[BETA] Wait For It
She sat by his bed for the first ten days while he slept, ignoring that she needed sleep and food and other things, like social interaction. The nurses were sent in to ask her to leave, but she would just refuse and stubbornly shake her head, not noticing that her damp auburn hair stuck to her cheeks and forehead. She held his hand for hours at a time until she found herself dozing and leaning against his warm body. She just wanted him to wake up, because it was a mistake; she was a mistake and he wasn't.
She was stopped in the street later that week, by a girl as young as she was, with dark, messy hair and sharp blue eyes.
"I know you don't know me, but will you join me for coffee?" The girl had asked her.
She was on her way to her barren apartment -having finally given into the nurses requests that she go home and get some rest and she hadn't planned anything out for that day other than to sleep until tomorrow- when she could visit him again. She nodded and followed the girl down to the corner, walking to the coffeehouse with this stranger.
It had only taken two weeks of coffee runs with the girl before she started feeling a little better and less tense, having done a condensed retelling of the story for her.
He was her everything because they'd grown up together, best friends, and he would most definitely wake up again.
Someday. Eventually.
The dark haired girl asked numerous questions about him, like a curious toddler; what was his favorite season? What made him most happy? What was his family like?
She answered every question as soon as they were past the other girl's lips, without a second thought. This, talking about him, was making her think of him and about their past and about how maybe, just maybe, she was falling in love with him. At least she wasn't worrying so much anymore. A best friend could only worry for so long.
"Can you take me to see him?" The inquiry stunned her so badly that she dropped her paper cup of coffee; it landed on her leg and instantly started to soak through. It didn't even cross her mind that it was still lukewarm or that her denim jeans were white, only that the question had been asked. The girl slid a pile of napkins across the table and when it registered to Kairi that her jeans were staining, she grabbed at them and hurriedly wiped her leg down.
She looked up; her eyes met the girl's again. Those blue, blue eyes, that made her cry when she dreamt of them, stared back. "I—" She faltered and tried to remember the day she met him before nodding slowly. "Sure." Reluctance dragged her voice down and slightly numbed her.
They were in the elevator, she didn't want to walk the stairs like she'd been doing for the past month, and she watched the digits on the floor indicator climb. Her mind was racing and her heart was pounding and she had just seen Roxas the day before, so what was wrong with her? Then a hand was on her shoulder and she broke out of her revere to turn towards the girl to see those ice blue eyes again. No, she couldn't keep thinking of him like this, they weren't his right now; they were hers, all hers.
Kairi gave a questioning look and brought a hand up to her cheek, fingertips brushing cautiously. Then the other girl's hand was back at her side and she shook her head as if telling her not to worry.
"No, it's nothing." She told her, focusing on the silver doors in front of them. "I just thought your eyes were also blue. They have purple in them." The girl mumbled as she explained herself.
Shaking it off, Kairi nodded and gave a cheery smile, the best she could muster, and held her hands together in front of her, waiting until the elevator chimed and they could walk off and towards his room.
Upon entering the room, Kairi noticed things. There were flowers on the table by the bed, and the curtains were open, not closed like always. She always closed the curtains and also asked the staff who worked the room to keep them closed; she knew Roxas didn't like to sleep with the sunlight in his face. As for the flowers, she almost tripped into the room at the site of them, sitting neatly in a vase and having done nothing harmful to Kairi whatsoever.
"Roxas." The girl behind her whispered chokingly. She stepped forward, towards the bed, towards Kairi's Roxas that was just lying there, and reached for him.
Kairi couldn't stop herself, her suppressed feelings had become too much to bear. "Don't! Don't touch him!" She rushed forward, nearly shoving into the girl, but no, that wouldn't be ladylike and she had manners -oh yes, she did- to block the girl of Roxas. The girl had jerked her hand back, as though she had let her fingers play in flames, and turned away. As hard as Kairi tried, she couldn't stop glaring at her.
It wasn't fair that this girl, who barely knew Roxas, could come into his room and try to touch him. In fact, she didn't know him at all. It was Kairi who had been by his side for the long, long time he'd been comatose. It was Kairi whom he'd grown and matured with. Kairi whom he'd promise to keep in touch with forever, no matter what.
They had lost their virginity together, a long time ago, because they wanted to know what it was like to be with someone and not have worries or fears or hidden emotions. This girl, who Kairi still hadn't bothered to ask her name, did not have any rights, those rights that Kairi had, to even speak to Roxas.
But this is only what Kairi thought.
The girl had finally taken the seat by the door, distressed hands running through her raven black hair ever so roughly. "That's not fair." She whimpered her voice thick and heavy. "It's not fair at all. It's not fair, Kairi." She sobbed over and over, back creaking as she folded herself up on the chair.
What wasn't fair? Kairi didn't understand and it wasn't right that she didn't understand it. Even so, the other girl's words were incoherent now and she couldn't decipher them at all.
"Didn't he ever tell you?" Kairi whipped her head around to stare at her, eyes on her quivering form. "It's just not like him to not say anything! He must've said something!!" She cried out, looking up to meet Kairi's gaze. Her face was tear streaked and her mascara was running, but not too much, and her cheeks were spotted with red and pink as a sign of her heart shattering.
"You don't even know what he's like!" Kairi retorted, hands fisted at her sides because it just wasn't right, and no, it wasn't fair either. She took a step closer to her, worn sneakers squeaking on the linoleum. "You can't just say that it's not like him to not say something or to say something because you don't know him!" She struggled to get the words out so they'd sound like a sentence.
The girl had stopped her crying for a moment, only sitting in the tension and silence of the room, watching Kairi's chest heave with exertion. Emotions she never had to express in public before, and never so violent. "I think you should know this. You have to."
Confusion flashed across the redhead's face. "You left the flowers." Not a question, but a statement of sorts.
"No." The girl mumbled, because she wished she had left those flowers, she wished she could have visited him sooner. "I love him. I love Roxas." She murmured quietly, so quiet that Kairi had to lean forward to hear her better.
The silence was even heavier now than before and it was unnerving and both girls wished there was something going on in the background of the area other than their breathing. "I guess he didn't tell you about me," A sharp intake of breath, a hiccup, "But we were engaged. I was his girlfriend. I'm Xion." The dark haired girl finally confessed.
Kairi shook her head, disbelieving the words coming out of her mouth. "No, no, no." She muttered under her breath, eyes wide and feet fumbling to stay planted on the ground. She slipped and fell, throwing a hand out to catch herself. She did, and then she lowered herself to sit on the cold tiles. "No, no, no." She repeated, as if in a trance. That wasn't fair. She didn't know that. How come he never told her?
Things were not right. Best friends didn't keep secrets from best friends. He was supposed to be hers and only hers. He was supposed to figure out that she fell in love with him before he fell in love with her. They were supposed to be together and stay together. Previous dreams and daydreams and future thoughts left Kairi empty headed as they all disappeared and were lost to her.
She stayed on the floor just as Xion stayed in the chair; they both sat still and didn't speak or breathe loudly or so much as look in each other's general direction.
"He told me about you. About a girl with auburn hair and a smile bright enough to light up all of Twilight Town."
Kairi bit back her reply and looked at Roxas's bed, her eyes catching the light glinting off of the bars on the foot of it. His chart posted on a clipboard hung on the bars. It said four more days. In less than a business week, Kairi would have him back. In less than a week, Xion would just as easily take him back, and that was that.
Her mind wandered and she thought of the nights when she was alone and one of her city boyfriends broke up with her and she'd cry and cry into the phone to Roxas and he'd comfort her. He had stopped coming over for the past two years, and now she knew why. It had to be her; it had to be Xion that held him back in his apartment when Kairi needed him most. She tried not to imagine them being intimate. As hard as she did, she tried not to think of how he held her when they were together, warm hands holding her close and his lips pressed heatedly to the junction of her collarbone and neck.
"He never told me a name." Kairi said softly, wishing things weren't the way they were, but they were and she just couldn't change them.
AN: [BETA] means that's gonna change...