A Lonely Story About Nobody
Chapter 4: A Story of a Game
Naminé burst through the class doors, causing the students jump slightly in their seats. Riku and Sora looked at her curiously, surprised by the outburst. She was so frantic she didn't even care if either boy realized no one else could see her, she hurriedly made her way towards Sora until she was an inch away from him, nearly sitting on his desk. Sora looked bewildered and slightly pink but Naminé could see he was mostly the same; a relieved exhale escaped from her pink lips.
He still had his face.
She carefully placed her hands on either side of his face and turned it gently, studying it at different angles with an uncomfortable intensity. It was all the same as Vanitas's now, even down the sparse freckles. She didn't know what that meant.
"Uh, Naminé?" Sora was turning redder every second. She dropped her hands.
"You're still you."
"Um, yeah? Who else would I be?"
"I don't know, that's what scared me." Naminé felt the tension leave her body and her knees bent as she sat on the floor, the strength from her legs escaping her. She kept one hand on his desk for support, her fingers glided on the smooth wood.
Sora peered curiously down at her, then shrugged it off because he was used to her strangeness by now. Behind the legs of the desk, she could see Riku eyeing her with eyebrows furrowed, but he too shrugged it off. It didn't even look like he recognized her. He probably just didn't care enough to remember.
Naminé spent the rest of the day with Sora, checking over her shoulder anytime something caught her eye. She kept thinking Vanitas would appear, grinning like a cat that caught his mouse, but he was never there, just an overactive imagination and occasionally the elusive shadow that sometimes trailed after her. She wondered if he did come, what would he do, and if she could change anything.
Sora hadn't minded her clinging to him at all, even though they usually only were in each other's company for short intervals. In fact he seemed to be starved for the company; he almost always had something to say, and the rare small cracks of time he didn't, he was still full of life. Sometimes he would was hum, or laugh to himself like he just remembered a joke, or he preoccupied himself with twirling his book on the point of his finger, or flicking paper footballs across the room.
Naminé wondered what it would be like to have every moment filled with something.
"See ya later Riku!" Sora hollered at the end of the school day, waving his arms furiously in the air. Riku ignored him.
"He doesn't like you?" Naminé asked when Sora lowered his arms in defeat.
"It's more like he doesn't recognize me," a pained smile filled Sora's face.
"I thought you guys were best friends before."
"It's a long story."
When they wandered to town, she saw a number of bodies crowding a small, greying building. The low mummers buzzed in the air like cicadas, too quiet to understand but impossible to ignore. She had never seen so many people in one place outside of the school. Everyone dressed in Sunday best, crossing their arms irritably under a blazing sun, fanning themselves with their hands. It was the first the town looked anything close to alive.
"What's going on there?" she asked Sora.
"Huh?" Sora squinted like he just noticed. "That's town hall. So, something boring probably." He put his hands behind his head cheekily.
When they walked by, she could see one man facing the crowd, standing straight and solemn. He was dressed nicer and cleaner than the rest of the residents, he looked out of place with his upper class stare and his blond hair slicked back professionally.
"When I built that dam, I did it to rejuvenate this dying town. Not for you to use it as a crutch," The man spoke as somber as he looked; it was a deep, commanding voice that spoke in an elegance that was out of place in the blue collar town.
There were angry murmurs and stomping of feet in the crowd.
"Since when was usin' the water to help the farms that have been passed down for generations a "crutch." We like us the way we's are," said an irritated man, he had silver hair and aqua eyes, and looked very familiar. Naminé wondered if he was related to Riku.
"It's a crutch, mayor, because it's helping limp along a farming culture this town can't sustain," the sleek suited man said.
More shouts.
"The hell you want us to do about it now? We got nothin' else, an even if we dids, we don't want to change!"
Naminé was fascinated by the debate, the angry passion and the discourse that seemed to clash with the lazy atmosphere of Destiny Plains, but Sora already looked bored and walked on. Somewhat reluctantly she followed, twisting her head to continue watching as the animated crowd shouted at each other.
"They sure looked angry," she said in awe, "Never seen the town like this."
"Yeah, they usually are just quiet and sleepy. Unless Ansem Wise comes around," Sora said with only half interest, "He used to be the pride and joy of the town, went to some fancy college and became architect that built the dam in the river, he wanted to change something or whatever. But the farmers use it for irrigation and now, so Ansem comes around and talks about destroying it or something. It's really stupid, I dunno."
Naminé smiled, "For someone who doesn't care, you sure know a lot about it."
Sora stopped and waved his arms like he was presenting the road, "It's the small town curse, everyone knows everyone else's business, we've eaten once at everybody's house, been to every store, that sort of thing. And the only thing that gets people angry is water dams. Nothing ever changes and there's no secrets."
"There's the tree grove," Naminé hopped over a pot hole and felt the prickly gravel on the callouses of her feet.
Sora considered that for a second, "Yeah. There's that, but that's about it. Man, I want a bigger world, you know?"
Naminé's eyes lit up, "Really? Me too, I want to walk the world, and who knows, maybe paint it. But I'm stuck here."
"Not forever though," Sora's voice went higher in excitement, talking about the possibilities gave birth to a new energy that swept his arms in exaggerated movements. "One day we'll get out here. We'll go together."
Sora's warmth made Naminé's stomach flutter. Even if she knew it was an empty promise.
"It's been so long since I talked about this," Sora said quieter, both in voice and his entire posture, "back in the day it's all Riku, Kairi, and me talked about. Getting out and changing our lives."
"Then after what happened to Kairi…?" she asked.
"Yeah. I think so, or not. I don't know. Even before that, I think we got scared of the whole idea. We were so happy, we thought if something would change we would lose something." He went quieter and quieter until he was barely a whisper.
"But we changed anyway."
A shadow flickered in the distance.
-x-
Naminé cradled the replica's head in her lap, absentmindedly brushing his silver hair with her hands. At first she thought he was in one of his empty phases, but when she stopped her hand his body would slightly stiffen, missing the contact, and when she continued his body relaxed again under her touch.
She remembered what Vanitas said before, like a retarded puppy.
"He still acts like a retarded puppy," Vanitas snorted, standing over her with a box under his arms.
Naminé looked at him from under her lashes, and a knowing smile played on her face.
"What?"
"I knew you would say that," her smile left as she looked back at the replica, who was gazing at her painting. With her free hand, she dipped her hand in the black and began the silhouette of their house.
"Well that's no good," Vanitas said squatting next to her, "I can't think of anything that's worse than that."
"Than what?" she asked, making smooth, long strokes for the roof.
"Being uninteresting. If I'm predictable means I'm being repetitive, and that's not fun." Vanitas gold eyes dulled as he flicked specks of yellow paint at the house. Instead of painting over them, Naminé used them as highlights, like the light bouncing off the edges of the planks.
When Naminé finished, she wiped the wet paint from her fingers on the hem of her white dress.
"Going so soon?" Vanitas asked as Naminé gently propped up the replica on his own, his eyebrows furrowed at the absence, and then resigned into vacancy.
"Yeah, school is almost over," she said.
"Aw, you don't want to see Sora. See I'm more adorable," Vanitas pointed to his identical face.
When Naminé stood up he grabbed her wrist and roughly yanked her down, she crashed on the floor, wincing. Vanitas arms slammed on either side of her head, his face pressed down until they were almost touching, glaring at her. The box he was holding clattered next to him, and then the lips pressed into an easy, sly smile. He used his new found face to blow air on her lips.
"We're playing a game."
Naminé turned her face away from Vanitas to the box, "That one?"
"Oh yeah. That too."
He lifted his body from hers, and opened the thick box, spreading the connected two halves on the floor, and small black and white figurines hidden in the hollow of its insides swarmed the floor, making tinkling sounds as they rolled into each other.
"Chess," she read the words on the side of the box.
"You know how to play?" he asked setting up the checkered board, placing the pieces to their predetermined spaces.
"No." When he finished he slid the box carefully between them. Naminé touched the small white figure with a cross on its head.
"Don't think so doll, what makes you think you get that one? I'm white, you're black," he grinned like he said something funny and rotated the board. "It means I make the first move."
"That's okay," Naminé shrugged, "It doesn't matter who starts right? Just who finishes."
"Heh."
Playing games with Vanitas was a test of patience, he never told her the rules unless she inadvertently broke them. He never informed her how she could move, just how she couldn't. But Naminé realized that if she had nothing else, she had patience. Maybe patience was the only thing she was made of.
He conquered her space with ease, though she thought he was a little too proud of dominating someone who didn't even know how to play. She had lost almost half her pieces when, finally, took one of his. She crossed the board diagonally and after a moment's pause, took one of his smallest pieces. Vanitas yawned, he didn't even look like he cared.
"A pawn is just a pawn," he said nonchalantly.
"I still took it."
"Yeah so I could do this," he moved his horse past another of his pawns to her once champion piece.
"You sacrificed your pawn for my…"
"Bishop. That's the way the game is played," Vanitas tossed her bishop like he was flipping a coin, then grabbed it, crushing it tightly in his palm. "They don't matter, the king is the only one that needs to stay standing. You could lose every other poor bastard and still win."
"What if you win with all your pieces?" she asked, eyeing his clenched hand.
"You can't," he said when he tossed the bishop again, chipped from his grip. "You can't win the game without choosing to sacrifice something. Not everyone gets a happy ending."
Naminé moved her pawn back, retreating to the safety of her side. That just amused Vanitas and without warning he grabbed her wrist, twisting the skin under the roughness of his gloves.
"You can't save your pawns by standing still, wallowing on your side. Sooner or later something gives," he said, a low rumble in his voice.
"I'd like to try," she replied looking at where his hand met her wrist. He let go and laid on his side in a lazy matter.
Vanitas was right though. He effortlessly stole all her pieces anyway until he cornered her king and knocked it down with a smug flick of his wrist. His eyes flashed a burning gold.
"I win."
-x-
She missed Sora that day, she had spent the entire time playing chess with Vanitas. He showed her no mercy in each game, every win fed into his ego and made him even more eager for other overwhelming victories. Before she even began to learn how to fight back, the day was gone and wasted.
It only struck her later that the entire plan all along was to keep her away from Sora. She was playing his game, but it was a different one than what she imagined, and that thought was exhausting. She ran her hands to the edges of her pastel blond hair in contemplation, twisting the ends around her finger, if that was true then she wanted to know why now, but dragging the motive behind Vanitas's actions was a task she didn't know how to go about. Either way, the weekend arrived and she didn't know where to find Sora. Those days dragged on dully, flat and full of repetition; she tried to pass the time by dragging herself around the town, or wading her feet in the river, or trying to teach Riku's replica to speak, but the ticks of the clock still droned in a painfully slow rhythm.
Why would he want to separate Naminé and Sora?
Did it have to do with his face? Was he going to sacrifice Sora like he was a pawn? Or was Sora the rival king?
Naminé knew that on some level, Vanitas just enjoyed watching things break, he poked and prodded people until they bent and twisted for his own satisfaction, but she didn't think he was ever truly satisfied. She wondered if Vanitas had anything he loved simply because he had the capacity too. And for a second, she wondered if he did, would it be her and the replica, but she did not want to entertain those thoughts.
Whatever answer that would come from that would surely not lead to any happiness, so she squeezed and crushed them and stuffed them down deeper into a part of her mind she never visited.
When the weekend left Namine stared at the sky waiting for the day to begin. In the back of her head, she could still hear the slow ticks and tocks as the dawn before the start of classes rose again, the sunrise peeked out of the flat horizon and dyed it red and orange. Naminé wandered her way down main street waiting for school to being. Without the crowd of protests against the man named Ansem, it reverted back to the same drowsy, brown dusted town, stifled in its own silence.
She reached the tree grove, the shadows spilled long and thin in the sunrise. She had always thought it was an odd clash of scenery, a veritable block of forest of mismatched trees, surrounded with nothing but flatness as far as the eye could see. She leaned on a wide willow tree, her cheeks against the rough bark, she marveled that even the textures of the trees felt different.
"I…hate… out."
Her head jerked away, she thought she heard a faint voice within the tree. She looked around seeing nothing, then she spread her finger on the bark before slowly pressing her ear to it again "I… it here…want" it was a ghost of a whisper.
Do the trees here talk? Her cheek rubbed slightly against the willow and did her best to concentrate, mouth upturned as she focused. Her hand grabbed a low laying branch that wept low and brushed the ground, she accidentally snapped in concentration, "get… to.. world."
Ah.
"I hate it here, I want to get out to the world."
The answer to the small mystery formulated in her head, if the urban legend was that people whispered their secret into the tree, then she was hearing their secrets. It was oddly intimate, being able to hear something from the heart of a stranger that was meant to stay hidden, but curiosity welled in her, and she tip toed to the next tree, like she was scarred someone might be caught. Maybe she was ashamed about peeping into private thoughts.
"know… love me," said this one. It was hard to make out the voice, especially since there was another sound mixing with them, she hadn't noticed till now. It was a low rumbling, resonating slow and deep.
"The lifestream," she said in epiphany.
"What are you doing?" a sharp voice came.
She let out a tiny eep and tripped, rolling on the ground.
It was Riku, the real one, standing tall and a frown etched in handsome features. He looked at her suspiciously, and Naminé realized he still didn't recognize her from before. She would be offended but she figured she really must be a dismal existence. His arms crossed and his back went straight, like he was ready to cast judgment.
"Oh I was just- Nothing," she looked away from his eyes because they smoldered with scrutiny that made her want to shy behind a tree.
Riku was tired of waiting for an answer so he pushed forward, wandering in farther and ignoring her presence.
"What are you doing?" she repeated his question to him.
"Going for a walk before school," is all he offered as he shoved his hands in his pockets.
"Are you going to your tree?" she asked. She remembered that Sora told her that they did their tree-whispering together and she wanted to find it, "Where is it anyway?"
He turned a sharp 180 on his heels, and Naminé realized too late that she touched a nerve, "And who the hell are you?"
"N-Naminé."
Riku pinched the bridge of his nose in annoyance, "That was rhetorical. Whatever, I'll just go to school." He shrugged his backpack higher on his one shoulder and walked away. Naminé trailed behind him.
"Why are you following me?" he asked without turning his head.
"I'm going too."
"Oh," then he examined her from over his shoulder, squinting like she was behind fog and dirt- difficult to see, "I guess you would go to school my school?"
This struck Naminé as odd, it was not as if there was another school in Destiny Plains a girl her age could attend; it was the kind of town that only had one of anything. And he didn't seem the kind of person who couldn't put two and two together. Naminé hurried ahead of him, as far as people that could see her, Riku wasn't the most pleasant. She wanted to see Sora like people wanted to see the sun.
Inside the school, tired, clamoring bodies trudged to their seats and it reminded her setting up a chess board, placing everyone where they were supposed to be. She sat in the empty desk, swinging her legs like a child. She wondered if this was where she was supposed to go as well.
The chair next to her squeaked irritably on the floor as it was pulled out.
"Sora-"
It wasn't Sora's face that greeted Naminé, but one that may as well been a reflection of her own. This girl wasn't identical, instead of ashen blond this one had red hair that framed her heart shaped face, her eyes shone like they had the sun in them, and her red lips smiled wider than hers. Naminé looked at her own pallid skin, and then the girl's, tinged darker from days spent basking outside. It made her look more alive than Naminé, which was the most noticeable difference of all.
"Are you new?" the girl asked friendly, not caring about the sameness of their face. Naminé was taken aback again, this time by the knowledge that this girl that looked like her could also see her as well. Perhaps it wasn't such a rare occurrence after all. Naminé swallowed the air, it tasted sick.
"Um, kind of. I'm Naminé," Naminé played with the ends of her much paler, limp hair. Her eyes kept going back and forth to her and the girl, listing the comparisons in her head.
"Riku!" the girl in Sora's seat exclaimed when he sat next to her.
"What, who are you?" he frowned.
"Oh right," the girl slapped her forehead, "It's me Kairi."
The effect of her name was instantaneous, both on Riku and Naminé. Riku's stony face softened, a small smile turned on the corners of his lips and his brows relaxed.
Naminé, in turn, felt her world spin and blood pounded in her ears. Didn't Sora say she was dead? She suddenly felt like she had no solid ground to walk on- where was Sora? Why was Kairi here? She needed to talk to Sora, the seconds felt colder and more frightening.
"Where's Sora?" she blurted.
The expressions on Riku's and Kairi's faces turned dark, like she flipped the light switch off.
"Naminé, you don't know?" Kairi's voice was hoarser than it should have been.
"He's gone. He's been dead for a year."
She felt a cold arm slink around her neck like a noose, and Vanitas finally appeared, muffling a laugh in her ear.
But there's no such things as ghosts.
A/N Originally the reveal was suppose to happen sooner, but I pushed it back to give Sora a more regular appearance in this story. I feel that the metaphysics in this story is wacky, and involves a lot of explanation which leads to a lot of boring scenes. But I figure if there's one fandom that I can explore weird, barely comprehensible world rules, it's Kingdom Hearts Thanks for all the reviews/favorites/follows!
TheDarkestZero: Thanks for the review. Yeah, all three have weird complexes about existing, well. Most people in KH's do but these three especially. If Nomura ever decides to give Namine a trio since she's all alone, these three won't be a terrible fit.
Dragonachu: They are a bit of a twisted family, but the twisted part makes them equally scary and endearing. I will take the blame proudly for getting people into Van/Namine. Never can have enough interesting crack pairings.