Until It Snows

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It was a rather gloomy house. The gate had already halfway fallen apart and was very narrow due to the overgrown vegetation. The stepping stones were covered in moss, making the entranceway even gloomier and darker. There was no nameplate.

The woman who came out of the house was around forty years old and dressed in typical housewife attire: a sweater, skirt, and white socks.

Iwako asked her for Oba.

“Come in,” said the woman. “He’s waiting for ya.”

She spoke casually and made no attempt at faking a smile, but her expression was friendly. She seemed very accustomed to welcoming and entertaining guests.

The house was bitterly cold and dank. It must have been quite old. The hallway was dim, and the rooms with sliding doors appeared to be empty. The hallway floor was hair-raisingly chilly.

The woman suddenly took a left at the end of the hallway.

“Here we are…” She got on her knees and called out to the person in the room, “Your guest has arrived.”

She carefully opened the darkened sliding door with both hands.

Oba was sitting next to the window. After the woman left, Iwako took off her coat and said, “Sorry I’m late… Were you waiting long?”

Iwako always spoke quietly. People often told her so at the fabric shop where she worked in Azuchimachi, Osaka. Nevertheless, her voice was perfectly audible, so nobody found it particularly bothersome. Her already quiet voice became even quieter when she spoke to Oba.

“No, not at all. Don’t worry about it,” he calmly assured her, although Iwako still thought he’d probably been waiting a while.

“It’s quite dark in here…”

“Yeah, but they feed you well. This is my second time, so trust me. I’ll make sure you’re satisfied.”

Oba was a fifty-one-year-old man, but his voice was strong and full of life. Maybe it was from all the Noh chanting he did. Iwako was invited to a Noh meetup once before, but…

“Please. Anything but that,” she’d declined. Oba had apparently been learning tea ceremony with his wife, but Iwako didn’t do that, either.

“Sorry I’m so uncultured,” she once told him.

“Liking tea ceremony doesn’t make you cultured. Truly refined women like to have fun—like you,” Oba joked. “In fact, it’s not just women. Having the leeway to take the time to enjoy yourself is what makes anyone refined.”

“Well, I’m already forty-six. I’m sure all people are like this when they’re this old.”

“Not at all. You would think that, but it’s actually quite unusual. If you go to the red-light district, it becomes all about money, and amateurs are bound by the shackles of convention…”

“Ha-ha-ha.”

“So no, Iwako, you’re one in a million. There’s no one else like you.”

Iwako had been spending time with Oba for the past year, but her heart still hadn’t stopped racing whenever she was around him. Every time she saw him, she would be too shy to meet his eyes for the first few minutes. Whenever Oba looked at her fondly, she’d stare at the ground as tears began to well in her eyes. It was happiness mixed with bashfulness. She got so excited that she could hardly breathe and so nervous that she would start feeling dizzy. Iwako would even start regretting coming over to see him. That’s how much of a mess she became around him. Her skin would slowly flush crimson as well.

Iwako looked slender because she knew how to dress and carry herself, yet she was actually a heavy woman. Her smooth, luscious skin, white as porcelain, glowed coyly whenever she was around Oba.

Oba pulled her closer.

“…But what about that woman?” Iwako whispered.

“Don’t worry about her. She’s very slow. Everything here is done in slow motion,” he replied with a laugh. “Anyway, I need to warm you up before you get colder.”

There was a single small portable heater in the room and nothing else. It was a very traditional house in that way.

Oba’s lean, muscular body didn’t have an ounce of fat on it. He was quite tall and brawny for a man his age. “I always used to be bigger than the others, but kids nowadays are all really tall,” he once told Iwako.

How does he always make me feel this way? Iwako wondered in admiration as she leaned into Oba’s tight embrace. The way he held her and the soft lips that fell upon her like warm snow were perfect. She fit perfectly, and that didn’t just mean physically. Oba seemed to fit into the framework of her life like a missing puzzle piece. His body was hard, but his arms, tongue, and lips always felt so soft to her. It didn’t feel like the body of a man—more like the steaming warmth of life. Iwako thought of his body as a sigh of satisfaction gently wrapping around her.

No other man had ever made her feel this way. Before she met Oba, she was with a thirty-eight or thirty-nine-year-old named Kuno.

Iwako had been doing accounting work for her fabric shop for over a decade. Around thirty to forty people worked there, and while the pay wasn’t great, it was a very homey establishment. Everyone thought that Iwako, who looked very plain and reserved, was just a bland middle-aged woman. Even her older sister probably thought she was this gloomy spinster who had lost her chance of ever getting married.

And yet Iwako had this innate quality that only certain highly skilled men could somehow sense. That was how the playboy named Kuno came into her life.

Iwako was fastidious about dating these men who noticed this quality of hers and approached her—and no one else. She had zero interest in ever getting married; simply fooling around with men was very fulfilling.

I want to keep dating until I’m seventy or eighty…

Iwako was happy to pursue romantic endeavors even in old age. Men were something of a hobby of hers.

“I knew it… You’re exactly how I imagined you’d be,” Kuno whispered with deep satisfaction after the first time they’d slept together.

“Oh? And what do you mean by that?”

“Your skin. The first time we met, I thought your skin was so beautiful. Plus, there’s the sounds you make.”

“Sounds?”

“Yeah, the way you moan is so dirty.”

“…Nobody’s ever told me that before.”

“That’s ’cause they’re a bunch of naive fools. You gotta be smart to pick up on how you sound when you moan.”

“I wasn’t trying to sound dirty…”

“It’s a good thing. Your voice really makes the imagination run wild… You’re not like other women. Something about you really stirs a man’s carnal desires. All men have filthy minds deep down…”

“I’ve never been especially popular, though…”

“Psh, don’t lie to me. You’re too much of a freak in bed for me to believe that. Your kinkiness has flavor, like it’s been simmering in a pot for a long time.”

Kuno was a genuine idiot, but Iwako kind of liked that he could smell the freak on her and how he used the phrase carnal desires. Nonetheless, he was a player and quite shallow, so Iwako almost instantly got bored with him. He lacked flavor. She wanted to tell him to come back after he simmered in the pot a little longer.

“Some people can’t see the forest for the trees,” as the saying goes. Too much fooling around would become a drag and eventually cause Iwako to lose sight of her womanly desires—although perhaps that was simply the natural way of things (something that became clear to her when she compared other men with Oba).

Talking to Kuno had bored Iwako out of her skull. He didn’t have a single good trait outside of the sack; he was just a fidgety guy who worked at a small print and copy shop in town.

Kuno would fidget and talk about what was happening on the inside at some religious organization—all secondhand info, too. His mother and wife had joined this group, and Kuno ended up eventually joining as well to get more work. He constantly complained about the leader, and Iwako quickly lost interest in Kuno, who probably thought he was doing her a favor by sleeping with her.

Ugh, I can’t deal with this…

Iwako, meanwhile, had already mentally checked out of their affair and soon ended things. Kuno was vaguely handsome with his wire-framed glasses and had sort of a bad-boy appeal, which he seemed aware of. Iwako liked that about him.

Nevertheless, no man’s charms were any match for Oba’s. Iwako was currently infatuated with him, head over heels. Oba worked for a lumber company in Kyoto, and Iwako used to travel to Kyoto from time to time to learn flower arrangement. That was where she met him, at a flower arrangement workshop. He had been with his wife that day.

“She dragged me here,” he said.

Oba’s wife wore glasses, and her cheeks were plump and beautifully fair. They seemed to have a loving marriage. This workshop was in Kyoto, a major city, so there were plenty of male attendees, young and old alike. Iwako kept going to Kyoto at her teacher’s insistence, but the workshop started getting in the way of her job, so she ended up dropping out. Iwako was never planning on teaching flower arrangement, nor was she interested in using a flower arranging diploma as a tool for marriage. She was only learning it for her own enjoyment, which was why she was free to start and quit whenever she wanted.

“You’re not coming by anymore? It’s going to be lonely without you,” said Oba. They’d exchanged pleasantries over the past year that Iwako had been attending the workshop: Good evening. Sure is hot today. Chilly out there, isn’t it?

That was the extent of their relationship, until…

“I hope I get to see you again,” Oba said tenderly to Iwako and immediately took her hands in his.

It was cold that day, but Iwako wasn’t wearing gloves. She thought his hands were extremely warm. His large, manly fingers wrapped around hers; it was the first time Iwako had ever experienced such a thing. No one had ever held her hands in theirs like this, even the men she slept with.

He’s so soft and gentle, she thought. Oba clung to her like some otherworldly mollusk. He’s perfect. The perfect fit.

Nevertheless, Iwako still didn’t consider having a relationship with him at that time. After a year went by, she suddenly got a call from Oba saying that he was in Osaka. He apparently had some business to take care of in Yokobori, so they met in southern Osaka. That night was when it all began. They started meeting up once a month or three times every two months after that but never spent the night together. This went on for a year and a half. There’s the storied cliché that “every day felt like a dream,” but that was precisely how Iwako felt.

Her public life as “the clerk from Yamatake Fabrics” involved years and years of going to the bank, calculating bills, and bookkeeping. There was another seasoned accountant in the department who was related to the CEO, so Iwako didn’t have any big responsibilities. She would even make tea for her coworkers and clean the shop. Reserved though she was, Iwako came across as friendly, so customers seemed to like her and consider her a nice lady.

Iwako always wore her hair the same way, used the same old bag, ate lunch that she made herself, and took the subway to and from work. She lived in a cheap, privately managed apartment in Sagisu and always bought one lottery ticket at a time, which the convenience store staff knew she put in her wallet. Iwako never seemed bothered by working overtime and would enjoy her favorite kitsune udon that the company bought for everyone, slurping up every last drop of broth. Once she was finished eating, she would collect everyone’s bowls and wash them in the breakroom; she was very helpful in every sense of the word. The fabric shop sometimes hired young women who would normally end up getting married or finding a different job, making Iwako the only permanent presence—a very soothing one to both employees and customers alike.

So when the bank teller called for the clerk from Yamatake Fabrics and Iwako responded, nobody was able to tell how rich her life was, that every day felt like a dream to her.

Whenever Iwako thought about making love with Oba (she preferred the term make love to sex like people called it nowadays because it seemed more accurate to their relationship), she felt as if she were drowning in a sea of melancholic joy. She became acutely aware of her womb, like how a person can feel the path a drink of cold water takes as it slides through their body. Just like how Iwako got her first period early, she started menopause early, or at least she’d forgotten when she’d last had her period beginning the year prior. And forgetting was the perfect thing for her. She’d even started forgetting that she used to menstruate at all.

Iwako secretly believed this was the best part of her life, so she didn’t get sentimental about menopause. In fact, she likely didn’t care one bit about having a uterus. Iwako was aware of her womb not as a physical object, but as female life itself.

It was the core to a woman’s life and proof of her being.

Every time she recalled the excitement that making love with Oba brought her, it felt as if a powerful, warm liquid drug was quietly passing through her body. She had no idea if they were going to break up, but the mere thought of having met such a wonderful man was enough to satisfy her. Of course, Iwako had no desire of ever marrying Oba, and she liked that he similarly had no interest in marriage. His relationship with his wife was going well, and he had balance in his life, which Iwako liked, too. She cared about him being married as much as she cared about people at the bank calling her the clerk from Yamatake Fabrics for the past decade or so. It didn’t matter to her. It was simply another part of her day, like transferring and depositing money.

“Can I open a window?” Iwako asked quietly.

Just like a kiss that could melt ice, Iwako had opened herself up to Oba but still felt shy at first whenever they met, as if she’d never done any of this before.

“There’s never any ‘to be continued’ with you. It always comes to an end, then the next time I see you, it’s a fresh start,” Oba had once told her.

Iwako herself wondered why she was like this, yet she nonetheless continued to struggle with the unbearable shyness that always came with seeing him.

“It’s cold,” Oba replied, but he still opened the paper sliding window for her.

Looming behind the cedar and cypress trees was Arashiyama. The sky was gray, and the trees changing color here and there on the dreary, dark-green mountain surface looked like the stripes of a tiger.

“We came to the coldest place in Kyoto at the coldest time of the year,” Oba said with a chuckle, but Iwako didn’t mind the chill. She remembered hearing something about sharpening swords with winter’s coldest water to make them shine like a mirror, and it reminded her of the chilly Kyoto winters: punishingly cold, but nonetheless lovely.

“Your tea…,” said the woman from earlier. It really did take her a long time to bring the tea, just like Oba said it would. She had steamed wheat buns with her as well.

After she left, Iwako said, “These are from Fuuka, aren’t they? The little shop on Sawaragicho Street.”

“Yeah, they’re the sweet buns they wrap in those bamboo leaves. Do you like them?” Oba asked.

“I love them.”

After removing the bamboo leaf, she slid the smooth bun into her mouth; it was moist and subtly sweet. As she relished the elegant taste, she rolled up the bamboo leaf and said, “This smells so wonderful, too…”

“It’s bamboo from deep in Kurama. Apparently, you can’t get leaves that look as pretty and smell as good as these anywhere else.”

There didn’t seem to be anyone in the house; it was silent except for the occasional passing car heading toward Matsuo.

“This restaurant didn’t even have a sign outside.”

“Yeah, they don’t accept unfamiliar customers. You need a regular to introduce you before you can eat here. And there’s just two tables. They apparently use only what they’ve got inside the house. You can even spend the night, too. They fill the bath in the afternoon. It’s an ancient bath, probably haunted.”

“What kind of people come here?”

“Folks like us, plus the occasional celebrity, apparently. Kyoto’s a big town, though. There are tons of places like this.”

“You sure know a lot.”

“About Kyoto?”

“About the women you bring here.”

“You’re the only one, Iwako. I’ve told you that countless times.”

“And I wanted to hear you say it again, so I’ll keep on bringing it up.”

“You’re so cute,” Oba teased before checking his watch. “You must be hungry, right?”

“I am, but I’m all right waiting if the food’s going to be that good.”

“I know I need to relax while we’re here, but it’s just a habit of mine. Can’t help but constantly check my watch when things are this slow.”

Oba was a relatively laid-back, calm man, but even he would get antsy every so often. The service here really was moving in slow motion.

“Are you okay for time?” Iwako asked, worried.

“Yeah, I’m fine today. No hurry at all. I’m sure you were really busy today, though.”

Iwako had been working half days on Saturdays lately, so if they were going to meet in Kyoto, it had to be on a Saturday. Oba didn’t go out at night or on Sundays.

“I already had plans with someone earlier, so this worked out perfectly,” said Iwako.

Last night, Iwako’s older sister called her about a potential husband she wanted to set Iwako up with. She told her sister she had no intention of getting married.

“Come on, let’s not get ahead of ourselves,” her sister chided. “At least listen to what I have to say before you shut me down. Be grateful when people try to show you a little kindness.” Then she asked, “Can I at least show you a picture of him?”

“Sorry, but I don’t think that’s going to change my mind.”

“I’ll get us a seat at a café near your work tomorrow, so meet me after you’re done for the day.”

Her sister didn’t even wait for a reply, so Iwako had no choice but to meet up with her. She tried to decline without upsetting her sister.

“He’s a regular at my hubby’s factory. Lost his wife last year. He lives with his mother and two daughters now, but both daughters are about to get married, so I figured you might as well marry the guy. It sure beats getting old alone. Plus, he’s rich.”

“I don’t need money, and I’m not worried about growing old alone, either. Besides, I plan on putting myself in a home whenever I get too old to move anyway.”

“You can’t be serious.”

“I’m very self-centered. There’s no way I’d to be able to move in with someone and make compromises. Sorry, Sis.”

“So, it’s a no, huh? Shame. I really thought he’d make a good match for you. He’s fifty-three. His blood pressure’s a little high, but he’s in good health for the most part.”

“I can’t even cook or anything like that. I just wouldn’t make a good wife,” Iwako had claimed, putting an end to the conversation.

Iwako actually liked to cook, and she wasn’t against doing chores around the house from time to time, but she wasn’t interested in doing any of that for anyone else. She never even entertained the idea of bringing Oba back to her apartment. In fact, the thought of cooking dinner for him and making him miso soup in the morning never crossed her mind. She wasn’t going to pretend to be someone’s wife or engage in any marital traditions.

Iwako’s sister tried to emphasize how she should worry about her future, but Iwako had received some inheritance money when their father passed away. She’d been investing that money wisely, so her savings hadn’t diminished in the slightest. One of the men in accounting at her job loved talking about stocks and making money, and he always shared what he knew with her, so Iwako learned how to invest properly. She took out a loan for an apartment in Osaka’s Higashi Ward, which she was renting out. She was out almost all day, so she wasn’t planning on ever living there herself. It was an investment to her. She never mentioned it to her siblings, though. They used to say, “You’ve saved up a small fortune. I can smell it,” but when they saw how frugally she lived, they figured she must be barely getting by on her father’s inheritance. Even her brother, who was working at a store that sold construction materials, stopped asking her to lend him money.

Truth be told, Iwako had made a killing during the huge surge in stock prices earlier that year and had doubled her financial standing. But she didn’t tell anyone that, of course. She wasn’t planning on opening a shop or doing any sort of business on her own, either. She was fine with keeping her fortune a secret and being “that clerk” for as long as Yamatake Fabrics stayed in business. Not even Oba knew about this talent of hers, although her confidence probably helped create a part of her charm.

Just like how Iwako didn’t tell Oba about her finances, she also didn’t tell him that she was constantly working on her body in every way she could. She didn’t have any real dental problems but nonetheless went to the dentist often to get her teeth cleaned and whitened. She took meticulous care of herself by frequenting saunas and massage parlors. There was nothing she could do to prevent aging, but she could dress nicely and appropriately to make it less obvious. She also had five drinks a night because she heard that sake moisturized the skin and made it glow.

However, there was something that made her skin glow more than any sake, and that something was men. A lifelong bachelorette, Iwako no longer dreamed of getting married. And with that dream gone, she felt positively liberated. Not that she would admit as much in public.

The food had finally arrived: spikenard and broiled butterfish preserved in miso, along with assorted sweet shrimp, icefish, and rock tripe as well. Then came the final dish.

“Careful, it’s hot…,” the woman warned as she placed the sea bream with turnips on the table. They were served in beautiful, heavy bowls covered in rising steam.

“This will definitely warm us up,” Oba commented in delight. “Here.”

He handed Iwako a cup. It was Kiyomizu ware, very thin and almost see-through. Then he poured her a light-gold-colored liquor, and she poured him a cup as well.

I wonder how many more times we’ll do something like this, Iwako thought as she took a sip. I could die right now and not regret a thing.

Before Kuno, Iwako had dated younger men but didn’t feel a connection with any of them, just like she hadn’t with Kuno, either. They were so young and shameless, and although Iwako liked their intensity, young men simply did nothing for her. After they did the deed, all that followed was silence as they put their clothes back on. It made her begin to wonder: What goes on in that empty head of his?

But nothing felt lacking with Oba. Iwako took a bite of her sweet shrimp, which was so cold she could feel her teeth tingle. As the flavor tickled her tongue, she shared a mirthful smile with Oba.

“…Ooh, this is delicious,” she said.

“Yeah, it really is. Reminds me of you.”

“How exactly?”

“Reminds me of how you taste…down there.”

“You’re such a pervert.”

She loved their dirty exchanges, too.

“The sake is so smooth. It was locally brewed in Fushimi.”

“There’s still food coming, right?”

“Yeah, but it’s going to be a while. It’ll come in slow waves. But we can enjoy ourselves until nighttime. Apparently, we have the room across the hall, too.”

Iwako got the feeling she was already red in the face from the alcohol and pretended she didn’t hear Oba.

“It’s really quiet here,” she commented while opening another window. The trees were in full leaf and blocking the view of the street, but it was so cold that no one was likely out sightseeing today. The freezing, cloudy sky made it look like evening had already come.

Oba looked at the hanging scroll in the alcove.

“Looks like some priest’s calligraphy,” he commented. “A lot of their calligraphy is so abstract.”

“I think it says ‘white clouds’?”

“There’s something on the bottom about Arashiyama.”

Oba said he’d practiced calligraphy once upon a time, but he hated it. He claimed it made him feel exhausted.

“I used to do a little calligraphy myself, but I felt the same way. I couldn’t relax at all. Maybe it had something to do with my inability to concentrate, but I felt like I was wasting my time trying to copy exactly how the instructor wrote. Calligraphy was actually frustrating because I’d remember all the things that annoyed me,” Iwako said, causing Oba to erupt with laughter.

“Yeah, it really does that to you for whatever reason. The only time I feel like I can do calligraphy is when I’m feeling energetic and aggressive. Know what I mean? And I definitely can’t do it if I’m thinking about you, Iwako. That’d put me in a trance. My handwriting’s still garbage, and I can’t even hold a pen properly. Doing calligraphy helped me realize how angry I can get.”

“Drawing’s different, though. I used to take a watercolor painting class and muddied up the paper however I wanted. Drawing and painting are mindless fun.”

“Maybe you’re right. I checked out a haiku meetup once, but it was brutal. Getting any good at poetry seemed like more effort than it was worth, and all the novices who sucked at it put more effort into gossiping than getting better.”

Oba also enjoyed photography and had quit playing golf. Apparently, he’d gotten so busy that all of his hobbies were on hold for the moment.

“You’re the only thing on my mind, Iwako,” he said insouciantly.

She smiled without offering a reply, instead listening carefully to those words and keeping them close to her heart. Iwako treated each meeting with Oba as if it were their last, so seeing him again always felt like a dream come true.

She secretly imagined her and Oba like a couple the night before a suicide pact and thus made sure to indulge in every pleasurable moment she spent with him. Simply meeting a man who made her feel this way made Iwako the happiest woman in the world. Their idle conversations were the icing on top.

Even after taking their time and finishing their plates, the next course still hadn’t arrived. Oba remained calm, though.

“Rushing them won’t solve anything. They can only do so much with the few people who work here.”

Iwako stood in front of the sink. The door to the room Oba had mentioned was shut, but no one appeared to be inside, so she cautiously slid it open. The room had an old-fashioned screen propped up like a partition and a futon rolled out on the floor. This was the first time she’d ever heard of a home welcoming guests so inconspicuously. After all, she usually met Oba at a hotel in the city.

The bathroom—or rather, the small lavatory where the sink was—was extremely cold. Parts of Arashiyama visible from the window sparkled white with snow. After finishing her business, Iwako randomly remembered that she had to call the real estate agent in Mino tomorrow because she’d heard that a somewhat valuable piece of property was about to go on the market. If everything checked out, she planned on purchasing it and building a house there to rent out. That said, making money would never be her dream, nor did she have any intentions of lavishing funds on a man. Money was important. And after seeing her sister working at an iron foundry, her skin rough and covered in metal powder, Iwako became convinced that money was her sole recourse.

Iwako wasn’t interested in buying a man’s affections, either. She’d already had her share of men who made the woman pay for their dates, just like the last younger man she went out with.

When it came to her finances, she didn’t even let her guard down around Oba. She never told him about her fortune. Iwako felt she might lend him some cash if he asked, but that was strictly a what if. Deep down, she knew she would never do such a thing. It wasn’t her style. She could imagine herself selling her body for cash before ever financially supporting a man. Her love for Oba was completely separate.

“Look, it’s snowing. No wonder it’s so cold.”

By the time they finished their meal and took a bath, it was already past five PM.

Oba was in his yukata when he opened the window and made that charming remark. The room with the partition was even quainter than it had seemed, and the carvings above the sliding partitions were completely black from oxidation. There was no view of the mountains; the only things visible outside were the dense trees up against the window, the snow gently falling between the branches. Evening was early this time of year.

Oba looked stunning in his yukata. He was probably used to wearing one around the house. His abs and glutes stuck out through the fabric, and tightening his sash made his yukata fit snug like a glove. Iwako was already under the covers in the futon, gazing at Oba’s backside.

Whenever they went to the hotel right by Lake Biwa or the Royal Hotel in Osaka, she took her time enjoying their encounter as if that were their last. Each time they did meet, it would feel like a distant memory from a past life. There was no “till death do us part.” Iwako didn’t believe that lovers were reunited in an afterlife. She felt that any bonds people had became undone when they died.

Perhaps Oba was right when he said, “There’s never any ‘to be continued’ with you. It always comes to an end, then the next time I see you, it’s a fresh start.”

Iwako shot him a sultry gaze. Her eyes were wicked, even fiendish. She loved the careful way he touched her along with his wild curiosity.

Oba slipped into the warm futon on the floor with her. As his manly hand pulled off her sash, Iwako’s heart started racing like usual, as if this were her first time all over again. She suddenly grabbed his wrist, not even knowing what she was doing herself, and tried to stop him.

“Once this right here starts fading to gray…,” Oba whispered gently above Iwako as his finger softly traced the edges of the hollow between her legs, “…that’s when the real fun starts between a man and a woman. This is where it begins. Let’s enjoy this for as long as we can, until the bitter end…”

Iwako didn’t know what tomorrow was going to bring. She found herself lying on her back, gently stripped of her yukata. Her throat became parched from the shyness this act still brought her. She felt as if she could hear the snow falling.