"He beat me!" Roxas said. "Sora beat me two out of three games!" Kairi rested her hands on the piano keys, looked over her shoulder at Roxas, and laughed. It had been a week since their first trembling kiss. Every night she had fallen asleep dreaming about that kiss, and each kiss after. It was all so incredible to her. She was aware of the lightest touch, the softest brush against him. Everytime her called her name, her answer came from somewhere deep inside her. Yet there was something so easy and natural about being with him. Sometimes it felt as if Roxas had been part of her life for years, sprawled as he was now on the floor of her music room, playing checkers with Sora.

"I can't believe he beat me two out of three!" "Almost three out of three," Sora crowed. "That will teach you not to mess with Xion," Kairi said. Roxas frowned down at the angel that stood alone on the checkerboard. Sora always used her as one of his playing pieces. The three-inch china angel had once been Kairi's, but when Sora was in kindergarten, he'd decided to pretty her up. Pink-frost nail polish on her dress and crusty gold glitter on her black hair had given her a whole new look; and Kairi had given her to Sora. "Xion's very smart," he told Roxas. Roxas glanced up doubtfully at Kairi. "Maybe next time Sora will let you borrow her and you can win," Kairi said with a smile, then turned to Sora. "Isn't it getting late?" "Why do you always ask that?" her brother asked. Roxas grinned. "Because she's trying to get rid of you. Come on. We'll read two stories, like the last time, then it's lights out."

He walked Sora down to his bedroom. Kairi stayed upstairs and began to flip through her piano book, looking for songs that Roxas might like. He was into hard rock and Jesse McCartney, but she couldn't exactly play it on the piano. He knew nothing about Beethoven and Bach. Roxas's idea of classical music was Right Where You Want Me or Beautiful Soul. She ran through several songs from Repo! The Genetic Opera, then put the book aside. All night there had been music running through her like a silver river. Now she turned out the light and played it from memory, Beethoven's Fur Elise. Roxas returned in the middle of the song. He saw the slight hesitation in her hands and heard the pause in the music. "Don't stop," he said softly, and came to stand behind her.

Kairi played to the end. For a few moments after the last chord, niether of them spoke, niether of them moved. There was only the still, silver moonlight on the piano keys, and the music, the way music can linger on sometimes in silence. Then Kairi rested her back against him. "You want to dance?" Roxas asked. Kairi laughed, and he pulled her up, and they danced a circle around the room. She laid her head on his shoulder, and felt his strong arms around her. They danced slow, slower. She wished he would never let go. "How do you do that?" he whispered. "How do you dance with me and play the piano at the same time?" "At the same time?" she asked. "Isn't that you making the music I hear?" Kairi pulled her head up. "Roxas, that line is so . . .so . . ." "Corny," he said. "But it got you to look up at me." Then he swiftly lowered his mouth and stole a long, soft kiss.

"Don't forget to tell Roxas to stop by the shop sometime," Cloud said. "Zack and I would love to see him again. We're very fond of chunks." "Hunks, Cloud," Kairi said with a grin. "Roxas is a hunk." My hunk, she thought, then picked up a box wrapped in brown paper. "Is this everything to be delivered?" "Yes, thank you dear. I know it's out of your way." "Not too far," Kairi said, starting out the door. "Five-twenty-eight Heart Street," Zack called from the back of the store. "Five-thirty," Cloud said quietly. Well, that narrows it down, Kairi thought, passing through the door of A Little Bit of Light. She glanced at her watch. Now she wouldn't have time to spend with her friends. Selphie and Olette had been waiting for her at the mall's food court. "You said you would be off twenty minutes ago," Selphie complained. "I know. It's been one of those days," Kairi replied. "Will you walk me to my glider? I have to deliver this, then get right home."

"Did you hear that? She has to get right home," Selphie said to Olette. "for a birthday party, that's what she says. She says it's Sora's ninth birthday." "It's May twenty-eighth," Kairi responded. "You know it is, Selphie." "But for all we know," Selphie went on to Olette, "it's a private wedding on the hill." Kairi rolled her eyes, and Olette laughed. Selphie still hadn't forgiven her for keeping secret the swimming lessons. "Is Roxas coming tonight?" Olette asked as they exited the mall. "He's one of Sora's two guests," Kairi replied, "and will be sitting next to Sora, not me, and playing all night with Sora, not me. Roxas promised. It was about the only way to keep my brother from coming with us to the prom. Hey, where did you two park?"

Selphie couldn't remember and Olette hadn't noticed. Kairi drove them around and around the mall lot on her glider. Olette looked for the car while Selphie advised Kairi on clothes and romance. She covered everything from telephone strategies and how not to be too available to working hard at looking casual. She had been giving volumes of advice for the last three weeks. "Selphie, I think you make dating too complicated," Kairi said at last. "All this plotting and planning. It seems pretty simple to me." Incredibly simple, she thought. Whether she and Roxas were relaxing or studying together, whether they were sitting silently side by side or both trying to talk at the same time-which they did frequently-these last few weeks had been incredibly easy.

"That's because he's the one," Olette said knowingly. There was only one thing about Kairi that Roxas couldn't understand. The angels. "You've had a difficult life," he had said to her one night. It was the night of prom-or rather, the morning after, but not yet dawn. They were walking barefoot in the grass, away from the house to the far edge of the ridge. In the west, Kingdom Hearts shone brightly down upon them. There was one star. below them, in the Brink Of Despair, a train wound its silver path through the valley. "You've been through so much, I don't blame you for believing," Roxas said. "You don't blame me? You don't blame me? What do you mean by that?" But she knew what he meant. To him, an angel was just a pretty teddy bear-something for a child to cling to.

He held her tightly in his arms. "I can't believe, Kairi. I have all I need and all I want right here on this world," he said. "Right here. In my arms." "Well I don't," she replied, and even in the pale light, she could see the sting in his eyes. They started to fight then. Kairi realized for the first time that the more you love, the more you hurt. What was worse, you hurt for him as well as for yourself. After he left, she cried all morning. Her phone calls hadn't been returned that afternoon. But he came back in the evening, with fifteen lavender roses. One for each angel, he said. "Kairi! Kairi, did you hear anything I just said?" Selphie asked, jolting her back to the present. "You know, I thought if we got you a boyfriend, you'd come down to earth a little. But I was wrong. Head still in the clouds! Angel zone!"

"We didn't get her a boyfriend," Olette said quietly but firmly. "They found each other. Here's the car, Kairi. Have a good time tonight. We'd better dash, it's going to storm." The girls jumped off the glider and Kairi checked her watch, sighing as she activated her armor. Now it was really late. She sped over the access road and down the highway. When she crossed the river, she noticed how rapidly the dark clouds were moving. Her delivery was to one of the newer houses south of the city, the same neighborhood where she had glided after her first swimming lesson with Roxas. It seemed as if everything she did now made her think of him. She got just as lost this time, gliding around in circles, with one eye on the clouds. Thunder rumbled.

The trees shivered and turned over their leaves, shining and eerie lime green against the leaden sky. The wind began to gust. Branches whipped, and blossoms and tender leaves were torn too soon from their limbs. Kairi leaned forward in her glider, intent on finding the right house before the storm broke. Just finding the right street was difficult. She thought she was on Heart, but the sign said Heartless, with Heart running into it. She got off her glider to see if the sign could have been turned-a popular sport among kids in town. Then she heard a loud motor making the bend on the hill above her. She stepped out into the street to wave down the driver of the glider. For a moment, the glider slowed, then the engine was gunned and the driver few past her.

Well, she'd have to go with her instincts. The lawns were steep there, and Cloud had said that the customer lived on a hill, a flight of stone steps lined with flowerpots leading up to her house. Kairi drove around the bend. She could feel the rising wind rocking her glider. Overhead the pale sky was being swallowed up by inky clouds. Kairi skidded to a halt in front of two houses and untied the box from her glider, struggling with it against the wind. Both houses had stone steps that ran up side by side. Both had flowerpots. She chose on set of steps, and just as she cleared the first flowerpot it blew over and crashed behind her. Kairi screamed, then laughed at herself. At the top of the steps, she looked at one house, then the other, 528 and 530, hoping for some kind of clue. A glider was pulled around the back of 528, hidden by bushes, so someone was probably home.

Then she saw a figure in the large window of 528-someone looking out for her, she thought, though she couldn't tell if it was a man or a woman, or if the person actually beckoned to her. All she could see was a vague shape of a person as part of the window's reflected collage of thrashing trees backlit by flashes of lightning. She started toward the house. The figure disappeared. At the same time, the front porch light went on at 530. The screen door banged back in the wind. "Kairi? Kairi?" A woman called to her from the lit porch of 530. "Whew!" She made a run for it, handed off the package, and raced for her gilder. The skies opened, throwing down ropes of rain. Well, it wouldn't be the first time Roxas had seen her lookingn like a drowned rat.

Kairi, Riku, and Aqua arrived home late, and Xemnas looked miffed. Sora, of course, didn't care. He, Roxas, and his new school pal, Isa, were playing a video game, one of the many gifts Aqua had bought for his birthday. Roxas grinned up at the drenched Kairi. "I'm glad I taught you how to swim," he said, then got up to kiss her. She was dripping all over the hardwood floor, her father fighting a laugh at his daughter's drenched appearance. "I'll soak you," she warned. Roxas wrapped his arms around her and pulled her close. "I'll dry," he whispered. "Besides, it's fun to gross out Sora." "Ew," said Sora, as if on cue. "Mush," agreed Isa. Kairi and Roxas held onto each other and laughed. Then Kairi ran upstairs to change her clothes and wring out her hair. She put on lipstick, no other makeup-her eyes were already bright and her cheeks full of color. She scrounged around in her jewelry box for a pair of earrings, then hurried downstairs just in time to see Sora finish opening presents.

"She's wearing her peacock ears tonight," Sora told Roxas as Kairi sat down to dinner across from the two of them. "Darn," said Roxas, "I forgot to put in my carrot sticks." "And your shrimp tails." Sora snickered. Kairi wondered who was happier at that moment, Sora or her. She knew that life did not seem so good to Riku. It had been a rough week for him; he had confided in her that he was still very worried about his father, though he wouldn't tell her why. Lately his mother and he had had little to say to each other. Xemnas struggled to converse with him but usually gave up. Kairi turned to him now. "The tickets to the Fruitball game were a terrific idea. Sora was thrilled with the present." "He had a funny way of showing it." It was true. Sora had thanked him very politely, then leaped up with excitement when he saw the old Keyblader's Illustrated spread on Terra that Roxas had dug up.

During dinner Kairi made an effort to keep Riku in the conversation. Roxas tried to talk to him about sports and Keyblade gilders but recieved mostly one-word replies. Aqua looked irritated, though Roxas didn't seem to take offense. Aqua's cook, Tiny, the heartless-who'd been let go after the wedding, but reinstated after six weeks of Xemnas's cooking-had made them a delicious dinner. Xemnas, however, had insisted on baking his son's birthday cake. Tiny carried in the heavy, lopsided thing, his eyes averted. Sora's face lit up. "It's Mistake Cake!" The rich and lumpy chocolate frosting supported nine candled at various angles. Lights were quickly extinguished and everyone sang to Sora. With the last measure, the doorbell chimed. Aqua frowned and rose to answer it. From her seat, Kairi could see into the hall. Two police officers, a man and a woman, talked with Aqua. Riku leaned into Kairi to see what was going on. "What do you think it's about?" Kairi whispered, a bad, sinking feeling in her heart and stomach. "Something at the college," he guessed. Roxas looked across the table questioningly and Kairi shrugged her shoulders. Her father, unaware that there might be something wrong, kept cutting the cake.

Then Aqua stepped back into the room. "Xemnas." He must have read something in her eyes. He dropped the knife immediately and went to Aqua's side. She took his hand. "Riku and Kairi, would you join us in the library, please? Roxas, could you stay with the boys?" she asked. The officers were still waiting in the hall. Aqua led the way to the library. If there were a problem at the college, we wouldn't be gathering like this, thought Kairi. When everyone was seated, Aqua said, "There's no easy way to begin. Riku, your father has died." "Oh, no," Xemnas said softly. Terra was a part of his past. He bowed his head in silence, squeezing Aqua's hand. Kairi turned quickly to Riku. He sat stiffly, his eyes on his mother, and said nothing. "The police recieved and anonymous call around five-thirty P.M. that someone at his address needed help. When they arrived, they found him dead, with a fatal Keyblade wound to his midsection." Riku didn't blink. Kairi reached out for his hand. It was cold as ice.

"The police have asked-They need-As a matter of normal procedure-" Aqua's voice wavered. She turned to face the police officers. "Perhaps one of you can take over from here?" "As a matter of procedure," the woman officer said, "we need to ask a few questions. We are still searching the house for any information that might be relevant to the case, though it seems fairly conclusive that his death was a suicide." "Oh, Kingdom Hearts!" said Xemnas. "What evidence do you have for that?" Riku asked. "While it's true my father was depressed, he has been since the beginning of April-" "Oh, Kingdom Hearts!" Xemnas said again, tears in his eyes. Aqua reached out for him, but he moved away from her. Kairi knew what her father was thinking. She remembered the scene a week earlier, when a picture of Terra and Aqua had somehow turned up in the hall desk.

Aqua had told Xemnas to throw it in the trash. Xemnas could not. He didn't want that he was the one who had "thrown Terra out" of his home-years earlier, or now. Kairi guessed that her father felt responsible for Terra's happiness, and now his death. "I'd still like to know," Riku continued, "what makes you think that he killed himself. That doesn't seem like him at all. He was too strong of a man." Kairi could hardly believe how clearly and steadily Riku could speak. "First, there is circumstantial evidence," said the policeman. "No actual note, but photographs that were torn and scattered around the body." He glanced toward Xemnas. "Photographs of . . .?" Riku asked. Aqua sucked in her breath. "Xemnas and Aqua," said the officer. "Newspaper photos from their wedding." Aqua watched helplessly as Xemnas bent over in his chair, his head down, wrapping his arms around his knees.

Kairi let go of Riku's hand, wanting to comfort her father, but he pulled her back. "The Keyblade was plunged through his abdomen. There were blood spatters on his hand and fingers. Of course, we'll be checking the Keyblade for prints and such, and we'll let you know if we find something unexpected. But his doors were locked-no sign of forced entry-his air-conditioning on and windows secure, so . . ." Riku took a deep breath. "So I guess he wasn't as tough as I thought. What-what time do you think this happened?" "Between five and five-thirty P.M., not that long before we got there." An eerie feeling washed over Kairi. She had been gliding through the neighborhood then. She had been watching the angry sky and the trees lashing themselves. Had she glided by Terra's house? Had Terra killed himself in the fury of the storm? Aqua asked if she could talk later with the police and guided Xemnas out of the room. Riku stayed behind to answer questions about his father and any relationships or problems he knew about. Kairi wanted to leave; she didn't want to hear the details of Terra's life, and longed to be with Roxas, longed for his steadying arms around her.

But Riku held her back. His hand was cold and unresponsive to hers and his face still expressionless. His voice was so calm she found it spooky. But something inside him was struggling, some small part of him admitted the horror of what just happened, and asked for her. So she stayed with him, long after Roxas had gone and everyone was in bed.