Once she had finished sorting out her initial impressions, Sarah closed the notebook and stuck it in one of the large pockets of the gray pants she was wearing, with the pen clipped to the cover so she could retrieve them both in one fell swoop whenever she felt the urge to record some stray bit of data, or a thought that she might want to examine in more depth later.

Running her hands through Sora's disordered, gravity-defying hair, Sarah chuckled softly. Enough time spent in this kid's body, and she might even manage to figure out how his hair stayed like that all the time. Putting her hands behind her head, she stretched her back. Bending her spine until she had both heard and - more importantly - felt a series of pops traveling up her spinal column, Sarah breathed out and picked up the towel she'd hung on the back of Sora's chair.

Leaving the room at last, Sarah made a quick stop in the bathroom to hang up the towel - and was profoundly grateful that she didn't feel the need to do anything else in there - then made her way down the hall toward the front of the house.

Since the back was where the bathroom and bedrooms were, it stood to reason that the kitchen - and the dining room, if this house even had one - would be toward the front of the house. Probably adjacent to the living room, the way her own would have been if not for the dining room separating them.

Swinging her arms and valiantly resisting the urge to sing more - Sora probably didn't do that, and Riku was suspicious enough as things stood now - Sarah made her way down the hall, in search of both a good breakfast and a way to unobtrusively study the layout of the house. This was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, after all. At least, she damn well hoped it was.

When she reached the front of the house, she found that it was indeed laid out just the way that she had supposed - or more like hoped - that it would be. The kitchen was on her right-hand side as she came down the hall, which just made things all the more strangely-familiar; all this place needed was a second story and a few more rooms, and it would be like a miniature version of her real house. She was glad it didn't have either.

"Sora," the average-looking woman; who reminded her of Shizu Onuma, at least what Shizu Onuma would look like if her transformation into the quasi-Zoalord Griselda wasnt going to end up killing her before she reached even the earliest stages of what could be considered middle age, greeted her with a happy smile and a wave to a seat at the small, round table.

Her family's own table was large and rectangular, another difference that she was pleased to note as she sat down in the indicated chair.

"Riku told me that you were taking a shower this morning," she paused for a moment, clearly gathering her thoughts. "I've never known you to be so eager for a shower, Sora. You've always told me you liked baths better."

Well, there's something you don't learn in-game, she mused. "Well, I didn't want to disturb too many people, but I'm not very fond of waking up all sweaty."

"You've never told me any of this, Sora," the woman said, looking relieved and a bit concerned at the same time.

Sarah didn't know her nearly well enough to hazard a guess about why.

"Well, I just didn't want to bother you with something I could take care of myself, that's all," she said, hoping that she sounded enough like Sora that his mother wouldn't suspect anything.

"I guess that makes sense," the woman said, smiling. "Still, I want you to remember to tell me if there's anything you need help with."

"Don't worry, Mom," she said, in spite of the fact that it felt really, really weird to call the woman in front of her that. "I will."

The table was laid out with pancakes, eggs, and two pitchers each of milk and apple juice. Other than the apple juice, it was a lot like a family breakfast at her house; they would have been having orange juice, and there would have been a few more choices, though, so there were still enough differences between this place and her own house that she didnt feel like she had to constantly struggle with bouts of deja vu.

Riku was sitting at the table with them, and she wondered for a moment just why that was. Then, since she knew that there was no real chance of her ever finding out without blowing her cover and sounding out-of-character for Sora, she decided to forget the whole thing. The story behind it probably wasn't all that interesting, anyway.

Sora's mom served her and Riku before she took any food for herself, which was just one more difference between here and back home that she took note of. It was a nice way to remind herself that this place wasn't really her home. The food wasn't bad, either.

Once the meal had been finished, and she had found a way to thank Sora's mom for her hospitality that didn't make her sound like anything but the woman's son, she left to find a quiet place to update her journal.

"Hey Sora," Riku said, coming up from behind and to her right. "Did you forget that we're meeting up with Kairi to head to the islands today?"

"No." It was the plain truth; she couldn't very well forget the events that had begun the first Kingdom Hearts game, even if she didnt know quite how far ahead of them she had arrived. "I was just going to get some sunblock."

"Why sunblock?"

"Well, we're going to be spending a lot of time out on the open sea," she said, in spite of the fact that she knew full well that she was spouting complete and total bullcrap. It was what Riku knew, so she had to work with that. "And, I don't know about you, but I'd just as soon avoid turning red as a boiled lobster after a few days on the raft."

"Oh," Riku blinked, and then he chuckled. "That's a good idea, Sora."

"Thanks," she said, smiling back. "Who knows," she continued, getting into the spirit of things a bit. "We might even end up getting a tan out there," she said, trying to forget for a moment that she knew what was coming.

Riku laughed. "I don't know, Sora. I can't really picture myself with a tan."

"Hmm," she said, putting her hand - Sora's hand, really, but whatever - to her chin in an exaggerated "thinking" pose. "You know, I think you're right. Someone with your hair-color wouldn't look very good with a tan."

They both had a good laugh at that pronouncement, and Riku grinned a bit wider.

"Don't take too long getting the sunblock, Sora, or I might just leave for the islands without you."

And what a terrible tragedy that would be, she almost said. Still, despite all the time she'd spent playing the game and its sequels, she didn't really know Riku well enough to tease him yet. Besides, in the first game he definitely came off as pretty uptight.

"Don't worry, I won't take too long," Riku, she said instead, with a smile. "I just need to ask." Not her mom; her mom wasn't here. "Mom where the sunblock is, and I'll be ready."

She'd almost said that she'd be good to go, but since she'd never heard Sora use anything like that phrase in any of the games she'd played, she figured that she shouldnt say those kinds of things in front of anyone who knew Sora. In that respect, she was almost looking forward to meeting up with Donald and Goofy: they didn't know Sora from Adam, so she could give up the pretense without worrying about being discovered.

Still, all of that was for later, and she didn't really like to think about the implications of actually wanting the world to explode faster; even if it wasn't her world, people still lived on it. She sure as hell wasn't going to tell anyone what she was really thinking; it would be completely out of character for Sora, and it wouldn't exactly make her look like a particularly good person, either.

Still, pretending to be a boy that she had never met - someone whose personality she had only gleaned bits and pieces of from in-game cutscenes - could quickly become taking. Sora seemed pretty much your Standard Disney Hero, only with Square Enix hair; she... wasn't that at all, and acting like it wasn't going to be easy. For one thing, there was her foreknowledge of in-game events, and on the other there was were complete lack of knowledge of what Sora was like as a person. Couple that with her sarcasm, cynicism, habit of swearing when things got rough, and a few other things she hoped wouldn't become an issue, Sarah wasn't particularly looking forward to having to deal with Sora's friends.

Still, her acting skills were pretty good, and she wouldn't have to maintain the ruse for anyone but Riku and Kairi. Speaking of which... She couldnt quite manage to suppress her amused smirk; it wasn't every day that one got the opportunity to mindfuck one of your more powerful - and certainly one of your most annoying - opponents, but Riku was already gone, so the point was probably moot anyway.

She stopped being so amused, however, when she felt a familiar sensation in the lower half of her body. A particularly unpleasant, familiar sensation.

"Fuck," she hissed, lowly enough that it sounded more like a forceful exhalation than a word in and of itself.

She'd really been hoping to avoid this for a bit longer, but she supposed that bodily functions waited for no man. Or woman. Or woman-trapped-in-a-man's-body.

Grumbling a few more expletives in the three languages she spoke, Sarah headed back into the bathroom. This would be one hell of an unforgettable experience; no matter how much she tried to block it out. Reaching the bathroom, she let herself in and faced the toilet. While "she" prepared for what "she" was going to have to do, Sarah made it a point not to think too much about it.

Things were freaky enough for her as it was.

She was relying on procedural memory to get through the undressing part, but once she was down to the... er, bare essentials, she was forced to start paying more attention. Just out of sheer necessity; this wasn't something that procedural memory could carry her through, it was something she had never done before, something unprecedented in her life. Getting it over with as quickly as "she" could, Sarah went right over to the sink and started vigorously washing her hands. Repeating the process twice more, she let out a brief, heartfelt shudder.

That hadn't been especially pleasant, but she knew even then that she was going to have to get used to it; it wasn't like she was being presented with a whole lot of viable alternatives.

"Sora?"

"I'm in the bathroom, Riku," she called through the door.

"Oh." She heard footsteps then, so she figured that he was coming closer. "Kairi's here, and I told her your idea about the sunblock. She thinks it's great."

"And, I also told him that I would get the sunblock, Sora," laughed a girl who could only be Kairi. "Since I knew that neither of you two would remember it. Still," she laughed again. "I guess you do have a good excuse for it. This time, at least," she concluded, obviously teasing.

Heading over to the door, Sarah opened it and stared for a few moments at the girl on the other side. Ah, so that is where we are in the are in the timeline, she mused, with some satisfaction; she did so love being right.

"What are you looking at, Sora?"

Finding Kairi's face suddenly pressed up very close to her own, Sarah had to clamp down very hard on her first rabbit-punch-to-the-throat impulse.

"Hey, Kairi," "he" said instead, moving a reasonable distance from the other girl.

"Done in there already, Sora?" Kairi asked, grinning at her in what was clearly a teasing manner.

"Well, I actually still have to wash my hands," "he" said, still smiling.

"Well then, don't let me distract you," Kairi replied, making little shooing motions. "Go finish up, while I go get the sunblock."

"Right, Kairi," "he" said, closing the door on the other girl's smile, while offering up yet another of her own.

Once she was isolated again, Sarah made her way back over to the sink, turned the water on for appearances, then quickly jotted down this new data, along with few speculations she was starting to have, into her journal. It may not have been her best penmanship, but at least she had her thoughts recorded for later.