Title: Daycare

Wordcount: 1426

Pairing: Riku/Yuffie

Rating: K

Notes: Heee :) Children.

Daycare

Enter Yuffie Kisaragi, six years old. Pixie-like for her age, but has a mean set of fists that send even the biggest of kids her age skittering backwards. With a scruffy mop of black hair, big brown doe-eyes, and t-shirt and overalls in the brightest colours she can pick out from her closet, Yuffie Kisaragi is not someone you'd expect to push you face first into the dirt if you bugged her. But, reality says, she is. Her big brother sighs every time the daycare calls, listing off whoever she's stomped all over that day. Her dad pats her on the head with one calloused hand when he gets home from his shop, and chuckles and congratulates her for showing the world what she's made of. Yuffie Kisaragi is not some perfect pretty princess - she's a tomboy princess, the girl among the boys, the one holding the reins. No one else can be leader when she plays. Girls are dumb, boys are dumb, but she'd rather hang out with the boys because they don't scream as much when you tackle them. As long as she doesn't touch their mouthes - boys do have cooties, you know.

Enter Riku - his last name? He hasn't learnt to spell it yet, sadly, he always misses the second "O". Stubborn nature, I'm afraid - he's seven years old. New to town, he enters the daycare in his mother's arms, clinging to her neck and giggling about all the things they're going to do today. Adventurous but maybe a bit shy without his friends in tow, Riku is a friendly kid - unless you're mean to him. And Riku, well, he doesn't have friends anymore. He used to - then his mom told him to say goodbye, and that he'd see them one day, and BAM! He was friendless, in a big, big house full of boxes, and suddenly shipped off to daycare.

The second Riku figured out that he was going to daycare without mommy, he glued himself to said mommy's leg, clinging to her thigh and the bottom of her white dress for dear life as he knew it. She spent four minutes trying to coax him off, and five trying to pry him off. But, alas, the child did not want to leave his mother's side, because he was in a strange place with strange people, and there was a scary clown painted on the wall. Childlike instinct - if it's new (or green and gross), cling to the things you do know.

A very good explanation to why children won't eat their green vegetables, or why children won't let you go if you give them the chance to stop you.

After those harrowing nine minutes, Riku's mother is free. A daycare lady - tall, red-haired, with a big grin and welcoming blue eyes - holds his hand firmly as his mother walks away, standing still as he tries to follow her. He ends up skidding on place on the floor, struggling to escape the grip of Daycare Lady, and, unfortunately for him, cannot escape her wrath.

His mommy speeds away in her white car.

Riku cries.

-X-X-

It it common practice for Yuffie to meet the newcomers. No one understands how anyone would want to play with a kid who shoves people when she first meets them, but somehow, it happens. The first intersection in the paths of Riku and Yuffie's fate occurs at eleven-oh-five in the morning of January twelfth. It is a Saturday. Riku ends up tackling her after she pushes him, and the two spend a grand three minutes shoving each other and screaming and yelling before daycare workers manage to drag them away from each other. Yuffie leaves kicking and screaming - her style, really - and Riku does the same.

After a lengthy time out, they meet again.

-X-X-

When they meet again, the first thing Yuffie tells him, is that he has pretty eyes. Riku balks at this, and sneers back that they are not pretty, they are handsome. There is a very, very, very, VERY importance difference, he insists. Very, very. It's so important, it's as if Yuffie has broken a sacred law that she, as a girl, will never understand.

She challenges him to a race. He says she's a girl, therefore cannot run - which is not only politically incorrect, but ignorant of science. She barrels into him, at a run, and shoves him to the ground, wrestling with him until they're both rolling around on the floor, pinching and slapping and smacking. Children tend to fight like that.

Riku shouts for the daycare lady, but Yuffie lays a punch on his lip before he can finish saying it, and, driven to the limit, he hits her back, and rolls her over. Because, when push comes to shove, Riku doesn't let people mess with him. Well, usually, anyway. Sometimes he did. Sometimes he didn't.

Depends on how many episodes of his favourite children's program he had watched, possibly. Or how much sugar he has been allowed.

Yuffie, however, just wants to prove daddy how much of strong kid she was, and fights back just as fiercely.

The daycare lady catches them seven minutes into their fight, and promptly places them back in the Naughty Corner.

-X-X-

Daycare lady instructs them to write out an apology to each other, when they refuse to verbally say they're sorry for what they did. Riku's lip is bleeding. Yuffie has a black eye. They both are learning to spell at the time, and under much consultation from the daycare lady, manage to produce two letters, written in sloppy crayon on bright sheets of coloured paper.

Dear Rikku, Yuffie's reads. I hat you. From Yuffie Kisaragi.

Dear Yuffie, Riku's reads, in slightly more legible writing. Youre dumb. From Riku. He misses the second "O" in his last name.

Daycare lady doesn't try to correct these things, as she usually would - both kids are riled, frustrated, and probably on the verge of kicking the crap out of each other again. They exchange letters - both spend a few pensive moments reading each other's "apology", and then Riku turns to Yuffie, concerned, to demand if she really does "hat" him. She says no, she "hates" him. This is somehow less offensive than being "hatted".

So, thus, Riku sticks his tongue out at her, and Yuffie does the same to him. Then she realizes that she has been called dumb, and this is a serious offense, so she lunges at him from across the kiddy table, knocking over her bright yellow chair in the process. Daycare lady seizes her by the back of the overalls and drags her off the table. Riku sticks his tongue out at her again, safe from her wrath for a moment, and Daycare lady winces as her toe is stomped on by one orange boot.

Daycare lady wonders if the two will ever play peacefully.

In reality, they never will. Well, perhaps, on a rare occasion or two, they will tire of fighting and curl up on a cot to nap, snuggled together and sleeping innocently. Then they will wake, and fight over who is the owner of the pillow they are sharing, tussle over the blankets, et cetera, and then the world will right itself on its axle, and life will continue as usual.

As usual as it is, anyway.

Today isn't that day, yet.

Riku's mother returns in the late afternoon, to claim Riku, and is concerned to find her child has a bloody lip and band-aids plastering where his shirt didn't cover. Yuffie's father arrives at the same time - he sees his roughed-up but happy girl, and exchanges a glance at Riku's mother. She smiles and tells him Riku doesn't make friends easily. He chuckles and tells her Yuffie makes friends easily, but is bad at keeping them.

They tell their children - who are bickering playfully - that it is time to go. Whining, both demand when they are coming back, and Yuffie shoves Riku one last time, then pulls him close in a hug, forehead bumping his nose. He pinches her arm back, and hugs her back. The hug isn't really friendly - more of a contest to see who can squeeze harder - but it is a hug all the same, and both single parents exchange a surprised look.

Somehow, it seems a shame to divide such new friends.