Nevquariel: You're welcome! Glad it was what you wanted!

DyingofFeels: Ha yeah who knows what happens to his hair. I actually like his second haircut so much better! I wonder if we're ever going to get an explanation for that. Have you heard of the whole "sleeping realm theory"? I haven't decided if I believe it or not. It's so complicated.

Enamis09: I used to have super long hair, too! It yo-yos between chin length and shoulder blades these days, but it was down past my butt when I was a kid.

Yes, in answer to your questions, there are millions of other universes. She's only traveled between the two, just because she hasn't found a connection with any others.

Coolmegan123: Yep! Technically, after I wrote the part in Inferno's Edge where it said she had cut it, I realized that the cutscene where they got the message from Mickey he still had long hair. But I decided to ignore that because I liked the idea of him cutting it as soon as he got home.

Another request from Nevquariel today! I'm not sure how close this is to what she wanted...she asked for Meliku's first date, and I ended up spending just as much time on pre-date as I did the actual date. I had an easier time writing that part! But anyway, don't be fooled by the threat of angst at the beginning, this is definitely all fluff. Also it makes me crave all the foods that they eat.

This takes place a few weeks after the reunion on the beach, could be either before or after the parallel universe revelation.

Bonus Chapter 5

(Falls in between books 1 and 2)

Meli's perspective

"Hey, um...Meli?"

I looked up at Riku where he sat beside me with one arm draped over my shoulders. "Yeah?"

"Um..." His gaze remained on his lap. "Can I...talk to you for a minute? Alone?"

"Uh, yeah. Sure." Frowning, I glanced over at Sora and Kairi, but they were still engrossed in their discussion about the movie we had just finished. Riku stood from the couch and began making his way toward the stairs that led up out of the basement, so I followed, though a bit reluctantly. He was acting weird. I didn't like it. My mind automatically went to worst case scenarios of what he might want to talk about.

He's already tired of me. This is not going like he thought it would, and he's changed his mind. He's realized that I'm really not all that great, after all.

We stepped out onto the front porch, the yellowish tint of the setting sun bright in my eyes after the dim lights of the basement. Riku leaned against one of the towering white columns with one shoulder. His hands were fidgeting with the hem of his t-shirt, like he was nervous about the conversation to come. I was, too, my heart pounding in my chest, but I kept my hands clenched in fists by my side and refused to let my fear show.

"I, um...I was thinking. We...we've been together for, you know, a little while now...I mean, a few weeks, at least..."

He wasn't even looking at me, so I allowed my eyes to squeeze shut. Just say it already.

"And I was just realizing that, well...we haven't actually been on an official date yet." The last part of the sentence came out in a rush, and his halting speech was replaced with a constant stream of words. "We've been hanging out together for like, forever, it seems like, but it's always been either just as friends or with Sora and Kairi, and that's fun, I like doing that, too, but, you know, we are actually boyfriend and girlfriend now, so we should, like, date at some point, and that's my fault that I haven't even asked you out yet, I guess because we had such an unorthodox start to our relationship, but–"

"Grim." At some point during his rambling speech it began to dawn on me where he was going with this, and I stared at him incredulously. "Are you...asking me on a date?"

Finally he made eye contact, and let out a huge breath with a whoosh. "Yeah," he replied sheepishly, the corners of his mouth turning up just slightly. "That's...what I was supposed to be doing, anyway. I'm not doing a great job of it, though."

My earlier fears having flown out the window, I grinned and gave a laugh. "We've been a couple for weeks, like you said, and we practically lived alone together for months before that. Why are you so nervous about asking me – your girlfriend – on a date? It's not like you don't know whether or not I like you."

He blushed, his shoulders raising up around his ears. "I don't know. It's just...official, you know? Our first date. Feels like it needs to be done right. Which...I completely failed at."

Giggling again, I stepped forward and pecked him on the cheek. "I would love to go on a date with you, Riku Tanaka."

His smile grew, and he straightened up and cleared his throat. "Glad to hear it. Shall I pick you up tomorrow night at six?"

"That sounds delightful."

.o.0.O.0.o.

Despite the grief I gave Riku about being nervous asking me out, I found myself just as nervous the next evening as six o'clock drew near. Kairi had helped me get ready, at least by finding a new way to style my awkward, half-grown-out hair so that it looked semi-decent, and by nearly forcing some lip gloss and mascara onto my face. My clothing I had picked out myself, though it was nothing too spectacular – just a nice pair of dark wash skinny jeans paired with a flowy turquoise top and some black boots. I hoped he wasn't taking me anywhere too fancy, because I didn't have any nicer options. My purple bracelet from Zephyr was in its usual place around my left wrist, and I wore the choker that had come with my fairy outfit.

Kairi laughed at me as I bounced up and down on my toes at the bottom of the stairs. "You two are hilarious. You'd think that this was your first ever time being alone together."

"Well, it's...it's different." I bent my knees and straightened them again, trying to work out my pent up energy. "We were alone all the time to start with, yeah, but it's like he said, we were just friends. It didn't mean anything." I jumped, thinking I heard someone at the door for the fifteenth time, then sighed. "Tonight is supposed to be special. I just want it to go well."

"And it will!" Kairi stood from where she had been sitting on the steps and placed both her hands on my shoulders. "Especially if you will just relax. If both of you are this nervous the whole time then it's not going to be nearly as fun. You love him, he loves you, so just be yourself!"

I drew in a deep breath, held it for a few seconds, then released it. "Yeah. You're right. I'll try."

Just then the doorbell finally rang, and any calm that I had acquired vanished. With a mischievous smirk, Kairi jogged away before I could move and yanked open the front door. "Ooh, Riku, don't you look nice this evening! I wonder who you could be here to see?"

"Hi, Kairi," I heard him mumble, then he pushed past her and entered the foyer, his eyes immediately finding mine. He was wearing jeans, too, and his usual pair of sneakers, but his black t-shirt was accompanied by a casual grey jacket with a stand-up collar that I had never seen before. His hands were in his pockets, and I could tell from his stance that he was still nervous, too. "Hey."

I smiled, trying to calm all my jittery movements. "Hi."

He grimaced suddenly, putting a hand to his forehead. "Shoot, I should have brought you flowers or something. I'm sorry. I told you I was failing at this."

"It's okay! I don't need flowers." I don't want flowers. Walking forward to meet him, I clasped his hand in mine. "Let's just get out of here, okay?"

"Hold on, not so fast." Mr. Yoshida's deep voice broke into the conversation as he entered the room, startling me. "You weren't going to take off from my house on a date without even saying hello, were you?" He eyed Riku sternly.

"Uh..." If I thought Riku was flustered before, it had multiplied by ten now. "No, sir. Of course not."

"Dad!" Kairi drew out the word, hands on her hips, glaring at him. "Don't go into dad mode now. They're not even your kids."

Mr. Yoshida crossed his arms and raised his chin in the air a bit. "Maybe not. But last I checked, this one is currently living in my house, and this one might as well most weeks." He gestured to me and to Riku in turn, then focused his attention back on us, smiling. "Don't worry, I'm not going to threaten you or anything. However." His face and voice grew serious again. "I do expect you to have her back home by ten o'clock, young man. And behave yourselves."

"Dad..."

Riku nodded quickly. "Yes, sir. I will. We will."

"Yes, sir," I mumbled.

"And have fun!" Mr. Yoshida smiled again, throwing me a wink. "That's important, too."

Nodding, I smiled a little back at him. "Okay."

"Alright, now get going before Mom shows up and starts taking pictures or something!" Opening the door, Kairi waved us out, and we made our escape hand in hand.

"Whew!" Riku exclaimed when were safely walking down the road toward town. "That was...awkward."

I laughed aloud, already feeling my nerves settling now that we were alone. "Yes it was. So, where are we going?"

"Dinner? Dinner sound good?"

He still sounded nervous, like I was somehow gonna say no to food, and I squeezed his hand. "Yep, dinner sounds great."

There weren't many restaurants on the island, but I hadn't yet had a chance to try any of the ones that were there. He took me to a place called Ocean Breeze, which, ironically, was about as far away from the ocean as you could get around here, but of course even that wasn't very far. They served fresh seafood caught by some of the many local fishermen. Growing up I had never been exposed to seafood too much, if you didn't count frozen fish fingers – which I quickly found out no one here did. It was common fare at the Yoshida house, though, so I had learned to like it over the last several weeks. A glance over Ocean Breeze's menu showed that the seafood here was mostly fancier than the shrimp tacos and grilled fish fillets we typically ate at home.

I ended up ordering a plate of shrimp and scallop fettuccine, the waiter took our menus and left a bowl of hot rolls, and suddenly we were left alone with no obvious subject to talk about again.

"You look nice tonight," Riku blurted suddenly. "I don't...think I said that yet."

"Oh. Thanks." I shrugged one shoulder. "Kairi made me wear some of her mascara."

"Hm. I thought something was a little different." He tilted his head to the side, looking. "It looks good. I mean I don't think you need it, but..."

I smiled a little. "Thanks. I, um...I like your jacket."

He glanced down at it. "Thanks."

Wow. Kairi was right, we need to relax. This is ridiculous. I picked up my water glass and chugged half of it, and the waiter magically appeared a moment later to refill it. "So...how was school today?"

"Oh, uh...it was fine, I guess. Same ol' same ol', you know." For a second I was worried that was all he would say, but then he started up again, telling me about something funny that had happened on lunch break. Thankfully, that seemed to be the ice breaker we needed. One conversation led into another after that, and we talked all the way until the food arrived and throughout the meal, too. Riku ordered a chocolate lava cake for dessert that we split, then paid the check despite my protests.

"This is what boyfriends do," he insisted.

It was dark by the time we left the restaurant, and the air had cooled, though it wasn't late enough in the year to get truly cold at night. Riku pulled his phone out of his pocket and glanced at the time. "Well, we've still got a while until you have to be back. We could walk around some of the shops here if you want, or go down to the beach...?"

I looked up and down the street at the store fronts, considering. "Let's go to the beach, if that's okay with you." Shopping could be fun, and I knew from coming here with all four of us before that they had some cute little shops. But since we had just spent over an hour in a public space, some peace and quiet sounded nice.

Riku nodded. "The beach it is."

We talked off and on for the entire walk, swinging our joined hands between us. It wasn't until we settled down onto the sand, with Riku wrapped around me from behind, that silence fell again, and this time it was more than comfortable. His breath was warm across my cheek, his arms firm around my waist, and the crashing of the waves in the darkness probably could have lulled me to sleep eventually.

"I don't know about you, but I think this has been a pretty nice first date."

I could feel his smile where his face touched mine. "Yeah. It has." He turned further in toward me, the bridge of his nose nestling my jaw. "Though there is one thing that people usually do on dates that we haven't gotten to yet."

Before I could ask him what he meant, he was dropping little shiver-inducing kisses behind my ear and down the side of my neck, and I got a pretty good idea of where this was going. Sure enough, a moment later he shifted positions and tugged me up into his lap so that our lips could meet.

Time was a bit of a blur after that. We alternated between kissing, cuddling, and kissing some more, until Riku reluctantly announced that we should be heading back and we had to drag ourselves back onto the road toward home. I was pretty sure that my mascara was all smeared under my eyes and my lips were much redder than the shade of lipgloss I had left with, but maybe I would be lucky and not run into the Yoshidas on my way in. I winced. Probably won't be so lucky with Kairi, though.

I scrubbed underneath my eyes as we walked up onto the porch, then smiled up at Riku when he turned to face me. "We should definitely do this again sometime."

"Oh yeah, definitely." He grasped my arms, rubbing his thumbs over my skin. "Now that we've had a first date, there will most definitely be more to come."

"I mean, if for no other reason than we don't get makeout sessions like that otherwise," I teased.

"Mm-hm." Chuckling, he bent down for one more kiss. "Goodnight, Meli. Love you."

"Love you, too." With a last smile and a little wave, I opened the door and slipped inside.

Please let me know what you thought in a review, and if you have any special requests, shoot them my way! Ideas for scenes can be as vague or specific as you want. I'll try my best to do whatever I receive!