Tempest

By Rhino7

Disclaimer: Hark! I have returned! I don't own Kingdom Hearts, its characters or storyline. This storyline is mine. This story takes place about a year before Kingdom Hearts I. Hehe, as usual for me, weird first chapter. Kind reviews welcome and appreciated!

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Chapter One: Terrible Tuesday

Whoever said Monday was the worst day of the week obviously didn't survive to see Tuesday, because Tuesdays were just as bad as Mondays. That was Sora's opinion at the end of said bad day. Then again, good days themselves were hard to come by when you were a seventh grader at Destiny Islands Junior High. They were even scarcer when you were the loser of the school. Sigh.

The day started innocently enough. That was the first warning.

Sora left his house Tuesday morning, walking to school with his neighbor Tidus.

"Then, while the fire alarms are going off, I'll sneak into the principle's office and—Hey, Selphie." Tidus stood straight, waving.

The brown haired girl glanced their way. "Ew." She remarked, walking away.

Tidus hung his thumbs in his belt loops, "She digs me."

"Yeah, right." Sora snorted, heading up the steps into the school.

Tidus trundled off to where Wakka was talking to some other eighth graders, the rulers of the school. Sora hated eighth graders too. Tuesdays and eighth graders: the world would be better without them.

He kept his head down as he shuffled over to his locker, inconveniently in the middle of the hallway where the crowd was thickest and least civilized. First hour was Algebra with Mrs. Puzeki. Sora swore that hook nosed old lady was determined to fail him. He bet he'd flunked the test Friday, and he blamed her. Sure, studying would have helped, but that devil woman was out to get him!

Grudgingly, Sora pulled out his books for his first three periods and stuffed them into his backpack. No sooner had he done this than someone collided with his shoulder. The books toppled to the floor, splaying out in all directions.

"I think you dropped something." Came a grunt.

Sora looked up in time to see Trent McGwire puff up his shoulders, looking pompous and proud of himself. There was no need to ask who'd pushed Sora down.

"Wow, good job." Sora said, picking up a few of the books, "You actually hit me while I was standing still. You get a gold star."

Trent's grin turned into a scowl, "Shut up, dork."

"And we've graduated to name calling I see." Sora remarked quietly, reaching for one of the books.

Trent stepped on said book, kicking it across the hall, "I said shut up, bean pole."

"Bean pole? You're truly gifted in the art of name calling. Take another gold star." Sora said.

He knew he was digging a grave here, but it was too fun to watch Trent's face boil.

"Trent, come on." Riku yelled a little farther up the hall.

Sora made a sour face as Trent glanced at him. "Watch yourself, dork." Trent threatened, knocking the books out of Sora's hands again before marching off.

Sora watched Trent amble over to where Riku was standing with a few other eighth graders. Add another thing to Sora's hate list: Riku. The cool, suave, athletic, smart…butthead. Sora stuck his tongue out at their backs, restarting his mission of picking up his books.

Riku was just a jerk. Sora had been on friendly terms with him up until elementary school, then the cards of fate decided Riku was cool and Sora wasn't, dropping them in separate sections of the social hierarchy of junior high. Sora had disliked him for that ever since. At least he wasn't knocking Sora's books down. Then again, he wasn't exactly making Trent stop, was he?

As the 'cool ones' moved away, Riku glanced back, seemingly absentmindedly. Sora took the opportunity to glare at him. For a moment, Riku looked apologetic, but then he was following his other cool friends to class. Jerk.

Sora continued to pick up his books, which had managed to fly pretty far in their attempt to escape him. Passersby skirted around him, either ignoring him completely or smirking as they passed. He couldn't find his history book, the one Trent had kicked away. As he looked around, it was suddenly dangling in front of his face.

"World Civilization? I have this class. It's a real pain, isn't it?" A soft voice asked.

Fingers were holding onto the book. The fingers were connected to a hand, to an arm, to a shoulder, which led to the gently smiling face of Kairi. Had she just spoken to him?

"Guh…" He sputtered stupidly.

Kairi giggled, her blue eyes glittering, "This IS yours, isn't it?"

She WAS talking to him! "Huh…" He stammered, then shook his head to clear it, "Yeah—Yes, it's mine. Thanks." He took it from her, stashing it into his backpack.

Kairi looked up the hall, her bob cut red hair swishing against her cheek, "Trent is a real jerk. He's worse when he's around his jerky friends. Are you okay?" She asked, looking at him again.

Sora blinked, fully aware that his mouth was hanging open and doing nothing to correct it. "Yeah, swimmingly."

Kairi giggled again as the bell rang for first hour. "Oh, I better go. Bye—"

"Dur—Sora."

"Bye, Sora." She hurried up the hall, where Selphie was waving for her to pick up the pace.

Sora, for his part, just stood there as the halls emptied. Kairi had just talked to him! Kairi, one of the most popular girls, and the prettiest girl, in school. He waved.

"Bye…Kairi." He said, even though she'd gone into a classroom several seconds before.

Sora snapped back to himself and shouldered his backpack, pushing his locker closed and walking to first hour.

"Swimmingly?" He muttered a loud, "That's the best you could come up with? Man, you disgust me." He slapped himself. "Swimmingly, oh geez."

"You're late." Mrs. Puzeki regarded him over horn rimmed glasses.

I'm aware of that, Sora thought, but said, "I'm sorry, Mrs. Puzeki."

She rolled her eyes, waving him to his seat as she passed out the graded tests. Hark! He hadn't failed, but earned a D. Not much better, but it wasn't an F. Something told him his parents wouldn't have the same mindset.

"Now, as you all are aware, it's hurricane season." Mrs. Puzeki said in her nasal voice. "Which means we'll be running emergency drills over the next two weeks. Remember—"

Sora zoned out, resting his chin in his hand on the desk. What would it be like to see Mrs. Puzeki and Riku fight? Riku would win—well, Sora didn't know, Puzeki had lived with the dinosaurs, surely she knew how to fight somebody…with her homework of doom attack or something…He got a visual of Riku being buried until mountains of homework and grinned.

Sora put himself in the daydream, climbing the mountain and sticking a flag pole into the peak, like some triumphant explorer, while Riku twitched under the books and Mrs. Puzeki flapped around like some oversized bat. Kairi waltzed into the scene, beaming and giggling, her eyes shining and her hair moving in some mystery wind.

Something jabbed into his back and he pitched forward. Tidus sat behind him and had kicked him for some reason. That reason became obvious.

"Are you with us, son?" Mrs. Puzeki asked, staring at him.

"Yes." Sora answered as everyone looked at him.

Mrs. Puzeki kept a beady eye on him for a moment, and then resumed her teaching.

By the last period of the day, Sora had devised a list of new additions to his hate list: Tuesdays, eighth graders, Riku, Trent, Mrs. Puzeki, blitzballs, cafeteria food, Riku, homework, lockers, school, and Riku. Sure, Riku never did anything to him personally, but he never stopped his little flunkies from picking on him.

Sora usually had Tidus to talk to during the last period, which was Literature, but Tidus hadn't shown up to class, so Sora just slunk into his usual seat, scribbling doodles over his paper instead of reading the assignment. This was the only class he had with Kairi, and she sat clear across the room, and gave no notice she even knew he was there.

Did the girl ever stop smiling? Or giggling? Or being cheerful at all for that matter? Not that he minded, she had a dazzling smile and a cute laugh. Swimmingly. He dropped his head on his desk with a thud, in despair.

The sound of fire alarms going off made everyone look up.

"All right, everyone, stay calm." Mr. Morton said, standing up. "Form a single file line and we'll evacuate the building in an orderly, calm manner."

Did anyone ever listen to these things? Everyone was immediately on their feet, scrambling for the door to the hallway. There was a great deal of commotion going on out there, so Sora walked over to see.

The sprinklers were going off, showering all who were in the hall. Several people were bouncing around, enjoying the chaos, while most of the girls screamed and headed for cover.

Sora spotted the alarm that had been tripped, right outside the principle's office. One of the teachers walked over and irritably turned it off as the principle's door opened.

"What's going on?" Selphie asked Kairi to Sora's right.

Sora craned his neck, looking out into the hall. Mr. Simmons was pulling Tidus out of the office by the arm, the perpetrator of the crime.

"You'll never take me alive!" Tidus was crying out dramatically.

"Yeah, yeah, come on, you." Mr. Simmons said, his expression deadpan.

They marched him by. A few people cheered, while others just laughed at the scene.

"I plead insanity! I plead insanity! Where's my Miranda rights? Selphie! Wait for me on the outside!" Tidus bellowed as he was led past.

Selphie put a hand to her face, "Oh dear."

Kairi just giggled.

When he got home, his mom was pruning her garden outside. "Hey, Sora. How was school?" She asked, wiping her forehead as he tromped up the stairs to the house.

"Same as usual." Sora muttered.

"That bad, huh?" His mom smiled when he glared at her, "It'll get better."

"Bleh."

"Didn't anything good happen today?"

"Tidus set off the fire alarm."

"Again?"

"Yeah…" He smiled slowly.

"What?" His mom asked, smiling now too.

"Kairi talked to me today." He said it as if it was a momentous accomplishment.

"Wow, does she know your name now?"

Sora made a face, "This is what I get for talking to you."

"I'm sorry, honey. So how was the conversation?"

Sora thought a moment, "Swimmingly." He headed into the house.