Disclaimer: I don't own Final Fantasy X

I'm so hyyyppeeeddd for Christmas! I guess I'm still just a child inside.

Enjoy!

008. Sound

When Tidus was young, about maybe four or five years old, he had asked his mother over and over again, 'Does falling snow have a sound?' His mother, in a vain attempt, had tried to explain to him what snow was on a scientific level. His father had laughed at him when he came home, and Tidus had quickly forgotten all about the question.

That was, until they climbed up to the same, cold, isolated peaks of Mount Gagazet.

He sat in the midnight silence, alone. He wasn't really thinking about anything - he tried not to do that these days - but he listened. Listened for the voices that were going to tell him the answers, of the breath of inspiration. Or to what the sound of falling snow really was.

He didn't know how he could save Yuna yet. He didn't know how he was getting by day-to-day anymore. Even Rikku was downright miserable. And he had this strange feeling, unshakable, and heavy at the bottom of his gut. Like the whisper of a voice long forgotten, or the nagging feeling of a pressing thought now suddenly and inexplicably absent.

So he watched the snow fall. Hundreds of flakes falling in front of his face, thick on the awning above his head, but the only sound he could hear was on the howling, wild winds.

It was almost worse than silence; a tragedy of absence that only made the weights on his shoulders feel heavier and heavier.

And to think, Christmas was supposed to be the most magical time of the year.

"Tidus? What're you doing up so late?"

Yuna was almost as silent as the snow as she crept up on him. She sat down like a neat little cat, and he could feel the warmth she radiated through the thick layers of clothes.

"I was just watching the snow."

"And did you find anything."

He shook his head, wordlessly. "I wasn't thinking. I was— I was listening."

"Oh?"

The howling wind punctuated the pause.

"I was trying to see if falling snow makes a sound."

"Oh."

Her voice was soft, like a whisper carried on a breath that contained a thousand more words, like 'I get it', 'I know', 'I'll help' and 'its okay'.

She shivered and shuffled closer to him. He put an arm around her and, without any other sound than their breathing, they listened for the snow.

There, as midnight fell and Christmas Day began, Tidus sat with Yuna in the mouth of a cave and listened for the sound of falling snow.

He never did answer that question, not even as he faded back out of existence. Falling snow had no sound. It had no sound to science, nor the world. And Christmas that year didn't bring him the solution he would've liked. He didn't want to leave Yuna, he didn't want to die - even if he'd never been born in the first place. But he did get his answer to the question. To Tidus, it had a sound that beat in his ears as loud of the roaring of an enraged shoopuff: the two of them alone, and their breathing falling slowly into unison.

Please review if you've got time and follow for more (eventually...). Thanks!