Intelligence is contagious, stupidity is merely popular.

Chapter 5, Are We There Yet?

Entry Number 5

Great, I'm so grounded I'm not even allowed to go to school!

I love you Mom, you have no idea what you've done for me.

I held the ice-pack to my swollen eye, Sora sat next to me, together we listened to our mothers tag-team chew us out.

"…not only did you run off jus because of some stupid news bulletin, but Riku managed to get himself punched in the face by…some IDIOT!"

Wow, Sora's old lady is really steamed; I wonder what we…oh yeah.

"Riku, I was wondering, JUST out of curiosity, who WAS this mysterious man who blackened your eye?"

I sighed, "Cho's brother, and I introduced myself as her boyfriend, why the sudden curiosity?"

"You serious?" I nodded.

My mom excused herself and went into the kitchen. Moments later we heard loud laughing coming from her general direction.

I leaped to my feet, only to be pushed back by Mrs. Ito. "Stop laughing at my misfortune Mom, it's not nice!"

She went back into the room, wiping tears from her eyes, the mood switching back to serious faster than a pin dropping.

"Boys, I understand that those girls are incredibly important to you, but that gives you no right to just up and LEAVE at the first sight of trouble. Your keyblade days are over; things are going to happen that you can't change. Besides, it might've been the fact they were so close to you that Kai and Cho were kidnapped, so somebody might have some sort of score to settle with you, you could've gotten killed!"

Mom picked up her keys and Sora gave his a hug, motioning for me to do the same.

"Now you guys stay here, no leaving the house, for ANYTHING, okay?" We nodded, crossing our fingers behind their backs.

They left; we just stood there staring at each other until the noises of cars were gone.

We both melted down at the same time.

"Aw SHIT!"

We did the only two things we could do, and those were packing our old quest stuff and formulating a plan…

"Okay, somebody's going to have to sneak into their house to look for clues, let's see, somebody who secretly wears contacts and tries to hide it from his best friend, has hair that totally makes him look like a girl, one who can harness dark…"

"FINE, I'LL DO IT!"

'Ding dong' I got up to open the door, finding a fuming Shishi.

"Are you Riku?" he asked in a dangerously cool voice, I nodded my head slowly.

I fell to the ground as his fist connected with my stomach; he crumpled up a piece of paper and threw it at my head.

"Violence is never the answer…" I commented weakly, but his foot connected to my side cut me off. He grabbed my collar and pulled me up a little.

"You have one week to get my sister and cousin back, or else you'll find yourself cremated, ALIVE!" He threw me to the ground and handed a piece of paper to Sora.

"Hey, that one's for you. When you find Cho, can you tell her something…?"

Sora nodded, obviously surprised at his mellow-ness, Shishi leaned over and whispered something in his ear.

Sora nodded again, "I can do that, no prob-lame-o dude!" They shook hands and he turned around and left the apartment.

I groaned, sat up, and pushed the door closed. "How the fuck did that psycho know where I live…?"

Satan calmly walked up and rubbed against Sora's legs, purring loudly. I glared up at his face.

"They haven't even INVENTED a word that can describe how much I hate you right now!"

Sora picked up Fluffy, asking me one of the stupidest questions in history of stupid questions.

"More than your PE teacher…?"

…I didn't actually think about opening the piece of paper until after I felt less like throwing up (which I only did twice)…

'If you're reading this, then I must've succeeded in this phase of my evil plan.'

Great, I'm up against ANOTHER evil bastard, I'm so screwed…

'Don't worry, your precious friends will be pretty okay in my care, if you come in time, cause everyday you spend slacking off and not being here, it gets worse for them.'

"Who the hell did we piss off THIS time, and why didn't he wait in line?"

'You're probably making fun of me, but I would suggest you stop. By the way, the hemophilia you 'suck-face' with, how long do you think she can last with a paper cut before she bleeds to death?'

That evil son of a BITCH!

Wait, I looked back at the note, and flipped it over.

"This guy is seriously bored or something, he's sending us on a scavenger hunt!"

The clue (some letters were on my page, some on Sora's) read, 'the second journey; start there and go to study; by the computer.'

I passed the note to Sora, "it's a haiku, 5-7-5, get it?"

He nodded, "the second journey, start there: TwilightTown! Go to study, THE STUDY IN THE MANSION! By the computer, THE COMPUTER THAT ROXAS DESTROYED! Oh, he's probably doing this to stall and make us worry about Kairi and Cho!"

I rolled my eyes, "congrats, you've just solved the universe's easiest puzzle, WITHOUT help!" I clapped sarcastically.

"Hey, how did they know we were really serious with the girls?"

I sighed, "Well, you weren't very quiet about your relationship, and I DID make out with Cho at a public park. Do the math numbskull!"

"…but there's no math involved…"

I shook my head, "nevermind, I'm going to grab something to eat, and then we should jack some money from Madre's purse."

Sora 'mmhmm'ed without looking up from the apology note he was writing. I walked into the other room and grabbed a banana.

As I threw the peel away I noticed a small piece of paper with my name on it.

I opened it; the writing belonged to mother dearest. Two hundred dollar bills fell out; I picked them up and put them in my pocket, going back to the note.

'Dear Riku: knowing you, I'll find myself coming home to an empty house tonight. Here's some money, and grab as much food as necessary, I'm getting a raise anyway so I'll just go shopping or something. But when you do go, please take the journal with you, or else you'll find yourself cremated alive.

Love, Madre (have a fan-TABULOUS time)'

I flipped over the note, scribbling a quick 'thanks/I love you/jazz that won't get me grounded' note and taped it to the fridge.

Wait, did she say 'CREMATED ALIVE'? I checked the note again, confirming my saddest fears.

"Why does everyone threaten to do that?"

After stealing food and packing the journal we headed out to the hidden gummi ship…

"What did Shishi tell you?"

Sora smiled softly, "I can't tell you, it was a private message to Cho."

"That means that I'm going to have the urge to kill someone after hearing it, right?"

"Yep!"

I pressed a few buttons on the dashboard, thank you for modeling cars off of this, or modeling this off of a car?

"I wanna go through the gummi route!"

"No Sora, we don't have time, my girlfriend's a bleeder so we REALLY need to hurry!"

Sora gasped, "I can't believe you're cheating on Cho with a hemophiliac!"

"CHO'S THE HEMOPHILIAC, stupid."

"Cho's a hemophiliac?"

I sighed quite loudly; Riku is NOT going to kill him. Nope. Instead he's going to be all cool and not think in third person…and now he hates himself for thinking in third person, THANK YOU RIKU FOR BEING A DUMBASS!

"Are we there yet?"

"No!"

"Are we there yet?"

"No!"

"Are we there yet?"

"No!"

"Are we there yet?"

"No!"

"Are we there yet?"

"No!"

"Are we there yet?"

"SHUT UP! WE ARE NOT THERE YET!"

"……."

I sighed and closed my eyes, it would be at least 2 hours before we arrived, maybe I could catch some…

"How about now…?"

…after knocking him out, taking a quick nap, and drawing a totally awesome picture of a duck (it WAS supposed to be a horse) we finally arrived at Twilight Town…

"My head hurts!" Sora whined annoyingly, why do I hang out with him?

"So does mine, let's just try and get out of here before those damn kids come and…"

"Look Hayner, its Sora!" I turned around to find the one with black hair pointing at us. I narrowed my eyes, warning them to back off.

Yeah, like THAT was going to happen. The three walked up, totally shoved me out of the conversation, and began chatting about random shit like ice cream and other things that didn't involve my girlfriend.

Okay, this calls for drastic measures…

I randomly pointed to the entrance of the sandlot, "Holy…look, an angel just went into the sandlot, and she's giving away free bacon!" It worked in that one comic I read…

Hayner looked at me funny, "how desperate do you think we are?"

"Well, she was holding a sign that said 'Sea-Salt Ice Cream and Watermelon giveaway, but I really would prefer bacon from an angel, ya'know?" I crossed my fingers behind my back, come on and WORK!

"Dude, let's go!" The three ran off, I grabbed Sora before he could too and headed to the hole in the wall.

"But I want some!"

"I lied, the angel was giving away free beets, now let's get out before she finds out you wanted one." Lying is really quite easy when you do it to certain stupid people!

…Once we finally made it to the mansion the gate was locked, so guess who had to climb over, and guess who ripped his pants…

"I hate you Riku, so very, very much." Sora complained as he changed pants, I smiled inwardly, I can be so evil.

He stuffed the ripped material into his backpack and we headed to the library. After fighting 15 trillion heartless in 10 steps (god, hasn't Ansem ever heard of an EXTERMINATOR?) we finally managed to get in the room and lock the door behind us.

I also stuck a rug in the crack under the door so they couldn't throw those knifes at us (where the hell to they get KNIFES?). While Sora ran down the steps I dropped down and entered the room, Sora complaining about why I always took the easy way.

I rushed through room after room until we got to the stupid computer that kept sparking, on it a piece of paper was taped to it.

"The idiot hasn't heard of fire hazards…" without thinking I reached out to pick it up…

…after getting horrible electrocuted and picking up the note to find it was only another clue I was pretty mad…

"I HATE this!" I growled as I hit the panel again, it made another funny beeping noise.

"Maybe I should drive…"

"No!"

"But you ALWAYS drive!"

…I insisted, and so did he. So we settled it maturely…

I dodged another blow, swing my blade around and hitting him in the leg, he tripped and fell onto the panel, which made a series of beeps, along with a screeching noise.

"Oh shit…"

I didn't even get to finish before the ship began spinning out of control, Sora and I not even strapped in, tumbling all over like Mexican Jumping Beans.

I finally grabbed a chair, only to find the ground approaching faster than I expected….

...ship crashes hurt, a lot…

I found myself dragging into reality slowly, I couldn't move, I couldn't talk, I could feel the headache, and I could feel the warmth of a soft thing (a blanket maybe?), and a delicate hand stroking my cheek soothingly, making the pain leave.

"…so you say he got the worst of it?" I finally began to hear, slowly breaking out of the bog that was currently my mental state. The voices talking were comfortingly familiar.

After a few seconds all my systems were in check, I groaned pitifully and pried open my eyes.

Everything was dank and fuzzy, slowly things began focusing in on a beautiful face with icy eyes and jet black hair that dangled so close it tickled my nose.

"Cho…!" I quickly closed the distance between us and desperately kissed her. She kissed me softly, and then pushed me back into her lap.

"That creep said you crashed your ship, are you okay?"

I grunted and buried my face into her stomach, pulling the soft, red bathrobe closer to my cold body, I shivered a little.

Her fingers lingered behind my ear, quivering slightly. Rapidly my body got warmer again.

I slowly dozed off, feeling worse than that time I 'tried' some alcohol and woke up on the floor of my kitchen with cat pee on my favorite shirt and a very pissed mom standing over me.

…although seriously, what are the chances of 'landing' on the same planet my girlfriend was being held captive on…?

Just so you know, the whole 'Kairi and Cho kidnapping' thing wasn't the main problem of the story, this is a collection of problems that belong to Riku.

R&R, peas!