Oneshot based on Ando Yuko's "nouzen katsura (REPRISE)". Lyric translation by Kaworu. If you want the lyrics, email me for them. Thankies :D
Disclaimer: Lalala, I don't own Kingdom Hearts.
Experimenting around. Yay.
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Convenience Shop
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Touch me gently,
Like the song of the great trumpet flower
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She stood in the grassy knoll, her hand grasping a spray of trumpet flowers. The vivid rose coloured petals stood out against the backdrop of green. The breeze knocked against her, the hem of her sundress fluttering in response.
She was alone.
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They were nine.
They had bought a bottle of soda water from the convenience shop that day, curious about how it tasted, chipping in each and every bit of their then-pathetic allowances. Running on their short, little legs on the path, they halted, breathless at the beach. Panting profusely, he grinned at her and produced a glass from his pocket. She cocked an eyebrow.
The glass, he had stolen from his neighbour's house on the way, he explained.
Her fist landed on his head, a frown descending upon both chubby faces. The frowns, however, soon broke into incomplete toothy grins. She then set the bottle on the sand, and squatted down, the hem of her sundress draped on the countless particles. He followed suit, grabbing the bottle and twisting the cap open to pour into the stolen loot, getting sprayed by the water in the process. She giggled.
He set the filled-to-the-brim-with-soda-water glass in between them, on the sand.
Silence.
No skinny arm was outreached to the glass. No mouth was filled with soda water.
He just stared at the glass, clear with transparent soda water.
She blinked, eyelashes fluttering.
She took the glass in her hands and poured a mouthful down her throat.
He didn't follow suit, like he usually would.
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They never returned the glass, half filled with soda water, to the neighbour that day.
He never drank it.
She had asked him "why" a week after that, while sucking on lollipops, bought with his mother's small change, near the convenience store.
He chewed on the stick, making sucking noises, savouring the taste of the strawberry-flavoured candy working on his tastebuds.
He never answered "because".
The scent of strawberry lingered in the air.
That was the scent she searched for, the scent that lingered around him, existent or non-existent.
She could always smell it around him.
The scent that became a part of him.
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To her, he left her that day he said "I promise".
Strawberries and soda water didn't quite smell and taste quite the same after that.
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They were ten.
Hand in hand, they had plucked trumpet flowers for his mother, whose birthday was approaching.
She, hand still in his hand, tightly gripped, had picked out the colour and flowers herself. She knew his mother adored red.
They stopped by the convenience shop to purchase chocolate for his mother, which they had scrimped and saved for.
The cashier at the counter had commented they made a cute couple.
He stuck out his tongue at the cashier and dragged her with him, sprinting on the path till they were out of sight.
She sighed and poked him with a branch she found on the ground.
Skipping on the sandy path back to his home, the flowers fluttered in the gentle, cool breeze between their tightly interlocked hands, now swinging to an unheard rhythm, up and down.
She asked him what "couple" meant.
He told it was a continuation of what they would be, always.
And he smiled.
The feel of his touch had never felt so warm.
She smiled.
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Now, they were fourteen going on to fifteen.
What his mother would could "big boys and girls".
The trumpet flowers in her hand seemed to smile back at her, the way he did.
She placed them on the grass, setting them to rest. The strawberries, the soda water, the flowers were all lost in the crossroads in her heart.
She knew, she would probably never find them, never see them, never taste them, never smell them the way she did ever again.
She was alone.
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Touch me gently,
Because I'll gently smile, the way I did that day