Although I have been unproductive in such a tumultuous year, I really didn't want to close out my 5th year on this site without uploading a single story. This also happens to be my 50th story overall, which is exciting. I thank everyone who's read my work as I've gotten to this point.
Enjoy.
As though it were a great obelisk in an ancient city, Namine stood before the door to her friend's apartment with both admiration and fear. Just beyond that door was a New Year's Eve party, whose various sounds - those of music and speech and life - were audible despite the hardwood between her and the open, upper-class apartment where she was invited to spend the night amongst others.
Should I just go home? she asked herself, unconsciously rubbing her sweatered shoulder.
It was as she was beginning to turn around and walk down the long brown-accented hallway that the door opened, the aforementioned sounds now much louder, almost shockingly so. In the doorway stood Kairi, the owner of the apartment and a life-long friend of Namine's. Her wine-red hair was complimented nicely by the black dress she was wearing. She looked utterly metropolitan and Namine felt suddenly underdressed in a white knit cardigan and black stockings.
"Where're you going, silly?" she laughed
In her tracks Namine stopped, turning around with a false but well-meaning smile plastered on her face. "For a second I thought I had the wrong apartment," she laughed "But I guess I didn't."
"Well what're you waiting for? Come on in! The party's bumping!" she laughed again, and this time the movement of her body caused the drink in her hand to spill a bit on the hallway rug. She looked around, laughed once more, and pulled Namine in by the hand. Namine's legs barely kept up.
Immediately upon entering Namine was greeted by a few head nods in her direction by some strangers who must've been other friends of Kairi's. Her cheeks grew rose-y red and she gave one big wave and an all encompassing "hey!" to the people around her. By then they'd gone back to their own conversations.
"I've gotta check up on something in the kitchen," Kairi said to her over the noise, "but I'll find you in a bit. Go have some fun, 'kay?"
Namine gave her friend a half smile and began wandering around.
The apartment, large and on a rather high floor of a high-rise, was decorated in warm browns, with spotless hardwood floors and walled with shelves filled up with various books and trinkets and pictures as though the walls themselves were Kairi's and Sora's social network pages. detailing information on their lives for all to see. Dim mood lighting from tasteful lamps illuminated the living room and the people in it. From her perspective, Namine felt like she was in a cozy library that was hosting some sort of get together.
As she walked the apartment she spotted some friends of her's, some old and some more recent, enjoying the night around them. Riku was chatting up a number of girls she didn't know, all of whom were staring at him intently and longingly. He gave Namine a warm smile as she passed. Sora passed by her at some point, passing out some hor devours. Sora, recently married to Kairi, didn't have time to stop, although he gave Namine a quick one-handed hug as he passed, and a look that said "sorry, gotta run". In one corner of the room nearly untouched by light, Namine could just barely see Axel's red mane as he made out with Larxene somewhat soundlessly. There were probably about 30 or so other people in the apartment by her count, each having fun, each enjoying a drink and a talk and a sense of camaraderie with other human beings. Having always felt somewhat alienated (although by no means the effect of those few who she did befriend) Namine couldn't understand any of it
It was with a toxic pleasantness that the following popped into her head: I'm a fly, she thought. A fly, buzzing around a picnic, bothering the kind people who wanted to enjoy a nice day.
Suddenly struck with that realization she felt uneasy on her feet and suffocated by the apartment, the crowds, the music, all of it - it was as though she were being choked simply by standing among so many people on what should've been a night of fun. It was New Year's Eve; who was supposed to be bothered by that?
With determination in her eyes she traversed the crowd, a captain in choppy seas, until she found the large glass doors to the patio outside. She walked out and, feeling finally safe, allowed a deep breath to bring a calm over her entirely. Namine stood at the railing and observed the city from such a great vantage point.
Down there, down below the apartment and the patio and the people she didn't know were countless scores of strangers gathering outside around the town's large clock tower to coexist as a single entity for one moment when it struck twelve and rang in the new year. There were still Christmas light's up in many places in the city and from her point on the patio these multi-colored lights looked to her like digital rainbow particles. Stores in town were decorated with yellow and white lights, all of which surrounded the city's main plaza, creating a large ring of light noticeable from above. The night was dark, with nary a cloud anywhere, and the light of the stars shone brightly in the cold winter even when compared to the artificial lights glaring up from below. She thought she spotted a constellation when her quiet reverie was shattered by a voice coming from behind her.
"Having fun?" he asked.
She didn't turn around.
"I - Well, I can't say I'm not enjoying the silence a bit. Or the cool air."
"You and me both." he said, walking up beside her and leaning on the railing, arms crossed underneath his chin as a resting place.
When she looked to her left, she saw a boy she recognized as a friend of a friend: Roxas, one-year roommate to Sora, who she visited once or twice when he lived on campus. She remembered him mostly for being much more of a dead-pan person than she'd ever expect Sora to get along with, although it seemed now as though a good friendship had grown between them.
"You were Sora's roommate, right?" she asked.
"Yup, same one. I think I saw you at their wedding too, right?"
Kairi's wedding hadn't been long ago, and now that she was reminded of it, Namine did recall seeing the boy beside her somewhere in the crowd of people the pair invited to their big day.
"Yeah, I was there" Namine answered.
"Roxas." he offered his hand
"Namine." she shook it
They were silent for a while more, until Namine ventured a look at her watch. 11:45, it read.
"You know, I feel like I should be more excited for a new year, but…" she began
"But it's more confounding than you'd like to admit, isn't it?" he completed.
She nodded. "I just can't help but feel like it's hard to accept. It's a new year, sure, but that means we're leaving the old one to rot in the past. One year, one whole year of your life has just past. Why is that exciting? How isn't that just absolutely horrifying?" she found herself speaking more openly to him than she'd planned, and her face reddened a bit.
"I know what you mean." he answered. "You look over the precipice of a new year, and all you can see are fears and anxieties rushing up towards you. It's a damning kind of freedom, because we have a whole new year of things before us and no instructions to follow."
"On top of all the issues from the year before." she broke in.
"On top of all the issues from the year before." he said. "And the worse is that you feel like a dick for being a downer on a day like this, when everyone else is so excited."
"Yeah," she giggled, despite herself. "I feel like a fly, buzzing all over the nice picnic that Kairi and Sora put together."
He gave a lopsided grin. "You're nowhere near as grimy as a fly."
From inside there was a great roar, as the party-goers began their countdown. The sound was echoed by the crowd down on the street encircling the clocktower.
TEN!
"I guess we've got no choice!" Namine yelled over the roar of the counters. "We gotta go into the new year whether we like it or not!"
NINE!
"Yeah!" he yelled back. "We have to jump in!"
EIGHT!
"The water might be cold!"
SEVEN!
"We'll get used to it!"
SIX!
"The first!" she said "Its my birthday on the first!"
FIVE!
"Yeah?!"
FOUR!
"I'll be 21!"
THREE!
"Excited?!"
TWO!
"I'm not sure I have a choice!"
ONE!
"Happy birthday!" he yelled
"Happy New Year!" she returned
Their voices were drowned out by the rising cheers of the people below, the rush of their movements and voices and hopes and dreams flying up from down on the street and from inside the apartment. It was almost a physical wall of noise, a wave in the ocean carrying with it the very force of the sea itself.
Naming gave an honest smile to Roxas, who returned it. She leaned in for a quick peck, a New Year's tradition she was, at this moment, happy to follow through with. He gave her a quick kiss back, and the two of them stared at the clock tower silently while it ticked on and on and on towards the first full minute of the new year.
"I guess we made it through the new year." she said.
"And the old one's behind us."
"Maybe it's always just around us, the lessons we've learned and the people we've met and the things we've seen." she wondered.
"Maybe." he said, thoughtful again.
She reached over without looking and grabbed his hand. It was a comforting gesture, as they were both still so anxious over the possibilities of success and failure and mistakes in the new year. Or rather, the current year.
Kairi came out then, all smiles and joy, and put both her arms around their shoulders. "You sad bunch have to come in and enjoy the party!" she teased. Then she kissed both of them on the cheek. "And happy New Year!"
Kairi walked back into the apartment, looking behind her for the pair to follow, and with a look and a shrug towards each other, Namine and Roxas walked in through the door, in through the portal to a new year, and into an endless void of possibilities that'd rush to greet them regardless of whether or not they were ready - a stipulation that never mattered to the ever-flowing river of time anyway.
Thank you for reading, and I wish you all a good year!