"So are you ready for the concert tomorrow?"

This question was followed by a loud crack as Sora lost hold of the lid of his guitar case. His head snapped up to bring his wide-eyed gaze level with Luxord's.

"For the what?"

oo000OOO000oo

So it was that the next day, Sora found himself sitting in the bleachers of the gym while Beginning Strings squealed painfully through "Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star," his foot bouncing so violently on the row of seats below him that people were glancing back in irritation almost continuously. He finally reined his right foot in and stepped on it with his left, which just caused them both to shake.

"No worries," said Luxord in a loud whisper, clapping his twitchy friend on the back. Someone shushed him, earning a hissed "Oh, shut up, it's not like it's really music" in response.

Sora swiped at his own bangs. "Yeah. Right. Okay."

But no matter what he told himself, he kept picturing himself standing when it was finally Jazz Band's turn to play and then toppling all the way down the bleachers. Or tripping over one of the many cables crisscrossing the gym floor. Or dropping his guitar, or…. It was ridiculous, really, the number of ways getting to his chair down on the gym floor could go wrong.

The Beginning Strings class screeched to a halt and was greeted with appreciative (and extremely thankful) applause. Toting their instruments, the members of Orchestra trudged out to their seats and prepared to play. It might have seemed an unusual setup for a concert to an outsider—Sora wouldn't know because he'd grown used to it. The school theatre was too small to hold the larger performing groups, and because there were four concerts a year, the Music Department couldn't afford a nice venue for all of them. The fall and spring concerts were held in the gym with seating in the bleachers and the "stage" down on the court. Each performing group had their own section of the floor so no one had to move any instruments until the entire concert was over. The acoustics were terrible and the view of the performers often sucked, but they made it work.

Three more songs until Jazz plays, Sora thought. He whiled away the first rapping his fingertips against his music folder. Two more. He straightened his red tie (the Jazz band "uniform" consisted of a black button-down shirt, black pants, and a tie that was red partially because that was a school color and mostly because it looked badass) until Luxord threatened to strangle him with it. One more. Sora decided he wouldn't be so nervous if he hadn't been reminded only the day before that there was a concert. He had forgotten entirely, and he only ever managed to kill his stage fright when he was sufficiently prepared.

Go time.

Sora made it to his chair and fumbled through getting his guitar on his lap without tripping or dying or breaking things. He glanced around at his fellow band mates, but they were all busy setting up their music stands or tuning their instruments. Except for Riku. The silver-haired boy looked strangely pale, but he glanced over his shoulder to give Sora a reassuring smile nonetheless.

Encouraged, Sora took a deep breath. Just another performance. It would be fine.

It was, of course. Sora slipped into the performing mindset effortlessly, forgetting about the crowd watching him and focusing on the next chord, the next slide of his fingers, the next note. He executed his solo in the second song perfectly and was entirely unaware of the applause that followed.

And just like that, the applause faded and Sora packed his guitar away. Music folder in hand, he followed the rest of the Jazz kids back toward the bleachers, grinning at nothing in particular, and only stopped when he noticed Riku slipping away from the mass of students toward the back door of the gym. The tall boy opened the door silently and snuck out, unnoticed by everyone but Sora.

Sora paused with his bottom foot on the first step of the bleachers as his grin dissolved into a slight frown. That was strange. He had never seen Riku leave before the end of a concert before. Of course, it could just be that he had somewhere to go after the concert and he needed to leave early to get there on time. But who had plans on Wednesday night? Besides, Sora remembered, Riku had looked queasy when he first sat down at his piano bench.

It was settled. Demyx wandering off was one thing, mostly because he was harder to keep track of than a four-year-old on a sugar rush in a mall, but Riku wandering off was too weird to be left alone. Sora turned around (startling Naminé, who had been waiting behind him as he decided whether or not to go to his seat) and set off for the back door. No one saw him slip out.

As the door shut behind him with a small click, Sora peered through the darkness behind the gym. It took him a moment to pick out a dark form with gleaming hair leaning against the nearby football building.

Or football department? Sora wondered. He didn't interact with any of the football guys.

Riku didn't look at him until they were three feet apart, and then he glanced up with a jerk, surprised. Sora grinned sheepishly.

"Sorry," Sora said, rubbing at his neck. "Um. Are you okay?"

"Fine," said Riku stiffly, shoving his hands into his pockets. He had let his hair down and had been worrying at his hair tie when Sora walked up.

Oh. Well. Sora looked down at the ground and felt stupid. He bit at his lower lip, suddenly very conscious of the fact that he only came up to Riku's chin. "Oh. 'Kay."

Riku exhaled loudly before extracting a hand from a pocket to push his bangs out of his face. "Sorry," he said quietly, "It's just crowds, sometimes… they freak me out."

A number of question marks inflated rapidly in Sora's chest. He stared in silence as he tried to wrap his mind around this confession: it was possible for Riku to get freaked out? Riku was scared of crowds? But everyone liked—no, loved—no, worshipped him. He had his own unofficial fan club that included not only girls of every age, but also teachers and probably a number of boys as well. Sora flushed at the thought.

And then, entirely without the prior consent of Sora's mind, Sora's mouth assessed the situation carefully, made a few crafty decisions, and blurt out, "Wanna ditch this and go get burgers or something?"

Mildly shocked, Sora bit at his lower lip to prevent his mouth from plotting anything else.

There was a silent moment in which Sora's train of thought abruptly careened off its previous course and chugged speedily down a track that started something like "WTF stupid he doesn't want to talk to you dumbass" and ended with flying luggage, screaming passengers, and a fiery explosion when Riku said, "Yeah. I'd like that."

"What?" said Sora before he could stop himself, and then (very quickly,) "Okay, awesome, let's go." After a moment of thought, he added, "Roxas has the car tonight. Do, um. Do you mind driving?"

"No problem," Riku responded, running a hand unsteadily through his long hair. The tall boy was usually so composed that Sora felt this awkward, fumbling Riku was something he shouldn't be allowed to see. But Sora said nothing, of course, just nodded and followed Riku toward the back parking lot with his big music folder clutched in one hand, wondering how irritated Luxord would be if he got a text that read, "Hey, could you drag my guitar all the way over to the Band Room and stash it in one of the practice rooms? Kthxbai." On a scale of one to extremely irritated, Sora guessed, Luxord would be extremely irritated.

Abruptly, Sora remembered Riku and his panic attack. Something wriggled in his chest, uncomfortably hot and fuzzy, but he still couldn't think of anything to say.

"Sora?" Riku asked curiously, and the startled brunette extracted his fingers from his newly smoothed bangs and looked up. "I asked how Demyx is."

Still hurtling back down to reality from way up in the clouds, Sora's mind tossed him the one pre-packaged response it could dig up quickly—"He's fine." Splat. His mind returned to Earth. "Yeah, he's great. He goes back to RGU on Saturday, though. He has some frat stuff to do or something." And then, remembering how much Dem hated it when he said 'frat,' he hastily amended, "Fraternity stuff."

Riku took a moment from fumbling with his keys to give Sora an amused look that ended in a small grin. The silver-haired boy shook his head and pressed the button to unlock his car doors (Sora eyeballed it with admiration; he had to unlock his car manually) and then opened his door and slid into the driver's seat.

As he climbed into the passenger seat, Sora took a moment to appreciate the fact that he was actually going to drive somewhere in Riku's car. He had heard more people than he could count on both hands whistle and say something about how much they'd like to ride in that car, and here he was, on his way to a burger joint in Riku's car. With Riku. Sure, it was a nice car (perhaps nice should be underlined, capitalized and bolded here) but as Sora reached for the seatbelt, all he could think was that he couldn't remember anyone ever saying that they wanted to drive in Riku's car with Riku. That seemed important to him somehow.

Just as Sora was beginning to get the sneaking suspicion that his thoughts had ceased to make sense, Riku asked him, "D'you like James Morrison?"

Sora looked down at the iPod Touch in Riku's hand. He looked up at Riku. He said, "I've never heard him."

Riku arched an eyebrow in mild, joking disapproval before tapping the screen of his iPod and sliding it into a dock that sent what Sora assumed was James Morrison piping through a large number of expensive speakers. They listened in silence as Riku pulled out of the parking lot and set off towards whatever burger joint he had in mind. Both of them felt the awkwardness of the situation, the "alright this is good what next" feeling that often comes with outings with near-strangers.

"I'm still here, but it hasn't been easy," sang Riku's expensive speakers. Sora drummed along on his thigh with his thumb for a moment before pulling out his cell phone to text Luxord. Then he slid his phone back in to his pocket, straightened one of his rolled-up shirt sleeves, and thought, Oh, what the heck.

"Does that happen much?" he asked with honest concern. Sora had yet in his seventeen years of life to demonstrate that he was capable of dishonest concern, and Riku must have understood this enough that he didn't feel the need to pretend he didn't understand the question.

Instead, he said, "Not as much anymore." He slowed to a stop at a red light. "It's just been… a weird day." And there was something defensive about the way he said it, but it was a weary, habitual sort of defensive. Sora didn't hold it against him.

Sora thought about Seifer coming back, the quiet feud with Roxas that hadn't died yet, the way that Demyx hadn't talked to him as much over the past few days, and the five rejection letters pinned to the cork board in his room, and he muttered, "Weird few weeks is more like it."

To his surprise, Riku laughed. It was a real laugh, too, all wrapped up with a smile and a sideways glance and everything. Before Sora knew it, he was laughing, too, and then both laughs trailed off into a moment of companionable silence. It was a pointless sort of laugh with little impetus and less direction, but it cheered Sora up all the same. In fact, it gave him all the energy he needed to set him talking about the first thing that popped into his head (which happened to be who James Morrison reminded him of and how he thought the song was pretty cool, but no matter,) and before he knew it, they were in the parking lot beside Kingdom Burgers and he was telling Riku about the time he had set up Luxord's drum set backwards just to see the look on his face when he sat down to play.

When they walked out of the night and into the glaring light of the little fast food place, Sora was still talking animatedly and illustrating his story with his hands as Riku grinned unconsciously. Whatever wall Sora had sensed between them before had vanished, at least for that moment. It didn't even occur to him until after he had sat down with his burger, fries, and shake that he was talking more than he had in weeks.

He stared stupidly at his French fries for ten full seconds before Riku punched him in the shoulder. "You awake, Sora?"

"Hehe, sorry," Sora chuckled. "Has anything I've said over the past few minutes made any sense?" he asked, scratching at the back of his head sheepishly.

Riku pretended to think this over for a moment. "Most of it, yeah."

Sora grabbed a handful of fries, stuffed them in to his mouth, and reached for his strawberry milkshake. Somehow, he managed to mutter "That's more than usual" around his mouthful.

Riku snorted into his burger. He finished chewing, grabbed his Coke and asked, "So do you know where you're going next year?"

Sora took a few seconds longer than he really needed to polish off the fries in his hand. He scratched at his neck and shrugged before saying, as casually as he could manage, "Eh, I don't know yet. You?"

"University of Hollow Bastion," Riku said, then took a sip of Coke.

And it was just like that. He just said it and then drank his soda like it was the most normal thing in the world. Said it like U of HB hadn't been Sora's dream school for the past year, said it like Sora hadn't visited twice already and made up charts in his mind depicting the advantages of going to U of HB over RGU, his other dream school, and vice-versa. He just… said it.

"Oh," Sora managed. "Cool."

If he had looked up, he would have seen the slight contraction of Riku's eyebrows and the slight narrowing of Riku's mouth, and if he had realized that those symbolized concern, Sora might have felt slightly better. He didn't look up, of course. Not even when Riku said, "Do you have any idea about what you might want to do next year?"

"Go to college," Sora muttered darkly, more accidentally than on purpose, and the words came out more bitter than they had felt in his mind.

"That shouldn't be too hard. You've got really good grades, right? And test scores."

"Mm," Sora grunted noncommittally. When he had finished two more bites of his burger and Riku still hadn't said anything else, he added, "All of my schools have rejected me."

"All of them?" Riku said, incredulous, and he kicked himself the second the words slipped out.

"Yeah. Except for Leonhart; they haven't responded yet," Sora responded. He forced the words out as quickly as he could, sinking incrementally deeper into his seat and wishing with all his non-existent telepathic capabilities that Riku would change subjects.

There was a brief silence.

"So where'd you get that guitar, anyway?"

Sora could not possibly have been more thankful for Riku's understanding right then. In fact, he was so busy being thankful that he forgot all about college and was laughing and smiling again by the time Riku had nearly finished all of his fries and the remaining dredges of Sora's milkshake struggled to climb up his straw. His grin lolled happily across his face, glad to be back, all the way up until….

Oh God.

Sora's grin froze in its tracks before melting and sliding slowly off his face. Riku's grin performed much the same feat but was replaced by a look of mild confusion, then (after he had turned to follow Sora's line of vision over his shoulder) an icy, hardened stare.

Sora saw none of Riku's reaction. All he saw was Seifer. And once the icy hot grip of panic had loosened on his heart, all he could manage to whisper in a meek voice was, "Can we leave?"

Riku was already out of his seat, heading toward the trash with his tray in his hands, calling "Let's go" over his shoulder. Sora couldn't move until Riku clapped a big hand on his shoulder and steered him toward the exit.

Whichever school Seifer had been banished to had not treated him kindly. His trademark beanie hid hair now long enough and unkempt enough to nearly obscure the diagonal scar between his eyes. His sallow face shone strangely above the white vest he wore, and the vest combined with black combat boots and tight jeans gave him the look of someone who had aimed for punk and fallen just short of the mark. The thin girl trailing just behind him looked no better and had perhaps gone a bottle of peroxide and an eyeliner pencil too far.

Sora absorbed this all in the moment before he and Riku passed Seifer and his friend. And then time froze. Riku was steering Sora out the door, but Sora's eyes were still locked on Seifer, and Seifer's head was turning, turning, followed by a flicker of recognition in his eyes—

They swept past each other. Sora stumbled into a wall of cool night air.

"Hey Riku!" Seifer called.

Riku's long stride quickened.

Seifer called Riku's name again. By the third time he called it, Riku and Sora were halfway to Riku's car and Sora was nearly running to keep up with the silver-haired boy still clutching his shoulder.

Seifer, apparently, had also started running, because there were three rows of cars left between Sora and his getaway car when Seifer's hand closed around Riku's shoulder and everyone ground to a halt. Seifer's eyes narrowed as he hissed, "Listen to me, damn it!"

"Fuck off," Riku spat, swiping at the other boy's hand.

The blonde had a fist half-raised when he spotted Sora and smirked. "Oh, now this is priceless," he said, clenching his fist tighter. "The loser and the victim I let get away are on a date."

"If you touch him, I'll kill you," Riku responded, and his voice rang deep and strong in the quiet parking lot.

After a brief silence, Seifer either took this as a challenge or decided that harming Sora was worth dying for. He reached past the tall boy in front of him and caught Sora's upper arm roughly… after which he was thrown to the asphalt.

The ensuing fight didn't last long enough for Sora to ever figure out exactly what was happening. It reminded him of those cartoon fights where the actual violence is all hidden in a blur and only hands and feet popping out in odd places indicate that anyone is actually fighting. It wasn't at all like that, of course, because Sora saw Seifer's hands claw through long silver hair and heard the sound of Riku's fists hitting flesh. But it almost seemed fake like that. Surreal.

And just like that Seifer walked away, yanking at his vest and pretending he had better things to do. Riku watched him leave, chest heaving, nails digging grooves into his palms. Sora stared wide-eyed.

Eventually, Riku's rapid gasps evened out, and he unsteadily said, "Let's go."

Sora didn't question him. He moved like a clumsy robot following orders and couldn't remember later how he climbed into Riku's car without hurting himself, but he managed it somehow and stared out the window until Riku asked, "Where do you live?"

Sora mumbled his address.

Riku nodded. The air in the car contracted around Sora, thickening and threatening to strangle him until Riku asked, "You know him?"

"Yeah," Sora exhaled. "He tried to drown me once."

Everyone encounters statements during their life that it's impossible to prepare for. For Riku, this was one of them. He couldn't find words to respond because he couldn't even find an emotion to latch on to. He just stared determinedly at the road until he felt he could say "Oh" at a normal volume.

Sora, remembering suddenly, said, "You know him too though."

"Yeah," Riku responded, and left it at that.

Nothing else was said during the car ride to Sora's house. Sora stared blankly at the trees rushing by and thought about how he had never been scared of a fight until the day Seifer tried to drown him, and how he could defend himself in any situation not involving Seifer. If that beanie-wearing blonde had intended to scar Sora for life, he had succeeded marvelously.

The car pulled up in front of Sora's brown two-story house. Riku put it in park and Sora fumbled with his seatbelt before remembering his manners and saying, "Thanks." Riku grunted in response.

Swinging his legs out of the car, Sora felt a hand press his shoulder. He turned back to look at Riku, but Riku had focused his gaze somewhere at the end of the street. Sora watched him expectantly, becoming more and more acutely aware of the weight of a hand on his shoulder as seconds ticked past.

Riku's hand fell from Sora's shoulder and rose again to brush back Riku's bangs. "Hey, just… just promise me you'll stay away from him, alright?"

Heat coursed through Sora's cheeks. He turned away, ruffled his hair, and said, "Yeah, yeah, of course. It's not like I'd want to do that again."

And he climbed out of the car feeling like an idiot. He wouldn't want to do it again? Riku was the one who would have bruises to show for their encounter. He had defended Sora while Sora stood and watched. Why Riku had done that at all, Sora couldn't say.

"He probably just really hates Seifer," Sora mumbled at his reflection in the mirror, holding a half-empty tube of toothpaste in one hand. He stared his reflection down, feeling inexplicably like one solitary butterfly had taken up residence in his stomach.

xxXXxx

Bah, sorry that took so long. I graduated from high school yesterday, so I should have more time to write from here on out. Hope you enjoyed this section. I dunno how satisfied I am with it, but I promise the next one will be more fun rather than all serious. :)