Heaven Help A Fool Who Falls In Love

16.

"You're wobbling, Sana. Keep your shoulders straight."

Sana straightens up at that and put her hands over Sehun's. "You're right. It is easier!"

She looks over her shoulder at Sehun, wanting to share the experience. Her cheeks are flushed and she is grinning from ear to ear, brown eyes sparkling with enjoyment. "This is fun!" She chortles.

Sehun skates faster, until he can feel the cold air on his face and his exertions fog up his glasses a bit. Sana's laughter rings out louder and clearer as he does so.

Before long, the subtle scent of sunshine drifts back to Sehun, mixing with the laughter that rings out in the pond. Sana's laughter, the pure sound of it does something strange to him. It made him want more. So round and round he skates, just to hear the joy in Sana's voice.

He is concentrating so much on the girl in his arms that he doesn't even notice the other three who are stealthily sneaking away from the pond. Not that Sehun would have cared right then.

A compulsion to look down into Sana's smiling face overtakes Sehun. He looks down at the same time that Sana looks up. An electric jolt of feeling ran through him to see such honest emotion so freely shown to him.

Over time, he has come to accept that he is an outsider in a world where, no matter how much he spent or how much power he had, he never felt as if he belonged. For twenty-five years an emptiness has always existed in him.

And now, for this one brief instant, doing something as mundane as skating on a park's pond with Sana looking at him as Sana did - as if he has given Sana the whole world - he thought that perhaps that emptiness could be filled.

It surprises Sehun to think that he might see in Sana, this odd girl who claims to be fallen, a small glimpse of that part of him that he thought he has lost. A part that, if he admits it to himself, would make him complete.

He forces himself to break contact, to reclaim his objectivity.

"Now you try." He gives Sana a small push, and Sana yells for help.

Sehun makes no move to answer the plea for help, he just stands there watching Sana wobble and shuffle her feet, staring suspiciously at the ice as if she thinks it would suddenly form ridges to trip her, occasionally swinging her arms when she loses her tenuous hold on her balance.

Sehun's mouth quirks up in amusement. He cups his hands around his mouth and in a voice just loud enough to carry, says, "Keep your back straight." Sana doesn't straighten, she stands as stiff as a streetlamp.

In the next few minutes, Sana must have called Sehun's name with every breath, half yelling and half laughing, until she is coming at Sehun at too fast a speed, her arms out and her mouth wide open. She was obviously out of control.

Sehun reaches for her but she whips past him. Newton's Law of Motion eventually stops Sana in the form of a tree trunk. She hits it hard, hard enough to make Sana grunt. Hard enough to shake the tree and make the snow from the branches fall in giant clumps.

To fall dead straight on Sana's head with a resounding 'phlump'.

Sehun laughs. He can do little else. Snow is everywhere, on her face, her hair, her clothes. Sana is covered with the sudden avalanche, her peripheral limbs the only things visible in the white stuff.

After a bit of struggling Sana eventually is able to get out from under the snow. Her eyes, what shows between the small clumps of snow on her lashes, are dancing like Christmas lights. They look incandescent, incandescent and furious at Sehun for laughing.

Sehun knows he should be helping Sana get rid of the snow but he can't stop laughing.

After a moment, during which Sehun finally has control of himself, Sana calls out, "Hey, Sehun!"

Sehun turns.

"Here's something money can't buy!" Sana flings a snowball at him that knocks his hat right off from his head.

It's Sana's turn to laugh.

Sehun turns around to look for his hat and turns back as another wad of loose snow speeds past his nose. "Lousy aim." Sehun snickers as he skates towards Sana, slowly, with purpose.

He doesn't know that he is smiling but Sana does and it makes Sana's smile grow wider.

"Isn't this fun?" Sana stands in the fresh snow that edges the pond as she flings another snowball at Sehun.

Sehun had to dodge this one since close proximity compensates for Sana's erratic aim. Sana, meanwhile, steps back a few paces and bends down to scoop up more snow. Before she forms a ball she looks up by chance...

Sehun's purpose hasn't changed. "Uh-oh." Sana says, catching the vengeful gleam in Sehun's eyes.

A second later, Sana runs like hell through the snow, far away from Sehun.

Sehun shouts Sana's name and though Sehun has never before ran after anyone in his life, he runs after Sana into the deeper snow.

Sana's red muffler trails like a bright red banner, an easy beacon for the longer legged Sehun to follow. He tackles Sana and they roll in the snow, down a short embankment and under a cluster of low trees. Sana is still laughing when they stop rolling, Sehun on top pinning Sana on the ground.

Snow sparkles on Sana's face like diamonds. Her muffler is crushed behind her and her hair is spread out in her face in wild disarray, a deep, dark black on the white snow. Sana's chest rises and falls as each breath changes to mist in the small space of air between them.

And then, she smiles at Sehun. A smile thats for Sehun alone.

It feels perfectly natural to cup Sana's face in his hands. Natural to lower his mouth to Sana's. And natural to taste Sana when she gasps. But what happens after that is as unnatural as Sana is unconventional.

Sehun hears bells