Making Wishes
"Kairi's missing!"
Selphie thinks Tidus and Wakke should look more surprised. She doesn't like the way they sigh, scratch the back of their heads and look away before saying; "Can't be helped, she must have gone after them." She can't understand why they aren't worried for their friends.
"Don't worry Selph, she'll bring them back." Wakka ruffles her hair, trying to be reassuring.
She turns away, swallows the words threatening to overwhelm her. but she didn't have to go alone, they're our friends too.
Some days, she waits at the street corner where Kairi usually meets her so they can walk together to school. She smiles at classmates as they run by, waving and assuring them that yes, she'll be along shortly. "I'm just waiting for a friend."
Some days, she waits so long that she's late for first hour. Kairi never comes.
All the waiting makes her nervous and gives her too much time to think of horrible things. What if Kairi never finds them? What if Kairi does find them and they decide not to come home? Selphie makes herself sick with scenarios and at night dreams of her friends, traveling the stars on a raft.
She thinks maybe she'll try writing them all a letter, like Kairi did for Sora. Only she's not sure who to address it (or where) or what to say. "Kairi believed in the letter," she reminds herself, "I believe in wishes."
And she knows what to do.
Selphie gathers an old peanut butter jar, a coffee canister, emptied out jam jars that were laying around. She adds them all to a bag and hauls it out to the old island where they used to all play.
In her heart, she knows that when –because she can't allow herself to think if- they return, it'll be to this place where all their hearts grew together.
She positions herself against the paopu tree, settles her collection of jars and cans just beneath the trunk, and pulls out a handful of paper strips. She plucks one from the gathering, ties it carefully into a pentagon and folds the excess over the little shape before pinching each corner.
The legend says to make a thousand stars for a wish, but since her wish is so big she's not sure if how many she should fold, so she decides she'll make stars until they're back.
Sora, Riku, Kairi she whispers with each slide of paper, come home.
Day in and day out, after school and the weekends; it's all Selphie can do. She's not sure how much time has passed since she started; only that she's helpless to stop until they're back.
She falls asleep one day, with the paopu tree warm against her back, a star half formed in her hands. She dreams that the beach is full of laughter again, that she can hear the sound of a star falling back towards heaven.
"Selphie, wake up."
Sora, Kairi, and Riku all stare down at her sharing similar looks of bemusement. She's so surprised that she jumps to her feet, knocking the jar of star in her lap to spill on the ground in a rainbow arc.
"You're here!" she cries, trying to throw her arms around all three of them at once. It doesn't quite work but there are arms there to catch her, to fold them within their circle of three. "I waited for so long and I thought maybe it wasn't working, but you're all here."
Riku picks up one of the fallen stars, turning it over carefully in his hand. "what is all this?"
"I made a wish," she says, smiling so wide her face hurts, "to bring you home."
End Note: this was originally written for lj community kh_drabble challenge [234] "Best Supporting Character" and tops out at 600 words.