Chapter One
fairly normal

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Kairi was fairly normal, as teenage girls went. She attended school on a regular basis (well, when it suited her), she outlined her big violet-coloured eyes with neat black liner, she checked her hair quickly in most of the reflective mirrors she walked past, and she washed her sleek auburn hair every morning except Sunday, which was her lazy day. This meant she stayed in her pyjamas until midday, either fast asleep, reading a book or flicking through channels on her small television set for a decent track on one of the numerous music channels or a soap omnibus to lose herself in. When the afternoon trundled along like a malfunctioning tractor on a rickety rock farmland field, Kairi put some clothes on, tied back her hair, yanked open her pale pink curtains and unloaded her heavy messenger bag. She always found herself with a great deal of homework to do; maths, science, geography, history, english, algebra. Almost every class Kairi took dealt out multiple assignments for her to slave away over, and she always left them until Sunday afternoon to complete. This wasn't because she was lazy and just kept putting it off, but because this routine suited her. On Saturdays she was usually in town or at a party of some sort, and she spent weekdays at school, gossiping with her girlfriends and pouting whenever a male spoke to her, and she spent the evenings chatting to anybody and everybody who had an IM screen name on her computer, her fingers shifting so quickly due to her burning desire to find out all the latest juicy news that she practically set the keyboard burning hot too.

The redhead's natural talent for touchtyping came in handy for school work too. Although she wouldn't believe you even if you presented her with the evidence to prove it, Kairi probably spent more time on her computer writing essays or researching statistics and useless trivia about obscure and far-off countries than she did swapping hair and make-up tips with Selphie or teasing Sora with semi-indecent messages. It had to be said that she did try rather hard when it came to her academic education- though of course social studies and experiments to see how far down Sora's throat her tongue could go took up a great deal of her time as well. She didn't just type gossip to her friends, she also texted them. She had a pink flip-up phone, which was a commonly known fact around Twilight Girls' Academy, since she seemed to be glued it during every available moment. Whether she was jabbing at the keypad with her nimble thumbs or yabbering on to some poor soul on the receiving end, Kairi was rarely apart from her beloved mobile.

That is why she felt as though a part of her had been torn out when Miss Gainsborough confiscated it from her during third period Art.

"But- but you can't!" she exclaimed after the teacher had grabbed the device from her neatly manicured hands.

"Kairi, sit down, please," Miss Gainsborough replied in a no-nonsense manner.

The redhead could feel her face warming to the same colour as her hair. "But I need it!" she wailed. "I'm expecting a text back from Olette about what Pence said to Hayn-"

She broke off abruptly following her teacher's skeptical glance. "I- I mean, my mom's calling me soon and it's really important because if I can't talk to her then I won't know when she's coming home, and- and..."

Kairi lowered her flailing arms, realising that she was fighting a losing battle.

"I don't think so, Kairi. Sit down, please," Miss Gainsborough told her again. "You can have this back at the end of the week."

The redhead gawped. "But it's only Monda-"

"Kairi, sit down and be quiet, now."

Kairi sat down, but she didn't do it quietly, or in a remotely ladylike manner. She scowled bitterly at the art teacher, then kicked back the uncomfortable wooden stool, dropped herself down onto it and scooched forward as noisily as she could, all the while making 'hmph' sounds and rolling-eye motions at Selphie from across the table.

"Are you quite finished yet, Kairi?" Miss Gainsborough wanted to know.

Kairi scowled again, and didn't reply. It was probably just a rhetorical question anyway, she thought to herself crossly.

In fact, in this one particular circumstance, it wasn't at all rhetorical in the least. Miss Gainsborough was making a genuine enquiry.

"Answer me please, Kairi," the art teacher instructed after a few moments of silence on both their parts.

"Huh? I'm sat down, aren't I?" Kairi pointed out.

Miss Gainsborough checked her watch, tapped it with two fingers and then looked up at the round analogue clock on the wall of the classroom.

"Right, if you're all finished messing about for this lesson, I can get started on what I really wanted to say," she announced. The rest of the class uttered a quiet murmur of boredom in reply, to which their teacher looked somewhat pleased- it was more than she usually got from any sophomore. "Alright, class," she began importantly. "We have a new student with us today. Her name is Namina and she just moved to Twilight Town from The World That Never Was."

There came a snort from somewhere on the back table. "Never Was? Haha- that's full of goths and chavs and gyppos!" a short stout boy with sandy blond hair declared merrily. Tidus seemed pleased he had some new people to make fun of- after all, shutting Wakka in his own locker did get somewhat boring after a while. Nobody bothered to point out that goths and chavs were polar opposites, and gypsies were travellers, which was nothing to be ashamed of and only entailed a lot of travelling, not rummaging in garbage, scamming rich people or stealing from supermarkets, as most politically incorrect schoolboys thought that it did.

"Hey, is she a tramp?" Demyx wanted to know, practically jumping out of his seat at the excitement of a new victim to spray with water from the water fountain in the corridor.

"Excuse me, I would much appreciate if you did not use that word," Miss Gainsborough answered briskly. "Now, Namina is new here, so I want you all to make her feel very welcome, okay? Kairi-"

Kairi shot bolt upright and stopped doodling 'K lvs S' on the scruffy wooden table. "What! I'm not doing anything!"

"-I'd like you to show her around. Teach her the ropes, as it were," the older woman finished. "Does that sound like something you can do?"

Kairi blinked, confused. "I- um, okay," she mumbled. She liked the prospect of making a new friend to spill gossip to and help spread rumors with, but not the idea of taking the responsibility that helping out a new girl would surely entail.

"Great. As long as you stop messing around, I'm sure you will be able to show her all that she needs to know about our wonderful school," the teacher smiled, her face as good as gleaming from the sunshine that seemed to be pouring out of her ass. Or at least, it appeared as though she thought it was.

"Is she coming, then?" Tidus shouted out. "I wanna see if she's a goth or a chav!"

"She might be ee-moh," Selphie reasoned diplomatically.

Miss Gainsborough gritted her teeth. "Enough! I will not have you casting labels on Namina before she has even set foot in this classroom. It is just not fair. Now- she should be here in a few minutes, according to my watch, but a few more than a few minutes according to the wall clock," she chirped, laughing like a piece of plastic would laugh.

"My money's on goth!" Demyx called. "Any other bets?"

There was a great uproar from the masses.

"Chav! Chav! Chav!"

"I think she's probably an eemoouh."

"Gyppo! Gyppo! Hide your purses!"

"What if she's a hobo?"

"Get out the cardboard boxes, build her a house!"

"Three to one chances on excessive facial hair!"

"ENOUGH!" Miss Gainsborough snapped. "I will not have such a noise made in my classroom. I don't want you to treat Namina any different just because she comes from a little further away than those of you who live in Traverse Town or Destiny Islands, or... Agrabah.." she glanced gingerly at the Carpet, which nodded politely as a way of thanks for being recognised. Then it realised that the art teacher was probably insulting it, so it tugged itself away, causing all the wooden tables and chairs and stools to crash to the ground as it was yanked from underneath them, sending sophomores of many shapes and sizes toppling to the floor.

And from her bent, awkward position up close and personal with the dusty, musty floorboards, Kairi could see a young blonde girl walk in through the open doorway and glance around at the calamity before her.

"Ah, you must be Namina..." Miss Gainsborough mumbled cautiously, gazing around at the wreck of tables and chairs and limbs and students and things. "Don't mind this mess... we're just having a little clear out... tidy up... anyway, Namina, I am Miss Gainsborough..."

The blonde girl's eyelids drooped sadly. "It's Naminé, not Namina..."

"Lovely, lovely, and this is Kairi..." the art teacher continued. "She is going to help you find your way around school," she patted Namine's small white hand. "I hope you have a lovely time at Twilight Academy, I really do."

Kairi blinked, trying to drag herself to her feet, all the while keeping her wide saucer-shaped eyes transfixed on the small slim girl and her shiny blonde hair like sleek silk, her deep blue eyes like ocean pools that seemed easy and desirable to get lost in, her sweet pink lips pouted in uncertainty and girlish innocence, her neat white dress with not a speck of dirt across it, tightening in in all the right places, accentuating the girls' hypnotic figure, and most of all, Kairi noticed the small square sketchbook the stranger carried with her, and she eyed the curved dainty writing on the thick cover, and it read, "N a m i n é . . ."

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a/n: yet another one of my "great ideas". don't you all just love those? random guy: groan