From Afar

Author's Note: Wow, guys, thanks for all the reviews! If I got that amount of reviews for every chapter I'd be a majorly happy person.

A very special shout out to Soryan Saxon for her piece of fanart! There is a link on my account if any of you would like to see it, it absolutely brilliant. Thank you so much for doing that for me, it really makes me feel appreciated.

So, anyway, since you guys were so awesome I thought I'd update early. I know this chapter is slightly shorter than the last one but, hey! Enjoy!

-o-x-chapter ten-x-o-

Kairi opened her sleep-encrusted eyes blearily, but quickly shut them again, her head throbbing. Her throat was so dry it was a struggle to swallow and her limbs felt oddly heavy.

Her head was aching so much she could barely think, only curse at herself for drinking so much the previous night. She rolled over and buried her head in her pillow. She was greeted with a strange rustling sound and not the soft padded material she was expecting but the smooth yet scratchy sensation of what was unmistakably paper.

One hand pressed against her forehead in preparation for a pain she knew would spring forth when the light hit her, she opened her eyes. It was more of a struggle than she has expected. It felt as though they had been glued together while she was sleeping. Rubbing them both thoroughly, she finally managed to focus her vision. She frowned at the piece of paper, wondering how it had got there. She tried to remember what had happened the previous night, but the last thing she could think of clearly was talking to Seifer, everything else was a dull blur.

She didn't want to even speculate how much she must have had to drink for her to only remember that far into the night.

She kept glancing at the piece of paper, before her curiosity got the better of her. Gritting her teeth she crawled into a crouched sitting position and unfolded the note. She recognised the handwriting immediately, after spending so much time writing equations with him, how could she not? But why had Sora been here?

She started reading and smiled. Sora was way too considerate, of course she was okay. Hung over, sure, but she was all there.

I'm sorry I had to go, but I think it was probably the best thing to do. I know you wanted someone to be with you last night, but know you probably need time alone to think.

The redhead frowned, what did she need to think about? Sora had obviously brought her home last night and she'd asked him to stay. 'Oh God,' she thought, 'I hope I didn't do anything embarrassing.'

Anyway, I bet you've got a stinging headache right now.

Huh. No shit. She shook her head, laughing to herself as he advised her to go get a cup of coffee to help her clear her head.

Anyway, I hope you work things out and discover what you really want.

He had signed it off after that. She felt more confused than ever. What was he on about? What things did she need to work out?

Shaking her head in bewilderment and tossing the note aside, she reached over for her phone on her nightstand to check the time. She blinked in surprise at her screen.

27 missed calls.

Now she was really quite worried, a nagging feeling was digging at the back of her mind as though she knew something big had happened, but she wasn't quite sure what it was or what impact it had had. She pressed a button to give her more details. Riku was at the top of the list, eighteen of the calls having been from him.

Without warning, the events of the previous night came flooding back to her. She clamped a hand to her mouth as she gasped.

She remembered everything.

How could that all have happened?

Hot, salty tears welled up in her eyes and she clamped them shut tightly, lying down and clutching her knees to her chest.

Her shoulders shaking, she pulled her duvet over her head, shutting herself out from the rest of the world.

"Sora, hey!" Selphie chimed as she opened the door to her house.

"Hey," he replied, stepping inside, his hand deep in the pockets of his hoody.

He looked around, and raised his eyebrows. The floor was covered with litter, puddles of liquid, pizza boxes, crisp packets and other assorted items of garbage. Most of the furniture seemed to be intact, but an expensive-looking vase had been knocked off its shelf and was lying in pieces on the floor. There was a two-square-foot space of clear and clean floor between the front door and the staircase. Tidus was armed with a vacuum cleaner; Selphie a large black bin bag. Yellow rubber gloves adorned both their hands.

He whistled, rubbing the back of his head. "Someone's got a long job ahead of them."

"Yeah, well you could give us a hand," Tidus grumbled. He obviously wasn't too happy about the amount of cleaning up they had to do.

"All you have to do is ask," Sora told him, taking a black bin liner from Selphie and raising an eyebrow at Tidus. The three of them continued picking up the litter from the floor.

"Are you wearing the same clothes you were wearing last night?"

Sora looked up to see Tidus smirking at him.

"Shut up, Tidus," he muttered.

The blonde snorted. "Just wondering if you got-"

"Leave him alone, Tidus." Selphie muttered, rolling her eyes. "Sora, do you know what happened to Kairi last night?" She asked, scrunching her nose up in disgusts as she picked a sock up from the floor. "Riku was running around looking for her. I tried ringing her a couple times, but she didn't pick up." She threw the sock in the big bag.

The brunet gritted his teeth at the sound of Riku's name. "Riku was looking for her, huh?" he said, attempting to sound casual.

"Yeah, he said he saw her and then she just took off."

"And that's all he said?"

"Well, yeah..." Selphie looked round at him, a puzzled expression on her face.

That explained a lot. Selphie wasn't the kind of person who would be cleaning her house when one of her friends had just been cheated on by her boyfriend. Riku didn't seem like the kind of person who would say, 'Yeah, she just caught me cheating on her and now I've really gotta go find her.' As much as Sora hated him, he had to admit that he wasn't stupid, Selphie would have killed him.

"Sora?" Selphie had stopped clearing up and was standing with one hand on her hip, staring at him.

"She's fine. I took her home," he told her monotonously.

"Thank God," Selphie breathed, tucking a strand of hair that had fallen out of her messy ponytail behind her ear. "I was kinda worried about her. Why'd she leave, anyway?"

"Riku cheated on her," he said simply, because there was no other way to say it. The statement was what it was: blunt and unwelcome.

"He what?" The brunette had dropped the bag of garbage she had been holding and spun around to face him.

"He cheated on her. She didn't say much about it, she was pretty upset, but I'm guessing she walked in on them."

Selphie looked positively mutinous. "And you left her? You could have at least called someone else before you did!"

Before he had a chance to defend himself, she ripped her rubber gloves off and stormed out of the house, not noticing that she was still wearing her fluffy slippers.

Sora turned around to raise his eyebrows at Tidus, who was looking mildly amused. "Is it weird that I find her really hot when she's angry?"

The brunet sighed; trust Tidus to say something inappropriate.

"Oh come on, I was kidding." The blond huffed and stand down on the bottom stair of the staircase, rubbing his chin. "Why did you leave her, anyway? That's not like you."

Sora shrugged and sat down next to him. "She - she needs time to think, on her own."

He snorted. "You wouldn't think she'd have must thinking to do. If a guy cheats on you, you don't usually stay with them, right?"

"Yeah, but..." he trailed off. He didn't really want to tell Tidus about what had happened with him and Kairi last night, it felt private. "She kinda, well... we kissed last night."

Tidus's eyebrow rose in surprise. "Isn't that a good thing?" When he received no reply he continued. "How did it happen?"

"When I took her home, I think she didn't want to be on her own. She was really upset and she took me up to her room and we were just sitting there. She started talking about her and Riku, saying that they'd had an argument the day before and she thought that was why he'd done it. So I asked her what the argument was about and she said- she said it was about me. Like, Riku had said something stupid about me wanting to shag her and she'd defended me. And then she just kissed me. Just like that." He paused awkwardly. "But I felt bad, 'cause she was obviously upset about Riku and still drunk so I went to go and she- she friggin' asks me to stay with her. How could I say no to her? But I kinda freaked out this morning because I didn't know how she was going to react when she woke up and I thought she'd be really confused."

The blonde nodded. "I'd have probably done the same thing."

He looked up hopefully. "Yeah?"

"Yeah," he confirmed. "I mean, that's a hard thing to take - your boyfriend cheating on you - and then I think her waking up with you there would have just made her feel worse."

"Good," the brunet said, more to himself than Tidus.

He was glad he had a second opinion on what he was done; it made him feel slightly better about himself. There was a part of him that had been scared to wait until Kairi woke up to leave. He was scared to have the tiny glow of hope that had settled in his stomach extinguished. It was as though the longer it was there the less likely it was to be destroyed.

"Do you reckon she likes you then?" Tidus asked him.

Sora shrugged. "I haven't got a clue." He laughed slightly, shaking his head.

"Ah, well," the blonde said, clapping him on the back. "She can't want to go back to Riku after what's he's done. I'm sure it'll all work out."

The brunet grinned. Sometimes he envied Tidus's happy-go-lucky attitude to life. He just took everything that was thrown at him in his stride and he knew that something would either happen, or it wouldn't and there wasn't anything he could do to change it.

"And if not, well, there's always Yuffie."

And then he says something like that.

Sora smacked Tidus on the back of his head, laughing. Then, something clicked in his mind. "Shit! I completely forgot about Yuffie."

Tidus looked bewildered. "I was kidding! Why does everyone always take me seriously?"

"No, not that. Last time I saw her she was trying to chat up Leon."

"No way!" He laughed. "Man, I love that girl."

"I'd better go call her, check if she snuck back into the Home okay. I'll catch you later."

Once he was out of the house, he quickly dialled Yuffie's number on his mobile. He took a deep breath as he heard the dialling tone. He really hoped Yuffie had managed to sneak back in successfully - not that he doubted her skills in any way - because he knew that she would have had her phone confiscated otherwise, and he didn't really fancy having a chat with his social worker right now.

"Sora! Oh my god, you will never guess who helped me get back into the Home last night! It was amazing!"

The brunet grinned to himself; a lot of things seemed to be looking up.

Author's Note: Righty, I know that chapter was a little slow, but I can promise more action in the next one! Trust me, I've just written the plan.

Anyway, please review! It's true that every time I get a review for this story I open the file and start writing it. So, honestly, it does mean quicker updates.

Read, review, party and enjoy life.

Nirii.