Title: When Toes Curl
Chapters: 1/1 (one-shot)
Summary: Even now she thought it to be a bit silly, losing control of your toes. But it pained her to know that not once in her 16 years had her toes curled of their own accord. (Yuffie/Riku)
A/N: I LIVE! Yeah, I know, took me long enough. I'm still on this weird Yuriku kick, so here's a pointless Yuriku one-shot. If Yuriku doesn't float your boat, too bad, 'cause it floats mine and this boat's a-sailing!...sorry you had to read that. Forgive me. Anyway, this takes place in Traverse Town because I felt like it. Man, I seriously missed Traverse Town in KH2. So I guess that makes this officially sort of AU-ish. And this is the first thing I've written in a zillion years (aka 4 months), so bear with me.

Yuffie sat in the Water Way one late afternoon, waiting for Leon to return so the two could finish their training for the day. Their training session had been interrupted by a Heartless attack in Third District, so Leon had gone to take care of things. After he'd left, instead of continuing practicing like Leon had told her too, she sat on the damp rocks and took off her shoes and socks which were soaking wet after wading through the murky water. It was downright annoying, brandishing her shuriken and flipping around while there was sewer water in her shoes.

And it was in these few quiet moments her thoughts began to wander.

Toes.

Ten little digits on her feet that squished barefoot in puddles when it rained. Ten little digits that wriggled freely in the sand. Ten little digits that squrimed in her sneakers as she ran around Traverse Town.

Oddly enough, these ten little digits were her soul mate finders.

As a child, Yuffie had found this to be completely absurd. She'd once overheard Aerith telling Tifa how her "toes curled when she'd met Cloud", signaling that "he was 'the one'." Then Tifa had argued that toe curling only meant that "you were attracted to a guy." She didn't get to hear much else about the matter, however; Tifa had soon spotted the young ninja and shooed her away.

Even now she thought it to be a bit silly, losing control of your toes. But it pained her to know that not once in her sixteen years had her toes curled of their own accord. She chalked it up to not having met the one who could make her toes curl. Sometimes she doubted that she ever would.

Well, there was that one time Squ - er, Leon, had made her toes twitch when she was about eight or nine...then again, just about her whole body was twitching nervously at the time. Leon had just found out (the hard way) that she'd switched his eye drops with lemon juice. Now that she thought about it, that was when he patented his now infamous Glare of Doom.

But even so, Yuffie knew that Leon could never be the one for her. He was downright attractive but...too pretty, almost. Plus he had that on-going angst issue with a dead girlfriend. That was kind of annoying. As pretty and angsty as her Squallie-poo was, the man was nine years her senior and not a toe curler.

Yuffie stood up. Apparently, her Squallie-poo wasn't a man of punctuality either, she thought, glancing at her watch. He was supposed to be here a half an hour ago. Now she was bored. Perhaps she should go see if Gepetto had any new Gummi pieces...? She made her way to the mouth of the cave and waded through the murky water, shoes and socks held high above her head. Yuffie emerged on the other side and padded barefoot towards First District, humming a tune as she went.

Next thing she knew, she walked headlong into what felt like a brick wall and tumbled backwards to land roughly on her butt.

"Sorry about that," the brick wall spoke. Yuffie's eyes slowly shifted up to look into the stranger's face, then down again at the ground. She could've sworn she'd seen him before...

"Oof!" Yuffie stumbled through the unusually crowded First District, people elbowing and shoving her as she made her way.

"Sorry, kid," a new voice spoke.

"Kid! I'm not akid!" Yuffie replied indignantly. Who was this jerk? She'd never seen silver hair like that around Traverse Town before...

A cocky grin graced his features. "Hey, have you seen a kid with crazy brown hair and a stupid smile around by any chance?"

Yuffie stared blankly."Could you be a little more specific?"

The boyfolded his arms and frowned. "He has the weirdest yellow clown shoes you will ever see," he clarified after a brief moment of thought.

"You mean Sora?"

His eyes lit up at the mention of Sora. "Yeah!"

"I last saw him--"

But the crowd swept her up and away before she could answer. She lost sight of the strangely silver haired boy, never to see him again.

That's right! She had seen him before...although she didn't remember him being so good looking. He was quite the sight for sore eyes with his shimmering silver hair and equally entrancing aquamarine eyes. He paraded around with a permanent smirk and an air of arrogance.

He was everything she couldn't stand in a guy.

Yet her toes seemed to think differently as they curled spasmatically.

"My name's Riku," the stranger introduced. "Haven't I seen you before?" he asked, extending a hand to help her up.

Yuffie blinked stupidly for a moment, unable to comprehend what was going on. "Um," she stuttered, having regained the ability to speak, "yeah. I'm Yuffie." She took his offered hand and stood up.

"I didn't mean to knock you down. Are you okay?" He seemed genuinely concerned for her well being.

Hmph. That was way more than she could say for Leon, who was still missing. "Y-yeah, I'm just peachy. What about you?"

"Me? I'm fine. I wasn't the one on the ground," he pointed out smugly. "Anyway, I should get going. See you around soon?" Riku grinned at her--and dear God, was that a wink?--before walking away.

Yuffie didn't mind him arrogantly strutting away in the middle of a conversation she'd clearly wanted to continue (it gave her quite a nice view of his backside, after all). She couldn't help but notice that he'd posed his last phrase as a question. She also couldn't help but notice that her toes were still curled.