These chapters are taking forever to come up I'm sorry. School just has me busy, but I've found time during school (during one of my study halls since I basically now have two because I have no one to sit with at lunch so I just go to the library -horrendous sobbing in background-) to write chapters, or even just start out one so I have an idea of how I'm going to finish it later. The chapters are still pretty short though (I'm sorry). I've already started working on the next one and I'm going to try and make it long (hopefully 5k to 6k word count?!).

I'm not sure if I liked how this chapter came out too much, but I really like the one I'm working on now ^^

As always, please enjoy. Hopefully I'll get the next one out before or on Valentines Day. (But don't hold me to this -shot-)

Disclaimer: I do not own any of the characters in this story

Fourty-Three: The Outcome

The brunette opened his mouth ready to retort, but stopped when he heard the door burst open with their team-mates pushing through, smiles on their faces.

"You guys," Riku got off the bed. "Did you win?!"

Selphie gave her signature grin.

"Actually," She said. "We…lost." Her voice had a slight hint of sadness, watching Riku and Sora's faces become disappointed. "But," She quickly perked up. "We had fun and tried our best! So we're happy."

"And for you guys, there's always next year!" Zack grinned, mouth wide.

"Ughh." Riku let out a deep sigh, placing his elbows to his knees as he leaned over. His face was held in his hands. "If only my Dad could think that way…"

Sora put a hand to Riku's shoulder, meaning to comfort him.

"Don't worry," Roxas said sympathetically. "You and Sora still get to go on that date."

"Yeah, doesn't matter if we didn't win!" Tidus chimed.

Selphie giggled. Riku looked up, opening his mouth to respond but before he could Rinoa walked back into the room with a familiar person behind her.

The snow-head's eyebrows furrowed as he eyed Sephiroth. "Why are you here?"

The ends of Seph's lips slightly curved up before looking at Sora. "Sorry about the…incident."

Hearing the false tone in Sephiroth's voice, Roxas became angered. "Yeah right you're sorry!"

The silverette looked at Roxas before going back to his main target. "I'm here to talk to Riku," He said. "Not a pissy blonde."

"Hey now," Their coach spoke. "No starting anything."

"So," Xion held her hands on her hips. "Who was that?!" She was standing in front of Ventus outside of their team's coach bus as the others were loading their equipment.

Ventus' cheeks became rosy as he nervously gave a smile. "That was my brother…my twin, Roxas."

"More like exact clone!" The raven exclaimed.

Tifa rested her hand on the girls shoulder. "They're just identical, Xi."

"Same difference." Xion let her hands off her hips, rolling her eyes.

Ventus quickly decided to change the subject. "Where's Terra," He asked. "I kind of came over here to see him."

"He inside the bus with Genesis." Hope said.

"Thanks." Ventus made his way on the bus to see Terra and Genesis loading bags into the upper compartments. "Terra!" The blonde grinned, catching the brunette's attention.

"Ven," Terra went over to the boy. "What are you doing here? You should be on your way home. It's late and you're all by your-"

"I'll be alright, Terra," Ven laughed. "I just wanted to see you. Congrats for winning!" He gave Terra a tight, unexpected hug. "Although I'm not too sure how Roxas is taking this…" He said as he let go.

Terra sighed. He turned to look at Genesis. "Gen, I'm going outside for a bit." He said.

"Hmph," Genesis rolled his eyes. "Okay."

Terra grabbed Ven's hand, pulling him outside the bus. He walked over to a more quiet area where it was less crowded and no one would be able to hear them.

Ventus' looked up at the brunette, his blue orbs full of question. Noticing that Terra wasn't saying anything the blonde decided to ask, "What do you want to talk about?"

"Roxas."

"Roxas?" Ven became worried. "Why? Did he do something?"

"Do you really have to ask what he's done," Terra's eyebrows furrowed. Ven parted his lips to respond but the brunette quickly cut him off. "Who are you Ven?"

"I'm me."

"Or are you Roxas today?"

Ven shook his head. "You're not making any sense," He said. "I'm me, not Roxas."

"And that's who you should be all the time, Ven," Terra explained, his voice still stern. "How many people even know you exist outside of your family? Roxas makes you seem as if you're nobody, you don't even have your own identity."

"You're wrong…," Ventus looked away from Terra. "I'm going home."

They stood in an empty hospital hallway. It had beige walls and green cushioned chairs randomly placed along the wall. Riku could pretend to not know why Sephiroth wanted to talk to him, but the truth was that he had an idea.

Seph looked at Riku, their identical sea-green orbs eyeing one another.

"Dad is going to be furious with you," Seph grinned. "Have fun being disowned once you get home."

Riku decided to ignore what his half-brother said. He responded with "Are you visiting tonight? Because I don't really think Dad missed you until the end results of that game."

Sephiroth gritted his teeth. "I might."

"Look, I know that when we were younger you liked to try and make my life harder than it is," Riku glared. "But don't hurt my team mates."

"Your team mates, or just Sora," The silverette snickered. "He's adorable by the way. Has Dad met him? Do you think he'll like him?" His questions had more of a taunting tone to them more than a sympathetic one. But Riku kept quiet, not wanting to continue talking about the subject. He already knew the answers. His dad never liked anyone. The quietness made Sephiroth dig deeper, wanting to get more of a reaction from his younger brother. "It must be so hard," he said. "Being born out of pity."

"It must be so hard being a mistake." Riku quickly retorted, catching Sephiroth off guard. Sephiroth's annoying grin turned into much more of an angry expression. His brows becoming furrowed and his lips straightening out from the curved smile.

Sephiroth would always treat the snow-head this way ever since they were young. Taking advantage of him, pushing him around in ways to purposely hurt him. As if Riku hadn't gotten enough from their Dad and two of his other older brothers. But Sephiroth was a mistake, from an affair his Dad was having. Riku possibly was conceived out of pity, his Dad feeling guilt when his mother, Yeul, had found out about the affair.

Sephiroth turned around, ready to leave. "I guess that may be something else we have in common." He made his way to the elevators.

Riku decided to head back to Sora's room. Upon entering, he saw that it had a couple extra faces from when he had left. It was Sora's other friends, as well as a blue haired boy he'd seen with Kairi lately. Rinoa, Sora's mother, was gone however as well as Coach Villiers. They probably couldn't handle all these teens in a tiny room.

"Hey Riku!" Kairi waved. She was standing beside Sora who was still sitting up in his hospital bed.

"Hey," Riku tried his best to smile as he waved back to her but realized it must not have worked by the dulling expression on the red-head's face. He combed his fingers back through his hair. "Where did your mom go?"

"She went down to the lobby to read while everyone's in here." Sora said.

"How long do you think you'll have that cast on, Sora?" Olette asked.

"A while," The brunette replied. "I think the doctor said eight weeks."

"That's brutal." Axel commented.

Sora pouted. He was already getting irritated of the cast.

"At least the blitzball season is over with." Pence tried to be positive.

"Yeah, no need to stress yourself over this." Hayner went over and patted the brunette on the back who looked up at him with a smile.

"Yeah," the brunette said before looking over to Riku. "I'm guessing Sephiroth left?"

"Yeah he did."

"I was hoping I'd be able to answer his apology."

"What would your answer have been?"

" 'I forgive you' ."

Reviews are always loved. Criticism I don't mind either :*