A/N: Whew! Finally! That took forever to squeeze out of me. I'm sorry!!! I guess it's sorta long... 5,000 words and all. I'm really sorry. But in case anybody can possibly forget, the life-sucking finals are VERY soon. Heck, I have a Spanish final in two days... Man, I'm doomed. In case anybody else has the awful finals (which I'm guessing a ton do), I guess this is a nice little surprise in the midst of major studying. Woot! Merry Christmas, everybody. Or Happy Holidays. Whatever you celebrate, just be glad you don't have school for two weeks. Yay! Anyways, here we go. A nice, depressing little chapter of End. With lots of confused Popuri, mysterious relatives, and my first almost-romantic scene in End! Wheee. Thank you sooooooooo much to everybody who reads my stories. You. Are. All. Awesome.

End

2

If I said that I loved you, would it make any difference at all? Could that simple statement make the stars shine brighter, the world spin slower, the birds sing louder? Would it make a difference to anyone but you and me?

Would it even make a difference to you?

I don't know. I don't know if the universe will change because I say that I love you. So I won't.

Even though I know that it's the truth.

I didn't know how I fell asleep. I thought it would never end, the nightmare. I lay there in the dark hold, the salty smell of the open sea stinging my nose, the boat rocking violently through the ocean to the city.

But now the boat gently swayed, and for some reason the smell of salt had been replaced with... Smoke. I didn't know what else to call it. It wasn't like the smoke from a fire, but it was smoke all the same, and it smelled almost like kerosene gas from our lamps back home.

Back home.

My stomach trembled, and I felt sick. That's right. I wasn't in Mineral Town. I was hundreds of miles away, locked in a dark hold in a ship, all because I foolishly held onto a man I loved and thought I knew, and begged him to take me along.

I rose to my feet awkwardly, my body still rocking even though the boat wasn't. I managed to stumble to the hold door, and then I heard it.
There it was- that strange, exotic language again that I had never heard before. I'd never heard ANY other language before, actually; Mineral Town contained only English, light-skinned families. Won was the closest we had to anybody out of that category. And then there was Kai.

My eyes filled with tears. My Kai that I loved was up there, speaking in that tongue, talking to somebody else, completely out of my reach. Maybe he had been untouchable all along, the whole time I knew him. He left every summer, and this was the one summer he had said... That he might not come back. And I, like an idiot, had begged him to take me with him.

I heard footsteps nearing the door. Light, clicking footsteps on the wet wood. I stepped back, and the door was pulled open. Blinking my red eyes, I gazed out into the bright light of day.

The most beautiful woman I had ever seen stood there, her complexion slightly darker than Kai's, red lips full, curly dark hair that would be wild and tangled if it wasn't on such a perfect woman. The blackest eyes were glaring straight at me from under long lashes.

Her eyes narrowed in scrutiny, before she made a comment out of the side of her mouth. The boatman crossed his arms and pointed to Kai.
I felt like a little girl. Compared to this woman, and these dark people. I was a little girl, and my parents were saying things in a complicated adult language that I didn't understand. They were talking about me, they were arguing, and I was helpless.

She demanded something, eyes blazing.

Kai murmured a word.

She looked about to slap him. She hissed a few sentences.

Then, those black eyes were on me again. Slowly, a smile came over her perfect lips. "Popuri," she murmured. "What a cute name. And such a cute little girl."

A cute little girl.

Yes, compared to this woman, I was nothing but that.

"You don't have to put up a farce," Kai said coldly. "She may look like a child, but she's not a fool. She can tell you're not the beautiful goddess men mistake you for."

"Kai," she said, smiling brilliantly at him. I felt blinded. "If you do not close your mouth, then I will close it for you, dear little brother." She turned back to me, and I trembled under her dark eyes. "Honey, I'm Maria. Very nice to meet you."

Suddenly, her previous statement hit me. Looking up at the beautiful dark skinned woman, staring at Kai, I felt my tired mind make the connection.

She was Kai's sister.

My stomach heaved, and I stumbled out the door past them to throw the little food they'd given me into the water below.

We had left the city after retrieving Maria, and I hadn't even seen it. Apparently, they were all used to this- a rocking boat, a silver city, dark skinned beautiful relatives that made chicken girls feel young. They hardly cared about a silly thing like a city. After they left me, locking me up again in the hold, they talked deep into the night. All I could do was listen to Kai's voice through the wooden deck, hard and slurred and softer.

I'd never understood Kai. I'd attempted to. I'd watched him and hung onto him for years. But there was always a boundary I couldn't cross, some invisible force that propelled me backwards when I tried to make contact with anything deeper than the traveller on the beach.

As always, a wall separated us.

I was bouncing.

The person beneath me laughed and bounced me higher on his knee.

"Up!" I called, delighted.

My mother, standing in the kitchen, just laughed. Rick did as well; this was a time before he had to fill in for my father, before he had to look after me constantly, had to consider each movement I made before deciding if it was dangerous or harmless.

I tilted my chubby pink head up, to look into bright blue eyes as clear as the sky. Laugh lines creased their edges, and I knew who it was.

"Daddy!" The bouncing stopped as he hugged me close.

"Yes, my little Popuri?"

"I love you," I squealed.

"And I love you," he cooed back, patting my fluffy hair. "I love my entire family!"

With one arm, he hooked my mother around the waist and pulled her over gently, and with the other he ruffled Rick's blonde hair.

"You guys are the best. Someday, far off, when you're bigger, everything will be different. You two will be married to wonderful people-" he winked at me then "-And your mom and I will be sitting around here caring for our chickens, getting old."

"The chickens!" Lillia gasped suddenly. "I didn't feed them yet!" Tugging herself out of the family embrace, she scurried off to take care of the feathered creatures. Lovingly setting me on the ground and giving Rick one more pat, Rod, my father, walked out the door to go visit Zack.

While the younger me was completely content to go play dolls and run around our yard the rest of the day, I couldn't help but look back at the memory with wistfulness... The days before Mom started having trouble getting up, before that doomed visit to the Clinic to see the two doctors, the day when they told us she was slowly going to lose her ability to walk. Before that, we were just a family, probably the most united in Mineral Town. Karen argued, Mary's dad was often off exploring, Ann's father was still in a state of depression over the death of his wife, the little Doctor's parents were always working, and saucy Aja was always tired of her family's disagreements. We were the family in Mineral Town that was always in a state of harmony, raising our chickens. We were the normal ones. Then Dad left, and the world became a huge regret, a neverending circle of "what if"s or "maybe"s.

Kind of like how it was now.

The boat came to a stop, and once again it was calm and serene. The boat swayed much less. Suddenly, the hold door was thrown open.

"Well, jeez, Kai, I didn't know you were such a romanticist!" A cheery voice pierced through the darkness, and then there was a girl standing there smiling at me like we were best friends, orange head cocked, green eyes sparkling. "Awww, she looks so sweet and innocent."

The girl's bright smile felt strange and awkward. I hadn't had anyone smile at me in almost two whole days. Maria smiled at me, but not like this girl. This smile was real.

"Nice to meet you, Popuri!" She grinned. "I bet you want to get off this boat, huh? Come on, follow me. I'm Caitlin."

She lead me out of the hold, and down a board.

My eyes burned, unaccustomed to the light, but the grip on my hand was solid and cool. "So, then. He knows you're coming, because I told him. So don't worry if he knows you. Oh, and Popuri?" She didn't even wait for an answer before continuing on. "Try not to mess with Kai, okay? He's stressed right now. But it's all right, because we're going to hang out. Just until Kai explains why he brought you."

"Um... Thank you." I managed a smile, but my head hurt. Solid land felt wrong, and I had no idea what she was talking about. But her last sentence got me, and the way she said it makes me feel seasick all over again.

'Just until Kai explains why he brought you.' The way she said it was accusing, even coming from someone so nice. Like Kai wasn't supposed to bring me. Like Kai wasn't allowed to bring me.

The dock was completely deserted, I finally noticed. Maria was long gone, disappeared into the huge white tile building in front of me. The boatman and Kai were exchanging words and tying the ship to the dock. Kai was pulling on his bandanna again, in his nervous way, his face a dark cloud of emotions. I'd seen them do this same act a thousand times in Mineral Town, but this was different. The boatman was hostile, and Kai was less than happy. I must have watched him for a minute before I realized that he was looking everywhere but at me.

My head and heart were pounding, and I felt sore all over, as everything I realized on the boat trip clicked into place, reality hitting me too fast and too strong.

Kai was ignoring me. He took me with him, as some sort of last second add on. I didn't belong here. Everyone I'd met so far in Kai's life had shown me that. Even Kai himself had shown me that. My tanned traveller, my summer crush that made me happier than anything, wasn't here any more. The person left was so different, so changed, that I could hardly see a similarity.

My eyes started to tear up, and I felt like a stupid little kid. I actually believed that because I begged my Prince Charming to take me away to someplace foreign and exciting, I would start a new life, and Kai would love me. That's forever from the real truth.

"Hey, hey." Caitlin turned around, looking at me with a strange curiosity. "Man, can Kai pick 'em. What's wrong? Are you still seasick?"

I shook my head, and wiped my eyes on my dress sleeve.

"Homesick? That's totally okay too, you know... I mean, never getting to go home again is pretty bad."

My head jerked up. "Never... Getting to go home?!"

What about Rick? What about my mom, what about May and Stu and--

"There's no point in freaking out now," she says, reaching around her neck and pulling out some weird metallish card with a lot of markings on it. She runs it through a cut-out hole near a door, and suddenly, we're inside the white building. "You aren't going back, not now and not ever."

My heart stopped.

I was not going home.

Because of one decision, I was never going to see my family again. I was never going to take care of a chicken again. I was never going to marry Kai and get him to stay with us. I was not going to make Rick and Karen get married.

When my mother died, I wasn't going to be there.

I was going to be trapped here, hated by Kai and yanked around by people I hardly knew. Dark people, beautiful people, cheerful people that would be my friend if they weren't already attached to whatever this is.

Caitlin pulled me forwards, past rows of beeping machines that look like T.V.'s, with numbers flashing across them.

"The meeting room's just past here. He wants to see you, see if you're of any use to us." She snorted. "I seriously doubt it, no offense. But you're just a chicken farmer, aren't you?"

I was. Now I don't know what I am.

I was pushed through another set of doors. It was almost dark in the room, besides the soft glow of one machine upon a man's face.

If he had a bandanna, he'd look just like Kai. He had the same chin, the same black hair, and worst of all, that heart melting mischevous grin Kai used to give me. When I was still an innocent girl thinking he was my prince. The Almost-Kai opened his mouth, and out poured information I could never understand.

"Popuri Chite, daughter of Lillia Chite and Rod Chite. Sister to Coded #346, best friend of the now Heavenly Being #73. Has no abilities to speak of." He surveys me with cold eyes.

Coded #346? Heavenly Being #73? I was silent, but my body was slowly turning to ice. Piece by piece. And if he knocked me too hard, I'd shatter.

"Consistently plays with Dark Presence #679. Former best friend of Heavenly Being #52. Acquaintance to Seer #1, 490. Neighbor to former carrier of Heavenly Being #64. You know, I can go on and on. Your little town is quite the hotspot for mystical activity." He folded his hands in his lap. "And you, Popuri, consistently befriend and care for these people. The most powerful ones are directly linked to you. Yet according to everything Kai has ever told me, you have no powers. You don't even realize what these people can do."

I wanted to step away from this man, away from his strange words and the way he was looking at me. Like Gray sometimes looked at his creations. Burning in those eyes was the urge to shape me and make me better, to take me apart and see why I wasn't ticking the way he wanted me to.

But suddenly, there was a hand pressed into my back, another on my shoulder. Protecting me.

"There's no amazing riddle here. Popuri is just a girl. You're not getting her involved in this."

He shrugged and smiled. "Kai, you're the one who brought her here. I'm just trying to figure out how to utilize her."

"Popuri is mine." The hand on my shoulder tightened. "You're not touching her."

I had heard him say that before, in my dreams. To some other suitor, to some other man who wanted me. Then we'd ride off into the sunset, and I would know he shared my feelings. Had he said those words in Mineral Town, I would be attempting to kiss him right now. Those were words I had wanted to hear for years. But now, they were being said for a completely different purpose.

I felt like crying again. Besides being confused, that was the only emotion I had felt on this island so far.

Even though he had said those words to protect me against something HE had brought me to, I still felt that warmth inside me. For the first time since the boat trip, I felt like he wanted me. Like there was hope.

"That's fine for now." The man turned back to the glowing screen. "But you already know this, Kai. Everyone here has a purpose. We don't keep orphaned little children out of the goodness of our hearts. Speaking of orphaned children, please inform Caitlin that she's needed to go retrieve Dark Presence #698. We've let him run around wreaking havoc for a little too long. If we don't catch him now, the government could get smart for once and recruit him."

Kai and I stood there, unmoving.

"You're dismissed, Kai."

We still did not budge.

"Kai." His voice was a warning.

"Tell me you won't use her when I'm gone. You may be a failure as a father, but you can do something for your kid for once in your greedy life."

The hand on my back was tense, the one on my shoulder tightening to the extent that it gave me a dull, throbbing pain.

"I already let you bring your little girl here, didn't I? I've let you have your fun. You weren't supposed to fall in love, but I let you. I let you go back to that town year after year instead of sending someone else. I've already granted you favors too many. And look what they've gotten me. A ridiculous little girl with pink hair. Your favors are used, Kai. I'll do whatever I wish with what little personal life you have in the form of a girl."

He looked down at the screen, and the conversation was done. My future, whatever I had here, was undecided and in danger. I would worry, but before I could, Kai whipped us both around. He steered me out the door, following close behind, then shoved me into Caitlin's waiting form. The second time he touched me since this awful trip began, and it's only to shove me away again.

"Go get Dark Presence 698," is all he grit to her through his teeth.

"Hey!" Caitlin yelled after him, as the Kai that I love stormed off in a cloud of silent fury. Over me. Over the trouble I'd caused him with the man in the room. My face must have looked awful, because Caitlin pulled out a tissue and began wiping it across my cheeks and my eyes.

I cried for real this time, hiccuping and trembling.

She was silent, and her cheerfulness was gone.

"You're really in a fix," she murmured. "Why'd Kai have to fall in love with a sweet girl like you, get you involved in this?"

I looked up at her. Kai in love with me? It hardly seemed like it, the way he handled me and was troubled by me. The way he avoided meeting my eyes, touching me as little as possible. The Kai of the past hadn't even loved me; just liked me as company, as a little blabbermouth to fill lazy summer days. The way he was willing to get me involved in this, whatever this was. "What is this?" I managed to whisper, and she blinked at me with green eyes.

"He didn't tell you... Anything?"

I shook my head, and she rubs the tissue under my nose with a sigh. I wanted to stop crying, to stop the flow of tears that only a little kid would shed. Just like that man called me. A ridiculous little girl with pink hair. It seemed everyone thought that way. Including me.

Turning, she tapped a few buttons on the panel under the screen, and the scrolling numbers stopped. One row turned yellow, and suddenly, we were looking at a picture of...

Rick. Of my brother.

"Coded #346," she murmured. "Rick Chite. Currently resides in Mineral Town. Has one sibling... Or should I say had."

"How do you know my brother?" My red eyes widened.

"Please. Your brother is the most amazing Coded we've ever come across. Only two people have ever managed to stop becoming a werewolf completely. The other died shortly after the process. Rick's vital signs are all completely normal, besides a small personality change. But that's probably the result of his romance."

My throat went dry. I forgot the romance between Karen and my brother, forgot the rest, forgot where I was. "...My brother stopped becoming a what?"

She glanced up from the screen. "You didn't know? Surely you noticed. I mean, you seem a little bit oblivious, but certainly not to that extent." She touched the screen, the picture of Rick, and suddenly the picture transformed, becoming something else. Hair lengthened, a cruel grin formed. But it wasn't those that frightened me. Feral yellow eyes looked straight at me, out of the former face of my brother. Hungry.

I'd seen those before. Just for a few seconds, every once in a while. Rick would look at me like a cat at a bird. I was prey. I was HIS prey.

I wasn't on the boat anymore, but I still felt sick.

"A werewolf." Her eyes were on me again, searching.

"Yes," I managed, my heartbeats pounding and quick. "Yes, I've seen those before."

I turned away and held my stomach, and she began rubbing my back in smooth circles.

"It's all right, Popuri. All that's over now. Those beasts can't hurt you any more. You're safe here. We're the people that clean the world of people like them."

I jerked.

Rick had never hurt me. Something in him always stopped his pounce at the last minute: something in him still saw me as his beloved little sister. No. I wasn't afraid of Rick. I was afraid of him as a werewolf, but I was equally as scared of this place, of the fact that I would never see him again. My frightened child self was crying. I wanted out of this tiled building, out of a one-sided love that clung to existence like a drowning man to a rock. The creature in the picture was still my brother, who I'd never see again. I could imagine his face, blabbering at me.

"That Kai's a bad apple," he always grumbled, like some old coot. Or, "You have to be careful, Popuri! Guys like Kai are trouble! They'll break your heart and step on the pieces!"

I swallowed, the memories of our constant Kai bantering screaming louder in my ears.

'Well, Rick,' I thought with sadness, 'You were right about almost everything.'

Caitlin pressed a few more buttons on the panel. Once again, a row of numbers were highlighted. A picture of a small boy appeared on the screen, sulking as the woman behind him grinned through her teeth. I could almost hear her saying, "Smile, darn it." Behind them, a tall dark building rose out of a hill. "Krip Orphanage", was the text I could hardly read. Caitlin pressed a few more keys, then touched the screen in the place where it said, "Uti".

"I'd love to stay and disturb your innocent state of mind some more, Popuri, but I'm afraid I have to go pick up a kid." The screen made a beeping noise, and a box below it popped out. "Oooh, I get to drive the big boat." She pulled a pair of keys out of the box. "I'll ring Kai up and tell him to show you your room."

My mouth opened to tell her that he probably wouldn't want to, but Caitlin already had yet ANOTHER glowing screen out, small and in her hand. "There. He better explain some things to you."

She was gone, and I was left alone. As always.

Kai rounded the bend suddenly, and placed one hand atop of my puffy hair.

"It's on the third floor," he said, and guided us into a very small room, through two doors that opened in the middle. I couldn't see a staircase anywhere, which seemed strange. Then the box-like room jerked, and I felt it rising. Panic flooded me. The building was shaking, it was falling!

I screamed, and then Kai was covering my mouth with one tanned hand. He smelled like pineapples, and open air, and... the sea. Like ice cream. Like the beach at home. The shaking of the room seemed to subside a little. He wasn't worried at all. Maybe the shaking was just me, because I had been trembling like a frightened animal. But with Kai's warm hand on my lips, everything felt so different.

I went quiet, and he did too. Not like he had talked much in the first place. We were touching each other, skin to skin. Not an angry grip through the fabric on my shoulder. Just touching.

All of a sudden, I missed it. The days at the beach where we would sit and watch the sun set together, not because of some holiday, but because we could. Because I was in love with him. We would sit in the sand and run it through our toes and throw it at each other. Back before I begged him to take me along, and I got pulled into the dark whirlpool of this white building. Trapped forever, without my family.

The hand across my mouth slowly removed itself. The scent of Kai went away, but only for a moment. Because when the hand pulled from my mouth, it gently wrapped around my forearm and pulled me closer to him. I could hardly breathe. The hand on my head trailed down my hair, and I would have said he was stroking me if I didn't know better. It came to rest across his other hand, and then there he was, his arms wrapped around me. His head went and rested upon mine, and his warm breath went straight through my hair and down to my skin. My heart beat faster, in a frenzy. My vision went all foggy. I wanted to close my eyes and revel in the moment. I was feeling happy for the first time in two days.

But my head wasn't fooled.

He wasn't hugging me. He couldn't be hugging me. He couldn't be cradling me to him.

Because Kai didn't love me.

Almost as if to prove my point, he promptly let me go. There was a beep, and the same doors we had walked through only two minutes before opened to reveal a completely different hallway. I blinked, but the room outside didn't change. I was going insane.

Kai let out a big breath of air through his nose. I could swear he was laughing at me. I felt offended, in a silly way.

"It's an elevator. We don't have stairs around here. It's a little box that carries you up. It's attached to the top floor with pulleys and ropes, which then pull the box up as far as you want to go. An elevator. I forgot to tell you." We walked out the doors, and they closed behind us. I looked back, still in wonder. "These are the living quarters. My room is there." He pointed to one numbered door. "Yours is across from mine." He paused, as if deciding. "If you need me, Popuri..." He didn't finish the sentence, but I knew what he was saying. If I wanted to see him, if I wanted to talk to him, then there he was. An option. From the way he said it, I wouldn't have to talk to him. Not unless I wanted to. "You can't operate the elevator without a card, so you're stuck on this floor unless someone comes and brings you out. You can lock your door if you want. There are... Men on this floor, and some are kind of... I mean, only a few... Just lock your door when you're in there. All the food you need is in your fridge. You can watch the television, and there are games and everything." He looked at me, as if my opinion mattered in the least.

I couldn't talk to him about our relationship, or what was going on. My mouth wouldn't work. I forced it to move, and out popped: "Are there any chickens here?"

He looked at me. "...Well, no."

There went the last little piece of my life.

Nothing was the same. Nothing. I know that sounds stupid. Like chickens were so important to me. But they were all I dealt with for years and years. They were what made home smell like chicken feathers all the time, what mom and Rick and I laughed about together.

We stared at each other in an awkward silence. A former traveller and a chicken girl, both seeming out of place.

Something in his pocket made an alarm-like noise, and he pulled out two screens like Caitlin had. One, apparently, was for me. "Caitlin will be back tomorrow, and she can teach you how to use it," he said logically. The cold Kai that belonged here, that looked like he didn't want me, was back. "I have to go. See you later."

He raised his hand as if to touch my hair, but didn't. Just opened my door for me, then burned his eyes into my back as I walked in. "Popuri?"

It was such a soft call of my name that I barely heard it. But I heard it all the same. I turned, and red eyes locked on deep brown. He didn't say a word. My mouth opened once more, and out came the name of the one person I loved. My mind flashed back to the elevator, and I could almost smell his scent again, of pineapples and sand and sun. "...Kai?"

The door was closing. He was shutting it. But two words managed to come from his lips.

"I'm sorry."

And then he was gone.

A/N: And there we have it, another chapter. Just to say, I had an awful time with my tense. Who knew writing in first person was so darn hard?! I kept switching over to present tense, and then I had to go back and put -ed's and was's and other past tense stuff. I swear I read over this about eight times, switching my tense constantly. Okay, so enough blabbing to myself. I bet nobody even reads this. On to the actual somewhat interesting part. Oh, and I'm sorry that I seem to have so many OC's. We'll see old Mineral Town again soon enough, if not the way Popuri expected it. Hey, and just a quick thing, dear readers, I'd love it if you tried to predict what the heck's going on with this weird facility place (I mean, it's not like I'm asking you to get ideas cuz I don't know... Right... Erm... Nah, I know what's going on). I just want to see if anybody can kind of tell so far or whether I need to have some big revelation scene. I probably will anyway. My favorite part in this whole chapter was probably Popuri going, "Oh no, I'll never see a chicken again!" Sob, sob.

Ekoaleko- Hee, it's good to see you again. It's so awesome knowing I've got a constant support. You flatter me WAAAYYY too much. My head's gonna blow up from it being so big. Anyway, no, not really a Pirates of the Caribbean fic. That would be cool, though. MWA HA HA! Now I'll turn Kai into a hot skeleton!! HA HA HA!! ...Yeah. It's a great idea, but unfortunately I don't think they're gonna be riding on boats all too much. Writing the whole 'trapped in a hold' part is kind of already used a lot in here. Anyways, thank you so so much for your support. It's awesome!

Supernae- Hello! Thanks a bunch, right off the bat. I'm glad you like it! Poppy is about to be thrown into some fun! Quite a lot of evil on my part. But yes, suspense is cool. Anyway, thank you a ton for reading, and I'm really sorry I didn't update sooner... Everybody can throw me off the deck of the ship and feed me to sharks.

Moonlit Dreaming- Hiiiii again! Thanks a ton for reading this!! I'm glad you like it, and I hope you liked this chapter too. Um... Soon... Yeah... If by soon, you mean the exact opposite of soon, yeah, I did that. Sorry! As I said to supernae, you guys can throw me overboard to the sharks. Anyways, thank you for coming back, and it's good to hear from you! See you next chapter!