A/N: An AU collection of childhood memories starring the wonderful Ryoko and Kyon. What life would've been like if icing stickers and a sandbox were all that it took to make these two six-year-olds fall in love.

Growing Pains

I - Elementary School

Do you remember the day we met? Like a photo in a scrapbook it remains taped down in the back of my mind. Memories of that awful yellow gingham dress and plastic red bucket and spade. Memories of the other boys pushing me over in the sandbox. And then you.

And then you were there.

The tears that were welling up in my eyes distorted my vision so I didn't get a good look at your face. I rubbed the sand and grit off of my grazed knees, held my hands in front of my face, began to howl and cry and bawl because nobody wanted to be friends with a crybaby loser girl anyway, so what was the point in holding back?

I remember the hurt that wracked my body as you toddled off and left me there. But then you came back, with that little red spade, and that was the amazing thing; you'd actually come back to somebody like you offered the spade to me and I took it, still crying and snivelling like an idiot. You raked the sand with your fingernails, leaving traces that faded as the wind skittered past, and then you smiled at me and told me you'd had a new baby sister. You told me your name and that you had pickled plum in your lunch and that you thought my gross gingham dress looked nice.

I'd never met a six-year-old quite like you before.

Since that day it was like fire and water had spontaneously become friends. Something sparked and we were suddenly building sandcastles, making daisy chains, scribbling in our tiny little notebooks pictures of flowers and bumble bees and bubbly-looking cartoon clouds that looked like sheep. You were always the artist and I was always the one filling in the lines. You were a messy colouring-inner so it just seemed to make sense. We made the perfect team in such a dysfunctional, childlike way.

I remember the first rainfall since our friendship began, where I was wearing a little pink raincoat with white ducks on, while yours was yellow like a fireman's helmet. We both had floppy little rain hats and matching umbrellas which we twiddled in puddles, spraying the muddy water up against our welly boots. You complained when you got dirty. I laughed.

Life was such a simple thing back when we were in kindergarten, huh?

Imagine my surprise when we were put into the same class in elementary school. You'd spent the whole summer with your grandparents in the countryside, and I'd spent the summer alone. You hadn't even noticed that you'd gotten taller, had you?

I started learning how to play the violin and recorder while you kicked around a ball with the boys and pretended to wrestle. Whenever we all played kiss-chase, you stood there until I caught you and yet you ran a mile whenever Sakura or Momoko or Junko tried to get in there first. You might have thought you were being subtle, but did you really think I was that clueless?

The first time I invited you around my house we baked fairy cakes and decorated them with Tom and Jerry icing stickers before sitting down and watching My Neighbour Totoro in front of the fireplace. The first time I visited yours we finished off our school project and played video games. Your little sister was still a baby then, wasn't she? She was so tiny.

That one Christmas we shared was amazing too, wasn't it? We had a sleepover around your house and we played with your little sister. On Christmas morning we opened our presents and ate Christmas dinner together and spent the whole day playing with our toys, staying up late and falling asleep in the early hours of the morning.

It snowed the day after and we built a snowman, didn't we? When it collapsed and melted three days later, I cried.

You held my hand and we stared at the pathetic, soggy lumps of snow on the ground, remembering when this tiny mound had been our snowman, our friend. Then you picked up the damp scarf and took it into the house, prompting me to tearfully follow.

Perhaps it was around that time we started to properly grow up. In fifth grade we had 'the talk'. You were red-faced and trembling the entire time as the class erupted in laughter around us, pointing at the diagrams and cackling, because apparently it was so funny that boys had willies and the teacher was admitting it. One hand was covering your crotch and you were deliberately rubbing the bridge of your nose with the other.

When I looked at you, you turned away.

What was that expression on your face?

After that you began avoiding me, hiding in the big oak tree on the higher branches I was too scared to climb, taking refuge in the boys' toilets because you knew I couldn't go in there, leaving the building as soon as the final bell rang.

For a while I was mad at you, frustrated and upset that you were doing this to me. Why were you running away as I tried to find you? Had I done something wrong? Were we no longer friends?

Our exams happened and we got our letters returned. We were both heading for the same middle school. A few months ago and I would've been ecstatic, overjoyed, leaping from the clouds and over the moon and back again. Now I just felt empty because once again we'd reverted back to the kids without any friends. What were we even fighting about? Each time I asked the question I searched for an answer. There was never any real results.

Do you remember the day before the elementary school graduation ceremony? You were up in the oak tree so I threw my pencil case at you and shouted at you to come down, that I wanted to talk to you. When you ignored me I began pelting you with pencils and pens and exercise books and textbooks and rubbers and pencil sharpeners, the shavings raining down between us like confetti. Eventually you snapped, catching a book in your right hand and throwing it back at me, hitting me in the stomach with enough force to knock me over. As I lay on my back, winded, I caught sight of your face, embarrassed, red, framed by your dark hair and half-hidden with your clenched fists.

"What do you want?" you roared, swinging both legs over the side of the branch. I watched as you swayed uneasily, teetering on the brink of falling, yet somehow managing to keep your balance.

When I found my voice, I croaked out exactly what was on my mind.

That I was tired of us fighting.

That I didn't even know where we'd gone wrong.

That even if you hated me, I couldn't ever hate you.

That you were mean and a jerk and my stomach really hurt.

That whatever I'd done wrong, I wanted to forgive and forget.

And then you stopped trembling and flushing and glaring at me. Just like that, as if I'd simply snapped my fingers and taken you out of a trance. You stopped and stared at me, at a loss for words, as if for the first time in months you were actually seeing me.

"I'm sorry," you muttered, and then your mouth opened and you threw up, all over my faded pink schoolbag, all over my pencil case and my notebook and my Minnie Mouse mechanical pencil.

I stared at you in shock and you began to shiver violently, like you always did when you were overwhelmed or upset or afraid. Tears filled your eyes and you muttered, "I'm sorry" to me again.

I waited for ages, but you didn't come down from the tree. So I left.

You didn't turn up on graduation day, but I guess I kind of expected it. Your parents still attended the ceremony though, with their chins held high, smiling and clapping with everybody else. They told me afterwards that you weren't feeling well, but they wouldn't tell me what was wrong and said that I couldn't see you until you were better. Was that really their words, or were they yours?

I stood outside your house everyday despite their warnings, though. I never went inside, choosing to watch you from a distance as the sounds of your mother's humming and your little sister's peals of laughter rang in my ears like a pleasant song of the past.

The first time you opened the front door and headed towards the library was a week later, and you still looked unkempt, with dark circles under your eyes and an equally gloomy expression.

I approached you with a Tom and Jerry cake and a 'get well soon' card.

"Hi there," I said shyly. You avoided my gaze, before taking the card. You told me I could have the cake, but you peeled off the icing sticker and ate that instead, before continuing on your way to the library. So I followed you, a few paces behind at first, gradually getting braver and braver until you turned around and snapped, "Will you stop following me?!"

Angrily, you grabbed my hand and pulled me along, grumbling quietly to yourself and refusing to meet my eyes.

I squeezed your hand as hard as I could, hoping that even if you wouldn't look at my face, you would still feel what I was trying to tell you.

We'll be fine.

And just like that, we carried on like our fight had never even happened. From the moment we stepped into the library the flame had been rekindled and you swiped out a notebook, fine liner and felt tip pens from your rucksack. My spirits lifted.

We spent the next two weeks in our own private world, absorbed in everything we had missed and everything we had yet to do, playing hide and seek in the park, chasing the pigeons, wolf-whistling whenever an ugly man walked past. The works.

Then I got my first period, and spent the next six days whining, complaining and snapping at you whenever you said something I considered to be stupid in that deranged, hormonal state of mind - which happened to be most of the times you opened your mouth.

We'd begun to change without realising it, and it was only just catching up to us. Or maybe you'd known all along, ever since that fifth grade sex ed. class when you started trying to run away from the me that was growing up before your eyes without you having a say in the matter at all.

I wanted to cry out that growing up wasn't going to change what we had between us, but somehow I couldn't find the words.

And then middle school began.

A/N: This is my early Christmas present to superstarultra! Sorry it isn't the alien Christmas oneshot I originally wanted to do, but I've had no inspiration for writing it. My crack ideas (particularly for the Haruhi archive) don't come around all that often anymore, so I figured I'd upload this since it's a tribute to one of the pairings we often discuss. D:

This was written originally after a discussion we had a few months ago about the scenario of 'what if Ryoko and Kyon were childhood friends and Ryoko was an ordinary human girl who went to the same middle school as Kyon'. This then went onto 'what if they had a spring fling going on' and then 'I know, imma draw a ton of crappy fan-art for it!' which then became 'you uploading some of them to tumblr as I cringed and hoped nobody would hate on me'… and then this eventually became me writing this. I revamped it, made a couple of changes and added in a Christmas scene so it fit the time of year, aha. So now, here it is. Middle school is coming soon…~

Again, sorry this isn't the alien crack I originally wanted to do. Perhaps if I get some inspiration before the new year I'll whip up something quickly and upload it, but if I don't, I'm sorry. Still, merry Christmas bro! c: Eat lots of cake, open lots of presents, remember Jesus and have fun!