Wings of Avalon: I wish he would try to make amends with them in the games, but chances are we'll just see them magically getting along with no conversations or explanations. Ah, well. That's what fanfiction is for, I suppose. Thanks!

coolmegan123: I can kinda see it being Lea, too, though I also see him accidentally setting fire to everything he tries to cook lol.

Didn't hear from as many of you this week, but I hope you are all still enjoying the story! I had a busy week, personally - celebrating my sister's bday, a baby shower for a friend, a trip to the zoo - so I didn't get quite as much editing done. But I'm still plugging away at it!

Chapter 5

Perspective – Riku

Sora and Kairi were obviously in good moods when they returned to the Gummiship that night. The euphoria from spending the day with new friends practically hummed in the air, no matter how much they tried to dampen it for my sake. It didn't bother me, though, not really. I was happy for them to have those connections. I didn't really want or need any new relationships right then, anyway, not when I knew I wouldn't be able to give anyone my full attention.

"We're gonna hang out in town tomorrow, probably grab some lunch somewhere before we take off again. You should join us!" Sora plopped down onto the bed beside me, a wide grin on his face.

I cleared my throat. "Yeah, somehow I don't think Roxas –"

"We okayed it with them already," Kairi interrupted. "All of them said you were welcome."

Sighing irritably, I tried to stretch the kinks out of my neck. "Just because they said that doesn't mean they actually want me there. It'll just be awkward if I go."

I could see Sora pouting at me out of the corner of my eye. "You can't just sit here in the Gummiship by yourself all day, Riku."

Well, I'm certainly not dying to, but I don't see a better option. Honestly, I really wasn't sure why I had come on this stupid trip to start with. Because Sora begged, that's why. Just like he was about to start begging now.

"Come on, Riku!" Ah, so it's Kairi that's going to start begging first this time. "Don't worry about it being awkward, just ignore them and try to have some fun with us!"

"Yeah!" Sora bounced enthusiastically. "They're gonna show us the sunset, and the clock tower, and the trains, and the shops..."

I couldn't help picturing the town in my mind as he spoke, and clenched my fists on my lap. "I don't want to go, okay? I just don't."

.o.0.O.0.o.

I am such a pushover.

Sora, Roxas, and Xion led the group down the road toward the town square, talking and laughing and pointing at seemingly every other building they passed. Just behind them, Kairi and Lea walked side by side, chatting like old friends which, strangely, I supposed they were. I brought up the rear, still not even sure how I had let myself be talked into this. All of the years I had spent with the two most innocently manipulative best friends in existence, and I still couldn't keep from falling for their persuasions.

I was so lost in my own thoughts, trying to keep from paying too much attention to my surroundings, that I didn't notice Lea dropping back to join me until he spoke up.

"We'll let you walk with the rest of us, ya know."

I glanced up at him in surprise, then dropped my gaze back to the road in front of me. "I'm afraid I wouldn't be much company today."

Lea hummed thoughtfully. "Seems to me you don't always have to say anything to keep somebody company."

That struck me as an odd statement, coming from him. The little that I had been around him, he seemed to rarely shut up. But maybe I had been too hasty to judge, because we spent the rest of the walk together without saying another word, only the giggles of the younger four breaking the silence. It was nice. I was sure that he would have rather been hanging out with them, but having someone acknowledge my presence without forcing me into conversation made me feel a little less alone.

The main part of Twilight Town actually wasn't as bad when it came to memories as the outskirts were. I had steered clear of the residents as much as possible while living in the mansion, so Meli had mostly done everything in town by herself, or with Roxas. The painful part was that she and I had discussed coming back someday, together. We were going to get sushi at our favorite restaurant, stroll down the streets, and take the train to watch the sunset. When the rest of the group swung into the cafe that I knew she had frequented to get ice cream – apparently Roxas and Xion had somehow inherited the part of Sora that thought ice cream in the morning was perfectly normal – I elected to stay outside. It just didn't seem right to finally get introduced to the cafe without her.

I also opted out of climbing the clock tower to see the sunset, using the excuse that it was past lunchtime and the bistro where they wanted to eat looked busy. In reality it didn't take long before I was escorted to an outdoor table for six, but I didn't mind just sitting alone and waiting for a while. The quiet was nice after an entire morning spent in the company of others.

Of course the quiet didn't last long. Soon everyone had piled in around the table, browsing menus and ordering and chatting about anything and everything. Apparently they had all already come to this bistro the evening before, and Sora had introduced them to "Little Chef", the rat that ran the place. Once Sora had gotten the hang of his Gummiphone, he had sent me and Kairi both lots of photos while on his latest journey, including a few of him and Little Chef cooking together. I still wasn't sure which surprised me more – a rat as a chef, or Sora actually cooking meal without burning the restaurant down.

"So...why Twilight Town?" Kairi asked as we all began to dig into our food. "I mean, don't get me wrong, it's a great little town. I'm just wondering what in particular drew you three here."

"It's where we spent a lot of our free time when we were in the Organization." Xion smiled, obviously thinking back to those moments. "We would meet up on the clock tower after our missions and have ice cream together. I never really asked why, though," she added, furrowing her brow in thought. "It was already a tradition of theirs before I joined in, so I don't know how it started."

Roxas shrugged as she looked to him for an answer. "Axel was the one who started it. I was still a zombie at the time."

"That's for sure," Lea laughed. "Which is why I gave you ice cream. I was hoping maybe it would perk you up a little. And what do you know, it worked! Eventually." Popping a french fry into his mouth, he brought a hand to his chin as he chewed. "Hm. Why Twilight Town? Well, truth be told, I had done the ice cream after a mission thing a few times myself before either of those two came along. I hadn't discovered that this cafe here sold my favorite flavor yet, though. I guess I went there that day because we were already here, so it was convenient. And the clock tower just looked like a fun place to sit."

"So, what, you were here on a mission?" Xion queried, leaning her chin into her hand with elbow propped next to her plate.

"Mm, sorta. I was here to pick up Mr. Zombie and start showing him the ropes." Lea ruffled Roxas' hair, much to the younger boy's annoyance.

After slapping his friend's hand away, Roxas nodded. "Yeah, I woke up here, and this is where Xemnas found me and recruited me."

"Woke up?" Sora echoed, confusion crinkling his face.

"Woke up...was born...came into existence..." Roxas shrugged. "Whatever you wanna call it."

Suddenly they had my full attention, and I sat forward to insert myself into the conversation for the first time that day. "Wait, so even though Sora turned into a Heartless in Hollow Bastion...you woke up here?"

Roxas' demeanor immediately cooled, but he met my eyes and answered, nonetheless. "Yeah."

My forehead creased as I turned to Sora. "But you had never even been here before, had you?"

Sora cut his eyes up toward the sky, thinking. "Um...nope. The first time I came to Twilight Town was when you and Ansem the Wise brought me to the mansion."

"And that was weeks later." My food lay forgotten on my plate as I churned this new information through my brain. "What about you, Lea? Did you wake up somewhere close by, or at least somewhere you knew?" There was no denying that Sora and Roxas were a special case when it came to Nobodies, so there was a chance that this was some kind of fluke.

"When I woke up as a Nobody? Gosh, that was ages ago." He scratched the back of his head, leaning back in his chair. "I definitely didn't wake up in the same place my heart was taken. I really don't even know where I was. It's all kind of a blur. Xemnas showed up almost immediately and took me back to Radiant Garden, that's all I know."

I fell back into my chair and crossed my arms over my chest, lost in thought. Kairi was the next to speak up, pulling my gaze up from the edge of the table to her sorrowful expression.

"You're thinking about Meli, aren't you?" she asked quietly.

My first instinct was to deny it. Having any kind of hope about her still being out there somewhere seemed silly and pointless. I knew they'd keep pestering me about it, though, so I sighed and gave in. "Yeah. Just wondering...if there was any chance that she became a Nobody, then where would she have ended up?" I shook my head. "There's no use fretting about it, though. I don't really believe she did."

"Why not?" Xion broke in. "I mean, the criteria for coming back as a Nobody is having a strong heart, right? Her heart was strong enough to wield a Keyblade, so it seems like that would be plenty strong enough to make a Nobody."

"It might not be a Nobody like us, though," Roxas pointed out. "I agree with you on her heart being strong, but she could be like, a Dusk or something."

The thought of Meli being one of those creepy white things was apparently as abhorrent to Sora as it was to me, based on the face he made. Kairi probably would have had a similar reaction, if she had realized what we were referring to.

"Nah." Lea waved a hand casually, as if this wasn't my girlfriend's existence or lack thereof that we were discussing. "Heart like hers? Keyblade and all? I put my munny on her being a full-fledged Nobody, like we were."

Kairi's face brightened with a hope that I hadn't seen from any of us in weeks. "Really?"

"No."

It came out a bit more forceful that in intended, and succeeded in turning all eyes at the table toward me. Clenching my jaw, I stared down at my lap and shook my head. "No, I don't think so."

"Why not?" Sora's tone was a mix of confusion and disappointment.

Because it's too much. Because I can't hope. "Because...if she was really still out there somewhere...why wouldn't she have come home already?"

Silence fell, as did Kairi's expression. That made me feel guilty, but it was better than her getting that hope dashed later on when it had had time to grow.

Lea cleared his throat. "Well, you know, it really isn't uncommon for Nobodies to wake up with memory loss. It doesn't usually last, like it did with this guy." He poked Roxas' shoulder. "But with me and Is–...um, some of the others...we had other people around who knew us before, and who took us back to a place we were familiar with. So our memories were jogged pretty quickly."

"So you think...maybe she just doesn't remember us?" Sora mused.

"Or maybe she's just gone." I shot Lea a look that I hoped would shut him up and change the subject.

"I guess there's no way of knowing for sure," Xion sighed.

"But there is a chance," Kairi pressed. "There's a chance that her Nobody is out there, and a chance that she still looks and thinks like herself." Reaching across the table, she latched onto my wrist. "We can't just not look for her. There's not way we're just gonna say, 'Oh, well, she's probably gone for good,' and just give up without even looking."

As much as I wanted to shake her hold, I allowed her to keep my hand hostage and used my free one to rub my forehead. "And how do you suggest we do that, Kai? You heard what they said. If Meli's Nobody exists, she could be literally anywhere, even a world that none of us have ever been to before."

"I traveled through worlds I had never been to looking for you and Kairi," Sora stubbornly put in. "Twice, for you. It would be the same thing."

"Except that you knew then that we actually existed and what we looked like. You're talking about a wild goose chase that might not lead anywhere at all."

Kairi stood so abruptly that her chair nearly toppled over, and slugged me in the arm hard enough that it actually hurt. "What is your problem? Why are you doing this? You're acting like you don't want to find her, but I know you love her so that doesn't make any sense. I love her, too, and I would do absolutely anything if I thought there was even the slightest chance I could have her back." A couple of tears slipped down her cheeks. "I've never known you to care how crazy or time-consuming a task was if it was something you believed in. So why? Where is the Riku I know? Why aren't you dropping everything right now to go look for her?"

"Because I can't, Kairi!" If her outburst hadn't attracted the attention of all the nearby patrons, mine did. Gritting my teeth, I willed my voice to a lower volume and the tears to stay in my eyes. It was terrible enough needing to cry all the time, I did not want to have one of my meltdowns in front of these guys.

"I can't. I'm just...I'm doing my best to learn to live without her, okay? I've spent the last several weeks trying to accept the fact that she's not coming back, and now you're asking me to throw all of that out the window and believe that she's not really dead, and...I can't do it. I don't know...if I throw away the acceptance now, I don't know if I could ever get it back."

Kairi lowered herself back down, but no one spoke. I probably wouldn't have known what to say, either, if one of them had suddenly bared their soul like that. Flustered and still on the verge of crying, I pulled some munny from my pocket and slapped it down on the table to cover the cost of m mostly uneaten food, then shoved my chair back and stood.

"Excuse me," I mumbled.

I half-expected Sora or Kairi to call out as I walked away, but they must have known better than to try to stop me. My feet took me on a circuitous path through town, no destination in mind as I fought to keep my emotions in check. It wasn't until I reached the edge of town that I realized my lack of focus had betrayed me. Here was the spot where I had picked up and dropped off Meli nearly every day, where I had waited patiently for the sound of her perky footsteps approaching, eager for the happy chattering she would bring along with her as she told me about her afternoon. My life might have been a mess back then, but she had been so much more carefree.

I didn't want to go all the way out to the mansion, that I knew for sure, but something in me forced my feet to keep going out further into the woods. It was strange, seeing it with my eyes for the first time. Everything became much more familiar once I closed my eyes and followed the path that was etched into my memory.

Halfway down the trail I stopped, tensing slightly. This was the place – the spot where we had been attacked by Heartless on her very first full day. The day she met Roxas. The day she got her Keyblade. Meandering off the path, I paused in front of the tree she had been sitting against. I could still feel how delicate her hand had been in mine, could still hear the tremble of her voice as she tried to convince me she was okay, could still remember the stupid jealousy that had risen up in me at the sight of her new weapon.

At last I opened my eyes, and took in the emptiness of the space, and my tears finally spilled over. "Oh, Meli." I dropped my forehead against the trunk of the tree, grasping at the rough bark with my fingers. "I miss you so much."

A/N: *dun dun dun* the plot thickens...and Riku is not okay with that.

FYI, today marks the beginning of Whumpay over on Tumblr (same username for me there as here), so if you're interested in reading some non-fanfiction drabbles of mine, check it out!