A/N: In which we get to meet Namine's closer friends from her hometown. And an unlikely chick for a best friend. XD Sorry it took so long updating, guys. I kept forgetting due to school. But, to celebrate me being out of school, I put this up.

Disclaimer: I don't own anything, especially not the bands that are referenced in this chapter.

Chapter 14: The Old Destiny Friends

It was OK with my best friend's mom (also divorced, it's all this world amounts to any more) that I could visit her. So, I left without a second thought. Sora and Dad were talking sports anyway, not something I'm an expert on to say the least. My friend lived a couple of blocks away from here. That was how we originally became so attached. I knocked on her door, and she was the one who answered. Coolly, of course.

Because, after all, Paine Higuchi considered herself too cool for emotions. Still, it looked like she tried as hard as she could not to hug me. After all, we hadn't seen each other in almost five months.

"Hey," she said calmly, flipping back her light brown hair. "I called the other two. They'll be here in a few minutes or so."

The other two were the ones I befriended in middle school: Rikku Suzuki and Garnet Chen, two rad chicks. Apparently, Yuna is Rikku's cousin, though they are two completely different people. Yuna is calmly popular, whereas Rikku is the reason why Pluto was no longer a planet, DDR machines would explode every time she used them, and her two brothers had constant headaches. OK, only the last part is true. But, she is insanely energetic. In contrast, Garnet is more like me, very shy and quiet. However, give her strawberry Crush, and she is off-the-walls hyper. All of us are oddballs in our own right. Paine calls us "The Rejected Coven."

But, well, my best friend has read way too many goth horror/fantasy books. Deep down, though, I am confident she is just a bright ball of yellow sunshine.

"I just finished writing a poem about witches killing off unicorns," she told me in a rather monotone voice. Her sparkly brown eyes betrayed her real emotions. I just shook my head slightly and laughed at her strange antics. For all the strange topics she chooses for her poems, Paine is actually a pretty good writer. She plans to make an entire career out of it when she grows up.

"Charming," I said in response to her random remark. I think she always had a desire to see all things sugary and sweet and good die...at least when it came to mythical creatures. I know what all of you are thinking. If I was best friends with such a "dark" person, then why was I so tight with Selphie?

Well, I have no idea. I guess it's because Selphie isn't crazy hyper that often.

"Let's go to my room," Paine suggested, grabbing a package of Chips Ahoy for us to snack on. "I'll read my poem to you if you want."

I shook my head. "I can just read it myself."

"OK."

Paine's room was pretty much a black-walled black room of infinite blackness. There were streaks of light purple on the walls and some music posters to break some of the dark up, but there wasn't much. Ever since she was nine, she decided she liked the goth/punk style. So, that was how her room got this awesome paint job. I wish my current room had colorful walls, but nooo, they're all white. I mean, just because Mom lightened up didn't mean she was less strict.

I don't know why, but Mom had an issue with painting over already painted walls, even if they were white. People can have the strangest pet peeves. Meanwhile, Paine handed over her midnight blue (my favorite Crayola shade) notebook of poems for me to read her latest classic. I sat on her bed that had fancy black curtains and started reading. Basically, it was about these five witches living in a forest with a colony of mythical creatures led by a centaur. These evil sparkly, rainbow colored unicorns had intruded this Forest of Eternal Melancholy (go figure, punk/goth chick) to spread their light everywhere. Of course, the centaur would have none of this ooey-gooey happiness, so he sent everyone, witches included, off to war.

Unfortunately, this was where the free verse poem got nasty. Bloody mayhem ensued, an explosion of red, salty, mythical creature-made A positive liquid. I think my face was getting green by the time I read the conclusion of this epic poem. As sometimes was the way with Paine's works, it ended with every last character dead.

Once I took the notebook away from my face, I noticed my best friend looking at me eagerly.

Then again, she sounded careless as she asked, "Well, how did you like it?"

"Graphic...as usual."

She smirked at me. "You know how I am? Other than that?"

"Rad."

She nodded like she knew that answer beforehand, but she really likes to hear my professional opinion.

I handed her the notebook back while I pondered over her crazy obsession with witches. She wasn't even Wiccan, but yeesh, she was definitely fascinated by that kind of stuff. Oh well, at least it made her writing...interesting. Gore just makes me throw up, though.

"It was better than the vampire hunt one, though, I'll give you that," I critiqued honestly as I peeked at her closet. Nope, nothing changed, still black, gray, and purple.

She laughed darkly. "You seriously threw up after reading that one."

"Well, don't make me a doctor or else."

I decided to catch up on things with her. "So, how's your high school?"

"Boring. How's yours?"

So, we talked about what went on in our schools, the friends we made, and even some random stuff. I spoke about Riku very briefly, though not with flattery.

"And he's pretending to be nice and sweet to cheat on his girlfriend by trying to get in my pants," I overexaggerated just a bit.

I knew I did, because Paine shook her head. "I doubt that. Shy guys are rare these days...aka the good ones. Come on, do you honestly think Riku is some crass horny dude?"

While I was hanging on to developing thoughts from this question, Rikku (it wasn't that hard to tell) skipped loudly up the steps. What did I say about her being energetic?

Paine adjusted the spiked bracelet on her wrist. "Looks like the rest of our coven has arrived. Rikku was never that great at subtle entrances."

And speak of the devil, she burst through the door, messy blond strands of hair flying. I always thought Rikku Suzuki looked like some California chick, all tan and sandy blond hair. She even liked the ocean as much as I did. When she saw me, she got straight-up nuts.

"NAAAAMMMI!" she shouted rather childishly, then hugged me tightly. Xion's chokehold last night was nothing compared to the strangling I was getting right now. She loved affection, especially the sharing part.

I barely had enough breath to pat her on the back. "Rikku, it's only been four months. Chillax."

"But, we've all been friends since the fifth grade. We're a sisterhood, Namine," she reminded me.

While Garnet calmly stepped into the room, smiling as she managed to keep her cool under this much excitement, Paine rolled her eyes.

"I'd rather we be called a coven, Rikku. It's darker. Do we share a pair of pants? I don't think so."

My blond friend looked bummed out for a minute before quickly recovering. She let go of me while practically leaping from one side of the room to the other. Her mom had her take ballet when she was five, tumbling when she was eight, and junior cheerleading when she was ten. Obviously, she has the flexible physique of someone elastic...or might as well be. Now, she has acting aspirations, and she is fairly good. I've seen some of the plays she's been in. Garnet is a bit of a talented chick herself. She's a killer singer with quite a range.

Garnet didn't hug me but gave me a soft pat on the shoulder instead. "I'll spare your neck, OK? I don't want to kill you."

"That's comforting," I said sarcastically while I grinned. "How's it going?"

"High school is OK so far. We all hate being freshmen, though."

Paine nodded stoically. "Yeah, but I make sure no stupid older kids mess with us."

"And I know martial arts pretty well." Rikku aimed a high kick at Paine's bedpost and landed it. It's a good thing she was in half a dozen things when she was younger. I don't know why the older kids treat freshmen like crap. Isn't our first year of high school bad enough without that?

Rikku twirled around excitedly after she showed off her karate moves. "Well, I'm going to be Belle in our school's adaptation of Beauty and the Beast."

"Wow, good job, Rikku," I congratulated. "Maybe your romantic lead will be your boyfriend."

She giggled, doubting my assumption. "I doubt that. I already have a crush on someone."

It was true. She was such a lover in spite of herself. I mean, she's already had three boyfriends. I've had a whopping zero, and I want it to stay that way. As for Paine and Garnet...well, they've just been browsing.

Paine leaned against her chest of drawers. "I'm very disappointed, Rikku. I mean, Disney? Come on, we're not five any more. I turned fifteen last month."

"Aw, Paine, don't be so negative," Garnet tried at cheering her up. "We can't grow up too fast."

Yeah, I guess this was the time to celebrate childish things before divorce or bullying or disenfranchised attitudes got in the way of anything. I mean, ten years ago, I actually liked wandering outside to explore the world. That's how my first sparks of inspiration came to life. I decided I wanted to be an artist then and there. No one could put me down back in those days. No one judged me.

"And that's how I got into chorus. Hey, Namine? Namine?"

Crap, Garnet was telling a story. Sometimes, I space out at the worst times.

"Yeah, yeah, I'm here...finally. Sorry to space out on you."

"Signature Tasaki move," Rikku spoke brightly. "I remember Sora did the same exact thing."

My brother could get spacy sometimes too, but not as bad as me. Although, one time, he spaced out during a JV football game and got tackled so hard, he dislocated his shoulder. It was the funniest thing ever! I got to sign his cast first.

In the mean time, Paine flipped through the pages of her poetry notebook. "You know, I've been thinking since Namine called me. We should get our old band back together."

Yeah, we had a band called The Nobodies, since Paine loved depressing names, and we were basically the alienated ones in our school. Well, except Rikku—she was the most popular out of all of us. She played drums, I played bass, Paine had lead guitar, and Garnet had The Voice.

We played a few gigs...like talent shows we would always get second in and some festivals we took first place at once or twice. Those were the days. I learned to play guitar when I was younger, actually, because Mom signed me up for lessons. I started off with some Avril Lavigne song then progressed to Fall Out Boy and The Ramones and those bands. We were so killer back then. I still have photos of when we won first place. It would be awesome if we relived those glory days of our band before we had broken up due to devastatingly indulgent lifestyles (I drink beer, hahaha!), as Paine liked to say. After all, our favorite classic rock bands had traveled the same route. Why not pretend we had epicly been there? We even told people for a while that Rikku and Garnet had a catfight in which Rikku threw her drumsticks. Those two even played along by pretending to hate each other.

It would be rad if I could rejoin our band for old times' sake, but I lived twenty minutes away from my hometown now. I mean, I don't have a car yet, so it's not like I could go practice after school to brush up on my guitar playing. Maybe on weekends, I could go.

"That'd be cool. But, I live in Kingston now. It's not exactly next door to here," I reminded them.

Garnet looked like she was ready to beg. "Oh, come on, The Nobodies need to make a reunion tour!"

"Or at least maybe a couple shows during spring break when the Lobster Festival is," Rikku suggested.

"And I could use my poems as the basis for our songs," Paine told me.

I was still unsure. "Well...that sounds really great. I'll definitely practice with you guys on the weekends. But, Paine, I just have one issue. We need three to four minutes per set, not another 'Stairway to Heaven'."

Sighing reluctantly, Paine nodded in agreement, because I was always the one to point stuff out that was remotely reasonable. Maybe that's why we actually get along so well.

"Good point, Namine. My poems are a bit on the long side. My longest is four pages."

"Wow, you really don't have a life," Rikku joked, though my BFF glared at her for that.

"Shut up. Hm, maybe I should make the poems into stories, now that I think about it..."

I grinned out of excitement, because I really liked the thought of being in the band again, performing some good punk music. Not the girly kind when the lead singer is all cute and sings like a dying cat—real girl punk, just like The Runaways would have done it.

"By spring break then," I told them reassuringly, "we will be ready to perform. As Aerosmith once said, we're 'back in the saddle again'!"

"Yeah, now how about a group hug?" Garnet asked, flipping back her pretty short black hair. I could trade my hair for hers. Blond is vastly overrated.

Rikku jumped up and down twice before agreeing, "I'm up for it!"

"I'm more than ready for it," I said, even though I felt like I was ten again.

We all turned to look over at Paine, who resisted just through facial expression alone.

"Oh, no way. Look, guys, we're not kids any more and—"

The rest of us gave her puppy eyed looks.

"All right, all right," she surrendered. "But, if any of you tell anyone about this, I will murder you in your sleep."

A/N: I've read a couple of KH high school fics before, and I liked how they subtly fit in references from the actual games into the story. Likewise, I decided Namine's band The Nobodies would be that reference. Maybe it's not subtle, but oh well.

Bet you didn't expect Paine to be Nam's best friend, did you? I decided I didn't want to be predictable when it comes to that. When it comes to Riku the guy, though, I think Namine is overexaggerating just a little bit. XD