There was a time where I liked my cousin, Vanitas. It was in my youth, but I did actually like him back then. My twin sister, Namine, and younger sister, Xion, did as well. Because of our own childish naivete back then, we even were friends with the boy. Around my tenth birthday, all of our views on our cousin changed.

Our dad, Leon, just divorced from our mother, Yuffie. It was troubling times to say the least, so our dad stayed at his sister's, Tifa, house who had four sons named Sora, Vanitas, Roxas, and Ventus. Their father was named Cloud. Yuffie bought her own apartment nearby since she didn't want us to suffer that much. Our parents had shared custody of the three of us girls.

We were at my aunt's house, where our rooms were at. Namine, Xion, and I all shared a room. They slept on a bunk bed while I had a twin bed. The rooms of our walls had wallpaper on them that was pink and covered with roses. There was a big window right by my bed that overlooked the front garden of the wooden house. I liked to look out of it, for it smoothed me to keep watch over the birds and bees during these stressful times. My bed had a pink sheet, and all of my blankets were different shades of purple. Purple was my favorite color back then.

Namine loved the color white, so everything on her bed was, well, white. From her stuffed animal to her pillows, everything was patterned in beautiful white fabrics. She had the upper bunk because Namine was older than Xion. Xion, on the other hand, liked purple like me, so our beds were alike in many ways. The eight year old girl had a toy like Namine to keep her company in her sleep though. I remember this toy very clearly, for it actually scared the daylights out of me. Something about dolls always made a shiver crawl up my spine. It's smile seemed to be forced as well. Her hair was red as blood while her dress was like Namine's, completely white.

My dad was in the next room over, and there was only a bathroom between us, making it easy to get him. That certainly proved useful for the troubling times ahead.

"Hey Kairi," Vanitas welcomed. "So...what do you want to do?" My cousin was one and a half years older than me, so he was already twelve. We were going to the same middle school in the next month, so I was excited to know that four people could help me around and get new friends.

"I'm going to go to my room, to finish packing," responded I. I ran over to my room, and Vanitas followed me. It wasn't weird though since his room was right across from mine. He shared it with Ventus, his twin brother, and Sora and Roxas had the room next to theirs. I hadn't been in their rooms at all.

When I entered my room, I found that Namine and Xion had finished unpacking everything. Namine, on her bed, was drawing something in her notepad, but it was too early on for me to tell what it was. Xion was playing with her short black hair, clearly bored. "Hey, Kairi, do you want to do something together?" my younger sister asked. "Namine won't do anything with me. Dad is still at court fighting against mommy."

"Sorry Xion, but I still have to unpack. Maybe you can ask your cousins."

"Okay, I will." My younger sister ran out of the room, holding her creepy doll. She accidentally slammed the door behind her, and I sighed at all the work I had to do.

"Should've done it sooner instead of exploring, Kairi," Namine said.

"Shut up."

I luckily finished with my unpacking in about two hours, and Namine was still working on her sketch. It looked like Xion. "Hey, Namine, do you want to play in the backyard together?"

"No, I'm busy doing this." She erased a mistake that she made, and Namine pushed her eraser shaving onto the floor. I sighed once again.

"You know that you're going to have to clean that up later."

"Kairi, I always clean it up later." Before I could talk to her some more, Namine focused on her drawing yet again, letting nothing disturb her. I opened up the door and closed it behind me.

"Maybe I can look after Xion now. Hopefully one of the boys took care of her after all this time."

Xion was exploring the backyard with Sora. They seemed to be having fun, and Xion looked like she was finally over with what happened with our parents months ago. The backyard of this house was huge. If I had to guess, this could have been an actual forest. I was pretty sure that Aunt Tifa told us stories about all the deer that hanged out here during the spring and summer seasons.

"Hey, Kairi, do you want to join us?" Sora asked. Sora was actually only a few months younger than me, so I always got along with him the easiest. His spiky brown hair amused me because it always stayed the same way. Once, when I was five, Namine, Vanitas, and I all pranked Sora be pouring water all over him in his sleep. He woke up seconds later, and his hair was still exactly the same. Vanitas said it was because of all the damn hairspray Sora put in it.

"Sora, I think Kairi's deep in thought again," Xion said. "Come on, let's go. We can see if there's any deer out! Don't worry, some of them like to stay for a little bit longer before they head over to somewhere that's warmer than the Bay Area. CA can get really cold down here."

"Wait, guys, I want to come to!" I rushed towards them, so we all began searching the backyard together, pretending to be explorers mapping out a new land. My cousin Sora never failed to put a smile on my face. But, about half way through the forest, he sat down on a fallen tree stump, so Xion and I did as well. Trees surrounded everywhere we looked, and their leaves were starting to be different colors of reds and yellows. Some leaves littered the ground, making it extremely colorful. Namine would have loved to see this.

"I think Vanitas is acting weird again," he told us. "Today I found him in his room playing around with fire. He was lighting random pieces of paper on fire, but, when I looked closer, they looked like drawings of weird stuff."

"Like what type of weird stuff?" This made me intrigued, for I always need that Vanitas liked playing around with fire. He even admitted it to me back when I was five.

"I don't know. There were a lot of circles though."

"That's strange," commented Xion. "Well, let's head back. I think dad is coming home soon, and I don't want him to be scared."

"Xion, let's just go a little bit longer." Rolling her eyes, Xion got up along with us. We continued down the path that Sora was making us go on.

Then it was night already, and all of us were back at the house, in our rooms. Our dad returned home hours ago. He made sure that Namine, Xion, and I went to bed, so he tucked us in real tightly. Leon even told a bedtime story to Xion, making her fall to sleep insantly. Namine was asleep also, but I stayed awake. Something inside me told me it wasn't 'safe' to go to sleep yet. I looked out my window to look at all of the fireflies lighting up the night sky with their yellow color.

When I was about to go asleep, I felt someone poke me. "Namine, Xion, if any of you are doing that, please stop it. I'm trying to go asleep." It continued. I heard both of my sisters snoring, so I tilted my head slowly to see who it was. Before I could get a glimpse of anything, the person dashed the hell out of there. "That was weird." I couldn't see anything clearly because of how dark it was.

Thinking nothing of it, I allowed myself to finally drift into sleep.