Hello everyone! Thank you so very much for reading. This chapter is a tad shorter than the rest, simply because...it...is. Hmm.

Some notes: Due to certain scholastic endeavors (aka college), I'm probably...definitelynot going to be able to update every week. However, I do have a little while left before it starts up, so I'll try to have this whole story finished before I leave. This either means I'll be updating my pants off for the next week or two, or the schedule will continue to be as it is (albeit more consistent), as I will have already written all of the chapters. In either case, chapters (HOPEFULLY) won't be as far apart. Yay? Maybe?

Riku stiffened. "Sora, I can't—"

"Yes you can."

"Sora…"

"Riku, just try."

Riku shook his head with such certainty that Sora felt his heart hammer painfully in his chest.

And suddenly he felt stupid.

Sora was no therapist, he wasn't a counselor; he wasn't anything but a boy from a city several miles away that happened to find a reasonable person to let him into his apartment. He couldn't take out the trash, or do laundry, or cook, or do multiple other domestic tasks that everyone and their little sister had probably known how to do for years. He had no idea what he was doing.

Here he was, cupping Riku's face—the same Riku that he had only known for a few months, and had caught him snooping in his room only hours before this moment and had no reason to trust him—urging him to surmount an imbedded childhood trauma like he was some sort of professional. What had he been thinking? Such an ambition was completely out of his league.

A lump of utter helplessness rose in Sora's throat.

And then Riku sniffed, bringing Sora back to the situation at hand. His eyes fluttered a bit under his lids.

Sora held his breath for a reason he did not know, his heart beating a bit fast as Riku's dark lashes lifted a bit.

But they were back down again before Sora could exhale.

"I'm sorry Sora…I just can't," Riku mumbled, rubbing his hands up and down his face.

He watched Riku shake his head over and over again, silver locks of hair brushing gently against his swollen and badly discolored cheek, and suddenly, he felt angry.

He was angry at himself, angry at Riku's father, angry at the world for putting this poor, trembling person through such misery. Then that feeling of possessiveness returned, along with a load of other emotions he could only describe collectively as frustration, until he felt he would explode. This was…not fair. This was not fair. This was not fair.

He did not understand how one person could be so unknowingly cruel, so blatantly unaware of his own son's suffering. It made him sick.

Now Sora felt more determined than ever, and simply wouldn't allow himself to fail Riku; not like his mother had, not like his father had.

"Listen, Riku," Sora started as calmly as possible, shoving all of his uncertainty out of his mind. "I'm not your dad. I'm not even mad at you. It's okay." He thought for a moment. "Um," he tried, "I've never seen your mom, so I don't have anything to compare your eyes to."

Sora still felt hesitancy, but waited a little longer for Riku to run the words through his mind.

Riku gnawed the inside of his cheek nervously. Sora was right. This was completely different than earlier. Sora was someone he could handle. There was no reason to behave this way; there was no logic behind it anymore. This was sweet, pure, honest, naïve little Sora. This was safe. He hammered the little mantra in his mind a few times before considering his situation a bit more.

He had done this before, right? The ceiling didn't crash down on top of him, the floor didn't open up and monsters didn't drag him down to the center of Earth. His father's eyes weren't even that terrible to look at, so he could only imagine Sora's to be at least somewhat better, after all, the two actually got along. It was so silly to be afraid, pointless to even have so much of a conflict with it.

As he opened his eyes, he found his gaze on Sora's knees, but for some reason, the pit of his stomach felt strange. He gulped hard and ignored it; forcing himself to press ahead. As his eyes traveled up, other parts of Sora's body had come into focus; his slim waist, his thin arms, his shoulders and neck.

He felt it then. The nauseousness from earlier had returned as did the lightheadedness . He swallowed to quell it, but he felt his pulse quicken and his heart hammer in his chest.

Riku didn't understand why this was happening. He had done it earlier, and this time it was Sora. He could feel the boy's hands around his face, feel the anticipation welling up inside him. Sora's encouragement was almost tangible.

As his eyes traveled up, the nauseousness increased to an almost unbearable level, and he felt his stomach heave.

With a burst of will, he forced his eyes up to meet Sora's, but only for a moment did he see the shining blue of his irises, because he quickly found that he could not do this twice in one day. His stomach heaved again, and it was all he could do to keep the contents within down.

Frustrated, he muttered an apology and leapt off the couch and dashed down the hallway to the bathroom.

Sora frowned, still processing what he had just seen. Not one, single, solitary instance in his entire time at this apartment had Riku ever looked him in the eye. He had caught glimpses of green, or blue before quickly disappearing under dark-lashed lids, but never had he seen them full and wide like he did just then. He half expected them to be haunting or ghastly in some particular manner. The way Riku went on about how abhorred and repulsive they were, Sora would have thought them to be odd, misshapen, splotchy or perhaps defective from birth.

But he had never known them to be such a unique and stunning hue throughout. He had never seen that color on another person before, and quite frankly, he was speechless. They were wild and beautiful; they added passion to an otherwise fairly stoic face. It was saddening to know that someone would want to hide something so distinctive and charming. He didn't understand.

Sora sighed, rubbing his own temples. Riku was getting there, but there was no doubt in his mind that this was going to take a while. He wasn't going to give up.

He stood up and followed Riku into the bathroom, where he found Riku weakly trying to quell his nerves and involuntarily twitching muscles.

Sora felt his heart well up.

Wincing at the violently flexing muscles of his arms and chest, Sora thought the least he could do was quietly wait for him to relax.

When Riku calmed down a bit, sat roughly on the closed toilet lid, hammering his fist onto the counter.

He muttered something that Sora could only assume to be profanity and gritted his teeth. "Sora," he paused to clear his throat, trying to push the frustration from his voice. "I...don't know what to do anymore."

"It's okay," he smiled. "Don't worry, I'll help you." Riku didn't look anywhere near convinced, but Sora was determined. "It might take some time, but you will be able to look people in the eye again."

The infirmary sounded even more ridiculous out loud, Riku thought, but he nodded anyway.

Sora frowned, but decided he wouldn't be able to convince Riku until he had actually done it. He decided to change the subject. "Um...anyway, we might as well get some more ice on that eye. I'll be right back."

XxX

A loud whistle rang throughout the café as Riku slid from behind the counter. To his horror, he found that his boss and Roxas had made the noise simultaneously.

"Look at that shiner!" His boss gawked, leaning in too close for comfort. Roxas' eyes bulged a little as he leaned on the broom he was using.

Riku rolled his eyes and slid around the two; attempting to go through the back doors and avoid the questions, but his boss had followed him in.

"So, you wanna tell us what happened? Don't tell me you took a personal day to go get in bar fights!"

Riku rolled his eyes again and pulled on an apron. "No, it wasn't a bar fight. Can I please get started now?"

"Yeah, sure, whatever. I get it." He waved him away as he headed out the door.

Moments later, Riku heard his voice from the front of the restaurant.

"Roxas! Get in there and help Riku! I saw what you baked yesterday, and quite frankly, I don't understand why I hired you."

There was a pause.

"I know you only applied to be a cashier."

Another pause.

"Fair enough. Just get in there and bake something that doesn't look like...anything you made yesterday."

As Riku had expected, the kitchen doors flew open, and in trudged Roxas, who stared at him only briefly before washing his hands at the sink.

"You're not going actually going to make me do anything, are you?"

Riku turned the faucet off from washing his own hands, and floured the counter. "I can't really make you do anything."

"So if I just sit here and randomly say, 'Yeah, I get it,' you're not going to tell the boss I just sat here randomly saying, 'Yeah I get it'?"

Riku smirked. "No."

"Good." Roxas hunted around for a stool, then positioned it close enough to the counter that it looked like he was doing something, yet far enough away that he didn't have to touch anything. "So what are we making today?"

Riku shook his head and headed over to the freezer for the dough. "Cranberry scones."

"Sounds great."

Riku raised his eyebrow, rummaging through the freezer. "That's weird. I had two bags of pre-made scone dough, and they're both gone."

Roxas tilted back and fourth on his stool. "Are you talking about that really thick, light colored dough with the raisins in it?"

Riku closed the freezer. "No, I'm talking about that really thick, light colored dough with the cranberries in it."

Roxas shrugged. "Do the cranberries look like raisins?"

"…Yes."

Roxas looked thoughtful. "Do me a favor and see if there's oatmeal-raisin cookie dough in there."

Riku wrinkled his nose. "We don't sell oatmeal-raisin cookies."

"...Oh. Hmmm. That's rather unfortunate."

"Great." Riku huffed. "Mind telling me where it all went?"

"I don't really see why it's relevant."

"It's just a formality," Riku said sarcastically.

"Well," Roxas started, looking purposefully at the ceiling. "If you must know, I kind of baked it all yesterday, and when I say baked I mean burned and when I say it all I mean the scone dough that I mistook for oatmeal-raisin cookie dough."

Riku's jaw hung open, and Roxas was mildly offended.

"Don't do that," he snapped, hopping off the stool. "With your black eye you look like a raccoon in headlights."

Riku frowned and heaved a bag of flour onto the counter. "Oh, shut up."

Roxas climbed back onto the stool and teetered on it precariously. "Oh, by the way, I talked to your roommate yesterday."

"Who, Sora?"

"Yep."

Riku clenched his jaw. He had forgotten to ask Sora what he had done all day the day before, but it never occurred to him that he would spend his time here. He cautiously shoved the next words through his teeth. "What did you talk about?"

Roxas shrugged. "Not much. The rain, coffee, the rain, the rain, my terrible baking skills, the rain, the rain, the rain, and the storm that rolled in that afternoon."

Riku didn't exactly understand why, but he let out a sigh of relief.

"But," Roxas said pointedly, "That guy has a few bats in his belfry, if you ask me."

Riku nodded, completely understanding where Roxas was coming from. "He can be a bit...extreme at times."

"Putting it mildly, yes."

"He's not from around here though."

"I know, he's from Mars—"

"Sora is notfrom Mars. Stop it." Riku poured a fair amount of dried cranberries into a bowl. "He's different, but not bad different."

Roxas tipped back on the stool again, this time almost too far. "Don't get me wrong, he's not a bad guy to talk to. I actually enjoyed his company."

Riku looked at him from the corner of his eye and couldn't help but notice how Roxas and Sora had the bad habit of teetering on the legs of furniture. "Don't fall. You're going to have to make the icing for these while they're in the oven."

"What?! No way!" It was at this moment that Roxas leaned too far over, and the stool, as well as Roxas, tumbled to the floor.

"Oops."

XxX

Over the next few days, Sora tried his best to help Riku with his eye contact problem, but he didn't want to force anything onto him, nor did he want to make the situation any worse. Creativity seemed to fail him for quite a while, and the thought of barging in Riku's room, demanding that he look him square in the face didn't seem reasonable at all.

He remembered the look on his face that day, the terror in his eyes, the pallor of his skin. If he was going to do anything, it was going to be slow and easy, because he couldn't bring himself to cause someone else that type of pain again. Still, he was at a loss for what to do, and no ideas seemed to be immediately beneficial.

Riku was focusing on the dark area around his right eye. Over the past several days it had been lightening, and his vision had more or less returned to normal. His cheek was still sore, but he could put up with it for the next few days until it fully healed.

He hadn't heard a word from his father—not that he had put much thought into the issue—and just assumed he'd gone back to wherever he came from. This thought put him at relative peace.

Sora, however, unnerved him a bit. He could tell he was still intent on breaking his phobia, but he wasn't so sure he wanted to deal with it anymore. He had been living this long with it, and the thought of continuing on that way didn't faze him much, especially since he knew the amount of strain it would take to break it.

Sora was not one to be stopped, and Riku found this out rather quickly.