Chapter 26 – Kids and Scary Movies

"You got a write up?" Sora gasped. Akira tried to sneak upstairs, but obviously it wouldn't work.

"What the--, for whispering? Psh…" Sora threw down the paper and shrugged. "Schools these days…"

"I know, they're so stupid." Akira agreed.

"What's going on?" Kairi asked when she came into the room. Sora pointed to the paper.

"Nothing important. Akira got a write up for whispering. How ridiculous is that?" Kairi took the paper. She raised an eyebrow.

"He was whispering during a test, Sora." She glared over at Akira, who gave her a guilty smile. Kairi signed it and gave it back to him, and then sat next to Sora. He lured her closer to him, putting his arm around her. Akira looked at them disgustingly and went upstairs.

"Was that the first write up he got all year?" Asked Sora.

"I think so. Besides, the year's almost over for them, so it doesn't really matter to me. Don't they only have about a week and a half left?" Sora rested his head on Kairi's. Kosuke came into the room carrying a bunch of textbooks.

"I didn't know third graders had that many books." Kairi said.

Kosuke didn't seem to hear them and tried to walk up the stairs with them. Sora got up to help him, leaving Kairi on the couch. She went into the bathroom to weigh herself on the scale.

"148… not too bad…" Kairi remembered that when she was pregnant with the twins, she weighed a lot more than that around this time. She hadn't seen her practitioner in a while and knew she should go, but really didn't feel like getting in a car.

Lately Kairi had been thinking about what to name her newborn. It took her forever to name Akira and Kosuke, but for her to name a girl would probably take longer. For some reason Kairi had always wanted either two boys or one boy and one girl. She had never expected to have more than two kids.

She also wondered what the twins would be like around their baby sister. There was a big age difference between them, so she wasn't sure if they were going to bother with each other much. Kairi didn't know if that was good or bad.

"Man, I swear, that boy studies too much." Sora sighed, jumping onto the bed and turning on the TV. Kairi got into bed as well, cuddling with him.

"You can never study too much, can you?"

"It would kill me." Sora admitted, flipping through channels. "Hey, does he look familiar to you?"

Kairi looked at the TV screen. A guy with blonde hair and uneven shorts was being interviewed. Her eyes widened.

"Isn't that Tidus?" She asked. Sora squinted his eyes.

"Yeah! It is! Then… is that girl next to him his wife or something?"

"I hope not, that's Yuna! One of my favorite singers! You don't remember her?" Kairi sat up.

"Oh yeah, is that the one that came to visit you in the hospital a long time ago?" She nodded in excitement. Yuna's most recent song was "Rest," which was made about five years ago. She hasn't heard anything about Yuna since.

"We're married," Yuna gave the interviewer a warm smile. Her hair was a darker brown with blonde highlights in it, and she was wearing it in a ponytail. She didn't have very much makeup on, surprisingly, and seemed to have gotten a little skinnier.

"Married? Ha!" Sora laughed, thinking of how mean the Tidus he used to know was. They just didn't seem to match. It went to commercials. He turned off the TV.

- - -

The next day, Akira's friend Jason came over. Personally, Kairi couldn't stand him. He always had something smart to say or just ignored her completely. However, she still let him hang out with her son, even though she didn't really like it. Kairi knew that if her mother chose her friends for her, she never would've survived. Akira and Kosuke knew what would happen if they got into any kind of trouble.

Kairi and Sora had set down the rules in a family discussion last year. It was never too early to teach the kids, Kairi believed. They came to an agreement, made things a little fairer through compromise and it worked out. Akira and Kosuke must always let them know where they were going, what they were doing and establish a time to be home.

"Hello, Mrs. K, guess what?" Jason said eagerly.

"Yes, Jason?" Kairi tried to sound polite.

"My mom just bought me a BB gun!"

"Well don't bring it here." Kairi said.

"Mom, can I go shoot the BB gun with Jason?" Akira begged. She glared at him.

"No, you may not."

"But mom! It's so cool!"

"I don't care about what's cool, I said no." She said for the last time. Akira whined and walked off with Jason back upstairs. Sora entered the room just as they were leaving.

"Akira wants to shoot things with a BB gun." Kairi told him.

"Oh Hell no," Sora answered instantly.

"Exactly." Kairi set her hand on her stomach.

"So, where's Kosuke?" Sora asked.

"He went over to Ryu's house." Kairi replied, standing up. She began to ponder for a moment. "Hey, Sora?"

"Yeah?"

"Do you think we're too soft or too strict?"

Sora gave her a blank stare for a while before saying anything. "It's not like they're bad kids or anything… I think our parenting controls are just fine."

"Do you think it's a good idea for Akira to have all these troublesome friends?"

Sora came over to her and kissed her, staring into her eyes. "We trust our kids, remember? We told them, first time they screw up like that, they can't hang out with that person anymore. They understood, okay?" He said softly. Kairi nodded.

"But the thing with Jason is…" She lowered her voice to a whisper, "he gets temper tantrums all the time and bosses people around a lot…"

"If Akira begins to act that way, then we'll just have to show him who's boss. Like I said, they're not bad kids." He saw her hand on her stomach. "And I'm sure this one will be an angel."

Kairi smiled and kissed him again, but this time a little longer. Ever since Sora had quit his job, things have gotten better for everyone. However, she still wasn't sure how Sora really felt about it. He always said it was fine and that he wanted to make their family stronger, but what did he want? Kairi had to find a way to get it out of him somehow…

It was obviously difficult for Kairi to let some things go. He quit months ago, and seemed to have forgotten about it, although he didn't. Sora didn't like talking about things much nowadays, he usually just kept it to himself. This could be a really bad step for their marriage…

Kairi definitely didn't want to end up like Namine and Roxas. They fought pretty much everyday, even though on the outside when they came to visit and such, they seemed like a really happy couple. Sometimes Roxas would slam the door and leave for a while, never even letting anyone know where he was. Kairi felt sorry for Namine and sometimes thought she should leave him, but what would that do to their daughter?

That night after the twins went to bed, Kairi and Sora stayed up to watch a movie. Kairi loved to watch scary movies with Sora next to her, so she could have someone to calm her down when she jumped with fright.

"Getting scared, Kairi?" Sora teased. Kairi punched him in the arm lightly and shook her head. She could've sworn that Sora jumped a few times during the movie, giving her a perfect reason to tease him back. They went to bed right after it.

- - - - - - -

A/N: Gah, school has started again… I hate it. I have thirty something days left… in other news, I beat KH2! Some of you already knew that but yeah… that's all!