Suburbia
'Eau de Empty'
Summer days were repetitive.
Riku knew he had overslept before he had even opened his eyes. ...Mostly he knew simply because it was so damn difficult to open his eyes in the first place. He'd already fallen into the mental summer haze of one day blending into another, blending into another. But oh, that's right. Yesterday I was accused of molesting the girl next door after wandering listlessly around the neighborhood for three hours in my underwear. Now I remember. Yep. It's all coming back to me now, goddammit. The silver-haired teen took his time rolling out of bed, only forgetting at the last minute that feet were required for standing, thereby kissing the bedroom floor no sooner than the moment his body left the mattress.
Face-down upon the floor, Riku allowed it all to sink in for one golden moment, eyes closed and pressed into the carpet. I would say this is unlike me, he thought to himself, but lately... who knows. This could be the new norm.
Having uprighted himself at long last, Riku poked his head out the bedroom door and listened a moment. No sound of the aunt anywhere-- the uncle would be at work. ...Good. Gooooood. Riku yawned widely, scratching his head while he began to shuffle down the stairs, relatively at ease in the house now that it--
Hold up a minute.
Riku blinked, foot hovering midair on the stairwell, poised between one step and the next. Something was off. Backtrack. Walking backwards up the stairs, Riku frowned. Nothing amiss in the hallway. He backed into the guest room, paused, and spun around. Right past the crumpled mess of sheets and quilts spilling onto the floor was a neat stack of cardboard boxes, some labeled 'FRAGILE,' others not labeled at all.
My stuff from home... Riku glanced at the clock which diligently reported that it was well past noon. No wonder everyone was gone. Most people had lives on a weekday afternoon. I guess it all finally shipped here... but who brought it all the way upstairs?
Making another go at the stairway, Riku noticed still more boxes piled by the front door, sun spilling through the side windows and zagging across the cardboard, dust motes floating and landing with their usual lazy grace. He was feeling unusually observant, that morning, Riku was. ...That afternoon, that is. Was. Noon. ...At any rate. By the time he finally made it to the kitchen, it was all Riku could do to smother a girly yelp as a voice pierced the silence and startled the hell out of him.
"Don't you absolutely hate it when you shake and shake the box like crazy, but the cereal still won't come out?" Kairi sat at the kitchen table, scowling darkly at the cereal box in hand, which she was indeed shaking rather violently. Heaving a mighty sigh, the girl gave up and promptly stuck her hand right in the box itself, shoveling out a gritty looking cereal into her bowl, all the while prattling on, "Mayako let me in. She said you were still sleeping and she had errands to get to. Oh Riku Wataya, what're we gonna do with you, huh? Sooo la-zy. Wh-- hey!" Her scowl was redirected at the boy towering above her, filled cereal bowl balanced between his two hands.
"Hungry?" he asked with a sleepy sort of half smirk.
"There's no food at my house!" Kairi whined.
"...This stuff looks disgusting."
"I'm a beggar, not a chooser." Snatching the cereal bowl back with little to no qualms from Riku, Kairi waved her spoon around dramatically, artfully changing the topic as she did so. Her eyes were on the boxes still piled near the front doorway. Riku couldn't help but think that those boxes looked more intimidating somehow than the ones he'd discovered tucked upstairs earlier. Boxes? Intimidating? Get real.
"Hey, what's all this stuff around here anyway?" Kairi asked.
"Old stuff we couldn't bring on the plane with us. I guess it just finally got here this morning."
"Your stuff?"
Riku shrugged, leaning against the door-frame and looking off at nothing in particular. "Some of it's probably my parents'," he said, "but I think most of it's mine. Can't take everything, though, you know."
"Can't leave everything behind, either." At that, Riku looked towards Kairi, but she was pondering the cereal heaped in her spoon when she said, "Rough," when she carefully avoided any and all contact with his blazing green gaze.
"Whatever." Just drop it. He turned away, intent on finding something halfway decent to eat, if nothing else. He settled for yogurt, even though he hated yogurt. He figured he'd probably just pitch the rest of it eventually. All it was was curdled milk. No one would care. How fitting. Observant, observant. God, please don't let this be another blue panda rainy day.
Riku ignored Kairi's intense stare, only lasting a moment's time before she broke away, spoon clattering noisily against the side of the bowl in some vain attempt to get the cereal to soak up some milk. Head turned to one side, she looked out the kitchen window and heaved a little sigh. She said, "It's so hot out today... Nobody can do anything when it's so hot out, you know? It's horrible."
Riku's grunt of agreement did nothing to further conversation. All it seemed to successfully do was throw the room into a deeper silence-- Kairi thoughtfully chewing on her bottom lip as she continued to push her cereal around the bowl, Riku wincing as he downed a mouthful of yogurt. Riku wondered if he should check up on her, make sure her parents didn't light into her over yesterday's little fiasco. ...He did have his fair share of questions he wanted cleared up. Like what exactly Kairi's parents had meant when they'd brought up the issue of "sexual liberation." He figured they were talking about Sora or... something to do with Sora.
Sora was quite the sexy little bastard, after all.
"Look, why are you being so nice to me?" Riku asked after another long moment of silence. Okay, not the question I was going for there, but hey. It's a start.
"Huh?"
"Since I got here. Why are you being so nice to me?" Riku pressed.
Kairi continued to look blankly at him for another few moments before letting out a girlish little giggle and shaking her head. "Because you're a cool guy, Riku Wataya! Come on!" After a slight pause, a devious smirk settled across her face and her voice took on a pleasant sing-songy quality as she chided, "Are yo-ou fishing for comp-li-ments?"
"No, I'm not. I just..." Riku trailed off. How could Kairi honestly expect Riku to take her kindness seriously if she always talked about everything as though it didn't matter? As though it were all some stupid joke? Whether the girl picked up on this thought or not, her mood instantly changed and her voice actually dropped a notch, her chair pushing against the floor as she stood. Riku turned to face the window, hoping she wouldn't come anywhere near him. He didn't really know why. He just didn't want her there.
She was too much like...
"Look, Riku. I'm especially nice to you because you look like a sad little kid who needs a hand. And I've got 'em. Everyone here's got 'em, just some people choose not to use 'em." He felt her arms wrapping around his middle in some sort of backwards hug, arms and hands stretched out for him to see. With her palms towards the ceiling and her chin against his shoulder, Kairi smiled. "See?'
"I'm hardly a sad little kid. Do you mind?"
"No, actually, I don't. There's something about you, Riku. It's not your looks or your muscles. It's unique, strained, and burning up to a crisp around here, but I want to save it. I want to pull it out of you, put it in a glass box, and look at it every single morning." She laughed and pulled herself away from Riku, oblivious to the sigh of relief that escaped his mouth a split second later while she continued, "But of course I won't do that. Then I wouldn't have you!"
Turning from the window, Riku couldn't help but keep a small smile from tugging at the corner of his mouth. "You're really... kind of a freak."
"Yeah, yeah." Kairi waved it off and promptly washed her cereal bowl out in the sink before turning around with a sudden burst of inspiration, hands clasped together beneath her chin. "Say, let's go for a walk! What do you say? It'll be fun!"
Riku could've commented on her sudden abandonment of her cereal idea-- the bowl had been nearly untouched when she'd pitched it into the sink-- but he pushed the thought aside. Settled for the obvious instead. "You said it was hot outside."
"Well, duh. It's summer, you crazy-head."
"...Crazy-head?"
"Let's go!"
"I'm not exactly dressed."
"Oh come on, Riku Wataya! Everyone's already seen you in your boxers-- makes no difference if it's your pajamas now!"
"Your concern for my better welfare just overwhelms me."
"I love you, too, darling."
"Get off."
Riku avoided looking at the boxes stacked beside the door as he and Kairi made their way out and into the blinding summer sunlight of the afternoon, Riku still wearing a thin pair of baggy striped cotton pants and a small white tee. It could have been so much worse. Still, he made a point of not meeting anyone's gaze as he walked at Kairi's side, suddenly paying rapt attention to the daily hummings and drummings of sprinklers and lawnmowers alike.
"So he-ey, what's on your schedule for today, hm?" Kairi finally asked. She pulled her hair back into a ponytail place high on her head, swinging her tan arms around and upping their pace a notch. Riku tried not to notice. Not to notice, not to notice, just to keep up and keep moving and keep not-noticing the giggles from some little kid they'd just walked past.
It always feels like they're laughing right at me.
"Uh, Sora swung by last night," he said.
"Oh did he now? Really? And what'd our little friend have to say?"
Now, Riku knew for a fact at that point that Kairi knew exactly what the note contained. For all that she was a perfectly lovely and charming girl, she couldn't act worth crap-- as Riku probably should have guessed much, much earlier. Still, he just shrugged his shoulder and met her gaze halfway between them with a stubborn sideways glance and a sly twitch of a smile.
"Nothing much," he nearly drawled. "Nothing you'd care to know, anyhow."
"Ri-ku! Don't do that! Come on, don't you dare hold out on me. It's because of me that you even met him at all!"
"You act like you've done me such a big favor."
"Well I have, haven't I? Let's face it, Riku. You guys are quickly becoming--" With a flourish, Kairi linked her two index fingers together as one hooked over the other, a grin spread on her face as she declared it-- "--an item!"
And in a similar mocking fashion, Riku clapped his hands together beneath his chin and jabbed his voice up a notch. Or two. Or three. "Oh an i-tem? Real-ly?"
"Don't make fun of me!" Scowling, Kairi threw up her arms in exasperation at Riku's chuckle and lack of any real response. "Seriously, Riku," she whined, "Come ooon! What'd Sora say?"
If she honestly wants to hear what she wrote in the first place so damn badly...
"He just wants to go out to dinner," Riku said simply.
"Oh, really? That's great!"
"Hmm, so why do I get the feeling you already knew about it?"
"Whatever could you possibly mean, Riku Wataya?"
"You wouldn't by chance happen to own a pink ballpoint pen, would you?"
"Hm, I was worried that would give it away." Kairi smiled and laughed a bit, but waved the noise off with her own two hands, flipping them back and forth through the air. "Hey now, don't go thinking Sora's some spineless little goofball who needs me to do everything for him," she began. "I mean, well, okay, so sometimes he is a spineless little goofball who needs me to do everything for him, but not all the time, you know! Sometimes he just needs a... uh... well, a little bit of a push in the right direction. Get it?"
"I get it, I get it."
"Besides, who in their right mind would've said yes to some stupid invitation like the one he wrote?"
"I thought it was cute."
"Of course you did, Riku Wataya. Just like this, remember?" She linked her fingers together again, proudly holding them up for Riku to see. 'Just like this!'
"Whatever you say, Kairi."
The two walked on in companionable silence for some time after that, reaching the top of the street and proceeding to loop around the block in one broad circle. Riku couldn't tell what Kairi was thinking-- then again, he'd never really been much of a mind-reader to begin with-- but he couldn't stop from noticing the distant expression that had settled over her face. Almost as though she were asleep and awake, dead and alive, sitting and dancing and laughing and crying all in one and all at the same time.
Needless to say, it was just a little disconcerting. And if Riku had been anyone but Riku, perhaps he would've followed through with that impulse to show that he cared, to imply that he really, truly, honestly did give a shit about what she thought and about what the world was doing to her. But he stayed quiet. He waited until she felt the urge to speak again.
And speak again she did. Though not with the same lighthearted tone as she'd been using nearly all morning.
"Look, I was serious yesterday when I said not to hurt Sora. Ever since Hayner, he just hasn't been the same..."
"Hayner?"
Kairi's eyes grew wide, their message clear in stating that crap, the poor girl said too much. Instantly, she clamped her front teeth down hard on her bottom lip, wincing and whining, "Don't tell Sora I told you. Okay? I mean it. You never heard his name."
"Okay, but who's Hayner?"
"It's not important."
"You're lying."
"You sound just like him."
"Who?"
"Sora." Catching Riku's rather blank and confused look, Kairi huffed an impatient little sigh and waved one hand through the air dismissivly. "You know. 'You're lying.' Sora always knows."
Oh. That was right, wasn't it. That... game.
"Let's play a little game, Riku! Whaddya say? Just until Kairi gets back, m'kay?" Not waiting for a response, Sora popped a cherry tomato in his mouth with obvious cheer, chewing and swallowing before continuing, "One of us'll say something-- a fact. Only it can be false. Or it can be true. True, false, got it? And the other person has to guess which one it is."
Between Kairi's female intuition and Sora's natural inclination to pick truth from lie... Riku had never felt more trapped in all his life as he did in that one split second. The one split second in which he was forced to realize his horrid fate of never being able to truly, truly lie to these new people he'd been thrown up again.
God. ...Damn... it.
But, all that aside, there was still one question pressing at the back of his mind.
"Kairi?"
"Yeah?"
"Who's Hayner?"
"A friend." Kairi's head moved up and down like she was trying to nod, but fighting against the better judgement of her brain. Riku raised one elegant silver brow and she barked out a rather unlady-like laugh-- "HEH!"-- before giggling nervously and prattling off, "Me 'n Sora almost had sex once!"
And what a topic-changer it was.
Well. What to say to that one. "...Oh."
"Well, it's just that we were friends so long and were so close and all that. I wanted him to be my first and I told him so. But he couldn't do it. ...You know what I mean. It was funny, actually. We were going out back then, and then he told me about Hayner... It wasn't so funny at the time, but kids make mistakes, you know?" Kairi smiled brightly at Riku, but even her cheerfulness couldn't cover the hint of sadness hanging at the corner of her mouth. It made Riku frown a little, made him sad a little, just to see Kairi like that. Not completely broken apart even, just not content, just a sold a little short on so many levels.
How must it have felt to find out that the one boy you were closest to-- the one boy you'd invested everything in-- could never possibly love you the way you wanted him to?
"Hayner and Sora were screwing around. Just a little bit. ...Okay, so more than a little bit," Kairi explained. "Look, don't think Sora's easy or anything. Don't think any of us are easy or anything."
"I didn't. I don't."
"Good." Kairi was nodding again, her fingers anxiously tugging on a beaded bracelet looped around her wrist. It looked childish hanging there-- too big for her slender arm and too bright a shade of pink for her age. "But anyway... To make a long story short, Hayner was a big deal for Sora and then he wasn't. Because he did a lot of bad things and made a lot of bad choices."
"But kids make mistakes... Didn't you just say that?"
"Hayner didn't make kid mistakes." Kairi pursed her lips. She seemed to be staring rather intently on the spots of shadows stretching out beneath her and Riku, and she then drew them both to a halt, sneakers scuffing on the concrete, shadow stilling and standing. Her eyes flashed something warning, something dangerous that Riku would never, never have expected to see from her. "Don't ever mention Hayner to Sora, got it? I'm only telling you so maybe you can understand."
"Understand what?"
"Sora, of course."
x x x
Kairi had bid Riku a short farewell after their walk, saying she had to get over to Rikku and Paine's for piano lessons. Riku wasn't entirely sure how he should approach that-- Kairi had never exactly mentioned piano lessons before-- but seeing as he wasn't one of the elite two blessed with truth-telling abilities, he let it slide. And in similar sliding fashion, he watched his medication slide off the palm of his hand, hit the bottom of the sink, and roll slowly, steadily towards the drain.
When he heard the clack of heels against the hardwood, he jerked on the tapwater and away the capsules went. No one would be the wiser.
Mayako stood in the doorway, oblivious to her nephew's actions, looking in the mirror across the wall in the hallway. Her hair was lightly curled, a thin layer of makeup applied, and if Riku hadn't told himself he had to dislike her with as much of himself as he could muster, he might have actually complimented her on just how well she looked. Things being as they were, he just fell silent and blinked at her, especially when she began to talk.
"Riku, get a move on, you're going to be late."
Late? "...Late for what?"
"Your appointment."
"What appointment?"
"With the doctor."
"With what doctor?"
Scrunching up her nose slightly, Mayako shot him some repressed form of a glare as she snapped, "The psychiatrist, Riku. Honestly. Get it together."
"Since when do I have a shrink appointment today? Here?" He'd only ever seen that one stupid quack back home on the islands. After his parents' death. While the entire ordeal was far from helpful, he'd at least had the benefit of knowing the guy and knowing that right outside, right down the lane, was a beach and an endless supply of open air he could drink himself silly on after sitting so still in some crazy's office for so. Damn. Long.
Oblivious to his thoughts, Mayako brushed it all off as ignorance and scooped her purse up off the kitchen table, shouldering it with an easy sort of grace. "You've had the appointment for a while, Riku. Come on. You'll be late."
Suddenly it hit Riku. Of course I can't go. I'm supposed to do something with Sora later, right? I still need to get his number from Kairi, or... or figure out where he lives or something! Now that Kairi knows that I know about the-- Jesus, this is impossible. Furrowing his eyebrows together, Riku fought to keep his voice civil. He didn't want a screaming match-- he just wanted to get... well, what he wanted. Which was dinner with Sora. Away from his aunt.
"I don't care if I'm late-- I can't go. I've already made plans."
"Well your plans are just going to have to be remade, okay? This appointment has been set for a while now and you're not backing out of it. Now come on, get in the car." She didn't leave any room for argument. The keys were in her hand, she was headed for the door.
"How long is it supposed to take?" Riku asked desperately. He nearly smacked himself upside the head for all the damn desperation leaking from his voice.
Mayako paused, shot him a quizzical, annoyed look, and insisted, "I don't know, Riku. Longer, if we're late, okay?"
"Wait... 'We'?"
"I have an appointment, too."
"You see a shrink?"
Now her eyes really were narrowed into a truly agitated glare as she brushed her hair loosely over one shoulder and heaved a sigh. "Most people need to see psychiatrists, Riku. It's just that few are smart enough to actually know it's good for them."
"You see a shrink," he said again, still completely unable to grasp that one solid little fact. Dear lord, my aunt's crazy, too? Is this thing genetic or something? Why the hell am I living with a crazy person? What were my parents thinking, dumping me with her?
"The term is psychiatrist, Riku."
"It's the same thing."
"One is derogatory."
"Picking apart people's heads is a derogatory thing to do!"
"Stop being a child and get the car."
He didn't know what to do. There wasn't anything he could do, really, except suck it up and hope and pray that they got home early enough for him to still make it out to see Sora. But it was already so late... and those stupid appointments took so long... and now he apparently had to wait for his crazy aunt to see a damn doctor, too. But aside from whining and complaining pointlessly and short of tying Mayako to a chair and leaving her there-- which he had to admit was actually a very tempting option-- there was still nothing he could do.
He followed his aunt mutely out the door and down the sidewalk, sliding into her car without another word, actually having to fight back every nasty, angry, vengeful word that threatened to bubble up and out of his mouth. Some part of his brain actually had the sense to wonder about that-- Big deal, it's okay. You can reschedule with Sora. Chill out. Why are you so damn angry?
But that one, tiny part of the brain was obliterated by the words that just couldn't be held back any longer.
"Why do you always pick a fight with me about everything I say?" Riku asked.
"Oh, that's rich, Riku. Really. Like you're a complete innocent in all this."
"I don't go out of my way to disagree with you!"
"Could you spare me? Please? Just this once, Riku. For crying out loud, can we just go one day without you jumping down my throat?"
x x x
"Why are you always acting like everyone's out to get you, Riku?" he snapped. There was a dull thud-- probably the kid's hand slamming against the table in frustration. Frustration, frustration...
"Why do you always make it out to be you against everyone else? The world... isn't the stupid battleground you think it is, Riku. People have feelings, okay? Don't you even fucking get that? There's more to it than just you and me bitching at each other all the time, okay? Okay?"
x x x
Riku shook his head, a jarred lock of silver hair stabbing him in the eye in the process. Oww.
He blinked owlishly at the podgy old man seated across from him in the office he found himself sitting in. Dark wood, plush chairs, books and nicknacks and nameplates and awards. And in the middle of it all, the prodigal professor of the human brain.
"So. ...Who're you?" Riku asked after a very long, very awkward silence.
"I'm Doctor Jones." The man's smile was extraordinarily fake, Riku decided. He already hated him. "And you must be Riku Wataya. It's a pleasure to meet you, Riku. Won't you have a seat?" Riku was already sitting. Another mark against this crazy Jones fellow. "Now then. That better? Good, good. Now why don't we start at the beginning."
Jones allowed the room to fall into silence, possibly expecting Riku to pick up the line. Riku just stared at him rather passively. Rather... passive aggresively, actually. Clearing his throat, Jones leant forward, elbows resting on the polished hardwood desk positioned between him and his client. "How was your relationship with your parents?" he prompted. "We'll start with your mother. How were things between you and your mother?"
"...Good."
"Things were...? Well?"
Ignoring the grammatical correction, Riku grit his teeth once and only once. "They were good," he repeated.
"Did you feel you could talk to your mother about almost anything? I understand how difficult it is for a boy your age to often maintain a stable line of communication between himself and his mother. Do you feel that was at all a problem in your home?"
"Not really." A dull, aching silence followed this. The doctor stared at Riku and Riku was content to stare right on back for as long as it took. He hated feeling like it was his responsibility to hold up a conversation on the road to nowhere and was determined to shift that very responsibility into Mr. Dr. Whatever-he-was-Jones' capable, ugly, fat old hands.
"Riku, I'm only going to be able to help you if you... perhaps give me a bit-- well, a bit more to work with, you understand?" Jones leaned forward again, this time further over the desk, hands coming to clasp together beneath his chin. "Do you understand what I'm getting at, Riku? I am trying to help, after all."
"...I honestly don't think you can help anyone at all."
"Well, maybe you think that now, but you haven't really given me a chance now, mm?" The man picked up a pen that looked all too fragile held between his two sausage-size fingers. He drummed it against the desk, above a pad of paper that was no doubt intended to take notes on the sob story Riku refused to spill. Still, Jones pressed onward, ever the... courageous shrink. "Perhaps you could describe your mother for me. In detail please. Let's just give it the old college try, shall we?"
"My mother was attractive. She had silver hair like mine and all the guys at school wanted to bang her." Riku blinked. "That good enough for you?"
"Perhaps more about her... personality. Your... relationship with her."
"Look, I don't see how any of this is really your business."
"Riku--"
"I'm only here because I have to be here."
"You're here because you've suffered a great loss and it is best is we work to mediate the current situation before it--"
"Before it what? Gets worse?" Eyes narrowed into dangerous slits, Riku growled, "Look, asshole, it can't possibly get any worse."
The psychiatrist seem to look at Riku thoughtfully for a moment before jotting down something on his pad of paper. Go ahead, fucker, Riku thought. Write down what a crazy asshole I am. I don't really care anymore. Give me more meds-- I'll flush them straight down the goddamn toilet if the sink can't handle it.
"How about between you and your aunt?" Jones asked after another pause.
"This is supposed to be about my parents."
"Do you feel comfortable in your new home?"
"No." It's not my home.
"What could be done to make you feel more at home?" Scribble, scribble. Jones plucked up a pair of spectacles from the desktop, placing them on the bridge of his nose and only succeeding in making his face look all the huger, in Riku's humble (and angry) opinion. "Perhaps some friends...?"
"I have them."
"Oh? So soon? That's excellent news, Riku. Excellent, excellent news." More scribbles, a nod here and there. And then-- "Are you sexually active?"
"I never understood that question," Riku drawled.
"...Are you currently in a sexual relationship?"
"Aren't most 'relationships' sexual in some way?"
"Are you, Riku, involved in a relationship in which you partake in sexual intercourse?"
"No."
"I see." Was that a sigh I heard, Jonesey boy? Gee, I wonder if you're frustrated. Damn, but I hope so. Jones looked up from his notepad for a moment and Riku was almost-- key word: almost-- afraid he'd spoken the words aloud. But no, Jones just waved one giant hand around and tactlessly added, "And please, do tell me if you start to feel self-conscious in any way, mm?"
"Whatever."
"Do you masturbate on a regular basis?"
"I never understood that word."
"...Which word, Riku?"
"Regular. I know what masturbation is."
"Regular. ...When was the last time you masturbated, Riku?"
"How does this at all relate to my mental stability? Do you get paid to judge how horny a kid is or what?"
"Generally, abnormalities in the sex drive are the result of a significant change in stress level." Jones wasn't writing anymore. He was just staring at the teenager across from him with a rather drawn, tired expression. "Please answer the question if you're comfortable with it, Riku."
"Three months."
"Excuse me?"
"Three months." Riku smirked. "Since I jerked off."
"That is quite a long time for a boy your... age."
"What, am I supposed to do it every night before I go to bed? The ceremonial wank or something?"
"Not necessarily." Clearing his throat, the psychiatrist took up the pen once more, staring at it for a very long moment, almost as though willing it to start writing by itself. No such luck. He babbled on senselessly, filling the silence and trying to pull information. But getting anything from Riku was like peeling the skin off a baby. ...You just couldn't do it without breaking down and crying.
"So the last time you masturbated was three months ago. Let's see... that would put us somewhere back in March, I believe? Yes, the month of your parents' unfortunate accident." Jones stared pointedly at Riku after that last statement, watching for Riku's reaction. ...There was none. The boy stared back blankly, nonchalantly. Even the rebellious glimmer was absent from his stare.
But after a minute or so, Riku blinked. He'd missed his cue. He was supposed to say something or do something remarkable and he'd just sat there with all the grace of a dead animal.
"What?" he asked.
"Do you think your parents' deaths caused you to stop pleasuring yourself?"
Riku simply shrugged, looking off to the side, eyes resting on all the bookshelves lining the walls. Books... God, I should be with Sora. Not in this shitty old office building. What a bunch of fake... crap. This guy doesn't even know what he's doing. "March was different."
"As in...?"
"As in, there was a point when I didn't need to masturbate for sexual pleasure. Get it?"
"So you were sexually active in March, I take it?"
x x x
"Roxas..."
"Shit, I told you n-not to..."
x x x
"...Yep, that'd be it."
"I see. And following your parents' deaths, did you lose ties with that relationship?"
x x x
"And that's when we fucked in the shower!"
"Eww, Riku, I used that shower this morning. Yuck! That's just gross. And... just... unsanitary."
"We were in a shower, for crying out loud. It's full of sanitary things, Mine. Besides, maybe this just means it's about time you--"
x x x
"With... with what relationship?" Riku tried not to wince, not to show he was suddenly fighting off a pounding headache. No, not headache. Some all-out attack on his entire body. Everything hurt-- every damn limb was suddenly throbbing with a sharp pain that all streamlined straight up his spine and into his brain. Overload, overload... Shit. What the hell is this? What relationship...? What are we talking about?
"With the person you were sexually active with."
"Our relationship was only sexual," Riku grit out.
God, stay out of my head... Why now? It's not even like I'm thinking about it anymore. It's over with. Done for. That life isn't mine anymore. It's--
x x x
"Roxas!"
x x x
Get the fuck out of my head!
"Only sexual? Oh." Jones was writing like a madman then, hand nearly punching holes through the paper with every move. One page full, he flipped it, watching Riku, ripping him apart with his eyes and his spectacles and his brain behind it all. "Oh, I see." God, Riku could just feel the man pinning diagnosis after diagnosis on his each and every move. "Did you have any close friends back on the islands?"
"Yes."
"Why don't you tell me about them?"
"One was an artist, the other was an athlete. A blitzer. He was my fuck buddy, she was my sister substitute." Wait-- what? Why the fuck am I telling him this? "Need anything else?"
"A bit more detail would always be appreciated."
"Well, maybe that's all you're getting today. I'm feeling little self-conscious all of a sudden."
The ache was dying down. Riku was closing up. Meanwhile, dear Doctor Jones was scrambling to grab hold of whatever was left in the wake of that mild... well, whatever-it-had-been.
"Riku, why don't you tell me about what's been bothering you lately, hm? You have yet to have another attack, it seems, but your aunt informs me that you've been acting strange these past few days. I trust you've been taking your medication?"
"Yeah."
"And you do realize that any anomilies in your lifestyle may prolong or worsen your condition?"
"Yeah."
"So?"
"So what?"
"Riku, I want you to take a serious look at what you're going to do with your life from this point on." The guy brought his hands together, steepled fingers and all. Riku knew it was all about to head downhill at a breakneck speed. And oh, but how he wanted to make a run for the door. ...Too late. "With your parents gone, you have a reasonably safe amount of capital to receive when you're of age, but it's the after-that you have to be thinking about. I understand their death has laid you a heavy blow and it's not to be taken at all lightly. These wounds will take time to heal and can't be rushed..."
Oh gag me with a spoon, for God's sake. Is this guy for real?
"...I'd like to know what your thoughts are. I only want to help. We all just want to help you, Riku. Now then. We have five minutes left in our session. Please." He gestured towards the tape recorder on his desk. Riku took that as being some sort of sign he should speak. And the ensuing silence only seemed to back up this thought all the more.
But he didn't have anything left to say. His body didn't hurt anymore, it just didn't feel... attached. Like somehow, somewhere along the way, he'd just lost contact with it. And so the five minutes passed in an agitated silence. Riku left the room and Mayako entered-- door swinging shut behind her. It was six o'clock when Riku got out of his appointment. Eight, by the time Mayako was out of hers.
"Don't forget to take your medicine," she said when they got home. "It's already late."
Down the drain-- another set of pills. Riku watched them roll as he had done before and he turned the faucet on in their wake. He looked at the clock-- late, so late, too late for anything-- and went up to the guest room. All of the boxes that had been downstairs had joined the others in the room, neatly stacked against a wall. Riku sat on the bed, closed his eyes and thought.
This is getting me nowhere. The shrink, the pills, the change of fucking scenery... It's all just looped. I keep ending up where I started. It still hurts. It won't fucking go away.
Inside the first box he opened were some of his mother's clothes. Most had been donated to charity, but Riku had taken some-- just a precious few-- to keep. He didn't know why he'd done it at the time, really. It had just made sense. Her light blue sun-dress and her favorite floral printed skirt peered up at him from the depths of the cardboard, still partially wrapped in tissue paper for safe-keeping. Still soft, still smooth, still ready to be worn by someone who would never--
Don't think like that. God, don't think like that.
The second box contained some of Riku's things-- his desk lamp, assignment book, pencils, pens, and various other whatnots that he couldn't ever remember really being all that attached to in the first place.
Oh, but the third box. The third box... The third box held the books. Some his, some his parents'. But at the bottom, at the very, very bottom was an old photo album, red in color and held by a silver-trimmed binding.
Stupidly, Riku sat in the desk chair, album placed before him on the desk. And stupidly, he opened it, bombarded by the memories held between the pages, held still within the pictures.
x x x
"Riku! Riku, come back!"
"Catch me!"
"It's time for lunch!"
"No-oo, Momma, catch me, catch me! Come on!"
x x x
"Happy birthday to you, happy birthday to you, happy birthday, dear Riku, happy..."
x x x
"Dad?"
"Yeah?"
"Do you know any of the names for the stars?"
"Only a few. Only the big ones, I guess. Why?"
"Do they all have names?"
"Well sure they do."
"But there are so many of them..."
"Well, there are a lot of people, too, but all people have names."
"Oh. I never thought of that."
x x x
They continued. They didn't stop. Not until Riku reached the last page and was left staring at an empty hole, all that remained of his exploding family tree. Yes, just a hole with... a paper stick out of a folder. Huh? In the back of the album was a small folder pouch, no doubt intended for keeping loose picture or papers or what-have-you. And yet the only thing tucked inside was a half-scrap of paper-- white, pink, and blue with a rather cheerful looking stork imprinted in the corner, hat on his head and a tied checkered blanket hanging from its beak. No words, no nothing. The bird and its corner alone had been ripped free from whatever they'd been a part of.
A knock on the door jarred Riku from his moment and he looked up upon hearing his uncle's voice coming muffled through the door.
"You asleep?"
"No. Door's open."
His uncle peered cautiously around the door before nudging it open another foot or two and stepping inside. "Hey there," he said. "...What're you up to? It's late."
"Yeah, sorry. Was the light keeping you up?"
"Nope. Just passing by."
Riku nodded. His uncle nodded. The two stood across from one another with nothing to say. And while Riku had had enough experience with silence in that day alone, he still couldn't help but feel that maybe he owed the man a bit more credit than that. He was, after all, not a psychiatrist. He was just an average middle-aged guy married to a demonic, feministic woman who clearly didn't git a rat's ass about him. In a way, Riku almost felt sorry for the guy.
So, Riku did him the honor of engaging in a conversation with him.
"Did you bring the boxes up this morning?" Riku asked.
"Yep..." The man nodded slowly, a bit awkwardly. He looked towards the photo album in Riku's lap, he looked towards the paper bird held in Riku's hands. For a second, Riku could have sworn he saw something flash across his uncle's face, but it was gone before the boy could catch it, pin it down, and figure out what it was.
God. Being in a shrink's office really does that to you. Makes you analyze people. Fuck. This is so fucked up.
"Thanks... about the boxes, I mean." Riku nodded rather pointlessly before tapping his thumb against the book opened before him which his uncle seemed to be so shocked to see. "It's a photo album," he explained. "It was just in one of the... yeah. Unpacking. Uh."
"Where'd you get that?" But his uncle's gaze wasn't on the album itself, really, but on the piece of paper in Riku's hands-- the little smiling stork and his bundle of joy.
"I got it from the photo album...? It was in the back."
"Oh."
"It's just one of those baby-bird things. Probably from one of Mom's baby showers."
"...Yeah. ...Yeah, uh. You alright?" Am I alright? Huh? What the heck kind of question is that? We were just talking about baby showers! Wasn't that a happy enough subject? Honestly, people.
"I'm fine," Riku said. Suddenly he wasn't sure if what he was in was as much of a conversation as it was an interrogation gone terribly, terribly awry.
"Do you need anything? I'm on my way downstairs as it is. Now's the time to ask."
"I'm good."
"You sure?"
"Yep." Riku watched his uncle nod all too quickly before practically throwing himself back towards the doorway in his hurry to get out. Riku blinked at the stork in his hand. Blinked at his uncle nearly out the door. And for some reason unbeknownst to him, he found himself blurting out a question he didn't think he'd really had.
"Were they happy? ...When they had me?" he asked. His uncle paused. Turned. Smiled a bit, but not enough to look truly honest. He still looked worried. Still looked scared out of his mind. He still seemed fixated on the bird-- the one stupid cartoon bird.
"Of course they were happy," he replied after a moment.
"Well, I dunno, some people don't want a kid and then bam, they've got one and it's like, 'Well, we were going to get there sooner or later...' Or it's not supposed to happen. Or something."
"It wasn't like that. We were all happy."
"Even Mayako?"
"...Especially Mayako." And then he was gone.
Well that was... exceptionally weird. Riku flipped the stork card over and cocked his head to the side. The front had been free of any trace of writing, but the back still had half of a sentence printed on it in pristine, spiraled cursive.
"Please join--"
There was another half-squiggle-- the beginnings of another letter-- but it was cut off by the rip in the paper, where the safety of the stork in his corner ended and a jagged tear began.
Sighing, Riku tucked the scrap back in the pocket it'd come from before closing the album and setting it on his desk once more. He glanced to his cell phone, lying silent and alone beside it. And yet... There was a message. Curiously, Riku picked it up and studied it. 'One New Voice Mail!' it proudly declared.
But I haven't given anyone this numb--
"Hey Riku, it's me. Pick up, man. ...Uh, okay. Listen, I guess you're not there. Um. Naminé and I were just... wondering how you were doing and all. Give me a call back sometime. Or call her. ...At... at least call her, okay? Talk to you soon. Hope everything's going well. Later."
x x x
A quiet room, one full of empty boxes and rolls of tape, still unused, still in their packaging. The window had these sunbeams coming through it and if he lied just so on the floor, they'd fall across his body, making one square warm, one square cold. One light, one dark, a funny little pattern on the fabric.
"Riku, Roxas is here."
"I don't want to see him right now."
"Riku..."
"Just get rid of him already."
She was still in the doorway. He was still staring at the sunlight. He could hear her talking but didn't feel like listening...
"Please don't be like that. He only wants to--"
"Relieve his fucking sexual tension. I don't want to see him. Get rid of him."
And one day later when it was no longer day and when no more sunlight fell through the window, he sat on a box and turned his back on the voice, left the phone receiver on his bed with the words streaming though, angry, hurt, and alone.
"You stubborn son of a bitch, Riku! I just want to talk to you! I can't help you if you don't even let me fucking talk to you!"
He stood up, unplugged the phone, and listened to the quiet.
"We're trying, Riku. How can you expect us to be there for you if you won't even let us anywhere near you? We're trying to help, really."
'You should've tried harder.'
"Riku, you're locking us out..."
'You should have said blocking, not locking. Right? Blocking implies shoving you away for the first time. Locking would imply having shoved you away, out-- having shut the door, and instilling a lock. All I did was shove. All I did was block and shove, I never closed the door. I never closed the goddamn door. You closed it behind yourselves.'
x x x
Sora came around much later that evening. He threw a pebble up to Riku's window and when Riku appeared, the look he found in Sora's eyes was almost frightened, almost guilty. Almost as though he hadn't expected the pebble to leave his hand as it had, to arc through the air and hit the glass just so. Almost as though he hadn't expected for Riku to truly make his appearance like that, like he did framed in the window like that, in the open window like that.
Sora didn't know what to say. He didn't know why he'd come, really. But he had a vague something, a vague pulling something that had pulled him there and that then pulled the words from him like air. "Can I come in?"
Silently, Riku disappeared and reappeared a minute later by the front door. Silently, the two boys ascended the stairs, rounded the hall to the guest room, and closed the door behind them. It was all still silent and the two of them bumbled around awkwardly-- one starting a sentence, then closing his mouth as he saw the other move, waiting for words that were too slow in coming.
"I'm sorry... about the dinner thing," Riku finally said.
"It's okay."
"I didn't stand you up."
"I didn't think you did."
"I had to go out."
"I know." Sora smiled pleasantly, catching sight of Riku's distant look. He reached over and rested his hand on the boy's arm, his thumb moving on its own accord in some small, circular motion that might have been soothing. Or distracting. Either way, it worked. "Hey, it's okay, really," Sora said. "We've got all summer."
Riku laughed at himself, shook his head once, twice. Still haunted by the all-too-familiar voice that had now made its way into his phone, for God's sake. "It's stupid," he muttered. He didn't know which was more stupid, though. How upset he was over his missed date with Sora or how upset he was that nothing-- virtually nothing was going alright in his supposedly new life. ...Mostly because he just couldn't escape the old one no matter how hard he tried.
"Your room... is..."
Not my room.
"Empty."
"Yeah..."
"Those boxes your stuff?"
"Yeah."
"Don't you have any posters?"
"I don't think so."
"Pictures?"
"Not really."
"Heeere we go." Hopping up from the bed, Sora immediately spied the open box full of desk supplies. He eagerly whipped out a stack of papers, a fistful of markers, crayons, pencils-- grinned like nothing else as he said, "We'll make some!"
"Some what?"
"Post-ers."
"Posters."
"Riku-Sora posters!"
"What?"
"Riku and Sora posters for your room." He had already plopped down on the floor, kneeling beside the desk and doodling away. From the side, he took on this incredibly childish form, it seemed. Head bent in concentration, tip of the tongue just barely visible between his two pursed lips. It was almost-- almost enough to make Riku burst out laughing. Especially when Sora turned just moments later and held up his finished piece. "Okay, well here's a Kairi one. We can have her, too. I'm just warming up."
The little stick girl looked at Riku. Surely in her paper world, she was contemplating stick suicide. ...She was that ugly.
"It's a wonder you made it out of elementary school art," Riku mumbled.
"I didn't. I failed."
"...How do you fail that? All you do is make pinch-pots."
"And have clay snowball fights."
"I see."
Another piece of paper before him, Sora was scribbling madly away, churning out two stick folks this time-- "Here's you, see? Annnd..." A scribble here, a dash of brown crayon there... "Here's me!"
The little skinny Sora person and the slightly taller Riku person both regarded the real, live Riku with happy, stupid little stares. They had no noses. Riku actually did laugh, this time. Mostly because it almost looked like they were holding hands, up until the point Riku realized that they didn't have hands either.
"Beautiful."
"Isn't it though? We'll put this one riiight..." Sora strode over to the closet door and jabbed his finger right up against the door. "Here." Tape became his primary weapon and up went Riku, Sora, and Kairi, tacked onto the closet and watching over the two boys in the slightly warmer, slightly less empty bedroom.
Riku couldn't remember the last time he'd done anything even remotely similar to what he did that evening with Sora. The two of them sat opposite of one another in the guest room, armed with their paper and their crayons alike. Sora never complained about Riku's art skills (while, though nothing special, were vastly superior to his own) and Riku never doubted Sora's innocent little intentions in his doodles and his pink hearts and green stars and miscolored rainbows scrawled out across the white.
In all of one hour, they had the entire closet door covered from top to bottom with drawing after drawing, laid out like a storyboard that slowly began to spread to the wall.
"Hey, you know, I think your room looks much better already."
"More like a room, at any rate."
"We'll make it livable."
"Livable, huh?"
"Yep. You and me. We can fix it up, m'kay? It'll be gorgeous. You'll love it by the time we're done. And Kairi can get you new curtains. ...Because those ones are really, really ugly. Man, what was May thinking, huh?" Sora laughed lightly, but stopped when he realized he was the only one. If Riku wouldn't even laugh at the expense of Mayako... Something had to be wrong. There was no doubt about it then. "...Riku?"
"Sorry."
"...You're not okay, are you? Did they give you more pills or something?"
"No... no, it's not that."
Beside Riku on the bed, Sora tucked his knees up to his chin, rested there and looked at Riku long and steady. Quiet for a minute, still quiet even while he said it-- "I can listen... if you wanna talk about it, I mean. Sometimes it feels good. Sometimes it doesn't, I guess. Um... it all just... depends on the mood you're in. If you want to talk about it or not... you know?"
x x x
"So... who named the stars if all of them have names?"
"...Someone very, very old."
"Hey! I'm serious! Who names all of them? Or... who keeps track of them? I mean, they all look the same, right?"
"Well, it's all in the way you look at it, Riku. Do they really all look the same to you?"
"Well... duh. I mean, I can't imagine being up in space with all of them. It'd be the same thing everywhere you looked. You'd get lost and turned around and probably go crazy or something from all the confusion. You'd just get... lost, you know?"
"Not if you know which stars are what."
"Dad?"
"Yeah?"
"You're avoiding the question. Who named all the stars?"
"I have no idea."
x x x
"My dad was twenty-nine when I was born and my mom was twenty-five. I never knew how they met or why they fell in love until I was in fifth grade and thought myself smart enough to ask. They'd been gathering some seashells along the beach. She was a tourist and he'd rented an apartment there with a friend for a few months-- for a business deal they were making down there. They both saw the same shell from a distance. It was white, stained purple around the edges and black on the inside. And they both tried to get it, but almost hit each other in the process of bending down to pick it up.
"It was kind of like that. A year and a half later they were married and the year after that I was born. We didn't have a huge house, we didn't have tiny house. My dad worked at the same business he'd come to the island for years ago, but he'd become the only owner of it, so he made a fair amount of money. Every night he would come in my room and ask me for one thing I wanted right then. When I was a kid, a little kid, it was easy. 'I want you to read to me,' 'I want a glass of milk, a song, a joke--' and whatever it was, he always gave it to me. I wasn't spoiled or anything... I don't think so. I didn't always get what I wanted for holidays or presents or anything like that, but whatever I asked for every night, before I fell asleep, I always got.
"When I was sick, Mom would take me out back and put me on the hammock. She didn't think that staying in the house would make me feel better-- she always wanted me to have fresh air and was always making me go outside, even when I didn't want to. She wouldn't leave me alone and I would lie there like a moron and she'd just stroke my hair and sometimes she'd hum, but she'd never sing because she told me she was tone-deaf and couldn't carry a tune worth anything. I never believed her, but I never asked her to, either.
"My dad always used to swing me around and he told me I'd be a blitzball star-- told me when he swung me upside down by my legs and all I could see was his upside-down face and even that was blurry because my head was full of blood and dizzy. And I played all the games and I won all the time and he laughed more and smiled more with every win and I thought that if that was all I had to do to make him happy, I could do it. Because winning was easy and I thought that if I could live every day making my dad happy, I could somehow break even for all the things he'd given me-- one thing every night for every day of my life.
"I guess we all got on really well. Even at the end, you know... I told my dad about the first time I had sex. I don't know why, really. I was mad at him about something. Something stupid, because I can't even remember what it was now. Even though we got on real well, it doesn't mean we never fought. I told him I'd slept with my best friend, a guy. He was quiet, but he wasn't angry. Just a little disappointed, I could tell. Not anything serious. But the first thing he said after that was 'That's okay.' And he never brought it up again. Just 'That's okay.' Like it really was.
"If I had known what would happen, I would've made her sing for me. I would have won more games and I would've played harder, tried harder, just to make sure Dad never stopped laughing and smiling and cheering like every win was his win and every game was his game. He didn't live through me, he just wanted the best for me. He wasn't controlling and manipulative, she wasn't critical or disapproving. I think they understood, more than anything. More than their love for me, they had an understanding that went deeper than that... If that makes any sense. ...I guess it doesn't. Sorry."
Riku wasn't sure how long Sora had been crying by the time he stopped talking. In all honesty, he didn't even notice the boy's tears until he closed his mouth and actually brought himself to look up and over at the person he'd been talking at for the past hour. It was 12:31 and Riku didn't know what to say anymore. Sora just sat there and cried, stared openly and Riku and cried. He stood from the bed, walked over to the boy, stood beside him, and cried. For lack of a better plan, a better thing to do, Riku leaned against his hip and closed his eyes, feeling the shuddering and the pain beneath the skin beneath the clothes. He felt Sora's cool hands press against the side of his face, the side facing away from him, and he continued to feel Sora cry.
And just as Riku wasn't sure how long Sora had been crying before, he wasn't sure how long they remained like that after. But Sora still cried and Riku still didn't understand what had originally set it off or when it had all originally begun. Had Sora come to the house expecting to hear Riku pour out his life's story? It was by no means an interesting or fascinating one, not particularly heart-wrenching in any way, really. The only truly maddening thing about any of it was how normal they'd all been, how safe and secure inside their bubble of normalcy they'd all existed. He'd had two parents who loved each other dearly, who loved their only child dearly, and who were then ripped none-too-neatly from the world in which they'd quietly and invisibly lived in for forty some-odd years.
None of it made any sense. And none of it could add up to all the tears Sora shed, all the things he cried over for which Riku had no more energy left to cry over himself.
Riku could have gone on. He could have chosen not to stop where he did, to bring in the 'friends' he thought he'd had, the games he could have won, the things he'd lost that weren't his parents, the paths he'd taken that weren't his own. But to do so seemed like it would only make Sora cry until he was out of water completely, until he passed out from the sheer effort of producing enough tears to do the job. So Riku fell silent and after a while, Sora left without another word.
It occurred to Riku before Sora left that he should have said something. That perhaps he should've tried to convey some sort of emotion through some sort of words in some way of trying to pull himself closer to this person who had suddenly become so sweet and so bright within his little shell of a life. To say "I love you" would have been stupid, Riku knew, for not only did he doubt that he loved Sora at that moment, but he also doubted the possibility that anyone could develop love for any person within such a short time. "I care about you." "Please don't disappear." "Don't die." "Don't leave me." "I trust you, believe in you, I desire you in no way a person should ever desire another person."
Because it was true. Because Riku did.
Because he had developed that desire, that longing, from the moment Sora pressed his hand against the side of Riku's face, from the moment Riku could feel Sora's pain and suffering passing through him in shivers and gasps and quiet little sobs shed on Riku's behalf. Because what Riku wanted was for someone to cry for him, to cry real tears for him and to die on the inside for him, over and over and over again. It was wicked selfishness in its purest form and Riku embraced it whole-heartedly.
After Sora had gone, Riku sat on the bed that wasn't his, looking across the room that wasn't his, at a desk that wasn't his. He stood, moved forward, and picked up the bottle of perfume that sat there in wait, patient and quiet as the hands that had once held it, as the hands that had once held his, at the hands that had once taught him to be patient and quiet, too. He could breathe her in, he could feel her-- but for the life of him, he could not bring himself to remember more.
Riku spent the next few days acheiving the one solid goal of passing time. Each and every hour was spent with one eye fixed to the clock, waiting for the o' clock hour when he could roll himself up the stairs with little or no suspicion from his aunt and uncle. All he wanted to do was pass through one day so he could get to the next, just to go through the same routine over again. In all actuallity, it felt like he was stuck in the loop of a terribly dull play that just never seemed to have an ending of any sort in sight.
Probably the strangest thing that Riku failed to realize was the sudden absence of his perky little red-headed neighbor. It took him five days before it dawned on him that she hadn't made a single appearance since their walk some afternoon ago, and this fact was more of a concern for him than anything else he had going at that point. It seemed Kairi had the ability to erase herself from someone's life with the exact same ease with which she had sketched herself in in the first place.
He saw her once, the day following his realization, between the fence planking that separated their two houses. She was sunning out back by her pool, a tiny swimsuit barely covering her and a delicate little pair of rose colored sunglasses perched on the tip of her pert nose. On anyone else they might have looked tacky-- ridiculous, even. But on Kairi they fit somehow.
"Hey," he said.
"Hey." She spoke like she'd been expecting him.
"How've you been?"
Kairi looked up then, her expression blank. But she had to give him credit for trying and so she offered a smile that seemed weak and fractured somehow. "Alright," she said. "I've been alright."
"That's good... Did Sora... talk to you?"
"I haven't heard from him in a few days, no."
"Oh."
"It happens sometimes." She reached over beside her, fingers clasped around a bottle of water, sweating in the heat. "He goes quiet for a while. We all do. It's the heat, maybe. Summer gets so dull after a while and it all gets so hot."
Letting this sit for a moment, it occurred to Riku that Kairi's silence might stem from the fact that they simply had nothing to say to each other. Really, she had acted as his support early on, a sort of bridge to the rest of the world. The rest of the world... which just happened to be Sora. It would hardly matter now if she faded out of the picture completely, dimmed to a white background of dead summer and its perfect white heat.
"Don't take it too hard, Riku," she said softly. "Sometimes things are hard to put into words, okay? Try to understand...?"
"I understand."
"It's hard..."
"I know it is."
"What've you been up to?"
"Not much."
x x x
Later that day, Riku thumbed through the photo album once more. His history replayed itself before his eyes, some flick he'd seen one too many times for it to still have its initial pull and power.
When he got to end, however, he noticed something was wrong.
The little paper stork was gone.
(x) (x) (x)
Bam. Four chapters in and I think I almost have the plot all set up and ready to roll. ...Whee, whee, glee, glee? I know this chapter was even larger than the last one. Ignore it! It's only because I won't be updating for a while due to... you know. Summer complications. Prior commitments. ...But if you head on over to that LJ of mine and friend it up, you might get a heads up as to updates or activities or. ...Um. Yeah. Okay. Whatever. Bed now. Review please! Love! Bubbles! Rainbows! Puke!