Pain Is Only the Beginning

By: Mizukithepanda

Disclaimer: I do not own Kingdom Hearts. I also don't own Nida Skye. Kingdom Hearts belongs to Square-Enix and Disney Interactive and Nida Skye belongs to mangagakaz. I also don't own the movie Seabiscuit. I don't know who does own it, but it sure as hell isn't me.

A/N: This came to me after I talked to my friend KairiLuv on MSN. I had been a bit depressed over the fucked up movie Seabiscuit that my mother had tried to force me to watch and also a bit depressed over a couple of friends of mine that act just how I had Namine act. The ending is kinda rushed, but I hope you like it all the same.

I sat on the floor in the den watching a movie that my mother had picked for us to watch as "family time". Family time sucks if you didn't know. When we have family time my mother picks something to watch as a family – even if we don't want to see it – and forces us to watch it. Usually she picks something at least half ass decent but today? Today she chose something so boring that it's only twenty minutes into the movie and I'm falling asleep. The movie in question is Seabiscuit. It's about a car maker's son in the thirties who loves riding horses but is a bit big to be a jockey. At least that's all I can tell so far. It's boring and gross in my opinion. I mean who in their right minds would show a scene where a grown man stuck his fingers down his throat and puked up his food so that he wouldn't gain weight? It was gross. I swear if this movie doesn't get any better in the next few minutes I'm gonna just get up and walk back to my room. Maybe I'll read something or watch something worthwhile. Maybe I'll listen to some music or something...

Ok.

THAT

IS

IT

I'm bored out of my skull; I'm talking to myself and imagining better times, and most importantly of all, my mother is driving me and everyone else crazy with her "Isn't this a wonderful movie?" and "Shut up! Just because you don't wanna watch it doesn't mean that no body else doesn't wanna watch it!" Whenever she said the latter one or a variation of it my dad and my cousins would all give me the I-know-it-sucks-we-hate-it-too look. I sighed and leaned back against the sofa that I wasn't allowed to sit on for some reason.

"What's wrong with you?" my mother asked.

"This is the most boring movie I've ever seen. That's what's wrong," I said.

Man... I'm getting daring aren't I? I mean wow. I stood up to my mother, the bitch from hell, and told her what I thought of a movie that she wanted to see. It's a miracle. But then again, being daring isn't always a smart thing.

"It is not. It's a wonderful movie. Now sit down and watch it!" she yelled.

"No. I'm gonna go back to my room and there's nothing you can do to stop me."

I got up and walked calmly and a bit stiffly to my room where I sat at my computer and started reading. I turned on the music that my mother hated and said was dumb loud enough for her to hear and relaxed, waiting for the storm to blow my way.

That was a very stupid move you see. Waiting for my mother to come and scream her head off at me, but I was a stupid kid in those days. Perhaps if I hadn't stormed off that night and just watched the damn movie or if I hadn't tried to aggravate her by turning up my music loud (in her opinion) I wouldn't be where I am now...

I waited, but she didn't come screaming at my door until about 1 am when she was getting ready to go bed. That in itself surprised me because she usually goes to bed around eleven not one. I thought something suspicious was going on, but I didn't question anything just then. It would've been pointless to do so.

I went to bed earlier than usual because there was nothing to do around four and woke up early to go to school. It wasn't really a school day, more of a meeting of classes before school started so that you could meet your teachers and all that nice fun stuff.

Anyways, while in the car on the way there, my mother and I got into a fight over guess what? If you're thinking my rebellion of the night before you're partially right. It started out as a fight about that, but it soon progressed into heated things that weren't even related to that. I don't even remember what most of them are now. I do remember her calling me a fucked up bitch and then me demanding that she stop the car so that I could walk to school. She readily complied with my demand and drove off at speeds way too fast to be safe. I watched her for a minute until she was almost out of view. That's when I saw the smoke. I ran to where I had last seen her car, taking heaving breaths and using my muscles to their full extent to reach her.

What I saw there would scar me for the rest of my life.

My mother it seems in her anger had forgotten to buckle her seat belt. So when her car smashed front end first into a telephone pole, she ended up getting her head through the windshield, with the air bag puffed up uselessly beneath her mangled form.

I didn't scream like a little girl. I didn't cry because my mother was dead. I didn't run over to the car screaming I'm sorry I'm sorry. I just stood there, alone, cold, aloof. Police cars and ambulances came and parked hurriedly beside her car. One of the police officers came up to me and said, "Did you see this happen?"

"No," I replied calmly, "I heard the crash and I came running to see what had happened."

The man nodded and ran off to his companions to help them remove the body and fully assess what had happened to her. I just walked off down the road, heading for the school.

When I got there a short girl with blonde hair ran up to me and started screaming at me.

"Yuffie Kisaragi! Where the fucking hell have you been?"

That girl is my "friend". Her name is Namine Anders.

"I walked to school because my mother refused to give me a ride and my dad was already at work."

"You could have called me and my mother would've given you a ride you know!" she screamed.

That's a lie. If I had called her and asked for a ride she would've said, "Can't you ask Kairi or something?" Namine always does this to me. She pretends to be my friend when I'm around, but when I'm not? She is the meanest person I've ever met because she treats me like I'm someone else's fucking trash that the garbage man left behind.

I hate that. I hate being treated like that. I mean I'm not just some hyper little freak that doesn't have feelings. I'm a person. A human being. I'm my own person. I'm not anyone's unfeeling shadow. That's why I hate this place and the people in it. There's nothing for me here accept for a good education now that my mother's dead. But... Has she ever done anything for me? Nothing that I can remember that outweighs what she's ruined for me.

I can't believe I'm still here after all this deceit and betrayal. It's too much.

The police are here now. They came up to me to tell me that my mother's dead. I already know that though. It doesn't hurt really. It's just a bit numb. It's not the same officer that asked me if I was a witness thank god, but still. It's a police officer and if they realize that I was the one that was standing next to the accident they'll start to think that I did it somehow. I guess I did indirectly. I mean it was because of me rebelling against her "judgment" about a movie that she screamed at me all morning and called me a fucked up bitch, which in turn made me force her to stop the car which caused her to get even more angry and drive into a telephone pole without her seat belt on. So I guess if anyone was to blame it was me, but do I care? No. She can rot angrily in her grave for all I care. I'm finally free.

Now I'm in the police officer's car heading for my apartment where my dad says he'll meet us. He was crying over the phone when I talked to him, but I was cold, calm, and detached. Just as I was when I was staring at her dead, mangled body.

We pulled up outside of my apartment building and met my dad, who still had tears running down his face.

I got out of the car and ran up to him, hugging him with all my strength, for even though I did not mourn my mother's death, I felt for my father who had just lost the woman he loved. He hugged me tightly whispering that it was okay and that everything would fine, that we would make it through this. I only nodded numbly against his chest.

After my mother died my father lost the will to live and slowly but surely he was wasting away. After about a year of this I got sick of it and I told him that we were going to move. I got his ass in gear that day. He seemed to have more energy and be happier than he was before so I was happy. If he's happy I'm happy.

We moved to a totally different state and I started going to High school. I met people there who seemed to be more like real people, people that accepted others for who they were, hyper and bouncy like a six year old or not. They still thought I was annoying of course. I mean who wouldn't? But at least they didn't treat me like I was scum on the bottom of their shoes like Namine and Kairi did. I felt at home there with Aerith, Tifa, Rinoa, and the guys. They were my friends. They didn't treat me like a little kid or like I didn't belong. It made me feel so happy.

Six months later a new kid moved to our school. He had flaky silver hair and aquamarine eyes that were so luminescent you could almost see them glowing. I recognized him right away. His name was Riku Kishimoto and he had been friends with Kairi, Namine, and Sora from my old school. I had hated him back then, because I saw him as nothing more than Namine's henchmen. I hadn't showed that I hated him though since they were my "friends" and all. He looked around the room and spotted me. His eyes lit up and he asked the teacher if he could sit in the empty desk next to me. The teacher nodded. The girl on my other side, Nida Skye, looked at me in question and asked, "Why would he want to sit next to you? I mean it's not even a good seat. He is cute though so I'm not going to complain too much. I just wish that I were sitting next to him instead of you." I laughed softly and whispered, "He used to go to my old school. He was a friend of mine." I gritted the last part out with my teeth.

He sat down in his seat looking oh so cool and leaned over to whisper-yell in my ear while I wasn't paying attention, "Hey Yuffie!"

I jumped a foot in the air and banged several body parts on the desk. The class started laughing at me and I slumped in my seat. Riku laughed right along with them until they were no longer paying attention, at which time he reached into his backpack and pulled out a little book of hunter green leather with a padlock on it. My eyes widened and I stared at the book.

"Yuffie you left this in your locker after you moved. Namine and Sora were dead set for getting the padlock unlocked and reading it but Kairi and I stopped them." He whispered.

"Sora wanted to read my diary? I mean I can understand why Namine would want to read it, but Sora?"

"Yeah. I don't understand why he wanted to read it either. It shocked me that people who were supposed to be your friends would turn on you like that."

"They were never really my friends Riku. If you had watched you would've noticed that Namine treated me like trash whenever we were hanging out together and even worse when we were apart. Sora... Sora always treated me like a friend... Like an actual friend, but if he wanted to read my diary so bad maybe he wasn't... I don't know anymore..."

I rested my head on my desk and let a few tears roll softly down my cheeks. Even now, the betrayal of yet another friend had me feeling like I was shit, like I didn't deserve to live. Maybe I didn't, but I wanted to live so badly.

The last three months of school finished out with me and Riku best friends and Riku being accepted into the ring of friends I had made when first coming here. Sora's betrayal of my privacy had long since faded in my heart and everything started feeling even more like home now that I knew that Riku was really my friend, not just some person who pretended to be my friend.

I was sixteen at that time and two months after that when school was about to start back up Riku asked me out. It seemed that life had given me a purpose. Maybe I was meant to suffer to find happiness. I still don't know now, ten years after the fact, even though I'm married and have children and lead a life as normal as life can be with all of its twists and turns.

Maybe everything was meant to be this way, hopefully.

A/N: I told you the ending was a bit rushed, but still I hope you liked it. My mom was rushing me out the door while I was writing the end of this so that we could go eat and see fireworks. The fireworks show was lame to tell you the truth. I mean every time I heard a fairly large bang I was like "Those need to be ten times louder. They need to be so loud that they make the fucking earth shake." Ehh... Over all it was okay I guess. The people that we had been sitting next to had put on blaring music about our country. It was fairly annoying, but I guess it fit the mood and the holiday. Anyways I hope you people like this enough to review. Flames will taken and spit right back at you. Those that survive the spitting process will be fed to my flame eating dog. Constructive criticism is always accepted for I am looking to better my writing skills. Read and Review!

Ja ne!

Mizuki Kurenaida