The Next Life - Chapter Five
Sora felt awful. He had felt it ever since returning home empty handed, and now here he was, pacing his kitchen nervously while Kairi sat there humming to herself.
It turned out that searching for Riku had asked more questions than it had answered in the end. They had found him in a way; Sora definitely wouldn't be forgetting that part. He and Kairi had been sitting rather pleasantly at a glass table, drinking their coffee and minding their own business when Riku had quite simply exploded into the street. Well, Kairi had been drinking coffee; Sora had ordered a hot chocolate. Coffee didn't agree with him, but that was entirely beside the point.
They had heard the noise first, yet sure enough, when they looked up Riku was standing in the middle of the street, white vest and silver hair shining in the sunlight, an oncoming car braking to a stop inches away from hitting him head on. Riku had looked confused, casting his head around eagerly. And then he was gone again. At first, Sora had been quite sure he had simply imagined the inky black smoke curling up around where Riku had been, but then Kairi had mentioned seeing it too. That was when Sora really started worrying. No matter how fast he had gotten to the street side, there had been no trace of Riku whatsoever. None. At all.
He wasn't sure how long he had stayed there looking for Riku before Kairi had convinced him that they should go home. She had made a good point; if Riku was going to find them anywhere, he would look at their flat first. So now they were here, impatiently waiting and – as far as Kairi went – doing word puzzles. She was quite happily entertaining herself by rearranging the letters of people's names into humorous anagrams. Sora did not find this amusing.
Still, there was hope. Riku had spontaneously materialised once, he could probably do it again. And when he did, Sora could yell and scream and throw things at him for scaring him so much. Oh yes, he would. That'd teach the jerk to disappear in the middle of the night and explode on random street corners without asking first.
Sora's train of thought was rather politely interrupted when Kairi spoke to him, making him jump slightly.
"Hey Sora!" she called, flipping her crimson hair over her shoulder as she did so. Sora mumbled incoherently in a vain attempt to disguise his jump, walking to her side as he did so.
"Mmph?"
"Did you know, that your name," she explained, pointing to a hand scrawled note as she did so, "Is one letter away from being a pseudonym for Roxas?"
Sora stared at her blankly for a moment, not following. She had interrupted his plans of revenge for this? Still, Roxas was interesting, and his surprise death meant he definitely made the list of curious conversation points - not to sound morbid at all.
"Roxas. As in, singing Roxas?"
"Mmhmm." Sora leaned in closer. The note, as suspected, had the letters of Sora's own name matching up with those of Roxas'. The only letter left over was the letter 'x'. He wasn't sure if he was supposed to be impressed or not.
"Oh. Wow. That's uh, kind of ... cool?"
"Wait till you get this bit," Kairi explained, grinning triumphantly from behind her glasses. She was so pretty when she did that. "You and Roxas were both born on the same day, right down to the very same hour."
"...Really?"
"Yaha."
Kairi looked quite pleased with herself really, folding her arms and leaning back in her chair. You'd think that if she was that smart she could've already told Sora how Riku had managed to disappear from all existence. Twice.
"How'd you find that out? The birthday thing, I mean."
"The Internet."
"Oh."
Sora thought that over for a little, eyeing the hand scrawled note for an answer.
"So ... what does it all mean?"
Kairi leaned back further into her chair, arms behind her head.
"Well ... I don't know yet. But it's quite a stretch of coincidence, don't you think?"
"Yeah, maybe. But you gotta admit, it's not that much of a coincidence."
"Not yet it isn't." Kairi stared at the ceiling for a moment, clearly thinking something over. "Sora, did your parents name you for any specific reason? Like, does your name mean anything?"
Sora thought that over for a little, wondering if he'd ever asked such questions as a kid. Then he remembered.
"Actually, I was adopted."
"Oh? Really? Why?" Kairi sat up once more, staring at Sora as if this was the missing piece of the puzzle she'd been searching for. Sora had no idea how this was relevant in the slightest. Just what was she getting at?
"Uh ... what? Since when did someone ask why they were adopted?"
"Oh, right. Sorry." To the contrary, Kairi sounded only vaguely sorry. Sora huffed. It wasn't his fault his parents had refused to talk about the issue. They had always been a little touchy about the adoption thing, as if by ignoring the fact completely they could pretend it had never happened.
It was during that brief moment of silence that a low rumbling roar echoed throughout the small flat, followed by the very noticeable thump of something dropping onto the floorboards, hard.
Sora and Kairi looked at each other slowly, then immediately ran for the source of the sound. To surprise of neither of them, it had come from Riku's bedroom.
Yanking the door open, they stood framed in the doorway as they peered inside. Right there, in the middle of the floor, was Riku, lying face down on the floor, completely unmoving. In an instant Sora was by his side, yelling his name eagerly and shaking his shoulders to wake him up. It took him a few seconds to notice Kairi telling him to stop.
"-Sora! You could hurt him."
Obediently, Sora stopped shaking the unconscious form of his friend. It didn't seem right, seeing him lie so limply on the floor. He was always so ... awake, normally. His shoulder length hair splayed out to either side, making him look every bit like a discarded mop.
Kairi felt at his neck briefly, for a pulse, Sora assumed. He silently cursed himself for not thinking of that first. She leant down briefly, head just above his back.
"Well, he's breathing, and he has a pulse."
"Very reassuring Kairi."
He hadn't meant to sound that sarcastic, but Kairi took no notice. She was looking around the room carefully. Sora only had eyes for Riku. He still had his hands on his shoulders from when he had been shaking him. He couldn't bring himself to take his hands away, as if simply by holding him he could stop him from disappearing again.
Just then, someone knocked on the front door.
Kairi and Sora both stared out the bedroom door, trying to decipher the source of the sound. The door knocked again.
"Sora, go get it."
"But-"
"Sora," Kairi put a hand on his shoulder, smiling reassuringly. "Riku's fine, he's not going anywhere. I promise."
Somehow, just hearing her say the words made Sora believe it. He smiled back, letting his shoulders lessen their tension in the process. With one last look at Riku, Sora went to answer the door.
What he found when he answered the door, however, was not anywhere in the spectrum of what he had been expected, even after Riku's spontaneous reappearing act. It began with the man in the doorway speaking the magic words.
"Hello, Sora. My name is Leon."
Sora looked up. The man at the door was tall. Sora admitted that he was average height at best, making the other man not abnormally tall at all, but it was still uncomfortable having to look up at him. This was, of course, ignoring the fact that it was dark outside, and that normal people did not knock on people's doors unexpectedly at this hour. Stupid tall people, always breaking the rules.
The offending man in question had brown hair with blue eyes. He was also wearing the worst selection of clothes Sora ever remembered seeing. He wore a dark blue vest - a loose one that looked far too small for him – on top of a white shirt and a pair of long black pants. What caught Sora's eye was the fact that he was wearing not one, not even two, but four belts around his waist, each one looping at a different angle. The belt thing wouldn't have been too bad if it had not been for the further three belt-like straps around his left forearm, just above his gloved hands. Even to Sora's distracted mind it looked strange. Well, 'strange' wasn't quite harsh enough; it looked downright ridiculous.
Sora, being completely disarmed by the man's appearance, did not notice that he had forgotten to reply to the man at all. Taking it all in stride, the man looked Sora up and down.
"So where is it?" the man asked finally. He looked expectant. Sora snapped out of his daze.
"Uh, where is what?"
"The Keyblade. Where is the Keyblade?"
It was then that Sora noticed the man had identified him by name as soon as he had answered the door. Did this man know him? Sora thought his face looked completely unfamiliar. You wouldn't exactly forget someone who had a scar across their face like that. But then ... how did this man know his name?
Well, whatever this man wanted, it wasn't exactly good timing, Riku having just dropped back into reality and all. All Sora wanted was to sit by Riku's side until he woke up. He had no time for badly dressed visitors.
"I'm sorry, I think there's some mistake-"
"There is no mistake. Darkness has taken the other already, has it not?" The man's eyes held Sora's with a fierce intensity. This man was serious; there was no doubt about that. Wait, darkness? In a flash, Sora remembered the shadowy vines that had made Riku disappear earlier at the café. Did this man know what was happening to Riku?
Half way voicing the question, Sora's tongue froze. Just how much could he trust a mysteriously belted stranger who turned up on his doorstep at night, let alone one who went about spouting about words like 'keyblade' and 'darkness'? Perhaps this man was the enemy. How Sora would have made enemies at this point, he didn't know, but with Riku in the state he was, he wasn't going to take any chances.
"Look, I'm sorry but you've clearly got the wrong-"
"Sora," the man interrupted. His eyes commanded attention. Sora gulped. "The darkness is rising. The Keyblade's chosen one must be there to co-"
Sora did not remember Kairi come up behind him, but it was at that point where she reached past him and slammed the door in the strange man's face - midsentence and all. Kairi was awesome like that.
He turned to tell her so but the words died in Sora's mouth when he saw the condescending look Kairi was giving him. It seemed to say 'Honestly, Sora. You know better than to talk to crazy people who knock on the door in the middle of the night.' Having no reply for a look such as that, Sora remained silent. He even felt a little guilty.
Clearly satisfied, Kairi went back to Riku's room. Sora hesitated before following. He turned towards the door. Before he had the time to ponder any more he caught sight of a small piece of paper being pushed under the door. He waited a full minute before picking it up, not wanting the crazy man to know he was still there. Pocketing it without even a glance, Sora's mind turned back to Riku.
The rest of the night passed without much detail. Kairi helped Sora lift Riku up onto his bed, and once it was clear that Riku was in fact completely uninjured and simply sleeping she went off to bed herself. After a good half hour of loyally waiting by Riku's bedside like Sora felt he should, Sora quickly grew extremely bored and more than a little impatient. He was incredibly tempted by the idea of 'accidentally' waking Riku up so he could find out what had happened. Sadly his common sense won the fight and Sora ended up going off to bed as well.
The next day went smoothly for exactly ten minutes.
To the surprise of Sora and Kairi both, when morning came Riku had simply stumbled into the kitchen the way he always did. They had rushed to his side, asked him if he was okay, felt his forehead for a temperature and generally acted very worried about his well being. That was, of course, until he swatted away their hands and rather rudely told them to leave him alone. After a short period of glowering and a stern refusal to answer any questions whatsoever, Riku took a seat at the dining room table and proceeded to eat his breakfast.
Needless to say, this hadn't lessened Sora's worry in the slightest.
Nothing had changed much since then. Sora had poured himself some cereal and had very carefully joined Riku at the table. He didn't press the issue, but his eyes were never far from watching Riku as he ate. Kairi was clearly just as worried. When she had deemed it safe to do so, she had settled down at the table with a book. With Kairi reading, Sora eating, and Riku very avidly not saying a word, it was by far the quietest meal Sora had ever had.
The dining room was small by normal standards, yet now with three grown people crowded into the same corner the silence was absolutely impossible to ignore. The simple table took up half the room as it was, placed up against the wall just so it could fit in the room at all. There were two chairs against the longer side of the table with one at the head, currently host to Sora, Kairi and Riku respectively. Little else could fit in the room without making it extremely difficult to walk through. The kitchen stretched immediately off the end of the room, connected by an archway. Sora could see the unfurnished kitchen benches from where he sat. They were clean, as usual; not out of any desire for cleanliness, but simply because there was no room for mess. Again, apart from the kitchen sink and the fridge by the doorway, there was room for little else. The hallway was small too. It had two doors on each side, housing the three bedrooms and the sparsely furnished lounge, and one door at the end leading to the bathroom. In the noticeable lack of any sense of normalcy about the current situation, Sora was for the first time noticing just how cramped and undecorated the house truly was.
He looked down at his half eaten bowl of cereal. It was an effort to keep the oppressive silence from getting to him. Riku was ... stupid. Sora had no idea just what was going on with him. The weird disappearances were one thing, but a foul mood on top of that was definitely not what he had been expecting. Truth be told, he had been expecting something a lot more normal, something along the lines of a 'oh yes, I'm fine, here's what happened to me, thank you for worrying, you guys are such good friends,' yet clearly even that amount of normality wasn't in the cards this morning. All Riku had to do was open his mouth and tell them what had happened, and yet instead he sat there, ignoring them completely. What a jerk.
Breaking the silence definitely wasn't going to get him anywhere, but Sora was restless. In a last ditch effort to prevent any further arguments, Sora turned his mind back to the night before. It was still vivid in his mind. Of all the things he couldn't explain at the moment, the man who had shown up at the door was right up there with the rest of them. He ran through the encounter again, trying to pick out anything he had missed the first few times.
But all that jumped out of his memory was the vast amount of worrying he had gone through that had amounted to precisely nothing when Riku had finally awoken. Sora was left feeling vastly disappointed. If anything, he only felt worse after recalling everything that'd happened so far. What a dumb idea that'd been.
Looking around the table once more, Sora couldn't help but feel a little miffed. Here he was, worried sick and talking to crazy people in the middle of the night, and Riku didn't even have the decency to hint at a 'thank you'. Kairi turned the page of the book she was reading. Riku kept staring at the wall.
"Are you going to talk to us yet?"
Riku turned and looked at Sora. He said nothing, but the silver hair coming down over his eyes gave off the distinct impression of a glare. Whether he actually was or not, Sora had had enough.
"You know what? Screw you, Riku." He got to his feet, pushing the chair back nosily as he did so. "We were worried sick about you. We still are! The least you could do is talk to us!"
When Riku merely stared back at him, Sora slammed his spoon on the table and stalked out of the room.
It just wasn't fair! For all the world Sora just wanted to joke and laugh like they always did, but with Riku being an anti-social prick that just wasn't an option. Pompous ass, making him angry like this. Sora couldn't even remember the last time he had been angry before now. Way to break a track record.
After a few minutes of silent brooding in the lounge Kairi joined him. She said Riku had gone back to his room, again, without saying a word. Sora very much wished he had punched Riku when he had had the chance.
Resisting the urge to march down the hallway and do just that, he instead pulled the cards he had been given from his pocket. The first was the business card the creepy lawyer had given him yesterday morning, the second was the scrawled note the strange man had slipped under their door last night. Two strange people giving him notes in the same day. There was more than enough speculation in that to keep him going for a full month at the very least. And yet, right now, all Sora wanted was to figure out what was wrong with Riku.
Darkness has taken the other already...
Just what did that man know about Riku? Sora looked at the piece of paper the man had left behind. It merely said 'You'll want answers,' followed by a phone number.
You'll want answers?Well, clearly. Answers were eluding him left, right and centre. If he had to make a creepy phone call to get them, well then fine.
Turning to ask Kairi what she thought, Sora found that she had in fact left the room already. He clicked his mouth shut and snatched the phone from its wall bracket.
He dialled the number. The phone barely rung once before it was answered.
"Welcome to The White Rose of Wutai! You're currently speaking with Yuffie Kisiragi, acrobat extraordinaire. How can I help you today?"
The girl's voice was amazingly cheerful, with each sentence sounding like an exclamation of great interest. It was a strange choice of secretary for a crazy man - that was for sure. But then, here he was, calling the number. Sora supposed he couldn't judge.
"Uh ... You people were outside my house last night."
If it were possible, the girl's voice sounded even more excited.
"Ah! You'll want the department of Leon. Hold on just one moment, I'll redirect you." Sora heard what seemed to be the girl putting her hand over the receiver and yelling over her shoulder. After a moment of silence, a familiar sounding gruff voice spoke.
"Hello, Sora."
Sora seized the initiative.
"What do you know about Riku?"
The voice took a moment to respond. The wait was excruciating.
"If you want answers, we should meet in person. I can't guarantee the safety of this line." Pfft, like that was happening.
"Meet you? Just like that? A total stranger?"
"Clearly, we mean you no harm. We had every opportunity to do something last night and yet, you're fine." He had a good point there actually, Sora hadn't thought of that. "You need our help."
As much as it pained Sora to admit it, the crazy belt man was right. He didn't quite know what to say to the proposition however. What he should do was beyond him. Meet with the guy, or just sit around waiting for Riku to up and vanish again? Somehow, he didn't think he had much choice in the matter.
Tackling the problem from a different angle, the man spoke again.
"Look, it sounds farfetched, I know. But we can help you, and you don't have much time. Tomorrow would be best. You could come here, or we come to you. Whichever you feel safest with."
Sora felt very much like he was digging himself into a hole he would never be able to crawl out of again. He bit his lip before answering.
"Alright fine. You come here. But no funny stuff."
The man seemed to like that answer. He sounded less anxious when he spoke next.
"Listen, Sora. Stay away from anyone suspicious. We aren't the only people who know of you."
Then there was silence.
So that was it. Crazy people and acrobats were coming to his house tomorrow, and in the meantime he had a very secluded Riku who wouldn't talk to him at all. What a wonderful week it was turning out to be.