I silently yawned as I sat up and half-assedly did my usual overhead shoulder stretch, slumping over when I had completed the exercise. I glanced over at my still sleeping girlfriend Naminé, debating whether or not to wake her up by sticking my tongue in her ear. While I was an asshole, I knew she was tired from her late night shift at the 7-11 down on Ashton a couple streets east from here, so being the merciful person I was, I spared her from the rude awakening.
After taking a leak, brushing my teeth, and putting on whatever I first saw in the drawer, I took my iPhone 6 from the nightstand where it had been charging, untangled my teal ear buds, and popped one of them in while I made my way downstairs, loading up my lo-fi hip hop playlist to listen to while I made Nami and I breakfast.
Before that, however, I had a certain heterochromatic snowball to check up on outside.
"Yūki!" I called as I opened the screen door to our townhouse, the early dawn bringing about the everyday noise of wailing sirens and the distant barking of some stray dog. Sure, we didn't necessarily have the most scenic view of the Big Apple, but it was a start. Someday my biochemical engineering career will take off, and we'll be out of here and into a high-end apartment complex on the top floor overlooking the entire damn city. I wouldn't have left Osaka if I wasn't determined to work my ass off in order to achieve that.
I heard something rustle by the bushes and out strolled Yūki, her vivid blue-and-gold eyes staring at me with mystery. I opened the door wider and she immediately zoomed inside like she was being chased by one of the neighborhood strays.
While she enjoyed her breakfast which I had made especially for her (I haven't broken the news to her yet that it was just regular store-bought cat food), I turned on the stove to begin making human breakfast for my girlfriend and I.
I heard the stairs creak followed by the sound of bare feet against wooden floors as I slapped on the seventh piece of bacon on the skillet, the sizzling instant and reminiscent of raindrops pounding on a tin roof. The enticing smell must have brought her down since it was only eight-ish and she usually slept in until ten, sometimes eleven on Saturdays. That, and the girl was a goddamn slut for the stuff. Don't tell her mom I said that, though.
"G'mornin'," I greeted as I turned around to see the sleepy blonde. Her usually silky smooth locks of flaxen hair were wild as if she had gotten into a fight with a bear on the way downstairs, not to mention she was squinting at me. Whatever, she still looked fine as ever to me.
"Good morning," she softly answered, her thick Korean accent like the tinkling of bells in my ears.
I will admit it is a bit odd at the very least to the average American to hear of an Osakajin and a Daeger speaking English even in the privacy of their home, but I swear there's good reason for that, and it's not because we prefer English, because the grammar is honestly ridiculous.
See, I happen to speak two languages, Japanese being my native language, and English being my second as already shown. On the other hand, Naminé completely overshadows me with nine, which is soon to be ten once she gets English down. I help her practice by talking to her in English, and so far she's killing it. In a couple years time she would have mastered the language as well as the accent.
"Did ya get any sleep?" I asked after she had walked over to my side and we had exchanged a soft, light kiss. I asked because she unfortunately suffered from insomnia, and I didn't get home until around three this morning.
"A little," she answered, strolling over to the fridge and reaching for the Wheat Thins on top; Yūki rubbing against her pale legs whilst her rabbit-like tail flicked about.
"You don't wait any bacon?" I asked, genuinely astonished as, like I had stated before, it was her favorite breakfast food.
She shook her head, "No, tank-thank you," she quickly corrected herself, opening the refrigerator for the milk.
"You sure~?" I teased in a sing-song voice, which I thought was actually pretty decent if I do say so myself.
"Yes," she curtly answered, retrieving a plastic bowl from the dishwasher. "Bacon," she suddenly said, pointing to the stove.
"Hm?" I said as I turned to the nearly all-black strip of pork. "Oh shit!" I exclaimed, quickly removing the piece and setting it on the napkin with the tongs in my hand.
I heard Naminé snort a little while she poured the milk into her bowl. Oh, so she thought that was funny, did she?
"What are you laughing at?" I questioned, narrowing my eyes at her in mock annoyance.
She soon stopped chuckling and then stared at me with a look of pure confusion. Oh, right, we haven't gone over 'laugh' yet.
"Laugh means warau, so what are you laughing at, like, nani o waratte iru no? " I explained to her, her eyes lighting up as she made the connection in her brain.
"Ah, sokka," she said, practicing the word a bit as she added cereal to the bowl. I turned off the stove and grabbed a paper plate before I loaded it with two strips of bacon, two pieces of fried plátanos, and a huge serving of scrambled eggs. I plopped myself down at the small wooden table just outside our kitchen, and patiently waited for Nami to join me before I ate.
Instead, she put all the ingredients she had been using back to their designated places and strolled right by me, as if I didn't exist.
"Where are you goin'?" I asked her, turning around in my seat to face her.
"Up," she succinctly replied, not even bothering to look at me while she answered.
What the hell was up with her? She had been acting like this ever since I went bar-hopping with Sora and Riku a few days ago; the latter being a childhood friend of mine while the former was his friend who had just turned twenty-one. Nice guy, but I gotta say I'd kill to have the man's optimism. As for Riku, let's just say us together equals trouble. I still have a scar on my chest from when we went to some field with a couple other friends of ours during our middle school days. We decided it'd be a great idea to have someone fire rockets at us from a distance while everyone else tried to dodge. When it was his turn to become the Firework Lord he deliberately aimed at me for a majority of the round. Well, as you would expect one of them ended up hitting me and burned a huge hole in my shirt. Of course okaasan chewed me out, but in all honesty I still considerate it one of the best days of my life.
"Hey, wait, Naminé!" I called as she continued walking by. "Nami!"
That made her stop in her tracks. She knew I meant business when I said her name in my native accent.
"What's wrong? You've been acting kinda...different lately and I don't know why. What's goin' on?"
She didn't say anything, and I knew it wasn't because she didn't understand what I had said. She was deliberately choosing to stay silent.
I sighed, pausing the music I was playing on my phone and stuffing my ear buds in my pocket as I got up.
She visibly flinched when I touched her shoulder, which said to me that something was definitely wrong. I mean, yeah, we've had our fair share of arguments in the past, and we did get loud, but I've never given her a reason to be scared of me. What the hell was wrong?
"Hey, c'mon, just tell me what's the matter," I coaxed in the gentlest voice I could muster at that time of day, wrapping my arms around her waist while I nuzzled into the crook of her neck from behind.
"Stop it."
I immediately let go of her and she ran up the stairs into our room, spilling some milk on the floor in the process.
What did I do? I don't remember doing anything wrong, and even when I do fuck up, she tells me what I did. And why did she flinch when I touched her? Why was she being so skittish? She was acting normal just a few moments ago, I don't get it.
Should I give her space and ask about it later? That seemed like the logical thing to do, but I wanted to know what was wrong now. I was never really the patient type, that was Naminé's forté. But will waiting even help? It could actually make things worse. God, what do I do? She's never like this. I could usually tell when she was mad or upset, and she'd normally vent to me about her problem by now.
Against my better judgement, I marched upstairs and knocked on the door.
"Nami, can I come in, please?"
No response.
I jiggled the door knob just in case. Locked. Damn.
I knocked once more, "Nami, can you please tell me what's wrong?"
Silence. I pressed my ear against the door and listened for any indication of movement. I could hear her listening to one of her K-pop songs on full blast. I could even tell which song it was. Though I didn't speak Korean, you eventually pick up on some of the lyrics when someone plays it often enough.
"Nami!" I yelled, hoping to be loud enough for her to hear me. I pressed my ear against the door once more and shouted her name. The music had stopped. Did she finally hear me?
After what felt like a year I finally heard a noise:
Nae pi ttam nunmul
It was just another fucking song playing. I could feel my face heating up as I let out a slow, steady exhale. I was getting pissed off at her silent treatment. If she didn't want to talk about it, then she could've just said so!
"Nami, can you please tell me what I did wrong?" I questioned as gently as I could just before I heard the doorbell go off.
Now out of all times someone comes? I swear if it's Xion asking to crash at our place again...
I suppose I should give some backstory on her: she's a colleague from work, and she's known to have a long record of evictions for a number of reasons, mainly failing to pay the bills. She's from Japan too, but she's from the Shibuya ward. Unfortunately, I made the mistake of befriending her under the false impression that she was an easy-going, generous woman.
I later found out that I was so far off the mark that I don't even know where the metaphorical dart went. Though she was a master of satire humor, she had another reputation for being an uninvited guest.
An example of this was when it was mine and Naminé's seventh anniversary last year, and we were right in the middle of french kissing on the couch when we heard someone knock the door.
Reluctantly, I opened it and there she was with her short, choppy, sable-haired bob, smiling at me like I had been expecting her. She told me that she and her now ex-boyfriend Vanitas had a huge argument, and now she needed a place to stay. Normally I wouldn't mind letting her stay, but it was a special night for my girlfriend and I, so I wasn't really too keen on letting her in.
However, Naminé insisted that she come in and spend the night, telling me that we would resume the celebration in our room, which made my body shudder at what was to come. It would've been fine if Xion hadn't been screaming into her phone while she was explaining what had happened to her girl friends. What's worse was that she was in a four-way call, so she had to reiterate every sentence she said at least seven times.
Now back to my current situation: my girlfriend locked herself in our room and she won't come out, and now the doorbell had just rung.
I figured that if I didn't answer the door, they'd probably ring the bell again, so I made my way down to the ground floor, momentarily glancing at our bedroom door before descending down the steps.
I heard Yūki hissing as I came downstairs, which surprised me as she was usually such a sweetheart even around strangers. Her back was arched along with the hairs sticking up like a Mohawk. She showed off the pearly-white knives she had in her mouth, ready to pounce at any moment.
I opened the door a fraction of the way so my legs would be blocking her path should she have the instinct to leap at the person with a murderous rage.
Two police officers stood before me, both easily out of my weight class and both wearing blue blockers despite the fact that the sun had barely come up. The taller of the two was a bald black man who looked as if his shirt could rip at any moment should his muscles even twitch. I mean, this guy was built like a fucking tank. I had no doubt in my mind that whoever got into a brawl with this dude would get his sorry ass beaten to a goddamn pulp.
As for his buddy to his left, the thick black hair and tan skin told me he was either Hispanic, Latino, or Italian. He was almost as tall as the Hulk over here, but he was off by just a couple inches. He had a scar that ran from his temple and ended near where his lips were.
Both seemed to be in their thirties or early forties, but something told me that I wouldn't last ten seconds against them.
"Mornin' officers," I greeted with a smile. I already knew what they were here for. "I have my green card in my wallet upsta-"
"Roxas Mochida?" the bigger one asked, his baritone voice booming.
"Yes, sir, that would be me."
"Mr. Mochida, you are under arrest for the suspicion of the second degree murder of Sora Mullins. Let's not make this any harder than it has to be and open the door," he curtly instructed.
Murder? They were accusing me of being a murderer? No, no way, that's inane, there's no way in hell that I would ever do that! Besides, I had only briefly met Sora, and Riku was always with us, so surely he would've noticed if his friend was being killed right beside him! Why do they think that I did it anyway? What evidence did they have that pointed the suspect to me?
Naminé. She could testify against them. She knows I would never do such a thing!
"Naminé!" I screamed into the house, praying to God that she would be able to hear me and come out.
I heard footsteps coming down the stairs just as a pair of hands seized my arms and forced me to turn around, the click of the handcuffs and the sensation of metal encumbering my wrists enacting from behind me.
"You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be used against you..."
I honestly couldn't hear him at that point. Something just happened and all of a sudden my brain just tuned him out, tuned the entire world out. As he threw me out of my home I twisted and turned so I could catch a glimpse of the door, hoping she arrived just in time to catch them before they shoved me into the car.
I knew better than to make a run for it or to try and take them on my own. As I said, they had canons for biceps, and I did not want to be on the receiving end of one of their punches. I also knew that they weren't going to let me off the hook as soon as Naminé came outside, but I just wanted to talk to her before I went.
"Wait, wait, my girlfriend! Please, let me talk to her before I go, it'll only be for a moment!" I begged. They could at least allow me that much, right?
The bigger of the duo said nothing as he dragged me across my lawn, and out of the corner of my eye I could see the other officer in front of the door talking to Naminé, her legs all I could see as the man towered above her short stature.
"Nami!" I called out to her, expecting to see her shove the man aside and run up to me in a heartbeat.
Instead, they continued on with whatever conversation they were having, and right as the cop behind me jolted me inside the vehicle, the man began to make his way to us, finally permitting me to see the woman I so dearly loved with every fiber of my so...
The door was closed. Where was she? Why wasn't she there? Why was the door shut? Did she not want to see me before I was thrown in jail for Lord knows how long? She couldn't possible be that angry at me to the point where she didn't even want to see me at a time like this, could she? Did she think this was what I deserved for doing whatever she thought I did?
No, no, that wasn't her. That wasn't the Naminé I know. The girl who flinched when I touched her this morning wasn't the girl who agreed to move with me to America, despite the risk she knew it would create for her, despite her parents' constant opposition to her decision, despite the fact that she barely understood the language, solely because she believed in me and loved me. This wasn't her.
This just wasn't her.
I watched the door as the engine came to life and we sped off. I watched it until I could barely make out the outline as we ventured further and further away from my home, the home we bought for the two of us to begin our new life together. The home where we would talk for hours and hours on end about what the future possibly held for us and about which place we should go to for vacation once we saved up enough of our days. The house we were supposed to raise our first child in once we both decided we were ready to take on the responsibility.
I stared at the door until we turned, and not once did she open it to look at me.
"When can she come visit me?" I asked the officers, finally facing forward.
"I wouldn't count on her visiting you anytime soon," the black-haired man spoke, his partner purely focused on driving.
"Oh, yeah, what do you know?" I testily challenged, glaring at the guy. Who the hell was he to tell me that anyway? Who the fuck did he think he was?
"Well, I do know she was the one who turned you in in the first place," he informed, glancing at my stunned expression in the rear view mirror, a sickening smirk growing across his tan face.
The abnormal lack of desire for bacon, the flinching, the sudden avoidance of my presence over the last couple days, it all made sense now. She thought she was in the same house with a murderer.
But why did she think I did it? And when did she even make the phone call? And how did she even know Sora? I only ever mentioned him once when I said I was going to go drinking with him and Riku a few days ago. None of this made any fucking sense!
How could she just turn me in like that? What would even drive her to such a belief? Didn't she trust me? Didn't she know that I understood the value of human life and the consequences that stemmed from ending it?
I attempted to steady my breathing as I told myself to calm down, gradually drawing in deep breaths into my lungs and slowly expelling the air out. I was getting worked up. I had to keep a level-head before I did something I would regret. It wasn't like this was the worse thing that could happen to me.
I didn't have enough money for bail, but I doubt I would even have the option since I was being accused of murder. At most I would probably be there for a couple days and then someone'll come to interrogate me, and they'll see that I wasn't the one who did it.
I would only be there for a little bit.
It was only for a little while...
A/N: Oh, wow, I actually managed to finish this just in time. I honestly couldn't tell you how long this has been sitting in the Doc Manager waiting to be completed. In any case, I got it done! A little background story for this one-shot: this is a remake of a draft I had sitting in a notebook in my PJ drawer since maybe last year or so. I just remember an idea suddenly popping in my head while watching some drama movie about the mafia and how it effected the members and their families. Yeah, kinda weird, but inspiration hits when you least expect it, I guess.
Anyways, happy RokuNami day, everybody! And also happy 15th Birthday to Kingdom Hearts! Hopefully we'll get some news towards KH3 or a screenshot or something to celebrate. If not, maybe we can expect something at E3? Possibly? Ah, who knows.
At any rate, thank you for taking time out of your day to read the story, and if you really liked enjoyed it or if you have any constructive criticism, please feel free to leave a review. Once again, thank you for reading, and have a wonderful day/night. :)
Disclaimer: The lyrics used is by BTS: Blood Sweat and Tears.