Kairi froze. She was stunned by the sight of Roxas, celery stuck in his ears, salad shreds in his hair, something squishy and black on his teeth, and-hard as it was to believe that someone older than eight would do this-shrimp tails sticking out of his nose. Roxas looked just as stunned to see her. "Am I in trouble?" Sora asked. "I think I am," Roxas said softly. "You're the supposed to be in the dining room, eating with us," Kairi told Sora. "We're eating in here. We're having a feast. " She looked at the assortment of food piled up on the plates between them, and one side of her mouth curled up.
"Please, Kairi, Dad said we could bring any friends we wanted to the wedding." "And you told him you didn't have any, remember? You said you didn't have one friend in The World That Never Was." "I do now." Kairi looked down at Roxas. He was careful to keep his eyes down, concentrating on the celery, shrimp, and squashed black olives, lining them up on the box in front of him. Disgusting. "Mademoiselle!" "It's Doo-be-doo!" cried Sora. "Close the door! Please, Kairi!" Against her better judgement, she did, for strange it seemed, her brother looked happier than he had in weeks. With her back to the storeroom, she faced Xaldin. "Is something wrong, Princess Kairi?" "No, sir." "Are you certain?" "Yes." she replied, taking Xaldin's arm and walking him away from the door. "Well, you are wanted in the dining room," he said crisply. "It is time for the toast. Everyone is waiting." Kairi hurried out.
They were indeed waiting, and she couldn't avoid an entrance. Kairi blushed as she crossed the room. Riku pulled her toward him, laughing. Then he handed her a champagne glass. A friend of Aqua's made the toast. It went on and on. "Hear, hear," all the guests cried out at last. "Hear, hear, sister!" Riku said, and drank down the contents of his glass. He held it out to be filled again. Kairi took a small sip from hers. "Here, here, sister," he said again, but low and soft this time, his turquoise eyes burning with a strange light. He clinked his glass against hers once more. Then he pulled Kairi too him, so close that she couldn't breathe, and kissed her hard on the mouth.
Kairi sat at her piano, staring at the same measures of music she had opened to five minutes before, one hand resting lightly on her lips. She dropped her hand down to the yellowed keys and ran her fingers over them, eliciting ripples of music, not quite in tune. Then she ran her tounge over her lips. They weren't bruised; it was all in her mind. Still, she was glad that she had talked her father into letting Sora stay in their apartment until after the honeymoon. Six days alone with Riku in that huge house on the ridge was more than she could face, especially with Sora acting up.
Sora, who in their crowded Destiny Islands apartment had rigged up old curtains around his bed because he wanted to be away from "the girls," had been begging to sleep with her for the past two weeks. The night before the wedding she had let him bring his sleeping bag into her room. She had awakened to find him and Cupcake, her pet heartless, on top of her. After their long day at the wedding, she'd probably let him sleep in her room again that night. He was on the floor behind her, playing with his little plushies, arranging them into little groups on the scatter rug.
As usual, Cupcake wanted to stretch out in the middle of it all. Sora's plushie of Roxas rode on his black belly, up and down as he breathed. Every once in a while, a soft phrase would escape Sora. "Looks like my summer vaction...is over." he'd whisper, then make the plushie bend over as if it were depressed. I shouldn't let him stay up this late, Kairi thought. But she couldn't sleep, and she was glad for his company.
Besides, Sora had eaten such a conglomeration of party food, and so many sweets on top of that-thanks to Roxas-he'd probably throw up all over his sleeping bag. And clean sheets, like most everything in the apartment, were packed. "Kairi I've decided," Sora said suddenly. "I'm not going to move." "What?" She lifted her legs and spun around on the piano bench. "I'm staying here. Do you and Cupcake want to stay with me?" "And what about dad?" "He can be Riku's father now," Sora said. Kairi winced, the way she did each time her father made a fuss over Riku.
Xemnas was a nobody, but he acted too warmhearted and affectionate-and trying hard, much too hard. He had no idea how ridiculous Riku found him. "Dad will always be our father, and right now he needs us." "Okay," Sora said agreeably. "You and Cupcake can go. I'm going to go ask Roxas to move in with me!" "Roxas!" Apparently he had made up his eight-year-old mind and didn't figure that the matter needed to be discussed further. He played with his plushies contentedly. It was the strangest thing, how he begun to play again after his fun with Roxas.
What had Roxas said to Sora that helped him so? Perhaps nothing, Kairi thought. Perhaps instead of trying to explain their father's marriage for the last three weeks, she should have just stuck shrimp in her nose. "Sora," she said sharply. He looked up from his plushies. "Huh?" "Did Roxas say anything to you about me?" "About you?" He thought for a moment. "No." "Oh." Not that I care, she told herself. "Do you know him?" Sora asked. "No. No, I just thought that maybe, after I found you two in the storeroom, he'd say something about me." The Princess sighed, blowing a strand of her rose colored hair out of her face.
Sora's brow knitted. "Oh, yeah. He asked me if you like to wear pink dresses like that, and if you really believe in angels. I told him about your collection of statues." Her face flushed, she shut her eyes, rubbing the bridge of her nose. "W-What did you tell him about my dress?" "Yes." "Yes?" she exclaimed, blinking her ocean blue eyes. "You told Daddy you thought it was pretty." He giggled, biting his lip. And her father had believed her. Why shouldn't Sora? "Did Roxas say why he was working there tonight?" "Yup." Sora was making his Roxas plushie fly now, sailing it through the air. "Well, why?" Kairi asked, exasperatred.
"He has to make some money for a swim meet. He's a swimmer, Kairi. He goes to other worlds and swims. He needs to fly, I can't remember where." Kairi nodded. Of course. Roxas was just hard up, earning his way. She should stop listening to Selphie. Sora stood up suddenly. "Kairi, don't make me go to that big house. Don't make me go. I don't wanna eat dinner with him!" Kairi reached out for her brother. "New things always seem scary," she reasurred him. "But Aqua has been nice to you, right from the start. Remember who bought you that Terra plushie?" "I /don't/ want to eat dinner with Riku." She didn't know what to say to that. Sora stood next to her, his fingers moving silently over the old piano's keys.
When he'd been younger he used to do that and sing the tunes he was supposed to be playing. "I need a hug," she said, opening her arms. "How about it?" He gave her an unenthusiastic one. "Let's do our duet, okay?" He shrugged. He'd play along with her, but the happiness that she had glimpsed in him earlier had disappeared. They were five measures through when he slammed his hands down on the piano. He banged and banged and banged. "I won't go! I won't go! I won't!" Sora burst into tears, and Kairi pulled him toward her, letting him sob in her arms. When he had settled into exhausted hiccups, she said, "You're tired, Sora. You're just tired," but she knew it was more than that.
While he rested against her she played for him his favorite song, Simple and Clean, then she softened the melody into a lullaby. Soon he was almost asleep and much too big for her to carry into bed. "Come on," she said, helping him up from the bench. Cupcake followed them into her room. "Kairi?" "Hmmm?" "Can I have one of your angels tonight?" "Sure. Which one?" "Namine." "Namine was the pale snow white one, with the painted on blonde hair, Kairi's father had called her "My Loving Daughter's Angel." She stood Namine next to the sleeping bag and the Terra plushie. Then Sora crawled into the sleeping bag, and zipped him in.
"Do want to say the angel prayer about Namine?" she asked. Together they said, "Angel of light, angel above, take care of me tonight, take care of everyone I love." "That's you, Kairi," Sora added, and closed his eyes.