"Do you think he'll ever come back?"

Thunder gave me a perplexed look, but he was clueless as to what I was talking about.

"Who?"

I couldn't blame him for forgetting, it had been almost a year. A long one, you could say. Sighing, I said, " You know," I looked down at the white sandy ground, "Riku"

And even though I wasn't looking at him, I could feel his sky blue eyes scanning me, forging a confronting sentence in his mind.

"Hey, he'll be back soon - that I can pretty much guarantee."

Playfully he nudged me in the shoulder, but my cold mood told him to stop.

It was normal routine. Me and my brother, Thunder, would come to the beach every day. We'd just sit and chat,watching the waves crash onto the shore, the sun setting behind the sea's horizon. Almost everything was perfect- except for one thing.

A piece of the jigsaw was missing, nothing seemed complete any more, because Riku wasn't here.

It pained me, inside-out.

He would wear a white tank top, black jogging bottoms and hiking boots. I would have a white top, black denim jacket, black mini skirt and knee high boots. As you can tell I'm not your stereo typical girl. I'm not a brick wall, just quite quiet and at times harsh.

"Why can't we just, you know, go and find him?" I asked Thunder after a long, uncomfortable moment. He closed his eyes and shook his head in disagreement.

"We can't. It's too dangerous. There's no point interfering with things that don't need be interfered with."

"But-" I tried to speak but her gave me a stern look and continued.

"The best we can do is remain here and hope for his safe return. What would I do if you got hurt?"

His voice was full of tranquillity, yet firm. But my stubborn mind made only his words sound bitter and tasteless, as if he didn't care at all.

"You know what? I would agree with you. Only I turn sixteen in less than a months time. I don't need protecting. I'm quite capable of protecting myself!" As I got up to leave, Thunder called after me, "Crystal, if you won't stay safe for me, at least to do it for Riku. What would he do if anything happened to you?"

I mused on this for a while before coming back to reality. I walked away.