I Told You I Would Wait SOLO Fin.

'Lights will guide you home...'

28 April 2022.

Being fifteen was hardly special when there was no one to celebrate it with. It was hard to imagine, Koko thought, having someone here with her, sitting next to her on the grounds, covering her hand with theirs as they sang a soft, high-pitched lullaby of Happy Birthday.

The person in her mind's eye sported violet hair and violet eyes and a perpetually annoyed expression that Koko sometimes saw soften - sometimes. The person she wanted here was someone she hadn't seen in forever, someone who she had once been so scared of that she jumped out of a window to avoid, but now caused Koko to want to climb back through that second floor window just to see her again.

What is it like to miss something you've never had? she asked herself, and she folded her hands in her lap as she stared at the Scottish countryside surrounding her. She'd never had a best friend. Never had a crush.

Maybe that wasn't true. She'd had Phoebe. She'd had Ruby. She'd had Luna.

But could she count it if they were all gone?

She rested her chin in her hands and stared ahead of her. She could remember, way before she became a prefect, watching Luna strut about with that shiny badge on her chest. She could remember how intimidated she was, how the ice in the prefect's gaze had felt like it froze her, too, except that later she learned that the ice wasn't so much rudeness as it was a mask.

Likewise, she could remember when she first met Ruby, someone who seemed a bit elitist (as Koko had been, too) but excitable, and how she watched as Ruby changed and grew. Koko had been there through it, silently, being a sentinel vigilant over her friends.

Koko could still feel Luna's pendant against her throat as if it were still there. She hadn't worn it in ages, but when she thought of the violet-haired girl, she imagined the phantom weight of it there, ice-cold just like Luna's gaze.

I would wait for you, Koko had thought many a time when she peeked her head into the corridors and was greeted with no sign of Luna. I will wait.

She waited. She was good at this. Patience was a virtue that Koko was blessed with much of. Never did she tire of waiting in queues; likewise, she never tired of waiting for the people she once knew. In doing so, though, she withdrew more and more, and now, she found fewer familiar faces than had been there before.

In her mind's eye, she reached back and unclasped the necklace that had been weighing her down for so long. She took a deep breath and flung it, metaphorically, as far as it would go.

She would wait. She had waited, but at a cost. Even for an introvert, Koko was very starved of social interaction outside of prefect duties and Quidditch games. She talked to some people, but she barely ever had meaningful conversations with them. She had grown increasingly talented at small talk, but she yearned for more. She yearned to truly know people, enough people to where she didn't have to stammer over her words or be asked to speak up whenever she tried to articulate something.

After raising her fingers to her cheeks, she was greeted with a strange wetness, and she realised she was crying. No one else was nearby, so Koko allowed it, and she buried her face in her hands as her shoulders shook. She had waited for so long, but she was ready to move on. She might have regrets later, but it was important, she supposed, to move forward. She'd started socialising more. She had people who she could turn to. She did not have to rely on those who had once been her friends, those who had once almost been more than friends.

She would emerge from her shell. She would learn; she would grow.

The image of an icy-gazed girl with long purple hair would fade from her mind.

'...I will learn from my mistakes.'

Reducio

Italicised song lyrics from 'Fix You' by Coldplay.