Chapter Three
"You live here?" His question washed through her, and Namine watched as Ren's brows furrowed. "They didn't tell me that."
"They?" Namine asked shyly. "The others you mean?"
"Yeah," Ren looked away from her and pulled the front door open, stepping aside to let her into the building.
"Thank you," she said, almost too quietly for him to hear. Namine headed through the door and toward the elevator and couldn't help but feel his presence behind her the entire way. Her muscles began to jump and her heart started to skip as she pressed her finger into the call button, and found him waiting there beside her.
"They only said they knew a place I'd be able to stay on short notice. Do you all live here?"
"No," Namine shook her head. "Just me."
Namine thought she heard him whisper something under his breath but she couldn't make it out, nor could she even tell if it had been her imagination.
Uncomfortable silence filled the elevator as it rose to the third floor, and Namine nerves prickled as she realized that Ren hadn't selected a floor of his own.
Is this some kind of trap? Should I be running? Her thoughts began to race as she hoped her gut was wrong. Why would he want to take her out? What would that gain him?
Namine held a hand over her mouth as she realized that he may have a good reason. She'd revealed that she may be able to peak at his memories, maybe that was enough for him to need her out of the picture. What if he needed his memories guarded so that he could ruin the peace that everyone had fought so hard for?
The elevator dinged and the door opened. Namine tried her best to remain calm as she stepped out and heard his footsteps behind her. "Are you just following me?" She asked shyly without looking at him.
"Not intentionally," he sounded genuine enough, though annoyed at the same time. "Same floor I guess," he reached into his pocket and produced a key with several numbers stamped into it. "Floor three, room thirteen," he mumbled and Namine's heart jumped.
"Thirteen?" She sucked in a breath and stopped. "But I'm fourteen!" Her breaths were sharp. Slowly she came to realize that just the other day she'd heard a big commotion through her thin walls and the following day had been nothing but the noise of furniture scraping the floors and boxes being stacked. "Ugh, my neighbors just moved out," she sighed softly. "I guess it makes sense."
They turned left down another hallway and she went to her door, jamming her key into it as her shoulders sagged.
"I'm sure they suggested this so that one of you could keep an eye on me," Ren sighed. "It makes sense to do."
"You're not mad at them?" She asked, surprised.
"It's hard to trust someone who shows up out of nowhere, wields the darkness and won't share their past. I get it," he shrugged slightly and Namine met his brilliant red eyes with her own for just a moment, becoming shockingly lost in them in that brief glance.
"I'm not gonna spy on you," she said finally, feeling a little disgusted with the idea. "I don't like that they thought I would. That said, the walls are pretty thin, so I'm sorry if I hear anything."
"Thanks for the warning," he cleared his throat and yanked his vision away from her, Namine almost feeling disappointed somehow by the force he'd turned his head with. She watched Ren unlock his door and look inside his new apartment and she was about to head inside her own when she noticed he wasn't moving inside.
"Everything okay?"
He hesitated, and Namine was about to peek around the distance between their doors to see what had him so stunned but as she was moving he finally stepped forward, blocking any view she could've had.
"No, it's nothing. I'll," he started and stopped for a moment, "catch you around I guess. Goodnight."
"I don't really get out much but," she said as she retreated to her own door. "Maybe yeah."
She watched him go inside then and his door shut, the lock turning behind him. Namine let out a long breath that she felt like she'd been holding for the entire day and shut herself inside her apartment as well, leaning backward up against her door as her bag fell to the floor.
She's been out of the apartment for multiple hours in a row for the first time in months, and it felt awful. Her legs were wobbly, her heart was racing, and now she had to sleep ten feet away from the dark stranger who had blown into town without warning. The room was silent, the only thing she could hear was her own heart beating in her ears and her heavy breaths. Well, that and…
"Hm?" She hummed as she thought she'd heard something. A voice? Talking? Very muffled talking at that. She stepped forward and around her countertop toward the wall that she shared with her new neighbor and stopped.
"What," she placed her hand over her heart. "Why am I doing that," she whispered, looking down into her palm. The muffled voices started again and her foot nearly stepped forward again. "I just told him I wouldn't spy on him, why do I want to know what he's saying so badly?" She wondered.
She saw his face in her mind, the way he had looked at her for only the briefest moment the first time she'd seen him.
There was another voice then, and this time Namine did step forward and press her ear to the wall, cupping her hands to try and hear better.
It was still muffled, and she couldn't quite make out what they were saying, but it sounded like a woman was speaking to Ren sternly. "Why is there a girl in his room?" She listened closer, pressing harder into the wall.
"I'm only here to warn you," Namine thought she heard, as muffled as it was. "If you make trouble, if she feels scared then I'll know."
Xion? Namine thought that's who was speaking to Ren anyway. That's why they picked me to keep an eye on him she realized as she turned and sat down on the floor, leaning back against the wall.
"They'll know if I'm threatened because Kairi and Xion will feel it."
"You do understand why they did this, don't you?" Xion asked her.
Namine had been spacing out for quite a while now as the pair had sat in silence. Xion had shown up to her door early that morning and dragged her to the park, found a bench and asked her to talk. There wasn't anything to talk about if you asked her, but she had begrudgingly come along anyway. It was always the worst being alone with Xion. She didn't hate the raven haired girl or anything that serious. It just was uncomfortable knowing all of each other's feelings as deeply as they did.
It was inescapable, and when they were side by side Namine could never stop herself from feeling inferior. Xion was strong, could use the Keyblade, and got to go home to someone everyday that she loved.
She was everything that Namine and Kairi weren't, and for Namine it was the worst. Kairi could at least wield the Keyblade. She wasn't terribly good with it yet, but it was there. Namine could only ruin people's minds and that couldn't protect anybody from anything, not even herself.
"You put him next to me so I could spy on him for you, obviously," Namine grumbled, looking down into the grass and autumn leaves.
"We need this Namine, you have to understand that."
"I'm not going to spy on him for you," Namine admitted. "You've all moved on with your lives, I hardly see you, I hardly see anybody, and now that's it's convenient you need me to keep an eye on someone," she huffed and leaned backward, her vision climbing to the orange and purple morning sky.
"That isn't true," Xion started but Namine continued.
"Yes it is. It always is. No one even remembers I exist until they need something from me. It's always been that way."
Xion was silent at that, knowing all too well that Namine's words had some truth to them.
"If I see him acting suspicious I'll tell someone, but I'm not going to be keeping tabs on him on purpose," Namine finally said and she heard Xion sigh.
"Look, you must know how I feel about the situation. I feel everything you feel, and you do the same. You know that I want us to be closer but…" Xion trailed off.
"Then you feel how betrayed I feel and it makes you avoid me. I know," Namine said softly. "I'm sorry but that's not something that either of us have control over. I'm not ready to talk about it, and I'm not ready to be around him in a normal friendly way either."
"I don't really blame you," Xion replied somberly.
"I'll let you know if anything happens," Namine said and stood from the bench. "Well, you'll be the first to know, anyway."
As she walked back home her mind was lost in a fog, even all the way up to her apartment she could hardly think. She thought she may have actually hurt Xion feelings judging by how bad her own heart was aching and how she couldn't even think of any specific thought through the fog. At her door though she found Ren's door open, and she couldn't stop herself from peeking inside.
When she did she found him at his window, reaching down to grab his keys off the sill. The apartment was completely empty. Not a single piece of furniture was there at all, and when Ren turned and found her in his doorway she found him very disheveled and looking tired, with dark circles around his eyes.
They were both silent for what felt like a lifetime as, for what Namine thought was the first time, Ren was letting himself truly look at her for more than an instant. He was clearly too tired to do what she had expected, and yank his vision away from her.
Finally words crept past Namine's lips. "Did you sleep on the floor last night?"
Ren took a while to answer, and when he did his eyes finally left her and met the ground before him. "Didn't realize the place wasn't furnished, yeah."
"I," she started and wasn't really sure what her lips were about to say. "I wish you had told me," she said. "You could've stayed on my couch or something until you bought a bed." Her cheeks felt hot at those words, and she really wasn't sure where the offer had come from. Perhaps it was her connection to Kairi talking, and her alter ego's extreme need to be overly nice all the time.
Again Ren was silent, and Namine could tell that for once, someone else was more uncomfortable than she was. "That's…kind of you," he admitted. "I wouldn't want to disrupt your life though, I'll find a bed today."
"There's not much of anything to disrupt," Namine mumbled to herself absently. Eventually she could see the confusion in his tired eyes and she shook her head. "I'm sorry. If you want I can lead you to the furniture store that all my stuff came from? It's just down the road."
"Somehow I don't think they take IOU's," Ren sighed and wiped his eyes into his hands before he stretched.
"What do you mean? Do you not have any Munny?"
"None," he admitted. "It took every scrap I had just to convince the landlord to give me a shot. I haven't carried around Munny in quite a while. Haven't run into any Heartless to get it from in ages."
"Well," Namine started as she felt a lump grow in her throat, nervous about what Kairi's influence was about to do to her. "There's plenty of jobs around town, and plenty of Heartless around here besides. We've done a lot to stop the Heartless and Nobodies but there will always be strays around our area. If you promise to pay me back then I could get you some things today?" Namine's fingers clasped behind the small of her back nervously. She couldn't even look at him now, the words had spilled from her mouth hot and fast. What was she doing? She didn't even know a single thing about this guy. Now she was offering for him to stay on her couch and loan him money for furniture. Surely this couldn't just be Kairi's subtle influence on her talking.
"That's far too generous of you," she heard Ren say and some part of her heart mysteriously sank. "Though, if we scale it back I wouldn't feel as bad. An air mattress will be more than enough for now if you're willing to loan me that much.
Namine wasn't too sure if she liked the way that some small piece of her heart perked up at that.