A/N: Hello and welcome to the world of Scarlet Lyrical! Glad you could make it. I come to you now appealing to your good natures and pity for a poor girl like me, with this request: Please do not deprive the world of Kairi/Naminé stories. There are 6 pages on the search. 6 Pages! Now I knew that it would not be right for me to complain unless I contributed which is why we are here today. This is a multichapter femslash of the pair. It's my obsession, my love, what I think about day and night. This 'Universe' is something very personal to me and something I have put alot of thought into. Alot of seemingly small details become big things later, so pay attention to everything.
Disclaimer: Not mine, not making money, just going for sick pleasure.
How did it -- how did we end up like this? There's just too many thoughts. It seems you always make me like this; scared confused, at loss for thoughts, words, and feelings.
I used to read so much. Harlequin romances. The sort of things that make all teenaged girls weak at the knees, aching. I ached too, you know? I guess it'd be ridiculous at this point to say I craved a firm hand or a stubbly chin. No, that's not what I wanted. While all the other girls were drooling over a shirtless athlete, or making out with disposable sex-hound boyfriends, I was aching for something more selfish. I just wanted that feeling. I ached to ache. I often wondered why I couldn't be as ridiculous as they could. Why couldn't I love the first thing that offered me a kind word? Sure I could try, I could pretend, but that pain wasn't there, that absolute aching love they write about in all the romance novels. I wanted that. I wanted it so bad I could've cried. It's not even a sex thing. I wanted--
You know it doesn't even mater.
It was summer. For some reason a very cold one, I remember. The last snow had been in May and at the end of June the waters were still cold as ice. Just another summer, like a million before it. I was looking forward to late nights and even later mornings. It was a sad kind of melancholy.
I know you might find it hard to believe but you really brightened up my world, made all the melancholy go away. Suddenly I was excited to get up in the morning just so I might so much as see you. I was on an energy high. I would run out the doors in the morning singing. Can you believe that? Me? Singing? Everyone must have been laughing. But I couldn't help but laugh too.
You made me feel for the first time. You made me ache. You made me cry. You made me sing. You made me love you.
~ Scarlet Lyrical ~
It was like a scene from a third rate family comedy. The three of us were standing on top of lawn chairs for a better view over the fence, shushing each other so we wouldn't get caught, and failing to notice our rapidly depleting popsicles until blue slush was dripping from our elbows.
We had to spy though. Sora, Riku, and I had been looking forward to this day for a whole week, ever since a less than new Chevy creeped its way up Sora's neighbor's drive way with a parking pass stuck to the windshield. He'd knew that they'd be getting new neighbors for a while now, but not one our age. We were about to be juniors in a class that was threatening to drop below forty; this was a big deal.
"I hope it will be a girl." Sora pouted. As the shortest of the three of he had to rest his chin on one of the pikes of the fence to see over. He looked childishly adorable dribbling sticky blue liquid. He licked around his lips to try and mop it up, only succeeding in creating a sweet little rim. I cooed at him and wiped at his chin with the sleeve of my hoodie.
"So do I. It'd be nice to have an actual girl to hang out with." I sighed, and shook my head, "You guys never want to see any good movies."
He batted my hand away, "You're wrong Kairi. I don't know any one who would ever want to see one of those played out 'romantic comedies', 'sept for Riku of course. What's your favorite movie again? Serendipity?" Sora laughed with that sweet little bubbling laugh he had before returning to his serious spy stance.
"Serendipity's a good movie. Shut up." I pointed a dripping popsicle stick at him. "It's not sappy like most romance movies either. It's sophisticated and realistic."
"Realistic?" He babbled and shook his head, "Never mind, I hope it's a guy."
"You sure seem to know a lot about a movie you hate." Riku said quietly never letting his pale eyes leave the road. He was older than us, he was going to be a senior and never let us forget it, somehow he always made offering for help look like an insult, and he was the most beautiful creature I'd ever seen. We made out once, while watching his little sister perform in a school play, and never spoke of it again. Just like we never spoke about the time we went skinny dipping or the time we fooled around in his room.
"Puh! A good warrior knows his enemies well. Research! At least I didn't like the stupid thing." Sora muttered trying to edge his way around me to get to Riku.
"Sure I like it." He smiled, "I lost my virginity watching that movie."
"What!" Sora stammered and back away awkwardly, face flushed, "You're kidding me right?"
Just then, in the corner, I saw it. A moving van. A shock of electricity ran up my spine. That could be anyone. Anyone in the world could be in that van. I almost didn't want it to come closer, and be disappointed with come pimply faced boy who snorted when he laughed. I wanted magic. I wanted beauty.
Breath caught in my throat as it approached. It felt like everything was moving so slow. Even Sora and Riku had stopped dead in their tracks to watch this wondrous things' approach. After what seemed like ages of agony there was a muted bump that brought me out of my stupor, sped things up again. The wheels had hit concrete. The van was home. It was really real now.
A dark haired man got out of the driver's seat followed by a few other men. I waited patiently for the family to come out.
"Hey Riku?" Sora had his eyes glued on the van as well, "Where is everybody?"
He laughed a little, "Driving here I assume. You guys didn't seriously think they would come in the moving van?"
"Riku you asshole!" I shouted, my heart was already broken he didn't have to rub salt in the wound, "Why do you have to be such a jerk about every little thing!?!" I shoved him a little harder than I'd meant to sending us both tumbling off of our lawn chairs and painfully landing in a heap of limbs and metal on the ground.
"Ow. Sorry." I whispered almost inaudibly, "That was a little bit of an over reaction…" I suddenly flushed noticing my position on top of him and tried to back away but he held me close and made an exaggerated purring noise in my ear.
"As if you're actually regretting it…" He nipped at my ear, eliciting an unsolicited giggle.
"Hey guys!" Sora hissed sending us a really dirty look, "Stop fooling around and get up here. A car's pulling into the drive!"
We shot straight up off the ground and scrambled to put the chairs back up again to no avail. They had taken a rather nasty fall as well and weren't fully recovered. I kicked at them in frustration.
"Dammit Riku! Look at what you've d--" I screamed as he ducked down between my legs and with an athlete's strength, lifted me up on his shoulders and walked over to the fence.
He ran a wayward hand over my thigh, "Always remember that I love you." Riku laughed a throaty laugh that vibrated painfully close to my groin.
I laughed nervously, "Yeah, yeah…"
Sora sent us a deathly glare, "Quiet. Or. They. Will. Hear. Us," he muttered through clenched teeth, and we went quiet after I almost fell off of Riku while he was orchestrating an emphatic mock salute.
The sound of the engine turned off and we all went completely quiet. I cursed those tinted windows that kept me form seeing what I was sure would be a disappointment. I even forgot about the boys around me as I looked intensely at that little car.
A door opened and my heart skipped a beat. A short blond man walked out. He was middle-aged and looking somewhat out of place dressed in Hawaiian print swim shorts and an old wife-beater. Despite his 'outdoorsy' outfit, his chronic lack of tan, bookish glasses, and silver Rolex spoke of someone who never left the office.
Not who I was looking for. Moving on. I registered the sound of another door opening, but it was on the other side of the car so I couldn't see who it was. The person stood up and my eyes hit the back of their head. They had nice hair! It was long and blonde. Natural blonde probably after seeing the father. Probably its father. Hopefully it's father. The hair was let down so I knew there was a possibility that it could just be a boy with long pretty hair, but judging by their height it was probably a girl. Not even Sora was that petite.
Then she turned. She was definitely a she. No man, no matter how beautiful could look like that. Hardly any woman could either. She was just gorgeous. Big huge blue eyes. No not blue, opal. They were iridescent, I swear, framed with luxurious lashes that brushed on her pale cheeks as she blinked and cast spidery shadows in the long morning sunlight. She had a little button nose that sat childishly small against her large eyes, smooth arching eyebrow, and god those lips. My mind kept drifting to how soft they must be no matter how much I tried to focus else where, or how smoothly they must move forming words and smiling, pulled over her even tended white teeth.
"She's beautiful," I could feel my voice coming in hoarse whisper, scarcely believing the words could come out of my mouth, that I could speak of this ethereal creature before me, this fallen angel, this goddess. Sora said something but I didn't hear him, I was to busy watching her uncover herself from behind the shiny black car, but quickly looked away as I noticed my eyes following the way her heart-shaped behind moved against the just-tight-enough white dress. Of course I was weak enough to look back and linger.
She was walking away from me. One tiny stride at a time, little footsteps on pavement. I couldn't just let this girl leave. I just couldn't. I wasn't so busy thinking about whys. I just knew that, well knowing didn't matter so much at all. So I didn't focus on thoughts. Thoughts would have betrayed me, told me words I wouldn't want to hear. So I yelled for her, let those feelings bubble out of my mouth, let my heart call out to her.
Her sweet childish eyes turned toward me and I almost choked as our eyes locked. Looking at me! For even a second those eyes were on me. I wonder if she thought I was some crazy person and would run away, I wondered if she would just disappear with the sudden contact to the world of the mortals, but I hoped-- I hoped the strangest things.
The silence was harsh and she looked uncomfortable, but patient. Good. She didn't hate me. The thought ruptured into an animalistic smile, and I heard a sound I didn't even know I could make escape my mouth before clearing my throat.
"Hey!" I said as friendly and non-threateningly as I could manage. I was somehow afraid she'd skitter off like a dear if I was too forward, even the loudness of my voice made me wince.
Her pretty mouth tilted into a smile. A wonderful smile! With the whitest straightest teeth. She let her head fall and looked to me through thin blonde bangs. "Hey…" her voice came out so soft and innocent and shy, like a little girl talking to a stranger. I didn't like the thought.
"I'm Kairi! What's your name?" The words left my mouth before I could stop them. I sounded like such a dork. A creeper. I wouldn't have been surprised if she simply screamed and high-tailed it out of there. Moved-away even, just to haunt me a pretty little face etched on the back of my eyelids from a seconds encounter.
She looked down again not meeting my eyes. But I could see it. I could see it! A smile. She looked up sweetly, bravely, cheeks flushed and lips stretched wide in a heart-breaking smile. "Naminé." It ghosted out of her lips, bubbly and happy. She looked so sweet. The name echoed on my lips. I formed the letters silently and they fit more naturally than I figured they would. Naminé. Naminé. Naminé. It was perfect. She was perfect.
The little nymph, the little angel, the little godling had finally had enough of this tortuous exchange. She turned with a sweet halting laugh and ran into the house she now was going to inhabit, and I almost could feel the earth shake with those little steeps. The vibration ran up my spine and I knew it was her. She was enchanting me, daring me, bewitching me. And I didn't care.
***
"So did you see a wedding ring on the dad's finger?" Sora's mother piqued out softly as she turned from the counter-top blender.
"Mom! Is that all you heard? Just a man blah blah blah Rolex blah blah blah nice car?" Sora reached out as what at least looked like a smoothie was placed in his hands.
We were all at Sora's house, as usual, gathered around his sweet little kitchen table. Sora, Riku, and I had been friends since before I can remember, and since before I could remember, it was always this house, this kitchen, and Sora's adorable mother fussing around us. She was someone I really admired and even liked as a friend. She became a mother as young as nineteen to two sons. She'd never tell us exactly old she was when she had her kids and never how old she currently was. The woman was very much a child in an adult's body, always obsessing over petty things like wrinkles and flowers. She was the sort of mother that would buy her kids alcohol just to be friends with them. That that she ever had.
"Honey, honey, honey, I'm going to have to do something once my boys up and leave me. Alone." She fettered around in her kitchen slippers and apron, moving back to make another smoothie loaded with gobs of strawberry chunk sherbet. It was always Sora first, then me, then Riku. Flesh and blood, the girl, then Riku.
"So you want to 'do' the neighbor?" Riku asked innocently receiving a smack on the back of the head. Yet she didn't say no.
"What about the girl? Was she nice? Is she in your year?" Her little feet puttered across the tile to deposit a glass of pink goop in front of me.
"She was beautiful." I heard myself say.
"Yah, Kairi, heard you the last ten times." Sora slurped, "She wasn't ugly or nothing though. I kinda think she's a ghost, or Roxas' long lost twin."
I guess I'd talked about her a lot since we'd gotten back, and thought about her even more. Naminé. She was just next door, probably settling down in her room, opening boxes, and creating a new world to live in. I wanted to be there with her, watching her slender fingers cut through tape, watching her arms go taught as she lifted something heavy, watching her face set in concentration as she thought about where a desk would go, or whether putting her bed in a certain spot would cover up the vent. I wanted to see what she'd put in her room. Would she have trophies, ballet shoes, maybe even a stuffed animal or two? I just wanted to immerse my self in her. Things that had her scent. Things she loved. Things that she touched.
At the same time I wanted all these things from her I also didn't. It was so strange. I wanted to walk into that house and capture her forever and also throw her on the moving van, off to fall into someone else's life.
I didn't even know her beyond a stray look and a few words and yet my mind was going crazy. I was thinking of scenarios, day dreaming of the most mundane things, like painting her toenails or having a sleep over. It was like I was becoming a stalker. I mean it has to happen to a good and knowing someone for there to even be a such thing as a stalker in the first place. Would I start rummaging through her garbage and spying on her at night? Would it be so bad if I did?
Argh. I was feeling so odd. I didn't know what to do. I wanted to see her so bad it hurt, but I didn't want it to lead to a life time of suffering. The desire to be near her was too intense to be natural. I've seen girls before. I've seen pretty girls before. Why all of the sudden did I want to lick this one's shoes. The sensation couldn't be natural. I must have been sick or bewitched.
"Kairi? You going to come?" Riku, who had somehow risen out of his chair and across the room without my noticing, asked.
"Come where?" I tried to neutralize my voice; somehow it became all tangled up in my thoughts.
He rolled his eyes, "Sora's mom wants to invite the new people over for smoothies or something. Pay attention." Come to mention it, they were all standing up poised to leave. I had an annoying ability to block things out sometimes.
I smiled "You know maybe I'll just stay here, you know, man the fort."
"Roxas already called that. Now get out of my house and look like a cute little girl for our new neighbor and his daughter." Sora's mother threatened through an infallible smile. She turned on her heel with the determination of a spoiled toddler and started leaving. Sora didn't miss a beat and followed. Riku stayed long enough to shrug before trailing after them.
The child in me didn't want to be told what to do like that. I thought about being petulant for a moment. I guess I was a little afraid too. I didn't want to see her. Well actually I wanted to see her, but I didn't want to, want to see her. I was asked to though and I really shouldn't deny such a simple task. It was inevitable really. No use fighting it. None at all.
My feet moved on their own tapping over tile and then muted in the living room carpet. I caught up with Riku at the end of the drive way. He'd held back for me while Sora and his mother walked quickly over the sidewalk. Sora's mom was still wearing her kitchen slippers and her cute little apron. She was really such an adorable woman.
Riku and I walked side by side, silent, behind them. He was always very good at having alternating boughts of being wildly inappropriate and then knowing just the right thing to say, or not to.
As we got closer it seemed like I was walking slower and slower until one of Riku's pretty slim hands touched me lightly on my lower back. Determined not to be lead I stomped quickly onward. The distance had never seemed so long.
Sora's cute mom knocked on the door sweetly with a bob of her head. 'More personal than doorbells.' she claimed. The moving van had already left, but the nice sparkly new car that Naminé's father drove and the beat up Chevy were still in the drive way. The parking pass laden car was red. That spoke for a wild heart.
It took a while for someone to answer the door but Sora's mother still refused to use the doorbell. First impressions and what-not. Finally the door screeched open to reveal bleary bright be-speckled blue eyes. Not her.
The man blinked a little bit. He was short and hunched over a little making him look even shorter. Riku easily surpassed him in height and I couldn't tell whether I was taller than him or not. Sora's mother gave him a bright smile which seemed out of place. It was completely dark in the house. And he almost appeared to glow in all his whiteness, like some ocean floor fish with see-through skin and blind blue eyes. His eyes looked even more obscenely bright because of the dark purple circles around them.
He blinked slowly, face looking tiredly over the pitcher the half-insane woman in front of him held up. Then walked inside slightly to hold open the door. He didn't look all that happy to be having company. Sora's mom didn't notice however and trod in then turned on the light comfortably.
"Come in kids," she said through a permanent smile, "Hello! I'm your neighbor over in the blue house. This is one of my sons Sora, and his little friends Riku and Kairi. I just thought we'd be neighborly and offer you something cool to drink. We were making it anyway. Where's your little girl? I'm sure the kids would just love to play together."
We stayed forever silent and staring. Sora's mother way of being, well, everyone's mother. Kindness, kindness, kindness, and just a way of saying thing that made you feel as though you had to do it. She was also overwhelmingly assertive at times. She would always say that you cared less and less what people thought as you aged, but I still maintain she was born owning the entire world.
The blond man didn't seem to be even a little unnerved however. He took orders like a pro, gesturing smoothly to some stairs then walking towards the kitchen. This house had a very similar floor plan to Sora's house, if inverted. The kitchen windows would probably sit level if it weren't for the rickety wooden fence between them.
The three of us mounted the stairs, single file and silent still. Sora, me, and then Riku; our order. I could hear Sora's mother beneath us gaggling away to an unanswering ear. We kept climbing.
