Hikari (Hika-neko-chan) here, bringing you the newest chapter. I have no idea where Riku went off to, so I'm left to write this note.

Chapter 5

Saru and Riku entered into the house quietly, and once again Zexion was sitting in his favorite chair in the front room. As soon as the two came in, he glanced up from his book. "Well then, did tonight go any better for you two?"

"No," Saruhiko gave a curt reply.

Zexion sighed as he stood up. "What went wrong this time then?" As he stepped over to the two younger brothers he took notice of how Riku looked. His face was still sad as the hurt never once had left his eyes. Zexion then turned back to Saru with a serious, concerned look. "What happened?"

Seeing as Riku wasn't going to respond, Saru gave a brief explanation. "We found two humans out at the skatepark. After engaging, I had aggravated one of them to the point he got physical with me. At that point, we were forcibly separated, and Riku and I departed. He's been acting like this since we were a short distance away."

Zexion glanced back over at Riku, who finally was looked up and at him. "And what caused you to start acting so mopey?"

Riku waited a few seconds before he answered. "A memory… There's something I should probably tell you guys…"

Zexion tilted his head slightly. "A memory? How so?"

"Let's first sit down… I just need to sit down for this," Riku stated as he headed towards the couch in the living room. Zexion and Saru followed right after him towards the couch. Zexion sat on the right next to Riku while Saru sat on the left.

"So what is it that you wanted to talk about?"

Riku closed his eyes as he exhaled slowly. When he opened them again he took a quick glance between his brothers. "When I was younger… back when I was living with my mother, I had a friend. Her name was Kairi and she was a human. But she was still friends with me even though she knew I was a vampire. She was always real nice to me and never once saw me as a monster. But a few months after I turned thirteen… I still wasn't fully use to needing to rely on needing to drink blood more often. I didn't realize how thirsty I was when I went to visit her… and…" Riku shuddered slightly while closing his eyes.

Both Zexion and Saru remained quiet. They had a feeling where Riku was going with his story, but choice to remain silent as he spoke.

"I blacked out or something… and the next thing I knew… I-I… had drained her of all her blood…" Riku finished softly as the slightly crack was heard in his voice.

"Oh…" Zexion started to say, as he tried to find his words. "I see now why you tend to not want to kill anyone when drinking their blood."

Riku nodded. "Yeah… She was my best friend… and yet I killed her…"

"While that explains your… peculiar… behaviour when it comes to feeding, what brought this up now? We didn't even feed tonight."

Riku stifled slightly as he took in a deep breath. "It was what the boy… Sora… what he said. He had… made a compliment about my hair. It was similar to something Kairi always said to me. And… it just kind of hit me…"

Zexion and Saru stared at Riku, their eyes finally filling with understanding and sympathy. Riku let out another sigh as he looked down to the floor. Slowly he ran a hair through his hair as he tried to relax his mind, but nothing seemed to ease him. It had been a long time since he and truly thought about Kairi and now it was hard for him to stop fixating on the memories. Tears began to form in Riku's eyes again as he didn't bother to try to wipe them away.

Saruhiko hesitantly pulled Riku into an awkward hug while making a face at Zexion as if to say 'do something already.' Zexion stiffened slightly as he tried to think things over, but couldn't come up with words soon enough. So he too gave a awkward hug around the other two. Eventually though he was able to clear his throat.

"At least… you've told us. I can understand if those thoughts and memories are hard for you, so we won't try to pressure on anything that could relate to the subject again."

Riku closed his eyes as he relaxed in the arms of his brothers. "Thanks… I just c-can't stop thinking about her right now. I miss her…"

"What would you have done though…" Saru started to say, carefully trying to think his words over. It wasn't all too often that he showed his caring side, so he had to be careful with what he said, as to not upset Riku any further. But it didn't mean that he was not curious. "If she… hadn't died? She would have gone on to grow up like every other human while you stayed behind and aged slowly."

"Saru…" Zexion hissed quietly, knowing the question could be a bit too sensitive.

"I'm not sure," Riku answered quietly. "She was my closest friend growing up. I knew she didn't mind if I was a vampire, but… I don't know. I never thought about it before…"

Saur suddenly felt a small pit form. He knew he was curious and didn't think asking the question was all too bad, but he saw it lead to nowhere better. "I.. I apologize if I said too much."

Riku quietly nodded, not having any more words to say. He only now kept his eyes closed as he breathed deeply. A few moments more passed and the two other brothers realized that they were still giving their awkward hugs to Riku. Both of them let go and sat back up straight.

"So are you going to be better now?" Zexion asked, looking towards Riku.

Riku opened his eyes and let out another sigh. "I'm not sure… I think, if it is all right, can you guess just stay with me a little while longer? Until I've relaxed from thinking about all of this?"

Saru sighed before responding. "Very well."

A few hours later Zack came walking through into the room. As soon as he was there he stopped dead in his tracks and turned towards the couch. He stared with wide surprised eyes at the site that laid before him.

There was Saru, Riku, and Zexion, all fast asleep on the couch, but they were snuggled up close to one another. Zexion had his head gently resting on top of Riku's head as he laid back against Zexion. Saru on the other hand was laying across them with his head resting on Zexion's lap. Both Zexion and Riku had one arm draped carefully over him.

A large smile spread across his face as he stared at them. Before he could do anything though there was a knock at the front door. Zack quickly darted over to it and opened it up to reveal a adult man standing there. He had blond spiky hair and his eyes were a deep blue like the sky. He wore a long sleeve, black shirt, and black pants and boots, and there was a few silver earrings in his right ear.

Zack smiled. "Cloud! You're just in time. You just have to see this." He grabbed Cloud by the wrist and pulled him into the house.

"What's up?"

"Look at this," Zack said as he pointed to the three brothers fast asleep on the couch.

Cloud stared at the boys for a moment before looking at Zack. "What did you say to them?"

"That's just the thing, I didn't say anything. Isn't it great?" Zack said, his face full of glee. "They finally are getting along! Just look how cute they are together."

Cloud sighed slightly as he rolled his eyes. "Oh boy…"

"Hmm I should get my camera, this needs to be documented," Zack said as he ran to get his camera.

Cloud could only chuckle softly as he watched Zack bounce around ecstatically. Moments later Zack came back, camera in hand. He stood in front of the couch as he held up the camera to his face.

"I bet you are glad that rumor about vampires not having reflections and stuff like that is fake," Cloud commented as he watched Zack.

"Of course. This is probably the closet these three will ever get. So I wanna capture the moment forever. That way if they ever get into a fight again I can totally use this as blackma-... I mean remind them of how they have gotten along."

Cloud rolled his eyes again as he went over to one of the nearby chairs and sat down. "Well I can't wait to see how that goes down. But you know Saruhiko will most likely try to burn it as soon as he sees it."

"I guess I will just have to protect it as best I can then, or maybe find someone to cast an indestructible spell on it," Zack replied as he clicked the shutter on the camera a few times.

"An indestructible spell? You know something like that doesn't exist."

"It might! You never know. One day a witch or wizard could just say 'I've created a spell that makes it so you cannot destroy an object ever' and that would be totally amazing."

"And of course problem lead to a lot of problems with what is made indestructible, and that's a whole other level of things," Cloud replied dryly.

"Aw you are just being a downer. Just let me have my fun with this.

"So I just came over here to see you geek out over them being brotherly?"

"I know, I know, just wait a little. Though maybe I should place them in their beds, don't need them sleeping here the entire time," Zack said as he stood back up, now having the pictures that he needed.

"Need help with that?" Cloud said as he stood back up.

"Yeah you can carry Riku and Saru, and I'll carry Zexion."

Cloud nodded as he walked over and the two up them picked up the three sleeping young men. Zack and Cloud started down the hallway when Zack started to slow down a bit. "Hey wait, I got a better idea."

"Hm? What do you mean?"

Zack chuckled. "Let's place them all together on my bed. I wanna see their reactions when they wake up."

"Sometimes I don't understand the thought process that goes through your head," Cloud muttered as they headed down to Zack's room.

"Hey! I gotta take the chances I am given. You know how these three get along," Zack replied.

"Yeah, and it's almost never."

"I know... Sometimes though," Zack said as she sighed slightly. "Sometimes I wish they weren't born so far apart. Maybe if they could have actually grown up with each other, they could have gotten along better."

"Well we all know who's fault it is for that," Cloud commented while rolling his eyes slightly.

"Yeah I know that too…" Zack said as he bit the inside of his cheek slightly. "But… hey we stick together and that's what matters."

The two of them continued to walk then down the hall until the reached Zack's room. Once inside, they carefully placed each of the boys down on the bed. Zack couldn't help chuckled against as he saw them all still peacefully sleeping. "This is going to be hilarious."

"If you say so. Though I'll be long gone before they come hunting you down," Cloud chuckled softly.

"Relax, I'll be fine," Zack said before he walked over to the door. "Now come on, as like you said before, you didn't just come here to help me carry the boys to bed."

Cloud smiled as he walked back over to Zack and wrapped an arm around his shoulder. He gently rested his face up against Zack's. He smiled happily before he replied back. "Yeah I know." The two of them then headed down the hallway, back towards the front room.

Hope you enjoyed, and don't hesitate to give us any feedback. We appreciate hearing your thoughts/opinions on this.

I also quite enjoy hearing theories if you're willing to share.

~Hikari

P.S. If anyone finds my absent co-author, please let them know that we have more writing to do. I want to get to the good stuff already. :3