-.Sketchbook.-

"Indigo"

x. Night o Darkness o Illusions o Delusions o Stillness o Tricks in the Dark .x

-x-x-x-

"Don't you think Naminé's a bit …" the red-headed girl chose her words carefully, sat on the edge of Yuffie's bed, pulling lazily at the thread. Yuffie cocked her head slightly like an inquisitive robin, chocolate brown eyes urging Kairi to continue, to crack her head open and scoop out her thoughts and hand them to her on a silver platter. She was a curious girl, borderline gossipy, and had to know what was playing around her friend's mind. She had been lying in a bed for a few days and there wasn't much to do there except sleep and stare at that suspicious coloured blob on the ceiling, and she had felt like she was dying from cold germs that had infested her body, lack of exercise and lack of drama.

"Well, don't you think she's a bit … odd?" Kairi finished her sentence, trying hard not to sound like a mardy little schoolgirl bitching about the kid sat next to her who dare speak to her boyfriend. That wasn't the right angle she was aiming for at all here. She was a little envious of the blonde waltzing into her life and stealing her group of friends and claiming them as her own, but that wasn't why she found her odd. Envy may have wormed into her words, but it was somehow deeper than that, and Kairi couldn't quite put her finger on why.

Yuffie sipped her glass of water Kairi had made for her seconds before, a thoughtful look plastered on her face. "How's she odd, exactly?" asked the girl, trying to pin-point her friend's feelings down.

"I … I don't know. But …" It was hard to verbalise her feelings on 'exactly' why Naminé was odd, most of confusion shining through her voice stemming from the fact she didn't exactly know the answer herself. She didn't see why she needed a reason to call Naminé odd, it was just gut feeling. "She's … Not like other girls, is she?"

Yuffie chose to say nothing on the matter, waving her one hand that didn't contain a glass of water to signify Kairi could continue.

"Didn't she strike you as … a shy girl when we first met her?" Kairi asked, continuing to pick at the ratty old bed sheets as she became more and more agitated. She wasn't very good at talking or verbalising her feelings – her mother said that was probably the reason why she got so angry at people, because she couldn't tell them to stop provoking her. Instead, she usually resorted to less peaceable methods to resolve situations.

"She did, Kai. Probably because of the stereotypical tiny blonde with blue eyes. And, to top it all off, she's also an artist. They're meant to be quiet, right? That's probably why Axel likes her so much – he feels like he has to protect her. He used to act that way around you, too, until you proved you were capable of defending yourself in a fight. You told him pointedly you 'didn't need him hanging around like a dead weight all the time', remember?"

"Yeah… I guess. But it has nothing to do with Axel. It's everything to do with her! Why would a stereotypical shy girl with blonde hair and blue eyes dance up to a group of random strangers and make conversation like she's known them all her life? Why would she do that?" Kairi wound the thread around her fingers until it became taught, cutting off her blood stream. She watched with a minor interest as the skin above the tight thread bulged slightly, that sick sort of regard you usually give to horror films, where it's gross and yet strangely compelling, drawing your eyes to the flashing screen filled with mutilated corpses.

"I dunno … It is a bit weird though…" Yuffie agreed, nodding her head slightly. "She was speaking to us almost as if…"

"She'd known us all her life. Like childhood friends. And the strangest thing is, I think the feeling's mutual. I think … I think I know her too. I'm not sure how, but she seems so familiar. Sort of like … Like a memory. An old friend." Kairi raised her eyes from her rapidly swelling finger and drew them to Yuffie's face, studying her reaction. Yuffie's eyes were widened slightly, looking like she was attempting to swallow down her surprise.

"…" The pause circulated around the room, drawing them in, as Yuffie looked away from Kairi, as if realisation had hit her like a ton of bricks. "That's exactly it, Kairi! That's what was bugging me about her! I feel like she's some old friend, some person I'm meant to know, but I forgot the memory a long, long, looonnngggggggg time ago." She drew out her words in true Yuffie style, her voice getting deeper in an almost comical fashion, but there was nothing to be laughed at in her words.

"I know her, Yuffie. I know her…"

o.x.o

Naminé was far away from the two girls that were discussing her, attempting to dissect her life. She couldn't hear their words and her ears remained uncontaminated of the words whispered behind her back. Besides, even if she was tuned into Kairi and Yuffie fm she wouldn't even care much, which was odd for her. She was a very touchy person, treading a fine line between stable and insecure. Single comments could be a push to send her spiralling over the edge into tears and waterworks where she'd remain in her room for days with her head buried under the pillow. Maybe, if she had a normal life – the normal life most teenage girls despise because it was so boring and ordinary, the biggest problem being who would empty the dishwasher – she wouldn't be so emotional, but she was and there was no way around it.

Although, around Axel she didn't feel so self-conscious, didn't try to become invisible all the time. She didn't care that her fingers were laced with his as they walked along in companionable silence. It wasn't that big blank stretching through a conversation that made people feel uneasy, scuff their trainers on the ground and look away; it was a comfortable pause whilst they weren't saying anything but communicating through looks and smiles and expression.

A place roughly inside the girl's ribcage slammed against the skeletal surroundings at every touch, beating softly in the most amazingly cheesy way, almost like a butterfly caught inside her petite body. She wanted to hold on to this feeling, as she looked around casually at the stars above caressed with the deep blue sky. Slowly her large blue eyes moved down to the red-head stood next to her, and she raised her head slowly without invitation and captured his lips swiftly in her own. Her sweet tongue found his as she blushed softly at drew back, a small smile on her face.

"Do you think the concert is going to be good?" asked Naminé softly, the crisp island breeze blowing through her blonde hair, causing it to dance in the wind. She was an ethereal sight, small with a tiny build, large eyes sparkling from the moonlight playing across her creamy skin.

"Doesn't matter, does it?" Axel asked in an off-hand voice, lifting her head up, Naminé resting her chin on his fingers. "Even if it's not, we can just do this…" His voice slowly took on a more perverse nature, making Naminé giggle as she found herself locked by the lips with him again.

x.o.x

He felt around for a bottle, fingers hap-hazardly searching along the work-top and vision clouded, hazy. His breath was tainted with cigarettes and alcohol and he mumbled curses under his breath, knocking staked plates caked with mouldy food and old pizza pieces to the floor. They all shattered as they made impact with the tiles, spewing a disgusting mess of half-eaten take-aways and cracked chips of china.

Yuna was leant against the wall, breathing heavily, face caked up dry blood – crude imitation make-up. Her head was pounding from the vicious beating it had received as she cowered.

He knew. About her and Tifa.

He'd seen them. And there was hell to pay.

o.x.o

Words spilled out of the woman's mouth. Gloriously refreshing words that were like sipping lemonade on a hot summer's day and the spray of the ocean rolling in all the colours of the rainbow. Naminé had always liked watching the sea because it pulsed and changed colour every angle you looked at it, a multi-sided shape glowing like her artist's pencils – it was never dull or white, like her in her little dress. And so it was only logical she should like to listen to the tones of Lenne's voice changing and twisting shape throughout her songs, becoming painted with different colours for every emotion.

Red; hate or maybe passion. Orange; dripping with acid or maybe just joyously happy sunshine. Yellow; lasers blinding the eyes yet it could have been peace. Green like his eyes. Blue like hers. Confusion.

Naminé's eyes had found several people there who were familiar to her: some of them were her drawings; her lies that she'd deluded herself into thinking were real. And she thought about the others who weren't there in the room with her but nestled into pages of her sketchbook: Kairi, Yuffie, Riku, Sora. None of them were real.

And then there were those who could have been her friends if she'd tried hard enough, if she hadn't been so shy and freaked out every time they asked her simply for her name. There was Tidus, Olette, Wakka, Selphie.

And Roxas. Roxas. Her real friend, the one who wasn't confined to pages and pastel crayons. The only one who was capable of caring about her because he was flesh and blood and not just an imaginary friend.

The lyrics of the songs crashed around her like waterfalls but she remained oblivious, she opened her eyes properly, for the first time in her life. And realisation hit her, making her heart crumple and implode simultaneously on the inside, bursting into torrents of red. Red blood, and there was no doubt passion played no part inside her anymore, there was only pain. She staggered, the bright lights swirling around her in the inky pools of darkness, head throbbing to the music as she placed a hand tentatively to her head, the over reaching out on a reflex to clutch a handful of Axel's shirt to stop her from falling over.

Her life didn't have to be as pathetic as it was; her heart didn't have to be like a crumpled can tossed lazily aside. She'd unintentionally made that choice herself – she'd dug her grave and now she had no choice but to lay down in it. Roxas was her only proper friend and she'd pushed him away when Axel had come along. And she had accused of Roxas turning his back on her… She had given up her only friend over somebody that didn't … that shouldn't … exist.

Naminé's throat burned, her stomach heaving. It felt like she was going to be sick… She wondered how she managed to go from happy to this depressed mood – maybe it was the song, or her disjointed thoughts, or maybe just the sight of Roxas laughing as Tidus dragged a hesitating Olette around in some sort of crazy dance. And … she had been the one who went to the stupid concert with him in the first place! Yet she had dumped him when she had the possibility of making new friends, and now he was leaving her. And without Roxas, all she had was … child's drawings.

All in all, she was alone. Roxas had sent her one lingering look with her cerulean orbs, and then Selphie had commanded all his attention by showing off some of her raunchy dance moves she'd picked up somewhere. Probably from the gutter.

"Nami? What's wrong?" Axel asked in worried tones, as the crumpled-up shell of a girl clung to him desperately. He cared about her … But only because she'd wanted him to. It didn't count as friendship or anything else; it was Naminé being in control. It the ultimate of one-sided relationships, like loving your reflection in the mirror – you held all the power over it and it couldn't do anything if you were never there. Axel wouldn't be standing here if she hadn't been so lonely, hadn't drawn all her imaginary worlds… "Naminé?"

She was crying, and nobody else noticed. They were all too busy enjoying themselves, dancing and drinking and chatting. She seemed to be the only person who was unhappy, listening to the sound of Axel's heart beating as she buried her head against his chest. He was the only thing she really had left, because she'd made it so. She'd wanted it.

She didn't want it anymore. She was just a lonely girl, a broken toy who turned herself into a reject through time. If she'd tried hard enough she could've befriended Selphie and Olette and the others, she could have found a place in somebody's heart who was actually meant to have one. Yet she didn't – and she realised how little she mattered to everybody. If she died, she would die a person knowing she didn't change anything in the world. Everything would be exactly the same even if she hadn't been born. Maybe if she hadn't been born, everything would be better between her parents and Roxas wouldn't be dragged down by somebody like her and the drawings would stay in the sketchbook and not venture outside. Maybe her sheer longing had brought them to her, but they didn't help anything.

"I don't … mean anything…" Naminé sobbed quietly, voice mutilated by tears and sounding completely alien to her, as Axel held her close and toyed with her blonde hair. "I don't make a difference to anybody."

"You make a difference to me, Nami…" he started, but she didn't want to hear. She refused to hear his words because they were only what she'd want him to say to make her feel happy and he didn't mean them because he couldn't, he didn't have a heart of his own to think that.

"I don't … I'm nothing … I'm a nobody. I'm invisible to everybody but only because I made myself! I could've had friends…" I could have been here with real people… "But I pushed everybody away…" And now she was going to have to push him away too. And she felt awful about it. But what choice did she have?

"I'll still be here…" said Axel, trying to pull her closer, but she pushed away.

"No you won't," she said in a cold voice. She was good at ignoring people, running away, hiding inside her own head like a mental patient. She'd done it to everybody who tried to talk to her – she could do that to Axel, too. He didn't mean anything because he wasn't real; he was a figment of her imagination that had somehow become solid. She was sick of everything. She was going to end it. She was going to take out her erases and rub away at all the pencil marks she'd made and blow away all the imaginary friends that tied her back into childhood. She couldn't escape.

"Naminé…" Desperation was evident in Axel's voice, and if Naminé's heart had not suddenly been poisoned with envy and pain and hate for everybody she would have stopped, would have went back and patched things up before it was too late.

The desperation was only there because she'd put it there herself. Her guilt was only there because she'd started it all in the first place.

"Go away! Leave me alone! I-I've pushed away everybody else. What's one more person?!" she shouted, and now eyes were turning to the spectacle that was her, but most didn't care because it was about Naminé and they all knew she was so boring nothing interesting ever happened to her. She had no friends to argue with, no boyfriend to split up with.

At least, not anymore.

She ran off, the lights and colours swirling around her, words taunting her, biting at her as tears slowly made courses down her pale cheeks. Her lip was bleeding from constant nibbling, pearly whites pulling off the skin rhythmically, fists clenched. She was like a crazy person, running away from situations she couldn't handle. She couldn't handle anything. She couldn't handle life. Not without Axel, not without Roxas, not without somebody. It felt nice when Axel said he cared about her, and she was stupid enough to delude herself into thinking that he did. Well, of course he did – HE COULDN'T FEEL ANY OTHER WAY ABOUT HER.

Capital letters and large bold print all in flames roared around in her mind as she stumbled, and ran into dancing couples. Some were kissing. That made her feel worse, too busy trying to gulp back sobs to bother to apologise as her aqua sandals thudded against the floor. Everything she did was drowned out by the music – another attempt to hide her from the outside world.

Nobody cares about me. NOBODY EVER CARED ABOUT ME. And if they did, it was all lies, all stupid fantasies. Axel was a lie. Kairi was a lie, Sora was a lie, Riku was a lie, Yuffie was a lie. Yet none of them were as big a lie as her. She hated herself. It felt like worms were crawling under her skin and maggots ready to burst out of her eyes, she was on fire; she was dying amongst all the gyrating bodies dancing to the music. She didn't belong here. She didn't belong anywhere.

She never did.

x.o.x

"Where's Naminé?" he asked, the question buzzing around in her mind over and over, shrill and high, loosing all meaning, lasers boring into her head. He shook her shoulders hard, hard enough to send her flying back, cracking against the wall. "Where the fuck is she?!"

"She's out …" Yuna mumbled helplessly through her broken nose, tears mingling with blood on her face, stinging like salt. Salt on old wounds, pieces of flesh hacked roughly open with fists, as she was thrown to the floor. Picked up. Thrown again. Hit. Pain.

"I'm not saying this again, Yuna. Where is she?!" he hissed in a drunken rage, pulling the quivering mess of a woman up to him. She didn't look so pretty with her thin face, anorexic limbs lined with red gashes. She looked sad. She looked dead.

Yuna choked back bile rising to her throat. She was going to be sick. She couldn't betray her daughter … But she had no choice.

"Lenne's … concert …"

"With who?" hissed Shuyin, shaking her pathetic form.

"… A-Axel…"

She regretted her words at once, as Shuyin flung her down in a haze of anger and disgust as if he couldn't bear to touch her again. As if she hurt him one iota compared to what he inflicted on her. She was lying there, lungs heaving, crumpled as they attempted to get in oxygen, letting her breathe … Breathe in and out…

"You let her swan out there like a fucking little whore with the slut's kid?" he very lovingly used Tifa's nickname, snorting, only seeing red flickering in his eyes, around him, wanting to force Yuna to see the same red too, to hit her again and again. She started this, when she and Tifa were more than just 'friends'. He found them that time, and taught Yuna a lesson she wouldn't forget. Only then it got more out of hand, every time she dared look at somebody else she would need to be taught a lesson. So they moved to Destiny Islands, thinking they could start a new life. A peaceful life.

Nothing was peaceful, surrounded wall to wall with red.

He left, to find his daughter and drag her away from Axel. Just as bad as Tifa, with his girl in the dark slobbering all over her. His princess …

Yuna was left on the floor, drowning in Indigo. Darkness. Stillness. Buried. A corpse. Dying.

-x-x-x-

A/N: Yay. I was listening to Evanescence, 'My Immortal' through writing most of this. It made me feel happy enough to make it angsty. Woah. Now I bet you're all confused. Don't worry. All will be explained in the next chapter. Now, what's Shuyin going to do? Three reviews, please?

--Skitts