Uber apologies for it being incredibly late. I've had this written for a while but didn't realize it wasn't up... has gotten complicated and weirdly formatted as well. Thank you for reviews! 3
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I must have fallen asleep eventually, because when I wake up, I'm being kicked by a homeless man, whose smell must extend to a forty-foot radius from his body. I'm surprised I didn't wake up choking on the scent.
Aside from the foot familiarizing itself with my ribcage, my first thought was of Kairi. Where was she?
Grabbing the foot on its next sweeping entry, I looked around for her wildly. She was gone.
A less-than-complimentary word ran through my mind, composing and summarizing my situation nicely. It's a shame I can't repeat it here.
My captive is hopping around on his one foot, growling and yelling and I look up at the rib-kicker. Hmm, try for some diplomacy or just pin him against the wall and yell at him?
Let's screw with his brain a bit.
Pulling up the corners of my mouth in a gesture I feel a baboon would feel more comfortable making, I grin at the man.
"Where did the girl go?"
"Girl-girl-ain't-seen-any-girl-this-is-where-I-sleep-OW!"
That was me giving the captive foot a yank. If he seriously thought I was going to stay nice, he's got another think coming at him with the speed of an uncompromising rodent king in a rage. Which, I have found out, is pretty freaking fast.
"The girl," I repeat to his foul, overly-hairy face. "Is very important."
"Ran-off-haven't-seen-her-THAT WAY!"
Terrified, he points.
Smiling, I let go of him.
I walk away in the direction he pointed.
My two invisible and non-existent party members, Dung and Sloth, both complain that I could have handled that situation better by kicking the living snot (who came up with that phrase? How disgusting. I'm fine with snot; everyone's got it, but living snot? It's something that would keep Sora up nights) out of him.
Or just let him keep on kicking until he got bored and left.
Sloth is quickly falling off the radar of advice-taking-possibility. It amuses me that I still have a mental party, despite the fact that Kairi's here now. She should be all the party I'll ever need (did that sound too deep? Sorry, shallow Riku will be back in a minute, he stepped out to use the can).
All I really need now is Mickey and I'd have my ideal party. But, judging by my surroundings, the best I'm going to get is mini-Mickeys, also known as rats which are, for the most part, utterly useless in a party.
You can tell because Sora didn't have any.
"Kai?" I call. My voice echoes as I walk past an alleyway and I feel the urge to pause and peer down it.
It's very cliché to call out names. I feel like the hero in a horror movie, about to prance into a dark alleyway to find the doomed (and doubtless intimately involved) teenagers. That guy's always a loser, which is probably why he's the first to die.
But I'm not allowed to die.
Since Kairi's here, I have invulnerability. So even though I'm wandering down this dark alley now, while windows stare out of the buildings like soulless rips in the bounds of reality, I'm not allowed to die.
There's a strange sense to the universe in that it doesn't matter what you've done, so you tried to destroy the world, kill your father, get revenge for a guy stealing your fiancée and sending you to rot in a prison for eleven years (the only guy I really feel has it worse off than me: The Count of Monte Cristo), big whoop. If you have the immense good fortune to have a girl relying on you to keep her safe, you are invincible.
It could be that the only reason I'm still alive is because I believed Sora really couldn't do the job right when he shoved that door closed.
I mean, how reassuring is a fourteen-year-old screwing up his face and giving you a serious Nod as he effectively entraps you in a hellhole called 'Kingdom Hearts'?
Even Mickey hemmed and hawed over that when I asked him if he thought Sora could take care of Kairi. And this is the guy who claims to keep my spirits up. The girl I love is in the hands of a guy who gets the recommendation: "Sora can get very busy, but I'm sure he'll take care of Kairi!"
Yeah, I'm not sure Sora knows this, but 'taking care' of someone doesn't mean showing up once a week to water and feed them. People are not plants; they need love and tenderness and-- geez, shallow Riku has left the building again.
On with the search for Kairi.
"---but I'm really hungry!"
The voice is unmistakable and, like a Kairi-driven gummi ship, I curve towards the sound. Kairi has managed to talk herself into a corner with a couple of guys who look like they've been on the wrong side of a prison telephone wall more than once.
They say water seeks its own level and I suppose that's true. Kairi and I are united in our instinct to seek out the most dangerous environment and then… throw ourselves into it. We're kamikaze twins. I guess I should be happy we have so much in common.
"Hey, Kai, Kai!" I say, striding dangerously out of the alley's shadows. Of course, the sun nearly blinds me from the sudden transition from dark to light and I stand there blinking in the scathing sunlight. So much for dangerous. I can imagine these guys' faces when I look up and they see the stupid, freaking orange eyes.
Why yes, I did absorb the sun into my retinas, now will you please get away from my girlfriend? That'll go over well.
"Didn't I tell you I'd get us food in the morning? Why'd you leave?"
Kairi sniffed, like a kitten snubbing food and I feel distinctly unwanted.
"Last night you said I wasn't real and told me to 'piss off'," She says, refusing to look at me. "And you made me sleep in the cold and... and…"
Huh? The fact that there was nowhere else to go must have slipped her mind.
"We didn't have a choice." I point out easily. The girl's got a major discrepancy between the truth and the events that took place last night. Wow. Putting it like that makes it sound like something happened.
"You could've treated me like a girl!" She shoots back. "I'm not Sora!"
WHAT? When, when, if ever, have I treated her like Sora?
Do I admire the way Sora looks? Do I fantasize about sharing one of those idiotic paopu star-crack fruits with Sora? Would I comfort Sora by telling ridiculous, vegan-biased, bedtime stories? Would I offer to go bring Sora food?
Well, maybe I would do that last one.
But only if the food was also for Kairi, or if Sora was bleeding all over the place, or had been horrendously crippled or something in battle. Or if he was in Heartless form.
Die Ansem, once again, for making me miss that priceless phenomenon.
How many guys get to see their best friend in the form of a small, black, almost-cuddly-looking evil imp?
Apparently none, because I didn't. As I began pondering what Kairi had thought of Sora in Heartless form, the girl in question stamped her foot, fisting her tiny pink hands.
"Riku!"
"Huh?"
Greatest comeback of the century. Being alone too long has made me ridiculously introspective. Kairi screws up her cute little face like Sora, sighs, her narrow shoulders slumping, and puts a hand over her stomach.
"I'm sorry, I'm just really hungry."
"Hey, honey, we can treat you." One of the previously silent guys, who has been looking conspicuously from Kairi, to me, to Kairi, and weighing the pros and cons of going up against one to relieve him of the other. He's apparently decided I'm scrawny, pale, and scared-looking enough that there's no danger.
Why do people always decide that? Not that I'm complaining. They could just make it easier on themselves once in a while.
"Hey, hands off." I reply, stepping in front of Kairi.
"Nnnn!"
Turning at this odd sound, I see the girl sticking out her tongue at me. Naturally, this demands some kind of response. Does she not want food?
"I told you I'd get you food!"
"You don't have any money that's good here either, do you? But these guys…" Kairi looks the pair up and down, pushing past me slightly. I stare at her unprotected back, small and fragile, like a bird's.
She's taking the initiative?
She looks over her shoulder challengingly. Why am I getting the challenging look and not them? What did I do?! It's hard to understand this Kairi. The sobbing but strangely energetic little girl of last night has given way to a girl that is willing to go off with two complete strangers just to get food.
"You don't know if they're safe!"
"Safe?" She echoes. Her lips curve into a smile and I wonder if the Princesses of Heart taught her to smile like this. It looks like the way that Meg, the anorexic ponytail woman from the Underworld, would smile at Hercules when he's said something stupid.
"Riku, I've been kidnapped and had my heart stolen. I've dealt with guys named Axel who thought they could dangle Sora in front of me and I'd follow like a puppy. I didn't believe them. I didn't follow them. I've changed Riku, for the better I think." She tilts her head. "Haven't you?"
No.
If anyone stole Kairi's heart again, I'd do the same thing. With purer motives. With less lust for power.
But all in all…
I'd do the exact same thing.
She moves off towards the restaurants with the two guys, who seem more than willing to buy her food. A consolation prize, she waves back at me. I can't return the courtesy.
Even here, without Sora or Ansem or worlds falling in around me… I'm failing at winning Kairi.
As I sit here, again, on the roof of the redhead store, waiting for Kairi to return with food as I glare rather viciously at the restaurant she's sitting in… I can hear twangy music from somewhere. The singer's crying about 'some say it ain't a sunset, until you put a girrrrrl in it, it ain't got nothing!'
It's destroying the dramatic setting. You can't have an angsty scene with a jealous boy-who-wants-to-be-more-than-friends with a whiny, guitar-accompanied music wailing in the background.
Plus, the singer is making it sound as simple as getting a girl and sticking her in the sunset.
That would work well if girls were dolls, and if sunsets weren't a natural phenomenon that are impossible to actually 'stick' anyone in. I wonder if anyone has told the singer that.
I should be devising a way to get home.
The wheeled Heartless I saw two days ago aren't actually Heartless, but rather some kind of vehicle. Like a boat or a gummi ship, except with wheels and one of the most poisonous scents I've had to politely try to ignore since Oogie Boogie joined the Villain Squad.
Actually, I don't recall being very polite. The thing smelled like eight billion tiny things had curled up, done their business, and then died in that gunny sack of a body.
Which, after Sora cut it open, turned out to be exactly the case. For a 'car', as I'm guessing they're called, to smell the same as that, it takes some special doing. It must not smell quite as strong inside, looking at the crazed grins some of the drivers are wearing. There must be an intoxicating bit of power in those engines and what little attention hasn't magnetized itself on Kairi is itching to try driving one.
No!
Must think about ways to get home.
It's hard to focus on that, since there are none.
Maybe I can drive a car home. As the song says, "when you're driving in a truck, put a girl in it".
A girl who is currently off with two strangers trying to get food. Partially for you, you orange-eyed Sephiroth clone.
It's been an hour. Time for Operation: Extract Angel to begin, which is not half as dirty or exciting as it sounds.
Sliding off the roof, I start casually (hands in pockets, feet carefully picked up high enough not to trip in these bloody giant shoes, don't stare at anyone, even the insane ones) to walk towards the restaurant she's in.
I have officially become 'the stalker ex-boyfriend', minus the 'ex'.
--And actually minus the 'boyfriend' because Kairi hasn't even asked why I shut myself in Kingdom Hearts slash tried to take over the world, much less asked if it was out of any kind of romantic feeling for her.
But I'd rather think of myself as a secret admirer than a stalker, gay overtones aside. (And who doesn't think of pink stationary when they hear secret admirer?)
Blue eyes smile and she laughs at something one of her 'dates' says, before taking a slurp out of a large cup, eyes flirtatiously focused on the jerk speaking, who is falling all over himself to try to impress her.
He's incredibly nervous. He's going to carve a hill-shaped canal into the side of his head from tucking his hair over his ear, as he keeps doing compulsively. It's funny because he has a Mohawk. There isn't all that much to tuck.
The other jerk has enough piercings to qualify for a colander when they're removed. He also has enough self-confidence dripping from his posture to put several major pop stars to shame.
Oddly enough, it's the first jerk who pisses me off more. He makes Kairi giggle, the real giggles that usually only Sora can tease out of her, and he knows he's doing well. She likes him because he's too scared to let himself admit that he knows he's doing well. It irritates me.
Dung and Sloth are telling me to get a move on with the mission.
Which really makes no sense, since Kairi is all the party I ever wanted and you can't have more than three people in a party. Self-eradicating party members. Wow.
I open the door and walk to her booth. Nervous Jerk looks up, surprised in the middle of some story that required his hands to be three feet apart and six inches from Kairi's face. Arrogant Jerk doesn't really move, just rolls his head. Eighteen different piercings jangle. I radiate menace. I'm very good at it.
Don't mess with the kamikaze Riku boys.
"Kairi, are you done? We can go."
"What? But Riku—"
"Yeah, Ri-ku, we're not done. What are you, her brother?" Arrogant Jerk says, taking his foot off the bench. "It's not like we're not paying her for her time. Why don't you go sit in the car or something, since you're obviously not here to buy the lady food."
Now I'm having an entirely different mental conversation, this time, again, with everyone's favorite mouse, who seems to jump in and out of my party depending on ethical issues of the moment:
Me: 'No one will notice, it's just one missing thug in a world of lots of people, no one will know, LET ME KILL HIM.'
Him: "Buddy, that's murder! We don't kill people! It doesn't solve anything!"
Me: 'But it would solve something very very easily for me right now…'
Him: "Come on pal, you can do this. Think of some other excuse!"
I dredge through my mind, trying to find the easiest, most plausible, cheapest thing possible…
"Wouldn't Sora be upset?"
Kairi looks up at me then stares at the ceiling for a few long seconds before her shoulders drop slightly and the clear blue eyes are filled with remorse.
"You're right." She says quietly, and stands, much to the disappointment of Nervous Guy. He's losing his catch and he's all too aware of it.
"But—the enchilada story! You won't even know how it ends!" He says in desperation, again gesturing at just how big this thing was.
What an enchilada is, I have no idea. It sounds like an animal.
Kairi gives him a look that says she will have to suffer forever not knowing the end of his story. I wonder if he actually told her what an enchilada is, or why he would need a giant one. Is it some kind of weapon? I had assumed cars were the weapon of choice here…
Who needs a keyblade when you can have someone immobilized and possibly dead simply by running into them?
Apparently, enchiladas can do a better job of it.
As we walk out of the restaurant, leaving the scent of oil and grease behind us, Kairi is almost hissing with anger, like a forgotten teapot screaming in the kitchen. A storm is pending…
"What did you do that for? I was trying to get money!"
"By selling yourself out for dates? There are other ways."
"You weren't finding them. And why did you mention Sora?" She squints and rubs furiously at her eyes. "If I hadn't wandered into that stupid, stupid portal, I would be with him now!"
Instead of here, with the idiot who pulls you out of dates, mentions your pseudo-boyfriend on another world, and is currently suspecting that it may be your time of the month. I could write a book and call it 'Things to Never Say to Kairi'.
It'd be a niche-market book, obviously.
"Well?" She asks, looking at me expectantly. Operation: Extract Angel has succeeded, now to begin Operation: Extract Self from Huge Pile of Feces.
"What's your plan Riku? You don't want me doing anything like selling myself for dates, or anything that would hurt Sora, but I don't think I can really get a job here. Nothing gives out money and you can't just hit things…" She trails off into contemplation. Then, hesitantly:
"Can you even summon a keyblade here?"
"Yeah."
Not that it does us much good, but at least it's there. We stand, looking at the city, which unfolds around us like giant bat wings covering the earth.
A bat carrying various restaurants, clothing stores, and the occasional random rock garden, that is. And cars.
Speaking of which…
"We could get a car." I mention hopefully. The look she sends me could curl Ansem's hair.
"You can't drive."
"I can learn."
"We can't just steal one! It's unethical Riku!" Her fists tighten and quiver slightly; she's really angry. Helpless anger. Normally, I'd feel a rush of pity right now, but the expectation that I'd be one for 'ethics' half annoys me.
It's like she thinks I'm Sora.
"Maybe stealing a car is our only chance to get back home! You want to see Sora again, don't you?"
"Stop mentioning him!" She snaps. Now she's desperate. Her body language screams that she knows going on a date with two strangers wasn't staying true to Sora (true to Sora? Are they an item? I half believed I was making it up), but it also screams: 'I was hungry, it's totally justified!'.
"Yes! Yes, I want to see Sora more than anything in the world! I wanted to find him but I ended up finding you and I want to go home together to him! If we crash in a car, there's no way of doing that!"
Ohhhhh.
So that's my role.
She was never looking for me. I am an accidental method to Sora. I am a perk that she found while searching for Sora that she will show off to Sora so they can have happy fun time.
Or she could just be stressed and scared and alone and willing to take out her pain at anything at the current moment.
But since when have I been that understanding? I have a reputation to uphold.
"I'll get us a car."
"But you can't-"
"I'll get us a car and we'll figure out how to drive it." I repeat. She sighs overdramatically.
"We never even finished a raft. What are we going to do with something that looks and smells like that?" She indicates the busy road where various makes of cars whiz by, their operators doing everything from eating to staring and typing on tiny black plastic cases.
"We don't have to build it this time. I swear, I'll get you back home."
And even as I say it, it becomes reality. There was never any alternative to going back home, it was only a question of when.
After all, what's home for me? Orange eyes, near skeletal-figure, nasty-keyblade-summoning abilities… my parents wouldn't recognize me and at the moment, that's a good thing.
But one thing has rankled at me for far too long and I should ask her now, while we're in the near-post-serious lull of conversation.
"Would you have pushed off that raft without me if you hadn't been taken?" I ask without turning to face her.
The picture of them sitting on the tree trunk, swinging their legs and chatting, still burns in my mind. Kairi leans closer to Sora, the little brat oblivious to the romantic overturns, and she calmly suggests pushing the raft off with 'just the two of us, without Riku' the next day.
Since the knife of that suggestion was never fully pulled out, I just wonder if she'll twist it now. The silence that follows my question is far too long to be accidental.
Glancing back at her, I see her staring at me.
"What?" I mutter.
"You remember that?" She says, in a voice that makes wind whistling through gargoyles seem noisy.
"Yeah. I remember a lot of things."
Faces, names, memories… ironically, memory becomes sharper in darkness. You train it to conjure up what you need and whip it into shape until you're certain, certain that you won't forget a face, an expression, a moment, that you may never get back. I remember that day.
"Well…" She begins, in a voice that suggests that her answer comes plumbed from the depths of that bright soul.
Come on, out with it woman! Because she is. Or she's halfway there at least. She's a girl-woman, developed physically and mostly mentally, at least enough to make me feel stupid and childish and at the same time all knowing.
Riku wants to show off and she's not giving him the chance, because she knows things now too.
"If I knew, if I knew that you would be like this, that you would be bitter and mean and unhappy and not wanting to come home… then yes."
Oh.
… I should say something cliché here, like 'I didn't know the heart made such a loud crack when it breaks' or 'the sky never looked so gray before', but nothing comes to mind.
Everything's gone but the image of Kairi and Sora, sailing away in each other's arms. If the image pulls back a bit, we can see an angst-ridden Riku sitting on the shore, having Selphie hit him over the head with her jump-rope.
If that's not romantic, I don't know what is.
Now to find a car.