A/N: Thank you for being so patient with me =D This is the actual, serious first chapter that is replacing the (unedited) first chapter before. If you've already read the first chapter, you don't need to bother yourself with this. If you HAVEN'T, well, enjoy ;P

Chapter 1: Don't Glare at the Sun

Some people think that new houses smell weird.

Though really, after a while, you get used to the smell of a new house. The tang of a fresh coat of paint, the musky smell of new leather, the slightly sour tinge of opened plastic. It becomes normal – familiar, in a nostalgic kind of way. Becomes the smell of home. If you've moved a couple dozen times, that is.

And with the all bound, never ending moving one would experience whilst trying to run away from something (or someone) when not even knowing if they are being pursued or not, one would think that they, really, did not have a home in the first place. Perhaps a place where they were born, yes, or maybe a place that they liked the most, but not a home.

Sora was pretty surprised when he realized he thought like this, too.

He voiced his surprise to his kid sister, Amanda, as they travelled on yet another journey to yet another house in yet another unfamiliar place one hot spring morning. Maybe he shouldn't have been surprised when she told him that she already knew his concern, knew what he felt, and replicated it, too (with a frightening precision). He probably shouldn't have, but he did.

Kid sisters tended to be observant like that, sometimes.

Not that it was a bad thing, but sometimes it was a little annoying when your sister knew when you were lying or when she knew where you had hid your PSP games or when she just knew when you were in a bad mood. Because then she was sad, too, and that didn't help. She even knew all of his secrets. All of them; like a journal with legs and a conscious.

It was even worse when she knew he was gay before he did. She didn't tell him she knew, though. But there were always hints, comments and suggestions and half-truths and he just didn't realize until a while ago. And then, when he told her …

He brought up all his courage and dignity and nerves, balled them up and strung them all into one small, simple sentence and it seemed easy enough to say, but when he did it just felt like it went on for much too long, but finally it was over, just like that, with a huff of air through his nose and a hand running through his unnaturally spiky brown hair. And there was a pause, before Amanda literally lit up.

Lit up.

She loved it; praised him and encouraged him and told him that, really, being gay was totally all right and even if the whole world was against him, she would still support him. She was ecstatic. Sora didn't know if he should be relieved or disturbed. But Amanda accepted him fully, and that was enough.

It was a little while later when she told him that she had actually known for a while. He didn't know what to say, then, besides everything that described his utter disbelief and total unawareness. He didn't even believe her, at first, but after a while he would find that he remembered so many things she told him that couldn't be coincidences, and a while after that he would find that everything she said would connect, and he'd believe her.

Apparently girls are more accepting than boys. Mother instincts and female hormones, Amanda had one day explained, make girls kinder. After thinking about it for a while, Sora thought it made sense, in a way (because he didn't know a single straight guy who'd react to his outing like Amanda did). He also wondered if these womanly hormones were what made girls do some of the weird, scary things he had seen, like mood swings and protectiveness and too much make-up. Sometimes, rarely, but it had to be noted, Sora didn't even mind the weird or scary things girls would do. Sometimes. Girls could be pretty freaky when they tried.

He also voiced this opinion to his sister.

"Oh, really?" She had said, before taking out her lip gloss and smearing it all over his face.

Correction, girls were the best, and no, they were not freaky, it was the guys who were.

Sora stayed quiet for the rest of the car ride. He didn't particularly like the sticky sensation lip gloss left on your face, even after you had wiped it off with the tissues from the back of the car that were thin and papery after being exposed to the sun for so long, soaked in the water from his bottle and rubbed thoroughly against his skin so that he looked as if he were blushing furiously (to his utter embarrassment). Amanda had said sorry after that, because, really, she did feel bad, but thought that Sora deserved it for calling her species freaky. He was about to comment on how she split females and males into different species, but thought better of it and kept his mouth shut. There where times one could risk their sanity and other times where it was better to keep it under lock and key.

Sora's mother started humming as she drove the car; little tune that neither he nor Amanda recognized. It sounded made up, really, hitching in bad places or repeating itself over and over like one of his broken records. Sora smiled. At least his mother was happy. That was the only reason Sora didn't worry over the fact that he didn't really have a home. A home couldn't be a home if it didn't have a loving parent (and he refused to think 'parents', because you didn't need a mum and a dad, you just needed … someone). He kept smiling at the back of his mother's head, brown hair falling gracefully to her shoulders, a grey hair here or there. Even though he knew she wouldn't see his smile, he kept smiling (and he thought that he had seen Amanda smile at him from his peripheral vision, too, but he wasn't sure).

And after that the car ride was peaceful; everything was quiet and calm, the wind making a soft, frequent humming noise as the car sped down the road, lazy leaves swaying in the breeze, and the roads slowly filled with other cars and vehicles as Sora and his family made their way back to civilization, and away from what he liked to think as the hellish-torturous-and-too-damn-long travelling roads. Even Amanda was quiet now, braiding strands of chocolate brown hair and then letting them loose. She looked peaceful, like that. Content.

"Oh, finally, people," Amanda smiled as they drove by a small gathering of teens on a sidewalk next to a car filled with food, all laughing and chatting and, overall, sounding like they were having fun (and maybe Sora was jealous of that).

"Yeah, because you haven't seen people in ages." He retorted with an offended (fake) snort.

"Oh. Right," she mumbled, apologetic smile tugging at her lips. "Finally, people who aren't my big brother and my mother. Sorry," Amanda said, grimacing slightly and Sora tried not to laugh at her. "And, uh, no offense," she suddenly added.

"None taken," Sora said, rolling his eyes heavenward and trying not to laugh. Sometimes he loved his sister.

Sora ignored the car after that, taking in the sights of the new place they were just about to enter. They were in Queensland, now. Australia. And it looked so … tropical. A little dry around the edges, but it still had that slight eating-coconuts-and-drinking-fruit-coctails-while-sitting-on-the-waters-edge feeling, with a miraculous amount of palm trees brimming the roads and tour buses headed in the same direction they were, probably to one of the many theme parks the Gold Coast had to offer. Which was where they were headed now. Sora could even see the sign up ahead, green and shinning in the intense light, words printed on it in bold, white cursive lettering, 'Welcome to the Gold Coast'.

Nearly there. It was so close Sora could taste the salt in the air on his tongue. It reminded him of somewhere he had once lived, long, long ago, when they didn't have to move continuously and everything was peaceful, lucid and somewhat content. Normal.

With that thought, Sora's mind started drifting off as he watched the continuous line of palm trees go by. He thought about schools; where he had gone and how long he had stayed and whether he liked any of the people there, whether he would like any of the people in his new school, whether they'd ask about why he never stayed in one school for longer than a year. And he started to remember tidbits of information about people he had once talked to, once been friends with, long ago, who lived in that place he had lived in and who had witnessed his first leave, first departure away from the norm that used to be his life. Smiling faces and slaps on the back and … was that a hug? He wasn't sure. Sora's heart started to ache, his insides clenching and his mouth drying up … and it hurt.

He was missing these people, these once-friends he knew but refused to remember but kept coming up, again and again and again. Sometimes he'd hear voices of them; voices that were familiar but distant and distorted and they'd speak to him, say, "Don't ignore me, Sora. Don't ignore us. You remember us, right? We're your friends." Sometimes he could hear them laughing or mocking and it wasn't unfamiliar to hear them hissing in his ears, either. That was what hurt. And sometimes, the times that were fewer, he'd have genuine memories, real words and sentences, like, "They ran out of sea-salt ice-cream again!" or "… never knew the water was so blue".

They hurt the most.

(And Sora never did know whether he liked them any better than the mocking ones).

There was an uncomfortable tightening in his throat, now, and a distinct stinging in his eyes, and he knew he had to shut off the memories, now, like they had switches. Like he always did, always tried to do so that he didn't have to feel what they brought up. Sora clenched his fists, let them be the only sign of his discomfort, and suppressed his feelings before they came apparent on his face, because he knew that missing them, these once-friends, would only cause him pain, since, no, he would not see them again and he had to stop hoping that he could, someday. Told himself to forget about them already, so it'd stop hurting.

And that's exactly what he did. During the whole car ride, Sora never thought of his lost friends again, because it hurt too much, and hadn't he already decided that it was best for him not to start relationships with anyone anymore?

"Hey, you okay, Sora?" Amanda asked after a long period of silence, tilting her head and gripping her thumb in her hand like she always did when she was anxious, cute little habit that Sora knew she didn't know she was doing.

"Yeah, I'm fine."

"Really?" Her voice was a mix of wanting to believe and disbelief.

Sora couldn't reply. That truth in Amanda's voice, and in her eyes, it was so piercing and pure and so her, so much like his observant little sister … He just couldn't lie to her. It was like trying to breathe while your head was in a plastic bag; you took shallow breaths but still, in the end, you only ended up suffocating. So Sora looked away, and instead tugged at his shirt sleeve, not meeting the gaze he was sure was upon him.

Sometimes he hated how observant Amanda was.

"Sora?" His mother called, glancing through the rear-view mirror to properly look at her son. There was a crease on her forehead and worry in her eyes.

"Yeah, mum, I'm fine." Sora hoped the roughness of his voice wasn't as apparent as he thought.

There was a short, awkward silence in the car, and then his mum said, "Okay … as long as you're all right."

He could tell that neither Amanda nor his mum believed him.

* * * * * * * *

The anticipation of new neighbors can sometimes be really, really annoying. It just stays in your gut and jumps around like bouncy fluff balls in a dryer and doesn't even leave when you're half unconscious in bed and begging, just begging that they'd go away and leave you alone.

Riku had never had new neighbors before. The ones that had moved, Susan and Nick Chester, they were newlyweds but had been living together since God knows when in the house next door. They had to move because Susan was pregnant. With twins. And even though the house was big enough for four they were planning to have more children. They decided to move when it wouldn't be so difficult; last minute decision that shocked everyone on the street, really, because even though they had talked about it no one expected them to move. It just wasn't believable, that Susan and Nick Chester would no longer live on Pitt ST. Riku didn't even believe it until the moving vans arrived, and even then he couldn't imagine not seeing them around. They hadn't been that close, but they had become a normality in his life, a frequent occurrence. It was routine for him to say hello to them every morning before school.

Riku shrugged his shoulders and flexed his fingers, somewhat uncomfortable with sitting down for so long on an old wooden piano bench but he would get off soon, anyway, to find that piece of sheet music that had been missing for far-too-long. He bit his lip before diving into yet another song on his piano (and it felt great to say his piano, and not the family's piano, like he had had to for the previous two years). This time, he decided, he would play Pachebel's Canon. The soft, melodramatic tune wafted through the air and clung to every bit of furniture and wouldn't let go, floating and dancing and grabbing continuously. It started to confuse Riku's senses, but he was used to it, used to the feeling of not even knowing which way was up or if it was day or dusk or something in between. And this was why Canon was one of Riku's favorite songs. It was so … hypnotic.

But, of course, just as Riku was getting to the climax of the song with tiring-out fingers, his big brother had to walk into the room and ruin the pleasant mood.

Dammit.

"Canon? Again? Seriously, Rik, you have to find some other favorite song to play. That's getting old," Mitch teased; his evil big brother smile painted on his face as he took off his shoes and kicked them under the dining room table, demeanor slightly resembling that of the Joker from Batman (or so Riku told him).

"Oh, I'm sorry, I didn't realize dorkwards couldn't appreciate good music," Riku retorted, frowning as he lost the rhythm in his song and had to start the climax again.

"How would I know if they could?" Mitch asked, licking his lips and just begging Riku to challenge him. He walked over to where Riku sat and irritably started watching him over his shoulder, and Riku could feel him fingering the strands of his hair, resting on his shoulder in one second and being twirled in Mitch's fingers in the next. And if that wasn't distracting enough, Mitch was humming the Batman theme song, of all things, and Riku could feel his presence looming over him like a deafening shadow. And as much as that was ironic, it didn't help how he was trying not to kill Mitch. Trying not to imagine him with wide eyes and lying crumpled on the floor as Riku kicked the crap out of him with combat boots and trying not to imagine how he'd beg for Riku's forgiveness (because though those ideas seemed brilliant at the moment he knew he'd feel bad for it later).

Riku, in his sudden flare of temper (and sudden stroke of inspiration), stumbled over a few keys and had to start from the top. Again. This was getting annoying fast.

"Move, Mitch."

"Make me."

"Bastard."

"Gay."

Oh, he asked for it.

Riku jumped up and threw a punch at Mitch (wondered why he was punching and not kicking), hand barely missing the side of his jaw as Mitch dodged the attack (like Riku knew he would, because Riku should be kicking). Mitch threw one back, and Riku dodged it, too, but then his arm curved back towards Riku and grabbed his neck. Suddenly, Riku's head was in a headlock and his silver bangs of hair were swinging in front of his face and at the same time he was being propelled downward by the weight of his brother's body and he was noting just how much the impact was going to hurt, bracing himself for the fall as much as he could and squeezing his eyes shut, when there came a clear, loud, powerful voice from the kitchen down the hall.

"I hope you're not fighting, boys, or its garage duty for the both of you," his mother's voice stated, distant but uncharacteristically loud. And as quickly as that, Riku was pulled upright by Mitch without a single comment, and they both straightened themselves and fixed their shirts and brushed off their clothes and stood, awkward and huffing. Riku ran his fingers through his long, white-silver hair, aiming a glare at the floor, knowing it would have hurt him. Badly. Floors had no mercy whatsoever when you fell on them. Or when you where being propelled down at them by your brother, but both situations had the same result.

After an awkward moment of not knowing what to do, Mitch cleared his throat and scratched his head, holding out his other hand.

"Truce?" He asked, sheepish grin not so evil looking.

Riku aimed the glare at Mitch, now, studying him from the short white-silver hair on his head to his toes and back again, then let out a heavy sigh and rolled his eyes in mock defeat.

"Truce," Riku stated, grabbing his hand and shaking.

He thought he could hear his mother's voice chuckle slightly, but he wasn't sure. He could just imagine her white blonde hair tied up in a bun, falling out slightly, and the corners of her mouth perked up, making her aquamarine eyes squint. Of course, she'd definitely deny ever laughing at her sons. Deny it and then accuse him of thinking horrid things about his mother.

Riku got a lot of his features from his mum, actually (as much as that was uncommon for a guy), including his eyes. And his hair, though it was more white than it was her blonde. And their smile was pretty similar, too, and he often heard comments about this exact fact from his father, who would look at him strangely when his smile was spread over his face; a little creepy, but he knew his father meant well. It went the same way for his brother, too, with his short white-silver hair and green eyes, but not so much the smile; Mitch's smile was, without a doubt, pure wickedness. Riku had wondered more than once if it came with the big brother territory.

Mitch finally left the room, leaving Riku to play his piano in peace. Canon's melodramatic melody yet again started off from it's hypnotizing climax, and Riku fell into step with the song, not thinking, but letting his fingers do the work and his mind, as if it were disconnected from his body, listening. He could hear his mother softly humming the tune in the kitchen.

It was when Riku played the last keys of his song that he heard the loud roar of a trucks engine, then another, both combining outside his house to make an unbearable racket.

"What now?" He grumbled, wondered what all the fuss was, ran his fingers through his hair and left the confines of the dinning room to investigate what exactly was disturbing his piano playing.

When Riku went to the front door, the rest of his family was already there, talking in raised voices because the noise was ridiculously loud. He jogged over to his father, who was staring thoughtfully at one of the big, white moving trucks that was parked next door, and tapped him on the shoulder. His father's blue eyes turned to him, then, and he smiled.

"Looks like the new neighbors will be here, soon."

And then, stupidly, Riku realized what the heck the big moving vans were here for. The new neighbors, like that wasn't the most obvious thing in the world. On cue, the big fluff balls took their place in the pit of his stomach (mistaking it for a dryer), jumping around and having a great time while making him feel like he had to scream. Or laugh, he wasn't sure.

"Okay, inside, everyone. They aren't here yet." His father announced, stepping away from the sidewalk they had all crowded on.

Everyone walked back inside the house, Mitch giving Riku a slight shove while passing (Riku could have sworn that Mitch looked disappointed. And that was probably because he was hoping to meet the next item of his mockery), his mother still in her apron and her hands covered in flour and held out precariously in front of her, but Riku stayed perfectly still, curiosity on overdrive. He wanted to know who was coming, who was going to live in the not-house of Susan and Nick Chester, and who else would know besides the people lugging their stuff?

So, agreeing with himself wholeheartedly, Riku walked up to the first truck and stood at the door, waiting for the driver to notice him because, really, it was a waste of time to try and get the drivers attention by shouting. He wouldn't hear over the noise. Heck, why were they keeping the engines on in the first place?

It took a while for the driver to notice him, cap incidentally blocking his view as it tilted over his left eye. He jumped as he saw Riku, quickly righted himself, and then looked at him with a confused expression before frowning and opening the door.

"Yeah?" He asked with a shout, voice gruff and completed with a thick accent. The deep outback, maybe? "Watcha want, mate?"

That took Riku off guard. What did he want, exactly? Names? Life descriptions? He didn't really think this through. "Um," Riku paused, thought for a second, then decided that he shouldn't ask for anything more than a name, really, because anything else would be prying into privacy. "Would you be able to tell me who's coming? And when, possibly?" He added as an afterthought.

The driver paused, tapping his chin with one slightly stubby finger. "I might," he said, looking over at Riku. "Depends who's asking."

"Riku," he stated, then amended, "Uh, the next door neighbor."

The driver nodded with approval. "Yeah, jus' wait a sec, kiddo. I got the info here some place."

The driver then turned around and leaned over to the opposite seat, revealing a pair of Bonds boxers (Riku cringed) while reaching for a black sports bag and pulling out a wooden clipboard covered in dog eared slips of A4 paper.

"Says here that there's a Ms Linda Knight, Amanda Knight, and Sora Knight. An' by my knowledge they should be here in round about an hour. That good enough?"

"Yeah," Riku smiled, "Thanks."

The driver gave him one curt nod before shutting the door.

Linda, Amanda and Sora, huh? Sora like the sky, Sora? Riku chuckled. Sora, like the sky, and Riku, like the earth, living next to each other. That was too much of a coincidence.

He didn't tell his family the names when they asked.

* * * * * * * *

Sora decided that he liked the Gold Coast.

Firstly, he would be living quite close to the beach, incorporated with white sandy banks that stretched on for miles, pure tropical blue water, and overpriced restaurants which all brimmed the edges of the sand and sold cheap, badly cooked food and charged mainly for the water view. He hoped to check at least one out before he moved again, just to see how bad it was.

Secondly, the suburb that he and his family now lived in included both a JB HI-FI and an EB Games. He rarely saw the two stores together when he wasn't in some kind of mall. Now he was free to shop there until he ran out of money. Ah, the life.

And the third reason for why he liked the Gold Coast so much made its appearance when his mother turned the curb into their new street, crawling to the moving trucks so slowly Sora thought he might just open the door and jump outside and run there himself, because these crawling half-steps were not the right way to drive when you were excited.

"Here we are kiddos. Our new home," his mother smiled, coming to a halt in front of their new house. Sora refused to call it home, because it wasn't. It was just the place he'd be staying at for another year; he'd have no connection to it next January, and he'd have no connection to it now, besides the fact that all his stuff was there and it was where he had to sleep. He did, however, remember how it looked, because he had to remember where his stuff was and where he had to go to sleep.

It was a two storey, red bricked house, with steps leading to a white and gold doorway with a matching balcony. The front garden was prim and proper, thick green grass surrounding a pebbled pathway that forked to lead both to the front door and the white wooden gate that blocked entrance to the backyard. And standing in that exact front yard was a family, all smiles and waves and bearing gifts. Were they welcoming them? Well, this was a first, even for Sora. And … was it just him, or was their hair unnaturally white?

His mother cocked her head as she turned off the engine and murmured to herself, "We've never had a family greet us like this before. How nice of them," and with that she checked her face in the rearview mirror, grabbed her handbag and opened the door.

"Come on. Don't be shy, now." She laughed as she closed her door and went to open Amanda's. When Sora looked at Amanda , feet out the door and back to Sora, she lolled her head back and smiled awkwardly, pearly white teeth and all, and said, "I like this place already." At least she felt okay about this; about everything. Sora returned the smile, and hoped with as much hope he was able to muster without hurting himself that this place would treat them well. Or well enough, because running away from death was so much easier when you could rest in a place that didn't let its curiosity overtake itself.

Sora didn't look at the family, much, as he slid down and followed Amanda out the opposite door, nor did he take notice of them when he stumbled out in a less-than-graceful manner. Humiliation tended to throw itself at teenagers like that. He did look at the grass, though, as if it was the most interesting, mind boggling thing he'd ever seen and he just had to spend hours gazing at it because there was just so much to consider (and not because he didn't want to pointedly look at the family in front of him).

"Sora," he heard Amanda whisper, "Come on." Reluctantly Sora shoved his hands into his navy blue denim shorts and trudged along, not wanting to actually meet the family that was waiting for him with their smiles and their sickly-sweet happiness, because they didn't know what it was like to run away all their life from a person they trusted, they fucking trusted with everything they had and then had that taken away from them in a gunshot and a threat to follow them for life. Did they know that? No, no they didn't.

Sora cursed himself and said, mumbling so that he could barely hear himself, "Of course they don't know, because they're a normal family." So stop judging them. They're probably nice.

So Sora kept his thoughts quiet, and he behaved himself and walked up to the family, standing next to Amanda, who was acting (he noted with uncertainty) a little weirdly; fidgeting, twirling her hair, shifting from foot to foot like she was uncomfortable, once or twice holding her thumb in her hand. Sora knew she was nervous. Her nerves perked up his interest, though, and he wondered about who was standing in front of him.

That's when he heard the voice of a woman.

"Welcome! You must be the Knight family," the voice said, motherly tone all too apparent. Her voice sounded like it was covered in honey.

"This is very nice of you, welcoming us like this," Sora's mother replied, her voice all smiles.

"Well, we had to introduce ourselves, right?" The mother said, laughing politely.

(And although Sora wanted to retort, "No you didn't," he couldn't help but feel both flattered and relieved that they had).

"Speaking of rude, we haven't introduced ourselves yet, either." His mother said. Sora swore a line of profanities in his head. Now he had to look up.

"My name's Linda," his mum smiled, and Sora could hear her shaking hands with the other mum. "And this is my daughter Amanda."

"Hey," Amanda greeted the family, a sound a lot like laughter in her voice. Sora swallowed.

"And this boy here is my son, Sora."

And, balling his hands into fists under the fabric of his denim pockets and heaving a great sigh, Sora looked up and was greeted by a whole family with varying shades of white hair, all smiles and politeness, and Sora nearly gasped because his eyes had just caught the gaze of another pair of eyes of the most amazing aquamarine color he had ever seen. And the boy he was staring at was just as beautiful.

Sora's senses were muffled, then, and he didn't know what time of day it was or whether he was sitting or standing but he did know that what he was looking at was some kind of cruelty the world had thrown upon him because no, running away all his life just wasn't enough, they had to make him live next to the most astonishing guy he'd ever seen, just for kicks, because they knew Sora would love that.

"Sora," he thought he heard someone call, but he ignored it. The boy standing in front of him smiled, then, smiled at him, and his smile was small, a little rough around the edges but Sora thought it was perfect. He could feel the blush rise on his cheeks, fast and painful to his dignity (and he remembered how he looked after wiping off the lip gloss, and he hoped that that was gone).

"Sora," someone called again, causing the boy in front of him to look away, aquamarine eyes covered with long, silver eyelashes.

Sora felt something poke his side.

"Hey, ouch!" He started, then cut himself off and blinked, suddenly aware of what he was doing and where he was and how everyone was looking at him weirdly. Everyone, including the people he didn't know and his mother, too, looking at him with a slightly exasperated, slightly confused smile (of all things). The blush he knew was on his cheeks decided to turn itself to a darker shade.

"You're supposed to say something, now," Amanda whispered, nudging him with her elbow again. The smile on her face was comforting, and Sora had a sudden thought that Amanda knew what had just gone through his head, because her smile had turned into something of complete and utter glee.

Sora's blush did not deepen, and for that he was grateful when he opened his mouth and stuttered a little "Hi," before again studying the grass at his shoes with too much interest.

There was a little pause where Sora was sure he heard someone chuckle before the motherly voice that belonged to the mum said, "Well, it's nice to meet you. I'm Sophia Woods –"

"And I'm her husband, Richard Woods," a male voice interrupted, strong and kind at the same time. Sora found himself looking up again, because he knew that sooner or later the boy in front of him was going to speak, and Sora didn't want to miss that.

"I'm Mitch," someone said, then, and Sora looked over to a boy that looked rather like the boy who stood in front of him, but his white-silver hair was short and his eyes were a deep forest green, not aquamarine like the one's that Sora had encountered, and this boy, Mitch's smile, it had a slight edge of wickedness in it. Sora realized Mitch would be the boy's big brother.

And then all attention was on the boy in front of Sora, and Sora gulped before turning his attention to him, too. His stomach twisted into knots and his legs felt like jelly when he met the aquamarine eyes for the second time.

"I'm Riku," the boy said, eyes on Sora, something a little like anger but not so on his face. "It's nice to meet you."

Sora's heart gave a jolt.

"Well, I don't mean to be rude, but my children and I need to get unpacking and get an early nights rest." Sora's mum politely ended, glancing inconspicuously though noticeably at her son. And Sora had to cringe at that, because he bet that she knew what he was thinking, too.

"Oh, of course, of course," Riku's mum chimed, clapping her hands together. "We wouldn't want to keep you waiting. Well, if you need anything, don't be afraid to ask."

"Thanks. I'll keep that in mind."

Riku's mum nodded and turned to walk away, before stopping in front of Riku and whispering something to him, and Riku's face slowly changed from awkward and polite to astounded and annoyed. Riku glared at his mum, and there was a slight pause in the conversation as she chuckled before she continued talking in a mumbled, rushed tone.

Sora thought he heard a "– cute little boy over there –" being whispered, but he wasn't sure, and frankly, if it was true, he didn't know what to do about it. It would obviously be about him, and how was he supposed to react when someone he didn't even know was commenting on how cute he was? Because he was not cute. He was not. Sora pulled his face into a neutral mask so that no one would find out he had heard; figured that would be most appropriate, and that way he could try to forget it was ever said.

Riku's father stepped in, then. His voice was clear compared to the hushed whispers.

"We need to go, now."

Riku's mum stopped, looked at her husband, then sighed and walked off with her son, Mitch, as if nothing had happened and no, she wasn't talking about Sora, and no, she did not say he was cute.

Riku, however, stopped in his tracks and turned around, looking over to Sora with a half-smile, and he waved, yet another neutral expression on his face, followed by a pause on his behalf and walking off to his own house.

Sora just stared. He didn't care about the look on his face or if the Woods family thought he was weird and he didn't care about why he and his family where here in the first place or about what had happened in the past. He didn't care about a lot of things, then, because the world had suddenly pointed itself solely upon one thing that he felt he had to worry about, one thing to focus his attention to.

Riku.

And that, right there and then, was Sora's third and final reason to like the Gold Coast so much.

Oh god, it's terrible _ Put up with me until this gets a little more clean-cut and defined, okay? Thanks for reading =D