A/N: Thank you for all your guesses regarding my age. Unfortunately, no one got the correct answer. Some of you were either close, or were too broad with your answers, but I appreciate the effort nonetheless! I'm eighteen years old.
Furthermore, thank you for the 100+ reviews and 5000+ hits! Wow! That really snuck up on me! Thanks for all your support, guys, and congratulations to AyRayKay for being the 100th reviewer!
Just a fair warning that the following chapter is more angsty than the previous ones. I usually enjoy writing happier things so this was pretty difficult (not to mention depressing) to write, but we must build a bridge and get over it to continue our journey to the happier events! Onward!
twelve
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The dice add up to a total of twelve.
You land on a ladder.
Move up nine spaces.
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Riku stares at the ceiling with his silver hair untied and sprawled all around him, unable to get his date off his mind. Try as he may, the image of her looking up at him as they made their way around the dance floor forced itself into his head, engraving the memory in his heart in the process.
He turns over and smiles into his pillow. He was acting like a lovestruck teenage girl, but he couldn't care less.
His phone suddenly starts to vibrate on the nightstand.
He groans and presses his face further into his pillow, trying to get the sound out of his head. Who in their right mind would call him at one-thirty in the morning? He waits for the vibrating to stop, and when it finally does, it starts up again not a moment later. Riku sighs in exasperation as he grabs the device off the nightstand with irritation.
"Who the hell—"he starts, but his eyes widen at the name flashing onscreen. He answers it immediately. "Hello?"
"Riku!" Kairi exclaims, obviously in distress. "I'm so sorry to interrupt you at this time but—oh, I'm so glad I got a hold of you!"
He shoots up from his bed at her tone. "What's wrong?"
"It's Sora!" she says breathlessly, and that's all it takes for him to get up and throw on a pair of jeans. "H-he found the wedding invitation on my vanity table a-and he just ran off without saying anything and I don't know where he went!"
"Where did you last see him?" Riku asks as he pulls on a black shirt.
"I chased him down Sunset Street but I lost him after that," Kairi informs, her voice quivering as if she were near tears. Riku places a hand on his chin and thinks, a map of the city already formulating itself in his head. He snaps his fingers when he finds the answer.
"7th Heaven," he tells Kairi as he walks out of his room and into the hallway. All his lights are already off, but he knows his apartment like the back of his hand.
"Pardon?" Kairi asks, clearly confused.
"It's a bar on the corner of Sunset Street and Station Heights," Riku informs as he grabs his keys and wallet off the coffee table in his living room. "I'll meet you there in ten minutes. See you soon."
"All right," Kairi says before she ends the call, hoping for the best.
Sora had been drunk a total of three times in his life.
The first was when he had a drinking contest with Riku in their second year of university.
The second was when he saw his ex-girlfriend in the arms of another man.
The third was tonight.
As he downs his sixth shot (in addition to the ones he had taken at the party), he hears a few wolf-whistles being thrown across the bar. Sora smirks into his glass. The bartender, a slender and rather large-breasted friend of his named Tifa, could handle these chumps no problem.
But it wasn't Tifa.
Some girl was shaking him by the shoulders, and the first thing he notices about her is the blur of red that surrounds her. As his vision begins to clear, he realizes that it's her hair, and he decides at that moment that he quite likes her hair. It reminds him of red velvet cupcakes, and he loves red velvet cupcakes.
Her eyes are the next things to come into view. They're the oddest mixture of blue and purple, but he enjoys the combination and thinks that they hold a sense of adventure within them. Then, when her entire being comes into view, he finds himself at a loss for words.
Was he looking at an angel, or what?
He shakes his head at the possibility. This angel had a worried expression etched onto her face. Smiles would suit her much better.
"Sora!" the angel screams through tear-filled eyes. Sora blinks twice. The angel appears to know his name. "Sora, it's me, Kairi!"
"Kairi," he slurs, his eyes half-lidded and watery. It takes a while for him to make the connection. Kairi was the name that belonged to his housemate, his assistant, and his friend. What was she doing here?
He gets his answer when she slaps the shot glass out of his hands. At first he thinks that it's the physical shattering of his heart that he hears, but the numerous glass pieces on the floor beg to differ.
He furrows his brows in confusion. "Wh… what'd you that for?"
"Stop drinking yourself into oblivion!" Kairi cries. "It's embarrassing!"
Sora ignores her and picks up another glass. His housemate immediately grabs him by the wrist and forces him to look her in the eye.
"Stop it!" she yells, hoping that her increase in volume will somehow knock some sense into a deeper part of him. "This isn't like you, Sora! Please don't run away and face this!"
"How could you possibly say that?" he asks darkly, his eyes glazed with a coat of bitterness. "You ran away from your problems—that's why you ended up in this hellhole with me."
The words sting like a paper cut within.
"You're right, Sora," Kairi says, finding it difficult to find strength in her words. "But… I am sorry about this. I'm sorry I didn't tell you sooner. I should've given you hints, or eased it in somehow—"
"Save it," he says, but his words aren't as sharp as before. He now speaks with a blunt blade, weaker than ever. "It doesn't matter anymore. It's not going to change anything."
"Sora," she calls softly, but there's nothing left for her to say. He was correct in assuming that nothing could change the words on that small, turquoise card. They would always be there, engraved in cursive silver lettering.
She slumps her shoulders in defeat. Gone was the boy with the goofy smile and optimistic demeanor. In its place was a numb, bitter human being with eyes that no longer had the smallest trace of hope. He'd wake up in the morning and send her away like she was nothing more than the girls he used to bring home, and she'd have to move back to Destiny Islands to forget about the horrible person that she'd been. New Twilight would be haunted for her, and their friendship would have been nothing more than two subway trains crossing paths and heading for different stations, never to come across each other again.
"Get up."
Kairi gasps and turns around. Riku stands before her with his fists clenched and a disgusted look on his face. He walks—more like stomps—his way to his best friend and, as fast as lightning, grabs the shot from his hands and pushes the tray away from his reach.
"This is incredibly childish of you," Riku scolds as he grabs Sora by the arm and hauls him upward. The younger man can hardly see, let alone stand properly.
"You…" Sora slurs, "You have girly hair."
Riku rolls his eyes and slaps the proper amount of munny onto the bar. "He's had enough, Tifa."
The young woman behind the bar nods and accepts the cash without question.
"H-hey!" Sora hiccups. "You can't d-do that!"
"I can, and I just did. Now come on, we're going home," Riku demands sternly.
Sora forcefully pulls his arm away and fishes his pockets for his phone.
"What's he doing?" Kairi asks fearfully, hiding behind Riku for safety. The older man merely sighs and attempts to take the phone from Sora's hands, but the brunet is persistent and skillfully evades Riku's thrashing arms.
"Hello?" asks a groggy, but surprised voice on the other line. "Sora?"
Kairi's eyes widen when she recognizes the all too familiar voice. Roxas.
"You…" Sora growls. "You're an asshole, you know that?" he screeches, capturing the attention of everyone at the bar.
Riku finally confiscates the device and hides it in his own pockets. Angered, Sora readies his fist for a punch but Riku quickly swivels to the side to dodge the hit and smacks the back of Sora's neck, effectively knocking him out for the time being. Kairi covers her mouth with her hands as Riku throws his best friend over his shoulder.
"Hail a cab," the older man orders, and Kairi, shaken, walks outside to obey his command.
The following morning, Riku and Kairi, alongside Roxas, Naminé, and Xion, sit in the living room of Sora's apartment, deciding their next move amidst the silence. Contrary to the circumstances, sunlight begins to seep in through the windows, and it's a beautiful day outside.
Roxas is the first to speak up.
"Maybe Nams and I should postpone the wedding," he suggests, his voice dry and his eyes drained of all its previous vibrancy. Naminé, who sits cross-legged beside him, merely closes her eyes and says nothing to protest against her fiancé's suggestion.
"Don't," Kairi pleads from the couch directly across from him.
"What choice do we have?" Roxas asks, his voice quivering. "It's clear that we're not going to receive his blessing any time soon, and as much as I love Naminé, I can't marry her knowing that someone out there is miserable because of our marriage—especially since that someone is my own brother."
Kairi falls back into her seat, deflated and corrected. "I'm… I'm sorry it had to come to this," she whimpers. "This was my fault. You asked me to ease it in, but I just couldn't bring myself to do it…"
"This isn't your fault, Kairi," Naminé assures softly. "It would have been difficult for any of us." As Roxas laces his hands with his fiancée, Xion, who has been fidgety for the last five minutes, excuses herself and walks towards Sora's room to check on him.
Roxas sighs and glances at his watch. "Nams and I need to head out, too. We've got work in a few hours, and all hell's going to break loose if Sora wakes up and finds us here. I wish you all the best with my brother, and if there's anything you guys need, anything at all, don't hesitate to give us a call." Riku nods in gratitude and understanding.
"And don't worry about postponing your wedding," Kairi says, trying to sound optimistic when she opens the door for them. "We're going to try and fix this, I promise."
Roxas only smiles, but Kairi knows it's forced. Naminé leans in for a quick hug, and when Kairi shuts the door behind the retreating couple, silence fills the apartment again.
Riku catches the look of uncertainty on Kairi's face and doesn't hesitate to outstretch his arms towards her. She runs into them immediately and wraps her arms around his waist. She rests her head on his chest and listens to his heartbeat, realizing that it's almost as fast as her own.
"It really isn't your fault," he whispers into her hair. "He had to find out sometime. Better now than never. Had we done it one week or one month from now, it wouldn't have changed the outcome."
"I know," Kairi says, her voice muffled because of Riku's shirt. She stays and accepts his embrace for a little while longer, content with the fact that she's not alone in the mess that was made, and pulls away only when Xion calls them.
"Guys," she says while leaning against Sora's door. "He's awake."
The three of them shuffle into Sora's room and stand by his bedside, waiting for him to make a move.
"Ugh," he groans, sitting up with much difficulty. He squints when the sunlight hits the side of his face. He has been acquainted with this feeling twice in the past, and there's no mistaking it. A terrible headache and a strong distaste for sunlight meant only one thing: a hangover.
"Please don't tell me I have a tattoo on my ass," he says groggily, reaching for the bottle of hi-potion placed on his nightstand.
"No, it's on your left nipple," Riku answers, trying to lighten the mood. Sora chuckles halfheartedly as he downs the hi-potion in one sitting.
"Did I hurt anybody?" the young man then asks, staring at his shaking hands regretfully.
"No, Riku knocked you out before you could," Xion informs, her face void of all emotion.
Sora runs a hand through his hair then semi-hides his eyes with it when he looks in his assistant's direction. "I'm sorry you had to see me like that."
"It was a little frightening, seeing you as someone else," Kairi admits, "but I'll live."
Sora rubs his eyes then turns to look at Xion. "So that day when I was incredibly bored, and you told me you were too busy writing to hang out, you were actually—"
"—moping," Xion finishes with a nod. "I ate my way out through four tubs of chocolate brownie explosion until Yuffie cut me off."
"Diabetes, meet Xion Kisaragi," Sora jokes, but his laugh is weak, much like his entire body.
"Xi, it's seven-thirty," Riku then informs, and Xion nods in understanding. She grabs her purse from the corner of Sora's room and bids everyone farewell (Sora with a supportive kiss on the forehead) before going off to meet with her publisher. Silence fills the room again until Sora decides to speak up.
"What day is it today?" he asks, his voice still raspy from sleep.
"Monday," Kairi answers.
Sora groans. "And it's already seven-thirty? Crap, we need to get ready for work—"
"I already made arrangements," Riku interrupts. "You and Kairi have the entire week off, and I'm going in at noon today. I told the President that it was personal."
"But—"Sora starts.
"No buts," Riku orders.
Sora's arms go limp and fall to the pillows on his sides. "You didn't need to do that."
"Yes, I did," Riku insists. "You won't be able to focus at work, anyway. You'll only slow us down."
Sora throws his head back and stares at the ceiling, knowing that his best friend is, once again, correct.
"Listen," Riku starts, "We're sorry we couldn't tell you sooner, Sora. It was just—"
"You don't need to apologize," Sora interrupts, looking off into the distance. "I understand why you guys couldn't do it. Truth be told, I would've done the same thing. I'll admit that I'm pretty ticked that you hid it for this long, but I promised Kairi that, in time, I'd understand what she tried to tell me last night. So here I am, trying to understand."
Kairi blinks twice in surprise. This isn't the same boy that couldn't be reasoned with at the bar last night. This young man is clearly broken, but at least open minded, and the thought gives her hope for new possibilities.
Sora inhales sharply, and after some thought, he looks at Riku with a sad smile. "Hey, Riku." The older man gives him his attention almost immediately. "Thank you… for taking care of me again." Riku merely nods in acknowledgment. "But," Sora continues, "if it isn't too much trouble… could you leave me alone with Kairi for a while?"
Riku remains still for a bit, then nods in understanding. He wordlessly bids them both farewell, and after giving Kairi a bold kiss on the cheek, he walks out of the door with calm strides.
Back in Sora's room, Kairi places a shaky hand on her cheek where Riku's kiss still lingered. The feeling of his soft lips against her skin is still fresh in her mind and she turns red at the memory, causing Sora to chuckle.
"You look like shit," he then says as he rests his head against the headboard.
Kairi looks down at her attire and finds her dress from last night muddied and tattered at the ends, thus downgrading its previous beauty. Her hair cascaded down to her shoulders in a frizzy red mess, and tear tracks mixed with mascara ran down her cheeks. But regardless of it all, Kairi smiles, because she had earned this look through helping a friend in need.
"I suppose I do, don't I?" she agrees as she sits on the edge of his bed.
"I'm sorry if I said anything out of line yesterday," Sora apologizes. "I do a lot of stupid things when I'm drunk."
Kairi twitches when she remembers a particular moment from last night.
"How could you possibly say that?" he asks darkly, his eyes glazed with a coat of bitterness. "You ran away from your problems—that's why you ended up in this hellhole with me."
She shakes her head at the recollection and focuses on the young man in front of her. "Look, Sora, I know it may not change anything, but I really am sorry that I didn't warn you sooner. Someone had to tell you, and that someone should have been me. I'm… I'm the new girl—the expendable one," Kairi admits while twiddling her thumbs.
"Don't…" Sora starts with a pained expression. "Don't say that. Don't ever think like that. You're not expendable to me, you're important." He then clenches his fists, angered that she would even think such a thing. "You matter, and I care about you, remember?"
He had thought of what his mornings would be like if Kairi wasn't there, and he had come to the conclusion that he didn't like the image. She had become a part of his life that he had grown accustomed to and didn't want to live without, because without Kairi, very few things in his life would be consistent or worth looking forward to.
"You matter to me, too, Sora," Kairi whispers. "But I'll understand if you can't bear to be around me anymore. I would find it difficult to trust myself again, too."
Sora takes her hand in his and clasps it tightly, recalling Naminé's words from the ball.
"And, to a certain extent, I know you can relate to Kairi, too. That's why I sent her to live with you. You, above everyone else, can understand how she feels, how she works. You're just what she needs, and you need her, too."
"I'm not going to shut you out, Kairi," Sora assures with opened eyes. "Not when I need you."
Kairi's heart skips a beat at his confession. Half a year ago, she never would have imagined those words to come out of Sora's mouth—in fact, she never expected any words to come out of his mouth at all. Now, he wanted her to stay, because he needed her, and she needed him more than she'd care to admit.
It was him who gave her a home and eventually made her feel welcome in said home, it was him who got her through the day with his crooked, goofy smiles, it was him who funded her boost in confidence, it was him who landed her the job in Caelum Industries, it was him who made her dream of traveling a reality, and it was him who gave her hope that she could one day make it in the big city. He was, in every aspect, her hero of sorts.
"It started on the sixteenth of April two years ago," he suddenly says, and Kairi looks up at her housemate with questioning eyes. With his eyes shut, he pats the vacant spot beside him on his king sized bed. For Kairi, this silent and simple gesture speaks volumes. It is Sora's way of opening up to her and, despite the risks, letting her in entirely.
For a moment the only thing that can be heard is the rustling of Sora's bed sheets, but for once, they weren't being used to conceal something dirty. When Kairi's bare shoulder touches his, he continues his story.
"It was the happiest day of my life," he continues, a smile gracing his lips as he recalls the memory. "I took Naminé, my girlfriend of three years at the time, out for dinner to her favourite restaurant. It was the kind where you could make doodles on the paper tablecloth with crayons, and she loved making little doodles on the corner of our table. She was always such a great artist, you know. Always so skilled, so passionate…"
Realizing that his breathing was starting to get uneven, Kairi reaches for his right hand under the covers and laces it with her left. She squeezes it to assure him of her presence, and he squeezes back in acknowledgment as he loses himself in the moments of two years ago.
"That looks nothing like me," Naminé claims when her boyfriend shows off his artwork on his end of the table.
"What? It totally is," Sora insists as he looks back and forth between his girlfriend and his amateur crayon sketch.
"Why do I have claws?" Naminé asks, biting back her laughter as she pokes at her salad.
"Those are your hands," Sora explains through a mouth full of pasta.
"And what's that sticking out of my head? It looks like someone stabbed me with a knife," she continues, sitting back in her seat with an amused expression as she watches Sora squirm under her critical eye for detail.
"It's those strands of hair that you keep complaining about at the end of your bangs!" he cries, but Naminé only continues to laugh. "You try drawing something better with crayons!" Sora whines, throwing the pack of colouring utensils at his girlfriend.
The rest of Sora's meal passes in silence as he watches Naminé concentrate on her drawing. She would occasionally glance up at him for reference then return to her sketch, all the while hiding it with her sleeve. He sighs in delight as he watches her work away at the tablecloth with her skilled fingers.
He recalls seeing the same scene in the empty hallways of their high school, under the trees of their university campus, and on his living room couch. He had memorized every quirk about her whenever she sketched, like the slight sticking out of her tongue when she couldn't get someone's hair right and the narrowing of her eyes when she struggled to perfect the finer details of her drawing.
He loved and accepted all this about her, and she was all his, down to her soft little fingertips that touched his before they laced their hands together. He smiles dreamily when he recalls the feeling of her warm hand in his. He was never going to get tired of this woman.
"Done," she says, removing her arm to reveal her drawing.
All Sora can say is "whoa".
Although she only used the six colours that were made available to her in the pack, Naminé managed to draw him exactly. It is undoubtedly him staring back with big, adventurous blue eyes and a crooked, goofy grin. The thing about Naminé's art was that it could effortlessly capture the essence of a person, and she had definitely captured his playful and muddled demeanor with the messy, but recognizable strokes that she decided to use.
"Beat that," she challenges with a wink.
Sora sits still for a few moments, gathering his thoughts before going through with his plan. After taking a deep breath, he opens his eyes with a warm smile.
"You know what?" he says as he takes a small box from his pocket and slides it over to his wide-eyed girlfriend. "I think I can."
He scribbles only two words in blue crayon.
Marry me.
Kairi's lips part slightly as Sora swallows a big lump in his throat. "I got down on one knee and everything, because back then, I was, if anything, traditional, and a hopeless romantic at that. She said yes, but I saw a flash of uncertainty in her eyes. I didn't pay too much mind to it, because all I could focus on was the fact that the love of my life just agreed to spend the rest of her life with me, but I should have paid attention, I really should have…" Sora regretfully confesses.
"Sora," Kairi calls softly, soothingly massaging his hand with her thumb. "You don't have to keep going."
Sora shakes his head as tears threaten to fall from his eyes. "No, it's about time you found out. A-Anyways, one week later, when I was on my way to her studio to surprise her with a bouquet of roses during our lunch break, I caught her playing with the ring in her hands."
Sora whistles tunelessly to himself as he walks down the hallway of the twenty-fifth floor, passing by the secretary's desk with a bouquet of roses in hand.
"Roses?" Larxene snickers, not even bothering to look up from her computer screen. "Can you get any lamer?"
"Oh, Larxene, give him a break," Axel says as he walks by and leans against his girlfriend's work desk. "The boy's in loooove," the pyromaniac teases in a singsong voice. As Sora rolls his eyes, his best friend steps out of the elevator doors with a questioning look on his face.
"Roses?" Riku asks with raised eyebrows. "Can you get any lamer?"
Larxene and Axel burst out laughing.
"I hope you all step on a lego and get hit by a cactus," Sora mutters darkly as he enters the elevator. He can still hear the maniacal laughter of his friends even as he approaches the twenty-third floor.
When he gets out, he walks—more like skips—to the end of the hallway on the west wing where he knows he will find fiancée hard at work. He giggles childishly at the word fiancée. He's never going to get used to it.
"Roses?" Pence asks when he accidentally bumps into Sora in the hallway. "Can you—"
"Say one more word and I will personally rip out your testicles," Sora threatens. The photographer backs up with hands raised in surrender and allows the brunet to pass without another word.
Finally, after what seems like ages, Sora approaches the door to Naminé's studio and raises his hand to knock, only to find that the door is slightly open. He cocks his head to the side in suspicion. She rarely leaves it open unless she has a visitor.
He peeks through the small space provided to check if she's busy, but instead he sees her sitting in the middle of the room—alone. In her hands, he sees her toying with the engagement ring that he'd given her a week ago. Sora smiles, thinking that she'd been admiring the piece of jewelry until he catches sight of her shoulders. They move subtly but unevenly, and it's enough to let Sora know that she's crying.
He tightens the grip on the bouquet in his left hand and is about to push the door open until someone joins her. A young man kneels in front of her and closes the hand that holds her engagement ring. He whispers something to her and kisses her hand affectionately.
Sora nearly gasps when he recognizes the young man to be his own twin brother, Roxas. He can hear his heart beating in his ears and can feel his blood boiling beneath his skin. What was his brother—the same brother that he shared every experience with since the womb—doing with his fiancée?
Naminé mumbles something incoherent to his twin, and he merely nods in understanding before standing up to cup her face in his hands. Sora holds his breath and wants to close his eyes, but he can't. He watches as his own kin leans down to kiss his fiancée firmly on the lips, desperately and fervently, and Naminé returns it with equal fervor. The ring slips from her hands and falls to the floor with a loud clang and lays forgotten for quite some time.
Years of bike riding and talks on the clock tower with Roxas become meaningless in an instant—and outside, Sora stands, thinking that stealing the last cookie in the jar was the foulest of Roxas' betrayals.
He watches, paralyzed as his brother touches his fiancée where only he has touched her—but it suddenly occurs to Sora that maybe Roxas had already touched her in that way without him knowing before. The possibility makes him sick. He drops the bouquet and just runs, each step distancing himself from his brother both physically and emotionally.
Kairi gasps when Sora slams his fist into the wall. A few things fall from his nightstand and dresser, and the tears fall freely from his eyes.
"I knew it, too," Sora admits, his voice shaky. "Those two have been inseparable since high school. It was only a matter of time before they got together, but when I got the girl, I thought that I had finally beaten my brother at something. You see, Kairi, Roxas was always the better twin," Sora explains in between sniffles. "We grew up together and apart from Riku, he was my closest friend, but he was always the smart one. He was the one who was always at the top of the class, the one who was always more sure of himself, the one who became a successful keyblade engineer—hell, he even walked first. All this motivated me to try harder, of course, but in the end I was just the goofball brother that was good at sports."
"That's not true, Sora," Kairi assures as she rubs his bare arm supportively.
"Oh, but it is," Sora insists. "That's why I asked Naminé to marry me. I thought she was going to leave me because I sensed something going on between them, so I rushed the proposal. I was fairly young, and I had a very childish mindset. I was in love with the idea of love—the idea of happily ever after and having someone to hold hands with in the sunset, but that was my problem. I was so focused on the clichés that love implied that I didn't focus on how Naminé felt at the time."
"What..." Kairi starts. "What happened? After you saw them in her office?"
"I caught them walking out when I entered the elevator," Sora answers as he wipes his tears with the back of his hand. "They picked the bouquet off the floor, and when Naminé realized that the flowers were from me, a look of relief passed through her face before she began to panic. Fucking relief. Relief that I finally knew, and that she wouldn't have to go through the hardship of telling me herself. Relief!" Sora screams incredulously.
"I got drunk that night and Riku had to haul my ass up here, much like he did today," Sora continues when Kairi remains silent. "After a few weeks, I finally decided to let Naminé talk to me. She claimed that she still cared about me and apologized that she kept her feelings for my brother a secret, but had I proposed years later, she said that she couldn't marry me, anyway. She wouldn't be giving me her all, she said. It was unfair to me, she said. She's always had hidden feelings for Roxas, she said. She thought she could grow to love me as her number one in time, she said, but she couldn't," Sora says as he chokes back a sob. "The entire time she was with me, she had someone else in mind. I treated her like my number one, but I was always second place in her heart."
Kairi feels tears of her own threatening to spill from her eyes as she watches her boss crumble beneath her fingers. She could see her cousin being that kind of person. Although she was nice, she had a tendency to be insensitive at times.
"I dated Xion for a bit after that," Sora confesses, and Kairi's eyes grow wide at the news. Perhaps that's why Xion's book felt so familiar and personal to her. The love interests were based off of people they both knew.
"She was dating Roxas beforehand," Sora explains, "and he basically told her the same thing: that he couldn't be with her because she was also second place. He really said that he was being unfair and that she deserved someone better, but no matter how much you sugarcoat it, it still hurts the same. We both understood each other and found comfort in each other's arms for a while, but we eventually realized that we were dating only because we felt lonely and broke it off after that. We became what you see before your eyes now, and I became the skirt-chaser you met half a year ago about a month after Xion and I broke up." Sora then sighs and loosens his grip on Kairi's hand.
"My evasive attitude towards women was a defense mechanism to prevent me from getting hurt again, but to this day, I still can't get over the way Naminé looks when she loses herself in her sketchbook. Not a single day goes by without me thinking about how she sticks her tongue out or narrows her eyes. It's always there, in my head. That's why I avoided you for the first few months," Sora admits. "You looked just like her, but I let you in because I thought that she'd eventually want me back if I gave you a place to stay, but only now do I truly see that that isn't possible. Besides, something happened along the way."
Sora turns his head to face Kairi and grins—truly grins—for the first time that morning.
"I befriended you out of my own free will, and I haven't regretted it since," he announces, and the tears that threatened to spill from Kairi's eyes break free like a broken dam. She pulls him into a tight embrace, his cold, bare chest squished against her warm, clothed one. He wraps his arms around her waist and pulls her closer as he shamelessly cries into her shoulder, letting it all out.
"Oh, Sora," she cries into his ear. "You're so much more than what you claim to be in comparison to your brother. He may be more academically inclined, but you have talents that I'm sure he doesn't possess. I've seen you move crowds with your voice alone. You have a gift with words and with people, Sora, and anyone who is lucky enough to be cared by you will have their days brightened and their smiles widened."
Sora buries his face into the crook of her neck, shaking under her embrace.
"I know you still love Naminé," she whispers as she soothingly rubs circles on his back, "but if you truly want to make her happy, you'll have to find it in your heart to forgive your brother. He loves you, Sora, and he doesn't seem like the kind of person that would hurt you intentionally. I know forgiveness doesn't seem possible right now, and the road ahead won't be easy, but it's the one happiness you can give the girl you love. I know it's upsetting to realize that you aren't the one for her, but if you do this, I can guarantee you that you'll be able to move on and find peace again. Do you remember starting over with me?"
Sora nods, recalling the moment with great clarity and the feeling that came with it. It was as if a huge weight had been lifted off his shoulders, and he could be himself around Kairi knowing that his father would be watching him from afar with a proud smile on his face.
But the image of his brother pressing his lips against Naminé's comes back and the pain in his heart increases tenfold.
"I don't know if I can do this," Sora stammers through shaky breaths.
"Alone? No," Kairi admits, a small smile gracing her lips. "You do a lot of damage when you're left to your own devices. You're completely hopeless without Riku or Xion around."
"And you," Sora reminds. "I couldn't even walk in my office without you."
Kairi chuckles and runs a soft hand through Sora's hair.
"And me, too," she agrees.
After grazing her lips over his forehead affectionately, Kairi pulls them apart to look Sora in the eye. She gives him a warm smile, and he attempts to return a pathetic one in return.
"Sora, I've had my heart broken tons of times," Kairi says. "I was too nice for my own good, so it's easy for someone to walk all over me, but you gave me the confidence to know what's good for me. No, I don't agree that love is a game. It's not that easy, and you won't always win, but that's the point. It's risky and things don't automatically fall into place like they should, but that's what makes it so valuable in the end; however, you were right in saying that I should love myself first before loving another. You helped me become a better version of myself, and now I'm going to help you."
"Help me?" Sora asks, his voice barely above a whisper.
"Yes," Kairi says with a determined nod. "I'm going to help you move on."
tbc
So the past is finally revealed! It may just be me since I wrote it, but I found it predictable. Did you see this coming? The flashbacks also lacked some detail and personality to me, but I'm not going to bother going through that again because, in the long run, our main focus is Sora and Kairi here. Screw Roxas and Naminé (lol just kidding they're pretty important). I also apologize if the timeline of events was a little messy. I first wrote this chapter with Sora reciting every single event, but I decided against it and added the flashbacks because there was way too much dialogue in this chapter in my opinion.
I've recently changed the order of events in my outline, so I suppose you're in for a real treat in the next chapter! The fluff awaits.
Special thanks to It's My Lucky Charm, Sookdeo, Shadowred, AyRayKay, thelonesomeartist, mOOnlite-duskk, li'miss sunshine, Guest, ICanHazSkillz, KittyKat1217, DestinyKeyblader28, Wildgirl404, cutekitty5597, and Amulet Misty for reviewing the last chapter, and thank you to those who have favourited this story and/or put it on their alert list! I apologize for any misspelled or missed pen names.
I hope you enjoyed the twelfth installment of D&L. Please kindly leave a review to tell me what you thought, I'm sorry for any grammar errors that I might have missed, and I'll get started on the next chapter asap!
PS. I didn't think I'd get such a positive reaction when I decided to put Riku's hair in a low ponytail in the last chapter. You guys are hilarious.
