Chapter 9 is up! Thanks for staying with it so far!
Sora turned toward the direction of Riku's house, his eyebrows arched downward sharply, indicating his determination. He took a few steps forward, but an awkward grumbling sound erupted through his being, and he placed a hand over his stomach to placate the disgruntled digestive organ. With all the distractions, he had forgotten his shopping quest. He knew that mending things with Riku was important, but doing so on an empty stomach wouldn't be beneficial to either of them.
He decided to make a quick trip back to the grocery store before heading off.
He sped around the corner and barely missed clipping his head on a few overhanging rugs for sale. He ducked down, but couldn't avoid stumbling into a few nearby patrons. He skidded to a halt as he wound up chest to chest with a particularly grumpy looking man. He grinned sheepishly, stepped backwards, inadvertently backing into someone else. He turned to the woman he backed into, and firmly gripped her arm to keep her from tumbling over herself.
"I'm really sorry about that," he said, a guilty smile tugging across his face. "I was in a hurry and didn't—"
The girl smoothed down her skirt and looked up at him, dark red locks of hair catching the little light produced from the clouds above, the ends of sweeping against her shoulders and neck. She blinked once.
Then again.
Sora nearly stumbled back into the man he had previously run into.
"Sora…what are you doing here?" The girl said in an astounded voice that spread Sora's entire being. "I thought you were sick."
Sora swallowed hard, trying to peel words from the inner vortex of his mind. His tongue was thick and slow in his mouth, and he could barely stammer out a greeting. Pausing to take a breath to collect himself from a panic that stemmed from somewhere unknown, he looked at her with as even of an expression that he could muster.
"Hi Kairi."
Kairi smiled at Sora, a mixture of pleasure and confusion. She looked a bit like she wasn't sure if a joke was being played on her, but was trying to be a good sport about it anyway. Sora couldn't help but think that perhaps she wasn't too far off the mark. Something wasn't right. As much as he had wanted to avoid hurting anyone's feelings through the course of all this, he was on the right track to doing so anyway.
He tried to force himself to smile despite the nervous feeling welling up in the pit of his stomach. "How are you?"
She looked at him silently for a collection of seconds, taking his distinctly not sick appearance. Her lips twitched upward. "Ah, I'm fine. That's the question I should be asking though, don't you think?"
A brief flash of confusion traveled across Sora's face.
Her lips twitched again. "You were sick. Are you feeling better?"
Sora rubbed the back of his head, a habit he developed that preceded a lie that he was about to tell. He retracted his hand immediately after noticing the nervous tick and distracted his body by helping her collect a few of her fallen purchases. "Yes," he said. "I'm feeling much better, actually."
"Ah, I'm glad to hear it." If she realized he was lying, she did a great job hiding it. This unnerved him.
Before she could question him further, he handed her the parcels and stood back to make sure she hadn't been hurt during the minor collision. "What brings you out in this impending craziness?" He indicated the sky and the rolling clouds.
Kairi laughed lightly, holding out her shopping bags, filled to the brim with cooking ingredients: fruits of various types, sugar, flour and eggs. "I don't think I had a chance to tell you. I need to go visit my grandmother soon. She isn't feeling well, so I thought I'd bake her something to make her feel better."
Sora nodded. He remembered that Kairi had moved away from home a long while ago, but was hard pressed to stay away from the only family she knew to be hers for a long time. She frequently visited her grandmother out of a mere whim, but given her apparent illness, of course she would go tend to her.
It made Sora feel even guiltier about lying about his health. "I hope it isn't anything serious. Is she okay?"
Kairi nodded. "It seems to just be a passing bug, but one can never be too careful. Besides," she added, lifting up the bags she was clutching. "It gives me an opportunity to try out some new recipes."
"You are kind of a wizard in the kitchen."
"I can think of at least one person who hasn't complained about a free pastry." She patted his shoulder and winked.
"It's not my fault. I really like delicious things."
"I see. Well, one of my concoctions was going to be for you, but since you all better, it might be necessary anymore."
"What? That's not fair!"
She giggled, but it was just the tiniest bit forced. She began walking then, and Sora was unable to help but trail behind. His guilt wouldn't allow him to walk away, even though all he wanted to do was scoot himself back home and resolve his problems with Riku. He knew that being with Kairi was important though. She was his girlfriend.
"Here, let me," he said quietly, indicating the bags she was holding.
She shook her head and clutched the handles tighter. "You don't have to. You got over your illness. I don't want you to overdo it."
Sora knew he was imagining it, but he could sense that hidden in that simple decline, she didn't believe that he had been sick. The last thing he wanted was for her to feel like she couldn't trust him. Torn between being a gentleman and keeping his cover, his desire to be a proper boyfriend won out, and he insisted, grinning at her as she tentatively handed him the bags.
"Don't worry about it," he said with a grin. "I can handle it."
"Okay, but give them back if you start feeling weak."
"I will."
They began walking in silence, but Kairi kept stealing glances at him. He could feel it. He cleared his throat, and she stopped, but he could tell that she wanted to prod him. He started a mental countdown.
"How did you get so ill anyway?"
He hadn't quite gotten to zero, but close enough. "Huh?"
"How did you get so sick? You're always so healthy." Her eyes narrowed. "Did you accept another dare to do something stupid?"
"I'm not that kind of guy." He ignored a sudden recollection of the time Wakka dared him to eat something they had fished out of the ocean, and the resulting sickness he had sustained. "It was just kind of random, probably from not hanging out with you often enough." He grinned, and she giggled.
"Well, sorry you were so lonely. Poor Sora, all alone in his house with the sniffles," she tugged his cheek playfully and he brushed her hand away in mock annoyance.
"I was not lonely." He said with a laugh. "I was with Riku." And suddenly, Sora felt like he was watching a car accident in slow motion, only he was in the car, and the oncoming car he was slamming into was actually his girlfriend.
Kairi's eyebrow lifted, and something about her face tightened. He had hit a cord, but it seemed to reverberated louder and longer than he had anticipated. Sora wished for nothing more than his swift and silent end. "You were with Riku?" She asked just above a whisper.
"…Uh…no. Well, I was, but not like you think."
Her eyebrows altered position, and the cord he had strummed rang a different note. It was round, pinched, strained. "Eh? And what do I think, Sora?"
Sora gulped. He knew this was a trick question. This was psychological warfare, and being someone who self-admittedly didn't spend a lot of time thinking about things before he said them, she had the clear advantage. He looked at her for a second, and figured that honesty would probably be the best policy. "I think you're thinking that I was hanging out with him to avoid you…?"
Outrage crossed Kairi's face, and he realized he had picked the wrong words to say. "Actually, that's not at all what I was thinking, but now that it was apparently an option, is that what I should be thinking?"
"No! I said that I thought you were thinking that. Not that you should be!"
"Well, since I wasn't thinking what you thought I was thinking, clearly you're the one thinking what you thought I was thinking."
"I was, but not because I actually was thinking about…wait…what?"
She stared at him, her knuckles turning a whitish from the strength at which she was balling her fists. "Sora, are you trying to avoid me? I didn't think I was the clingy type, but if you think so, then—"
"No, no!" He said shaking his head furiously. He had no idea how this had happened. From this day forward, he was just going to go on lying forever. "I don't think you're clingy. You're perfect."
"Then why were you hanging out with Riku after you told me you were too sick to move out of your bed?"
"Oh…eh," He supposed this was as good of a time as any to start lying, especially since he had plans to keep this up forever. He winced. "You know how Riku is. He never takes 'no' for an answer."
"What?"
"Yeah," he continued, hoping this wouldn't get back to Riku. "He wanted to hang out, but I told him I was sick. He came over anyway and made me…eh…hang out."
"You mean he kept you up even though you should have been getting plenty of rest?" Sora saw her eyes flash red, and was going to slap his hand over his face, but he realized he was still holding her shopping bags. "It's not like that"
"Oh it isn't, is it? I'm not even joking Sora, you two are going to be the death of each other. I have half a mind to go over there and yell at him. You avoiding bed-rest is probably why you were sick for so long. Riku, you little—"
"Don't be mad at Riku," Sora said feeling the color drain out of his face, hoping with all his might that Riku was still inside his house, far, far away from the rage he had accidentally put into Kairi. "He was actually really helpful."
"Uh huh."
"No really! Um…ehh…" He scanned his brain, then his face lit up. "He bent to my every whim. He watched movies with me, cooked for me, and even curled up on the couch with me."
A funny expression crossed Kairi's face at the last one, so Sora quickly added "Because I was cold, of course."
She nodded slowly. "Okay, well, if that's the case then I won't beat him up. You two need to stop hanging around each other so much, especially when one of you is sick. It's almost like you're dating."
The hairs on the back of Sora's neck stood on end. "Haha, what would give you a crazy idea like that?"
"Probably because you two are joined at the hip."
"Then we'd be Siamese twins, Kairi, and dating would be weird."
"Hahaha, I guess you're right. It's just that sometimes you two are so attached, I feel like I should be worried." She smiled at him, an indication that she was joking, but Sora felt overly compelled to make sure it stayed that way.
"Well, don't worry. Riku's completely against dating. He's kind of a stubborn idiot, who's too self-righteous to do what's good for him."
Kairi lifted her eyebrows at him in surprise. "Where did that come from?"
"Eh?" Sora shook his head, knowing better than to drag Kairi into his fight with Riku.
"Nowhere. I was just telling you that you have nothing to worry about."
"That sounded too charged to be coming from nowhere."
Sora really hated the fact that she was too good at reading him. If he forced her to drop the issue, she would probably jump to the complete wrong conclusion…or worse, the right conclusion over what was really going on. He swallowed. "We just had a minor disagreement recently."
"…I sensed that something was wrong."
"Huh? What do you mean?"
She shook her head, and clasped her hands behind her back. "I talked with Riku today. Things are starting to make sense."
"What? You talked to Riku?" He realized his voice was borderline panicked, so he mentally told himself to keep calm. "What did you guys talk about?"
"Just…the state of things." Sora blinked at her, and an expression crossed her face that he had only seen once before:
it was the same expression she had given him when he left her on the island to go after Riku. It was a look of sadness. It was a look of restraint. It was a look of fierce determination to hold something back that she knew she shouldn't ask of him. She pursed her lips together, and Sora felt the need to touch her.
He put his hand on her shoulder and felt bolts of energy shoot through his body. He did not know what it meant, but he knew that it was important.
He shook his head and put his full attention back on Kairi. He mustered up his most dismissive voice possible and spoke. "Don't worry about it. We'll figure it out. It's just that, when you love someone, it's a pain when they do something insensitive when you're only worried about their well being."
"I know the feeling," she said quietly, and Sora felt his heart sink. She smiled sadly at him before he could think of anything to say. "It's okay. I'm glad you love Riku. I love him too. I just wish you'd let me help you when you need it, just like you let Riku. We both want what's best for you. I love you too, you know?"
"I know," he said in almost a whisper. There was something about her statement that sounded wrong. He loved Riku, it was true, and he knew she loved him, too. But the way she said it, it was too simple to describe his relationship. There was too much missing, too much he liked, hated, wanted, and envied about Riku for the words to be accurate. His heart was beating in what he thought was slow motion, sending heated pulses of blood through his body, hammering in his ear drums. It was guilt, longing, sadness, loneliness, and this irrepressible feeling that somewhere, sometime soon he was going to ruin a relationship that he cherished. He closed his eyes and let out a slow breath. He could not let Kairi see him like this. Opening his eyes, be blinked a few times and painted on his most convincing smile. "I'm starting to get hot. Let's get ice cream. I'll buy!"
Kairi stared at him, but nodded slowly, giving an uncomfortable smile as he shifted the bags into one hand and gripped her hand with his free one. She stumbled along after him, Sora grinning like he was the happiest man in the world.
He chose not to think about how she was staring at the back of his head with poorly hidden sadness.
XxX
Kairi didn't seem herself, Sora thought as he licked his ice cream, bag of chips in hand. She had allowed him to buy her the icy treat, even as the stores were closing up to prepare for the impending storm, and he himself had just consumed mass quantities of ice cream with Wakka and Tidus less than a few hours prior. He knew that he didn't want it, and she didn't want it either, but he felt like he needed to reassure her of him, needed her to believe that he was still a part of her life.
He didn't like feeling this way, like he had to prove something that should have otherwise been very obvious. The interaction felt more like a tally to fill some quota rather than something that had been so natural and easy to them before. She seemed to notice it too, and had smiled at him before she excused herself back home. "I have to get back before the storm," she had insisted, gently taking her bags back. "You need to get home soon, too." He remembered the smile on her face as she kissed him gently on the cheek. It seemed so un Kairi that it made him feel uneasy. He couldn't help but realize that she hadn't kissed him on the lips. He couldn't help but notice that it felt empty.
He gave his ice cream another long, thoughtful lick before he willed his feet forward. He would probably need to do some mending here and there with Kairi, but the aching in his heart was undoubtedly stemming from the mess he had made with Riku. Once he fixed that, things with he and Kairi would surely fall back into place, since it was the source of the problem in the first place.
He had to keep thinking that way, that there would be an end in sight that a good, solid conversation between himself and Riku would make everything — Sora and Kairi, Kairi and Riku, Riku and Sora, and the sum of their individual beings— better.
What he ended up doing instead of instilling himself with the comfort of having a goal, was adding a mentally crippling amount of pressure…What if he never spoke to Riku ever again? What about Kairi? How would he be able to exist without them?
He shook his head. This had to work. Sure, this was probably going to turn out badly, but at least it was going to turn out. Sora didn't know how much longer he could stand sitting around not knowing.
Frowning indignantly—to who he wasn't sure of—he marched up the now wind-blown sand. Riku's house wasn't too far away, but the strength of the wind was making it a bit difficult to keep a straight course. He heard a sharp rapping sound coming from Riku's house; the distinct noise of nails being hammered into wood. The small branches and leaves cutting across his path also did nothing but support the niggling sensation that perhaps adequate shelter was necessary, but he was not about to turn around now, not after he had just bundled up enough courage to go.
The weather would just have to wait.
As his foot landed with a heavy sound on Riku's porch, he glanced briefly behind him to look at the state of the island. The waves were smashing against the shore angrily, and the sky was darkening to a frightening shade of gray. Swiftly, he turned back around to knock on the door, his fists contending with the hammer and nails on the other side.
"Riku, it's me! Open up!"
There was a brief pause in the hammering, but it resumed soon after for two more sharp taps.
"Riku!" He shouted again. "It's Sora!"
The hammering stopped again, then there was a muffled yell. "Sora? What are you doing?"
"I need to talk to you!"
"Are you out of your mind? Do you see this storm rolling in? Go back home! Come back after the storm!"
"Yeah, yeah, the storm. Just open up the door!"
"I can't it's already boarded up."
"No way." Sora grumbled, stepping around the porch to the other side of the house. He was not going to be turned away so easily. Putting his hands on his hips, he stalked to the closest window he could find.
He grinned as he saw a loose nail protruding from the sturdy wood, and the resulting loose corner of which could possibly provide enough leverage to pull the whole thing off. Grinning, he experimentally slipped his fingers beneath the wood and tugged. It wobbled, and a squeak from another loosening nail proved that this could work. He tugged again, harder this time, and grinned as another nail slipped out of place.
Through the window, he heard some questioning shouts from Riku, but after over half of the board had come loose from the window, the shouts stopped. What followed was the sound of nails presumably once in Riku's mouth, hitting the floor.
Grinning wickedly, Sora tugged a final time, and the board slipped off.
"Your window isn't boarded up," he said triumphantly. "I'm coming in."
Thanks for reading. Chapter 10 will be along shortly. :)
