A/N: Standard disclaimer applies.
Wedding-fruit
There was something that Kairi had often wondered about. If it was true that the paopu, when shared between two, would intertwine their destinies forever – or at least, if its representation of such was that significant and well-known – why was that sacred fruit not indicted into the marriage rites of Destiny Islands? She saw it almost vividly in her mind's eye – the fruit, sliced into quarters and served on a clay platter with elaborate curves and swirls running along its rim, and how a fork would pierce its flesh and lift itself towards a brightly-painted mouth on a blushing face… the bride would follow his ministrations, feeding him another slice – and childish though her imagination was, still she felt the profundity of its representation.
Perhaps it was less strange that it was Kairi who questioned and dreamt up such things, for inherently she was an outsider. But she took the paopu myth to heart just as much, if not more than, the islanders did.
Kairi thought it might be able to solve so many problems, that paopu. Perhaps then Wakka's mother would not have woken everyone in the village at night with her screaming by her spouse's blows. Then she wouldn't have left – but her son had turned out well, so well, because of the shadow that his sorry excuse of a parent had cast over his life. He became a father-of-sorts to the orphans – but his temper would overwhelm his resolve whenever Tidus stumbled in, eyes red with indignation about the inattention of his two loving parents. And at the sight of Tidus' black eye, Selphie would cease skipping; the rope hit the sand, twinkling eyes dulled, angry feet danced and sent up geysers of saltwater. For she hadn't known any papa or mama. That was no loss. It was only an absence – an irrevocable absence that overrode all other existence, an unceasing call that no outsider would ever be able to still or pacify.
Kairi – she watched all this, she teased and poked the trio's mirth back together again – and she wondered. In fact, the paopu reeked of practicality. If the myth were true, then the paopu would cease to be merely a symbol. Then it would be relied on in the case of the failure of the human heart, wouldn't it? In the first place, didn't blind trust in the paopu imply a love that leant on superstition for survival? If two renounced the paopu, would that not convey an even greater measure of belief, even if only momentary, in the bond between them?
The more she thought about it, the more the paopu intrigued her – and not in the same way that it compelled Selphie, who dreamt only of a knight in shining armor. So Kairi found herself secretly and clumsily carving a motif of the sacred fruit, an adaptation of a private wonder she could not express. She was awful with tools, and often it was Riku's help she enlisted in helping her chisel around the finer edges. (And if his fingers touched hers and lingered for just a tiny bit longer than they should have when he aided her, what could she say? – how could she say it?)
It wasn't large at all – it was just something small enough, dear enough, to fit in someplace close to her. And however others might think, no matter what her own insights belied, she wasn't taking any chances. Not with Sora. She passed it into his hands as a good luck charm, faith taking shape in the damp warmth of his palm.
Because at only fourteen, their 'paopu' hadn't merely been a promise. It was a marriage.
