C14
LOCATION: Simulation room of Organization XIII headquarters, The World That Never Was
DATE: Thursday, December 6th 2X60
TIME: 1210 hours
Naminé really likes this simulation Heartless program.
She's still amazed by the sheer technological brilliance. It's mind-boggling that this type of machinery exists in other worlds, while DiZA students still train the old-fashioned way: theoretical practice, practice, and then off you go to fight the real thing, hope you've practiced enough! That initial learning curve is insane, and Naminé's heard stories about field agents and less than smooth encounters with their first real Heartless. That's why she tries to avoid supervising rookie teams—she knows how inexperienced they are, and more than often they end up acting recklessly.
(Like Team Disciplinary Committee...last Naminé heard, the injured agent had been transferred to an inpatient room at the hospital. At least she's out of immediate danger. She should check on her again…)
But this simulation program provides the perfect opportunity for rookies such as herself to get an idea of what real combat may look like...with nothing at stake. If you screw up, the program tells you that you've suffered a fatal injury and you can choose to proceed or restart. Though she's a little reluctant to admit, despite her best efforts, Naminé has suffered several fatal injuries during their training session.
As they take out another wave of Heartless, Naminé's gearing up for another round when she notices Sora is facing the wall. "What are you doing?" she asks, walking up to him.
"We're all done, I think." He taps on the thing they're wearing over their eyes. "This screen's grayed out, and we can see the walls, meaning there aren't any more rounds."
"Oh," Naminé sighs, a little disappointed. She was just getting a hang of this fighting Heartless business.
Sora gently knocks her over the head. Startled, she turns towards him with a confused expression. "What was that for?" she exclaims.
He shrugs. "You looked like you were zoning out. Anyways, hit the quit button."
"What?"
"The quit button. To end the simulation."
"What's that?"
"...right, you're a noob. Just put your hand here."
Sora has a hand pressed against the wall as he wriggles his fingers around. Naminé isn't sure what's the point of this but figures Sora knows what he's talking about, so she follows his directions.
She places her hand on top of his.
Instantly, he jerks his hand back like hers was on fire. She shoots him a quizzical look, confused by his behavior but also unable to read his body language with all the equipment they're wearing. "What? Didn't you say to put my hand over yours?" she asks.
He clutches his hand like it's injured or something. All she did was lightly touch him. What's wrong with him? Oh, wait—is something wrong?
"Oh, are you hurt there?" she apologizes confusedly. "I didn't realize you were injured."
"...I'm fine," he finally gets out through gritted teeth. "Just—uh, you don't put your hand on mine, you're supposed to put your hand on the wall next to mine. Like this." He slowly rests his hand against the wall and wiggles his fingers again.
Naminé's eyes widen. Oh. Oh.
"Oooooh…" ends up escaping her lips while she wonders not for the first time why she's so awkward sometimes. She quickly mimics Sora and places her hand against the wall (not his hand this time, nope). The two stand in silence as the room slowly lights up and the walls become visible again. Naminé remains rooted in spot, unsure how long they have to hold this position to end the simulation.
"...well, lunch time!" Sora exclaims, jumping into action. Naminé quickly follows after him, afraid that she'll somehow get stuck in this room without Sora. Who knows how this simulation room works? It's crazy that she faced against simulated Heartless in there!
She's so focused on keeping up with Sora that she barely avoids crashing into him when he abruptly turns around.
"Huh?" she asks.
"...this is the men's room," he says, pointing at the sign.
Naminé blinks, realizing she's literally followed him all the way to the locker room. Trying to suppress the blush that's probably very prominent on her face, she lowers her head and mumbles a non-response before turning on her heel.
Once in the correct locker room (she makes sure to double-check before entering), she finally sighs and takes off the head equipment. Letting out a long sigh, she's about to relax a bit when her knees suddenly give way. She barely catches herself from falling onto the ground butt-first.
Phew.
Now that she has a moment for herself, she's exhausted. While fighting Heartless in the simulation, she didn't have the physical or mental time to rest. It's very different from being an OATS operator, when preparation and waiting are the name of the game. Instead, everything about fighting Heartless happens in the moment, and you hardly even notice when you're done.
To be perfectly honest, Sora definitely carried their duo for the entire simulation. While she was facing off against one or two Heartless at a time, she'd noticed Sora from the corner of her eye battling the rest of the wave. At times, there were a lot of Heartless he had to fight alone. She assumes he's doing it for her sake, because she isn't even confident fighting a Heartless one on one. It feels bad to be the one holding them back—they didn't even get to practice Synergy today—but that just fuels her determination to get better. She knows she isn't as good as Sora, and she probably will never be.
She just wants to keep up with him.
She's too tired for a long shower so she quickly rinses off her sweat and hops back out. Stepping out of the locker room, she catches sight of Sora's backside just as he turns the corner towards the exit. Widening her stride, she quickly catches up to him.
"Wonder what's for lunch?" she murmurs, falling in step next to him. Sora jumps a little and darts his head towards her, as if startled by her presence. Before she can ask, he turns to face forward again and continues speaking.
"As long as there's carbs, I'm set. I forgot how tiring sim training can get."
"Glad to know it's not just me," Naminé says as they head towards the elevator.
"Yeah, it's partially a side effect of the simulation," Sora explains. "Your brain gets a little confused by all the virtual reality stimulation...or something like that. It should get better with more practice, but in general you should space out your simulation trainings in the beginning."
"Oh. I was hoping we could use it again, cause we didn't get to try Synergy today," Naminé murmurs. "It was just individual Heartless training basically."
"Still helpful. I need to make sure I don't get rusty. And this is the best practice you'll get outside of the real thing!" Sora exclaims. "So, how does fighting Heartless feel? Ready to become an agent?"
Naminé snorts. "Probably not anytime soon. Technically I died at least five times today."
"Only five times? That's pretty good!" Sora snickers. "During my first simulation, I'm pretty sure I died at least 10 times."
Naminé looks at him, partially confused, partially concerned. "Aren't you supposed to be, you know, a field agent?"
"Yeah, but Riku and I—he's one of my teammates back home—we decided to have a competition for whoever kills more Heartless. There's absolutely zero stakes, so we both got a little more reckless."
"That track record isn't very reassuring."
"That was three years ago! I promise I'm a different person now. I had a few close calls today but no dying!"
Naminé raises a brow, a little impressed that not only did he carry their two-person simulation, he was also never fatally injured. Objectively, she knows Sora is an active military recruit and a well-trained field agent. But seeing his skills firsthand is a striking reminder of that fact.
"So, maybe if you keep at it, you'll finally get to my level in three years or so," Sora teases.
Naminé rolls her eyes. "Why would I want to be a field agent and an OATS operator? There's no point in doing both."
"Sounds like an excuse."
"Excuse you, I'm stating the obvious. If I actually tried—" Naminé pauses, considering what she wants to say. If she really trained hard for three years, could she actually become a skilled field agent? Part of her doesn't want to back down from the challenge, but another part reminds her to be realistic.
"If you really tried to become some crazy agent-operator hybrid, you'd probably become a jack of all trades, master of none," Sora snickers. "But if you wanted to, you'd probably be unstoppable."
Another indirect compliment? Naminé needs to get better at interpreting his words. "I'll just stick to my strengths," she finally says.
They reach the dining room, and the smell of hot food makes Naminé's mouth water. As they're lining up for the buffet, Naminé unexpectedly hears someone call out her name.
"Oh, Xion!" Naminé greets with a wave. Flanked by the rest of WINNER, the dark-haired girl approaches with a skip in her step and a smile on her face. For a split second, Naminé swears she sees Xion drop the cheery facade and shoot Sora a look, but it's gone when she looks again.
"It's finally lunchtime! We were all getting a little antsy," Xion says, gesturing at the boys behind her. It sounds like they're arguing about...whether Heartless poop or not? What a fitting lunch discussion.
"Yeah, you guys usually get let out pretty late for lunch," Naminé comments, remembering a few times she saw WINNER enter the dining room just as she and Sora finish eating. The fact that her usual breakfast buddies aren't available is another reason she had taken up Sora's implicit offer to eat lunch together.
"How's training going?" Xion asks, glancing from her to Sora. "You guys making progress?"
Before she can respond, Sora decides to jump into the conversation. "Hell yeah! We're gonna Synergize our way to defeat all the Heartless!"
"What Sora means," Naminé amends, "is that we're getting there. It's a work in progress."
"I hope you're pulling your weight, Sora," Xion eggs him on. "I've heard about all these tasks you guys have to do, and I know Naminé goes hard on assignments."
Naminé winces. She vaguely complained to Xion about the team-building games a few times, specifically when it's a challenging task and Sora isn't the slightest bit interested in participating. But today, he definitely pulled his own weight and hers in the simulation room, and she really hopes he doesn't think she's badmouthing him behind his back.
Sora appears unbothered by the comment. "I do my best, but I'd be lying if I said Naminé never carries the team. We each have our moments."
Naminé turns to stare at him. What a nice thought. It's like they're really partners in all of this.
"BUT I totally carried us today!" Sora proceeds to boast about an incident from the Heartless simulation just now while Naminé rolls her eyes.
Sora weaves a grand tale out of their pretty mundane day that has Xion, Axel, and Roxas all entranced. Well, the entire Heartless simulation thing must be super cool to the field agents. Naminé wants to laugh at Axel's attempts to chime in with questions that Xion hurriedly cuts off so they can get the rest of the story.
"Why're you guys training with all this fancy technology?" Roxas asks. "Sounds like something we should be doing."
"Yeah, why don't we get to play with the fancy new toys?" Axel complains.
"You guys would probably break something," Xion points out.
"And you guarantee you wouldn't?"
"Well, I never said that."
"You guys should ask! It's super fun," Sora encourages. "I'm surprised you guys don't have this back at your world. How else do you prepare for fighting the real thing?"
"A lot of practice," Roxas states with a frown. "Then they sort of throw you to the wolves."
"What?" Sora exclaims.
"...that's a figure of speech," Roxas adds, the furrow between his brows deepening.
"Wha—I know that!" Sora exclaims. "I mean, you just talk theory and then they make you fight the real thing? That's crazy!"
"They ease us into it with simple missions," Axel says. "But we don't have that simulation technology you talked about, and they need the manpower for surveillance and reconnaissance."
Sora draws a breath, and Naminé braces herself for another untimely critique about Land of Departure. She really doesn't want to start another volley of insults in the dining area right before lunch.
"You guys...are hardcore," Sora finally says, which is neutral enough for all the DiZA students to simply agree.
"Anyways, we should go back to lunch...we get to eat early for once cause we have a meeting in a bit." Xion sighs, likely dreading their afternoon schedule. "By the way, Naminé, we're sitting over there! After you get your food, okay?"
It takes Naminé a moment to realize that Xion assumes she's joining them for lunch. Which makes sense, since they eat breakfast together. But her invitation had been for just Naminé, not Sora. Meaning she'd have to abandon her lunch buddy for the past few days. And that feels like...bad etiquette.
She glances at Sora, trying to gauge how he feels about all this, but he's maintaining a perfect poker face. Or maybe he doesn't care about who Naminé sits with. He still sits by himself for breakfast on most days.
But does he really not care? Cause she and Sora are...friends, aren't they? Shouldn't he be a little sad if she ditches him for lunch? It's just human for him to be a little upset if she sits with someone else, right?
Okay, she's definitely overthinking this.
"Naminé?" Xion prompts. Naminé blinks, realizing the dark-haired girl is waiting for some sort of acknowledgement.
In the end, she feels like there isn't a true right answer in this solution. Whatever option she picks will probably hurt somebody's feelings a little.
She draws a deep breath.
"Actually I'll probably sit with Sora somewhere."
She can read the confusion on Xion's face—obviously, she hadn't expected Naminé's response. Axel and Roxas are talking about something else and not interested in their conversation. Sora's hovering in the background, probably not paying attention either.
"Oh!" Xion chirps. "Okay, didn't realize you had a lunch buddy already. Well, guess I'll catch you later tonight then! C'mon guys."
"Are we still grabbing dessert?" Roxas asks as they walk off.
"Axel, grab a plate for all of us!" Xion orders.
"Yes ma'am! Wait, but I'm leader of this team."
"So act leaderly and serve your followers!"
Naminé sighs at WINNER's back figures. She feels a twinge of guilt for saying no to Xion. Maybe she should make it up to her somehow.
Well, at least this way, she won't hurt Sora's feelings. Cause Sora—
Wait. Where is he?
Glancing around, she realizes Sora's lined up at the buffet table to fill his plate.
Naminé inhales and then exhales deeply, drawing on her meditation exercises to quell the wave of frustration in her stomach. This guy—she literally just—she can't—
"We're friends," she mutters to herself under her breath. Twice, for good measure.
LOCATION: Dining room of Organization XIII headquarters, The World That Never Was
DATE: Thursday, December 6th 2X60
TIME: 1237 hours
Is that...meatloaf or banana bread?
Just the thought of comparing those two foods makes Sora's stomach a little queasy. Quickly deciding to pass on the mysterious dish, he fills up half his place with mac 'n cheese and the other half with mashed potatoes. It's time to refuel after a long day of work.
"You're eating all of that?"
He hears Naminé's voice drift over, and he's a little surprised when he turns to see her lining up for food right behind him. She was having a long conversation with her friends, and he was getting hungry, so he'd ditched her for the food. Hey, the good stuff always goes really quickly! It's nothing personal.
"This is round one!" he exclaims proudly.
Naminé...actually looks a little impressed.
After grabbing food, they quickly find empty seats and dig in. After such a long training session, he's starving. Getting sidetracked with Naminé's friends hadn't been on the agenda, so now he's ultra famished. Organization XIII's lunch food has never tasted this good.
"You have to try some of the mashed potatoes. It's extra lumpy today," Sora chuckles.
"Huh."
"I wonder what Hiro's gonna make us do next? Maybe we can keep doing simulations since you're so starstruck by," he makes a dramatic pause, "technology."
"Mhmm."
"Oh, I heard it's finally raining tomorrow! I think it'll be the first time it's rained since we've come to this world? For awhile I thought it just didn't rain here. Which would be weird. And probably not sustainable."
"Hmm."
Okay, Sora's not the sharpest tool in the shed, but even he can realize when he's basically having a conversation with himself. Pausing in the middle of inhaling his food, he glances at Naminé. Outwardly, she doesn't look injured or especially distressed.
"How's your food?" he asks, hoping to get an actual answer.
"...meh," Naminé mumbles distractedly, taking a sip of her water.
Uh oh. Sora recognizes this situation. Vague, disinterested answers while he carries a one-sided conversation? From past experiences with Kairi, that can only mean one thing:
Naminé is upset.
But why? Sora can't think of any reason for Naminé to be in a bad mood. They got in a good practice session this morning, they're eating food now, and she even got to catch up with her friends for a bit! Her day sounds pretty swell by the sound of things.
"What're you doing after lunch?" he asks.
"...ehh," she says. Another barely verbal response? Okay, his goal is to get an actual worded answer.
"What'd you think about the simulation today?"
"Hrmph."
What does that mean?
"Are you looking forward to going home in a few weeks?"
"Mhmm."
She isn't even excited to talk about her friends and family? He knows she's homesick!
He can't stand this anymore. He hates it when someone's deliberately ignoring him. Cause if they're being so obvious about it, they should expect to be called out very obviously. He's never been good at reading between the lines.
"Okay, what's wrong with you?"
Naminé finally looks him in the eye. Initially he's a little nervous, because that came out a tad accusatory and Naminé might transfer the target of her foul mood to him (Kairi's certainly done that before). But being direct is the only way he knows to express that he's noticed something is wrong and wants to know what he can do to help.
Naminé blinks, and her neutral expression quickly suggests to Sora that thankfully, she isn't upset at him for whatever reason. Maybe something else is just on her mind. He almost expects a half-hearted misdirect at this point, because he understands that sometimes people just want to dwell on things themselves.
"I have a question," Naminé begins.
"Shoot," he says, bracing himself.
Naminé looks in the eye curiously. She pauses, as if trying to find the right words.
"I was wondering...are we friends?"
A/N: Welcome back to more with our favorite couple! And is this...progress I smell? Lol I have mixed opinions about how to write our main leads and their relationship, so stay tuned for more developments! I still have some plot stuff planned, so the meandering filler (that I love to write) will eventually pick up to a quicker pace. Meanwhile, I hope you enjoy exploring various relationships in the story! I'm hoping to clearly show how Naminé and Sora have progressed from enemies to partners to...friends? Sora, whatcha say?
If you're enjoying the story so far, I'd love to hear from you in a review! It's always nice to know that readers like what they see, and I'm always open for comments, talking more about the fic, etc.
Anyways, I hope you have a great rest of your days, and until next week!
