Chapter 8: Sunday Part 2

Updated: 3/22/15

Kairi and Sora finished quickly and gathered their belongings to go out. "We'll be back. We're gonna check if Kairi's house is okay, and probably some home improvement shopping," Sora told them.

"'K," Vanitas replied.

Kairi waved goodbye, "I'll text you 'Nika if anything goes bad."

Anika nodded and smiled, "Thanks."

Vanitas got up, washed the remaining dishes and put away the leftovers. He waited for Anika to finish, then washed her things.

She wandered through her phone's weather report and smiled, "Hey, Hamasaki, the weather looks nice today."

He smiled, glad that she either took notice that he didn't quite like storms or that his brother relinquished personal info but he was happy nonetheless. "Really?"

"Yeahh, I mean I don't always trust these things, but considering yesterday, today should be nice with a few scattered clouds."

His wet hands grabbed a dish towel and he dried them off. "Cool, that means we can actually drop off your application."

She paled, "Riiight."

"Do you not want to?"

"Well, uh, I just don't know if I'll do well since I'm pretty much a terrible worker 'cause I practically never show up to my other job."

"Then that's a flaw you'll have to correct." He offered, "Just have confidence, that helps too."

She hummed in disagreement, "Thanks for washing my dishes though."

"Nooo problem." He looked at the microwave to see the time: 9:12 am. "Let's check if the storm did much damage."

She got up, following him out the back door that led to a large deck that had a few umbrellas, and metal tables and chairs. As they passed by the furniture, Vanitas went around lifting things back up and followed Anika to the additional set of stairs that met the sand. Fifteen yards from the stairs was the still foamy and turbulent sea.

She looked to the extra discarded seaweed mounds but otherwise nothing appeared truly out of place. So she looked at surrounding houses that only seemed slightly battered by the wind with window awnings slightly torn, and heaps of salt stuck to railings.

Anika smiled up at him and looked out to the still churning waters, I hope people out on sea avoided the typhoon.

She put her hands behind her back and dug her bare feet into the sand, relishing in its dampness. "I'm ready to go into town, if you don't mind taking me, for the application."

He tilted his head and smiled reassuringly, "Sure, go grab your shoes though."

She shook the sand off her feet and ran back up the stairs. Then grabbed the application from his desk, wiped off any excess sticky sand, and located her white vans and put them on.

Vanitas lazily followed her and put on navy blue converse. He went to the front door and grabbed a set of keys hanging on the lock, along with his wallet from a nearby side table, "Ready?"

"Geez, you sound just like Kairi," she mocked and rushed to get to the door. "Yeah I'm ready."

He rolled his eyes sarcastically and passed the threshold.

His set of keys unlocked a different vehicle than the one Sora used to drive them into town. This one was a wood styled light blue PT Cruiser. It sat parked on the side of the road instead of their driveway.

She looked at it, "How long have you owned this ride?"

"Three years. I think."

"Why didn't I see it yesterday?"

"You were most likely preoccupied with me. I fuckin' rushed you inside and then you didn't see the outside world until this morning," he stated as he got into the drivers seat.

Anika seated herself in the passenger side and buckled, "I didn't know both of you drove."

He started the car and began setting off to get to town, "Yup."

She stayed silent after that until they reached a back alleyway that brought them to the back parking lot behind Paopu Inc.

He parked and exited, "We'll have to walk around the entire building so you can get through the entrance, since this one back here is the employee one."

"Okay." She nervously articulated while desperately clutching the sheet of paper as if it was her lifeline.

He grabbed her elbow and brought her to the corner. He gave her shoulder a light squeeze, "Relax Ishibashi."

She took a deep breath and entered, mustering up all the courage and confidence she had as went to an empty cashier, "I'm here to turn my application in."

A lovely, bisexual male smiled invitingly, "Welcome! Sure I'll take that," he reached for the paper which she hesitantly released, "Don't worry, a beautiful girl like yew is sure to make it in." He turned on his heel with a bouncy step, causing his loose crimson scarf to bounce with him, and went to the back office to give it to one of the higher ups.

When he returned, she took notice of his white t shirt and purposefully tattered jeans. She was rather interested in his clothing because he had a real nice sense of style. Then he informed, "You should hear from us in about, hmm, maybe a day or two."

She smiled, "Thanks."

Vanitas caught the cashiers eye and waved, "Hey Mark."

"O.M.G.," he said every individual letter with a bright voice. "Vanitas! I heard you worked yesterday even though it was your day off! Sweetheart, you're just way too good for this company!"

He glanced at Anika, and back to Vanitas, "He'll be your manager if you get hired, and boy, is he a great one at that."

Anika laughed sweetly, "Oh really?"

Vanitas stepped in, "I guess so, anyway, nice seeing you Mark." He pivoted to face her, "Let's go."

"Bye!" Mark replied.

Anika smiled and gave a small wave of her hand and skipped into step next to Vanitas. "What now?"

He shrugged, "Whatever it is you wanna do, since I don't have any shit to do."

"Hmm." She pondered while they walked in the opposite direction of the car, "Let's see, there's not much to do on the island, so let's compete on how many hugs we can get!"

"You mean from strangers?" he asked for clarification.

"Yup! The one with the most hugs wins!"

"What does the winner get?"

"Uhm, whatever they want," she noticed the sly glint in his eye, so she added, "anything reasonable!" While crossing her arms.

He grinned, "Okay, okay."

"Go!" She sprinted to the nearer group of people, "Hey! I'm collecting hugs for a bet, care to help?"

The middle aged adults laughed full heartedly and gave her a group hug. Upon completion, she ran around the street, leaving Vanitas in the dust.

He was up for the challenge, so he targeted women, "Would you beautiful young ladies care for a hug?"

A couple of girls giggled, reddened, nodded, and gave him hugs.

Throughout the next hour, the two killed time by receiving and giving hugs, yet they never strayed from each other's eye sight, considering they didn't have each other's number.

At the end of their little bet, they came together at the corner of Paopu Inc. and made their way back to his car.

"How many did you get Ishibashi?" he inquired smugly.

"Fifty! You sucker!" She reached up to poke him roughly in the shoulder.

He smirked, "Too bad loser, I got sixty eight." At the car he boxed her against the passenger door and gave her a hug, "And you're my sixty ninth." He winked as he went around to get into the driver seat.

Her mouth fell open, "No way, you perv!"

His smile widened, "Now, I get what I want."

She seethed in defeat, "Fine."

He started the engine, "We surf together next weekend."

She looked at him in disbelief, "That's really all you want?"

He got to the intersection, "Yeah, why were you hoping it was something more sexual?"

"Of course not!" she quickly responded. "I'll surf with you then, Saturday, so give me your phone."

He let go of the wheel momentarily to reach into his back pocket and pulled out his smart phone and handed it to her.

Anika navigated her way into the contacts and added her cell number, "Text me."

He nodded, "Got it." He waited a few moments before asking, "Do you want me to take you home or do you wanna do something else?"

She thought about it, Go with him all day long, or go home to check out the house and fix anything if needed. She weighed the options. "Take me to my house. You know how to get there?"

"Yup," he made a smooth left turn off the street and took a back way to her house that she didn't even know existed.

A/N: Gosh now I'm paranoid, I just saw a spider out of the corner of my eye, and when i tried to get rid of it, I was unable to find the body.

Reviews are very encouraging.

Disclaimer: I do not own Kingdom Hearts characters, they belong to Disney and Square Enix.

Love Nano1012