Kairi stood barefoot on the clammy floor, curling up her toes. The humidity and the pool's strong smell of chlorine invaded the locker room. Metal doors slammed and the cinder-block room echoed like a cave. Everything about the pool gave her the creeps. The other girls in the drama club were checking out one another's suits, rehearshing their lines, and giggling self conciously. Selphie laid a hand on Kairi's shoulder. "You all right?" "I can handle this." "You're sure?" Selphie didn't sound convinced. "I know my lines," said Kairi, "and all we have to do is jump up and down on the diving board." On the high diving board, at the deep end, without falling in.
Selphie persisted. "Listen, Kairi, I know you're Marluxia's star, but don't you think you should mention to him that you don't know how to swim and are terrified of water?" "I told you I can do this," Kairi said, then pushed through the swinging locker room door, her legs felt like soft rubber beneath her. She lined up with eleven girls and three guys along the pool's edge. Olette stood on one side of Kairi, Selphie on the other. Kairi gazed down into the luminescent blue-green pool. It's just water, she told herself, nothing more than stuff to drink. And it's not even deep at this end. Olette touched her on the arm. "Well, I guess Selphie is pleased. You invited Riku."
"Riku? Of course I didn't!" Kairi turned swiftly to Selphie. Selphie shrugged. "I wanted to give him a preview of coming attractions. There'll be lots of places to sunbathe on that ridge of yours." "You do look great in your suit," Olette told her. Kairi fumed. Selphie knew how hard this was for, without adding Riku to the scenario. She could have restrained herself just this once. Riku wasn't alone in the bleachers. His friends Axel and Zexion were watching, as well as some other juniors and senoirs who had slipped away from their projects during the activity period. All of the guys watched with intense interest as the girls in the group did their stretching exercises.
Then the class walked and trotted around the perimeter of the pool, performing their vocal drills. "I want to hear every consonant, every p, d, and t," Marluxia called out to them, his own voice amazingly distinct in the huge echo chamber of the pool. "Kairi, Olette, Selphie, this isn't a beauty pageant," he hollered. "Just walk." That elicited some soft booing from the stands. "And for darkness sake,Hayner , quit bouncing!" The audience snickered. When the students had finished several circuits, they gathered at the deep end of the pool, beneath the high dive.
"Eyes here," Marluxia commanded. "You're not with me." Leaning close to them, he said, "This is a lesson in enunciation and concentration. I'll find it unforgivable if any one of you lets these groundlings distract you." At that, nearly everyone in the class glanced toward the stands. The pool door opened, and more spectators entered, all of them guys. "Are we ready? Are we preparing ourselves?" For the exercise, each student had to memorize at least twenty-five lines of poetry or prose, something about love or death-"the two great themes of life and drama," Marluxia had said.
Kairi had patched together to early love lyrics, one funny and one sad. She silently ran over their lines. She thought she knew them by heart, but when the first student climbed the thin metal ladder, every word went out of her head. Kairi's pulse began to race as if she were the one on the ladder. She took deep breaths, the crystal heart her father had given her flashing vibrantly when her nerves were high. "Are you okay?" Olette whispered. "Tell him Kairi!" Seplhie urged. "Explain to Marluxia how you feel." Kairi shook her head. "I'm fine."
The first three students delivered their lines mechanically, but all of them kept their balance, bouncing up and down on the board. Then Hayner fell in. With arms wheeling like some huge, strange bird, he came crashing down into the water. Kairi swallowed hard, the crystal heart flashing brighter and brighter. Marluxia called her name. She climbed the ladder, slowly and steadily, rung by rung, her heart pounding against her ribs. Her arms felt stornger than her shaky legs. She used them to pull herself up onto the board, then stopped.
Below her the water danced, dark wavelets with fluorescent sparkles. Kairi focused on the end of the board, as she had been taught to do on a balance beam, and took three steps. She felt the board give beneath her weight. Her stomach dropped with it, but she kept on walking. "You may begin," said Marluxia. Kairi turned her thoughts inward for a moment, trying to find her lines, trying to remember the pictures she had imagined when she first read the poetry. She knew that if she did this simply as an exerceise, she would not get through it. She had to perform, she had to lose herself in the poems' emotions.
She found the first few words of the humorous poem, and suddenly in her mind's eye saw the pictures she needed: a handsome groom, stunned guests, and a shower of rolling vegetables. Far below her, her audience laughed as she recited lines about the silliness of love. Then, continuing her jumping motion, she found the slower, sadder rhythm of the second poem:'Western wind, when will thou blow, The small rain down can rain? If my love were in my arms, And I in my bed again!' She jumped for two beats more, then stood still at the end of the board, catching her breath.
Suddenly applause rang out. She had done it! When the cheers died down, Maruluxia said, "Nice enough," which was high praise from him. "Thank you sir," Kairi replied. Then she tried to turn around for the walk back. As she started to turn she felt her knees buckle, and she quickly stiffened herself. Don't look down. But she had to see where she was stepping. She took a deep breath and attempted to turn again. "Kairi, is there a problem?" Marluxia asked. "She's afraid of water," Selphie blurted. "And she can't swim." Below Kairi the pool seemed to rock, its edges blurred. She tried to focus on the board. She couldn't. The water came rushing at her, ready to swallow her up.
Then it receded, dropping away, far, far below her. Kairi swayed on her feet. One knee went down. "Oh!" The cry echoed up from the spectators. Her other knee went down and slipped off the board. Kairi clung with the desperation of a heartless. She dangled, half on, half off the board. "Somebody help her!" cried Selphie. Water angel, Kairi prayed silently. Water angel, don't let me fall. You helped me once. Please, angel . . . Then Kairi felt movement in the board. It trembled in her arms. Her hands were damp and slippery. Just drop, she told herself. Trust your angel. Your angel won't let you drown. Water angel, she prayed a third time, but her arms wouldn't let go. The board continued to vibrate. Her hands were slipping.
"Kairi." She turned her face at the sound of his voice, scraping her cheek on the board. Roxas had climbed the ladder and was standing at the other end. "Everything is going to be alright, Kairi." Then he started toward her. The fiberglass plank flexed under his weight. "Don't!" Kairi cried, clinging desperately to the the board. "Don't bend it. Please! I'm afraid." "I can help you. Trust me." Her arms ached. Her head felt light, her skin cold and prickly. Beneath her, the water swirled dizzily. "Listen to me, Kairi. You're not going to be able to keep holding on that way. Roll on your side a little. Roll, okay? Get your right arm free. Come on. I know you can do it."
Kairi slowly shifted her weight. For a moment she thought she was going to roll right off the board. He freed arm waved frantically. "You got it. You got it," he said. He was right. She had a good hold, both hands squarely on the board. "Now inch up. Pull yourself all the way onto the board. That's the way." His voice was steady and sure. "Which knee is your favorite knee?" he asked. She frowned up at him. "Are you right-kneed or left-kneed?" He was smiling at her. "Uh, right-kneed I guess." "Loosen up your right hand, then. And pull your right knee up, tuck it under you." She did. A moment later both knees were under her.
"Now crawl to me." She looked down at the rocking bowl of water. "Come to me, Kairi." The distance was only eight feet-it looked like eight miles. She made her way slowly along the board. Then she felt a hand gripping hard on each arm. He stood up, pulling her up with him, and quickly turned her around. Kairi went limp with relief. "Okay, I'm right behind you now. We'll take one step at a time. I'm right here." He began to move down the ladder. One step at a time, Kairi repeated to herself. If only her legs would stop shaking.
Then she felt his hand lightly on her ankle, guiding it down to the metal rung. At last they stood together at the bottom. Marluxia glanced away from her, obviously uncomfortable. "Thank you," Kairi said quietly to Roxas. Then she rushed into the locker room before Roxas or the others could see her frightened tears. In the parking lot that afternoon, Selphie tried to talk Kairi into coming home with her to her house. "Thanks, but I'm tired," Kairi said. "I think I should go . . . home." It was still strange to think of Aqua's house as home.
"Well, why don't we just drive around some on your glider first?" Selphie suggested. "I know a great ice cream parlor in Twilight Town where none of the kids go, at least none from our school. We can talk without being interrupted." "I don't need to talk, Selphie. I'm okay. Really. But if you want too just hang out, you can come home with me." "I don't think that would be a very good idea." Kairi cocked her head. "You would think you were the one who'd been stranded up there on the diving board." "It felt like it," said Selphie.
"If I didn't know better, I'd think you'd fallen from the ladder and hit your head on the concrete. I just learned invited you to Riku's house." Selphie fiddled with her lipstick, rolling it up and down, up and down in its case. "That's just it. You know how I am, Kairi-like Pluto on the hunt. I can't help myself. If he's there, I'll get comepletely distracted. And right now you need my attention." "But I don't need anybody's attention!" She knew her father probably already knew she had been in some kind of trouble, because of their emotional link. "I had a bad time in drama club and-" "Got rescued." "Got rescued-" "By Roxas." "By Roxas, and now-"
"You'll live happily ever after," Selphie said with a smirk. Kairi corrected her. "Now I'll go home, get pulled into an 'Oh my god are you alright my angel?' hug by dad, and if you want to come with me and start baying at Riku, fine. It keeps us all entertained." Selphie debated for a moment, then stretched her freshly darkened lips. "Did I get it on my teeth?" "If you didn't talk constantly, you wouldn't have this problem," Kairi said, and pointed to a smudge of red. "Right there." When they arrived home, Riku's Keyblade glider was in the driveway. "Well, we're all in luck," said Kairi.
But when they got inside the house, Kairi could hear her father's voice, high and excited, being answered quickly each time by Riku's. She and Selphie exchanged glances, then followed the sound of the voices to Aqua's office. "Is something wrong?" asked Kairi. "That's what's wrong!" said her father, pointing to his organization cloak, that hung in shreds on Aqua's desk chair. "Ouch!" Kairi exclaimed. "What happened to it?" Riku's voice was heavy with sarcasm. "Perhaps my mother was filing her nails," he suggested. "It was my favorite cloak!" Xemnas said. He looked as if he was about to cry. "And this fabric is not cheap, Kairi." "Well, Father, I didn't do it!" "Let me check your nails," said Riku.
Selphie laughed. "Cupcake did it," Xemnas said. Kairi couldn't believe her ears. The man who told her she could keep the innocent little heartless in the first place, was now accusing the poor thing. "Cupcake!" Kairi shook her head. "That's impossible! Cupcake's never torn anything up in her life!" "Cupcake doesn't like Aqua," Sora said. He had been standing quietly in the corner of the room. "He did because he's acting out because he doesn't like Aqua." Xemnas whirled around. Kairi caught her father by the hand. "Easy," she said. Then she examined the cloak. Riku watched her and examined the cloak himself. It seemed to Kairi to be too finely shredded-a job too convincing for Sora to have pulled it off. Cupcake must have been guilty. "We're going to have to declaw him," said Xemnas. "No!" "Kairi, there are too many valuable things in this house. They cannot be ruined. Cupcake will have to be declawed."
"I won't let you." "He's just a heartless." "And this is just a cloak," Kairi said, her voice cold and steely, pain in her eyes. "It's that, or get rid of him." Kairi folded her arms across her chest. In her boots, she was two inches taller than her father. "Kairi-" She could see her father's eyes misting over. That was what he had been like for the past few months, emotional, pleading, insisting with tears. "Kairi, this is a new life, these are new ways for all of us. You told me yourself: For all good things that are happening, this isn't a fairytale ending. We all have to try and make it work, sweetie." "Where is Cupcake now?" Kairi asked, the same pain in her eyes.
"In your bedroom. I closed the hall door, and the attic one too, so he wouldn't ruin anything else." Kairi turned to Riku. "Would you get Selphie something to drink?" "Of course," he said. Then Kairi went up to her room. She sat for a long time, cradling Cupcake in her lap and gazing at her water angel. "What do I do now, angel?" she prayed. "What do I do now? Don't tell me to give up Cupcake! I can't give him up! I can't!" In the end, Kairi couldn't take the darkness in the outdoors away from Cupcake. She couldn't leave her fierce little ball of darkness vulnerable anything that would take a swipe at him. Though it just about broke her heart, and Sora's too, she posted the adoption ad on the school bulletin board Thursday afternoon.
Thursday night she got a call. Sora was in her room doing his homework and picked up the phone. He somberly handed it over to her. "It's a man," he said. "He wants to adopt Cupcake." Kairi frowned and took the reciever. "Hello?" "Hi. How are you?" the caller asked. "Fine," Kairi replied stiffly. Did it matter how she was? She immediately disliked this person-because he hoped to take away Cupcake. "Good. Uh . . . did you find a home for your heartless?" "No," she said. "I'd like to have her." Kairi blinked hard. She didn't want Sora to see her cry. She should be glad and relieved that someone wanted a full grown shadow heartless.
"Are you there?" asked the caller. "Yes." "I'd take good care of him, feed him and wash him." "You don't wash heartless." She fought a silent laugh. "I'd learn what I had to do," he said. "I think he'd like it here. It's a comfortable place." Kairi nodded silently. "Hello?" She turned her back on Sora. "Listen," she said into the phone. "Cupcake means a lot to me. If you don't mind, I'd like to see your home myself and talk to you in person." "I don't mind at all!" the caller replied cheerfully. "Let me give you my address." She copied it down. "And who is this?" she asked. "Roxas."