#snowanimalshipping

   “Aw, gee, thanks.” Kotori blushed. She shrugged both girls off her, bringing in her shoulders, heart doing flips in her chest, as she clutched onto the seeds. “Now come on, don’t forget to wear sunscreen, let’s get these seeds planted already.”

   “Okay.” Rio chirped.

   Kotori smiled excitedly to herself as she got ready. She put on her sunscreen - though both Cathy and Rio did their best to help her, and each other - and then her other gardening gear: her gloves, her big straw hat. Her girlfriends thought she looked adorable and were nowhere near as half as prepared for getting amongst it like she was. Cathy put on an apron to cover up her dress and that was about it; her hair just entirely disagreeable with a hat that Kotori wanted to lend her and Rio was about the same too. She had dolled up just a little bit too much in her capris and a tank but at least she had brought a hat along.

   Regardless, Kotori hoped that they wouldn’t spend too long down in the bottom of the garden. She had already picked out a spot to dig up with her trowel; Rio and Cathy just had to watch and hand her the seeds, maybe even bury over the seeds once Kotori was done but things could never be so simple as that.

   Rio had never done a day’s work in the garden to say her life and Cathy refused to even bend down lest she got too much of a smidgen of dirt on her skirt; Kotori couldn’t blame her but she would have appreciated it if Cathy at least pretended to have some care. Rio, meanwhile, had far too much zeal for it, for better or worse. 

   She took the trowel from Kotori with a smile and assured her that she would do her utmost best to dig a nice cosy little hole in the ground for the seeds to go. Her technique was, colloquially speaking, not good. It was very childish and inefficient but Kotori couldn’t fault the enthusiasm as Rio butchered the soil that Kotori’s father had tilled for them the day before.

   “Here, it’s more like this…” Kotori whispered to her.

   She reached over to Rio’s hand cupped it. Rio released her grip on the trowel and allowed Kotori to supplement it but she glanced at Kotori, she looked so happy and relaxed in her element. Rio smiled a small smile to herself and she let Kotori guide her through more effective movements. Cathy rolled her eyes; secretly jealous that Kotori was holding Rio’s hand and not hers.

   “Thank you so much, this is a lot better. I’ll be a pro at gardening in no time with your advice, Kotori.” Rio bragged as she finished up digging a hole to the packet’s instructions.

   Kotori laughed awkwardly, “I don’t doubt that.” she replied thinking about how Rio dominated with her various skills in academics and athletics. She certainly wouldn’t be surprised if Rio could master skills in gardening, as well.

   At least Kotori got the honours of doing this alone. She poured the seeds into the ground and said a small prayer for them all. She wasn’t sure if she could brag and call herself a green thumb, but she did enjoy keeping flowers and the like. Trying to grow a tree from scratch was going to be hard work but she was looking forward to it. She crumpled up the packet once she was done; it was sort of foiled on the inside and was reflective, scaring the birds away in the process.

   “Cathy, are you sure you don’t want to help?” Rio asked, piping up as Kotori prepared to do the last bit of planting her new seeds.

   Cathy winced, petulant and sullen, folding her hands, “I’m right.” she said. “But do hurry up, I’m so pale, I’m sure to burn if we don’t go inside soon.”

   “True, true,” Kotori said, and she wiped sweat from her brow with the back of her gardening glove, where it was still clean, thankfully, “going back inside would be nice - and we have iced tea in the fridge, that’d be nice to drink after a little bit of hard work.” They had barely been outside for that long but summer was undoubtedly in full swing; the sun was so hot but in an agreeable way that lifted their spirits rather than making them unbearable.

   “It would.” Cathy agreed.

   “Its black lemon, too, your favourite.” Kotori added, making idle conversation as she finished up.

   Rio watched intently - and Cathy kept a demure eye on it as well - as Kotori covered up the spot in the ground they had dug up. She swept the moved mound of dirt back into place and lovingly packed it down.

   “Phew,” she said, “all done.” She rose back up to her feet and kept her eyes going further upward, into the blue sky. Already Kotori was imagining the majesty of the new tree, how it would one day flower with white fluff flowers and she smiled. “Let’s go back inside.”

   “That would be nice.” Cathy said. “As would one day coming back here to have a picnic under the new tree, yes?”

   “Aw,” Rio said and she nudged Cathy in the ribs, riling her up like the fussy cat she was, “you have your cute moments too.”

   “Oh shut up.” Cathy hissed.

   “I think Cathy’s right. It would be nice. Let’s make a promise, yeah? To having drinks in the shade of our new tree one day.” Kotori agreed with an airy, pleasant voice, she turned on her heel to see Rio and Cathy.