Dear Past Self
Sora sighs in frustration as he leans back on his computer chair.
He runs his hands through his disheveled brown hair as he stares at the blank word document on his computer screen. He stares at it intently as it taunts him with its emptiness. He continues to stare until he can no longer bear it and heads for the bathroom to splash cold water on his tired face. After wiping his face with a towel, he finds himself looking directly into the mirror, and a thirty-five year old male with dull, weary eyes stares back at him with a crestfallen expression.
He shakes his head in disapproval before heading back into his sorry excuse for a living room. It is an inescapable pit of despair complete with empty coffee cups, unfinished Chinese takeout boxes, and crumpled papers galore. Sora groans. He is swimming in the mess of his own head.
The doorbell suddenly rings, and Sora curses under his breath as he tries to hide as much trash as he can in his path.
Someone on the other side unlocks the door themselves, and Sora's twin brother Roxas enters hand in hand with his wife, Naminé. A miniature, teenage version of Sora follows suit with an unexcited look on his face and a duffel bag in hand.
"Kaito," Sora greets as he drops the pile of trash in his arms on the ground. He sneaks a quick glance at the calendar by his work desk and only now realizes that it is the last week of the month.
"Hey dad," the teenager greets in a monotonous voice. He immediately makes himself at home and plops down on the couch next to a pile of unorganized papers.
"Well, I love the new decor," Roxas teases. "The coffee cups really give the place character."
Sora rolls his eyes as he leans in for a bro hug. He then turns to his ex-wife, Naminé, and is careful to hug her because of her swollen stomach.
"Where's Ventus?" Sora then asks, searching around for his nephew.
"With mom," Roxas answers.
Sora crosses his arms and raises his eyebrows in curiosity. "So was this your master plan all along –to dump your kids at your relative's houses?"
Roxas raises his hands in surrender. "Darn, you caught us."
"We're just going to spend the weekend at the cottage," Naminé explains hastily, distantly. "We'll be back for Kaito by the end of next week, as per usual."
"Sounds good," Sora says. "Take care, and have fun on your trip."
"You be a good boy now," Roxas says as he helps his wife out the door.
"Oh, I'm sure Kaito will behave," Sora assures as he leans against the doorframe.
Roxas snickers. "I wasn't talking about Kaito."
"Eat a dick," Sora spits, and as he closes the door, he catches a glimpse of pity in his brother's eyes. The door slams shut, and a deafening silence fills the apartment once again. Sora's hand lingers on the doorknob as he looks up at the ceiling. Slowly but surely, he turns his head, and his gaze eventually falls on his son, who is staring at him from the couch.
"Hey," Sora says awkwardly.
"Hey," Kaito greets.
Sora begins to scratch the back of his head, unable to think of anything better to say other than "So how's school?"
Kaito merely shrugs. "All right."
"A new semester should have started by now, right? What are your classes like? Do you like them?"
"They're okay, although I'm not very fond of The Principles of Mathematics in particular."
Kaito and his father shiver simultaneously at the mention of math, and a good chuckle escapes them both.
"Which is your favourite?" Sora asks as he takes his seat on his beloved computer chair once again.
"I'd have to say English, but I think it's just because Aunt Kairi marks me generously," Kaito admits shamelessly. Sora's ears perk up at the mention of her name.
"So," he says, staring up at the ceiling once again, "Kairi's your teacher, huh? How is she?"
"Good," Kaito answers. "She gave us a new creative writing assignment for the weekend. We have to write a letter to our past selves, and tell them about… well, anything, really. We could talk about their future, things to look forward to, things to avoid… it's optional if you want her to read it or not. I think it's pretty cool, but I have this inkling that it's just a test to see if we're truly happy with the choices we've made in our lives."
As his father remains silent, Kaito begins to twiddle his thumbs. He knows of his father's… fascination with his English teacher, and wants to discuss the matter no further than they already have. Luckily, Sora's roommate and best friend, Riku, comes in for the save.
"Kaito!" the older man exclaims happily. "How's it going?"
"Pretty good," Kaito replies, and for the first time that morning, a smile plays on the teenager's lips.
"I was just about to hit the gym –would you like to come with?" Riku asks, swishing a pair of keys around his index finger.
"Sure," Kaito answers, not bothering to wait for his father's approval.
"Is that cool, Sora?" Riku asks, and his roommate merely nods and tells them to take care before he is, once again, left alone in his little pit of despair.
He stares intently at his computer screen again, still intimidated by its lack of words. As he mindlessly taps his index finger on the D key, his mind drifts onto the assignment that his son told him about earlier.
"She gave us a new creative writing assignment for the weekend. We have to write a letter to our past selves, and tell them about… well, anything, really. We could talk about their future, things to look forward to, things to avoid… it's optional if you want her to read it or not. I think it's pretty cool, but I have this inkling that it's just a test to see if we're truly happy with the choices we've made in our lives."
"A letter to our past selves," Sora repeats out loud. His finger continues to tap on the D key, and after quite some time, he finally finds the will to press it down.
.
.
.
Dear Past Self,
This is your older, much stupider self speaking. I'm sure you're wondering why I'm writing this, but to be quite frank, I'm not sure myself. Perhaps I write with the sincere hope of getting the ball rolling for my next book, or perhaps it's because I'm so desperate and delusional that I actually believe that somehow, someway, you're going to read this. I guess it's a mixture of the former and the latter.
So, knowing my overly curious self, I'm quite certain that you're wondering how your life will turn out, huh? Well, first things first: your parents name you Sora, and you have a twin brother named Roxas who is ten minutes younger than you. Your father passes away in battle when you're just a baby, but even in death, you know that he loves you, Roxas, and your mother Aerith dearly. Spoiler alert: you and Roxas become total mama's boys after this.
At age three, you will meet your lifelong best friend. His name is Riku, and he will kick your ass at practically everything, but you have him to thank for making you strive harder to become a better version of yourself.
Let's see, what else… at age six, you meet a talented artist named Naminé, you fall off a paopu tree and break your arm when you're thirteen, you become a star athlete in high school, and you attend Twilight Town University with an athletic scholarship.
Side note: don't room with Riku. That devilishly handsome son of a bitch will have sex in your dorm room almost every night and you will spend most of your days doing work in the hallway.
In university, Roxas starts to date a nice girl named Xion, but she unfortunately dies from a rare disease called geostigma. As you wrap your arm around your baby brother in the hospital, you will learn that life can be pretty unfair, but time will simply tick on and devour everything in its wake, so all you can do is deal with everything the best that you can.
Since you've always had a flair for theatrics and an overactive imagination, you major in the art of literature to broaden your horizons on the writing craft, but your studies get cut short when you impregnate Naminé, your girlfriend at the time. You end up marrying her, but she eventually leaves you for Roxas when she realizes how unenthusiastic you are about the marriage. She knows that when you look at her, you wish to see someone else in her place.
She and Roxas have an adorable child named Ventus, and he looks just like his father, but surely, your once optimistic demeanor rubbed off on him. They currently have another child on the way.
You name your son Kaito, and he becomes everything that you've done with your life, although you don't tell him that as often as you should. He looks just like you, and he is well on his way to becoming the star athlete of his school, too. He lives with Roxas and Naminé, but you take care of him every last week of the month. He does not talk to you or confide in you much—in fact, he tries to grin and bear it when he's with you—but you know that somehow, in some weird, abnormal way, you understand him, and he understands you in return.
Despite your studies being cut short, you eventually become a successful romance novelist, but most of your books are about heartbreak and regret –a writer is only as good as his experiences, after all.
So, what do you think? As of now, your life seems pretty depressing and uneventful, doesn't it? Clearly, there is something missing –something crucial to the story. Where's the romance, the emotion, the skin? Well, Sora, here it is:
At the age of six, you will meet a girl named Kairi. She will seem shy at first, but heed my fair warning, for I will be nothing but blunt and honest: she will ruin your life. This relationship will be a fast moving feels train that you cannot get off, my friend –not that you'd want to, anyway.
She is a nightmare in elementary school. She will pull your hair, break your crayons in half, and "accidentally" make you step on lego pieces. She doesn't have cooties; she has brain damage (not really).
We then fast forward to middle school. If you thought she was a nightmare in elementary, she is even more so in middle school. She gets this thing called a period, and it is God-awful. Stock up on chocolate, invest in body armour, and learn to dodge things –these things are crucial for your survival, trust me. Her twin sister Naminé is much better at handling this womanly curse.
However, you do start to notice that Kairi is getting pretty. I mean, you already though her pretty before, but now she's pretty, and Riku thinks so, too. She's smart, she's funny, she craves adventure, and although she looks like an angel, she acts like one of the guys, but with class. You and Riku both develop a crush on her, and most of your middle school days are spent trying to outdo Riku to impress her.
In high school, you learn to use the word hot, and Kairi is hot. Her hair gets longer, her eyes get brighter, and her body gets larger and curvier in all the right places. However, she is not the kind of girl to flaunt this. She is modest –one of the many things that you will admire about her.
You spend most of your freshman and sophomore years eating lunch on the roof with Riku and Kairi, getting shoved into lockers by Kairi's older brother Axel, playing sports like blitzball and soccer with Roxas and Riku, getting shushed in the library whilst "doing homework" with Kairi, and playing video games in Kairi's basement. About ninety-percent of your schedule revolves around Kairi.
Your first kiss, by the way, is gross. It happens when you're fourteen, and it is nothing at all like what the fanfiction writers say. She does not taste like strawberries, or candy, or anything sweet of the sort. It is just as Harry Potter describes it in the Goblet of Fire.
Wet.
That's literally all it is, with a girl named Olette on the school rooftop. She's sweet, but a bit of a shut in. I would tell you to avoid this kiss at all costs, for it is the epitome of teenage awkwardness, but I can confidently say that every kiss after that will be worth your while.
Junior year is a whole new playing field. Every girl's ass is practically on the prowl, and it's a merciless dog eat dog world out there. As captain of the female volleyball and swim team, Kairi becomes a prime target for boys in every year. She has many suitors, but the first she chooses to go out with is a senior named Tidus, the blitzball captain. He lures her in with his windswept blond hair, charming smile, and sweet, tempting words, but he turns out to be a wolf under sheep's skin. She catches him sucking face with Yuna, the head cheerleader, behind the bleachers one day, and you will be the first one she runs to.
He is the first to break her heart, and you don't hesitate to break his face.
You get expelled for about a week because of this, but it's worth it when Kairi visits you every day after school to provide you with cheesecake and a dramatic—albeit pathetic—reading of Fifty Shades of Grey.
Side note: You will fail your first Biology test miserably. The following are a few answers that you might find useful.
1a) Deoxyribose nucleic acid
2c) Anaphase
4f) 104.5 degrees
Bonus: Giraffes
You will also go out on your fair share of dates, but none of them will stand out to you; however, there are some pretty good kissers out there. Go get'em, tiger.
Senior year, you are in love with her. You are in love with the way her hips sway slightly when she walks, the way she looks over her shoulder to ask you for a pen, the way she punches your arm and exclaims "Punch buggy!" when you're driving, the way she frowns at an A- because she's a total perfectionist, the way her eyebrows furrow in concentration when she's engrossed in a good book, the way her lip quivers in anticipation when she's about to cry, and the way she screams your name when you pleasure her with every fiber of your being.
Okay, I'm totally kidding about that last one. Sorry.
Riku pretty much gives up on Kairi at this point, claiming that what he felt for her was just some childish infatuation. Your feelings couldn't disagree more. You're eighteen, and although you may not know everything there is to know about love, you know that you are in love with Kairi.
You realize that whenever you try to cater to your own needs, you feel obliged to cater to hers first, because that automatically caters to yours. You realize that you like yourself better when you're around her, because she inspires you, motivates you, and makes you better in a way that Riku can't. You also realize that all that "puppy love" is bullshit. It's been over twelve years. You're not full grown, but you are no longer a measly "puppy".
There will come a day when you will feel compelled to tell her all this, and that day will be the night of senior prom. She goes with some ass named Seifer, because let's face it: although she's perfect in every other way, she has a hamartia, and it happens to be her taste in men.
You go to prom with Riku, because the bromance is real, and because you're both so amazing, you win prom King and Queen. Head's up: you're the queen.
Furthermore, prom is exactly what you make it out to be: a grindfest with really crappy punch and sexually frustrated chaperones that break up anyone who tries to fool around behind the staircase.
Towards the end of the night's festivities, you learn that Seifer has invited Kairi to a hotel room nearby, and it's all you can do not to show him the wrath of all four elements on his face. Chaos ensues, the bottom of Kairi's dress gets ripped in the process, and you drive her away from the venue whilst Riku upholds his role as the "older brother" and introduces Seifer to his right hook.
You drive her to Seifer's house, and before she can start yelling at you, you pull out your trusty paintball gun from the trunk and hand it to her wordlessly. Through tear-filled raccoon eyes and wet cheeks stained with mascara, she smiles at you gratefully, and gets out of the car.
Justice is served, and Seifer's beemer turns into a rainbow-infested mess.
You end up driving her to the boardwalk and ordering fish and chips from her favourite restaurant. You'll enjoy your meal at the end of the pier, where the gazebo is situated, and sit on the rail that is closest to the ocean. She will tell you about what school she's attending in the fall, what she hopes she will achieve, and what she will strive for in the future, but you are so awestruck by her beauty that you won't remember much.
Her eyes will glisten from the moonlight and you will realize that her eyes are like the ocean, and in that moment you will want nothing more than to drown. Her purple dress will be tattered and her make-up a total mess, but you won't mind because you accept everything there is to accept about her. Her red hair—which you have always loved because it reminds you of red velvet cupcakes—will become a curtain for her face when she looks down, and you will want nothing more than to see the show. When she looks up, the wind will blow away the curtain, your breath will hitch, and you will want to tell her everything, because looking at her is like looking into a mirror.
She is a reflection of everything you want in life.
But you don't tell her. You don't tell her because you're afraid –afraid that she won't feel the same, afraid that you'll lose everything, and afraid that you'll just hold her back, because she is capable of so many things.
You are always so talkative, Sora, and this is the one time you decide to remain silent. I confidently have the balls to call you an idiot.
You attend Twilight Town University with Riku and Naminé, and within six months of being Kairi deprived, you start to date Naminé. You strongly suspect that she is only dating you because you remind her of Roxas, but you don't mind because you're technically doing the same thing. Riku becomes a total chick magnet, but he will soon realize that relationships aren't for him after all.
To this day, he is still single, and completely satisfied with himself. You will wish to be more like him.
Two years later, the death of Roxas' girlfriend Xion brings everyone back to Destiny Islands for the summer. Everyone will try to comfort him in the best way they can, but he will find the most solace in Naminé, who is already pregnant with Kaito, but you don't know this yet.
You will learn that mom's flower business is still doing well, that Olette is already an apprentice at the hospital, that Tidus is Destiny Island's most valuable blitzball player, and that Seifer is temporarily behind bars for attempted theft.
You will also learn that Kairi is engaged to some tool from the main island.
You will pretend like you don't remember his name, but it's Kitai, and it tastes like poison in your mouth. They are to be married within two weeks.
You hate Kitai. He gets along with her parents, he maintains a GPA of 4.0 or higher every year, he's studying to become a doctor, he's handsome, he's funny, and he is the perfect gentleman that would walk on water for his fiancée. He is everything that you could have tried to be for her if you chose not to remain silent that night on the pier.
On the night before the wedding, you find her sitting on the gazebo in a white dress that looks far too easy to take off. When she sees you, two long years of being Sora deprived struggle on her lips. The silence quickly escalates into a heated argument, in which you find out that, all along, she's been waiting for you to claim her as yours, but you never do. The sudden confession hits you like a hammer in a game of whack-a-chocobo.
She wanted you. She still wants you.
Tomorrow, Kitai will have the title of her husband, but you will have what matters. He will be the perfect husband, but you are not only a lover to her; you are her best friend, something that Kitai won't ever be able to be.
With this sudden realization in mind, you lean down to kiss her, but she will stop you with a finger to your lips.
"Don't," she will say.
"Don't what?" you'll ask.
"Give me something to regret," she will whisper.
But you give it to her anyway. You give all of it to her, and it is an experience on a completely different level. It is not only physical, but spiritual as well. Your souls will become a perfect mess of entangled limbs, and for once in your life, you will feel like you've done something right.
The morning after, she's gone, and you're stuck sitting in the aisle of the lavishly decorated church next to Riku whilst staring daggers at Kitai, because defeat is only so bitter when you know what victory tastes like.
She wishes you the best at your wedding with Naminé, and the next time you see her is when Naminé marries Roxas eight years later. You no longer try to keep in contact with her in fears of turning her into someone impure. She moves to Twilight Town, becomes a well-educated English teacher, and has a daughter named Hikari. She inherits her father's intelligence and her mother's ocean eyes.
You now live this life. A life filled with unfinished Chinese takeout boxes, empty coffee cups, and blank word documents. It is not a terrible life, but it's not one that is entirely fulfilling; however, you have plenty of books and a son that will carry on your legacy. You have family and friends that care for you, but you are not as happy as you once were. You know that in the back of your mind, things could be better.
So, Sora, please take the following into consideration: when she sits on that gazebo in her tattered purple dress, mascara stained cheeks, and hope-filled eyes,
Tell her.
Tell her everything.
Sincerely,
Your Future Self
That evening, when Kaito finds his father asleep in front of his laptop, he prints the letter and submits it to his English teacher the following day. Sora receives an A+.
Fun fact: Kaito means (kai) "sea, ocean" combined with (to) "soar, fly" –a slight mixture of Sora and Kairi's name meanings.
Well, I certainly hoped you enjoyed that one shot! It's a little more angsty than what I'm used to, but I suppose part of becoming a successful writer is trying new things. Originally, that last sentence wasn't supposed to be included, but I wanted to end this piece with a hopeful note. Forgive me for any grammar mistakes I may have missed!
Despite my absences, I hope you all still love me! I definitely miss all of you. Stay tuned for any more updates, and I hope to have the next chapter of Teenage Wasteland up in a few months. Still trying to get back up on my high horse, guys, lol.
Wishing you all the best,
Kyorii