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Why is Love so Hard to Find?
written by:
hikari - aozora
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xxo0oxx
Author's Note: Omg, I am SOOO sorry this took me so long to write ... Well, it's not that the writing part took a long time, it's just that I had plenty of other things to do that I considered more important than this fanfic at the time (don't kill me). But, you would do the same too, right? Grades ... Roxmine ... balances it out on her hands. Sorry, people, grades win. I have a long list of things I need to do ... and then this whole other list called the Not Fun List remembers a long chain of PMs, and most of the stuff on the To Do list is on both ... sad face. Except writing. Yeah, writing is cool.
Umm ... let's see ... Oh yes! Thank you so very much to all my reviewers. You are lovely people. And I mean that in the coolest, most awesome possible way. Sorry that I kept you guys waiting. Please forgive me. I'll try to get the next chapter up pretty quick.
So, more of Roxas in this one! Yeah, if these beginning chapters seem kinda spacey, it's because I'm resisting the urge to rush into all the really good fluff and drama, like I did with Bittersweet Melody, because that made the plot suffer, and for that, I'm kinda stuck between ideas for the sequel. But hey, I was a noob (God I hate that word ... so why am I using it? The world may never know) at this whole fanfic-writing thing. I spent more of my free time reading them than writing them (and I still do I guess) because I needed to see how it was done. Yeah ...
Yeah ... that's all I can say. My brain is zapped ... took the PSAT and many riddiculous career aptitude tests (and I mean riddiculous. They want us all to work for the government or suffer the consequences and be poultry farmers for the rest of our lives ... go figure) earlier this week. Yeah, fried brains sloshing around in my head. Not good for the creativie mind.
Okay, well I call this Cream of Roxmine ... and I made it from scratch (pay no attention to the empty soup cans lying around). Hah, there's my fried brains again for you. Fried ... Heh ... food. Okay well, eat up XD!
xxo0oxx
Disclaimer: Yesterday, I won the lottery, and I was so excited about getting out there and buying the rights to Kingdom Hearts that, in my haste, I lost the ticket. Darn.
xxo0oxx
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xxo0oxx
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Chapter Four
He was kin to the enemy but I wondered ... did that make him the enemy, too?
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He looked ... so much like him.
The resemblance was unbelievable. They could have passed for brothers had I not known that they weren't. Sora was an only child, a fact that I learned back when I was obsessed with the boy.
Again, I wondered ... what was I thinking?
What was I thinking?
I wasn't so sure, anymore.
I had to be crazy. Yeah, that's it, crazy. I was so tangled up in my emotions - these mismatched strings of hatred, sympathy, confusion, and fury - that I was seeing things. The similarities between this new, strange boy and Sora ... they were all made up.
That had to be it.
Or, at least, that's what I kept telling myself.
It was frustrating, really, all of this ... I didn't even know this kid and already he was putting me through exactly what Sora had ... the later stages of it, anyway. Frustration. One word summed it all up.
And then, my mind began to work ahead of itself. I started thinking, really thinking, and then, this frustration turned into worry. If this kid, whoever he was, could frustrate me like Sora did toward the end of our "friendship", then maybe my relationship - if you could call it a relationship - with this mystery boy would somehow play out in reverse ...
I started freaking out.
Who did he think he was, playing games with my mind when we didn't even know each other? Who was he to spark my interest by just walking past me in the hallway, his foreign mannerisms intriguing? What was he thinking, this strange Mr. What's-his-face, just one day crossing paths with me, crossing lives with me, and then leaving me hanging, wrapped up in the thoughts and feelings that only his look-alike had ever made me think and feel?
What was he thinking?
What was I thinking?
And thus, the vicious cycle of equally vicious thoughts began again in my mind.
Sighing, I came to the conclusion that the world just wasn't on my side today, as if it had ever been before. Yes, Life was playing an evil game with me, toying with my heart by bringing someone new, and strikingly familiar, into the picture just as I had put Sora behind me. That's right, it wasn't my fault at all. It was all Life and it's unfair, manipulative ways. Life had gotten on my bad side.
I shook my head to clear it of thoughts. Now that was unrealistic thinking.
'Just calm down, Namine. Take a deep breath ... Calm down.'
After all, he was only a boy. A boy that I didn't know, for that matter, and didn't have any interest in knowing. He was one of them, one of the enemy. He had to be. Why else would I have felt so unsettled? Enemy, yes, one of the enemy. I didn't associate with them.
Breathe in. Breathe out.
He was only a boy.
Breathe in. Breathe out.
And to me, that was all he would ever be, no matter how strange ... different ... striking ... interesting ...
Breathe in.
My god, who the hell was he?
"He's his cousin."
With a jerk, I snapped out of my daze. My head turned to meet the gaze of the girl who had just spoken to me, and I found her sliding into the bus seat next to me, tossing her backpack next to mine in the seat across the aisle. She turned her head for a moment to give me a quick smile, before finally sitting still, arms folded across her lap.
It took a few seconds and numerous blinks for Yuna's words to set in. I had been so absorbed in my thoughts that I had forgotten where I was, what time it was, and that the blinding afternoon light filtering in through the emergency exit window next to me was burning the right side of my face. I proceeded to move my face out of the beam of scorching summer sunlight, scooting a tad closer to Yuna, before I spoke. "Who's his cousin?"
"He's his cousin."
"Who?"
"Him."
"Who's cousin is he?"
"That kid is Sora's cousin," Yuna stated, speaking slowly and with intensity so that I would understand every word perfectly. Her frustration mirrored mine, I could tell. "Come on, Namine! Think, for crying out loud!"
I wanted to ask her what the hell she thought I'd been doing for the past fifteen minutes, sitting on this dumb school bus by myself, but I didn't say anything.
She sighed. "I'm sorry," she said. "I didn't mean to yell. It's just that sometimes ... I don't know ... about you ..."
I didn't tell her that I didn't know about myself either. I didn't know, and I wouldn't ever again.
"I'm sorry, too," I told her, and then I began picking at a small tear in the fabric of the seat in front of us. "I've just got a lot on my mind."
Yuna looked away from me, sliding further down into the seat until her knees were resting against the back of the seat I was messing with. "I know you do," she said, "what, with Sora and everything." I twitched ever so slightly at the mention of his name, but she didn't notice. "We all do." She paused, and for what I wasn't sure. "It's been a tough year."
Now that just had to be the biggest understatement in the history of understatements.
But I didn't say anything.
Funny, there was so much I wanted to say.
But we - my friends and I - we'd drifted apart that way.
"Hmm," was the only sound that came out of my mouth, but Yuna could tell that I was agreeing with her.
"I think I remember seeing him before," she continued, apparently realizing that the subject needed to be changed.
Wait.
"You've seen him before?" I asked, curious now. "But ... I'm pretty sure I haven't seen him around here."
"Maybe I just heard about him then," Yuna said, shrugging. A moment later she nodded and added, "Yeah, I've heard about him. I'm remember Lulu saying Sora's cousin was in her art class last year ... you know, before she left."
Yeah, I knew. Before she left us all one morning on a long and boring flight to China, never to live near us again.
"You know, now that you mention it ... I think I remember her saying something about him, too," I said, and it was the truth. She had said something about the tall, skinny blonde boy I'd encountered in the hall this morning. She'd even told me his name ... something strange, unusual, and fitting for a guy like him ... but he'd been nobody, then, so why would I have remembered? That was way back then, when I was young, naive, and engrossed in his egocentric cousin ...
"Now that I've seen him ... you can really tell they're related, huh?" Yuna said with an uneasy grin, fully aware that I knew who the other half of "they" was. She was trying to be funny, I could tell, but she wasn't as good at that as she used to be. I smiled a little anyway and nodded, before sliding into the same position that she was in.
"Yeah, cousins ..." And I trailed off, thinking again, about how unnaturally similar they really were, and yet, they were still so different. I tugged at a strand of my golden hair that was dangling in front of my face. "He walks funny," I said.
"Which one?"
I chuckled, even if it was only a little. "The one that's not Sora, but I know it's hard to tell."
"He's so weird, isn't he?"
"Which one?"
"Sora, duh."
I smiled. "You got that right. I mean, he's such a dork."
"Heck yes," Yuna said, a grin gracing her features, too. "Such a geeky dork."
"Hah, and so clumsy, too!" I added with enthusiasm. "Always falling down!"
"And have you seen his teeth? They're massive!" Yuna said between giggles.
I laughed, too. "And he never has anything to say! It's always 'Uh ... I dunno ...'"
"It's like he's too dumb to come up with anything else!"
"Exactly! And the way he always walks around with that clueless expression on his face--"
"Yeah! It's so weird ..."
"I know, right? He's so ... ugh!"
"And the way he won't shut up about how every girl is 'sooo hot!' Like now, all you ever here him say is 'Kairi, Kairi, Kairi!'" She laughed hard at that one.
But I wasn't laughing. It wasn't funny.
Something that Yuna had said had smacked me hard in the face, hitting me in the head like a ton of bricks, sending that smile running for its life, almost as if it had never belonged on my face in the first place.
Yuna's laughter faded away when she finally realized that I wasn't laughing with her. She sat upright, allowing her feet to float back down to the floor of the bus and her hands to slide down to her sides. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see her scoot just a tiny bit closer, looming over me slightly in a curious way. The grin had slipped from her countenance, and I imagined that her face now held a worried expression, but I didn't dare look at her. I didn't want her to see the tears brimming in my eyes, threatening to spill. I didn't want her to see how red my face had become as I had forced my cries to stay in. I didnt want her to see my hands clenched in angry fists, which I hid from her. I didn't dare let one of my best friends see the look on my face as I realized just what a fool I'd been.
"What's wrong, Namine?"
She just had to ask.
Despite my efforts, I wasn't strong enough, and a single tear dripped onto my shirt. I choked on my words. "... e-every girl ...?"
Sora had never noticed me in that way. He'd never said that I was "hot", cute, or even the least bit pretty, for that matter. He'd never noticed me ... and he never would ...
How could I ever have thought that maybe he would see me as more than a friend?
I was such a fool.
Such a fool.
And I let the tears spill.
Yuna didn't know what to do, for it had been so long since she'd seen me cry. For so long, we'd all held our feelings in, afraid to let them out. We hadn't shared our secrets, shared our desires, shared the pain. We'd tried to take on life on our own. Maybe that was why we fell apard.
Oh, God, if we had just let our feelings out ...
Doing the only thing she knew how, Yuna put her arms around my shoulders in an attempt to comfort me. I cried on her shoulder, so hard, and for so long, that I began to feel better. Maybe that was all we ever needed ... a shoulder to cry on ...
If we had only known this sooner.
But that day, on the bus, Yuna and I actually felt like friends. The feeling was strange at first, given the distance that had grown between us, but it was welcomed. And when I finally did stop crying, I greeted Yuna's face with a smile. "Thank you," I said, and I really was grateful.
"You're welcome," she replied, and she smiled back.
Yes, she was great friend, but this didn't change what had happened.
When Rikku boarded the bus a few moments later, she found me staring out the window with a tear-streaked face, yet smiling all the same. I imagine she asked Yuna what had happened, but I wasn't listening. I was too busy thinking, thinking about the past, the present, and the years to come. I was thinking about my friends, those who weren't friends, and them, the enemy.
But I was also thinking about him, the blonde boy who had no name, probably because I wasn't quite sure just where he belonged.
I could see him from where I was, walking to his own beat in the shadow of the school building, trailing behind the cousin who'd done me wrong, all the while seemingly engaged in a conversation with him. The boy and my foe looked so similar, yet this new kid really was different. He was ... truely unique.
He was what set my mind thinking.
I began to wonder about him, despite what my mind was telling me, screaming at me, warning me to stay away from him. I was intrigued by him, despite my pre-conceived notions about him, despite who I thought he was because of who he was related to. I mean ... he couldn't be that bad, right?
He was kin to the enemy, but I wondered ... did that make him the enemy, too?
I was judging him, but who was I to judge? I didn't know him. I only assumed that he was like Sora because they were family. But the more I thought about it, the more I realized that no one could be as bad as Sora, as manipulative, as absorbed in themselves as he was. No one could ever hurt me as bad as he had.
After all ... I didn't know him.
But maybe ... maybe someday, I would.
xxo0oxx
Author's Note: Soo ... how'd you like? Please tell me ... nobody likes to beg for reviews, but everyone loves them. Come on, how hard is it to click that lil purple button down there at the bottom of the page and submit your thoughts, huh? One word is fine. Everyone loves one-word opinions. I mean, we speak in one-worded sentences all the time! I do, anyway.
Today, I decided I was a ninja. I am a mentally unstable nen-jahhh. Yup. That's who I am today.
Crazy, I know. Totally insane.
But at least I'm still a girl. Unlike my other friend, who decided that, today, she's gonna be a dude.
No kidding. That's what she said. It freaked me out, too, believe me.
Okaaayy ... there's your dose of randomness for today. Randomness always gives me inspiration, so I hope that inspires you to write a review! Reviews are your friends! They won't hurt you, I promise ... So anyway, R&R, make me happy, and I'll update again as soon as I can!
xxo0oxx
Next Chapter: Sometimes, I just wanted to hop on a plane and fly far, far away from my problems.
xxo0oxx