Mini Event! the spider and the mistletoe
Across the Keep runs a rather large spider, scampering from building to building, room to room and carrying with him a decent sized branch of mistletoe. One might catch him skittering up a wall to build a web above a doorway, or stringing mistletoe up from various points on the ceiling.
He doesn't linger in any particular place for too long, save ( Read more... )
He doesn't linger in any particular place for too long, save ( Read more... )
Of course, catching sight of Kairi carrying around the annoying, talking, fuzzy lump they'd all received was enough to whisk all thoughts of mistletoe and spiders out of his mind. Riku stopped, brows furrowing behind his blindfold.
"Kairi?" He didn't know whether she was still upset with him (he was betting yes, a little bit), but he couldn't help but ask. "What are you doing with that thing?"
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That was sad. She tried to hide it, focusing instead on the little creature and the noises it was making.
"Well, if I don't feed him, he could die."
She didn't know if it was true or not. And it was silly enough to make her cheeks turn just a little pink with embarrassment - she had just said that - but she didn't want a dead fluffy thing in her room.
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He hadn't even considered the fact that the mechanical things could die. Riku walked closer, lifting one side of his blindfold to peer at it closely. "You're not telling me these things can actually eat?"
Not that he'd bothered seeing for himself. His mechanical monster was still in the sack it'd come in, shoved under the bed. So long as the light wasn't hitting it, it seemed content to sleep. Or... whatever its equivalent of sleeping was.
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She poked her index finger into the thing's mouth and pressed down on it's tongue. Motors whirred and it let out a contented, if artificial-sounding 'yuuuummmmm.'
"Heh." She could only grin sheepishly.
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It was ridiculous, but he wasn't going to say that part aloud (after all, it already looked like she'd realized it when she'd first mentioned feeding it). If Kairi wanted to take care of the thing, he wasn't going to say anything about it.
"Does it do anything else? Anything interesting?"
Ignoring that his idea of interesting might not be the same as hers. Ignoring that entirely.
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Still, she was trying to be lighthearted. She reached for a joke, a quip, something she might've teased Riku or Sora with. But she came up short.
"Maybe," her voice was soft, the abashed cheer gone, "Tammy said they can learn to repeat secrets they hear."
Spying wasn't something Kairi had ever thought of as more than a game, but here? When everyone seemed to be keeping secrets from her? Maybe...
The thought fled as Kairi heard a scratching skittering sound on the ceialing behind her. She turned and craned her neck awkwardly. She had almost forgotten about the spider.
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Riku frowned, thinking about the consequences of such a thing. He didn't usually talk about things in his own room, but if they really could learn to repeat secrets, the toys were a liability.
A liability, but also possibly a useful tool, depending on if he could utilize it.
The same scratching sound distracted Riku from his thoughts as well. Instinctively his hand tightened, already gripping a hilt that hadn't formed, but he tamped down on the urge to call Soul Eater to him the moment before it flashed into existence. Instead, he glanced up, but what he noticed first wasn't the spider. Rather, he noticed the plant that hung above the two of them, dangling from the branch the spider carried.
"You can't be serious," Riku said, looking up at the spider and the mistletoe.
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She was still upset with him. She didn't want to think about kissing traditions right now. But of the three of them, Riku had always been the most outspoken against silly Christmas customs - like Santa - and that?
That was funny.
"I think he is." And then she smiled.
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"And if we don't?" he asked of the spider, lifting an eyebrow.
Did he expect an answer? Not really. But it at least bought him a couple seconds' time to figure out what to do. Did he give in? Did he kiss Kairi? Did Kairi want to kiss him? Was it fair of him to kiss her if she didn't want to?
(He would not be flustered by this entire idea. He wouldn't be.)
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Kairi couldn't let herself giggle. She shouldn't laugh. But all at once it was as though they were six years old again and girls all had cooties (except for her.)
She couldn't help it, she laughed.
It wasn't as though she'd never kissed anyone before. But that had been before... Well, it was before someone else had held her heart in theirs. They'd been kids. And family didn't count.
But, what was Riku if he wasn't part of her family?
It was that thought more than anything that let her meet his gaze, a grin challenging him. Was she daring him, or daring him not to?
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