Into the snowy evening we went, four brave adventurers, covered head to toe in very warm and cozy clothes, and with Ria packing a heat pack under her jacket as well. It was a pretty funny sight. Ria, Em and Karin had so many layers on that they could barely move their arms and plowing through the rather deep snow wasn’t easy either with those layers. It was almost like they had their entire body cast in a cast. I had some more layers on than usual as well, but I probably didn’t even need those as the cold wasn’t really bothering me at the moment. It helped that there wasn’t really much wind to speak of, just a lot of snow.

Karin was walking next to Ria in front of Em and me. They were chatting about something meteorology related, but things got over my head too quickly to really follow what was going on.

“Should we go and sit down under the patio, Auro?” Em asked. They had a small garden annex with a patio attached to it, near the back of their garden. It had a very small kitchen for snacks and drinks, just so people didn’t need to walk all the way back to the house to get some small foodstuff and drinks. It was big enough for two people to stay the night in as well, as it had a little bathroom too and a sofa that could convert into a bed. There was plenty of privacy as it was just far away from the house and had a couple of trees blocking most of the line of sight too, even though they were leafless right now.

“Well, Ria did say she wanted to take a walk through the snow. But if it’s too cold for you, we can always get out of the snow.” I replied and looked at my girlfriend. The garden's orangey lights shone subtly but beautifully on her face.

“Hmmm, no, I’m fine.” She smiled softly and shook her head.

“You sure?”

“Yeah, I am.”

“Kay.” I snuck in a quick kiss on her cheek. Her cheek was quite warm, actually.

In response, Em stuck out her tongue to me with a cheeky smile.

“Oh, and now that I think about it…” I leaned in closer and whispered into her ear. “You still need to make up for throwing me under the bus at the crêpe shop.”

“Do I?”

“Don’t pretend like you forgot, you minx.” I bumped into her slightly.

“Hehe.” She giggled softly and slowed down her pace a little to create a bit of distance, more to avoid her sister from hearing it than to keep Ria in the dark. “So what would you like me to do then?” She whispered back.

“Hmmm… it’s been a while since I fed on you… I guess… If you don’t want to…”

Em quickly shook her head. “No, I wouldn’t mind. But let’s do it when we are not at the house… So my mom doesn’t hear…”

“Well, there’s a convenient garden annex over there.” I gave her a cheeky wink. “We could propose to shovel some snow tomorrow and when we are done…” I ran my gloved finger over her cheek, just up to the part of her neck that wasn’t covered by her scarf.

Em started blushing quite a lot more. If she would blush harder, I’m pretty sure she’d start steaming. “Geez, Auro… Are you sure you brought a bit of your stash because you sound quite thirsty…” She whispered.

“Is that a no?”

“No…” Her blush continued. “Tomorrow… right?”

“Yeah, shoveling snow at night might be a bit too suspicious.” I gave her yet another kiss on the cheek.

“What are you two talking about?” Ria asked. She’d turned around in front of us, and Karin was also looking at us now.

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“Probably talking about lewd things.” Karin said in her usual deadpan tone.

“No no no, we were just talking about school stuff.” Em replied.

“Not buying it, sis.” Karin said. “Cheeks too red.”

This made Em turn back to the same color of red from earlier. “No no no! You can’t see it well because of the lighting!”

While Em was occupying her sister, Ria was looking at me. I could quite clearly tell she was pouting. “Roraaa. Don’t leave me out from talks like that.”

“It’s not like that, really.” I waved my hands to accentuate my denial.

“Roraaa!” Then suddenly, Ria started hopping towards me with a speed that was quite impressive for being so hindered by her clothing. And at the same time it was also really comical. It made me chuckle. “Have at thee!” When she’d finally reached me, she launched herself like a torpedo at my chest.

Because of the snow, I just barely didn’t have enough grip to keep us standing, if I even wanted to in the first place, so we both tumbled onto the ground. Because of the snow, I had a rather soft landing on my back. With Ria ending up on top of me.

“There!” Ria smiled up brightly at me. The cheeky yet extremely cute bastard.

“Oh, now you’ve done it.” The game was on. I feigned not being able to reverse the roles, with Ria giggling on top of me. I did it just long enough for her not to expect me to finally push her back in the snow. “Haha!” I smiled triumphantly and then planted a quick kiss on her lips. She kept giggling.

We play-wrestled for a minute or two longer. Right up to the moment where a snowball whizzed past my head.

“Sorry, was aimed at sis.” Karin said when I looked at where it came from.

“What a sudden and totally unprovoked attack.” I smirked. “This must be a Meier family conspiracy against the both of us, Ria. What do you think?” I then looked back at Ria who was momentarily on her back in the snow.

“I think so too!” Ria giggled. She’d signed up to my plan.

At that moment I rolled off of Ria, and in my roll I scooped some snow into my hand. When I got upright in a kneeled position, I quickly rolled the snow into the most perfect snowball one had ever seen. Took aim… And… BAM… A snowball hit my right in my face and sent me falling backwards into the snow again. When I looked up to look at my assailant… It was Em. She still had her arm stretched out and was looking at me with a shit eating grin.

“By the Goddess… I was right… those dastardly sisters have been working together all along!”

“Haha.” Em laughed triumphantly.

Sadly for her, the snowball I had made, was still in my hand, and even though I was on my back. I had a clean shot to hit her. With a flick of my arm, I sent the snowball flying and hit her center mass. At almost the same time she got hit by a second snowball which hit her on the border of her scarf and her jacket.

“Nooo!” Em yelped. “Snow snow got through.”

“Nice shot, Ria.” I gave Ria a thumbs up, still with my back in the snow.

“Thanks!” She hopped happily. This little hop did mean she also received a headshot snowball. This time from Karin, who’d already created an entire munition pile of snowballs to throw at us. How she did that, I don’t know. But now was not the time to dilly-dally and think about it. It was time for WAR!

“I think we should probably go back inside now.” Em shivered.

The battle had raged on for a little over fifteen minutes, with everyone receiving their fair share of snowballs. It had been incredibly fun and if it hadn’t been for our clothes getting soaking wet, we probably would’ve gone for quite a bit longer. Sadly, that was the inherent disadvantage of snowball fights. Initially, snow’s pretty dry. But when it melts on your clothes and wintery accessories like scarfs and mittens, it just turns into cold water.

“Yeah, let’s go before y’all catch a cold.” And by y’all, I mainly meant Karin.

The four of us huddled back inside and quickly got our winter clothes off and hung them to dry.

“Karin, you should go and shower first to warm up.” Em said to her sister.

“You sure?” Karin asked back. Em had got hit by slightly more snowballs than she had.

“Yeah, yeah, go ahead.” Em smiled. Of course, she couldn’t say that it didn’t really matter to her.

Karin nodded and quickly went to the bathroom. The three of us decided it was probably best to wait at the fireplace that was slowly dying down but still quite hot enough to provide us with some much-needed warmth.

“We might not be able to get sick from it, but it’s still cold as fuck.” I chuckled while I warmed my hands a bit closer to the fireplace.

“A nice hot shower and then some cozy bedtime. That sounds like music to my ears.” Em joins me to my right.

“Just a shame we can’t sleep in the same bed.” Ria joins me on my left.

“Definitely getting the biggest size bed I can for my new house.” I smiled at my girlfriends and gave both of them a quick peck on the cheek.