Hallo my darlings! -laugh- Well, do you like what I've done? I decided to update everything on Christmas -- you're time, not mine -- and that way give myself more time to write chapters. I didn't get around to that Christmas one-shot, but I've got something better. What's the next biggest celebration after Christmas? NEW YEARS! And by that time I am determined to have made progress in KH II. So maybe I'll even get to use some new characters! Woot! Well anyways, Merry Christmas to you all! Hope ya get what ya want!
Disclaimer: Dashing through the snow
The laywers chase my sleigh
For I have just declared
The weirdest thing today
I've told the world I own
The game called Kingdom Hearts
And now they chase me ferverently
But I've got a headstart
OH! KH I KH II
How I love you so
Your characters are lovable
It hurts to let them go
OH! KH I KH II
The laywers want to sue
But I'd take prison any day
Than give up my rights of you!
-Cough- Needless to say, I don't own anything already copywrited. I just like making these disclaimer songs. Y.Y Calismo, you are a sad person.
Chapter Nine
For the first time in his life, Riku was speechless. When Conan whispered those words -- those mysterious, unbelievable words -- Riku's mind shut down. He couldn't move, couldn't think, couldn't do anything. It was too much to process. His mind refused to accept it, but he so wanted it to. If Leon and Sora were related, Leon couldn't possibly be with Sora. And that meant... Riku was free to be with Sora. Just them. It was beautiful. Wonderful. But wait...
"What do you mean 'used to be?'"
Conan smiled bitterly, "Their memories were enchanted away."
"Enchanted...?"
"Leon's father beat the memory out of them."
"He what?" Riku's heart wrenched. The thought of Sora and Leon being hit mercilessly. Torutured, abused. "So Sora..."
"No."
Riku stared.
"Sora was chained to the wall and forced to forget," Conan sighed. "Can you imagine watching someone you love being tortured just because you remember them?"
A soft noise came involuntarily from Riku's throat. So Sora hadn't been tortured. Physically, at least. But Leon... Leon had been tortured both ways. Was this why the boy was so cold? Why he had trouble warming up to people? Why he was pulled to Sora?
"And Leon?"
"I think that he still remembers, but refused to remember. Like part of him is still trying to protect Sora."
"But Leon... Leon loves Sora! Like, romantically!"
"No he doesn't. He just thinks he does," Conan took Riku's hand and squeezed it reassuringly. "He's just trying to protect Cloud."
"Why would he --?"
Conan shook his head, "Think about it."
Riku thought about it, but nothing came to mind. He didn't know what he was supposed to be looking for. Conan smiled softly and laid his hand on the boy's shoulder. Riku turned his confused eyes to the man, pleading for some bit of sanity in this drama.
"Why would Leon's father do this?" he whispered. "To his only child? His nephew?"
Conan's eyes hardened, but the man didn't answer. Suddenly Riku knew his place with the world. He was lost. He was a confused child, not ready to face such things in life as he already had. He was supposed to be worrying about normal things. About passing Biology (1) and trying to keep up with who was going out with who. Not learning that one of his best friend's father had mentally tortured his current love interest.
"I think I need to go to sleep," Riku mumbled, trying to push through Conan to the door. The man caught his arm. "Hm?"
"If you want to save Sora, then you'll need to be careful. Don't trust anyone."
"I don't know what I want to do anymore."
Conan looked at Riku as if he'd expected as much, "You'll know what to do when the time comes. But before you go, I have to explain to you."
"Explain?"
"This entire situation. If I don't, your head is likely to explode the moment you think about it," Conan said seriously. "Now don't go spouting this information to Leon and Cloud just to get it off your chest. Use it when it's to your advantage."
Riku situated his tired body on the softest of chairs and got comfortable. He was in for a long night.
When Cloud walked into Roxas' room the next morning -- wanting nothing more than to wish his brother good morning -- he was quite unprepared for the shock he recieved. Roxas. Sora. Together. In the same bed. Cloud stared. Roxas, as if sensing the bordering evil-death-glare stare on his person, stirred and sat up. And then broke out into a grin.
"Heeeey. You're back."
Cloud pulled himself out of his state of shock. "What's going on here?"
"Hm? Oh, you mean Sora? Namine roped him into staying for dinner last night. And I roped him into spending the night."
Cloud nodded, not really focused on what his brother was saying. Inside, he was beginning to burn. Sora seemed to be everywhere lately. Everywhere. How was it, he thought, that a person who had -- up until the point of Riku's vision -- been completely invisible to himself and the rest of the world suddenly worm his way into Cloud's life, managing to appear in every aspect of it.
'At least', he took a deep breath and released it, ignoring the look of confusion on Roxas' face, 'I still have my art.'
"You okay, Cloud?" Roxas lifted an eyebrow. "Maybe you should go get some sleep."
Sleep. That sounded good. It had been, after all, a very long night. After they had left Conan's house, things just started to get weirder. Riku had started acting weirdly, staring at him in awe one minute, then tearing up at the sight of Leon the next. Eventually the brunette pushed a pressure point on his neck and knocked him out. The stress was clearly getting to him. Which left, all alone with no one to keep the awkwardness in check, Leon and Cloud.
The two kept to their territory. They didn't ask unneeded questions, didn't make unneeded moves. They were polite in every sense of the word. If any nomal person had looked upon the two boys, they would have sensed nothing wrong. But that didn't make any difference. The two were still hating each other with a barely concealed passion, and no one could tell when they would 'kiss and make up.'
Their flight had ended up being delayed two hours. They ended up crammed into a waiting room with a plane's worth of noisy, complaining people with bouncing baby brats who would not shut up. All in all, the situation did nothing to improve their mood. Riku was actually lucky that he was asleep.
To make a long story short, Cloud had dropped his exhausted body onto his bed at four in the morning, and was not happy about it. And after seeing Sora asleep with his brother, well, Cloud was positive that it wasn't going to be a good day. He turned on his heel and went back to his bedroom, not planning to come out for a long time.
Just as the door to Cloud's room closed, Sora woke up. He rubbed his bleary eyes and tried to collect his bearings. Where was he? Why did everything smell of Sea Salt popsicles? What was the hard, comforting warmth he was holding onto? Why did he have a sudden craving for oatmeal raisin cookies? And then, it hit him. The Strife household, the box of popsicles he had gone through last night, the comfort that was holding onto Roxas, and those amazing cookies that Mrs. Strife made.
Yup, it hit Sora like an 18-wheeler colliding into a brick wall. And then, just as strong, he remembered his mission.
Adrenaline flashed through him, and he tightened his grip on Roxas' arm.
"Woah, Sora! Let go before you amputate my arm!"
"Wha--?" Sora's blue eyes clouded over with confusion. "Oh. Oh, sorry."
"You okay?"
"Y-yeah. Just a, um, bad dream. Listen, Roxas -- can you do me a favor?"
Thirty minutes later, Sora was wondering what he had done wrong in his life. What had he done -- in this life or a past one -- to deserve such torture as he had gone through? As if losing his father wasn't enough, he just had to be thrown into this mess of murder and mystery. He just had to be standing in front of his love interest's house, hand raised and ready to knock on the door. He just had to lose his nerve the mere millisecond before his knuckles hit the smooth wood.
"Damn!"
He bit his lip, frustrated. There was no reason for this. No reason for his fear. 'Except the fact that he might be trying to kill you!' He winced. His conscience sure had a loud voice. Why was he never this loud when Sora was leading himself into temptation? (2)
"Come on, Sora. You can do this."
It took another five minutes of prepping himself in this manner before he regained the courage to knock. Briefly he hoped that no one had looked out their window in the past five minutes, just so that no one would have seen him standing shock still like an idiot. The thought vanished immediately as his fist hit the door. Well, this was it. Confrontation time. Unless he wanted to run. But he didn't think he would make it. His legs weren't very sturdy at the moment.
A little girl opened the door. She had raven black hair and amazingly large, inquiring eyes. Sora smiled, albeit a bit painfully.
"Hi. Is Riku here?"
The girl looked him up and down before blowing out a large breath. "He's still sleeping. He just got back from a trip."
Sora's courage faltered. "Oh. Well, when he wakes up, could you tell him that So--"
"You can come in and wait for him. No one will mind, and he'll be up in a few minutes."
The brunette blanched. "You sure?"
The girl opened the door wide enough for Sora to slip inside. When she was finished rebolting it, she led Sora into a very nice looking living room. The furniture was nearly completely white and spotless, the floors and walls exactly the same. There were random sploshes of color everywhere -- stripes in the pillow cases, a circle of blue in the middle of the rug. It was interestingly random; Sora loved it.
"What's your name?"
Sora jerked his head to the little girl. She was sitting on the arm of one of the white couches, head resting in her hand. It occured to Sora that this girl was Riku's sister. Funny. He'd always thought of Riku as an only child. Guess he was wrong.
"My name is Sora. You?"
"Yumi."
"Yumi-san, nan sai desuka?" (3)
Yumi held up seven fingers. Seven years old. Sora smiled. He remembered when he was seven. Still untainted by the worlds evils. Seven was a good age. Still cute enough to demand whatever you want, and old enough to be taken seriously with more, well, serious things. Yup. Seven was a good time to be alive. He watched as Yumi kicked her feet back and forth, back and forth, and wondered what he was doing here.
Right. The mission. Confrontation. A stop to the war waging between his head and his heart.
Unfortunately, the mission was put on hold as an older, adult version of Riku came downstairs. Sora's jaw began to drop, but he caught himself before it actually fell. Gaping like an idiot is not polite. The man, whom Sora assumed was Riku's father, stopped the moment he spotted Sora.
"And who is this?" He looked at Yumi sternly. Sora suddenly hoped that the man didn't think he was some sort of sick child-molester.
Fortunately, Yumi was on his side. "He came to see Ri-ku."
The man frowned. "And where is Riku?"
"Still asleep," Yumi chirped, jumping off the couch. "Want me to go get him?"
The man nodded, and Yumi ran off. Sora's stomach dropped. There went his only comfort. Riku's father took her spot on the couch, sitting in the exact same postion. It took all of Sora's willpower not to stare. But it was hard. The man was an Adonis, for crying out loud. His body practically screamed for him to pay attention to it, and Sora was having a hard time disobeying the order.
"What's your name?"
Sora jumped, unprepared for the question. Of course, he should have been prepared. One doesn't normally allow an annonomyous person go up to see their son, do they?
"My name is Sora, sir." He cursed inwardly -- his voice was cracking.
The man nodded. "My name is Sephiroth. And how do you know my son?"
'Sephiroth. Pretty name.' "We go to school together, sir."
"Do you now?"
Sora nodded, feeling stupid. He hoped that Riku would get up soon. The pressure he was feeling was just about to crush him into jelly. Figuratively, of course. He licked his lips, adding an extra layer of hope onto Riku getting up. Luckily for him, the silver haired beauty came barrelling down the stairs just two seconds later. He did not look happy.
His eyes narrowed as he saw his father, sitting calmly as you please, with Sora. There was no way he was going to allow Sora to be left alone with his father -- who knew what the sneaky, manipulative man would do to someone as innocent as Sora? With every ounce of self control he possesed, Riku calmed himself down and walked calmly over to the couches.
Sora, oblivious to Riku's inner turmoil, was facing his own. It was almost out of his self control not to laugh at Riku. Not in a rude 'What-the-hell-is-your-rush?' sort of way, but an 'Aw-Riku-is-so-cute!' sort of way. Indeed, Riku did look rather cute. His hair was sticking out at odd angles, and his clothes were all rumpled. Gone was the sleek, stylish hair that looked perfect no matter what. Gone were the (seemingly) tailored clothes that only enhanced what Riku already had:
This was Riku in his natural wake-up form.
"Sora. What are you doing here?" Riku placed himself beside Sora, still wary about his father.
"Oh. I, um, came to talk to you."
"About...?"
Sephiroth said nothing, only observed. Even if the man hadn't been there, Sora would still have felt uncomfortable. He turned his eyes to Riku and gave a pleading glance, his blue eyes becoming wider and rounder. For a moment, Riku thought Sora was going to cry. But he got the gist. It was private.
"Let's go to my room," he murmured, taking Sora's hand and pulling him up from the couch. Sephiroth raised an eyebrow.
"Ah, okay."
It was quickly understood by Riku that Sora was probably uncomfortable going up to his room. And at any other time, Riku would have relented. He would have taken the brunette out back to the fancy gardens, or even to the park down the street. But not this time. Sephrioth was downstairs, and anywhere Sephiroth was was not safe for speaking.
"So, Sora..." The lock clicked as Riku twisted it behind him. "What's this about?"
Sora took a deep breath, surveying Riku's room. It was clean, organized, and spacious. Sora wondered if Riku was always so clean or if his sister had warned him to clean the room. It didn't matter. There wasn't much white in this room. It was almost completely free of any white. The walls were a shade of green that nearly matched his eyes. The bed was a mixture of silver and black -- black bed sheets and silver pillows. It looked rather squishy; Sora had to resist the urge to jump onto it.
There were couches and chairs everywhere -- Sora opted instead to sit on one of those.
"Riku..." he took a deep breath. This was it. Now or never. "Are you...trying to kill me?"
A bit fillerish, but you know... is being really weird. It's not showing my update. I dunno if it's me, or FF. Um...so, this is my attempt to try again. Heh. Anyways, this means that the next chapter is going to be uber long. Hope you guys enjoy it.
(1) That's my concern.
(2) Once again, that happens to me.
(3) 'How old are you?'
- Calismo
