A/N: This was fun to write; it had a lot of drama. Made me extraordinarily happy! YUM!
And now to my reviewers:
Miss Vix: I was sad to get rid of Yuffie, but she makes an appearance in the later chapters. So at most you have to chapters to wait for.
Steven Kodaly: You make me so happy when you try to guess what's going to happen. I hope I answered most of your questions in this chapter. I'm really hoping to please.
SAW: Yeah… I was happy with that last chapter's…entire conversation thing. I didn't like it at first but I reread it I was like…Sweet.
GhostInTheDark: I'm glad you liked that chapter so much. Runs away with the candy YUM! I hope you like this. It's about the same size. Lots of drama, lots of yumminess!
Venksie-Poo!: God I love you! Will you marry me? Ahh you make me so happy with your reviews. It almost mast me giddy. In fact…scratch the almost.
Ichi-desu: Yeah…They didn't do anything…in that chapter…Yeah. I'll leave it there. And the explanations of the story in conversation form is like the only way I can do that. It's sad. Lol
Dark-Hopeless-Romantic: I am a savior! Ha! I am the protector from book and evil librarians! I rule! I'm glad I saved you! Thanks for reading my story!
Darkblade Wielder: it was indeed enough said. I'm glad you like the story.
And now…On with the story!
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"What do you think, Sora?"
Sora still stood in awe. He had seen this place before, and throughout it face lift, as Tifa had come to call it. But to see it put together in the daytime, god, it was magnificent. He touched one of the pillars, draped with deep purple and chocolate brown fabric, hiding all but little keyholes of the actual white stone. The tables are made of beautiful mahogany wood with cushioned seats and backs, some are around the walls of the restaurant but most are on a platform set above to ground to give dimension to the restaurant. The walls are white with mahogany trim, but they glow with a warm yellow that the chandelier and fanlights give off.
"Wow." He said simply. "Just…wow."
She nodded standing by him as if she were going to faint. "That's what I think." She breathed happily.
They walked around the new diner, renamed Uncle's, for the man she had bought it from. The private rooms, hidden towards the back, were walled with cherry wood, white accents and purple tablecloths. Sora lightly touched one of the blue roses that were centered in one of the table.
"All of this must have cost a fortune." Sora murmured.
Tifa grimaced, her eyes towards the floor. "The Royal Magician wanted it changed, so changed it was." She said.
"When is the Royal court coming?" Sora asked.
"In a week."
Sora sighed, worriedly. "Are you nervous?"
"I'm shaking." She admitted feebly.
"You know, why don't you take the time before that off? I'll manage the restaurant until then."
Tifa looked at him like a dear caught in the headlights. "What?! Are you crazy?" She yelled. "You work way too much right now as far as I'm concerned. If you took over the restaurant you'd practically be here all day!"
"You're here all day! For at least 360 days out of the year. You need some down time or your brain will fry along with your fried ice-cream." Sora yelled back at her, making insane gestures with his arms and hands.
"It would be unfair of me to ask you." She tried.
Sora smiled one of his huge, cheesy, face-eating smiles, and said, "It's why you didn't have to ask me."
Tifa looked around her restaurant, her eyes filling with worry. "I don't want to stress you." She said softly.
"I don't want you to blow it."
Tifa looked at him contemptuously. "Your way with words is breathtaking." She droned finally slumping her shoulders in defeat. "Fine." She said. "I'll take the next five days off. And then my quota is filled and you can't make me leave my baby for another year."
Sora laughed and nodded. "Deal."
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The five days without Tifa passed by quickly enough, and to his immense surprise, everyone did exactly as he ordered. Sora had a twist of a sneaking suspicion that either Tifa had threatened their lives or that they had some weird respect for him. Both he was fine with because he didn't need the stress anyhow. Axel had been missing on and off for the last week, and each day Sora became more and more scared that he would just give up and commit suicide.
But he would always show up at the end of the second day, still as drunk as he had been for the past month. Sora had tried talking to him about getting help, but he would only mumble something about not needing it, and run away, sometimes literally. Axel had become more reclusive, staying in his apartment on his quickly dwindling munny. Sora hardly doubted that Axel had even began looking for a job.
He had tried talking to Kairi. But she never picked up the phone, and she never returned his calls. After a week or two he had given up that she would ever speak to him again. He didn't know why she would hide from him, but that's what it felt as though she was doing.
Roxas spent his days alternating between Aerith, Leon and Sora himself. He enjoyed his days, but the longer he spent away from Sora the more agitated he became. The entire week Sora had been looking over the diner, Roxas had experienced some of the worst tantrums Sora had ever seen in his life. He was almost afraid Leon may snap with such a needy child in the house, but he took it all in stride, helping in Sora's quest to calm his brother down from his hysterics.
In those five days he had to watch over the diner, they had been to see Aerith and Cloud's twice, everyone there and accounted for minus two, as Yuffie wasn't even in the same town, which proved to somber Tifa quite a bit, and Cid wouldn't be anywhere near them. And it was almost looking as if they would never hear from him again. Naminé's operation was due in three weeks. Sora wasn't full in on the procedures, but after this Naminé was going to be a fully healthy nine-year-old girl. Which pleased everyone to pieces.
The word on Yuffie was scarce and most confusing. She had left Cid after finding out she was pregnant with another man's child. It was a bit…stretched if you asked Tifa. Because according to Tifa, there was just no way someone could tell they were pregnant within a week. But that's what Yuffie apparently insisted on, so they let it stand. And they would have to, because she wasn't coming back.
Such an announcement had ended his week of stress, and began his week of hell.
The day Tifa came back to work, she granted his permission to leave early, she had told him that he deserved it for watching her daycare center for nearly a week. And so he had gone home. It was still later in the afternoon, around three, which meant that either Aerith would have taken Roxas home or Leon would have picked him up, so he didn't have to worry about such things and he went straight to the apartment.
Sora enter the flat quietly, hoping to surprise everyone with his half day off. He kicked his shoes off at the door, along with his coat that Tifa had insisted he get. He felt absolutely retarded running around in jeans and a t-shirt with a suit jacket over it, but Tifa had insisted and so he did.
Running a hand through his hair, absently, he took off slowly down the hallway, listening for signs of where his boyfriend and brother were. The TV couldn't be heard from the hallway, so Roxas wasn't in the living room with his cartoons. And he couldn't smell anything in the kitchen so he had almost assumed that he wasn't in there either, but the closer he got to the kitchen he began to hear bits of conversation.
"…She's just that way." He heard Axel's slurred voice, he was probably still drunk, or on his way to getting drunk, or trying to get in a more drunkly state than he already was.
"Kairi doesn't sound like someone you can just chum up to without having repercussions." He heard Leon's voice.
"She's not like that at all though. She's very nice. She does what she thinks is best for people. She's a dirty skank but she does have a heart." Axel defended. Sora was going to just walk in and change the subject, but he hesitated, curious at where this was going. With Leon's next words however, he started walking again, not wanting a confrontation.
"Sora told me she put him in a institution for not getting over Riku's death quick enough." He said, and Sora groaned inwardly, almost positive that Axel would react violently, with him being drunk and her leaving still being fresh.
"No. That was the psychiatrist idea. She was just dumb enough to follow it. Had she wanted him in there he would still be in there." Axel said, slowing Sora down from his run. He heard a clink, probably Axel putting some sort of bottle down and then he continued. "No. The only thing she can actually be blamed of is never telling Sora why Riku died."
Everything Sora had been doing stopped. He stopped breathing, moving; he even thought his heart stopped for a moment. His hand flew out to the wall to support him, and his other flew over his mouth to keep him silent.
"Sora said he died of some unknown ailment." He could hear the confusion in Leon's voice, and a shuffling of a seat being pulled out so someone could sit.
"That's what she was told to say." There was a great pause and then Axel continued. "Riku told us not to tell a soul on earth what was wrong with him, not even Sora. But he died of a disease known as Ansem's Heartless Disease. A heart degenerating disease that slowly slowed the functioning of the heart. The veins get all clogged up, heart slows beating over a period of time, chest pains. A slow painful death basically."
'Oh no' His mind echoed over and over. 'Nonononono! NO!' He slipped down the wall, holding himself and trying to stop his teeth from clattering too loudly. He wasn't sad. He wasn't. The tears threatening to slip down his face weren't tears of anguish. More, they were tears of anger. He gripped his heart, afraid that it was withering in his chest, feeling sobs wrack his body. He kept the cries quiet, not wanting to miss out if anything else was said that he needed to hear.
"And no one ever told Sora?" Leon demanded, his own temper rising as well.
"No." Axel said in awe, completely unaware of Leon's rising temper. "No one ever got up the gumption to tell Sora that Riku was and did die of a disease. Not even after the man died. They just kept the secret." He giggled maniacally; Axel was a very scary drunk. It stopped as he sobered instantly, and, as if he had had an epiphany, exclaimed, "My god, I find that so incredibly ridiculous."
"You think so?" Leon growled.
He heard a clinking, as if someone had set glass down on the counter. "Yeah. I really do think so. It's like we were scared that his ghost might have come to haunt us if we broke his secret out to Sora. Like he would yell at us."
He could hear Leon's harsh breathing from where he was sitting. "So you just went on letting Sora think he killed Riku?"
"Sora never thought that did he?" Axel asked, suddenly horrified.
There was another huge pause, and in the hallway, Sora was nearly hyperventilating.
"The day before Riku died, Sora told me they went to a party…"
"Yeah, Kairi and I threw that."
"Riku originally didn't want to go. He didn't feel good. But Sora didn't want to be by himself so he begged his to go with him, and Riku agreed. When they got home…" Leon paused, taking a deep breath as he continued with what Sora had divulged to him. "When they got home, Riku was violently sick; he kept throwing up blood. And the next morning when Sora woke up he didn't." Leon finished the story, but he wasn't done. "If he didn't know about his disease…he had just practically forced Riku to go somewhere when he was sick! If he didn't know about the disease did you think he would've done?" He yelled loudly, his fists hitting the counter angrily.
"Oh god…I didn't know! Sora never told us that." There was a loud screeching of a chair being shoved around. "I've gotta find him and tell him! I can't believe I never thought about that." He slurred.
Sora picked himself off of the floor quickly as he heard the heavy boots of the red head coming towards him. He sniffled and rubbed his nose, squaring his shoulders as the begins of a black boot appeared from the doorway.
"Sora!" Axel yelped when he nearly ran straight into Sora. "How much did you…?"
"Hear?" Sora asked. "How much did I hear?" His face was red, and flushed hot. His hands were shaking with his barely contained rage, with his hurt. "I heard enough. Enough to want you to leave." He whispered.
"Sora…I-"
"NO!" Sora cut him off. "OUT!" He pointed his finger toward the door. Noticing, somewhere in the back of his mind as Leon came out of the kitchen and his brother come out of his room to hang over the stair banister.
Axel left quickly, not wanting to anger his friend any further than he already had. Sora stared at the spot where he had stood, breathing hard, and trying to get the anger to leave his system. He slipped to the floor slowly, breathing irrationally all over again. Tears leaked from his eyes, so he squeezed them tightly shut, wrapping his arms around his body to stop from shuddering over and over and over again.
Thunderous footsteps echoed through the house and he felt small arms wrap around him from the side.
"Don't leave me Sora." His brother pleaded with him, stroking his spiky brown locks soothingly. Sora only cried harder, pulling his brother into his arms. "Promise you won't leave me again Sora, please." Sora hugged his brother tighter, and it seemed that was enough for Roxas, because he didn't say anything after that. Sora knew Leon was still behind him. And he knew that Sora needed Roxas now more than he needed Leon, Roxas being the only person connected to Riku that he was mad at. So he stood in the background for the moment.
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"Hey." Leon said quietly, setting down by Sora on the couch. "How you-?"
"I'm fine." Sora snapped, hugging one of the couch pillows to his chest.
"That's really convincing." Leon said calmly. "Talk to me." He insisted, grabbing Sora's hand.
Sora pulled his hand out of the light grasp, keeping his eyes on the table in front of him. "There's nothing to talk about. I found out the truth, I'm pissed. End of story." He stood up and walked to the other side of the room and beginning to pace.
"That's not the end of the story." Leon sighed. "What's going on up there? You never had a problem talking to me before." He paused waiting for Sora to say something. When he didn't Leon tried again. "Come on. You were so upset when you thought he had died of an unknown reason, now you know."
"And I thought I would be happy!" He yelled. "But I'm not! I'm mad. Mad that he didn't tell me himself. Mad that Kairi and Axel didn't tell me. Mad that they let me go on like that for so long." He rubbed his face irritably.
"I can understand that! It's perfectly understandable." He said. It sounded like he wanted to say more, but if he did he didn't. Instead he said, "I'm going to bed. See you in a bit." And he stood and walked towards the staircase.
"Wait!" Sora called, confused at Leon's reaction. Leon turned around patiently, looking him with shielded eyes, something Sora wasn't used to. "Don't I get a good night kiss?" He asked, his heart beating with rejection.
Leon gave a crooked smile and walked back to him, giving Sora a quick peck on the lips. "I love you." He said quietly, successfully freezing Sora in his spot. He tucked a piece of Sora's hair behind his ear and kissed his forehead. And then he walked away to the stairs again, leaving a dazed Soar in his wake.
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Sora was in Leon's bathroom, getting ready for bed. He had stayed up trying to analyze his feelings, only to get so horribly confused he had merely wasted an hour crying, again. Finally he had decided that he just wasn't going to try, and that he should get to bed so he could be there for Tifa when the King came. He had brushed his hair and washed his face. And he was looking through the medicine cabinet trying to find some toothpaste, but stopped when he found a bottle of aspirin. Slowly his hand inched toward the bottle, snapping the lid off of the top. It was almost all the way full.
He couldn't help but wonder…
He dumped the entire bottle into his hand, staring down the pills in his hand. 'Talk about take two and call me in the morning' Sora thought sarcastically, raising his hand to his mouth.
'Whatcha doing Sora?'
Sora turned around trying to see who was in the bathroom with him.
'Oh, stop Sora. It's all in your head, love.'
Sora creased his forehead in confusion, wondering why in the world Riku voice was talking to him in the bathroom.
'What? The giant stack of pills isn't hint enough for you?' He heard a faint chuckling. 'Sora you're being silly. You don't need to do that. You're only thinking about it cause you're mad.' Riku's voice scolded him. 'You don't want to do that. You're finally getting your life back together. You're finally getting better.'
Sora shook his head, trying to get his brain to stop doing this to him.
'See? You want me out. You want to be able to go one day without me preying on your mind.' Again Sora shook his head, but not to get the voice out. To tell Riku that he would never wish that.
'I love you, Riku.' He thought loudly.
'Yeah, I know you do. But I'm not why you stopped to listen to me.' The voice practically sighed in his head. 'Hey you remember when we used to go around telling every one that we were each other true loves? Yeah, those were the days huh? You know if I thought about it now, I wouldn't say that.' Riku paused for dramatic effect. 'If I had to guess I'd say we were more of Soul Mates. The whole, connection deeper than either of us could realize. But we never had that understanding for one another the second we looked at each other. Not the way you and Leon do.'
'What are you saying?' Sora asked Riku. Feeling a little more than odd standing in front of a mirror with a pile of pills in his hand, and arguing with a dead man's voice in his head.
He heard the chuckling again. 'Come one Sora, you know what I'm saying. I'm saying that if you do this, you will regret it more than anything in the world. Even you know that.'
'I'm still mad at you.' Sora thought somberly.
'Hell, I'd expect nothing less.' And then the voice was gone. He even felt an imaginary empty space in his mind where the Riku's voice had been. He looked down at he hand, staring in wonderment as he finally noticed that his hand was turned upside down and the only proof that he had even held the pills was a small pinkish-red pill next to the drain.
He picked the small thing up, popping it into his mouth and swallowing. 'Geez, I need therapy.'
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Sora left before Leon was even up the next morning. He had to go help Tifa get the restaurant prepared for the King's arrival today. He went to Roxas' room, shaking his brother awake and telling him to get dressed, and then running downstairs to make him some breakfast. When Roxas was finished and had eaten they left to walk to Aerith's house, and Sora waved his brother goodbye before walking back the diner.
Tifa already had most of it set up. The private rooms in the back where set up especially for him and some of his court members, plus his bodyguards. Tifa and Sora would be regulating the private sector mainly today, leaving one of the managers to regulate the main area until his departure.
The entire time, Sora was on autopilot. He thought minimally and only did something when he was told. He didn't think he could bare to let himself think more than plates, silverware, glasses…check.
"Sora, honey, are you feeling okay?" Tifa asked. She had been watching him all day, or morning more like it. And the fact that he had been in practically a comatose state had not escaped her sight.
Sora snapped his head up to her. "Yeah." He said. "Why?"
"You're like an open book, Sora. You're eyes say everything."
He nodded, "Then why did you ask. My eyes have already told you."
"Because I adore your voice." She smiled. "Want to talk about it?"
Sora took a deep breath, willing himself not to take his frustration out on her. It wasn't her fault for being worried over him. He would worry to if he cared. But it was just so annoying hearing that question over and over again. He shook his head slowly, willing himself to breathe steadily. "No, Tifa. I'd much rather crawl under a rock and never see the sun again."
She laughed at him. "You want to take the day off early?"
"Tifa the king comes today." Sora protested.
"Yeah, and if you're here he'll take you instead of talking to me." She said snarkily. "Besides if you're in a bad mood you'll drag me down. You helped with the decoration, now leave!" She demanded, her arm outstretched and pointing towards the door.
He smirked. "God, when did you become so pushy?" He joked, grabbing his bag off of the ground. He kissed her cheek, and gave her a quick hug, demanding that she call the instance it was done and tell him how it went. He left the diner, still smiling happily at how it had come along, but slowly he fell into a somber mood.
He went back to the apartment, nothing that everything about the place was much bigger when Leon and Roxas weren't milling around. He went into the living room, flipping the TV on and to the cartoon channel (which made him feel better when Roxas wasn't around), turning it up as he went to the kitchen to make himself some lunch. He stood in front of the open kitchen door staring emptily at the shelves loaded with food Leon had bought specifically for him.
Deciding he wasn't going to eat lunch today he went to the couch watching some dumb cartoon that was on the television. He let his mind veg out, his eyes unfocusing and his breath evening. He was like this and well on his way to sleep when the phone rang from the coffee table where more than likely, Leon had left it. Sora stared at it in shock, his heart hammering, and then it rang again. He leapt for it, grabbing it before it could ring again.
"Hello?" He asked drowsily, still shaking off the effects of his almost nap.
"Sora! Baby how are you?"
He pulled the phone away from his ear looking at it confusedly.
"Kairi?"
She sighed, "Yeah. It's me."
He glared at the phone. "What…Wh-What do you want?" He stuttered out, his anger flaring at the very sound of her voice, as he moved from the couch to the floor to get more comfortable.
She let out a nervous laugh. "I wanted to talk to you. It's been a long time and…and, uh…"
"And what?" he snapped his anger getting the best of him.
He heard her give a small, almost inaudible sob, but he had known her for so long he caught up on it instantly. "He told me what happened last night." She said finally.
"I didn't think he would tell you." Sora said.
"You were my light first." She said sadly, continuing only to say. "Before I burnt you out."
Sora couldn't say anything to that. And even if he could have he wouldn't. So he stared down at his hands again, feeling an overriding sense of déjà vu flood his mind as he began twiddling with his ring. His ring that Riku gave him. His Riku that had died and never told him why. And neither had Kairi. No one had. No one would have either. They were just fine to watch him fall into a burning pit of despair. They would have just…let him go on just like he was. Why?
"Why didn't you tell me?" He asked, his voice laden with pain.
Another pause followed this, as Kairi tried to gather the words she wanted to say. "He said he didn't want to tell you because it would hurt your relationship. He was afraid of everything when it concerned you and his disease in the same sentence. He was afraid you would leave him, afraid you would feel obligated to care for him, afraid you would see him as weak." She took a deep breath. "He was afraid if he told you, you would waste you life thinking somehow you could have helped. You meant so much to him and he didn't want to ruin all of that because he had some irrevocable ailment."
Despite the fact that that had shed some light, he still wasn't satisfied. "But you knew I wouldn't!" Sora hissed.
"Of course I did! And I did try to tell him Sora you know I would have. But he just didn't want to hurt you. He thought that if you never knew that you would be able to move on, take it for one of life's many quirks in life, move on, like you always seemed to." She sighed. "But faking only goes on for so long doesn't it?"
"Don't talk to me like that." Sora told her. "You don't have the right anymore. You don't even know me."
"Sora…"
"Don't. You should have told me and you know it."
"He didn't want me to!"
"Then why didn't you tell me after he left?"
"Because." She said evasively.
"That doesn't cut it. Why couldn't you tell me? Why could you just give me his death?"
"Because I was afraid to lose you too!" She yelled into the speaker. He could hear her breathing heavily over the phone, telling him that she was angry as well. He could practically see her pulling on the ends of her hair like she used to whenever he was there. "Everything I ever did from moment one after Riku died was because I thought you were next. I didn't tell you why Riku was dying because I thought you would go and get yourself killed. I moved you and Roxas to my house because one day I was afraid you were going to kill yourself while Roxas was a school. I put you in therapy because I thought you were withering away to fast for me to put you back together. I signed the papers to your fucking clinic because I thought you would be better if you had something other than me, a fucking whore, who can barely hold onto herself let alone try to help the only person who I ever needed in the entire world! I sent you to three hundred miles away from the Islands, not because you wouldn't let Riku go, because I was killing you faster than you ever could. That's why you're there!" She said, tears affecting her voice but she still sounded strong, even as she bit out. "And why I'm still here."
He heard a sniffle on the other end of the phone, and then she pulled herself together. "How did you take the news last night?" She asked.
Sora didn't answer immediately, unsure of how to answer politely, now that she displayed herself for him. It made sense that since she had opened herself to him that he should open himself to her. However difficult that may be. "I came two seconds away from swallowing an entire bottle of aspirin." He said. "I told Axel to leave, broke down, sent my brother into a panic attack, and got into a fight with Leon."
"Oh no." She moped. "Is everything okay between you and Leon?"
"He went to be and I left for work early today." Sora told her.
She sighed. "Listen, Sora. You found something worth living for, there in Hollow Bastion. Are you willing to give it up in one instant because I was too scared to tell you the truth? Would you do that to Leon? To Roxas?"
And he was deflated with that question. Kairi got off the phone not too long after that, claiming she had to go to bed for work tomorrow, even though it was only three. So, Sora just sat on the floor of the living room, having nothing to do except stare at the wall. It was true; what she had said. He had found something wonderful here. He found Leon, and a new beginning with new people, who in their own retarded way loved him. And Leon loved him. So much was made clear as crystal last night. Was he ready to throw it all away?
He slowly looked toward the stairwell, where their rooms were. And towards the kitchen. He looked around the entire apartment, or as much as he could from his place in front of the couch. He had become so used to being integrated with Leon, it was really odd trying to think of how this place had been on his first day here. Where everything had once been a seemingly harsh line, no nonsense place, seemed more at home now. There was a certain comfort to the place that hadn't been there before.
Could he leave it? Would he push everything he had worked for out the window, because of one secret, no matter how large? Could he do that?
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Sora was tucking Roxas into bed. Aerith had brought him home around five and Leon had come home not too long after. Sora had barely said two complete sentences to Leon since he had been home, not knowing what to say or how to say it. He wasn't ready to have this conversation. He wasn't ready to have any conversation they had ever had. But he pretended like he was fine, tucking the blankets in around the skinny little arms that kept wiggling to get free.
"You can't hold be down forever!" Roxas yelled in his valiant prince voice. "I'll get you!"
Sora smiled as his brother repeated some of the lines that he had been read not moments ago. "I have you under a spell, boy! You'll sleep in no time." He crowed back to him and his brother laughed jovially.
They both sobered, and Sora finished tucking him in. Roxas freed his arms and threw them around the other's neck, pulling Sora down for a could-be bone-crushing hug. "You're not thinking about leaving again are you?" His brother asked quietly, not letting his voice get above a whisper.
Sora tensed in his arms, hugging him back hesitantly. "Damn you, and the ability to read my mind, Roxas." He murmured, sighing as Roxas' pale arms tightened around him.
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"What did you read him?"
"Sleeping Beauty."
"Good story."
"Yeah."
They were silent for a while after that. Sora busied himself cleaning off the kitchen counter and Leon sat at the table, picking at some invisible particle of nothing from the top. Sora kept trying to come up with ways to start this conversation that had been looming over him since Kairi had hung up on him.
"So, Sora…"
Whatever Leon was going to say was drown out by the phone ringing from the living room.
"I'll be right back." Sora said, wandering off to find the phone.
"'Lo?"
"Sora?"
"Hey Tifa. How'd everything go?" He asked, pulling the phone away from his ear as an ear splitting squeal.
"Oh, my god! I met the king…IN PERSON!"
He laughed.
"It took you three months, and you still hadn't figured that out."
He unconsciously meandered back towards the kitchen where Leon was still sitting. He sat down across the table from Leon, much like they had done the first time they went to Tifa's diner.
"What was he like?" Sora asked.
"He was so nice! I almost couldn't believe he was royalty. He was nothing like the court magician. He was so polite and ate everything on his plate." She sighed dreamily. "He was everything a chef could want."
Sora smiled, "So how did everything go? When will you know if you're getting shipped off to Light City?"
"He'll inform me in two weeks."
"Wow. Snappy snappy." He said with only a little sarcasm.
"He has to go test two other chef's and then he'll know, Sora. Give him a break."
"Well he should know there's no one better than you. You can make vegetarian food! You can to anything." Sora said, as if it were the biggest thing ever to be able to cook vegetables.
Leon snorted from his seat, and Sora looked up at him, smiling just a little. He held out his hand, feeling his heart flutter when Leon placed his own calloused hand in the smaller one, messaging little circles into his scarred wrist. Sora squeezed his hand playfully.
"Well, I just thought I would call and let you know. Don't come into work tomorrow. I got someone to take our shifts. I didn't feel like coming in and I didn't want you baby sitting again so soon."
Sora laughed and agreed. And they got off the phone, leaving Leon and Sora back to their silence, though it was more comfortable now. For the moment, at least.
"Who was on the phone?"
"Tifa. She was telling me how her appointment with the King went."
Leon looked perplexed. "Weren't you with her?"
Sora took his hand out of Leon's to rest his head on it. "No. She told me to go away lest I steal the light away from her." Sora smirked humorously.
Leon folded his hands under his chin, watching Sora intently. "What did you do for the rest of the day?"
"I watched cartoons, talked to Kairi, and ate the most strawberries anyone has ever eaten."
Leon's forehead frown momentarily before he smoothed his face over, but Sora caught it regardless. Sora sighed, folding his hands in his lap, and looking at the table. It would be best to start from the beginning. "Yesterday, after you went to bed, I came very close to swallowing an entire bottle of aspirin." He started. "I don't even know why anymore, I'm sure I had a good reason to start with, but it escapes me now." He didn't look up, but instead he got up pacing around the kitchen. "I don't know what stopped me. I think I'm losing my mind because I started hearing voices in my head. But I didn't take them obviously. I, uh, I flushed them down the drain.
"That's not saying I felt better or anything. But I think it's some sort of accomplishment. I can't be that suicidal." He leaned against the counter, crossing his arms over his chest. "When Kairi called me this afternoon I was so angry. But I was determined to find out why she would do this to me. Why she would ruin my life like this. And it's funny cause she said she was afraid I would ruin my life by myself." He paused, staring at the linoleum floor. "I find that most ironic. She was only trying to save me but only wound up killing me in her own way.
"After she told me that she said something I had known all along but it was still so odd to hear it from someone like her. She said, 'you found something worth living for in Hollow Bastion. Are you willing to give it up?'" He stopped talking, letting the conversation with Kairi finally sink all the way into his mind, while the conversation he was having now sunk into Leon's.
"Are you?"
Sora looked him in the eye. "No." He smiled relieved. "I never thought I would be able to say that, but no, I'm not ready to give it up. I'm not ready to on this happy feeling I've slowly been getting. And I'm not ready to give you up. I'm just not." He pushed himself off of the counter and slowly walked over to Leon. He sat down on his lap, feeling relief wash over him when Leon wrapped his arms around his waist. Sora rested his hands gently on Leon's shoulders, leaning down to kiss him.
"I'm not the reason you stopped to listen to me."
"Take me to the bedroom." Sora whispered against his lips, smiling widely when Leon stood up instantly.
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A timid knocking woke him up from his pillow on Leon's chest. He groaned, snuggling his face into the broad chest under him.
"Who is at the door this early." Leon said, wiggling as if to answer the door.
Sora protested, grabbing onto Leon to keep him in place. "Shh!" He demanded. "If we ignore it maybe it'll go away."
Leon chuckled, and smoothed Sora's gravity defiant hair. "I don't think we're that lucky." He sighed. Chuckling lightly when the knock came again.
Sora groaned again. "Yeah, Roxas. Give me a minute." He stumbled out of the bed searching for his pajama bottoms. Leon went to the bathroom, doing his ritual of brushing his hair and teeth. Sora went to the door running his eyes and blinking rapidly to adjust to the light. He opened the door. "Yeah, bub. What do you want?" He grumbled closing the door and stepping out into the hall.
Roxas looked up at him and said, "There's a strange girl at the door asking to talk to you."
Sora snapped awake and turned to his brother. "You didn't let her in did you? You didn't open the door?"
"No! I don't recognize her." Roxas said indignantly.
Sora walked downstairs quickly, moving to the peephole in the door. "Who's there?" He asked the blonde haired woman, who, if truth be told, looked a little like an ant with her bangs styled the way they were.
"My name's Larxene. I'm a friend of Axel's!" She yelled through the door. "Can I come in?"
Sora instantly undid the door locks and let her in. "Why are you here?" He asked confusedly.
"Axel's been acting funny for the last two days. I finally got him to tell me what happened, and I wanted to come down here and tell you that he feels terrible for what he put you through. And had he known he would have told you. And I'm sure he would tell you but he's drunk out of his mind. More drunk than he had ever been in the entire time I've known him." She finally took a deep breath, pausing to read his face. "He's creeping me out with all the ways he's been acting. He won't come out of his room. I've tried everything, everything, it just won't work. And I wondered if you would talk to him and tell him it was okay? It is okay isn't it? You don't hate him do you? Cause I think as long as you don't hate him he'll stop whimpering."
Sora had barely followed what she had said but he nodded anyway. He ran upstairs to throw a shirt on and tell Leon where he was going, and to watch Roxas. Then he dashed downstairs and followed Larxene to her beat up vehicle. When they arrived to the hotel that Axel was still staying at they ran inside and up the stairs to the second floor to room 298.
"Axel?" Larxene asked, knocking on the door loudly.
"goway!" Was the intelligible response the received.
"Axel come on. Let me in."
"How long have you been doing this?" Sora asked.
"How long have you been mad at him?" She countered, knocking on the door again. "I feel like a wife in the doghouse. The neighbors have even stopped coming out to see what's going on." She knocked again. "Axel?"
"leavemelone!" He whined.
"Hold on." He moved her away from the door, pressing his ear to the thin metal. He heard some shuffling and some clinking. Axel was cleaning. He giggled. "You done trying to impress her in there? She's obviously seen you drunk, she knows what your place looks like dirty."
Larxene scoffed indignantly and Axels stopped all movement inside the room. Then came the sarcastic, if not just a little slurred. "Some of us like to give a surprise every once and a while." He sniped.
"So everything's okay in there?" Sora asked.
"Yeah. I stopped drinking around four." Sora heard him come closer to the door. "I took a nap and I have a killer hangover, but I think I feel better than I did when I was drunk."
Sora laughed. "Will you let us in then? This Larxene girl looks ready to murder." He looked back at her and smirked when he saw her red face.
"Are you still mad at me?" He heard Axel ask, with more than a little pout in his voice.
He forced a smile on his face. "No. You know I could never stay mad at you. You're like a my older brother…and younger brother all at the same time."
He heard the locks being unlocked and he stepped away from the door next to Larxene, who actually did look murderous now. When the door opened he motion for her to go in first. Axel took her into a bone-crushing hug, kissing her cheek, before she punched his shoulder. And then did the same to Sora, holding onto him and murmuring apologies into his ear. Sora patted his back and told him it was okay.
And it really was.
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Sora got home about an hour later, having helped clean Axel's room, and gotten several death threats from Larxene. Axel had finally decided it was time to start looking for his own place to stay, and a job, he supposed, though he was awfully dejected about the entire idea. Larxene told him about a factory downtown that specialized in welding, and he promised her he would put in his application.
When he walked into the apartment after Larxene had given him a ride home, the first thing he noticed was the comforting noise of Roxas' cartoons and when he finally entered the living room he quickly looked at Leon, who had a guilty look on his face.
He looked back at his brother, who had yet to notice he was home he was so engrossed in his cartoons and the entire pan of macaroni and cheese that was set in front of him along with the stirring spoon used to cook the noodles.
"He wanted noodles." Leon said helplessly.
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A/N: Haha! That was fun to write! I like this chapter a lot. You finally figure out what the heck was up with just about everything and yay! I love this chapter! I hope you do too! It was actually a lot less dramatic than I planned it to be. There was going to be a lot more crying and a lot more angst and the scene with the bathroom was going to have a lot of sadness and Leon banging on the door to get Sora out…but I was like…Sora wouldn't get sad, I mean he would, but he'd be hella pissed. So pissed he became and I like it a lot better.
Tell me how you liked it when you review.
InnocentGuilt