Companions- Full Circle
Fandom: Shugo Chara!
Collection/Title: Companions- Full Circle
Rating: G
Summary: And we all come back to this point again, but its different this time. KuukaixYaya.
Notes: Written for 15pairings, but the claim's unprocessed as of now. (#3 Something that lasts)
Author: tokene
{ x }
She let her eyes wander around the pale yellow room; pale yellow, not out of choice, but age. This lady remembered a time where they (“Newly wed!” They would grin, announcing it to the world, laughing at the absolute joy of it all) painted these white-washed walls themselves. He wanted pale green, she wanted bright yellow. They couldn't decide (well, really, he was about to give into her when she found The Perfect Solution, as she called it), so they left it as far as they got: White-washed.
Age does things to walls, paper, and people. In general, they all turn similarly yellow and wrinkled, although the latter applies more to humans rather than inanimate objects.
Wrinkled, she considers the notion, and looks to her hands, now the embodiment of the concept. The nails are cleanly cut, and as she looks at her palm. Her palm, with lines deeply etched. She turns them over, wriggling her fingers as she observes the way her skin rolls with the motion.
She wonders when they've gotten this... Old.
Old, the lady thinks. Its an odd concept, even queerer when you realise that it applies to you (fifty years prior, she would have never even considered the thought). She mulls it over, absently looking over the room, interest in the newspaper she was reading, lost. She takes in the sight of the cramped walls, as if looking at them for the first time.
Maybe, she thinks, it is the first time, for she cannot remember (just as those lines on her skin) when exactly, did all this... Stuff pile up.
“Stuff” is a fairly good word to describe the items which litter the room. The objects differ so vastly that it would be otherwise impossible to group them into a single category, such as “awards”, “photos” or “souvenirs”. Because its all three of them at once (and more), balanced perilously one on top of the other, yet the lady is willing to bet that even a tornado wouldn't be able to knock this masterpiece of a room over. Perhaps, because its been there for so long (a fine layer of dust can be seen, collected on that stack of newspaper cut-outs, mainly consisting of the sports section of the papers gone by, as were on the many photo frames of children once under her care), and because it looks so right, so solid, so very how-it-is-meant-to-be.
And thinking it over, Soma Yaya wouldn't have the past sixty-two years any other way.
She feels a hand tug at her skirt, pulling her back to the present, as a little girl with orange hair and a single ponytail looks up at her, large brown eyes filled with curiosity, bewilderment, tinged with worry.
Well, you would be too, if you woke up to find a single egg (Yaya gently pried the pudgy hands from the warm egg, feeling its smooth texture in her hands, marveling at its blue exterior, decorated by a smattering of white clouds) on your bed, especially when you had just been taught that birds were the only animal which laid eggs.
And then she finds herself laughing, thinking of a time that's past, and at the pure wonder of how things come a full circle.
“Mm, Yaya, stop teasing poor Yui-chan. You remember how shocking it was,” came a voice, from the other side of the room. Yaya managed to stop laughing enough to give her husband a look.
“Maa, Kuukai. You know I wasn't laughing at you, right Yui~?” She grinned, ruffling her granddaughter's head of (exactly like her's, thirty years back) hair. They could hear Kuukai's chuckle as he sipped at his coffee.
“B-But Grandma, what is it? I just woke up and-- And it was there!” Yui cried, gesticulating in a manner, a little too familiar for the grandmother herself. Yaya smiled and gently spun the girl around, so that she was comfortably able to reach for the clear elastic which held up the sloppy ponytail.
She ran a hand through the silky threads, as she reached up to her own head of grey-white strands, to pull the red ribbon (which she insisted, twenty years back, that it was far too childish for her. Her husband begged to differ, as he himself insisted- just as strongly- that there were ways to make a ribbon look more mature, pulling her hair back into a bun, securing the satin red ribbon around it) out of her own hair, letting her shoulder-length hair cascade down (albeit messily, as it always had been).
Yui relaxed beneath her grandmother's grip, under the mirthful glances her grandpapa was giving the two of them. Yaya, looking up from her handiwork (one ribbon was just enough for the single ponytail), caught her husband's look as she smiled back. He knew what she was thinking, a practiced maneuver, just as smooth as his best kick on the field, when he was in the prime of his game.
Because as much as Yaya had previously wanted to remain as the baby of the family forever (and she had, in their little group, even years later), she, very much later, learned of the pleasure of taking care of others, and babying them.
“You see, Yui-chan, all people- kids, adults, even grandma and grandpapa- hold an egg in their soul...”
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A/N:
I promise never ever to hold on to an idea for too long before writing it. Seriously. Starting this one gave me hell, even though I thought out most of it weeks before... Ugh. Still, relatively pleased with what came out, although its slightly more Yaya-centric than it should be. In case it wasn't made clear, Yaya ended up as a kindergarten teacher. I don't know, I just thought it'd fit her, once she matured. She'd have this awesome connection with the kids! Hope you guys liked this one, please do give me your opinions!