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That was me, raising my voice considerably to be heard over the vigorous buzz of life as we became merged with the steady influx of visitors flooding into the main park entrance.

Due to the basic nature of the event, there were a lot of families coming in, and with families came kids, and with kids came a surplus of screeches, wails, and laughter of the festive variety. Happy noises as they were, at the end of the day, they were still noises.

Very noisy noises.

My eyes fell to Adalia and her utter lack of reaction.

“A lot of people, alright…” I said again.

Nothing again.

“Probably gonna be a lot more later on too.”

Still nothing.

.....

“Oh look, they got loudspeakers set up everywhere around as well. They’re probably gonna be blasting Christmas music all day and—”

“I like Christmas… music…” Adalia spoke, stirring to life with a rousing blink. “Come…” She then strutted onward, tugging my arm and I in tow without a hint of hesitation. “Let us… keep walking… together… ”

If there ever was a time for second thoughts, then that time has long come and gone.

Your funeral, Adalia.

Sure enough, from the first step inward to the present, everywhere we were beset by every single kind of commotion you could imagine.

Mariah Carey blasting on one end, a fearsome snowball fight being waged on the other. The barren pathway once perfectly fit for a lonesome peaceful stroll, now hosted a number of stalls lining as far as the eye could see, and finding itself containing more leisurely strollers than it was initially meant to. Us included.

As we had arrived quite early into the event, most of the stalls had yet to actually open, and among the bustling crowd, some staff members could still be seen making last-minute preparations. Hauling boxes, setting up streamers, I saw a Santa Claus rush by frantically searching for his beard, and I think I even glimpsed an entire armada of fireworks being slinked away into the slit of a nearby tent.

Hmm, fireworks.

That sounds like something Adalia might like to see… if it weren’t only for her condition. Yet even then… I think she might like to see it regardless.

I’ll just let the idea stew for now…

We kept on walking, keeping a reasonable, relaxed pace, or as relaxed as it could get winding and slithering through tiny, narrow gaps in the massive crowd. In a way, it felt as if we were back in the convention all over again, except colder, and somehow, even crampier.

Twice, we passed by benches already occupied, ruining my attempts at wanting to give Adalia some respite. Both instances, they were couples, other people like us, keeping warm from the cold huddled close to each other, lost in their own little world with one another.

I noticed Adalia was unusually mesmerized by them, her gaze tethered to the sight even as we moved on forward. It’s like she could see something fascinating in them that I couldn’t.

Wonder what it could be.

“Can I… hold your hand…?”

At first, I didn’t hear a thing, or that somebody else had spoken up. Then all of a sudden, the grip on my arm tightened and I was looking over at a pair of unblinking, inquiring misty silvers.

“Um, sure, whatever you want,” I said, slightly bewildered.

She already had coiled both her arms around my left like a clingy bride walking down the aisle. I don’t really see how that could possibly be inferior to hand-holding for her to prefer it to that, but… whatever.

I paused us briefly, gently slipped my hand out of her tendrils, and offered it outstretched for her to hold.

Adalia lifted her hand, reached, then stopped… the looming sun above casting the shadow of her sharp claws over my open palm… she hesitated. I didn’t, however.

Wordlessly, I took hold of her hand instead, feeling the numbing cold of her skin, the biting edges of her nails slightly digging into mine.

I didn’t mind.

“Better?” I asked.

Adalia looked almost surprised if that was possible. Her silence, her stare, expressing more than words ever could.

I took that as a yes.

We promptly began moving on again, only this time, hand-in-hand, and I gotta say, it was probably the strangest sensation I felt all week.

I’m so used to her hugging and clinging onto me at all times, that hand-holding, together, with only fingers entwined and nothing more, it felt, well… strange. Like I was doing something I shouldn’t, something very inappropriate.

Was hand-holding lewd, after all?

Nah, can’t be.

“Are you… bored…?” sounded the tiniest whisper that I had to lean down within mere inches just to catch the rest of the sentence. “You seem… bored….”

“Bored…?” I felt my entire being violently rattled by her words, coming out of the blue so random. “Why… Why would you think that?”

“You… look bored…”

Me? Looking bored? I was actually busy looking around for a secluded place for us to get away. How’d she manage to so drastically misconstrue my intention, her of all people…

Guess the pressure of wanting the perfect date was getting to her too.

“Adalia,” I slowed our stroll, faintly smiling at her. “Do I really seem like the type to you?”

And at that, it seemed it finally dawned on her how ridiculous of a question she had just asked me. Her gaze drooping down slightly, almost as if in shame…

“Dating… is confusing…” She confessed to me plainly. “I do not… know… what I should do… to date… properly…”

“Welcome to the club,” I muttered, feeling her radiating profoundly deep in my soul. “Guess we’re both just winging it, aren’t we?”

“I thought… walking… might be fun…” She said, veering her stare back forward. “Is it… fun…?”

“You make it fun,” I assured her. “Believe me, we can do anything at all on this date, and I’ll have the time of my life so long as you are.”

“I… see…”

For a short while after, we continued marching onward through gradually thinning crowds, stalls, entering the tendril-like awnings above of looming naked trees in silence, but as it turns out, that brief moment of quiet was an opportunity for her to ponder.

Adalia spoke up again, her whispers louder now away from the commotion. “What about… after…?”

“After?” I quickly rifled my mind for meaning, but couldn’t find any. “What do you mean after? After what?”

“After… the date is over…” She clarified, cocking her head sideways. “What do… we do after…?”

That’s… a pretty broad question.

“Depends…” I answered slowly. “How it ends. Where it ends. When it ends. For if things go right, our date might go on throughout the night too.”

“But after… the date…?” She inquired again. “What happens… after…?”

“I don’t really get what you’re trying to ask.”

Adalia blinked, then slowly, attempted to rephrase her question the best she could.

“Do you want… to make love… to me…?”

My brain probably exploded, every blood vessel bursting at the seams, my consciousness slipping before my very eyes. All that seemed more likely to have happened than what actually just happened.

That question just happened.

Okay, breathe. Be gentlemanly, be prude. You’re an upstanding guy, answer upstandingly, won’t you?

“Well, um… I… if…” I breathed again. “…so long as you want to, I guess, then—”

“I… do…”

I am about to die to death from her boldness, I swear.

“Or… I think… I do…” She cocked her head the other way, still musing. “I am… not sure… yet…”

Yet, huh?

“That’s fine. That’s okay,” I said, stacking back the crumbled ruins of my composure. “It’s better not to force this kind of thing anyway. If it’s really gonna happen… it’ll happen naturally, we’ll… feel it.”

“Feel… it…” Adalia echoed wistfully, as if just digesting an enlightening lesson of the human psyche.

That’s when I heard it. Faintly resounding in the near distance, obscured by withered branches, a snowy mound over yonder… the sound of scraping, the sound of falling, and the sound of laughing.

I peered forward and I saw it—the expansive shimmering white frozen in the earth, its glossy surface reflecting the morning sky like a big mirror—the lake, or what used to be the lake, now acting as a blank solid canvas for winter leisure.

There were people sliding smoothly from one end to the next, using it as an impromptu skating rink, and even from afar, I could feel my interest spiking at the sight of the pure, unadulterated fun they were all having.

And as if to make it official, there was even a stall we passed earlier that was renting out ice-skating shoes too. It felt like the universe was aligning, showing me a sign of what we should do next.

I remember the last time I was out on a lake with Adalia. And what an unforgettable experience it was.

Well then, let’s go see if this time would be just as memorable…