My Oh My

'Da Vinci Pie'

There's a particular feeling that come across as being indescribable. Perhaps it's a physical pain, but it goes deeper than just skin-deep. Far past muscle-deep, maybe even beyond gut-deep. Combined with a headache, it all makes for a very upsetting combination at any time of the day, week, month, or year. Not something you want to get, really. Ever.

Sadly, Kairi was experiencing this feeling just as another customer walked away from her table, nails glimmering a deep crimson, pared and filed to perfection, neatly rounded creations that stretched out just past the very tips of the woman's fingers. Kairi sighed, folded her arms, and plunked her head down on this makeshift cushion of hers. Pain.

"Hey babe, you okay today? You look a little out of it." A slender hand rested on her shoulder and Kairi turned her head to the side, bangs falling over her eyes, but still able to make out the figure of her boss standing over her.

For those of you who have never met someone of extreme beauty, let me tell you right now that you are incredibly lucky. Now I'm not talking about pictures of movie stars or pop singers. I'm not talking about TV or the Oscars. All of those people have the power of Professionals on their side, more specifically, the power of Cosmeticians, Plastic Surgeons, and of course, THE MEDIA. With caps for emphasis. There is no other way to say it.

There exists a rare breed of people, though, who do not become famous and who do not hire Professionals to do scads of work on making them beautiful. These people have a beauty that hovers over them like a curse, turning heads and spiting dirty looks, lewd comments.

Bling was one of these girls. Her beauty was so irrational and so overpowering that it is impossible to put it in words. Her figure was perfect, but not the standard idea of perfect. Perhaps she was she was slightly plump, perhaps she was too slender. Perhaps her hair was brown, blonde, or red. But listen. It makes no difference. Can you picture her?

Good?

Good.
Behold. This is the kind of person who makes you hate living, just because they exist.

Kairi gave Bling a weak smile and hauled herself upright, not wanting to look like she was slouching on the job or anything. As kind and easygoing as Bling was, Kairi was still just an employee, and that was a fact that Kairi could never shake, no matter how many times Bling tried to assure her that she treated all her employees as equals, not subordinates.

"Hey Bling. Don't worry about me. I'm just a little tired."

Bling smiled. The kind of smile that could kill, not because it was terribly venomous, but simply because it could break the heart of any young girl, knowing they could never be so pretty, or any young boy, knowing they could never be with such beauty. It hardly fazed Bling at all, though.

"Tell you what, hon. It's kind of a slow day. Whaddya say you take the rest of the day off, head home and get some sleep? You've put in your share of hours this week."

Kairi blinked. "No I haven't. I've only worked thirty two."

"We'll round it up!" Bling chuckled, her smile turning into a beaming grin.

And so it was that Kairi took the rest of the day off. Out four hours early, heading around back to the small parking lot the strip mall had to offer for the people who worked there. With a shaky smile (for indeed, that incredible feeling of 'ick' still hung over her), Kairi made her way over to her precious car. Actually, it really wasn't much. Some raggedy old wreck she'd gotten for a bargain at a used car lot, but it was had four wheels and it drove just fine. And it was blue.

And she had her license back. Ah, precious license.

But...

That's weird. ...I guess I just don't feel like driving today...

It wasn't that she didn't remember how to drive the car or that the weather was so nice outside that she simply couldn't drive the car. It was just that... Well, Kairi just didn't want to drive the car, that was all. But it was just so strange... I was dying to get my silly license back just a few days ago, and now this? Hmph. Maybe it wasn't even worth all the trouble.

x x x

Kairi arrived at the apartment to find Larxene lying there, sprawled across her black leather sofa, hands clasped over her stomach. Not a 'hello' or a 'how-do-you-do' to be found within the room. Just a "You drink?"

Yet for some reason this didn't bother Kairi in the slightest. Over the past several days, she'd almost grown used to the nature of the older blonde woman, cold at some times, flaring and burning at others. Shrugging her purse off and leaving it by the front door, Kairi then slipped one foot and then the other out of her strappy black sandals, responding to Larxene's question with a noncommittal, "Almost. Just twenty. In a year, maybe."

Larxene was quiet, her gaze seeming unusually intense for staring at a ceiling, which is what she appeared to be doing from Kairi's point of view. It was then that she noticed the various bottles of wine coolers scattered about the coffee table, almost as though they were like socks in the drawer of a dresser. Meaning that they kept reproducing. How it was that she got into the reproduction of socks, Kairi would never ever be able to figure out. She'd been having weird thoughts like that lately...

Come to think of it...

Kairi blinked, startled to find herself lying on her stomach on the futon of hers set up in the little living room of the apartment. Opened to the centerfold in front of her was a magazine, clearly portraying some model or another. Sparkling eyes, gleaming hair, flawless skin. One look at her teeth though and Kairi knew the poor girl was bulimic. When you throw up so often, your teeth start to grow discolored from exposure to all the stomach acid. And when you try and bleach over it, they look funny. They always do. Some mistakes you just can't cover up.

"...Listen, Kairi..." Larxene started warily, her voice guarded. Aha. Kairi had known something was eating away at her friend from the very moment she'd walked through the door. "A few days ago, when you woke up... There was someone else here in the apartment, you know... And"

"You don't have to explain anything, Larxene. This is your apartment and"

"Would you just listen for a second? ...I'm sorry for acting weird, okay? I mean, don't get used to me apologizing or anything, because it doesn't happen. So don't like... expect it anymore or anything. Just... Sorry the rules are the way they are. And it doesn't seem fair. And I'm done." As though backing up her last statement, Larxene shifted her arms so they lay folded across her chest, eyebrows draw together with concentration and mouth curled into a stubborn frown.

"I'm not mad at you," Kairi insisted, barely able to keep an amused smile from her face.

"Yeah, yeah, I know. You're just as sweet as pie, aren't you?" Having given her hourly dose of sarcasm, complete with the over-dramatic roll of the eyes, Larxene rolled over onto her own stomach and buried her face under one of the sofa cushions. Lucky for her she has a late shift at her job tonight, huh?

While Kairi was normally content to sit still for hours and do nothing but think (for indeed, sometimes spare hours just popped up and the thinking was there to be done), there was a magazine in front of her. And as a devout follower of 'magazines-are-the-bane-of-human-existence,' Kairi was both shocked and appalled. At the same time. She wasn't even sure how it'd gotten there in the first place. Or how she'd gotten there... Man, it was like she'd been walking around in some sort of dream for the past few days.

There, real, and experiencing things... but somehow... not there. Invisible? No...

"...Hey Larxene?" Kairi tried to will herself to close the magazine, but it just wouldn't work. She simply blamed it on the evils of mass media and turned her head to face towards where Larxene was splayed out face-down on her couch. "Do you ever feel like you're walking around in circles looking for something, but you just can't find it?"

"Only every fucking day of my life," came the muffled response.

"...Do you think we'll ever find it?"

Here Larxene seemed to actually pause to think a moment, something she rarely did. It was weird, the way that worked. On a regular basis, she didn't give a damn what she said to people or what lousy advice she gave. But with Kairi it was a little different. With Kairi, she actually would have felt somewhat responsible if the girl took her lame advice and petty words seriously, so it was best to choose them at least a little more carefully.

"It depends. Some people do. More probably don't." Rolling over again, Larxene sat up and peered over the back of the couch, looking down at Kairi as she continued, "Eventually you get to a point in your life where maybe everyone you're surrounded by has one solid thing grounding them here on earth... except you. That's when you become a bitter old witch."

"That's not true."

"Oh really? And why not?"

"Well... just because you can't find whatever it is you're looking for, that doesn't mean you can't live a happy life." Kairi spun a cheap silver ring round and round her thumb, a nervous habit she'd picked up years ago from Sora, when he first started wearing the little rings and trinkets Riku would give him.

"Never said it wouldn't be happy. But pointless, yes." Larxene studied Kairi carefully, trying to gauge the girl's reaction. After another moment, her voice took on that brick-like tone, the one that warned Kairi that they were both walking on shaky ground. Nonetheless, Larxene talked on anyway, watching Kairi spin her thumb ring around over and over again in the meanwhile.

"I once knew this woman. The really old, but really sweet type, you know? I used to go visit her sometimes when I was in high school. My mom always made me bring her cookies or something. I think my mom felt bad for her or something... maybe because she was so old, maybe because she lived there all alone. But once a week her granddaughter would go and visit her. So between me and this granddaughter of hers, I didn't think she had it so bad."

"...What happened?"

"Oh." Larxene blinked, almost as though she were surprised that Kairi had spoken at all in the first place. Then, she very calmly and very clearly stated, "She killed herself. She had someone help her, you know. I dunno. That was around the time I graduated and my mom headed back to her hometown. Eventually this tiny hole in the wall loses its luster. That's when everyone leaves."

"...I'm sorry."

"What the hell are you sorry for? I'm not feeling bad about it. That lady was miserableshe wanted to die. She told me she would stop taking her meds to try and speed it up, but every time she did, something happened, she got sent to the hospital, pumped full of the stuff, and sent back home with a lecture from a doctor. Over and over and over again." Larxene jolted into silence, some back corner of her mind sulkily questioning why she'd gone so far in the first place. "What kind of life is that?" she asked gloomily, resting her chin in the cradle of her arms.

"Why would anyone want to live so long with nothing to live for?" Kairi prompted carefully, glancing up at Larxene as she did so. Apparently she'd hit right on the mark, for Larxene nodded sharply, meeting Kairi's eye once again.

"Exactly."

"...Maybe that's where your searching comes in. Even when you get that old, maybe you have to keep looking." There's got to be a reason behind this... Larxene doesn't strike me as the type of person to just up and talk about something like this for no reason at all other than idle chitchat. ...Mm... Wish I could just sit still and think...

Almost as though she'd read Kairi's very thoughts, Larxene disappeared from view once more as she flopped over on the couch again, the muffled sound of her voice making it clear that there was yet another pillow crammed over her face. "...I'm sick of talking."

"No you're not. You're just afraid I might have a point."

"Like hell you do. I'm tired, Pooh. Scram."

"I don't think so. I told you already, we're friends, right?" Taking a deep breath, Kairi released her grip on her thumb ring and pouted slightly, even though Larxene couldn't see it due to both the position of the couch and the pillow covering her head at that moment. But the brave and relentless Kairi trudged onward, ever-stalwart and determined and... all of that.

"Well part of friendship is annoyance. Time to suck it up and deal with it," she said.

At that precise moment, the phone rang. Delighted, although still somewhat sloshed from her bout with the wine coolers, Larxene took the opportunity to avoid revealing more of herself that she'd like to and sprung up off the couch. "Oh look, the phone. Better answer it, you know. It could be someone important." Hurtling across the room, Larxene nearly collided head on with the wall before she wrestled the phone from its cradle and clamped it to her ear. "Hello?"

Meanwhile, Kairi watched on, seemingly uninterested and maybe even slightly disappointed. What is it that she keeps trying not to tell me? But whatever it was would clearly have to wait, for as she watched Larxene on the phone, it was perfectly clear to Kairi that Larxene's mental gears weren't even fazed by the alcohol, for they were whirring at a very tremendous rate that even Kairi could pick up on from across the room.

"...Uh..." Larxene twirled the phone cord around her finger, smirking, smiling, grinning... somehow all at the same time. "Yeah. ...Uh huh. No, no, you got it right. ...Eh? ...But..." One eyebrow raised then and her mouth finally made up its mind, settling on a satisfied smirk. Of course. "...Oh really? Well I'm very flattered and everything but... Nonono! I'll be right there."

"Who was that?" Kairi asked, fixing her gaze back on the accursed magazine in front of her. She tried to make a mental note to burn the thing when whatever spell it had over her was broken, but for some reason the mental note just didn't stick.

"Naminé. I totally knew she was into me."

This... surprised Kairi to say the absolute and very least, and as Larxene zipped off towards her bedroom, Kairi's eyes widened, the girl grabbed the magazine (Dammit!) and raced off after her friend. "What'd she ask you?"

"Wants me to go over to her place, duh."

Having never really been in Larxene's room before, Kairi hesitated a moment before skuttling on inside. She cautiously perched on the edge of the bed, almost as though the entire thing was ready to just up and devour her in a flurry of sheets and pillows at any given second. The very thought caused Kairi to shudder, but she tried to put it out of her mind. ...For the moment.

Larxene's room was set up in such a way that the low-set bed was tucked off in a far corner, the decor sticking to plain, simple, and altogether very modern tastes. A plain flower vase with a handful of long dried grass-blades in one corner, a tall mirror in another. A short hallway, no longer than three feet or so, branched off further into the room, into what appeared to be some sort of closet space. But past that, Kairi could see. And of course, it was where Kairi couldn't see that Larxene's voice bubbled up from.

"Is she a skirt or pants kinda chick?"

"...I dunno. She wears sundresses, doesn't she?"

"Hmm..."

The room grew silent for a moment, except for the clang of coat hangers and the rustle of clothing from off where Larxene was. Kairi sighed and made herself comfortable on the other girl's bed, flipping open her magazine once again. Oh hell, I don't even remember where I was. Gone was the hope of being able to just get the magazine over and done with quickly. Now she'd have to start all over again from the beginning.

Continuing from where they left off advice-wise, Kairi called out to Larxene, "Besides, I think you're more experienced with this stuff than me. I mean, I've had like... two girlfriends in my entire life. And both of those were pretty sad and pathetic."

"What, they weren't gay enough for you?"

"...Yeah, actually. They were both straight. Or just curious." Kairi sighed and flipped another page in the damned magazine. She just couldn't put it away. ...Even though she could practically feel her brain oozing out the side of her head as she glanced over various shampoo and makeup ads.

"Man, that blows." Finally Larxene reappeared, dressed in a pair of jet black corduroys, a strappy dark green tank-top and two thin leather bands strapped to each wrist. "Whaddya think?"

"Um...?"

"Too butch?"

"Nooo...?"

"Perfect." Disappearing into her little closet nook once again, Larxene raised her voice just enough to carry across to Kairi once again as she said, "Hey, tell ya what, Pooh-bear. How about if I pull a couple strings and see if I can hook you up with that annoying little number you kept staring at back at that lame-ass driving clinic?"

Had Kairi had anything in her mouth, she certainly would've choked and died. Thankfully there was nothing in her mouth. "Yuffie!"

"Was that her name? Yeah, that one."

"Just what I need, another straight girlfriend."

"Hey, hey, hey. Say what you like. That chick is totally into you." Poof. Larxene was back, a lightweight black jacket being tugged over her shoulders. The thing was purposefully cut too short, the hem of the jacket only reaching the base of Larxene's ribs. Making a face, Larxene once again asked for Kairi's input. "Jacket?"

"Larxene, I don't mean to burst your bubble, but I don't think Naminé would call you just to invite you over for"

Deciding on her own that the jacket simply would not do, Larxene tossed it off to the side, adding to the growing mound of clutter that seemed to be collecting back over by her closets. Spinning around once in the wall-length mirror, Larxene blatantly ignored anything Kairi had to say on the subject, flashing a grin and fluttering her eyelashes mockingly at her reflection. "What was that? My oh my, yes. You are sexy, Larxene. Oh, I'm sorry, did you say something?"

"...No, not at all. Just little old me reading a magazine," Kairi muttered, turning another page. Oh look, an article on how not to wear a bikini. Kairi would certainly put this information to good use. Being flushed down the toilet! GAH.

"Great. Now remember the rules."

"Don't answer the phone, don't answer the door, and if a door is shut, don't open it."

"Perfect. If Leon leaves a message, pick up the phone before it clicks off and tell him I'm tossing my cookies in the toilet and can't come to either the phone or The Emporium, m'kay? And if I'm not back 'til late, don't worry, got it? Just getting a midnight snack."

"A slice of Pie and a glass of milk, right?"

"You catch on so quickly, dear. That is why we get along oh-so-famously."

x x x

Naminé had an apartment. This size of this apartment could roughly be compared to that of the downstairs area of your standard single-family home. ...The downstairs area of your standard single-family home when folded up into a paper crane and hastily slid through the paper shredder and cut into tiny little pieces, for indeed the apartment was very tiny. And much like the metaphorical wastebasket full of these paper-strip-apartments, Naminé's own apartment was absolutely covered with... clutter.

However, never before had Larxene set eyes on such artfully arranged clutter.

There were books (some of them new, some of them old, some of them with torn spines or missing covers) neatly stacked across the coffee table, a folded sweatshirt and an empty shopping bag seated on top of those. Hat boxes of various shapes, colors, and sizes (Where they arranged in color order? Any scheme in the planning? Triadic, monochromatic...? What, what?) Stripes, polka-dots, patterns left and right and everywhere she looked. Photos in lines across the floor, pinned to walls. Paintings and blank canvases stacked up in separate piles, paint tubes neatly cleaned off but clearly half empty.

Rugs, rolled out, up, and backwards.

Mirrors, standing, hanging, and even broken (the pieces, mind you, lying assorted in a tray aside a series of melted marbles and sea glass.)

Sofa covers, water bottles, paint cans, drafting table, pastel pencils, colored pencils, ebony pencils, graphite, charcoal, markers, crayons... Why was there so much STUFF?

Needless to say, Larxene was shocked. Just shocked. Upon stepping through the doorway as Naminé smiled warmly and welcomed her inside, Larxene just couldn't keep her mouth from dropping open with that very shock.

"God, your place is an absolute sty!" Brill. You're suave. Now tell her that she has eyes as beautiful and as clear as a mud puddle.

Rather than taking offense as any sane hostess would have, Naminé simply blushed a little and laughed, saying, "Sorry for the mess. And for the short notice. See, normally I clean up before I ever have anyone over, but I still haven't really gotten around to organizing everything since I moved in." Hesitating a moment, Naminé continued with, "But then again, I guess I didn't figure I'd be staying here too long."

"Hey, don't worry about the organizing," Larxene chuckled, making herself at home and plopping down onto the sofa, Naminé following suit, though without the plopping nature. "But... you weren't planning on staying in town?"

"No, no! That's not it! I just was hoping I wouldn't be staying in this apartment very long. I really wanted to buy a house when I first got here," Naminé said, brushing her hands across her legs to smooth her skirt out. It was only then that Larxene took such a notice in what Naminé was wearing.

A plain corduroy skirt, nor frills, no nothing. Just a plain skirt and an oversized button up paint shirt that hung off of her small body like a giant potato sack hanging off of a wet kitten. ...All right, maybe not quite like that, but similar. The really strange this about it was that the whole thing looked alarmingly... nice on Naminé. Almost like a second skin the girl grew in the springtime. ...But again, not quite. Larxene just couldn't place it.

Even with dried splotches of paint clinging to her clothing, Naminé still had that weird appeal that had hooked Larxene in the first place. Hah. Talk about crazy. Man, I gotta go start seeing that shrink again.

"So what's the occasion?" Larxene asked, clearing her throat with a little cough and allowing a small smirk to creep up onto her face. Lucky for me I spritzed my mouth with that super-strong super-painful mint breath-freshener. ...Oh crap, I hope I did. I think I remembered to. ...Dammit, not way to check now without looking like an idiot. Shit.

"Actually, I was... um... See, I was sort of hoping you could maybe... help me with this project I have." Naminé twisted her hair back into a ponytail with both her hands, spinning the tresses of blonde hair around and around in a seemingly nervous habit which only resulted in strands coming loose and falling back in front of her face.

Larxene... was slightly put off. Not exactly disappointed, at least, not right at that point. But she worried she was headed right down that very road if things kept going at the rate they were, and the last place she wanted to end up on was at the end of a dead end street as the sun started rising, still without sex. Oh was a horrid existence that would be. Nonetheless, something had somehow managed to pique her curiosity and she couldn't help but ask, "What's the project?"

Without another word, Naminé stood up from her seat on the couch, easily clambering over the piles of 'stuff' everywhere, making her way across the room to where a large sketchbook stood, nearly the size of Naminé's entire torso. Tucking this monstrous book under one arm and fishing around through an assortment of weird artistic goodies Larxene had no clue of how to use, Naminé returned to the couch moments later, sitting cross legged, the sketchbook laid out on her folded legs, three sticks of charcoal and a handful of pastels set atop of it.

"I was trying to draw a picture," Naminé said quietly.

"...Okay. So?" Narrowing her eyes, Larxene let out a small huff of a sigh, folding her arms. Alright, she knew it was childish. But come on already! What the hell was all this about? "Listen, I already tried to look at what you were drawing, but you wouldn't let me, remember? So whatever it is, you can just"

"Could I just try something?" Naminé asked, her voice taking on a pleading quality as she set a handful of charcoals and pastels up on the top corner of the sketchbook cover, setting it onto the coffee table.

"Try what? For crying out loud, Naminé, if you"

"Shh, you have to be quiet, okay?"

By that point, Larxene was convinced the other girl was off her rocker. Either that, or Larxene was just really dumb, because she honestly had no idea of what the hell was going on. But... Glancing at Naminé, Larxene stilled, noticing the small smile that Naminé gave her, the way she leant forward...

HAH. I knew it!

Inwardly, Larxene was grinning wildly and inwardly patting herself on the back while outwardly she slid her eyes closed and leaned in closer to the approaching warmth which was...

...Naminé's... hands?

With her eyes closed, Larxene could only feel the very slightest ghost of a touch from Naminé's fingertips as her hands gliding smoothly over Larxene's face. Palms passing over her cheeks, barely brushing against the soft fuzz there, leaving behind a radiating warmth. It fell somewhere between spring and summer, when the sun was just right and warmed the body to the core but not beyond that. It was the kind of touch, however light and hardly there, that made the receiver of it want to lean inwards towards it. It had to be more solid.

But as Naminé's fingers traveled over a smooth jaw, a small chin, and a pouty bottom lip, Larxene didn't move a single muscle. There was something, some weird, bizarre feeling, that let her know that Naminé was trying, trying very hard to work at fixing something. What that something was and what Naminé was trying to do? Hah, Larxene hadn't the slightest idea. But she did stay put, and for the moment, that is all that matters. The fact that one girl moved and the other girl didn't.

"Naminé, do you believe it works? You read it in the books and you heard it on all the documentaries. You dreamed it in your head and you thought it through on paper. Do you really think it works? And if you do, how do you know what you know someone so entirely like that? How do you really capture their soul on paper, on canvas? Do you know? I want to know... If you know, or if you find out, you'll tell me, won't you? Won't you, Naminé?"

Naminé nodded once, thought the movement was lost to Larxene, for at that moment Naminé drew her fingers over the other girl's eyes, allowing her own to close as all of her focus drew onto the simple act of feeling. Feeling, touching and trying to see so clearly that the sun would hurt. That's why you close your eyes.

"I heard that rabbits have to rely completely on their hearing and feeling senses when they're down there in those rabbit holes of theirs. That's what I heard, you know. Because they can't see or anything. They try and try, maybe, but it's underground and it's way, way too dark for them to see. Maybe if they were cats or something. But they're just rabbits and so they use their big ears to hear the earth around them and listen to what it tells them. And they use their whiskers to brush against the dirt as it surrounds them and shakes when there's danger and stills when it's calm. Rabbits are really smart like that, you know? They're very good at listening. Listening and feeling."

With her eyes entirely shut then, Naminé threw herself completely into it. If 'it' was a ledge, she wouldn't have flown straight off, up into the air, maybe never to be seen or heard from again. Heard. Hearing. She could hear Larxene breathing, slow and steady. She could feel the muscles of the other girl moving in rhythm to the breathing which in turn moved with the heartbeat which in turn moved with the... It was a never-ending cycle, it seemed. Where one influence stopped, another began, and the entire body was linked all together.

Larxene's close eyelids were closed by muscles which were instructed to close by the brain. That instruction had traveled through so much space in the human body, all in a matter of split seconds...

Beneath the skin there flows the blood and in the blood there flows the oxygen. The blood is pumped through the heart, which, although it is no more than just a pumping, beating muscle, has come to symbolize human emotion in its very simplest form. So... does it really hold anything? Or do things just filter through it, nothing sticking or staying... Is that the way you work, Larxene?

The minutes drew on like that, Naminé's hands never straying from Larxene's face, their furthest travels only dipping down and around to the junction of jaw and neck, quickly sweeping back up the side of her face, past earlobes and only slightly grazing against the few strands of blonde hair that managed to fall across the path of her fingers.

By the time she had finished, Naminé could recall ever dip, every rise, fall, and curve of that one face, the muscles behind it, and the makings behind that, whatever they may have been. Emotion, intelligence, or just plain blood, it really didn't make a difference. Naminé opened her eyes.

"...They say... Leonardo DaVinci. That was something he did," Naminé said, enunciating each word precisely and slowly, choosing them carefully and running through them all once, twice in her head. "He would see people on the streets and he would want to draw them. And... he'd do that, you know. Because he wanted to... maybe get a feel for who the person was. How they acted. Because he couldn't help it."

Watching as Naminé lifted her charcoals and pastels into her hands, flipping to a blank page of the sketchbook, Larxene allowed her body to relax. Or at least... she tried to convince it to relax.

Larxene and Naminé locked eyes, and though one gaze wavered and one gaze refused to do so, there was some plane of equality between them. Neither knew why, neither knew how. Both were strong believers in the practice of things just happening and just being. Naminé just happened to do that action, Larxene just happened to not do this action, it just happened, happened, happened. And Larxene nodded once, trying to smother the smile that wanted so desperately to shine through.

Why smile? I didn't get what I wanted. What was the purpose? Why should I be happy?

But she undoubtedly was. And she couldn't figure out why. And this, more than anything else, bothered Larxene to no end.

x x x

"I don't know if I really understand..."

"That's okay."

"It is?"

"...Tell me, Naminé. How long do you think you have?"

"...What do you mean?"

"When you're little, you know... it feels like you have forever. That life is just going to go on and on. It's never going to stop. If you're a happy child, your life is going to be happy forever, you're never going to cry, never going to be sad. If you're an unhappy child, the pain is going to go on. It's never going to stop. ...But in reality, the unhappy can end up smiling... the happy can end up crying... How long do you think you have before your childhood is gone?"

"...My childhood is gone. I'm almost twenty."

"...It's not gone. Just look."

x x x

For just a moment, we're going to pause now. We're going to jump back a day and a handful of hours ago, to when Naminé and Yuffie still sat in the gray, eerie old kitchen. To the minutes just after Yuffie had heard the voice with the sound of bells and to the moments just after the celery stick had dropped out of her awestruck mouth. Remember now?

We're going to fast-forward through the seconds of shock and surprise to the moments in which Naminé explains everything.

Well... almost everything.

"I first came to Traverse Town thinking that it would be another dull and boring place. Just like all the others, right? There's only so much excitement one place can hold. Places that have heaps and gobs of excitement take off really fast, pulling in tourists and putting up apartment complexes. One right after another. Landfills, bridges, skyscrapers... before you know it an entire coastline of sand and tall grass can be mowed down into a concrete-and-metal urban jungle.

"So about the real estate agency...

"The last one went out of business. I mean, the last one I worked for. The guy who owned the place just took all the money one day and ran. No one knows where he went and the police couldn't really do much to track him down. He had no living relatives and none of us really knew if he'd even had any close friends. So there was nothing anyone could do and the entire place was just shut down. Just like that. All because of one guy's stupidity, everything went to shreds.

"I was one of the lucky ones. My parents footed the bill to pay for the move to Traverse Town and to get the tiny little hole in the wall I live it. The moment I got there, I was absolutely lost. I remember thinking that there was no way a real estate agency could ever make a living in such a dinky little place out in the middle of nowhere. But it turns out that I was pretty wrong.

"To make a long part of the story pretty short, I went in for a meeting with Mr. Highwind (who right away made me call him Cidit was pretty weird) and landed a new job. As a normal agent for the company, I didn't really make much. But I took it up with Cid a few weeks later and after a lot of mumbling, bumbling, and grumbling, he said he'd get me another job. A side job, I guess.

"And that was how I met...

"Okay, wait. I'm getting a little ahead of myself. Okay. Here we go again...

"That was how I ended up taking care of the old mill down by the creek. It was a pretty run-down place and had been on the market for ten whole years without a buyer. Well no wonder! The place was practically falling apart because Cid somehow had this absolutely brilliant idea of saving money by not investing in any sort of company to keep up the maintenance of the old place. So that's where I came in.

"Every other day, I'd swing by the old mill after work and do some cleaning. The place had originally been set up way back when and had done a pretty decent enough job for the small town around it. But with electricity becoming more and more useable, it eventually got remodeled into a house, put on the market, and bought up at a pretty fair price.

"But... something happened. I don't really know what. The whole deal is pretty shady. All that's really important is that I ended up taking care of this ancient piece of property, trying to fix it up enough to get it bought. Cid would've had it demolished, he'd said, but he really didn't want to go through with it. Even though he didn't really specify why he didn't want to tear the old place down, I'm willing to bet that Cid himself was pretty attached to the mill.

"What can I say? It was a cute little relic from some history long ago. The only link the tiny town had to its tiny past in its tiny little world that was just so isolated. So... I started looking into buying the house for myself. But even with all the bargains Cid's willing to give me... which isn't really all that much now that I think about it... I still won't have enough for another whole year. By then someone's sure to buy it... but... I really wanna live here, you know? But anyway...

"That's when I met Cloud."

x x x

Irvine let out a dramatic huff of a sigh, finally hanging the very last white-collared, button-up shirt the cleaners had to give him. Nearby, Yuffie leant was perched on top of the washing machine, biting her nails and staring off into space. Her feet swung forward and backward, hitting the metal exterior of the washing machine with a rhythmic 'thud, thud, thud.'

Welcome to the land of overtime at the dry cleaners.

"Hey Yuffie," Irvine prompted, snapping the girl back into reality as she blinked rapidly before actually focusing on his face.

"Yeah?"

"I was wondering..." Irvine's voice started walking the hazy line between the audible and the inaudible as he went about hurriedly tidying up the assortment of bleaches, soaps, and softeners. "You're a girl... a thing or two... um, anatomy, right? I mean after all... what they like and everything..."

"...That made about as much sense as Mr. Tigi doing cartwheels down the hallway of a public school."

At this, Irvine perked up, a smirk forming as he quipped, "Hey, I heard he actually did that you know."

"In a pair of gym shorts." Yuffie grinned then rolled her eyes. "Come on, what the hell was it you were really saying?"

In a flash, Irvine's cocky smirk was gone, replaced by a mask that tried so very hard to look certain and carefree, but was really quite... embarrassed?

"There's... well... Okay. See. There's this girl..."

"Ooooh, a giiiirl!"

"Shut up, Yuffie! She's important to me, okay? ...Her name's Selphie. And... you know. I was wondering if maybe you could give me some... ah... 'pointers' or... something. Maybe. Since you're a girl and all... I mean, it's really weird. ...Just..."

"Wait, so..." Yuffie's eyes widened in absolute amazement, her mouth dropping open as she gaped at Irvine before exclaiming, "You want me to give you sex advice!"

"SHHH!" Irvine rapidly glanced left and right, double-checking to make sure there was absolutely no one there to overhear the entire conversation. Granted, they were in a dry cleaners. After closing time. And after the manager had gone home. The likelihood that there would be someone lurking in the shadows here was pretty... well... unlikely. But still. That's what they'd thought about that corduroy bear and just look what happened with that.

Irritably, Irvine continued, "Look, you're a girl. Don't you know what girls... you know... like and everything?"

"Why would I know that!"

"Would you keep it down! Yuffie... I'm serious."

"Wow. So... this Selphie chick must be something pretty special for you to be serious."

"...I'll let that one slide if you'll just help me out."

"Okay. Whaddya wanna know?"

"Just..." Irvine fought for words, thoughts... anything that would give him some footing in what he was trying to figure out. To Yuffie, it looked like he was trying to climb a giant mountain made of ice cream. The way was cold, slippery, and full of sugar, and if you fell through it, you'd get a brain freeze.

...Okay. Maybe it wasn't exactly like climbing a mountain of ice cream. But it's all about the metaphor. Sex talk about female anatomy equals giant treacherous mountain of ice cream.

Finally, he spat out the words. "Whatmakesgirlshorny!"

"...How should I know?"

"Yuffiiiie... Come on."

Leaping off of the washing machine, Yuffie balled both her petite hands into fists, whacking Irvine's shoulder with both of them. Those hands may very well have been 'petite,' but there was no doubt about it. Yuffie was capable of packing a really nasty punch.

"Oww! What the hell was that for!"

"Get real, Irvine. I'm not a pervert, I don't masturbate, I don't fantasize, I don't sleep around, and I don't ask other girls what turns them on, got it!"

"I never said!"

"Just lay off! Why don't you go ask a... a... a big stupid dyke for help, okay!" Turning sharply on her heel, Yuffie stormed towards the front of the store, grabbing her coat and ramming her arms through the sleeves, ignoring the sound of Irvine's footsteps running down the narrow room of the dry cleaners as he tried to catch up. But by the time he'd made it to the front desk, the door was already on its way shut, bells jingling merrily despite the suddenly hostile atmosphere hanging in the air.

Irvine frowned, then let out another deep sigh. The second in five minutes. It had to be a record or something for him. Turning back to finish his job, Irvine quietly mumbled, "Sheesh, if you didn't want to talk about it, you could've just said so."

Meanwhile, Yuffie was speed-walking down the street. Her car? She should've driven it. I've finally got my stupid license back... Why don't I feel like driving? It took Yuffie two whole blocks before she finally slowed down her breakneck pace and drew to a slower, steady walk. Why had she completely blown up back there? What was it that had set her off? Even Yuffie couldn't start to figure it out...

Another thing Yuffie couldn't figure out?

It started twenty minutes after her abrupt departure from the cleaners. It started as she entered her apartment and flipped the light-switch. It started as she stood in the middle of her kitchen, hands hanging numbly at her sides, eyes sliding carelessly over the room... well... it started when she realized that she was very alone.

So how did what start? What even started in the first place?

Well. It all really started with the phonebook. Still wrapped in its plastic bag from its delivery earlier that day, the phonebook sat on the counter, peering up at Yuffie curiously. So what do you think, Yuffie? So what do you want to do now, mm?

What she did was sit down at the tiny kitchen table on a rickety old stool. Hauling the phonebook onto the table, she ripped open the bag, tossed it to the side, and stared the phonebook down, almost as though she were trying to melt it with her eyes. After discovering that she was indeed no X-Man, woman, or otherwise, Yuffie gave up. She drummed her fingers against the table. She eyed the phonebook. She crossed and uncrossed her eyes, hummed a few notes of some song. Eyed the phonebook.

...And Yuffie began to flip through the

x x x

pages.

Kairi shook her head. No, ripping out every last one of the pages of her magazine was not the solution to her problem. What she needed was music. Peppy music that would lift her mood, brighten her spirits, and pull her out of whatever slump she'd sunk into in the first place.

Having long since migrated from Larxene's room to her own futon on the floor of the living room, Kairi simply rolled over towards the small stereo set up in the corner. The poor thing was neglected, she noticed, a thin layer of dust covering the entire setup. Well no wonder. If Larxene lived the life she seemed to, she wasn't going to be around much to use her stereo. That's just a rotten shame.

A few buttons pressed, a CD wrestled out of Kairi's duffle bag and popped into the player and there she had it. Her peppy love song for the day. ...Somehow though, it depressed her more than it cheered her up. Man, what's wrong with me today?

And just as she was grudgingly about to turn back to her magazine, a very strange thing happened.

The phone rang.

'...I'll be the fire escape that's bolted to the ancient brick where you will sit and contemplate your fate...' sang the stereo speakers.

Of course, for the sake of the story, Kairi had long since forgotten one of the Three Golden Rules Larxene had previously established. It wasn't that she meant to. Really, it wasn't even entirely her fault. Later, she would blame the magazine for having liquefied her brain so. But at that moment, all she was thinking fell into the simple sequence of: phone ring, close magazine, answer now.

"Hello?"

"..." Silence. Clearly.

"Hellooo?" And of course, for the sake of the story, it was at that moment that Kairi remembered that one particular little rule. Clapping a hand over her mouth, she squeaked out a muffled, "Ohshit!" and hurriedly made to hang up the stupid phone as fast as possible. But it was one particular voice that chirped through the phone that kept her on it just a little longer, much to her own horror.

"Kairi?"

"Wha?"

"Um... hi."

"Um, um, um, um... HELLO!" she exclaimed, nervous as all hell and eager to just hang up and be done with it. What if Larxene finds out? What would she do, would she kick me out? She'd be upset, no doubt and...

'...I'll be the water wings that save you if you start drowning in an open tap when your judgement's on the brink...'

"...Ah... I was just ah... calling to uh... see if the um... the er... the phonebook... uh... worked."

"...The weh?" was Kairi's intelligent response.

"The ah... the phonebook." The person on the other end of the line cleared her through and tried to clarify, though with a considerable amount of difficulty. "You know, cause uh... we um... got new phonebooks. ...Today."

Kairi blinked. Was there an echo going on, or was it just her? She glanced back behind her towards the stereo... no, it still seemed to be playing normally. Taking the momentary pause in the conversation to her advantage, Kairi experimentally covered up the earpiece of the phone. The echo was gone. She removed her hand. The echo was back. Aha.

"...Who is this?"

"It's Yuffie for crying out!"

"...Hey, what music are you playing over there?"

'...I'll be the phonograph that plays your favorite albums back as you're lying there

drifting off to sleep...'

"...Heh. Um... I guess..."

"Yeah..."

"So, the phonebook?"

"...Oh, yeah! Well, you know, sometimes they print the numbers wrong and everything. ...In the phonebook, I mean."

"Yeah, I got it."

"So I was just like... calling to see if it was right. And it is."

"They pay you to do this?"

"No. But they should, dammit."

'...I'll be the platform shoes, undo what heredity's done to you; you won't have to strain

to look into my eyes...'

"'I'll be your winter coat buttons zipped straight to the throat with the collar up, so you won't catch cold.'" Kairi grinned. She couldn't control it. Yuffie couldn't see it, but Kairi couldn't control it. What could she say? It was one hell of a coincidence after all.

As if things weren't already weird enough. Their shaky conversation continued like that for another few moments before both yawned (at the same time?) and decided to call it a night. Yuffie hung up the phone a moment later, her mind in some sort of numb state that falls somewhere before absolute horror and shock sets in. And like an omen, good, bad, or who-knows-what, the last phrase of the song played through once more before cutting off at the end.

'...Everything will change.'

(x) (x) (x)

Okay, sorry you guys didn't get to meet Cloud this chapter. I was going to plug that scene in instead of the little Naminé background story, but I figured that it was more beneficial to you as a reader. XD Besides, it gives you something to look forward to in the next chapter. ...Which is already partially written. ...Partially. Oh. And I forgot who sang the song used. It's a very good song, though. XO I'll find the name and give credit for it in the next chapter.

Preview for the next chapter: Yuffie, in a desperate attempt to prove her sanity, gathers together the Fantastic Four and makes for Naminé's quiet little sanctuary in the woods. What will they find? What will Naminé cook? And when a certain little owner of a bell-like voice gets loose, what new words will he learn? ...And finally, will Mr. Tigi ever act like a normal human being?