Disclaimer: I own nothing but the words on the page.
A/N: Because Kairi has more friends than just Riku and Sora, and nobody ever seems to remember that.
Perfect Girl
© Scribbler, August 2008.
Am I faithful? Am I strong? Am I good enough to belong
In your reverie? A perfect girl –
Your vision of romance is cruel and all along I played the fool,
All your expectations bury me.
-- from Perfect Girl by Sarah McLaughlin
Kairi is not a perfect girl.
Kairi is scraped knees and a bossy voice. She's don't swim out too far and put that down or it'll bite you. She's the memory of a crab hanging off your finger and trying hard not to cry because that's not what boys do. She's sitting on the sand crayoning instead of doing interesting things, like making swords and whacking them across the backs of legs and arms.
But Kairi is also sunshine on your face and back, a slender but strong hand pulling you out of the water because you're coughing, and your legs are trembling too much with fatigue to stand up. She's picking seaweed off your face and telling you you're an idiot in a voice that really means thank goodness you're okay. She's neatly wrapped sandwiches and finding shells to polish and put on her shelf in beautiful lines of colour and memory. She's glancing sideways in class and a strange gooshy feeling in your stomach, like seasickness, only you've never been seasick in your life.
Kairi is not a perfect girl, but she might as well be, because she's perfect for you. You just don't realise it at the time, and when you do it's too late, because she's already someone else's perfect girl in the ways that make her so happy her smile hurts your eyes, like looking at the midday sun. To them she's heroics and travelling and we'll make it through somehow.
To you she's wait for me, please wait for me.
Only she never does.
Selphie waits, but Selphie really is perfect – perfectly coiffed hair, even on a windy day; perfectly smooth skirt; perfect lips covered in raspberry gloss. Selphie stands next to Wakka and looks tiny and in need of protecting. She does things a girl is supposed to do, like gossip and make-up and it'll be the school dance soon, while Kairi rushes into dark portals and honestly thinks a message in a bottle will find the right person across millions of miles of ocean.
You don't want perfect. You want Kairi.
"Tidus, would you go to the dance with me?"
"He's not listening, Selph."
Fin.