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Noelle finds it amusing that, whenever both Kris and Susie are involved, any plans she might’ve had for any given day get derailed spectacularly. It’s particularly funny when, in these past couple days, the two of them seem adamant about keeping her out of the computer room at all costs. Noelle hadn’t invited either of them for homework that afternoon, but she finds Susie posted up in front of the library anyway, arms crossed, her expression awkwardly determined.
Since Susie’s altercation with Noelle’s mother, she hasn’t tried to invite herself back to the Holiday mansion again. Which is a relief, in some ways, because Noelle doesn’t think she can withstand that magnitude of cold fury from her mother again so soon, but it’s an outcome that ultimately gives her heartache in other ways, because what ends up happening instead is Susie corralling her over to the cul de sac, and inviting her into Toriel’s home.
It isn’t an easy feeling, stepping into this place she has memorised top to bottom. She’s been here what feels like a million times before, but it’s not somewhere she feels entirely welcome. Anymore.
Golden wallpaper bathes the living room in a warmth so different from what she’s used to nowadays that it momentarily stuns her. Frozen in the doorway, Noelle watches Susie crash onto the couch next to Kris with a careless familiarity she hasn’t felt in this house in years.
Pulling herself from her thoughts, Noelle steps through the threshold, shutting the door behind her.
“We– we are here to do homework, aren’t we?” she prompts, somewhat hesitantly, as Susie helps herself to a slice of the pie that Kris seems to have already made a sizable dent into.
“Oh yeah, for sure.” Reclining in her seat, Susie gestures toward the last empty plate that’s been set out. “But we can’t let this pie go to waste, now, can we? Come on.”
“Oh! Well– sure, I guess. Thank you.” Noelle shuffles over, gingerly sitting herself down at the far end of the couch.
Cutting into the pie, she feels the inexplicable urge to seek Toriel out—to say proper greetings and thank her directly. If she’s being honest, sitting here entirely unannounced feels a little like a transgression.
She frowns, frustrated at her own discomfort.
Historically, announcing herself isn’t an urge Noelle ever remembers feeling here, maybe aside from the first day she ever came over. She wishes she could do away with the melancholy.
The pie is delicious. To nobody’s surprise.
The first bite makes her start to cry a little, honestly, but that isn’t something she’ll readily admit to Kris. Not unless she were feeling especially sentimental, and not unless the two of them were alone, where she’d feel marginally less hesitant to bare her heart.
There’s a part of Noelle that idly wonders when her relationship with Kris took a turn into what it is today. But the thought makes her smile somewhat bitterly, because she knows she’s fooling herself. She knows the answer.
Because here’s the thing: Noelle remembers vividly the last day she ever spent hanging out with Kris.
Four years ago, winter returned to Hometown like a promise.
All the windows of the Holidays’ mansion had fogged up overnight, distorting the streams of morning sun into a wispy sort of dappled light. Not being able to see much outside, Noelle wiped the sleeve of her coat over the glass, clearing away the condensation.
Through the foyer window, she was startled into a laugh when she spotted the short, flat-faced figure wobbling up to the veranda, bundled tight in comically thick layers of yellow and green. Noelle unlatched her front door then, swinging it open before Kris had the chance to knock.
Looking them up and down, they were dressed the way they always tended to be, on snow days: Ruddy mountain boots that looked a size too big, laced tighter to compensate. A fraying, hand-knitted muffler. Multiple wool sweaters.
Red horned headband notwithstanding, it was an ensemble entirely of pieces that once belonged to Asriel.
Not for the first time, Noelle wondered whether the colour scheme was a decision that Kris had a say in, or if they really were content enough just to latch onto their brother’s sartorial preferences. Then again, among the handful of things she and Kris shared, an overtly clingy attachment to their respective siblings was certainly one.
Noelle frowned sharply then, the budding excitement all at once wiped from her face. That was not a train of thought she wanted to follow.
Kris seemed to notice the shift, tilting their head in inquiry. Not knowing how to explain herself, Noelle said nothing, trying her best to conjure back a smile.
Her gaze fell to Kris’ left hand. In its grasp, they clutched a frayed length of hemp rope, tugging along a shoddily-built wood toboggan. It looked, frankly, like something Asriel tried to single-handedly cobble together in one of his all-encompassing fits of interest, and Noelle was sure that’s exactly what happened. The mental image almost made her laugh. The toboggan seemed a sorry thing, but one borne of love, held together by what looked like multiple rounds of nails and tape and tacky wood glue.
Noelle had never seen it before, meaning that Asriel must’ve built it… recently. That in and of itself was a bittersweet thought.
Kris’ right hand was empty. They offered it up, then, outstretched toward her in wordless invitation.
(That’s all it took, back then. Just an empty hand, as if they had no need for greetings or hellos. As if it was that easy, just for Kris to drop by and for Noelle to fall into comfort, without saying anything at all.)
Noelle took their hand, wrapping her own scarf around her neck, and stepped out into the snow.
“Where’s Azzy?” she asked, habitually.
“He has a school project.”
It felt silly that this answer surprised her. It felt worse when she realised why. Somehow, despite the chaos of the last few months, it seemed that her grief hadn’t entirely caught up to her nostalgia just yet. And Noelle had expected Kris to say that Asriel was with Dess.
Because not even a year ago, it wasn’t uncommon for Asriel to be somewhere nebulously with Dess. If anything, it had become the default assumption. Every couple of days, Noelle would come downstairs from her room to find Dess letting Asriel in—much more often than their regular group outings, and usually without Kris. He was always kind to Noelle, of course, smiling down at her and giving her a great big hug and pats on the head by way of greeting. But it was still a little disappointing to see him show up alone.
In the hazy last school days before that summer, Noelle ran in from recess with wind in her fur, and stopped dead in her tracks when she spotted Asriel with a group of the older kids, gossiping furiously by the lockers. She couldn’t help but overhear them ribbing him.
She couldn’t help but overhear them teasing him about his girlfriend.
He accidentally met Noelle’s gaze, then, and from across the lengthened hallway, Asriel seemed briefly panicked to notice her presence. Then his expression shifted, and he looked resigned. Then sheepish, as if accepting that he’d been found out. Herding his unruly friends back into Gerson’s classroom, he simply gave Noelle a shy, mortified smile.
That afternoon, Noelle came home to a locked gate and oncoming rain. So she turned right and knocked on Toriel’s door, and was welcomed in to the sight of Kris munching on freshly-baked pie, their eyes locked on the TV.
She clambered onto the couch, tucking into her own slice. As soon as Toriel left the room, Noelle leaned in closer to Kris, until they were shoulder to shoulder, and prodded at them gently with the dull end of her fork. “Hey, Kris.”
Through a hilariously large mouthful of pie, they managed a hum of, “Mhm?”
“Have you ever… like liked anyone?”
At that, Kris didn’t say anything, but they grew wide-eyed, turning to face her mid-chew. It seemed, suddenly, like only just then did Noelle have their full attention, and the noise of the TV dissolved around them into a background hum.
Noelle barrelled on, not acknowledging the shift. “Kris, you know. Just today, some of the older kids were talking about Azzy’s– they were talking about Azzy’s girlfriend. That’s– they were talking about Dess, weren’t they?”
The TV sounds returned.
Kris’ face scrunched up into—somehow—the exact visual representation of the word eugh, and Noelle laughed brightly, making no notice of the moment shattering.
“I wonder when they started dating!”
Another eugh.
“Kris, have you ever thought about what it’s like to have a girlfriend? It seems like, it’d be a lot of fun, right?”
When it was clear Kris wasn’t going to reply, Noelle continued, “What if I could be your girlfriend, Kris?”
And finally, they spoke, “What does that make me?”
“You can be, um,” Noelle sifted through numerous memories of Kris yipping and barking, or howling pathetically like a kicked dog, and for a moment, her mind landed briefly on puppy, before the thought made her dissolve into a quiet fit of laughter. Recovering quickly, she decided, “You can be my sweetie.”
With a pleased smile, Kris shoved another huge forkful of pie into their mouth. Noelle won’t notice until much, much later, but the noise of the room quietened once more into a hazy silence when Kris answered, “Sure.”
When Noelle continued to hold onto Kris’ hand through the snow, she walked out of the Holidays’ estate with a sense of conflicted pride. It was the sort of feeling she coveted, because it meant she must be a big kid, just like Asriel. It was the sort of feeling she dreaded, because it meant she must be a big kid. Like Dess.
(Thinking back about it now sends a hot flush up Noelle’s cheeks, because Angel knows neither of them fully understood it at all, back then—not the grief of losing family, and certainly not what it means to be in a relationship.)
But they ran off on their own, that day, and Noelle got to forget for a while that the forests around Hometown were emptier now. Because word got around that last night’s snowfall piled up high by the north-east lake, and Kris was pulling along a cruddy sled that Asriel made, and just for right now, everything was alright.
The lakeshore grounds were full to brimming when they arrived. A group of parents had already claimed their spot at the picnic tables, chatting over bright pink plastic thermoses of hot tea and keeping only cursory watch over their kids, running up and around the trodden snow slopes, screaming and cackling.
Noelle shot Kris an uncertain glance. It seemed like the snow had summoned all of Hometown to the lake. Noelle knew Kris to be a creature of chaos, but all this crowding and bustle wasn’t quite their flavour. Being honest, it wasn’t hers either.
As if reading her mind, Kris squeezed her hand tighter, speaking in a mock-whisper, “Noelle, this sucks.”
It startled a laugh out of her.
“Let’s go somewhere else,” they decided, before turning tail and leading her away.
People hardly ever acknowledged it, but there existed another park in Hometown. Sort of. Located way past the police station and farther west down the street out of town, it was the product of an overzealous city planning and zoning commission that clearly assumed Hometown’s development would sprawl out further than it actually did.
Horrendously incompetent, was what Noelle overheard her mother saying about them, once. But that seemed to be something of a norm within matters of government, didn’t it? She didn’t think much of it.
The point was, nobody ever used the second park. Frankly, consisting only of a pretty barebones clearing in the forest and a swingset, it hardly seemed like a park at all.
Noelle had never been there. But Asriel talked about it sometimes.
Saying there weren’t even any tables or benches.
Saying the commission tried to plant it with meadow bluegrass like a giant suburban lawn, but failed so miserably that the field was now all moss and lichen and bare dirt, and that it was all the more beautiful for it.
Saying he took Kris there sometimes—when home got too loud, and when there were things he’d rather they didn’t have to listen to anymore.
Noelle had never been there. Because it belonged to Asriel and Kris.
(She didn’t understand it at the time, but the park’s physical distance away from Hometown was a balm to them. It was a place they used to soothe frustration, and confusion, and grief. In hindsight, the timing of Kris’ invitation into such a sacred space makes a sad sort of sense. The sort of gift a desperate child would offer another desperate child.)
The crowd thinned as Kris led Noelle further west. Noelle watched the warm, colourful glow of holiday lights strung up on the houses they passed, until the distance between buildings staggered out, and abruptly, the town gave way to an unbroken treeline, bare of leaves.
The cacophony of voices dissolved away. Ahead of them, Noelle knew, was Hometown’s bus stop, then even farther out, the gas station. They were not quite outside of town yet, but this was close enough to the limit that the forest brought with it too many, too recent fears, all at once. Noelle gripped Kris’ hand tighter.
“Kris,” she started, “Umm–” Should we really be out here?
(She could’ve asked them to turn back. She could’ve assured them that she didn’t mind that much, playing by the lake where it was overcrowded and stifling and too loud. She doesn’t know what stayed her hand. Whether it was a desire to go on adventures in the forest again, or a general longing for things to just go back to normal already, she doesn’t know.
All she knows is that she didn’t ask Kris to turn back.)
What she said instead was, “How much farther is the other park, anyway?”
With the hand still clutching the toboggan’s rope, Kris pointed to a pair of brass-brown lamp posts in the middle distance, marking out a break in the treeline. “Just over there,” they said, voice suspiciously too-flat. “We can see it already.”
Then they turned to Noelle, with a barely tamped down expression of mischief like trying to push down a horrible grin—the selfsame expression they wore while lunging out from underneath Noelle’s bed, and just before ripping out their heart. In that split-second, a great wave of foreboding washed over Noelle, and in the next, Kris shot her a glance as if to say, Race you there!
They broke into a sprint. Their right hand unclasped from Noelle’s left, and all at once, the cold started to seep in faster.
“Kris! Kris, wait!”
All around them, snow started falling again.
The fact of the matter was, nobody liked talking about December Holiday.
Missing posters of her grinning face haunted the walls of Hometown like an omen, and Father Alvin once invited the congregation to pray for her return. People treated the Holidays with softer voices and kid gloves, for a while. But her name went unmentioned, for the most part.
On her more morbid days, Noelle wondered if her sister’s body lay somewhere in the woods, unmoving and grown over with fungus in the world’s loneliest open-air grave, without even vultures to keep it company.
On more desperate days she imagined Dess had somehow survived, and wondered what kind of life she must be leading now, as a lone teenager in a world that seemed so incredibly vast outside the confines of Hometown. She wondered if Dess ever made it to the big city.
Noelle wasn’t sure which of the two scenarios she preferred. And then hated herself for thinking that way.
Because of course the better outcome was if Dess were still alive. Of course the better outcome was if Dess were still out there—lost, but able to be found. Yet on her most selfish days, Noelle would get angry, thinking about the possibility that her sister was still alive, but had chosen to leave her behind.
Nobody really knew. Nobody really talked about December Holiday.
All anyone knew was that she was last seen a little beyond where the treeline started, adventuring in the forest far south, by the old shelter near the church. Noelle knew it was so far away from here, right now—a completely different side of town from where she now chased after Kris, further and further west. But snowflakes settled on the fur on her face, and the distant lamp posts started to blur through the mist in her eyes. And all forests tended to look the same, under the cover of clouds.
Just as it started to feel like Kris, too, was growing ever out of reach, the distance between them closed. Kris’ wild laughter resounded through the cold air, whizzing past Noelle’s ears as she overtook them.
By the time they reached the lamp posts, it was Kris who was lagging behind, pulling up in a half-jog with a lopsided smile on their face.
“I won,” they announced, tongue-in-cheek.
“Wha– No, you didn’t! I won!” Noelle protested, completely forgetting she didn’t care. “Kris!!”
She battered at their shoulder as they cackled on, and scolded them again, “Don’t do that!”
Standing there at the side of the road, there was no park in sight. Instead, the twin lamp posts marked the start of what seemed like a subtle hiking trail into the forest. The sky was still overcast, but Noelle could see clearer now that she’d come down from the adrenaline spike, and she saw that there was a trail of these park lamps, shining through the trees—probably all the way down the path.
Still, Noelle didn’t dare take the first step.
That’s when Kris gestured toward their toboggan, saying simply, “Hop on.”
And Noelle did so, sitting with her legs crossed and holding on tight as Kris heaved the rope over their shoulder and started to walk.
The snowfall started to come faster, and Noelle found herself trying to catch some of the snowflakes on her tongue, the way Kris liked making her do, betting that they could easily catch twice as many as she could. Half the time, those competitions ended with Kris shoving snow into their mouth that was already sitting on the ground—sometimes laced with muddy boot tracks or dry grass. It was so disgusting, Noelle could hardly ever look at them whenever they did this, but when they’d get yelled at to spit it out, they’d just let the spit-soaked snow fall out of their mouth into their hands, and it would get mixed into the next snowball they’d throw, and that was much worse.
It was strange.
Not even a year ago, it might’ve been both of them on a sled like this, Noelle’s hands braced on Kris’ shoulders as they both looked on at Asriel and Dess taking turns pulling them down to the lake. In comparison, Kris’ stature just seemed so small.
Noelle kept her eyes on their back as they walked. Pace by pace, they passed by park lamp after park lamp, all of them entirely undecorated by garlands or holiday fanfare of any sort. Yet in an odd way, it made the forest path seem more like a perfect winter wonderland. Their only accompaniment was the steady glide of wood planks over snow, and the gently crunching rhythm of Kris’ footsteps.
“Hey, Kris? You go here with Asriel, right?” Noelle asked quietly, already knowing the answer.
Looking over their shoulder, Kris gave an impassive nod.
“Do you– go here a lot?”
Another nod.
Putting her arms around her knees, Noelle laid her head down. “I can see why you like it. It’s really pretty out here.”
Kris turned away again, at that.
“It would be nice if Azzy were here too right now, huh?” Because then, things might be just a little closer to normal.
But Kris refuted—with a smile in their voice that Noelle could hear—saying, “That’s okay. This is ours now.”
The trail was quite a lot longer than Noelle initially expected, but eventually they did reach its end—this side too, marked by twin lamp posts at the mouth. The path opened up to a charming clearing in the forest that was somehow simultaneously exactly and not at all like what Noelle imagined from Asriel’s descriptions of the place.
For one, the empty space was much larger than she’d assumed—large enough for maybe half a track field; large enough that enough snow had piled on overnight to serve as Kris and Noelle’s very own private version of the sledding hill by the lake.
In one corner sat a swing set, and this matched the image in her head precisely. It held only two cruddy red plastic swings, hung on metal chains. Kris stopped right in front of it, slowing the toboggan to a halt before finally letting the rope slip from their fingers. They headed toward the left-side swing, almost out of habit, before stopping themself, seeming indecisive.
Their gaze scanned over the white vista, and Noelle followed their eyeline to the snowy field.
Almost unsure, Kris asked, “Do you want to make snow angels?”
Their expression was so wary, it broke Noelle’s heart a little. But their words were an ice bath, and the reminder of Dess crashed over her in tidal waves.
She put on her very best smile, “No, that’s okay Kris.” Quieter, “I’m okay.”
For a moment, an unreadable look flitted across Kris’ face, before equalising back to that steady, familiar deadpan. They moved to swipe away the piled-up snow from the left-side swing, before plopping themself down.
Kris’ body language—a little more open than usual—made it pretty clear to Noelle that she was welcome to claim the right-side swing whenever she wanted, but they didn’t push to actively invite her. She knew what they meant, though. It’s just that she didn’t really feel like it, yet.
Instead of getting up, Noelle reclined on the toboggan, just listening to the steady creaking of metal against metal as Kris swung slowly, back and forth.
“Hey, Kris?”
“Mhm?”
“This holiday, can I still come over to your place? We can still hang out, right? You, me, and Azzy?”
“Yeah.”
It was the answer she wanted. It wasn’t an answer she necessarily believed.
“What do you do, anyway? Fahaha, just sit out here on the swings for hours?”
Kris raised an eyebrow.
“Well, I wouldn’t blame you actually. That seems… kind of nice.”
“We do. Normally. Sit on the swings.”
“Oh.”
“But we could go sled if you want.”
“Gosh, right now? You just sat down.”
Kris gave Noelle a wry sort of smile. “So you want me to just sit out here on the swings for hours?”
“Wh– That’s not what I–! Kris!” An embarrassed flush crept up Noelle’s neck
“Come on,” they decided, taking mercy on her. “Let’s go sledding.”
(And the thing is, it’s interesting. If anyone were to ask Noelle nowadays what it was she and Kris talked about, during their many, many trips up and down the little snow hill that day, she honestly couldn’t say. She doesn’t recall what words exchanged between them, remembering only the certainty that they did talk, and they talked for hours.
It might’ve been about school, or games, or how Kris should come over to play the piano again. They might have argued about why some trees are evergreen, or why moss survives the winter while grass withers away.
It might’ve been anything, is the point. The details are that of a faded polaroid, and anything Noelle inserts into the memory now will be just that—a belated insertion.
She may not remember that conversation anymore, but in the wake of grief and loss, that conversation still happened. And it still mattered.
Noelle wants to look back on that day with fondness. Because for one fleeting afternoon, she laughed the hardest and ran the fastest she did since before Dess was swallowed by the forest. But so often, whenever she reminisces, the uncomplicated joy of tumbling through the snow gets overwritten in her mind, by everything that happened next.)
Because what happened was this:
A well-known fact of the world was that fun things tended to make time go weird. To the extent that the sun was melting into the horizon by now, and neither Kris nor Noelle had noticed all the park lamps blinking out.
It was only when the last threads of daylight faded completely did Noelle register that it was much darker than it should’ve been.
She was helping Kris up from their most recent tumble when the realisation made her skin prickle. Instinctively, she made a grab for Kris’ hand.
A little taken aback by this, they asked, “You okay?”
“When did all the lights go out?”
As if just noticing as well, Kris’ gaze shot to the park lamps, confirming Noelle’s claim. Their hand squeezed tighter around hers.
“We should go, Kris.”
Noelle moved to lead them away, but Kris already had the same idea. For the second time that day, they invited her to hop on the sled.
Walking back through the forest path, Noelle sat watching a vista of near pitch darkness. Every single one of the park lamps were lightless. By what little filtered moonlight she had left, she could only make out the outline of Kris’ figure in front of her, and the hazy white ground beneath.
Noelle laughed, to fill the empty space, but it came out warbled and nervous, “Gosh, I can’t believe it got so late. Did nobody call for us to come home?”
Saying nothing, Kris picked up the pace.
Slipping her gloves off, Noelle dialled in her father’s phone number. Two rings resounded, before the third was cut off entirely, and the line went dead. “Wha–? Hold on a second.” She tried her mother’s number. The line went dead again.
“Kris, can I borrow your phone for a second?”
Kris, as if anticipating this, had already fished their phone from their coat pocket, and handed it off to Noelle. She found Toriel’s number. Hit call. The call fell through without so much as a voicemail greeting. It took Noelle trying next for Asgore and then Asriel, and then calling all five of them again—twice each, for good measure—before she resigned herself.
She was starting to get more than a little panicked. “What’s going on!?”
Kris piped up with a realisation, “There’s been a power outage. Probably.” They didn’t sound as confident as Noelle would’ve liked.
“A power outage through all of Hometown?”
“It’s possible. It’s happened before,” they pointed out.
“Right. Right, of course. That makes sense, I guess. It has to be a power outage. We just need to go home, and we’ll be fine, right? We’re fine, aren’t we, Kris?”
“We’re fine,” they declared, voice clipped. Noelle wasn’t sure if she believed them.
Something Noelle barely registered on their way in was how poorly-staggered the lamp posts were along the trail. At some point, they hit a stretch of the path that seemed utterly devoid of visible markers. For a brief, horrifying moment, it almost felt as if the darkness was closing in. When Noelle heard a rustling from the undergrowth behind her, she cried out, whirling around.
“Kris, wait. Stop. Please.”
They did, immediately—face tinted with concern.
Getting up from the toboggan, Noelle hurried beside Kris, grabbing their hand again. “I don’t think I want to ride on the sled anymore. Come on, I’ll walk with you.”
Snow and brush obscured the shape of the hiking path, and in this dark, trees looked like apparitions. All things considered, not much changed with their configuration. They were still just as disoriented, and still out in the woods alone, but standing shoulder to shoulder with Kris, Noelle felt safer. And if Noelle ended up pressing herself closer to Kris than she usually would while holding their hand, well, that’s nobody’s business but her own.
After a few paces, she realised she had them in a death-grip. She realised she was afraid they’d let her go—cracking another joke; declaring another race. “Kris, don’t– don’t take off on me again, alright? I can’t take a prank like that again this time, okay? Don’t run off.”
“I won’t.”
It took what felt like forever of blind-treading through the forest before both of them seemed to realise they hadn’t crossed another lamp post in a while.
“Kris, where are we going?”
Wordlessly, they looked around at the forest path—with it having devolved into smatterings of smaller clearings and tiny dead-end natural trails, every inch of the ground choked in snow.
“Are we lost?”
Kris shook their head, as if in vehement denial, and pulled on Noelle’s hand with greater conviction, in one direction in particular that they seemed to have decided on. The trees seemed thinner through here, something that could’ve been interpreted to mean they were getting closer to the main road. For a moment, Noelle took desperate solace in the idea that Kris knew what they were doing. That Kris had it covered.
“Right, right of course,” she babbled, “We’re completely fine.”
Eventually, though, the thickets grew dense once more, and neither of them knew if they were any closer to home than they were when they started.
This time, it was Kris who turned to her. “Noelle.”
“Yeah?”
“Try calling again?”
“Oh! Oh, right, of course!”
She went down the list again, multiple times, her phone’s dial tone becoming something of an accompaniment to their walk. None of the calls went through. It felt miserable when the harsh beep signalled the end of Noelle’s sixth attempt at reaching Asriel, and when putting down her phone meant giving way to dead silence once more, she started to spiral for umpteenth time that night.
Kris seemed similarly restless, and started dialling too. It was a reassuring trick, in a way, to feel like they were making any sort of progress at all. But futile endeavours got tiring after too long, and eventually Kris too put their phone back in their pocket. It was depressing how the only sounds keeping the darkness at bay were ones that fundamentally reinforced how lost they were, and now they didn’t even have that.
After a second, though, Kris started to hum. A meaningless melody, at first, but one that transformed into something Noelle recognised—from years of having Kris over at her house, beelining to the piano and sitting there playing for longer single stretches of time than anyone in the Holiday household. She’d heard these pieces countless times before; though she’d never heard the notes in Kris’ voice.
Hesitantly, she opted to join in. Suddenly, they had a duet going between them, and padding through the forest seemed just a tiny bit less daunting than it was before.
(Every time she looks back on this moment, it stabs at Noelle like an arrow through the chest: the belated understanding that Kris was just as much a child as she was. She clung onto them so tightly, that night, like a lifeline. She didn’t see that Kris wasn’t a buoy in the waves—they were two drowning swimmers who needed to keep each other afloat. Noelle clawed into Kris’ skin that night to use them as a flotation device—not realising that Kris was also afraid until much too late.
Noelle has fought herself a thousand times about the events of that night; she has a million justifications. She was mourning Dess. Her reactions were amplified by the tricks Kris played on her. It wasn’t her fault she didn’t notice the lights going out. Kris forced her out to the other park in the forest.
But if she’s being honest with herself. It doesn’t really come down to any of that. In a myriad of little ways, she’d been unfair to Kris.
Because Kris, too, was mourning Dess. In the earliest days after she’d disappeared, Kris seemed to float about their day-to-day with a ghostly pallor painting their face. Dess’ disappearance seemed to haunt Kris in an extreme way that Noelle doesn’t quite understand, even now.
Through the mortification, Noelle thinks of all the more recent times she’s snarked about what a carnage-monger Kris tended to be, sometimes with genuine annoyance and malice lacing her tone. Then she thinks about that stupid race through the snow—how it had been horrible, but also horribly endearing—and she thinks of how her desperation the night of the power outage hasn’t been her only instance of being unfair to Kris.)
As it happened, they found their way out of the forest by a fluke.
Out of the corner of her eye, Noelle spotted a glint of dark grey metal in the middle distance. Turning her gaze, she finds a structure too ramrod straight to be a tree.
“Look, Kris!”
Its light was still out, but in making their scattershot laps through the forest, the two of them managed to find their way back to a lamp post. Crossing back onto the real, actual pathway, Noelle heaved a sigh of relief, almost going lightheaded from the release of the sheer amount of stress she hadn’t realised she’d been holding onto.
The fact of the matter was, they’d gotten supremely lucky; Kris’ navigational approach of picking a direction at random and going for it had incidentally brought them closer to town. It only took them passing two more lamp posts along the way before they finally reached the main road.
Noelle had no idea what would’ve happened if they’d led themselves further into the forest, and at this point, she refused to think about it. It didn’t matter.
Kris voiced these same thoughts, their whole body shaking, “We made it.”
“We made it,” Noelle echoed back.
Considering how long she and Kris had been gone, Noelle almost expected to be apprehended as they passed the police station, but like every other building in Hometown, it sat in pitch-black lightlessness. Noelle assumed most of the town’s residents were sitting indoors with torches and candles lit up around the house, but the police station seemed entirely abandoned.
(Later, she will discover that this is because both her and Kris’ parents had mobilised the entire post in a manhunt for them. Hauntingly, neither of them could hear any voices calling out for them, because the search had been localised too far away from where they actually were; it had been localised in the forest south of the shelter.)
When they reached Noelle’s home, they found the gate unlocked. It would’ve been completely trivial for Kris to bid goodbye for the night right there and then—their home was right around the corner. But for some reason, they followed her in through the gardens and up to the veranda, like a chaperone. And Noelle made no comment of it, almost taking it as a given.
Cracking open the main doors, the pair were met by the sight of Noelle’s mother, sitting vigil on one of the couches in the main room, a single lit candle on the coffee table in front of her. As soon as they stepped in, she turned to them sharply, every muscle in her body stretched taut.
Making eye contact with Noelle, she shot up from her seat and rushed over to them, and for a dizzying, delusional second, Noelle almost thought her mother was going in for a hug—the same way she used to before Dess disappeared.
Instead, she found herself gripped by her shoulders and held an arm’s length away, her mother’s clutches so tight it almost felt like her nails were digging into Noelle’s skin through three layers of winter fabric. Her mother demanded, “Where were you!”
“I– We were just out playing–”
“Where?”
“We were just in the other park! The other park, near the bus stop.” Noelle’s voice quietened, “Just a little into the forest…”
“Why were you in the forest, Noelle?” The tone of her mother’s voice was so unwavering, so coldly furious—but bewilderingly, there seemed a sheen in her eyes. “We have talked. About going into the forest. You are not. Ever–” She cut herself off abruptly, as if remembering herself. Then she turned to Kris, acknowledging their presence for the first time that night.
Before she could say anything else, Kris stepped in, their voice steeped in guilt, “I’m so sorry. I was the one who took her to the park. I got us lost on the way back. Please–”
“Kris.”
Silence.
“I see that the both of you are safe and sound. Your friendship has meant a lot to Noelle over the years.”
A pause, then, as if she were carefully selecting what to say next.
“I trust that you know the way back to your home.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Good.”
As Kris turned to leave, they whispered, “Goodnight, Noelle.”
And Noelle wanted to respond, but the door had already shut behind her.
Goodnight, Kris.
For all intents and purposes, the night ended right there. Noelle isn’t going to willingly subject herself to reliving the rest of it. She never found out what Toriel and Asriel’s reactions had been to seeing Kris return home, and incidentally, she never ended up coming over to their house for the holidays, either.
The new year brought with it an increasingly wide berth that Kris started giving Noelle, and Noelle—though not entirely on purpose—responded in kind. With no small amount of guilt, it occurs to Noelle that after Asriel and Dess’ relationship was abruptly upended, the main load-bearing structure of her childhood friendship with Kris had been entirely their insistence.
Kris had always delighted in their own humour, in the pranks that they would play. They seemed to enjoy getting a rise out of Noelle, but on fonder days, they revelled just as much in making Noelle laugh. They seemed to thrive on it.
On her most dismissive days, growing up, Noelle just thought it was kind of nice that the Dreemurrs were friends with her family, and it was nice that the ages of each family’s set of siblings lined up into perfect, default pairs.
It doesn’t take a genius to see how this sort of low-level apathy can put fractures into a relationship.
At no point were Noelle and Kris ever truly antagonistic, but it took a lot of time and a lot of half-assed non-conversations to get them back up to awkwardly friendly. That was the status they managed to maintain for years after. So with Noelle’s characteristic lack of audacity, she thinks it’s nothing short of a miracle that she somehow finds herself sitting in Kris’ living room again.
Here and now. At six fucking teen.
Noelle’s slice of pie is only half-eaten, and she hasn’t gotten any of her homework done. Her head is swimming in a liminal state of soft bewilderment. From across Toriel’s living room couch, she accidentally meets Kris’ gaze.
They’re smirking at her—eyes flicking surreptitiously toward an oblivious Susie before flitting back, with a knowing look—as if they’d caught Noelle spacing out and are now accusing her of daydreaming about her crush. Noelle feels herself flush all the way down her neck and to the tips of her ears, but not for the reasons Kris assumes.
She has no idea how to explain that she hadn’t been thinking about Susie at all.
The next morning, Noelle wakes with the dawn. Sunrise doesn’t come as early as it used to, this late into the fall, but if Noelle wants to make it to the other park before school starts, she doesn’t have much of a choice. So with the sky only half-lit and bathed in melting oranges and pinks, she slips silently out the gate.
Noelle hasn’t returned to this forest trail even once since the snowstorm four years ago—she’s never had a reason to. But gosh, is it beautiful. It’s still just dark enough that the lamps’ daylight sensors haven’t shut them off yet, and the fall foliage on the trees and scattering of leaves on the ground frame the path in such a stark contrast from how she remembers it. She makes her way in, counting each lamp post as she walks along, committing to memory a place she thought she’d never come back to again.
Noelle doesn’t know what it is she expected to find once she reaches the clearing, but it certainly– isn’t this.
It’s Kris.
Sitting on the left-side swing. Rocking gently back and forth.
With her heart in her throat, Noelle takes a step forward, hoping to get a better look. The crunching of leaves beneath her hooves gives her away immediately. Kris’ eyes snap up to hers, and she draws a sharp breath.
For a long moment, Kris just sits there, unmoving, as if not knowing what to do next. But Noelle has already resigned herself to getting found out, so she approaches anyway.
“Is this seat taken?” Noelle asks, gesturing toward the right-side swing, before cringing at herself immediately. What the hell was that?
Somewhat bewilderedly, Kris shakes their head no. Noelle takes a seat.
“What are you doing out here, Kris?”
They smile, if a little sadly. “I could ask you the same thing.”
“Fahah, well–” Noelle fidgets with the hem of her skirt. “I just thought I should, you know? Before I forget this place completely.”
“Hmm.”
“It’s awful early for you, isn’t it?”
“It’s just nice to take my freedom whenever I can get it.”
Noelle furrows her brows. There’s something about those words; something about the way they said them. It calls back to the dream she had a couple days prior, with Kris in the city, where every word they spoke sounded like they’d been ground through a filter. That dream had shaken her, but she hadn’t been able to put her finger on exactly why until she had that conversation with Susie in Dess’ bedroom.
Susie had reassured her that Kris seemed totally normal, but Noelle wasn’t convinced. Because the voice filter hadn’t just been a dream occurrence—it’s how Kris has been sounding all week.
But just now… Surely– Noelle needs to hear Kris say something again.
“Does your mom know you’re here?”
Kris says nothing, simply shaking their head no. Figures. Genius move, Noelle, asking a yes or no question. Of course that would work.
“What are you going to do when Asriel visits?”
Kris shrugs. “Hang out.”
Oh come on. “Yeah? W– What else?”
Another shrug.
“That can’t be all, right? Do you not have any, um, plans or anything?”
“Not really.”
Noelle just about loses it. “Gosh, Kris, could you maybe say more than one or two words to me right now?” Just as the words leave her, tinged brightly with unfounded frustration, she clamps her hands over her mouth, mortified.
At that, Kris laughs outright, not seeming offended in the least. “I’m not sure what you want me to say here.”
And there it is. The filter– it’s gone.
After a moment that feels like it lasted forever, Kris speaks up again, a teasing smile on their lips. “You’re staring, you know.”
Absolutely. Noelle’s sure she must be gaping by now, clawing at anything else to say. But what is there to say? What is there to confess?
I need you to know that I still think of you.
But what do I think of you? What am I still allowed to think of you?
Every few months, I think about the fact that we never broke up. I declared us sweetie and girlfriend one afternoon when we were eleven and we never brought it up again even once. I don’t even want to bring it up now, because it probably means we’ll break up as soon as I do.
Is it crazy of me to admit I don’t want that? Even if it wasn’t ever real to begin with.
The truth of the matter is, I miss you.
I miss you more than I think is my right.
Noelle says none of that. Instead, she tries to laugh it off as soon as she recovers, giving Kris a sheepish grin. “Oh! I’m sorry. It’s just– been so long since I talked to you.” Then, realising how stupid that sounds, considering they literally talked yesterday, she adds, “–is what it feels like, anyway! Fahah–!”
Kris nods in understanding. “I get what you mean. I would apologise for being distant, but really–” they scratch at the back of their neck, a little awkward, “I wasn’t sure you liked having me around.”
“What?” Noelle is taken aback—not by the accusation, but by the fact that it’d been stated outright.
“You know… With Susie. And stuff.”
“Oh,” Noelle says, dumbfounded. Her mind is lagging behind in the conversation; she’s still hung up on Kris clocking her dismissive undertones to her face. It was the last thing she expected from them.
Her expression sours into a frown. All week, she’d been weirded out by the voice filter. All those moments of Kris behaving differently from how she remembers from her childhood—truth be told, she'd assumed it was mostly or entirely that strange filter. But right now, it’s gone. The cadence and pitch of Kris’ voice was all perfectly normal.
And Noelle realises she still has no clue exactly who it is she’s sitting beside.
Bitterly, she realises she’d assumed that if she could only figure out what’s going on with the weird distortion in their voice, she’d get her old Kris back. She never once considered the idea that maybe—with or without the distortion—the version of Kris that she remembers from her childhood had stopped existing a long time ago.
“I’m sorry,” she murmurs.
Kris tilts their head, hair falling into their eyes.
“I’m sorry,” Noelle repeats, louder this time. “I’m the one who should be apologising. For– for being distant.” A little crazed, she spills her guts, “I feel like I have no idea who you are anymore.”
Kris looks a little guilty, at that. “That’s not… entirely your fault.”
“No! I mean–! I mean right here and right now! I– Kris, I have a desktop wallpaper of you. It’s embarrassing that I have it up because it feels like I shouldn’t, and– and it’s not the most recent photo I have of you but it’s one of the most recent photos I have of you, and Dess took that photo when you were eleven.” Noelle wants to tear her hair out. “Am I making any sense right now?”
And there are any number of things Kris could have chosen to do in that moment. All the lines of their body look stiff and taut, and for a second it almost seems as though they want nothing more than to bolt away.
But they don’t.
Instead, Kris fishes out their phone from their skirt pocket, raising it up in front of them. With their other arm, they reach for the chain Noelle’s holding onto, pulling their two swings closer together. The camera goes off with a click, amounting to a horrendous selfie where Noelle is frazzled and entirely unprepared, and Kris’ face is a flat, unreadable deadpan.
“I’ll send you the picture,” they declare, as if to say, We can be friends again.
“I’ll put it up as my wallpaper,” Noelle laughs—I’ll hold you to that.