Paper Moon

Chapter Two

The Heart's Weakness

Sora

It's hard to believe my eyes, with what I can see right in front of me. It's frightening me, but it must be worse for him.

"By the gods, child, what happened?" The maid cries as she examines his arm. He was in a lot of pain, and she is technically also my nurse, so I brought him to see her.

Yet even I am surprised at the extent of his injuries.

His eyes are wary again, trying to figure out if she'll hurt him. I had to hold him as she had taken off his shirt and pants so she could see his injuries. Now, he's just standing there freezing a little, in nothing but his underwear. I'd laugh if it wasn't for the fact that his bruises extend all the way to his ankles.

"And don't tell me 'nothing happened' either!" May says with wild concern after he'd mumbled those very words. "I can see very well that your 'nothing' is more serious than even you know!"

In fact, the only place he has no injuries, if you look at it, is his hair. The rest is all covered in black fist-sized bruises, a few raw red ones, and so many on his back that he barely has any skin color left on it. That, and his left hand has two broken fingers.

May starts cleaning the worst ones, which are all centered on his back. I'm sitting in front of him, while he gives me a look of wild desperation.

"Don't worry about it Roxas." I smile. "May is a nurse as well as my maid. Once she goes into nurse mode, you're just another patient to her. She won't tell anyone."

"O... okay." He looks to his hands on his lap, and I can see he's cradling his left hand slightly, since it hurts him.

He hisses as she passes a cloth soaked in rubbing alcohol, hands clenching into fists. To comfort him I place my own hands over his own, and smile at him when he looks up at me.

"I can guess what you're thinking... a lot of people think I'm like my father." I start evenly, keeping everything bottled up behind my smile. "You're wondering why I'm not like him, aren't you?"

"I wasn't... well... yeah." He admits, looking down to my hands that are still over his. "Your father is well known for being like that - I never knew he had a son."

"You can say he keeps me hidden from the world." I look at my hands as well, my smile melting. "He wishes I was dead."

"I'm sorry." He holds back another hiss as May cleans another wound. "But I'm glad you'e not like your father." He smiles.

Third person

"So, miss Strife, you say your son has yet to return home?" The man asks, holding the notepad on his lap as he writes the things she says down.

"Well, yes. He usually gets in trouble once a day at school, so the school calls us once a day to tell us he's on his way home early. He'd be home by now, and I got a phone call from the school telling me he never showed up." She dabs a kleenex on her eyes, her mascara running and making her look a little clown-like. Angelina looks back at the man while her husband paces behind her chair. "We just want our darling son home."

The investigator nods, as another one searches through the house.

"He's unpredictable. Ungrateful." Robert Strife supplies, hands slamming onto the table. "He never appreciates what we do for him, always sprouting nonsense to himself - I heard him talking to himself once in his room about running away! I wouldn't put it past him that he'd very well try."

"Does he have any close friends? Someone he'd tell this to?" The investigator asks as his parter looks through a well-worn book, frowning to herself.

"No. The kids at school barely talk to him, and most of them beat him up, which is how he gets into trouble so much is when he fights back." Angelina looks to the investigator. "Please, I just want my son back."

"We'll do what we can." He gets up from the chair he'd been sitting on, and puts his notepad into an inside coat pocket. "We'll find your son."

Roxas

I'm sure this is a dream. Sora's too nice to me, a total stranger, someone who isn't even royal or close to his rank.

But then again, I've never had a friend. Maybe that's what friends do for each other.

I search through the school bag I have with me since this morning while I wait in some sort of fancy living room, frowning when I don't find my very well-worn book.

"Did I leave it back home?" I ask myself, sighing. If father ever found it...

"Leave what?" Sora walks in with a plate of food stacked with sandwiches, placing it down onto the coffee table before he sits down hard beside me.

"A book, you could say." I wince slightly as I turn myself a little to see him better. "It's one I... wrote myself."

"You write?" He asks, eyes sparkling with curiosity as he takes a slice of the sandwiches. "You can take some, you know. They don't bite."

Nodding, I slowly take one, my arms and back still sore from the maid's job on my wounds.

"A little." My eyes fall downcast a moment. "But it's one about a true story... I was writing about my life back home and at school. If my parents ever found it..."

"You wrote everything that's happened to you in it?" He asks after finishing his slice rather quickly, taking another.

"Just about..." I take a tentative bite, a little surprised when I find it tastes like a cucumber sandwich.

"Well, then, how about this?" With a grin he holds up one finger. "You can write another!"

"What do you mean?"

"Well, having a memento like that follow you everywhere you go must be rather tiresome, no?"

"I guess... I didn't really like bringing it all over the place with me, but I did just because I didn't want my parents finding it."

"Sooooo..." He drags on the word as he bounces up and down on his seat. "Write another one, but this time make it about something happy! I'm happy, I met an author!" He smiles from ear to ear. "If you don't mind... can I know how you wrote one part? I'm curious..."

Laughing slightly - when was the last time I did that? - I nod. He hands me a nearby pen and paper, so, having remembered every detail since I always re-read what I wrote before going to sleep, I write word for word the last bit I'd written.

I give it to him when I'm done, and I read it over his shoulder silently, knowing it word for word.

His lower lip starts quivering slightly, and his hands shake a little, until when I figure he's finished reading it he drops it and surprises me - he hugs me, his head hidden underneath my chin.

I can feel my neck getting a little wet, so I figure he's crying. A pang of guilt invades me at that, so I return his slightly shaky embrace, arms around his shaking back.

"I'm sorry!" He cries out. "I shouldn't have asked - it' something everyone would want to forget. To the fact that you're still holding onto those memories-"

"It's alright." I smile, trying to comfort him. "You know what? I've never laughed like this in such a long time, nor have I even smiled." He lifts his head up slightly so that I can see his cerulean eyes brimmed red, mirror-like.

"Really?" He asks, voice thick. I nod.

"If I get to have you as a friend, I think I can let go of those memories, which are basically almost everything I have thus far."

He smiles, and even though he isn't crying, he hugs himself to me again, cheek resting on my collarbone. I raise an eyebrow.

"Can I stay a little longer?" He asks me out of the blue. "You're comfy."

I laugh to myself. If this is what a friend is, then I think I could get used to having one.

"Go right ahead."

All the while he had dropped the paper with the offending words into the fire burning softly in the fireplace, the words being burned into Oblivion.

If life ever was a gift, then I do not know why mine should be considered one. Father doesn't ever cease, mother... well, I won't go there. Sure, some may think my will to not tell the authorities what they do as love for my family, but I can honestly say that is not so. Probably because I feel nothing for them. I've never been given this 'love', therefore, I do not know how to give it, either. But all I feel for them is a hollow emptiness that grows and grows. Maybe as a child I felt something for them, but now, as a fifteen year old, I can see in their eyes they both just wish I was dead. I'm nothing but dead skin, a waste of space.

I wish I could do that. The gods know just how many times I've tried in the past year. I want to, even now, so that I may not live through this another moment. But it's like if something is stopping me. The promise of something far greater than this, something that can save me from all this pain and darkness.

But gods know I want to use that knife.

"Thank you." I hear him sigh softly.

By the gods, doesn't poor Roxie have such emo thoughts? I like it because I made the two of them have so much in common without realizing it. That's subconscious writing for you XD

Sora: Yay! Hug! (^w^)

Stay tuned for the next chappy =3 I'm off to work on it right now.