In The Background :: [Kai + Krys]

they all got the same heartbeat
but hers is falling behind

Today's weather is the same type of nice as Kai. It's not quite a beautiful day, but it's certainly not anything to frown at. The temperature seems to fluctuate softly between a touch too warm when the sun is out and a touch too cool when it hides behind the clouds. Meanwhile the wind gusts! And dies. Gusts! And dies. Gusts! And gets distracted from dying because it decides to play with your hair a little, batting it to the left before sweeping it to the right, as if trying to help you find a new hairstyle in a way that makes you pretty sure you want to go back to how it was originally.

Winter has been miserable, stringing cold days together without a break until today. The contrast tricks everyone into thinking this patchy day of sunshine is something worth cherishing, luring a small crowd into the park so everyone can don light jackets instead of coats and pretend it's enough — nice enough, warm enough, interesting enough. The secret is that today will soon be gone, exchanged for the prime of Spring, and everyone will wonder why they bothered with today at all. It really wasn't that great.

Lacking hindsight only the future can bring, Kai and his bestest super fantastic funtime friend Sir Fluffmonster Snugglywumpkins Squishface the III also go in search of a nice day. "Come on, Squishy! You love the park," Kai insists to the orange cat that has been unhappily strapped into a tiny harness and forced to the park against his will. It is only the leash that prevents him from making a break for it. After all, if the cat had wanted to be a primitive, uncultured, outdoor wildthing then he wouldn't have domesticated himself. He likes the house, with its cushioned seats and constant food offerings to the godlike glory of feline might. Leashes are meant to keep lesser dog slaves in their place. Deeply insulting. "I made you a special cupcake and everything!"

The struggle has never been more real than someone trying to leash train a cat. Kai persists and somehow makes it to a plush patch of grass beneath a tree large enough to climb - he has never climbed a tree and thinks maybe today is a good day to try. It might also be a good day to try flying a kite or throwing horseshoes or learning acupuncture or to take up hacky sack or ukulele. He brought everything just in case. It's good to be prepared for the future, even if you don't know how to be prepared for today. Especially then. Yeah. This is a good day — no, a nice day — for anything. Maybe that's what people who say "anything is possible" mean.

Squishy growls in order to voice his displeasure and Kai gives him a loving noogie, laughing as if it's an inside joke and he knows it's really just another kind of purring. Whether or not it's the truth, it's what he believes. After that a red checkered picnic blanket is laid out next to a wicker basket full of homemade baked goods, as if to prove these are things people really do own and they're cliché for a reason. Feeling content, Kai sprawls out to look at the clouds. That one looks like a white rabbit! Another looks like ballerina. None of them look like a cat cleverly tugging his leash free from the low branch it was tied to and making a break for it, but the wind gusts! And Squishy does not fall still.