Night.
In the moonlight, Kai is silent, his mood as dark as the water surrounding them. He has taken up smoking, in the time between now and yesteryear's summer. It would surprise her, if she hadn't tasted the ash on his tongue as the sun sunk low. A whisper of a breeze picks at the sleeves of her dress, and she watches the curve of his cheek become illuminated against the cigarette. "Let me try."
Kai looks back, surprised. The ember falls into the ocean like the little floating lights of a summer ritual, an ode to the lost dead. She shivers.
"Are you serious?"
She nods. He shrugs. "Your brother is going to kill me." He stretches a hand toward her, a tiny beacon of fire, and she plucks the cigarette from between his fingers. "You know," he gestures toward his mouth, eyes searching hers, "like this."
She puts the filter to her lips, inhales - chokes. During the daylight Kai would be laughing at her plight, chest thrown out and his whole body opened up in the emotion, but this pale moment is too still. A wry smile flits across his face, and he gestures for her to return the cigarette. "These'll kill you, anyway."
"You're dumb," she replies. His words repeat in her head - these'll kill you. A bullet of hurt hurdles through her chest, unprecedented, and before she can even put a name to the feeling she slaps the cigarette from his grasp and grinds it into the sand with her foot.
"Popuri!"
"You're so dumb, Kai!" she cries. Embarrassment burns across her cheeks as he searches her face for an explanation, his own eyes tired and his lips parted in confusion. Seconds pass, and neither of them speak, and then - suddenly - a look of comprehension dawn on Kai's face. Comprehension of what, she can't fathom.
"Popuri." He says, softer. Her face turns up toward him.
He presses a kiss to the corner of her mouth, and as he pulls away his expression stretches into an oversized grin. The switch is so quick and dangerously sincere that she for a moment she's scared of how good of a liar he must be. The thought is fleeting, tinged with guilt, and she reaches toward him.
"Don't worry." He turns away from her, one hand raised in a farewell wave as he sets off toward the other side of the beach.
She can't help but notice the way his fingers itch toward a back pocket, and back at her front door with a hen clucking anxiously at her, awoken from sleep by the sobs of a tired girl, she wonders how why there are things in this world so tinged with death.
She closes the front door quietly, careful not to wake her mother.
(Dusk.
Her bones are young, slender and scared as they push against joints beneath her skin. His heart beats out an angry anthem, like a troubled lullaby, a memory of pounding anxious drum beats against his thighs as the shouting match goes on in the kitchen above him; he hid in the alcove of the stairs and dreamed a battered child's dreams of being somewhere other than there.
This is the moment she has been waiting for, her face beautiful with this cascade of hair and a little bit of youth - still too stupid to know what this would mean, still naïve enough to think it's a good idea, with her lips parted slightly and every thought in her head directed at the same idea: please please please touch me, now.
He touches her. )
Day.
The Poultry Farm seems like a long walk from the dock, and his clothes already hang heavy on him, laced with sweat and the clinging smell of the boat he came in on. When he knocks on the door, a hen snaps back to attention near his foot and clucks angrily at him.
His boots have made imprints on the ground that look colossal next to the patterns of chicken feet. Anticipation is beginning to rise in his veins, and he hurriedly wipes a smudge from his cheek. It's been a long year since he last set foot in this place. When Rick opens the door and then steps halfway across the room, grudgingly allowing him access, Kai doesn't shut the door behind him. He has always understood the importance of an escape route.
Popuri descends the staircase amidst a flurry of noise and downy feathers. She shoves the baby chick into Rick's arms, and throws herself at Kai. He spins her around, setting her down next to the open front door. Rick is looking at them with something akin to murder in his eyes, the little baby chick chirping pathetically in his hands. Giggling, Popuri tugs Kai out the door.
Halfway down the path they can hear Rick shouting, "Don't you dare lay a hand on my sister!"
Popuri shouts back. Kai pulls at her hand, and like children released after a long winter of solitude, they race towards the ocean's edge.
(Dawn.
As the baby chick pushes through the crack and sees daylight, Popuri starts laughing and can't stop. It's beautiful, she thinks, and gathers up the chick from the remains of this shell it has broken free of. A miracle. The chick chirps up at her.
Kai steps on to the boat, desperate to chase the sun.)
a/n: I'm fond of Kai, and started thinking about how his love of summer coincides with an escape from his family, and how metaphorically dark the past must have been, and ...this was born.