Heee... I'm so glad I was able to restrain myself from writing "The Good Stuff" until AFTER four chapters. This is an enormous amount of restraint on my part. Also, Namine's dad has no name or role aside from Namine's dad, but I always picture him as an older Luxord.

Constantly dedicated to BriKyo. I miss you so much.

Disclaimer: I don't own "Everywhere" by Michelle Branch, but I do love the song and music video.

Why Is It So Dark In Here?

Oh, Wow! I'm in a Closet!

Despite the fact that Kairi would never ever hit on me or consider me as her girlfriend, I fret over my dress, hair and fingernails for a solid hour. I've stopped denying the fact that I'm in love. I'm just going to go with it at this point. There's very little else that I can do except examine my favorite white dress for the slightest stain and bemoan how limp my hair is.

Riku's van pulls up in front of my house around five o'clock or so. He honks the horn twice and I pick up my bag. "Daddy, I'm leaving for a sleep over at my friend's house. Be back later, bye!" Dad looks at me funny as I speed down the stairs.

"Namine, hold it." I put on my shoes, strappy sandals with no heel, but give dad my full attention. "Where are you going?"

"Riku's, then Kairi's for the night."

My dad knows Riku- Riku's dad is his boss- but didn't know we were friends. "And who is Kairi?"

I was really hoping to avoid this conversation for a few days or so. "A friend of mine. She's just moved here and we became friends." I play the "She Just Moved In" card in hopes of Dad letting go of the fact that he's never met Kairi.

He gives me this stern look and, for a few seconds, I'm completely convinced that he knows that Kairi's gay and that I'm gay and that I'm helping a gay club. My guts clench in absolute fear.

Instead of accusing me of being gay, he says, "What time will you be home?"

"Er… I don't know…"

"I'll come pick you up at three tomorrow. Call me from Kairi's when you get there, and when you get back. Also, I want to talk to Kairi's parents."

That last one makes me cringe. What if they tell him about Kairi and he forbids me from seeing her? Instead of freaking out, like I want to, I give him a hug and speed out the door and hop into Riku's van. He's the only one there, which seems like a waste of gas until he tells me that we're picking up Kairi, Tidus, and Sora too. I just happen to be first on the list.

We're completely silent, except for the initial hello. Riku watches the road- He's a really safe driver, actually- and I watch Riku. When the silence becomes too much, I reach over (I took shotgun) and turn it down. "Can I ask you something?"

"Shoot." Riku brakes at a stoplight.

"Do your parents know you're…?" It strikes me that I don't know what Riku is.

"Bi. And my mom knows, but my dad doesn't." Riku chuckles and accelerates away from the stop light. "He'd beat the hell out of me. Why?"

"No reason." I stare out the window.

"Okay. Can I ask you a question?"

"Sure…"

"Are you gay? Because I've been getting some truly mixed-up signals from you." I openly stare at Riku. I thought gaydar was just a myth. "On one hand, it looks like you're into Kairi or maybe your in a dom-sub thing with Larxene." He shrugs and stops in front of a house. "On the other hand, maybe you just like as a friend Kairi and Larxene is just a bitch."

I would have responded, but Tidus knocks on the window and motions for me to unlock the back door for him.

I love Sora's shotgun rule. The shotgun rule was made when Riku got the van and the rule is this: As long as Riku has a vehicle with more than two seats, Sora gets to ride shotgun in exchange for discounting Riku's Dunkin Donuts coffees. The reason I love the rule is because Kairi's bare knee was touching mine the ENTIRE ride to Riku's house.

Riku kept giving me small, knowing, glances in the rearview mirror, but those are easy to ignore when contemplating the silken quality of Kairi's knee. Mine are only like that directly after I shave my legs, and I wonder if she just shaved for this occasion. Wishful thinking.

The instant we get into his living room, Riku puts me to work on drawing Kairi in a concept we discussed at lunch yesterday. It's Kairi standing on a miniature replica of the school, holding her hands above her head and a rainbow coming out of her palms. I just have to draw Kairi in the pose and I can add the rest.

"Namine, I love that I'm the model, but I need to be able to share ideas in this too. Don't be mad?" With a face like that, unabashedly happy and willing, how could I be mad? We develop a system where Kairi taps her foot twice on the floor if she has an idea. Then, after I get all the details I need at that particular second, I'll say she can move and, she can say whatever.

Maybe five minutes after I start sketching the framework, Sora shares an idea. "What would you guys say to organizing a protest?"

"How big?"

"The whole school." Sora makes a grand sweeping gesture with his hand. "I'm thinking maybe a sit-in. Or picketing. Luxord could do it too."

"Luxord could get arrested," Riku points out. "It's kinda his job to do class with us."

Kairi taps her foot. I tell them to hold on and then say, "Go ahead."

"I like Sora's idea with the picketing. It's a lot more demonstrative than a sit-in. Like, I love the Day of Silence, and I always do it, but it's kind of silly to stay silent for our rights."

Tidus nods, like he likes the idea, then starts writing. Kairi schools her features back into the triumphant mask I had told her to adopt earlier.

Riku bites his lip thoughtfully. "Okay, sounds alright. I need to check out the law on picketing on school property, but I don't see much against it."

"Good," Sora pops the top on a can of soda that Riku gave him earlier. "I liked that idea better anyway."

"You liked it because it was louder."

"What's your point?"

Tidus brings up some bad news. "The school paper refused to run the article I wrote. They gave me the same answer they gave for the club itself: Too controversial."

The writing, while important, is not my department, so I focus on other things. Like the way her eyes follow who's speaking, as if she's watching a tennis match. And the way that Kairi's sweatshirt clings to her chest, but leaves a lot to the imagination around her waist. And how very, very short her skirt looks when she's wearing a sweatshirt that baggy. And- AGH! NO! BAD NAMINE! STOP OGLING KAIRI'S THIGHS! FOCUS ON HER HANDS!

The meeting ends around 5-or-so o'clock. Sora and Tidus and Riku say that they're going to hang out at Riku's and watch Degrassi. After making absolutely sure that Kairi and I don't want to go along with that, we're dropped off in front of Kairi's home. She leads me, by my hand (Be still, my heart!), up through the halls. Seeing a note on the fridge, presumably from Kairi's parents, makes me remember.

"My dad wanted to talk to your parents when you got here."

"My parents aren't home right now. They're on their anniversary thing." She tugs me up over the stairs and into a room with lots of turquoise-blues and neon-pinks. Normally, this color scheme would be more, "Oh God, My Eyes Are Bleeding," but I like it in here. Probably because the cream-colored carpet on the floor sets it off.

There are rainbows everywhere, but what attracts my attention is photos of people pinned to an enormous corkboard over her bed. "You like photography?"

She giggles. "A little. You saw the video for 'Everywhere' by Michelle Branch, right?" I shake my head. "Well, there's this big ol' cluster of photos of this one guy that she loves, I guess, and I saw that video when I was younger and I said that I wanted to start doing that. So I got a corkboard for my birthday two years ago and just did it."

I recognize a few people in the pictures- Sora, Riku, Tidus, etc.- but there's also people I don't know and I'm instantly jealous of one. She has brown hair, green eyes, a school uniform and her lips on Kairi's cheek. I can't help it. I have to ask.

"Who's that?"

Kairi was just setting my bag on the floor. "Hm?" Then she sees what I'm looking at. "Oh, that's my ex. Selphie. That was a Halloween party last year." She changes the subject. "I heard the ones here are wild."

"I wouldn't know. I've never been."

There's a silence, during which I fiddle with the hem of my dress and Kairi unpacks her purse onto her desk. Kairi puts away things from her purse, but stops to examine a cherry lip gloss. "… Hey, Namine?"

"Yes?"

"What's romantic to you?"

The question throws me off balance, as if she had kicked my metaphorical ankles out from under me. "I… Don't know."

She chuckles. Not in a mean way, just finding something funny about it. "It's not like a party. You don't need to have been romanced to know what's romantic to you. It's just want you want done, you know?"

I know what she's asking and, frankly, I'm astounded. Asking her to be straight with me (if you'll pardon the expression) would be ideal, but I'm impractical and instead, I play a surprisingly coy card. "Well, I don't know how to respond. Tell me what's romantic to you."

Kairi makes mischievous eye-contact with me. We're on another playing field now. This conversation is moving faster than even my dreams could have possibly depicted. "Surprises. Impulsiveness. Things I wouldn't expect. Your turn. What's your romance?"

"Intimacy. Being close."

Kairi takes a bold step towards me. "Close how? How close?"

"Ph-Physically." I'm only saying what she wants to hear at this point. "And emotionally. And as much as possible."

She puts her arms on my shoulders, pulling me closer to her body. I just noticed that we're exactly the same height. Kairi draws me into a loose hug. She smells like sweet fruits and vanilla. "Is this good?"

"Not quite." I lick my lips and press them gently against hers. It's fast and, for a second, I'm terrified that I've overstepped my boundaries. Only for a second. Kairi smirks and pulls me into a more intense kiss. It's a bit sloppy and I have nothing in the realm of technique, but none of that matters. Kairi wants me!