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Winter had come early. The forest floor was a patchwork quilt of snow and bare ground beneath the sheltering branches of the trees. As he made his way from the Senju camp, Hashirama stuck as close to the trunks as possible, so as not to leave footprints. This close he could see the snow caught in all the little ridges of the bark, and was startled once when some snow fell off the laden branches and struck him on the shoulder.
Snow was not something shinobi took pleasure in, nor winter in general. Winter was a time of food shortages and sickness, of cold that settled in your bones until you felt old and slow with it. For all their careful preparations, it wasn't unheard of for scouts to freeze to death out in the wild. When the sun glared on the snow it was white enough to blind - disastrous in battle. In Senju Butsuma’s opinion, snow was nothing but a nuisance, and in this Hashirama had always agreed with his father for all that they disagreed about so many other things. Winter was something to be endured rather than enjoyed.
Shinobi did not like snow. They certainly did not play with it. Hashirama glanced down at the orange cloth of the clumsily wrapped furoshiki tucked under his arm. But this winter was different, wasn't it? This winter, there was Madara. Hashirama smiled. They were always talking about how the current idea of a shinobi was wrong. Civilian kids played with snow all the time, why shouldn't they?
His friend was already waiting for him when he reached the riverbank, wearing gloves and an over-cloak that was too big for him. His nose and cheeks were red with cold. “What kept you?” Madara demanded. “I’ve been freezing my ass off.”
Hashirama smiled apologetically, relieved as always that the other boy had shown up. It was always agonizing when he didn’t. On those days Hashirama would stare into the water, not knowing if his friend was alive or dead. By the look on Madara's face whenever he showed up, Hashirama knew he shared the same fears. “Sorry, I had to get something.” He held up his burden in explanation.
Madara was careful to feign disinterest, even as a hungry light came into his dark eyes. “Food?”
“No. Well yeah, but that’s not all.” Hashirama knelt and unpicked the knot, before drawing out two flasks of his mother’s awesome mushroom soup, a pile of ragged clothing and…a carrot.
Madara cocked his head to one side and eyed the array of objects as if trying to puzzle out an arcane jutsu. “You’ve lost me.”
Hashirama grinned. “We’re going to build a snowman.”
"Remind me again, why are we doing this?" Madara asked as he scraped snow off a rotting log.
"Because," said Hashirama, dumping an armload of snow onto the small mountain they'd already gathered, "this is what kids do. What - what they should do anyway." For a moment he seemed lost in thought as he packed the snow. Gloveless, he rubbed his hands together and blew on the fingers to chase the blue chill from them. Then he walked over to Madara with a bright grin. "Come on, it needs to be taller!" He nudged Madara. "See if you can find more snow."
Madara cast his eye over the riverbank. The snow hadn't been very deep and there wasn't that much left, aside from the grey sludge right near the water's edge. "We need to start making the head." If Madara minded Hashirama’s frequent, enthusiastic intrusions into his personal space, he didn’t show it. “Unless you want it to have eyes on its chest.” He picked up two small stones, worn smooth from the river, and compared their size and shape. He wasn’t going to have no lop-eyed snowman.
“Oh, yeah, I suppose. I think there’s some snow over there we could use…”
By the time they were finished the nearby stretch of riverbank was scraped clean to the dirt beneath, and every log and tree branch was free from winter’s grasp once more. Madara bore holes in the snowman's face and stuck on two nearly-identical stones for eyes, and a few for the mouth while Hashirama gathered some fallen branches to use as arms, before draping them with one of his father's old haori. It was moth-eaten old thing, no one would miss it.
"Now the carrot," said Hashirama, casually going to stick it in the snowman's 'groin'.
Madara snorted. "You're so immature," he said, clearly trying not to laugh. "Using a carrot as a—"
"What? You think I should've brought a daikon?" Hashirama retorted. After putting the carrot nose in place and discussing which vegetables looked most like a penis, they sat down on either side of their finished snowman.
The warmth of the soup was heavenly on the tongue after all this time out in the cold, and Hashirama practically inhaled his. Madara drank his more slowly, with a contemplative expression. “Hashirama?”
“Yeah?” Hashirama replied, licking a few droplets of soup from his lips.
Madara looked down into his flask, as if all the answers to life’s problems were at the bottom of it. His shoulders were shaking faintly, as were Hashirama’s own. “I…nothing. I just…I’m glad you’re here.”
Hashirama reached out and found the softness of Madara's glove, giving it a squeeze. “Yeah. Me too.”