Chapter FOUR: Plan of Action
Selma was back in her house where it was nice and warm, and she just sighed. Her big brother Yomigami though wasn't going to let her off the hook just yet. He wanted to ask her a couple of things. This was mainly Tachigami's, a.k.a Monica's part, but tonight Yuki would be the nosy girl, in this case it was a nosy guy.
Yomigami heard the door close and sat up from the couch he was napping on. By the hall way the time was marked as 10:55. It was past the curfew hour that the islands went by, he was amazed that neither her nor Riku were caught by the authority figures.
"Someone's home late…" he said hearing Selma's footsteps by the hallway. He was fiddling with a small locket that he had found on the couch.
"I know, Yuki…" she said calling her brother by his nickname. "I'm sorry… It won't happen again, I promise…" her brother told her to come into the living room.
"Where's everyone else?" she asked looking at her brother for a moment. She sat down next to him on the couch. "Are they asleep?"
"Yeah… They went to sleep just after Mom left…" he said looking down at the locket for a moment. He opened it and there on one side of the opening was a picture of Yomigami and their mother. "Memories are a very powerful thing, aren't they, Amaterasu?" he said looking at his little sister.
"I…" Selma sighed and looked down at her feet. She hadn't heard that name in so long, it was very foreign to her ears, so distant like a far off memory. "Please, don't call me that again, Brother…"
"You can't change who you are, ya know? Mom called you that for a reason, and yet it's funny you bring her to life with the memories from your heart… Her image is there everyday, she feels real to the touch… But you know that it doesn't last that long… You haven't told Riku, have you?" he said in a very calming voice.
"No, and I don't want to, not yet I don't think I'm ready… Besides any one of our memories could bring Mom back, I mean it's nice, living like a family again…" she said trying hard to smile.
"Let's drop this subject for now…" he said placing a hand on his sister's head. "What were you doing anyway…? You were out pretty late, and with a guy no doubt…"
She showed her the necklace around her neck, and he laughed. Selma frowned for a moment, but she laughed anyway. She thought back to what had happened a while ago and she was a bit upset that her friend was leaving, to go and save the world.
"He's leaving the day after tomorrow, Brother…"
"Did he tell you why?"
She shook her head and opened her mouth to speak, "But the notebook has a good justification as to why he is."
Her brother nodded in agreement, he like his sister believed the words that Riku had written down. This was his side of the story that Sora had made for himself in the other worlds. Yomigami scratched his head for a moment and then just scrunched up his face for a moment.
"He wants to spend time together on the last day." She said messing with the necklace.
"He's asking you out on a date, you dumb head…" he said slapping his forehead lightly.
Selma just made a face, it was one of two things, confusion, or embarrassment for accepting the invitation. Her head was trying to figure out exactly what Riku was trying to say when he used those words. She didn't have a good explanation for it, and she ended up taking her brother's advice.
"A date?!" she yelled out, almost making her big brother go deaf.
"If I remember correctly this had happened a long time ago too…" he said smirking.
"Hey!" she yelled. "You said you wouldn't bring up that story…" she started to whine covering her ears as her brother started to speak. She muffled out the sound by thinking of something else.
"…And then he left… And you never told him goodbye that day." He finally finished the story.
Names, dates, or places, weren't given out because Selma had locked away that incident a long time ago in her memories. It was one she didn't really like all that well because that was the first time she ever really liked anybody. Selma shook her head and pouted at her big brother.
"You liked that's guy's sister, and she dumped you…" she said.
"Anyway back to Riku…" he said smacking his little sister upside the head. "He's got a crush on you…"
"Ouch…" she grumbled for a moment. "I don't think he does…"
"Well you're thinking wrong little sister." He said shaking his head. "Besides if Tachigami was here right now she'd do anything in a heartbeat to get him away from you…"
"Not this again…" she shook her head. "Listen let's just drop this whole conversation, it's getting nowhere… All right?" Selma stood up and kissed her brother on the cheek. "Good night, Yomigami."
"Night, night, Amaterasu…" he whispered, and looked back at the locket with the picture in it. "I hope you're watching over us, Mom…" he said softly under his breath.
That night the sky was full of stars, but in the distance if you looked closely enough, you could see some stars fade out, as the darkness was starting to come and take the worlds in its grasp. People here on the island had no clue as to what was going to happen, and it seemed that the events would start again just like they did two years ago on that day of the storm.
Riku was sitting at the edge of his bed, staring the black checkered sheet and he was thinking back to what had happened about an hour ago. He took out this little device that was in his pocket, it was his friend's mp3 player. As a relaxing exercise, she told him to keep it until he had to leave. He had gone through 13 songs already, but he wasn't sleepy at all.
"We're letting go of something we've never had…" Riku found himself singing slightly, he laughed at himself. "I don't have anything planned for tomorrow… I think I'll spend that time with Mom…" he placed the little mp3 device on his night stand and got ready to go to sleep. "How we long for heaven…" he yawned as he mimicked the vocals from the song.
And with that he knocked out like a light. Bright and early the sun greeted the new day, which meant to three people that they had to start packing for the next day. It was hard for all of them, but they knew they had to do, it was their responsibility as keepers of the peace.
Somewhere in the distance of Riku's living room a band by the name of 'Secondhand Serenade' was playing in the distance. His mom did like the sentimental lyrics within the song the one man band was playing.
"That's in her mp3 player?" his mother asked him.
"Yeah, I'm guessing she's emo." He said sitting up straight on the couch.
"You don't know that for sure, besides do you think people really need labels?"
He looked at his mother for a moment and smiled. In response he shook his head and believed that people were people, and that putting labels on them was just another way to distance themselves.
"Do you have anything planned for your little date tomorrow?" his mother asked him.
"..Uh…" he scratched his cheek. "I have something…" he said, not really sure what that something was.
"Well whatever that something is, I'm sure the two of you will have fun." His mother said smiling at her little boy.
It was hard to believe it, but he hardly could be called a 'little boy' now, he was a seventeen year old now. Riku sighed for a moment and pushed back some of the strands falling over his face. He was thinking of what to do for tomorrow but he couldn't get anything in his head, in fact he just wanted to spend that last day with Selma, and he didn't really care about what they did so long as they had fun.
"I think we're just going to hang around the island…" Riku said finally speaking up, "You know the one where we use to play on?"
His mother nodded in satisfaction and added her own little piece to the idea:
"You should probably make that your last stop."
"Hm," he thought about it for a moment, and he felt his stomach churn again like it did the night before. "Wait why?"
"You'll get the idea soon enough," she said patting her son on the back. He in turn looked at her with confused eyes trying to scan her eyes for an answer or an idea as to what she was trying to say.
"But what if I don't?" he asked hoping that he'd get the answer.
Riku's mother shook her head and gave a big smile. 'Mom, you're really brave, I hope you know that,' he thought watching his mother laugh a bit. It was going to be really hard to leave her, and the new friend he made.
Another song came out, carrying out it's melody into the area of the living room. The screen, from the little blue mp3 playing device, read that it came from an album titled Wolf's Rain. It was in another language of course, Selma had a strange liking for other world music. The title of it was called Coracoa Selvagem, which meant in English 'Wild Heart.'
"It's in Portuguese," his mother said to him. "I took that as a foreign language, but that was years ago."
"So you have no idea what it's saying?" he asked her blinking a bit. She shook her head and that was enough for him.
It was already late into the afternoon and Riku didn't really do anything, other than not answer his calls. Surprisingly neither Sora nor Kairi called him in almost the whole day, which was a record in Riku's book.
The sun was starting to cast long shadows as the afternoon was starting to set, signaling another day passing by. Since the three of them were leaving this day in general was starting to go by pretty fast.
Riku laid on his bed watching the sun set for a minute, in his hand he held the little mp3 device and closed his eyes for a moment. The song from before, the one titled Snow, played in his head for a moment. 'Tomorrow's the last day,' he thought to himself taking in a mouthful of air, he exhaled slowly and frowned for a moment. 'A week in advance would've been nice, but that's not how it works,' he could imagine Selma saying something along the lines of that, and he chuckled a bit to himself.
He looked up at that same familiar ceiling that was over his head, and in a day and something hours that wasn't going to be there. 'I know when I go out tomorrow I won't come back home to this,' he felt a bit upset about leaving the life he knew for only a couple of months now.
Final Day…
"Come on, Sora!" Kairi yelled at him as he was lagging behind. He said something about the items being too heavy. "Come on, put some muscle into it!"
"I'd like to see you try!" Sora said straining under the weight of the items. "In case you haven't noticed I'm not that-" there was a heavy thud and Kairi rushed over to the spiky brunette's side.
"Are you okay?" she asked, the look of concern sketched on her face. Kairi pulled him up and sighed in relief noticing that he wasn't bruised nor had any cuts on him.
"Like I was saying before…" Sora sighed heavily and put his arms up in the air, "I'm not that muscular…"
"Sorry," she said laughing nervously looking down at the ground for a moment. The boxes were dented a bit, but it wasn't that bad. A couple of items had fallen out of one box and she went over to pick the items up. "You brought snacks?"
"Well there aren't any in the gummi ship." He pointed out putting his hands on the back of his head.
"Do the words 'wrap drive' mean anything?" she asked tossing him a bag of potato chips.
He caught it and laughed nervously and innocently said he had forgotten about that. It was true he did forget about that, but with the worlds and their barriers the paths would be lost again, and they'd have to travel like they did in their first adventure.
"Where are we meeting up again?" Sora asked helping Kairi pick up the items from the ground.
"By the edge of this island where you can see the other island we use to play on as kids."
"Does Riku know?" the male teenager asked.
"I tried to call him on his cell but he won't pick up, and his mom said he wasn't home."
"What the heck is he doing out so early in the morning?" Sora asked finally being able to carry the box. Kairi shrugged for a moment and carried the lighter box as the two of them walked down the sidewalk.
"I'll take a guess…" Kairi said nudging her head forward. Sora's blue eyes followed as he spotted two familiar people. It was Riku and Selma, the two of them were walking down the same sidewalk as Sora and Kairi. "That's should be enough to guess…" she said smiling. "But what he's doing taking her out so early in the morning?"
"Beats me…" Sora said trying to think of something. He watched the two of them mess around with the other's hair. "He likes her a lot, doesn't he?"
"So you noticed it too?" she asked looking at Sora for a moment.
"It's kind of hard not to notice it…" Sora said almost tripping over his own feet.
"Be careful…" Kairi said starting to worry a bit about his well being.
Sora gained control of his balance and laughed it off. The two of them started to follow slowly behind to other two individuals. He thought of a plan and laughed triumphantly as Kairi gave him a confused stare for a second or two.
"Come on don't look at me like that, I know you wanna see what they're going to be up to."
"Not really…"
"But you were thinking it…" Sora said hoping that his little plan would work.
"Well now I am…" Kairi said sighing in defeat.
"Yes!" Sora said feeling like he won something big. "So let's drop off these boxes by the pier and then we'll go and spy on them."