Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock.
Kairi didn't know what to do with her time.
Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock.
Why not go out for the night?
Wait…it was Sunday. Establishments were closed.
Damn.
Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock.
Staring at the clock seemed to help. At least for a little while. It was calming, truly, when she actually stopped to think about it. Most of the time, she never really thought about how much time went by. Or how slow it could be. She was such a high paced person, so…sitting down, watching the clock? It was an interesting experience. At least for a little.
It didn't take while before she began to feel entranced by the chimes coming from it. They slowly brought her to a new dimension, a new reality where time didn't exist. A lot of things didn't exist, she realized. Things were so disproportionate: her past appeared in her present, and things that were yet to come were there as well. Her fantasies as well as her nightmares—they were all there in this universe. But…why?
Not like the red-head would get a response to that. She was also floating around the atmosphere, like that made any sense. But, she knew by now that not much anything made sense anymore. Especially when you end up looking at a clock for an infinite amount of time. So she just went on, watching events unfold.
In one instant, she saw her grandmother speaking to a woman with red hair. She assumed it was her mother, though she couldn't have been sure; after all, she didn't remember her. Nana had raised her until about age ten, and then her father took custody and they moved to the village. Right…the village. She had almost forgotten about that. Gosh, just how much had she forgotten?
"So. About the girl…" her mother said, with an intense look on her face. I'm just a girl…? Kairi thought. Well, no wonder her mother was never around. She didn't even consider Kairi as her daughter. Just a stranger.
"What about her? It's almost time for her to serve her purpose."
She couldn't even bear to listen to it anymore. Kairi didn't consider herself anyone's plaything, but to hear her family think as much just sickened her. That's why Father left, she concluded. And so she floated away to another space.
She twirled through a seemingly abundant ocean of stars and meteors composed of childhood memories before finding herself in her teenage years. Spiky brown hair and satin grey were next to each other on the shore, glancing at the sky. A shooting star, or a comet, or…something, they figured.
Kairi's comet.
She laughed as she saw them, two men that were still boys, struggling to exist in the in-between. In them she saw herself, and that gave her the desire to go on. She didn't need to relive this part of her life. She knew what the answer was already. So she spun into the next dimension, the next world. Until, out of nowhere, a familiar voice appeared. Not quite a whisper, but not quite a speaking tone either. More in-between.
"Hey! You mind if I join you?"
Xigbar. There's nothing more in-between than a Nobody.
"Guess you don't." He slid right next to her and took her hand. Tremors exposed fear that the red-head wasn't even sure she was experiencing. He knew, though. That blinded eye could see right through that girl. And he knew it.
"What do you want?" Kairi scoffed, feigning harshness. Around him she always wanted to seem tough, hardened, uncaring. That wasn't her persona, but she was tired of losing her heart, losing her soul, losing…herself, ultimately. Watching that comet, she realized that she no longer belonged to herself. And she hated that. She was afraid of what would be left. "Aren't you supposed to be, I don't know, watching children?" Bad insult, she knew that, but it would prove to be good enough. Anything to get him away.
"Heh, good one," the man snickered, scarred palms touching supple untainted ones. "Except I am." Kairi hated that, but there was nothing she could do except let go. She didn't want to, though—she wanted to keep experiencing that joy that childhood once brought, where everything was a drawing on a cave wall and a lick of a sea-salt ice cream bar. Perhaps even a bite of a star-shaped fruit. But that wouldn't happen. Those memories were whispers of the past, screaming to her future, preventing her from experiencing anything she wanted. And damn, how she hated that. Her hands clenched, fingers entwining with the older man's, her body finding its way against his.
And in that way, they twirled. Spinning into infinity, into nothing, into that in-between. The place that never was.
And what was her place that never was? Surely not the one Sora, Riku, Aqua, and Ansem had experienced. Perhaps not even the one Mickey and Ventus had experienced, either? No. It was something much more significant, much more symbolic than just a shore of darkness.
A garden.
A bright garden, where each flower represents a potential future.
The two of them, entwined in each other, found that plane, where the sunset never stops shining, and landed on a patch of grass. Here there were no ghosts of her past, only those who had yet to come. Those pink-stained nails reached out to a blossom, which stretched out to her like a new-born plant yearning for the sun. Its tiny leaves stroked her fingers, nuzzling them, even, as if trying to reassure her. The petals spun round and round, dancing as she once did as a child, as a youth, as…
As what? She couldn't concentrate as she found herself crying. Translucent saline fell from those sky-blue irises, landing onto ripped leather. Her companion sat there with his "whiny little brat" in his arms, watching her no longer from afar. His whispers of reassurance were no longer untouchable; they were there, very much tangible.
Tangible enough to bring Kairi back to reality.
The clock had stopped ticking. It hadn't moved from when she'd fallen into the trance, the alternate dimension. Had those visions occurred in just a moment, a blink of an eye? Did they even exist? Kairi didn't know. But she just wanted to forget. Forget it all. All of it was just stupid anyway, why would she even…!
Because. He was there. And he'd left something behind.
A petal.
A phantom whisper.