Alright got a new chapter...I really liked writing this one actually.

It's really interesting to write Hikari's stuff. She knows so little, so it's pretty fun writing in her POV when someone exhibits feelings she doesn't understand yet. Like anger, love...stuff like that

Anyway, hope you enjoy the chapter

Chapter 3

Try

"Hikari?"

Said girl continues to stare off into the distance, standing at the very edge of the dock. She continued to wear the clothes she'd come here in, but my mom doesn't let her leave the house without at least a scarf on. The cloth covers her mouth and almost her nose.

"Hikari." I still get no response. She does this every day now- staring at the island as if something were there waiting for her.

Maybe there is, for all I know.

"Can I go there?" She asks and I sigh softly. She asks that every day now, as if she now has short-term memory loss on top of full-on amnesia… A scary thought, for sure.

"Hikari, remember? I've told you before that we can't go to the island until it warms up again- the boats might get damaged out there," I walk over and stand by her side and fold my arms, looking at the island with her. "We'll go after the holidays, okay? I promise." I turn to smile at her, and, for the first time, she averts her eyes from the island to look at me instead and nods.

"Okay." She actually sounds a little disappointed this time and I chuckle and reach a hand up to pat her head, messing up her hair a little. She doesn't even care.

"Mom! I'm going out with Riku and Kairi now- see you later!" I call out to my mom as I swing open the door, letting in the cool air.

"Why don't you take Hikari with you?" She asks, walking into the room with a book in her hand. I blink.

"Well she seems…," I glance over at Hikari who's sitting at the table and seems to be drawing something absently. "Busy?"

"Sora," My mom's voice brings me back to attention. "Being around kids her own age might help jog her memory. You never know what could trigger something; so please?" She flashes that smile that says I can't refuse and I nod, walking over to Hikari who suddenly stops drawing as if feeling my presence.

"You wanna come with me, Hikari? It could be fun!" I ask with a grin. She looks up at me with the usually empty look in her eye and nods.

"Okay." She says and goes to put her shoes on- loose black boots that my mom claimed looked rather comfortable time and time again.

I take my chance to look at what she was drawing- sometimes we'd catch Hikari doodling random things the moment a paper was nearby, we always wonder if they're connected to her memories- and I raise a brow at the paper and frown.

A drawing of a drawing, it seemed, many drawings. It looks like an art studio of sorts. Maybe that's Hikari's job? An artist? Wherever she's from, I'm sure they miss her and want her to come back to work.

But we have no clue where "work" even is. I think frustratedly. Amnesia's becoming too much of a hassle lately.

Maybe something we do today will jog her memory, after all, we're getting closer to a breaking point here. These drawings can't just be a hobby of hers already, anyway.

"Can we go now?" I turn and Hikari's watching me, her brown eyes glancing down at her drawing with disinterest. I nod and come over to her, pulling down her scarf to her chin so I can see her entire face.

Then she actually jerks back as if my touch burned her and my eyes widen before I can say "Yeah, let's go", she pulls her scarf back up again, a sudden surprised gleam in her eye.

"… H-Hikari?" My mom stutters behind her. Hikari closes her eyes for a moment as if in thought and bows her head.

"I… I'm sorry. That was rude of me." She looks scared. We both see it and she knows we do. She's out the door in seconds, leaving me and my mom in shock.

I don't take time to stand around anymore and run out the door as well. "We'll be back later Mom, bye!" I call absently and hurry after Hikari who seems to be wandering aimlessly.

"Hikari!" I slow down next to her, she doesn't look at me. She's in a daze. "Hey, are you alright? What happened back there? If I hurt you or something, I-"

"I think I remembered something." Her voice cuts through my concerns and replaces them with surprise.

"You did? Really?" I breathe. After a moment she nods, as if she doesn't really want to. "That's great! What'd you remember?"

She stops walking. It takes me a second to stop as well and I turn toward her curiously. She's got this look in her eye… I can't quite put my finger on it, but I'm guessing it shook her up pretty badly. It's almost unnerving that she's showing a bit more emotion these days.

Her hand goes to her chest and clenches into a fist. I frown. "Hikari…? What was it?"

Hikari seems to be fighting herself for a moment, then, the blank expression is back again. Maybe it's a front, but it's pretty convincing.

"It's not real." She mutters and I blink.

"'Not real'…? Hikari, what're you talking about? How could it not be real?" I ask. She shakes her head.

"I remembered a dream. It had to have been a dream," She ignores my confused stare and mutters under her breath something I can barely catch. "Only explanation…"

I start to respond, but Hikari comes up to me before I can even take a breath. "Where are we meeting your friends?"

I sigh, knowing she doesn't plan on talking about it anymore. I gesture to the road ahead of us. "Come on, they're waiting for us."

We walk in complete silence. Hikari may still have the empty look in her eyes, but whatever she remembered is clearly still nagging her at the back of her mind.

Maybe one day, when she remembers enough, she can tell me more about the real Hikari. Not the one I came up with the name for.

"Hey Sora!" Kairi greets us with waves and smiles, her winter layers swaying in the light breeze. Riku stands beside her and nods at us.

I wave back and Kairi switches her gaze to Hikari. "Hi Hikari. How's it going?" She asks.

Hikari nods at her as Riku did. Maybe she's trying to pick up some ideas on how to interact from us? "Hello," She blinks and a flash of emotions sweeps across her eyes for a moment. "Fine."

Kairi clearly notices Hikari's change and glances at me. I shrug helplessly. She grabs Hikari's hand and pulls her along further into the shopping center. "Come on! It'll be fun!"

Riku walks up to me as soon as they're out of ear shot. "What's her problem?" He asks with a frown.

"Hikari said she remembered something," His eyes widen as we start to follow the girls. "Seemed to be a bad memory though… She thought she'd just remembered a dream."

Riku sighs heavily and I frown. "What's your problem?" He shoots me a look that for once doesn't faze me.

"Are we ever going to know anything about her, Sora? If this is how it's going to be- sooner or later it's going to get suspicious."

"Riku," I groan. "Just leave her be, alright? If it keeps up then I'll talk to her- happy now?" I ask exasperatedly. He nods after some hesitation.

"Fine, but I still don't like it." He mutters.

"You've never even talked to her Riku." He raises a brow at me. I narrow my eyes.

"What? It's not like she has much to say." He reasons, turning his attention to the sidewalk. Kairi talks animatedly to Hikari who seems to be trying her best to give reasonable responses. I guess even Hikari doesn't want to be in silence anymore.

"Just give her a chance." I mutter and run up ahead to the girls and stand beside Kairi, joining in their conversation easily.

Hopefully Riku will change his mind about Hikari soon. She's harmless, after all.

"You know what, Hikari?" Kairi turns to said girl in question.

"What is it?" Hikari asks and inwardly we're all glad that she's more responsive.

"I think we should go clothes shopping," Kairi grins at Hikari's confused expression. "Well you only have the clothes we found you in, after all."

Hikari frowns and glances at me as if searching for confirmation. I nod with a reassuring smile. "Alright. I suppose."

"Great!" Kairi takes her hand and immediately starts pulling her along, actually alarming the poor girl who attempts to pull away at the feeling, but to no avail.

Hikari is thrown into random articles of clothing for some time, though Riku and I tire of it fast, there's not much else to do. So we stay and watch the girl be subjected to the Kairi version of "torture".

She does not enjoy it.

Despite being unable to show the irritation or fear that most people would at times like this, the discomfort was still very clear on her features. She'd try to slip away when Kairi wasn't looking, but it was as if the redhead had sense for these kinds of things. There was no escape.

I wasn't sure whether to feel bad for her or just laugh about it.

"People die when they are killed."

Riku turns to the voice with a raised brow. Hikari stands beside him, a smoothie of some kind in her hands as she stares on ahead. But no one else is close enough to hear her, so is she talking to him?

She looks over at him and the usual empty look in her eyes unnerves Riku. "Do they not?" She questions further. Does she really not understand the concept of dying and killing?

"Of course they do, it's the same thing," Riku sighs, running a hand through his silver hair. He casts a quick glance at the girl before crossing his arms and looking on ahead as she does. "People are killed by someone, then they've been killed. They're dead. Nothing else to it," He says and frowns at her. "Why?"

Hikari bows her head, letting her bangs fall down in a straight line, almost as if she's ashamed for asking such a thing. Something flashes in her eyes for a moment. "I…"

"Is it something you remembered?" He asks again and she visibly flinches. Perhaps at the tone of his voice or the question itself. It's unclear.

"Perhaps…" She mutters. Riku narrows his eyes and uncrosses his arms, one grabs her shoulder and forcibly turns her body toward his own, an actual scared look in her eye for a moment. But just like that, it's gone, replaced by the emptiness as if she'd forgotten about the feeling.

"Listen Amnesia," He starts, choosing not to use the name given to her as he gets in her face. "Whatever's going on in that messed up head of yours, you tell us everything. Every. Little. Thing," He emphasizes sharply. "Because if one little bit of it is off, you're outta here. You endanger Sora, his mother, or me and Kairi, you're gone. You're a mystery to us. And that's dangerous."

He stands up straight again, ignoring the quick alarmed flash in her eyes. "If you wind up a danger to us, I'll kick you out myself. I don't care what Sora says." And with that he's gone. Maybe off to go find Kairi.

"Hikari!" I call out, coming over to the girl with food-filled bowls in my hands. Her back is to me. "Hey, where'd Riku go? Anyway- I got us some food, here," I place the bowls on the table. Hikari still hasn't turned around and I frown. "Hikari? You okay?"

I rest my hand on her shoulder and feel it shaking under my touch. Hikari seems to fight with herself for a moment, she draws a shaky breath.

"I'm fine," She swallows, but I still hear the tone in her voice that's never been there before. "I'll be right back."

"Hikari, wait-" But she's already gone, toward the bathroom not far off from where I am. "What was that about?" I mutter to myself.

I sit back down at our table and just wait. Riku must've gone to find Kairi and that's why he's not here anymore. Did he say something to Hikari while I was gone? That's actually pretty likely…

I sigh and stare into my bowl, the steam having already faded into nothing as I stir the noodles around with my chopsticks. Hikari's own bowl sat abandoned across from me, looking lonely with no one in front of it.

"Hey Sora," Kairi comes up from behind me and sits down. I don't see Riku, but I know he's not far behind. "Where's Hikari?"

"She's…," As I thought, Riku comes up as and sits down as well, only silently. He looks rather triumphant but masks it with a bored expression. I ignore it for now. "In the bathroom."

Kairi nods and stands up again. "I think I'll go too." She smiles and heads over in the same direction Hikari went. I sigh lightly.

"What's with you?" Riku asks and I shoot a pointed look his way.

"Me? What about you?" I fire back accusingly and he frowns at me.

"I didn't do anything, Sora," He sighs and leans back in his chair. "Just got my point across, is all."

"Riku, I said you should give her a chance, not scare her stiff!" I scoot my chair back a bit, almost ashamed to be sitting at the same table as him. "She can't do anything- especially not right now. You're not exactly making her feel at home."

"She's not at home. She has no home here- that much is obvious. In fact, that's all we even know about her- that she's a stranger. You're just too nice for your own good." He growls under his breath as if that last statement reminded him of something else.

"I know you don't trust her, okay? But come on, she hasn't even been here all that long. Don't tell me all that time with King Mickey just made into the most untrusting person in the worlds." I cross my arms, wishing for the moment that the King was indeed here with me. He could probably talk more since into Riku.

"Not untrusting. Careful." He says and I roll my eyes.

"More like paranoid." I mutter and he sighs.

"Sora-" He pauses, taken aback by the look I aim his way and he lowers his eyes for a moment. "Fine. I'll try. Happy now?"

"Hikari isn't," I say. "Not after what you said. It's not me you should be trying to help, after all. It's her. If we didn't find her, she'd probably have been stuck on that island until winter was over since we don't go back. You know what it's like to be alone that long like that?" I ask. Riku bows his head.

"Of course."

"Well, there you go." I say. It almost feels like I'm being too mature in this moment, but I ignore the feeling for the moment.

"Okay, okay, fine. I'll talk to her." He groans loudly and stands from his seat just as Kairi is coming back. She sits next to me with a troubled expression.

"Hey was Hikari… Different, when you saw her last? She wasn't leaving the stall." Kairi said worriedly and I shook my head with a small smile. Riku stopped close to the bathroom just as the door started to open.

"She'll be okay."

Hikari exits the bathroom, feeling no less saddened by Sora's friend's words than she had when she entered in the first place.

Why did it bother her so much? She wasn't sure. Everything felt so new and undiscovered to her. She wasn't even sure what this emotion she was currently feeling was that has her hands shaking and her head spinning.

Sora's mother got her to watch something she called a movie once, the people in it react the same way as she does now- his mother says it's called "fear".

So that's it. But what is she afraid of? Riku? Her memories if they betray her, whether they only bring up more questions rather than answers?

Or maybe…

"Hey."

The familiar voice tears Hikari from her thoughts with a start. Speak of the devil… Riku stands just a few feet away from her with his hands in his pockets.

"Hello." She responds, a tremble in her throat makes her words sound strangled. You're supposed to always greet each other, right? Riku raises a brow at her but then averts his eyes.

"Look, I…," He cuts off into an irritated sigh and runs a hand through his hair. Hikari takes that moment to move out of the way of people coming to the bathrooms as well and she stands beside the boy against the wall. "I'm sorry."

That gets her attention. She looks over at him in what she's come to believe is confusion. "Why?" She asks. He frowns.

"What? Are you serio-" He stops again and blinks before sighing. "Right, forgot I'm talking to Amnesia here." He says, a low growl hidden in his tone.

Hikari doesn't speak. She waits for him to continue and that seems to annoy him even more.

"What I said before- it was out of line, so I'm sorry. You're… You're memories are personal things anyway, so… You don't have to tell us everything." Riku seems to have trouble with doing things like this. Hikari understood, to a point. It seems difficult to have to take back what you feel so strongly about.

She knows he's right though, to them, she should be nothing more than a complete stranger, even to herself. Just someone you pass on the sidewalk and never think about again. She still didn't understand, however, why these people have been so kind to her and even gave her a new name when she didn't have one to call her own. Sora says they're friends, but the concept is still foreign to her.

Hikari feels Riku's eyes on her, waiting for a response.

"I see," She says, then she looks over at Riku. He doesn't seem to like it when she does that though. "But I don't understand."

"What?" He raises a brow at her. Her expression doesn't change. "What don't you understand?" He asks.

"Why you apologize when what you say is true," Her words catch Riku off guard. "It's true. I'm just a mystery; a stranger to all of you, including myself. Someone somewhere, though, knows me… But now I…," She takes a breath and averts her eyes for a moment. "I'm nothing but a figment."

Riku opens his mouth to speak up, but Hikari keeps going. "You are right to not trust me. You may be right to finish me off- to kill me. When you do, I'll be dead. I felt…," She looks at her hands, clenching them in shaking fists. "When you spoke to me, I felt far away. My hands shake, and I feel cold. But this… What is it?"

When she looks to Riku for an answer, he doesn't have the same look in his eyes. The fire that threatened to end her was no longer there and was replaced with… Something else she couldn't understand.

"Fear," He says. "What you felt was fear. I'm sorry I scared you, I-"

"Not you," She cuts him off. He blinks confusedly at her. "Your words."

"My words…?"

"Yes. Because, if I am a danger," She turns away from him to look toward Sora and Kairi. They're both laughing and talking animatedly, that familiar redness to their cheeks his mother tries to explain to her, but always fails at doing so. "Then I'm a danger to all of you. That means… Hurting you. Hurting Sora. Hurting his mother. Hurting Kairi. Hurting… Friends," She then glances at Riku. He has a funny face now. One who's emotion she can't place. "Are we… Friends?"

It takes Riku a second to compose himself. Then, he smiles at her. "Sure."

Hikari bows her head in thanks and starts to walk off again, but then stops and turns to him again.

"Hikari."

He raises a brow at her. "Huh?"

"My name," She says. "Not Amnesia. Hikari. The name from…" She suddenly feels something strange when thinking about Sora giving her the name "Hikari", as if it's what creates the bond they are slowly forming in her mind.

"Right, right… Hikari. I got it." Riku says, tearing her from her thoughts yet again.

Hikari nods and then goes back to the table with Sora and Kairi. Riku shakes his mind free of the strangeness that is the forgetful girl given the new name.

Strangeness… That he could probably live with for a while after all.

Anybody else remember that terrible anime subbing meme thing with the guy going "People die when they are killed!"? I thought of it randomly so I thought, with Hikari being Hikari, I could put it in without it being the worst writing known to man lol

Oooohhhhhhh what did she remember? WHAT IS IT YOU'LL NEVER KNOW (you will later of course anyway because PLOT) but yeah lol

So what'd you think? Good? Bad?

REVEIEW BEFORE FAVING/FOLLOWING PLEASE

Thank you!