"I put up with you because I love you. Not because I care about you."

-Unknown

--

I hate family get-togethers.

There's just something about sitting at a large table in a lame restaurant with my over-dramatic family that really, really, turns me off. Don't get me wrong, I love my family, but being with all of them for more than three hours at a time is my recipe for hell.

You see, if I didn't look like the spitting image of my father, I would've sworn my mom cheated on him and conceived me with another man. I am nothing like the rest of my family. It's not vanity, it's the truth. If I didn't love them I would instantly label my father as mental, my mother as ADHD, and my brothers either demented or schizophrenic.

Case in point, I'm sitting here in Bram's Boardwalk, a lame little restaurant that makes average food but charges champagne money for it, in the middle of an all out argument on the topic of real fairies. Apparently my brother Daichi has had a 'vision' of fairy that has told him he will have seventeen children with six different women. The scary thing about this is that both of my parents believe him.

"I'm telling you, mom, It was real. I really saw her." Daichi says, his eyes big and serious as he waves around a chicken wing.

"Daichi, don't be stupid. Fairies don't exist." My oldest brother, Kan says, while loudly smacking his own poultry in gusto. I cringe. What a horrible, nasty, revolting, absolutely sickening sight. "Listen to your older brother; it's vampires that are the real ones." Kan continues before gesturing towards me. "Ain't I right, Riku?"

I frown and look down at the bird on my plate. I am suddenly not hungry anymore. If for some reason I ever become fat and need to lose weight, Kan would be the go to man. Watching him eat a meal is enough to send your appetite across the ocean and never see it return.

"Both of you are idiots." My second oldest brother and twin to Kan, Ran, says. I choke back a laugh. Of all the people to call someone an idiot…

"God is the only magical creature that exists." He finishes, smiling as if he won something. The table suddenly becomes quiet.

Now, religion is common to our city. My parent's themselves follow the main religion on the island. I myself am an agnostic and have no opinion nor care to have an opinion on such affairs. In actuality, Ran's comment wouldn't be stupid if for one thing: he thinks he's god.

I rest my case.

My family is made up of lunatics. Which means I must be a lunatic as well. Wow.

"Boys enough of this." My mother suddenly exclaims, though only a minute ago she was enthusiastically listening to Daichi talk of his sudden discovery of real fairies. "Today is Riku's big day."

My brothers glance at me, grunt, and then turn back to their chicken. I feel so important.

"Guess what we got him for his graduation present?" My father says, looking up from his coloring book. Yes, my father enjoys ordering from the children's menu just to receive the little coloring books and other childish crap made to keep children quiet.

Kan, ever the jealous one, stops eating a looks up. I thank a god I don't believe in for granting me a few seconds of peace from his horrendous eating habits.

"What he get?" He asks, glaring at me in that older brother way. I stick out my tongue. I know my gift is better than what they got when they graduated. Kan and Ran got a used car that they crashed two days after receiving and Daichi got money and…condoms.

"A roundtrip ticket to anywhere in the world." My father says proudly. Kan's mouth drops and Ran's chicken wing flies across the table and smacks me in the head. Before I can yell at him, Daichi kicks my crotch under the table.

Hell no. I've had it.

"Goddamit you jealous fuckers!" I screech, grabbing at my crotch indecently. The restaurant is suddenly quiet and my mother looks flabbergasted. I ignore her, grab my chicken wing and proceed to beat the snot out of Daichi with it.

Scratch what I said before; I think we're all insane.

--

After getting kicked out of the restaurant, my dad whimpering as he was forced to leave his drawing and my brothers frantically trying to gather as many chicken wings as their pockets could hold, we all head down the city boardwalk for a walk in the park. Well more like a walk for my mother, father and I and a game of tag for my brothers. I swear their brains stopped growing at age six.

I watch in annoyance as Daichi runs through the darkening park, chicken wings falling out of his pockets along with…condoms?! Heavens to god. Kan and Ran are chasing him, looking like deranged squirrels and howling like pregnant dogs. It's highly disturbing and I'm not the only one that thinks this. All of the other people in the park look scared as well.

I distance myself from them, though it's obvious we're brothers from our similar silver hair and ocean colored eyes. To keep my mind of their idiocy, I think of something that holds more appeal. Well, more like someone.

Sora James-Maverick. I can't help but smile as I think back to seeing him on TV a couple of hours ago. I'd never admit to anyone, but for some reason, I'm rather attracted to the 'new weed.' I'm not gay, but then again, I think he's very attractive. No, not attractive, fucking gorgeous. Does that make me gay? In my opinion, no. I'm not attracted to boys. Period. But if I told my brothers or my friends that I thought he was hot, then yes, I would be gay.

I hate labels.

I'm interrupted out of my thoughts very cruelly. One second I'm walking behind my parents, daydreaming, having some good thoughts, and the next I'm on the ground with Daichi straddling me. He's grinning like a maniac and something is stuck in his teeth. Disgusting.

"Get off me you idiot." I growl, shoving him off of me. I stand up and dust my pants, frowning when I see a grass stain. Damn, these were new jeans too.

Kan and Ran run up and shove me back down. I frown and stand back up, kicking them in the shins. "Would you all grow up?!" I yell, "Fuckin' act your age."

Daichi chuckles and shoves me, though softly as not to be kicked like my oldest brothers. "We're just playing, Riku."

"Yeah, you deserve it though." Kan says while rubbing his shin. A mangled chicken wing falls out of his pocket in the process. Those poor birds. They'd be horrified to know that they died only to be dismembered, fried, and then're-killed' in my brothers' no doubt filthy pants.

"And why is that?" I ask, with a smirk. Kan frowns and rolls his eyes.

"You know why. Mom and Dad didn't give me something like your present. I got a used car. And I had to share it."

"Yeah, well you're a twin. You should be used to it." I say nonchalantly. Daichi glares at me and crosses his arms.

"Well what about me, I got 500 munny and a pack of condoms." Daichi spits out, hitting me with spittle that has…particles in it. I dry heave.

"Step away from me, Daichi, you're disgusting." I growl, wiping my face. "And you needed those condoms, you got three girls pregnant before you even graduated."

"No I didn't, they had tumors…and I pay money because…I pity them." Daichi says slowly, and firmly as if I believe him.

"So where you gonna go?" Kan smacks out before I can yell at Daichi for being so despicable in calling his own children tumors.

"Beya Wing Bay City." I say with a smirk. Surely none of them have heard of the city…

I am proven wrong immediately.

Kan gasps and several chicken wings fall out of his pocket as he gestures madly and stutters like the fool he is. "W-what?! I'm going there too!"

Hell no. "Wait…what?" I choke out. There is no way Kan is going to Beya Wing Bay City. I'm supposed to be going. By myself.

"Yeah, I got these VIP tickets from my friend who works over there for the Beya Wing Extreme Sports Tournament. They sold out months ago." Kan says animatedly. "We're going up there in two days for the start of the BMX tournaments."

Hold on.

Something just clicked.

"Wait a second. So these extreme sports…do they include skateboarding?" I ask slowly.

"Hell yeah. All kinds of extreme shit. Hey, you know there's actually a kid who used to go to Vince Square that's competing in some of the skating events. I don't know his name, but he's amazing!" Kan yells excitedly. My heart stops.

The weed.

Suddenly I realize a grave mistake I made in my earlier sporadic thinking processes. How the hell was I actually going to meet Sora? How was I going to somehow get myself into an event that had sold out months ago? Why hadn't I thought of this before? Was I…dare I say it…love struck?

"VIP…so does that mean you get to meet some of the competitors?" I ask, trying to gather as much information as I could from him before he turned neurotic.

"Yeah, you basically get to walk around in the back where all of their trailers are and stuff. You get to see lots of them there."

Perfect.

"How many tickets do you have?" I blurt out before even thinking about it.

"Uh, three. Me and my friend Shen are going."

"And the third ticket…?" I ask, formulating a plan in my mind.

"Eh, I dunno. If Ran wants it he can have it." Ran glances up from his half eaten, mangled piece of chicken. I quickly swat him on the head and shove him away.

"Hell no. I'll take it." I say, before Ran can protest. Kan shrugs his shoulders and then grabs a chicken wing out of his pocket.

"Ok, sure." He says, "We leave in two days."

I nod. "Thanks bro." Kan doesn't answer. His attention is now on Daichi who is trying to steal his chicken from him. They start slapping each other and screeching like baby birds.

I walk away with a smile on my face. I no longer care about their attitudes and stupidity. Who cares if I have to go with my insane brother? Kan just unknowingly made my newfound 'dream' possible. I'm going to meet Sora.

--

We part ways as we head to our cars. Kan and Ran, who share an apartment on the east side of the City, actually act civilized and give my mom, my dad and I hug before they leave. Daichi, who lives on the next island over, follows them because he just realized that he hadn't bought a roundtrip ticket. We all know this isn't true though. In actuality, Daichi really misses us and can't bear to leave so soon. It's actually a comforting thought that he's homesick because he never acts like he is.

It's quiet in the car, as we head home. Mom and Dad get really sentimental when my brothers leave. Mom once told me it was like letting go of them all over again. Dad, who is more emotional than the average man, feels the same way. I wonder if I'll feel the same way when I have children.

As we pull up to the house, mom and dad say goodnight to me and head to their room. I head upstairs, grab my laptop, and once again turn on the TV for some background noise. This time a game of soccer is on. Although I love soccer, I ignore it because I have research to do.

Clicking on to the search engine, I type in the weed's name and click 'search pictures'. I swear he has become an infatuation. When my screen loads, my heart skips a beat and starts hammering like it did early afternoon. Dozens of pictures pop up of the weed. Some of them show him in the middle of complex skateboarding tricks, others show him signing autographs and some show him smiling with large groups of people. But the ones that catch my attention the most are pictures of him with a red-headed boy. The other boy is much taller than him, slim, and has extremely spiky looking hair that is almost wilder than Sora's own. I click on of the pictures and it links me to an article that makes my heart start beating even faster than it had before.

"Upcoming skateboarding star, Sora James-Maverick, comes out as bisexual with BMX star boyfriend Axel Slade."

I stare at that line, re-reading it over and over again. No way.

Now, as a straight man, I shouldn't be interested in this and I probably should feel a little uncomfortable. Which is why my thoughts wander back to what I was thinking about in the park. Am I not as straight as I think I am? Do I have feelings towards the weed that shouldn't be there?

I grow uneasy with this thought, and close the page. I'm not gay and never will be…

But that thought doesn't hold me for long, as in the next five minutes I'm reading the article with fervor while simultaneously booking a flight to Beya Wing Bay City. Damn my insecurities to hell. I'm going to meet Sora.

--

A/N: I hate snow. It's freakin' dropping like crazy where I live. Anyway, this chapter has a lot of dialogue and a lot on Riku's family for a reason. So don't get mad if there's not a lot of Sora interaction or info. It's coming. Anyway, hope you like it. I'm having a short delay on the prologue to my other story because I need to rewrite a few things. Hopefully I'll have it up in the next week.

Oh, and thanks for the feedback on the Black Petal! I really appreciate it.