms and fists. Once they did, they heard a panicked yelp and someone fall to the ground inside.

"Fujiwara, we know you're in there! Come out this fucking instant!" Shinomiya yelled into the dimly lit air.

"O-O-O-Okay, y-y-y-you caught me! P-P-P-Please don't k-k-k-kill me!" They heard on the other side.

"Ishigami?!" The two of them cried in unison.

The door was unlocked and slowly opened to reveal the dark haired tall boy standing before them, his legs shaking in absolute terror.

"Where's Fujiwara?" Shinomiya asked confused.

Ishigami's shaking slowed a bit when her voice didn't continue in the devil's-wrath-like tone she was earlier. "I-I don't know. She could be anywhere right now. All I-I was told was to shut the power and bunker down here."

After Ishigami said this, Shirogane pushed him out of the way and used his phone to light the room. Inside there were sets of door handles littering the computer desks, the collection of items from the lost and found, and both of their coats hanging up in the corner of the room. It was quite the spectacle to behold and everything started to click in his mind as well as Shinomiya's when she walked in after him.

"So, they were the ones behind this," she stated, honestly relieved that it wasn't Shirogane pulling the rug from underneath her. "My only question at this point," she looked at Ishigami, "Is why?"

"W-Well... To put it bluntly..." He started to reply, but then there was a burst of screaming and sobbing from outside the room.

"Because you two are idiots!" Fujiwara had entered the doorway and was standing there with tears on her face that mixed with the light from the computer's blue screens. Her hands were weakly trying to wipe away the tears as she drew in the courage to start speaking again. "You two can't drop your pride for three seconds in order to see that you're perfect for each other and don't deny it either." At this point, her lips were quivering and her fingers had gone from simply cleaning up the crying to gripping into her skin as if she were trying to pull her own skin off. "It's been three years. Why can't you two give it up already?" She struggled to walk over to Shinomiya, but eventually pulled her into a tight embrace. "You wanted him to hold you like this, right? Why can't you just admit it already?" Then her eyes turned toward Shirogane, "And don't even pretend like you didn't want to hug her the entire time you two were cold. I don't get it. I don't. If you two love each other why won't you say so?!"

Both of the council leaders were left speechless at this, neither of them looking at the other.

Eventually, Shirogane spoke. "To someone in the Shinomiya family, I'm nothing more than a commoner." His eyes dropped to stare at the ground. "I have no assets. I have no connections. I have no companies under my name. I might as well be nothing more than a passerby on the street. Even if I did... love... How far am I reaching to even suggest that type of relationship? Knowing the way she was raised, how do I know that a relationship isn't just another bargaining chip to her."

"You think that's how I-?" The whole night's events were starting to present their tolls, and the pressure caused Shinomiya's eyes to water at his words. "That's not how I see you at all, but I can't tarnish my family's reputation by acting so weak in front of a boy. I'm going to have the weight of the family name. I won't show that I'm unable to shoulder that responsibility. Not like this. Not even for you..."

Shirogane's teeth were clenched and they were looking in completely opposite directions, trying and failing to come up with next moves. Even now, they've come undeniably close to confessing to each other, but those final words wouldn't be uttered by either of them.

"Then you don't actually love each other." Ishigami broke into the conversation causing both Shirogane and Shinomiya to tense up. "In all the romantic novels I have ever read, the two in love would always overcome their fears in order to be together." He moved over to be in Shirogane's direct line of vision. "You're reaching very far, farther than any man should. There are billionaire pop idols that would be less of a reach than her. You're nothing more than a commoner to this school with no high-class or noble blood and it's amazing that you've even made a place for yourself here considering your status." Then Ishigami averted his gaze to focus on the other lover. "And you're incredibly weak. Not only because you tremble whenever you're thinking about him, but also because your emotions get in the way of the majority of your decisions, which is unbecoming of an heir to Japan's largest companies."

Ishigami zipped up his coat and began to leave, speaking over his shoulder, "At this rate, you two would be better off giving up and finding easier relationships to get into. Come on, Fujiwara, let's get some hot chocolate on our way home. Maybe that'll stop the crying." Fujiwara nodded and left the embrace, running out the door after him and closing it behind her. The two still in the room didn't move.

Shinomiya had gone from holding onto Fujiwara to gripping her skirt in the hopes that the pain in her hands would steel her from crying any further when she spoke. "Is he right? Am I weak in your eyes too?"

"No, of course not," he instinctively said, his teeth tightening even further with force enough to eat through marble. "Am you really that far out of my league? I know I don't have any kind of important background, but I thought that maybe. Maybe."

"No, of course not," she said back, biting her lip to keep from saying anything more.

"It's still a bit cold, isn't it?"

"Yeah." Suddenly, she felt something heavy being placed on her shoulders and wrapped around her body. It was warm to the touch and she pulled it to her stomach to make sure it was real. "This won't be the last time, will it Shirogane?"

"Miyuki, and no, it won't be," he said, hugging her tighter from behind.

"Is that a confession of love I'm hearing? Miyuki." She never heard a response, merely his head moving to rest on her shoulder where they stood. "Then I'll be weak, just this once."

~o~

Fujiwara and Ishigami were sitting in the corner of a cafe sipping a couple hot chocolates and skimming over random conversation material. Luckily, Fujiwara was able to gain back her usual sparkle and was bubbling away about the things she was going to do over the break. Talks of going overseas to enjoy beaches and Christmas dinner with The Queen. Ishigami was indulging himself in her adventures since he didn't get out much himself and it was nice seeing her as her cheerful self in any case, but there was something on his mind.

"Fujiwara, how long do you think it will be until they realize we locked them in there?"

At this, she slammed down her mug and let out a small giggle. "They haven't messaged me about it yet, so I'm assuming they didn't notice."

"Over the years, I've seen those two predict some crazy shit, but the fact that you knew they wouldn't try to open the door themselves is beyond me."

"I didn't know, but if they opened it and realized it wasn't locked from the outside they would've simply thought you were being stupid and forgot to lock it."

"How long are you planning on keeping them locked in there anyway?"

She pulled out her phone and placed it on the table, her face shifting to an grin that would seem evil if not disguised by her usual cute aura. "Until they send proof they've kissed."

"A-Are you serious? You're going to get us killed." Ishigami's gloom had returned in full force as he realized Shinomiya might finally break and decide to slit his throat this time.

"I told you, the plan needed to be foolproof. We'll delete the picture, but now that we've come this far, I'm not stopping till we finish."