College AU but with the Pizza trio please :3
“Heck yeah! No school!”
Running ahead of Cassata and Cheese, Pizza dove onto his knees and scooped up a huge mound of snow. Springing to his feet, he launched it all into the air. Instead of creating a gentle shower of flakes, both Cheese and Cassata cringed as wet chunks fell on their head and shoulders. Cheese even yelped as a piece found a way through her collar and onto her neck.
“Pizza, you’re dead!” She yanked his braid down, growling menacingly.
“No!! Cassata, save me!” Pizza’s head bobbed up and down as Cheese jerked him around.
“Come on, Cheese,” Cassata sighed, putting a gloved hand on her shoulder. “You can get revenge on him later. No need to rip out his hair follicles.”
Cheese gave one last look to Pizza before she let go of the braid, leaving the blond man to rub at his aching neck.
Cassata dusted the snowflakes off Pizza’s hair. “Pizza, maybe don’t eject snow at Cheese? You know she hates getting wet.”
“I just wanted to celebrate the snow day!” Pizza pouted, lightly batting at Cassata’s hand. “No school! No classes and no homework, just running in the snow!”
“We have online assignments, you know.”
“Don’t remind me…”
Cheese punched Pizza’s shoulder. “You probably haven’t started even the first calc web assignment, have you?”
“Neither have you!” Pizza whined.
“Nuh uh! I was responsible and started early!”
“I bet you haven’t even finished the first set of problems then, you— AAAAAAA MY ARM!!”
“Stop twisting his arm Cheese, we can’t afford healthcare.”
Cheese looked away from trying to break Pizza in half to remark, “It’s fine Cassata, the school clinic can probably fix it~”
She pushed Pizza’s arm down further, eliciting a pained whimper from him. “Besides, we can always ask one of the med students, like that creepy Harry Potter looking dude.”
Cassata stiffened at the mention of the med student, but Cheese didn’t seem to notice.
“I don’t like that Wispy guy…” Pizza mumbled as Cheese let go of his arm (but not before giving him one last pinch) “He’s weird, and always talking about dreams for some reason…”
She rolled her eyes at him. “You know I was joking about Whiskey, right? I wouldn’t want him within ten feet of me or any of my body parts. And he talks about dreams all the time because it’s part of his study, duh.”
“Hey Cheese!” A voice floated over to the trio.
Cheese turned to the voice and excitedly grinned and waved. “Hi Gingerbread!”
Gingerbread returned the gesture, walking up to them with her typical poker face.
Cassata politely waved too, while Pizza was preoccupied with nursing his arm.
“Watchu doing Gingy?”
“Nothing much. On my way to grab some hot chocolate.” Gingerbread sighed, causing white clouds to form. “Got tired of third wheeling Steak and Red Wine, so thought I would treat myself.”
“Ooo! Sounds nice…” Cheese quickly rubbed her small hands together. “Ginger, lemme join you! I need food and shelter!!”
“Only if you promise not to ‘lose’ your wallet again. I’m not paying for your hot coco and then seventy million snacks.” Ginger turned and walked away, Cheese following behind.
“Yeah, yeah, I get it~” Cheese threw a look back to the two. “See ya two in bit!”
“She’s so quick to pick food over us….” Pizza whined as they watched the two shrink in the distance.
Cassata shrugged. “Maybe.” He saw the way Cheese’s hand twitched towards Ginger’s. He wasn’t dumb- he knew all too well that nerve wracking feeling of excitement and anxiety.
“Hey Cassata?”
“Yeah?” He turned to Pizza, forgetting his thoughts of Cheese and Gingerbread.
“Let’s make a snowman!” Pizza flopped back on the snowbank, rolling around.
The redhead laughed, shielding himself from the spray of snow with an arm. “Maybe you shouldn’t destroy all of your building materials. And besides,”
He knelt down to the sitting Pizza, who eyed him curiously. Cassata pursed his lips at he poked Pizza’s cheek, causing the other man to cry out in surprise. “You’re almost as red as my hair. Frostbite only takes minutes to set in, you know?”
“I’m fine!!” Pizza pouted as he got back up. “We can always go back in if we want to, Cas, and it only takes a little bit to make a teeny snowman!”
Cassata folded his arms. And then unfolded them and sighed. “Fine, but just for ten more minutes, okay?”
“Yay!”
Pizza immediately set Cassata to work on the lowest and biggest snowball for the body. Rolling behind him, Pizza hummed happily as he pushed a smaller snowball.
“Hey Cassata?~”
“Mm?” The ball was stuck. He grunted as he gave it a good shove, displacing it.
“What do you think you’re gonna major in?”
“No clue.” He replied. “All I really ever wanted was to get away from my hometown.”
He exhaled, and nothing appeared. His body temperature must be lowering.
“Maybe forensics? Sounds kinda cool. But I really don’t know what I want to do at the end of the day...”
He couldn’t see Pizza, but it sounded like he was shrugging.
“Same~” The blond responded. “Cheese has been determined since high school to go into the restaurant business, being such a big foodie and all.”
“Me though, I just wanna have fun, that’s all.” Cassata heard Pizza quickly roll up beside him.
“Don’t we all.”
“Duh~ If I’m completely honest, I wasn’t even sure if I wanted to go to college.” Pizza patted his snowball.
“It was more like I happened to get into the same university as Cheese and decided to follow her here and see what happened, haha,”
“Is she mad?”
“Definitely.” Pizza’s grinning face popped up. “This was supposed to be her moment of ‘freedom’, after all. But between you and me, I think she’s grateful to have a piece of home with her.”
“I bet.” Cassata wryly smiled. For as tough and mischevious Cheese acted, she was a bit of a softy deep down.
“But anyways,” Suddenly, Pizza reached out and grabbed Cassata’s freezing hand in his own. “We don’t need to figure out what we wanna do for monthes now, so don’t stress yourself.”
The smile that Pizza had on was so bright and warm that it was a miracle that all the nearby snow didn’t evaporate. “No matter what happens, I’ll always be there for you, degree or no degree~”
Cassata just stared. God, he would die for that smile.
“Cas?”
“Yeah, yeah,” he shook himself out of it. “Just… that means a lot to me. Thanks, Pizza.” He squeezed Pizza’s hand back.
“You’re welcome!”
Cassata stood up. The ball was about up to his thigh now. “Is this good now, Pizza?”
“Yeah!!” The look on Pizza’s face was absurdly happy considering the fact that it was only over frozen water. But it didn’t stop Cassata from smiling a little himself.
“Cas, help me lift mine onto it!!”
“...Pizza how is your snowball already bigger than mine.”
Pizza took a look at his snowball. Despite remaining behind Cassata the entire time, the ball was larger by a significant degree.
Cassata looked behind him. Ah.
While Cassata had taken a straight and direct line, Pizza’s twisted and turned, winding and whirling. Judging by the snow trail, he also… looped around a tree?
He sighed and turned to Pizza. “Never mind. C’mon, help me lift mine onto yours.”
Lifting the snowball was actually much easier said than done. It took a few tries, but finally, the two of them managed to hoist the ball a bit off the ground.
“Okay Cassata… on the count of three, let’s put it on!” Pizza’s huge blue eyes blinked rapidly. “One…”
“You sure it won’t crumble…?”
“Completely! Two…”
Cassata sighed, and braced himself.
“Three!”
Pizza was correct that the snow wouldn’t crumble as soon as they hoisted it off the ground. However, they had overshot a little, and now their snowman resembled the Tower of Pisa more than anything.
“No issue!” Pizza slapped a comically small head on top, anchored to the right. “He’ll just be… dancing?”
The dancing snowman topic was interrupted by a voice calling out. “I’m back~!”
Turning around, the duo were greeted by the sight of a cheery looking Cheese walking towards them, cup of cocoa in each hand.
“Hey Cheese— where did Ginger go?” Cassata gratefully took the warm cup of cocoa and wrapped his frozen fingers around it.
“Ah, Gingy had to go and deal with Eggnog,” Cheese responded, tail drooping. “Something about Turkey, I think.”
Cassata nodded knowingly, while Pizza kept on staring at the remaining cup in Cheese’s hand.
She looked him straight in the eye, then popped the lid open and took a big sip. “What? You think I was gonna get you one after accusing me of being lazy?”
A pained cry came from Pizza. “Cheese, you meanie head!”
“It’s what you deserve, poopy face!”
“Stop fighting you two— You can share mine, Pizza.”
“I love you so much Cassata.” Pizza sighed dreamily as the redhead handed him the steaming cup. Cassata ignored how his heart skipped a beat there.
It was at this moment that Cheese finally noticed their snowman. “Geez, what happened here?”
“It’s Mister Pepperoni!” Pizza defensively wrapped an arm around the snowman. “I won’t have you talking bad on him!”
“Gosh, Mr. Pepperoni, I’m so sorry my idiot brother brought you into this cold, harsh world.” Cheese knelt down to pick up a few pebbles, and pressed them into the tiny head.
Cassata tilted his head. “His eyes look like a fly’s.”
“Well, which one of you gave him such a tiny head?!”
Pizza immediately looked away, causing Cheese to glare at him.
“Of course,” she lightly punched his shoulder. “Should’ve known- it matches your own.”
“I was gonna add more…” Pizza muttered, rubbing his shoulder.
Suddenly, he then plucked Cheese’s empty plastic cup out of her hands, provoking a “Hey!” from her. Dumping out the last droplets of hot chocolate, he then placed the cup on top. The cup almost entirely engulfed the head, but it remained above the eyes.
Cheese took a step back and giggled. “He looks absolutely ridiculous.”
“We haven’t added on the arms yet!”
“Yeah, like that’ll make a difference.” Cheese glanced back at Cassata and Pizza. “You two need to go inside- seriously, Cassata, you’re looking blue.”
It was at this point that Cassata realized that he had lost feeling in his cheeks. He raised a hand to touch his face and realized that he had lost feeling in his fingers too.
“Let’s just take a photo first!” Pizza took out his phone. “Who knows how much longer until global warming eats us all~”
“Cassata, you’re the tallest so you should take it.” Pizza placed the blocky iPhone 5 in Cassata’s numb fingers. Then, they all huddled around in front of Mr. Pepperoni and jostled each other, trying pose.
“Cheese, stop fixing your hair, just stay still!”
“Well stop squeezing me! You’re gonna knock me over!”
“I’m trying to hug everyone! Who doesn’t like hugs?”
Cassata shuffled around, his torso wrapped in Pizza’s right arm. “Hey, I’m gonna just take the photo now. Quit it.”
Cheese and Pizza opened their mouths to protest, but upon seeing Cassata’s extended arm holding the phone, they both shut it and grinned.
The camera flash went off.
Back home, Cassata didn’t have many photos- of himself or really anything at all. What was there to capture? He blinked, and saw darkness, flashes of panic and fear and self hatred.
His mind already captured those moments, he didn’t need more reminders from photography.
But for the first time, looking at the grainy photo on Pizza’s tiny phone, there was something else. Something worth capturing, worth remembering.
