B li n d D a t e
♥ Naminé ♥
When Sora hopped downstairs in the morning, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed (despite the fact he had had a pretty crappy night filled with dreams of weird blonde haired and plastic-skinned girls with pouting red-lipsticked lips that kept trying to kiss him) he had not expected to find Cloud downstairs.
He had expected to find Aerith there, perhaps in her pink-hearted nightgown with her chocolate-brown hair exploding out into all angles. Maybe she'd be standing by the mirror downstairs applying her pink eye shadow and cooking breakfast (Aerith was a good multi-tasker, but usually Sora found his bacon sprinkled with his mother's facial creams and powders, which was a weird combination). Or maybe she'd be trying to shoo that weird yellow dog away from their front garden.
Any of those things would have perfectly normal sights to wake up to in the early hours of the morning.
But Sora had never guessed that Cloud would also be there, reading the newspaper with his feet propped up on the table.
Cloud was his dad, and Sora was never quite sure where Cloud was.
When he had been little Aerith had told him he was out fighting the darkness that lurked within him, and he wouldn't be back home until later, okay darling?
It had been a nice bedtime story, hearing about all the adventures his dad had been on, but now Sora knew they were merely made-up tales so Sora would never wonder where his dad was.
He certainly wasn't in Midgar, like Aerith said, fighting a man called Sephiroth with a big sword.
Well, alright, he was in Midgar, and he was fighting a man called Sephiroth. But he went to work in Midgar (caught the tram bright and early when all the Soras of the world were asleep) in an office and argued a lot with his workmate, who was called Sephiroth. They argued about mundane things like when this paperwork needed to be in and who put a tin can in the exhaust pipe on my motorbike?
Apparently he had to work six days a week in the office and the seventh day of the week in some over city in the west negotiating business plans and asking very nicely if his company could buy theirs.
Sora preferred the fighting evil story, personally.
Most boys get kicks out of explosions, sword-fights and shoot-'em-ups, after all.
"Hi dad," Sora greeted the spiky blond-haired one who was sat at the table reading his newspaper.
The brunet trundled about the kitchen, taking bowls and spoons and cereals out of random cupboards. Aerith liked organising things, and she had this maddening habit of re-arranging the contents of the fridge and moving all the cutlery about so it took a good five minutes to find anything.
"How's work?" Sora asked Cloud, pouring himself a bowl of cereal. He didn't really feel like having Café Du Aerith's speciality (which was salty bacon fried in pink eye shadow and mascara) today. Neither did he have a soft spot for her soda (it tastes great with a little milk, Cloud!)
"Terrible. AVALANCHE refuses to let us buy it," mumbled Cloud, growling at an article of his newspaper that particularly upset him.
"Oh. Okay. So why are you here and not, you know, offering AVALANCHE more money?" Sora asked, heaping his spoon with cereal and stuffing them into his mouth.
Aerith tutted at her son's table manners and continued to plait her hair and cook Cloud some eggs at the same time. It was tricky, and the woman had to concentrate or she'd scald herself and mess up her hair at the same time.
"The company's going to send Sephiroth instead because they think he'd be better at negotiating than I am. Heh, Sephiroth, good at negotiating? I remember that time in McDonald's when he threatened to kill the squeaky-voiced teen behind the counter because his order didn't come with fries," growled Cloud.
"I think it's a lovely thing. You'll be able to spend more time with your family. And your friends. Leon's been asking how you are," said Aerith in her hauntingly ethereal voice, securing the red band in her hair and flipping it over her shoulder. "So, Sora. What are you going to do today?"
"I'm going to Hollow Bastion with Roxas and Kairi. And her 'friend'," Sora said with a shrug, finishing up his raisin bran.
"That's nice. Aren't Kairi and Roxas that cute couple? They look sweet," Aerith cooed, sliding Cloud's eggs onto a plate.
God. Even his mother knew about it. What did Roxas and Kairi do, hang up banners around the town and give out flyers that proclaimed they were happily 'married'?
"Yeah. Great. Anyway, I'm going to go now," Sora said, dumping his bowl down by the sink and pulling on his butter-yellow shoes.
"Have fun!" Aerith trilled after him.
And then: "Oh shit!" she cried, when she thought Sora was safely out of earshot, the smoke alarm beeping merrily along with her words.
.o-O-oxx.
Sora sat on one of the uncomfortable orange seats at the tram station, looking around anxiously for Roxas and Kairi.
Maybe they're not coming. Maybe they just made it up so they could laugh at me later. Or maybe they've gone out on a date and just said all that crap so I wouldn't feel left out...
There was only one other person waiting with him.
It was a blonde-haired girl with large blue eyes, framed with about a million eyelashes all lined very lightly in mascara. She would've looked innocent if she hadn't been wearing what looked like a nightdress that was cut up to an 'indecent' length, a.k.a. above her knees. Way above her knees.
She was nibbling the bottom of her lip like an anxious bunny rabbit, sketching something in a pad that rested on her lap. She looked nervous, and every time a tram went by she jumped and looked about, then frowned in dismay and erased the shaky lines her pencil had just made.
She was probably waiting for somebody, too.
"Er... Hi?" Sora asked, looking at the girl.
The girl didn't reply and, instead, continued to draw, lost in the land of 'la-la-la-pretty-picture-yayyyyy'.
"What's your name? I'm Sora," offered the boy hesitantly.
"Naminé."
"And ... Why are you here?"
"I'm waiting for my friend."
"Snap! So am I. So, er... Where are you going to go with your friend?"
"Hollow Bastion. Cinema. Movie adaption of Heartless War."
"That's weird – me too. You played the games?"
"No," said the girl in a 'leave-me-alone' sort of voice, starting to sketch more rapidly on her sheet of paper. This was obviously a sign she wanted Sora to go away.
Not wanting to take the hint, Sora tried again to make conversation.
"What are you drawing?"
No reply.
Huh. Well if she's going to be a complete bitch about it...
Sora leant over in his orange seat and looked down at the picture that was slowly starting to take shape in her sketchbook.
He hazarded a rough guess that it was him (spiky hair and baggy pants gave it away), with a ... What was that?
The girl picked up three crayons that were resting by her side, a red, an orange and a yellow, and started to scribble frantically over the figure that was meant to be him. Sora gulped, as the three wax crayons added flashes of colour to her blank sheet of paper, each stroke more violent than the last.
Sora got the hint and backed away from the murderous little girl slowly, deciding to let her be alone with her artwork.
He didn't fancy seeing any more pictures of himself burning in the firey pits of hell with copious amounts of blood spattered all over, knives and scissors and everything else a sadistic little girl could ever dream of getting for Christmas stabbed into each and every limb he owned.
.o-O-oxx.
Kairi stared in horror at Naminé.
"You did what?" she asked her friend again, for the thirteenth time that day. "Why did you do that?"
"He was annoying me," mumbled the girl, flipping her blonde hair over one shoulder. "I don't like being bothered when I'm drawing. And I don't like being set up on blind dates with people either, Kairi."
"Yeah, well I'm sorry me'n Rox didn't turn up, but it was all part of our plan, y'see? We wanted you and Sora to talk without us two interrupting. We thought maybe if you were by yourselves then you'd start up some sparkling conversation-"
"I hated him."
"It wasn't supposed to work out that way! You were supposed to fall in love!" cried Kairi in despair. "Not sit around at the tram station for six fuckin' hours doing NOTHING!"
"I don't want to be given to one of your friends as a consolation prize. 'Why, look, Sora! I know me and Roxas are going out but here, you can have her so you don't feel left out any more!'" cried Naminé, hands on hips, doing a surprisingly accurate impression of Kairi. "I want to find the boy who's right for me, not some random hobo!"
"There's no such thing as true love, Naminé. You've been watching too many of those Spiran love dramas."
"What about you and Roxie? You two look perfectly happy."
"Yeah. We look it," moaned Kairi, flopping down onto her bed. "But ... I don't know... It's just not working out. It's like, Roxas wants to be with somebody else. Or something..."
"Don't worry, Kai, the perfect guy for you's out there somewhere, right? I could set you up with Rai if you w-"
Kairi squealed and threw her pillow at Naminé.
"Don't you dare! Alright, alright, I promise never again to try to marry you off to some guy you don't even know."
"Good. Now how's 'bout we get a tub of sea-salt ice-cream and eat until we feel sick?"
"Naminé, you read my mind."
.o-O-oxx.
Sora's Journal
Right, get this:
Roxas & Kairi set me up on a BLIND DATE!!!!
And guess where the date was?
At a tram station. Six hours of waiting. I didn't even know the girl sat next to me was my date or anything! I talked to her once and she started drawing pictures of me burning in eternal pits of hellfire!
Oh yeah, you could tell she was Kairi's friend alright.
She was called Naminé, and I guess she was pretty. Blonde hair. Blue eyes. Itty-bitty white dress. She's sort of like the female version of Roxas, I guess. Well, appearance-wise. I think Roxas is nicer than her.
God, I can't believe they did that to me!
It was after the sixth hour (as I have stated above) that the girl started to pack up her things, deciding that Kairi and Roxas obviously weren't going to come and take her to the cinema. Not that I knew she was waiting for Kairi and Roxas at the time.
And she decided to clear off, I thought I might, too.
And when I get to my house after that really disappointing day I found Roxas waiting up in my room (and a giant black stain on the kitchen wall when Aerith burnt the bacon), ready to explain the whole thing.
I sort of sat there and blinked after he explained the whole thing and was like 'Oh. Okay. Well, that's swell.' Yeah, I actually said 'swell'. My mind wasn't working at the time, okay?!
And then Roxas was like 'I'm glad you don't mind. And I'm sorry that you were waiting at the tram station for us for six hours. Must have been crappy'. Yeah, well, damn right it was. I do have better ways to spend my life.
And he said it was all Kairi's idea and he didn't really want to do it because he knew it was stupid.
Yeah. Well, that had Kairi's name written all over it. It's just not something Roxas would do. It's not really something any boy would do, if you think about it logically. Dates & flowers & crap... It's not something boys are interested in.
I told him to tell Kairi to stop setting me up with girls.
So that should be okay.
I think.
.x-X-oxx.
A/N: But we're talking about Kairi here. So, what's Kairi going to do next? And will Roxas be able to stop her before she ruins poor Sora's life? Not likely /evil laff/.
M'kay, you reviewers are so cool. I'm glad you like the story! If you have anybody (girl or boy, it doesn't matter) that you'd like Sora to go on a date with, just say. It can be anybody! Seriously, anybody. Just as long as you stick to the KH, FF & Disney characters. Which is quite a lot of people.
Skitts & Lamatikah xxx