A/N: Hi again.

I have this irremovable urge to do maths.

I'm so excited about this one :D It came from nowhere, really. I was reading some fics by an author I really like, on here. Youroctober. You should check her out; she has some great stuff. Anyway. The basis of the story is inspired by her user name. I hope you don't mind my using it, honey.

I have no need for modesty. I like reviews. You like reviews. I am more liable to reviewing your work if you review me so I know you exist. Win win situation, no?

Warnings: I have this penchant to be horrible to my characters. Poor Riku. Sometimes I feel bad for them, just a tiny, itty bitty bit. Ah, I also have this penchant to turn everything I write into yaoi. Therefore, this is yaoi. Just not yet.

Disclaimer: Roxas is sitting on my study chair, next to Minnie, wearing my top hat. It's covering his eyes. In the lounge room, next to the TV, I have Kingdom Hearts I and II sitting idly, waiting for me to buy another TV so I have something to play my ps2 on, because HEY, GUES WHAT? PLAYBACK DOESN'T WORK ON THE PS3. I think this is as far into the Kingdom Hearts ownership as I'll be able to go (WAIT NO, I NEED TO BUY BBS FSGAHFGALFHS).

Chapter One: [October First – Another October]

If there wasn't a calendar on the wall, Riku still would have known it was October. October first was, after all, the beginning of The End.

October seemed to find a sickly humour in torturing him. Nothing personal, of course, but one couldn't help but cower at its pitchforks and daggers, it's hefty bills and emotional turmoil and it's necessity to finish him off with a bang. October laughed at his misfortune with delighted peals of glee, throwing hazards in Riku's way (without exaggeration – he'd had plenty of harmful objects thrown at him) so often that there came the point where he knew the local doctor by his first name, and referred to him with it over a coffee once a month, because that was what new friends did. The shaking of his limbs had become normal, anyway, but someone had to draw the line at the stuttering of his heart, the constant times his friends found him collapsed on his apartment floor, too knowledgeable to leave Riku alone and just let him be. No one really understood what was so wrong with the month of October, why it seemed to jinx Riku under a consistent dagger point of danger, but it too had become normal, and something constant to dread in the year. So if someone took away the calendar from his wall, Riku would have still known that it was October first. He wasn't even conscious half the time to look at it, anyway.

Funnily enough, in all of October's doings, it had failed to end him. He named it The End, fittingly enough, because he really did wonder whether it would be the end of him, whether October would get what it was pinning for and eat his pitiful soul on a nice big platter of other equally pitiful souls, those who had gone through much what he had been going through for years. It never did, though – and he called himself lucky for that, because if there was ever a lucky person, it was him. No unlucky person met death too many times to count on your fingers and lived to meet it again. Or, he figured they didn't. Otherwise they'd be, you know, dead.

October ... just wasn't his month.

A bundle of person lay haphazardly under a thin blue doona, and if one were to pull the fabric away from his suffocating nose, they would realise that, in fact, that bundle of person was no other than Riku. The spring sun warmed his cheek with a delicate orange caress, tendrils of silver hair dancing slightly with his exhalations, peaceful chirping of the local birds outside his window beckoning his deaf ears to wake up to the morning. There was really no point in anything bothering such a restful scene. It was Saturday, the one of two days where school's long clawed fingers couldn't reach him, where homework was left to Friday night or Sunday or in amongst the calamity of Monday mornings. But see, October had never had any reason to be how it was. He suspected it only did what it did for the sake of doing something other than existing, and he had to be grateful that it was at least letting him sleep the first hours of October off. October wasn't a waiter, however, and it rubbed its hands together in anticipation, Cheshire cat grin omnipresent on its features, and that was precisely when Riku heard a buzzing near his right ear.

At first he ignored it, hanging precariously on the edge of sleep, fully prepared to start dreaming again, and the buzzing noise went away. Riku sighed, nuzzling his cheek into the pillow, smell of aftershave and shampoo assaulting his nose, lingering half-memories of his dream fluttering against his eyelids – something about a dog peeing on his school bag. It was quiet. And still. Thought he might have fallen asleep again at some point. Didn't really remember, didn't really have the chance because he was woken up again by the same noise, this time positioned somewhere around his nose. Annoying high pitched buzz. He swatted away the sound with a groan, fingers slapping warm morning air and, unfortunately, nothing more. The sound moved towards Riku's eye, and he squeezed it shut reflexively, swatting at his face and promptly hitting himself. Riku groaned. He realised all too well that sleep was starting to evade him, becoming a distant, unattainable dream, and all he wanted was to shut up that fucking noise and cling to sleep before it got away. He fumbled with his thoughts for a while, before pulling himself upright, eyes still shut, ears searching for that fucking fly, because it must have been a fly, and opened his mouth with a yawn.

His eyes popped open in horror at the sensation of something crawling down his throat.

Choking noises filled the room as Riku spluttered spit onto the doona, forming little dark spots on the fabric. He didn't know exactly what to do; it wasn't like he'd ever had something alive crawling down his throat before. Tried to cough it back up in panic, held his throat delicately with his hands, willed himself not to swallow the spit forming in his mouth, but it just kept going down, and down, and down. Eyes searched frantically for a way to stop the fly from entering his stomach alive, falling quickly to a stop at the cup of stagnant night water on his bedside table. Riku hesitated for a second. Wondered whether or not the water was okay to drink, sitting there and watching him sleep for hours. Gathering dust. And dirt. And other stuff in the air he didn't really want to think about. But he instantly threw the thought away because that didn't even matter right now, there was a fucking fly crawling down his throat in search of his fucking intestines. And then he was gulping the water down, eyes squeezed shut, trying not to think about the fact that he was drowning a fly in his throat. The water tasted a little bitter, a little dusty, a little like morning breath, but all too soon it was drained away. Wearily, he pulled the cup away from his lips, and waited.

He couldn't feel the fly.

Sighing, Riku set the cup back down and slumped against his pillow, head lolling lazily on his neck, silently thanking god. A shiver threatened to run up his spine. It tingled at the base and at his shoulders, but he kept it down, loose fists forming against the doona covers, fabric between his fingers. His head throbbed with the sudden wake, yearning for sleep, dizzying in its need even though he was sure he had slept for a while. He just decided to sit there for a while. Just sit there, because he wasn't ready to face the first day of October yet, and he was far from falling asleep again.

At least the buzzing had stopped.

Frowning, Riku tried to remember exactly when all this had started. Not the morning, not the minute passing midnight, but everything. When had October become so hazardous? He tried to place it, a first memory, maybe the first October he had ever lived, but there was none. Perhaps it had been like this all along. Perhaps the rest of his life was destined to be thwarted and wrung with the shit October threw at him.

A bird chirped at his window, and he watched it fluff its feathers, blue and black and grey and white and shades in between that didn't have common names, soft fluffy feathers bristling on a small body. It sung a little, black beak open and wide, beady eyes peering at him quizzically, before hopping off the window sill and flying away. Such a peaceful little bird, such a little ball of beauty, something delicate that you could hold in your hand, singing to the new October morning. How ironic.

Figuring he had to face the new day at some point, he kicked the doona away, skin kissed with a warm, gentle gust of wind. Pale fingers rubbed at his temples as he swung his legs over the edge, feet landing with a thump, and he lazily drew himself up off the bed.

"Shi-"

His foot promptly collapsed under him.

Gasp as he landed on his ankle, pain shooting up his leg like he didn't already know he'd fallen on it, eyes wide with surprise and then squeezed shut with the pain, like if he could keep them closed tight enough, he could keep it away. He sat there for a moment, in surprise and a quickly growing discomfort, muttering obscenities in his head because he didn't think he wanted to use his throat when it still prickled with the presence of the fly. His heart, which had risen to his throat and decided to stick itself there, settled itself back into his chest, behind his ribs, where it was safe, and Riku couldn't help but think that his throat had had enough for one morning.

Easing his foot from under him, Riku froze as a second wave of pain sizzled through the veins in his leg. He hissed, low and sharp and long, while he drew his foot the rest of the way out, laying it in front of himself when he was done. Refused himself the liberty of sighing. Of all the fucking things to happen to him, he dreaded the things that involved pain the most. Not because of the pain itself – he could ignore that. It was ignorable. No, it was because of what the pain implied. It was a beacon telling him that something wasn't right, and at least when there wasn't any pain there was nothing to tell him that what was happening, was, indeed, not normal. At least then he could pretend that it was okay, and really, really believe that he could live through it. At least then he could try to ignore it, feign a comforting normalcy that never made it through more than a week, and start all over again.

The sun was bright by now, past eight in the morning and well on the way to nine, birds chirping with less enthusiasm than before, floor warming up pleasantly beneath his feet as he pulled himself up and hobbled to the kitchen. The apartment was quiet with the morning, if a little lonely, but that was what came with living alone, he figured. Staccato footfalls echoed in the silence, broken only by the occasional hiss through his teeth, the living room cut with iridescent yellowing bars of light, and then his skin with the same, blinds drawn to block away the sun. He opened them. Maybe because the bars of light reminded him somewhat of prison bars, but this was his home, and this was his freedom, and freedom didn't deserve to be locked away.

Not in any particular mood to be fussy about breakfast, Riku hobbled into the kitchen (looking a little like a duck with a rock stuck in its flipper, but that was beside the point), white light from the refrigerator calling to his empty stomach. There lay food, and water that hadn't sat on his bedside table and accumulated dust for eight hours, and ice to help nurse his ankle. As far as he was concerned, it was Heaven. His stomach growled in agreement.

There wasn't any point in making anything complicated; there probably wasn't anything in the fridge to make something complicated with, anyway. Cereal was good. It filled your belly, and it was easy to get rid of the grainy taste when you brushed your teeth, unlike bacon and eggs, or wheat bix. The invention of cereal was a fair example of simplistic food and morning laziness, if it was nothing else. At least it showed that some people knew that other people wouldn't do smack in the morning, or would attempt to, the only notable result being a ruined kitchen. A comforting feeling welled in Riku's being at the thought of other people caring about whether or not people burned down their kitchens in the morning. People like him. (If he looked really hard, he could still see black ash caught in the rubbery filling between the cupboard and the wall, a tiny, irremovable memory. He shivered.)

Looking through the cupboards, he fished out a box of rice crispies. Wondered whether or not there was actually any rice in it to put reason to its name. He poured it into a bowl, grains running together and shimmering as they hit the bottom. He stared at the bowl for a few seconds. Thought he might need some milk. Milk. Yeah. That sounded right.

He stumbled over to the fridge, opened it with a tug, grabbed the bottle of milk before it could get away (because milk always tried to run away, really). Screwed the cap off because he was too impatient to wait for it to go on his cereal. It was comfortingly cold in his hands, and he touched the cold neck of the bottle to his lips, tipped his head, and chugged.

And spat it out before it could go down his throat.

Instantly, like they were prepared for it, his gag reflexes kicked in, and he was gagging and spitting at the tiles on the kitchen floor like he was about to throw up his stomach, and fuck, it tasted horrible. He tried not to breath as he spit, recalled something about having half the taste in the smell, hunched his back so the milk-riddled saliva didn't get onto his cotton pants, or his bare chest – didn't like the idea of off milk being anywhere on his skin, let alone in his mouth, where it actually mattered, and his thoughts ran predominantly with the mantra of ewewewewewew, occasionally punctured with a swear or two. It took some time for him to calm down, silver hair hanging around his ears, bangs in front of his eyes, an unsettled feeling in the pit of his stomach, but at least he wouldn't throw up. And he decided that it would be a good idea to wash his mouth out with water, or – something. Something that would make the taste go away.

He filled up a glass of water under the tap and drank, titled his head back with a gargle, and spat it in the sink. Repeated the action a few times. Veins of milky white water trickled over last night's dinner plate, missed the ceramic coffee cup (he figured he'd have to wash that soon if he wanted to keep it from staining), gurgling as it trickled down the drain.

Fucking off milk fucking ruining his fucking morning.

When he picked up the milk bottle (placed carefully on the counter top even while he was choking on it) and checked the expiration date, sure enough, it was a week and a bit over. When had he bought it? Two days ago? Why the fuck had he bought off milk? His curiosity piked, he examined the milk closely, eyeing it with a disgruntled frown. Noted how it was slightly clearer at the top than it was at the bottom, and shit, there were even little balls of curdled milk floating around. How the heck had he missed that?

Far, far away, his mobile phone rang. Riku jumped and nearly spilled the milk on himself.

Riku frowned for a second, confusion trickling into his thoughts. Registered the sound in his ears and confirmed that yes, that was Smells Like Teen Spirit playing. Frowned a little more. Who would call him at nine in the fucking morning on a Saturday?

He was going to miss the call.

He couldn't run to his mobile, but he could damn sure hobble like a duck on steroids running a fifty meter sprint, and by the time he got to his room, he was huffing and hissing and swearing and hobbling all at the same time, in search for his pants. Because he was sure his mobile was in his pants pocket. Now where had he put his pants? Eyes searched the floor. It was clean of clothes, except for a pair of socks, and a t-shirt he hadn't worn for ages but could never find the heart to throw out. Bzzzt, wrong, please try again and hurry the fuck up before your phone stops ringing. Eyes then flickered over to the bed, but bzzzt! Wrong again! The bed had a blue doona crinkled and used and flung around, and a pillow of the same colour, but that was it, and he should have known that because he had just been sleeping on it. He then decided to remember that he had folded his pants and put them back in the wardrobe for future use, like a good boy, and hobbled over to its open doors, eyes already searching for the tell-tale blue jeans. Ding ding ding ding! Correct! You have found your jeans! They were on top of the pile, sitting there innocently like they hadn't caused him any trouble at all. He grumbled and fished out his mobile before the caller could hang up.

When he flipped open his phone and checked the caller ID, it said Axel, with one of those obnoxious XP faces.

Riku groaned and answered the phone. "What?"

A static-filled chuckle resonated in his ear, dripping with intentions. "Hi to you too, Princess." A tiny, insignificant pause, and then, "How's your morning been?"

Riku smothered the urge to fling his mobile at the wall and imagine it was Axel's head.

Axel, being Riku's self proclaimed Best Friend, knew about October, and made it his duty to piss Riku off. Tease him, taunt him, mock him, provoke him, dare him to jump off the roof of his four-storey apartment block because nothing shitter could happen to him on October than breaking every single bone in his body and spending half a year in a hospital bed, and at least that would have been intentional. Axel stuck by the excuse that he acted how he did to get Riku's mind off of things, and because he loved him, but he had yet to see proof of either statements.

Riku growled and pinned a glare at the wall, right where his phone would have hit the plaster. "Well," he started with a sneer, "I woke up to the sensation of a fly crawling down my oesophagus, I twisted my ankle while getting out of bed, and it fucking hurts, and I just tried to chug a bottle of off milk. You tell me how my fucking morning's been, Axel."

"Shitty?"

A soft, tired sigh escaped Riku's lips, and he dropped himself onto his bed. It creaked. "Yeah."

There was a moment where Axel didn't speak, but Riku could distinctly hear the muffled sounds of someone shifting on their bed, and imagined Axel doing much the same thing he was. Imagined him in his room, dark because it was on the opposite end to where the sun rose, band posters on his wall, band t-shirts and jeans and flannel tops replacing his carpet. No leather, no – that was all in the wardrobe, safe from prying feet and other bodily limbs. There were probably university text books opened on his mahogany desk, engineering jargon like X3-60 and turbo-charged littering the pages. Stuff to learn to aspire to if you wanted to design highly unpractical sports cars. Axel would have still been in his pyjamas, if he had worn any, the spikes of red hair atop his head in disarray, head tilted back onto the headboard, fingers pulling at his pillow cover, or drumming on his thigh. His room would have smelled like smoke, even after a month of smoking outside (his mum had had enough of him smoking in his room – said it was unhealthy, and that the rest of the family didn't want to develop lung cancer). It would have clung to everything; his clothes, his hairbrush, the dust in the air.

"Look," Axel said, serious compassion flittering in his voice, "do you want me to – uh, to come over and help you look after your ankle or something?"

"Nah, it's cool." He murmured, smiled despite himself and before he could remember that Axel was a pissy whiney-ass bitch. "It's feeling better already." Riku moved his foot from side to side like Axel could see it.

"Did you get the cheque from Aerith yet?"

Riku hummed. The change of topic forced his mood into something more serious, and his eyes closed. "Yeah." He whispered, adjusted himself on his bed, back propped on his pillow. Then, as an afterthought, "I thought I wasn't going to make it." His free hand went to tug at the blue doona.

"That makes two of us." Muffled sounds of movement could be heard over the phone, the slight creak of a bed spring, then static. So Axel was on his bed, too.

"Guess I have to pay the rest of the bills today, huh."

Axel laughed. "Yeah, maybe, unless you want to get evicted. Personally, I like living behind four walls. Not much of a nature person."

"Nature sounds pretty good to me right now."

More laughter, like the sound of dancing fire, and static buzzing in his ear. "Anything can sound pretty good after a shitty morning like yours."

Riku groaned. "I'm so over this already."

"Too bad, Princess, you have thirty days to go. No, make that thirty days and three-quarters."

Riku frowned. "Three-quarters?"

"It's only nine, sunshine."

Riku felt the urge to fling his phone at the wall bubble and resurface, like a giant, ugly sea creature. He was having trouble stifling it today. "I know that."

"Hey, cheer up. Uncle Axie doesn't want to make you sad."

"I don't have an Uncle Axie," Riku deadpanned.

Axel huffed. Sound of old bed springs and skin against fabric filled his ear. Muffled quality of Axel's voice as he whined. "You're no fun." Riku figured Axel had shifted on his side, where his pillow could muffle his voice, and the phone.

"Hey, Axel?"

Curiosity. The muffled shifting noises stopped. "Mm?

"I didn't know you had credit left."

Silence.

"Oh, shit."

Riku laughed, felt it deep inside his chest, head tilting back, his first real laugh for a very long time. He sat there laughing for a while, Axel joining in with a soft chuckle, fuel to his laughter, and they laughed together until Riku was snivelling and wiping imaginary tears from his eyes. God, how long had it been since he had laughed like that? "Hang up, Axel, before your mum kills you." Riku grinned, imagined Axel's mum with a rolling pin in one hand and a can of bug spray in the other, and laughed some more.

Axel sighed, imagining the same thing. "Look after yourself, man. I'll call you later." Then, as an afterthought, "From the landline."

Riku chuckled. "See you."

"Bye."

Dial tone.

Flipping his phone shut and throwing it onto his bed, Riku sighed, eyes looking at his hands, folding together onto his lap. Axel always had a knack for knowing when Riku needed to talk to him, even when he didn't know it himself. That was probably why he was such a great Best Friend, even if he was a pissy whiney-ass bitch. That pissy whiney-ass bitch was Riku's Best Friend, capitalised. And he'd have it no other way.

A few suburbs away, precisely and coincidentally when Riku hung up his phone (though some argue that it was a work of fate), Sora stirred lazily in his sleep. There was a bird outside his window, chirping at him in a rather pleasant way, coloured blue and black and grey and white, and shades in between that had no common names. It was singing by itself, sounding a little lonely, but immensely happy, and covered in the bright, beautiful glow of the risen sun. When he opened his eyes, full of overnight grit and sleep, he watched the bird fluff its feathers out, chirp at him a few times, flap its wings open and fly away, with a graceful little bird-hop off of his window sill. A little ball of beauty, singing out to a new day, flew away from his view even when he could still hear it singing. When he had the mind to actually concentrate on anything, he noticed that the weather outside that same window was sunny and warm and smelled a little like flowers, maybe mown grass, if he sniffed enough, and tingled on his sleep-warm skin. And that it felt really, really nice.

It had been a while since Sora had last gotten out of bed as fast as he had (he took his time, usually, to think about things to do during the day, or just to think), but he had this feeling that October first was going to be a great, exciting day. A day to begin all other days.

Slowly, Sora trudged to the kitchen, rubbing sleep out of his eyes with the backs of his hands like a little child. Passed his father's room quietly, feet slowing and padding lightly on the timbre as to not interrupt his father's quiet, consistent snores. Skipped the squeaky stair as he walked down to the kitchen. His father hadn't gotten sleep for a long time, not anything close to proper, anyway. He deserved all the rest he could get. And when he woke up, he'd have breakfast waiting for him, and Sora would insist he do some of his father's paper work.

Sora decided he was going to make pancakes.

A heavenly scent wafted from the pan as the batter bubbled and thickened, sizzling noises echoing against Sora's ear drums. Golden syrup and strawberry jam waited patiently on the counter to be served with the cooking pancakes, the inanimate objects watching them go golden-brown and delicious looking, watching Sora flip them in the air with an expertise which suggested he made breakfast often. Content, high-pitched hum in the back of Sora's throat.

Sora heard the distinct sound of heavy footsteps behind him, and craned his neck around to see his father walk into the kitchen. He frowned.

"Did I wake you up?" An apology was waiting on his lips, ready to be said. It faded when his father shook his head, long brown bangs falling into his eyes without gel and a brush to comb them back.

"I could smell your cooking from my room," his father murmured. Pause, a little grumble. "What time is it?"

"Twenty past nine."

His father sighed. "I should have been up an hour and a half ago. Why didn't you wake me?"

"I knew you needed the sleep more than you needed an extra hour and a half of work." And, uh, he was asleep.

His father sighed again, and Sora knew, he knew he was going to start going on about how important it was being a doctor, and that there was no time for sleep if you had the amount of paper work he did. He knew because he said so every second day, every time Sora tried his best to let him sleep some more, or take a longer shower, or, heck, have a properly cooked dinner instead of the tray hospital sandwiches they served to the patients. Sora halted his father's speech with a finger pointed in the air. "Dad, I know what you're going to say, but your just doing too much for one person. If you'd just let me do some of the paperwork for you-"

Stern fatherly voice. "Sora, you know that's not allowed."

Oil sputtered and burnt Sora's wrist, and he hissed as he turned around and wiped it away, flipping the pancake onto its other side. It was slightly burnt. "But you know I'm good enough, no one can even tell." He was met with a pointed silence, disapproval hanging in the air. He sighed. "I don't have a shift today," Sora's voice lowered into a sincere murmur. "The least I can do is – is do your quantitative charts for you. You know I know how to read them."

His father said nothing, and he sighed again, his measly attempt failed and hanging in the air. Instead, he concentrated on decorating a stack of pancakes, first a generous dosing of golden syrup, then some more, then a large dollop of strawberry jam on top. He would have used real strawberries, but he had found out with disappointment that they had none. He must have eaten the last of them yesterday and not realised. He added another dollop of jam as compensation. Hm. It kind of looked like a face. Maybe. But it needed a mouth...

Muffled yawn behind him. Screech of a chair as his father sat down. "Smells good," he commented.

Sora smiled at the stack of pancakes in front of him, the compliment running deep into his veins and nestling in his chest. He spooned a smaller amount of jam and smeared it in a curve. There, a mouth. He continued to smile at the pancakes. They smiled back. "It's your favourite."

"I can tell."

"But we don't have any strawberries."

"I'll buy some today."

"Dad," Sora sighed. He carefully picked up the plate of pancakes and placed them in front of his father, looking into his sleep-muddled eyes. There were dark circles under them. He always seemed to have dark circles under his eyes, these days. "You know I don't have a shift today. I'll do the groceries. And I can do some of your paperwork, while you have a nice long shower and, more importantly, a rest. You're so tired, your doctor's handwriting has turned into chicken scratch."

His father's eyes averted his gaze, and Sora was met with another long, pointed silence. His voice dropped to a pleading whisper. "Dad, please. I want to help you. I don't like seeing you this way. All ... grumpy." His nose wrinkled in distaste. "It's not you." A pause, and Sora laid his hands onto the table, leaning in to his father so that he was forced to look at him. "Let mehelp you."

Tired, long fingers lifted to massage his father's temple, the bridge of his nose, the apples of his cheeks, before sliding into his lap with a thump. His eyes were closed. Thick brows were drawn to a wrinkly point. Creases in his forehead. Bottom lip between his teeth. Sora bristled with anticipation; they – they were signs of resignation. His father was giving up, he was giving up and that meant he could finally help him. That was awesome! "Okay," his father mumbled, then more forcefully, "Okay. Just the quantitative charts. I don't want you even thinking about touching anything else. You got me?"

Sora beamed. The world responded to his mood, and the air caught a taste distinctly like blooming flowers and golden syrup and strawberry jam, though that could have very well been there before, smothered with the mood. Sora promptly draped himself over the back of his father's chair, arms around and hanging off his shoulders. He was letting him help him, thank god, he was finally letting him. The truth was, he didn't like quantitative charts much, but neither did his father. It felt nice to take some sort of burden off of his shoulders (and instead replace it with his limp, happy body).

"Sora."

"Mm?"

"I can't eat with you hanging off of me like that." Small smile in his voice.

Sora disentangled himself from his father's back, arms draped behind his head as he stretched. "Grumpy old coot," he joked, tongue sticking out as is father rolled his eyes.

"Come over here and say that again."

"No thanks. I like my arms where they are."

His father might have smiled, but before he could see anything, his mouth was full of pancake. "This is good," he murmured around his fork.

Sora had a feeling October was going to be a great month.

Nothing else had happened on October first. Riku had eaten his cereal dry, milk down the drain and the sink thoroughly washed, grabbed ice from the freezer in a hand towel and nursed his ankle while he did his homework, payed the bills (the fucking water prices kept going up), and had taken the day off work (he'd had the afternoon shift, again, but he couldn't possibly walk around waitressing customers on a stuffed ankle). Missing shifts wasn't his thing – it used to be, until he was living alone and learning how to pay his bills, and discovering how much the fucking water kept rising. It made him nervous, because he was just barely getting by, just barely, with the money he was earning, and if he missed too many shifts –

Well, even Aerith couldn't help him, then. And he didn't even want to begin to think about what would happen afterwards.

A sigh escaped his lips, and he shifted under his doona, pyjama pants catching around his knees. It was a pitiful sigh, full of hardships and troubles and a will to just get by, to not break down before he could even start up, to save himself the pain by fixing what was wrong when he didn't know what it even was.

Riku really, really didn't want to break down.

Over the course of ten minutes a lump had indiscriminately formed in Riku's throat, just behind his Adam's apple. It stayed lodged there even when he swallowed, and he did that in fits, continuously, because he really, really didn't want to break. He just wanted – a lot of things. Riku Hayate wanted a lot of things, but what he wanted at that moment was to sleep. Sleep away the pain in his throat, and the burning of his chest, the sting in his eyes, the thoughts creeping and clawing at his skull, insistent and horrible. But he couldn't. No matter what he did, he couldn't do anything. He was a helpless fucking thing trapped between what he had known and what had been taken away from him, thrust into a world he didn't know, a world he wasn't prepared to live, without – fuck, without his mum, or his dad, or – or his sister. He had nothing. He had nothing in a world where you needed something to exist. He had nothing. He was nothing. And what caught his words in his throat was that ... he was helpless about that.

Something in him broke at that realisation. Just a little bit.

He sobbed into his hands, tears staining his skin with salt (it was nothing), nails digging into his forehead (it was nothing), ragged breaths from his throat (it was nothing), words like "nothing" and "helpless" and "mum" heaving incomprehensibly from his wet lips (he heard nothing), lost and unformed. He shifted his ankle wrongly, spike of pain through his nerves (there was no pain), and that just made him cry more, tears running down his wrists, and then his forearms, and then his elbows, and then some more. He only let himself break down a little bit (there was nothing to break), because he could fix that, at least, could wipe the tears away and maybe he'd even feel a little better afterwards. He let himself break a little, because if he didn't now, it'd be too late and too big to fix.

He missed his mum. He missed his dad. He missed his sister. He missed his home. (He had nothing to miss.)

He felt so lonely.

A/N: Depressing ending? I wasn't expecting it, either. Maybe you'd like to review and tell me how much you weren't expecting it? -is shameless-