The small girl looked around, still breathing a little heavily from the run here. Kairi's grandmother was nowhere in sight, she realized. However, there was one familiar face.
An older boy with silvery hair sat on a bench eating an almost perfectly-square turkey sandwich. Kairi had seen him once before, near the fountains, but he hadn't said a single word then. She hadn't even learned his name, in fact.
Unexpectedly, the boy stopped eating to stare at her now with an odd inquisitiveness. Kairi stared back for a moment before she smiled and waved at him. "Hi!"
"Hello," he greeted with a small nod. "Kairi, right?"
Kairi gaped at him, too surprised to respond at first.
"Staring is uncivilized," he informed her as he returned his attention to finishing his sandwich.
"Oh, um," Kairi stuttered for a second before a smile spread across her face. "You talked!" She ran to his side and pulled herself onto the spot next to him on the bench. "What's your name?"
He swallowed the food in his mouth before he answered. "Ienzo."
"Ienzo…" She wasn't sure what else to say, so Kairi absentminded swung her legs in the air. Ienzo went back to silently eating his sandwich, so he didn't offer any conversation. In the silence, Kairi let her mind wonder back to her grandmother and the disappearances around town. "…Hey, Ienzo, did you know?" she said to break the silence.
"Do I know what?" Ienzo asked as he finished his snack.
"People have been disappearing!" she whispered, starting to shake. "Maybe they were kidnapped! Or grandmanapped!" Kairi touched her necklace gingerly and frowned. "We have to be really careful."
"Oh, I have a feeling I'm safe," Ienzo said, and for a split second Kairi would see a bit of a smile on his face. No, a smirk? A grin? A giggle? It was gone too quickly to tell what it was, or even be sure it had really been there.
She didn't dwell on that, though. "That's good," she said, returning her signature smile to her face. "Why do you think they're disappearing anyways?"
Ienzo shrugged, and this time Kairi was sure that she saw a smile. "Perhaps whoever is doing it has their reasons."
"But kidnapping people is wrong!" Kairi argued.
Ienzo simply shrugged, seemingly expecting that response. "Maybe you are too young to understand," he noted.
Kairi was about to argue that, nu-uh, she was a big girl, but an older man with long blond hair and icy blue eyes called out to Ienzo before she could get the words out. Kairi turned to him and noticed that he was in the same coat white coat as Ienzo. "Is that your dad?" Kairi asked instead. Evidently, this was the wrong thing to ask, as Kairi realised when she saw Ienzo's expression as the boy just sighed and shook his head. "Um, I-"
"That's a colleague of mine. Even," Ienzo interjected.
Kairi took the hint- that wasn't a subject he felt like discussing. "Colleague?" she asked, tilting her head and trying not to wonder why Ienzo was reluctant to talk about his dad.
"It's something like a partner," he explained patiently.
"Like a friend?" Kairi suggested.
Ienzo thought it over before answering, "No, not exactl-"
"Ienzo, are you listening?" The older man almost sounded angry about being ignored. "It's time to return."
Kairi hopped down from her seat and smiled up at Even. "I'm Kairi, Ienzo's friend! It's nice to meet you, !"
Even looked from Kairi to Ienzo, who simply stood back up and shrugged. Even turned his attention back to Kairi, studying her pensively.
Kairi stared back up at him, noticably confused, before she remembered why she came there in the first place. "Um, mister, have you seen my gran-"
"Kairi, I knew you'd be here!"
This time, Kairi recognized the voice. She ran behind Ienzo for protection. "Go away!"
Lea panted and stared at the three of them. He didn't feel like causing a scene over this, and Even was a pretty notorious stick-in-the-mud, so he tried to think of to just coax the girl to listen. Throwing on a friendly smile and forcing a chuckle out, he said, "Kairi, come on... I'm your friend."
Kairi shook her head and scowled at him from behind Ienzo. "You're not acting very friendly!" she argued, blowing a raspberry at him. Ienzo shied away, hoping she didn't get any saliva on his lab coat.
"Kairi, we're not playing the game anymore, you win, okay?" Lea tried, sighing.
"I'm not playing a game, I'm doing something important!"
"Oh, come on! You're just running around the town!" Lea crossed his arms, glancing at the little boy Kairi was with. "What, did you come all the way here just to meet up with your friend?"
"I have nothing to do with this," Ienzo denied, holding up his hands innocently.
"No, I have to find my grandma!" Kairi shouted at Lea, loudly and shrilly enough to make all three boys cover their ears for a moment. Kairi took the chance to turn around and run again.
As soon as his ears stoped ringing, Lea started running to catch her, Even stepped in his way. "Old man, I don't have time for this!"
"'Old man'?'' Even repeated, aghast. "You will do well to respect your elders, young man. You are one of those heathens Dilan and Aeleus caught sneaking into the castle, correct?"
"Yeah, yeah, I learned my lesson, I won't do it again," Lea said dismissively, trying to look past Even. Where had Kairi run to? "Will you just get out of my way?"
Even looked at the youth comtempuously before stepping aside. "Such insolence," he muttered in disgust.
Lea couldn't care less what about Even, but somehow Kairi had managed to disappear again. It hadm't taken him that long to handle Even, and there was no way she'd left the area again. Still, with another aggravated sigh and an quick glare at Even, Lea sprinted down the street he was pretty sure Kairi had gone down.
Even smirked at the glare before he turned down to Ienzo. "You seem to have made quite an interesting friend, Ienzo. A heart naturally void of even a trace of darkness..."
Ienzo responded, but they had started walking back to the castle, so the voices trailed off as they discussed more of the fragile nature of hearts and how their recently started experiments were going. When they were far enough away, Kairi took the chance to immerge from her hiding place, a low shrub, and patted some of the leaves off of her dress. She frowned at the stubborn green stains that stayed in the fabric of her dress, but she remembered that she had other, more important thing to take of at the moment. She looked around to make sure the coast was clear, smiling when she didn't see anyone. Now she could focus on finding her grandmother again!
"Boo!" Kairi jumped at the suddenly shout that came from behind her, looking back to see who had snuck up on her.
"Squall," Isa greeted when he ran into the slightly older boy.
"Isa?" Squall asked, looking around for the fiery boy that always seemed to accompany him. "It's kind of weird to see you without Lea."
Isa laughed. He could say the same regarding Rinoa, but that was beside the point. "We had to split up to do a search. Do you know Kairi?" Isa held his hand to about Kairi's height. "This tall, red hair, blue eyes..."
"Why are you looking for Kairi? You don't seem like the type to like children very much, Isa."
Both boys turned to the girl with long raven hair and bright brown eyes that smiled almost mockingly at the two of them. "Well? I guess I was wrong about you, if you play with Kairi. She can be a little hard to keep up with."
"Rinoa?" Isa sighed. "No, I'm not a big fan of children. Especially not one so demanding. Lea and I were babysitting and he let her run off."
"Babysitting? Does this have to do with that thing you guys did before?" Squall asked curiously, trying not to laugh. "I guess you would need more than a little damage control after that."
"Aw, I'm sure you'll find Kairi. Squall keeps trying to give me the slip," Rinoa explained, walking over and putting her arm around him. "But I'll always find my way back to him!"
Squall shook his head. "And what if Kairi just wanted alone time?" He argued.
"Alone time is always better with a friend you can depend on there with you, right?" Rinoa said, pulling him into a hug.
Squall glanced at Isa. "Is Lea this bad?" he asked jokingly, earning a light smack on the head from Rinoa.
"Almost," Isa chuckled.
"That just means the bonds will stay, though," Rinoa said, letting go of Squall but not leaving his side. "I bet you that Lea and Isa, and me and Squall, will always be together. We won't let anything tear us apart, not even you guys," she joked.
"Well, that's a scary thought." Isa retorted.
"And sadly, it might be true," Squall said in the same tone, but he had a smile on his face. "Oh, right, you were looking for Kairi, right? If she's mad at you, it shouldn't be too hard to make her listen. She's stubborn, but not impossible."
"She'll probably be anywhere where there are flowers," Rinoa added. "She's a nice girl once you get to know her."
Isa shook his head. He doubted it, but it really didn't have time to waste here. He glanced at the sky, shielding his eyes a bit with his hand, to get an approximation of the time. Well, at least he wasn't particularly pressed for time, but he still had to find her. "If neither of you have seen her, I guess I'll just keep looking."
"Good luck!" Rinoa called, waving as Isa left.
Isa waved back half-heartedly, absentmindedly wondering about what Rinoa had said. Not about Kairi, of course, about the two pairs never separating. Well,Squall certainly couldn't lose Rinoa even if he wanted to, although most of the town knew he didn't. And as for Lea...
Isa smiled. He'd always be stuck with that loser. If nothing else, he knew that much.