Chapter two already started and I'm already sort of going nuts. When I finished the re-edit for the first chapter I was hanging out with friends and stuff and on my laptop. Suddenly I go "YES. It's done!" and they just ignored me and went on with their conversation like I didn't say a thing.

I have nice friends.

Disclaimer: I don't own any part of Kingdom Hearts, Final Fantasy, or any other references I refer to when referencing is due.

This is meant to be shonen-ai but I would prefer my comments and critique not be about how horrible I am for pairing Sora and Riku up, two characters from a game that leaves things open for relationships on either side for fans and whatnot. I'd rather it be about how bad I am at writing. That'd be a cool world.

And I actually haven't read my half-assed promise I put out a year ago about these chapters being rewritten. To those who thought that I was actually doing them, I'm so sorry. I gave up without even finishing what I had up.

From the bottom of my heart, I apologize.

Chapter 2:

idle chit-chat

The two teens walked down the path leading to the center of downtown Taiyouchi (1), the small town just walking distance from Sora's neighborhood. Sora chatted happily with Riku as they walked, who smiled and nodded to show that he was actually listening to Sora's stories. A couple people in the shops recognized them along with various other friends and waved to them and they gave a friendly wave back and continued walking to the café. Everyone seemed to be in a good mood.

what a wonderful day.

They rounded the corner and quickly spotted a familiar ruby haired girl down the road with bangs cut like daggers in front of her blue eyes. She was standing in front of a building, emotionlessly looking up the sky, hands held behind her back, relaxed. The girl was holding a small purse's strap in her loose fist letting it lay on the ground.

A stray cat walked up from behind her and sniffed her bag and looked up at her and meowed. For some reason, this small sound made the girl snap out of her trance-like stare. She bent her knees down to the ground, careful to not get her black short skirt dirty. She gently picked up the cat and hugged it to her chest as if it were an infant. The pleased cat meowed to her cutely in response. While petting its slightly dirty fur she noticed the two boys waving to her.

She let go of the cat and it scurried back into a dark alleyway as she ran up to her friends. The brown haired boy smiled. She waved as she got near them and asked teasingly pouted about their timing.

"Hey, Kairi," Sora grinned, resting his hands behind his head. He noticed Kairi was wearing yet another new outfit; along with her short skirt, she wore a dark pink tank-top that hugged onto Kairi's slim form. The shirt was beautifully designed with white swirling lines and spirals that wrapped around the shirt with cherry blossoms painted in with the design. The image itself seemed like the blossoms were floating in the wind.

With more looking he noticed Kairi's expression of boredom and slight irritation hidden by a fake smile.

"Nice outfit," Sora added, giving her a fake smile back. He figured her parents bought the new outfit for the date. Might as well keep the act up for all of those people who gave a damn whether or not they were actually dating. In the small town they lived in, a tiny ounce of drama could spread like a wildfire and suddenly everyone knows of that embarassing one-night stand a couple weeks ago.

Riku nodded in agreement to Sora's comment and looked around and at his cell phone nervously. He looked immensily uncomfortable.

Kairi smiled a genuine smile at Sora's comment and swung her purse strap on her shoulder and held it there. She looked at Riku and smirked.

Teasingly, she said, "I didn't know Sora needed an escort to go to the café, Riku." Riku looked at her and looked away again but stared this time, hiding his face.

"He just wanted to make sure I got here okay," Sora explained for Riku and shrugged, "It isn't that big of a deal."

Kairi gave an audible hum and thought to herself for a moment while Riku said, "I'm gonna head home, guys. My little brother is going to blow up the house again if I don't get back soon. See ya."

With that, he turned from them and quickly left and turned into one of the nearby alleyways.

Before Sora could say anything, he was gone.

Sora laid his chin lazily on the café table with his eyes shut tight, trying to maintain his emotions. It was obvious that he was thinking about something worth frowning about and tousle his hair around in frustration.

It was giving him a headache.

Across from Sora, Kairi crossed her legs casually and took a sip from her strawberry milkshake. These sort of dates bored her to death. It wasn't even a real date by their standards. Besides, she could be home right now playing video games or something.

She noticed her friend in his saddened and frustrated state. She set her glass down and leaned across the table to be about five inches away from Sora's face.

"So you haven't told him any of it yet, huh?" she asked in a soft voice, just loud enough for them both to hear.

Sora didn't reply. He wanted to tell Riku everything. But to just tell him how much he's thought of him, cared for him, wanted to be with him at that moment and pretty much all his life...

His attention span went to happier thoughts and he began daydreaming bringing a tiny smile to his face with each thought.

Kairi sighed and said calmly to him, snapping to get him out of his daze, "Sora, you really need to tell him everything, especially about the detail that we aren't actually dating. That's crucial!"

Sora grunted to let Kairi know he heard her but he didn't like the idea of actually going through with it.

"Oh, and one more thing before I forget. My parents want you and your parents over for dinner tonight. Sorry it's last minute."

Sora replied with nothing but a groan. He hated her parents more than anyone else in the world.

Since her father just happened to be the mayor of Taiyouchi at the time and her mother coming from a weathy family of their own, Kairi's family is one of the richest in town. This, of course, allows them to be stuck-up and egotistical, but nobody really notices else than those who don't care about how much money they have.

The people who were extremely annoyed by it were probably a child's handful of people.

The other people either didn't really notice, didn't care or were too busy kissing ass expecting something out of it. Of course, Kairi had to deal with them all the time. Sora wasn't particularly sure where his own parents sat on this subject.

Sure, they were nice to Sora but he really, honest-to-god, did not want to go through with what they had planned for Kairi and Sora. That plan was for him to eventually get married to Kairi. Everything is arranged, everything is forced, and it's all sprinkled with a zest of being uncontrollably awkward.

What, with going through with these forced dates, lying to his best friend and the person he liked, forcing Kairi to bear his children, watch them inherit the fortune Kairi's parents would give to them and see them blow all of the inheritance on the lottery and gambling like his father.

It felt like his brain was spinning in his head. He felt dizzy.

"I swear they're already planning the wedding," Kairi said with a hint of sarcasm and frustration looking up at the ceiling, tired.

Finally saying something out loud he asked, "Why do we have to do this? We're only sixteen! I don't wanna think about kids and marriage and money. I wanna run around and play video games with my friends!"

"Do you think it'd be that easy to get that now?" Kairi agreed sadly with their fate.

Sora sighed and looked up at Kairi and said, "When do I gotta be there?"

Kairi smiled at the effort. He was going through a lot right now. Probably more than her with her insane parents.

"Five, sharp," she paused and then noticed Sora's head droop back down to where it was, "You wanna get out of here?"

"Please."

The day passed by quickly but Sora managed to get back into his cheerful self just as fast all thanks to Kairi's strategy of hanging out at his house with sweets and a few hours of video games. Kairi was enjoying a donut from the dozen they bought from the bakery downtown and the fact that she beat Sora for the third time in a row at the fighting game they were playing.

Kairi had just changed into a baggy pair of dark blue sweatpants with a white stripe of fabric that traveled down her leg on the sides. The top was still being worn because she was too lazy to change into one of Sora's shirts and kind of liked the color. The sweatpants were Sora's though.

As the game confirmed Sora's chosen character, another series of beeps and tones could be heard from Kairi's purse. She cursed and threw around the things in her purse until she found her pink phone and swore again. "Dad" could be seen on the ID and she reluctantly answered the phone.

"Ello-'ello?" She answered as she put it up to her ear.

"You aren't British, Kairi," Sora commented in the background before stuffing another donut in his mouth.

"Kairi?" a deep, booming voice said from the other line, "Oh, good! You're with Sora! How is the date going?" Kairi made a funny face towards Sora, mimicing her father until it was her turn to speak.

"Hi Dad, it's been good," she paused and mumbled away from the phone, "Until you called, that is."

"I'm sorry, what was that, my dear?"

"I said I'm happy you called," Kairi lied. Sora was surprised that her dad has never noticed how much Kairi has lied to her parents like that. From going out with friends, doing things she shouldn't, their odd relationship. But, then again, she lives with them. She's had her share of practice in manipulating people right before her eyes.

"That's wonderful," a chuckle was heard from the phone, "Are Sora's parents coming tonight?"

"Yes, sir, they're all very excited." More exaggerated expressions from Kairi.

"Great! Well, I'll let you get back to your date. Sorry to interrupt."

Kairi clicked the 'end call' button before her dad could give a loud good-bye, and plopped back down onto the cushioned chair in front of the television. She looked at the clock on the phone before throwing it back into her purse.

3: 49 p.m... They might as well enjoy the hour and eleven minutes they still had left.

Later that night, Riku lay motionless in his bed, still dressed in his baggy jeans and black tank top he was wearing before. A skylight built above him looked out into the dark blue sky as white specks slowly started to appear. The teen turned his head to look at the digital lcock on his wooden night stand.

"4. 56 p.m" glowed in an eerie red light and hurt his eyes. It was the only unnatural light shining in the room. There was only the sun's last breath of life looming slowly out of his room and out the large windowed doors connected to his balcony.

This was how Riku liked his room; unkept and dark. His parents couldn't care less since they were gone going on buisness trips, cruises, traveling, whatever else uncaring parents do with their time.

Riku didn't mind, though. His little brother wasn't that hard to take care of and he never really got along with his parents anyway after they started traveling.

His little brother was now asleep after crashing with all the sugar he had when Riku was gone. When Riku got home, he did what any normal person would do; locked the door of his brother's room with the television, video games, and stereo. Within an hour, the little boy was fast asleep on the room's floor.

He looked back up to his skylight. More stars were appearing and he watched on with no shown expression on his face as filled into his head like water. School, friends, where he'll go for dinner tonight.

Sora.

Sora's hug still lingered on his mind. It was just a stupid hug, he thought, it meant nothing at all to Sora. He kept assuring himself to calm down and not think to hard on these things but it just wasn't working.

It never did.

Stop making it bug you, dumbass, he told himself in his head, besides, Sora likes Kairi, right? Not me. Why should he get worked up over something that didn't matter?

But he wanted it to matter.

Riku's thoughts were doing nothing else than annoying him. He turned his head again to his clock and it shined '5: 13 p.m.' back to him. He sighed and pushed himself up and grabbed towards his black jacket on the floor and carried it with him as he got off his bed. Peeking into his brother's room, he pushed his sleeves through the long sleeves.

His brother was still fast asleep and limply holding a TV remote in his hands. The TV was on and a yellow sponge was laughing obnoxiously.

Riku chuckled uncontrollably at this poor sight. The boy needed as much protecting as... Sora.

The young boy grunted at his idiotic thoughts as he picked up his brother off of the floor and set him down on the boy's bed and turned off the television.

He closed the door silently and walked to his balcony outside his room. As soon as the door opened, cool air wafted in and he walked through his door.

Well, back to thinking.

The teen leaned his arm on the banister and stared at the orange and purple sky as the sun just left the horizon. More and more stars were coming into view. Riku whipped his head around making his hair turn and lightly whip his arm when he stopped. The clock that could be seen through his window had barely changed at all since he last checked.

"I don't want to wake him up like last time..." He looked at the scar on his right hand from breaking it a year ago.

If you could pick out a sigh from a happy to sad one, Riku's would be the latter. He pulled himself on top of the top bar of the basically designed metal balcony and sat there for a while. Figuring out his next move as he went, he slid off while grasping one of the more slender poles. Doing so, he very carefully slid his way down until his hand hit the end of it.

He let go quickly and landed softly on the grass below.

author notes

The second and third chapters were combined because the second was extremely short and I was planning on doing so anyway. I don't know what stopped me.

I feel weird not ranting nearly as much as I did when I was 16 but I just feel like no one cares. Sad, isn't it? I'm so dumb.

Anyway. I apologize for my rants being so serious. Hahaha.

See, a laugh. That's fun, right?

Side notes:

(1) Sticking with the name that I used except just keeping the word taiyou for "Sun" and chi that I took from the word for "town" (machi), looking back it wasn't that bad sound wise but I didn't know then that chi can mean "blood" in Japanese. I decided to keep it even though it really doesn't mean anything else than Sun blood. I think it sounds cool, shut up. Since I'm still learning Japanese from when I started writing this, this is all I can come up with that isn't like, HIKARI TOWN or something dumb (no offense to anyone who does that but...). In actual Japanese, it'd be written as 太陽血 in Kanji. (will this show up? is that even correct?)

Other bullshit I think is relevant:

In my mind and this story, Destiny Islands is split up into 6 regions; Sora, Kairi and Riku live on the biggest island, and the one they played on as kids and go run around on is the smallest but is still visible by the bigger island and it's in the middle. It's sorta like Hawaii but clumped together and closer.

Thank you for reading, please give me a review and critique, say hi, whatever. Anything but just reading and then hitting the X at the top. I love all of you for getting this far through and I'd love to hear your opinions and ideas. I'm all ears for that. If you want to point out all my mistakes to me and what I should do to fix it, be my guest. I'd worship you.

And to those who still had this story on watch and decided to reread this and still give me more comments, holy shit I love you guys.

And some more love and thanks go to Rali who helped me out with this chapter. Thank you so freaking much.

(And to the readers... I apologize for my fuckin' explainations for the kanji. I need a life.)

Please review and comment.