The weeks went by. Kairi felt better after a long nap in her lonely hospital room, but she was a little scared of elevators now. Her mother had yelled at a couple of doctors, but once the boss of the hospital promised to get the elevator serviced regularly, she was contented and Kairi moved on.
Sora had a giant brace all the way up his leg, and couldn't run or climb or jump. He spent most of his time indoors, bored out of his brains, so Riku and Kairi made it a habit to visit him every day. Occasionally they'd bring presents for him – little brain games and mind toys, puzzles to keep his sharp mind busy when he was bored and alone. Seeing as Sora couldn't go to the island any more Riku and Kairi promised not to go either, so Sora wouldn't feel left out. Riku ended up cleaning the blood out of his boat in the end, because he used it for some occasional fishing.
Kairi hadn't seen anything of Naminé since that day – the incident with the lift was in the newspaper, and she saw a grayscale picture of Naminé's face next to the picture of hers, but that was it. She caught herself looking at the photo a lot, and thinking about how it just didn't do Naminé any justice. Her hair was a beautiful shade of blonde that the picture hadn't captured, and her icy blue eyes were far sharper and clearer than the picture showed. In the end, she clipped out the article and stuck it on the wall next to her bed.
As the months grew cooler, school started for the year. Once again Kairi found herself in the monotonous rush of books, pens and whiteboards. She liked school, and she was a fairly bright student, but more often than not she found her mind drifting to a certain blonde with nails that were all the colours of the rainbow.
Butterflies reminded her of Naminé, as she had them on her clothes every time Kairi had seen her, and there was that butterfly charm. Kairi considered herself something of an artist, and she liked to draw a bit during classes. She usually drew birds, boats and flowers, but these days she found more and more butterflies on her page than anything else.
One such day found her in English, half way through a very boring lecture on Hamlet, seated next to her friend Selphie. The school had a really dumb policy; all of the 'major' classes, such as English, Maths, Science and P.E were to have single sex classes. All others, like History, Economics and other 'unimportant' subjects were unisex. Kairi had no idea why, but she did enjoy the quieter lessons and being able to have class discussions about periods and childbirth and wiping front to back without embarrassing anyone.
Her mind, full of tampons and C-sections, was rudely plunked back to earth when she felt someone nudge her elbow. Stunned, she looked up, to see everyone in the class staring at her with the same bewildered expression.
"And what is so funny, Kairi?" The teacher asked, staring at her with a mocking amusement. Kairi liked her; she was a pretty cool teacher. But if you messed up in her class, she would ridicule you for weeks.
"Um, pardon?" Kairi muttered, straightening up when she realized she was hunched over her books.
"Kairi" Selphie muttered to her, giggling "You were giggling madly about tampons and butterflies."
"Butterflies?"
Kairi stared at her, unsure whether to be insulted or embarrassed. True, she'd been thinking about tampons, but she certainly wasn't thinking about butterflies.
…Or had she? It was like trying to hold water with her bare hands – the details were lost to her now. Maybe butterflies were always on her mind – or maybe her head was just full of butterflies and nothing else. A quick glance at her notes confirmed this; there was very little Hamlet and many butterflies in the margin.
"Well, if Kairi's finished reminding herself to pick up some tampons on the way home from school, we really should get back to Hamlet."
She sunk down into her seat, as if trying to hide under her desk, cheeks burning a furious crimson.
---
"So, you wanted to buy some…" a snort of laugher "… tampons?"
Kairi shot daggers at Sora. "Who the hell told you about that?" She snarled, fingers tightening around her paper cup dangerously.
Sora shrugged "I heard it through the grapevine." He chugged half of his banana smoothie in one go before clutching his head and crying out something about a brain freeze.
"Whatever." Kairi sighed, sipping at her own strawberry smoothie. "I probably should pick some up, though…" She trailed off in thought, politely keeping all gruesome details to herself while in male company.
"Okay, so we'll stop at the drugstore. I need a new pen as well, since someone" Riku sent a menacing glare at Sora "Decided to chew up my last one and make it explode everywhere."
Sora shrugged "Fine, I'll buy you a new freaking pen. The newsagency is next to the drugstore anyway, we can get Riku's stupid pen while Kairi's getting her corks." He muttered grumpily as Kairi suppressed a giggle. Corks? What a funny name – and so accurate, too! Whoever came up with it was a genius.
Once over her giggling fit, she stood up from the food court table. Glancing about the local shopping center, she nodded. "Sounds like a plan. Let's move."
Tossing their empty cups in the bin as they passed, the three slowly made their way over to the drugstore. Sora rushed ahead and, despite his huge leg brace and crutch, was lost to the newsagency, leaving Riku and Kairi dawdling along.
"Hey, Riku?" Kairi asked, fighting a smile.
"Mm?" Riku glanced down at her.
"Why's Sora so grumpy about your pen exploding? He seems to care more than you do."
Riku chuckled and rammed his hands into his pockets as far as they'd go.
"He was chewing on it when it decided to explode."
Kairi laughed. Silly Sora, he deserved as much.
"It was also a red pen. It looked like he was vomiting blood all over his book, what with the terrible racket he was making. For a second there the teacher thought I'd punched him or something." He smirked "Scared the shit out of everyone, but I was just laughing."
Again, Kairi laughed. "It would have scared me too."
"Yeah, it was quite the sight to see."
Eventually, they reached the shops and went their separate ways. Once inside the drugstore, Kairi grabbed a basket. She'd been paid the day before - might as well stock up while she was here.
The first thing she grabbed was a box of tampons. Just to get it out of the way, and if Riku and Sora decided to join her they wouldn't see the small box, hidden at the bottom of her basket.
She made her way to the makeup isle, examining various cosmetics. Eventually, she settled for some foundation, eyeliner and mascara. It was all she ever really wore, anyway. Some girls just caked the stuff on, but Kairi used it sparingly. Except for special events – she even broke out the eye shadow for those.
Whole browsing, she came upon the coloured nail vanish. The school had a strict "no nail polish" policy, so she only rarely wore nail polish, and only then during the school holidays and for special events. She didn't like to wear the stuff, because it made her short, bitten-off fingernails look even shorter and scruffier.
She spotted a shade of light blue, she smiled. Nail polish is for people like Naminé.
Regardless, she caught herself reaching out, selecting the lightest shade of blue she could find, and sneaking it into her basket, hidden safely beside her tampons.
On her way to the counter, she spotted the spinning jewelry rack from the corner of her eye. Glancing around her, she decided what the heck, and moved closer to take a look. None of the bracelets caught her fancy. She preferred those rubber band things those charities gave out, because they were easy, fun, colourful, and for a good cause. What's not to love? None of the earrings stood out to her, either. A couple of pairs were pretty cute, but didn't appeal enough for her to buy them.
She spun the stand around gently to look at the necklaces.
Most of the stuff was pretty bland. The usual gold chains, those horrible chunky beads that hung to your knees, and a couple of chokers, similar to the one she had worn at the age of fourteen.
Just as she was about to give up, she spotted a small butterfly pendant, hanging from a delicate silver chain.
Pausing, she reached out to touch it. Before she could, someone called her name.
Looking up, she met the gaze of Sora and Riku, standing several feet away, urging her to hurry up. She blushed furiously, stepping back from the stand, as if she'd been caught doing something wrong, but her friends didn't notice. However, she changed her mind and snatched the butterfly necklace from the stand before hurrying over to the check-out counter, heart pounding in her ears.
---
"Kairi!"
Kairi, 'off with the fairies', as her grandmother had put it, spun around dumbly to locate the source of the voice.
She was standing near the Deli at the supermarket, clutching a bag of oysters. After a quick glance, she didn't spot anyone. In fact, there was nobody to be seen, even behind the counter. And eerie silence washed over her surroundings, sending a chill down her spine.
Just for something to do, she put her oysters in a trolley she hadn't noticed before, next to all of her other groceries, which she didn't remember putting in there.
"You're ignoring me, again?" The voice called, closer this time.
Again, Kairi turned, to come face-to-face with a blonde girl with piercing blue eyes and golden blonde hair. She almost jumped out of her skin.
"Naminé!" She laughed, hand over her heart, learning against her trolley "You scared me!"
Naminé didn't respond. She just stared at Kairi sadly.
"Naminé?" Kairi asked, concerned "What's wrong?"
Naminé closed her eyes, looking like she was about to cry. "You're wrong, Kairi. You're always so rude to me, and you always look so uncomfortable when you're near me." She looked away. "You don't like me."
For some reason, Kairi wanted to do anything within her power to stop the other from crying. Naminé crying seemed like a very, very bad thing, and she had to make her feel better, and quickly.
"Naminé, I'm sorry. It's just me, being a bitch, and it doesn't reflect you or anything. I like you so much, and nothing will ever change that, okay?" Kairi placed her hands on Naminé's shoulders, trying to comfort her.
"Kairi…" Naminé shuddered. A single tear rolled down her cheek, and Kairi's heart almost broke "… This isn't working. I think we should break up."
"WHAT!?"
Kairi sat bolt upright in her bed, sending several stuffed toys and a blanket flying across the bed. For a moment, she froze, trying to figure out where she was, eyes scanning the darkness frantically.
Finally, she realized that she was in her bedroom, and she fell back to her bed with a flop, breathing heavily, desperately shuffling through her mind.
Kairi believed that dreams meant things, and she often received messages from her subconscious via her dreams. Her mother had given her a book about interpreting dreams, and she studied it every morning, trying to figure out what her daily message was. You're eating too much crap, your friend is going through a hard time and you should be nice because nobody knows about it, be more cheerful, you bitch, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera.
One such dream had told her that Sora and Riku were probably more than friends, and she didn't doubt this one bit. In the dream, Riku had been standing waist deep in the shallows of the ocean by the play island, and Sora was standing on the beach, blinded by the sunlight. Quite suddenly, the sea drew out into a massive tidal wave, and Riku turned, smirked at Sora, and held his hand out, even though they were a good thirty feet apart. Sora sprinted to Riku, but just as their fingers touched the wave crashed down, forcing them both under.
Swirling, confused, Sora opened his eyes to witness Riku being calmly carried out to sea by a riptide, but no matter how much Sora struggled he couldn't swim to him, and he was eventually swept away, in the opposite direction.
Her dream book had pointed out all of the subtle signs, such as the water, which represented an affair, and the desperation of being separated by the tide, which represented life's rules. Ever since that night, Kairi had looked for more subtle signs, such as smiles, the odd glance and even the random accidental brushing of hands when they walked next to each other, and found them in tenfold. And, quite frankly, while she was a little creeped out, she was very happy for both of them.
However, Kairi didn't have to get out her book to piece this puzzle together. It was obvious.
It was just her and Naminé, alone together in a place where there should have been a lot of other people.
Her sudden anguish at Naminé's pain.
And, of course, the fact that they had been dating.
Added to the fact that she could never get the blonde from her mind during the waking hours, the butterflies that kept showing up in her book, the tiny, unopened bottle of blue nail polish on her table, and the small butterfly pendant that now hung safely around her neck.
Yes, it was pretty obvious.
Holy smoking pancakes, Kairi thought to herself, I've got a crush on Naminé.
---
Author's Notes: The plot thickens! :O
And I'm also introducing the concept of sub-plots – however, the whole "high school romance" theme this story is taking is cliché and predictable, so I'll be doing my best to keep you on the edge of your seats.
Riku/Sora? It's my OTP – what did you expect? :P Expect to see a little more of it – that's all I can really say.
I had to actually do a bit of research for this chapter – cosmetics are a foreign concept to me. ._.
I enjoy making Kairi spacey. xD And yes, she sleeps with stuffed animals. Everybody does. You love it.
Short chapter, what are you going to do? I can promise you the next chapter will be longer and more interesting. :D
Thanks goes to my loyal reviewer. I'd be lost without you, Kia~
