Silver and Gold Crayons

Fanfiction by Chiharu Tanaka


A/n: Thanks to those who reviewed the last chapter! As I promised, here's the next one! I might be delayed in uploading the chapters during my exam week (which is in about 5 weeks' time), because obviously I have to pass that, don't I? To make it up for that particularly hectic week, however, I will try to upload two chapters for the week after the exam. Sounds fair, no?

Disclaimer: Me no own Kingdom Hearts.


016 - Goodbye

She felt like a shadow. Was that really how he felt about her?


It was another peaceful night in Destiny Islands and Naminé peered outside the window of her room on the second floor, taking in the salty wind as she searched for some inspiration to draw her next masterpiece. Before she could reach for a pencil to begin drawing, however, a series of knocks on her white bedroom door startled her. "Nami? Are you awake? Can I come in?" Kairi's muffled voice came through the door and Naminé merely smiled.

"Come on in," she replied, and the door swung open momentarily to let the red-haired princess of Hearts inside. She held what appeared to be a small pink paper bag, and Naminé was curious about it. "What's that?"

"Hair accessories," Kairi replied, walking over to her desk. "I bought them on our trip to the city the other day. I totally forgot about it until I found it inside my bag."

"Okay," said Naminé, trailing off as Kairi seemed a lot more forgetful now that she was officially dating Sora. Kairi tugged at her arm.

"C'mon, let me do your hair! I bought these to see if I could try a new hairdo for you."

Naminé raised an eyebrow. Surely, life as an only child for so long must have made Kairi pretty lonely at times – if it weren't for Selphie, she didn't know who else Kairi were to share a special girly bond with. "Okay..." she said again, letting Kairi pull her off the chair and she sat down on the stool in front of her dresser.

Kairi opened the paper bag and emptied the contents, letting the various hairclips and hair-ties fall on Naminé's rather empty dresser table. After all, Naminé didn't need all the hair care, skin care and make-up Kairi had on her dresser, and the things on the table were the absolute 'musts' that Kairi had forced her to use – like sunscreen, moisturiser and a few tinted lip balms. The dresser drawers were filled with – obviously – more of her stationeries and artwork anyway.

The redhead proceeded to pick up a comb and started combing Naminé's shoulder-length blond hair. Naminé smiled weakly as Kairi pulled it backwards and tied her hair into a ponytail, then into their reflection in the mirror and the redhead said, "Nah, that looks weird on you," before pulling the hair tie out and proceeded to comb her hair some more.

Naminé watched as Kairi did her work and her eyelids drooped slightly as she turned away from their reflection. They really looked alike – too much alike that they were almost twins – and Naminé felt her new heart cringe with the memories of seeing her reflection for the first few times in her life.

It was some time after Sora, Donald, Goofy and Jiminy went inside the three pods and fell into a deep sleep while she restored their memories, and when she was first acquainted with DiZ and Riku. She remembered the first time Riku had laid eyes on her; even if Naminé hadn't been alive for very long at the time she knew the expression his aquamarine eyes gave away – surprise. The more time she spent with him, the more unsettling it was to have him look at her. Naminé became even more familiar with human emotions as time passed and she knew there was hurt in his eyes. And she knew why it hurt him to look at her.

There used to be a mirror in her white room in the Twilight Town mansion. Every morning she would see herself in the mirror, with shoulder-length blond hair that was pretty much hassle-free, blue eyes that were clear, staring back at her with innocence and porcelain-like skin; but as the days passed she began to loathe her reflection – she began to hate the way she looked like. She was Kairi's shadow, her Nobody – and it must have hurt Riku, the one whose love was unrequited, so much.

"Riku," she said, one night after one of his missions to locate Roxas, and she knew his eyes were focused anywhere else but her even if he was listening. She stood at the mirror, looking at herself from head to toe and realised how much she looked like and probably behaved like Kairi. Fingers intertwined with each other, and a hollow in her chest where her heart was supposed to be throbbing with an insatiable desire, she asked him, "When you look at me...do you see Kairi? Even if your eyes were closed and you hear my voice, do you hear hers? And when you think of me, do you think of her?"

The room was silent for a moment. Riku turned his whole body away from her, thinking of an answer. Finding none, he proceeded to the door. "Goodbye, Naminé," he said, and with that he left her with a question unanswered.

Naminé had only felt anger once, when she protected Sora and the Replica Riku from Larxene's taunts, and even then it was interlaced with the guilt she harboured for creating such a mess in the first place. But Riku's answer made her blood feel like it was boiling and she could swear that steam was leaking out of her ears. Tears stinging her eyes, she grabbed the white vase on top of the centre table and tossed it at the mirror, crashing the elongated reflective structure into shards that dropped to the floor.

And that was the first time that Naminé cried.

It was that answer of his that made her truly believe that she can never be anything more than Kairi's shadow. She would never be able to become a separate individual with her own thoughts and feelings – she would always be perceived as part of Kairi, and that all her emotions and opinions stemmed from Kairi's own personality.

"Ouch!"

Kairi gasped. "Oh my gosh, I'm sorry, Nami!" she exclaimed as she tugged too hard while finely braiding Naminé's hair from its roots. Pressing the temples of her head gently, Kairi blew at the scalp that Naminé was gently rubbing with her left hand, trying to ease the pain. Guilt tugged at her fragile heart – Kairi was too nice a person to be hated, that she knew, but she couldn't help, at the time, hate the princess for bringing her into existence.

It was not long after that incident that Riku began his blindfold 'regime' and she refused to speak to him, not because she was angry at him; but because she knew she would hurt him. Riku could only stand the silent treatment for so long, and after only a few days he confronted her in her room. Naminé didn't even yelp in pain when he forcefully grabbed hold of her dainty arm. "Look, I'm sorry I couldn't answer your question, okay?" he said angrily. "I didn't expect such a complicated question from you and you just popped it out of the blue!"

Naminé, her feet on the floor and glaring up at him indignantly, pulled her arm out of his powerful grasp with equal stubbornness. "Then answer my question," she said, rubbing the sore part of her arm with her other hand.

Riku raked through his hair and sighed. "Okay...look...when I first saw you, I thought you were Kairi – with a blond wig. You can't blame me for that, you two look the same. But after a while, I realised both of you are different. You both have different scents*, and you both have different voices. I am aware that both of you are two different people, even if you are her Nobody. So let me answer your question once and for all – when I look at you, yes, you do remind me of Kairi, but when I think of Kairi, I just think of her and when I think of you, I just think of you."

The room fell silent once again, and Naminé felt herself filled with mixed emotions – she was getting used to expressing them even though she had no idea where they were coming from – happiness, relief and guilt all mashed up into one. She began giggling, covering her mouth to contain her laughter but was unable to contain her tears that fell from the brim of her eyes again.

"Oh man...Naminé, are you crying? I'm sorry," Riku said, a little panicked as he wasn't used to dealing with crying girls. He placed a hand on her shoulder and she let him do so.

Naminé rubbed the corners of her eyes with the back of her hands, mouth still curved into a small grin. "No...don't worry about me. I was just so glad...and embarrassed right now," she said with flushed cheeks, touching the arm that was touching her shoulder. "But thank you, Riku. That was all I wanted to hear from you."

Thank you, Riku, for thinking of me as a separate existence, one that is related yet not entirely composed of Kairi. Now I know what it feels like to be normal.

"I'm done!" said Kairi, which snapped Naminé out of her train of thoughts and she stared at her own reflection in surprise. Her entire head was filled with braids, except for the fringe she kept at the front. She almost wanted to laugh at herself – she looked absolutely ridiculous, but it looked rather nice since it was done so professionally. "You look pretty cool, Nami...like a freelance artist. Now all we need is Sora's jacket and Riku's baggy pants and you'll be a hip-hop dancer!"

Naminé laughed at the idea of her being a hip-hop dancer breaking out in dance moves on the street. "It's nicely done...but I don't think it suits me," she admitted.

"Aw, that's okay. You should sleep in it and wait for tomorrow morning before you take it off. You might look nice with curls," Kairi suggested. "But before that, let's take pictures of you! This took me ages to do, so we should capture this moment!"As Kairi rushed back into her room to find her camera, Naminé turned back to her reflection.

Now, I have a life to live, a family to love, friends to cherish and a whole new future awaiting me...I'm no longer a shadow, I am in the light now.

Her last thoughts before Kairi re-entered her room was what Sora and Riku's reaction would be to her curly hair?


*I know that in the PS2 remake of KH:CoM Riku said that both Kairi and Naminé smell the same, while in the GBA version he said "You smell the same", which I perceived as when he 'dreamt' of Kairi he inhaled Naminé's scent instead of the real Kairi's, so I'm following this perception that they both have different scents.

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