I actually want to do two-shots for this story, but I figured I'll put few more chapters before ending it. Enjoy guys!


Never Let Go

Polymoly


02.

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"Oh come on, Riku! Why do you have to be such a meanie?" pouted Naminé as they slowly walked side by side along the school's neat pathway. Her companion's laughter rang loudly in Naminé's ears much to her annoyance. Thankfully, there weren't anybody around them to witness Naminé's act of so-called-violent towards a certain silver haired boy.

Naminé punched Riku with a force she had previously showed him before a few times, but definitely not in front of others. Still, even with Riku's built muscles, he couldn't help but cringed at Naminé's friendly gestures. This petite blonde had proved that she was more beyond what she seemed.

"And that's what you get for messing around with the Naminé!"

She smirked triumphantly looking at her partner rubbing his elbow helplessly, thinking that she had somehow defeated her annoying friend. That thought didn't last long though, as Riku quickly grabbed her wrist and pulled her close such that there was only a thumb distance between their noses.

Naminé blushed wildly as she realized how close she was to her boyfriend. Even though they already had gone out for more than a year, she was still feeling uncomfortable with these type of affections. That didn't really help when she got a boyfriend like Riku, who in oppose, is a man of action. It wasn't that she didn't like affections from her boyfriend, she very much liked it, of course. But too much gestures in front of public would make Naminé sick to herself, because she herself didn't like seeing people sharing their passionate moments publicly. That annoyed the hell out of her especially when she was still single.

But now, there was no one to watch them and she forced herself to be comfortable in this position as their eyes were locked deep within both Riku's aquamarine eyes, and Naminé's bright blue orbs. Despite her efforts to make the atmosphere comfortable, her breathing had tensed so much that her head started to spin in a way she didn't like.

Riku smirked seeing the response of his blonde girlfriend. She was too much fun to be teased. Her rapid breathing just showed her signs of uneasiness and Riku took an advantage of that by lifting her arm just a bit to reach her torso. He could tell Naminé was starting to repel him slowly as he suddenly attacked her slim figure in a tickle attack. Naminé couldn't take it anymore and struggled hard to free herself in his ticklish tortures. Tickles were definitely not one of her strongest points.

"Stop it Riku!" Naminé laughed breathlessly as she tried to let go of his arms around her petite waist, "You know I'm ticklish!" Naminé continued to laugh maniacally until Riku finally let go of his hugs and smug, "That's what you get for trying to out-punched me" They both cracked up at their own little games and continued walking home with a few conversation sparked up.

Most of them are usually gossips hanging around the school, their stories of the day with teachers and other friends, since Naminé and Riku were in different classes and all. Nearly all the time they made jokes for themselves to make each other laughed. They had always enjoy each others company since the first time they met.

"How about next Friday?" Naminé hopefully asked. Riku gave a thoughtful face which pointed out he was deeply remembering something, "I'm really sorry Nam, I have soccer practice," He frowned seeing the blonde girl pouted in disappointment.

"Oh come on, what day are you free? You seem to be busy all the time," Naminé continued briskly, "We haven't have a date for some time you know, and it has been our fourth monthsary in a row we don't celebrate it," Her last word rang in air as silence enveloped them. Naminé has this monthsary system where every month where they celebrate the date they got together, they would exchanged special gestures or gifts. She didn't demanded much though, simple gestures like light kisses and hugs are enough. But it has to be different every month, as it has to be unique and memorable.

Naminé is always a thoughtful person. She has this special touch to make everything remembered by everyone. She always want to make sure to make everything around her are unique – one of a kind – and perfect.

"Hmm…" Riku finally answered, "I think Friday next week will be good, I don't have any practices coming up,"

Naminé bit her lip and trying not to sound too demanding, she asked, "What's wrong with this Saturday?" Next week was quite long for Naminé. It meant she had to postpone her glee to hang out with Riku.

"Oh yeah, this Saturday" Riku wasn't the forgetful type, he was just the cautious type. "I have plans with Roxas and Sora already…" For a split second, emotions ran through Naminé's eyes as she quickly regained her composure and continued listening, "We're gonna play blitzball with the others," Riku hesitated whether to continue on, "Is that okay with you?"

Naminé knew what the last sentence was supposed to mean. It was another way of Riku saying, Is it okay for me to hang out with Roxas? Are you okay with us being friends? Suddenly, so many thoughts crossed Naminé's head all at once, as she was already used to not hearing his name for quite a long time, until Sora's recent closeness with the spiky blonde that is. However, upon hearing his name made her winched, again.

She recalled her last meeting with Roxas in guilt. His expressions, his gestures, his eyes, all of them were deceiving Naminé. Worse, Naminé believed all of that and took comfort in his lies. She knew deep down that she was pretending to believe what he had said because she just couldn't face the truth.

The truth that he was undoubtedly gone from her life.

When that truth finally sunk in though, Naminé had realized it was too late to repair the damage she had broken. He trusted her with his life only to be toyed away like a piece of string puppet. He had given out his heart only to be crushed into a million pieces. She had him as a precious friend only to let him slipped out of her life forever.

Nothing will change

Roxas' words echoed in Naminé's head as a reassurance of Roxas' friendship to her. She had leaned hard on those words for the first few weeks, always giving her bright cheery smile to the porcupine blonde whenever their eyes locked, only to receive a cold and strained smile from the boy. Whenever Naminé engaged Roxas to a light conversation, it died out almost immediately after a few countable replies from him. He always looked away and picked on different routes whenever there was Naminé, and he always made sure he had sat on a desk far away from the petite blonde.

After a few months, Naminé didn't dare to start a chat again with Roxas. She already gave up on the fact that he was his old-self. Even without the forced smile and replies she already knew from the looks of his eyes that he was a stranger. A stranger to her and to himself, probably.

After a year, Naminé didn't even greet him whenever they brushed each other at school. It was as if their friendship never existed and all of those things they did in the past was just a long and wonderful dream, only to be waken up so soon by a selfish need of Naminé's.

Every time she heard Roxas' name escaped from her friends' lips, she twitched. Every time she saw his figure in class or school hallways, she hid herself. And every time she tried to stop the emotions from flooding in to her mind due to Roxas' existence, she couldn't. It was like Roxas was giving her his very own taste of revenge; a sweet infectious taste of betrayal and remorse that she couldn't escape from no matter how hard she tried.

He didn't knew, but he already taught Naminé his lesson.

Naminé knew what she had done before was unforgivable on both herself and his part. She didn't expect him to love her like he did before too, she knew that was too hopeful and selfish for her. She only hoped that for a slim and tiny possibility, Roxas could be her friend once again, because those times of joy when they were together wasn't a lie. She enjoyed talking to him wholeheartedly.

"Nams, are you there?" Riku stared out of concern in front of Naminé's flushed face as he snapped her back to reality. "Oh…" Naminé seemed to be in a daze, "Yeah, of course I'm here, why wouldn't I be?"

Riku frowned at her response. But he merely shrugged on it and decided not to press on any further, "Just to make sure, dear" He added a little bit of his signature grin and despite Naminé's look of uneasiness, she smiled back sweetly.

After a while, both of them said nothing. They were too caught up with their own thoughts. Naminé was still trying to convince herself that she got over Roxas, while Riku was trying to read Naminé's thoughts. He knew that bringing Roxas up wasn't a good idea, now that she was highly caught up with her own thoughts to even notice him gazing her for so long. He wondered what she was thinking about Roxas that made her so sad. Awkward silence was the best word to describe the situation.

Riku had already known about the whole ordeal between Naminé and Roxas. He knew Roxas was madly in love with Naminé about the same time he knew he was too. Thankfully, both boys weren't really close at that time and so this issue didn't really bother Riku. In fact, by the time Riku knew Naminé liked him too, he went straight to court her before Roxas could. He didn't exactly knew what the aftermath could bring, he just did stuff like a lot of unstable 16-year-old teenage boys when they are falling in love.

Riku had been one of the first persons to notice the cold war between the blondes. He raised questions to Naminé about this and even though she had answered them all, he knew she was still hiding something from him. Maybe it was too complicated that Riku wouldn't understand, or maybe it was something more than he had expected to happen from the first time he had confessed his feelings to Naminé.

He tried brushing his thoughts of Roxas after Naminé had pressed on not to question any further about it. It was relatively easy, seeing as he wasn't really on Roxas' friends list. Unfortunately, Riku's best friend, Sora, found companionship in Roxas. That forced Riku to hang out with Roxas a whole lot more than he should have been. He was getting frustrated at how these series of events turned on him.

"Riku," said Naminé suddenly, "Do you think Roxas hates me?"

The question before caught Riku off-guard that he needed a couple of seconds to think about a diplomatic answer. "Why would he be, Nam? You're… sweet and nice to everyone, I can't think of anybody wanting to hate you" Naminé seemed like she wanted to give retorts but he continued on, "Well, I'm not saying he's fond of you or something. I'm just saying that hate is probably too strong. He probably feels…" Riku bit his tongue as he whirled his mind to pick on the right word to fill in the blank.

"Feels what? Hatred? Repulsion? Disgusted?" Naminé hissed even though she was fully aware Riku was trying his best to comfort her.

When Riku gave no attempt to respond to her comment, she exhaled her deep breaths and continued, "How do you think we could ever be friends again?"

Riku stared at her with concern because he knew that Roxas meant something to her. From the looks of her eyes, he knew that Roxas wasn't just a boy Naminé liked killing time with. He was special. He was someone she cherished. He secretly envied Roxas for always keeping Naminé's mind busy, while Riku, her supposedly boyfriend, was left behind to the corner of her attention.

Though despite all that, he wanted her to smile like she always do before all of this complication began. He wanted life to be simple like they used to be. He wanted Naminé to be free from all this weight and just be a carefree Naminé that he used to love. But most of all, Riku wanted to be the one occupying Naminé's mind the most. Not her friends, and above all, not Roxas.

For this to happen, there could only be one solution, and Riku already had thought of this sometime ago, even though he was too scared of what might happen. But he knew to reach his dreams he had to be strong and risky. He was going to risk it all for Naminé's happiness and surely he wouldn't let himself regret what he was going to do.

"You know Nams, I've actually been thinking about that for sometime," this intrigued Naminé as she tilted her head to Riku's and silently listened to his words, "Rather than keeping out the problem by forgetting it, we really should be looking at a different approach," Riku now had softly stared into Naminé's deep blue eyes and was almost lost inside its gaze.

"So, what are you proposing?" Naminé said impatiently.

Riku paused for a moment before continuing, "I want to help you friends again with Roxas."


Thank you so much to soluvepink, Peachie-Pie, and Flipping FlapJacks for your reviews! Your reviews are what keep me going to write this :')

Thanks for reading! Review please! Tell me anything! I swear I'm not gonna bite or burn you guys to crisp :D

-Polymoly