OmegaRetcon: I'm glad you enjoyed it! And thanks for understanding the changes to the schedule. Life is pretty busy right now, but if I go too long without writing I start getting restless, so I don't plan on quitting anytime soon!

DyingofFeels: Thanks! I'm glad you liked it!

Coolmegan123: I thought of that, of mentioning more imprints in the snow from Meli and Saix, but decided to stick with the most obvious shape which would have been the Berserker's footprints. Thank you, I'm glad you liked it! I have a hard time not including little snippets about Riku and Sora's friendship just because I love it so much. And yeah, in my mind Riku is definitely the Mom Friend haha.

Hey again everyone! I wasn't sure whether I was actually going to update this week or not, mostly because I've kinda been on a roll working on the main story lately. At least when I get the chance to work on it...we're trying to get our house ready to sell, so a lot of my time has been going to house projects. But I got to write two super whumpy chapters in a row, which is my jam, so I've finally had inspiration! Anyway, I took a break and threw this together yesterday afternoon, mostly so I could go ahead and make a little announcement...

I have a Tumblr now! You can find me under the same username as usual, actress4Him. I partially started it so that I could eventually (after this series is done!) take part in some of the writing challenges on there, but the important part for you guys is that I'll also be using it to post updates on my writing. For instance, if you check out my very first post (remove the spaces, replace dotcom with the real thing) –

actress4him. tumblr (dotcom)/ post/620195171692331008/actress4him-works-archive-of

– you'll find a sneak peek of a chapter I wrote this past week! So yeah, if you have a Tumblr, follow me to keep up with how it's coming, and let me know who you are so I can follow you if you want me to! I'd love to hear from you guys over there!

Okay, onto today's chapter. This is a combination of 2 different requests from Nevquariel, and takes place at some undisclosed time before Inferno's Edge begins. Enjoy!

Bonus Chapter 5

(Falls between books 1 and 2)

Meli's perspective

"Okay, so what is it we're watching, again?"

"We haven't decided." Kairi plopped down onto the floor in front of the shelf of DVDs with a huff. "I think we should watch 'Always and Forever', but the boys are voting for 'Blazing Fury'." She pulled each of the cases off the shelf and waved them as she spoke.

I took in the dimmed lights of the basement, the cozy couch in front of the tv, and had a fantastically mischievous idea. "Oh, I definitely think I'm in the mood for something romantic."

Brightening, Kairi slid the second case back into place. "Perfect! We can watch their dumb shoot 'em up movie another night."

"Wait a minute," Sora whined, laying over the back of the couch. "That's a tie vote! That doesn't decide anything!"

"Yes, ha ha, you two don't get to outvote me on everything anymore. Girl power." She held up her hand for a high five, which I readily gave, before busying herself putting the disc into the player. "But anyway, Meli is the one we're doing this for, so she gets to decide."

I looked down my nose at Sora. "Yeah, I get to decide." He stuck out his tongue at me, and I laughed and rolled my eyes. "What are you, six? Besides, Grim doesn't know it yet, but he agrees with me on my choice."

"Huh?" Riku looked up from the mini fridge where he was pulling out sodas for everyone. "I do?"

"Yep. You do." I elbowed him as he handed me my drink, jerking my head toward the other two. "Romance is just what we need."

His eyes lit up in understanding. "Oh. Yeah, you're right. Good choice."

Sora groaned dramatically and half flipped, half fell over the back of the couch and onto the cushions. "Fine."

Kairi paused, remote in her hand, to stare and me and Riku with pursed lips. "You two are weird," she declared finally, and headed toward the adjacent armchair.

"No, no! Sit over here with us!" It came out a little too frantic, and Kairi gave me another strange look, but she listened and came back to the couch.

"Are you sure? It's gonna be kinda cramped..."

"It'll be fine. Grim can sit here..." I prodded Riku down into the corner next to the arm, then quickly sat down next to him and shoved Sora's head up off the seat toward the other arm. "And you can sit right here in between me and Sora!"

"And we have two bowls of popcorn, so we'll share one and you two can share the other," Riku put in, handing out said bowls.

"See? Perfect!"

Kairi shrugged and settled into place. "Alright, that's fine. I don't mind if you guys don't."

Riku and I both adamantly assured her of our happiness with the arrangement, but I noticed Sora didn't say anything. If we were lucky, he was already starting to freak out inwardly from Kairi's proximity.

The movie seemed to be a pretty typical Hallmark-type love story – boy meets girl, mutual pining, lots of flirting, the super hot ex-boyfriend shows up at some point to make things confusing for the girl. I would probably have enjoyed it more if I had not been so focused on the love story I was trying to make happen next to me. It took Kairi a while before she actually started reaching into the bowl for pinches of popcorn, and even then she seemed to purposefully be avoiding doing so at the same time as Sora.

At some point, maybe halfway into the movie, I noticed that while Kairi's leg was pressed up against mine, there was a couple of inches of space in between her and Sora. I leaned over and whispered in Riku's ear. "We need an excuse to scoot over."

He glanced over, saw what I was seeing, then seemed to asess his own position before starting to squirm a bit. "You okay, babe?" I asked aloud.

"Uh, yeah...just a little crushed against the side of the couch, that's all."

"Hey, you guys have any more room to spare over there?"

"Oh." Kairi looked down at the gap only briefly before moving over to fill it. "Yeah, sure." I quickly followed her so that she couldn't come back.

"Thanks." Riku readjusted himself, and he and I shared a smirk covered by the near-darkness.

The movie continued on, and I found myself actually paying a little more attention, wondering which guy the girl would choose even though the answer was obvious. My focus was split again, however, when Sora bent forward and placed their now-empty popcorn bowl on the floor, then sat back up, stretched his arms over his head, and let his right arm drape over the back of the couch behind Kairi's head. I could nearly hear her heart speed up from the way she tensed, and couldn't help the grin that broke out on my face. I had to turn and bury my mouth into Riku's shoulder to keep from bursting into giggles.

"You okay?" Kairi whispered.

"Yeah, yeah...sorry." I forced the corners of my mouth down and glanced up at the screen. "Kissing in the rain scenes always get to me."

She sighed dreamily. "I know. Me, too."

Take notes, Sora. You need to kiss this girl in the rain at some point. I'd be thrilled if we could even get them to hug without threatening to spontaneously combust, honestly.

As soon as the movie was done, I pushed myself up off the couch. "That was nice, I enjoyed it. Grim was saying that he had to leave right after the movie was over, so I'm just gonna, you know, walk him out and say goodbye. I'll see you upstairs, Kai...whenever you're done. Down here. Take your time." Grabbing Riku's hand, I practically yanked him up and toward the stairs.

"Smooth," Riku snickered when we were out of earshot.

"Shut up."

When I heard Kairi's footsteps on the stairs a while later, I opened the door to my room and smiled at her. "Did you enjoy the evening?"

She smiled back. "Yeah, I did. Did you?"

"Mm-hm. Did you and Sora have anything interesting to, uh, talk about after we left?"

Pressing her lips together, she shrugged. "Not really. Just talked about some homework assignments and stuff."

I barely kept myself from groaning and facepalming. "Yeah, okay. I'm gonna go to bed, I'll see you tomorrow."

Those two. I leaned against the door after I had shut it, rolling my eyes. Boy met girl, and they definitely had the mutual pining down. Try as I might, though, I couldn't seem to get them to enter the flirting stage, much less anything after it. Too bad Kairi didn't have a super hot ex-boyfriend to come along and finally make them realize how they felt about each other.

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!