Disclaimer: I don't own KHR. If I did Chrome would have so much more love on her birthday!
Ever since Nagi was a little girl she had learned how shadows moved. How the tall and proud shadow of her father seemed to move with purpose and condescension. How her mother's moved gracefully with a touch of judgement. How stranger's shadows fell across one another as if they were friends.
How her teacher's seemed to move with the same amount of authority and nervousness when she walked past her desk before it stopped, turned, and regarded her own lonely shadow with condemnation.
"Nagi." The words were harsh and angry. "You should look at a person with authority when they address you." Nagi's eyes traveled from her teacher's shadow to her annoyed face. It was obvious from her expression that she had called on the young girl to answer some question or another related to math. But, for the life of her, Nagi could not recall what the question could possibly be.
"Y-yes, Ms. Oshima?" Nagi could feel the eyes of her classmates bore holes in the back of her head. The many stares seemed to multiply her usual feeling of unease.
"Can you please tell me what the answer to problem fifteen is instead of daydreaming?" The teacher tried to use a sugary-sweet tone, but Nagi knew that there was an edge of malice lurking somewhere below waiting to cut her. It was a tone that she knew well from the many years that her mother had used the same tone.
Nagi's eyes snapped to the problems on the board. She tried to make sense of the numbers and words that were there for all of the class to read, but no matter how hard she concentrated none of it seemed to make sense. A loud tapping came from floor near her desk. Her eyes snapped down to find her teacher's foot harshly moving up and down. Her shadow seemed to disappear and reappear every time that her foot made contact with the ground and then sprung up.
After the tenth tap, though, the shadow started to change. The longer that she stared at that shadow the more that it seemed to warp into a form that no longer resembled her teacher. Instead of her teacher's curvy figure, the shape changed into that of a man with sharp angles and odd hair. Nagi looked up at her teacher's face and found she was no longer there. In her stead a man with blue hair and an odd uniform stood giving her a look of condemnation.
"Miss Mist." The man drawled as he gave her a look of consideration. "I do believe that we are all waiting for an answer…" He paused for a moment before advancing on her with a dark smile. Nagi tried to shrink back, but she found that the shadows of her classmates had morphed as well and had formed a wall. Effectively keeping her from creating any sort of distance between herself and the man before her. "Just when will you be giving up on this charade? You know that you'll never be strong enough. They'll never want you to stay with them."
"B-but they're my-!" Nagi tried to find some strength to continue on, but one of the man's fingers found its way onto her lips silencing her before she could continue.
"Friends?" He asked with scorn. "My, my. You sure are a naïve young girl. They aren't your friends. They were only using you. And, now that their real guardian is free, you're of no use to any of them." His smile became wicked as the shadows began to swarm and fill the room. His unnaturally blue eyes pierced her. "I believe that it's time for you to give up, Chrome." The shadows then began to suffocate and blind her as his laughter filled her ears.
Chrome shot up in bed echoes of laughter ringing in her ears as her eyes wildly scoured her surroundings. At first, all she could see were the shadows that had plagued her dream, but, ever so slowly, the shadows began to separate from each other and form familiar shapes. The slow and constant movement of the tree outside of the window of her room in the Varia mansion soothed her as it swayed back and forth over the bed spread.
She reached a shaky hand towards the black leaves and watched as the bent and gently laid themselves over her smooth skin. She twisted her hand and watched as the shadow morphed into the shadow of one of her friends. The delicate hand met her shadow's hand as it had in the past when she was afraid of friendship. A small smile played over her face as her shadow was pulled from the bed spread by the other hand and into the bright moonlight that came from the clear unobstructed window in the middle of her room. Her smile softened as the shadow of her friend twirled her own in happiness. Two more friendly shadows, one around their age and another much younger joined the pair of twirling shadows for a time before leading her shadow and the second shadow away to join the rest of the shadows that filled the room.
Ever since Chrome was a young girl, she had watched as the shadows moved across the ground. More recently, though, she had learned how to manipulate the shadows to do as she wished. It was a silly thing, playing with shadows, but she always found some enjoyment to see them replay happy memories and feelings when she was sad or upset. There had been a few times when Ken or Chikusa had noticed her playing with the shadows, but they had assumed that she was doing it to practice and did not ask her any questions. Which was something that she had appreciated, since she had not wanted them to see her.
On one such occasion, during the short time that Chrome had spent with Mukuro in person, she had forgotten to pay attention to her surroundings, and he had seen her replay one of her favorite memories with her friends. He had looked on in silence until they had dissipated before addressing her.
"Why do you play with shadows when you can create the real thing?" His voice startled her from her daydreaming so badly that she had to take a few breaths to calm herself.
"I-I like the way they look when they dance." Mukuro laughed quietly causing her to blush He approached where she sat on the ground and ruffled her hair.
"You can be such a silly girl, Chrome," he chuckled as he withdrew his hand. He then turned it over and extended it to her in invitation. "We are about to go and find food. Will you join us?" Chrome nodded slightly before taking his hand and following him to where everyone else was gathered.
Mukuro had not asked her about her past-time again, and for that she was grateful. Even though Chrome had grown to trust Mukuro, it was hard for her to admit to him the whole reason behind her use of shadows over illusions. Illusions were almost too easy to manipulate. All she had to do was think and the illusions of her friends would appear, but, no matter how hard she tried, the illusions would always be a faded echo of what she was used to seeing. Shadows, on the other hand, were a lot more solid and tended to not fade.
And, no matter how dark or light, shadows were always there. Even if it was only her shadow, alone and afraid, she knew that she could depend on it being there. And, if she asked it kindly enough, it was always willing to dance for her and make her remember better days.
A/N: I wrote this awhile ago when I stumbled upon the prompt "You can't run from the shadow, but you can invite it to dance." I've been holding onto it for awhile and I decided to share it in honor of Chrome's birthday today! There are a few references to a Chrome-centric fic that I've been working on here, especially in relation to her being in the Varia's mansion, but it's meant to be a stand-alone one-shot so it probably won't ever be a part of the actual fanfiction when I finally roll out with it sometime next year.
I hope you guys enjoyed this! And, as always, if you have any thoughts or questions leave them in the reviews!
EDIT:I feel so dumb. While editing another story a few weeks ago I realized I accidentally mixed chapter names in the Document manager so that this was displaying the wrong content... *sigh* Sorry for the confusion! (And thanks to Qwerty for helping me realize it.)