Sora and Sunni
Sora jerked awake when the door slammed its frame again. He sat up with a start and turned to the noise. The wind whispered across the veranda, rustling Sunni's clothes and pigtails as she came towards him. Warily, Sora noted the way her fingers were folded up in the material of her dress and while he didn't remember exactly what that meant, it gave him an ominous feeling.
"Hey, Sunni… I haven't seen you in a while," Sora tried to joke, chuckling awkwardly. The dream he'd just had stuck vividly in his head – a memory, it couldn't be anything else if it was so persistent. Sunni frowned and lowered her brow, unimpressed.
"We talked last night," she said. Then she flicked the hair of her fringe with flippant movement of the head and adding airily: "but it has been a long time, in a way."
She sat down next to him, letting go of her clothing to lift herself onto the bench but taking it back up in her fidgety fingers almost as soon as she was settled. Sora looked at her while she looked down at her hands. Expectantly, they waited for someone who had the courage to speak up first. In the end it was Sunni.
"Somehow it feels like you haven't really been back, at least not to me."
Sora clasped his hands between his knees and looked at them guiltily. They'd talked, of course, but nothing meaningful. Aside from the conversation that almost started over the white clay doll they'd shared just the bare minimum of conversation needed to get them through the days.
"It also felt like you were leaving a lot sooner than you did," she continued and Sora turned back to her with raised eyebrows. "Mom said you were building a raft to sail around all the islands but you said you were going to travel to other worlds."
"It doesn't matter what I said," Sora replied dismissively. "Kairi, Riku and I were supposed to be teenagers but we acted like kids. The idea was stupid. We were stupid."
"But didn't you do that?" Sunni pressed curiously.
Sora eyed her suspiciously. "Do what?"
"Go to other worlds."
"Why would you think that?"
"Where else would you have gone for a whole year? Where would you go on this world that isn't another island?"
"For all you know I did spend the whole year on-" Sora began but cut himself off. Sunni cocked her head to the side like a confused puppy, staring at him with his mouth agape as his face paled. "Why don't you believe me? You sound so sure…"
Sunni suddenly looked down and tapped the toes of her sandals together. "Well, it did say so in your book…"
Sora's stomach dropped but he had to be sure. "What book?"
"The red one," she said quietly. "It was all about you and your friends in other worlds. I'm sorry I stole it."
Sora just stared at her, very still but he was trying to keep the trembling down. It bothered him that she knew; he needed to keep it a secret to make things go back to normal. The journey was over so why wouldn't things go back to normal? The journey was over so why were there people out there who were still suffering?
Sunni shuffled away a little bit defensively. "I couldn't help it, it was different. Everything in your room stayed the same for a long time so when there was suddenly something different I got curious."
"How do you know what's in my room?" Sora asked with an air of incredulity.
"I've been in there a lot. It was strange when you weren't here because… I didn't really remember that you were supposed to be… except you weren't because you went away…"
It was just like with Selphie how the gears in her head were trying to spin on something that just wasn't clicking. It was like a glamour that stopped people noticing but only so long as they weren't explicitly thinking about it. Sunni put her little hands to her forehead and shook her head as though she had a headache.
"Something's missing…" she muttered. "That's not all though."
Sora sighed. He had to think of something to get her to drop it. "Sunni, it's nothing to get worked up over-"
"What was it like in other worlds?" she interrupted.
Sora's heart leaped. "Shit, think of something. Anything. Something else… something she'll believe."
"Sunni…" Sora began, with the mild exasperation of someone explaining something obvious to a child. "The journal isn't actually real. It's just stuff I made up – things that I wish I had been doing while I was visiting other islands."
She glared at him. "But you didn't write it."
Sora gaped. "What?"
"You didn't-"
"I heard what you said! Why do you think that?"
"It just doesn't seem like it was written by you. The words sound like someone else was writing it about you."
Sora's blood rushed in his ears. He had to think. How could he dissuade her from realising the truth? The truth was powerful; it had ruined everything, destroyed the islands, separated him from his friends, destroyed Ansem: Seeker of Darkness, it had even almost destroyed him. From the inside. If she knew, would Sunni follow? Would she be curious if she thought the story in the journal looked so fantastical that it would be amazing to experience? How could he protect her from the things that happened to him and Riku and even Kairi?
It struck him: Kairi.
"Don't be dumb, Sunni. I totally wrote it. And I didn't go to other worlds. You should have noticed—Kairi's been here the whole time but in the book she's kidnapped."
Sunni looked away red-faced and teary-eyed. Sora felt a powerful spear of guilt at having done that to her but he had to convince her not to believe in the journal.
"Y-yeah, okay," she choked. "M-maybe that's true… okay, you're right. But what about when the islands were destroyed?"
"If that had really happened, surely you would have remembered it."
She dropped her head lower, almost curling up and folding her arms over her middle. She sniffled. "O-okay, but… but… how come I didn't get to be in the story?"
Sora's brow furrowed. "Why would I have written you in?"
"I don't know. B-but it's like… you wrote about Kairi and Riku, and even a little bit about Tidus and Selphie and Wakka but you didn't say anything about me and mom. It's like you didn't even miss us. Did you?"
"It's just a story," Sora tried to placate her but the words felt false bouncing off his tongue and not just because he was fabricating a journal of make-believe. "I didn't have to miss you and mom because I knew that I would be coming back."
She went quiet, only making sobs and sniffles for a while. Sora rubbed his palms on his pants awkwardly. He didn't know what to do about this. But then Sunni was suddenly done considering when she added:
"When you came home, you didn't talk to me for a while. It was like…" she searched for the right words. "It was like you'd forgotten I was your sister."
The statement felt like a punch in the gut and Sora couldn't recover fast enough. Sunni looked up at him with suspicion in her eyes. "You did, didn't you? I'm just not important to you, am I? I'm not important to anybody!"
She launched herself off the bench and ran down the length of the veranda away from him. Sora was frozen in shock for a moment but the situation caught up with him and he jumped to his feet suddenly.
"Sunni! Wait! Where are you going?"
"Away!" she shouted back over her shoulder. "Don't follow me!"
Sora debated whether the right thing to do was to stay or go after her. His feet felt numb. Was there anything he could do that wouldn't result in this hole getting any deeper? Thinking like this had never done him any good. In situations like these he'd only ever resorted to the most basic of two-pronged decisions – everything could be solved like that. He could either do or he could not do…
"Sunni… Sunni!" he called out, uncertain at first. "Wait!"
He ran after her.
The drama builds. Sora's a mean big brother. With only 7 chapters left until the end I am kind of afraid. 18 months ago I had given up hope that this story would ever be finished and now there are only 7 chapters left.
