Jingle, Jingle
A/N: I'm finally ending The Taming, so I'm glad to say I can write little things like this without feeling guilty. Anyway, here's a little Christmas 3-shot. There'll be a chapter upload tomorrow and the day after as well. And I surprisingly did a pretty good job with that Halloween one-shot were Sora, Riku and Kairi are all kids so…same situation here. In-universe, before all the crap that happens in KH1.
Disclaimer: You think if I owned Kingdom Hearts, I'd be writing crappy fanfiction?
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"Why would you even say that, Riku?!"
"Because it's the truth! You're a baby if you really believe in Santa Claus!"
"I am not a baby!"
"Oh yeah? Then prove it. Tell everyone you don't believe in Santa."
An eight year old Sora sat pouting at the bottom step of his staircase. In his hands, a slowly cooling cup of hot chocolate threatened to spill over, moving dangerously close to the rim when he huffed exaggeratedly. Off to the side, by the quaintly decorated Christmas tree, his mother watched with a worried expression. It wasn't right, she thought to herself, that her son had to choose between his friends and his beliefs. And a traitorous thought crossed her mind that they weren't much friends in the first place if they told Sora he had to let go of his childhood to look cool, but she shook the thought away. Children tended to value looking cool in front of their peers, and Sora's friends were good kids…most of the time. However, as she watched him huff even more, allowing a few drops of hot chocolate to drip to the floor as his cup carelessly leaned further out of his hands, she came to a decision that it was time to put a stop to this peer pressure that caused her son grief. Standing up from the couch and brushing a few pine needles from her clothes, she slowly approached her son in an effort not to startle him and cause the cup to fall completely.
"Sora," she spoke his name softly. In the end, it seemed he was too lost in his thoughts to not startle at least slightly at the sound of his mother's voice, but luckily he didn't drop the cup.
"Huh?" he answered, staring owlishly at the woman. He must have forgotten she was there. Sighing and shaking her head, his mother moved to sit beside him.
"You know, just because Riku says something, doesn't mean you have to believe him…"
Sora made an affronted face at that.
"But Riku's my best friend! Why would he lie to me?" he pouted.
"I'm not saying he lied to you, per say. I simply mean that he may see things differently from you. That doesn't mean you have to change your beliefs just because his are different. So he doesn't believe in Santa Claus. That doesn't mean you can't."
"But…but all the other kids agree with him. They say Santa is for babies, and that parents only tell us he exists out of tradition…"
Sighing once again, Sora's mother leaned back against the steps as she wrapped an arm around her son, pulling him into her side. He set down his cup and gave her his full attention. However, she wasn't quite sure what to say to him. After all, Riku and the rest of their friends weren't far off the mark.
"You know, I used to have the same idea as Riku," she finally began. Sora's eyes widened in disbelief. His own mother was even agreeing with Riku? Maybe he was right…
"But then," she continued, "I realized how foolish it was of me to stop believing in my childhood hero. This was a man who, out of the kindness of his own heart, brought joy and fun to children around the world. Who braved our chimneys and paid special attention to the wishes of every kid who had been on his nice list. And forgave the kids on his naughty list so long as they cleaned up their act the following year. Why should I stop believing in such a person just because my friends didn't? Why should they shape my view of what I wanted my Christmas to be? After all, what control had they over my choices?"
Considering the look of admiration on her son's face, Sora's mother felt quite proud of her speech. Even though, a small guilty portion of her mind whispered, it wasn't entirely true. She stopped believing in Santa Claus when she caught her own father wearing the red suit. But that didn't mean that her son had to go through the same. If he still wanted to believe, then who was she to stop him?
Sora, on the other hand, tossed his mother's words around in his mind. It was true, Santa did plenty of great things, and it was wrong of his friends to tell him to stop believing just because they wanted to grow up to fast. It was wrong of Riku to make him say to their friends that he didn't believe anymore, just to stop the teasing.
"So, do you still believe in Santa?" Sora asked, hopeful that his mother would support his claims that Santa was indeed real. He failed to notice the odd twitch of her eyebrow and the slight tightness of her smile. She absolutely hated lying to him, but if she told him to give up on what he believed now then how insecure would he turn out later in life, when even more profound beliefs he may have could be called into question.
"Of course I do," she finally answered, grateful that her voice didn't waver. "If there's one thing I'll never stop doing, it's believing. And that goes for you too, Sora. Don't stop believing, alright?"
Sora nodded, his usual bright smile returned in full force, and his mom beamed right back at him. Grabbing his nearly forgotten cup, he raced into the kitchen to finish, his mom slowly walking behind him. As he settled into a seat at the table, she pulled out a large plate and glass to set on the counter, just beside the cookie jar. Sora watched curiously as she started to pull chocolate chip and sugar cookies and even his favorite: snickerdoodles from the jar, setting them on the plate neatly. Getting the idea, he jumped from his seat and went to pull the jug of milk from the refrigerator, shakily pouring the milk into the glass under his mom's watchful eye. She then took the plate and the glass back into the living room, setting it carefully on the small coffee table standing just before the couch. Turning to her son, she winked at him with a sly smile.
"Well, little mister, since Santa's coming by tonight, we'd best leave him something sweet to snack on, huh?" she grinned.
Sora grinned back, nodding again. Nearly shaking with excitement, he ran back into the kitchen once again to finish his hot chocolate, as he had planned to before the interruption. Not even needing to be told to do so, he quickly cleaned his mess and ran upstairs to ready himself for bed. After all, Santa wouldn't come by until he was sleeping, and he didn't want to end up on the naughty list for staying up passed his bedtime.
His mother watched this with a small, happy smile on her face. Perhaps she didn't believe anymore. But, despite his earlier words to his friends, Sora never truly stopped believing. And that was all she wanted from him.
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A/N: Merry Christmas!
