Riku's PoV
How many hours to a day has very little to do with how long it is. Yesterday had felt very short; today seemed an eternity. I had tried IM-ing Sora, but he hadn't answered, so now I was sitting in my window seat with my guitar, finishing a song I was writing. It was one of my favorite of my current pieces, with bitterly sarcastic lyrics and an angry ending like crashing thunder, but the chords kept changing in my hands. I kept finding myself playing a lament, longing and bittersweet. With a sound of annoyance I reached for a fresh piece of paper and a pen, and began jotting scraps of lyric and chord progressions. I felt much better with the contents of my mind spilled across the paper. Now that I was no longer fighting it, the tune came quickly, a wild eerie lament, for what I wasn't sure. No words set themselves to it, so I simply jotted it down in a book of blank music paper. Suggestion of other tunes drifted on the edges of my mind, but none were ready to step into the light just yet, so I put the guitar in its case and stowed it in the closet. It wasn't full dark yet. I could walk over to Sora's house… the moment the though occurred to me, I began to walk, down the stairs and out the door. Sora would still be up, and we could talk and laugh and drive the night away together. I walked to Sora's quickly, and arrived just as the last of the sun was touching the sky. Perfect.
Sora's PoV
If you rated a day from one to ten, ten being the best, my day was too far in the negative numbers to be remotely funny. Even so, I was the happy one. Alex had showed up around four o'clock—and one look at his face told me why he was here. He wore a half-stunned expression, changing even as I watched to unbearable pain. I quickly snuck him up to my room, sat him down on the couch, and grabbed my 'heart first aid kit'—a box of mini Hershey bars.
"You want to tell me what happened?" I asked him, shifting him so his head was on my shoulder.
"Yuffie." Was all he said. I made a little ah of understanding. Alex was a deadly fighter, but he had a heart of butter when it came to anything cute—and one of Yuffie's few virtues was undeniable cuteness. He broke down the, and cried on my shoulder. I felt helpless; all I could do was hold him as he cried. Finally, the tears slowed, and then stopped.
"I should go." He said, sounding weary, but without the heartbreak he had had. I didn't try to stop him, just walked along side him until we were standing in the packed dust of the yard.
"Are you going to be okay?" I asked, making the question a prayer that he would. Alex nodded. I hugged him, and kissed him lightly on the cheek. "Take care of yourself, brother." I whispered. Then more loudly, "I don't dare lose you." Alex managed a weak grin and a wave, and left. I looked away—right into familiar emerald eyes, slitted and near glowing with rage. I backed up a step in the face of Riku's fury.
"Very close friend, isn't he?" Riku hissed, soft and poisonously sarcastic. I tried to speak, and had to wet a throat turned suddenly to dust.
"Just a friend. You know that, Riku." My words appeared to soothe him--- until I reached his name. The fury returned full-force to his face, laced with bitter hurt and terrifying in its intensity. "Please." I was begging, and we both knew it. "Please trust me, Riku." My voice had dropped to a bare thread, agonized and strained like taught harp wire. When he answered, scorn laced his words, more painful than even the hurt, despite the almost civil tone.
"Damn you, Sora. And damn me for believing in you." He stalked off then, leaving me alone, too shocked even to cry. The wind alerted me to tears tracking their way down my cheeks as I dropped to my knees in the dust. Two beads of salt water dropped to the dirt, followed by… nothing. A cold numbness of disbelief, and a sensation like brittle ice forming in a cold crystalline web over my skin. If I moved, that fragile skin would crack. If I didn't, it would melt. I forced myself to my feet, and the shock broke, as I had known it would. Blackness clouded my vision as wave after wave of despair washed over my heart.
A part of me watched, as though from great distance. Looked dispassionately at the broken pieces of what might once have been my heart. That same corner of self took the shattered bits, and pieced them together, pasted into a mockery of a whole. It still hurt. Hurt like the time when I was six and stuck my hand in the fire, or when I was nine and broke my arm falling off my bike. I could pretend it didn't. And maybe, if I pretended hard enough, for long enough, I could make it true. Maybe some distant dreamer's deity would take my life, and with it, take the pain. It hurt. I could pretend it didn't. I could pretend to be a bird, and flap my arms all the way down the long drop of a cliff, more like. It still hurt.
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I guess it's still November… my time. Sorry, this one is very short. I didn't manage NaNo, I'm ashamed to say, but I guess I'll just try again next year. Thanks for bearing with me. The reviews… I don't know how many times I'm going to say this, but it is never any less true. The reviews are wonderful. You people are what gives me the inspiration, to get out and try some mornings, knowing, if nothing else, I made someone happy. Every time I get on the computer, I go to the favorites list and pick-- andsmile. Thank you, thank you, thank you.
Dyslexic Angel