Suburbia

'Frame Your Mind'

"God, wouldn't it be awesome if it started snowing? Right now?"

"Why?"

"Because if it snowed hard enough, we could get trapped under this bus forever. Wouldn't that be something?"

"Sora, we'd die."

"But wouldn't it be great before that?"

"...Are you insane?"

Just as requested, Riku had shown up at Sora's workplace the day following their dinner at Kairi's. And, just as before, he found the brunette beneath the parked school bus in the back of the shopping center, the boy lying calmly beneath, arms folded over his chest. Any awkwardness Riku had worried about had been obliterated by the brilliant grin of the cheery brunette as he'd coaxed Riku down and under the bus with him, the two now lying side by side, staring up at the rather filthy expanse of metal above.

"Heehee, na-ah. I'm just messing with you. You can't pick up on that? You can't pick up on anything, Riku... Not on truths, not on jokes. Heck, you look as though you don't understand anything, but you seem so smart." Sora's pretty little mouth twisted into a pout, one that Riku struggled to ignore, even in the darkness around them. He skin prickled faintly as something pressed against his shoulder, as something crept up and sat against his chest. "Just can't feel anything..." Sora mumbled quietly. His head was tucked into the crook of Riku's shoulder then, mouth against his ear and palm against his chest.

"Of course I still feel things," Riku said quickly. He didn't know quite why, but Sora's tone had just given that warning tug, that painful pull at the pit of his chest. So Riku found himself pulling up the words, fitting them sloppily together-- "Sometimes I just feel too much. So I shut it out." Wait, what the-- that's not what I meant. Dear God, I sound like a mental case. "I mean, no, that's not what I mean..."

"What'd they do to you?" Sora asked quietly.

"...Do to me...?"

"Something's hurting you, isn't it?"

Man, this kid is not gonna give up, is he? Yeah, that was the truth Riku acknowledged just fine. While his mind struggled to figure out who could come out on top in the end-- the stubborn Riku or the persuasive Sora-- the silver-haired boy made the one fatal mistake of tilting his head just so, just enough to catch an eyeful of Sora's pleading little gaze, of his big deep blue eyes fixated right on him-- him and only him at that one particular moment in time.

Needless to say, his brain surrendered and he caved right on in.

"It's... erm. Not. ...It's. ...Several somethings." Swallowing, Riku forced his voice into submission as he plowed onward, now forcefully looking away from Sora's eyes and back towards the bus. The las thing he wanted to see was the boy getting sappy, getting sorry. "A medical condition. Not muscle spasms. My heart freaks out because of stress. If it gets bad, I have a heart attack."

"...God."

"When... my parents died, that pretty much started it all. Uh... Yeah. There were things bothering me before that. Their deaths just set it off. So now Mayako's got me on pills." Riku shrugged, but the motion was all but lost in the shadow of the bus and his position on the ground. "If I seem... off... that's why."

"What kind of pills?" Sora asked. Well, at least he's not melting into a puddle of emotional goo yet. That's reassuring.

"I think they're anti-depressants. Blood-thinners. Pain-killers. You know."

"Riku..." It was then that Riku realized the other boy had rolled onto his side, turned to face Riku fully, the hand that had been resting on his chest now settled onto and around his shoulder. "What if you stopped taking the pills, huh? I mean, what do they really do? You don't need medication to make you better. That's crap. You need less stress and more fun. You need to have a good time and be happy. Not be drugged up all the time..." Giving Riku's shoulder a gentle squeeze, Sora finally caught Riku's eyes and gave the older boy a soft, sweet smile. "Stop taking them!"

"Maybe I will."

"You will. 'Cause I wanna see what the real, live and awake Riku's like."

"No you don't."

He says that now, but he doesn't even know me. Heck, he hardly knows anything about me at all! Not what I'm like now, now what I was like back home. If he knew... he wouldn't want me like that. I'm not even sure if I want me like that. ...God, was anything ever not confusing? This is bullshit.

But Sora pressed on with that grin, that innocent grin. "Sure I know. Like you'd know what I want anyhow."

And Riku fought back with a smirk. "You might be surprised."

"So surprise me."

Sora was quiet-- actually near silent, for once-- his other arm slipping over and across Riku's body as Sora propped himself up on one elbow. Between the cool metal of the bus and the warm glow of Riku's skin slid the little messy-haired, wide-eyed kid, until the entire length of his small body was draped gingerly over Riku's. He smiled lightly, almost shyly, before tilting his head and bending down and brushing his lips against Riku's own.

They stayed like that for several long moments, Sora quietly, cautiously testing his limits with gentle nips and kisses. His fingers found their way to Riku's long silver hair and there they stayed, playing and winding and dancing lightly across the boy's scalp. His tongue flicked tentatively against Riku's mouth, sliding in as Riku parted his lips and fisted his hands in Sora's shirt, tugging him closer and upping the pace by just one more notch.

In a tangle of limbs and clothing, kissing and sucking, Riku found himself pressed and melting into the asphalt, lungs exploding with the pressure-- Holy crap what the hell am I-- "Shit!" Riku hissed, breaking away from Sora's teasing little mouth and arching up against the body above him. Sora's grin was bright and devilish as he rocked down against Riku once more, ragged breathing and muffled moaning all that filled his ears, knees locked around Riku's waist, fingers wound around Riku's hair.

And then poor Riku finally managed to grit out...

"You make it difficult to surprise you when you've got me pinned under both you and a bus."

With a breathless, airy little laugh, Sora ceased his tortuous attack on the boy underneath him, resting his chin on Riku's chest and shooting the other boy a playful smile. "Come on, Riku," he said. "You're strong. If you wanted to, you could push me off, right? But you don't want to, do you?" And that playful grin turned delightfully wicked once more as Sora nipped gently at Riku's mouth, tugging his bottom lip between his teeth. It hurt, but at the same time... "Do you?" he asked again.

"No, Sora..."

"What?"

"No, I mean, I can't push you off." Sucking in as much air as he could, Riku tried to calm himself down. Damn. The last thing I honestly need is to get a hard-on here, of all places... Oh God. Oh God and I can't move... "I think I'm stuck."

Letting out a little growl of frustration, Sora whined, "Riku, you can't just chicken out like that!" Riku could just make out the disappointment lacing the corners of the boy's eyes, but honestly, there wasn't much he could do about it. Because...

"I'm not 'chickening out,' for God's sake! I'm serious! I can't move!"

With a huff of a sigh and another determined little glare, Sora proceeded to wriggle off of Riku's chest. ...Or at least, he made a good, solid effort. Gave it the old college try, really. A noble, noble effort. A failed effort. A big fat-- "...Oh shit."

"What?"

"I think I'm stuck."

Riku rolled his eyes, mind finally beginning to clear out the lusty smoke that had fogged it up. Now, instead of acting like a normal, hormone-driven teenager, Riku was back to his lifeless little puppetered self, calmly taking it all in stride. Only because I'm higher than a fucking Macy's Thanksgiving Day balloon. "You're not stuck, Sora," Riku insisted. "All you have to do is get off me."

But Sora was serious. Not a trace of his previous amusement lit up his cute little face as he continued to whine, continued to panic. "No, no, I mean it! My pants are stuck on something!"

"...Please tell me you're kidding."

"Nooo! Riku, what do we do? We're gonna be stuck here forever!"

"No we're not."

"Well I can't move and you can't move. Oh man, we're so screwed." Sora gnawed anxiously on his bottom lip and drummed his fingertips against Riku's chest, clearly lost in deep thought. Slightly amused and slightly aggravated, all at the same time, Riku could only sigh and wait for dear Sora to get his bearings. And get his bearings the boy did, coming up with an oh-so-brilliant plan in the process. "Are you sure you can't just like... slide out or something? Maybe then I could get off and just fall on the ground," Sora said.

"No, your legs make it difficult."

Sure enough, Sora's legs had looped around Riku's own during their brief little excursion, knees and calves and thighs all in such a tangle that there was no sense in trying to decide which limb belonged to who anymore-- they all blended together and neither could really get a good look at their own legs anyway, Sora's chest pressing Riku into the ground, still.

Ah, but of course the fun couldn't just end there. No, there just had to be the swinging of a door... and the approach of two voices along with a pair of footsteps.

"Oh God, who's that?" Sora whispered. His eyes doubled in size and he buried his face in Riku's chest, successfully knocking the wind out of the other boy with ease, somehow believing that if he could see absolutely no one, no one could see him.

"--the fuck do you think you're doing anyway? This is employee only parking, can't you read the goddamn sign?" Riku could barely distinguish the first voice as that of the bookshop owner he'd briefly met the day before. What had Sora called him again? Cid, right?

The other voice, Riku had never heard before. While not as gruff as Cid's, it came across as being more laid-back, more amused by the situation at hand rather than put-off by it.

"Now, now, Highwind, all the screamin' can't be good fer that blood pressure ah yers. You been watchin' yer cholesterol a'ight?"

"Get yer fuckin' cheese wagon off my damn parking lot!"

With a goodhearted laugh and the clunk of boots on asphalt, the man apparently in charge of the school-bus came into view. Or rather, his shoes did. Both Sora and Riku watched in horror as the pair of boots made their way along the side of the bus before disappearing with the swish of a door, only followed by the crank and groan of the ignition and the bus' engine whirring to life.

"Oh no!" Sora let out a strangled little cry, turning to face Riku with a look which clearly expressed deep sympathy for the other's death. After all, if it wasn't for Sora, Riku never would have crawled under the school bus in the first place. Would never, never have faced such an untimely demise.

"Sora..."

If Riku's life flashed before his eyes, it must not have been much to look at. Instead, all he could focus on was Sora's pretty little blue headlights fogging up with tears that spilled over and landed smack on Riku's waiting face. Plop, plop, plop. Poor kid, poor...

Riii-iiip.

"Ow!"

Riku wheezed and hacked and choked and coughed, breathless and squashed beneath Sora's full weight as the boy was no longer caught on some under-hanging part of the bus. Even in the ensuing chaos, however, Sora's tan little hand quickly managed to find its way to Riku's mouth, stifling his dying sounds as the bus came to a stop about three yards ahead from where it had been. This left the boys still sheltered beneath it, but only by a scant four feet or so.

There was no doubt in reading Sora's warning glare. Don't talk, if you value your goddamn life.

In the following moments, the bus went silent again, the door flew open again, and there appeared those black boots. ...Again. The voices went at it one last time, Cid arguing over the the tiny amount of space in the parking lot and "Why the hell is your goddamn bus here anyway?" only to face a retort of "Nuh room in the school's lot." The two older men egged one another on, Cid growing only more angry and colorful by the second, the pair only finally silenced by the swing, the smack, and the click of the bookstore door in their wake.

Without another word, Riku and Sora scrambled out from underneath the bus as fast as they could possibly manage, neither of them seeming too badly harmed, seeing as little grease and dirt never really hurt anyone.

"...Are you okay?" Riku asked warily after quite the awkward moment of silence.

"Yeah, but I dunno if my pants are."

Riku cocked his head to the side just so, watching quietly as Sora fought to spin around in circles, trying to catch a glimpse of the backside of his pants. A little tear was all that Riku could initially see. No big deal. ...But somehow, that tear suddenly doubled, tripled in size. ...And that was how poor Sora's pants magically split in half and fell down around his ankles, leaving the boy standing there, stunned dead silent. ...In his little purple boxers.

"..."

"..."

"...Er... Sora?"

"Oh maaan!" Finally reacting, clutching his hands to his thoroughly mortified face, Sora let out a distressed little squeal of embarrassment before instantly turning on Riku, who was currently trying to stifle the laughter that threatened to bubble over at any given second. "Riku! Wh-- heeey! It's not funny!"

"How are you going to go in to work like that?"

Scrubbing at his face to calm down the blush, Sora stuttered about for a minute before finally slumping forward in defeat, shoulders hunched and head hung low. "I can't. There's no way in hell. I'll have to go home and get a new pair of pants. Man, Cid's totally gonna fire me. I just know--" But that was where he stopped. For Riku began to do something very curious... "R-Riku, what--?"

With quite the solemn look on his face, Riku actually stood in the center of the parking lot, undoing the buttons of his pants before sliding them off with ease. It was an act with brought Sora's face back to its previous shade of beet red, only darkening even more as Riku awkwardly held out his pants in one hand towards Sora.

"Here..." Riku mumbled. "Just take them already." Thank God I'm not feeling so horny anymore. Nearly getting rolled over by a bus does that, I guess. Really kills the mood, it does.

"You are so fucking awesome, Riku." Sora bounced and leapt upon Riku in a half-pounce, half-hug. Something eerily similar and defining of a word Riku had once heard. Something like a glomp.

"Mm. Right. So."

As Sora slid on Riku's baggy jeans, all grins and smiles and giggles and laughs now, he jerked his head back over towards a sparse little forest growing out behind the shopping center at the end of the parking lot. "Hey, if you cut back through those trees, you can get to the tracks. And if you follow 'em down until you hit this little house with a porch on it and then go up on that street, you can get back to your house without walking along the main drag in your boxers!"

"...You honestly expect me to know how to get home like that?"

"...Good point."

"It's okay, really. You need to get back to work," Riku insisted. In his hands, he held Sora's tattered pair of pants. He had actually hoped that he might somehow be able to make it back to Mayako's house wearing said pants, but now that he got a good look at them... there was no way those things were staying up around anyone's waist.

"I swear I'll make this up to you, Riku. I swear, okay?"

"You don't have to."

"Oh yes I do-o! Yes I do!"

Riku laughed as Sora gave him another bone-crushing hug and a gentle kiss on the mouth, the boy twisting away only half a second later and spinning through the door into the bookshop once again. Scratching the back of his head and trying to puzzle it all out, Riku strove to remember just how he'd ended up with no pants but Sora's pants dangling in his arms.

...Really, it all made very little sense. And as he tried to remember what he'd done the rest of that day before his little meeting with Sora, he found it all surprisingly blank. Wow. Do I have no life or what? This is just downright pathetic. And with that thought to keep him company, Riku headed off towards Mayako's house, trying to keep his chin up and his back straight, praying that people in this town would mistake his boxers for a pair of shorts.

...Too bad they didn't.

Riku couldn't remember a time in which he'd ever been more embarrassed. It didn't help that he made at least three wrong turns into random cul-de-sacs and courts and places, each time drawing countless pairs of eyes and mocking giggles. And he-- the kid in his boxers toddling down the street-- could only sigh when the clouds above gave way to more summer rain, completely soaking him and what little clothing he had on. Thankfully, it wasn't long after that that he found himself at the head of his aunt's street and her home along with it. And it wasn't long after that that he discovered the cars were gone, the lights were off, and... the door. ...Was locked.

"Of course," Riku muttered. Staring at the door, perhaps he thought that if he looked at it long enough, it would take pity on him and swing right on open. Looking at his shoes, perhaps he realized that those laces at that moment weren't just smiling-- they were flat out laughing at him and all his godawful misfortune.

Trying not to get his hopes up, Riku heaved another sigh before clutching Sora's tattered pants to his chest and puttering across the lawn towards Kairi's house, ringing the doorbell and praying for all he was worth that the girl was there. ...And her parents weren't. But he waited and waited and rang and rang and turned his head towards the sky and asked, "Dear God, why do you hate me?"

And he crossed the lawn and he grappled with a window and he jammed his thumb and he cursed and whined and cursed again for whining. After trying desperately to cower under the overhanging roof above, Riku decided enough was enough. From just over the fence surrounding Kairi's yard, Riku could make out the slate gray roof of some adjacent little building which looked to be a gazebo. Kairi'll understand. If I stay out here, I'll get sick. And if I get sick, well... There's no way in hell I'll be confined to that house for days on end.

With this last thought, Riku tucked Sora's battered pair of pants beneath an arm and scaled the fence with ease. ...Right before falling into the pool on the other side. To save quite a bit of time discussing Riku's thoughts and feelings on this particular event, we will simply leave it at this one prevailing statement of truth: he was most disgruntled.

After having pulled his cold, abused, and thoroughly soaked body from the depths of the pool, he made his merry, squelching way towards the gazebo, catching a glimpse of red along the way. Backtracking several paces, he peered through the rain, through the window, setting eyes one what was unmistakably the back of Kairi's head. She was seated on the ground, it seemed, clearly facing away from the window and clearly oblivious to Riku's tap on the glass and his half-hollered "Kairi!"

Good God, girl! Turn around for crying out loud! "Kairi..." Tap, tap, tap.

...Still no response.

Now completely agitated beyond all reasonable belief, Riku's desperate stare turned into a frown as he tugged frustratedly at the damn window. And both desperation and frustration were shot to pieces when the window actually cooperated and slid right on open. ...Well damn, if I'd known it was that easy. "Kairi!" Riku hissed.

...Nope. Nothing.

"KAIRI!"

Silence.

If Riku was attracted to women, perhaps he would have reacted quite different to what awaited him on the other side of the window. As it was, however, his wet bangs chose that exact moment to plaster themselves over his eyes, to blind him for half a second and send him slamming against the wall, tripping on the ledge and falling, tragically, onto the poor girl seated on the floor below. The poor girl, who was, at that particular moment in time, in quite a state of undress, sitting only in her dainty little underwear.

Riku wasn't just disgruntled anymore. He was freaking the hell out.

"Jesus, Kairi!"

"RIKU? Wh-- Whyyy are you in my room?"

"Please put some clothes on. I'm begging you."

"What happened to your pants?"

"They're not mine, they're Sora's!"

"Riku, why do you have Sora's pants?" Clutching one hand to her chest and clearly struggling to recover from the shock of being pounced upon in the comfort of her own home... Kairi scowled at the image of Riku with his hand clapped over his eyes. "For crying out loud, would you uncover your eyes already? I'm not that ugly, am I?"

Blinking, Riku awkwardly obeyed and removed his hands, still pointedly averting his gaze to the side. "No, it's not that," he mumbled.

"Well fine. Besides. It's not like it's anything you've never seen before, right?"

"It's different. You're not in a bikini."

"There's no difference! Now, you want to explain yourself or what?" Kairi's crossed arms at least allowed Riku to look her in the eye without feeling terribly misplaced. There was something about unclothed women that just made him downright uncomfortable. To voice this to Kairi, though, was probably not a good idea. Even if she had seemed open-minded and friendly before... No one ever liked to hear that their girl-body had all the sexual appeal of a cold, dead fish.

That made little to no sense. Way to go, Riku. And she's still staring at you, waiting for some goddamn explanation as to why the hell you broke into her house. Cough it up, lame-ass. No way out of it now.

And so Riku explained. He recounted the morning's events perfectly, calmly, and detachedly. If it wasn't for the slight stumble of his words as he grazed over the details of his little make-out session with Sora, Kairi might have thought he was even making the entire thing up. But there was no escaping the truth in his words as he finished his story, plunging both of them into a painfully awkward silence. All things considered, though, Kairi seemed to be taking it remarkably well.

"...If you break his heart, I'll never speak to you again, Riku Wataya."

"Kairi, he was the one who came onto me. Not the other way a--" But Riku's frantic words only succeeded in earning him a reprimanding scowl, stunning him into a trained silence.

"Look," Kairi snapped, "if you don't like him, stop him, got it? Do you even like boys?"

"Well, I guess--"

"Do you like girls?"

"I think--"

Kairi let out an angry little growl, shifting closer towards Riku and somehow becoming increasingly intimidating. As if her being in just her underwear isn't scary enough, now she's backing me into a goddamn wall... "You 'think,' you 'guess'--" Her words grew more pointed, more sharp with each breath. Scary! "Come on, Riku, don't you even know anything as simple as this?"

One delicate little hand shot out, grabbing Riku's own and forcefully planting it directly on her chest, just over the pink-polka dotted fabric of her bra. ...Much to Riku's dismay.

"Do you feel anything? Anything at all?" Kairi asked.

"No!" Riku wailed.

Kairi released his hand, which Riku promptly clutched to his stomach, buried in the ruined pair of sopping wet pants that had once been on Sora earlier that day. Somehow it may have made sense. Negating woman germs with Sora's old pants? Freak. Freak, freak, freak!

"Okay. And when you were with Sora? How about then? Did you feel anything then?"

"I gue-- Yes. Yeah, I mean. I did."

"Okay then. Now. Do you like Sora, do you dislike Sora, do you feel anything at all towards him? Because I know he's got something for you."

"I never would have guessed."

"Riku Wataya, don't you dare dodge the question! Sora is very important to me and I'm not letting you anywhere near him if you're going to hurt him, got it?"

"What what do you want me to do?"

Kairi's voice softened slightly, her gaze turning almost apologetic as she asked, "What do you want to do? Do you like him or not? It's really just that simple, Riku. There are no hidden questions, no ulterior motives. It's just this-- this simple, okay?"

Riku looked away, down towards his hands. He had the words, he was sure of it. He'd thought them over to himself before, but... saying them was a whole different matter. "He's... he's different. I don't mean it in a bad way. ...He's direct in speaking his thoughts and his feelings, but then he sort of... meshes the two together. Like, he has feelings for the things he thinks about, and that's what makes them important to him. I don't know if that makes sense, but..." Why the hell can't I figure it out? It's not that hard, for God's sake. It's just a stupid, childish question...

"Try again."

"I don't know."

"Okay." Her voice was completely back to normal now, a warm smile in place of the earlier scowl. Whether she fully trusted Riku with the heart of her best friend... well, that remained uncertain. But she finally took pity on the drenched boy sitting by her window, turning to him with a nod of her head and saying, "Come on, Riku Wataya. We'll get you some pants."

And not two minutes later, Riku stood outside Kairi's bathroom, toweling his hair dry while staring down at his legs, now clad in a powder-pink pair of pajama bottoms, decorated with glittery, stylized hearts.

"Kairi, could you... possibly have picked a worse pair of pants?"

The girl smiled sweetly, tying the cord of her bathrobe loosely around her waist, obviously catching onto Riku's discomfort earlier. "Look, Riku," she said. "It's either these or my jeans. And I know those would be too small for you, so it's gotta be these. M'kay?"

"This is embarrassing."

"Oh, a little embarrassment never killed anybody!" With a little laugh, she grabbed one of his wrists and led him down the hallway and into the kitchen with a "Come on, cheer up, Riku!"

"You haven't been stuck in your underwear for the past half hour."

"Mm. Actually, I've been in mine for three hours."

"...What."

"Meditating, you goof. It gets so hot sometimes I just do it stripped down. On a regular basis, it's not like anyone sees me doing it anyway." At this, Kairi smirked and raised one thin red brow. "Guess you just had to come on in and change that little factoid, huh?"

"I didn't mean to..." Trust me. If I'd known you were practically naked, I would've never even bothered. Honestly. Why can't girls just keep their clothes on? Why?

"Hey, hey, I know that! Aww, I'm just kidding around, Riku." Kairi bustled around in the kitchen cupboards for a moment, looking at Riku over her shoulder with two glasses in her hands. "Milk?" she offered.

"No thanks."

"Hey, I said I was just joking... You're not sore about it are you?"

"No, I'm just thinking."

"Abooout?" Despite Riku's refusal, he found a glass of milk pushed in front of him, anyway as Kairi sat down across from him at the kitchen island counter. She regarded him with a knowing little smile, filling in his silence as she saw fit. "A certain blue-eyed somebody, no doubt. I can tell just be looking at you. You might not see it, Riku, but I can. There's something there. No doubt about it. Hey, I'm not going to push the issue or the button or anything, but... just what is it that makes you so afraid to admit it? You're not homophobic, are you? I mean, you did just make out with him under a bus. ...You did just get his pants off..."

Riku's eyes narrowed into a soft glare. "You're twisting that around."

"Perhaps."

Riku took a long sip from the glass Kairi had given him, staring into its depths for a moment before saying, "I'm not homophobic. I don't have a problem with who I am, Kairi. I'm not going on an angst trip about it, I'm not tearing myself up over it. I never have and I never will, okay?"

"Wow, that's the healthiest thing I've heard you say yet. If only every teenager could say that."

"It's not a big deal, Kairi."

Kairi smiled. "I know. That's why I'm proud that you know it, too." After letting Riku stew in his silence for another moment, Kairi drummed her fingertips against the countertop and asked, "So if that's not what's holding you up, what is it?"

"Difficult to explain."

"I gathered that part. But can you try?" She tilted her head to one side and pulled her mouth into a pleading little smile. "For me?"

"Do you have to do that?"

"Ooh, but it's wor-king, isn't it? You don't have to like girls to fall victim to a little puppy pouting, Ri-ku Wataya!" While Riku groaned and Kairi laughed, the girl patted the boy on the arm and switched back into a more serious, meaningful tone. "I'm here for you, you know. I want to help."

Riku fell quiet again, no longer looking at his glass, but at his knees instead. His... pink, heart-covered knees. "...I can't even think about thinking while I'm staring at these pants."

"Oh honestly, Riku! At least you've got a stupid sense of humor. Here, allow me. I'll go find something else you might possibly be able to wear and you figure yourself out before I get back, got it? We're going to have one big girly heart to heart talk-- you and me, okay?"

"If you say so."

"I do! Now close your eyes or look away from those pants or something and get to thinking, Mr. Wataya!" With that, Kairi disappeared down the hallway and once more, Riku was left to his thoughts and his thoughts alone.

Okay. I can do this. ...This is easy. Nooo problem. I'll just organize my head up and outline the crap I have to deal with, see how it all factors in to me not working like a normal human being, and... I'll go from there. Right. Easy. Piece of fucking cake.

Item number one... when I think about things, my chest hurts. When I try and forget about it, or think about why my chest hurts, I get to thinking about the pills and the problems and the conditions and my chest hurts more. I could die at any moment. But I'm not depressed. I'm just missing parts. And I don't know when they went missing and I don't know how they went missing. When I'm around Kairi, I feel relaxed. When I'm around Sora I feel whole. And when I'm around my family, I feel like shooting myself.

...That was all just item number one? Dammit. How the hell does organizing work anyway? I always hated fucking prewriting. Fucking organization. Fucking planning. ...Damn. It.

x x x

"Riku, you're such an asshole, you know that, right?"

"Roxas! How can you say that? It's okay, Riku. I still love you."

"Get real. Riku knows where it's really at."

"Well if you're always so mean to him, don't be surprised when he decides you're not worth it."

"And just what's that supposed to mean, huh? Riku knows I put out. Right, Riku?"

"Come on, Riku, tell him he's got to treat you better! You don't have to take it."

x x x

"Earth to Rikuuu!" Riku blinked, finding a hand waving in front of his face and pair of jeans dropped onto his lap. "Here!" Kairi chirped.

Holding the jeans up for observation, Riku blinked again. Yep. Distressed denim, once again. These are yours."

"Yeah, because I'm magically going to be able to pull a pair of boys' pants out of my ass?" Eyes wide, Kairi clapped one hand over her mouth, laughing nervously. "Oh! Sorry about that!" Not that Riku honestly cared about Kairi saying the word 'ass.' It wasn't as though that was really something he'd ever cared about. ...But speaking of ass, Riku was having quite a difficult time getting his into those jeans Kairi gave him.

"I don't think they'll fit..." Having tugged off the pajama pants and gotten the jeans almost on, the zipper proved to be quite the problem and Riku's face couldn't help but turn a slightly darker shade. Dammit, why do these things have to be so tight? ...Not that Riku hadn't worn tight pants before. But he was more for appreciating the pants from afar. Not really embracing their tightness himself.

WHY is my head so twisted? Just why?

"Well, they're gonna have to fit," Kairi insisted. "That's the biggest pair I've got. Aww, look now, they'll fit, seriously! Just suck it in!"

"I am."

"God, Riku, do I have to do everything for you?" Kairi rolled her eyes and dropped to her knees, batting Riku's hands away from the zipper and taking it upon herself to fix it up for him. Oblivious to Riku's discomfort and embarrassment, Kairi prattled on, carefree as ever. "Did you figure anything out, by the way? No holding out on me! Oh, and stretch your arms waaay up, okay? Ready?"

"Yeah..." Arms up, Riku stared at the ceiling, trying to rid his mind of the image of Kairi fiddling with his fly while also trying to form a coherent sentence at the same time. "There are just... things I'm busy dealing with. They don't involve Sora or anything else. They're just things I have to deal with."

"That's an awful excuse, Riku! And stretch harder or something-- this zipper's totally not budging unless I castrate you."

"Please don't do that if you can avoid it."

"I'll try. Anyway, what are some of these oh-so-terribly-important things you have to think about? ...I mean... No, they are important, I was just joking, it--"

"Kairi, it's okay, really. It's not just that."

"Arms to ceiling, Riku. Stretch higher."

"I just can't think clearly. Something's... not connected or... something."

Riku let out a tiny yelp as he felt the back of Kairi's hand connect with his hipbone in a half-slap, the girl looking up at him with an impatient stare. "Your head and your heart aren't supposed to be connected, Riku. Even I know that much. Even if the heart is just a muscle-- even if you throw all that scientific mumbo-jumbo at me. There has to be something, some thing that makes people feel. That makes them honest-to-God affectionate towards another person. So for lack of a better word, I'm gonna say 'heart,' okay? It's a person's heart that does it. Not their head. At least, that's what I think."

Kairi's hands returned to the zipper, though she still kept talking, her voice not quite so harsh, not quite so loud. "The two don't belong together. Your head is where you do math. Where you store words and where you see pictures when you dream. Your heart is where it starts at, what makes you respond to the words and what makes you need your dreams to make your reality. Got it?"

"I'm not sure that makes sense."

"Maybe it doesn't. But that's just what I think. Seeing as you're apparently incapable of sharing any thoughts or feelings, I figure that'll be enough for both of us." Kairi let out a frustrated huff of air, tugging furiously at the zipper once more. "Dang it, just two more inches-- come on!"

"Kairi?"

"Huh?"

"Did you hear that?"

"Hear what?"

Riku frowned slightly, cocking his head to the side. If he hadn't been worried that moving could be detrimental to his sex life forever, he might have turned around to check on the hallway, on the front doorway. "I could've sworn I--"

"Ugh, this stupid thing!"

"Hey, watch it, would y--!" And then he saw them. "Oh."

Kairi's parents.

"Kairi?"

"Hu-- OH!" The girl's mouth dropped open and she stared openly at her parents in dead shock for a moment before suddenly realizing just how compromising a position she was in and promptly ducking away from Riku, his pants, and his zipper with a nervous little laugh.

A big burly man decked out in business suit and tie-- Gee, wonder who he could be?-- advanced on Riku without a second thought, murder in his eyes and hands into fists. "Who the hell are you? Get the hell away from my daughter!"

"Daddy, whoa, whoa, whoa, wait a--"

The woman in the doorway spoke up then, her voice loud, high-pitched, and absolutely the most obnoxious thing Riku had ever heard. It almost made the boy wished Kairi's dear father would punch him out right then and there, just to escape the woman's godawful racket. "Kai-ri, just wh-- what do you think you're doing? You, young man! Get--"

"Dad!"

"Get away from her!" 'Dad' bellowed.

"DAD!" Kairi darted back to Riku's side, trying desperately to position herself between her father and a rather dazed and confused Riku who couldn't seem to speak a word in protest against such an annoying couple. "What the heck's wrong with you guys? It's not what it looks like!" Kairi exclaimed.

"You get the hell out of my house this fucking minute or I swear, so help me, I'll call the police."

"Daddy, no, come on, knock it off!"

"Kairi, don't you talk to your father that--"

"You're not even listening to me!"

"Why on earth would we listen to you when we come home to find you like-- like this, like some sort of--"

"Dad, I wasn--"

"Oh, Kairi, don't honestly expect us to belie--"

"I told you to get out of my house!"

"You can't kick him out!"

"Ohoho, I most certainly can!"

"Stop! He's my friend!"

As Kairi was shoved none-too-gently to one side, Riku found himself grabbed by the arm rather painfully, shaken around like a rag-doll as Kairi's father towered over him, hollering at his daughter, "Your friend? Your friend? Now you listen up, Kairi, and you listen up good-- I've had it up to here with your sexual liberation crap. This is absurd, this is unsanitary, and this is just damn unhealthy. Just where the hell did you pick him up anyway? For God's sake, Kairi!"

"I didn't pick him up anywhere, he's Mayako's--!" Ah, crap. She just had to go and say it.

"Mayako? Mayako? That's it."

While Riku probably could have kicked the man in the balls, punched his eyes, jabbed him in the gut, and leapt out the window like a frickin' rip-off of Spider Man, he figured that for once, it would actually probably be better to remain detached and emotionless as he had his ass hauled down the hallway, out the front door, and into the wide open world. The only truly frustrating thing Riku managed to register during these moments as he was dragged across the yard... was the fact that it had stopped raining.

"Dad, stop!"

"Kairi, you get back here right his instant!"

Sure enough, a backwards glance gave Riku a glimpse of the redhead scrambling along behind her father, running and slipping in the wet grass, grabbing for the man's shoulder, trying so hard to stop him. Riku tried to say something reassuring, really, but the words were jarred out of him as his captor came to Mayako's door and, with a thud, Riku was slammed against the side of the house.

"Dad!"

"Kairi!"

And his aunt yanked open the door...

"Mayako!"

"...Riku?"

"You tell your son--!"

"He didn't--!"

"I'm not her--"

"He's not my--"

"--to keep his sexual excursions out of our household, do I make myself clear on that? I don't know what the hell kind of ideas you put into these kids' heads, but this is just going too damn far! You're lucky if I don't bring the authorities into this matter! If I ever-- ever catch sight of this boy again, you can bet I'll--"

"Riku."

"I didn't..."

Shockingly enough, it was Kairi who spoke next. Yes, it was Kairi who let out a menacing little growl and stomped her foot and waved her arms wildly around, trying for all she was worth to get someone to listen to her--

"What is wrong with you people? I wasn't having sex with him. He had no pants and was locked out of his house. And you know why? Whyyy he had no pants? Because Sora's ripped while they were making out and Sora had no pants so Riku gave him his! Does that sound like a bad guy to you? For the love of God, the boy's gay, okay?" ...And in the ensuing silence, Riku shook his head, Kairi's father closed his gaping mouth, and Kairi... had a feeling that perhaps she may have just said something slightly off.

"...Gay. ...As in. ...Happy," she tried.

"..."

"..."

"Well then how do you explain w-why you w-were--" Kairi's father stuttered lamely.

"The zipper got stuck. He's wearing my pants because he didn't have any."

"I see..." Clearing his throat awkwardly, Kairi's father nodded quickly, coughing once more. "Well. ...Uh. Riku." Cough, cough. "Good... evening to you. ...As you were. ...Kairi, come on."

As her father hurriedly strode back down the steps and across the lawn, Kairi lingered behind, only for a moment. "Riku, I didn't mean to..." She turned to his aunt, eyes wide and apologetic and trying so hard to make it better. "May, listen..."

"Kairi, you should go home now," Mayako said.

"But May..."

"Kairi."

Shooting Riku one last look, Kairi only remained reassured by his half-smile, his half-shrug in return. He tried to blow it off, to make it seem like no big deal. After all, hadn't he just earlier said he had no problem with who he was? Hadn't he... just said that? If it was true, which Kairi was certain it was (for Riku would never lie to her, would he?), then everything would work out.

Everything would be okay.

And that was what Riku tried to tell himself as soon as the front door closed behind him and he found himself face to face with Mayako's full-blown rage.

"What the hell is wrong with you?"

"Don't talk to me like that..."

"Like what? Like you did something wrong? Because guess what Riku? You did. You embarrassed me in front of Kairi's entire family, you made a scene that is undoubtedly going to make its way around the neighborhood within the hour. Just what sort of impression are you trying to make for yourself?" As Mayako fumed and folded her arms, it was all Riku could do to try and hold in the rage that had been building and building with each passing second. Yet Mayako's next words proved to be too much, just too much taken in at the wrong time. "Don't think you didn't do anything wrong. Honestly."

"Well what was it I did that was so wrong, then!" Riku practically shouted, now furious and shaking with anger, resentment...

"Don't you dare raise your voice to me." Hate.

"Well maybe if you tried listening to me or to anyone else, I wouldn't have to..."

"Take your medicine and go to your room."

"It's not my room! None of this is mine, don't you get it?"

Mayako's face twisted into an angry bitter thing, brows furrowed over her menacing green eyes, salt-and-pepper hair flying to the side as she jerked her head back around to face her nephew. "I can't believe you! I open my home to you, I do everything I'm told, I feed you, I take care of you-- this hasn't exactly been easy on me, Riku!"

"...Easy on you? Easy on you? You lost a brother and a sister-in-law you rarely spoke to once a month. I lost a mom and a dad I saw every day. ...What makes you think I'm happy? What makes you think I'm okay?"

"You're such a selfish brat! All you ever think about is yourself!"

"Well if I don't think about me, who will? You?"

Riku's question plunged the room into a silence that startled both occupants, neither willing to back down in their glare or their threatening stance in the least. ...If stubbornness was a genetic trait, Riku clearly had received it from his father's side of the family.

"You straighten up your act right now. Do you hear me? You straighten it up. And you deal with it." Mouth tightening into a hard line, Mayako spun on her heel and strode away at a near breakneck pace, nearly colliding with her husband in the process. Rather than an apology, she simply glowered and hissed, "You talk to him, dammit. I've had it."

x x x

"Riku?"

From his seat at the desk, Riku didn't bother to turn around. He propped his head on on his hands, tilted at a moody angle to fully face the wall. "Look," he said, "just because your wife says you have to talk to me? Yeah, that doesn't mean you actually have to, okay?"

His uncle hovered in the doorway a moment. Riku could tell he wasn't gone, though. Mostly because the room's normal icy loneliness was still kept at bay by the fact that-- sweet son of a gun, there were two people in there! Socializing in the loner's bedroom. How odd. Scratching his head, the man moved towards the bed, but didn't dare to sit down. Instead, he stuck his hands in his pockets, chewed over his words for a good long moment, and finally decided to speak again.

"You know, uh, I once had a similar sort of... experience. Well, I mean, different, but, uh." Word chewing, word chewing... "A good friend of mine was g--" ...Word choking... "A good friend of mine was gay once."

"...What." So he was gay and then he wasn't? He was gay once? What the hell is this guy on? Oh wait. Better question. What the fuck is he doing in my room trying to talk to me? Does he honestly expect me to jump up and down with joy at the opportunity to lavish my love on a good old member of the fam? Bull. Shit.

Oblivious, Riku's uncle continued on, nodding slowly, speaking slowly, carefully. "Mmhm. We were grabbing some hamburgers at a drive-through one afternoon and parked nearby to stop and eat. He turned to me, told me he was madly in love with me and couldn't live without me. ...Er, something to that extent. Then he kissed me. Right then and there."

...Okay. Riku had to admit. His interest was mildly peaked. If only because his uncle seemed about as interesting as a clay brick. A heterosexual clay brick. "...What'd you do?" he asked, forcing his voice to maintain a careless drawl.

"I punched him." With a snort, Riku wheeled around to face his uncle, whose eyes promptly widened just ever so slightly. The man didn't like that boy's glare-- it just freaked him the hell out. So he instinctively held up both hands with a nervous laugh-- "But that's not the point! What I should have done was calmly explain that there was no way it could have worked out between us and he was better off with someone else who could actually care about him in that way."

"...He kissed you. So you punched him."

"Big mistake. Almost never saw him again after that. A shame. A damn shame. He was a good guy."

Riku honestly had to fight himself to keep his lip from curling ever so slightly in disgust, to keep his fists from clenching. His uncle clearly had no idea what he was saying, what he was implying. ...Or maybe I'm reading it all wrong? Maybe he's not trying to be mean. Maybe he's really a decent guy at heart who made a mistake and is now trying to share the knowledge his emotional wounds bestowed upon him. ...Yeah RIGHT. "So you don't know what happened to him?" Riku asked after a long, dead minute of silence.

He wasn't sure if he should've asked that question. Or rather, maybe it wasn't that he wasn't sure about that, but... he wasn't sure about something. For the split second after the question left his mouth, his uncle almost seemed to shrivel up and cower away on the spot. The man looked towards the floor, the corner, the shadows on the wall-- anything for inspiration, anything to give him the words. "I've heard... some things," he said awkwardly. "None... of them very good." Shaking his head and clearing his throat, he fell back into himself and furrowed his brows in concentration, pegging the words now neatly, cleanly, precisely as he said, "The point is, Riku, that whatever you are, whoever punches you in the jaw for it-- that's okay. You'll pull through. It's them making the mistake, not you."

Riku blinked. His uncle blinked. And finally Riku just rolled his eyes and turned back towards his wall. "You really suck at this, you know?"

"Hey, I'm trying."

"You don't have to try, okay?"

"Listen, Riku. I'm not trying to take the place of your father. Hajime was a-- he was above me-- always was. I know I could never replace him. And I know you don't think much of me and I can't blame you..." Those carefully thought through, precisely mapped out words? They died. They fell to pieces and the uncle became invisible once again, melting away towards the door in something so very similar to defeat.

So very similar that it almost, almost made Riku feel terribly guilty. That it almost made his heart pound, twist, wrench in that most troublesome manner.

"Hey." Turning around, Riku faced his uncle's retreating back, now paused in the doorway, waiting, waiting, waiting for the kid to continue. And continue he did, with more questions still-- quieter this time, filling up the space to make him feel wanted, needed, and craved. "What did happen to your friend? Or what did you hear happened to him? ...What'd they tell you?"

"He... got married. To a woman. He had a child... a son. A beautiful baby boy."

"Why'd he get married if he was gay?"

"Maybe he didn't want to be lonely. He wanted to be happy, I guess."

"But was he?"

"To a degree, I'm sure he was. But I don't know more than that. He died a while ago."

Riku let his gaze drift steadily to the floor. Once there, they fell upon his shoes lined up by his bed, their bright little laces curling out around them, smiling out around them. They looked so damn happy.

"Why'd you punch him?" Riku then asked.

His uncle stood still, thought, and finally, he shrugged. "I didn't know what to say." He shrugged, yes, because he didn't know. Because there was no way he would ever truly be able to explain his reaction, harsh as it was. Because there was no way to explain that didn't involve ignorance, that didn't involve stupidity. That didn't, didn't involve some state of not-knowing.

"There are things you don't know, Riku. Things about this world, these people, this family, even, that you just don't know. That, perhaps, it's better if you never know."

"Don't shelter me."

"We just worry about you, Riku. That's what we do. That's all we can do." And though Riku didn't see it, his uncle forced a half-smile for him, all he could do before he closed the door quietly on his way out. And solitude crept back in as silence made its troublesome way beneath the door and onto the bed. The two played poker and watched the boy, talked about the boy in their dead and nonexistent voices. And Riku this and Riku that...

And Riku didn't hear them because-- for the first time in what felt like ages-- he was feeling the full brunt of every single thing, every single emotion building up around him. His uncle's pity, his aunt's bitterness, Sora's affection, Kairi's concern, and, more than anything, his parents' absence from his life. For now and forever, isn't it? I'll graduate and they won't be there. Maybe I'll get married, adopt a kid-- no one there. I'll wake up tomorrow and, yeah, they won't be there, either.

With no medication to dumb it all down, Riku found himself crumpled in a heap, curled on his desk chair, heart twisting and wrenching and stabbing and gutting him alive from the inside out because he couldn't not feel, because he couldn't disconnect his head from his heart, because he couldn't, couldn't, couldn't--

Hear the little voice just outside the cracked window.

"Riku! Ri-kuuu!"

"Sora?" And though he looked and looked, he could find no trace of pity on the boy's upturned face. Just curiosity, just affection. Just simple happiness. And Riku managed a smile as he rested his elbows on the window sill, head peering out and over to look down at the kid below.

"Hey. Uh... I heard from Kairi about..."

"Yeah."

"Man, I'm so sorry."

"It's not your fault."

Sora's mouth hung open for a moment before he snapped it shut, feet scuffing the front stoop in the dark of the night. Riku could barely make out something held in his hands, dangling by his sides. "Can you come down?" Sora finally asked, pulling Riku's attention back towards his face and his words.

"I don't want to risk it. Mayako's still up and prowling around somewhere."

"Oh... Okay..." Though he seemed slightly put-off, Sora still managed a bright grin as he suddenly remembered something, holding up his hands and the thing Riku had just gotten a glimpse of. "Hey, Riku! Catch!"

...Out of context, this would probably be very, very odd. Riku blinked as his pants from earlier that day found their way into his outstretched hands, having been miraculously propelled up to his second-story window from Sora's scrawny arms. Not so scrawny, maybe. Riku let out some half-laugh sort of sound, looking down again to find the boy turned to leave. "Sora," Riku said. "Thanks."

Stopping mid-turn, Sora wheeled around once more, grin still radiant as ever, laughter pulling at the corners of his bright little mouth. "Man, are you still taking those pills?"

"I haven't today." Do I really sound that stoned? Dear lord.

"Well good! Don't. I swear to God, right here, right now, I'm gonna make you back the way you were, okay? I swear." And Sora meant it. One stubborn, tan fist was clenched and waving in the air-- he sure as hell meant it.

"What if you don't like me the way I was? You don't exactly know what I used to be," Riku said.

"I don't need to." A grin was all it took-- a grin and that one simple, concise explanation. Sora smiled, tucked his hands into his pockets and scuffed the toe of one sneaker against the ground once more, fishing for the words. "So are you grounded or something?"

"Don't think so. I just got a lecture. ...Sort of." If you could call that a lecture. ...If you could call that much of anything at all.

"So you don't wanna come on down and see me? You don't have to go downstairs. Just jump! I'll catch you!" Sora laughed and held out both arms, waiting and watching and smiling and...

"I don't think you could."

"You haven't let me try yet, have you?"

"True."

Shooting Riku a daring little smirk, Sora shrugged his shoulders and let out quite the dramatic sigh, hands coming to rest on his hips. "Not gonna jump, huh? Thaaat's okay, I understand." He cocked his head and went apologetic-- "I'm still sorry, you know?"

"Don't worry about it."

"...Hey Riku, have you ever pulled on a jacket you haven't worn in a year or so and found five bucks in one of the pockets? Feels great, doesn't it?"

...Huh?

"...Uh, I guess?"

"Okay! Just making sure." Sora's mouth stretched to its fullest grin once more, the hand that had earlier been clenched now flying up to the air in a wave. "See y'around, Riku!"

Smiling, Riku rested his elbows on the windowsill once more. "I can count on it?"

"Of course you can!"

And that, as they say, was that. Riku watched Sora's dark figure disappear into the night atmosphere, leaving him alone, just as he was before. ...Or maybe... not as much as I was before. Maybe different, somehow. He could only smile a little at the thought, smile and plop down on his bed, smile and study the open window.

He is something. If everything else is nothing, if all I have is nothing, Sora must be something. Riku's own fingers played with the hem of his t-shirt as he sat cross-legged at the foot of his bed. Opposite of him was his wall, gray and uninviting as ever. He knew it would only be a matter of time before he sunk back into the slump he'd been in earlier. Already he could feel himself coming down from whatever high Sora's presence had put him in. Yet... It's something.

After sitting for another good long moment, Riku suddenly had a brilliant flash of insight.

Maybe I just need to be happy... maybe I just need to unwind like he said. Hell, maybe I could try meditating.

And so he did.

He lasted all of two minutes before he began to hear an nasty little ringing noise in his left ear. Get real. If Kairi can do this, it's gotta be easy for me. I mean, seriously. I'm more calm than she is, for crying out loud.

And while he managed to hang in there, it was only thirty seconds later that he felt his left foot falling asleep, an itch developing on the tip of his nose, and a strangely cold patch of skin developing on his lower back. O-kay, Mr. Buddha. Time to start talking... Shouldn't I be feeling something by now? Or was I supposed to stop thinking...?

The final straw occurred as a sneaky little tendril of silver hair managed to wriggle its way down his face, tickling his skin and irritating the living hell out of the poor distracted boy.

"Damn, how does she do that?" With an arrogant huff of breath, Riku returned to staring at his wall, tilting his head to the side to get a different perspective-- or, if nothing more, to at least try to.

After having scratched his nose, adjusted his t-shirt, and stretched out his legs, Riku then stumbled across his second brilliant flash of insight for that evening, brought about only as his fingers closed around that pair of pants several inches away, ghosting over the seams, over the pockets, over the... piece of paper tucked so innocently, so cleverly inside.

Written in definitive, somewhat lopsided handwriting, the paper read:

Dear Most Noble Riku Wataya! The Lady and myself-- but a humble servant of the court, of course-- request your presence tomorrow at The Lady's abode! There will be...

This was all scratched out rather hastily with pink ink, crammed at the bottom the neatly-written words:

Riku-- Up for dinner tomorrow?

It fell back to the sloppier black-ink marks as in the very, very corner there was doodled a little clover-like symbol of clubs, followed the signature of 'Sora.' Clubs? Why not a freakin' heart or something? Stupid kid. If you honestly have to choose a stupid card to... dammit. What the hell am I getting at..?

Riku read the letter once more, than once more with feeling. 'Dear Most Noble Riku Wataya! The Lady and myself...!' Pink ink with neat writing, black ink with sloppy writing. Either Sora had one hell of a split-personality disorder or he'd had a little bit of assistance in writing his backasswards invitation. Gee, I wonder who gave him a hand. Riku could see it now...

x x x

"Ugh, do you have any idea what you're saying, Sora? You're so lame! Riku'll never go out with you if you keep joking around like that!"

"I'm not joking! I'm serious!"

"Well you guys aren't having dinner over here, got it? Go somewhere else! Like in a public place where most people go on dates!"

"But I like your cooking... And it's free."

"GAH! Just give me that, you're gonna mess it up even more!"

x x x

But rather than annoyance, Riku suddenly found himself overwhelmed by a surge of... fondness for the two of them. Kairi and Sora. The two were so similar, yet so completely different at the same time. And while he probably depended on both of them to get him through the summer at least somewhat sane... he depended on them in completely different ways.

Maybe...

It was then he noticed a slight smudge in the paper. Some ink had bled through from the other side, and as Riku flipped the note over, he finally caught a glimpse of the words he'd missed earlier, written in sloppy black ink, simply stating: "Maybe Eden ain't so lonesome as New England used to be."

(x) (x) (x)

UGH. HUGE CHAPTER. I swear not to make it so huge next time.

...Yarharhar. Eden and New England quote snagged from the poetry of Jack Kerouac, who will become an important instrument of plot later on. Speaking of plot, this fic does have one, I swear. ...It's just a little slow in coming! ...Don't you worry!