A/N: Wow this is crazily short + fluffy. c: Enjoy~
Child's Play –
No one would play with him anymore.
The perfectly timed bash of his toe, of his heel, of his knee, against what had five hundred years ago been a pig's bladder and was now an airtight rubber ball was, he was sure, all that even if his memory began to evanesce he would know. The mud on his legs, the rain on his face, the fall of his heart when he lost his footing, the leap it took when the ball was in the net, the anger, the joy, the tears – no one else would have known them if not for him, and yet there he lay, forgotten.
His glory days had gone, and with them all those who had once respected and played against and alongside him. It wasn't that he was lonely – no, he scoffed at himself, of course not – just that the sport was no fun (practically impossible in fact) with only one player. He only wanted someone to play with so that he could play, because playing was what kept him sane.
And then she came along. She had short blonde hair, a bright blue ribbon hanging out of it, and was very small and delicate looking. When he saw her he seemed to have some recollection of her – a vague scene, in which he had sung his national anthem twice, and she had tolerated, laughing, though not mockingly, at his mistake. He had been sitting on a lone hill, in his own country (he would never dare enter hers as it was guarded heavily by her overprotective sibling and doing so would be total suicide) holding the black and white thing between his knees and ignoring the rain. She motioned towards the ball, smiling – greeting between them wasn't necessary, and neither could quite frankly be bothered to go ahead with the abhorrent falseness that was greeting. He raised an eyebrow – while he had come from another world meeting and could easily discard his blazer, roll up his sleeves and kick off his shoes, she was hardly dressed appropriately for the game, in a skirt that reached halfway down her skinny thighs and a pair of what looked like they could be school shoes. She just shrugged though, pulling them off in a strangely delicate manner and tossing them somewhere in some general direction, before running at him, knocking the ball gently from his grip, and quickly manoeuvring it between her bare feet the moment it touched the ground. Once over the initial surprise, he ran after her, and from then on, they played every day.
He didn't know what it meant, and he didn't know if he ever would, but when they played, the whole world stood still. The birds stopped singing, the clouds ceased their drifting, newborns no longer cried – they just played.
It may have just been child's play to her, but she brought back the bruised knees, the laughs, and the grass-stains that he so adored. Even if not for anything else, he knew he would always love her for it.