(A/N: I didn't mention this in the first chapter, but the story title, "Eigengrau," is really just a placeholder. It has a lot of potential meaning: "Eigengrau" is the name of the color we see when we close our eyes, which, incidentally, is not necessarily black, but a very dark grey. Despite its potential, I have no use for the title as of yet. If I decide to take the plot somewhere where the title makes sense, I'll keep it, but more than likely, it's getting replaced in a few chapters. Bear with me! One last thing: though it hasn't been released in English yet, I read up on the events of Dream Drop Distance. I'm hoping my limited knowledge of it will help me create a good story. SPOILER: Essentially, with the secret ending, Yen Sid is looking for seven keyblade wielders to fight against the new Organization, so I guess my story will be my imagination of the "fourth" Kingdom Hearts. It's odd to think that I've written fanfictions of basically the same thing before the ACTUAL Kingdom Hearts series went in that direction. That's foresight, for you.)
Chapter II
You could stand on the back of a shuddering beam
With a pistol firing shots into the air.
You could run in the blood of the sun's hard rays.
You could drive the mountains down into the bay
Or go back to the east where it's all so civilized,
Where I was born to life, but I am leaving the life.
I am leaving.
Shearwater, "You As You Were"
There was one girl outside already, and the back of her head looked familiar. It was a reddish-blond (though desaturated in the evening dark), mostly straight but a few locks remained in an awkward wave. It had to be her; Dorian contemplated turning around and going right back inside, but no, it was too late for that; she had turned her head back forward in some kind of attempt to pretend she hadn't noticed him, but they both knew she did.
Without any real choice, Dorian walked up to the edge of the patio and joined her, sitting a comfortable few feet to her right. The concrete wasn't damp, as he would have expected, and had to keep reminding himself that it hadn't rained today. There had been thunder and lightning since the early morning, but not a single drop of rain.
The girl said nothing, just slowly worked away at her cigarette. For a moment, she just held it there, between her index and middle finger of her right hand, rested atop her knee, and let the tobacco burn away to ashes and fall to the ground. "What?" she finally asked after the considerable period of silence, probably feeling Dorian's stare.
"Uh, nothing. How are you?"
She sucked at the cancer again before offering it to Dorian, who shook his head. "Fine," she said. "You?"
"Good," he answered, then took a deep gulp of his beer. Warm or not, beer was beer, and even dishwater beer was better than that cheap rum that Cindy seemed perfectly content supplying bottles of at every party she threw. "You're not still angry at me?" he asked, but immediately regretted doing so when her silence followed.
After what felt like an eternity, she lifted a single shoulder. "You were trying to help."
Nowhere in that did Dorian hear an apology, but he almost didn't care. He could almost smell this girl's independence seeping from her pores like sweat, so he found himself content with the fact that she maybe possibly almost admitted she was in the wrong. Now, he thought with another swig of beer, he could stop thinking about her and keep it in the past. He had no reason to care, after all.
I never got her name, though, he reminded himself. It was too odd to not know someone's name on the island, especially someone who lived in his same district and was clearly around the same age. "I'm Dorian," he said. "Are you new to Southern Ma'ema'e?"
She shook her head, and Dorian noticed she blinked more than the average person—around once every couple seconds. "I've lived here all my life."
Nothing could have made Dorian feel worse. "Wow. Sorry. You're… quiet, then?"
"Sure." After a last suck on her cigarette, she dropped it into the grass and ground it into the dirt with her brown-stained sneakers. "I'm Keani."
"That's a pretty name."
"Don't."
They were silent again. Dorian hadn't meant to hit on the girl—she wasn't his type at all—but what else could kindness be attributed to from man to woman, especially a kindness so strong to negate a previous misgiving? "Sorry," he said.
"You apologize a lot," she mentioned, finally turning her head towards him. Despite the dark, he could see her eyes clearly for the first time; she had the eyes of a dog, one an icy, matte blue, the other a deep brown which grew darker near the center of her iris. It gave her gaze an uneven look—as if one eye was perpetually more open than the other.
"Sorry."
Keani smirked. "Dorian?" she asked.
"Yeah?"
"Just making sure."
At that moment, Dorian felt an inexplicable lightness in his chest. For the first time today, he felt as if he had done something right. Afraid to speak and ruin whatever liking she may or may not have taken to him, he sipped at his beer and kept his eyes glued forward. The cloud cover looked odd tonight; perhaps it was the angle or a reflection of the moon, but it looked purple. The center, where the swirling clouds seemed to meet, was nearly black in color, and every now and then illuminated, for a split second, to a bright indigo when a string of lightning flashed in its eye.
"Have we ever had weather like this?" asked Keani, seemingly thinking the same thing.
"Not since I've been alive. It's pretty, though."
"Scary. I hate storms."
"So why are you outside?"
Again, she shrugged. "I guess being outside with one thing I hate is better than being inside with forty things I can't stand."
Dorian could have asked her why she came here in the first place, but wasn't it obvious? She seemed to walk right into things she didn't like, and Dorian wasn't the psychoanalyst of the family. Even if Lyle did want to come outside and figure this girl out for him, he'd be more interested in getting in her pants than getting in her head. That was his problem, Lyle's; he had so much potential and so few fucks to give.
Then, it hit Dorian: he didn't want to be here, either.
He stood. "Let's get out of here. Go to the beach, or something."
"Stop."
"I'm not hitting on you," he assured her, holding out a hand to help her out. "Neither of us wanna be here, and I'll bet that storm looks cooler from the ocean." And it's the least I can do for making you upset.
Keani sighed for a second, staring at his hand, but eventually grabbed it. Her palm was sweaty, but he had a good enough grip to pull her upwards. She stood a few inches shorter than him—shorter than he remembered her, back when she was slapping him on the face and stomping bitterly away in the sand.
After their first step through the lawn, the back door opened. The two turned around, and there as Lyle, stumbling, already. "Dorian, I found her! Where are you going?"
Keani looked at Dorian. "Leaving," he said. "We're bored."
"What? You promised you'd be my wingman."
"I didn't promise anything," sighed Dorian.
"Come on, man. I need you. Unless you're…" He stopped himself, raising an eyebrow at the two.
"No," said Keani simply. "We're not."
Lyle let his eyes close and put up two hands in surrender. "So you're free, then. Come on, man, just a half hour."
"Who is he?" asked Keani.
"My brother. Step brother," he quickly corrected.
"So help him," she said, shrugging. She seemed genuine, and Dorian, for a moment, wasn't sure what to believe. Wasn't this the kind of crap people usually pull, the passive-aggressive shit, when they were actually angry at the other person and wanted him to see the error in his ways? "I'm not getting between family. Meet me at the beach, maybe."
Dorian ground his feet awkwardly into the lawn. "Please, dude." Lyle's hands were pressed together, fingers entwined like a beggar's.
"I'll meet you," said Dorian. "Promise."
"Sure." Keani was already walking through the backyard and undoing the hinge on the fence. What baffled Dorian wasn't that Lyle absolutely needed him to pick up a girl (the entire reason he was dragged to this party in the first place), but that Keani didn't seem to care one way or the other which decision he made. In fact, after five minutes of conversation, where people are supposed to get a pretty good first impression, Dorian had barely any concept of what did matter to the girl.
He followed his brother into the party.
If it were even possible, Cindy's house had grown more crowded since Dorian stepped outside. His brother helped weave the two of them through the crowd until they reached the living room (stopping only for Dorian to grab a second beer), which smelled of sweat and looked like the polyester couch had been ruined. Claudia was still dancing alone, but Lyle had directed Dorian's attention to a pair of two girls.
The first looked rather pretty, standing shyly with both hands wrapped around her red cup. She wore a crimson halter top, which hung exceedingly low, but paired with black, snakeskin-print leggings. Her platinum blond hair was curled and down, resting just atop her breasts (where Dorian could tell Lyle had been staring). The girl was pretty, but not pretty enough to detract from the shock of finding the girl from earlier, Sadie, standing right next to her.
She was still supermodel tall and thin, but with her toothpick arms wrapped around her chest and bright eyes narrowed darkly, she certainly didn't appear fragile.
"Hey, Minnie," Lyle began. "It is Minnie, right? From Biology?" He held out a hand to the sweeter-looking girl, which she timidly grabbed. Her shake looked just as delicate as she acted. Meanwhile, Sadie and I avoided each other's eyes for a dangerously long minute.
"Yeah," she replied. "I… I remember your face, but—"
"It's Lyle. And this is my brother, Dorian."
"Hi, Dorian." Minnie reached over and shook his hand. "I'm Minnie. This is my cousin, Sadie."
"We've met," said Sadie and Dorian in unison, Sadie with a noticeable rumble in her voice.
After a few awkward, silent moments, Lyle began his spiel. Start with Biology class, some stupid fact about the teacher or something, move onto high school. Any extra curriculars? I was in soccer. What do you like to do? Compliment her earrings. Where did you get them? You have good taste, unlike a lot of girls here. This would go on, and Dorian, halfheartedly, would interject and compliment Lyle when he got the chance. He was supposed to be helpful, but he just felt annoying.
It wasn't like Lyle needed his help, regardless; he never thought he would. Minnie twirled her hair around her fingers, smiled a lot and nodded at everything he said. Her cheeks were pink and she moved closer to him when he put a hand on her arm.
Meanwhile, Sadie could only glare at Dorian. At least, he thought, she's looking at me now. He had already left the conversation briefly to chug three more beers, and it wasn't until he was choking on the carbonation that he finally asked her, "What?" thinking that perhaps he would have preferred her to just pretend she didn't know him.
"Hm? Nothing," she said, smoothing down her short, silver dress.
"What's with the death stare?" Sadie didn't answer, and Lyle and Minnie were already physically excluding them from the conversation, their shoulders barring their companions off. Lyle pushed a lock of pale hair out of Minnie's face and whispered something in her ear. Minnie giggled and stumbled, but when she recovered, took Lyle's hand and let him lead her outside. They were going back to his house, Dorian realized. Their father could sleep through anything. It looked like he couldn't go home for another couple of hours.
Sadie and Dorian were then forced to look at each other in the eyes, through lack of company, stone-faced. The stoicism dissolved before they could realize it into an understanding laughter.
"Someone's getting laid tonight," said Sadie. It was the first time Dorian saw her smile. Her bottom teeth overlapped each other slightly and the right side of her mouth lifted barely higher than the left. Her white bra strap had traveled down her left bicep, and Dorian could feel his palms growing moist.
"I guess I was a good wingman," said Dorian.
"'A' for effort. Not like he needed it."
"Right?" Dorian took the last sip of his beer and crushed the can between his fingers. The room was mobile and his skin was warm. Comfortably without inhibitions, he said, "Sorry for, uh, confronting you earlier. It was none of my business."
She shook her head. Apparently, she was just as drunk as he was, as she lost her footing briefly where she stood. "Neither was hers any of mine. I feel bad enough about making her upset. I just don't want to think about it anymore." She shrugged, taking a drink from her red cup. "I'm a bitch."
"I don't think so." Dorian couldn't help but notice how smooth her brown hair looked, falling in loose waves over her shoulders. Heavy, blue eye makeup was smeared about her face from sweat and the simple length of the night. Her skin looked soft. Without thinking, he brought his hand out to hers. He braced himself for rejection—her recoil, a slap, a poor excuse to leave—but found that none came. Much of the rest of the time they spent in the crowded, smelly living room was a happy blur.
The beach had been a good idea, on Dorian's part.
When she looked up, Keani could see right into the eye of the storm. A dense black hole among swirling purple and grey clouds, it was like getting sucked upwards, through a soft tunnel. She could hardly believe it had been over an hour since she made it here, and it was just… too bad that Dorian couldn't come, too. That's all it was: too bad.
She laid in the sand, little grains traveling up the back of her shirt and the soft roar of the ocean silencing all other noise that side of the island. Every few minutes she turned her head back to see if he was there, just in case. For this reason, when she heard a rustling on the beach after nearly falling asleep, she was already half-prepared.
"Dorian?" asked Keani, flipping over. As she turned, she saw nothing in her immediate sight. After a few blinks and a quiet shrug, she decided the noise was a figment of her imagination. Just before she could turn and lie back down, a figure began to rise from a dark spot in the sand.
Keani was paralyzed. A gangly silhouette rose slowly from the ground like the dead from its burial site. It had two long antennae, bending in zig-zags and spanning the length of its torso and most of its legs, which were muscular and pitch black. Those legs led to large, toeless feet with pointed ends, unlike its oversized hands whose fingers must have been twice the length of her own. Keani whimpered for a moment, stepping backwards, and let out a small squeal.
It had two glowing, yellow eyes, perfectly rounded and staring right into her own. It was then that she knew that this creature was the one she had seen in Cindy's backyard. Was it following her? Was it an animal?
In her childhood, Keani's parents always told her to jump in the water if a swarm of bees ever came after her. While not necessarily a hive of insects, she assumed the rules still applied here (and certainly didn't have any time to think it over). The black, demonic creature moved quickly, and ran straight towards her. In a panic, Keani let out another scream and headed straight for the water. Hardly remembering the last time she swam, she dove under, eyes squeezed shut, and pedaled as far out into the ocean as she could until she ran out of breath less than thirty seconds later.
Still, Keani was impressed by her own abilities; she was at least ten yards off the shore, but the creature was there, standing right where the ocean lapped up on the sand but not seeming to dare make a move into the water. Those eyes—she could see them, she thought, in no light at all. She could probably see them with her eyes closed.
Behind it, another figure seemed to rise from the dark. Identical to the first, Keani rubbed her wet, salty hands over her eyes, thinking she saw double, but when she looked at the shore again, the second demon had not disappeared. Instead, a third was surfacing from the shore.
She couldn't contain the scream in the back of her throat any longer as she called out for help, but no one else was around.
Dorian could hardly remember how he had gotten up to Lucinda's room, but couldn't complain as he shuffled over a half-naked Sadie, sprawled out on his childhood friend's bed. With her hair a violet-brown halo about her head and her fingers laced around the back of Dorian's neck, he wondered when was the last time he had gotten to make love to something so beautiful. In fact, he wondered when he last made love at all; it seemed he barely even talked to girls these days, except of course for earlier.
"Shit!" he cried, scrambling to get out of bed. As he pushed himself off the edge, he slid immediately on the hardwood floor and fell on his face. His teeth bit into his lower lip and immediately the coppery taste of blood invaded his tongue. "Shit, shit," he mumbled, searching in the dark for his shirt and pants.
"What? Dorian, what's up?" asked Sadie. She sounded frustrated, sitting up in the bed but not moving to put her clothes back on.
"I promised someone something and… shit, what time is it?"
"Um." Sadie grabbed her phone from off of Cindy's night stand. "Quarter to one."
"Fuck, I'm so late," he muttered. In the timespan of fifteen seconds he had already thrown his shirt on, realized it was backwards, and fixed it the right way, buttoning up haphazardly all but the top button. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I really gotta go. Fuck."
"That's… what? What could be so important?"
Dorian may not have been necessarily in his right mind, but he was intelligent enough to realize that maybe it wasn't the best idea to bring up Keani to Sadie, or the other way around. Even though he had made nice with them both, that didn't necessarily mean that they had made nice with each other, even if Sadie felt sorry. "I just really gotta go."
As Dorian flipped the light on and slipped his shoes on, Sadie pulled the white comforter up over her nearly bare chest. Her face was painted red and her eyebrows knitted together. "This is an excuse, isn't it?" she said.
"No. No, it really isn't."
"Then tell me why you're leaving me naked in a bed."
"I really can't. I'm sorry." He grabbed his phone and keys and went to the door. With one last look back at the girl, he saw her mouth, slightly open, and her eyebrows relaxed but worry wrinkles forming on her forehead. Though he may have been imagining it, he could swear her eyes were glistening, and something told him, through a pang in his chest, that this was not the first time this had happened to her.
"You're beautiful," he reassured her, but still he left, and would spend the entire time as he ran to the beach wondering why only one person could ever win.
(A/N: Agh, I know it's not the best ending for a chapter, and I apologize, but I really don't want to take it another scene; I think it's at a good place. Sorry if things feel rushed, as well; I'm pretty sick so I don't think my writing's really up to par. Also, I usually write my chapters out in a notebook first during class or whatever—it helps me spend more time on detail and specifics—but I've actually been, gasp, paying attention in class lately (or just not going due to sickness) so I did this all on the laptop. Sorry sorry sorry. But I hope you enjoyed it regardless! Please do remember this is just fanfiction though! I'll try to update soon, but the weekend may be pretty busy. We'll see. Hope you enjoyed it!)