Title: Best of You
Drabble #1: Seventeen Years Young
Theme: Age
Pairing: Leon/Yuffie
Words: 420
A/N: I've never thought myself to be a drabble writer. But they're damn fun to write. My writing abilities have gotten a bit rusty over the summer, so I thought to myself, why not start a drabble collection? Oh, and I changed Yuffie's age to fit the idea of the story.
...but you hurt me in a way that I've never known
-Savage Garden, "Break Me, Shake Me"
Only seventeen...
...the rudest insult anyone could throw at her if they really wanted to tick her off.
She didn't mind being called fat, or stupid, or even ugly (all of which weren't true anyway). Anyone with eyes could see that her name generally didn't come up in conversations about being overweight. People would even go as far to say she was downright scrawny (although she'd always protest and claim that she was "slender", not scrawny).
She definitely wasn't stupid either. She concocted pranks that would give Einstein and his equations a run for their money. She smiled at the memory of her first ever prank - baby powder in the hotel air conditioning system. Although the prank had started off at first as an attempt to celebrate Christmas in October, it was still a prank. And a damn good one at that. After successfully placing large amounts of baby powder in each of the vents in the hotel, she sat back and watched the hotel become a winter wonderland. It was then she suddenly realized that the gods - or whatever higher power out there - had cursed her with a short physique, yet made up for it by blessing her with a clever (if not slightly diabolical) mind.
She certainly wasn't ugly. She'd never had to pay for a single meal at the cafe in the ten years she'd been in Traverse Town. All it took was "the Look" - pouty lips, doleful eyes, the innocent expression, and a tear or two for emphasis - and just like that, she was off the hook for being so darn adorable. She was cute, and she knew it.
"You're only seventeen," they always said. And it was true. No matter how skinny or clever or cute she could be, she was still seventeen. But when he said it...it hurt. More than hurt. It killed her. The only reason why he wouldn't let her in was because she was "just a kid." She couldn't even begin count the number of times she'd cried herself to sleep after one of their arguments ended with that phrase. In the end, it always came down to age.
But not today.
She refocused her gaze on the birthday cake, adorned with eighteen candles. Stealing one last glance at him, she smirked as if to say, "Now what's your excuse, buddy?" No more excuses, she thought. She was no longer "just a kid." Taking a deep breath, shutting her eyes, and making a wish, she puckered her lips and blew.
In mid-blow, his sapphire eyes caught hers for a moment; he seemed to have realized the same thing.
FIN.
A/N: kinda pointless, but hey, it's a drabble. R&R!