Author's Note: Yay! I went on a ski trip two days ago with ChibiFrubaGirl. I was sick of falling down on my snowboard so instead, I went sledding with her! Anyway, a lot of things happened that may inspire some stories from us. When I came back home, I thought what happened might be sweet if I wrote about some stuff that happened. Except, you know, all fluffily.
Surprisingly, I actually enjoyed what I wrote this time.
Oh yeah, and I also want to give a shout out to ChibiFrubaGirl again because I stole her writing style. Oopsies. Oh well, I needed her style to fully express my story.
Review! ...please?
Disclaimer: Seriously. Seriously? Seriously. I've been watching too much Grey's Anatomy...
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Sometimes, all you can do is hold up your walls.
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You walk by the blissfully cheerful people, your feet stepping noisily on the crunchy snow. They slide by on their smooth skies or snowboards, slick as morning dew on a fresh patch of sweet grass. You muse out loud, wondering how they can possibly manage to snowboard in this bitterly cold snow.
"They have hats and gloves for a reason Riku. It's supposed to keep you warm." Axel sarcastically replies to your silent murmurs. He holds his snowboard in his heavily gloved hands and the vivid scarlet of his board bites at your squinting eyes.
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Trying so hard, you struggle so hard to secure them, to keep everything else out.
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"Hmm..." You glance at your own frozen fingers, almost matching the color of the same biting snowboard. The white cracks in the skin dig deep into your dry skin.
Axel sighs, "Here, you can borrow Demyx's. I swiped another pair from him this morning. You can wear these until he realizes I took 'em."
At that, the fiery redhead grins brightly, hops into his step ins and flies into the colorless world of snow, snow and snow.
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Because there's more bad in the world than good.
And he won't take that chance.
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You stare silently at the gloves what were stuffed into your hands.
They're a deep indigo and a melancholy grey of diminutive tufts of fur peeps out from the small worn openings.
Grinning softly, you tug on the warm gloves and flex your hands. The fur tickles your thawing fingers and you realize the piercing wind doesn't bother you now.
Odd.
You turn against the wind now, vaguely confident now at the fact that you've beaten the elements. The skiers and snowboarders dash toward you, the powdery snow flying at you like a fresh snowstorm. Your eyes widen at the visions of intense figures surfing on snow.
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But the world flies at you.
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Maybe it wasn't such a good idea to stay up on the big hill. You start to hike down the dicey slope.
"Riku!"
You hear your name being called across the flat plain of white, the blustery wind almost carrying it away before the utterance reached you.
You see Namine waving at you. She's bundled up as if a fretful mother had dressed her. Over various sweaters, she wears a puffy white parka, merging into the background so perfectly that you would have missed her if it wasn't for the gentle flicker of color coming from her azure pants.
You smile gently and wave at the blond staggering toward you. She carries the heavy snowboard in her arms and the edge of one end drags in the snow.
"Riku! Let's go sledding! I'm tired of trying to snowboard. It's too hard." She bobs her head at you, encouraging you to come with her. Without thinking, you silently agree. After all, the wind was much too strong for you to be heard. You turn and march up the hill once again, only this time with Namine, the icy wind stinging your face.
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Memories undermine your brittle barricades.
The things you've done.
The words you've said.
They come at you like furtive arrows.
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She turns and smiles broadly at you. You realize that when she smiles, somehow, you need to smile too.
Before, when she smiled, you simply stared back, astonished why she would grin at you so... so brightly. Like you're the one who made her happy. Then, her smile would falter, just a bit.
Just enough for you to notice.
She would smile again, and resume her optimistic façade, hoping no one noticed.
Wasn't it tiring?
So when she beamed at him, he would what he could to keep her happy, if only for that short amount of time.
And that was to smile back.
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Life's too hard to keep up your defenses.
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"How exactly are we going to go sledding?" You ask skeptically. Namine shakes her blonde head teasingly.
"Nuh uh uh, I'll show you."
The giggling artist, ever the innovator, sets the navy board down on the hard ground, snow curling around the sides. She laughs as she sits on the slick snowboard.
She commands you to sit with her, tapping behind her on the cold hard rubber. You sigh, chuckling faintly, and plop yourself down behind her. Burdened by the two's wait, snowboard sticks to the ground. Namine motions for you to help her push it forward. You comply and soon enough, the board starts to shift.
"It's moving!" Namine laughs and pushes ever harder. You laugh with her, feeling the frosty air on your cheeks.
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So you let down the rigid barriers around your heart.
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It's not as bad now, the air isn't as biting. Not as cold as it was before.
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Stretch your numb fingers.
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It's going faster now. The rush of the scenery almost blinds you.
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In any case, you've spent so much of your life holding them up.
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You close your eyes, breathing in the cold new air. It's too hard not to, so why not just give in to physics?
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And breathe.
After all, it's too hard not to.
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The ride's almost over. The snowboard teeters precariously to its side.
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If life doesn't go your way,
Don't worry.
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You collide into soft pristine snow, the snowboard flying in another direction. Snow batters you everywhere and obstructs your vision. You grasp around and stand up, stumbling around for a bit; you somehow manage not to trip over your own feet. A flurry of color hits your sight and you realize that the bunch of yellow is Namine.
Seeing that her normally smooth neat hair is in a mess, you finally get to see the personification of a 'bird's nest' in her hair. Her once blue pants are now a dirty white and above all, her face is a mixture of bright scarlet chill, shock and delight.
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And still, when the good things in life don't cancel out the bad.
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You snort; the expression on her face is so... lovable; so much like a small child, fallen down and caught by snow, ready to venture into the wild once more.
Namine shrieks in joy, leaping up and down. She hugs you and you stagger back, the burden of a person heavy on your chest.
"Let's go again!" She giggles.
You smile once more; maybe coming to this trip wasn't as bad as you thought it was.
"Yeah, let's go again."
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There will always be hope,
Because even if you don't believe in such things.
False hope is better than no hope at all.
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