Title: Things You Fall In Love With

Author: souslalune

Fandom: Kingdom Hearts II

Characters/Pairing(s): Riku/Olette, Kairi, Naminé, Selphie....maybe others XD

Rating: K

Summary: It's because she's not like Kairi, Selphie, or Naminé that he loves her.

Warnings: None!

Notes: So AU it hurts. It might seem like I'm taking a stab at Olette being ordinary but...she's kinda not? :/ Dude I don't think anybody really ever had a choice in KH2. No, seriously.

Disclaimer: I don't own Kingdom Hearts II, it belongs to Square-Enix. I'm just borrowing them to write and jumpstart my muses. LIVE DAMN YOU, LIIIIVE.


Olette wasn't a cheerleader like Selphie. She did not go to all the local games (well, she didn't the first couple of months she arrived here) and she didn't sport any of the school colors. Olette also didn't visibly swoon at cute boys as they walked by. In fact, Olette had her nose buried in a psychology book while Selphie chatted things up with Tidus, in hopes of getting him to come around. When she finally put the book down, she figured saying 'hi' was good enough for now, and it wasn't long until she would be telling them 'goodbye' and heading down the hallway. She couldn't be late.

However, as Riku saw, Olette seemed to be the loudest cheerleader of them all only when it came to watching Roxas and Hayner when they finally joined the baseball team and hit the field.

Olette wasn't a princess either. Riku wasn't insulting his best friend, but in a sense Olette was totally different from Kairi. Kairi was a little bit immature (she got it from him and Sora, honestly) in certain situations, and Olette seemed wise beyond her years. People seemed to love doting on Kairi, and while Kairi liked the attention Riku always saw his friend head in Olette's direction, forgetting all about said attention, blue eyes jubilant at seeing those pretty jade ones and that shiny brown colored hair. Olette always preferred to be with her close bunch of friends or tucked away in the library's fantasy section. It's there that she's envious of the princesses finding their princes and Riku wants to tell her that she's his princess (no matter how cheesy that sounded out loud) and that she doesn't have to have fairy godmothers, seven dwarves, or prick her finger on a spinning wheel's spindle to get her prince to come to her.

Olette's patience was astounding really. Even if it seemed like she was agitated, she waited. Waited for Roxas, Hayner, Pence, and Kairi. She had even waited for him, even when it was obvious he was being a jerk. They weren't even dating yet and she was quick to call him a jerk after he had said something to Kairi (it might have been something involving her huge crush on Sora—yeah, Riku was a little green back then—and he sounded a little harsher than he intended to sound). Riku didn't talk to Olette for days, but when he found her there at her part time job on the weekends (she was a waitress, and that green apron did nothing to flatter her) he left her a generous tip, a half empty cup, and tiny yellow post it note that said "I'm sorry." in rather rushed black ink.

The next Monday there was a note on his locker—written in smooth cursive in fuschia colored ink which was her (other) favorite color—that read "It's okay." and he found himself pocketing the post-it note and holding onto it for the rest of the day.

Did Riku forget to mention that Olette wasn't a fantastic artist like Naminé either? While Naminé was adored by the art teachers and getting invites from prestigious art-related universities (He listened to her read them to him back when they were dating), Riku always chuckled at Olette's stick figures (who didn't like stick figures, honestly?) and lazy sketches that were a jumble of pencil lines and he kept all of the things she scribbled on pieces of paper. They were tacked onto this noteboard with pushpins he had hanging over his desk at home and when he started his first semester at Destiny Islands University in the near future that noteboard would be over his bed once again.

Riku loved how Olette wasn't like Kairi, Selphie, or Naminé. Olette was Olette, and he loved noticing even the slightest things about her that nobody else picked up on. She hummed when she wrote things for her English class, she played with the ends of one of her pig tails when she was lying, and nobody else looked as cute when they blushed (He would catch her staring, he'd smirk at her, and her cheeks would flush themselves pink and he'd kiss them. This process he was happy to repeat.).

She wasn't a cheerleader, a princess, or an artist.

That was why he loved her.