A cold winter's day. The glowing warmth of the hallway radiator heater drew a small gathering of students all huddled together with their books for a study session. Aoi was sipping a juice box when she noticed a newcomer coming up to the group.
 
 
"Hi, I'm looking for my sister. Do you know where she is?" the yellow sweatervest-clad lad asked.
 
At first glance, the figure appeared to be a young girl wearing a pair of red shorts over purple stockings with stars adorned on them, and a red bow embedded in teal-colored hair. Everyone in the group did a double take before Keiko spoke up.
 
"Who is your sister?" she asked with a smile, leaning down to his eye level.
 
"Shizune Hakamichi." Hideaki answered.
 
"Ohh, her. She's probably in the Student Council Room." Keiko replied, lifting her hand off her knees to point down the hall.
 
"Thanks." Hideaki said abruptly before darting down the hallway.
 
"I didn't know middle schoolers were allowed here." one of the girls commented with a chortle. The voice was distinctly Miki's.  
 
 
The questioning remarks and giggles afterward were drowned out by the sound of a music recital going on in one of the classrooms. Further down the hall were a series of closed doors. Which one housed the Student Council? Hideaki peered into one of them, finding a class of blind students doing a reading assignment using braille textbooks. He continued down the hall to find a slightly ajar door. His palm clasped the worn brass door handle hesitantly before pushing it forward with a loud, long creaking sound.
 
"Hello?" he called inside.
 
An unexpected sight met his eyes. There standing in the glowing afternoon rays of the sun was a scarlet-haired beauty the likes of which he had never seen. Her hair reached the bottom of her neck. Instead of the standard Yamaku skirt ensemble, she was dressed in a button down shirt with knotted sleeves just above where her elbows would have been and a pair of loose-fitting green slacks. Peering out the window to the grounds below, she suddenly gave a quiet sneeze. Her back was to him as she gave a reply.
 
"Hello." the armless girl answered.
 
She turned around slowly in what Hideaki saw as graceful. Dust hovered around her, glistening in the golden sunlight, enhancing the scene before him.
 
"Wow." Hideaki couldn't help from saying when he saw her emerald colored eyes.
 
"You shouldn't marvel at unfinished works." Rin told him, motioning towards the painting that stood beside her. "It's bad luck."
 
Hideaki made a mental note and stepped into the art room. All sorts of colorful displays greeted his eyes. Some were more unusual than others, some looked like they could have used more effort, and some masterfully portrayed various scenes in near photographic quality. This obviously wasn't the Student Council room, but he no longer cared. Shizune could wait a little longer.
 
 
"You're not a student here, are you?" Rin questioned Hideaki.
 
"Uh, no. I'm here to see my sister actually." he responded.
 
"Oh. How disappointing." Rin muttered, her eyes drooping. "You look like you'd have an interesting circumstance."
 
"B-but it's not like it's urgent or anything!" Hideaki nervously called out before she could turn back to the window.
 
Hideaki quickly looked around for something to comment on to continue the conversation. There were so many wild works of art that it was hard to articulate a sentence to ask about them. Then he became curious. Why would a girl with no arms be in the art room? Was she just observing? He couldn't think of a way she could create any of the things in this room. Oh how wrong he was in his judgment.
 
"Do you do art?" he asked.
 
"Yes." Rin answered.
 
Intrigued, Hideaki stepped forward into the light the sun was letting in towards her.
 
"Wait a minute." Rin said, stopping him after seeing him come into the light.
 
"Stay right there. Don't move. Let me get my brushes." she told him.
 
Hideaki was puzzled, but did as she asked.
 
Setting out an assortment of brushes of varying thickness, she looked over the available cans of paint and back to him.
 
"Perfect." she said, smiling.
 
"Uh, am I allowed to move?" Hideaki asked. He felt a little uncomfortable standing in this particular spot in the room.
 
"No, you'll ruin the painting." Rin warned him before she dipped a brush clasped between her teeth into a can of amber paint.
 
"I'm being painted?" he asked.
 
 
Hideaki felt humbled and his face flushed red. A few base strokes and she glanced back at him. Then setting the brush down, she used her foot to grasp another brush. She dipped the end of it into a can of yellow paint and dabbed the brush lengthwise up and down the canvas. Taking her original brush, she looked over her options before settling on a new color. This one a light shade of red. Hideaki stood amazed at her prowess. It must have taken her years to master moving like that.
 
 
"You have good posture. Like a rhinoceros that does a lot of swimming." Rin complimented him.
 
Hideaki couldn't help but look down in embarrassment and slight confusion.
 
"Thanks. You... have..." he started to mumble.
 
Rin mixed some green with a dark blue on her palette.
 
"Nice eyes." he finished with a weak gasp of breath.
 
Rin continued to paint without looking anywhere but the canvas. Hideaki was a little disappointed to see her apparently not notice his comment, but he kept standing in his place. He practically said it under his breath though. Hideaki's eyes drifted to the window, where he could hear voices below, but from where he stood, it was impossible to see anything. He had to leave it up to his imagination to determine what people were doing outside. He wished he could see the progress of the painting so far, but all that was visible was the back of the easel.
 
As time passed, his limbs began to grow weary, but he remained standing for her so she could finish. It became something of a challenge for him. He could hear the ticking of a clock in the room, but he didn't want to turn his head. It must have been on the wall behind him. It felt like he had been here a lot longer than he should've been, but who was he going to be in trouble with exactly anyway? The sun was no longer in his eyes as it had been when he first met this armless artist. For some reason he felt comfortable where he was. Anxious from standing still for so long and not knowing what the painting
looked like, but strangely comforted. Rin herself made him feel at ease for some reason. Maybe "safe" was the word, yet he couldn't put his finger on why.
 
 
"I hope you don't mind, but I embellished on your breasts a little." Rin said from behind the canvas.
 
"That's ok." Hideaki answered.
 
 
 
Wait. BREASTS?
 
 
 
Rin gave a contented smile as if she had just done him a favor. Surely she didn't mistake him for a girl? 'How?' he wondered. Though as Hideaki began to visualize his female self, he began to get odd feelings. Feelings that felt sort of good in a way that was soaked with guilt. Rin put her brush down before he could get a proper image to bubble in his mind.
 
 
"Something's missing..." she said as she shifted in her seat, her eyes scrunched in thought.
 
A light clicked on in her head and she grabbed a more fine-tipped brush, dipping it into a can of white paint.
 
"Ah-ha!" she said with a sense of accomplishment after a few quick, but deliberate strokes.
 
"You're done now." Rin told him nonchalantly after a few seconds of ceased movement.
 
 
 
She slid down off the stool with a gentle grunt and turned, facing front. Hideaki's eyes spotted a sliver of minty green running down the front of her crotch. Emi must have forgotten to zip up Rin's pants the last time she went to the bathroom. Rin was about to step towards the canvas to slide it around when she took notice of where his eyes were focused.
 
"This is an inconvenience." she said, looking around the room as if Emi would suddenly appear out of thin air.
 
Hideaki clammed up for fear of saying something stupid and nearly jumped when her eyes rose up to meet his.
 
"Will you do me a favor?" she asked, stepping forward. "My usual helper is absent."
 
Presented with this situation, Hideaki wasn't sure what to do. He wanted to help her, but this felt very awkward and wrong. What if she found out he was, in fact, a he and not a she? Though with her current state of ignorance, he didn't really stand a chance with her unless she happened to be of the lesbian persuasion. What a puzzling circumstance. Hideaki knelt down, his eyes level with Rin's stomach. He felt like his whole body was shaking, but it wasn't nearly as obvious as he thought. His slender fingers closed around the brass zipper and gingerly tugged it upwards, sealing away her secret garden. There. That wasn't so hard.
 
"Thank you. I would normally ask my friend to do it for me, but she must be off running somewhere." Rin explained.
 
Raising back up, Hideaki stood next to her, facing the painting.
 
Hideaki went pale when he saw what she had produced. Surprisingly detailed, the painting portrayed a woman that was supposed to be him, wearing his outfit standing in a field with wispy clouds above and flowers that grew up to her knees below. It took quite a few liberties with his facial structure and chest, but it still was well done.
 
"I like it." he said, complimenting her skills more than the content itself.
 
He was still impressed with how she managed to paint such a picture using her feet. Wait, "managed to"? She did it as naturally as anyone born with both arms could have. Then a realization started coming together in his mind. The reason why he felt comfort around her began to take shape. Looking at the painting, he began to go back in his memory to early days of childhood. Shizune was only around 10 or 11. In her room, Shizune grinned with glee, pinning him to the floor by the wrists. His chicken wing-like arms unable to lift her off of himself, he had been beaten.
 
"No!" he cried in protest.
 
Shizune held up one of her old dresses that she grew out of. This same scene played out many times before, yet he felt helpless to stop it. He backed away until he bumped into the bed. She held it up to him, inspecting him before grabbing the pad and scribbling something on it. Hideaki trembled as she turned it around and pointed to it with an expectant look on her face. "Put this on." it read.
 
"I don't want to!" Hideaki pleaded, nearly at the edge of tears.
 
Shizune crossed her arms and stood towering over her younger brother. There was nowhere for him to escape to.
 
"Ok..." he whimpered in defeat.
 
He wrote on the pad below her, "ok", to which Shizune grinned in victory.
 
A few minutes later, Shizune knocked on the door.
 
"N-not yet! I'm still getting dressed!" Hideaki yelled.
 
Shizune of course couldn't hear him, only knocking to let him know that he was taking too long. Hideaki opened the door a few seconds later, looking down in shame. Shizune however, smiled in pure delight. The torture wasn't over, however, because she had another outfit for him to try on. As she got closer to him, his eyes were fixed on her hands. THOSE HANDS. He now remembered a month-long phase where the sight of her hands terrified him to where he had to look away whenever they came into view.
 
 
 
Now he realized why he felt safe around Rin. Hideaki laughed to himself over it. Thankfully his fear faded over time. He didn't know how he'd be able to deal with watching his sister sign if his phobia had never gone away. But then, was the entire reason for liking this girl just because of a memory that was buried in subconscious? No, there had to be more. She seemed like someone whose inner wheels were too busy turning to be mean-spirited or judgmental to him.
 
 
Rin glanced out the window to the kids below. It was a forage of activity. From snowball fights to igloo-building. Hideaki spotted a dark-skinned girl in braids building a snowman with some friends coming over to help her. Suddenly he got an idea.
 
 
"Have you ever made a snow angel?" Hideaki asked, his eyes lighting up.
 
"What's a snow angel?" replied Rin.
 
Hideaki was beaming.
 
"Come on! I'll show you!" he said, pacing towards the door.
 
 
Filled with an unadulterated joy that only someone young and innocent knows, Hideaki couldn't wait to get outside. Finally he felt like he was in charge of something as he led her to the front door. A cold breeze crept in as he opened it for her and held it open in a chivalrous gesture, his back firmly planted against the metal bar running across the door.
 
 
Rin's teeth chattered as she wandered into the cold, wet snow. Hideaki took her by the stump gently and walked her back onto the salted sidewalk. His eyes scanned the area for a clear place where they would have room.
 
"Over there!" he cried, pointing in a westward direction.
 
 
The two traversed the snow-dusted sidewalk, dodging a few students as Hideaki picked up the pace. He felt a warmth inside his heart as he quickly headed over to the flat space, almost breaking into a run while holding onto Rin with his arm behind her back.
 
 
"Here we are." he proclaimed.
 
"Is here any better than there?" Rin said, looking across the sidewalk to the other side.
 
Hideaki didn't really have an answer. They looked about the same. He just favored this side for some reason. The two of them stood in the cold, neither one of them saying a word. The cheerful laughter of a group of students in the distance carried over to where they were.
 
"Now what?" Rin asked.
 
"First we sit down." Hideaki instructed.
 
He threw himself backwards into the snow.
 
"Then we lay in the snow." he continued.
 
Rin followed suit and turned her head, waiting for the next step. Hideaki began moving his arms and legs in concert.
 
"Now you have to move your arms and legs at the same time apart and back together." he told her.
 
Rin was confused since she was missing half the required limbs to do what he asked, but she started awkwardly kicking her legs like a frog in an attempt to try it. She watched him continue making his snow angel and restarted, mimicking his movements. Hideaki closed his eyes, the smile not leaving his face. Rin began slowly moving her stumps until she got comfortable with the motion and sped it up. She began to smile as well and Hideaki laughed. He wished he could stay forever like this, making snow angels with this wonderfully strange girl.
 
"That should do it." he said after a full minute had passed of working in the snow, and sat up.
 
Brushing himself off, Hideaki rose up and then Rin did the same. Hideaki stepped back and Rin came up behind his left shoulder, looking down at the formation in the snow. The sky had become fully clouded now.
 
"There are our angels!" he exclaimed.
 
Rin compared the two and saw why they had the name. Her eyes rested on her's and she frowned.
 
"I can't fly with those wings." she said in an exasperated voice.
 
Hideaki thought for a second before the words came to him that he hoped would best win her over.
 
"It doesn't matter what size their wings are, angels can fly because of the size of their heart." he improvised after mustering the courage.
 
The sentence didn't really make sense, but it sounded like something nice to say to him. A few stray snowflakes began to tumble between their faces from the gray sky above.
 
"Are you saying I'm an angel?" Rin asked.
 
Hideaki froze. Before he could answer, a loud shout rang out towards them.
 
 
 
"Hideaki!" called Jigoro. "It's time to leave."
 
"I-I have to go." Hideaki said, stuttering nervously.
 
He quickly retreated, looking back for a flash before joining Jigoro.
 
The mountain of a man looked off into the distance at the armless girl and then took his son by the arm down the concrete walkway.
 
 
Most of the other students had gone. Rin stepped back into the snow angel and lowered herself on her back again. She closed her eyes and let the snowflakes gather on her eyelashes. She felt like she could've went to sleep right there. Some crunching sounds in the snow interrupted her rested state.
 
 
"Rin! Why aren't you wearing a coat? You're going to get sick!" Emi scolded her.
 
Rin sat up and looked past Emi, who gave her a look of disapproval, to Jigoro and Hideaki.
 
"This boy was showing me what a snow angel was. I thought they'd be much taller." Rin explained.
 
"Why didn't you tell me you were going outside?" Emi asked, shaking her head.
 
"Do you think snow falls up in Heaven since it falls down here?" Rin asked.
 
A snowflake landed on Rin's nose and she tried to blow it off.
 
"Come on, we've got to get you inside." Emi told her, bringing her up.