A/N: I know, this should have been up AGES ago, but I just didn't know where to go with it. Last night, I decided to reread the entire story, and then this happened. I'm going to try to get one out a week, since it's summer and my writing juices have apparently decided to start dripping again. Remember, reviews = incentive! If I know people are enjoying it, I'll be happier and thus more inclined to write more to make more people happy.

"Sora, dinner!" Mina called from the kitchen.

"Gimme a sec!" Sora called back. He tossed his pen onto his desk, satisfied that he'd gotten enough of his homework done to take a break. It was winter break, not that there was much of what could be called winter in Destiny Island, but Sora had more than enough homework to keep him busy for at least the first week of break. He was still taking an earlybird class and night classes twice a week to catch up, but when the semester ended, he was going to be able to switch to a normal schedule. He was so close to finally being done!

He made some attempt to straighten the papers and books scattered across his desk, then gave up and grabbed a shirt from his laundry basket. He hadn't bothered to put one on when he got out of bed that morning, but Mina's boyfriend was supposed to be coming over for dinner and Mina would yell at him if he showed up only wearing shorts.

He pulled it on, ran a hand through his hair, then heaved a sigh. He still didn't care for David, but he was less suspicious of the man. As far as he could tell, David didn't have any motives (not that that kept Sora from following him around periodically, and complaining incessantly to Kairi and Riku about him) and Mina was happy, so Sora was disinclined to mess it up for her.

He slid down the ladder, and landed on the kitchen floor with a thunk that startled both of the adults.

Mina shook her head, but gave him a smile before turning back to the stove. David raised an eyebrow at him, and Sora smirked.

It had been four and a half months since school started, and to everybody's surprise, Sora had grown four inches. It drove Mina up the wall, but Sora liked it. It meant he could look David in the eye, and it meant he was finally the same height as Riku, not accounting for hair height.

Sora turned his gaze away from the man and went to the cupboard to get out dishes. "So what's for dinner?" Sora asked, despite the fact that he could easily see the fixings for spaghetti. He grinned when Mina rolled her eyes again, and lightly bumped her with his elbow.

"You just like to hear your own voice, don't you," she said. Sora gave her the most innocent look he could manage, and she swatted at him with the spoon in her hand. Sora ducked away from it, and left her in the kitchen while he went through the laundry room to get to the dining room.

He set the plates down, then went back for cups and utensils. He walked in on David hugging Mina from behind, and silently gagged.

David turned at the wrong moment, and caught Sora's expression. He narrowed his eyes, but when Sora crossed his arms and scowled, he let go of Mina and turned fully towards him. "Would you like help with the table, Sora?" he asked.

"Not really," Sora said.

"Go ahead and help, David," Mina said. She gave Sora a stern look, and he sighed and shrugged.

"Why not."

Sora got three glasses out of the cupboard, and grabbed the jug of milk from the fridge as he passed it. Mina directed David to the silverware drawer, and he followed Sora down the hall.

"Do you mind if I ask you a question?" David asked as Sora filled the cups with milk and put them at the three place settings.

Sora shrugged. David knew that Sora didn't like him and Sora knew that David thought he was a miscreant, and they both knew that Mina knew nothing. Sora was more than happy to keep it that way, and as long as David kept his opinions of Sora to himself…

"Is that a yes?"

Sora shrugged again.

David sighed, and set the last fork down in its place. "Do you honestly have a reason for being against my dating your mother?"

Sora ducked his head, and focused on screwing the lid back onto the milk jug. It took three tries.

"Please don't just shrug," David said.

Sora resisted the urge to do it just to annoy the man, then gave up on avoiding his gaze. "Have you noticed the lack of anything about my dad around the house? Pictures, stories, anything?" He glared at David, even though he had nothing to do with it and it was irrational and Sora just didn't care. "There's reasons for that."

He stalked back to the kitchen, and took a moment before entering it to take a deep breath and wipe the anger off of his face and out of the set of his shoulders. He forced himself to relax, not because he needed it but because the last thing Mina needed was his taking his anger at so many irrelevant things on her.

He put the milk away, and Mina handed him the bowl of noodles. "I'll be out in a moment," she said. Sora took it without a word, and headed back to the dining room.

David was over by the window, examining a school picture of Sora from the fourth grade. He glanced at Sora when he set the bowl down, then went back to going over the picture.

Sora turned around, and almost ran into Mina. He took the bowl of sauce from her and set it down, then collapsed into the chair he was standing next to.

"How was your day, darling?" Mina asked him. She dished out spaghetti for him, and Sora barely managed to hold back a complaint that he was a big boy, and could do it himself. At least she didn't offer to cut it up, he told himself, as she handed him his plate.

"I did homework all day, Mom, how do you think it was?"

"Still catching up?" David asked. Sora twitched, but he didn't have any reason he could vocalize for not wanting to talk to him.

"I did miss two years, and it's only been eight months, so, yeah, I'm still catching up."

Mina gave him a sharp look. "Are you pushing yourself too hard? We can do homeschooling if you think you're not up to-"

"Mother!"

Mina backed down, and exchanged a look with David. Sora sulked, and poked at his food. He wasn't hungry, but if he took forever to eat, that meant more time he had to spend at the table with David and Mina talking about him and looking at each other about him, and Sora could barely stand it on a good day, let alone one where he'd been struggling through an essay on a subject he quite frankly cared so little about that he couldn't even remember what he'd just covered in class.

Mina and David fell to small talk about David's work, and minus the odd question tossed at him about school or his social life (not that he had much of one), they left him alone. Sora ate as fast as he could get away with without it being totally obvious that he was trying to get out of there, and he declined the offer for seconds. "I'll get food if I'm hungry tonight, Mom, don't worry about it."

"I know, dear, I'm allowed to mother you once in a while." She smiled up at him, and Sora sighed dramatically. He took his plate to the kitchen and left it in the sink, and stood at his ladder for a moment to see if they were talking about him.

All he heard was a soft laugh, and, disgusted, he climbed the ladder and dropped the panel into place to block out any more noise from the downstairs.

Sora flopped back on his bed, but it wasn't a moment before his cell phone, on his desk, began to buzz madly. With a sigh, he rolled out of bed and got up to see what it was.

"Why's Selphie calling me…?" he asked himself. He flipped the phone open. "Hello?"

"Sora! Hi!"

"Hi, Selphie. What's up?" Sora went back to his bed, and laid down across the foot with his legs dangling off the edge.

"I was wondering if, if you weren't doing anything, you might wanna go a couple rounds!"

Sora blinked, and had to drag his mind out of the gutter in order to process her words. "You mean a fight?"

"Yeah, silly, what else would I mean?"

"No idea. If you want to practice a bit, sure, but it's kind of cold out, and it's nearly dark. How about tomorrow morning?" That wasn't totally true, Sora reflected. It wasn't that cold out, and it would be another hour or so before dark, but the only one of the his friends who had met David was Riku, and Sora didn't want anything that might contaminate his dislike of the man such as a friend getting along with him. Yeah, it was childish, but Sora was done being an adult. He could afford to act a little bit immature every now and then, couldn't he?

"Yeah! Kairi came over, we're doing manis and pedis and-"

Sora blocked out most of the rest of Selphie's ramble, and the input from Kairi. At some point, they put the phone on speaker and talked at the same time. Sora rolled over and put his phone next to his head, and grunted at regular intervals so they didn't think he was ignoring him and complain.

"-and I'll come over tomorrow morning and we'll spar! Okay?"

"Huh?" Sora zoned back in. "Uh, yeah, that's fine. How about nine?"

"Sure! See ya then!"

The girls squealed a good-bye, and hung up before Sora could offer his own. He laughed to himself, and closed his phone.

Downstairs, he heard the dish washer start up. He rolled off his bed, and lifted the panel. "Mom?" he called. He stuck his head down, and peered around the kitchen, but it was empty.

"Yes?" The sound of the television muted.

"Selphie's coming over tomorrow morning to spar."

"Alright. I'll be at the office all day."

"'kay." Sora pulled himself up, and slipped the panel back into place.

"Spar?" David inquired. Mina snuggled back into his arms, and unmuted the TV. "Does Sora take classes?"

"Classes?" Mina stared blankly at the TV for a moment. "Oh! No, he and his friends taught themselves to fight. They do it for fun." And that's probably the only thing that kept him alive, she thought. How badly off would he have been if he hadn't had those experiences before the storm hit?

"And he spars against girls?" David rolled his eyes up to the ceiling, but it was silent. Sora was an enigma; he knew Sora had disappeared nearly three years ago, and had only been home for eight months, but one would have thought that there would have been more information on him. None of the newspapers had gone into much detail at all, and most of the detail had concerned the other boy he had been with, his friend Riku. Sora and Mina didn't talk about it- in fact, Mina flat refused to talk about it to anybody, and Sora was likely to be a stubborn brat if David asked him.

"Sora wouldn't hurt Selphie or Kairi or anybody else. He helps other kids practice for the freestyle competitions when he's not busy. He's very good at it."

"At teaching? Or at fighting?"

"Both."

David fiddled with a lock of Mina's hair. It was several shades darker than Sora's, and much less inclined to spike out in every direction. As far as David could tell, it did that naturally, with only a little bit of help from styling gels. Sora had strange hair; strange hair for a strange boy. "I used to fight, in my younger days. Think he'd be interested in a little fight?"

"I think he'd like that. He's been out of practice since- he doesn't fight at his own level anymore. Only Riku is much of a challenge and they generally end up wrestling instead of fighting."

Since what? David locked that away to be ruminated on at a later date, and turned his attention away from the ceiling to the television. "Maybe I'll ask him sometime."