Hello readers, I'm back. I hope you all enjoyed the last chapter and I really hope that you will all review this chapter!
Disclaimer: I don't own KH
'As he goes left and you stay right between the lines of fear and blame
and you begin to wonder why you came'
~The Fray, 'How to Save a Life'
Naminé
Naminé sat down at one end of her kitchen table, and Sora sat at the other end, folding and unfolding his hands. She crossed her legs and glanced at him expectantly. The brunette cleared his throat and began by telling her again, "I need you, and I need everyone to help me. I need Riku and Xion and Roxas and Kairi…" he stopped for a moment and blinked several times before continuing, "I work for a company, you may have heard of it…Kingdom 13 Inc. We're in the process of expanding our company to the rest of the Destiny Islands and Twilight Town, and my bosses, Ansem and Mickey have tasked me with gathering at least 4 new managers, and I told them that I knew of 5. So, I would be extremely grateful if you would agree to be the first manager, Naminé."
Naminé crossed her arms and glanced away from her old friend. She hadn't even begun to think of why Sora had come to her. But now, now she was sure that her dreams had come true, her prayers had been answered, and she couldn't help but smile and let tears fall down her face again. She was astounded that while she had hoped and had almost been sure that it would always be Roxas who would come for her, it was her old friend who had finally come to find her. She glanced at Sora and felt a rise of emotions bubble up into her throat, she finally asked, "Why didn't you come for me earlier? Why didn't you come to find me two, three years ago? I've been waiting for so long…But you never came. None of you did. And I've been waiting…" she stopped as more tears squeezed out of the corners of her ice blue eyes. The blonde waited as her brunette friend struggled for words and gazed at her with such sympathy in his wide eyes that she had to look away again to keep from sobbing out loud.
Finally he answered her in a soft tone, "Naminé, I've missed you all so much. I've wanted to bring all of you back to me and spend time with you all so badly. And I could say that I was busy with college, and then that I was confined by work, but I think that I was really quite afraid of seeing any of you. I was afraid that you would all be busy without me, that you wouldn't miss me at all. But then after a few years I was worried that you all would have forgotten about me. I was worried you would all be angry with me. But I missed you all, I've been so lonely." The blonde was crying harder now, placing a hand over her mouth so she could only weep silently. She knew that she could not hold any resentment towards her friend, and when she eventually collected herself she replied, "Sora, I could never forget about you. I thought about you and Kairi and Xion and Riku and Roxas." She hiccupped and blinked away more tears, "I thought about all of you every day."
He smiled at her and his eyes shone with tears. "Thank you, Naminé, I love you so much." She smiled, and slowly stood. She crossed the table and wrapped her arms around him, and answered, "I love you too." They stayed like that for what seemed like years, holding each other, a comfort that only the best of friends could extend to one another. When they finally did break apart they both had to wipe their eyes and collect themselves before Sora asked his friend again, "Now, would you please be my first manager?" She nodded without hesitation. No matter how difficult it would be to leave, she would do it. She had at least one of her friends back, and that was enough for now to get her through the day.
Riku
When Riku boarded the plane bound for Twilight Town the next morning he had with him a black carry-on bag and a navy blue suit case with the rest of the plane's luggage. He sat in his first-class seat, anxiously staring to his left out of his window while the remainder of the passengers hustled onto the plane. Just before the doors were to be shut, a tall woman with hair dyed blue called out "Hey, wait!" as she shuffled onto the plane and sat in the empty chair next to him. He vaguely glanced over at her before returning his gaze to the window while the captain and the flight attendants delivered their speeches over safety and other useless things that Riku had heard hundreds of times before. When the plane finally started moving down the runway the silver haired man found himself gripping the seat handles tightly, even though he had flown many times before. The blue haired woman looked over at him and asked, "Is this your first time flying?" He looked at her for a second before shaking his head, "No, not at all." She shrugged and returned to leafing through her carry-on pack, while he continued to ignore her. She turned back to him a minute later and asked, "Are you nervous about your trip? Twilight Town is a great place, hardly even a town though; it's pretty big now…" He stared at her from the corner of his eye. She was just determined to discuss something with him, wasn't she?
"I've been there before. It's a nice place." He responded plainly. She nodded, "Are you from Radiant Gardens? It's such a huge city; I don't know that I've ever seen you before if you are from there." He nodded, "For now, I live there." She smiled at him and extended her right hand to him, "I'm Aqua." He nodded slowly and tentatively shook her hand, "Riku." "It's nice to meet you, Riku, what is bringing you to the Town of Twilight today?" He blinked once and replied carefully, "I'm meeting an old friend for dinner." She nodded and replied, "I'm meeting a couple of my friends, too! I haven't seen them in close to a year, it'll be fun." He briefly smiled at her, wondering if her friends were drug dealers. Riku stopped that thought and reminded himself that he did not know for certain whether or not Xion was involved with drugs at all. For all he knew, she could have been successful, rich, happy, married…he stopped his train of thought and looked out the window again. It did not matter if she was in a relationship with someone else. She was never his to begin with. He might as well not even think about it.
"So what do you do, Riku?" Aqua asked from his right, and he jerked his head back to her and muttered, "Huh?" she snorted and raised an eyebrow, "What do you do for a living?" he paused for a moment, not wanting to tell her what he actually did for a living, but quickly told her, "I'm in the advertisement business." She nodded and replied, "That sounds like it could be fun. I'm a bouncer at clubs. It's pretty fun, actually. I could beat up most of my friends if I ever wanted to; thank heavens I can't think of any reason why I would ever need to. So this friend of yours, are they a good friend or a girlfriend or what?" Riku inwardly sighed and wondered if this woman would ever stop acting like she was interested in his life. "She's a high school friend." He answered simply. "Well that's enjoyable. I suppose catching up with high school friends is always a fun experience." She replied, and settled into her seat more, "My friends, Terra and Ven, I knew them way back in elementary school," Aqua smiled faintly and continued, "One day some girls were pulling my hair and making fun of me at recess, and Terra pushed one of the girls down and Ven pulled me away from them. To think, a couple of fourth graders doing that! We've been inseparable ever since."
Riku wondered why this woman was telling him all this when they'd met not twenty minutes ago. What kind of a person just sits down and tells a random stranger about their life? He snorted and asked her, "Not to sound rude, but do you normally tell strangers about your life?" She tilted her head to one side and smiled slightly at him. "Only when I feel like it." He gave her a small smile and turned to the window again and watched the tops of clouds roll by. There was a near half hour of silence, in which Riku thought mostly of how he would find Xion, or if he would find. What if she moved? What if she was dead? He knew that there was no use in worrying about it, that it would only cause him to act like an idiot when he finally found her. But what would he say? What would she say? Would she be happy to see him? Would she be disappointed or angry? It killed him to sit and wait, while his friend was somewhere along the streets of Twilight Town.
After a half hour of thinking, he told Aqua quietly, "I've known my friend since the 8th grade. We started off hating each other. Our friends, Kairi and Sora tried to set us up; they thought we'd be a cute couple." He paused and chuckled to himself, "But we ended up yelling at each other in the middle of the ice cream shop. We were awful to each other until the end of the 9th grade. I found out something pretty…personal about her, and, well, we kind of started over. We got to be friends. She was my best friend. We'd cover for one another when we did something stupid, we sat together on roller coaster rides, everything. I beat a guy up once for trying to sleep with her. She spilled a glass of root beer on a girl once for cheating on me. We were inseparable…It wasn't until I was about to graduate that I realized that I loved her. But that doesn't matter now. We haven't seen one another in five years."
Aqua stared at him silently for a moment, and told him, "I hope everything works out for you, Riku." He smiled faintly at her and then continued to look out the window and ignore her for the remaining hour of the flight. When the plane did finally land and all of the passengers left the airplane, Aqua followed Riku to the baggage claim area, and when she had collected all of her things and was ready to leave, she turned to Riku and said, "Thank you for talking with me Riku, I hope you and your friend find each other and everything turns out alright." He gave her a quick, forced smile and she waved to him as she left the airport. He grabbed him suitcase as soon as it came around on the conveyer belt, and left, hailing a Taxi. He didn't know where he was going, so he told the taxi driver to take him to the Holiday Inn a few blocks away. When he got there he checked out a suite on the top floor and plotted his next move.
Xion
Xion awoke with a start in a bed that she did not recognize, and for a moment she felt a wave of panic as she remembered Xaldin and the last time she'd woken up in a bed that was not her own. But she soon remembered the previous night and what had happened and carelessly glanced out a window directly across from the bed she was in. The storm had cleared and now the sun was peeking out behind a puffy white cloud. She grabbed her things, and left the room, looking for a bathroom. When she found one she shut and locked the door behind her and turned on the water, scalding and stripped out of her clothes, and ducked under the stream of water, wincing as the water ran over old cuts and wounds. She washed in a hurry and pulled on a clean pair of clothes out of her bag, and dunked the old ones into the sink, washing them with a bar of hand soap and warm water. Xion left the bathroom ten minutes later with hair still dripping wet and her duffle bag of things under her arm. A stolen stick of deodorant and mini tube of tooth paste tucked in her sweatshirt pocket.
As she exited the bathroom she glanced at Ventus, in his small kitchen, drinking coffee. She gave him the best smile she could muster and told him, "Thanks for letting me crash at your place." He nodded and answered, "Anytime, mystery lady, anytime. If you ever need to come back, you know where to find me." Xion nodded, and began to leave, but as she opened the front door, and tall woman with blue hair was stepping up to the door as well. "Oh!" she exclaimed, "Sorry, excuse me. Ven, why didn't you tell me you had a girlfriend?!"
I hope you all enjoyed this chapter, and please, I would really appreciate it if you guys reviewed for me. As always, have a great day, and please favorite, review, etc.
Special thanks to: Light-Sakura and lordibau, thanks for reviewing, guys!