With all that was going on, I forgot that my birthday was coming up in a week. Granted, I wasn't ever good with dates or with math. My school even said I had something called dyscalculia. I didn't know what the hell that was. My grades were dropping all around, but that was probably because I didn't sleep at night. It came to the point that my dad and mom decided to get me therapy. Wasn't therapy for crazy people? Was I really going insane over one event?

At this point, my mom basically dragged me to her house. I thought she was being overprotective. For I had no idea what Vanitas was really trying to do, my ignorant mind couldn't comprehend anything with common sense. All I knew was that I didn't want to go through it again. Oh, I forgot to mention that Tifa's husband's name was Cloud, and he was off in a war or something during all of this craziness. He would've been even harder on Vanitas than Tifa was if he was there right then. He was always hard on everyone. My mom didn't have the highest opinion of him because of that.

Speaking of my mom, let's just say she was weird. She was more out there in her youth, yet some of the childish behaviors still lingered. It annoyed me a lot. I still loved my mom, but she got on my nerves whenever she would mess up my hair by patting it.

Namine, Xion, and I look inside our mom's small apartment. We had been here before, but it wasn't that often that we visited here. There was a living room and kitchen connected for the first room you walked in. A bathroom was right be the entrance. When you went down a hallway on the left, two bedrooms and another bathroom awaited you.

The floor was a black carpet in the living room, and it changed in the kitchen to a brown made of hardwood. In the bathrooms, there was only white tile, nothing special. All the walls in the apartment were white. For my mom was still new here, the landlords wouldn't give Yuffie the right to paint until a couple more months. It was just a normal living place which was unlike our mom...

"Oh my God, all of you are here! I'm so happy!" Before any of us could run away, my mom gave the three of us a big group hug and kissed us on the top of our foreheads. Like most children at this age, I thought it was annoying. I wasn't the biggest fan of kisses, but hugs were okay in my book.

"Calm down," Namine said. Yuffie patted my twin sister's head, and her blonde hair went all over the place. "I'm pretty sure some people stared at you in the hallway." I quickly closed the door behind all of us.

"Do you know you're talking to the great and powerful Yuffie?"

"You're our mom," I responded.

"Kairi, that was a joke." Xion stayed quiet, looking at the screen of her DS yet again. She was pressing a lot of buttons on her portable controller. "How about all of you make yourselves at home? I hope you like this place. We'll do more girl stuff because we're all girls here!"

"Awesome!" I seemed to be the only one pleased at that statement, for Namine and Xion weren't into that type of stuff as much as me. Namine hurried to the bathroom to fix her hair though.

"So, Xion, how is school so far?" my mom asked.

"Okay."

"Kairi, what do you want to do for your birthday. I'm going to ask Namine the same thing when she gets out. We're going to make it awesome this year since this is the big one o." Silence occupied the room. I wasn't really thinking much about that, so I was pretty clueless about what to do. Other things filled my train of thought.

"I don't know."

"Then your dad and I are going to figure things out. It'll be awkward since we just divorced, but I think that we should still be friends. I mean, we've to move on from our pasts and go forward in life. If we linger on things too long, then that'll be boring. I hate boring!"

"Mom, you're ranting again-"

"People who are boring much have such pathetic lives because all you do is be bored all the time! I think I'm being sidetracked again, right, Kairi?" Slapping my head, I nodded. My mom punched me slightly in response.

"What was that for?"

"Being down in the dumps. You've to let yourself be happy, or all you're going to do in your life is be miserable. That's one way to experience damnation in my eyes," she explained, flipping her short black hair. It was clear who Xion looked like in the family, unlike Namine and I. We were like the milkman's children or something. Okay, Namine did dye her hair blonde, but her natural hair was red like mine.

Later on that day, I sat with my mom in the waiting room for my therapist. All the seats were red, and they were comfortable. The walls were painted a brown with a hint of yellow and white. All of the walls were inspirational posters telling people stuff like never give up and be yourself.

"Ms. Kairi Leonhart, Dr. de Grue would like to see you." I got up, and I followed the random worker to the room I was being treated in. On the front, it read that this was the office of Aqua de Grue. That was certainly an interesting name to say the least. It was probably Latin or something.

"Take a seat, Kairi," Aqua said, pointing at a white couch in front of her single seat. Before my therapist could start talking, I used the time to examine my surroundings once again. Underneath both of our chairs, there was a dark blue rug that matched with the light blue walls. There were photos of Aqua all over the place, but I noticed a lot of them had a man in them. His face didn't stay in my memory for long though. I figured he and Aqua were dating.

Aqua had brown hair with blue highlights, making her stand out. Her face was one of a youth in her twenties, so she was probably older than she looked to have this job. Like my eyes, Aqua's were blue. She was wearing a blue suit that complimented her black boots.

"May I ask why you or your parents wanted you here? Is it because of their divorce? A lot of kids actually come here for that."

"No, umm...how do I say this? My cousin, Vanitas...tried to do something when I was asleep. Yeah..."

"Okay, before you reveal any more information, I should get the chance to know you a little better." She handed me some paper, a hard book about drugs or something like that, and some crayons to draw with. I figured what she meant, and I drew something I can't remember. There was a lot of black in it though. Aqua observed me for the whole time, documenting my movements.

"You know, a lot can be told about a person by what they draw. I'm actually an art therapist, so you'll get to do a lot of fun stuff with me! Whatever you want though since you're the client."

"Alright," I responded. "My sister is the better artist though."

"Don't worry, in here that really doesn't matter. Just be comfortable and I'll try to help you with your problems." The brunette smiled, so I did too. She did have a sweet one after all. "There's a lot of dark colors I see. That's a warning sign of depression, but it's probably because you just experienced the event."

"Really?" Now I was curious. I used to not give a single shit about psychology, but something about this seemed interesting. It was like diving into the recesses of the human mind by just looking at a drawing.

"Like I said before, art tells the viewer a lot of things. Pictures are worth a thousand words. Now I want to know more about you and your beliefs and stuff. Like tell me about your family some more."

That were better than I expected. From everything I saw from television, I thought it was going to be very different. I was wrong though, and I saw that therapy did get a really bad rep because of lies. That's one thing I hated from media, lies. Even if it's for escapism, I can't stand all the fucking lies. Shows from my youth tried to teach me that learning was fun. Learning was and still is stupid and boring. I might have bad place at that time, but that's how I felt. My optimist personality didn't show up for a long time after this. I was still a child though.