Author's Notes: I'd just like to thank all the reviewers so far for their support and comments. "Different" is what I was going for, and I'm glad some people are finding this fic a little out of the ordinary. Hopefully I can keep it that way!

A little bit of both sides in this chapter. Enjoy the angst, guys. Tell me what you think about what I've done with Kairi and Namine, I tried something a little different with them. Happy reading!

Chapter 3

"The Phone That Rings"

"Supper, everyone!" Lisa called. With boxes still packed up in the kitchen, she'd ordered Chinese for them, and managed to get some plastic silverware. Everyone gathered around the table in their chairs, Sora and Selphie sitting across from each other on the long, rectangular sides, and their parents at each end.

"All right! Food! I'm starving!" Sora licked his lips hungrily. If there was any way to win his heart over, it was with food.

"Sora, it's your turn to say Grace." His father informed him, as he, Selphie, and Lisa joined hands. "Care to do the honors?"

"Sure!" Sora grabbed his parents' hands and they all bowed their heads, eyes closed.

"Lord, we thank you for this food we are about to eat, and for this new house that you have blessed us with, and for all our new friends and neighbors who are so nice to us. In Jesus' name we pray..."

They all chorused, "Amen."

"Dibs on the egg rolls!" cried Sora instantly, reaching over. Selphie squealed and jumped up at the same time.

"Noooo, I want an egg roooolll! Sooraaaa!"

"Hey, hey, hey! What am I raising, a couple of animals?" Lisa pointed to their seats. "Sit down, and we'll pass the food around."

Selphie and Sora both pouted and sat back down. As the food came around and everyone filled up their plates, Lisa decided she would ask her son how the other boys were.

"They seemed really nice!" Sora replied to her. "I'm glad everyone's so friendly here."

"Your mother's going to be the local social butterfly," John chuckled. "You should have seen her talking with Mrs. Highwind and Ms. Winhill. They were regular chatterboxes."

"Ms. Winhill?" Sora asked.

"She's Roxas' mother," Lisa explained. "She was the woman with the blond, blond hair. Remember?"

"Ohh, right." Sora nodded and shoveled a forkful of spicy noodles in his mouth. "She looked nice, too!"

"Don't talk with your mouth full, Sora." his father reminded him.

"I found a friend too!" Selphie blurted, swallowing her food with a grin. "Her name's Yuffie!"

"Yuffie?" Sora asked. "She was on Wakka's Blitzball team..."

He saw the look on Selphie's face, and immediately regretted mentioning it. He wilted under those bright, wide eyes, and the maddening grin on her face.

"Can I go with you tomorrow to the game!"

"Awwwww, Seeellllph!"

"Pleeeeeeease!"

"Mom!" Sora whined. Without even looking up, Lisa dipped a piece of Sweet and Sour pork in the bittersweet sauce it came with and said,

"She can go if she wants to, Sora."

Sora's eyes widened. "What? This is injustice!"

"Yay! I get to see Yuffie!" Selphie cheered.

"Moooom," Sora groaned, "She'll ruin the whole game!"

"You don't know that," Lisa said pointedly. Sora's fork clattered to his plate as he coiled back in his seat, shocked.

"Yes I do!" he squeaked. "She ruins everything!"

"Do not!" Selphie said haughtily.

"Do too!" Sora shot back.

"Do not!"

"Do too!"

"All right, that's enough." growled their father, looking at them sternly. "Sora, Selphie can and will go to the game with you tomorrow."

Sora groaned. Just like dad, to make everything official. Now the game was surely a total ruin if Selphie was going to be there. He pouted in his seat and ate his food.

"And Selphie," continued John, looking at his daughter, "If Sora and his friends want you to stay out of their way, you stay out of their way. Understand?"

Selphie joined her brother in the pouting and sighed. "Yes, Dad." she grumbled.

Silence descended on the table, and they all ate in that silence, exchanging hesitant glances before Lisa stood up.

"Why don't I try to get the T.V. to work? A little news will do us some good! Nothing like keeping up with the world, you know!"

"I don't know why you think the news is so great, Mom." Sora mumbled.

"Because, honey, you might learn something! Sometimes they have interesting headlines!" Lisa unpacked the television from one of the boxes—the kitchen one, which was pretty small. So, while Sora and Selphie packed up the leftovers and put them away, and cleared the table, their parents spent the time setting up the television.

"We need cable." Sora said suddenly as Lisa turned the television on.

"Need it?" she questioned. "Do we need to pay for that? Cable is expensive, hon."

"But wouldn't it be great if we got more channels?" pointed out Sora.

"Oh, bother! The channels are fine as they are." Lisa flipped the channels until it got to the news channel. "You see? Perfectly fine!"

Sora sighed and sat down with Selphie as they reluctantly listened to the passing news headline. "...Adopted yet another lonely child from the local orphanage. The popular modeling figure continues to amaze the public with his good will towards the orphaned and unwanted; earlier this week he also signed the papers to adopt a foster child from the county fostering agency..." the screen showed a news clip of a young man with short, spikey hair, surrounded by dozens of children, some teenagers, some much younger. Sora whistled.

"Can you imagine taking care of all of those, Mom?"

"I imagine that poor man goes to bed with a very big headache." she chuckled.

"It's nice to see the folks around here giving back to the community," John commented. "I mean, take this young man. He's taking care of all those children when no one else will take them in. A kind soul, that one."

Sora groaned to himself. The sappiness and admiration was getting too thick for him to handle. "Mom, can I borrow your cell phone?"

Selphie grinned. "Sooora has a girrrllfrieeend!" she sang.

"Shut up, Selphie!"

"I suppose." Lisa said, fishing through her pocket. "But try not to eat up my minutes. It's not past nine-o'clock yet, so my free unlimited minutes aren't active yet."

"Yes, Mom." Sora said, a little forcibly. His mother had just gotten that cell phone a few months before they'd moved, and she was a little crazy about all the things it could do. She took pictures with it, recorded videos, played around with the ringtone, gave the faceplate a new color every month...it was wild. Sora hoped she wouldn't do something weird with it around his friends, because it would just remind them all of how much his family had grown up under a rock. Lisa held her phone out to her son, and Sora took it with a thanks, then stalked off to a place where Selphie wouldn't bother him and flipped it open, dialing.

"Five-six-three...two...two...six...nine."

"Nami!" Kairi called, "Nami, it's your turn to do the dinner dishes!"

"I did them last time!" cried her twin, watching the television. "You go do them!" The both of them had southern accents as thick as paste, and so did their father, who took care of them alone in lieu of their late mother. Not everyone in their neighborhood had accents like theirs; but Kairi, Naminé, and their father had moved to Dali from Traverse County. It was a good deal different up here than it was down there; Dali was far up north compared to Traverse, even though it was still technically out in the country.

"You did not!" Kairi groaned. "Papa! Didn't I do the dinner dishes last night?"

"Naminé cleaned out the chicken pot, remember?" said her father, who was busy typing on the computer. "It's your turn, honey."

"See, I told you," Naminé said triumphantly. Kairi huffed and put her hands on her hips.

"Oh, you suck-up!" she growled, pouting.

Naminé waved an arm above the couch. "I love you too!"

Just then their father groaned. "Aww, sheeit!" he hissed. Then, remembering his language: "I'm sorry, girls. The modem disconnected."

Kairi smiled and shook her head. "You and your Internet, Daddy."

Just then, the phone rang.

"I'll get it!" Naminé offered, hopping up from the couch. "Maybe it's Sora!"

Kairi's interest piqued. "Sora? Hey!" She bolted for the phone, chasing after her twin. "Nooo, Naminé, I wanna talk to Sora!"

"Well I do, too!" Naminé whined back, picking up the receiver. Kairi groaned and reached for it, but Naminé held it above her head, standing up on a chair. Which was dangerous, since this was a chorded phone, after all.

"Darnit, Nami, lemme talk to Sora!"

Naminé ignored her sister and held the phone in her hands like a gift from God, a sweet smile on her face as she held it coyly between her shoulder and her ear. Kairi turned red from fury and jumped for it again. "Hey! Don't you be tryin' nothin' on my man, you hear! Naminé!"

"Haaaeeeyy, Sora." Naminé cooed. "Y'all movin' in okaaay?"

Kairi hissed when her fraternal twin sister didn't give her the phone

"Oh, I'm doin' good, and how about youuu?" Naminé smiled, and giggled. "Yeah, that sounds like—"

"Naaaminéeeee," Kairi whimpered. "Pleeease?"

"There's more'n one phone in the house, Kairi," Naminé said matter-of-factly. Kairi sighed and mimicked her sister's slightly thicker accent under her breath—"More'n wun fone in the howse, Kyyyreee." Then she disappointedly skulked off to the kitchen phone (where all the dinner dishes were sitting nearby) and picked up.

"Sora! I'm sorry, my sister just would not give up the phone," she growled the last part as she started the three-way talk.

"Yoouuu get along juuust fine on a party line," Naminé sighed. "You big baby. What, you wanna be alone with your boyfriend?" she teased.

"Actually, I do!" Kairi groaned.

"Boyfriend?" Sora questioned in the phone. "Kairi, I thought we broke up."

Naminé's eyes bulged out of her head in the other room, and she clamped her hand over her mouth so that Kairi wouldn't hear her snickering. She done dangled him like a cat on a string!

Kairi was obviously knowing that Naminé must be laughing at her, since she was on the other line, and her face paled. "...Er...Sora...aren't we still dating?" she asked, hopefully.

"You didn't want to kiss me, remember?" Sora reminded her. "On our first date?"

Naminé thrust her head in and looked at Kairi with a wide, entertained grin on her face. Kairi's, of course, turned red as a beet.

"Awwww, Soraaa, did I forget to tell you how shy my sister is?" she said into the phone, the sound echoing in the kitchen to Kairi's other ear and making her turn even redder.

"She doesn't seem shy to me." Sora said thoughtfully. As an afterthought, he added, "But you're really pretty, Kairi."

"Aww, tryin' to sugarcoat it, what a sweetheart!" Naminé cackled, away from the phone. Kairi threw the dishtowel at her, and Naminé dodged it, taking the hint and leaving the kitchen.

"Kairi?"

"Yeah, I'm here!" Kairi cried suddenly. "S-Sora, I'm sorry, did you think that meant I was breaking up with you?"

A pause. If Naminé wasn't smart-talking, she must have hung up. Well, at least Kairi loved her for giving her privacy.

"...Well, I thought...I mean, most couples kiss on their first date..."

"But, you kinda sprung it on me..." Kairi mumbled.

"Sprung? Kairi, it's a normal thing to do."

Kairi turned red again. "Y-Yeah, I-I know, but...I mean, you heard my sister, I'm kinda shy." She groaned mentally, slapping herself for such a lame excuse.

"I thought Naminé was the shy one," pondered Sora.

"Okay, well, I was nervous!" Kairi groaned. "I'm sorry, Sora, I didn't want you to misunderstand, I just..." she sighed. "Okay, I deserved that. I'm sorry. I guess I kinda did give you the could shoulder."

"Yeah, you kinda did." Sora's tone didn't sound very happy, even sarcastic. Kairi winced. Now that she thought about it, she hadn't handled that date very well at all. Maybe this was her punishment. If anything, she probably deserved it for misleading Sora like that, and...oh, no. Naminé was going to chew her out for acting like a hussy.

"I'm sorry," Kairi said again.

"Don't apologize so much," Sora replied. "Anyway...so I guess we're still dating?"

Kairi smiled a little. "Of course, Sora."

"Okay." said Sora. "So, when I come visit you or you come visit me, you'll give me that kiss?"

"Definitely!" Kairi nodded her head, even though Sora couldn't hear that on the phone. "Of course, Sora. I'll make up for when I didn't kiss you on our date!"

Sora laughed on the other end of the line. "Okay. It's another date then!"

Kairi giggled. She got nervous, though. Another date? She hoped she would do better on the second than she had on the first. "Okay," she agreed. "It's a date."

"What do you mean, you can't make it?"

"I'm just busy, okay?"

Tidus laughed. "Riku, who's busy on a Sunday?"

The foster of Atercor growled on the other end of the line.

"I am," he hissed. Tidus twirled the chord of the phone in his room disappointedly.

"Riku, you promised you'd come play a game with us. Please? I know you don't like to go outside, but you're a really good player. Wakka saw you Blitzing with Midgar High. He said you could be a top contender in the competition, if you worked for it...please?" When Tidus didn't get a response, he added hopefully, "It'll be good for you."

"I didn't promise anything," Riku snapped. "And how do you know what's good for me and what's not? You don't understand! I can't play tomorrow!"

"Whoa, man, easy!" Tidus held the phone away from his ear when Riku yelled that last sentence. "Take a chill pill, Riku. Can't you try to make it, at least? I mean, we won't even make you play. You could just sit there and watch."

"Why the fuck are you so worried about me, huh?" Riku snarled. "Why do you keep bothering me? Is this because I'm an F-Child like you?"

Tidus winced. F-Child. Foster Child. It hurt as much as calling a Deaf person dumb. "Riku, I'm your friend. I'm just trying to get you out more...you've been inside a lot more than usual lately...I'm just concerned."

"Well, look who's talking, Mister Perfect." the teenager spat. "Congratulations, you've just earned yourself some brownie points. Good fucking show, Wattson. Now fuck off and don't you EVER call me again."

Tidus' eyes widened. What?

"Wait, Riku, don't hang—" Click. "—up..."

The dial tone overtook his ear, and Tidus reeled back slowly, staring at the phone. What the fuck just happened? Just what kind of bug did Riku have stuck up his ass? Sure, he had his moods sometimes, but he rarely ever got this bad. Tidus had seen him act this way towards others, but never him. If anything, he'd always been the one to stop Riku's rampage in one of his moods and to get him back up again. Something was wrong here.

A little disappointed, and more than hurt, Tidus hung up the phone and sighed, falling back on his bed. He only got a few moments' rest before the phone rang again. His mood soured, Tidus picked it up and held it to his ear as he laid back on the pillows.

"Yeah." he droned.

"Whoa, man, you sound beat, ya?" said Wakka's voice. "Did you talk to Riku yet? He's gonna play with us tomorrow, ya?"

"No." Tidus sighed. "He's busy."

"Busy? On a Sunday?"

"Yeah." Tidus said sadly. "That's what I said."

Author's Notes: My favorite sequence was with Kairi. Now, as much as I don't like her, I'm going to try and NOT make her a total bitch, so bear with me if you hate Kairi, okay? I promise Sora won't stay with her. (wink wink)