Hello! Thanks for coming back for chapter eight. Again, it's a little on the long side. I hope you don't mind. As for notes on this one, Riku's father makes his appearance today!

As usual, I don't own, so don't sue. On with chapter eight.

The next morning, Riku turned off the alarm on his clock before it rang. He had spent the last several hours staring at the numbers, silently counting them down, and he had given up trying to go to sleep hours before that. Waiting for the alarm would be pointless, as he was already very much awake.

He had anticipated the sleepless night since the day his eyes ran over the letter for the first time. He expected it, he was ready for it, he embraced it. He knew that when he woke up the next morning, no amount of time would prepare him for the meeting later that day, but with the span of night for his usage, he hoped that he could invent something to take the edge off. No such inventions found their way to his mind, but at least he wasn't bounded by grogginess this morning. He had to stay sharp, and with his body kindly allowing him relative alertness without an ounce of sleep to cushion it, he felt he had a small chance of making it through the events of the day.

Later, after he had gone through his potentially deathly mental upheaval, and the effects of the night prior had finally caught up with him, he would allow himself to sleep for the rest of the week.

As his fingers slid off the surface of the clock to hang limply over the mattress, he sighed and considered getting up for the morning. He had ample time to wash, dress and feed himself, and he could probably squeeze in a few hours to read the paper before Sora even opened his eyes; bristling with his new found enthusiasm or not.

He sat up in bed, rubbed his eyes a bit, and then felt cold, sharp needles jumble around in the pit of his stomach. It felt almost like he was getting ready for the first day of school.

He wished his worries were as simple as remembering all of his school supplies, or knowing which bus to ride home. Such a comparison was rather inaccurate, he supposed, as it possessed a sentimentality that he and his father's relationship severely lacked.

Running a hand through his hair, Riku headed into the bathroom to shower and dress, then made his way into the kitchen.

Sora was still asleep. Riku could hear his snoring all the way in the kitchen. He flipped on the coffee maker and waited for it to settle, before retrieving the newspaper from the doormat. The apartment was so was so placid, he thought, sitting down at the table and unfurling the paper. The light that spilled in from the balcony in the other room was dull, and gray, but not dispiriting because Riku didn't think a bright, cheery sunrise would do much to improve his mood anyway.

He forced himself to read the headlines, but after a while all the stories seemed to blur together, and he couldn't remember who was who, which was which, or how something affected that part of town. He attempted to read it again, to find something to prove getting up so early had some worth, but he found himself back to where he was only a short time later. Frustrated, he slid the newspaper back in the bag and pushed it across the table.

The coffee maker hissed and sputtered behind him on the counter, and he leaned back to check it. Enough coffee had brewed for at least one cup for himself, but the thought of ingesting anything that morning seemed so positively nauseating that he just shut the machine off and went into the living room. The balcony looked inviting, so he stepped outside and closed the glass door behind him.

Sora Rubbed his eyes as the rich, warm aroma of coffee wandered into his bedroom. He glanced at his alarm clock, and realized, to his horror, that it was far earlier than he hoped it was. Still, the smell lured him out of bed, down the hallway, and into the kitchen without causing too much complaint.

It was chilly in the rest of the apartment, so Sora reflexively rubbed his arms. It occurred to him that Riku should have been somewhere near (when the smell of fresh coffee was in the air, neither one of them was ever too far away), but the smell was so entrancing, he forgot about his roommate for a moment to pour himself a cup. Satisfied, he strolled about the apartment to look for him.

The living room was barren, so Sora was going to haul himself back into his room for another two or three hours, but out of the corner of his eye, he caught a few strands of white hair blowing in the breeze outside on the balcony. Sora tip-toed a bit closer to the sliding glass door, and discovered his roommate staring pensively out over the balcony.

Normally, Sora would have left the boy alone, but something—as he would later describe as early morning incoherency—made him slide the glass door open. The chilly air outside smacked him in the face, and he rubbed his arms with more rigor to keep warm. It was now he realized how truly uncomfortable it was to walk outside while still wearing his pajamas.

"You're up early."

"Couldn't sleep. Did I wake you up?" Riku asked quietly without shifting his gaze from the town below.

"No. Coffee." Sora mumbled. His skin prickled underneath the thin fabric of his T-shirt.

Riku noted his pricking skin. "You ought to go inside. It's cold out."

"You're out here."

"I'm not wearing pajamas."

Sora yawned. "I've got a thick skin."

"...That's not what that means."

He yawned again, this time louder. He briefly glanced behind him to the warmer area inside. The air on the balcony was so cold, and the atmosphere, thick. Perhaps he had invaded something private; perhaps some deep, intrinsic, intra-personal searching was going on. He did not want to bother his roommate during his time of reflection.

Then his eyes fell on Riku's profile (he had never actually seen his roommate head on anyway). Directionless questions were floating about his person; confusion hung like a cloud over his bowed head. It was with this observation that Sora decided against leaving the balcony. At the very least, he could at least offer a place for those questions to bounce off of.

"Share your thoughts?"

Riku sighed again, and shook his head. "I'm not really sure if there's anything worth saying."

"You never know," Sora replied, settling next to him against the cold metal rail.

"Well," he began, feeling the slightest bit awkward having such a personal conversation with someone he barely had a serious conversation with. He decided to continue anyway." I don't know, I just feel weird."

"Standing on a balcony in the cold weird, or not bothering to have a cup of coffee while you're standing on a balcony in the cold weird?"

Riku chuckled. "Both. Then toss in a platypus, and you bringing my coffee maker all the way down to my job, and you've pretty much reached the level of weirdness that I'm having trouble with."

Sora nodded understandingly. "Well, what's so weird?" He took a long sip from his mug.

"I guess it's this whole visit thing."

Sora's eyebrows lifted. "This has got you really worked up, hasn't it?"

"I suppose it has." He gripped the rail. "And I feel really stupid for harping on it. I've run everything around in my mind so many times, you'd think I'd have exhausted my worries by now. I think it's only gotten worse."

Sora frowned. "Well, I can't say I've ever had this problem before, but I can sympathize."

"I'm sure you know all about it," Riku muttered. He had not forgotten about Sora reading his letter the night before.

Sora's eyebrows lifted in confusion. "What?"

"I know you were snooping around in my room last night."

Shocked, he fumbled with the mug in his hands. "What?! How did you—"

"You put my letter back on the wrong piece of furniture."

Sora gulped hard. How on earth would he have noticed such a small little detail? That was the thing about people with tidy rooms. It was almost impossible to do anything in there without getting caught. And Sora hadn't exactly meant to read the whole thing. It just...happened. Either way, there was no way he could explain himself out of this one. "Riku, listen. I didn't mean to read it. It was just sitting there, and—"

He held up a hand. He hadn't mentioned it for the apology. He wanted to see what type of excuse Sora was going to invent. "Forget it. I'm too preoccupied to really get mad right now, but I don't like the idea of you going through my stuff. You're lucky it wasn't a map to my family's secret treasure trove or something."

Sora apologized anyway, but stopped when Riku let out a dismissive sigh.

The two were quiet again for several minutes, and Sora was still freezing in his pajamas. He really wanted to go back inside where he could crawl underneath his covers again, but he simply couldn't leave Riku outside so distraught and pensive, especially after he had been caught reading the letter. "Um...you know, that was funny."

Riku's eyebrows lifted, and he angled his head slightly towards Sora. "What was funny?"

"What you said," Sora smiled, picking a bit of paint off the rail. "About the platypus and me bringing your coffee maker all the way down to the café. Clever."

Riku was fully perplexed now. "Sora, maybe you should go back to bed. The cold must be getting to you."

"See, that's what I'm talking about." Sora smiled. "Granted, most of this is being done at my expense, but at least you're not so upset."

"Sora, I think—"

"Listen Riku," Sora said matter-of-factly. "You've been thinking about this visit so long your brain probably can't function unless it crosses your mind at least once a day. You can't sleep, and it's obviously keeping you from drinking coffee. That, my friend, is something we simply can't have."

Riku smiled, and allowed him to continue.

"All I'm saying is, you have to lighten up about this. Sure, you and your dad may not have seen each other in a while, and the meeting is probably going to be so horribly awkward you're going to want to run away screaming at first, but who knows? You may actually like each other. You may not get along at all. You're not going to know until this afternoon. There's no use in worrying about it, because whatever happens, is going to happen regardless of how many hours you spend worrying about it. Relax."

Riku's mouth hung open. "Wow...that was...unexpectedly logical."

Sora patted him on the shoulder and opened the glass door. "It's still early. Give me a few hours. I'll be back to normal after some more sleep and a shower."

XxX

The morning rolled on slowly. Sora never did go back to bed, though he announced he would at least once an hour. Eventually Riku just nodded his head absently every time the boy made the announcement, and went back to reading the paper at the kitchen table.

Eventually though, he did get up to take a shower. He discovered, after a few moments of rubbing his hair with the towel that he was, in fact, colder than he was before he got dressed in the first place. He finished dressing, then headed into the kitchen, where Riku had just finished reading the paper. He tossed it into the recycling bin and sighed.

It was almost time.

Sora seemed to be a little anxious himself, but for what reason, neither one of them were sure. He fiddled around with objects on the kitchen counter, the table and even the magnets on the refrigerator before finally slumping down into one of the kitchen chairs.

"You shouldn't have had caffeine this morning," Riku remarked.

"Yeah, like you're one to talk." Sora glanced at the clock. "Are you sure you don't want me to stick around for a little while?"

Riku inadvertently winced. "No. It's alright."

"You sure?" Sora asked, leaning back in his chair, almost tipping over. "I don't mind."

"Don't you have some grocery shopping to do?"

Sora smiled. "Nah, I can go later. Besides," He peeked up at Riku. "I'd rather be close by, just in case...you know, you need me to...uh..be."

Riku was quiet for a moment, and picked a little at the surface of the table. He wasn't sure what to say. For someone that didn't know how to do some fairly important domestic tasks, he was exceptionally good at domestic counseling. He smiled to himself. Sora's mother must have hugged him a lot as a child.

"Thanks," he said at last; the small smile made it to his lips. "But, I think I'll be okay."

Sora shrugged and tipped back farther on the legs of the chair. "No problem." Suddenly, the chair tipped back a little too far and toppled over, leaving Sora sprawled on the linoleum floor. "Oops."

XxX

When it happened, Sora was threading his arms through the sleeves in his jacket. He decided to head out, as advised by his roommate, but was unsure of where he was actually going to go. Riku stood at the doorway to bolt the lock after he left, but such a thing was no longer necessary; there was a dull knock at the door.

Riku felt the color drain out of his face, and the same prickly feeling from that morning returned to the pit of his stomach. Sora eyed him thoughtfully. He opened his mouth to say something reassuring, but the knock sounded again.

Sora's eyes shifted to the door. "Um..." he started cautiously, "should I open it?"

Riku nodded stiffly, almost mechanically. He shoved his hands in his pockets to keep them from shaking. He chewed his lower lip furiously. All sorts of cold pangs of something were shooting around madly inside his body.

Sora eyed his roommate again, then slowly turned the knob. "Er...hello?"

Behind the door stood an older man of average height, perhaps a few inches taller than Riku. He was fairly well built, though his coat and slightly wrinkled suit hid the smaller details of his physique. Large hands hung stiffly at his sides, and clutched in one was the curved handle of an umbrella.

His face was worn and tight. Eyes, obscured slightly behind the shadow of a brimmed hat, bore down on Sora with an intensity that the boy had never before seen. He and Riku shared the same broad shoulders, but that was about as far as the resemblance went. His face wasn't particularly egregious though, Sora thought, as he scanned the man's rough shadow of a beard and thin lips, but his expression did lack geniality.

The man's lips quivered a bit under Sora's evaluative gaze, and he cleared his throat uncomfortably. Then, his mouth opened, and his lips stiffly formed words. "You've...dyed your hair." He said quietly.

Sora recoiled. He quickly realized the man's mistake and grinned awkwardly. "Oh...er, no, I'm Sora. That's Riku." He gestured behind him with his head. The man's gaze lifted off of him and fell on the boy behind him. He nodded curtly.

Riku was quite sure he was visibly shaking at this point, but Sora nor his father seemed to notice. He bowed his head slightly and offered a small "hi."

"Um..." Sora began again, trying to stop the awkward silence before it started. "I was just heading out," he glanced back at Riku for consent, but found that he was staring so completely at the floor that he had probably gone unnoticed. He swallowed hard and continued. "Um, it was a pleasure to meet you sir." Reflexes made him extend his hand, and the man, a bit shocked at the gesture, took hold of the hand and pumped it up and down a few times.

A grunt symbolized a similar sentiment, and Sora reluctantly slipped out the door, sending Riku a final, encouraging glance.

The door closed with a soft click, and Sora let out a sigh in the hallway. He still had no idea where he was going to go for the next few hours, but he supposed he would figure something out between now and the moment he actually arrived. Adjusting his jacket, he headed down the hallway towards the elevators.

"Um...you can sit down, if you want." Riku said quietly, making his way to the couch. His father grunted again and sat down a fair distance away, settling his hands in his lap uncomfortably. His eyes assessed his son for a moment or two, and then he turned in a bit to speak better.

"Riku."

The word frightened him. His own name frightened him. He had not expected the voice to sound the way it did, to carry the word it carried. How long had it been since he heard his name in that voice? He inadvertently stiffened, chewing furiously on his lower lip. He waited for something, but for what he wasn't exactly sure. His thoughts were racing a mile a minute, his heart was thumping wildly in his chest, and they hadn't even exchanged a full sentence yet. He glanced at the man's lap; that was as far up as his eyes allowed him to go. His father's hands were folded neatly, the umbrella propped up against his knee. There was no evidence of anger, or hostility, but his nerves still weren't put at ease.

"You're pretty tall."

He was taken aback at the comment. It was so plain, so simple. It was void of any sort of sentiment, or warmth. It was just a simple comment. It left him surprisingly agitated. Though he was glad he wasn't being criticized, the words were valueless. At least with the criticism their meeting would have been personal. 'You're pretty tall' could have been directed to anyone; some random kid in the park, Sora, his pet dog. In fact, none of the words his father said since he entered held any sort of sentiment; they only supported that there wasn't any. When he had first entered, he didn't even have the slightest clue what Riku looked like. Perhaps he was just wishing for too much at one time, but he would have appreciated a 'hi son, how have you been?' or even a hug, as odd and uncomfortable as it would have been.

"It tends to seem that way after an extended amount of time."

His father's expression didn't change. Instead, he took his hat off and set it in his lap, revealing dirty blonde hair a bit silver from age. He nodded again. "I know. It has been a while."

And the conversation seemed to die. If all he wanted was to talk about was closed ended topics, then he could have just called him on the phone. His visit seemed to get more and more pointless as the minutes ticked by. Riku sighed and looked at his shoes.

"What did you want? I mean, you have to admit that this is a little weird."

"I know. It is a little weird." He shifted. "I don't suppose 'I missed you,' would be enough?"

He stole a glance up, just at his lips, just to see if they had turned up, to see if he was trying to make a joke, then turned his gaze right back to the floor. There was no such amusement on his face.

"Actually no, that doesn't really work."

"I didn't think so."

They were quiet again for several moments, until his father cleared his throat again. "Could I get a glass of water?"

Riku chewed the inside of his cheek, and nodded faintly, lifting himself off of the couch.

So this was how it was going to be…

"Do you want ice?"

XxX

Sora was outside the apartment building, running his hands through his hair. He hoped it wouldn't start raining before he figured out where he wanted to go. It occurred to him that grocery shopping would have been a productive use of his time, but he didn't really know what he needed to buy, and that would require him to go back into the apartment to get the list, and that simply wasn't an option. So, he paced around the front door for a little while, glancing occasionally at the sky.

It was definitely going to start raining soon.

With a grunt, he just started walking down the street. Little droplets of water started splattering on his face, and he grumbled. Riku had better be darned happy about all of the trouble he was going through just to give his father and him some privacy. He pulled his jacket around his body tighter and walked a little faster.

None of the buildings he passed seemed particularly interesting. There was a library, a few government buildings and a few more apartment complexes. He picked up his pace as the drops of rain intensified. He ran across an intersection, and finally his interest was roused. Just a few meters ahead of him sat a small café, specifically, the one Riku worked at. A grin spread across his face as he ran towards it.

He had never actually tasted any of the food there before, and he was curious about what type of place his roommate worked at. He opened the door, and the little bell chimed, and he was greeted with the smell of sugary goods and coffee. He decided he had just found the perfect place to spend the afternoon.

XxX

Riku waited patiently for his father to finish drinking. He heard the ice settle at the bottom of the glass, and the thump of the glass hitting the table. His father placed his hands back in his lap and let out a long sigh. "Thank you."

"No problem."

"So, I suppose you want to know why I'm here."

The possibility that there was a reason for this meeting had been all but forgotten by Riku at this point. He nodded expectantly.

"Well, the truth is, I just got out of jail."

The news didn't really surprise Riku all that much. It wasn't the first time his father had been put behind bars. He went once for evading some parking tickets, he had driven while drunk on multiple occasions. This was not news. It settled in his mind now that his father just wanted to borrow some money or something. He resisted the urge to throw him out right then and there. Instead, he sighed, and ran a hand through his hair. "What did you do now?"

"Drunk driving."

"You've done that before."

"I know," he admitted, running a hand through his own hair. "But this time…I hit someone."