Runaway
chapter 19

Sora Imakura.

Riku and Sora Imakura.

God, I love the way that sounds. I know I probably sound creepy, but I don't care. It's not like Riku can hear it.

He's only been gone for a few minutes but I feel like I'm going nuts.

I look over at the direction where he left to and watch him walk back over. I smile as he sits down but he, on the other hand, looks miserable. He's probably stressed from getting rid of his knife. I pet his head and he leans on my shoulder. We don't say anything and awkwardness is slowly filling the space around us.

"I'm..." I say, my voice cutting through the silence harshly. "...proud of you, that you could get rid of the knife." It kind of sounds like the beginning of a father-son talk, but I think that he doesn't care; I think he's hardly paying attention. Until he says:

"Sure." He lifts up his jacket sleeve, just slightly, and watch him trace from his palm, up the vein on his wrist and down again. He lifts his head and sits up so he's taller than me again. He keeps tracing over his wrist until I take his hand and lace his fingers with mine.

Now we're in a kind of in a weird position- his back is propped up against my leg and my other leg is resting over his legs, and he's almost in a lying position. We ignore the weird looks we get from the other people passing by and idly look around. He gets up and then reaches his hand to face and flicks my head.

"What was that for!" I ask, rubbing my head.

"I felt like it." He says, shrugging then smirking. He crosses his arms and closes his eyes.

"Are you feeling better since you got rid of the knife?" I ask. He shrugs.

"Sure." He says. I lean over and kiss his forehead.

"What was that for?" He asks.

"I felt like it." I say with a grin.

We've circled around the park at least three times now.

Riku and I haven't really been talking much; I have nothing to say. There are picnic tables spread out all around. Most of the tables are empty except for one. A little kid looks at us, then at her parents. She grabs something off the table and runs over to us. What the...? She tugs on my leg and offers Rika and me a candy.

God- even a little kid like that can notice we're homeless? We must look terrible. Before Riku can say anything too rude, I thank her and take the candy. She runs back to her family and they all look really happy.

I'm almost homesick.

We find an empty table and Riku picks something up off it. I don't see what it is.

Soon, Riku and I decide to rest under a tree. He leans against the trunk and I walk around a little. The park is nearly empty, aside from a teenaged girl and boy near a different tree, right next to ours.

"Hi," The girl says, She's wearing torn shorts and a large T-shirt the color of strawberries. Her hair is blonde, short and in tight curls around her face. The guy is sitting down against the tree, I can't see him too well.

"Hi," I say back. She looks at us for a moment.

"You running away?" She asks, hesitantly. I glance at Riku before nodding. She nods.

"Us too." She says, sort of quiet. "Nice to know we're not the only ones out here. I'm Roxie. You?"

"Sora." I say, "That's Riku."

"Dan." Says the sitting guy.

"How long you been out here?" Roxie asks. How long? "About three months for me." I turn to Riku. "How long for you again?"

"Two years." Riku says, flatly.

"Half a year for us." Dan says. "Feels longer." Riku smirks and begins digging through his orange bag.

Roxie and I are still talking, even after Dan falls asleep and Riku wanders off somewhere.

"So, why are you out here, anyway?" Roxie asks.

"Had to get away from my mom and her boyfriend." I say, suddenly wanting to take back the boyfriend part. I hate thinking about him- and that's why I never do.

"Oh?" She asks. "What was wrong?" She adds, "If you don't mind talking about it." She grins. I shrug.

"My mom and I fought a lot." I shake my head. "She also drank too much."

"Your dad?" She asks.

"Gone. That's why I'm out here- to find him." I shrug again, suddenly feeling embarrassed, though I don't know why. "Why are you out here?"

"One word," She says. "Dad." She pauses before adding, "I left with my boyfriend," She looks over at Dan, who's still sound asleep. "when things started really bad. He had the same problem as me. On top of that our families weren't too fond of each other and we wanted to be together, so we just said 'screw it', and left. Just like that." I nod. "Now I'm just babbling on and on about myself. I do that sometimes. What about your friend?" I wait for a moment before speaking.

"I don't know if he'd want me to say anything." She shrugs.

"Fair enough."

We end up talking about run-ins with the police, weird things that have happened, and other "fun" things like that. After Dan wakes up they walk off somewhere, and I go to find Riku again. He's sitting against another tree smoking, a pack of old cigarettes sticking out of his bag.

"Where'd you get those..?" I ask. If he had those the entire time I should have said to get rid of them, too.

"Some guy left it on a table." He says.

"Oh." I want to say more, but for some reason I don't. I just sit next to him, not saying anything but watching closely.

"What?" He asks, putting the pack in his bag and throwing out the cigarette he was smoking. I put my head on his lap and lie down. I should have known he'd just replace one bad habit with another. "No, nevermind. I already know what you're going to say." I grin and put my arms around his neck.

"You know me so well." I kiss his cheek and reach into his orange bag.

"What are you doing?" He asks, sounding nervous.

"Hold on." I say, taking the cigarettes and tossing them into a trash can. He shoots me "the look" and pulls a stick of gum from his pocket and pops the entire thing in his mouth; spitting out the wrapper a second later. I gently nudge him in the ribs.

"Have extra?" I ask. He hands me a piece and I smile at him, but he's looking away. Shrugging, I unwrap the gum and pop it in my mouth. It has the raspberry mint taste Riku had when I kissed him a while ago.

I put my backpack in my lap and pull out the bag of chips I bought at the store. "Want any?" I ask. He's quiet for a moment before looking over.

"What? No. I'm okay." He looks distracted. He begins digging through his bag again. What's he been looking for?

"You need help finding something, Riku?" I ask.

"No." He says. "I'll find it." There's some sort of urgency in his voice. Is he trying to find the pictures?

"What are you looking for?"

"Nothing. Nothing."

"You sure?" I ask.

"I'm sure." After a minute or so he gives up. I wonder what was so important? He lays his head on my shoulder and wraps his arms around my waist. For a moment it almost sounds like he's whimpering, but it might just be my imagination.

He starts digging through his things again; only satisfied once he pulls a small bottle from a side pocket on the inside of the bag.

"What're those, Riku?" I ask. He smiles.

"Nothing at all." The bottle looks slightly like the one his antidepressants were in.

Hold on...

Does that mean he's taking something like that? Since when?

"Ah... Riku...?" I ask. He pops some pills in his mouth and swallows.

"What?" He asks.

"Um..."

"What? This?" He asks again, about the pills. "Don't worry about it. I should be taking these."

"Oh...what is it?"

"It's like aspirin." He says simply.

"Oh..."

I think what Riku took must be a little stronger than aspirin. He's completely out, and has been for the past few hours.
It's getting sort of dark. Riku's still asleep.
It's getting late out. Riku hasn't made a sound. I lay down next to him and close my eyes. Hopefully we'll both be able to sleep through the night.
It's morning now. I stretch and look over at Riku. He's still sleeping. Oh well, I guess it's good for him to be finally getting a nice, long rest. I sure wish I could.

Riku wakes up a while later- that's good; I was starting to get worried.

"'Morning Riku." I say.

"Mmm."

"How are you feeling?" I ask quietly. He sits up.

"Pretty good, actually." He says. That's a first.

"Really? That's great!" He smirks.

"You know what." He says. It's not a question.

"What?"

"We shouldn't have just left all of our stuff out there where anyone can find it." He's probably right. "I say we should go and get rid of that stuff for good." What does that mean?

"Sounds good to me, but..."

"But what?" He asks.

"Nevermind."

"Come on. Our things aren't too far away."

"Okay." I say, getting up. We collect our things and go head back to where our old things are. We walk side by side and I notice how much better Riku looks. That sleep really did do him good.

It's the afternoon now, and I think we're almost there. I pull out the chips from my backpack and begin snacking on them again.

We've finally reached our destination; Our things are exactly where and how we left them.

"What now ?" I ask. Riku pulls a match from his bag and lights it, throwing it on the our old things. They all catch on fire pretty quickly. Riku sits down in front of the fire, watching all of our old things burn. I sit down next to him. The heat from the fire feels good. When I look over at him I can see how captivated he is by the flames, destroying our old stuff. He puts his arm around my shoulder and pulls me close to him.

We spend the rest of the day cuddled up watching the fire.

Author's notes:

This chapter's a bit shorter (andconsiderably worse) than they've been recently, but I knew I really, really, had to update. I hope no one's lost interest in this yet. Besides, in the next two chapters two very, very big things are going to happen. I won't say what, because I am foxy like that. Ohohoho. (And hopefully the big events coming up will make up for the lack of anything happening in the chapter.)

But sorry this took so long. Aside from writer's block I was having some personal issues. But I'm better now, I think.

By the way, as of the 18th, I'm officially legally allowed to have an account here. Go me.