Author's Note: Hello all. This is my little story to cleanse myself of my icky feelings. After all, who wants to feel sad? My friend died a couple of days ago and I just wanted to write out what happened. My own little catharsis, you know? So, review please, and enjoy.

Disclaimer: If so, I'd be rich. But maids aren't cleaning my socks for me yet, so I don't think so.

Riku sits on his plush, carpeted floor, watching TV and wasting the day away. Miscellaneous objects are scattered about the floor and he unwittingly keeps on banging his various appendages against them. Languidly, he picks up the onyx remote and begins to flip the channels.

He then remembers a paper he has to turn in by tomorrow for Professor Valentine's Russian literature class. Hitting himself firmly on the head, Riku silently curses at himself for forgetting such a thing.

Muttering vividly, he decides that there's still time to write an essay and another hour of TV won't hurt him.

Too much.

Riku flips to TTW news and lethargically begins to devour an orange. Vaguely wondering what Sora's doing, he contemplates whether if he should call him. After all, it's been about a month since he last saw him away from his college. He ruminates if whether applying to a separate college was very astute of him, as he never gets to see his old friends and the staggering amount of homework is starting to take a toll on the frustrated student. Even if he wouldn't let them know it, Riku was missing his friends.

His eyes linger on the glowing screen, taking in only half of what the droning newscasters say. Riku's nervous fingers touch the paperback Russian literature, vainly willing its master to read it.

"Thanks for that bit Bill; I sure know what to do with my ponchos from now on!" A cheesy faux smile is plastered on the newscasters face as she delivers the afternoon news.

Picking up the remote again, he sighs. There's nothing on TV to stop him from starting the paper. Thus, Riku glares at the immobile laptop that's next to him, wishing it a violent and painful death.

His slender fingers are just about to push the spongy off button when Riku glimpses something that piques his interest.

"Next on TTW news, a group of college students who were visiting the mall were killed when their car slammed into a cement pillar. More on this news will be by John. John?"

"Yes, Sandy. 10:42 last night, twenty-one year olds, Sora Irino, Kairi Uchida, and a twenty year old Selphie Tilmitt were killed when they allegedly crashed into a large cement pillar on Main Avenue."

Riku stands still, his back rigid and his face stiff. His pumping heart lurches in his chest and the words fly by him in a swift flurry.

"They were said to have driving back to their college, University of Twilight, when they allegedly swerved to avoid another driver and hit the pillar. From the medical examiner, Sora Uchida was said to be driving the car and died immediately from the impact. The two women in the passenger and back seat died from the noxious fumes emitted from the demolished car. No alcohol was found to be apparent in their systems."

He blinks his cobalt eyes; they could be deceiving him. Staring at the screen, Riku views a picture of Sora being shown. He notices that it's Sora's old high school picture, back when he had a gawkier look to him. A short of Sora's wailing mother is exposed on the blatant news.

What?

Riku's mind is numb. Its cogs work furiously to absorb the images he's just seen and his rigid fingers clench the book, ripping into its pliable paper.

The newscasters smile is back, splashed across her tan face, the somber appearance cast away for more joyous information. Like she's forgotten that someone has died. Someone important to him.

This can't be happening.

People die on the news. They vanish from the world in tragic deaths unbeknownst to him.

But these things don't happen to people like Riku.

They happen to others, people he doesn't know.

But not to him.

And definitely not to Sora.