Disclamer : I don't own anything except my own insanity
Explanatio: This story started as a joke when a teacher explained that you couldn't start a narration with "it was sunny that day", I said "I bet I could!" and my friend came up with the pairing. Then everything was written out of boredom and random insanity, which is why it looks like utter crap – Trying to write a plausible Yuffie x Aeris was also genuine foolness
Warnings : Mild Shoujo-ai, character death, OOC Yuffie
THOSE SUNNY DAYS
By Shiori
It was sunny that day: that was the first thing the young girl had noticed this morning. I was hot with a pleasant breeze and the flowers were in full bloom – she would have loved it, she thought. She looked over the cherry trees and sighed. She was only seventeen yet already tired and sad. Bitter.
Cloud was to come this afternoon with his young bride – And oh, how she resented him fort forgetting so easily.
She recalled those times: bright and sunny days like that one, except that back then it matched her mood.
There were pink and green, the scent of flowers and warm sun on her skin.
Ever since her mother died she had been alone and when the first signs of womanhood started to show, she had no one to turn to except her father – her father who decided it was past time she learnt how to behave like a proper housewife – like a slave.
So she left.
She wandered around the world on her own, stealing and fighting and she had never been so lonely. Then the days came, a bright and sunny one – of course, fate wouldn't have had it other way – when she met the princess, her knight and their fellow travelers. Friend, sister, mother, she became everything. She was sixteen and needed guidance and approval, the flower girl gave her all this and more. They shared company, confidence, warmth, and somehow along the way the bratty ninja fell in love with the delicate flower girl.
It wasn't a crush, nor was it the kind of love you encounter in romance novels and fairytale. This love was pure and much deeper, the kind that bound mother and child, brother and sisters and friends for eternity – and cursed be the flower girl's silly schoolgirl crush on her brave knight that brought her to her end.
Back then, with the flower girl and her friend, she felt like she had a real family for the first time in her life. And despite the war Yuffie had never been so at peace.
She shut the curtain and cuddled on her small couch. She could barely stand the sun anymore: it brought back to many painful memories.
She hated Sephiroth for taking her away and she hated Cloud for not being able to prevent anything, and she hated herself even more for the same reason. In the back of her mind, though, she knew that nobody were to blame, except Aeris herself. She had sacrificed her life for her friends, for them to be able to live in peace ever after and raise their children oblivious of fear; and she could never hate her for that.
She could not hate her, but she could no help but feel betrayed. It was as if Aeris had forgotten that the child she was needed her alive.
It had been one whole years and she was a waif again. She still had contacts with the others member of Avalanche, but none of them cared for her as Aeris used to. They only talked to her now and then because they felt compelled to, because she was part of the group, nothing more. She had received invitations for various events: Christmas, Marlene's birthday or Cloud and Tifa's wedding, but she knew that it was only out of politeness and that she would get in the way. So she never went.
Oh, and she guessed that Cloud and Tifa's insisting on visiting this afternoon was only a way to rub their joy at their upcoming parenthood in her face.
She did not want to see them; she did not want towitness their perfect happy ever after. She could not face their happiness, not now. Not when she hadn't even started to patch her own wounds.
She slowly walked up the stairs and entered her bedroom. She opened the window an allowed the sun to wash on her young face. With a smile she watered the flowers she had started growing in her room and, after a little while of searching, she clutched a pink ribbon in her hand. This was her last bound with the flower girl: she kissed it lightly and summoned all the happy memories she had of her.
Cloud and Tifa were worried about the young ninja. Over the past year, after Sephiroth was killed and the planet saved, she had gradually distanced herself from them. She turned down every invitation they had sent her and refused to talk to anyone from Avalanche. They would often joke that Vincent was more sociable than her - but deep down they knew it was true and it was not funny.
They all knew she had been devastated by Aeris's death; they were after all very close. Tifa felt guilty for not being able to take after Aeris as the mother figure, and Cloud felt like he was letting down one of his dearest friends, which is why they had agreed to pay her a visit at any cost, and hopefully bring her back in the world of the living.
When they got to her tiny house in the Wutainese mountains she was not there to greet them but the door was open. They called to her but no one answered, the house seemed empty, maybe she was having a nap.
They walked upstairs and found her in her bedroom. The window was open. Sun ray were pouring in the room and brightened the green walls. Yellow flowers were growing in a window box. Yuffie was flying. Clutching a pink ribbon in her right hand, she was starring in the distance. A smile was on her face.
Her face was very pale, a discarded chair was lying in a corner. Tifa suppressed a cry with her hand and collapsed to her knees.
There was pink and green, the scent of flowers and warm sun on her skin; and Yuffie had never been so at peace.
THE END