Disclaimer: No. I didn't own them at the beginning, and I don't own them now.
Hey everyone. Final chapter. Oh my.
Oh, and just for the purposes of this story, I've decided the drinking age on Destiny Islands is 18.
Epilogue
Two Years Later
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"Cheers!"
Kairi smiled, clinking her glass together with Sora's. She appreciated his enthusiasm.
Riku put an arm around him, pulling him close and kissing him on the top of the spiky brown head. Sora tried to struggle away, but Riku clung on, making the boy squeak in frustration.
"Kairi, he's abusing me!"
Kairi shrugged airily. "I…don't really want to know what goes on behind closed doors, guys."
Riku chuckled lightly, settling back in his seat and picking up his wine glass. "Don't lie," he said, swilling the crimson liquid around slowly. "You know you do."
Kairi wrinkled her nose, but internally she was grinning at the picture her two best friends made. Riku hadn't changed much. He was still calm and gorgeous, and his movements still conveyed a kind of languid sophistication that Kairi herself knew she would never achieve. His hair was a bit longer and a bit shinier, and his fashion sense had switched from lurid colors and grimy vests to something a little more mature. Tonight he was dressed in a black silk shirt and an artfully distressed pair of jeans. Of the two of them, Riku was definitely the more obviously gay.
Sora had filled out a bit more, and his hair had continued to lighten until he was more a dirty blonde than a brunette, but he still looked like the same old Sora.
Indeed, her friends hadn't changed much.
Except for…
It wasn't exactly something you could put your finger on. Something so fleeting, so incandescent that only one who knew these boys as intimately as Kairi could pick it up. It was…in the eyes, in the gaze. Somewhere in the green and blue depths of their pupils there was a void. An empty, seething darkness. The mark of one who has gazed into infinity and seen the blackness of the universe, the malice that lurks within the heart and soul. It wasn't always there, and it wasn't always easy to spot. But it existed.
Kairi knew it was in her as well. A burning coldness that gripped at her heart and choked her when she least expected it. It hurt sometimes, too much.
Sora and Riku were lucky. They had each other. Someone they could lean on when the darkness threatened to creep back in. She had no one, no one to share the burden of what she had seen and done.
"So Kairi." Riku leaned forward on his elbows on the table, breaking her thoughts. "You're eighteen. What are you going to do now?"
It was meant as a joke, but all it did was sober Kairi further. She had no idea.
She answered with nothing but a shrug, brushing the question aside. She didn't want to bog down her friends with her problems and useless insecurities. It was her birthday—she was supposed to be excited. Her life was finally about to start, right?
But seriously, after you've saved the entire universe, where the hell can you go from there?
Nowhere.
The only way to go is down.
Sora grabbed Riku's wrist, glancing at his boyfriend's watch. "Riku, it's already ten o'clock!"
Riku looked surprised. "Hell, you're right. It got pretty late, huh?"
They both looked at Kairi. She knew they were waiting for permission to leave. They'd bought Kairi her birthday dinner and now they were ready to get gone.
"Sure, go ahead," she said, plastering a smile on her face. "You guys gonna do anything special?"
Riku winked, signing the bill. "Wouldn't you like to know?"
Kairi put her head in her hands. "No, I really don't."
"Oh well, your loss. Shall we, Sora?"
Sora smiled up at Riku, taking his arm and allowing himself to be lead toward the door. They both turned and waved to Kairi, who waved back, however unenthusiastically. When they'd left—Riku's arm around Sora's skinny shoulders—Kairi slumped down in her seat, resting her forehead on the table.
She didn't want to go home. Hell. She couldn't go home. She refused. Not another boring, meaningless night. If she'd thought the summer before she left for University was going to be exciting, she'd been dead wrong. Dead, dead, dead, wrong.
Kairi couldn't help it—since they'd returned from their battle against the forces of darkness and Organization 13 two years ago she'd been unable to shake the feeling of pointlessness. Meaninglessness. What the hell did anything she do matter when she was nothing more than a miniscule blip in the infinite universe? This world was so tiny, so calm, so…
Boring.
Sighing, Kairi stood up, swinging her black purse onto her shoulders. She was about to follow the boys out of the resturaunt, when something caught her eye. There was a long, swanky looking bar at the back of the dining room. The wall behind it was lined with bottles in every size and variety imaginable. A bartender was currently pouring at a couple of shots, conversing quietly with one of the customers.
Kairi could resist. She was finally old enough to legally buy alcohol. Why not sit at the bar for a couple of minutes? You know, because she could. Smiling slightly in spite of herself, she crossed the dining room, heels clicking on the shiny wooden floor. She chose one of the last stools, detached from the rest of the patrons, who all seemed to be together, laughing at some joke one of them had told. Kairi's lip curled a bit in disgust.
Idiots. Think their so awesome. Well, newsflash, bitches. The universe doesn't revolve around you. Fuck, not even the world revolves around you. And that is just—
"Sad."
Kairi blinked, turning her head to see who had spoken. A man had sat down a few stools down from her—the last one, right beside the wall. He was leaning lazily on the bar, an elbow propping him up as he took a long, slow drag from his stub of a cigarette.
"Excuse me?" Kairi said faintly.
The man exhaled, expelling the smoke from his lungs. "I said, sad aren't they?" He gestured with a flick of the cigarette, to the people further down the bar. He flashed her a grin, pushing a stray bit of his hair out of his eyes. It was red, like Kairi's, but much more vibrant—violently red. It was cut short in the front, but the back was pulled into a low, scraggly pony-tail. He was dressed in a pair of worn jeans and a dark blazer, the entire ensemble was fairly rumpled, as if he had a habit of getting into street fights or something like that. There were twin tattoos under his eyes, little scarlet crescents, like identical scars.
Kairi realized she was staring. She shook herself a little, agreeing, "Yeah, I know what you mean."
The man stubbed out his cigarette in the ashtray by his elbow, reaching for a shot and knocking it back without the slightest wince. He turned it upside down on the bar.
"Can I buy you a drink, babe?" he asked, pulling some munny from his wallet.
Kairi shrugged. "Sure. Why not?"
The man got the bartender's attention, holding up two pale fingers. Kairi felt a funny flash of recognition, but it was swept away before she could cling on and puzzle it out.
"I'm Kairi," she supplied.
The man was lighting another cigarette. "Reno."
"Nice to, uh, meet you," Kairi said, glancing at the drink the bartender had set down in front of her. It was faintly red with couple cherries in it, and it burned all the way down, but she didn't wince either. She didn't know what it was, but she had a burning desire to impress this guy. Maybe he reminded her of someone…
Or maybe he was just sexy, and she was an eighteen year old. Fuckin' hormones.
"So, Reno…" she began, stirring her drink until the cherries began to swirl round and round. "You from around here?"
Reno snorted. "Fuck that. This place is freakin' boring. Not really somewhere I'd like to hang my goddamn hat, ya know?" He gave her another smile. "No, I'm just stopping through."
"Oh." She tried again. "Why are you at the bar?"
He raised his eyebrows. "Why not?"
She shrugged. "I dunno. Usually, people come to bars when they're depressed, right…?"
Reno eyed her for a moment, cigarette smoldering in this grip. "You depressed, yo?"
Kairi shrugged. "I guess. It's my birthday."
"Really. So, Kairi, where are your friends?"
She rolled her eyes, fishing out one of the cherries and popping it into her mouth, biting down rather hostilely. "They're probably at home. Fucking."
"Oh really? And why aren't you joining in?"
Kairi didn't blush. The Kairi of a couple years ago might have blushed, but not her. "Because they're gay and having sex with my best friends would be supremely awkward."
Reno nodded. "Fair enough." His eyes dropped to the still mostly full glass in front of Kairi. "Babe, if you're not gonna drink that…"
Kairi made an exclamation of protest, both of them reaching for the drink at the same time. Their hands barely touched, just the slightest brush of Reno's fingers on her knuckles, but the result was both severe and instantaneous. She was hit with a barrage of disjointed sounds and images; an empty beach, a roaring fire, a darkened wood, a room of nothing but white. Fiery hair and hot skin under her fingertips, lips brushing the curve of her neck.
As suddenly as it had started, everything stopped. Kairi was left breathless and shaky, left staring into a pair of very familiar green eyes. She gripped the hand touching hers, feeling the heat flowing under the skin.
Reno looked floored. All of that languid charm was gone, replaced by utter shock.
"Hey…" Reno breathed. "You feel that too?"
Kairi nodded.
Reno's eyes narrowed. "Nobody."
Kairi nearly fell off her barstool. "Keyblade," she countered.
"Darkness."
"Annoying portals that pop up at random and unnecessary moments."
"Nasty little black things…"
"Heartless," she supplied.
"Yeah…Organization 13."
"Axel," Kairi whispered.
"Holy shit," Reno said finally, pulling his hand out of Kairi's and nearly collapsing against the bar. "What the fuck?"
Kairi shook her head. "I don't know. Well, I think I know, but I don't…"
"Believe it," Reno supplied.
"Yeah."
Reno sat in silence for a few seconds, staring at his empty shot glass as if transfixed.
"Mother fucker!" he shouted suddenly. The cigarette he'd forgotten about had burned down to a stub, singeing his fingers. All the other bar patrons cast annoyed glances his way.
"Hey, folks," he said with a lazy wave of his hand, before turning back to Kairi. "I'm guessing you had a little to do with all this end of the universe shit?"
"A little," Kairi agreed faintly.
Reno was lighting another cigarette, pouring out another shot. "Fucking hell, I thought all of that shit was over and done with."
"I think it is, but I think we were meant to meet." Kairi didn't know why she'd said it, but she had.
Reno fixed her with that glowing turquoise stare. "You legal?"
"What?" Kairi asked, shocked. Of everything he could have said she definitely had not been expecting that. "Yeah…"
"Do you wanna go somewhere?"
Kairi stared. He was being serious.
Well, you said you were bored.
Before she could answer, Reno continued, eyes narrowing slyly, voice dropping to a seductive purr. "Think hard before you answer. I won't go easy on ya just 'cause you're a girl. Got it memorized?"
"Yeah," Kairi said with a little smile. "I think I do."
-End
So that's all, folks! I hope you guys all enjoyed this as much as I did, and I apologize that it took so long to get up.
Yes, the epilogue was short, but that's just the way I planned the whole thing.
Please review, especially if you've been reading the fic and have never left a review. I'd really like to know if people liked it.