Author's Notes: Holy shit. I opened up my e-mail and noticed that I had NINETEEN reviews overnight, holy crap. (Even if it wasn't truly that many people...still...NINETEEN!)

So, here, I sort of...jumped us ahead...quite a bit. Yeah. About a week. Nobody minds, right? I mean we've gone 28 previous chapters with almost no development...so it was about time for a jump-start. Don't you agree?

In the meantime, I am now attempting to beat Kingdom Hearts II with a 100 in Proud Mode. No easy feat, I assure you. (It's gonna be a pain in the ass to collect all the treasures. There are some I can only get with Roxas!)

A certain reviewer named killyjoy requested that I at least insert Kadaj somehow.

I think it's only a fair present to my readers for 200+ reviews, yes?

Chapter 29

"All Mixed Up"

One Week Later (Tuesday September Third)

Ansem drummed his fingers impatiently on the arm of his hospital bed with a sharp scowl on his face, waiting for the ringing to stop and for someone to pick up. He'd dialed a close friend's home number, and if he wanted his plans to work, he would have to pick up now.

Kadaj Penna glanced irritably at the phone, then sighed and stood up from the kitchen table. He picked it up none too happily and spat into the phone, "Yes, this is the Penna Residence, what do you want?"

"Kadaj, is that you? Put your brother on the phone."

Kadaj smirked. "Which one?" he asked smartly, looking sideways at Yazoo, who could just as well have been his twin, save the longer hair.

"Your older one, you little twit! Get him on the phone now."

Kadaj examined the dirt under his nails, which was a slight more interesting than the man on the phone. He knew exactly who it was—Ansem Atercor, the man his older brother helped to live a secret life. Only because his older brother happened to have a secret life, too. Two peas in a pod, as they always say.

"Kadaj!" snapped Ansem.

"I'm sorry. He's not home at the moment. He's on a rendez-vous with his little toy." Kadaj grinned. "But may I take a message?"

"Don't get coy with me. Put him on!"

"I told you, he's not home."

"That's the answer I get every time I call!" Ansem snarled. "Surely he's not out every day fucking that blond bombshell of his!"

"And on the days when I lie, it's because he doesn't want to be bothered." Kadaj leaned against the kitchen counter, he and Yazoo exchanging mischeivous grins. Actually, on the days when he lied, they were too caught up in their own secret lives to give a damn what Ansem wanted. This generation of the Penna family was, to the dismay of rightful society, addicted to the sinful and morally wrong. All three brothers lived it down in some way or another. Kadaj and Yazoo did so by sharing the same bed. In more ways than one.

"You snivelling little...!"

"What do you want, Ansem?" asked Kadaj calmly. "Leave me a message, and I'll be sure my brother gets it."

"I want money," Ansem hissed, his voice low. "Money and a backup. I want a good lawyer for when I find that little bastard that put me in the hospital."

Kadaj was surprised. "My dear Ansem, are you that desperate to bring back and ruin the life of your little escapee?" He smiled wickedly. "Or are you afraid because he's the only one who has independently left your house—escaped of his own will?"

"Don't you dare talk like that to me, you childish brat!" screamed Ansem. Kadaj's smile widened.

"My brother will get your message as soon as he gets home."

He hung up with Ansem shrieking obscenities at him on the other end of the line.

Sora stared at the Pacman screen, vigorously playing the arcade game to try and clear his head.

He was having issues.

Very disturbing issues.

Since kids who hadn't been kidnapped were off at school, it was just Sora, Riku, Seifer and his two buddies, and Cloud—and someone else, whom Cloud had warned Sora to stay clean out of sight from, which was why he was in the basement in the first place. When he asked why, Cloud's response was, "He has connections, and as much as I love him, even I don't trust him to keep you two secret." Sora left it there.

But the bigger problem that was bugging him was the slow but surely building thoughts in his mind. Bearing in mind, of course, that he was taken and had a girlfriend, Sora's mood today was thoroughly soured whenever he caught himself staring at Riku...and thinking things.

It hadn't been so bad. Hell, Sora had noticed from the day he'd seen Riku at the pool that he was no doubt a drop-dead, pant-worthy stud, as girls would say. And sure, back then, he'd be ready to admit to himself that Riku was sexy—Tidus and Roxas weren't half-bad looking, either. (That aside in his mind made his fingers twitch.) However, as sexy as Riku was, he'd been a jerk. So for the most part, Sora ignored him.

But now; now was different. Now Sora caught himself watching Riku play DDR for hours at a time, far too fixated on the movements of his hips and arms, hypnotized by his stare, and getting more flustered than he should have at that sly little dastardly grin of his. He caught himself staring at Riku as he would walk across their shared room half-naked with a towel around his waist, drooling all over him with his eyes, and turning an impossible shade of red when Riku would just say to him (as became usual now every time this happened), "Country Boy likes?"

It bugged the living hell out of him. Sora grit his teeth and ate up every ghost that dared get in his path, consuming Pacman pellets like a Greek Fury, except he was a guy.

At first he tried to get rid of it by thinking about Kairi. Something. Anything Kairi-related. Walking with her on the beach, hugging her, kissing her, sex—unspeakable things during sex of which he would never mention to anyoneliving unless he was dying of multiple diseases—things that left him even more frustrated and tense than he already was with the problem at hand. Because no matter what he did, no matter what he thought, or what he dreamed up, whatever fantasies he could churn in his head, a boy always leaked in.

Naturally, this happened most often with thoughts of Riku, which was why at the moment, staring at Riku annoyed Sora the most. But he scared himself when he thought of others—Tidus, Roxas, even Hayner. The closest Sora had ever gotten to purging his mind of these alien ideas was a threesome with him, Kairi, and Riku. It hadn't even come close. Sadly, Kairi was not the only one being fucked.

A primal growl escaped his throat as he mashed buttons and shoved the joystick this way and that, gluttonizing his way to the next level. For God's sake, he was straight! He loved Kairi—only Kairi. No matter how attractive Riku was.

Or Tidus.

Or Roxas...

...Or Hayner...

FUCK!

Sora slammed his hands onto the screen and bent over with an angry roar rising up in his throat...and then dying into a pitiful, frustrated wail. This was pissing him off! It was like all of a sudden, out of the blue—like they'd been suppressed, or something—these thoughts just decided to rain on his parade and make his life worse. And the more he tried to get rid of it, the more they persisted.

Riku was sitting in a bean-bag chair, flipping channels on the smaller TV in the basement. "Having an identity crisis over there?"

"Quiet!" Sora snapped, pointing an accusing finger. "You did this to me!"

"So you'd like to think." Riku skipped over the E! channel and went on to TNT. Sora overdramatically fell out of his chair and crumpled to the floor, groaning and making fake sobbing sounds in his confusion. Riku took the liberty to peer over his shoulder, and he just grinned, amused at the brunet's comical antics.

"I hate you!" Sora whined. "I hate you and your stupid show-off dancing, and your freakishly hot body, and your white albino hair, and your God damn girly glittering eyes!" He'd meant for it to come out as an insult.

Riku snorted and burst out laughing. Sora shot up from where he sat, his face burning red.

"It's not funny!" But Riku kept laughing, and Sora just got redder and redder. Whether out of anger or embarrassment, he didn't know. It was likely a little of both.

"Aaaaahhh!" Riku sighed loudly, shaking his head, clapping his hands. "That was great. What a pick-up."

"I'm not entertainment, you know!" Sora snarled. Riku grinned at him, waving a maestro-like hand at him.

"Really? I beg to differ! Dance, monkey, dance—dance for my amusement!"

"RAWRRR!" Sora charged across the room and tried to tackle Riku in the bean-bag chair. Riku graciously dodged out of the way and gave Sora a hard slap on his back, making him fumble forward with a thump. There was an incredibly wide grin on his face.

"You're so cute when you're mad," he teased. Sora whirled around and shook a finger at him, mouth wide open to talk, his face brick-red. But he ended up stuttering over his response, for he had no proper way to snap back without sounding stupid. Riku smirked at him.

"Catching flies with that mouth?"

"You're—such—an asshole!" Sora finally spat.

Riku shrugged. "I do try my best."

Sora growled, scuffling his feet as he went back to his Pacman game and ate ghosts more furiously than before. Riku just smiled and left him alone.

Sora's frustrations still weren't quelled by late evening. The whole house helped themselves to leftovers, since Cloud was busy with his guest upstairs, ("Busy like a bee," Riku commented once, which left Sora blushing, because he actually got it) so he never beat the rush for decent food and got stuck with cold pizza. Then they all just had to beg Riku to versus someone in DDR again, so Sora left the room in order to avoid eye-drooling again. Despite his intentions for this to make his mood better, it only made it worse! By the time Sora was brushing his teeth and wearing a pair of borrowed red-and-white pajamas, he officially had a Humbug up his ass. He gave up trying to look on the bright side of things, and just scowled on the bed with his arms crossed, upset with himself.

Riku came downstairs and went into the bedroom, closing the door, and he tossed a big fat roll of something at Sora. The brunet barely caught it, and blinked.

"The hell is this?"

"A sleeping bag. I thought you might want one."

Sora stammered over his response as Riku cooly crossed the room, heading for the bathroom.

"Because I figure, while you're straightening out your mixed-up signals, you won't want to share the bed with me." Sora opened his mouth to say something, and it died in his throat. Riku turned and smiled coyly at him. "Unless you do want to share...?"

"I—!"

Riku laughed. "Your face is so red; it's really amusing."

His answer was a death-causing glare and a rapid unrolling of the sleeping bag, and slapping it down on the floor, taking a pillow. Riku just smirked to himself and went into the bathroom to get showered—he was sweaty after so much DDR.

Floor it is, then. He thought, Doubtful it'll stay that way for long. Riku stripped naked and turned on the water, cranking it to hot. He caught his reflection in the mirror, and stared at it, eyes skimming his own body—covered in damage and scars, some of them not fully healed. He sighed and shook his head, stepping into the shower.

Don't kid yourself. Scars are scars for a reason. They'll never go away. As he wet his hair under the water spray, Riku couldn't help thinking: Must be nice for Sora to have a body free of hurt.