Kingdom Hearts fic: Fractured Moments - Day 8 - "Frail"
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museficSummary: Kairi knows, with absolute conviction, there should be three of them.
[Rewrite of a one-shot from... oof, more than 10 years ago. This is set in the gap between Chain of Memories and KH2, while Sora is sleeping.]
People think it’s weird for Kairi to spend time at the woman’s house.
And maybe it is a little odd: the woman is old enough to be Kairi’s mother, though she doesn’t have any children of her own. But she thinks she had a son, just about Kairi’s age, she just can’t quite remember him. She doesn’t know his name, or what he looks like, or how he could have disappeared. People think she’s crazy, either avoiding her entirely, or only talking about her in voices thick with pity. The scorn has worn at her, making her seem older and frailer than she should be.
Because really, if she’d had a son who went missing, how could she not even remember his name?
And yet, she knows Kairi. Knows her down to her favorite kind of cookies and what games she used to play as a child. How she had a fairy-princess phase, but never had the patience for long dress-up dresses, because they got in the way when they played at the beach. Remembers the bracelets and charms Kairi used to make out of shells… even found one of them to show her, and yes, Kairi knows it was one of hers…
Maybe if that was all, Kairi would also think the woman was crazy. Or even a little creepy, knowing so much about Kairi.
But Kairi understands, more than anyone else, because she’s missing someone too. With absolute conviction, she knows there should be three of them.
At least everyone else remembers Riku, even if none of them seem to miss him like Kairi does. For everyone else, it’s an offhand whatever happened to him? remark, but for Kairi, it’s like there’s a hole in the world. A deep sense of wrong.
But as sure as she is that Riku is still supposed to be there, she’s just as sure there was another boy. There should be three of them, not Kairi alone. The other boy is always on the edge of her memory, like a word you just can’t quite think of, or a dream you forget as soon as you open your eyes. Selphie, Tidus, and Wakka laugh it off: they were on the play island every day when they were kids, and they don’t remember this mysterious Other Boy. They tease her that the woman is rubbing off on her.
Of course, it’s occurred to her that her Other Boy was also the woman’s son, but they’ll probably never know. For now, they just provide company to each other, nursing the holes in their hearts. The woman makes sugar-dusted lemon and strawberry cookies—exactly like the ones she remembers—and they talk. They talk about the weather, or about Kairi’s classes, about Island gossip.
They trail off and stare at the clear Island sky, missing someone they can’t even remember.
[previous chapter] [next chapter]
[Rewrite of a one-shot from... oof, more than 10 years ago. This is set in the gap between Chain of Memories and KH2, while Sora is sleeping.]
People think it’s weird for Kairi to spend time at the woman’s house.
And maybe it is a little odd: the woman is old enough to be Kairi’s mother, though she doesn’t have any children of her own. But she thinks she had a son, just about Kairi’s age, she just can’t quite remember him. She doesn’t know his name, or what he looks like, or how he could have disappeared. People think she’s crazy, either avoiding her entirely, or only talking about her in voices thick with pity. The scorn has worn at her, making her seem older and frailer than she should be.
Because really, if she’d had a son who went missing, how could she not even remember his name?
And yet, she knows Kairi. Knows her down to her favorite kind of cookies and what games she used to play as a child. How she had a fairy-princess phase, but never had the patience for long dress-up dresses, because they got in the way when they played at the beach. Remembers the bracelets and charms Kairi used to make out of shells… even found one of them to show her, and yes, Kairi knows it was one of hers…
Maybe if that was all, Kairi would also think the woman was crazy. Or even a little creepy, knowing so much about Kairi.
But Kairi understands, more than anyone else, because she’s missing someone too. With absolute conviction, she knows there should be three of them.
At least everyone else remembers Riku, even if none of them seem to miss him like Kairi does. For everyone else, it’s an offhand whatever happened to him? remark, but for Kairi, it’s like there’s a hole in the world. A deep sense of wrong.
But as sure as she is that Riku is still supposed to be there, she’s just as sure there was another boy. There should be three of them, not Kairi alone. The other boy is always on the edge of her memory, like a word you just can’t quite think of, or a dream you forget as soon as you open your eyes. Selphie, Tidus, and Wakka laugh it off: they were on the play island every day when they were kids, and they don’t remember this mysterious Other Boy. They tease her that the woman is rubbing off on her.
Of course, it’s occurred to her that her Other Boy was also the woman’s son, but they’ll probably never know. For now, they just provide company to each other, nursing the holes in their hearts. The woman makes sugar-dusted lemon and strawberry cookies—exactly like the ones she remembers—and they talk. They talk about the weather, or about Kairi’s classes, about Island gossip.
They trail off and stare at the clear Island sky, missing someone they can’t even remember.
[previous chapter] [next chapter]
