Chapter 4
Ding! Ding! Ding!
He could see the aisle, laid out with royal red carpeting, stretch out to a bright door at the end. Rays of light shot out, blindingly ethereal, impossible to see, as if a spotlight was focused on him. He put his hand up to shield his eyes and on the periphery, he saw rows and rows of cushioned church pews. Up above was a grand ceiling, a crisscross of wooden beams, beautiful patterns, and stained glass. There were people around him and they were all standing up. He recognized their faces, but could not recall their names.
Ding! Ding! Ding!
The sound of church bells reverberated. He tried to move his head, but it was fixed towards the blinding light. He could see the rays that slipped through his fingers shrink and dim. He lowered his hand, realizing that the light was dying. It finally disappeared, revealing a woman at the end.
It was Kairi. She was wearing a majestic gossamer white wedding dress. Her shoulders were bare, and her collarbone exposed with a low neckline. White material draped the rest of her lithe body beautifully. The bottom of the dress pooled at her feet, creating a regal aura. Her amazing auburn hair was tied up in a bun, two lacquer chopsticks keeping her angelic face free from any stray strands of hair. She was overwhelmingly beautiful.
Ding! Ding!
The bells continued to ring, the sound vibrating in his chest. His heart raced as she opened her eyes, revealing deep pools of violet framed by delicately applied mascara. She took a step forward. Her hands tightly grasped a bouquet, a collection of beautiful colors and petals spiraling and swirling in circles. She took another step. The veil that thinly covered her face swayed lightly. Another step forward. She wore white gloves that went up her forearm, ending at the elbow.
Ding!
The closer she was getting, the more his heart wanted to leap out of his chest. His breath was becoming erratic.
Bing!
He was starting to lose it as she got closer. My god, she was just so beautiful.
Beng!
She stopped before him. He wanted to reach out and touch her.
Beep!
A pair of hands opened the veil, allowing her true beauty to shine. A pair of hands? They weren't…his? His eyes followed the hand to the cuff, a black sleeve, leading up to a silver haired man wearing a tuxedo. It was Riku.
Beep.
She wasn't here for him.
Beep.
She was here for Riku.
Beep.
Not him.
Beep.
Riku and Kairi.
Beep.
Not him.
Beep.
Beep.
Beep.
Can somebody turn off that infernal clock? Wait. Clock? That sounded more like…one of those heartbeat monitors in the hospital. Oh, that's right; I just got hit by a car.
The monotonous ping stirred the boy into consciousness—but only a passable state. He was stuck between that realm of waking life and sleeping dead, his mind feebly trying to drag itself from the foggy depths of fatigue and dreams. He struggled to open his eyes but his eyelids were pinned down by an invisible weight. After a brief tussle, he was finally able to open them. He saw nothing. Everything was too blurry. His eyes were still adjusting to the light. It hurt to open them fully, so he slowly widened his eye lids. Squinting and without any focus, details faded and bled into each other, it was Gaussian Blur set to 500%. He was able to make out an indistinct auburn bob bouncing not so far away. The bob scurried about a short while, and seemed to spin towards him. He could feel its presence get closer.
"Hey, are you okay?" That voice. It was very familiar. Almost as if he hadn't heard it ages yet, he was dead-certain it was Kairi's.
"Eegghh…" Wow, he must've been pretty messed up if he couldn't force his vocal cords to produce a sound that resembled anything remotely human. The voice giggled. The next thing he knew, a glass was at his lips, pouring water down his parched throat. He could feel it loosen the pipes a bit, but he wasn't going to attempt speech again for fear of sounding like some delirious drunkard on his deathbed.
"God, you had me worried you know that? Just wait here a moment, I'll go get the doctor." He heard the door shut after her exit. He kept his bleary eyes closed, since anytime he tried to focus; it just looked like somebody smeared Vaseline all over his pupils. That was just great. Getting hit by a car one week before the wedding—was she already married? The fact that she was here either meant—well he didn't know what it meant, other than she cared. Maybe the wedding had passed, or he had gained consciousness just in time. Who knows? That's right; he was still wearing the tuxedo when he got hit. What happened to the clothes anyways? She couldn't have been too happy to see those get ruined. Dammit, he had probably had to pay for it too. Money wasn't an issue anyways—the last thing he remembered seeing was the shiny metal grill of the car that hit him. Why did he go out there anyways? Oh yeah, the kid. Was he safe?
His mind was running in a million different directions. He was probing for all the possibilities. His brain was so used to running in circles, he could probably think over a single idea five times over in the manner of seconds and still not get anywhere with it. The ability was both a blessing and a curse. It was great for writing stories since he made sure everything was perfect before putting it together, but it also took a long time to do it.
He heard the door open again, along with the sound of heavy footsteps.
"Mr. Hikari, how are you feeling?" a deep voice asked. Thinking on the question, he realized that he didn't feel much of anything at all. It was like his body wasn't there.
"I don't…?" His voice was hardly working properly, but it was enough to communicate. He heard a hearty, if somewhat, booming laugh.
"It must be the painkillers. You had quite a hit Mr. Hikari. Can you open your eyes?" The patient weakly nodded. "Alright, please do so." The bedridden boy complied and almost did the opposite when light entered them. "Please keep them open." The doctor aimed a flashlight into his pupils, forcing him to blink off dizzying spots. Waiting for the kaleidoscope of colors to disperse, his vision reached an acceptable level of clarity, revealing a middle-aged man with wide eyes and a long beard. The man was dressed in the usual white coat that doctor's often wear, but there wasn't a stethoscope around his neck—that would be too cliché. His hair was graying, so was his beard, and the deep set wrinkles underneath his eyes carried a great deal of wisdom and experience—along with some hard times and stress. "I'm Dr. Yen Sid."
"Nice to meet you?"
"If only it were under better circumstances," the doc chuckled, "would you like to know what happened to you?"
"Please." Taking out a clipboard, the old doctor scanned its contents. He absent-mindedly stroked his admittedly impressive beard as he flipped over several pages. A small irritation began to drum inside the patient; he hated it when doctors stalled without saying anything, almost as if they were trying to delay some terrible news like "You're going to die in three days" or some other ominous revelation or unforeseen medical diagnosis.
"Well first…" The doctor launched into a laundry list of injuries, the most significant of which was his broken left arm. Various other parts of his body, like his ribs and hip, also suffered damage, though not as much as his arm. Obviously his head was hit, causing the coma that he no doubt just woke up from. By the time the doctor finished, it sounded like everything but a clean bill of health. "But you seem to be conscious enough; do you know who you are?"
"Sora Hikari—was Kairi just here?" he asked weakly.
"That's right; she and your mom have been with you for the whole week. You have good friends and family Mr. Hikari. Now, follow my finger." The doctor put up his index finger and swung it left and right, which Sora followed easily with his eyes. The doctor, satisfied that the boy had regained functionality, sat up. "We still have to run some tests now that you're awake, but we expect to have you out in a week's time. Just sit back and relax for now." The doctor left the room, leaving the battered boy alone. Now that his eyes were working again, he decided to check out the room.
Having been in a hospital room before, the place was remarkably similar to the last time he checked in here, when he stupidly rushed across the street on the first day of school. See one hospital room and you've seen them all. They were always white, not pristine white, but a kind of sterile white, with a green tint. The floors were shiny, smooth, and polished, probably to make it easier to clean blood. The smell of antiseptic, as always, hung heavily in the air. At least there was a window, which allowed some much-needed natural light into the room. On a small table next to the bed was vase full of flowers. They were from Kairi, Riku, and some other names—he just laughed since the flowers were bought from his mom's shop.
The bed he was in was quite nice and comfortable. The blanket that covered his body was warm enough, but it wasn't the only thing that covered him. Thick hard plaster wrapped around his left arm, and bandages were tightly bound to his head. An IV drip idly fed nutrients to his body, and the machinery that caused him to wake up still beeped incessantly beside him. The neck brace he had on restricted his movement, making it hard for him to look around for traces of Kairi, wasn't she just here after all? He had lots of things to ask, things like "Are you married yet?" He heard the sound of the door opening again—why, speak of the devil.
"I just called your mom; she should be coming over by now," her sweet voice alerted.
"Thanks," he replied gratefully. Tilting his head, he saw the auburn bob, no longer an indistinct blurry head of hair, get closer, and then he blinked. The sight of Kairi stunned him.
"You look…"
He couldn't believe it.
It was impossible.
"…young," he finished. It was the most amazing thing he had ever seen.
The girl looked down on him as if he were the dumbest thing on the planet. "Thanks?"
Standing before him was Kairi, but not the Kairi that he expected, not the one he had met a week ago, but the Kairi that he knew, oh, just about 12 years ago. She stood there gloriously, in all her teenage beauty. Her hair, cut short and cute, gave off an air of tomboyish. Her cheeks were rounded, and the maturity and length that he had previously observed reverted back to adolescent form. The sleeves on her white shirt were rolled up to her shoulders, and a small blue tie hung from her collar. A blue plaid skirt completed the outfit; it was the standard Destiny High School uniform. He was pretty sure he had just been hit by a car trying to save a kid while trying on tuxedos for an imminent wedding, a wedding between her and Riku, his other best friend, but this unreal and impossible situation seemed more like—
Flick.
"OW!" Sora stared at her slightly miffed, the stinging pain between his eyes now settling into a dull throb, "What was that for?" She retracted her hand, a worried expression weighing her face down.
"That was for making me worry so much. Of all the things you could do on the first day of school." She let out a tired sigh as she approached a chair set against the wall and sank into it. "Thanks to you, I missed the first week." Wait just a minute. First week of school? Did I…? Nothing was making sense. Calm down. This situation was suspiciously similar—not just similar—exactly like the time I was hit by a car on the first day of school. Had I…gone back in time? Impossible. This is crazy!
"Kairi. How old am I?"
She looked at him oddly. "Fourteen. You got hit that bad huh? Can't even remember your own age?" These kinds of things weren't supposed to happen. Only in movies, TV, books, only in fiction. That's right, this had to be some kind of fiction, this couldn't be real—or maybe it was, and my old life was the one that wasn't real. He was getting a massive headache. The mix of reality-altering revelations and painkillers served as a powerful concoction to discombobulate and dismantle his brain. He couldn't think straight by a long shot. "Are you okay?" her voice interrupted. Like a brilliant ray of sunshine, her words had dispersed the cloud of confusion. That's right, just concentrate on the conversation at hand, and figure out everything else later.
"Yeah. I think. Why didn't you go to school? You didn't have to stick around."
"I wanted to be here the moment you woke up."
He felt warm and fuzzy inside. "Why?"
"Cause you would do the same for me." It was true; he would do that for her. Hell, he'd do a whole lot worse just for her sake. "Also, I wanted to be the first to let you know how stupid you were for getting hit by a car! What is wrong with you? Thanks for causing me so much trouble." Sora laughed, if a bit uneasily. This conversation was just too surreal.
"Well, I don't know if I'd do the same for you now," he fired back.
"You're such a bad liar," she accused with a smile, unconvinced. He didn't have anything to say back to her. If she only knew how long he had lied to her. But it wasn't a lie if it was just something he was hiding was it? No, it was definitely a lie, a lie of omission. He always gave an excuse, a completely different reason from the truth to explain away his flightiness. All of his smiles, his assurances, and wishes were thinly-veiled damnations, façades of miseries, just plain simple deception. Deceiving himself and those around him; it was what he spent his whole life trying to perfect. Maybe he was a bad liar, or maybe he was the perfect liar.
Her phone rang. "It's my mom, she's been pretty worried about you too. Actually, more like, she's worried about me worrying about you," she laughed. "I'll be back in a bit." She left the room, leaving him alone to his thoughts and surely, he had a lot to think about. Either he found himself in some time warp to the past, or the future was the result of some coma-induced dream caused by the accident, or he was actually still in a dream as the result of a car accident in the future. Wow, that was really confusing. His head started to hurt. What was it that they said again? To pinch yourself to see if you're dreaming? So he did.
"Ow!" Whose dumb idea was it to pinch yourself? Great way to hurt yourself for no reason. The world felt reasonably real enough. His senses were all there: sight, hearing, smell, taste, and touch. His eyes checked out alright, despite the fact he was seeing Kairi as a young teenager again—okay, maybe his eyes didn't check out but his ears were working just fine; he heard Kairi and the doctor with no problems. His nose was functional; the smell of antiseptic was stringent. His mouth tasted like he really needed to brush his teeth and as for touch, well, he didn't feel any pain, which were sure indicators of life, but all the bandages and plaster that covered his body also seemed to indicate that he was as high as a kite on painkillers. If this was a dream, it was the most ordinary and most realistic dream he had ever had, which was to say, it was pretty damn real.
But it's not like you can discard 12 years of future memories just like that. He highly doubted that he was able to live out 12 miserable years in the course of what seemed to be a one week coma. Then again, he'd heard stranger stories. It's not as if doctors have figured out the mystery that is the coma, otherwise he would've been out of it the second he came into it. He figured the mind must be a pretty powerful thing because only one or the other could possibly be real. The current reality and his "future" memories were the same on the realness scale. So what was this, some kind of time travel? Crazy talk. Yet it was also…oddly comforting? Could this be an honest-to-god second chance to correct everything that was wrong in his life before shit hit the fan?
His mind mulled over hundreds of different scenarios and possibilities. He never heard Kairi return to check up on him or see his mom visit. In the end, he collapsed into bed, his mind driving him to exhaustion, and knocking him out.
"Well, you seemed to have recovered just fine. No abnormalities, save for your broken arm, but that should heal in the passing weeks. You'll have to check in from time to time so we can finally cut your arm out of the cast. For the moment, you're just going to have to get used to it," Dr. Sid informed. It had been several days after he had regained consciousness, and after surviving a battery of tests, he had been granted an all-clear to leave the hospital. Using the past several days to ponder his condition, he wanted to ask the doctor a few questions to clear up some doubts, doubts geared towards the reality of, well, reality. That he had experienced a normal day and night cycle, as well as sleep, and that he retained all his memories of the days prior seemed to be proof indisputable that this wasn't a dream, but some part deep down inside told him otherwise. He had to confirm it.
"Doctor, what do you know about comas?"
"Hm? Why do you ask?" You mean, besides the fact that I was just in one?
"Have there been cases where, a coma patient wakes up, and it's like he's from another time?" It was the best he could frame the question, it wasn't exactly a common thing to ask, "Is this real?" He didn't want to be thrown into a padded cell before leaving the hospital. The doctor stroked his impressive beard a few times before answering.
"That's a fairly typical reaction for most coma patients. There's not a whole lot that we know, we learn only from cases such as yourself. It's not ethical to induce comas for the sake of research after all. You might feel a little disorientated for awhile."
"To tell you the truth, none of this feels real," so much for avoiding that padded cell, "I don't want to sound crazy or anything but…I'm supposed to be 26 years old, and that girl Kairi? She's supposed to be getting married." The doctor stared at him curiously.
"You're not crazy. There have been a variety of cases where men who have been in a coma for as many as fifteen years wake up, feeling as if they just took a nap. Similarly, there have been cases where patients who were gone for only a few minutes report that they've experienced entire lifetimes. It seems that yours is the latter case. Consider yourself lucky, some people have woken up thinking that they were in a stranger's body entirely! I assure you, this is real." He didn't buy it, the future was too vivid, too real to be the product of his imagination and yet, at the same time, the current reality was also telling him the same exact thing. Now is not the time to be experiencing an existential crisis! "If you really have lived an extra twelve years of your life in a coma, you might as well live it again," the doctor smiled. "Think of it as a second chance." With that, the doctor saw Sora fit for release.
"I can't believe you. I know you don't like school, but going this far is a little too much." Sora chuckled at his mother's antics. She had come to escort him home, away from the suffocating drab halls of the hospital. They were in the parking lot, and his mother was carrying all the flowers that he received as gifts. "To think these would be coming back to me," she mused. He turned around to take one last look at the hospital, last before coming back again for check ups anyways. It looked like how a hospital should look, big, glassy, and crowded. He never understood why parents wanted their kids to become doctors—was it just because of the money? There were certainly other ways to make money, like being a best-selling author—that's right, that wasn't true anymore. For some reason, the loss of his wealth didn't feel like much of a loss at all. It was actually kind of a miracle. Giving up all the money in the world for a second chance at high school was something he would've done in a heartbeat, and to actually be granted that—he pinched himself again. The pain wouldn't wake him up from a dream, but it was at least a distraction. He was getting too far ahead of himself. Coming upon the car, he opened the door to the passenger side and got in. "I'm just glad you're okay. It could've been a whole lot worse. Next time you cross the street, be a little more careful okay?"
"I'll remember it." The whole arm in the sling situation was pretty crappy, but like his mom said, it could've been a lot worse. At least he could still write, though the itch sometimes drove him crazy. The only bright side to all this, as far as he could tell anyways, was that he could sit out PE. Talk about breezing through class.
As he sat in the car, watching the scenery pass by, only then did it truly dawn on him that he wasn't 26. He was 14 again. A freshman in high school.
What.
The.
Hell.
Maybe the painkillers in the hospital were mucking up his thought processes then, but his system, now clear of any drugs, allowed his mind to be sharper, reaching a level of clarity denied to him by the numbing effects of pain medication. This current situation was an impossibility of the highest order yet, seeing Destiny Islands outside the window, looking at his mother's youth, trying to deny this was as futile as denying earth's gravity. It held him firmly in place. A second chance huh? To be honest, it didn't sound too bad but these kinds of things always had a catch; like a time limit or maybe one small detail was changed, which ends up dramatically altering everything else. He might come home to find an extra sibling or two, or maybe his father has come back from the dead, or maybe…maybe it was all just some elaborate cosmic prank. Fate must be screwing with him. The car ride didn't last long, until finally, it stopped at home.
Sora stood in front of the house not sure whether or not he should enter. Every detail was perfectly preserved as it was in his memory. The difference was quite startling, compared to when he arrived earlier as a downtrodden author to witness his love getting married to his other best friend. Everything had the feel of newer, fresher, and younger. It was the small things like how the garden was full of buds and flowers that had yet to bloom, how the paint had no cracks or seams, and of course, the way the mailbox was perfectly aligned against the wall. It was as if everything was just yelling at him, "Yo, everything's real! Just accept it!" He entered through the front door. It was strange to be walking through the door as a kid, he was shorter than he remembered. As he sifted through his hair with his free hand, he noticed it was spikier. His mom was already inside the kitchen, organizing what needed to be organized.
"I called the school and let them know you were in the hospital. You should be fine to go tomorrow, right?" Sora turned to his mom and gave a wry smile. She returned it. "Good." He casually walked up to the sofa, the old sofa where he spent most of his days and sank into it. He was sure he was on this very sofa a few days ago, except it wasn't as rundown, and the cushions weren't replacements. Looking past the coffee table, he was sad to see that the HDTV had reverted back to a standard-definition CRT. Wait, if this was real, how did he know about LED TVs? Don't tell me that was also a figment of my imagination? His eye caught a magazine on the coffee table, it was already opened, and surprise surprise, there was an article on the future of television and how the future would be "hi-definition." Crap, did he really dream everything after all?
He closed the offending article and stashed it away. Resting his head against the soft pillows, he took a deep breath. The familiar warmth and comfort was odd. It used to be just some couch, but now it was a couch that told him he had a second shot at life. Truly, he had found himself in another time and in another place. He felt himself slowly slip into the sweet embrace of sleep until the doorbell rang. "I'll get that; you can just make yourself at home again." He heard his mom's feet shuffle towards the entrance. "Oh hi!"
"Is Sora home?" a familiar voice rang out.
"You're just in time. He's lying on the couch, come on in!"
"Thank you." The sound of footsteps drew closer and closer until his best friend's head poked out from above the couch and looked down on him. "Hey. You okay?" She held a curious and utterly adorable look.
He grinned. "I was until you came along." A pillow smacked his face.
"Good to see you're still alive." He removed the pillow from his face and had to wonder if he even acted the same way when he was 14; but it wasn't like there was some kind of cover he had to maintain.
"What are you doing here, shouldn't you be in school?" he asked.
"Car must've really done a number on you. School's already over."
"Oh." The last time he went to school was like, jeez, 10 years or so? "What time is it?"
"Almost five—hey, lemme see your arm!" she excitedly requested.
"Er, sure." She made her way to his side and grabbed a hold of his cast. It was weird having an arm encased in quick-dry plaster that was hard enough to crack nuts with. He couldn't quite recall how he dealt with it in the past—er, now, but its weight was cumbersome and an awful inconvenience. He was curious to know what she wanted with his broken arm. The auburn girl lifted it up slowly and took out a marker from her pocket. With it, she began to write.
"There you go."
He looked at his cast to read the message. "I hope you get better soon. Oh, and you suck for getting hit by a car, Love Kairi."
"This way, you'll be constantly reminded of how dumb you were."
"I'll treasure this forever," he replied sarcastically. She giggled. "I'm glad you find this funny. This really sucks, now I can't even do anything. Can't even play games."
"It's not too bad; you get to skip PE don't you?" she consoled.
"Yeah, I thought of that too."
"Lucky, especially since you always sucked at sports." He couldn't exactly argue with that. He'd sooner run out of breath from just walking up the stairs. "Hey, you wanna do something?" It seemed as if she was getting into one of her flighty moods again. She would always jump at any opportunity to do something random.
"Like what?"
"I don't know, let's just go." She yanked him up by the free hand and went barreling out the door. "I'm going to borrow Sora for a moment!" she yelled to the boy's mom.
"Don't be out too late!"
"We won't!" She was always pulling him somewhere with no plan, coming up with ideas on the spot. It was an attitude that contradicted his; he was a deep brooding thinker that had to make sure every detail was just right before going for it. She had a flair for the spontaneous that was truly exceptional because it was actually spontaneous. Too many people devalue the word "spontaneity" by confusing it with "planned surprises."
Shuffling his feet to keep pace, her grip soon loosened as she went from a light jog to a steady walk. She glanced back and let go of his hand as soon as she saw that he could walk just fine on his own. He had déjà vu. The landscape wasn't a blur anymore; he was close enough to observe the detail he skimped out on. Everything was meticulously recreated in perfect detail, at least as perfectly as his unreliable memory could reproduce. He was conflicted, he couldn't shake off the feeling that this had all happened before. As they walked along the sidewalk, he looked over the houses and street signs that he never paid much attention to with a keener interest than before. Tired of burning the setting into his brain for future reference, he broke the silence.
"Where are we going?" he asked.
She looked up at the sky thoughtfully with a finger on her lips. She was too precious. "I dunno." He visibly sweat-dropped. "You haven't been outside in a while right? You shouldn't stay cooped in a house after being cooped up in a hospital." The reason sort of made sense, but he was never a fan of the outdoors.
"I guess…" If this was indeed the past, surely he could tap into his memories and predict what was going to happen next right? Unfortunately, time and distance had ravaged his capacity for recall. High school was just so long ago; it was almost like a completely different time era. The situation felt familiar, but he had no idea what was going to happen. On one hand, it was exciting, on another, it was disconcerting. His eyes followed the girl, admiring her beauty, but he was struck with a sudden thought. Was he truly a 26-year old in the body of a 14-year old, or was he a 14-year old who thought he was a 26-year old? Checking out the girl in front him wouldn't make him a pedophile would it? No, it would just make him a Kairiphile. He's been in love with her all his life; it wouldn't be that weird, would it? Ugh, forget I ever mentioned it.
"We're here!"
He looked around and realized they were at Destiny Island Park. He curled a curious brow. "The park of all places?"
She smiled brilliantly at him. "Great place huh?" The park was a wide expanse of land, covered with trimmed grass and stone and concrete paths for leisure walks. Small hills and barbeque pits dotted the place. For the athletically inclined, there was a baseball diamond, hard-top basketball courts, and fenced-in tennis courts.
Fall was starting to set in; trees were beginning to shed their leaves for the coming winter, green was replaced with reddish and yellow hues, and piles of natural refuse littered the park indiscriminately. He always loved the fall because it reminded him of her—an auburn autumn. A small wind kicked up a pile of leaves towards him, forcing him to shield his face with his lone free hand. Spitting out a leaf, he heard her giggle. They stood at the entrance and across from them was a small children's playground, with an idle swing set begging to be used. "I'll race you to the swings!" she challenged.
"That's real fair, I'm handicapped!" he protested.
She stuck her tongue out. "It's your arm that's broken, not your legs." She was as cheeky as ever. He had almost forgotten how whimsical she could be at times.
"Tch, I could beat you with no arms." She set off and he quickly followed behind. Trying to run with one arm and another stuck in a cast sounds a lot easier than it actually was. She pulled ahead and jumped on the swing seat. Sora stumbled by a few seconds later, breathing hard.
"What was that about beating me with no arms?"
He took a seat on the swing and leant against the chain. "Cast is heavier than it looks."
"Suure." He looked at her and saw her standing on the swing. A light breeze brought a torrent of red leaves, a flurry that seemed to swirl around her. Her hair bounced softly in the wind. He almost lost his breath at the scene. It was at times like these he wished he had a camera. The moment passed as soon as it came. "You think you can push me?" He nodded and put himself behind her. With one arm he shoved her back lightly. "Is that all you got? Push harder!" she ordered. He rolled his eyes as he let momentum make the job easier for him. She let out a gale of laughter in delight; it was music to his ears. He took a step back, watching the girl enjoy the simple activity with the heart of a ten-year old. The last time he enjoyed a moment like this was…he couldn't even remember.
"Having enough fun yet?" he smirked.
"You bet!" He went back to his seat and watched his companion swing to seemingly higher heights. The higher she went, the further out of reach she became. No matter the time or place, she was always so far away. Even when they first met during that fateful PE class, she was a hyperactive little bee, buzzing forwards, sideways, and backwards, all over the place. She had helped him. Pulled him out of his shell, and exposed a child that simply wanted to be happy. By the time they reached high school, he was relatively normal, if a bit timid.
But when Riku and Kairi got together, all progress disappeared, and he was sent back to where he began. He was no longer a child yearning for his father, but a child yearning for his love. This yearning had manifested itself in the strangest of ways. With his father, he became sullen and bitterly anti-social, and mostly resisted Kairi's advances and invitations for play. But she wore him down, won him over, and wormed her way into his heart. But with her loss, there was no one else to pick up the pieces. She was the only one who could put it back together but she was far too happy with Riku to notice—not like he wanted her to notice. If she was happy, he didn't want to ruin it. He couldn't go back to his sullen moods, it would be too obvious. He didn't want to be responsible for ruining a legitimate relationship because of his avarice. He didn't grow up under her care and friendship to become a vindictive relationship wrecker.
So he forced himself to be happy for her. He forced himself to smile. He became outgoing, laughing, easily making friends, and joking around. He made himself likeable, overly optimistic, adopting a care-free attitude that spelled no worries in the world. He mastered the distance, perfected the act, and made sure that nobody could ever tell what he was really thinking. He never showed more than he had to, only enough to satisfy. He could easily bring himself to the center of attention, and just as easily become a ghost in the background. He was neither important nor insignificant. At most, he showed that he existed, but in the end, all his friends would be left with the memory of a happy-go-lucky fool who mysteriously disappeared. Only when he was gone would it dawn on them that they never really knew who he was, what he did, what he liked, and they would question if the boy ever existed at all. Her laughter roused him from his reverie.
"Why are you so damn cheery?" he questioned.
She looked at him as if he grew an extra head. "What are you talking about? Life's too fun to be down!" They were innocent words, words that betrayed a lack of unhappiness. He just smiled, but a deep sense of melancholy began to emerge from his heart. He was beginning to realize how utterly retarded and stupid he was being for the last decade of his life. He was starting to hate these revelations but they were true. Even if she was with Riku, it still didn't change the fact that she was his friend first and foremost. He wasn't just running away from pain, he was also running away from this. Moments like these that brightened up his life. Just being around her was enough to make him smile and somehow along the way, he had forgotten this feeling and replaced it with misery.
"I'm sorry," he suddenly said.
She let the swing slow its arc. "For what?"
"I don't know. I'm just sorry. Accept it okay?"
"No way, you got nothing to be sorry for." It was just like her. Even when she, at times, could become the very devil, she was also too forgiving. Still, he felt the need to apologize anyway. Even if he was a coward, he was at least a man of principle—scratch that—a teenager of principle. He had to make amends to this person, this person who he had hurt tremendously, even if the hurt hadn't occurred yet.
"Then in that case, thank you instead." She looked at him funny. "I don't even know why you're friends with an idiot like me." She began to pick up on the sour mood the boy was having and it really bothered her that she didn't know the reason for it.
"Don't talk like that. You're not an idiot…well, you are sometimes, but at least you're my idiot. Besides, you need someone to watch out for you."
"Ah, I see, I'm just a charity case. I'm an adult; I can take care of myself."
"You an adult?" He forgot he was 14 again, well; at least he was mentally an adult. "Still just a kid. You're like my little brother!" The ugly truth rears its head. So that was the nature of their relationship? It was no small wonder that he thought he never had a chance with her. After all, who wants to date their little brother? He barely suppressed a grimace. This was even worse than the dreaded "friend zone."
He was given a second chance to change all that though. He didn't expect things to change overnight. Hell, he wondered if things were going to change at all. This might as well be a second chance for him to screw up all over again. Why were things so complicated? This was a second chance; it doesn't have to be a mess! Sure, there have been countless stories where a person has been given a second chance only to screw up even worse than before, but those were just stories—this is reality! At least it felt like it. There were still many issues to sort out. Those 12 years—they had to be real. Bearing a weight that heavy, it would be unnatural if the weight was imagined. He took a deep breath and saw his companion staring at him with worry.
"Let's go home."
"Already?" she moaned. He shrugged as he started walking. She hopped off the swing and skipped behind. They walked in a comfortable silence until she asked him a question. "Are you okay?" The question hung in the air as the boy steadfastly made his way home. Things would be different this time. He wasn't about to let those twelve years, imagined or not, go to waste. He wasn't going to let all that suffering, misery, depression; all those memories disappear just because they never happened. He would change himself. He would turn himself into a person that he could actually look at in the mirror without cringing. Things would be different this time.
"For the first time in my life, I think I actually am."