(no subject)
Challenge: [241] Ghost Stories
Title: Upturned Rocks
Word Count: 305
Notes: Not a ghost story itself, but people with plenty of them to tell.
"What are you doing-homework?!" Riku has his head through the window of Kairi's second floor bedroom (the rest of him is dangling precariously from the sill), but Sora can hear them haranguing each other from where he's standing on the grass. The night air is just a little bit cool, and he shivers lightly when an errant wind cuts through his t-shirt.
It's the last night of spring break. They're teenagers, instead of-whatever the darkness made them.
"Heads up, Sora!" They end up in a tangled heap, somehow unscathed and somehow without waking the entire neighborhood. Then it's off to the beach and into the dinghies (which seem small and cramped now that their legs are long) and across the water to their island, where Selphie, Tidus and Wakka have already coaxed a bonfire to life on the sand.
It feels like a celebration, even though tomorrow they'll be cooped up in classrooms. They laugh at each other and they laugh at themselves, and jokingly tell ghost stories that sound childish with a flashlight under their chins. A few prank calls are made with Selphie's brightly colored mobile, and Riku talks Sora into a race, just for old times' sake. When Wakka and Tidus leave, linking arms with Selphie between the two of them, it's quieter, but it's still a celebration.
They're glad to be alive. They're happy they had something to come home to. Remembering certain things still makes something clench and claw inside Sora's chest, but he knows by now that it's just his heart, so he's glad to feel that, too. He's fairly sure that Riku is as well.
Conversation slows, and for awhile they only listen to the crackle of their dwindling fire. Kairi lays her head on Sora's shoulder and lets them tell her the real ghost stories.
Title: Upturned Rocks
Word Count: 305
Notes: Not a ghost story itself, but people with plenty of them to tell.
"What are you doing-homework?!" Riku has his head through the window of Kairi's second floor bedroom (the rest of him is dangling precariously from the sill), but Sora can hear them haranguing each other from where he's standing on the grass. The night air is just a little bit cool, and he shivers lightly when an errant wind cuts through his t-shirt.
It's the last night of spring break. They're teenagers, instead of-whatever the darkness made them.
"Heads up, Sora!" They end up in a tangled heap, somehow unscathed and somehow without waking the entire neighborhood. Then it's off to the beach and into the dinghies (which seem small and cramped now that their legs are long) and across the water to their island, where Selphie, Tidus and Wakka have already coaxed a bonfire to life on the sand.
It feels like a celebration, even though tomorrow they'll be cooped up in classrooms. They laugh at each other and they laugh at themselves, and jokingly tell ghost stories that sound childish with a flashlight under their chins. A few prank calls are made with Selphie's brightly colored mobile, and Riku talks Sora into a race, just for old times' sake. When Wakka and Tidus leave, linking arms with Selphie between the two of them, it's quieter, but it's still a celebration.
They're glad to be alive. They're happy they had something to come home to. Remembering certain things still makes something clench and claw inside Sora's chest, but he knows by now that it's just his heart, so he's glad to feel that, too. He's fairly sure that Riku is as well.
Conversation slows, and for awhile they only listen to the crackle of their dwindling fire. Kairi lays her head on Sora's shoulder and lets them tell her the real ghost stories.