Runaway
chapter 17

To my surprise, Riku doesn't pull away when I try to hug him. It's cooler out now and Riku's asleep, but I don't think I'll be getting much sleep. God, poor Riku. I can't help but feel bad for him. I watch him breathe and try to figure out when his inhaling turns to exhaling, but after a while it gets confusing and makes my head sore and I feel drowsy.

Maybe now I can get some sleep.

I don't know what time it is when I wake up but it's cold and the sky is a pale, pale shade of blue. "Mm. Riku?" He's already up?

"You were wheezing." He says. I put my hand behind my head.

"Sorry." He shrugs.

"We might as well leave anyway." He says, getting up and walking away. I follow.

"Um, Riku?"

"Huh?"
I don't know if I should bring this up or not. I don't want to scare him away or anything, but I want to know. I have to.

"The man... did he, um... try anything? You know, like...uh... try and...uh... molest... you once... you were up?" I ask as carefully as I can. He shakes his head.

"Don't think so. I know if he did anything like that I would have woken up. I figure he just moved me, that's all."

"I hope he goes to jail for the rest of his life." I say. "I mean, it's illegal to do it with kids under eighteen anyway." He shrugs.

"Even still, it's not like it's something I couldn't have escaped from." He says this so surely, almost like... has he had to escape from being molested, I wonder? God, he's been through too much already.

"Yeah, but... you haven't had to escape from something like that before, right? I mean..."

"I've never been in anyone else's house before or after that." His voice is just a little less sure.

"Have you..." I try to ask about this as delicately as possible, knowing that Riku's just a time bomb, waiting to explode... "Ever had a boy-or girl-"I add quickly, "friend who treated you bad like that?" Please say no. I don't want Riku to have anyone else...

To my relief he says no. But then, a terrible thought hits me. I what a few moments before saying something. I don't want to say it. I really, really don't.

"What about your dad?" I ask.

He waits for a long time before answering- I really shocked him.

"...What?" He asks. He doesn't sound angry- just taken by surprise.

"Did your dad ever try anything like that? Because, you know, I heard about that once, on TV that some dads or uncles, or you know, moms even, it's not always the guys, but they-"

"Sora, Sora." Riku interrupts me and sounds strangely calm. "He didn't." I feel this huge wave of relief.

"Really?"

He smiles- it's almost a sort of a twisted smile. "He didn't touch me."

-

Pretty soon it's not cool anymore and it begins getting hot and I start getting tired again.

"You okay back there?" Riku sounds so incredibly bored with me.

"I feel sick." I say. He impatiently waits for me to catch up, and when I do I throw one arm around his shoulder. I can hardly stand- this is awful. Maybe I caught whatever Riku had. Aw, damn, I've never done too great in weather hot like this.

God...

-

I open my eyes just a little and...

wait.

I open my eyes? I...fell asleep? HOW? I move my head just slightly and see that Riku's carrying me. My arms are wrapped around his neck and I'm right in his arms and he's still managing to walk. Well- I might as well take advantage of this moment and go back to sleep.

-

"Sora." Hmm... "Sora, wake up." Gah. Five more minutes and I'll be good to go... "You got to wake up." I open my eyes and look around. "You were asleep all day and all night."

All night! What? "I think the heat really got to you, but it's been cooling down since then."

"Oh." There's an awkward moment of silence. "Thanks for carrying me." He gets the faintest blush on his cheeks.

"Yeah, whatever."

Riku's right. It's a lot cooler now and I'm feeling a bit better, but exhausted. I keep my arm around Riku just so I can stand and walk. He's not nagging me to hurry up, or quit touching him or any of that. We just trod along, slowly but surely. "Riku?" I ask eventually.

"Huh?"

"God- when is it over?"

"What?" He asks.

"The heat. Today. All of this."

"It'll get cooler. It's early-August." He says.

"It is?" Wow. I've been out here for... two or three months now. Wow. Wow.

"Yep. I saw a calender earlier."

"Great."
We don't really talk much for the rest of the day, or the night. Or the day after that.

Or after that.

A few days later Riku speaks: "Looks like it's going to rain."

"Hmm." I look up a the sky.

It does. That's weird. It just goes from hot to cold to hot around here, doesn't it? I think Riku's been sort of depressed lately. He's been so lost in thought. I feel a drop of water on my head; it's raining now. Riku groans and shivers. "You okay?" I ask. He doesn't reply. There's some sort of building up ahead; Riku and I speed up and duck under the roof. We sit on the cement right before the stairs so we can be dry and not in anyone's way. Riku lays down and curls up. He looks almost scared, like someone's out to get him. "You okay...?" I ask again. He nods. Maybe he's just tired. Almost every time I wake up at night he's awake too, and if not he's up soon. We watch as people walk by, opening umbrellas or holding newspapers over their heads. People come in and out of this building which I'm guessing is a college. Riku looks really spaced out.

If he goes and gets sick again I'll kill myself. I think he's asleep now, anyway. I look at him for a while, breathing softly, fingers twitching. He's dreaming. One guy walking out of the double doors takes one look at us and just shakes his head. I'm sort of surprised no one's kicked us out of here yet.

Oh.

Riku's up. He rubs his eyes and stretches and, to my surprise, lays his head on my shoulder. He takes off his jacket and puts it over my knees and it covers most of my bare legs. I feel so much warmer now. He's shaking just a little and I can see all of the scars all over his arms. I take off my sweater and put it around his shoulders. He glances at me and smiles, just a little. Our faces are really close; I can feel his breath against my neck. I turn my head and he moves forward- or something, and suddenly his lips are against my cheek. We both kind of freeze for a moment. Did he do that on purpose? I turn my head again to look at him and now his lips are pressed awkwardly against mine. I hold my breath and don't move a muscle. I pull him close and press my lips harder against his. I put my hand against his chest and he puts one arm around my shoulder. Neither of us know if we should go further or not. He sighs and I slide my tongue in his mouth.

He pulls away.

"Uhh. Sorry." That was... lame. 'oh, sorry I just shoved my tongue down your throat when I know you don't like it.' Good job, Sora. "Really, I don't know why-" He grabs my shoulders and pulls my close to him and soon he's the one kissing me, his hands up my shirt, rushing up and down my back- but before I know what's going on he lets go and pulls his knees to his chest, my sweater still wrapped around his shoulders.

Like nothing happened.

After a while a man comes out of the building and looks at us for a moment. Is he going to just kick us out? Out in the rain? We don't have any other shelter.

Instead he kind of smiles.
"Hey." He says. Riku tenses up. We exchange a glance before I respond.

"Hi."

"What are you doing here?" He asks. He knows exactly why we're here.

"Um... we, uh..." He laughs, even though I can tell he doesn't think any of this is funny. Now a girl walks out.

"Davey?" She asks. "Are we going to go or not?"

"Just a second." He says, turning around. He turns back to us. "So, have you eaten anything today?" He shake our heads. Riku looks almost ashamed. For being homeless? For not eating? Being runaways?

"Then come on with us."

"Huh?" The girl asks. "what's going on?"

"One minute, Cat." He turns to look at us again. "We're going out for some lunch. Why don't both of you come, too?"

"Really?" I ask, suspicious like Riku.

"Yeah!" He says. "Come on," We follow him out into a parking lot and he opens the back door of his car.

"We're going to wreck your car..." Riku mumbles. "We're really wet."

"Not that wet." He says. "It's OK." I glance at Riku for a moment as he hesitantly slides in the car. I get in next to him. I know this is probably stupid; getting in a car with a complete stranger... but... Riku has a knife! So we're safe. We're okay.

-

Momentarily we arrive at a little Denny's-look-a-like. It's pretty dirty looking on the outside, but once we walk in we see that it's nice and clean. There are only a few other people here. An old couple drinking coffee and a woman with her child. A waitress leads us to a booth and says someone else will be coming to take our orders. I'm sitting between Riku and David and Cat's next to David. (We all got acquainted during the ride over.) Riku and I are looking at one menu; everything is either pancakes or omelets and just look wonderful. "What're you getting?" I ask Riku. He shrugs. "That looks good." I say pointing at picture of a big stack on pancakes. He shrugs.
Another waitress comes and takes our orders. I get pancakes with bacon and sausage and milk and Riku gets an omelet and water. We split hash browns. I look over at David and Cat, who are talking to each other and not paying any mind to us. I look over at some of the other people at the tables near us and finally at Riku, who looks lost in thought. I slide my arm over his shoulder and grin. "What are you thinking about?"

"Oh, our food's here." Riku says. Maybe to avoid answering the question. I don't know, and now I don't care. I'm starving. I dig into the pancakes, earning a few stares from people at surrounding tables. I don't care about that, either. It feels like forever since I've had a meal and even longer since I've had a good breakfast. Even if it's in the late afternoon. I'm the first one done; Riku picks at his food for a few minutes before digging in and David and Cat are really taking their time eating.

After everyone's finished we leave. David and Cat say we should at least stay at their apartment for a few days to regain our strength or ask if they can drive us somewhere, but Riku turns down the offer. We say our goodbyes and leave.

"Why'd you say no, Riku?" I ask.

"Look, if you want to go with them, go. I'm not stopping you. But I'm not going to become some freaking charity case." He doesn't sound that rude when he says it, actually.

"But I want to go with you."

"Then do." He sounds just a little frustrated now.

"That's what I'm doing." I say, catching up with him and putting my arm around his waist. He doesn't mind; in fact, he puts his hand on my shoulder. I wait for a moment before saying something.

"It was nice having real food again."

Riku agrees.

"See, Riku? Some people you can trust."

"Like you?" He asks, smirking. He might be sarcastic; I'm not sure.

"Like me." I say, grinning. We don't talk much after that, but that's okay. We don't have to.