*

            Sometimes friendship…love…compassion…

            Sometimes it all seems like an illusion.

*

            I woke up the next morning with a couple of surprises.  One was that I wasn't in our main room sleeping on the floor, but in my Mom's and in a bed.  The other was the sound of someone in the kitchen, when I knew I should be home alone.

            But I wasn't.

            As I grew increasingly conscious, I remembered something of recent events.  Mom was gone on a trip.  I should have been home alone, only Riku had been kicked out of his house and I had offered him a free place to stay.  He had used my futon, so recently cleaned, and I had stayed in Mom's room.

            The clock told me it was eight-thirty.  I hadn't slept in too late now, had I?  I straightened out my pajamas, baggy white pants and a purple spaghetti strap top, combed my hair at the dresser, and went to see what was going on.

            Riku had removed his long-sleeved shirt from the night before and now was wearing slightly wrinkled jeans and a white t-shirt.  He smiled at me from the stove, where he was frying up some eggs.  Some fruit was already cut up and placed decoratively on two plates at the table.

            "I wanted to have it all ready before you woke up," he said regretfully, placing the eggs on a large serving plate with the aid of a spatula.  "And don't worry; I'll take care of all the dishes."

            "Riku, you don't have to do this."

            "You really helped me, Kairi."  His back was to me, so I couldn't judge his expression.  Then he turned around with a big smile and said, "Now, I made up some orange juice, so how about you get it out?"

            "Sure."

            The breakfast was delicious, and Riku's conversation light.  I had held him for over an hour last night, just hugging him and telling him I understood what he was going through.  I had realized that it was not only the confusion of two identities that made him shake so, but also the horrors left over from what he had experienced before coming to Japan.

            I wished he had been calm enough to be coherent, so I could have found out more, but I chose not to press the matter.

            I wanted to be Riku's friend.  Why?  Well, there were many reasons.  One, he had always been my friend, always been there watching over me—even from a distance.  Two, things had been rough for us those last months on Destiny Islands, and rougher still when Riku and Sora were put on different sides of the battle.  Third, in this new life, I had managed to squash his happiness fairly completely, and was feeling pangs of guilt about said squashing whenever I looked at him.

            While we were cleaning up (I insisted on helping), Riku grew quiet.  Out of the blue he said, "Any other chores or errands I can do?"

            "There's some heavy stuff I need from the grocery store."

            "Sounds good.  When do you want to go?"

            We dressed, Riku replacing his shirt from the previous day and me putting on fresh clothes in the privacy of the bedroom.  Then we pulled on our coats and trotted down the stairs to the cold morning.  The sun was still low in the sky, so our shadows were long as they trailed behind us.

            We passed the Chinese restaurant where Rinoa worked.  I thought of her, hoping she had managed to calm down.  I knew she always went back and forth between emotions, but I had a feeling that she probably took a long while to drive the fear from her thoughts last night.

            Once the Darkness tastes you, it hangs around forever, I thought.

            "Kairi," Riku said when we were about halfway to the store.

            "Yes?"

            "You know…  The other night you told me you lost your memory.  What happened?"

            Was he psychic or something?  How in the world could he have known that I was thinking about the Darkness?

            "I don't exactly," I replied honestly, weighing in my mind the pros and cons of holding information back and confiding in him.  I decided that I didn't want to put a lie between us.  I wanted him to know I trusted him so he could trust me back.  "I was swallowed by the Darkness."

            Riku's stopped abruptly.  "You what?"

            "Shh," I urged, trying to get him to stop yelling.  I held one finger to my lips.  "C'mon, don't yell."

            "You what?" he yelled in a whisper.  He looked around.  Some people were watching.  Riku took up walking again.  He kept his face incredibly neutral and said, "Why didn't you tell me this?"

            "How could I have told you?  You didn't remember."

            "Well…last night.  Why didn't you say something last night?"

            "I didn't think about it.  I was worried about you."

            He obviously couldn't argue with that.

            "Well then, you can tell me now.  What happened?"

            "I already told you, okay?  I don't know.  One minute I was looking for Sora and the next it was really dark all around me…"  I shivered just to think about it again.  "And then I woke up and it was like a week ago…"

            I'd been managed to avoid thinking about my amnesia for several days now.  I'd been so focused on Sora, Riku, Aerith, and everyone else.  I'd thrown myself into tasks such as cleaning and homework.  I hadn't wanted to think what could have happened to me in the months I had been unaware—not the me that had been living a normal life in Japan—the me who no longer had any memory of that time.

            Had I—my soul and mind—been in suspended animation?  Or had something so horrible occurred that my mind had forgotten it as a defense mechanism?

            "Kairi, it's okay," Riku told me.  He had started holding my hand while I was so wrapped up in my worries.  I must have really looked desperate for his old habits to override the boy's self-control.  He saw me noticing his hand and loosened his grip, but he failed to let go completely.  "You'll be all right."

            I smiled and nodded at him.  Yes, I was all right.  In fact, I was perfectly all right.  I had been swallowed by the Darkness and had who-knew-what done to me, but I could be strong.  I could be strong—like Sora, like Riku—and I could make it through without feeling sorry for myself.

            "I'm fine, Riku," I told him, doing my best to laugh as if the worried look he cast on me was for nothing.  "Don't look so serious."

            Riku sighed.  "This is serious, Kairi.  All of this is very serious!  Don't you understand that the fight isn't over yet?"

            "Of course I know that!  I'm not so naïve this time," I added defensively.  "The Heartless are here in Japan too."

            "The Heartless are the least of it," Riku muttered.  He kept walking, but I stopped, and the distance between us grew.

            "Aren't the Heartless…what this is all about…?"

            "No, Kairi."  His reply was firm, cold and bitter like the winter morning's air.

            So I was naïve.  I felt foolish to have claimed otherwise.  But then I remembered what—or, rather, whom—Aerith, Squall, Cloud, and Rinoa had talked so worriedly about.

            "This better not be about Sora," I said in a low growl, doubling my pace to catch up with Riku.  I kept my face as emotionless as possible so we wouldn't procure any more attention from the people around us.

            "Kairi…"

            "It is, isn't it?"  By this point, I had to try very hard to restrain my emotions.  Would I now have to isolate myself from Riku as well?  No, no…I couldn't go that far.  I wouldn't.

            "There's a lot of things you don't know," Riku began, but I raised one hand to dismiss him.

            "I don't want to know them right now."

            "Good."  Riku's hand slipped back over mine.  "Because I don't want to say them."

*

            Riku was to stay another night at the apartment, but for the time being he was on his way to sneak into his house to get a few things.  I stayed at home so he wouldn't be locked out upon his return.

            I had nothing much to do.  I listened to music and thumbed through manga.  There was a knock at the door after about twenty minutes.  It was too early to be Riku…

            "Suzuki, are you home?"  The visitor knocked again.  "Suzuki-san?"

            Sora!

            "Hi!" I greeted eagerly when I opened the door.  Sora offered me a small bag whose ropelike handles were tied with a bow.  I reached out both hands and accepted it with a nod of my head.  Sure, it was customary to bring a gift when visiting someone else's home, but a present from Sora was a present from Sora.

            "Sorry to bother you…"

            "It's no problem at all."  I ushered him in and we sat at the kitchen table.  "Did you figure out all your homework?"

            "Yeah, yeah," he said, grinning.  He scratched the back of his head, not meeting my eyes.  "Actually, I finished all my homework and got kinda bored, so I decided to come over and say thanks for helping me out."  He nodded at the small bag I was holding.  "My mom told me to bring a present."

            "Should I open it?"

            "Yeah, yeah, I want to see your reaction.  I'm not used to buying girls presents, so…"

            I smiled shyly and untwisted the purple bow and then drew apart the white handles.  I removed the layer of tissue paper inside the bag and ultimately withdrew a small glass cylinder containing a fragrant pink candle.  It smelled wonderful.

            "Sakura?" I asked, bringing the thing to my nose and inhaling deeply.  It smelled like cherry blossoms, indeed it did, although I couldn't remember smelling a real one myself.

            Sora nodded vigorously.  "I didn't know which one to get.  They had peach, and lilac, all sorts of stuff…"

            "I love this one," I told him, my cheeks approaching the color of my gift.  I hurried to place it in the middle of my desk.  Sora was close behind.  His arm came up around me and I saw he was holding a pack of matches.

            My cheeks stayed sakura pink.  Sora was so close.  His familiar scent made me smile more than that of the candle.  I let my hand linger on his as I accepted the matches.  It took all the willpower I had not to lean back into his open embrace.

            I wanted it so badly…to be with him…

            What exactly was I waiting for?  Sora remembered me in his heart, didn't he?  He cared for me and I for him.  If I let him close in around me, where was the problem?   I decided to be held by him, and so I leaned back…

            But Sora wasn't there.  He had just turned away.

            I stumbled back and saw what had claimed his attention.

            "Excuse me for interrupting," Riku said coolly from the open doorway.  "Now get away from her."

***

Author's notes: A short, plotless, lessonless update is better than no update at all, ne?

X_x