To Jessica ( Tatikara ), for Christmas.

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e T E R N A L
kairiku collection x;
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iv . winter ( mittens );;

It was climatically incorrect for the tropical region of Destiny Islands to receive snow in the winter ( or any sort of precipitation otherwise ), but sometimes the outside degrees still dropped to a chronic 58º Fahrenheit that the islanders were not used to. The frigid air had sent Riku’s mother fretting over her sensitive son ( “Mom, I just have pale skin and sunburn easily – I’m not going to get frostbite when it isn’t even freezing outside.” ), so when she got back from the market one afternoon, she had a plastic grocery bag waiting for him.

He stared at the translucent sack before him, like an iced-over pond spectacle that they had never seen before on the Islands, wondering what was inside it. One part of him hoped ( Cookies? ); the other part dreaded.

She stood before her bright turquoise-eyed child, hands placed impatiently on her hips. “Well, go on. Open it.”

Not wanting to worry his mother any longer ( or himself ), Riku dug through the bag, his ears twitching at the unpleasant rustling sound the thin plastic made. His treasure was resting on his opened hands, then, barely fitting.

In his hands was a pair of oversized mittens. That wasn’t the only sorry part about them – that his parent could not find the right size for a child – but they were also made out of multicoloured rainbow material; material that looked suspiciously scratchy. One thought rang in his mind like a silent, contempt revelation over the tacky mittens: Blaringly homosexual.

His wide eyes looked up slowly at his mother.

“Think of it as an early Christmas present.”

If this was her idea of presents for him, then he absolutely did not want to know what else he was getting as Christmas gifts, for once in his youthful life.

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Today it was a chilling 57º, so of course his mother demanded him to wear his new mitts to school. He begrudgingly put them on, but ‘accidentally’ left them in his room as a clever attempt not to be burdened by the sinful things for that school day. However, before he slipped out the door, she caught him red-handed – not rainbow-handed. She glared at him until he stomped back up the stairs and fetched the flamboyant mittens, which he had stuffed beneath his bed in attempt to hide all evidence of this crime.

Normally he would utter a “Bye, Mom” and wave his hand in departure, but today he did not feel like lifting that colourfully clothed hand, and instead tromped down the walkway with his back turned to her.

Once he was out of sight, he pulled of the mittens and stuffed them in his backpack, flicking his already sweaty hands. It was ridiculous to wear mittens when it wasn’t even in the 40s outside. Riku scowled all the way to school, alone because his friends were regulars on the morning school bus. His mother, even though her delusional mind believed it was sleeting, hailing and snowing outside, refused to let him take the bus to school.

During the school day, he kept the gloves hidden in his backpack, locked up safely from the world in his steely silver locker.

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It didn’t take him a long time to realize that his mom was going to kill him.

Yes, he had done it. Riku had ‘accidentally’ lost one of his mittens. It was probably rotting in the boy’s bathroom now, with all the acidic fumes deteriorating its . . . erm, lovely colourful pattern.

Once he opened the doors to the outside, ready to embark on his treacherous, guilty journey home ( while muttering curses in his head ), he was suddenly hit with a gust of cold wind that fluttered the scarf of the girl beside him. Another one, and it slipped off her neck entirely, flying like a pink serpent away in the sky. Her friend shrieked with disdain, but the girl ( Selphie Tilmitt, if he remembered correctly, in the grade below him – she sometimes hung out with Kairi ) only laughed. “Don’t worry, I’ve got plenty more at home.” She smiled at Riku, who was left staring after the waving banner of a scarf, growing smaller and smaller as it gained distance away from the school building. “Merry Christmas, Riku!”

While she skipped off, he was struck with an epiphany. Christmas. That was right . . . it was the last day of school. He was officially on break ( ‘Winter Break,’ as they, the PC police of the school district, called it ), and he still needed to get his friends presents. There were only a few days left . . .

He began his walk home, stuffing his hands surely into his pockets and lowering his head from the oncoming gushes of bitter wind. They reminded him of the surf’s waves, only colder. Wind, water, earth – they were all similar when you came down to it. Strands of platinum hair swept across his face persistently, tickling his nose like snowflakes. Now he was beginning to regret losing that other mitten; however, he did not search for the one still in his backpack. He would brave the cold like a real man.

It was then, after a minute of walking, that he heard the soft pitter-patter of boots on the concrete behind him. Someone was following him. He kept on going, appearing to ignore the sounds of the stalker.

The footsteps grew louder as they grew nearer – he had deliberately begun to quicken his pace, though not noticeably by those who weren’t attentive in the act of sneaking up upon others, so that they would quicken theirs, too, and make the encounter over faster than intended. Now they were right behind him, just a breath away . . . he saw the shadow of arms stretching out towards him, and then he spoke in a nonchalant voice.

“Hi, Kairi.”

The arms stopped moving to encircle his torso. They wouldn’t fit anyway – she was far too small and short, and his backpack was literally overflowing.

“Aww, Riku, you’re no fun,” She pouted. “I was going to sneak up on you!”

“Technically, you already were, and you didn’t do a very good job of it.”

She walked up beside him, and the first thing he saw was a nest of deep crimson hair, like blood on freshly fallen snow. Her lower lip poked out ever-so-slightly, as she looked up with great globes of violet-tinted sapphire eyes with a hopeful gleam contained within them. “But I did better than last time, right?”

“Yeah – you did much better,” He gave in, freeing a hand to tousle her hair. The moment it touched air again, it turned cold – the brief second it was resting on top of her warm head was a gift.

She beamed at him, giddy from praise like a pet dog.

“But you need to work on being quieter. Silence and stealth is the key.” Riku wasn’t all compliments – he normally said something bad, but not to his friends ( the exception was Sora, when he was pissed at him ). In big-brother mode, he put in a bit of praise and a healthy dose of criticism: that was how you learned. Sometimes teachers – or parents – just never got that.

“Maybe I should start sword-fighting with you guys?” She smiled so that her eyes closed like tilted parenthesis marks.

“No.”

“Hee – come on, Riku, I was only joking.”

They walked for thirty more seconds in silence when she began to shiver.

“Don’t tell me you’re cold,” He challenged.

“The mayor said it was going to be in the 40s today – maybe even get down to freezing. Wouldn’t it be nice if it snowed, Riku?” She asked excitedly, tipping her head and momentarily forgetting about her uncomfortable condition.

“Snow,” He snorted skeptically, “in Destiny Islands? Kairi, you’re crazy.”

The redhead gazed off into the distance, her hands behind her back. “But wouldn’t it be great . . . if we could go somewhere where it could snow. Just like in my dreams.”

The ominous, far-off hint in her voice cautioned him into speaking about it. “You’re still having those dreams?”

“Mmhm . . .” She lowered her gaze. “The dreams of that place. Maybe . . . maybe it’s where I came from. Where I was born, before I came to the Islands.”

Kairi had never been that interested in her past – she had washed up on shore one night during a rare phenomenon of a meteor shower, her memories erased. She was content to stay here on Destiny Islands for the most part, until recently – when they came up with the idea to build a raft. Riku had always been more interested. What if she came from another world? That’s what he had begun to believe, thanks to Kairi.

Little did they know that she did indeed come from another world, and that one day they would get to visit it. They would also go to a place of eternal snow – Riku and Sora would take her there. But that was all in the future, and they were not clairvoyant children.

She shivered again, nearly giving him his own set of goose bumps. Having paused a moment in walking, it put her slightly behind him, so that she could see his backpack.

“What’s that?”

“What’s what?”

“That,” She pointed, “sticking out of your backpack.”

Oh, God. He looked over his shoulder and saw that the bag wasn’t completely zipped, and that a tuft of rainbow cloth was hanging out of it like some blaring, provocative sign.

“Oh, that’s—” That’s nothing, he was going to say, but before he could, Kairi was standing on her tippy-toes to pull the forbidden mitten out of the depths of his backpack.

Kairi was rolling it over in her tiny porcelain hands – if it was nearly twice too large for him, it had to be three times oversized for her.

“Pretty!”

No it’s not, he thought to himself, but since Kairi deemed it pretty, he felt a flutter of hope in his heart. Instead, he said nothing.

Without asking, Kairi pulled it onto his bare hand, and then slipped her hand into it as well. He felt himself shiver, but not from the cold – just from the fact that they were holding hands beneath that gaudy rainbow mitten.

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Sitting in Sora’s living room, they nibbled on Christmas cookies they had made the day before and eyed the wrapped presents in front of them. Sora’s gift to Riku, of course, wasn’t wrapped as skillfully as Kairi’s. He opened hers first, and at the same time, Kairi opened the gift she had gotten from Riku.

“What’d you get, Kairi?” Sora asked, peeking. But then something in the corner of his eye drew his attention away from her present. Something colourful.

“What is that, Riku?” This was far more incredulous sounding.

Riku held up a pair of mittens, identical to the ones he had gotten from his mother. He was at loss of words. Kairi looked over and smiled.

“I got you a new pair, since you lost the other one.”

“. . Thanks, Kairi. I appreciate it.” He suspected that his smile was too close-lipped.

In the meanwhile, Sora had snatched Riku’s gloves and attempted to put them on his feet. Sora had big feet, so of course they fit. Kairi then pulled out her gift.

More mittens, of the same variety.

“I got you them because you thought they were pretty.”

“And they are!” She cuddled them close to her chest. “Now we’ll be matching when we go to school again!”

Too bad. He had hoped that they’d have an excuse to hold hands again.

Now Sora opened his.

“. . Mittens?”

“I thought you wouldn’t like them. Now I guess I was wrong,” Riku explained.

The only girl there beamed at the concept. “Everyone’ll know that we’re friends, now!”

“Not that they don’t already.” Friends, brought together by the gay mittens.

“Guys,” Said Sora’s mother, rushing in from outside. “You’ll never believe it.” There were white flecks in her hair, causing disbelief to flow through his thoughts.

The trio stampeded to the window, pressing their mittened hands and noses to the glass. They breathed hot air on the cold glass, fogging it and nearly obstructing their view of the snow that fell outside.

“It’s . . .” Kairi gasped.

“Snowing!” Finished Sora.

They all three ran outside, the door swinging behind them. Riku was the last one out – he wandered as if in a daze towards the center of the yard, stopping with a hand shoved in his pocket and his head tilting upward towards the sky. Delicate snowflakes landed on his cheeks, his nose, melting and rolling down his smooth face like tears.

Kairi, after cheering and celebrating with jubilee, walked up beside him. She mimicked his pose, and he moved his aquamarine eyes to the side, seeing how artfully and innocently the snowflakes flecked her burgundy eyelashes. He took her hand, and they stood in the first snow together.

a.u thor ’s n.o te;;
( mini speech )

( of course you can skip this, and just go down to the little review box. heehee. )

As you may have caught up above after the ceaseless rambling of my story, this particular drabble was written for my friend Jessica for Christmas. I was considering making it a separate Kairiku story like fallen, which I wrote for her birthday, but decided that I really really really needed to update this collection. I mean, really really really. I was shocked to see that it was number 38 down on my story list of 44. No, I lied. I wasn’t shocked – I knew damn well that I hadn’t picked up this collection, or even tried to, for months, maybe even a year. I’m scared to look at the last updated date. Yes, over a year, now that I correct myself. I am blinded by the 14 months of dust that this has gathered. Oh OTP, whatever made you deserve my negligence?

I wasn’t surprised, either, that all my other collections and chaptered stories were way down the line as well. I’ve been too caught up seeking muse from short oneshots and drabbles from random dust bunnies that I discover, exploring through new fandoms, that I forgot that these epic adventures even existed. I thought that when Jessica gave me 100 new themes for my Kairiku collection, I’d magically gain some sort of muse for at least one of them. I got faint ideas, but no desire to write them. People threatened me to update, like I AM the Random Idiot. Now, as Christmas grows near ( precisely two days away, my friends – or is it one? I’m so bad at counting ), I finally try to revive and recover my lovely obsession. I think Zanisha inspired me to do it with her adorable in character Kairiku drabbles. Though I know that I can never become as professional as her, I can at least try.

This wasn’t a spur-of-the-moment idea – at least, I didn’t have it just today. I actually found this one scribbled in my old mini sketchbook that I used to bring to class in 10th grade. It was a cutesy idea, but I couldn’t write it, even though the time I came up with it was during winter, one year before. I lacked the inspiration. And since I scanned through the list of 100 and saw nothing Christmassy or even worth writing at the moment except for theme number 73, winter ( har har, how original ), I chose this one easily. Perhaps I could incorporate some more depth into it, and make the sketch just a beginning, and the rest I can pull from my head.

And another thing – if the last drabble I wrote was from 14 months before, then those three must have sucked. I was conscious of their suckiness immediately after I published them, but now they probably reek. I feel embarrassed and ashamed for anyone new that comes to read these and starts off with the first three. Ick. And yet, I am also thinking contradictory thoughts: that this one probably reeked even worse. It’s because I’m so rusty, unable to master the tragic complexity of Riku, and the sweet, simple kindness of Kairi because I am rendered inexperienced at it. Hopefully it wasn’t too bad.

And now I think that this ‘mini speech’ is becoming as long as the oneshot itself, so I hope all you loyal Kairiku fans ( and newcomers ) enjoyed yourselves. Merry Christmas.

Hopefully next time won’t be so far away.

Constance Greene.