Well... wow. I really didn't expect to get any response from this. Not as many reviews as the pure Riku/Sora stories, but it's a start, ya know? ;; Anyway, a deep and special thanks goes out to those of you who reviewed this fic-- It really means a lot to me. Uh, this fic especially, you know. ...Yes. Now then, onto the next chapter. Hope it continues to reel in more people... I dunno. As much as I love all my other fics, I think this one definitely holds the most personal meaning.
Enough rambling, already.
..................................................................................
Raspberry Heaven
'Run Around in Circles'
"Hello, Destiny Islands!" Yuffie flung open the curtains of her sparkling new apartment, taking no mind of the piles upon piles of boxes yet to be unpacked. The chances of her staying inside on such a beautiful day and spending her time unpacking old junk were very slim, and already she was diligently planning out her morning's activities.
Taking a moment to just admire the sun filtering in through her window, Yuffie smiled to herself. Hopefully this place would be the right one. She wouldn't allow herself to dwell on the past since doing that never got anybody anywhere.
Besides.
Yuffie was burning daylight.
Kairi slipped out the door, sneakers pounding against the sidewalk as she jogged down the walkway leading up to her front door before winding her way down the peaceful neighborhood streets. Her CD player in hand, Kairi jabbed the play button with her finger, a fresh wave of music crashing down on her senses. It was a welcome sound that the concert album provided-- screaming fans, the clear notes of a guitar, and that painfully powerful voice, pouring everything it had into one song.
Kairi absolutely loved it.
Eventually, she turned away from the main neighborhood, heading closer towards the beach. With any luck, she would be able to find some random guy whom she might be capable of ... what, seducing? Kairi couldn't help but wince at this thought. It wasn't as though the pure evil of her whole plan hadn't crossed her mind. She realized that it was terribly unfair to lead some poor boy on like that, but Kairi wasn't exactly looking forward to the whole thing herself. The last thing she felt like doing was going hunting for a boyfriend she didn't even want in the first place.
But when the going gets tough...
She frowned to herself as she felt her feet first hit the sturdy planks of the boardwalk. How did that saying go? It had been butchered so many times... Oh well. Some old phrase was hardly her biggest concern at that moment. Already, Kairi was busy studying her surroundings, focusing on a few possible choices, but not really doing much.
Perhaps she chose not to take any action because even Kairi would grudgingly admit that she didn't have the slightest idea how to go about her great plan. If she could pull it off, it would prove her sexuality once and for all. And yet at the same time, she hadn't the slightest idea how she was to go about flirting with a boy, much less getting him to be her boyfriend on such short notice.
And perhaps Kairi was hoping it was just one of those things you could make up as you went along. She sure as hell hoped so.
Feeling herself starting to get seriously worn out by the jog, Kairi let out a defeated groan and reluctantly slowed her pace to ease the ache in her chest. So she hadn't really gone jogging in a few months... Kairi hadn't thought she was that out of shape. Now that the music was no longer battling the sound of Kairi's own labored breathing, it pounded far too loudly in her ears, but she didn't bother adjusting the volume. It blocked out the other obnoxious background noises, so at least it served some good purpose.
Now that she was there on the boardwalk and actually searching for some poor boy, Kairi couldn't suppress the fact that the whole endeavor was just downright stupid. If no one wanted to believe that she wasn't a lesbian, then that was their fault. There was absolutely no reason for Kairi to drag her and some random guy through hell just to please the general populous of the island.
But--
But--
Kairi grabbed thick fistfuls of her short hair and bit down hard on her bottom lip to keep herself from just screaming in frustration. On top of everything else, Kairi definitely didn't need people to start wondering over her sanity as well as sexuality. Taking in a deep gulp of fresh island air, Kairi spun on her heel, no longer feeling like continuing her jog around the boardwalk. She just wanted to go home and bury herself once again in the confines of her room.
And yet the next thing Kairi knew, she was crashing into a rather warm and firm structure before flailing her arms about wildly and keeling over onto the boardwalk itself. Her back met the wood with a dull and painful 'whack,' promising to leave a nice bruise as a reminder of her own clumsiness. More upsetting, however, was the absence of her precious CD player. It had flown out of her grasp during the sudden fall, and in a flash Kairi was sitting back up, scanning the ground in a panic for the small electronic.
The impact with the wood must have somehow caused the CD player to snap open, for Kairi's beloved CD was laying on the planks, a batter and pathetic look to it, the sleek surface now marred by deep scratches.
Wonderful. If Kairi started crying over a newly deceased CD, the entire town would most certainly doubt her state of sanity. Just fucking wonderful.
No sooner had Kairi's fingertips skimmed the tattered surface of the CD did another hand appear next to hers, slightly paler and adorned with an intricate hemp bracelet, rainbow beads woven in along the fibers. The first thought that instantly flickered into Kairi's head was anger and loathing for whoever had led to the destruction of her only copy of the concert album. The second thought was just admiring the simple beauty of the bracelet.
"I'm so sorry! I wasn't looking where I was going... Oh man! Did I break it? I'm so sorry..." Yuffie looked up, finally managing to get a glimpse of the girl she'd abruptly slammed into. Granted, she hadn't been looking, but if the girl had just kept moving in one direction, maybe the collision wouldn't have been quite so bad. Oh well. So it was both of their faults.
Kairi snatched her hand away suddenly, shaking her head abruptly.
Weird... She was blushing.
Ugh... Since when was everything just so insane?
Yuffie carefully picked the CD up from the ground, casting a sympathetic gaze at its damaged surface. It probably would never play the same again, if at all. Turning over the disk so that Kairi could take it easier, the label of the disk caught Yuffie's eye, a smile instantly spreading across her face even as Kairi finally seemed to find her voice and start speaking.
"It's okay... I should have looked and... Umm... Don't worry about it. It's just Melissa Etheridge... I mean, you know, no big deal... Er, no, I mean, um... I just sorta... liked the CD, but that's okay, it's okay..." Kairi was babbling and she definitely knew it. She wished the dock itself would just open up and swallow her... Anything to get her away from this new person.
"Hey, it's Melissa Etheridge. Who doesn't love her?" Yuffie's smile stretched into a grin, though it still held a tinge of sympathy for Kairi as the younger girl took the disk back into her own hands, popping it into the cradle of the CD player. Almost as an afterthought, Yuffie allowed her hand to remain outstretched as an offered handshake. "I'm Yuffie. Uh... Still sorry about the CD. I wish there was some way I could replace it, but that was one of the concert ones, wasn't it?"
Yes, this was absolutely insane. Kairi was sure she had cracked her skull after hitting the ground and this was all someone's idea of a sick joke. They were trying to get her to be a lesbian! What bastards! Of course, Kairi was never going to admit that if there was indeed some crazed plot to change Kairi's orientation, it was definitely working. Ridiculously well, as a matter of fact.
As though it all finally decided to register itself in Kairi's head, warning signals were suddenly flashing, raising the alarm. No way did Kairi find Yuffie attractive. That would mean-- Nope. There was just no way.
Yuffie studied the younger girl curiously as Kairi pulled away rather abruptly, clutching her CD player possessively in one hand, the other held warily at her side. Huh, that was weird. For a second there, Yuffie had almost thought the girl had smiled. Mentally, Yuffie couldn't help but smile herself. She was pretty cute... Perhaps...
"I'm Yuffie. Pleased to meet you...?" Despite Kairi's sudden shyness, Yuffie reached out and shook hers gently. Kairi hesitantly glanced back up at Yuffie, her stomach doing cartwheels. In three words, she could easily describe the situation.
It royally sucked.
And yet for some reason, Kairi found herself responding.
"Kairi..." she mumbled half-heartedly.
Yuffie gave her that smile again before tucking her hands into the pockets of her shorts. Now that Kairi wasn't focused quite so much on the ground anymore, she actually got a good view of the girl now standing in front of her. Though she wasn't tall by any means, Yuffie still stood a good two inches taller then Kairi herself. Probably the most interesting thing about the older girl was her hair. It was cut short, angling in towards her chin, and although the natural color was obviously a deep black, Yuffie had put brilliant blonde streaks in it.
Kairi had an interesting time trying to mentally fit Yuffie into a category. Finally, she just settled on 'alternative' and left it at that.
"Hey, I really do wish I could get you another copy of that CD... I'm really, really sorry about that," Yuffie said apologetically. In reality, she was probably just trying to buy herself time. Kairi seemed skittish, yes, but Yuffie was almost positive she'd caught hold of something different a moment ago.
Kairi laughed nervously, drumming her fingers against the plastic CD player. "Yeah, well, uh, don't worry about it. It's no big deal. I have the songs... on my computer... ya know..."
"Oh, good! I was worried I'd destroyed your only copy or--"
"No, no, no! Hehe, it's fine! Finefinefine... Uhh... I gotta go now..."
"You do?"
"Yes. I do."
"Oh..."
"It was nice meeting you, ah, Yuffie. Bye now!"
Whatever discomfort Kairi's jog had caused her before was nothing compared to the discomfort she felt as she stood there making up excuses like an idiot. So, shoving the dull ache aside, she hurriedly turned on her heel and began jogging (nearly sprinting, really) back down the boardwalk, trying not to look too rushed, but failing miserably.
Wait, no, she was in a rush! Or was she? It was with something akin to blind panic that Kairi quickened her pace and miraculously enough, she didn't go flying head over heels onto the ground as she wound her way back up through the island neighborhoods, anxious to get back to the safety of her own home. She'd only been gone for an hour tops and already her plans of getting a boyfriend were taking some serious blows.
Yuffie frowned slightly, watching Kairi flee. Well that was weird. She went over their conversation in her head and couldn't come up with anything that could possibly have terrorized poor Kairi so much as to cause her to flat out run in fear. Yes, Yuffie could possibly be scary at times. But she was pretty sure she hadn't done anything that time.
With a small smile and shrug of her shoulders, Yuffie continued her walk along the shore of Destiny Islands.
Kairi sure was weird.
"...And?" Riku blinked at Kairi, a somewhat puzzled expression on his face. Kairi had come dashing over to Sora's house that afternoon, spilling all to her two best friends. Her two best friends... who had absolutely no idea what it was all about.
"And?! What do you mean 'and?' Don't you get it?" Kairi was at the end of her rope. The day so far had been a complete and total bust. It was as though the entire incident at the boardwalk had decided to hang over her head for eternity, even as she desperately struggled to get a boyfriend. Her struggle was becoming even more desperate, possibly because Kairi was growing more worried herself.
If her parents somehow got a hold of a psychic who could read her mind, Kairi pretty much assumed that it was all over. She had to figure something out, and soon. Preferably before she could have any more run-ins with Yuffie.
Sora cocked his head to the side, just as confused as Riku was. Probably more so, since that always seemed to be the case, but he just sat there calmly and nibbled on his sandwich, thinking. Kairi was always overreacting about things. Maybe it came with being female. Whatever it was that caused it, Sora was glad he had nothing to do with it whatsoever.
Riku frowned slightly, silver eyebrows furrowing in concentration. After a moment of awkward silence, he finally shrugged. "Nope. Not getting it. You're pretty vague, you know."
"Then let me go over it again. I went to the boardwalk. I ran into a girl. I went totally crazy and got all nervous, I must've been red as a damned cherry, and on top of everything else, I thought she was hot, OKAY?"
Ah, now Sora got it. Though it almost resulted in him choking on the bite of sandwich he held in his mouth. Riku chuckled and patted his boyfriend on the back lightly before turning his gaze back towards Kairi.
"Alright, so you're possibly not straight. Big deal."
"It is a big deal, thank you very much."
Riku rolled his eyes, leaning back into the couch and giving Kairi a critical stare. "You know, a lot of people are bisexual, Kairi. You could be bi. Doesn't mean you have to act on it, of course. You just thought she was attractive, after all. You said so yourself." Riku wasn't exactly going to tell Kairi what he really thought. She'd probably flip out again. Girls were so strange like that.
Kairi, however, had told herself the exact same thing Riku was assuring her of then. It was possible she was bi, yes. In that case, she would just force herself to choose guys over girls in order to keep every normal. In order to keep everything the way it was supposed to be. It was all fine and dandy that Sora and Riku had gotten together, but Kairi knew for a fact that her parents would probably explode or something if they found out that their dearest daughter had a girlfriend.
She had drilled the thought into her mind that it was possible for her to like both boys and girls. That was perfectly alright, because Kairi could easily fix it. Only...
Only why hadn't Kairi ever frozen when talking to some boy before? Why was it that she was never really into guys as much as Selphie or any other girl her age? She had always just told herself that it was probably because she'd spent most of her childhood with Riku and Sora. ...But that still wasn't helping with her current problem.
Letting out a distressed sigh, Kairi slumped back into the armchair opposite of Riku and Sora's couch, closing her eyes tightly. This was all so screwed up...
"So what do you think I should do?"
"I think you should--"
"I mean, I can't tell my parents I could be bi or anything. They'd totally freak. And if anyone else finds out about this, I'm toast." Kairi groaned and buried her head in her hands.
"Kairi, what if you just--"
"You could always just wait and see what happens, you know," Riku said. "Who knows, you might find that some guy catches your eye... Or you might not, but..."
"Hey! I think--"
"What's that supposed to mean?! Riku, I'm not a lesbian!"
"Kaaaairiiiii!"
"I never said you were! Stop overreacting, honestly. Even if you were a lesbian, would it really be the end of the world?"
"Yes, as a matter of fact it--"
"Can I say something now?!" Both Kairi and Riku turned at once to face Sora, who wore his trademark pout on his face. Obviously neither of them had heard him during their own conversation. Thankfully, Sora was an easygoing person. Most of the time, anyway.
"Sure, Sora."
"Whatever."
Sora cleared his throat before settling himself back against the couch, arms crossed behind his head in a relaxed position. "What if you met Yuffie again?"
Kairi blinked.
"I mean... You know. Maybe the first time was just a fluke. You might just think you have a crush on h--"
"I know I don't have a crush on her, Sora."
"Right, okay." Sora couldn't help but allow a smaller version of his old pout to creep back onto his features. Couldn't Kairi see that he and Riku really were just trying to help?
Conversation on that particular topic eventually slowed and died out altogether. Kairi returned home several hours later and had a perfectly normal dinner with her two parents, who, she reminded herself, loved her very much and did not deserve to be hurt if they found out about her day. So when asked, Kairi just smiled and said she had spent that afternoon with Selphie at the mall. It was a typical response, one that she probably used far too often for it to truly be convincing, but her parents bought in anyway.
The rest of Kairi's great plans for finding a boyfriend had seemed to fall flat. Rather then continuing down her agenda for that day, Kairi just decided to call it quits as she shuffled upstairs and quietly closed her bedroom door behind her... and then promptly opened it again. Kairi's eyes widened as she closed the door once more... and opened it once again.
Her parents deserved to know something, didn't they?
Open door. Close door. Don't tell them anything. Tell them what's going on. Open door. Close door. Open--
"Kairi, what are you doing?" her mother's voice rang out from down the hallway.
Damn squeaky door hinges.
Kairi mumbled some response that hardly even made sense to her before she closed the door with finality. Her parents deserved to know something was up, yes. But Kairi couldn't shake the bad feeling she had about the whole thing that just seemed to keep building and building. If her mom and dad had reacted so poorly to Riku and Sora being together, what would happen if they found out that dear little Kairi might not be as straight as they thought?
Slumping towards her bed, Kairi sat down, folding one leg under her as she did so. She traced a finger gently along the twisting pattern of the embroidery of her quilt, half-heartedly wondering what her mother had been thinking when she'd made it for her daughter.
The quilt was beautiful, really.
There was no doubt about the fact that her mother had probably been thinking over daughter with every thread that was stitched in and out of the quilt's soft fabric. Kairi, warm and secure, wrapped up in this blanket, protecting herself from the raging storm outside her bedroom window. Kairi, sleeping soundly beneath her mother's gift, out of harm's way and oblivious to what others meant by 'the real world.'
"What a drag..." Yuffie let out a deep sigh and flopped over onto her bed, staring at the ceiling above her through tired eyes.
Her first full day on Destiny Islands had not been at all what she'd expected. It wasn't that the island's inhabitants were mean or cruel. Blissfully unaware, possibly, but not cruel by any means. In fact, the residents of the island were quite nice. It was that their niceness was directed to their friends, and sadly, Yuffie had spent her day entirely unnoticed by everyone.
Well, she took that back. The one person she had met that day had been almost absurdly shaky, though Kairi was probably the person that Yuffie knew best on that island at the moment. The thought of the younger girl caused Yuffie to laughed suddenly, shattering the thick silence of her small apartment. Almost as sudden as the laughter had come, Yuffie snapped her mouth shut and again allowed the silence to grudgingly return to its former position of dominance in the household.
Yes, Yuffie decided she would have to track down Kairi if only to torment the poor girl a little longer. That was a joke, really. Yuffie was sure that Kairi could be quite a nice person if someone got to know her well enough. She was probably one of those girls who had had a matching pair of socks for every dress and outfit she owned when she was in kindergarten. Yuffie tended to hate people like that, but Kairi didn't seem to bother her much. No, Kairi was just an amusing thought Yuffie chose to mull over in order to pass the time.
And pass the time she did.
By the time Yuffie was finally ready to fall asleep, she had mentally conjured an outline of Kairi's life, up to the time when she was fourteen and finally found out that there was no such thing as Santa Claus. Until that point, Kairi had been the perfect angel, and with the Santa revelation, her poor parents found themselves with a handful of problems. Children hate being lied to, really they do.
Along with this supposed fact, Yuffie concluded that Kairi had also been into disgustingly perky pop music while in elementary school and had probably spent her afternoons collecting attractive seashells on the shore of the island, joking and giggling with a crowd of her friends. And in all likelihood, Yuffie figured, Kairi would one day end up marrying the same boy she had had a crush on since the sixth grade. Yep, that was just who Kairi was and would be.
Easy to read, easy to figure out, done, finished, complete. Something to accept and close the book on and then turn out the lights, drifting off into the sweet oblivion known to many as sleep.
And the sun found Yuffie like that the next morning, dancing in golden rays upon her face and mocking the fact that the poor girl was absolutely terrible at reading people. And Yuffie never even had the foggiest idea, even as her eyes slid open and she let out a loud yawn, again piercing the silence around her.
Yuffie didn't know that as she bit into her morning apple, Kairi was still awake and sitting on her bed, still tracing the threads of her quilt and trying to figure herself out. Yuffie had no idea that the auburn haired girl did not know who she was, even after hours upon hours spent reviewing and rehashing old information. No, it didn't even dawn on Yuffie that as she closed the door to her apartment, keys jingling merrily in her hand...
As she stepped out into the sunshine, closing her eyes and breathing in the fresh island air...
As she paused along the beach to admire the morning glory the ocean held to it...
...It never dawned on Yuffie that she might be wrong. That Kairi might have spent her childhood, watching her two best friends beat each other up with swords, that despite her mother's complaints, Kairi still preferred to have her hair cut short rather then to grow it out, that Kairi didn't even wear socks that much at all. Yuffie had no idea that she was quite off when it came to pinpointing Kairi and who she was.
Apparently, that was a problem the entire island was having, because no one seemed to be able to get it right. No, not even Kairi herself.
.............................................................................
Ta da. In the next chapter, Yuffie has another run-in with Kairi and Selphie and Tidus actually make an appearance. No song lyrics in this chapter? Whoa, that's crazy.
Not much else to say. Must update other fics before I'm hunt down and pelted by small rodents. (So... tired...)
Thank you for reading, as always!
Ori