So sorry for the late update. Thanks a lot for waiting. It would mean so much to me if you review. It's so encouraging :
Hope you like my story. I promise you, it will get better as the story progresses!!
Reality Ain't Pretty, Sora!
Chapter 4
"Sora, why are we here?" Riku asked his friend with great curiosity as the two stood in front of a small, dainty home before them. After hearing Sora's "fool proof" plan, he was quite nervous on how it would all work out. Most of the time, Riku was dragged into Sora's crazy schemes. This, unfortunately, would be one of them.
Sora mumbled under his breath, "Don't you remember the whole Tifa-Aerith-Cloud triangle? I'm pretty sure that Cloud may have written some love letters to her, even to Tifa. If we get one of those love letters, then we can edit it to give to Tifa, telling her that Cloud is going to go to her house tonight maybe. She'll fall for it, then bam! Axel gets Tifa and off my back."
"I don't get it. Why can't we fake a letter?" Riku pondered over the possibilities. He liked doing things the easy way instead of making everything so complicated like his friend tends to do.
Sora sighed. He didn't like to explain certain things over and over again for it to make perfect sense for other people. "We need Cloud's signature, without it, she'll know it'll be fake." He rang the doorbell and waited for someone to let them in. No one came.
This time, Riku rang the doorbell again and knocked loudly on the red door. A few moments, a tall and pretty woman flung the door open. "Hello Sora! Riku! Come on it, so sorry it took me so long."
She stepped aside and the two entered her cozy home. Aerith lead them to the kitchen, where she was cooking, and asked them to have a seat at her dinning table.
"You're just in time for lunch!" Aerith exclaimed gaily, taking out three plates from the cupboard and setting them before her friends. She then hovered over the stove, finishing whatever she was cooking. Sora and Riku exchanged confused glances. They were not expecting Aerith to give them lunch, in fact, they didn't want to stay for lunch.
"Uh…Aerith, that won't be necessary! We just wanted to ask a favor from you."
"Please. You must stay. I'd hate to send you home hungry. We can chat while we're eating" Aerith poured the rice and chicken from the pots into a glass container and placed it with the plates on the table. Sora hit his head with his hand and felt like banging his head on the table. Aerith had not even asked them their reason for visiting, she just forced them to eat with her.
Reluctantly, the two dumped food on their plates and began shoving it down their throats.
"So, Sora, tell me what is it that you came for?" Aerith began, eyeing them closely.
"I…was wondering, if you had any letters written by Cloud?" Sora asked with and note of hope in his voice. Aerith stopped eating, gradually bringing her fork down to her plate. A look of anger came over her attractive face. "Why would you want that?"
Riku sensed disaster on the way. He gave Sora the "this-isn't-working-out-let's-go-now" look, but Sora didn't care. He wasn't going to leave until he got what he came for.
"Umm, we need it for an important reason. We just need one." Sora assured, praying she would co-operate with him. "I can't really tell you why…"
To their surprise, the girl broke down. "Why did he have to leave me for Tifa?! It's not fair, I thought we had something special!! It's just not fair!" Tears streamed down her face and dripped onto her lap.
Sora leaned towards Riku and whispered in his ear, "Can you go upstairs and try to look for them by any chance?"
"I'm not going to do that! Why don't you do it!" Riku whispered back with frustration.
"Come on!"
"No!"
"Come on!"
"No!"
"Please!"
"NO!"
"I'm begging you!"
"Ugh, fine…gosh."
"I can't believe he'd do something like that to me!" The heart-broken girl sobbed as she watched at the two bicker silently.
"Yeah, I don't know." Sora got up from his seat and walked over to her, placing a comforting hand on her shoulder. "Please stop crying, he isn't worth it."
Aerith dried her tears with a napkin and cooled down somewhat. Looking up at Sora, she said. "I'm sorry. I cannot give you the letters."
"Are you sure? If he doesn't talk to you anyway, what's the point of keeping the old ones?" She went back to crying on the table at his unneeded remark. To her understanding, Cloud had left her for Tifa a few years ago. Cloud had always written letters to her when he was away looking for his dark side, Sephorith, until one day, he wrote to her saying that it was 'over'.
Since Sora knew this had happened, he thought that maybe he could forge a letter to Tifa saying that 'Cloud' wanted to take her out for dinner somewhere, when it would actually be Axel coming to her house instead of Cloud himself. Under pressure, Tifa may go with Axel when she sees him at her door instead of Cloud…sounds logical enough? To Sora, it made all the 'sense' in the world. He was the one who had gotten himself in his odd predicament, so it was up to him to try to fix it.
Riku waited for his chance to go upstairs into her room. He casually got up from his chair and quietly passed by Aerith. Quickly going into her room, he began opening drawers frantically searching for what they needed. His dung into a small drawer from her dresser, felt something and pulled it out. He wore a disgusted expression as he looked at what he held: a piece of red lingerie.
"It's definitely not in there!" he tossed the underwear back it it's original place. He had almost given up until a thought came to mind. He walked over to her bedside table and pulled at the bottom drawers. Nothing but books. Tossing them to the side, he spotted a bundle of papers held together tightly fastened with string.
A smile reached his face, was this what he was searching for? He untied the package and sorted what he had: loose papers, folded envelopes, and some dried flowers. Taking an envelope, he carefully opened it, not wanting to ruin it. His eyes scanned the paper to see if it was suitable for what Sora wanted to do with it. Tucking it in his pocket, he hastily put everything back together and closed the drawer, then went back to the kitchen to meet Sora. Riku saw Sora trying his best to calm down the heartbroken girl, who was still crying her heart out.
"Come on, Sora," he whispered from behind.
"Well, I'm sorry for all of this. Riku and I will be going now—" Sora said to Aerith, who did not show any signs of quieting down. Leaving the distraught girl to cry her worries away, the two snuck out of the house.
"Ok…that was strange." Sora said bluntly, heading away from the house. "I can't believe that went completely wrong."
Riku rolled his aquamarine eyes in disbelief and chuckled. "You expected that to go well?! That is probably the lamest plan you ever came up with, Sora! Regardless, I went in her room and got what you wanted." Pulling out a folded piece of paper from the pocket of his jeans, he handed it to Sora.
"What! You mean you got it!" His eyes widened, taking the item from Riku. Reading the letter, he smiled. "This is perfect!! Yes, yes, yes! Let's go to the Kinkos, that paper store place, now!"
"Your welcome" Riku emphasized, watching his best friend run of. Shoving his hands in his pockets, he followed. Upon entering the store, Sora thought of how he was going to make an edited version of the letter.
"What's this for, Sora?" Riku asked as he watched his friend taking a bottle of white out from the counter and handing it to him.
"I want you to take out Aerith's name and the date with that. Then I'm going to find a really good pen to write in Tifa's name and the current date. Then, we'll run it through the copy machine and print it out using a similar paper used for the letter. So hurry up, I'll be right back." Saying that, Sora went in search of the needed items.
Riku sighed. He didn't think that this would work at all. In fact, he didn't understand what was happening at all to begin with. Since he wanted to help out his friend, he slowly uncapped the bottle to reveal the small brush attached to the cap, then began painting over the unnecessary words. When he had finished, he reached for the bottle to recap it, but by mistake he knocked it over the piece of stationary. A huge puddle of whiteout soaked the fragile paper, the liquid traveled all the way to the other end of the letter.
"So how's it going?" Sora called from behind him. Biting his lip, he stepped aside to show the damage that had been done.
"WHAT DID YOU DO?" Sora yelled. He dropped the pen and paper that he held in his hand and rushed to the letter. It was ruined. Whiteout completely covered it top to bottom. The words that had once been written were now perished and blurry. "DO YOU KNOW WHAT YOU JUST DID?"
"I'm sorry. I didn't mean to spill it. I just wasn't looking where I was—" Riku tried his best to explain the problem, but Sora didn't bother to understand. He was to furious with all the trouble they had gone through to get this far.
"Do you see what you did? Look!" Sora grabbed the letter and smacked right onto Riku's face. The whiteout that had once been on the letter, was now all over Riku's face.
Peeling the paper off of his face, he used it to wipe the mess from him, then crushed it into a ball and threw it on the counter beside them.
"I don't know why I bother to help you anyways…" Riku's eyes remained emotionless, he walked out. Sora stood where he was, not understanding what he had done.
What did I do? But, he deserved it right?
His thoughts were interrupted when his cell phone ringing. "Hello?"
"Sora, did you ask--" Axel's voice on the other line was filled with anxiousness. "Uh. Well, no. But--", he mumbled trembling slightly. "You have tomorrow to do so, and that's it. Got it memorized?"
Click.
The hope that once lived inside him, had just shattered. Deciding to think of doing something about his problem tomorrow, he reluctantly returned home.
"Sora! You're home! Hurry up, we have to go to your school right now!" His mother's faint voice bellowed from her room when she heard the front door open. She appeared on the stairs and stared down at her son. "Are you alright, you look upset?"
"Let's just go." He removed his work apron and tossed it onto the floor. Sora headed for his mother's car and sat comfortably in the back seat while his mother sat in the driver's seat. "Why are we going to my school?" His hand traveled to his pocket to retrieve his ipod to drain out the rest of the world.
"We have a conference with you're principal. It was supposed to be on Wednesday, but we rescheduled it. Your dad was supposed to come, but he couldn't," she mentioned as she turned a corner.
"Ok" Worrying about the trouble he had caused earlier didn't bother him, he was used to things like that. Besides, his heart felt guilty and sorry for what he did to his best friend.
--xxx--xxx--xxx--xxx--
Sora was asked to sit in the chair outside the principle's office while his mom alone would talk to her first. The volume on his ipod was on full volume. His eyes were closed, head laid back in his chair, and he breath slowly as he waited patiently. The office door opened as his mother summoned him.
"She'd like to talk to you now, Sora." Unwillingly, he sat in the chair that his mother pointed at, then she left. "So…"
"Hello Sora!" greeted the optimistic principle who was nicknamed 'Ms. Torture' without her knowing. Sora glanced at her then out the window where thin strands of sunlight entered the room.
"What are you looking at?" She peered over to the window as well, then bore her stern brown eyes into his blue ones.
"Nothing."
Her high heels softly clunked against the scarlet colored carpet as she approached the window and took an occasional glance at Sora. "Do you care about passing high school? Or, rather where do you see yourself in life?"
"Sure…I guess. I don't know." Sora still had his earphones on with the music volume lower.
Her face worsened as she spotted the wire dangling from his left ear. "Take those off!" she snapped, "Listen when I am talking to you!"
Letting out a depressed sigh, he slowly removed the telltale earphones from his ears and shoved them his jean pocket. Sitting back in her chair, she leaned forward and embraced her hands together.
"I have decided to send you to boarding school – all boys boarding school - this summer. You can get your needed credits from there…since without them, you are endangered to repeating the twelfth grade. Now, do you want that?"
"I don't want to go to an all boys boarding school. I'm not going." His voice changed from a dull tone to being annoyed.
"I have talked to your mother about it and she agreed on the idea as well. If you rather stay in high school for another year-"
"It's worst than summer school!!" Sora complained. "Going to a school with just guys and no girls is like a love movie without all the sappy love-romance!"
"Maybe you should have thought about that when you were busy not graduating! And stop whining. You are going to go within the next week or two. So pack your bags because you will be there for the whole summer." The unmerciful principle leaned back into her chair as a smile formed on her face. Getting up roughly, he slammed the door behind him as he departed.
A grin appeared on her face as he left the room defeated.
--xxx--xxx--xxx--xxx--
It was silent as the Sora and his mother ate dinner together. The TV was turned off and all that could be heard was the occasional sound of a car passing by. "Mom, are you mad at me?"
No answer.
"Kairi wanted me to go to France with her for some singing thing that she wants to pursue. So can I go?" He was hoping that his mother would say 'yes' so that he could have a chance to spend time with Kairi.
"You're not going anywhere." Her disappointed eyes could not look at her corrupted son.
"Please! It's only going to be for a little bit. I can go to that nuthouse place when I come back!"
"Sora I said no! You don't deserve to go anywhere unless you straighten up!" She rose, getting ready to leave him. "I don't want to talk about this anymore."
It's not fair.
He was alone at the dinner table. The sound of his father's car arriving made him go to his bedroom. Thinking about the scolding from his other parent rested in his mind as he sat on the floor of his bedroom. His father's muffled conversation between him and his mother could be heard clearly to Sora. Eavesdropping maybe?
"I don't think you should kick him out of our house as you were suggesting earlier!" his mom countered.
"Why not? It would have helped. I was once like him and my parents did that to me. Look at where I am now…"
Sora's heart sank in deeply. His father, his own father wanted to kick him out? Getting upset, Sora slammed his door hard, making some of the posters on his wall sway. Sora only hung his head low at the remark.
"My dad hates me" was what Sora whispered, getting into his bed. The music from his ipod drained out his surroundings, soothing him as he fell asleep.
-End Chapter-
Did you like it? Did you? Please review!! I know that not too much happened in this chapter, but I have something special in mind for the future! Thank you so much to all of my reviewers, you guys are my enouragement!!
Poor Sora, he has to go to an all boys school- no girls, no Kairi!! What's he going to do now?! Stay tuned!!
-Sora788
