Disclaimer: I don't own Kingdom Hearts, the characters, or the song Numb by Linkin Park!
Chapter 6 Numb
"Mick!" Riku threw on his shoes and still no sign of his baby brother.
"Mickey! We need to go! Now!"
"Five minutes!" Came the response from upstairs.
"No Mick, Now!" Finally he could hear footsteps on the stairs and he grabbed his keys, a hand on the door handle and waiting for his brother to come. Instead of his brother's pale blue locks, it was his dad that came down.
"Riku! What the hell are you yelling about this early?" Everything inside of Riku froze. "You know I need my sleep."
"I was trying to get Mickey down here, we're gonna be late and besides; he yelled back." Riku knew he went too far, the vein on his father's neck was pulsing and he slowly backed towards the door. He saw his brother come down and how he hid behind the banister when he saw their father. The silver haired teen felt bad, but didn't get the time to react before their dad went bananas.
"Mickey is fourteen. He doesn't know better. You on the other hand are eighteen, and should know better. Don't scream like that this early." He raised his hand as if to hit him, Riku closed his eyes.
- Flashback -
His dad was standing over his ten year old self. Blood was coming from his nose and he could hear six year old Mickey's sobs from the other room. He was afraid, because it was always like this. And he was the only one his dad ever hit. His mom was too beautiful and never cared, and Mickey was too young, too innocent and he didn't have all the requirements for being the best because Riku was oldest and supposed to follow his dad's footsteps.
No, it was him that was supposed to do all those things. And nothing he did was good enough.
-End of flashback-
His father stopped hitting him as the years passed, but he still had that power over him.
The older man lowered his hand and laughed at him.
"You're still as pathetic. Go to school, make me proud and shut up." He went up the stairs again; Mickey had snuck in to the kitchen so their father wouldn't notice him. Riku stood there, slightly trembling and taking deep breaths. When their father was gone, Mickey came out of the kitchen.
"Riku, are you okay?" The older of the two opened the door.
"Yeah, I'm fine. Come on, we don't wanna be late."
"I'm sorry Riku, for being late and making dad mad at you."
"It's not your fault. Come on."
Riku locked the door behind him and got in his electric blue sports car, unlocking the other door for Mickey to get in. They fastened their seat-belts and Riku pulled out of the drive way. Riku turned on some music but otherwise the drive was quiet. Riku focused on the driving and Mickey didn't say anything, afraid to make his brother annoyed. Little did he know that Riku was just fed up. Fed up and sad that he couldn't do anything right.
Not even in school did he fit in. Everyone fit. He just wished that he did, too.
Sure; he had some friends and his girlfriend, but it felt like they didn't know him. That they didn't like him for who he was, but the mask he put up, someone he pretended to be.
He made a left turn into the school campus parking, parked the car on an open space and got out of the car. Mickey also got out and they walked their separate ways without a word. The younger of the two ran off to his freshman friends. On his way he accidentally walked straight into one of his brother's friends. He recognized the girl, she had been at their place but he just couldn't remember her name.
"I'm-" The wine haired girl shoved him.
"Watch it twerp!" Mickey's gaze fell to the asphalt.
"I'm sorry miss, it won't happen again."
Unknowing of his brother's problems Riku walked towards the yellow sports building to swim a few laps since he had a free period.
The changing room was empty except the brown haired guy that ran into his locker a few days ago's friend with the weird blond hair. The other guy just gave him a look that said that Riku could go fuck himself or something. Riku swallowed an answer. This guy always beat him in the contests; he was a really good swimmer.
Riku opened his locker, trying to ignore the annoying blond behind him. Against his will he had to admit that from what he saw from the corner of his eye, the blond had some pretty limber muscles. He pulled his shirt over his head and started to unbutton his jeans and got into his swim shorts.
The blond, what was his name? D… David? No that wasn't it. It was some unusual name with weird letters. De… Dexter? No… Den..yx? Yeah that was probably it.
Demyx left the changing room after closing his locker and locked it. Riku finished changing, locked and headed out to the pool. The blond from the changing room was already there, warming up and Riku dove in to the pool and started to warm up as well.
The water felt nice against his skin. He had missed this. He hadn't really had the time to swim in a while, because they had had a really big test in English last week. He swam back to the edge and gazed over the rectangular pool, deciding to do 25 laps. Then he noticed that the blond from the changing room was watching him from the lane next to his own. The blond looked at him, then the lanes, nodded towards them, eyes still on him. Riku accepted the challenge and the blond waved for someone there to time them and start them.
On the count of three they started. It started out as a tie, before Riku got a slight lead. When they turned around the blond was leading. They continued for a few laps and Riku felt for the first time in a long while that he actually had fun while competing.
After another five laps they ended their little competition with the blond winning. But it didn't really matter to Riku. He had had fun and a nice competition with the blond. They shook hands over the lane buoys, or to those less informed in swimming, little floaty things that separated the lines.
Half way through the swim practise the speakers that were everywhere in the school, where their principal Mr. Xemnas could do his little announces, started sounding and an up tone melody resounded before the principal's voice was heard and the whole room stopped moving to hear the words.
"This is Principal Xemnas speaking. I want every junior and senior student in the auditorium at the beginning of second period. Back to class."
Riku looked confused for a second, before he shrugged his shoulders and he swam a few more laps before he headed up to take a shower and get ready for the thing in the auditorium.
He grabbed his towel and headed out to the locker room and into a shower where he started to clean himself before he started shampooing his hair.
While he walked out of the shower room, a towel wrapped around his waist he saw the blond already half changed back to normal clothes. Or what he guessed he could call normal when it came to that dude. Tight dark pants with a blue tee and a white over shirt with a loose tie were not anything Riku would call 'normal clothes'. Oh well, the guy was probably more gay than a rainbow.
He quickly changed into his own baggy jeans and his white college sweater, packed his things into his locker and left the gymnasium with long steps. The fountain in the middle of campus came in view as he walked towards the pink C building where they had all their cultural classes and the auditorium was located.
All around and inside it was filled with milling juniors and seniors, waiting to get in to hear what Xemnas had on his chest. Riku located Rai and walked towards him.
"Hey man, what's up?" Rai shrugged his shoulders.
"I have no idea. I was just sitting in the hallway talking some to that blonde girl when Prof. Xemnas started talking about meeting up in here." A loud voice behind them dragged them from their conversation and they turned to see who it was that was yelling.
Riku sighed at the sight of that tall, lanky redheaded annoying misfit with his tail of subjects. There was the annoying blond from the swim hall, the new blond guy, the slate haired bookworm with his girlfriend and… Riku's train of thoughts crashed when he saw the brunet from last week. Sora.
Riku smiled to himself before the redhead started talking again.
"Everyone can calm down. We're back." Almost all students in there laughed with him but Riku just shook his head.
"Stupid annoying bastard" he mumbled to himself.
xXx
When a quarter hour or so had passed the doors were finally opened and the students crowded inside. Riku and Rai found a seat, but to Riku's great irritation, the redhead and his friends seated themselves in front of him. The silver haired one sighed and crossed is arms over his chest.
The auditorium was filled with voices from all the students waiting for the principal to say his peace so they could leave. Soon Xemnas came out on stage and the room was filled with the applause that everyone had to do to show respect, but no one really meant.
Xemnas placed himself in front of the microphone, cleared his throat and began speaking.
"I am principal Xemnas, as you all know," New applause. "And it is my great privilege to inform you that from today and two weeks forward, all of you are going to be part of a theme week we're going to have here at Starlight High. For two weeks all of your lessons are going to be about global warming and what we can do about it. You are to see movies, have discussions and a lot of other fun things." At this point the redhead in front of Riku stood up.
"Ey Mansex! Are you kidding me!" Snickers were spread across the audience and two girls, one with red hair and two black streaks and the other with completely black hair and thin black rimmed glasses laughed and gave cat calls to the redheaded guy.
"Come on, I know that at least the juniors have some stupid history project that's fuckin' huge," half of all the students in the auditorium screamed their approval, including the two girls and except the redhead's friends. The new guy looked like he wanted to sink through the floor and the blond from the gymnasium pulled at the redhead's sleeve.
" Come on Axel, drop it and sit down." He whispered. Axel, apparently, didn't listen but continued.
"And us seniors have a lot going on right now too, so you take your fake tan and drop this. We can do it another time." Every student in the room cheered, laughed and gave cat calls. Xemnas looked like he was about to blow up.
"Sit down Mr. Utada, before I give you another detention. We are going to have these theme-weeks whether you like it or not." At this point the slate haired guy rose, grabbed Axel's shoulders and seated him again before he could say anything more stupid.
"Bastard," was all the redhead whispered before the principal once again cleared his throat and continued his speech.
"Where was I? Oh right, as I said before Mr. Utada interrupted me; you are also supposed to take notes and by the end of these weeks you will hand in a paper of 5000 words to your head teacher. That was everything. Thank you." Xemnas exited stage and the students slowly started milling out. Riku looked at Rai and sighed.
"This is gonna be two looongs weeks."
xXx
Riku sighed as he placed his tray on the lunch table next to his friends. They had all been informed from god knows what source about the theme week.
"I so don't wanna do this paper." Kairi immediately clung to his arm.
"It's okay Riku, just get some stupid nerd to do it for you and you can skip. What about that guy that ran in to your locker? You can get him to do it for ruining your locker door with his fugly face." Everyone laughed at Kairi's statement, whether they found it funny or not. Riku just smiled and stroked her cheek.
"Yeah… Or I'll just do it. I'll see what happens."
Through a series of unfortunate events there was this poor little Roxas who walked by their table with his little friend Sora. And because today was such a bad day, Roxas stumbled over his own feet, making his soda mug fall over and drench a poor unsuspecting wine haired girl.
Said wine haired girl rose up, anger radiating from her. She was so mad; Sora almost believed that smoke would come out of her ears.
"What the hell did you just do!" She screeched towards the poor blond.
"I'm sorry, I stumbled, I didn't mean to get you wet. Here, have a napkin." He held out a napkin, but at the same time Axel came flying out of nowhere on to Roxas, making the blond once again stumble and in the meantime accidentally press the napkin and his hand against the wine haired girl's boobs. This made Riku flip and he rose.
"What the hell do you think you're doing to my girlfriend? Not only do you spill soda on her, you also grope her! Why you, I shoul-"
"Hold it!" Came Axel's voice and his hand crashed against Riku's broad chest.
"He didn't mean to spill soda on her and why would he wanna touch your disgusting skank of a girlfriend?" Everybody at their table gasped and Riku started hissing.
"Just because all of you in your little gang are a collections of faggots doesn't mean that you can call my girlfriend a skank." Axel just smiled at him.
"First of all; we have girls in our group too, and girls can't be 'faggots'. Second of all, I'm pretty sure she's straight. And last. You don't insult my friends." He grabbed a soda from Demyx's tray, threw the contents on the silver haired one before he kneed him in the stomach.
"Come on guys, let's have a smoke." The red head and his friends left the building, and every one of Riku's friends gathered around him to see if he was hurt. Mostly it was just his pride that had taken the worst hits.
xXx
After lunch, Riku made his way slowly down the hall to his English class. Kairi had tried her best to take care of him, though it was painfully obvious she was still fuming over having one of her favourite tops ruined, but Riku had just pushed her away. He'd left all of his friends staring after him as he left the cafeteria, wanting nothing more than to be alone. Sure, he could have gone after the redhead. He could have started a fight. Hell, he probably could have won too and made his point. But he was better than that.
Plus the fact that getting in a fight would only lead to trouble. Most of it coming from his dad who would most likely beat him. He could just hear the man's voice now…
"Come on, pansy boy, you wanna fight, then fight!"
And so he'd taken the high road and left the cafeteria, found a nice quiet corner on campus, and punched the wall, screaming until his fists bled and his throat was raw.
Sliding into an empty desk in close to the far wall, Riku propped his chin in one hand and stared out the window, waiting for the class to start.
Once the bell rang, everyone grew quiet as the teacher, Tifa, stood at the head of the classroom and folded her arms behind her back. Her long dark hair was tied back today, her outfit the proverbial black that showed off her midriff whenever she raised an arm. She was probably the favourite teacher of every male student in the entire school…seeing as she had the largest breasts, and though rumours circulated about them being fake; she claimed them to be real.
"Alright class, since you all know about the theme weeks, let's get started." Tifa began, her large, dark brown eyes soft and kind. She was a rather soft spoken woman, with a laugh hiding behind every word. She turned to her desk and collected a stack of papers. "We're going to begin the theme weeks with a timed essay. You have the entire block to finish. I want you to write me an essay all about what you personally know about global warming. It's affects on the environment, what it actually is, how we can prevent it, and so on. This will give me a basic idea on what to cover in the coming days."
As she started walking down the aisles of desks, she began to hand out the papers.
"I'm handing back your tests from last week. I'm proud of all of you. The lowest grade was only a B minus." Tifa bent down to retrieve a paper that had fallen to the floor and one of the guys, prompted by his friends, gave Tifa's behind a light slap.
Dropping the papers to the ground, Tifa whirled around and slammed her fist on his desk so hard, the entire thing jumped off the ground. Her eyes were narrowed for a moment before she straightened and smiled stiffly. "They'll be none of that in my classroom, young man." She remonstrated lightly, her tone still light and happy as before.
Riku watched the entire scene play out, mildly amused by how the guys in the general vicinity of the offence shook in something akin to terror as Tifa continued on her way, now humming softly. Once she made it to his desk, she set his test face down on his desk, giving Riku a soft smile.
"Good job," she whispered sweetly, moving on.
Riku waited until she was back to the front of the classroom again before flipping his paper over, eyes immediately scanning the top for his grade.
A.
Slapping the paper back down on his desk, Riku covered his mouth with one hand, eyes travelling over to stare out the window. His thoughts began whirling with the implications. He'd studied so hard. He'd thought he'd get his A plus for sure. Damn it.
Dad's gonna kill me… he thought as he pulled out a fresh piece of paper and began to scribbled down his essay, trying to see what he was writing through a haze.
xXx
His frustration only grew as he was forced to sit through An Inconvenient Truth. Possibly the longest, most boring documentary ever made about global warming. But, because he was in French class, his teacher, Saïx, had muted the movie and put on French subtitles. Oh joy. Now they actually had to watch the movie to know what was happening…not that anyone cared.
Riku took notes, like a good little student, all but glaring holes in the back of his teacher's head. He would've spoken out at his point, irritated beyond words, but Saïx wasn't a teacher you messed with. A majority of them would either snap back or just brush you off. Saïx, the blue-haired freak with those freaky yellow eyes and that intriguing, yet foreboding set of scars crossing his face, would do neither of those things.
He would beat you into a helpless pile on the floor.
Yes, that was illegal. And no, Saïx didn't care. You didn't piss the man off. Plain and simple.
Once the movie was finally finished, Saïx turned the TV off and turned to the small class. Not many students took foreign language this far, and there were maybe fifteen students in French 4.
"Now that that's over with," he sounded almost as pissed about the movie as the rest of the class. Riku smirked behind his hand. "We're going to have a quick quiz on it, so I hope you took notes." Saïx handed a stack of papers to each person sitting in the front row.
Once Riku received his quiz, handed the last few behind him, he stared down at the questions and raised an eyebrow. A majority of them didn't have anything to do with the movie. Hell, with global warming in general. He was about to ask about it, when another student realized the same thing.
"What does the principal's birthday have to do with global warming?"
"Answer the damn question and stop whining." Saïx growled, glaring at them all.
Riku quickly scribbled down his answers. He answered to the best of his knowledge, but he had a sinking feeling that he'd fail this quiz…which would affect his grade point average…which meant his dad would have another thing to blame Riku for.
With a groan, Riku handed his quiz to his teacher as he left the classroom with the rest of the students as the bell rang.
xXx
Kairi was all over him the minute he got to his locker, clinging to his arm and professing how sorry she was about what happened at lunch, asking if Riku wanted her to do anything about 'the stupid dickhead of a reject who'd hurt him'.
Riku cast the girl a weak smile, taking comfort in the fact that at least somebody cared enough to want to do something for him. He gave Kairi a small peck on the cheek and left her in the hall, promising to call her later. He weaved his way through the many students rushing to and from their lockers to get what they needed as fast as they could so they could get out of school.
Books tucked under one arm, Riku slowly made his way over to his car, already spotting Mickey leaning against the hood, waiting for him.
He actually managed to smile for real for his little brother. "Hey, Mick."
Mickey nodded at him, grinning. "Hey, bro."
Riku dug around in his pockets for his keys, frowning we he didn't immediately find them. Mickey watched him, an odd expression of amused confusion crossing his features. With a disgruntled sigh, Riku set his books on the hood and felt through all of his pockets for his keys. "Where the hell did I put them?" he muttered to himself.
"I know you're good looking, Ri, but I don't think it's necessary to grope your own butt…" Mickey chided with a soft laugh.
"Shut up you," Riku shot back with no real heat. He wanted to smash his head against the car multiple times as he realized he'd forgotten his keys in his swim locker. "Damn it. Stay here, I have to go get my keys out of the swim hall."
Riku did his best to ignore his brother's taunting laughter as he left the parking lot and quickly walked over to the yellow building.
What an ugly color, he thought to himself for the thousandth time as he walked in. They really needed to pick a new color scheme. Yellow was just so…ugly and…gay.
He quickly located his locker and spun the lock, throwing the door open with the sole intent of grabbing his keys and getting the hell out of there. He just wanted to go home, do his homework, get whatever shit his dad had cooked up for him taken care of, then maybe call Kairi.
Unfortunately, fate didn't agree with him at all today, because as Riku flung his locker door open, something slammed it shut, just barely missing his fingers.
Riku jumped back and pushed his hair off his forehead, staring wide-eyed around the locker room. It was amazing, when he was in here in the mornings alone, it didn't seem so big and empty, but as the bang from his locker echoed around him, Riku realized just how big and empty it truly was.
"What the hell…?" he murmured, glancing down at his feet for some reason. Sitting on the ground near his leg, Riku was surprised to see familiar chocolate colored spikes. "Sora?"
Glancing up dejectedly from where he sat, Sora rubbed his forehead, pouting. Riku was taken aback at how blue the boy's eyes were. Surely he would have noticed before, but he was stunned to see just how…intense they were. The color so vivid, standing out against his tan skin and dark hair. Once they're eyes met, however, Sora's entire demeanour changed.
Jumping to his feet, the boy took several steps back, hands up as if to fend him off. Sounding immensely contrite and a bit panicked, Sora apologized hurriedly. "I'm so sorry, I didn't mean to run into your locker, I didn't even see you! I'm so, so, so, sorry!" he slowly sidestepped around Riku, pausing for some reason at his side.
Quieting, the two of them stared at each other awkwardly, either unwilling or unable to speak. Sora's mouth opened and closed several times, but nothing came out. They both fidgeted and looked away, uncomfortable with the sudden silence hanging between them.
"So, um…yeah…sorry," Sora muttered a final time before booking it out of the locker room, his eyes trained on the floor.
Riku stared after him, unsure whether to be amused, confused, or upset. He chose to be amused and chuckled lightly as he opened his locker again and got his keys. What a weird kid…
xXx
The ride home was quiet and uneventful as always. He and Mickey had a pretty good relationship. They could sit in the same room together in silence and not be bothered by it or feel obligated to talk. Not that there would be much for them to say. 'How was your day?' seemed cliché and rather mommy-like to say, so Riku drew a blank. After that moment with Sora in the locker room, he'd felt the need to speak about something. Anything.
But Mickey just sighed and continued to stare out the window as they drove home.
Once they got there, Mickey bounded up to the front door and disappeared up the stairs to his room. Riku had a moment of wishing he could read his brother's thoughts before he figured what an invasion of privacy that would be.
Shaking his head, Riku kicked off his shoes and made his way into the kitchen for a snack. As a sort of afterthought, he made a second sandwich and left it on the counter. He knew his brother. When Riku got up to his room, as predicted, Mickey left his. Riku laid back against the headboard of his bed as he listened to Mickey's steps fade down the stairs. A few moments later, they returned and there was a knock on his door.
Riku smirked as he pulled his stuff out of his bag. "You're welcome." He called.
Mickey's door shut once more and Riku shook his head again as he settled in to do his homework.
-Later-
Riku made his way downstairs at around six, trying to think of what he could make for dinner. Though they had a maid that came in to clean, she refused to cook, stuck up bitch, so Riku had taken Chef class to make sure he, but mostly Mickey, ate more than sandwiches and soup.
His mother briskly walked through the kitchen from the back door, probably coming in from the pool. Her heels clicked rapidly against the tile as she whipped past, not even bothering to say hello or even look at him. She was the trophy wife, beautiful and entirely fake. Her nails were always manicured; her skin perfect and tan, not a blemish in sight, and her hip-length hair shone a soft blue in the muted light of the kitchen, not a single strand out of place.
Once she was out of ear-shot, Riku muttered curses about her as he started going through the cupboards to see what he had to work with. Mickey came into the room just as Riku growled a particularly nasty one. He froze as he saw the bewildered look on Mickey's face. "Uh…hey, Mick."
Silence, this time awkward, settled between them. Though Riku hated both his parents for being ignorant, selfish bastards, Mickey spent a majority of his time trying to earn their praise and attention. It had actually been a big problem between them when they'd been younger. Riku had always gotten the attention, all the praise, but though he still did, Mickey had found his own place, and no longer cared too much either way. At least, he didn't try so hard to earn their parents' respect anymore.
Riku set up the pots and pans, getting all the ingredients together to make spaghetti, since they hadn't had any pasta in a while. Mickey just toyed around with the flowers in the vase on the counter, his feet softly banging against the island counter's cupboard door.
As the air filled with the smell of the cooking sauce, the tension bled out of the room. Riku smiled softly to himself as he saw Mickey watching him work. It was one of those rare moments they shared together that Riku wished would last forever…because he knew that whenever these moments came, hell was sure to follow.
Sure enough, it came barrelling into the room as his father, eyes narrowed. "Riku!" he shouted, though Riku stood not three feet away. Blinking over at the man, Riku dimly took in his father's presence. As a professional athlete, the man was tall and fit, the perfect addition to his nasty temper and short fuse. His pale hair was cut short, serving to make his sharp features stand out all the more.
"Yeah?" Riku replied coolly, turning back to the stove.
"What did you say, boy?"
"Yes sir?" Riku turned back to his dad, seeing how his eyes narrowed even more.
Holding up the English test and shaking it a bit, he glared down at Riku. "What the hell is this?"
"A piece of paper."
"Don't get smart with me boy!" His dad popped him upside the head and Riku squeezed his eyes shut, biting back any response while fighting the urge to rub the throbbing spot. "I mean the grade. You only got an A? AN A? That's just a fancy way to fail, Riku." His stare turned icy. "You know I only accept the best from you." He tossed the test at Riku as he turned away. "As far as I'm concerned you failed that test, boy. A plus or nothing."
Riku glared after the man as he tore the paper in half. "Fuck you!"
His dad whirled around, looking incredulous before pure rage descended on his face. "What?" the word was like a whip cracking through the air. Mickey flinched where he sat, too afraid to move and draw attention to himself.
They stood toe to toe, but Riku refused to back down. He was sick of being brow-beaten by his own father, sick of always being the failure when he did the best he could. He wasn't fucking God. "You heard me," Riku said quietly.
The smack was unexpected, and Riku blinked at the wall as the entire left side of his face began to burn. "You better respect your elders, boy." His dad turned away, noticing Mickey for the first time. "You watching? You better learn."
Mickey squeaked an intelligible reply, shrinking away as their dad's eyes narrowed once more and he took a step towards the younger boy.
"Stop being a pussy," he snapped, raising a hand as if to strike him.
Riku jumped in front of his brother, holding his arms out to block him. "Leave him alone!"
"You're as pathetic as ever," he shouted, "Protecting your pansy ass brother. He's a good for nothing piece of shit, just like you!"
Just as Riku lifted his fist to punch the man, the doorbell rang, interrupting their argument.
They all three stood there, unmoving and staring at one another. Finally, their dad backed off and, giving them one last look of disgust, stomped out of the room. "Answer the fucking door!"
Mickey clung to Riku's shirt all the way to the door, the smaller boy trembling. Riku opened the door, surprised to see Kairi standing on his doorstep with a bright smile. "Hey! I know you said you'd call, but I thought I'd stop by and surprise you." She giggled.
Riku let her in, prying Mickey's fingers off his back and shutting the door. "No…it's okay…I'm glad you're here." Oh, if only the girl knew just how glad. Glad didn't even cover it. Kairi had pretty much saved him and Mickey from a brawl. "Come on in and sit down, I need to finish dinner, have you eaten yet?"
Kairi nodded that small, secret smile still on her face as she looked around the room contentedly. Riku tensed as his dad walked past her, but the man barely gave Kairi a once over before snorting and disappearing once more.
Once dinner was finished, Mickey ate quickly and disappeared upstairs, leaving Riku to clean up, not that he minded. Kairi came in behind him and wrapped her arms possessively around his waist. "What happened to your face, love?" she asked, reaching up and touching the raising welt on his cheek.
Riku flinched away and pulled her arms off him. "Nothing. Don't worry about it." He put the clean dishes away and forced out a smile. "You staying again tonight?" he hoped the answer was no, but figured it polite to ask anyways.
Kairi's smile was languid and, what he supposed was sexy. She fingered a lock of his hair, twirling it around her finger as she stepped closer. "Of course."
The house nearly echoed in its silence as the two of them left the kitchen and slowly made their way upstairs. Riku felt uncomfortable with the way Kairi laid so close to him as they settled down to watch some show on TV. Why it bothered him, he couldn't fathom. The last time she'd stayed over, Riku had been fine. So why now?
Riku turned the volume down low and slid down to lay on his pillows, tired. Tired from the day. Tired of life in general. He couldn't wait to get out of this fucking place…his one regret being that he had to leave Mickey behind alone here for four years once he graduated.
Frowning at that thought, Riku was oblivious to Kairi laying next to him and cuddling closer. He finally became aware of her presence again when she started kissing at his neck, one leg thrown over his. Somewhat irritated by how she was getting in his face when he wasn't in the mood, Riku pushed her away and rolled over, giving her his back.
"Riku…?" she asked quietly, that soft tremble in her voice apparent when she wasn't getting her way. He could just bet that if he turned around, he would see her big eyes filled with fake tears, her bottom lips sticking out and quaking. She cuddled up against his back, her hands sliding under his shirt.
Sick of her violating his personal space, Riku threw her hands off and gave her a hard look. "Listen, Kai, I'm not in the mood tonight, so either leave me alone or go home." He didn't have it in him to be sorry when she started crying, and Riku just rolled back over, ignoring her whimpering.
"Don't be mad at me…" she whispered, hugging him. "I'm sorry, baby. I just wanted to make you feel better."
Blowing out a frustrated breath, Riku made himself turn back to her, giving Kairi a brief, hard kiss to satisfy her for now. Kairi kissed him back eagerly, moaning in displeasure as he pulled away.
She finally got the message though and stopped trying to touch him. With a huff, Kairi settled against his chest and sighed. Riku absently wrapped an arm around her as he stared at the ceiling, fighting through all of his warring emotions. Anger, frustration, panic. And, strangely, amusement was bubbling up out of nowhere and Riku wondered if he were finally losing it.
His previous assumption had been right…it was going be a loooong two weeks. And he wasn't off to a very good start.