Canon: Remove if not applicable.The days passed in haste. Astolphe’s sprain healed fully, and he could join Gralat at the compound for a few more days.
On their way back from the compound the last day, they walked side by side and discussed the training that they had participated in during the forenoon.
Until Gralat suddenly changed the subject, as if he had just remembered; “You might need to find something to wrap the wolf in.”
“The wolf?” Astolphe looked at him with confusion. “Oh, the wooden one.”
“Yes. Wood can get sensitive in the cold, and the climate does change drastically between Ellvaldez and the border regions. Or so I’ve heard, I’ve never actually been outside the country.”
“That’s a shame, you should come visit our place sometime.” He would like to show Gralat everything, and there was so much. But would that be thoughtless of him? “So it might get easily damaged if it becomes brittle. Would wrapping it in a few of my shirts work?”
Gralat nodded. “It should be fine.”
“That’s good, then. I’ll make sure to do that.” Astolphe smiled at him.
Gralat stopped walking, and he looked at Astolphe in one of his silences, and Astolphe stopped a step ahead and turned, and wondered what was going through Gralat’s mind this time. He wasn’t as quiet as he had thought he would be, but he also wasn’t very talkative, either. But he did seem to think a lot.
Gralat took the few steps of distance that was between them, and his hands cupped Astolphe’s cheeks. He pressed his lips lightly against Astolphe’s. It only lasted a moment, then Gralat stepped back again.
Utterly baffled, Astolphe stared at Gralat. “Why did you do that?!” He did not hide his shock. Only his parents and brother kissed him, nobody else ever had. Friends didn’t do that. Not any of his friends, at least. Maybe a few of the girls, but not the boys.
“I wanted to. I don’t know why. I just wanted to.” Gralat looked as shocked as Astolphe felt. “I should have asked first. Sorry.”
Astolphe pounced at him. He pushed him down and they tumbled down a slope through the snow and stopped in a cloud of disturbed powder snow.
“You don’t know! How can you not know!”
Gralat was silent, observing him. He had snowflakes stuck in his eyelashes. “I guess, I think, it might be because I thought you’re cute and I like you.”
“Whcuke-..?!” Astolphe sputtered, the words trying to get out all at once and tying his tongue. “You’re saying strange things again!”
“You were the one who called me pretty first.” Gralat sat up, maneuvering Astolphe so that he could sit up as well.
“That was... just honesty…”
Astolphe blinked up into Gralat’s eyes when Gralat leaned his forehead against Astolphe’s.
“And so is me telling you that you’re cute.”
“And the kiss was….”
“I wasn’t thinking. I should have. I apologize.”
Astolphe scowled at him, and he felt that his cheeks felt as if they were on fire, both from the the cold of the wind against the surface of his skin, and the heat of his blood underneath it.
“I don’t—I don’t think that friends...do that. K-kiss each other, I mean. Even if they-...like each other.”
“Why not, though?”
“It’s for family. I think.”
“My family doesn’t kiss, so I don’t know anything about that.”
Astolphe bit the inside of his cheek. Gralat was definitely not saying that to make him feel guilty, he was just saying it as a fact, so Astolphe decided not to let it make him feel guilty. He huffed, closed his eyes, and sighed.
“Okay, yeah, alright, okay, fine, it’s fine, I was just, really surprised….” Surprisingly, he really did think that it was fine. “But you have to ask first, next time you want to do that.” Next time? He thought it was alright for Gralat to kiss him again?
Gralat nodded. Astolphe could see his face move, and felt their hair rub against each other, cold and filled of ice and snow. He had snowflakes stuck on his cheeks, too, as if they were a fine powder.
Astolphe sighed again, leaning back with his hands on Gralat’s knees, and he decided that that was that, they didn’t need to talk more about that right now. That was something that he needed to think about more, first. “Will you write letters?” He asked instead. “I’ll write to you.” Gralat blinked at him, “I wouldn’t know what to write.”
That made Astolphe’s lips twitch up at the corners. A look that he could not decipher appeared on Gralat’s face for a brief moment. “Anything is fine. I just don’t want to stop talking at all.” He wanted a lasting friendship, kiss notwithstanding
“Oh. Alright. I will do my best. You look cold, by the way.”
Astolphe realized that he was shivering. “Mh, I am.”
“Then we should go back so you can change into something warmer.” Gralat pushed Astolphe off of him, so he could get to his feet. Then he pulled him up by the hand. Astolphe saw him look off in the direction they had rolled, and he looked over. “Ah. That was close.” They would have fallen off a crag if they had kept rolling for much longer. Gralat shook his head, and snow fell from it in a sparkling cloud. “You really need to learn to tell these things.”
“The snow looks a lot the same when it’s all over the place.”
“It’s not. You just have poor eyesight.”
Astolphe trudged after Gralat up the hill. “I have perfect eyesight! It’s just that I’m not used to your amount of snow.”
“No, it’s definitely your eyes that there is something wrong with, it’s got nothing to do with our snow. I really had no idea that you had such a habit of putting the blame elsewhere.”
“I’m putting the blame exactly where it deserves to be put,” Astolphe remarked, and he heard Gralat make an amused huff. Astolphe slipped on the snow and was stabilized by one of Gralat’s hands around his upper arm.
“Whatever you say, Astolphe.”
He still sounded more amused than convinced.