chapter two
roses

"Hello, Tohru," Riku said, voice dull as ever. That monosyllabic speaking pattern was the one he used the most as it was straight, direct and, above all, practical.

If Riku had been one for showing facial expression he would've smirked. Really, the notion of Mrs. Lockhart being vain enough to assume he only acted like that around her was laughable.

Riku treated everybody the same.

Even the dead people.

"Tohru?" Olette frowned. Her pout was complimented with a steady gaze from those empty eyes, silently exuding an air of unabashed confidence. It was rather odd how the girl had no qualms about being so blatant, as Riku knew the previous Olette – the living Olette – would've turned bright red if caught doing such a thing. "I understand that you need to give me a false name in order to divert suspicion, but please. Don't you think you're being a tad unoriginal?"

The boy, although slightly irked, felt no need to retaliate. It was true he had taken the name from a shojo manga – Selphie's favourite, actually.

Funny how the girl's helpless romanticism sometimes came in handy.

However, Riku had his doubts that the real Tohru – whoever she may be - had ever been drawn in a manner to cater for Olette's new appearance. Mindless butchery had never been very popular in such stories.

"You okay?" Riku replied, cell phone pressed against his ear.

Riku was a cautious boy, maybe borderline paranoid, and had used the same trick many times before. It always came in handy when he needed to speak to his clients in crowded areas. Without a cell phone, how else was he to hold a conversation with thin air? A bystander would just assume he was talking to a person on the other end of the line and be done with it.

(Certainly not that he was communicating with his dead school friend, at any rate.

Yes, the plan was safe. Riku liked being safe. Thus, the plan - the safe plan; and logically, with such a safe plan, he too, in effect, became safe. Riku valued safety.)

"Hmn. Just fabulous," Olette said, voice laced with heavy sarcasm, eyes narrowed.

"Elaborate," Riku commanded, sighing inwardly as he did so. He'd wasted four whole syllables.

He was in mourning.

"Welll," Olette said, floating alongside the boy amicably enough. However, Riku couldn't help but notice how she twitched every time a busy pedestrian scythed through one of her sides and out the other.

"No, no, no – I told you to take the hem of the dress up four inches…"

"-so then he was all like, 'no way', and I was all, 'you better believe it, brother, and then she said…"

"Yes, I'd like to book a hair appointment for 4 o'clock, yes, that's right, put it down under-"

"-and then he, you'll never get this right – oh no, not like that, you dirty girl! Hehehehe!"

"-I don't have enough time for this right now, Rey – you're getting some new shoes come hell or high water and…"

"But dah-deeee, you promised you'd get me an ice-cream!"

Riku sighed and let the clamour of voices wash over him, stoic and indifferent as he usually was.

Olette, on the other hand, was twitching sporadically at irregular intervals. She even went so far as to hiss at the beribboned little child who wanted an ice-cream, continuing to whine even as she walked straight through Olette's stomach.

"My death was reported in the newspaper, right?" the girl paused, glaring at the child. "I'm sure you know about it already. Did you cry for me at all?"

"No," Riku replied absently, sneakers thumping in monotone against the grey sidewalk. Rather, when Riku had scoured the paper carefully a few days ago he had been rather irked. Not annoyed, per say, because Larxene had long-ago informed him that it was unusual for dead bodies to spawn ghosts, but not exactly overjoyed.

"Don't worry about it," Larxene had said smoothly, gaze lingering on the newspaper in Riku's hands; b-i-i-i-g headline, school photograph and name printed out neatly at the bottom.

Olette DiCicco.

"Ghosts are abnormalities in the whole reaping of humanity thing. They're not meant to exist. Or at least, they wouldn't exist if everybody in our realm did their jobs properly."

And then she had rolled her eyes.

Riku had not been so easily placated, though. He had still remained suspicious over Olette's death, for there was still a chance he'd run into the girl, never mind how slim it was.

And it turned out he had been right, because here Olette was, stuck in limbo between one world and the next. Not sat idle on a cloud with a pretty halo and certainly not starting a new life as a hummingbird in a rainforest.

(Riku still wasn't too sure what happened beyond death. Surprisingly enough, it wasn't a thought that ever crossed his mind.)

Riku just had to assume that this time somebody in the nobody realm had not done their job properly. Maybe he could send Larxene back there with a threatening message when he got home?

Maybe something like 'Riku says you fail at life – you even fail at ending the lives of others'?

Then again, Riku liked to remain in their good books – it ensured some sort of life protection. Perhaps he'd put that idea on hold until he'd uncovered the secret of immortality.

"Riku, you sadden me," Olette said, voice adapting a teasing lilt; she obviously didn't mind that much. "Didn't you think my death was tragic? Being hit by a car at my age and – oh, my poor heart is all a-flutter!"

"Rather," the boy agreed, ducking his head to avoid a sharp glare of sunshine. Instinctively, he made for the inner edges of the sidewalk, sanctuary found in the form of shadows. Long, thin shadows, creeping forth like the monsters in fairytales, cast by various buildings. Mostly shops.

Olette liked shopping.

"Oh, would you look at those shoes?" the girl hummed, head tilted. "Orange flats! I need a new pair of those."

Riku coughed slightly.

"Used to need a new pair of those," Olette corrected herself, floating by humbly in Riku's wake, chastened. "I suppose you're right. They wouldn't really fit me now, anyway. Do you know I'm intangible to every object I come across? Suppose you would. Although…"

Fingers felt their way onto Riku's shoulder, intrusive and unwanted.

The boy shuddered, a strange pins and needles sensation beginning to grow beneath his skin. Pressing the phone firmly to his ear, he mumbled, "Cut it out."

Olette smiled wanly and extracted her fingers. "Intangible to everything except you, it seems. What gives?"

Riku shuddered, letting out a shaky breath. He didn't like being touched by normal people, especially not ghosts – sickly fingers and see-through skin seemed to leave marks that wouldn't fade, the smell of death lingering like ash.

Disgusting.

"Riku?" Olette asked again, face sunny and painted with curiosity. Well, she had been the editor of the school newspaper before she died. It was in her nature to ask questions.

"Larxene told me why," Riku explained, attempting to make the conversation sound natural to anybody in the crowd who may be eavesdropping.

In fact, Riku didn't doubt that Tifa might have people tailing him. It wasn't standard procedure for physiatrists (and a direct breach of his privacy) but, floundering helplessly for results as the brunette was, it seemed like the sort of thing she'd do. An act of desperation, you might say, because with this case she was getting nowhere.

"Who's Larxene?" Olette asked, seeming oblivious to the fashionista death god who was walking airily on Riku's left, feet pointed gracefully like a dancer's.

Larxene was disturbing in several ways, physically just as much mentally.

She was elegant, ethereally so, and glided like an apparition; a passing daydream. A princess from a fairytale, perhaps, face painfully pretty, stomach concave, arms dainty, skin cold like porcelain.

She was no doll, though.

Riku didn't even bat an eyelid at Olette's ignorance, for the situation had been explained to him many times before.

"Humans can't see us, doesn't matter if they're dead or alive – they're still human, either way. That's why people like you exist, to guide the souls to the afterlife because we are incapable of doing so ourselves," Larxene had explained the very first time she had met Riku all those years ago.

Seven years? Eight years?

He couldn't remember.

Instead of replying to Olette's question, his eyes instead danced across to a brightly-coloured shop sign a few yards away, creaking slightly in the breeze. Shadows dipped along the sidewalk under its gentle back-and-forth motions, shade from the vicious onslaught of sunshine that beat down so relentlessly.

Accompanying the unpleasant scent of car exhaust and pollution (things that came hand-in-hand with the world of today) was the heady aroma of freshly ground coffee beans.

Riku suddenly felt rather thirsty.

Besides, if he was really going to have this conversation with Olette – the one about the afterlife and 'what are you going to do now?' – he'd prefer to do it at the back of shop where he keep an eye on everyone.

Anybody could be listening in the street.

"Say, Tohru. Why don't we meet up at that coffee shop off the high street – you know the one, right? Yuffie's?"

Olette sighed. "I used to love going to Yuffie's."

"You're not going to be drinking anything," Riku couldn't help but remind her, crushing any feelings of nostalgia the brunette had previously harboured quite cruelly.

'Being nice' just wasn't part of his job description. Sure, he'd had to evoke tact to win around some particularly maudlin ghosts, but when all was said and done they were still dead.

Being nice didn't change that.

Being nice didn't change a thing.

"I know. It's just… I have some fond memories of this place, okay?" Olette asked, cheeks flushing slightly.

Riku shrugged the blush off, as he did with every blush.

Being rather intelligent and good looking had secured him a spot in people's hearts - put him on a pedestal, so to speak. The boys looked up to him, the girls hooked up with him. And the cold attitude worked wonders, too. Foolish girls often entertained thoughts that they would be his saving grace, the pretty princess that saw beyond the stoic shell. Fairytale-like, they would free him of some dreadful curse and he would open his eyes – really open them – and then they'd finally be together despite numerous attempts to thwart their unconventional, unconditional and unexpected love.

Too bad Riku already saw them for what they really were.

Silly creatures in too-short skirts with hair brutally cut, washed, blow-dried and straightened – selfish, too, for the most part.

Olette had been different, though. Reserved and shy, a bit of a wallflower, liked writing and singing and photography.

And, Riku thought idly, she had those three friends, didn't she? He couldn't recall their names off the top of his head, but he could remember them well enough; the tubby one and bossy one and the quiet one with blond hair.

Unlike all the other girls, Riku might have grown to like Olette.

As it was, it was too late now.

"Whatever. Listen; when we get there I'll explain everything, right?"

"Everything?" Olette asked, voice playful. "You were always such an enigma at school, Riku, I highly doubt you'll treat me any different just because I'm dead."

She was pretty perceptive, too.

Riku wasn't sure if that interested him or annoyed him.

"Well, maybe not everything," Riku corrected himself, an occurrence that was rather rare. That was probably why Larxene had started sniggering. "But most things, I guess."

Riku never guessed anything, he was far too practical. Facts and figures were always weighed up, colour-coded and put in lines. It was just safer that way, making sure to leave absolutely nothing up to luck. Riku didn't like luck.

What Olette didn't know wouldn't hurt her.

However, she had a reasonably high intelligence and knack for spotting things others didn't, due to her photography, finding beauty in places others would often overlook. As such, she may have figured this out for herself.

"I suppose most things is better than no things," Olette agreed, shoes scuffing through the pavement. "Okay, let's talk."

"Sure. See you there, Tohru."

And Riku turned his phone off.

His fingers didn't even tremble as he snapped the silver thing shut, returning it to the safety of his pocket. He then came to a halt outside of Yuffie's, the welcoming scent of coffee even more prominent now. It hung in the air like a veil, almost tangible – far more tangible than Olette, at any rate.

Riku watched in amusement as the girl floated through the door, deciding to open it once she was inside so as not to spoil her fun. He supposed it would just be cruel to rob of her simple pleasures like walking through walls.

Shaking his head, the boy pushed open the door and stepped inside, some wind chimes up above heralding his arrival…

"Heyyyyy! Riku!"

…and a rather shrill, feminine voice.

The silver-haired boy blinked and, in those precious few milliseconds of momentary darkness, a pair of arms found their way round his middle, tight as iron girders.

Never being one for physical contact (especially not from strangers), the boy froze, brain ticking like a time bomb. Any second now he was going to explode, and it wasn't going to pretty.

There was that paranoia again. It rose, unbidden, like a shadowy monster with golden eyes sharp teeth that lived under the bed. Thick, stifling paranoia that made his muscles twitch and brain spin, rational thought dissipating and he didn't like it, he hated it. Cynicism; everybody was guilty until proven innocent.

"Fine. Don't look happy to see me," the girl scolded.

And, now that those arms were off him, something else struck the boy, something he hadn't noticed before.

Shakily, he let out a breath he didn't know he had been holding, focusing on bits and pieces of random sound bytes – Larxene laughing, china cups clinking, Olette humming, the girl talking…

The girl's voice was sort of familiar…

"Kairi?"

The red-head grinned a typical Kairi-grin, instantly affirming all of Riku's suspicions. Her violet/blue eyes sparkled with amusement, one of her strange personality traits that Riku could never quite fathom. She was always happy. Always. Especially now, rocking back and forth on the heels of her feet, waitress outfit hanging off her skinny hips and bunching in unwieldy folds of pink material. It cut just to above her knees, one of them sporting a lovely assortment of bruises, socks rucked up around her ankles.

"Dropped a plate on myself a few days ago," the girl explained, clicking her tongue against the roof of her mouth. "I'm such a klutz sometimes."

"Understatement of the century," Riku snorted.

"Oi! Meanie," she pouted. "I haven't seen you in oh such a long time and then all you do is insult me! Me, your dearest, bestest, most loya-"

"Three weeks."

"Wha?" Kairi paused, blinking. She was prone to dramatic monologues, and oftentimes found herself disoriented if interrupted.

"I saw you three weeks ago, Kairi. It's not a long time."

"Ah, three weeks may seem like a relatively short amount of time to you, mon chéri, but to me… Oh, but me, those three weeks seemed to last decades! Seconds turned into minutes and minutes turned int-"

"Kairi! You're not paid to stand there and wax poetic on the customers," Yuffie grinned, a teasing smiling tugging at her lips. "If you're expecting some money at the end of the day, I think the least you could do is offer this gentleman a place to sit."

Kairi paused, watching as her boss clapped her hands three times in rapid succession. "Chop, chop. No time for dilly-dallying, Kairi."

"I'm soh-ree, Yuffie," Kairi replied, voice laced with liberal helpings of sarcasm.

"You better be careful, Kai-Kai. If I didn't like you so much you'd be fired so quick you couldn't even blink, geddit?" Yuffie chastised, turning neatly on the spot to deal with another customer.

"Yeah, Yeah, whatever," Kairi muttered, childishly sticking her tongue out at Yuffie's back. "Well, you heard what Yuffie said! Come on, lemme find you a seat. How's 'bout one near the window? You're so pretty you could attract more customers!"

Riku couldn't help but snort at Kairi's blatant display of… Well, being Kairi. The girl had an infectious personality, despite Riku's personal philosophy of staying safe.

One more friend was more liability.

However, Kairi was different. She was the sort of person you hated initially from the get-go but, given time, her childish banter and chipper persona would often seem more uniquely adorable, rather than punch-your-face-in annoying.

And it wasn't like she was stupid, either. Rather, behind that absent-minded façade lay a child prodigy. She had a strange affection for language and other culture, devouring new words and phrases like M&Ms. She had been fluent in English, Italian and Spanish at the age of seven and, right now, she was currently studying French and Korean, and had told Riku she was considering Japanese as well.

That was when Riku had first started to find her interesting.

It was not, however, when he had first started talking to her (although 'talking' wasn't a word that really described their brief, one-sided conversations. Mainly, Kairi had said stuff and Riku hadn't listened).

Back then Kairi had been a nameless seven-year-old girl who wore dresses made of light purple and cheap strings of plastic beads. Sometimes Riku had seen her make her jewellery, sat precariously on an ugly chair outside Auron's office, threading beads methodically onto a piece of string.

Riku had wondered if she was one of patients, mentally unstable and all that jazz, but quickly dismissed the idea once she had opened her mouth.

She wasn't angry all the time, she didn't have any irrational fears, she didn't have trouble expressing her feelings, she didn't have a split personality and she certainly wasn't shy or withdrawn.

She was Kairi. Just Kairi.

Just a nameless seven-year-old girl who wore dresses made of light purple and cheap strings of plastic beads.

She liked making things, she liked painting, she liked reading, she liked her family, she liked noodles, she liked her rabbit, she liked the colour pink, she liked her friends, she liked beaches, she liked Riku, she liked sunsets, she loved her uncle Auron (waited for him outside his office every day after school) and she absolutely adored learning new languages.

"But why?" Riku had asked, confused.

As all of Auron's one-on-one sessions proved, he was anti-social. The thought of talking to other people – stupid people - made his skin crawl. He wasn't even all that comfortable with talking to Kairi, sat in the waiting room for Auron to call him in so he could get the sessions over and done with (and Kairi, presumably, could go home), but her apparent interest in other cultures had piqued his interest.

"I like talking," Kairi had said, and it seemed to Riku as though Kairi liked everything.

"I'm surprised there's enough room in your heart to like so many things," Riku had said sarcastically, and Kairi had laughed.

"But, really... Knowing more languages means I can befriend more people, people I wouldn't be able to know otherwise. There's no excuse for not knowing somebody's native tongue other than ignorance, and if you don't take in an interest in others and their cultures then you're just selfish and simple-minded. Language shouldn't be treated as a barrier dividing separate races. Rather, it should be seen as something wonderful – a fun way of getting to know others! Least, that's what I think," Kairi had said, all the while clacking beads together as she fashioned more home-made jewellery.

After that inspiring speech, Riku had been… Not impressed, exactly, for he had always assumed that there was nobody out there whose words had more meaning than his own.

Rather, Riku had felt enlightened.

Before, despite his mental agility, he had found it hard trying to compare Kairi and Auron as relatives. He had been smart and professional, what with his high profile job and probing questions, but she had never seemed to exude a similar air of intelligence.

Now, at least, Riku could finally find some family resemblance.

And really, once he'd got to known why Kairi loved to talk so much, she hadn't been nearly as annoying. Instead, she'd started to grow on him, sort of like a mushroom – her strange exuberance and happy-go-lucky attitude and that amazingly colourful Kairi way of looking at the world.

Quite surprisingly, Riku found he didn't mind talking to Kairi.

And, more surprising still, Riku found he was still talking to Kairi now.

Despite the fact that a new physiatrist had been found, Riku and Kairi were still in contact via the use of e-mail and texting, and met up infrequently whenever Riku had a break in his busy schedule, exorcising ghosts and all that crap.

That was probably the only thing Kairi didn't know about Riku, and he wanted to keep it that way.

"Hey, Kairi," Riku muttered, attempted to pry her manicured nails from around his wrist.

"What, Riku?"

"Can I not sit by the window, please?" he asked, horribly aware that all eyes were on him. He sighed inwardly, knowing it was just like Kairi to make a scene. He'd been a fool expecting otherwise once she'd ever-so-kindly crushed him with that welcome hug. "I was hoping I could sit at the back, by myself… Away from people."

"Anti-social as ever," Kairi remarked, leading the way to the opposite side of the store.

Riku didn't even bother to point out that he was perfectly capable of finding a secluded table by himself. There wasn't much point, for he knew Kairi would argue back, and in arguments the girl never budged. It was sort of like trying to fight with a brick wall.

"Here you go," Kairi beamed, gesturing to a fairly nondescript table at the back, positioned by a cream-coloured wall at such an angle that he would be mostly invisible to everybody on the street and in the store. Riku could tell this table didn't get a lot of use due to its unfortunate placement, for the serviettes were folded exactly so with pointed edges and a fine layer of dust had settled atop of everything. There weren't even any pictures on the back walls. Evidently, Yuffie had reserved that table for people who didn't like colour and sunlight and socialising, and Riku was fairly glad she had done.

"You know me too well," Riku smiled a rare smile, sitting down elegantly at the chair nearest the corner.

"And you don't know me at all," Kairi grinned, hands reaching up to fix her stubby red ponytail. Loose strands of hair were starting to fall out haphazardly, and they were getting in her eyes; blowing them away or brushing them back was becoming bothersome. "Did you forget that I worked here, Riku-chan?"

"Speaking of which, are you doing Japanese yet?"

"You're evading the subject."

"Not evading, just…" Riku paused, wondering how to justify his sudden lapse of memory. Obviously he couldn't blame it on Olette's ghost, although there really was no other reason.

"Awww, you're just incapable of admitting you might have forgotten something!" the girl giggled. "Don't worry, you're only human – just like the rest of us!"

Ha. If only Kairi knew…

Actually, all things considered, it was better that she didn't.

"My studies are going great!" the girl continued to chirrup, fishing out a crumpled notebook from her pocket. "I'm really getting a hang on Korean now – it's not so hard once you get started."

"Et… Parlez-vous Français?"

"Oui, oui, c'est très bon! J'adore les langues. And I'm going to be starting Japanese in a few weeks, perhaps. Maybe even Polish some time next year – I'm feeling adventurous," Kairi grinned, pen poised in one hand over her notebook. "So what do you want?"

"Just a coffee."

"Sugar?"

"No – make it black."

"Size?"

"Normal size."

"Well, aren't you boring?" Kairi chided, snapping her notebook shut. "One medium black coffee. Riiiight. I'll be back with you in a second, honey."

"Thanks," Riku muttered, watching as Kairi bustled off in her ill-fitting uniform, messy ponytail starting to fall to pieces once more.

Riku rarely ever allowed himself to think kindly of others, for people were fickle. It was stupid to place faith in them and even more stupid to form friendships with them, but he found himself weakening around Kairi.

On her way to the counter she somehow managed to bang her hip against one of the tables, upsetting a glass of water as she did so. Her alarmed squeals and endless apologies – "I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry!" – only prompted another rare smile from Riku, watching the drama unfold from the corners of his eyes.

Kairi was like a walking disaster.

Forget the nobody and Death Gods and Larxene – Kairi was the real plague upon humanity, far too clumsy for her good with minimal skills of co-ordination.

Just because she was smart didn't mean she had common sense.

Realising that many of the occupants in the shop had turned to stare at Kairi, Riku spun back round in his chair to (finally) acknowledge Olette's existence again. Safely concealed in a hidden niche separate from the chaos, he knew it would be the perfect time to question Olette about the details or her death, the ones the newspapers could never convey.

"Olette."

"Hmn?" The girl's eyes snapped upwards to Riku's face in a heartbeat, fingers folding in her lap. "Are we going to talk now?"

"Yes, I think we are."

Didn't just think – Riku knew. He was going to get all the details and then he was going to get rid of her, most likely in the afternoon.

It wasn't heartless, just part of his job; quick and simple and straight-forward.

"Well…" Olette said, steadily staring the sugar bowl. "It happened last Friday, right?"

"Right," Riku nodded, affirming her story. That much was true, he knew for a fact. The newspaper said so.

"It was after school, and me'n Roxas had arranged to go out-"

"You went out? Together?" Riku asked, beginning to push a sachet of salt across the table. He wasn't normally one to be nosy (he detested people that showed such qualities, example; those silly girls liked to poke and pry at his private life every chance they got) but he felt he had to know. It was absolutely necessary, just as it was absolutely necessary for scientists to know the Earth went around the Sun.

Olette seemed vaguely amused by this question, for reasons Riku could not fathom. He assumed it was just one of those girl things.

"Yes we went out, you dummy. One whole year, in fact," she clarified, still smiling. "It was only something known by absolutely everybody."

"Not me."

"No. Not you. But you were never very interested in anything beyond your own little bubble, were you?"

Riku could not deny it, so instead he remained quiet. Really, who cared if Olette was going out with her bitchy little friend, or if she dumped him the very next day for his twin brother? If he wanted drama, he'd watch a soap opera. As it was, he wanted no drama, so he did not watch soap operas.

Kairi did, though.

He had to suppose once more it was another one of those girl things.

"You see, when we were going out… It was our anniversary," she sighed, sobering up a tad as the subject matter turned full circle back to the main question at hand. "It was such a special night out – beautiful, really. We got dressed up all nice and pretty and we went to this shop – this very same one – and Yuffie had set on the tables all romantic-like, with candles and stuff. Your clumsy waitress was there as well."

"Kairi," Riku stated, watching as aforementioned clumsy waitress bounded around with her legs seeming almost too large for her body, flailing her arms wildly.

She seemed taller than last time he'd seen her.

"Kairi, right. She's such a sweetie, but horribly clumsy."

"I hadn't noticed," Riku replied, voice deadpan.

"Anyway, when she was bringing me my lemonade she sort of tripped on thin air and spilt it all over poor Roxas," she giggled foolishly, but there was no real joy behind it. Rather, she looked vaguely depressed. "It was still a perfect evening, though – the sort you dream about ever since you were a little girl, you know?"

"No," Riku said, voice distant and detached. "For you see, I have never experienced this misfortune of being a girl myself, little or otherwise."

"You might as well be, what all your hair," Olette retorted, voice playful once more.

As if to prove her point, she leant across the table and fisted a handful of his silver bangs, coiling them round one finger slowly.

"It's a fashion statement," Riku retorted, attempting to shrug her off.

"I think it's more like a 'somebody needs to go to the hairdresser's statement'."

"The girls at school like it."

"The girls at school are hopelessly empty-headed," Olette sighed, withdrawing her fingers slowly, an almost regretful look painted on her face. She obviously missed having contact with sentient objects. "Do you know I was tailing that Drizella girl – the one with the sister in the drama club – and she said she was glad she finally had a shot of getting Roxas for herself!"

"That's horrible," Riku said, not knowing who Drizella was. He supposed it didn't really matter – he found that most girls were same anyway.

There was a pause and, as Olette picked at her wasted fingernails, Riku contemplated. What to say, what to say...

"So you got hit by a car."

It was a statement, not a question.

"Yes," she said. "And it was the best night of my life, besides."

"What a shame."

"I know," Olette frowned at her own misfortune, eyes flitting about the café with mild interest. Perhaps it stung a little, knowing this was the last place she and her boyfriend had been truly happy. "I wish I could tell him… Tell him it wasn't his fault… He blames himself, you know."

Her eyes were hollow, almost never-ending, irises flecked with a shroud of despair. It was an expression Riku had seen many-a time; dead people were not renowned for being particularly happy.

Then again, they weren't renowned for being particularly good conversationalists, either.

"Olette," Riku said, speaking just below a murmur; he had a sneaking suspicion Kairi would be back with his drink in a moment. "I have an idea. I think I might be able to help you speak to Roxas."

"Really?" the girl's eyes widened to comical proportions, round like dinner plates.

She was sort of like a human yoyo, flipping back and forth between emotions with a dizzying speed. Riku himself was beginning to feel a sick just watching her.

"Yes. I know exactly what we're going to do."

The sky: downcast. The landscape: gloomy. The people: listless. The mood: spirally downwards rapidly.

It was, quite literally, just another day in hell.

Every itty-bitty aspect of the place - from the scenic pits of brimstone to the picturesque piles of pungent corpses - had been finely-tuned beforehand by some almighty, all-knowing creator 'God' type, and the scenery corresponded exactly to the ideals of the masses that populated the human world. Everything was very dark, very depressing, very dull and very boring.

The sun in the sky hung large over the twisted landscape in all its splendour. It flickered like a candle as it slowly burnt itself out into oblivion, its dull orange colour reminiscent of Halloween nights complete with candy, trick-or-treating and grinning Jack-O-Lanterns.

Framing the giant, orange ball was a vast, inky sky completely devoid of stars and clouds – a huge, all-encompassing realm of nothing that threatened to swallow everything before it like a gaping black hole.

But still, even if its jaws did happen to open up one day and devour the barren landscape before it, there was no doubt it would wretch it back up again in disgust.

Everything in hell was either dead, dying or wishing it was dead or dying, at any rate.

Somewhere amongst all the dust and debris somebody (or, not be too cliché here, something) sighed.

A black cookie-cutter shape pitted against the pumpkin-esque sun, a pile of gangly limbs all folded up like a deckchair, bony fingers encased in black leather, a shock of ketchup hair, apple-green eyes.

The figure was strange, almost spider-like, staring off into the far-distant horizon. From the wrong angle it looked like those lanky limbs were a little too long and a little too plentiful. From the right angle it still looked pretty damn scary.

It's – or, in this case, his - name was Axel and, if he were in better spirits, I'm he would have told you, the faithful reader, to commit it to memory. As it was, he had better things to do than spout off silly catchphrases.

He was meant to be a God of Death, after all – bringer of doom and destruction and whatnot. If he had a license – which he didn't, having no use for such human necessities – it would've said right there, under his name, plain as day, in block capitals, 'OCCUPATION: REAPER OF SOULS'. There were no two ways about it, really.

Axel had been a reaper of souls for coming on two billion years now. It was his first and only job and he prided himself in the fact that he was pretty damn good at it – targeting victims, memorising details, writing down facts, murdering innocents. It was all child's play, really.

Maybe that's why he sighed that day, for the very first time in two billion years.

He was bored.

"What's wrong, Axel?" asked a slight, almost inaudible voice.

Axel's teeth were suddenly bared, sharp as a drawer full of knives, leather-clad fingers digging into the ashes underfoot as he turned to face his quarry. His eyes were narrowed into slits of stained-glass green, ribcage rising and fell slowly from startled, strained breathing (an action that was completely pointless in itself considering he was immortal and all that jazz. It was right there in the big rulebook the Superior had in his office – 'A god of death cannot be killed even if stabbed in his heart with a knife or shot in the head with a gun.') However, upon seeing who exactly his foe was, the murderous look slipped off his face almost instantaneously.

Psh. If it'd been Demyx, he wouldn't have been nearly as lucky... The idiot.

"Hi Naminé," he greeted with a casual wave, watching as she accepted the welcoming gesture with a quick nod of her head.

Really, Axel reasoned with himself, even if she had caught him at a moment of weakness, who was she to tell any of the others? No, Naminé – what with her pretty blonde hair and brittle sparrow bones - was trustworthy.

She was probably the closest thing to a human within a million miles of their stinking 'home', not counting the spheres they used to look down upon the human realm whenever there was reaping to be done and victims to chose.

She just seemed to have more compassion than the others, that was all. She was still a murderer, pretty face or no.

"Are you going to tell me why you were sulking on your ownsome now?" asked the little slip of a girl, clutching her trademark sketchbook to her chest. A packet of crayons also resided in her lap, wax shavings caught on the tips of her milky-white fingers.

"Well…" Axel said after a pause, doodling shapes aimlessly in the blanket of ash that perpetually covered the ground beneath him.

Oh, he knew exactly what was wrong now. Eternal rivers of torment and despair were all well and good, but after about a millennia or two the whole get-up got a bit depressing. But still…

It was nay impossible to voice his feelings to a fellow nobody. They weren't meant to have hearts – they were ripped out from birth (although, come to think of it, how were they born?) – so how could one even begin to contemplate the vast, swirling oceans of depression? They were very human emotions, after all, and nobodies weren't humans. Period.

Axel still felt depressed, even so.

"The Superior's annoyed at Demyx, you know," Naminé chirped up after a while, letting Axel's lack of response slide.

"Why?" asked Axel, not really caring for the response. The Superior was constantly annoyed at Demyx, and he would be far more surprised if it were the other way round.

"He messed up bad – real bad," Naminé shrugged, setting her sketchbook on her pointed knees. "He killed a human girl whilst developing feelings for her."

"Ah," Axel sighed, situation at hand becoming apparent. "Poor buggers. If only Demyx did his job properly we wouldn't have this problem."

"Quite," Naminé agreed placidly, selecting one of her crayons. "The Superior had some other news, though."

"Hmn?"

"He said he had a mission for you. Hmn… Yellow would look with this picture…"

"Hey, wait a minute," Axel interrupted, capturing both of Naminé's porcelain shoulders with his intrusive hands.

Axel's sudden burst of excitement had Naminé cutting her artistic musings short in a single human heart-beat, her blue eyes locking onto his grass-green optics as they smouldered with anticipation. "A mission? Seriously?"

Oh, this was perfect, perfect. Inner Axel was delirious with joy, drunk on happiness and other such feelings he wasn't actually allowed to feel because he was a God of Death and didn't have a heart and all that crap.

Still, he'd never really paid much attention in Xemnas' meetings before (that Rubik's cube had been much too engrossing), so the Superior could take his rules about human emotion and shove them up his ass, for all he cared. Axel was definitely feeling something here, some other-worldly excitement that bubbled from within his aging bones like a fountain of sherbet, the taste of adventure and action and something new to break the millennias of monotony already tangible on the tip of his tongue.

"Yes. I've got all the information you need right here," she confirmed, sliding a brown envelope out of her burgundy sketchbook. It was a little crumpled at the corners from the way it had been sandwiched between two thick wads of skinned trees, but that was nothing to the way Axel's fingernails layed into it, hungrily ripping the flimsy paper to ribbons to reveal the details of his mission.

Two pieces of paper fluttered into his lap, one landing up-turned – a photograph and a sheet of information.

Axel blinked slowly, green eyes boring into the simple snap-shot with enough intensity to burn a hole through it. If this was a victim, which there was no doubt it was, then he'd have to remember every tiny little detail, drink them in through a straw.

"Guess he's a little camera shy," Axel concluded after a second or two of scrutiny, tossing the picture of the dejected, emo-tastic boy aside. Really, he seemed fairly unremarkable as far as humans went – blue eyes, pale face, spiky yellow hair (although Naminé would probably correct him later and say 'honey-blond, Axel'. Whatever – it wasn't like he had enough time to screw around with the rainbow when there were killings to be done. Leave the artistic crap to the artists).

On the second sheet of paper, the one which had landed bottom-side up, there were details of the boy, proving him to be rather unremarkable still; his name was Roxas, he was born on 21st of June, he lived in Twilight Town, his mom was called Aerith (Aeris in some circles), he had a brother, his dad was dead, his girlfriend was dead – the girl Demyx killed, actually.

The girl Demyx failed to kill, rather.

All fairly average stuff.

At least, it was all fairly average until you got to the last part, written in the Superior's elegant script – large block capitals that ate up the white page like the plague, words that sent the gap in Axel's chest where his heart should've been clutching and contracting in a most frenzied manner.

The lettering said, in all simplicity, 'XIII?'.

"Wow…" Axel breathed slowly, apple-green eyes staring, blank, dumb-struck. "I mean… Wow…"

"He has a pretty face," Naminé murmured absent-mindedly, selecting a yellow crayon. She started to sketch out flyaway blond spikes, visions of pineapples flitting through her brain like butterflies in nets. "Shame he's going to die, isn't it? Guess you better get going."

"Yeah… I guess," Axel shrugged, attempting to disguise his excitement. Finally, a mission – a real mission.

He unfolded his limbs out from beneath him with a few token cracks, moving his neck around slowly to sort out any kinks. Being on your ass for so long can do that to even the healthiest God of Death, and Axel was as healthy as they came – his chest was concave and everything.

"See you later, Naminé."

"Yes. See you later," the girl agreed, her lips twisting into a secretive smile as she dipped her head behind the cover of her sketchbook once more.

And maybe, if Axel had been in a different frame of mind, he would've noticed that smile and faltered, stopped, interrogated his fellow murder-mate. What cause did she have to smile?

Maybe because she knew more about the mission than she was letting on.

a.n: omg, this chapter was long xD i rather much hope all other chapters will be this length in the future.