kh_drabble | (no subject) (Reply)

Challenge: [81] Trick-or-Treat
Title:
Word Count: 556
Spoilers: Yes; takes place both pre-KH2 and post-KH2
Notes: I'm surprised I thought of something so fast, but here it is!

“We are not too old!” Pence protested. “Fifteen!”

“It was practically unacceptable when we were thirteen, Pence,” Hayner replied lazily with a wave of his gloved hand. Against a bruise-green dusk sky he could see his breath; November hadn’t arrived and already it was chilly. The four friends had temporarily traded ice cream for soup and cocoa.

Wrapped up in an orange and brown scarf, Olette half watched her friends (smiling warmly) and half watched the sky (eyes worried, betraying the smile). Roxas butted in with a few “Yeah!”s and “Cuz it just is!”s.

“I’m going trick-or-treating,” the brown-haired boy said at last, a mere lump huddled amid a red sweater. “I don’t care if you come.”

“That’s a lie!” Hayner declared and Roxas joined in with, “Aw, you know you’d miss us!”

“Of course I would. If all of us were there we could make mischief all over town!” He wiggled his fingers to emphasize.

“Seifer would have a problem with that,” Olette noted, hint of laughter playing at her voice. “I’m with you Pence. Let’s go trick-or-treating.”

“Right on!” the boy cried, punching a fist into the air. Hayner left without a word (for a groan is not a word but a sound). By tomorrow he’d forgive them all. Who knows—by Halloween, he’d probably be right along with them, grinning and bartering his Reeses for Milky Ways.

Kairi was against him, he knew it. If Wakka and Tidus were not too old, Sora knew he wasn’t either, even if the guys had a good excuse—they were escorting Selphie. But Selphie was only two years younger than him, as if it made any difference!

In his heart, he knew it did make a difference. Two years can have strange effects depending on where you draw them from. Two years added on to an innocent twelve-year-old makes a world of difference—body and voice change, ideals grow, past obsessions die—as opposed to two years added on to someone middle-age: an adult is an adult, it seemed to Sora. If his mom aged two years he wouldn’t even notice.

But he did notice that the age on his friends’ faces equaled over a year, and, in their eyes, the age had more than doubled; young war vets who, despite youth, wake up screaming every night.

If there was anything to distract them from any post-battle shock, it was, ironically enough, the scariest holiday of the year.

Besides, Sora had missed a year of his life, hadn’t he, in that chamber? And he didn’t know a face in the Destiny Islands’ entirety that wouldn’t enjoy seeing him at their doorstep, happy. On a small island, it didn’t take long for everyone to notice the sag in his shoulders when he headed to school.

Riku, sitting pensively the entire duration of the fight, let his eyes wander from Sora’s desperate mirrors of blue to Kairi’s hesitant off-purple and the curl of Sora’s fingers as he protested the statement that decided it for Riku: “I just don’t want to grow up yet.”

“We aren’t too old for trick-or-treating,” Riku said quietly, so softly they barely heard, eyes on the ground, intense. Kairi finally accepted defeat, a weary, matronly smile on her soft features.

Sora stared at his silver-haired friend in deja-vu shock. What? Riku’s eyes asked.

“Nothing.”