There was a palpable change of the environment at Sakura University.
It was literally the middle of November, and though the fall foliage was still clung tenaciously to the old maples along the front door, a certain coldness had been passing through the walking streets, and giving the air an ethereal fragrance of pine mixed with a trace of spice the promise givers of the winter season. Students, clad in their denser scarfs and coat, appeared to have a unanimous air of warning, though none of them showed so much the radiance of Koyuki Himekawa.
Koyuki was not just any student, she was a show, an unintended exception in the academic scene.
Her most salient feature was a tress, which shed the colour of full grown cherryblossoms, a rich, almost phosphorescent pink, which defied the depressed colour of late autumn. The pink in her procession effused as a gaily painted banner, immediately to fill the otherwise gloomy university passages with light. She was beautiful, beyond that tacit, bashful ideal of a typical campus figure; but she was vibrant, powerful energy, which was in harmony with the iridescence of her jade green eyes.
Koyuki had a self serving goal on that one day. She had even taken a heavy, knitted crimson scarf to cover her nose, a thermos with possibly inferior hot chocolate, and walked towards the so called run down Student Union bulletin board.
Move, Koyuki, she said to herself, the released steam staining the cold air. Unless you get that sign up sheet in the Campus Christmas Gala Committee case in within the next two days, the Art Club will be getting the best booth sites to sell their disagreeable, high priced knitted hats again.
Being a second year scholar in event management pathway, Koyuki had taken the initiative of reviving the declining Christmas esprit de corps in the university. The celebration of last year had degenerated into a tragedy of weak cider and half killed tree. This year, she dreamed of a glam winter tableau, anime inspired. When she reached the bulletin board, an imposing cork building covered with three layers of convergent archaic flyers, she began the callous process of removing the old notices.
It was at this time of her pink haired, concentrated disarray that she came across the legend.
In an instant a stiff presence was standing right behind her. The kinetic force of the ripped up posters flung Koyuki backwards; her hot chocolate spurted with dangerous excitement. Getting back on her feet, she whipped around, breathing out an exasperated, annoyed sigh, and about to give a Koyuki type rant about the sense of space.
The phrases disappeared out of her throat.
Yuu Shirogane stood in front of her. Yuu was a senior, a Computer Science majors who was known to be a very strong intellect of the world, had a calming, near frozen temper, and most apparent, his hair. It was a pastel of pure white like pure snow unbroken by human footsteps. Compared to the bright pink of Koyuki, the strands of alabaster which Yuu wears gave her a ghostly and almost mythological quality the prototype of a Winter Prince carved out of ice. His eyes, a cold sharp silver, stared at Koyuki devoid of life.
Forgive me, he said, his voice a low and mellifluous baritone that cut into the surrounding campus conversation somehow. It was not apologetic, but just factual. His plain dark navy peacoat was in striking contrast to his fair complexion and hair. He was holding one, thin manila folder in his hand.
A prickly warmth burst forth in Koyuki, and flushed her cheeks. Yuu Shirogane could hardly be met, being mostly restricted to the upper floor laboratory of the university, where visibility in the general space was equivalent to sighting a rare and beautiful snow leopard. He was infamously unreachable, brilliant and absolutely indifferent to college life.
No, I, I say, you ought to have made a noise! It is not a private passage, it is a public street, Shirogane senpai! Koyuki stuttered, and she was instantly flustered at her own inability to control herself. Since she was eight, she never stammered.
Yuu had not large irises, which were of silver. He merely threw back his head, a very slight motion which expressed somehow amusement. The sound level is very great, Himekawasan. Or maybe, you had other places to look? He looked scornfully at the messy pile of flyers on her feet and the hastily handwritten sign up sheet in her hands, with a glittery and low quality reindeer on it.
Koyuki developed a new bout of embarrassment. It is Christmas Gala! It is essential! Unless we make amends with the debacle of last year a la fete, the campus would consider us a group of holiday Scrooges!
"A noble effort," Yuu replied. Then with no further word he strode past her, bumped his coat against her shoulder. The cold which had been squeezed out of him was like a sharp puff of air. He nailed his manila folder to the precise spot in the newly cleared area on the bulletin board, which covered much of the valuable reindeer picture of Koyuki.
The piece of paper also had a clean and minimalist notice. The name, written in an ugly, accurate typeface, was as follows: Call for Submissions: Annual Winter Academic Research Paper Symposium Sakura University.
Koyuki looked at the contrast between them their comparison of her pink, gleaming messiness with that of his sterile order of white. The Winter Prince had now made war on Christmas spirit.
"Senpai!" she cried. "You cannot simply put that"
He was half down the hall already, his white hair a fading glare, and Koyuki was left alone with the crumpled paper and the startling and chilling thought that her Christmas mission had just gained a very handsome, very clever and very vexing impediment. A bad reindeer was not going to be any more powerful a strategy than she would need.