you're so high up & before you know it you're falling feet-first because you j u m p e d
jumper
hayner yuffie
at age six (and a half, thankyouverymuch), hayner was just as fearless and just as much of an attitude problem was he is now (but he doesn't know that yet).
at age six, hayner wasn't afraid to play with the big kids, the third and fourth graders who had recess outside at the same time as his kindergarten class did. in fact, it was one of the big kids who taught him how to pump his legs on the swings to make himself go as high as he wanted because she was sick of pushing him everyday.
her name was yuffie. hayner remembers that like it happened yesterday instead of nine years ago.
so yeah. yuffie was the one who taught him how to swing by himself. shortly after that, yuffie stopped coming to school and slowly, hayner forgot about her until they built the new playground in the middle of twilight town. it had pretty much the same plastic equipment as every other playground he'd ever been on; a tunnel slide, a rope ladder, a tetherball stand, and a red rocket with a steering wheel that was already loose at the tippy-top that was almost impossible to get to if you were taller then four foot two, but hayner didn't care. he was too old for that crap, anyway.
the only other thing they had on the playground was a shiny new swingset, and that was the only thing that mattered to hayner.
at age ten, yuffie taught a little first grader how to swing on the swingsets. or… maybe it was a kindergartener—petty details like that didn't matter to the great soon-to-be ninja yuffie. but i digress. she liked him because, unlike his mates, he wasn't afraid to talk to the kids her age. he wasn't afraid to demand that she push him higher and higher on the swings, even after she told him that she beat up three boys in her class and if he didn't stop bossing her around, she was going to push him down in the mud, darn it.
he only laughed and demanded that he go higher. his name was hayner, she remembered.
and indeed, she pushed him higher, higher, higher. and then she taught him how to push himself higher, higher, higher. and then she was gone.
she didn't know why she wanted to do it. it was an urge that mixed with her insatiable urge to be up in high places (despite the fact that she knew that she would make herself ill if she looked down from said high places).
she knew that she would jump before she even hit puberty.
at age eight, hayner had taught himself, with the help of his two friends Olette and Pence, how to jump off the swing when you swing as high as the bar would let you without breaking both of his legs in the process. it was a beautiful thing, a beautiful feeling, gliding through the air, oh so high up and seeing the entire playground in the entirety of a split second before he began his descend back to earth, falling, falling, falling feet-first because he jumped.
when yuffie came back, because hayner knew she was coming back, he was going to show her and impress her and they were going to be best friends. period.
six years later, hayner still practices jumping off the swings, seeing all of the world in a split second, waiting for yuffie to come back even though deep down, he doesn't want to admit it, but he knows that yuffie's not coming back
and at age twelve, yuffie climbed up the twenty-four flights of stairs to the roof of her twelve story apartment complex, the wind blowing her dark hair in a frenzy around her head and into her eyes. she stepped up to the edge and, with a smile on her lips and without a second though, she stepped off, oh so high up and falling, falling, falling feet-first because she jumped.
yuffie knows that she'll miss the crazy little kid who demanded that she push him on the swings. but she jumps anyway.
hayner knows that he'll keep practicing jumping off the swingset because he wants yuffie to come back, even though he knows its impossible.
and the only way they know they can reach each other was by jumping.
n o t e ;; D i don't like the ending. inspired by a game of duck-duck-goose(don't ask). finally, i write something that doesn't include Roxas or sora! ha ha, hope you enjoy this.
11 july 08 2.23 pm
