Disclaimer: I don't own Kingdom Hearts, its characters or storyline. This story is mine. Yay for positive reviews! Thus, I update. The first chapter was depressing, but it's not like that the whole time, as you'll find out. Kind reviews welcome!

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Chapter Two: Three Months Earlier

We had been day dreaming about the end of school since Christmas vacation. To be able to run out of those high school doors and into the fresh air and hot sunlight of summer was the only thing that kept the three of us going. It was fitting that on our last day, it was storming.

After the madness of the war with the Heartless and then Organization XIII, school had seemed more like a prison than ever. We had to go here, go there, learn this, study that, and no one else on the island even remembered that our world had been taken away and that we three had fought so hard and lost so much to get it back.

I looked at the clock over Mr. Gibson's head. It was five minutes before the final bell. I'm a good student, truly, but he was STILL lecturing. Didn't he know that no one was paying attention? I shifted around a little and looked over at Sora. He was sitting with his chin in his hands, staring at Mr. Gibson, but it was obvious his mind was worlds away from the classroom. I wondered what he was thinking about: Disney Castle, tournaments in the Underworld, or the Altar of Naught perhaps?

"…and that is why you should always be careful to wear plenty of sunscreen…" Mr. Gibson, still giving his Safety First for Summer speech.

On my right, Tidus gave a wide, obvious yawn and flopped his head back on Selphie's desk. She leaned away from him and made a face, but then she resumed her staring at the clock.

A fork of lightning flashed outside and the instant boom of thunder made us all sit up a little straighter.

After the longest five minutes of my life, the minute hand strikes the top of the clock and the bell rings. I've never heard such a wonderful sound. Mr. Gibson looked startled that time had flown for him.

"All right, remember to be careful, look both ways before crossing…" He called after us as we all scrambled for the door. Another bolt of lightning crackled outside.

"And don't carry aluminum bats!" Sora added, earning a few chuckles.

I got up and waited for the herd of students to thin before leaving.

"Have a nice summer, Kairi." Mr. Gibson said as I walked past his desk.

"You too, sir."

I went to my locker and got out my backpack, unloading the remaining junk in my locker and stuffing it in. Selphie leaned against the locker beside me.

"Got any big plans this summer?" She asked, watching the students scramble by.

I shrugged, "Not really. After all that happened last summer, I don't think I'm up for any more excitement."

"Last summer?" That's right, she doesn't remember. No one does.

I quickly recovered, "Oh, yeah, uh, the raft fiasco, remember?"

Selphie giggled, "Oh, right, THAT. Yeah, don't try that again this year, okay?"

"I won't." Never, ever, ever again, that's for sure.

I finished cleaning out my locker and started towards the front doors. The mass exodus of students had already swept across the grounds and were swarming into town. Some of them ducked under trees to avoid getting wet, but it was a futile effort. The rain was falling in big drops and was nothing short of a torrential downpour.

"Hey, Kairi, wait up!" Sora caught up to me and looked outside. "I feel to urge to build an ark."

I laughed, which was apparently what he had been after. "Where's Riku?" I asked.

Sora gestured behind him, "Still taking Johnson's exam."

I winced, "Yuck."

Sora grimaced, "Yeah," He quickly brightened, "Sucks to be him. Come on, let's get out of here!"

"Shouldn't we wait for him?"

"He can drive now, remember?" Sora made a sour face.

We left the school, running through the falling rain despite the fact that getting soaked was inevitable. We reached the beach, but the ocean was too choppy to go to the smaller island off the coast, so we just sat down under an overhang of rocks.

"Amazing." I remarked, looking at Sora. "You're soaking wet and your hair hasn't moved at all."

Sora shrugged, "It's talent."

Without warning, he leaned over and kissed me. This wasn't the first time we'd kissed, but it was always so spontaneous and abrupt that it got me every time.

We just sat there for a while, watching it rain and talking. We did a lot of that, talking. Sora and Riku were the only ones I could talk to about what had happened, and they remembered so much more than I did. Sora usually did most of the talking. A lot of the time, Riku didn't talk at all, but neither of us pressed him about it.

"So then, he starts going for Riku, right?" Sora was going on animatedly, on his feet. "And he was all 'We'll go together' or whatever, and starts to attack. But I was like, no way!" He swung his arm around like he was holding an invisible sword, attacking the air in front of him. "So I had my Keyblade and Way to the Dawn, and I just go Cloud Strife Style on him. 'Not so Superior now!' I said." He started swatting at the air again, throwing in some 'argh' and 'hiya!'.

"And he still thinks he's so bad, hovering around with his red laser swords, but I stood my ground, protecting Riku, and then—"

WHAM.

Riku dove out from behind me and tackled Sora to the sand. Sora yelped and they rolled a few times in the wet sand.

"Funny. That's not how I remember it." Riku said calmly, disabling Sora easily.

Sora spat out a mouthful of sand as Riku pressed his face into it, "Get off me!"

Riku laughed, "For all your talk, I sure snuck up on you easily enough."

Sora struggled, but in vain, "I knew you were there the whole time!"

"Yeah, I bet." Riku looked at me, as if for verification.

I shrugged, "He looked pretty off guard to me."

"Traitor!" Sora bellowed.

"Maybe if you—" Riku stopped dead, staring through the trees past me.

Instinctively, I turned and looked into the woods as well. Sand hit my back and I looked at the boys again. Sora had taken advantage of Riku's distraction and reversed their position, so now Riku was in the sand and Sora had him pinned.

"Wait, wait, stop stop!" Riku wasn't laughing anymore. He looked scared. Sora heard the tone in his voice and let him go, standing up.

"What is it?" I asked, getting up and looking behind me.

"Did you see that?" Riku asked, pointing into the trees.

Sora and I looked, but it was dark from the rain. "No. What was it?" Sora was scanning the trees, alert and suspicious. I stood between them, looking around also.

Riku had gotten really tense, "It looked like…it couldn't have been…No, I don't think…"

"Riku, whole sentences. What was it?" Sora repeated.

Riku paused, and then rubbed his eyes and looked around again, "It…It was nothing. It must have been my imagination." He didn't sound convinced.

I caught his eye and looked at him with concern. He ran a hand through his drenched hair and glanced at the woods one more time before turning his back on it, smile back in place.

"All right, now how did you single handedly defeat Xemnas again?"

Sora was still wrong footed over the sudden change and blinked. "Riku, shouldn't we just make sure—"

"It was only my imagination." Riku was still grinning, but there was a warning in his eyes that plainly told Sora to drop it.

Sora barely exchanged a look with me, shrugged, and slipped back into battle-mode. "I was just filling Kairi in on what happened against Xemnas, that's all."

"Oh please continue, it was so interesting." Riku flopped down on the sand beside me, giving Sora a look of mock enthrallment.

Sora glared, "You wanna have a go right now?"

"I don't know," Riku sat up, "Kairi may have to protect me from your almighty wrath."

Sora looked at me. I struck a karate pose, "Flying Eagle attacks Little Monkey!"

"Yeah, you show him." Riku clapped.

Sora waved me off, "Nah, come on, Riku. I've gotta get education off my mind."

"That won't take long." Riku stood up, grinning. "What's the record now, 3 and 12?"

"Four and 12!" Sora corrected indignantly.

"No, that time in the caves doesn't count." Riku shook his head.

"Why not?"

"I was ASLEEP."

I laughed, "You're sneaking up on each other while the other's asleep? In the caves? What, did you two need to be alone?" I lifted an eyebrow.

They both scowled at me. "You've been reading that stuff on the Internet again, haven't you?" Sora said bitterly.

I lifted my shoulders and stood up, dusting myself off, "I'm just kidding. We should probably start heading home now."

"Yeah, probably. Time to enjoy summer. No more stuffy classrooms or batty teachers for three months!" Sora punched the air triumphantly, "Aw, that figures. It stops raining now."

We started towards the path to the village but I turned, "Riku, you coming?"

Riku was standing stock still, staring into the woods again. He was actually in mid step, like a statue. He wasn't looking around either; he was staring fixedly at one point in the trees.

"Riku?" Sora asked, smiling uneasily.

With what appeared to be a lot of effort, Riku turned and looked at us, "What?"

Sora put his hands behind his head, "You just zoned out or something. Are you okay?"

Riku glanced back at the trees, blinked, shook his head, and started walking after us, "Yeah."

"Good, you're starting to freak me out a little. I thought you were seeing Heartless again or something." Sora said, carrying on.

I looked at Riku. He didn't look fine. He looked like he'd seen a ghost or something from his nightmares. Was he still having the nightmares? I knew it wasn't my place to ask, but I was still worried. I wasn't supposed to know about the nightmares, Sora didn't, but how else could you explain the dark circles that had been growing under his eyes lately?

"Riku, have you been getting enough sleep? You look tired." I asked anyway.

He eyed me for a second and then shoved his hands in his pockets, "Not really. Those exams took hours to study for."

Sora laughed, "You actually studied? Call up the newspaper, boy dies studying for test!"

Riku laughed, but not genuinely. I was still not convinced he was all right, but it was summer, and I had a lot on my mind already. I guess I thought it would work itself out.