"Hey…what are you doing?"
Sora dug the spade into the ground and leaned hard against it. He wiped a bit of sweat from his brow, exchanging that for dirt on the back of his hand. He was surprised to see Riku there, wearing a bathrobe and loose pants, looking at him from the back porch.
Sora picked up the tool again and turned over some more soil. "I'm starting a garden," he explained. "But this dirt needs a lot of work."
"A garden?" Riku hopped down, his slippers smacking against the sand. "Here?"
"Look," his companion pointed out. "Under the sand here is some good soil. I just need to aerate it, and bring in some humus."
Riku waved his hands in front of his face, signaling defeat. "Woah woah woah. Hold up. Don't go confusing me with all this terminology."
"I'm gonna dig it up and then add some more nutrient-rich stuff to it," Sora explained slowly with a lot of comical gesturing. "Is that layman enough for you?"
Riku smirked a little, but when Sora looked into his face, he saw that Riku seemed much thinner than just two weeks prior. A little paler, too.
"When did you get back?" Riku asked, sitting down on the porch step.
"Last night. You were asleep." Sora jammed the spade back into the earth and turned over a fresh shovel-full. He was a little tired; he'd been since he had first awakened, over an hour ago. "Kairi…" He grunted with effort. The soil was very hard here. Almost like rock. "She told me you've been ill."
The man hesitated, collapsing his hands tightly in front of him as his elbows rested upon still knees. "Yeah… I've been resting."
It was a pleasant morning, quiet and cool. The sun was emerging on the horizon, sending waves of warm light jutting into the pre-dawn sky. The ocean's salty breeze rustled trees, hair, and clothes, dancing around the two men as they paused in awkward silence.
Sora dug a little more.
"I'm sorry to hear that. I hope you feel better soon."
"I feel okay this morning. Thanks…"
Dig dig dig.
"Nice morning, huh?"
Riku glanced up. "What? Yeah. So how are your parents?"
Dig dig dig.
"Pretty well, thanks."
"Heh, you sound so sincere there."
Dig dig dig.
The brown-haired man stopped in his work yet again. "I don't know. I guess I didn't consider how much my absence would affect them."
"They were very lonely without you. As was Kairi," Riku added without emotion.
"I'll be right back," Sora announced, dropping the spade and heading around the side of the house. He returned shortly, dragging a large cloth sack of very dark soil that smelled…interesting.
"Is that the hum-us?"
"Hue-mus, and yes," Sora corrected. "It's very rich soil from my parents' compost heap."
Riku clamped his nose shut with two fingers. "So that's what smells."
Sora just laughed as he emptied the bag over the tilled earth. "I'll show you. In a few months, I'm going to have the most beautiful garden here. And you'll know that this 'smelly' stuff helped it."
"Why a garden, anyway?"
Sora picked up the spade and began to mix the topsoil with the humus. His eyes were on his work, and this he did diligently. "My parents have got an orchard and a huge garden at their house. I loved it so much I was determined to make one of my own. Mom showed me what to do to get started."
"Did Kairi agree to you doing it here?"
"How could she refuse when I'd brought all the tools and stuff with me?" He knelt on bare knees. "She said as long as I planted something pretty she'd be happy."
"What are you going to plant?"
"Mostly vegetables, but some flowers too."
"Ah."
"Riku…"
"Yes?"
Sora began to smooth the earth with both hands. "What about your family? Seen them lately?"
Riku didn't say anything. He just…sat.
"Sorry. I shouldn't have asked."
"No… Don't worry. Um… My real mother died during childbirth, you know, along with my little sister. My father died during a storm while I was gone—that old man never knew better than to fish when it was bad weather!" He shook his head. "I hear my step-mother is still alive, but we never got along very well anyway."
Sora felt something clogging his throat. It felt like a big ball of regret.
"Hey, don't worry. I never had a good relationship with my dad either… Not since he remarried. I'm sure it didn't break his heart not to see me again."
"God, don't say things like that, Riku. Your dad was strict on you but I know he loved you."
"It's my right to," Riku replied. "When I was a kid—before everything happened—I used to run away from home and fantasize about how wonderful life would have been if my real mother and little sister had lived. I thought that everything would have been perfect."
"Riku…"
"But it was only a fantasy. I would return home after these daydreams and things would be only that much harder. Now I can see reality clearly and all the things life has denied me."
Sora stood in frustration. Hadn't Riku been home on the island with Kairi for eight years? "I'm sorry about your family… But, honestly, you have to look at all life has given you before you start complaining."
The man with silver hair closed his eyes and breathed in long and hard. "Sorry to bother you. I'll let you get back to your gardening." He went inside.
Sora crawled over the soil, leveling it out with both arms. He was still determined to make this garden something great, something beautiful. He needed to work…or he might begin remembering again.
"What was that all about?" a worried Kairi wondered from the doorway. "Riku just stormed past me without saying a word. Don't tell me you guys had a fight?"
Sora just shrugged. "Didn't seem like it to me, but…"
The woman turned her head inside, as if to watch after the Riku that had disappeared. "He's not himself lately. Maybe he's just tired of being ill."
"I made a mistake by bringing up his family," Sora thought aloud. "I mean, I didn't know, but…"
"Of course you didn't."
"He's not the only one who's had tough times…"
Kairi came to Sora then. She was wearing a robe and it was tied tightly around her middle. Her hair was in a big braid swirled into a bun, and her cheeks were growing rosy in the cool morning air. She touched Sora's cheek with the back of one hand. "Don't be mad at him, okay? Did you know he can't remember anything about the two years he was gone?"
"What do you mean?"
"It was so terrible for him his brain just…blocked it out. That happens to people sometimes, you know…"
"I know."
She leaned against him for support and talked in a softer tone. "Sometimes, though, I think he remembers. A few times he has screamed out in his sleep…so loud you could hear it all over the house…"
"Yeah," Sora said through gritted teeth. "I had eight more years than he did—and I remember every minute of it."
Kairi touched his face again, with more tenderness. Her eyes were big and sparkled in the dawn light. "I know, Sora, I know it was terrible for you. But it was hard on Riku too, and I wish you two could get along."
Sora paused, looking down at Kairi. She couldn't understand it, could she? She had lived on the island all this time and never tasted the true Darkness… Never fought for her life when life didn't feel worth living anymore… She was trying to be the same old Kairi, even when her comparatively minor struggles had changed her as well…
How in the world did she expect everyone to get along famously when they were nothing like the children of ten years ago?
"Oh, I don't know," he moaned, and pulled away from her. The morning chill was very prominent at that moment. It burned in his lungs.
"Sora, I just want you to try. Riku… He was upset when he came back. He had some sort of amnesia, and I had to keep reminding him of who I was and tell him about his past. Then, one day, he just remembered everything—except those two years, of course—and it crushed him to realize that his father was dead. He told me he felt lost."
Sora kept his back to her.
"Kairi… I can't help but be angry with Riku for taking advantage of you in your weakness…"
He heard her gasp. He might have gasped, too, had he realized exactly what words were coming out of his mouth.
"He didn't," she said somberly. "We were both hurting at that time and we needed each other."
"Huh? You told me you didn't really love him."
"So maybe I do love him…but not in the way—"
"Not in the way you love me, is that what you're gonna say?"
"Sora, why are you making this so hard?"
He turned around and faced her then. He put up a wall of ice to shield him against her teary face. Oh, God, don't cry! I don't want to make you cry…
Kairi stared that face right at him. "Why are you being so terrible to me? You know I love you more than anything!"
"No," Sora said. "You don't love me—you haven't known me for more than a few days. You can't love the person I am today. You love…another Sora. The Sora from ten years ago."
"You're the same person—"
"No, no I'm not. I want you to just stand back a minute and analyze your feelings. You can't be so naïve and think that everything can be the way it used to be, Kairi! We're not the same people we were ten years ago!"
Kairi took a few steps backward, holding on hand over her mouth as her lips opened into a circle of disbelief. "How dare you! How dare you question my love for you—after all this time! The girl you promised to come back to!"
He reached his hand out for her. "Kairi—"
She moved away from his hand. "You tell me that this love I've cherished for ten years is a lie…?"
"No, I just want you to think about it…"
"Maybe we've changed… So what? People change. But my love hasn't, Sora. I wish you would respect that instead of telling me about my own feelings!"
Before he knew it, Sora was chasing after Kairi and having a door slam shut in his face. He pounded muddy hands against it, wondering what in the Hell had gotten into him. He was jealous of Riku for having Kairi, so why had he given Kairi a chance to go back to him? He loved Kairi—more now than ever—so why had he done something he knew would hurt her?
Why is that we always find a way to push away those we need closest to us?
~*~
Riku found his target at the docks as the afternoon tide swelled along the shore. The target was sitting in the wet sand, letting the foam wash over his toes. He had his face between his knees and his arms wrapped around his legs.
It didn't matter how he sat.
Riku stormed right up.
The target raised his head at the noise.
Riku slugged him in the jaw, sending blood spurting from the target's nose.
"You bastard," Riku growled as Sora lay shocked on the ground. "You bastard."
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I'm already up to Chapter 10! Things sure have turned out differently than I first expected when starting this baby! (Although I am incorporating most of my original ideas.) Hmm…as for my comments on this particular installment… Doesn't growing up just kinda suck? I know it's not all bad, but when I look back and think about how different my friends and I were just a year or two ago… Makes me a little sad. Time is very slippery, ne? Can't hold onto it. *chases after a fond memory* Come back here!!!
