Disclaimer: I do not own the rights to anything Kingdom Hearts.
**
Some said it was suicide. His parents claimed it was murder. His friends said it was an accident. That he was running around up there on the tower when he suddenly tripped and fell over the edge. Regardless of what happened, Twilight Town was going to put railing up there; to make sure it never happens again.
But I didn't care about any of that. The only thing going through my mind was why Hayner? Why did it have to be Hayner? Why couldn't he have been more careful? Why didn't someone put railing up there before now? Why did Hayner have to sacrifice his life to teach the people of Twilight Town a lesson in safety? Out of all the people in this stupid little town, why Hayner?
"Seifer." Fuu brought me out of my depressing train of thought by offering me a grilled cheese sandwich. They've always been my favorite.
"I'm not hungry," I mumbled, turning away from her.
"You've got to eat something, y'know," Rai said gently, leaning against my dresser. Vivi entered my room with glasses of water for everyone. I'd been there for seven hours, just crying my eyes out, something I very rarely do, and they'd been there the whole time, trying to comfort me. They all knew I loved him. I had for five years. They're good friends.
"I should have been there. I could've caught him." I mumbled.
"Not your fault!" Fuu said forcefully.
"She's right, y'know! Things like this happen all the time. Life goes on, y'know?" I gave Rai a fierce glare and he shut up. I looked away with a sigh.
"I never even got to tell him how I felt." The room was silent for a while. Fuu put an arm around my shoulders and squeezed.
"There is a way you can see him again," Vivi chirped, speaking up for the first time. My head jerked up and I locked eyes with him. I would do anything to see him again. Vivi began to look nervous and fidget under my intense stare. "There's always Ghost Mansion," he suggested. "That's where they say everyone goes after they've died. They stay there until they're ready to move on to the afterlife. The less prepared to die someone is, the longer their soul stays in the mansion, or so the legend goes."
"No!" Fuu jumped up from her seat next to me on my bed, fists clenched.
"She's right, y'know! No one's ever come out of there alive, y'know!" Rai shouted.
"Actually," Vivi said, backing up a little, "there is a story of one person who made it out. There was a man who was deeply in love. Every day, he would do life-endangering feats to prove just how powerful his love was. But, one day, his loved one died in a terrible tram accident. The man went to the Ghost Mansion and confronted the Keeper of the Souls, begging the Keeper to give him back his loved one. Realizing the power of the man's love, the Keeper complied. But there was a catch. In order to bring his loved one back to life, the man would have to give up half of his remaining life span. He gladly did so, and watched as those remaining years flowed into the one he loved. Arm in arm, they left the Mansion, and lived together until they both died at the same moment, living on the same life span."
The story amazed me, and as I listened to it, my heart filled with a new hope. I knew I could do it. I knew my love was strong enough. And if what Vivi said about how long souls stayed in the Mansion was true, then I had plenty of time.
"Don't," Fuu said, putting a hand on my arm and looking at me with a worried expression. I gave her a reassuring half-smile. I'll wait until it gets dark, I thought. No need to worry my friends.
**
I looked up at the gates of the Ghost Mansion. Everything about the place screamed creepy. Especially since time didn't seem to touch it. It looked as if it had finished construction yesterday. No sign of mold or rust anywhere. There weren't even any weeds in the perfectly cut lawn.
Every instinct I had was telling me to run, but I grit my teeth and started scaling the metal gates. I had to see Hayner again.
I jumped down onto the dirt pathway and walked to the front door. It was eerily quiet, even for midnight. I could no longer hear the crickets I'd been listening to on the other side of the gate. I tried the door. It was unlocked. I opened it to see a large, dark, empty room with a staircase in the back. Hesitantly, I stepped inside and heard the door close itself behind me.
Suddenly, the room was brightly lit and there were hundreds of white, shiny things moving around. I rubbed my eyes, trying to adjust to the light change. Looking around again, I noticed that the white shiny things were people. Or, well, they looked like people from the waist up. From the waist down, everything was sort of blurred, and they glided over the ground, rather than walking. They all seemed to be busy, moving around determinedly. I stood there and watched; amazed at the spectacle before me, until I suddenly remembered why I was here.
I frantically began to search the faces of the ghosts, quickly becoming confused as they all began to look like a single, moving mass. Then I saw him. Standing in the middle of the room, looking lost.
"Hayner!" I shouted, running towards him.
"Seifer?!" the ghost turned around, eyes wide in surprise. Hayner still had a little color to him, unlike all the other pure white blobs. His eyes were still brown, his cheeks were still a little pink, and his lips were still a light red. "What are you doing here? Did you die too?"
"No, Chickenwuss. I came here to get you back. And… And also to tell you something I never got to say before you died. Hayner, I love you." His jaw dropped. I was waiting for a response, when I heard a voice behind me.
"Awwwww! How cute! He loves him!" I whirled around to see three people standing at the top of the stairs. The one who had spoken, a young, cute, short, blonde girl in a white dress and holding a drawing pad, was giggling incessantly. The other two, a tall man in a weird red and black getup and what looked like red bandages wrapped around his face, and a slightly shorter man in a black hooded trench coat, were glaring at me. Well, I couldn't actually see the trench coat guy's face, but I could sense his glare all the same.
"I am DiZ, the Keeper of the Souls," the guy in red and black said. "This," he motioned to the girl, "is Naminé, Heaven's Gatekeeper and an angel. And this," DiZ motioned to the guy in the black coat, "is Riku, Hell's Gatekeeper and a demon. What is your business here?"
"I am Seifer, and I've come to take Hayner back with me," I said, setting my jaw stubbornly and trying to keep my knees from shaking.
DiZ laughed wickedly, "No one goes back to the world of the living after they've died! It doesn't happen!"
"But Seifer loves him!" Naminé pleaded.
"Too bad Hayner doesn't love Seifer," Riku sneered. I froze. It felt like someone had just stabbed me in the heart. "He loves that Olette girl." I turned to Hayner, trying to make eye contact, praying it wasn't true. He looked down at his nonexistent feet, avoiding my gaze, and nodded.
I broke. I just broke. I could feel my eyes getting watery as I reached for his shoulder, to touch him, to make him tell me it wasn't true. My hand went through him. Of course it did. He was a ghost. Everyone knows you can't touch a ghost. A choked sob rose from my throat.
"That's not true and you know it!" Naminé shouted. I looked up at her to see her glaring at Riku and DiZ. "You both know as well as I do that Hayner just started to say that because his parents are homophobes! And after a while, he started to believe it himself, but it's not true. He likes Olette a lot, but as a friend. You can see the strings of fate as well as I. You can see how tightly these two are woven together. That is true love. These two are soul mates. You both know that! Shame on you for attempting to break that bond!" with this last sentence, Naminé shook her finger at Riku, who I'm pretty sure rolled his eyes. "Hayner may not love Seifer yet, but he will. He just hasn't yet figured out why his heart beats faster and his breath hitches every time Seifer pins him to the ground during a Struggle match. You can't blame the poor human for being slow."
"Hey!" Hayner shouted indignantly. I smirked. My determination was back, stronger than ever. I would bring Hayner back with me.
"It's too late anyway," DiZ said with a self-satisfied smirk. "Seifer has been in my domain too long. He cannot return to the world of the living." My eyes widened. I didn't realize there would be a flipping time limit! "Like all trespassers into my domain, he will go to Hell."
"No!" Hayner shouted. He was ignored.
"Fine," Riku said, "but I won't take Hayner. The boy's too pure. He's even still a virgin." Really? A virgin? I thought, looking Hayner up and down from the corner of my eye. Then it processed. I'd be separated from Hayner again. This time forever. I got a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach.
"You can't do that," Naminé replied, sounding smug as she came to my rescue yet again. "True soul mates such as these two must go to the same place. They must be reincarnated or condemned together."
"What do you mean?" Hayner asked.
Naminé smiled. "Well, you see, if you go to Heaven, you will rest for a while, and eventually be reincarnated, while if you go to Hell, you will never be reincarnated." She turned to DiZ. "And if two soul mates don't get reincarnated together, then the whole world goes awry."
"Hayner can't go to Hell," Riku said, crossing his arms. "His heart and soul are too pure."
"And Seifer can't go to Heaven," Naminé chirped gleefully, "because anyone who trespasses in the Mansion must be sent immediately to Hell."
DiZ growled lowly, as he glared at me. "Fine. Send Hayner to Heaven. If Seifer leaves now, I'll let him go and send him to join Hayner when his time comes." With that, he turned and began to leave. Naminé winked at me, and I knew what I had to do.
"I'm not leaving without Hayner!" I shouted. DiZ froze, Riku sighed, Naminé giggled, and Hayner looked at me incredulously.
"This is what your were planning the whole time, wasn't it, Naminé? Then it seems I have no choice." DiZ said, slowly turning around. He came down the stairs and stopped right in front of me. "The only way to do what you ask is for you to give up half of your remaining life span so that Hayner may live off of it. Are you willing to do that?" I nodded.
"I don't get humans." Riku said.
DiZ reached out with one hand and put his index finger and thumb on my temples. Suddenly I felt white-hot pain pulse through my body. Everything went white. There was only intense pain, like my entire being was being sucked out through my temples. I thought I heard myself cry out, but I couldn't be sure.
Next thing I know, I'm on my hands and knees, sweating, panting, and shaking uncontrollably as the tiled floor spun before my eyes. "Seifer?" I felt a hand on my shoulder, and looked up into brown eyes. Hayner. He was alive. I smiled at him as he helped me up.
"Now you are both technically trespassing," DiZ said. Hayner and I looked at him in alarm. "I'll give you three minutes to get off the Mansion's grounds. If one or both of you are still on the grounds when the time runs out, you will be sent straight to Hell. Go."
We took off towards the door. I stumbled a bit over my still shaking legs. Hayner tried the handle; "It's locked!"
I looked around quickly while he tried to unlock the door. I saw a potted plant on a stone pedestal. Perfect. "Hey, lamer! Over here!" As he turned around, I knocked the plant to the ground, grabbed the pedestal, and used it to shatter a nearby window. Hayner and I climbed out and found ourselves at the beginning of a huge stone-walled maze. I swore.
"Two minutes!" I heard DiZ's voice say as if from a loud speaker. I grabbed Hayner's hand and pulled him into the maze. Pretty soon we reached a dead end. "One minute!" DiZ called, laughing.
"Screw this!" I shouted, jumping up to grab the top of the wall. I heaved myself up and then reached down for Hayner. "Give me your hand, chickenwuss." I pulled him up and we ran for it on top of the maze, jumping from wall to wall, heading for the gate. Hayner was in front of me and we were almost there!
"Ten seconds!" I saw the stone wall we were running on intersected with the wall connected to the gate.
"Lamer! Forget the gate, jump over the wall!" I shouted.
"Nine!"
Hayner reached the wall.
"Eight!"
My boot caught on something and I tripped, landing on my stomach and almost falling off into one of the maze's dead ends. Hayner stopped and looked back at me worriedly.
"Seven!"
"Just go! I'll be fine! Hayner, just jump!"
"Six!"
Hayner jumped down.
"Five!"
I pulled myself up onto the wall again and started running.
"Four!"
I'm not going to make it!
"Three!"
So close!
"Two!"
I jumped.
**
Hayner sat up in the grass near the road to the mansion. "Ha! We did it Seifer!" When no response came, he looked around. "Seifer?" The familiar beanie-clad boy was nowhere to be found. "Seifer?!" He ran up to the gate, but the maze was gone. There was just the dark Ghost Mansion and its creepily well-kept lawn, just as it had always looked when he'd come here to stare at it as a little kid. Hayner fell to his knees and a sob tore itself from his throat. "No. Seifer."
"Didn't know you cared so much, chickenwuss." I said, jumping down from the tree I'd landed in. (Ha. I really had you going there for a second, huh?) I winced when my feet met the ground. Yeah, I could tell I'd be sore for a few days.
Hayner stared at me, dumbfounded, for a few seconds. Then he slowly got up and walked towards me. Then he punched me in the gut. Hard.
"I was worried about you, you stupid ass-hole! Don't you ever do that to me again!" he shouted as he proceeded to kick me in the shins and punch my shoulders. When he finally stopped, I chanced opening my eyes to see his tear-stained face in the moonlight. I wrapped my arms around him and hugged him.
"I'm sorry. I won't do it again, I promise," I whispered into his hair. Though I was sorry I'd made him cry, it was a good feeling to know he cared enough to cry over me. He wiggled his arm out of my grip and before I realize what he was doing, he grabbed the back of my head and pulled me into a chaste kiss.
"I love you," I said when we pulled away.
"I know," he replied with a smile.
"…What the hell kind of answer is that?!" I shouted, indignant. He simply laughed, and before long, I joined in. As we walked out of the woods together and back into Twilight Town, the sun began to rise. And, I know it's cliché, but I couldn't help but think of how it symbolized our new beginning.
**
A/N – Wow. This is longer than I expected. But, seriously, this was my dream last night, and as soon as I woke up I new I had to write it. I'm worried everyone's totally OOC. Especially Seifer and Naminé. Oh, well. It is what it is. I toyed with the idea of switching Riku's and DiZ's parts, because of the whole Riku walking the twilight thing, but I decided against it. I hope you liked it! Please leave a review. It'll make me happy and more motivated to type up that next chapter of One Weird Saturday. ^_^
- Bon'sGirl
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