Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

It must have been a Monday when the world ended. Or, began to end--because as quickly as it happened, it still seemed to take its sweet time. Of course it couldn’t have gone out with a flash or a bang; that would’ve been too merciful, and the universe just didn’t care. Whether or not it all really started on a Monday, that’s the way he remembered it. Because in all honesty, there could never be another day of the week that was as fitting for the apocalypse as a Monday.

And now, as he stood ankle-deep in the creek, Sora thought to himself, How appropriate, for the world to end on a Monday.

Something in the earth had crept up from beneath. Classrooms were full of students with sick teachers, and then dead teachers. Somehow, the students remained. And so did Sora, now standing in the creek, with no parents and no teachers. He had theories, but all that was on the news was static. Hemorrhagic fever, a consequence of decades of chemical exposure, or something new and unidentified--whatever it was, it didn’t matter now.

In the current moment, in one hand, he gripped his bow--a handmade gift, repaired so often that it was hardly the original anymore--while the other rested on his his backpack, which he used as a quiver.

Initially, he’d meant to set snares for the rabbits that lived in the creek, but he thought he’d caught sight of a deer ambling a short distance ahead and was determined to bring it back with him. Crouching behind the brush, he kept his eyes open for movement while he pondered the wood grain of the bow by brushing it gently with his thumb. He wasn’t ready to draw it just yet; he knew the creek was blocked by fallen trees beyond his hiding spot and was waiting for the deer to return the way it came. Unless it decided to climb up the sides , which is something that Sora suddenly remembered that deer had the skill to do. Patience was not his strong suit and after a short while he began to debate heading home empty-handed, until--

A noise. He could hear it now, faintly above the burbling of the water there was the crunch of gravel under hooves. Any other creek would not offer such a sound, but it was a man-made creek diverted from its original course in the early 2000s and the crew had thrown all the extra gravel and concrete onto the creekbed. The deer was making its way back cautiously, pausing every other second to wiggle its ears and glance around. Sora could see it clearly now as it rounded the bend and into the open section of the creek that was free of shrubbery and low hanging branches. He silently blessed his plain brown hair for holding his camouflage and held his breath as he fetched an arrow from his quiver and began to draw it. Slowly. Slowly. His elbow was almost all the way back now, and the deer was still clearly in his view. He said a small prayer as he prepared to shoot,

The same moment the phone in his pocket began to buzz frantically. The deer leapt up and bolted, and the arrow whizzed through the brush and struck the ground. Sora watched with dismay as the deer scrambled vertically up the steep wall of the creek and out of his sight forever. Fine, he didn’t care much for venison anyway. He growled and uttered a few curses before answering the phone.

“Sora!” The voice on the other side said immediately. It was bright and cheery.

“Hi, Kairi,” he answered, trying to hide his exasperation, but his voice just came out sounding constipated.

“Where have you been? We need you back to help with dinner.” There was a static noise from the other side like the phone was being jostled, and a muffled second voice. Sora could hear Kairi hiss something to the second voice and put the phone back against her ear. 

“Uh, I’m in the creek. Thought I saw a deer.” He stood up and waded into the water to retrieve the wayward arrow, which was buried in the gravel and sticking up at an angle. He plucked it from the ground and returned it to his backpack after wiping the arrowhead clean with the edge of his jacket.

A month after the beginning of The End, fresh food stopped being readily available. The only way to obtain it was to hunt or harvest it yourself -- if you knew how. Otherwise you were stuck with things like vienna sausage and frozen peas. His friends mourned the absence of fresh meat and fantasized about past meals, now aware of just how much of a luxury they once had access to. When Sora spotted the deer, he thought he might be able to bring them back a treat. The logistics of butchering a whole deer could be figured out later; in the moment he had only wanted to offer them this.

Kairi made an enthusiastic squeaking noise. “Did you get it?” More muffled clamoring came from the second voice. Sora could tell she was putting her hand over the mouth of whoever was trying to speak over her.

“No,” He said. “Turned out it was just some branches that looked like a deer. So I sat there for fifteen minutes with my bow aimed at a tree like an idiot.” He feigned a chuckle. He decided that he’d spare her the truth for now, that she didn’t need a twinge of guilt piled on top of everything else she had on her plate.

“Where is that brother o’ mine?” The other voice finally broke through.

“He’s in the creek,” said Kairi’s muffled voice.

“I’m in the creek, Roxas,” said Sora. He kicked the water, creating a splashing sound to prove it. Roxas huffed, but he could hear the smile in his voice.

“Come back, you and Kairi are on dinner duty tonight and I’m hungry.” Another jostling noise.

“You heard the man,” Kairi giggled, her voice clear once again.

“I’ll be back in half an hour, I’m pretty far down the creek. I’ll see you soon.” Sora hung up and put the hell rectangle that had cost him dinner back in his pocket. He retrieved his shoes from the dry patch in the creek bed where he’d set them down while he’d waited for the deer and began to trudge home, his toes numb from the water and his skin bruised from the irregular shapes of the rocks beneath.

It wasn’t particularly late, but the mountains to the west were where the sun liked to hide from the world early at the end of the day, and in November it retreated behind the mountains even earlier. Sora shivered a little as the last bit of sunlight was drained out of the creek by the shadow of its looming walls. It reflected his mood.

It had been two months since The End, and everyone had been too busy to mourn. Sora had spent his life crafting an upbeat and cheerful persona. It came easy to him, but lately it had become harder to hold. It was only so easy to hide his anxiety, when three fourths of the population had disappeared overnight. He decided to keep himself from thinking about it at all. He did not think about his teachers. He did not think about his parents. And he definitely did not think about how his brother Roxas had begun clinging to him like a stubborn burr.

The current living situation was that, starving for company, his friends Kairi and Riku had moved into the house that used to be occupied by him and Roxas and their parents, but was now left feeling horribly empty in the wake of The End. Sora had Roxas, but Riku and Kairi were both only children.

The transition was less than comfortable. Sora always imagined that he’d live with his friends in their own apartment someday, maybe during college. Kairi and Riku were over so often that they might as well have already been part of Sora’s family, but he wanted the freedom of being his own authority figure. He’d known the both of them for so long that he could imagine life without them as well as he could imagine life without Roxas, who had only granted Sora three minutes of being an only-child before joining him in the waking world. It made his stomach twist knowing that what he had wished for had been granted under these circumstances, but the other two didn’t breathe a word about it.

Two weeks after The End, they showed up at his door with nothing but a change of clothes in their backpacks. Sora waved them through the doorway without a word and they sat themselves opposite each other on the living room couches, staring at the carpet with empty expressions. Sora didn’t sit by either of them; instead he sat between them on the floor. For an agonizingly long time, they sat together in silence until Roxas--who had just woken up and still in his pajamas with sleep crusted over his eyes--wandered all too noisily into the living room. He had stopped, staring at the three of them as well as he could through his gunk-covered eyelashes before breaking the silence with, “Do you guys want some persimmons?”

They’d brought their belongings over slowly. At first, just necessities—more clothes, blankets, personal amenities. Then, comfort items. Riku brought as many books as he could carry and Kairi brought her multitudes of crafting supplies; all of this they piled into and carted over in a rusty Radio Flyer wagon.

Roxas moved into Sora’s room and Kairi moved into Roxas’ room (Roxas threw a small tantrum about it), and Riku slept on the couch in the living room. They left the third bedroom--their parents’ bedroom--untouched. Slowly, the house became theirs again.

It was all a bad, awful, nightmare sleepover, Sora mused as he climbed up the wall of the creek. A large pile of sandbags offered him a stairway up and out. Dusk had fallen when he finally emerged from the creek bed, the last light of the sun just disappearing behind the mountains and leaving the sky a deep and even shade of blue, and the street lights began to flicker on ahead.

The porch light was on when he arrived. Kairi greeted him at the door by taking both his hands and leading him inside. Roxas was lounging at the table eating a lunchbox apple and leaning back with his feet propped up on an adjacent chair. Riku lay on the couch with an open book on his chest, clearly having intended to read it but fighting the urge to doze off. He turned his head slightly to peer at Sora from the corner of his eye.

“You were out for a long time.” It was not an accusatory statement, just an idle observation. Riku yawned and closed his book. His hair -- which he had not trimmed in a considerably long time -- fell across his face. He puffed at it a bit before brushing his hair out of his eyes with his hand instead.

“Uh, dinner!” Sora remembered suddenly, dropping his bow and backpack by the door and taking off his jacket. “Let me help!” He quickly removed his shoes with his heels without bothering to untie them and began to head for the bathroom before Kairi held him back gently by placing her hands lightly on his shoulders.

“I took care of it already, it’s in the oven right now. Roxas and I were hungry.” She was smiling, but there was a mischievous glint in her eye. Sora knew that look. She was thinking of a way to penalize him for missing dinner duty. He crossed his fingers and hoped that she didn’t make him lift something heavy.

“Ha ha, Kairi’s gonna punish you,” Riku mumbled from the couch. He was now laying on his stomach with his face buried in a pillow.

“I’m sorry, Kairi!” He brushed her hands off her shoulder. “I’ll make it up to you.” She hummed in acknowledgement and let him continue his journey to the bathroom.

The water was still on when he turned the tap to wash his hands, and he wondered idly when the day it would stop coming out of the faucet would come. He cupped his hands under the faucet and took a couple sips of water (out of some weird habit he formed and was never able to shake). When he raised his head to meet his reflection in the mirror, for a moment he just gazed into his own blank expression, the emptiness of which had become emphasised by the formation of deep purple bags that formed an ugly crease underneath his eyes when he squinted.  Then he scowled at himself.

When he returned to the kitchen, Kairi had set a out casserole in the center of the table without any other dishes to accompany it. Roxas was still at the table but this time sitting upright and with a plate in front of him,  announcing  that he was going to eat the entire thing by himself if they didn’t hurry up and sit down. Sora squeezed behind his chair and sat down next to him, while Kairi and Riku assumed their seats at the opposite side. The lights flickered a little and the four of them held their breath, but the lights remained on. They released their collective breaths and then dinner proceeded to happen as usual.

“--So, they had been planning on removing the observatory at Mt. Umunhum,” Kairi babbled through a mouth full of casserole. “I guess it’s never gonna happen now though.”

“That ugly thing?” Riku was apparently more familiar with local happenings than Sora was, but he knew what they were referring to. A beige colored rectangle had been seated on top of that mountain for decades, stark against the lushness of its surroundings.

“ Exactly! ” She slammed her fork down on the table for emphasis. “It’s been around since early in the Cold War, is out of commission, and is unattractive. And it was still met with resistance by people claiming that removing the observatory would be wrong since it would be removing a piece of history, but that mountain is a better piece of history than the observatory will ever be. But no one talks about how much older the mountain is than the stupid observatory.”

Unable to contribute to the current thread of conversation, Sora silently mused the age of mountains. He thought about the millions of years the things they had observed on earth and if….. And if they remembered seeing something like this before. He quickly shut the thought down. Mt. Umunhum has an ugly hat, haha, he thought instead. He then distracted himself with the casserole dish, which was now empty.

Sora cleared the table without offering, intent on making up for making Kairi make dinner by herself. She and Roxas left to lounge on the living room couches, Kairi working with a friendship bracelet taped to one of her knees and Roxas tapping at a Gameboy Color. Riku approached Sora as he scrubbed at the casserole dish in the kitchen sink and wordlessly rested his chin on the top of his head, hands in his pockets, hair in his eyes. He reminded Sora of a very large sheepdog, with slits of bright green eyes only ever just peering down at him through a waterfall of silver hair.

They stood that way for a moment while Sora splashed idly in the sink and pretended not to enjoy how warm the underside of his chin felt on the top of his head until Riku mumbled, “Do you wanna go for a run?”

Sora paused to gauge his level of exhaustion and weighed it against his desire to spend time alone with his friend and to his dismay he found he felt more tired. He reached back with his wet, soapy hands and ran them up through Riku’s hair. “Let’s go tomorrow,” he offered.

“Gh--” Riku ducked under Sora’s arms to escape the soggy headlock.

“I’m tired and I can’t wait to go to bed,” Sora said.

“Tomorrow.” Riku hummed and ruffled Sora’s hair for a moment before leaving him alone with the dishes.

Sora and Roxas shared Sora’s double bed. Sora had originally meant to give the bed to his brother and sleep on the floor, but that had changed quickly. It reminded him of when they shared a bunk in the same room when they were younger. Roxas slept on the top bunk, but about half the time he preferred to crowd Sora in the bottom bunk. In the middle of the night he would climb down and insert himself firmly between his brother and the wall. Sora didn’t mind.

When the lights had been turned off and they were settled in but still awake, Roxas stretched and pretended to smack Sora in the face as he did so.

Sora returned the gesture by giving him a gentle kick to the shin. “Night, Roxas,” he said.

“Night, Sora.” Roxas started to turn onto his side, but stopped and spoke again, in a whisper this time. “...Can you call me the next time you’re gonna be gone for so long?”

“Of course,” he whispered back.

Roxas seemed satisfied with that answer and turned back onto his side. “Goodnight, Sora.”

Through the darkness, somewhere in the distance, Sora could hear the gentle trilling of a screech owl echoing through the empty streets lined with empty houses.

Chapter Text

“We’ll be fine, we’re just going for a run.” Sora and Riku stood at the front door which was currently being barred from exit by an adamant Kairi.

It was still early in the day and the fog--its presence highly uncharacteristic for the time of year--had not yet been burned away by the sun. It hung lower than usual and the condensation leaked from its thick blanket, creating a light drizzle. Riku swayed impatiently from side to side, the material of his raincoat creating a gentle swish, swish, and his hair (which he had contained in a messy ponytail but for some reason still decided to let his bangs fall over his eyes) swayed with him. Sora suddenly became aware that he had tied his shoes too tight and that they were hurting him.

“I’m not gonna relax unless you take it.” She was pressing a folding pocket knife into Sora’s hand, of which she kept with her at all times and used with such versatility that sometimes it frightened him. It rested in its own leather sheath that was decorated with thread woven around it in yellow and turquoise. When Sora’s hand refused to close around it, she huffed and shoved the knife directly into the pocket of his jacket instead.

Sora patted his pocket which now had a knife-shaped lump in it, feeling somewhat defeated. He wished she wouldn’t worry about him so much.  

Kairi continued to gaze at him sternly for a moment. Then her eyes brightened and her gaze shifted to expectant.

Sora leaned forward and kissed her sweetly on the cheek. “Back in an hour,” he assured her. He shot her a grin as an impatient Riku shoved him outside and closed the door behind them.

For the first mile or so, they jogged side by side in silence with no sound between them but their breathing and the swish, swish of Riku’s raincoat. The windows of the houses lining the street were uncomfortably dark, no movement to be seen beyond them. After two months they had become accustomed to quiet, but the eeriness remained in other ways. Dark-eyed juncos hopped about the lawns of the abandoned houses without mind. Hidden somewhere in the fog, a mourning dove cried. To them, life went on as usual.

Riku’s pace slowed to a walk and Sora fell into step. Still, neither of them spoke. Alone with Riku, the silence felt comfortable.

They walked another half a mile before Riku’s expression changed to a small grin. “Kairi sure worries about you a lot, huh,” he said with amusement in his voice.

Sora groaned in response. Riku was teasing, but only a little. He knew it was true and after The End she had only become even more protective. Just a couple years after they first met he realized he’d grossly miscalculated his position in their relationship.

The shift happened at age thirteen, when the blade of her knife had been in his hand.

Sora had not yet grown out of the rough and tumble life of a younger child, prone to stupid injuries born out of nothing more than clumsiness;  he was short, slim, and easily knocked about, which resulted in the presence of bruises, scabs, and other surface injuries being a constant presence on his person. On top of that fact, he enjoyed organized sports, which caused him to wear more than his fair share of Band-aids and gauze to track meets.

The day the knife had been in his hand, he had been spending the afternoon horsing around on the ancient playground at the park down the block from the local high school with Riku and Kairi. The wood on the play structures was so old he figured that after so many decades the rot was now essential to its structural integrity. He’d just made to the top of the tallest structure and as he sat proudly on its steepled roof, he let out a whoop of victory for his friends below (though he had been climbing to the tallest spot on the playground for years, he was proud each time.) But he had no time to revel in the feeling, because for the first time, he slipped.

He scrabbled helplessly at the edge of the roof with his nails, but he only succeeded in tearing up the softened wood. He saw his friends’ blurry faces change to an expression of horror as the world began to turn in slow motion. He hit the lower level of the wooden structure hands-first, skidding before the rest of his body followed him to the ground as if he’d been given a suplex by an invisible entity. Sora heard the frantic voices of his friends. His entire body felt bruised. In his hands, there was so much -- his mind couldn’t finish the thought, because there was so much.

“Sora!”

“Are you okay, Sora?”

Sora groaned loudly and rolled onto his back. Kairi and Riku were standing over him. “I’m fine, but my hands --” He held them up and heard his friends inhale sharply. “It really, really hurts.”

“Give ‘em,” said Kairi, taking his hands in her own. They were scraped to all hell, with a multitude of splinters sticking straight up and making his palms look like a miniature forest. She motioned to Riku, who fetched a water bottle from his backpack and began to pour its contents onto Sora’s hands.

Sora let out a hiss, but didn’t fight her grip. She began to carefully pick out the splinters. For the small ones she couldn’t remove on her own, she enlisted Riku to dig them out with his overgrown fingernails. But the worst was yet to come, because the soft and rotting wood of the play structure roof had become buried underneath his fingernails and he didn’t know how he was going to get it out.

Kairi took a deep breath and said, “I can fix this, but you’re not gonna like it.”

Sora groaned again. “Please, Kairi. It hurts so bad.”

“Do you trust me?”

Sora nodded.

He watched in horror as she withdrew a folding pocket knife from a decorated leather sheath, which she had apparently been carrying in one of the front pockets of her jeans. His first thought was, It’s against the rules to bring a knife to school. His second thought was worse.

“Are you cutting off my fingernails??” Sora yelped as he retrieved his hands quickly and shied away.

Riku let out a short laugh that sounded more like a bark.

“You said you trusted me, so trust me,” said Kairi, exasperated. Sora reluctantly returned his hands to her care. “I need just one for now.”

He lowered his free hand onto his lap and watched as she straightened the blade, then began carefully insert the blunt end under his nails to scrape away the wood fibers. He let out a pitiful whine and turned his head away to avoid watching, the same way he did when he had to get his blood drawn.

“You can squeeze my hand if you want,” Riku offered in a quiet voice. Sora shamelessly took it.

Fifteen minutes later, Sora’s fingernails were clean of splinters. He was sitting with his back stiff and his arm extended at a ninety-degree angle, head turned as far away from Kairi as possible, eyes squeezed shut. He had not let out a sound the entire time, but tears were still streaming down his cheeks.

“Done,” said Kairi. She folded the pocket knife with a click and returned it to its sheath.

Sora released his grip on Riku’s hand and opened his eyes.

“Jesus christ, Sora, now Kairi has gotta fix my hand,” Riku said, rubbing at his sore joints. “When I said you could squeeze it I didn’t mean you could destroy it.”

Sora opened his mouth to apologize for being such a wimp, but instead he just said, “Thanks.”

Riku broke his train of thought. “Remember when--" 

“Yes, Riku, every time I see her knife I think about it. I can still feel ghost pains under my nails. And she makes me carry the thing she stabbed me with now,” Sora whined. Somehow Riku always knew what he was thinking, so he always knew which stick to would be best to poke him with. In this case, he was poking him with Kairi’s knife.

Riku let out a laugh that was heartier than anything Sora had heard from him in weeks. It made something in his stomach stir.

“Worse than when you broke your arm in third grade?” Riku tilted his head and peered down at him in amusement.

“Worse than when I broke my arm in third grade.”

Underneath his sheepdog-hair, Riku’s eyes looked like earthshine moons, the color of…. Uh. The color of… Suave brand shampoo. The ocean scented kind. Sora looked away and hoped that he was not still reading his thoughts.

A humming noise from behind them interrupted their conversation. They jumped and turned to face the sound, Riku crouching slightly in a defensive position and Sora reaching quickly into his jacket pocket to grasp the knife.

The humming belonged to an ancient beach cruiser being ridden by a girl with messy brown hair and a dirty orange sweatshirt. She was pedalling hard with her rear in the air, looking tired and sweaty. Sora recognized her as being one of Roxas’ friends. She skidded in front of them and appeared to fall off her bike rather than dismount. Sora opened his mouth to greet her but she beat him to the punch.

“Do.. you.. have… a radio?” She panted between syllables, trying to catch her breath. “Not asking for one. Asking if you have one.”

“Hi, Olette.”

“Hi, Sora, hi, Riku. Do you... have a radio?” Olette repeated with a wheeze.

Sora didn’t know why she was asking (radios had not been a thing since they were in elementary school) but he answered her anyway. “Roxas used to have a boombox. I think it might be in the garage somewhere.”

“Good. Go find it. Turn it to a local channel, any of them.” Still puffing, she mounted her bike again and sat back on the seat with her arms dangling loosely at her sides and both feet resting on the ground.

“How come? Also, are you out by yourself?” Riku asked.

“Some college students have taken over a few of the local radio stations and are making announcements about something they’re organizing. I’m not completely alone; Pence and Hayner are about in different neighborhoods. We don’t know how many people have working electricity, so we’re telling everyone we run into to tune in.” Olette’s breathing had evened out by now. She pursed her lips and leaned forward to squeeze the handlebars. “And if you haven’t gotten our text or email blast yet, that was not my job.”

They watched her race away, still pedalling hard, fighting the weight of her bicycle with her rear in the air.

The garage was filled with the musk of fifteen years of gasoline stains. Sora, Riku and Roxas were crammed into the tiny storage room, rummaging through old and moldy cardboard boxes that had finally begun to disintegrate after years of neglect in the gasoline-scented space. Roxas swore every time he found silverfish hiding between the flaps of the boxes he had disturbed during his rummaging. Roxas was swearing a lot.

“I think I found the boombox, it was in the box with the-- oh fuck!” Roxas dropped the box he was holding with a thud followed by a clattering. A family of silverfish scuttled out and disappeared past the doorway.

“Do you just forget about the fifty other bugs you’ve found already or what?” Riku squinted in annoyance at the sudden loud sound.

“They are gross every time, ” Roxas hissed.

Sora examined the box, now laying sadly on its side. The boombox had rolled out of it and had come to a rest in an upside down position. A pile of CDs lay in its wake. He turned the boombox over and pressed on the CD cover. A CD was still nestled inside it.

“Didn’t know you were ever into Britney Spears, Roxas.”

“That’s Sora’s.”

“Baby One More Time? ”

“I had a lunchbox with her face on it in first grade, too,” said Sora.

Riku tilted his head, his eyebrows raised in amusement, clearly fighting to decide whether the twins were just fucking with him or if Sora had really been a Spears fan at the tender age of six. Sora thought it was the funniest face he’d ever seen him make.

Riku didn’t press it; instead he leaned down and pawed through the pile of CDs. A lot of them clearly belonged to their parents—Santana, Johnny Cash, Bruce Springsteen…. A few albums of childrens’ songs on cassette tape. He noticed a badly cracked jewel case with a torn, faded cover resting in the pile and opened it to reveal a well worn (likely unplayable) CD. I Hate My Friends.

“You were into punk rock at a pretty young age, huh.”

“How’d you find that? I’ve been looking for it for ages!” Roxas slipped the album out of Riku’s hands and ran his fingers over the cracks in the jewel case thoughtfully, his face an uncertain mix of emotion. He took the CD out and set it in the boombox, and put Baby One More Time in the damaged case.

Sora put a hand on Roxas’ shoulder. “Slow down, we need to turn on the radio first.” He picked up the boombox and wove his way out of the garage and into the kitchen with the others in tow, plugged it into an outlet, and sat it neatly on the kitchen table. They squinted at the too-small LED display while Sora searched for a local station.

Sora half-expected to hear the familiar radio jingle followed by a “96.5 KOIT… better music, for a better workday,” but instead a foreign voice crackled into focus. 

“Hi, everyone. This is a pre-recorded message,” said the voice, tense but unwavering. “We apologize up-front for our lack of professionalism, because we are not the ones who were trained for this, so we will speak plainly to you.”

The three of them were holding their breath. At some point, Kairi had appeared in the living room, but as she opened her mouth to greet them they held their fingers over their lips in perfect unison.

“We’re a group of college students from around the area and we are working on creating a database for those of you who need help, or can offer help to others. We don’t know how many still have electricity or water, or when it will turn off for people who do have electricity and water, so we are reaching out in as many ways as possible.”

A different voice spoke now. It was soft and even. “If you are someone with medical training, we are looking for people like you to volunteer to assist those who need help. If you have supplies --food or otherwise--that you can afford to donate, we have set up pantries at certain college campuses. Here are a few ways you can reach us…” The voice calmly rattled off a list of phone numbers.             

The first voice spoke again. “Our CS major friends are working on developing a website… a different team is also working on an app. They’re good at what they do; shouldn’t be a problem for them to make everything easily accessible. We will sent out news when it gets set up, which should be only a matter of days.”

“Thank you for listening,” said the soft voice. “ If you didn’t catch it all, this recording will play again in five minutes. Keep your eyes and ears out for us, and be well. Thank you again.”

The recording gave way to static. Roxas turned the radio off and began to spin the CD.

“I’m glad people are making an effort to help each other,” Kairi sighed. “It makes me feel just a little less nervous.” Her voice was bright but her expression was distant. 

Sora suddenly became aware of Riku’s body heat beside him and how cold Kairi felt before him. In the background, the CD began to skip and repeat itself. For a moment, Sora thought it might have felt profound, had Roxas not pretended to trash the boombox with comic effort.

I’m scared I’m gonna die as lonely as I feel.

I’m scared I’m gonna die as lonely as I feel.

Chapter Text

She was the brightest thing in the room. She was the patch of sunlight falling from the window and spilling onto a dark living room floor, and Xion wanted to curl up in it and sleep forever. She was Lefkara lace in human form, soft, delicate, and complicated. Always with a sketchbook under her arm. Always with a gentle smile and apologetic eyes.

They met at Tech Camp, the summer before high school. For three weeks they sat next to each other in the same programming class, and when the month was over, they sat together on top of the bell tower, nursing Jamba Juice smoothies in the August heat.

“When you go back to school, don’t forget about me,” Xion had said.

But she did.

In September, Xion cut her hair short.

Xion found herself in the company of the one she had gone to once before. He was tall, bony, and never described himself as being anything other than his name: Lea. He was a person parents would describe as a bad influence--he was rude, painted his nails black, and smelled constantly of a nauseating mix of Tokyomilk Dark perfume and cigarette smoke. But he had the wingspan of an albatross, and swept her protectively under it without a second thought.

Now, Xion was in the kitchen of Lea’s two-bedroom townhouse, crushing empty soda cans with her feet. She was in a foul mood, and when she was in a foul mood she liked to crush the recycling. Not that recycling is happening at the moment , she thought, but continued to separate the garbage out of habit anyway.

“Hey. Want some pizza boxes to go with those cans?” Lea’s easy voice floated into the kitchen. Xion huffed, which Lea took to mean as a yes . He appeared in the doorway with the aforementioned pizza boxes under one arm, and an old pair of combat boots in the other. He was wearing a dirty graphic t-shirt with equally dirty sweatpants and a braid that was half-undone like he hadn’t bothered with his hair in days. “These are both for you. The boxes are for crushing. The boots are to do the crushing better.”

Xion did not look any better than he did. She had worn nothing but a faded black sweatshirt and her middle school P.E. shorts for a week. She did not look at him and opted instead to stare at the floor. Maybe if she stared hard enough, she could make herself clip through it and out of her current plane of existence.

Lea began to extend his arms to offer her the items, then froze and narrowed his eyes. “Have you been crushing cans with your bare feet?” It was a rhetorical question; her feet were bare. She continued to stare blankly in their general direction. Lea squatted and lifted her foot to examine it like a blacksmith might do to a fit a horse for shoes. “Jesus fuck, Xion.”

Lea dropped the pizza boxes and the boots haphazardly on the kitchen floor and scooped Xion into his arms. He carried her into the townhouse’s single bathroom and sat her on the rim of the bathtub, one hand resting on her back and the other reaching to turn on the faucet.

“What’s got you in such a twist today?”

“Absolutely nothing.”  As the water ran over her feet, she watched the small stream of blood flow down the drain, and the water turn pink, and then clear. “It’s absolutely nothing, and I guess that’s why I’m so mad.”

He could have said, Everyone has those moods. You’re fine. He could have said that. But Xion saw a dark sort of understanding in his eyes, and instead he wrapped an arm around her shoulders and said, “Let’s go outside.”

Xion found herself standing on a patch of grass outside the townhouse complex, freshly showered, wearing a bomber jacket and clean pair of sweatpants. Her hair was still wet and her feet were still bare (though now wrapped in a light layer of gauze). Lea stood a few feet away, still in just a t-shirt, with one hand in his pocket and the other hand holding a cigarette. His braid had finally completely fallen apart and his hair had returned to falling over his shoulders like a fiery mane.

“How’s your feet?”

“Don’t hurt much.”

“How’s your heart?”

“Ugh.”

Lea lifted the cigarette like he meant to take a drag, but seemed to decide better and dropped it on the sidewalk next to him and stomped it out instead. “One of the actually useful things I learned in my first year of college was how to fix a mood,” he said. “Taking a shower and going outside are a couple of the steps.”

Xion focused on the dry grass between her toes and how cold the breeze felt when her hair was damp. After a moment of consideration, she supposed it felt good. “Are you going to make me do all of them?”

“Only if you want to.”

On occasion, Lea could be be genuinely amiable when he wasn’t hiding behind layers of sarcasm and choler. Xion felt that even after two years, she was still unable to tell which side of him was an act, and which side was true. Maybe he wasn’t sure, either.

“What’s the next step?”

“Well, you already did some cleaning. How do you feel about eating?”

Xion considered the state of her stomach. Or she tried to, but the radio signals between it and her brain appeared to be jammed, so she just shrugged and returned to staring at the ground. But after a moment she felt a tiny smile creeping onto her face. “Lea, you’re really nice when you’re not being horribly rude all the time.”

“What are you talking about? I’m always this nice.” Lea’s mouth twisted itself into a crooked grin. He turned away and ambled back into the building,  leaving Xion alone on the lawn.

The pall of fog that had been hanging heavily over the neighborhood all morning was finally beginning to be burned away by the afternoon sun. The weather was not particularly cold, but Xion still welcomed the sun on her back. It was almost completely silent; only the call of a distant mourning dove and the rustle of leaves in the breeze assured her that she was not standing in a vacuum. She closed her eyes, enjoying the sunlight. As she began to feel the radio static in her stomach begin to come into focus, the hum of a skateboard broke the silence, pulling her out of her shallow meditative state.

The skateboard sound grew louder, heralding a boy in a collared jacket and distressed (ever too baggy) jeans, shock of unruly blonde hair swept across his forehead. He waved when he saw her and when he came near enough, he slipped his skateboard out from under his feet and under his arm and bounded over on foot.

“Xion!” He let the skateboard fall onto the lawn as he wrapped her tightly in his arms.

“Hey, Roxas.” Xion returned the hug and let him spin her around a bit before letting go. He was grinning so hard she thought she could hear the muscles in his cheeks straining. He’s in a good mood for once.

When bent down to pick up his skateboard again, his smile fell slightly. “What happened to your feet?”

“Just a few cuts, it’s not a big deal.” Xion wiggled her toes to prove that her feet were still in working condition.

Roxas hummed, seeming satisfied with her answer. “Hey, I haven’t seen you in a minute,” he said, changing the subject. “I didn’t know you were gonna be here. This is great! Now I get to hang out with both you and Lea today.”

“Actually... About that. I kind of live here now.”

“What! Xion, how could you not tell me! I’m gonna move in now!” Roxas shook her shoulder playfully with one arm (his skateboard was tucked safely under the other.)

Xion gave him a sheepish smile and tucked her hair behind one ear. “Sorry, I really meant to tell you earlier but… things just got busy.” She tried not to think about all the time she had spent lying on Lea’s couch, feeling paralysed.

“Oh, Xion, don’t worry about it.” Roxas flashed her another smile. Strained this time.

Lea was waiting for them at the door, swinging it open before Roxas could knock a second time. For a split second they both paused -- like a couple of cats staring each other down--but Roxas was not swift enough to outrun the length of Lea’s arms and found himself wrapped in them with his shoulder pressed awkwardly against his stomach and cheek flush to his chest.

“Get off me, you skeleton! You’re hurting me!” Roxas huffed and squirmed helplessly for a moment before Lea released him, laughing. Roxas (whose face had turned a deep shade of pink at some point) elbowed him in the stomach.

How come boys can never hug each other like normal goddamn people , Xion thought, rolling her eyes and squeezing her way through the doorway that was currently blocked by her friends’ tussel.

“Hold on, I found something I wanna show you.” Roxas dropped his backpack on the floor and propped his skateboard gently against the side of the couch, then returned to his bag and began to dig through it. From it he drew a broken jewel case with a worn cover. In barely legible text, the title read I Hate My Friends.

Lea’s mouth opened and stayed that way for a solid minute as if he was holding an invisible orange peel in his teeth, his eyes wide and glittering. “God, you still kept it?”

Xion shot them a curious look.

“Lea gave this to me for my birthday when I turned thirteen,” Roxas explained. “It doesn’t play anymore; I just wanted to show you that I still had it.”

“Aw, man,” Lea breathed, running his hands through his hair, expression a mix of entertainment and disbelief. “I’m flattered, you know.”

Roxas beamed at him.

Xion wondered idly about the unplayable CD in the jewel case. Every now and then, she was reminded that they had known each other twice as long as she had known them.

And Roxas--normally so prickly and easily agitated--was in a good mood when he presented it from the depths of his backpack, brought back from whatever hell he’d put that CD through. In her mind, she imagined quietly sweeping her own bad mood away somewhere behind the fridge. She’d come back for it later.

She lay down on the couch, her head resting on its arm and her knees in the air. On the opposite wall loomed a CD shelf of considerable size. Lea and Roxas were lingering in front of it, shuffling its contents as they chatted. Xion watched them through her eyelashes. At some point their voices sank to a low mumble, like she was listening to them from the other side of a thick glass door. One of them had begun to play a CD on the stereo; the sound felt far away and dissonant.

Xion chased her through a maze of stucco and terracotta roof tile. Every time she came close enough to see her face, to call out, she turned the corner and disappeared again. Blending into the white walls. Vanishing into the clear blue sky. It was always the same.

Xion was facedown on the floor. Turning her head revealed the shadow of Lea, who leaned over her with his hands on his knees. She could see Roxas peering at her from over the back of the couch, snickering.

Lea let out a barking laugh--somewhere between a wheeze and croup--and took her hand, pulling her to her feet. “Sometimes I forget you’re just as much of a dork as Roxas is,” he said.

“I fell asleep?”

“Like a fucking log. You didn’t move an inch, and then…” Lea was laughing harder now, pausing to wipe a tear from his eye. “...You just rolled off the couch right onto your face.”

“Oh.” Xion still felt groggy. Her bad mood, however, seemed to have disappeared for the time being.

“Hey, I just got a text from Kairi,” Roxas interrupted. “She wants Nyquil… but if I’m gonna go to a pharmacy she says we should stock up on prescription meds before we run out.”

Lea squinted at him. “She expects me to take you to wherever the hell she knows I can get that stuff, doesn’t she.”

“Please?” Roxas batted his eyelashes imploringly. “I don’t want to go to CVS alone; it scares me. It has carpet. And you can drive.”

Lea grinned behind the hand he’d plastered to his face. “I’m babysitting… two baby birds. Fine, I’ll take you. Put your shoes on. And Xion…” He put a hand to Xion’s shoulder. “Put some fucking shoes on.”

Roxas pumped a fist in the air in an exaggerated gesture of victory.

“Also, we’re not going to CVS.”

“Secret meth lab?”

“Xion, who do you think I hang out with? It’s not a secret meth lab. I know a gal.” Lea said this as he hurriedly tapped a text message out to someone with one thumb while trying to put on a jacket with his one free arm.

“So secret meth lab?”

“Oh my god. Just put your shoes on,” Lea groaned and herded his friends out the door.

The sky was completely clear now and the sun shone proudly over the hills. Along the freeway, a satellite dish sat high on a hill, gazing upward at the empty sky. Xion stared at it from the back seat, her elbow against the window and her chin resting on her hand. It looked almost forlorn. Gazing at the sky forever, no longer with a purpose, doomed to fall into disrepair.

They pulled into the parking lot of a quiet low-rise apartment complex on a tree-lined street. It was at least ten degrees colder where they were and Xion could see her breath now.  She hugged her shoulders immediately upon stepping out of the car, facing a rush of cold air that was punctuated by the smell of woodsmoke. The leaves that still remained on the trees shivered in the breeze.

She followed Lea along the path, passing by neglected patches of lawn that become dry and brown in the dry weather. His red hair was the most intense spot of color in the setting, like a cardinal in the dead of winter someplace where it snows. Roxas shuffled beside her, puffing and admiring the sight of his breath dissipating in the sunlight.

At last they arrived at the door of an apartment located on the first floor. A caved-in jack-o’-lantern sat on the step, its eyes squeezed shut and its mouth curled into a mirthless grimace. Lea checked his phone and tapped out another text message. After a moment, he put it away and opened the door himself. They stepped inside and navigated a suspiciously large pile of shoes littered throughout the floor of a dark, narrow foyer (Xion took her own shoes off out of habit, but placed them neatly by the door). Around the corner, the hallway opened into the living room.

The sight that beheld them made Xion wonder if they had intruded upon a LAN party. There were at least five laptops sitting in various places throughout the room, most with people who looked about college-aged sitting in front of them. Two monitors were running upon a desk accompanied by microphones. An outdated stereo was placed on a coffee table with an old iPod plugged into it, playing a song from some musical she didn’t recognize.

Everyone in the room turned to stare at them at once. Xion noticed that the room was terribly cold. She desperately wanted to retreat and hide behind Lea, but she felt his hand hovering behind her shoulder blades, gently urging her forward.

“Hey,” said Lea.

There was a murmur of familiarity. The one who had been sitting cross-legged on the couch shed the blanket she had been wearing over her shoulders and rose to greet him. She was tall--almost as tall as Lea was--but while Lea was the gangly skeleton of a strangely proportioned gargoyle come to life, she was graceful and walked with a sort of dignity Xion had only seen in professional athletes. Her short hair was an impressively deep shade of blue, though she had apparently not bothered with its upkeep for a while because Xion could see its dark roots coming through in the stray hairs in front of her ears. She wore black leggings and an open maroon zip hoodie over a shirt with a clearly personal and lovingly hand-embroidered image of a poorly drawn Bart Simpson riding a skateboard, with text beneath it that read “I’M A RUDEBOY.” Xion decided that she was in love with her.

“Hey,” she said, returning Lea’s greeting. Then turning to Xion and Roxas, she said, “I’m Aqua. It’s nice to meet you.” Her voice was gentle, but betrayed something very tired behind it.

Xion knew the proper thing to do was to offer her own name, but she couldn’t speak. She smiled idly instead and hoped she didn’t look too sweaty.

“These are my friends, Roxas and Xion.” Lea ruffled their hair respectively with a proud grin. Roxas gave the room a casual wave.

“Oh, Roxas! I know about you. Every sentence out of Lea’s mouth used to have your name in it somewhere.” Aqua turned a curious gaze toward Xion. “I’m not familiar with your name, though.”

“We met after you graduated high school,” Lea informed her.

It struck Xion suddenly that Lea had a life outside of the presence of her, and even Roxas. Not in the way Lea talked cryptically about who he’d spent his time with before she met him; she always figured he must’ve run with a bad crowd for a while. Roxas never talked about it, either ( not my story to tell, he’d say.) But Aqua, who appeared to be studious and responsible and greeted Lea with a kind sense of familiarity, did not seem to be a part of his shadowy past. But then, she remembered, that they were there for prescription medication. Maybe she was someone who dealt hard drugs to the rich college students. Maybe she ran a secret meth lab. Xion asked her gut what it made of the situation. Aqua is so pretty , said her gut.

By now Roxas had left Xion’s side in favor of plopping himself down in front of the others on the living room floor and introducing himself. One of them was sitting with her knees bent and her back resting against the couch; she wore a pink robe and her mousy brown hair was tied into a braid that curled over her shoulder and fixed neatly with a bow. In her lap she cuddled a mug of something still steaming. The other sat cross-legged and hunched over a short ways away, a few inches of air between his knees and her feet, wearing an outdoor coat with a fur lined collar over flannel pajamas. His bangs fell over his face, just barely hiding a faded scar which ran down from the middle of his forehead and across the bridge of his nose in its shadow.

Aqua motioned for them to follow her into the living room and assumed her previous position on the couch. Xion sat on her feet next to Roxas. Lea sat on the back on the couch with his feet on the cushions.

The one in the pink robe smiled gently and offered her hand to Xion. “I’m Aerith. This guy over here—” She nodded to the warmly dressed man beside her who was currently explaining something on his computer screen to Roxas, “—Is Leon.”

Xion shook Aerith’s hand tentatively. “Can I ask… What’s with all the computers and pajamas? Did Lea bring us to a sleepover?”

Aerith let out a bright giggle that was loud enough to interrupt Roxas and Leon’s conversation for a moment, causing them to turn to look at her. “Hardly sleeping! No, we have some big projects we’re working on. We’ve been awake for a lot longer than I wish to tell you.”

“Can you tell me why is it so fucking cold in here?” Lea’s voice drifted over from the top of the couch.

“Heater’s broke,” mumbled Leon.

“Damn.”

Aerith flashed Xion and Roxas a pained smile. Lea and Aqua returned to whatever reminiscent smalltalk they’d been engaged in--what they’d been doing in their respective colleges, recalling something stupid that had happened back in high school on some day, the time someone set the boys’ bathroom on fire--before Lea took a breath and sat up with his back straight.

“I did come to ask you for a favor,” he began, carefully.

“Of course you did,” Aqua said. Her eyes grew clouded.

“Sorry about last time.”

For a moment, the air between them was tense. Lea held his breath. Then Aqua keeled backward with a hearty laugh, nearly banging the back of her head on the arm of the couch.

“You had better be. Okay. State your business,” she said in the midst of her laughter. The dark bags under her eyes disappeared underneath her cheeks, which had now become deeply rosy. She wiped a solitary tear from her eye with fist.

Roxas stared at Xion with his eyebrows raised in amusement; Xion returned the look.

“You have medicine. And I can probably fix your furnace,” Lea said.

The bags under her eyes returned when she sighed. “I didn’t get a job as a pharmacy technician for people to hound me for drugs, but I’d really appreciate having a working heater.”

Pharmacy technician. That’s it.

“It’s cold medicine and some prescription stuff. Rox, hand her the list,” Lea said. Roxas complied, pulling a wrinkled piece of notebook paper from his pants pocket.

Aqua examined the questionable handwriting. “I can do that; these are easy enough to find.”

“Xion, do you need anything?”

Xion recited the name on the bottle she kept on her nightstand. She’d had the same prescription for so long that the act of saying it was probably stored somewhere in her lips’ muscle memory.

Aqua grabbed a stray pen from the coffee table and scribbled it on Roxas’ note. “Okay, uh-huh,” she hummed, clicking the pen a few times before returning it to the coffee table. She discarded her hoodie in favor of a navy blue peacoat that was draped over one of the chairs at the kitchen table and slipped into a pair of black boots. “I’ll be back in a bit.”

She reached to open the door, but it opened before her fingers met the handle. Amidst the rush of freezing air Xion could see the shadow of a tall figure standing in the doorframe, trailing a few dead leaves into the foyer.

Aqua’s neutral expression transformed into an enthusiastic smile. “Hey, Terra! You’re back early.” She greeted him with an energetic pat on the shoulder.

There was a bright spot within Terra’s shadow. Xion’s heart jumped to her throat. Next to him stood a girl; under her arm she carried a notebook. She had a gentle smile and apologetic eyes.

Xion wanted to call her name, but no sound left her lips. She mouthed it to herself in silence.

Naminé.

Chapter Text

At the back of the school, there were tiny soundproofed band practice rooms where Xion liked to hole away in her free time. The band kids favored the large band room at the other end of the hall, so the rooms were always empty. Out of sight, out of mind; no one ever bothered her there.

For the first two months of her freshman year of high school, Xion ate her lunch in the company of the spinet piano (there was one on every practice room, but she liked the one with the black finish). Sometimes she played it, but mostly she sat on its wooden bench and poked at the contents of her thermos. Picking out the baby corn to discard. Picking out the lotus root to save for last. Until one day in the beginning of November, it rained, and she had a visitor.

She had been playing the piano that day--something slow and melancholy--when the door opened suddenly. She stared wide-eyed and startled at the figure in the doorway who had broken her mental bubble, her hands frozen in place hovering above the keys. It was a boy with fire engine red hair, pushed back and limp with rainwater. Around his neck he wore a yellow tartan scarf, but the rest of his ensemble was entirely black. He was carrying his backpack by one strap with his hand, like he had only just slipped it off one shoulder in preparation to dump it on the floor of a presumably empty practice room.

“Um, sorry, do you want me to leave--” Xion hurriedly screwed the lid back onto her thermos and prepared to get up, but the boy walked in and threw his backpack on the ground anyway.

“Naw. Don’t mind me. Keep playing.” He sat down in a chair at the opposite end of the room and produced a flip-phone from his pocket, which he then proceeded to tap at with his thumbs.

Xion kept staring at him. Now that he was closer, she could see just how tall he was. He was definitely older; maybe a junior? A senior? Under his scarf was a black choker. His nails were not black with nail polish, but with Sharpie marker. He had multiple piercings in each ear. And... was he wearing eyeliner?

“Um.” Xion mumbled. But the boy did not look up. Stiffly, she turned back to the piano and resumed playing.

But after some time, a voice floated over from the other end of the room: “God, that’s sad.”

“What?”

“The song you’re playing. It’s really sad.” At last the boy looked up from his phone. Xion could see that his eyes were a deep shade of jade, stark in contrast to his red hair, narrow and catlike.

“Gymnopedie No.1. By Erik Satie.” Xion almost whispered it. “I can play something else.”

“No,” the he said. “It goes with the weather.”

Xion played until the bell rang. The boy shoved his phone back into his pocket, and slinging his backpack over one shoulder, he shuffled past her to the door. He opened it, then paused to tilt his head toward her.

“My name’s Lea, by the way.”

“I’m Xion.”

“See ya ‘round.” And then he disappeared into the hallway amongst the passing crowd.

Xion could hear the ocean. It was incredibly loud, like when she held a seashell up to her ear and the sound of the waves drowned everything out. But slowly, she heard Lea’s voice come into focus above the endless roar.

“Xion. Xion. Xion, shit, are you okay? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.” His voice sounded tinny and far away.

“I think… maybe…. I have,” she mumbled slowly. The ocean waves in her ears suddenly became waves of nausea; she clapped a hand over her mouth and willed herself not to throw up. Vomiting in front of a bunch of pretty girls was not very high on her list of things she wanted to do today.

Lea, still on the back of the couch, hadn’t heard her. But Roxas--who had been sitting next to her the entire time--was staring at her with his eyes wide in concern. When her head finally returned to her body and the nausea subsided she realized that he had a gentle grip on her wrist.

“Sorry; head rush,” Xion said, audibly this time. She felt Roxas let go.

From the perspective of the doorway Xion was hidden, though she could see the faces of Aqua and the others from where she sat. They had not noticed brief commotion. Xion watched the tall figure--Terra, was it?--slip off a dark grey car coat and drape it over the nearest chair. Naminé started to remove the wool cardigan she’d been wearing, but she’d slipped off no farther than her elbows before tugging it back over her shoulders while Aqua apologized for the broken heater.

There was still a tumult of conflict boiling in Xion’s stomach; the nausea was gone but adrenaline continued to simmer there. She couldn’t pick out which emotions were part of the horrendous cocktail and running outside to let her feelings cool off and congeal into something decipherable did not seem to be an option. Her first inclination (aside from vomiting) was to leap up and embrace Naminé. The second, which crept up from somewhere dark in her heart, was to act petty. How come you never called? Didn’t you care enough not to forget?

“Oh--hey, Lea.” Terra only seemed mildly surprised to see Lea hanging off the back of the couch until he leaned to the side and raised his eyebrows, looking somewhat more surprised than he did a moment ago. “You’re hiding two more kids back there.”

Lea grinned and sat up, extending his arm in a wide sweeping gesture as if he was an entertainer presenting something amazing. “This one’s Roxas and this one’s Xion.”

Xion saw Naminé’s head snap in Lea’s direction but did not move from where she stood, holding her notebook against her midriff with both arms crossed over it and her fingers tightening around its edges ever so slightly. It seemed Xion’s next action had been decided for her. So she took a deep breath and stood up.

Naminé’s eyes were so wide Xion thought she might trip and fall in. All of a sudden she was being pulled awkwardly over the couch and into the ( very nice smelling ) cardigan of Naminé, head resting against her warm shoulder, fair hair and wool tickling her cheek. There was a butterfly migration happening in her stomach and no one in the room could see it--and though he said nothing, she thought she saw an amused glint in Lea’s narrowed eyes. I’m going to have a cardiac episode, Xion thought. The embrace lasted for an all-too-short moment, but when she pulled away she gently took her hand.

“It’s really good to see you again,” Naminé breathed.

Any sour feelings Xion had harbored dissolved in the wake of the gentle smile of the girl who was now holding her hand over the back of the couch. Like those two rocks, separated by an ocean, connected by a rope--no, no, no, no. Xion moved so that she wasn’t obstructed by a giant piece of stuffed fabric and could stand directly in front of her. Her face hurt and she realized it was because she was grinning.

Naminé let go of Xion’s hand to gesture at her face. “You cut your hair.”

“I did.”

“I like it. It looks cute on you.”

The next hour or so passed strangely--conversation came so comfortably it was as if the year and a half of radio silence had never happened. They talked about school of course--what classes they were taking, who they ate lunch with, some bullshit their classmates tried to pull--but that was almost a formality. Xion talked about Lea and Roxas, and how she ended up moving in with Lea because he was the only one she knew to go to. Naminé mentioned moving from her parents’ house in Santa Rosa to live with cousins in Palo Alto.

By the second hour, Xion was hanging off the couch with her back on the floor and her legs resting on the cushions; Naminé sat with her legs weighing down Xion’s shins and she was saying something about how she only ever spent her SAT prep class doodling in the margins of the test prep book and how she was glad she did because now it didn’t matter that she never payed attention. At some point Lea had abandoned his perch to work on the furnace; Roxas was gone as well, so she assumed he must’ve left to keep Lea company. Aerith and Leon were still working on their respective laptops frozen in concentration, though Aerith still seemed to have a perpetually steaming cup of coffee in her lap somehow.  Terra was stationed at one of the larger monitors with Naminé’s notebook on his lap, which he glanced down at every so often and frowned when his gaze returned to his monitor. Xion could feel the blood pooling in her head but she was too tired to sit up so she alternated between staring at the undersides of Naminé and Aerith’s chins. She wondered idly how many cups of coffee was behind Aerith’s friendly disposition.

“So what’s with the laptops, really?” Xion mumbled from the floor, the sensation of blood in her head beginning to feel like TV static.

Aerith’s upside down smile looked strange. “Leon, Aqua, and I are making a database for people who are willing to offer their skills and services to help others and have already given their contact info. Like how Lea came to ask for medication because Aqua and I have access to it. Terra and Naminé are working on an app. And Aqua and Terra’s little brother is talented at finding bugs in code.”

“Naminé, you know how to make apps?”

“I mostly design the layouts while Terra does the coding,” Naminé explained. “I’d show you, but he’s got my notebook.”

“That’s so cool,” Xion said. It really was. Naminé was so cool. The TV static in her head was becoming intense; she tried to sit up but her stomach found this disagreeable. Again she cupped a hand over her mouth and squeezed her eyes shut until the feeling went away.

Suddenly there was a metal banging sound ( “Ow, fuck--” yelled a voice from somewhere in the house) followed by a rumbling, and then the furnace roared to life. An exclamatory “Hell yeah” echoed out from the hallway, followed by Lea marching proudly into the living room with Roxas close behind him.

Terra shifted in his chair to face him. “You really fixed it! I don’t know how you ever learned how to fix a furnace, but I’m not gonna question it.”

Lea shrugged and rubbed the back of his head. “Learned how to jumpstart a car before I learned how to drive it. My dad used to be a handyman.”

“We all have our weird secrets, I guess.”

Eventually Aqua returned with a grocery bag weighing heavy with orange pills bottles and multiple bottles of Nyquil, and she was wearing a few dead leaves in her hair. She shed her coat on a kitchen chair and noticing the roar of the furnace, said, “Lea, you really did fix the furnace!”

“Man was always a mystery,” Terra murmured, turning to sit sideways in his chair and motioning for Aqua to come nearer. When he whispered, “You have leaves in your hair,” she bowed and allowed him to pick them out.

“Aqua, you’ve gotta have weird secrets, too. You can’t just be a stand-up gal with good grades all the time,” Lea teased.

“Maybe this isn’t terribly weird, but she likes to make homebrew kombucha. But I suppose as a biology major, it’s not the strangest thing she’s ever put in the fridge,” Terra said.

“Kombucha, really? The fermented shit with boogers in it?”

“It’s not a booger, Lea; it’s a bacterial culture called the ‘mother,’ and it--”

“ Please stop explaining kombucha to me.”

Aqua’s rolling laughter filled the room. Still on the floor with static in her head and Naminé’s legs pinning her own legs to the couch cushions, Xion felt warm. She felt incredibly lucid and yet outside of her body at the same time, but it passed when she finally managed to sit upright and noticed that it was dark outside. Roxas said something about needing to go home.

When Xion stood with Lea and Roxas in the foyer slipping on her shoes, Naminé hugged her goodbye--but in the midst of their embrace she felt her slip something in the pocket of her bomber jacket.

The drive home was quiet. Xion sat in the backseat curled into herself with her feet propped against the back of the passenger seat. When they reached Roxas’ house, the porchlight was on. The door opened before he reached it and Xion could see the silhouette of his brother in the doorway, reaching out to Roxas and pulling him into a hug. Xion felt something gnawing at her insides, making her feel hollow.

When Lea started the car again she unbuckled herself and wriggled her way into the passenger seat. A block or so down the road he pointed to her pocket, but didn’t look at her.

“Probably not my business, but you should already know I’m nosy as hell and I saw the cute blonde girl put something in your pocket.”

Xion fished out a folded piece of notebook paper with something hastily scrawled in pink highlighter. It took her a few moments to make out in the dark--written so that it took up the entire page was a phone number.

“Holy shit, a girl’s digits. Way to go, Xion.” He punched her shoulder playfully.

Xion held the piece of notebook paper delicately in her hands for the rest of the drive.

Somewhere around 3 AM, Xion crossed paths with Lea in the hallway on the way to the bathroom. He caught her by the shoulder and even though he didn’t need to whisper it because they were the only ones in the house and they were both awake, said, “Hey… I’m glad you found that friend of yours.” And then, even more quietly as he ambled back to his room, “You gotta hold onto her.”

Xion stood alone in the dark hallway for a while, just lacing and unlacing her fingers.

The first time Xion met Roxas, he was crying.

Lea had joined Xion for lunch in the practice room for the past month; at first, he only came on the days it was raining (which wasn’t terribly often), and then the days he complained it was too cold, and then the days he said something or other about avoiding someone, until eventually he was there nearly every day. Used to be in a band, he said, used to use to the band rooms to practice with a friend. That friend played keyboard; he was good at it, he said. He had another friend who he spent most of his time with since then, maybe he’d even call him his best friend.  Xion listened to him talk while she played the piano. He talked so much about everything, while revealing hardly anything about himself.

One day (it was raining) Lea walked into the room with his arm over the shoulder of a boy whose hair was soaked with rainwater and cheeks stained with tear tracks. His face was twisted into a dark scowl. His eyes were severely bloodshot and the blue of his irises shone bright with fiery indignation under the shadow of his furrowed brows.

He halted when he saw Xion and fought to remove himself from Lea’s arm. “There’s someone here already,” he hissed.

“I know. I wanted you to meet my friend,” said Lea, pushing him inside and shutting the door behind them.

“So I could cry in front of them? The fuck, Lea?”

“Calm down, Roxas. This is Xion.”

Roxas stopped fighting the arm slung around his shoulder and stood still. For a moment his face relaxed when he wiped his nose on of the sleeve of his jacket.

“ You’re Roxas,” Xion said to him. “It’s nice to meet finally meet you.”

“Oh. Lea talks about you sometimes, too.”

“Great! Now you’re both acquainted,” Lea interrupted. “I’m gonna get you some cookies from the a-la-carte line. Be right back.”

Being left alone with the friend of a friend was possibly one of the most uncomfortable social experiences to ever exist. Maybe worse than with a complete stranger, who did not already have a version of you in their head. They wouldn’t sit quietly at the other end of the room, lining up the real you and the projection of you in their mind. Xion supposed the Roxas in her head didn’t match the Roxas in the room (who was now sitting on the floor with his back resting against a pile of backpacks, staring blankly at the ground with his legs straight out in front of him in his despondence) but she supposed that hardly anyone in life ever matched her idea of them anyhow. She might have imagined him closer to Lea’s age and maybe with a similar flavor of dress, but he had no piercings and no makeup and wore nothing more conspicuous than a flannel over a plain tee-shirt and jeans that looked a size too large. There were tears still rolling down his cheeks, but he made no effort to wipe them away.

Xion sat stiffly at the piano with her thermos eating slowly and trying to keep herself from crunching too loudly on the lotus root. This went on for an agonizing few minutes--Roxas on the floor staring at his shoes, Xion trying her damndest to subdue her eating noises--before Roxas broke the silence.

“You play?” He pointed behind her to the piano.

“Uh, yeah, a little.”

“What kind of stuff can you play?”

“Classical, mostly.”

“Know anything else?”

“Just some depressing piano stuff.”

Roxas’ eyebrows lifted ever slightly. Xion took it to mean that he wanted her to play something, so she shuffled through her mental sheet music book until she found something she liked. Something contemporary that her piano teacher hated and never let her play. (Not complicated enough, too simple and repetitive. Not classical, so it was trash.) Her piano teacher was an idiot; maybe she should go back in time and join Lea’s band, so she could run away and become their second keyboardist.

After a few moments Xion heard a hum of approval. “I like it,” sighed Roxas as he shifted so he could lie down with his head on the pile of backpacks.

“Would you believe this song is called ‘Monday?” She succeeded in eliciting a light chuckle from him, and then a few sniffles.

A few more moments passed before Roxas spoke again. “I got into a fight with someone,” he started in a low voice. “They said something awful about my brother, so I punched them. And then my brother got mad at me for punching someone.”

“You didn’t have to tell me,” Xion said.

“Listen, then you’d just wonder forever why the fuck I was crying and I don’t like the idea of someone thinking about my personal business that much. And you don’t seem like someone who would go around telling the entire school I punched someone and I was the one who cried.”

“You defended your brother; that’s noble. Anything that comes after is whatever. If you cried it just means that you felt passionate about it.” From the corner of her eye Xion could see Roxas crack a tiny smile, though his eyelids were so swollen it looked like he was just squinting.

Lea was three years their senior. The difference between upperclassmen and the freshmen was that, at some point, you become able to internalize your problems. That didn’t mean they went away, just that you could digest them. There was an invisible line that you don’t know you’ve crossed until it’s happened, when you look back and think, “Oh, I was such an idiot; why did I do that? I’d never do that now.” Xion could tell it had already happened to Lea--he was nihilistic and sarcastic, but she’d never seen anything raw and unprocessed show on his face.  But for her, every emotion was too overwhelming and spilled out unchannelled--and she knew that Roxas was the same.

So she realized, as she played the piano and Roxas lay on the floor listening and sniffling, that she felt some sort of kinship. A sort of connection she’d felt maybe once before beginning to thread itself between them. She’d thought that Roxas was almost directly opposite to her who stowed away in the back of the school and played sad piano songs, but when she saw the the indignance burning in his eyes she also saw her own reflection.

Lea eventually returned with the promised cookies. When he closed the door behind him he paused and rubbed the back of his head with an entertained grin on his face, looking at the figure curled against the pile of backpacks with fond eyes.

“Roxas fell asleep.”

Chapter Text

Kairi was sick. It was just a cold, Riku said, but it had been three days since Roxas had brought home a grocery bag filled to the brim with medicine and she had already downed one and a half of the five bottles of Nyquil generously provided by Lea’s friend.

A cold was a cold, but paranoia crept in from the shadows of Sora’s mind. What if it wasn't just a cold? What if it was something that they could have easily treated two months ago, but couldn’t now? What if her coughing was whooping cough? What if her sore throat was Strep?

Their biggest problem at the moment was that she refused to rest. She was out in the backyard in the morning with the tool box and soldering iron and a few large barrels, working on whatever it was that she was so set on finishing for hours. In the afternoon she searched for supplies, fetching and setting up a generator gathering dust in the storage shed, collecting flashlights and batteries, and polishing knives. In the evening she continued to assign herself cooking duties. She was prolonging her cold, Riku said. So at some point, he picked her up and dumped her in bed and told her to stay there, and that he’d make her soup.

Kairi only cooked because she had to, and she was more skilled at it than Sora and Roxas. But Riku was the real chef. He always said he only started cooking because in middle school having cooking as his mandatory elective meant that he got free food every day, and it was better than being in band. Sora knew he was just being humble. He’d made an endless slew of canned and dried goods taste like something he would have willingly put in his mouth, two months ago, before he started having to.

“I’ve been saving these,” Riku said, placing a few bags of frozen vegetables and a box of pasta on the kitchen counter, “For a special occasion, to make chicken noodle soup. I like making it completely from scratch but this is the best I’ve got at the moment. And it doesn’t have chicken, either, so I guess it’s just vegetable soup now.”

“Kairi’ll appreciate it anyway,” Sora said. “You’re a good friend.” He was itching to check on her, but if she finally managed to fall asleep he didn’t want to rouse her. He had not heard her cough echoing from the bedroom in a while; he took that as a good sign.

Riku had his hair in a ponytail, but this time he’d pulled his bangs all the way back and out of his face. Sora leaned over the counter, watching him work. Riku’s light eyes occasionally caught the glint of the vegetable knife reflecting the sunlight through the kitchen window. When he’d gotten all ingredients in one pot and pulled the lid over it to let it simmer, Riku sat himself in a kitchen chair while Sora paced circles in the living room. They were silent for a while until he heard Riku let out a tired sigh.

“It’s just a cold, Sora. When did you start being the worrywart?”

“But--”

“ But you have to make sure she sleeps, and it won’t be anything else.” He leaned back in his chair and extended his arm to catch Sora’s hand as he passed him by. Then he stood, sighed again, and tugged him back into the kitchen. “C’mon.”

The blinds in Kairi’s room were pulled low, the pale winter sun spilling onto her bed in pinstripes. She lay on her back, blankets pulled up to her collarbones, auburn hair spread out behind her head, brows knit together in an expression of discomfort even in her sleep. Balled up tissue paper littered the surface of her blankets. When Sora placed a hand on her forehead she woke with a cough that shook her entire body, and he felt guilty for waking her.

“Riku made you soup.”

She tried to say “thanks” but was interrupted with more coughing as she tried to take the bowl from Riku’s hands. Sora sat down next to her at the edge of the bed, tentatively rubbing her back until her fit passed. When she was still again, she held the bowl in her lap for a moment as if she expected another fit, and when it didn’t come she hunched over and ate it quickly without flinching at the temperature.

“Jesus, Kairi, take your time….? There’s still more if you want it,” Riku told her. Kairi nodded as she returned the empty bowl to him.

When Riku left the room, Sora continued to sit at the edge of her bed. Kairi’s eyes seemed greyer and she had dark bags under her swollen eyelids. The spray of freckles across the bridge of her nose stood out against her pale face. She lay back against the pillow with her face away from him and began to quake again, but she made no sound. It took Sora a moment to realize that she was crying.

“Kairi, what’s wrong?”

“It’s only… It’s just that… I guess I’m just scared.”

“You’re just a little sick, Kairi, it’s all right.”

“That’s not what I meant.” She turned her head to look up at him, disquiet muddling her expression. “This entire time. I don’t know what to do.”

Sora couldn’t find anything to say in response, so he just brushed away the hair that had fallen across her face.

“And--” Another coughing fit interrupted her sentence. “--There’s so much that needs to be done,” she continued, wiping her watering eyes. “It’s late in the year and I need to finish building the rain barrel before it actually starts raining. But all I want… is to build a raft and sail away somewhere.”

“I could help you build a raft.”

“You couldn’t build shit. ” Kairi choked out a laugh and grinned through her tears.

“You’re right.” Sora smiled back at her. “But Kairi. It’s not your job to worry. Please.” He wanted to tell her it was all going to be okay. But he wasn’t sure whether he believed it.

They heard footsteps approaching the door. Kairi hurriedly wiped the rest of the tears from her eyes before Riku entered with a second bowl of soup. She reached up for it, managing to thank him without coughing, and held it delicately in her lap.

“You can just leave the bowl on the nightstand when you’re done eating and I’ll come get it,” Riku said. “Sora, get off the bed and let her go back to sleep.”

Sora reluctantly slipped off the bed and straightened the blankets under where he’d been sitting. He began to lean down to peck her on the cheek, but Kairi quickly slapped hand over his mouth.

“If you kiss me and get sick, I’ll kill you,” she hissed.

Sora pursed his lips under her palm and blew a raspberry, eliciting a yelp of surprise from the hand’s owner. “‘Night, Kairi!” He made a show of skipping out of the bedroom, but when he reached the living room he let himself flop face-first onto the couch and groaned into the cushions. He heard Riku sigh somewhere above him, and then a pair of hands slip under his arms and sit him upright.

“What’s with you?” said Riku, squeezing himself between Sora and the arm of the couch.

“She was crying before you came back in.”

“Kairi crying for once, and not you? She alright?”

“The day’s not over yet. I might still cry.” Riku felt warm and comfortable next to him and Sora was tired, so he let himself lean into his side. “I don’t think it’s anything that the rest of us haven’t already been dealing with. Being stuck in bed just means that her anxiety has nowhere to go, I guess.”

Riku slung an arm over Sora’s shoulder. When he lifted his arm his shirt rode up just slightly so that Sora could see his stomach and the faded relief of stretch marks Riku had gotten during a growth spurt when he was fifteen and had shot up like a bean sprout practically overnight. Now with his head in closer proximity to his chest, Sora felt the vibration of Riku’s hum, the one that meant he was listening. 

The house was quiet save for the faint sound of Kairi coughing in the bedroom. Roxas had left earlier--probably to seek out his own friends. In their solitude, despite Kairi’s illness working his nerves, Sora let himself relax into the small sense of satisfaction that Riku had pulled him closer.

Sora woke sometime in the middle of the night. What time it was, he didn’t know, because he had been startled the sound of raucous shouting and shattering glass coming from outside and didn’t think to check. He bolted out of bed--leaving Roxas to paw drowsily at the empty space next to him--and stumbled to the window that faced the street.

“Sora, what--”

He parted the blinds slightly with his fingers and peeked outside. Moseying down the middle of the street was an uncomfortably large group of teenage boys, and they were laughing and yelling in a way that made the hair on the back of his neck stand on end. Sora noticed that some of them carried baseball bats just as he witnessed one of them swing a bat through the window of a car parked across the street.

Opening the door to their room revealed the concerned face of Riku. His long hair was disheveled and sticking up in strange places, but Sora didn’t have the time to tease him about it. “I was just coming to make sure you guys were alright. What the fuck is happening out there?”

“Assholes,” Roxas hissed from behind Sora.

There was another crash from outside, obnoxious cheering, and under it all, much quieter than the rest--coughing. He opened the front door to find Kairi--still in her flannel pajamas but with her feet bare--sitting on the step. Whether she was trembling because she was cold, frightened, or because she was trying to suppress her coughing, Sora couldn’t tell. Her eyes stared blankly ahead and she appeared to be mouthing something to herself. Her pocket knife was laid across her lap, one hand over the handle, the other slowly thumbing the blunt edge of the blade.

This was not the face of Kairi the fifth-grader who sat out at soccer games with her elbows on her knees and a passionate fire in her eyes for deliberately kicking other players hard in the shins, nor was it the middle-schooler Kairi who had convinced Sora to sneak away from their parents’ campsite at Big Sur and explore a deer trail only to come face-to-face with a coyote—which she chased away by waving her arms and singing “happy birthday” at the top of her lungs and burst into tears immediately afterwards. Sora did not recognize this face.

“I dare you to come closer. I dare you.”

He realized these were the words her lips were forming, a challenge the group across the street were boldly disobeying. They weren’t like the lone coyote at Big Sur; they couldn’t be easily chased away with a birthday ballad. He did not want to bear witness to whatever scene would go down between Kairi and the unwelcome company.

“Please come back inside,” Sora whispered. She continued to stare ahead without making any sound of acknowledgement. “Please,” he said again.

“I can’t.” Her voice was hollow with a fear that had long been etched into her soul.

Sora caught the glint of her pocket knife reflecting the light from the cracked doorway, behind the shadow of Riku. Sora hovered over her shoulder and tentatively placed a hand on her back, hoping the gesture felt reassuring. They stayed that way for a while without moving; the boys continued along the opposite side of the street--unaware of the figure on the step who had been completely prepared to shank them had they threatened the safety of their household--until they disappeared around a corner. And then with a shaky exhale, Kairi stood and ambled slowly back into the house and into her room without another word. Riku was still in the doorway, his face obscured by shadow. Sora stared at him through the darkness.

Not ‘just a cold.’

Sora dreamt about a redwood tree he’d seen at his week at outdoor school in fifth-grade. A fire had once burned inside it and left its insides hollow. It was far too large for him to wrap his arms around, but he had hugged it just for the love of it anyway.

Sora was up almost an hour before the sun rose, and Kairi was still asleep. Riku--a light sleeper and awoken by Sora’s footsteps--blinked at him sleepily from his bed on the couch, and then blinked again with a significantly more puzzled expression as if the commotion last night had caused a spell to befall them à la Freaky Friday (and then Sora had the passing thought that if he was Kairi for a day, he’d finally be able to beat her at an arm wrestling match.) Because Roxas usually slept at least as late as Sora did, they were once again together in solitude.

At some point Sora shuffled out into the backyard where there sat two fruit trees: an orange tree and a persimmon tree. They were both in season and Sora had made a routine of ambling into the backyard and picking an orange or two off the tree for breakfast. He figured he was going to get very tired of oranges very soon, but at the very least he wouldn’t be in any danger of scurvy. He was surprised that Riku, who preferred persimmons, picked himself a single orange as he flashed him a grin.

Back inside, Riku was making somewhat of a commotion pulling cookware out from the cabinet above the oven, grunting and setting pots and pans aside on the kitchen tile when it didn’t seem to be what he was looking for, and that collection was quickly growing. He made a grunt of approval when he retrieved a tin from the farthest reaches of the cabinet, and there came a cacophony of noise when he shoved the cookware he’d surrounded himself back into the cabinet.

“What are you doing?” Sora asked him, peering over his shoulder.

Riku was shuffling items around in a different cabinet now. “Making breakfast,” he said, setting a rather heavy bag of flour on the stovetop.

“You’ve never made breakfast before.”

“Well, I’m doing it now,” he said, placing a few more ingredients on the stovetop. “These are probably about to expire, and... well, just wait and see.”

Sora watched him as he munched on an orange, leaning with his elbow on the kitchen table and a fist under his chin, one foot behind the other, rear in the air. At some point, he saw Riku grate the peel of his orange into a zest before placing the shaved fruit in front of him on the table. The zest went into a mixing bowl and the bowl’s contents were poured into a muffin tin, and then it all went into the oven. Riku stared at the pastries through the oven window with his head tilted slightly to the side before turning back to clean the mess of flour and miscellaneous leavening ingredients off the stove. Sora wet a sponge under the tap to help him clean, and opened his mouth to ask him about why he was suddenly making muffins before Riku interrupted him.

“Y’know,” he began, drying the stovetop with a towel in big sweeps, “The power really would’ve shut off within a day of not being maintained, but it’s been on this entire time without us having to use the generator. And we still have water, too. I guess that must mean there are still people working to keep it all running, but…” Riku paused for a moment to stare at his hand. “...Some part of me wants to feel like we’re being watched out for. Does that sound stupid?”

“It’s not stupid,” Sora said.

Riku hummed and finished drying the stovetop, a shy smile forming on his lips. Sora suddenly wanted to wrap his arms around him and squeeze him tight. That wasn’t uncommon--it was easier to count the times he didn’t feel like hugging Riku. Usually, he acted on the feeling, but there was something about this particular inclination that felt significant. So he kept the feeling to himself.

The aroma of muffins summoned Roxas, who stumbled into the kitchen with his eyelashes glued together with sleep. He rubbed at his face, eyed the oven, opened his eyes as wide as they would go and said, “You made muffins?”

“They’ll be a little bit longer,” Riku informed him.

So Roxas sat himself at his usual spot at the kitchen table and tapped at his phone while he leaned back in his chair with his feet propped on an adjacent chair. “Sora, come here, look--” he held up his phone. “Lea’s friends finally launched the app they were working on, and it’s up in the App Store and everything, so you can download it.”

“What is it?”

“It’s like a sort of neighborhood forum. It doesn’t show your location but it uses it to show posts from people in a certain radius, and you can do stuff like… well say you’re in trouble or something, or you really need supplies you can’t get, you make a post about it and people nearby who can help you respond. Or you can offer stuff and services. I think, I wasn’t really paying attention.”

“So… like Craigslist?” Riku mumbled.

“Not like Craigslist, it’s different--okay, it’s kind of like Craigslist but it’s different. I dunno. Just download it.” Roxas ran his hands through his hair, somewhat exasperated.

Sora pulled his phone from his pocket and installed the app in question. It wasn’t actually like Craigslist; for one, it seemed intuitive and the colors were fun and welcoming. It didn’t make him feel like he was exploring a deeply unconsecrated space. He pereused it for a few minutes before saying, “Hey, we have stuff we can offer, right? I wanna figure out how this app works in practice. What should I put?”

“Willing to trade a shitton of oranges for literally anything else, but preferably food,” said Riku.

Sora laughed as he complied with Riku’s suggestion (though he decided to word it in a more family-friendly matter.)

“‘Morning,” said a voice from behind them. It was Kairi, whose eyes were bright and her face full of color, and her voice was chipper despite still being somewhat phlegmy. The bags under her eyes didn’t seem so dark anymore. “You’re making muffins?”

“Mhm.” Riku retrieved the muffins from the oven and flipped the tin over a large plate, careful not to let them fall apart as he removed them from the tin. He set the plate on the table closest to where Kairi was standing.

“Orange muffins are my favorite,” she said with a wide grin, eyes crinkling in delight.

In seventh-grade, Sora had once mentioned off-handedly that he’d been craving a soda in a flavor that was difficult to find, and that he checked the refrigerator at the nearest grocery store every time he made a trip there after school to buy a box of cherry turnovers with his own money (which was about every other week, and he paid for the baked goods in quarters.) Three weeks later--long after Sora had forgotten he’d ever brought in up--Riku had shown up at their lunch spot and presented to him the soda in the flavor he could never find. He’d hardly said anything more about it than, “You said you like this, right?” though he’d teased him by pressing the cold can against a bare spot on his neck before letting him take it. That’s the way he was sometimes.

So Kairi must have told Riku at some point that she loved orange muffins. Maybe it was years ago, maybe it was days ago; Sora never knew how many small tidbits of information were shuffled away in his mind, or how long he kept them there, just to do something like make Kairi’s favorite muffins. To make life a little less miserable. Sora felt the feeling from before bubbling up in his chest again.

“You sound better,” Sora told Kairi.

“Mhmph,” she said, in the middle of taking a large bite of muffin. She was still in her pajamas (the flannel ones with the pine tree print) and her hair was sticking up a little in the back. Sora thought that if she’d brushed her hair, the image of her shoving baked goods in her face in front of the window at the kitchen table could be in an L.L. Bean magazine. “I’m going back to bed soon, though,” she said when she was finally able to speak. “The rain barrels can wait a day. I’m going to read a book instead.”

“As long as you’re feeling okay.” Do you remember what you did last night?

He noticed Riku giving him a sidelong glance and a slight nod towards Kairi while she wasn’t looking. It had been on his mind since he’d woken up, but he wasn’t prepared to bring it up while she appeared to be a lot less miserable than she’d been the night before, and most of all, lucid. He waved his hand from side to side to signal to Riku that he shouldn’t bring it up, either.

Kairi wrapped up a couple muffins in a paper towel and said she was taking them back to her room before disappearing from the kitchen. Sora snatched one of the remaining muffins for himself before Roxas could attempt to stuff them all in his cheeks at once and retreated to the backyard to eat it.

He stood under the awning and ate the muffin as slowly as he could force himself. He pictured a younger Kairi at the kitchen table and tried to fill in the shapeless figure of the person who used to make orange muffins for her in his mind, and wondered if Riku’s matched up in taste. The image of Riku from earlier--with his hair pulled back and sleeves rolled up, mixing bowl in hand--slipped into his thoughts at some point and wouldn’t leave. They were both images of domesticity but they made him feel two very different ways. Hm. What did Riku substitute for eggs?

The creek was completely dry now. Sora expected rain to fill it soon, but for now he was pleased because it was easier to traverse this way and he did not have to carry his shoes over his shoulder while his toes went completely numb in the water when he came across sections where he could not just hop across the rocks. He planned to check the rabbit snares he’d set earlier. This time he was accompanied by Riku and it put him in a good mood. His body felt light and he couldn’t help bouncing on his toes and kicking up rocks in front of him. Riku, who was decidedly less energetic, just shuffled along behind him.

Sora had set the snares in the sandier areas of the creek where he’d seen rabbits dash about the brambles. He assumed they were at about half-mile intervals, but it was difficult to tell when the creek wound wildly northward all the way to the bay. He memorized the landmarks that told him just about how far he’d gone and how long it would take him to get back. The rope swing was only fifteen minutes from the entrance where they slid down the side of the steep bank. The spot under the overpass that was always filled with a large pool of still water choked with weeds and algae was only another fifteen minutes from that, and so on and so forth. He’d set the snares all the way past the thrones carved out of a block of concrete to the maw of large tunnel which was probably just the entrance to a storm drain; it was about an hour and a half from where they started.

So far they’d had no luck. Most of the snares were untouched, but a couple of them appeared to have been tripped and yet they had caught no rabbit. Still, it hadn’t really dampened Sora’s mood; he simply reset them and planned to check them again in a couple more days. It was a bit easier to stomach the disappointment when he wasn’t alone.

On the return trip, the dark mouth of the storm drain yawned ominously. He walked a little faster and glanced at it only from the corner of his eye just to make sure that nothing was going to come out of it and chase them. He swore he could hear it moaning. It’s just the afternoon breeze going through it , he told himself, still not fully convinced. He almost jumped out of his skin when he felt his phone buzz suddenly in his pocket.

“Hey, what’s up?” Riku was trying to keep himself from laughing but it showed on his face as an awkward smirk.

“Uh, it’s not even a text, it’s a private message from the app Roxas made me download.”

“Hmm, maybe we got an offer on our abundance of oranges. Is this what Animal Crossing is about?”

“The fuck.”

“Wow, rude--”

“No, Riku, look at this.” Sora shoved his phone under Riku’s nose and watched his face twist in perplexion.

“The fuck,” he said.

The message in Sora’s inbox read as such:

lizardsnakesnakelizard lizardsnakelizardlizard lizard lizardsnake lizardlizardlizard lizard tree lizardlizardlizardlizard lizard lizardsnakelizardlizard lizard lizardsnakesnakelizard lizardsnakelizardsnakelizardsnake tree lizardlizard lizard snakesnakesnakesnakelizard snakesnake tree lizardlizardlizard lizardlizard snakelizardsnakelizard snakelizardsnake

“That has to be a joke. Somehow it’s a lot less entertaining than life turning into Animal Crossing,” Riku sighed.

“Why though?”

“Maybe for the same reason those kids went around smashing the windows of empty houses last night. Just to cause chaos.”

“How’s this for chaos,” Sora said as he kicked up the ground, spraying Riku’s shins with pebbles.

“Three out of ten, you’ll have to do better than that.” Riku kicked up a few larger rocks, aiming them for Sora’s calves, though the last one ended up hitting him square in the ankle and caused him to leap up with a yelp.

“Ow! Riku!”

But he was laughing, and Sora was laughing, and they were still kicking pebbles at each other and Riku was saying “Let’s see you dance, cowboy!” in a silly voice. Sora hadn’t felt so light in ages; by the time they reached the overpass with the pool of still water choked with reeds and algae their faces were red and their breaths were ragged. Beyond the pool was a large pile of boulders which required them to climb. Riku made his way to the top first and extended a hand to Sora to help him up the rest of the way.

Sora spotted something curious up ahead he didn’t remember seeing on their way down: hidden within the brambles of a winter-bare blackberry bush was a half decayed grey fox. He felt himself gasp quietly--partly it was because predators always elicited that reaction from him, but partly it was because its state of decay had plunged it further into an uncanny existence.

“Pretty, but kind of gross,” he heard Riku breathe from over his shoulder.

“...Sounds like how you look in the morning.”

“Oh, you’re one to talk.”

They left the fox in the blackberry bush. Sora could feel its eyeless face burning holes in his back the entire way home.

Chapter Text

In the shadow of Hoover Tower, time passed slowly. It was just as well for Xion. The campus around her was not exactly bustling, but it was still surprisingly lively. Well, it was the largest number of people she had seen in one place in a while, at least. Astride the main quad rode ex-students on bicycles, or walking briskly, and hardly ever just lingering.

It hadn’t taken much convincing for Lea to take her back to Palo Alto; apparently Aqua was cashing in whatever favors he’d owed her since high school by having him help her carry supplies across facilities and putting his freakish inherited handyman skills to use by checking miscellaneous equipment. He was less enthusiastic about the fact that it was a twenty minute drive from their house and costed gas, which was now a more finite resource than ever, and he’d already spent a significant portion of his free time making himself ill siphoning it from the abandoned cars parked around townhouse complex. But they went anyway, and Xion got the feeling that Lea was intimidated by Aqua on some level.

Not far from main quad was a path which ran alongside a lawn where Xion was coaching Naminé on Roxas’ skateboard. Xion herself was not much more skilled than being able to stand on it without falling off, so it was really less “coaching” than it was Xion supporting Naminé’s back with one hand and holding her hand with the other while she half pushed, half tugged her along the pathway like a kind of awkward waltz for people who listened to punk rock.

Naminé stumbled backwards suddenly, sending the skateboard rolling down the pathway while Xion caught her sloppily under her arm, but it caused the tote bag she had been carrying over her shoulder to slide down her wrist and spill on the lawn.

“Are you two having fun? ‘Cause I’m not.” Lea appeared in front of them, the skateboard resting in place under his foot. Xion hadn’t noticed him approaching. He was carrying a couple tote bags under his own arms which were bulky with books, and he was slouching forward slightly under their weight.

“How’s it going?” Xion didn’t hide her amused grin.

“Just amazing!” His sarcastic hand gesture was limited by the weight of the books. “Does it look like lugging heavy stuff is within my skillset? Why’s Aqua got me doing this stuff when she’s got that super buff brother of hers!”

“You know, Lea, I don’t know her as well as you do but I’m almost sure she’s just fucking with you at this point,” she said. She heard Naminé muffling a light giggle with her fist.

“I wish she’d just beat me up. It’d be easier.” Lea rolled the skateboard back toward Xion. “See you guys later.” He continued on his way, still slouched forward as he walked.

Xion watched Naminé crouch on the lawn and shove a notepad and card deck into her tote bag before slipping it back over her shoulder. Feeling a bit bored now, Xion gestured at the totebag and asked, “What kind of card games do you know how to play?”

“What? Oh.” Naminé retrieved the deck and held it out in front of her to reveal that it was in fact not playing cards. “These are just tarot cards.”

“Do you play games with them?”

Naminé giggled. “No, these are for divination.”

“Oh.” Xion felt her face flush slightly with embarrassment. Of course, her first reaction to being embarrassed was to embarrass herself further with humor. “Are you, perhaps, some kind of witch?”

“Perhaps.” Naminé was grinning, but her voice was strangely serious.

“Mind if I ask how it works?”

“Here. I’ll show you.” She sat on the lawn and began to shuffle the deck with mesmerizing expertise. “This reading is easy; it only requires one card. Think of a question, but don’t make it too complicated. A simple ‘yes’ or ‘no’ question will work.”

“Okay. What should we eat for lunch?”

Naminé’s laugh was gentle and it made something in Xion’s stomach flutter. “It’s unconventional, but I’ll make it work,” she said. She lay down a single card in front of her. It was a drawing of a man holding a cup with a fish leaping out of it. He looked pretty happy about the fish being in his cup. “The Page of Cups. It usually means a happy surprise of some kind. It’s also associated with intuition and the inner child.”

“So what’s the verdict?”

“Chicken nuggets.”

Xion’s laughter came out as more of a wheeze and she found herself on her side in the grass, clutching her stomach. She saw Naminé giggling with her fist to her mouth and her face all red, the sun behind her head casting it in shadow. Oh, I adore you.

Xion wasn’t entirely sure whether she’d said it out loud. Of course, she knew it already; but she’d known it as a shapeless thought, and now it had words that she could blurt out and ruin absolutely everything. For a second, she was mortified that she did. But Naminé was still laughing, her face was still friendly, her eyes were still gentle. Xion could keep it that way.

They’d reached the point of the afternoon where it wasn’t necessarily late, but the sun was already threatening to set. Somewhere out across the quad a family of deer were wandering, pausing every so often to bow their heads and chew on the dry grass.

Xion strolled with Roxas’ skateboard tucked safely under her arm and watched her shadow making strange shapes on the grass as they walked. Her stomach grumbled and she wished they’d been able to indulge in Naminé’s lunchtime divination. And then she started missing the Jamba Juice location that used to be on campus, and god if she could have a Strawberry Surf-Rider right now she would never ask for anything else in her life.

“Oh, I’ve thought of another question,” said Xion, just to take her mind off her stomach. “Terra is Aqua’s brother? They don’t look anything alike.”

“I don’t need the cards to answer that one. They’re adopted, both of them.”

“Oh.”

Xion tried to picture having a sibling. She was an only child and she had no first cousins, so she couldn’t picture it very well. She figured it was probably something close to what living with Lea was like. There were times she became frustrated with him, because he’d eat snacks she’d been saving for herself and took books from her room without asking and smoked too much and always left the toilet seat up with absolutely no shame in any of it. He put her in a headlock way too often and punched her shoulders a little too hard and--well, this one wasn’t really his fault, but his bones jut out and it hurt her when she hugged him. And yet, no matter how irritated she got with him she never once felt that she wanted him out of her life. Even though it had been a few days since she’d cut up her feet, she still kept the gauze Lea had wrapped around them.

“And then there’s Ven--he’s a lot younger--he’s not related to either of them.”

Xion thought there was something a lot more complicated behind what Naminé was telling her, but it probably wasn’t a story she’d ever get to hear. Aqua and Terra didn’t seem the type to go disclosing their personal business to just anyone, and she hadn’t met Ven so she wasn’t sure if he was just as reserved as they were. She only knew Ven by name; in the short time she’d been around them, Terra and Aqua spoke about him constantly.

Talking about Aqua seemed to have summoned her because as they reached the gate to the main quad, they found her walking towards them with Lea at her side. She was wearing the navy blue peacoat with leggings again, but appeared a little more dressed up than the last time she’d seen her with the addition of black boots and opal earrings which dangled neatly beside her jawbone. She looked tired.

“Hi, you two,” she said when they came closer. Even her voice sounded tired. “Terra and I are about ready to go home, so I won’t keep you any longer. We’ll give you a ride home, Naminé.”

“Thanks. You should bring Ven next time, so Xion can meet him.”

“Of course. I asked him this morning if he wanted to come, but he said he wanted to sleep more. But next time we’ll bring him for sure. He’ll like you.”

“Is Aqua okay?” Xion asked Lea on the drive home. “She looked really tired.”

Lea lifted one hand off the steering wheel to rub the back of his head through his mane of hair and sighed. “I’m never really sure. She’s kind of always been like that.”

“Maybe she’s getting sick?”

“Could be. Rox said Kairi’s been pretty sick the past few days.” And then after a beat, “Roxas’ brother’s friend--the other one living with them,” he clarified when Xion gave him a blank look.

Oh, Kairi. The one with the cute freckles. She wondered if they were happy about living together, the way Aqua and her brothers were. She wondered if they were happy to be friends or if they called each other something else. The hollow feeling from the other night when they’d taken Roxas home made itself known again. It hurt in her bones, and her muscles, and probably her spleen, but she couldn’t tell.

“Do you think,” said Roxas, with one foot planted firmly in the middle of his skateboard and the other tapping at the back end so that the front wheels repeatedly lifted up and came down with a clattering onto the asphalt, “That maybe we actually all died and now we’re ghosts?”

Xion walked alongside him in the bicycle lane with her hands shoved deep into the pockets of her bomber jacket. “How come?”

“You know how ghosts tend to haunt the places they’ve died? It’s just that we could go almost anywhere we want to, but we still stay here like we’re haunting our own houses.”

“I didn’t stay in my own house. Riku and Kairi didn’t stay in their own houses.”

“Maybe that means you died at Lea’s house, and Riku and Kairi died at my house. But still, what’s stopping us from just… going wherever we want? We could go live in a rich person’s house in like, Carmel or Hollywood or something.”

“Uh, well. I guess the thing that’s stopping us is the fact that we can’t drive.”

“Not us, but Lea knows how to drive, and Riku, and Terra and Aqua. Stop poking holes in my thoughts, Xion.”

“Fine, Roxas, you can go to Carmel or whatever and go golfing by yourself at Pebble Beach. Being a ghost is not stopping you.”

Most of the houses across the street from Roxas’ house had broken windows. A lot of the cars sitting out in front of them had been smashed in as well. With the days growing colder and more leaves on the ground than on the trees, it all gave the scene an appropriately post-apocalyptic feel as they wandered slowly down the street.

They were silent for a while before Roxas said in a low voice, “Kairi had some sort of freakout the other night. And I don’t think she remembers it.” He kicked his skateboard into the air and caught it with one hand. He tucked it safely under his arm and slowed to match Xion’s pace.

“Is she alright?”

“The weirdest part was that she was super cheery the next morning. She slept in and then she went back to bed and didn’t do anything for the rest of the day. Although, she ate about seven muffins at once... which I’ve seen her do before. So I guess that was the normal Kairi. But the night before, she doesn’t remember it. It’s like she became a completely different person.”

“Lea mentioned that she got sick. Could that be it?”

“But she has a cold. A really nasty cold, but no fever or anything.” He let out a sigh, staring at his feet while he walked. “It made Sora really upset. I dunno, that night was scary for a lot of reasons.”

For a while there was just the shuffle of their feet on the ground with the occasional crunch of leaves and the sound of crows flying overhead, calling out to each other that it was time to go home. She supposed Roxas felt that it was too quiet because he pulled out his phone from one pocket and a pair of earbuds from another, offering her one earbud as he plugged the other end into the headphone jack.

“What do you wanna listen to?” He asked.

“You choose.”

Roxas chose something by The Antlers. He looped one arm around hers--which was still shoved into the pocket of her jacket--and they walked as close to middle of the street as they dared to get.

“Hey, let’s talk about that Naminé girl and how I watched you nearly have a heart attack in front of her.”

“Oh my god. Roxas, I swear, if a car comes along right now I am going to push you in front of it.”

“She gave you her number. ”

“Did Lea tell you that? I’m going to push him in front of a car, too.”

“ You told me that.”

Xion huffed a bit. “I met her at tech camp a couple years ago, she never called me, and I never expected that I’d see her again.”

Roxas opened his mouth like he meant to say something but couldn’t seem to decide what, so he closed it again. Xion tilted her head and gave him a shrug.

“Yeah, I know, it feels like something I would’ve talked about before,” she said. “It was--she was maybe--we just clicked . I’m terrible at making friends, and she became the closest friend I’d ever had in two days.”

She could feel the vibration of Roxas’ hum through her shoulder.

“When she didn’t keep in touch, I thought I’d just misunderstood it all.”

“Aw, Xion…” Roxas took the earbud out of his ear. “I’m sorry. Anyone would be lucky to have you as a friend. If Naminé couldn’t see that, well...” He said, furrowing his brows as he trailed off.

“Thanks.”

Her stomach felt sour.

Chapter Text

Riku wasn’t sure when they’d become too old to play pretend. Maybe it sometime between the day he’d begun middle school and the day Sora got a concussion during a game of Capture-the-Flag, when they’d smacked foreheads on accident and Riku had come away with not much more than a bump on his head.  He’d sat with him at the doctor’s office for too long, shoulder-to-shoulder, while Sora stared dazedly straight ahead.

Riku pretended other things. That when he and Sora sat idly together under the walnut tree in the middle of the summer, he didn’t think it felt like a scene from a young adult novel. That he didn’t like sharing a twin sized bed when they slept over even though they’d both recently had growth spurts, because it meant they could sleep closer together. That at some point his stupid, airheaded smile hadn’t turned his stomach into the latest destination for the monarch butterfly migration.

Middle school came with the reality of pain--pain in strange, indeterminable places. In his muscles, in his bones, and probably his spleen, but he couldn’t tell.

Riku had grown several inches then. When the skin on his hips and stomach became marked with angry red striations, he was terrified that the pain was finally splitting him open. But Sora said, no, he’d seen those marks appear on trees as they grew bigger--and that with his silver hair, he reminded him of a birch or an aspen. That made Riku’s heart ache, too.

Sora didn’t pretend anything. He cried all the time; he cried when he watched movies, he cried when he pet dogs on the street, he cried the time they camped in Yosemite and a yellow jacket stung him on the shoulder. He was bad at dancing, but he did it anyway. He sang Carly Rae Jepsen under the overpass in the creek where his voice echoed, and he didn’t care who heard him.

Riku envied him. If Sora’s heart ever hurt, it was because it was too big and it pressed against his ribcage instead of weighing heavy in his stomach, as Riku’s own did. That was what he chose to believe--for a while, anyway.

Sora was by himself in the creek again. Riku always hoped that he’d come back with something; partly, it was because they were all starving for something that wasn’t canned, frozen, or dried. God knows how long he could eat a mix of canned and dried beans as his main source of protein before he Dutch-ovened himself to death in his sleep. But mostly, it was because he hated to see Sora masking his disappointment when he came home empty handed. He was too easy to read and it hurt sometimes.

Riku spent the morning helping Kairi finish installing the rain barrels. She’d created them from tin drums she’d found and wheeled each individually back home in the rusty Radio Flyer wagon. She’d already done most of the complicated work including sautering spigots onto them herself, so Riku’s job was mostly to carry and set cinder blocks under the downspouts and to place the barrels carefully onto them, holding them steady while she connected them to the spouts.  

She was feeling better; her coughing had died down, her voice was no longer phlegmy, and she was singing under her breath while they worked. When they were done she stretched and beamed at him, her face bright pink and a little bit sweaty, and then gazed proudly back at the barrels standing around the sides of the house.

At some point--after they’d both taken a shower--Riku found himself again with Kairi. This time they were in front of the TV, watching a movie. She sat on the couch with her legs dangling over Riku’s shoulders while he sat in front of her on the floor, her extensive collection of nail polish beside him on the coffee table. She’d insisted that he blow dry his hair so that he wouldn’t catch a cold, and then she wanted to dry it herself, and then she wanted to braid it. So now Riku was sitting on the floor as Kairi worked on separating locks of his hair with chip clips, he was painting each of her toenails a different color, and The Neverending Story was in the DVD player.

“So if you’re the mountaineering expert, how come Sora’s the one out trying to catch all the game?” Riku asked. He wasn’t one to talk during movies, but Kairi running his hands through his hair was beginning to make him sleepy and he wanted to at least stay awake long enough to finish her nails.

“I told you; he’s actually better at it than I am.”

“You never told me anything like that.”

“Really? I never told you that story?”

“There’s a story?”

Kairi sighed as she tugged at his hair. “I don’t set traps. The short part of the story is that Sora is actually a lot better at hunting that I am. He’s got a sharp eye, you know. The long part is…” She took a breath and tied the ends of two tiny braids together. “You know how I was born in Big Sur? I used to live in this house in the mountains where there aren’t any towns because it’s too rugged. We grew some of our own vegetables and had a chicken coop; my dad set traps around the house to keep coyotes from raiding the coop and deer from eating the garden. This was also when I completely ignored everything my dad said. I used to play with his pocket knife because I thought it looked like a whale even though he told me not to. I used to go wander in the woods when he was out of the house even though he told me not to. So one day when he was gone--I was about five, I think--I decided to steal his knife and play with it outside.”

“Wow, Kairi, living on the edge.”

She kicked her heel against his chest, causing Riku to slip and paint one long streak of pink across the top of her foot.

“I got my leg caught in a coyote snare. I was in the middle of the woods and no one could hear me crying. Somehow I was smart enough to remember that I had a knife, that knives were for cutting, and that I could use the knife to cut myself out of it. How well do you think a five year-old can use a knife? Not very well. I had to get ten stitches.” Riku leaned back to find her giving him a hard stare. “And that’s why I don’t set traps.”

He worked at scrubbing the stray nail polish off her skin with a cotton ball. Above her ankle, there was a thick, puckered scar which wrapped around her leg like a vine. She sighed again--a tired sigh he felt on the back of his neck, which was now bare as she fixed a larger volume of his hair into a thick braid.

Somewhere in the background, Atreyu screamed and cried for his horse drowning in the Swamp of Sadness.

“I’m done,” Kairi announced, letting Riku’s hair fall with the softest thump against his back. She kicked her legs up, causing him to mispaint her skin again.

“Well, I’m not. Hold still.”

Just then the front door opened and Riku could hear Sora’s excited voice shouting something unintelligible, but he could hear his name among the verbal jumble. Kairi leapt off the couch despite his insistence to stay put and ran for the door. He groaned and set down the jar of nail polish before following her.

Sora stood in the doorway; his cheeks were red and flecked with dirt, and the hems of his jeans were muddy and rolled up to his knees. He was beaming as he held something behind his back. “I did it!” He said, and swung his prize around for them to see: in his arms, he cradled two rabbits.

Kairi squealed and clapped, bouncing on her toes as she placed her hands over his. “You did it!”

“Congrats,” Riku said.

Sora’s grin was cartoonishly wide. It looked good on him. It felt like the sun had come out from the cloud it had been hiding behind for months.

“Your hair looks really nice, Riku,” he said with the same broad grin. “Hey, where’s my brother?”

Riku’s mind went staticy for a moment, so he just patted the back of his head out of habit at the mention of his hair. Living here wasn’t good for his heart. “Not sure, we sent him out to find groceries.”

Kairi ushered Sora inside and took the rabbits from his arms. “Take a shower, you’re gross,” she teased.

He stuck his tongue out at her before leaving his shoes and backpack by the door and disappearing into the bathroom.

Kairi began to make her way to the backyard door but turned back to face Riku before stepping outside, grinning and putting a finger to her lips. “You might not wanna see this part.”

As it turned out, one way to gut a rabbit was just to squeeze it (which she did over the compost pile before kicking dirt over it). Riku was horrified, but he watched the rest of the process with rapt attention; he was squeamish and yet he couldn’t look away. It was unnerving, the ease with which living things came apart.

Kairi could not squash a cockroach, but she could take apart two rabbits within half an hour. By the time Sora was out of the shower she had the pelts in a pile on the kitchen counter and two tupperware tubs of meticulously divided meat--one placed in the fridge and the other in the freezer. She gave Riku a hard stare, placed an index finger delicately on his nose, and said, “Your turn. Don’t mess it up.”

If there was one thing Riku was sure about Kairi, it was that at birth she had inherited a piece of John Muir’s soul. She’d wriggled her way into their lives faster than Riku could stop her, with her thoughtful crafts and Teva brand sandals and cute freckles. She always smelled like redwoods.

Sora loved the new girl from Big Sur in his third grade class immediately. Riku regarded her with trepidation. She used a handmade slingshot to strike him with green almonds until he quit protesting her presence when she ate lunch with them, and then she fixed the spots on his ankles where she’d hit him a little too hard and made him bleed with Band-Aids. She said to him, “I’m not trying to take away your friend. I’m trying to be your friend, too--if you’d stop being a jerk and just let me.” He decided he liked her after that.

Kairi could make anything if it was out of rope or wood. She was always working on a new project. Once a month or so, she gave him something--a macrame bracelet with blue and yellow beads, a block of wood with his name carved in it in cursive, the slingshot she’d used to hit him with green almonds. Sometimes, it was simpler--a perfectly smooth pebble, half a sand dollar, a piece of asphalt sparkling with mica. Riku learned it was useless to try to make her stop.

He began to forget she hadn’t always been there to stick rocks and beads in his backpack when he wasn’t looking.  

It was the best thing he had ever eaten. He never touted his own cooking skills, but Riku could let himself shed humbleness for just one night. Roxas’ plate had never been so clean. Kairi’s head was in her hands and she was whining that the heartburn she was going to get in about an hour was completely worth it. Sora was hunched over, facedown on the table. Riku considered the evening a success.

“Oh,” started Sora, sitting up suddenly. “I meant to show you guys this.” He pulled his phone from his pocket and held it under Riku’s nose. It was opened to a message, which read as the following:

snakelizardsnakelizard lizardsnakelizard lizard lizard snakelizardsnake tree snake lizardlizardsnake snakelizard snakelizard lizard lizardsnakelizardlizard

“Again?”

“Aw, are you getting cyberbullied?” Roxas teased.

Sora shrugged.

“And that’s the second one you’ve gotten?” Kairi’s eyebrows were raised, but knit together ever slightly. Then she tilted her head downwards, resting a few fingers over her lips thoughtfully. “Snakes and lizards, huh.”

Roxas began to whistle the X-Files theme. Sora squished his cheeks with one hand, turning Roxas’ whistling into a pathetic raspberry.  

Riku woke to an ache in his back and the paperback version of The Neverending Story spread across his chest. He’d meant to read on the couch (which was as close as he could get to reading in bed these days) but he must have dozed off at some point. The TV was on, but the volume was turned almost all the way down. He could see the outline of Kairi asleep on the floor, illuminated by the TV’s glow.

As his mind arose from the fog of sleep he became aware of a mumbling coming from beyond the hallway.

“We can’t keep… empty...”

“Mom and Dad…”

Then anxious pacing—a thump, thump, thump like someone was walking on their heels. A shuffling sound. Dresser drawers being opened and closed. The voices began to escalate in volume.

Fast asleep on the floor, Kairi was completely oblivious to the noise. Riku stayed where he was; he lifted the book off his chest and peeked to see where he left off. Within its pages, Atreyu screamed and cried for his horse drowning in the Swamp of Sadness.

“We can’t. I don’t want to.”

More pacing. Hissing whispers he couldn’t understand.

“Leave it the way it is.”

“For how long? Forever?”

“Is that so bad?”

‘With every step we take, the sadness grows in my heart. I’ve lost hope... And I feel so heavy, so heavy…’

“It’s not considerate.”

“But my feelings aren’t good enough for you to consider, huh?”

“That’s not--”

Scuffling. A thump like something soft had been thrown against the wall, followed by a yelp. The patter of feet running into the twins’ bedroom.

“Roxas, please,” called Sora’s voice from the other side of the house, winded and desperate.

‘You mustn’t let yourself go. Come. Pull yourself out or you’ll sink.’

The light spilling out from the bedroom revealed the silhouette of Roxas hurriedly slipping his shoes on without bothering to tie them, fleece-lined flannel shirt draped over his shoulders, skateboard under his arm. He disappeared beyond the front door, slamming it in his brother’s face with a force that made the house shudder.

‘I can’t make it. Go on alone. Don’t bother about me. I can’t stand the sadness anymore. I want to die!’

Sora stood before the empty doorway in his pajamas, his shoulders slumped, fingers disappearing into the too-long sleeves of his shirt as they curled into a fist. Riku watched him lean forward and press his forehead against the door and stand there for an achingly long time. He didn’t move until Riku exhaled the breath he didn’t know he’d been holding. Slowly, Sora shifted his gaze upward, his watery and doleful eyes barely visible from beneath his browline. He mouthed something; it took Riku a moment to realize it had been his name. His heart felt like it had been shredded with a pair of forks like a roast of meat in a slow cooker recipe. He sat up and closed his book.

All at once Sora was beside him, his face pressed firmly into the hollow above his collarbone, thick hair tickling his nose. It smelled like oranges. Riku wrapped his arms around him and held him tight. Pressed awkwardly against his side, Sora felt small.

“I miss my parents,” Sora whispered into his neck.

“I know.”

‘It’s the sadness that has made me so heavy. That’s why I’m sinking. There’s no help.’

Chapter Text

When Roxas was born, he’d cried because he was angry. He had a body that never quit hurting; why, he didn’t know, and it only made him angrier. It came from his deepest core and he couldn’t get it out, couldn’t just dig into his chest and pull it through his ribcage, even though he tried. He could cut his flesh to ribbons. He could abuse his medication. He could do all those things, but none of it ever soothed him. He hurt and hurt and hurt.

Roxas spent most of his time alone. He taught himself to skateboard, because his parents wouldn’t let him have a trick bike to ride on the new dunes at the park and it was next coolest thing. He learned from watching the older kids. He was good at it.

One day, a few months before he was to turn twelve, he heard music drifting from across the other side of the park as he rode his skateboard aimlessly up and down the pathway. It was underproduced, the singing wasn’t good, and it didn’t even have much of a melody--and yet, it resonated with something inside him. He loved it. He wanted to get closer to it.

A group of about five teenagers of varying ages sat on top of the tables in the picnic area, a boombox in their midst, cigarettes burning between some of their fingers.

The first one to notice him approach was a girl with an intimidatingly cold stare, which she turned on him and hissed, “What do you want?” Her straw colored hair was slicked back, except for a couple stray cowlicks. She was one of the ones with a cigarette.

“Don’t be so mean, Larxene. He’s like, ten,” said another. His hair was spiked, but it looked like he had given up halfway through styling it and just let a mess of unruly strands fall across his face. He also held a cigarette.

“I’m almost twelve,” Roxas informed them.

“I’m still not really comfortable with him here.” The voice came from the one who sat with a slouch and let his dark hair cover half of his face.

“Come on, guys,” said the tall one with the mane of fire engine red hair. “Hey. You skate?” He turned his attention to Roxas, gesturing to the skateboard under his foot.

Roxas nodded.

“You any good?”

Roxas nodded again.

“Don’t encourage him,” mumbled the boy who sat beside the red-haired one. His eyes were hooded and his lips were pursed. On his lap rested a Casio keyboard.

“Don’t be such assholes. C’mon, show me what you can do with that board of yours.” The red-haired boy patted the back of his friend beside him before leaping off the table. He set a hand on Roxas’ shoulder and led him away from the picnic area. His nails were painted black; up close, he realized that it was Sharpie marker and not nail polish.

Roxas felt tense under the the hand of the red-haired boy. “Are you messing with me?” He asked in a low voice.

The boy let out a laugh that sounded like a bark. “Me? No. The others? Probably. They can be huge jerks.” He lifted his hand from Roxas’ shoulder and rubbed the back of his head. “I always see you out here by yourself,” he said after a beat of silence. “Thought you looked kinda lonely.”

“I am not lonely,” Roxas huffed.

“Okay, sure.”

Roxas huffed again and did a tre flip with his board in front of him to shut him up.

“Hey, that’s pretty cool. What else can you do?”

The red-haired boy talked a lot. Too much, in fact. It seemed that he had to fill all empty space with words and if somebody else didn’t do it first, he would. But Roxas liked the way that when he asked him questions, it felt real. It didn’t feel like he just was another older kid who teased him.

He was halfway through explaining something or other when Roxas stopped him and said, “You haven’t told me your name yet.”

“Oh. It’s Axel.”

“I’m Roxas.”

And then Axel kept talking right from where he left off.

It was all so stupid. His brother was stupid. He was stupid. Why did he do that? Now he couldn’t turn back. Stupid, stupid, stupid.

Roxas ran through the dark with his skateboard under his arm, his breath puffing out in a stream behind him and dissipating into the clear night sky. He ran past the neighbors’ place where he’d broken in to steal their root vegetables. Past the line of houses across the street with the smashed-in windows. Past the park where he used to skate. Above him, the moon was just a sliver with a ring around it. He ran and ran until he became too tired to run, and then he mounted his skateboard and kept going.

His feet took him to Lea’s townhouse, like always. Lea was out on the lawn in front of the complex wearing a T-shirt without a jacket, cigarette in hand, breath mingling with smoke whenever he took a drag.

“Hey,” he said in a soft voice when Roxas came close.

“Can I stay here for the night?”

“Sure. You can have my bed; I’ll take the couch.”

“Don’t need it. I can sleep on the couch.” Roxas left Lea on the lawn and hurried inside before he could stop him.

For a moment the house appeared to be empty, but when he closed the door behind him he could hear footsteps coming from the second floor.

“Lea, can you please put the toilet seat down--” Xion appeared at the top of the stairs wearing an oversized hoodie which came down almost to her knees. “Oh, Roxas,” she said in a much gentler tone.

Roxas made eye contact but he didn’t say anything. He removed his shoes and set his skateboard down by the door instead.

Xion made her way down the stairs and greeted him with a hug. “You alright?” She asked when she pulled away.

“Not really, but I don’t want to talk about it.”

“Okay.”

They played Super Smash Bros Melee on Lea’s old purple Gamecube. She laughed like a hyena when he told her that she looked like Marth; then she refused to pick any character other than Kirby for the rest of the night. Lea returned and shoved himself between them on the couch for a while before leaving them alone again. When they got bored they turned off the TV, and the two of them sat around with their heads lolling back on the couch and not doing much else but making idle conversation.

“By the way, you wearing anything under that hoodie?”

“ Why? ”

“Like shorts or something.”

“No, this hoodie is the only thing between my bare skin and the cool night air. Yes, Roxas, I’m wearing shorts.”

“Just making sure.”

They heard Lea’s voice drift in from the kitchen. He was talking on the phone and pacing slowly one the linoleum floor, dragging his fingers over the edge of the table as he walked. “He’s probably at a friend’s house and forgot to charge his phone. Uh-huh. I dunno, Terra, he’s fifteen. You know how that is. Uh-huh. Well, if I see him, I’ll be sure to return him to you. Mhm. Okay. Bye.”

When Lea returned to the living room where Roxas and Xion sat, he noticed them twisted in his direction, giving him curious looks. “Terra said Ven didn’t come home last night.” Xion looked worried. “He’s probably fine. He’s a good kid.”

“Ven?” Asked Roxas.

“Their brother.”

Roxas was suddenly reminded of his own, and the fight, and the entire reason he was sitting on Lea’s couch late at night.

“I’m gonna hit the sack,” Lea said amidst a yawn. “Extra blankets are in the closet. ‘Night, Rox. ‘Night, Xi.” He ruffled their hair when he passed them on the couch.

“You’re not gonna kiss me goodnight, Lea? I’m a guest.”

“Good night. ”

Xion got up to turn off the lights. “I should go to bed, too,” she said.

“No. Don’t. Keep me company for a bit.”

She held up one finger and disappeared into the hallway closet, returning a few moments later with a large comforter which she draped over them both as she sat herself set back down beside him on the couch.

“Now we’re comfy,” she whispered with a half smile on her face.

The dark made Roxas’ mind feel quieter. It was comfortable, being under the big blanket with Xion. He could see the sliver of the moon with the ring around it shining through the living room window, now.

“Got into a fight with my brother,” Roxas told her in a low voice. “But it was mostly me being an asshole.”

There was a thread between him and Sora--some kind of invisible sinew that the doctors forgot to cut when he was born. He felt it tug when he got too far away. In fifth grade, he’d heard it from the kids in the mess hall that Sora had cried the first two nights at Camp Koinonia because he and Roxas hadn’t been placed in the same cabin. He wondered if he’d still feel it, if they hadn’t been twins, or brothers, or related at all. He wondered if he would feel it less if they weren’t so different--if Roxas hadn’t been born so troubled, or Sora so carefree. He could not leave. He could not go to Carmel. He feared the pain of that thread being pulled too taut. When they fought, he could feel it strangling him.

With her black hair and the comforter pulled up to her chin, Xion almost disappeared into the darkness. He could still see her eyes, though, wide and glittering. She was too kind for him. They shared a similar soul. But she was too kind for him. He felt the urge to cry begin to strain against the walls of his chest.

“We haven’t been in our parents’ room since they died. Today was the first time. Sora wanted to clean it, give it to Kairi or Riku, so Riku doesn’t have to sleep on the couch anymore. He wanted to give their clothes away; we’d never fit into them anyway, we’re both too short. But I didn’t want to touch it. I wanted to leave the room the way it is.”

“Maybe,” she said in the smallest whisper, “That’s his way of dealing with his feelings. You want to preserve it. He wants to purge it.”

He let out an anxious laugh, but it got caught in his throat and he made a choking noise instead. “I miss them,” he croaked, and began to cry.

There was long, long, period of silence between them, with Roxas’ sniffling being the only noise in the house besides the constant hum of the refrigerator in the kitchen. When he ran out of tears and became tired, he shut his burning eyes and let himself rest his head on Xion’s shoulder. It wasn’t very soft.

“Roxas,” she said. “I don’t miss my parents. I might even be glad that they’re dead. Does that make me a bad person?”

“No. I’ve met your parents. They were both a couple of shitheads.”

Her dry laughter was the last thing Roxas heard before he fell asleep.

Roxas liked Axel. He made him feel important, even though he and his friends were all in high school and they didn’t really care about anything a middle-schooler had to say.

He won most of his friends over eventually. Demyx, who had a good sense of humor and hit it off with Roxas from the beginning. Zexion, who mumbled everything he said and sat with a horrible slouch, came to tolerate him, too. Even Larxene, whose favorite thing to do was to ask if there was a wall somewhere he could be hitting his head against instead of talking to her, stopped doing that after a couple months. Sometimes she even let him ride in the passenger seat when she drove—but he didn’t always like that, because she was a terrifying driver.

The only one he couldn’t win over was the boy with the hooded eyes and the pursed lips—Isa, whose name he had to learn from someone else, because he never spoke to him. Axel had introduced him to Roxas as his best friend. He’d thought he was kidding at first.

“Don’t mind him too much,” Axel had once whispered to Roxas. “He’s like that ‘cause he has a bad home life.”

“Do his parents hit him?” It was a dumb, insensitive question on Roxas’ part, but he was twelve.

“No,” said Axel. “All his bruises are on the inside.”

The five of them, they were in a band. Axel played bass; he was good at it. Every other weekend Roxas listened to them practice in Larxene’s garage, which was a well furnished place in a kind of kitsch, outdated way like the basement on That 70’s Show--but cozy and lived-in. We’re going to do Battle of the Bands this year, Demyx would say, but they never did.

They didn’t always sound good together. Sometimes they were a mess. But they sounded like the underproduced passionate half-singing, half-yelling melodies they listened to on their boombox--like the music Roxas had heard that day at the park.

Larxene had an electric guitar; she’d decorated it with stickers and hot pink nail polish when she was younger, and she always said she was going to remove them but she never did. Demyx played the guitar as well, except on the days he didn’t, and instead he brought a curious thing with a long neck strung with metal which made an even more curious droning sound. Zexion played the drums and it worked for him, because it meant he didn’t have to sing. Isa was their keyboardist; Roxas had to admit he still didn’t know much about him.

“Who writes the songs?” Roxas asked once.

“Well, if the song’s about girls, it’s Larxene’s. And if it’s about boys, it’s mine,” Axel said.

“What if it’s not about either?”

“That’s Demyx, and he only writes about food.”

Sometimes, Axel played the steel string guitar which belonged to Larxene. She hardly ever touched it herself so it just sat in her garage gathering dust until he went to her house to give it attention. Sometimes, it was just him and Axel in the garage when he played the steel string guitar, and he hummed the words instead of singing. Sometimes, it was just Axel and Isa in the garage when he played the steel string guitar, and they sat very close together.

Chapter Text

The sun rose red upon the first day of December, like an angry zit hanging in the sky.

Riku hadn’t slept. He kept thinking about Sora’s face buried in his neck, and how his shirt had been wet when he finally pulled away. He kept thinking about his hair and how it smelled like oranges. He kept thinking about the way he looked, alone in the double bed, when he’d fallen asleep and Riku had carried him back to his room. So he lay awake on the couch all night counting dots on the ceiling with his arms folded over his stomach, trying to quell the aching feeling.

He saw Roxas approach the door from where he lay, just a shadow through the window blinds. He stood in the sun’s lurid glow with his head low on the front step, skateboard in one hand, the other raised to knock. Riku opened the door for him before his knuckles met the wood. He expected the usual expression of defiance to be there when he raised his head to gaze up at him, but the fire in his eyes was gone, replaced by clouded glass. Roxas shoved his way past him without a word before disappearing into his bedroom.

The air in the morning was always still, as if the earth held its breath until the afternoon when the breeze would begin to blow in from the bay and over the mountains. But the wildlife that bustled in the backyard made enough noise to drown out the silence that had grown heavier since The End. There was more of it, now. The dark-eyed juncos hopped in the grass, the bushtits sang out from somewhere the jasmine plant, and more than once a coyote had passed the house ambling down the middle of the street.

Kairi found Riku sitting on the step of the backyard patio with arms crossed over his knees, watching the birds hop about on the lawn. He didn’t look at her when she sat herself next to him; he was too tired to concentrate on anything besides staring at the dead grass. His head and his body felt off register with each other, and his insides still ached.

Something wet poked his cheek suddenly—Kairi was pressing a slice of persimmon against the corner of his lips. She shrugged and popped it into her own mouth instead when he pushed her hand away.

“It’s kind of like listening to your parents fight, isn’t it?” Kairi said suddenly through a mouth full of fruit.

“What are you talking about?”

“The twins.”

“I wouldn’t know. I only had one parent.”

“So did I.”

They both laughed.

“Can you undo my braids? They’re giving me a headache.”

Kairi obliged, humming as she separated her careful work with her fingers. “You have a headache because you didn’t sleep, you dork. I’ll make you some coffee.”

God, coffee. He’d forgotten that still existed. Coffee sounded really, really good. Riku nodded furiously.

There was a Keurig machine buried in the corner of the kitchen counter behind the rice cooker. The two of them rummaged through the cabinets searching for the tiny cups that were supposed to go with it. Riku found them hidden in a basket inside the cabinet with the revolving spice rack which squeaked horribly whenever he turned it. Its contents consisted only of Peet’s Coffee.

He didn’t know what any of the words on the cups meant, so he just chose the name he liked the best ( Alma de la Tierra sounded fancy, and while he wasn’t feeling particularly fancy at the moment he supposed that he could use some amount of fancy in his stomach.) As he waited for the machine to fill his mug, he heard a shuffling from the hallway and noticed that the twins’ bedroom door was open. He caught sight of Sora in doorway, lugging a laundry basket stacked with clothes into his room. When he re-emerged he noticed Riku staring at him.

“Morning,” he said as he strode into the kitchen to meet them. His eyes were red and his face was blotchy, but there was a smile on his face.

“Morning,” Kairi said as she kissed his cheek.

“Morn-- oof ,” Riku said as Sora gave him a short, tight squeeze.

Sora bounced on knees a couple times. “We’re cleaning our parents’ room, so one of you can have it, and Riku doesn’t have to sleep on the couch anymore.”

“Yeah, it’s whatever. We came to a compromise.” Roxas appeared in the kitchen behind him, an empty laundry basket at his hip. His face was also flushed and his eyelids were swollen; it stood out on him, who had comparatively fairer skin.

“We decided it should be Riku’s,” Sora said.

“Me? No, Kairi should have it.”

The three of them turned to Kairi expectantly.

“I agree with Sora,” she said, glancing at Riku. “You deserve it, after sleeping on the couch for two months.”

“Or,” Roxas mused, “We could take Mom and Dad’s room and give him our room.”

“Facing the street, after all the window smashing that’s happened? No way,” hissed his brother.

Riku hummed a low hum and offered the twins a strained smile. “Thanks,” he said, trying to sound like he meant it. But he was picturing himself alone in the queen sized bed at the back of the house, unfamiliar smell and unfamiliar pillows, the side he didn’t sleep on perpetually cold.

He distracted himself by retrieving his mug from the Keurig machine and taking a sip, wincing when he burnt his tongue. It was horribly bitter. But--it was good, and with his mouth numb and the smell in his nose, his mind retrieved for him a memory crystallized among the scent of coffee and the clink of ceramic drinkware under the murmur of conversation and the warmth of sunlight through a window. Then he was back, the memory just an apparition he saw manifest itself in that kitchen only for an instant. Suddenly the kitchen tile beneath his feet was too cold and the silence of the house was all too heavy.

The aching in his chest threatened to wrack his body until his insides were outside, but where he expected nausea to arise and make him heave until his organs were empty there was nothing.

He felt Kairi’s hand on his arm, heard her voice asking if he was feeling alright. As he stared into his reflection--dark and distorted within the confines of the mug--Riku realized he had forgotten how to cry.

Riku didn’t like the creek. He didn’t like the rough pebbles and the chunks of concrete that made up its bed, and how he occasionally rolled his ankles when he walked upon it; he didn’t like how its high banks felt like walls closing in with the way it blocked half of what amount of sunlight fell in it; he didn’t like being able to see the roots of giant oak trees sticking out of the banks like fingers reaching to grasp at his clothing if he wandered too close; he didn’t like how all the rest of it was overgrown with ivy which housed rats, and relentlessly angry, bare blackberry bushes which seemed to grow more thorns each time he glanced at them; he didn’t like the uneasy feeling he got from the shattered remnants of beer bottles sparkling green and brown among the rocks. But when Sora--who was either much bolder than he was, or just that naive--asked Riku to accompany him, he’d found he had a hard time saying no.

So there he was again, trudging through the jagged scar that ran northward through the suburbs, and Sora bouncing on his toes beside him with his bow and arrows sticking out of his backpack at an angle. Clouds were closing in on the sun above above them; what streak of blue sky he could see from their position had become dark and grey and the sense of claustrophobia simmering in his gut grew stronger, making him feel like he was wandering through a long, wet tunnel. Idly, he thought about how he was glad he wore his raincoat even though the swish swish sound was beginning to drive him crazy.

“We’ll check the snares one more time before it rains,” Sora was mumbling, mostly to himself, as he bent down to inspect a particularly round pebble. There was a subtle grin on his face. “Just in case.”

They’d come across the abandoned rope swing that was made of just a piece of wood and a knot which hung over the middle of the creekbed from the branch of an overgrown camphor tree. Riku considered distracting Sora just long enough until it started raining and then they could head home. He paused in front of the swing, decided why not , and got on.

“Hey!” said Sora, but there was an entertained smile on his face.

“Tell me you don’t look longingly at this swing every time you pass it by. I see you.”

“I want to beat the rain!”

“Try and pry me off it, then,” Riku said as he shoved off against the mud-packed wall.

He laughed until he was wheezing and lost control of which direction he was swinging, watching Sora dodge back and forth as he fought the momentum of his weight. There was a moment Riku thought he’d been beaten, when he couldn’t breathe and forgot to keep pressing his feet against the gravel; Sora had managed to pull him to a stop with one hand firmly gripping the rope above Riku’s head and the other on his shoulder.

And then he shoved himself between his knees with an impish smile, and Riku lost hope of ever catching his breath. His face was too close. His hair still smelled like oranges. Riku thought--stupid and intrusive as it was--that if he tilted his head down, just a little, he could press his lips against the crown of his head. No, no, no, no, no.

Suddenly Sora’s smile broke into a devilish grin. He let go of the rope and pushed forcefully against Riku’s chest. But instead of shoving him off the swing he only succeeded in sending him hovering back to the other side of the creek bed; Riku could hear Sora let out a groan of frustration and he laughed and shoved his feet against the wall of the creek again, watching Sora pause and slide his backpack off his shoulders as he swung past before sidling closer.

“Hey, move!” Riku called.

Sora planted himself directly in front of him, widening his stance and digging his heels into the ground.

“Move!”

He didn’t move. Riku winced as he barreled into him, knocking him off his feet and onto his back with a solid oomph , and he lay on the ground, winded and clutching his stomach. Riku hoped the crunching sound he’d heard was just the gravel.

Riku leapt off the swing and knelt over him. “Shit, shit, shit! Are you alright? Please tell me you’re alright. Why’d you--”

“I got you off the swing,” Sora said, grinning. He didn’t seem to be in pain aside from having the wind knocked out of him.

“You--” Riku paused, open mouthed, searching for which one of the fifty things he wanted to say first. “You can not do that, Sora, I will kill you--if you don’t kill yourself by accident first.”

Sora just laughed a breathless laugh, one hand still on his stomach, and the other propped up behind him. He took Riku’s hand when he offered it, returning to his feet with a grunt and brushing the dirt off the seat of his pants. For a moment he didn’t want to let go of Sora’s hand--wiry and small, but comfortable in his own.

“I’m dead serious,” Riku said.

They left the rope swing behind them. Sora hadn’t been as lucky with the snares as the last time; he remained empty-handed even as they approached the thrones carved of concrete. Riku wondered if he shouldn’t have let him get his hopes up, that they’d checked back too soon, but… he wanted to see that smile again, the really stupid proud one that made his gut feel funny. He supposed he’d gotten his own hopes up, too.

Sora sat himself in one of the thrones and rested his backpack between his feet. They were shaped more like modern chairs, really, but as there were two of them they only ever thought of them as being thrones. He patted the arm of the seat next to him expectantly. Riku sat down.

A breeze began to agitate the leaves of the trees above them. They sat leaning back against the hard concrete for a bit, just listening and gazing at the narrow streak of grey sky. He could feel the cold of the stone through his jeans. Beside him, Sora fiddled with his bow, tapping idly at the wood in rhythm. For a moment he felt like it was only the two of them in the entire world.

“I keep thinking I should get a stronger bow, like a modern one,” Sora said. “I don’t actually know how useful this is, yet. But I like this one.”

“No reason you can’t have both.”

“Yeah, but it won’t be the same. Kairi gave me this one.”

“No, I guess not.”

They’d gone to camp in Yosemite, years ago, in the summer. It was the three of them and Kairi’s father, sharing one of those tent-cabins with a wood floor and a canvas roof and uncomfortable cots. There were a few things they’d discovered about themselves that week, one being that Sora was frighteningly swift and could catch river trout with his bare hands. He entertained himself with that for a while when they splashed in the river that ran through the campground, but the archery range caught his eye one day and he wouldn’t quit asking about it. So they took him--and he fell in love with it. He kept begging to go back. For the next year and a half, Riku kept a difficult secret: Kairi was making him a bow.

Her father was a carpenter, and she worked on it in her garage under his supervision. She chose the prettiest piece of oak she could find, spent weeks and weeks carving away at it, and went through great difficulty to bend it into the right shape. It was supposed to be for Sora’s birthday. But she’d made the mistake of bringing it to the school woodshop to show it off to her teacher, and had gotten it confiscated under the “zero tolerance policy” along with earning detention and nearly being suspended. The school never returned the original to her. So she started over. And by the time she’d finished it, it was a year and a half later when she’d finally presented it to him for his thirteenth birthday. The memory of it was somewhat bittersweet, but Riku still smiled when he thought about it.

He heard Sora sigh thoughtfully as he slouched against the concrete, his fingertips still dancing on the bow. “Too bad it wasn’t zombies,” he said.

“Why? You wanted it to be zombies?”

“I dunno, I was thinking maybe then we’d’ve had a fighting chance.” Tap, tap, tap. ¾ time.

Sora’s phone buzzed in his pocket. With one hand he fished it out and glanced at the screen, and Riku watched his brows furrow and his mouth contort into a frown. He tilted the phone so Riku could see, his incredulous expression everything he needed to know.

lizardlizardlizard snake lizardlizard lizardsnakelizardlizard lizardsnakelizardlizard tree lizardlizardlizardlizard lizard lizardsnakelizard lizard

Riku met his gaze, shrugging and shaking his head.

The last snare was at the mouth of the storm drain. They walked in silence for the fifteen minutes it took to reach it. Beside him, Sora tapped at his thigh.

The tunnel yawned at him, the entrance uncomfortably person-sized so that it could swallow him whole if only he bent his knees first; he wanted to look away but decided he probably shouldn’t completely remove it from his field of vision, so he watched it out of the corner of his eye. He wasn’t sure what he expected to see. Its round mouth to grow teeth, like a leech or lamprey? The green, glowing eyes of the wolf G’mork? ...A zombie, maybe?

Tap, tap, tap, went Sora’s fingers. A waltz rhythm. Riku heard Sora’s phone buzz again in his pocket. It went ignored. Tap, tap, tap.

“Riku! Come look!”

Sora was crouched before a particularly large patch of weeds, his hands cupped around something. He straightened his back, raising his arms and delicately unfurling his fingers to reveal a small, brown, and wet-eyed creature curled upon his palm.

“You wanted to show me a lizard.”

“Salamanders are amphibians, Riku.” He smiled fondly down at it, his eyes bright and sparkling in admiration of such a dull and slimy thing--that stupid, proud smile. He offered it to Riku, who could do without touching strange wet things, and waved his hands vigorously from side to side in refusal. “Okay, putting him down now,” he said as he set the salamander free, blowing it a kiss as it scuttled back into the mess of mud and weeds.

Sora stood, brushing the dirt and dust off his knees--then swung his head in the direction of the storm drain as a strong gust of wind rattled the trees above and the mouth of the tunnel elicited a low moan. He continued to stare at it before slowly turning his head away.

“I keep thinking there’s something in there,” he said in a low voice, then laughed dryly and rubbed at his shoulders, feigning a shiver.

Riku could only nod wordlessly in reply. Nothing but muddy water, rats... and salamanders, probably.

Salamanders, salamanders. Lizard. Snake. Lizard. Tap, tap, tap.

“Sora,” said Riku suddenly. “The app, with the messages. Let me see it, please.”

Sora surrendered the phone. “What are you doing?”

“Just a hunch,” he said, bending down to fetch a stick from the edge of the creek bed and beginning to scratch into the dirt. When he was done, he had transcribed the message from the day before:

-.-. .-. . . -.- / - ..- -. -. . .-..

 Snake for a dash. Lizard for a dot. Tree for a break in words.

“You think it’s morse?”

“Like I said, just a hunch. It couldn’t be binary. There are eight numbers to a letter character, and look where the spaces are.”

“But if they wanted to send us a code, why would they make it so easy?”

“Fuck if I know,” Riku mumbled, summoning a morse translator on his phone’s web browser, “but damn it if I’m not going to see if I’m right anyway.”

The message read:

creek tunnel

“Riku,” Sora began slowly. Riku felt the blood in his veins turn frigid. “There is someone in there.”

They leapt backwards and scrambled as far as they could up the muddy wall of the creek with their eyes fixed on the storm drain. They squatted there for a minute, holding their breaths as they stared at it wide-eyed. Riku transcribed the first message and plugged it into the translator. It read:

please help. im sick

Oh. Oh, no. Five seconds ago, they could have guiltlessly walked away. Five seconds ago, they could have gone home and maybe Riku would think about today sometimes in a hey, wasn’t that one time weird? Anyway, please don’t take me to the creek ever again kind of way.

It could very well be a trap set by the same ilk of the boys who smashed in all the windows across the street for absolutely no reason. But what if they were wrong? There was no one else to help but them.

As he crouched and allowed the mouth of the storm drain swallow him whole, Riku was beginning to have second thoughts. It was a claustrophobic nightmare that smelled like mud and mold and rotting plants and rat piss. It was almost as bad as that time he had a panic attack when he got lost inside the tunnels of a McDonald’s playplace when he was six. Turn back, his gut screamed. This is how Jeepers Creepers started.

Beside him, Sora’s face was ghostly pale, and the hand of his that held a pocket-sized flashlight was trembling--yet he extended his free hand to him. Riku took it. It was cold and sweaty.

A shallow stream of water ran under their feet, leaking through the mesh in Riku’s shoes and dampening his socks. It dried as they walked further in. Graffiti spanned the entire length of the tunnel--most of it was the usual inane and insignificant stuff he usually saw on trucks and the sides of buildings--a few tags and leaves of marijuana here, sticks and images of cartoon characters there. But some of them were decipherable text. Abandon all hope, ye who enter here, read one. We are the people your parents warned you about, said another. He was feeling a bit too overwhelmed to laugh.

“If we die here, I’m really sorry,” Sora said.

“We’re absolutely gonna die here,” Riku replied. “But you have our entire afterlives to make it up to me.”

There was a T-shaped split in the tunnel where a faint amount of light filtered in from a grate above, and rungs against the side of the wall that lead up to the underside of a manhole cover. Sora tugged him in one direction before he could stop and fret about it. The wind whistled through the grate carrying a scent that was decidedly worse that the one that had been in their nostrils so far. And then--at the farthest end, he could see artificial light.

He felt Sora’s clammy hand squeeze his own a little tighter. He thought about letting Kairi know that they were about to make the stupidest decision of their lives, but if she knew that being murdered after wandering into a storm drain was the reason they never returned, she would never let them rest in peace. He wished somberly that he let her kiss him more often. Sorry, Kairi. Sorry we’re so fucking stupid.

As they approached the light, Sora cupped a hand around his mouth and called, “Hello?”

The only response they got was the wind in the grate.

“Hey,” Riku shouted.

Under the sound of the wind, he thought he could hear a faint groan echoing from the far side.

“We got your message,” Sora called again. “We’re here to help.”

“Unless you’re a murderer, in which case you can fuck right off.”

The groaning sound came again.

They kept going, slowly, until the light grew brighter and they could make out the shadow of something cast against the wall. Sora jumped, nearly hitting his head on the roof of the tunnel, when they saw the shape move. His hand was so sweaty it nearly slipped from Riku’s grip as he did so.

Curled at the end of the tunnel in the light of an electric lantern was--

Well, it was definitely human, but it didn’t look so good.

They were cocooned within several layers of jackets, and without seeing their face, Riku couldn’t determine anything else about them. On the opposite wall leaned a rusted bicycle with a metal pannier; beside it sat a six-pack of blue Gatorade and an opened box of Clif Bars. There was a mess of something unidentifiable and very questionable in the corner. Riku figured it may or may not also be Clif Bars and blue Gatorade.

“Hello,” Sora said.

The figure turned toward them, revealing the face of a boy--around their age, eyes bloodshot, straw blond hair sticking to his sweaty forehead. He wore a respirator that covered only the lower half of his face. There was no color in his face at all. He looked awful, even worse than Kairi had when she was sick.

“Hi,” he replied. His gaze was fixed on Sora, brows twisted in an expression he couldn’t interpret.

Riku let go of Sora’s hand (regretfully) and dropped to his knees beside the stranger. He swore under his breath when he brushed the hair out of his face to place a hand on his forehead. It felt like fire.

“We need to get you out of here,” Riku told him. “Can you stand?”

The stranger groaned as he tried to rise, pushing himself upright but unable to get any farther. “My legs hurt too much.”

Riku motioned for Sora to help him and prepared to drape one of his arms over his shoulder before he feebly pushed his hand away.

“No… I don’t want another ghost to touch me.”

“What are you talking about?” Riku paused and glanced at Sora.

“Riku’s really pale, but he’s not a ghost.”

“I’m not talking about him,” said the stranger. His eyes were still on Sora. “I’m talking about him. ”

“...I’m not a ghost, either. Look.” Sora patted Riku’s arm. “See? Not a ghost.”

“He’s got a wild fever, Sora, he’s almost definitely completely delirious. C’mon.” He crouched to pull the stranger’s arm over his shoulder again and pulled him to his feet.

“My bike…”

“We’ll come back for it later,” Riku lied.

They shuffled through the tunnel as quickly was they could, which wasn’t terribly fast as Riku was still had to crouch as he walked and he now had the weight of an extra body hanging weakly off his shoulder. The stranger wasn’t heavy, but something was wrong with his legs; he took one step for every five that Riku took, and the uneven gait was slowing him down.

Upon reaching the exit, Riku kneeled and shifted the stranger so that he hung off his back, with his arms looped around his legs. He still refused to let Sora touch him, which made things difficult and frustrating.

“Where’re you from?” Riku asked, just to keep him from babbling about ghosts. He didn’t know why, but it made him angry--even though it probably wasn’t right to be angry at a very ill, delirious teenager.

“Here. Sunnyvale.”

A surprisingly lucid answer. Good.

“Got anyone we can call?”

“...Two older siblings. Please don’t tell them. Please,” the stranger said, his voice cracking slightly. “I don’t want them to cry…”

“We have to let them know what’s happened. We’ve gotta get you help,” Riku said.

“I can’t tell them I’m dead.”

Riku stopped walking. He shot Sora an incredulous look. “Hey,” he hissed, jostling the stranger on his back a bit. “We found you, you’re alive. Keep it the fuck together.”

He looked like he was going to vomit. Maybe shaking him wasn’t such a good idea. But he figured it was probably the right thing to do to keep talking to him, keep asking him questions, whether the responses made sense or not. The stranger’s arms were all akimbo dangling loosely over his shoulders, and Riku was afraid of letting his fever pull him under.

“What’s your name? I’m Riku, and the guy you keep calling a ghost is Sora.”

It took a little while for him to answer the question as he fought the grip of fevered sleep. Even under his many layers of jackets, he shivered like the leaves in the trees above when the wind blew through the high walls of the creek.

“It’s Ventus,” he said finally. “But you can call me Ven.”

Chapter Text

The earliest dream Sora could remember was when he was five years old, and he woke the next morning with a hollow feeling in his chest trying to digest that fact that his brother was dead--before he remembered that Roxas was in fact not dead, and was still asleep in the bunk above.

It was around then, too, when Roxas began to wake up in the middle of the night to climb down from the top bunk and insert himself between Sora and the wall.

It must be an intrinsic quality of being a sibling, he figured. He never stopped having that dream.

Slumped against Riku’s side in the backseat of Lea’s car, Ventus was not nearly as dead as he thought he was. From his spot in the passenger seat Sora could see Lea wince every time Ventus sounded like we was beginning to retch. At home, they’d dried him off and dressed him in a (decidedly too large) sweater and pair of sweatpants which belonged to Riku, but they hadn’t been able to coerce him into drinking, nor had they been able to quell his nausea. Every time Ventus bowed forward over the bucket he gripped loosely on his lap Sora heard him lean back shortly afterward and sigh a horrible tired sigh when nothing happened.

Lea had shown up in the driveway less than ten minutes after Roxas’ frantic phone call, determined to return Ventus to his siblings in one piece (or just most of him, because Sora was almost sure that he was already missing his stomach.) He’d insisted that Sora and Riku accompany him if only just to sit with Ventus and make sure he didn’t sway and crack his head against the window.

The driveway Lea pulled into belonged to a two story house shadowed by the bare and gnarled branches of a large maple tree. In lieu of a lawn was a thoughtfully landscaped garden of native plants nestled among a stone pathway. Beyond that, under the overhang, crouched two figures--a tall one, and a taller one--whose faces became distorted by the rain which trickled down the windshield without resistance when Lea removed the key from the ignition and the windshield wipers came to a rest.

Sora watched everything happen in slow motion. He watched the two figures bolt for the car at a full sprint; he watched Lea get out and greet the tall one who gripped his fingers firmly, her voice tense but trembling as she spoke to him; he watched Riku push open the door and allow the taller one to bundle Ventus into his arms and hold him tight against his chest; he watched the rain falling, soaking their hair and shoulders. The illusion was broken when he felt Riku brush his hand lightly and say, “C’mon.”

The tall one hurried them inside the house where she breathlessly introduced herself as Aqua, and the taller one as her brother Terra. They both looked tired and disheveled; there was what appeared to be an old coffee stain on the front of Aqua’s maroon zip hoodie, and Terra’s shirt was wrinkled like he had slept in it. Despite this, the voice in Sora’s head that never failed to provide him with the most inconvenient thoughts at the most inappropriate times said, Good god, what a good-looking pair of people.

When Terra sat himself on the living room couch with Ventus still in his arms, Aqua leaned heavily against him, brushing Ventus’ hair away from his sweaty forehead with her knuckles.

“Ven,” mumbled Terra, his brows furrowed sharply into a V-shape.

“Ventus,” Aqua said to him with the same severity Sora’s parents used to use when he was in big trouble. “What were you thinking?”

“I’m sorry,” Ventus hiccuped into Terra’s chest.  “I was fine, and then I got a fever, and I thought… thought it was… uh...” He paused to take a ragged breath, his eyes swimming. “I didn’t want to make you sick, so I left. But I kept waking up, and I got scared.”

“Ven, listen to me,” Terra said squeezing his shoulder. “ We’re supposed to take care of you when you get sick. Don’t go off doing the opposite. You’re our baby brother now, and I’m never gonna let you forget it.”

Ventus let out a dry laugh. His siblings started when it transformed into the retching sound Sora had gotten uncomfortably used to listening to, and the question bombardment began--when did he last drink water? When did he last use the bathroom? How long had he been throwing up? How high was his temperature? Did his muscles ache? But the questions seemed to make him dizzier and he began to slip back into the delerium Sora and Riku had dealt with earlier.

“He’s been calling Sora a ghost this entire time, just so you know,” Riku interjected.

“He, uh, thought he was already dead when we found him,” Sora added.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean it,” Ventus whined into Terra’s chest.

Aqua processed this with her eyebrows still creased; then, she stood and consulted something on her phone as she disappeared and returned a few minutes later with a thermometer and a cup of crushed ice, which she demanded Ventus ingest and threatened to stick him with an IV if he refused to do so.

“And you said he can’t walk?” She mumbled and stuck the thermometer under Ventus’ tongue. She frowned when the thermometer beeped and she retrieved it from his mouth, but her expression melted into something like a relieved, almost hysteric grin. “You have a high fever, you’ve been throwing up, and you can’t walk--Ven, you have the fucking flu.”

“What does not being able to walk have to do with the flu?” Lea, who had been uncharacteristically quiet up until that point, spoke up with his arms crossed and one eyebrow raised.

“It’s funny, but every time Ventus has ever gotten the flu he couldn’t walk for a couple days,” Aqua laughed. “Dad almost had a heart attack the first time it happened, but he consulted some of his colleagues and as it turns out it’s really uncommon, but sometimes kids’ calf muscles lock up when they’re recovering from the flu. And Ven is just one of those lucky kids, I guess.”

“Terra,” Ventus murmured, pulling his face away from his shirt. Terra tilted his head to listen to him proceed to utter something completely incomprehensible.

“Okay!” Aqua said brightly, clapping her hands together. “I’m calling Aerith and we’ll see if we can’t get you something stronger than Nyquil.”

Sora found himself at the kitchen table with a cup of tea pressed between his palms. Terra and Aqua had left Ventus to rest on the couch after draping no less than three blankets over him and Aqua had made sure he’d eaten all his ice chips, but the pair of siblings refused to let them leave without offering some sort of hospitality. He watched Lea making faces at his mug with amusement; it was just green tea--hardly a disagreeable beverage in his own opinion--but he seemed to be struggling with it.

Aqua had broken her self-serious composure to slouch with her elbows on the table and her head resting in her arms, holding her mug loosely with her index finger. Beside her, Terra rested his chin in his hand. There wasn’t much conversation happening, but Sora could hardly blame them for being quiet. None of them looked like they had slept.

“Sorry,” Terra mumbled, blowing his bangs out of his face. “Dad would’ve disowned us if we let you guys go without tea or something, and I’m gonna honor that.”

“No problem… Do you happen to have any ‘or something?” Lea asked, but returned to sipping tentatively at his tea when Aqua lifted her head to give him a pointed look.

“I miss him.” Aqua sat up to take a long sip from her mug. Her tired eyes reflected something wistful.

“I do too,” Terra said. Then he grinned. “I miss Professor Dad.”

Aqua laughed and clapped her hand to her cheek. “Professor Dad!”

“Sorry?” Riku, who had been quiet for a while, shifted his gaze between the two siblings.

“Professor Dad!” Terra laughed again.

“Our dad was this wizened professor type,” Aqua said. “I mean, he was a professor, but he was the older and self-serious kind with salt-and-pepper hair who can be really fun if you’re on his good side.”

“So, one day when we were in second grade, we had the day off because of a teacher holiday but Dad couldn’t leave us at home because he still had classes to teach, so he brought us to school with him,” Terra interrupted. “This was before Ven, so it was just me and Aqua. He let us just run around the campus by ourselves for a while--”

“But then, Terra got a nosebleed, and his nose wouldn’t stop bleeding. There was blood all over his face. We were running back to our dad’s classroom--”

“She was dragging me through the hallway and we were getting a lot of concerned looks because there was blood all over my shirt at that point, too--”

“We burst into the room, and--well, it was a lecture classroom, so about a hundred people turn to look at us, and Terra still has blood all over his face looking like he just ate someone. And this huge dork--he just stops and stands in the doorway like, ‘Oh, I completely forgot my dad is a college professor,’ and he says--”

“Professor Dad!”

The air was lighter when it was filled with laughter; it had the same cadence as the rain against the windowpane, and it put Sora at ease. He watched the flushed faces of Terra and Aqua, watched their shoulders bobbing up and down, and felt himself smiling. He looked down into his mug and noticed it was empty; Terra offered him more, but Sora excused himself to use the bathroom instead.

He listened to the sound of the rain bouncing off the leaves of ivy in the planter that hung outside the bathroom window as he stared at himself in the mirror for what felt like a very long time. He touched his cheeks, tracing the creases along the corners of his lips with his fingers. He did not make a face; he just stared until he stopped recognizing his reflection. Maybe Terra and Aqua had the right idea--about the tea, about their dad. The taste of the leaves at the bottom of his cup lingered on his tongue, bitter and pleasant at the same time.

When he finally remembered that he did actually mean to use the bathroom, he heard voices speaking in hushed tones somewhere outside the door.

“Listen, if there’s anything more I can do…”

“Honestly, you’ve done more than enough for us. Really.”

“Aqua.”

Sora sat himself on the lid of the toilet. He figured it would be more awkward to leave the bathroom at that moment than to stay there for a little while longer. He realized with dismay that he’d left his phone on the kitchen table.

“You got it into your head that you owe me favors… I was teasing you, Lea. I didn’t mean for you to take it seriously. High school wasn’t even your fault. I was mad, but I wasn’t mad at you. I need you to know this.”

There was a sigh. “I can’t still be… like that. ”

“I don’t know what kinds of things you’re trying to make up for, but friendship isn’t just the mutual exchanging favors. There’s a balance, but it’s not always even all the time. I don’t want you to think that’s what this is.”

“That’s not--that’s not how I feel at all. I like being your friend. You’ve been a hell of a lot better to me than I was to you… or anyone, really. I’m just trying to find the right way to do things.”

A soft chuckle. “You’re trying too hard. We’ll do something fun, just us. Maybe we can even get hammered.”

“I can’t believe you’re like this. Do your brothers know you’re like this?”

Sora heard them walk past the bathroom door and back out into the kitchen. With the freedom to make noise again, he finished his business and rejoined them. Ventus was awake and sitting at the table with a blanket draped over his shoulders, open bottle of ibuprofen in one hand, holding a glass of water to his lips with intense focus with the other.

Riku tilted his head toward Sora and mouthed, feeling alright? Sora nodded as he sat down next to him and took a sip from his mug before remembering that it was empty.

“Um…” Began Sora, eyeing Ventus, who had not set down his glass for a solid five minutes. “Are you starting to feel better?”

Ventus nodded with the glass still pressed against his face. When he finally set it down, he said, “I’m good, ‘cause now Terra gets to carry me around the house.”

“Don’t abuse that privilege, or you’ll get to crawl around on the floor.” Terra was smiling. He reached over to rub his brother’s back with one hand; he stopped and apologized for jostling him when when he emitted a nauseated groan.

Aqua slid a cup of tea towards Ventus. He stared blankly at it for a moment before hiding his nose in it. “I’m sorry--”

“Don’t be sorry,” Sora interrupted.

He looked startled. “What I mean is, um, thanks.”

“If you give us a scare like that again, I swear,” Lea hissed, narrowing his eyes, but he didn’t continue.

Riku tapped idly at his mug with a fingernail, then said, “Why did you message us?”

“Me an’ Terra made that app. It’s location based, so the posts that you can see are within a certain range from where you are. There aren’t a lot of posts yet; yours was the only one in my feed and I kept seeing it pop up and disappear, so I figured you must be somewhere nearby.”

“I never knew high school freshmen could be so creepy.”

“Sorry.”

“Why send them in code?”

“Paranoia. I’m extra sorry.”

“Honestly, I’m just glad we found you and that you’re okay,” Sora said.

Ventus lifted his face from his mug. Sora could see his lips curl into a shy smile.

The car was silent on the ride home, save for the rhythm of the rain pounding on the roof. Sora felt his phone buzz in his pocket.

Written in plain English, the message contained a single word: “thanks.”

“I’ve been here so long, now my own pillow smells more foreign than yours do,” Riku mused as he examined his new room. He sat on the edge of the bed for a moment, looking puzzled when he sat on something lumpy. “Oh! You found him,” he said when he rolled the comforter back to reveal small, stuffed white tiger laying with its head on the pillow.

“I saw him in one of your boxes when I brought them in here,” Sora said. “He looked kind of sad, so I tucked him in.”

Riku laughed, then lifted the tiger and pressed it gently against his cheek. “Hmm… he does look kind of sad.” He brushed away the fur around its eyes with his fingers, but the melancholy expression stayed.

“Does he have a name?”

“I think it was Tyger,” Riku mumbled, still fixing its fur.

“You named your stuffed tiger… Tiger.”

“No. Tyger with a ‘y.”

Sora blinked.

“Like that poem. ‘Tyger, tyger, burning bright, in the forests of the night…’ We read it in elementary school.”

Sora shook his head. “I love how much of a huge dork you secretly are.” He sat down on the edge of the bed when a wave of exhaustion radiated up from his legs and made him dizzy; he lay back to find Riku’s upside down face pursing his lips. “Please don’t make me get up.”

“Actually, scoot over,” Riku said.

Sora shifted so he lay on his back with his head on the pillow and Riku lay down beside him and let out a deep, tired sigh. It was still raining; for a while, they only breathed and listened to the rain pounding on the roof. Occasionally during the night, Sora would hear a raccoon or a cat dash across the roof. The rain sounded like the mad scrambling of a hundred raccoons.

Then Riku sighed gently, rolling onto his side so that he was facing away and all Sora saw of him was his back, curled into himself ever so slightly. “Sora,” he began quietly.

“Yeah?” Sora answered, staring at the spot on the back of Riku’s neck where his curtain of sheepdog-hair separated and left it bare.

“I’m gonna be haunted that the little brother of Lea’s friends quite literally crawled in a hole to die.” He laughed dryly, then fell silent.

“Me too.”  Sora was reminded of the dreams he had of Roxas dying; he figured Aqua and Terra must dream about Ventus, too. He thought about how terrifyingly close that nightmare came to becoming reality, wondered how many times they dreamt of him during his absence, how many more times they’d continue to dream of him gone.

“If you get sick--”

“I won’t do that.” Sora rolled over, pressing his forehead between Riku’s shoulder blades. “Y’know… Kairi wouldn’t have done anything any of us did—crawling into holes and whatnot. I guess boys are just dumb as rocks.”

“What immortal hand or eye… could make us so stupid?”

Sora laughed into his back, feeling the rising and falling of Riku’s rib cage pressing against the bridge of his nose.

“Kairi might be mad at us if we sleep through dinner.”

“I think she’ll understand.”

Sora felt Riku’s hum vibrate against his forehead. Suddenly he was aware of his hands and how he very much wanted to wrap his arms around Riku’s chest and squeeze him, but--

That same feeling, the one that had stopped him before--he could feel it again, rising in his gut. Like a humming in a pitch he couldn’t hear, or a color his eyes weren’t made to see. And under it all, he realized that the inclination made him feel just the slightest bit embarrassed.

But Riku could not hear his heartbeat the way Sora could hear his, nor could he see Sora’s face in the case his ears were red. So, Sora slipped an arm tentatively under his, resting it gently over his waist; he felt Riku tense up as he did so, and frightened he might have overstepped his boundaries he began to retrieve it before he felt a warm hand catch his and keep it there. He grinned in secret. As he kept his forehead pressed against his back, Sora wondered if he could telepathically project his thoughts that way.

I’m here, he said in his mind. I’m still here.

Sora dreamt of his spring break in Canada when he was ten, about the quaking aspen he’d seen for the first time--he dreamt about the heart-shaped leaves that quivered above him in the wind, and how enamored of the silver color he’d been. He’d run his fingers across the bark, over the dark lenticels like puckered scar tissue. The aspen was many trees. The aspen was one tree. He’d felt that it was watching him--no, that it was watching over him. Like the redwood, he could only embrace a small part of it no matter how hard he tried.

Chapter Text

Riku woke up feeling like everything in his life had been moved a little bit to the left. For a moment he could not remember where he was, or why he was lying on his side instead of his back. His stuffed tiger had been tucked neatly into bed beside him with its sad-eyed face just peeking out of the covers. He found his hair dryer on the floor of the bathroom but it didn’t occur to him that it might not belong there until he found Kairi at the kitchen window with her face in her hands, rubbing at her eyes. The corner of the picture frame by the front door was pointing down at the floor.

“Hey,” he said.

Kairi dragged her hands down her face, flesh under her eyelids briefly flashing a bright pink. “Morning,” she replied.

Riku intended to idle for a moment by opening the fridge while he figured out what he wanted to say, but when he stepped onto the hardwood floor his foot was met with a sharp pain. He swore as he recoiled back onto the carpet, clutching his leg.

“There’s glass on the floor, Riku, I’m so sorry!” Kairi said with frantic hand motions; she gestured to him to show her his foot while she pushed her hair back in exasperation.

“There was an earthquake,” she groaned in response to Riku’s puzzled, open-mouthed stare. “In the middle of the night. It knocked a bunch of things over… and the rain barrels fell off the cinder blocks and tore the downspout away from the side of the house.”

“Shit.” He sat himself on the kitchen chair and as he crossed his foot over his leg to inspect it, he realized he’d bled on the carpet. “Wait, how did I not notice an earthquake big enough to knock things over?”

“You were so dead asleep you probably wouldn’t have noticed if something fell on your head. Neither Sora nor I could wake you up for dinner,” she said, grinning. She disappeared into the bathroom for a moment, returning with a pair of tweezers and a cotton ball soaked in alcohol. It hurt worse when she dabbed at the wound with the cotton than it did when she removed the shard of glass.

“How did I miss dinner? How did I sleep for sixteen hours straight? Kairi, I just realized I’m not wearing my pajamas. I think I slipped into a small coma.”

Kairi’s face turned pink when she giggled; Riku watched her shoulders bob up and down as she applied a Band-Aid to the bottom of his foot. But the moment was brief, and she returned to the tired sighing she always seemed to be doing.

“I’ll fix the the downspout,” he offered.  She made a face at him like she had gas. “Okay, I can’t fix it, but I can drive you to Home Depot.

Kairi’s lips curled into a small grin. Riku squeezed his eyes shut when she kissed him on the cheek.

The twins were yelling at each other again, but this time it was over a moldy stretch of rope they’d found hiding somewhere in the storage room which they had returned with instead of the toolbox Kairi had asked for.

“Ice cream soda, cherry on t--Roxas, get it together!”

A strange consequence of the world without TV was that it seemed to return the playfulness Riku thought he’d lost, and he found himself less adverse to playing stupid games; there wasn’t really anyone around to think they were stupid but him anyway. Riku, who had let himself be coerced into jumping rope, was standing across the backyard opposite to Sora and holding the other end of the rope over the soggy grass while Roxas hopped and stumbled over it in the center. Roxas was decidedly less nimble than his brother and he struggled to get farther in the rhyme than the letter “A” even when they slowed the motion of the ropes.

“Fuck you, Sora, you know I can’t double dutch!” He hissed, his brows creasing further every time he tripped until he announced with a huff that he was taking a break.

Kairi sat on the edge of the patio, watching them with her feet in the grass and a coffee mug in her lap. She stood and set her mug down on the ground when Roxas sat next to her and assumed her position at the center of the rope, demanding they swing both of them this time and not to go easy.

“Ice cream soda, cherry on top; who’s your boyfriend, I forgot,” Sora chanted.

She made it through the entire alphabet once and nearly made it twice, but halfway through the second round she decided to try some fancy footing which tripped her up on the letter “X.”

“Do I know someone with a name that starts with X?” She said, pushing her hair out of her face.

“My best friend, you asshole,” Roxas yelled from across the yard.

Kairi shrugged and took hold of the rope at Sora’s end. Riku watched him go through the rhyme three times, guiltily hoping he’d land on the first letter of his name, but he stumbled on “ice cream.”

Riku stepped into the center when Sora decided he was tired. He went once, then twice, demanding his friends to swing faster. Three, four, more times he went through the rhyme.

“You’re doing amazing, but my arms hurt,” Sora said. “Any chance you’re gonna mess up soon?”

“Nope.”

“You’re such a show off,” Roxas groaned.

Riku stuck his tongue out at him. He was getting tired though, and on the fifth run he decided he’d stop in the middle but tripped up trying to decide where. His choice of letter was a bit unfortunate.

“Selphie!” Sora laughed.

Riku noticed Kairi narrow her eyes, staring at him with her lips curled upwards ever slightly. “Let’s go to Home Depot,” she said.

“What have we got to bargain with?” Riku asked Kairi once they were in the car.

“Some old jackets, a few packs of batteries, and a bag of persimmons.”

The roads were still slick with rain from the day before. The sun had been out all morning, but there were dark clouds hovering over the mountains to the west threatening to close in. Out of the corner of his eye, Riku could see the curtain of rain making its way slowly over the foothills as he drove.

Kairi rested her elbow on the car door with her hand on her chin; he knew she was working on something in her head, because there was always a sort of energy that happened in the air when thoughts were about to become words. But as he pulled into the empty parking lot of the Home Depot, she held onto whatever it was she was going to say.

Inside the building, most of the lights were off, but the automatic doors still worked. The store still had the comfortable smell of wood and paint, but it was in deep contrast to the dark store almost entirely void of people. The shelves were only half stocked, and all the non-native plants in the nursery were dead. He followed Kairi through the dark isles, trusting her to know what she was looking for. He felt a twinge of disappointment when they passed the lighting section and he noticed that it had all been turned off. Being dazzled by a mass of lamps was the only good part of going to the hardware store.

Kairi jumped when a rough voice behind them said, “Can I help you kids with anything?”

The voice belonged to a man—oh jesus fuck, it was an adult. Before them loomed a tall and slim man whose long, dark hair was fixed into a tight ponytail, and Riku noticed that it was was even streaked with grey. He wore a patch over one eye and the other half of his face was puckered with an old and fading scar. He was the most weathered person Riku had ever seen. The orange Home Depot apron looked silly on him. But Riku wasn’t done doing a double take at seeing someone alive and likely approaching fifty standing directly in front of him, because, what the fuck, it was an adult. Kairi was apparently having the same experience, because she was staring up at him with her mouth open slightly and her eyebrows high enough to touch the ceiling.

“You two done gawking yet?” The man said, crossing his arms. “Do you need help or not?”

“Sorry, it’s just—“ Riku started.

“I know what you’re about to say and I don’t want to fucking hear it,” said the man.

He turned to walk away before Kairi blurted, “Downspout. Need to fix a broken downspout.”

The man turned around again, motioning for them to follow him. Kairi, who had not put her eyebrows back down, mouthed, how? Riku shrugged so hard it hurt his shoulders.

“That all?” The man asked when Kairi’s arms were full of supplies.

“Wait,” she said, and began to hurry off to the other end of the store.

Riku found her in the lumber section staring longingly up at the long boards of pine wood.

“How much wood do you think I’d need to build a treehouse?” She said, her eyes glittering.

“Y’have to run off like that?” came the rough voice of the man from before, approaching them with his arms crossed. “I’m not as young as you, if you haven’t already noticed.”

“How much wood do I need to build a simple treehouse?” Kairi repeated.

“First, what have you got for me?” He said, pointing to the supplies in Kairi’s arms.

“Jackets, a few packs of batteries, and a bag of persimmons. Or fifty dollars, if you’d rather have that.”

“Hmm… I’ll take a pack of batteries and the persimmons. Keep the rest.”

“What about the treehouse?” Riku pressed.

“You kids are cute. Tell you what,” he said, uncrossing his arms. “You come back with more persimmons, I’ll get you what you need.”

“That’s it? Are you sure?”

The man let out a strange wheezing laugh. “Don’t make me change my mind. I have nothing more in this world to lose and everything to gain.”

“Thanks, uh…” Kairi leaned to the side, trying to decipher his nametag.

“Xigbar.”

“Xigbar? Kairi, it’s your boyfriend.” Riku elbowed her in the shoulder.

“The fuck you going on about?”

Kairi giggled until her face turned pink. “Sorry. Thanks for your help. I really appreciate it.”

By the time they returned to the car in the parking lot clouds had overtaken the sun. It felt like the darkness inside the store had followed them outside, and Kairi was quiet again. She sat with her hands clasped together in her lap, still solving problems in her head.

“Are you ever going to tell him?” She said suddenly.

“Wh--tell who, what?”

“Oh, please, Riku. I know you know what I’m talking about.”

Riku gripped the steering wheel until his knuckles turned white. “No, I’m not. I’m not going to tell him.”

She gave him a pointed look.

“He’s been my best friend since preschool, Kairi. I can’t… I can’t ruin something like that. I can’t do that to him.”

“You have a funny idea of what ruining something entails,” she mumbled, resting her chin in her hand. “And I really don’t think it’ll turn out as bad as you think it will.”

“You don’t understand--”

“I do understand!” She brought her hands down onto her thighs forcefully and sat up straight. “Sora and I, we dated for a little while.”

Riku fumbled with the steering wheel, nearly making the car swerve. “ What? How come I never knew about this?”

“It was when we were in eighth grade.”

“...Oh.”

“I’ve been thinking about it a lot. We didn’t date for very long--a couple months, maybe. It just wasn’t what we wanted from each other. But you know…” She leaned back in her seat again. “He’s my best friend, too, and it turned out even better in the end.”

Riku let his fingers relax. “When did you figure me out?”

“Seventh grade. Sora’s the only other person you’ve ever let touch you. But it was around that time you kinda… started looking at him, like, a lot.”

“You knew I--and you still--”

Kairi shrugged. “Sometimes I’m selfish.”

She returned to staring out the window, her hands in her lap. Riku watched the sky open up above them.

Xion was in a good mood. She wasn’t entirely sure where it came from, but the voice in her head that berated her and offered her unproductive advice had finally decided to be quiet, so she wasn’t about to complain. She was out of recycling to crush, anyway. So she went for a walk to enjoy the gloomy weather and filled the absent noise by humming the tune to a song with a name she couldn’t remember.

She wouldn’t dare say it out loud, but her sudden elevation in mood may or may not have had something to do with texts from Naminé becoming a new constant. It had been a long time since there were more than two people who ever wanted to speak to her. Your card of the week is the Two of Pentacles reversed, Naminé would say. Technically, not good. Realistically? You don’t have to listen to a piece of paper. I swear I’ll make sure you have a good week. Xion’s lips curled into a small grin which she hid behind her fingers, because if Lea ever caught her smiling at her phone, his teasing would only increase by magnitudes.

She found a pomegranate tree in the neighborhood on the other side of the major street she never used to cross because it had been terrifyingly busy. It was considerably large for a pomegranate tree; she figured it must have been growing there since the days when the city had been entirely orchards, a hundred years before Steve Jobs was even around to think about building computers in his garage, before the partially finished skeleton of Apple’s new headquarters--which local residents so affectionately referred to as “The Spaceship”--would ever come to decay where real apples once grew. She stuffed as many of its fruits into her front pocket as she could until she couldn’t fit any more and they began to fall out when she walked.

At some point in the midst of reaching for fruit in the higher branches above her head and cursing the genes that had made her so short, she felt her phone vibrate in her pants pocket. She fished it out and found it was a text from Lea.

gonna be out a while. left door unlocked in case u forgot house keys.

A raindrop splashed onto the screen of her phone as she held it; she glanced upward reflexively as another landed on her cheek. She’d been too preoccupied with the pomegranates to notice the wind picking up, and she cursed loudly when she realized she had neither a raincoat nor an umbrella to shield her from the rain. Xion walked hurriedly with one hand protecting the fruit in her pocket while she held her other arm uselessly over her head.

The rain came down with force, cold and relentless. It soaked her hair and shoulders, and by the time she made it back to the townhouse complex her shoes were making a squelching noise. She abandoned them on the front step before she let herself inside, leaving a trail of rainwater along the floor up to her bedroom. She returned to the kitchen in dry clothes and eyed the pomegranates she’d left on the kitchen table. If she cut them, she could stuff her face with a couple and leave the rest in the refrigerator for Lea, who would inevitably reach them before her otherwise.

Xion was pleasantly surprised at the lack of conversation between her, the voice in her head, and the kitchen knife in her hand when she cut the fruit open. Hey, you know what would be cool? What if you jabbed that knife right into your neck, like so. That would be awesome , the voice would say. That’s not very helpful right now, she would reply. How about your fingers--just slice ‘em up, like a carrot; it’d probably be just as easy . Shut up. What about plunging that thing into your thigh and bleeding out on the floor? And back in the drawer you go.

She was in the midst of cramming a handful of ruby seeds into her mouth when her phone buzzed again.

the WEIRDEST fuckin thign just happened, said a text from Roxas. She sent him a few question marks. oh hold on i have too many words to say about this. call you in 10 min?

She texted back, Cool, spooned the rest of the pomegranate seeds into a tupperware container, and shoved them into the fridge. She meant to return upstairs to fetch her good headphones with the microphone while she waited for Roxas to call, but the partially open door to Lea’s bedroom caught her eye from the landing. She begrudgingly put up with Lea invading her privacy--barging into her room and borrowing her things without asking half the time--but she hadn’t been inside his own room very often. Cautiously, she pawed the door open further and wandered inside.

The room was irritatingly messy; the comforter was rolled into a ball in the center of the bed, and a mound of clothes were piled onto a chair which sat in front of a desk, dusty in its disuse. It smelled vaguely of cigarette smoke, the same way Lea did. The blinds were pulled half shut, and through them Xion could see the rain dripping down the windowpane. The walls were mostly bare save for the telltale marks of tape residue where posters once must have hung. A mess of beauty products were scattered atop the dresser. Beside a ring dish filled with mismatched earrings and dollar coins lay a pack of cigarettes. With a twinge of annoyance, Xion wondered how long it would take Lea to notice if she stuffed it in her pocket right now and hid it somewhere under her bed where she’d forget about it.

Hidden in the shadow of the dresser leaned a Casio keyboard, which Xion didn’t notice until she stubbed her toe against it and it fell to the floor with a clatter. She sucked in her breath and picked it up, examining its dusty keys, running her fingers over the plastic which had been discolored by skin oils, lightly pressing the buttons with a clicking noise. She was pleasantly surprised that its batteries were not dead when she turned it on. She carried it out of Lea’s room--frowning at the pack of cigarettes on the dresser as she did so--and carried it into her own bedroom, where she sat on the edge of her bed with the keyboard on her lap.

She fetched her good headphones from the nightstand and plugged them into her phone while she waited for Roxas to call, fiddling with the keyboard in the meanwhile. After nine years of lessons, piano seemed like a curse that wouldn’t leave her hands. They always remembered how to play even when her mind forgot. She tapped out the melody that had been stuck in her head. It was one of Roxas’ songs, she realized.

And when I quit, when it's all o-ver and done with… you'll be the first per-son I tell…

Her phone rang; she answered it. “Hey,” she said.

“Hey,” said Roxas’ voice. He sounded out of breath. “I just watched my brother and his best friend take fifteen minutes to strip wet clothes off a delirious ninth-grader.”

Xion listened to him relay everything he’d seen happen, and how he’d called Lea when he figured out that the stranger had been Terra’s missing brother, though he would have called him anyway because he was the only adult he knew. She played idly with the keyboard as she listened.

You’ll be the dis-tance that I fell… The distance that I fell…

“What’s that sound?” Roxas interrupted himself. “Are you listening to music?”

“It’s, uh, a keyboard I stole from Lea’s room.”

“Keyboard? He let you play it?”

“Emphasis on the word ‘stole.”

“Maybe you should put it back,” he said.

Something heavy in her belly made itself known. She gripped the keyboard anxiously and returned it to its position in the shadow of the dresser.

“I didn’t know he had a keyboard,” she said when she was back in her own room, lying back on her bed with her legs folded. “I didn’t know he could play.”

“He can’t. He only plays bass.”

“Huh. I’ve never heard him play guitar, either.”

“He…” Roxas trailed off. For a few minutes, Xion could only hear his breathing. “It’s been a while since I’ve heard him play.”

“I wish I could hear him.”

“Me too. It used to make me really happy.”

Xion grinned when she pictured Lea with a guitar on his lap, head lowered and his eyes closed, Roxas somewhere beside him listening with a content smile on his face. And the guitar would be a bright red, shiny like a candy apple, with six strings and a bolt-on neck. She wondered how much it would take to make her mental image real.

They spoke about nothing in particular for a little while longer. When they said goodbye, Xion turned onto her side and stared at the trails of raindrops traveling down the windowpane, unfocusing her vision until the world around her became pleasantly fuzzy.

She thought, maybe the only reason she ever kept playing the spinet piano in the band practice room at the back of the school was because Lea—and then, Roxas—were there to listen.

It was in the middle of the night, after the moon had set and her room had been sunk into ink black darkness, when Xion felt the earth roll like a wave beneath her. It lasted long enough for her to realize what was happening and to squeeze herself underneath the bed frame where she lay listening to the house groan and the window blinds rattle, and when it was over she remained there for a moment watching the shadow of the ceiling fan shuddering while a car alarm echoed somewhere in the distance. Then she bolted for the door and found herself calling Lea’s name over and over until she stopped recognizing the word.

She could see him at the other end of the hallway when he turned on the light. She stayed where she was, pressing her palms firmly against the doorframe until her fingers turned white, still calling for him.

“Hey, hey,” he said softly, prying her hands away from the doorframe, and then kneeling and squeezing her shoulders. “It’s fine, now.”

She stood in front of him breathing heavily until she calmed down enough to realize that she was uncomfortably sweaty.

“I never knew you were so scared of earthquakes.”

“Sorry. It’s stupid, especially considering where we live.”

“Naw,” Lea said. “Earthquakes are scary. There aren’t many things scarier than the only ground you have to stand on being unreliable.” He rubbed her arms a bit before he stood back up. Xion felt a wash of relief that he knew her well enough to place a palm on her back and say, “Let’s go to the kitchen, yeah?”

There were a few freezer-burned bomb pops at the back of the freezer, and they were probably the ones they bought from the Safeway adjacent to the field where they had watched the fireworks on the Fourth of July, but she was grateful despite the extra ice crystals. She stopped sweating and started wondering if her tongue had turned purple yet instead.

“Thanks for... this,” she murmured as she sat cross-legged on the kitchen chair, chewing idly on the popsicle stick until it splintered. “My parents would have called me a wuss and gone back to bed.”

“Good thing I’m here then, huh?”

Xion tried to smile at him, but it came out crooked.

Good thing.

Chapter Text

Roxas wasn’t sure what he’d expected—maybe a new outlook on life and a sense of authority—but turning thirteen felt very much like every other birthday, though it did come with a sort of fanfare in the form of Sora bursting into his room early in the morning and pouncing on the bed, shouting, “Roxas! We’re thirteen today! We’re teenagers! ”

Great, he thought, now I have a real excuse to be moody and irritable. My voice is cracking and my skin hurts.  But he didn’t say it out loud, ‘cause, well, it was Sora’s birthday, too.

They held their party at the local pool, not even renting out the pool house, just lounging  on the reclining chairs and eating potato chips from the edge of the water. They swam until they got sunburnt and their fingers were pruny and the potato chips were soggy and tasted like chlorine, and then they went home and ate pizza and played Super Smash Bros until Roxas’ thumbs hurt. When the sun was setting, they blew out the candles on an ice cream cake (sweet cream and strawberry) and opened gifts.

The great thing about friends that had known Roxas and Sora for any significant amount of time was that they knew they were different. Riku and Kairi would not dare assume that Sora shared every single one of his interests, and Hayner, Pence, and Olette would not assume the inverse. Roxas teased Sora as he wept upon opening the strangely shaped gift Kairi had presented him--a bow she’d made herself, carefully crafted and smelling of lacquer, with a grip decorated with turquoise and yellow--and Riku’s companion gift, a set of arrows with turkey feather fletching. From his own friends who had pooled their money together, Roxas received an iTunes gift card worth fifty dollars and a pair of limited edition Converse.

It had been a good day, Roxas supposed, after everyone had gone home and he lay awake in bed, still feeling the weightlessness of being in the water and the sting of chlorine in his eyes. But there was a dull ache of disappointment when he had asked Axel to come, but he had not shown up. He turned onto his side and prepared to fall asleep when he heard his phone ring. He got up, rummaged around in his backpack for it, and checked the time on the front LED display before flipping it open and pressing it to his ear.

“Happy birthday, Roxas,” said Axel’s voice on the other end. “Sorry I couldn’t come to your party. I should have let you know sooner.”

“It’s okay, it’s just a party,” Roxas sighed into the phone, making a crackling noise over the line.

“Listen,” Axel said, “My band has a gig at some rich jerk’s house up in the foothills tomorrow night, and I want you to come. Think of it as a second birthday party.”

“Okay. But I have to go to bed now, it’s late.”

“Yeah, yeah, you’re still a baby and you need your beauty sleep,” Axel laughed. “Welcome to the teenager club, Rox.”

Roxas stuffed his phone under his pillow, rolled onto his side, and closed his eyes. Yeah, it had been a good day.

It was a huge house—two stories, a pool, and a three-car garage hidden by the downward slope of the driveway. When Larxene pulled up in front, Roxas couldn’t help but notice the bright red Ferrari parked across the street. He supposed this is what he’d do with his money if he was a Silicon Valley fat cat, but he definitely wouldn’t have any kids to throw a party in his huge expensive house in the hills (which he’d bought of course, and not rented) and destroy everything. Demyx and Zexion showed up fifteen minutes later in a beat-up minivan from which Demyx wheeled out a carefully packed drum set on a hand truck while Zexion hovered over him, saying that if he wasn’t careful with it he’d shove his foot so far up his ass he’d be able to taste the gum stuck on the bottom of his shoe.

It was late in the afternoon, but still a few hours before Axel and his friends were scheduled to play. The only ones at the house were the ones who lived there and their friends: a group of college-aged boys who, to Roxas, seemed intimidatingly adult--even more so than Demyx and Larxene, who were eighteen. Something about them made Roxas feel terribly uneasy but he chalked it up to just being at a stranger’s house without permission, because he had told his parents that he was going to Larxene’s house to watch the band practice and wouldn’t be home for dinner. The truth wasn’t really that far off.

The band set up in the garage, which was spacious and almost completely empty otherwise. When he got bored of watching them struggle with reassembling the drum set, Roxas sat cross-legged at the edge of the pool, pawing at the water while he nursed a Coke. The mountains loomed close, and as the sun began to sink behind them they cast deep blue shadows that cut through the warm and golden evening light. He shivered when they overtook the spot where he sat, but he stayed where he was.

“Hey, you,” said Axel’s voice.

Roxas tilted his head to see him emerge from the backyard door and come to squat beside him. He noticed he’d put on makeup at some point--dark winged eyeliner and a deep plum colored smokey eye. What he found most curious was that he had purposely made it look as if he had ruined it by crying--he’d drawn two dark tears on each side of his face, down from his waterline to his cheek. Along with his fire-engine red hair done up in a ponytail, choker, and entirely black outfit, Roxas thought he looked cool.

Axel fumbled with something in the pocket of his vest. He pulled out a CD and held it under Roxas’ nose. “I wanted to give you this,” he said.

Roxas crossed his eyes and inspected the cover. I Hate My Friends. He set down his Coke and took it gingerly with both hands, then pressed it to his chest. “Really? You’re giving this to me? Are you sure?”

“Of course. You’ve asked to borrow this album a lot more often than I’ve actually listened to it. I think you should have it.”

Roxas flung his arms around him, pressing himself awkwardly against his bony side, feeling the vibration in Axel’s chest when he laughed. Axel tousled his hair when he pulled away: Roxas felt his face burning.

It was getting a bit chilly to be outside without a jacket. He followed Axel back inside the house, gently swinging his half-empty can of Coke back and forth and listening to the soda sloshing around inside. From the living room window, he could see Larxene and Demyx smoking in the front yard. He supposed Isa was probably wherever Axel had wandered off to. Zexion was slouched over in the loveseat, hair falling over his face, the one eye of his that was not covered by hair focused on the book he was reading. Roxas sat himself on the adjacent couch, ignoring his blatant display of “don’t bother me.”

“What’re you reading?”

Zexion rolled his eyes, but answered him anyway. “ The Plague. It’s for school.”

“Cool. What’s it about?”

“A plague.”

Roxas shot him an incredulous look.

“Look, it’s a boring as hell book. All you need to know is that Camus was big into absurdism because it’s all he ever wrote about, which is a lot like existentialism, except it’s not.”

“Existentialism is like… how your existence doesn’t matter to the universe, right?”

“Basically. Once you figure out that the universe is a cold and uncaring bitch, you can do one of two things: you can accept it, or you can kill yourself,” said Zexion, slouching further back into the couch. “Camus didn’t believe in distracting ourselves. He loved art and music, though. But who’s to say whether we’re distracting ourselves or not.”

Zexion turned back to his book. Roxas gazed down at the CD in his hands, thumbing the plastic surface of the jewel case and smudging it ever so slightly with his oily fingerprints. Then he looked at his wrists and the underside of his forearms, where the skin was red from where he always scratched at them. Was music a distraction? He didn’t understand the science behind it, but it made him feel better when he felt bad.

When guests began arriving—more college-aged kids who mulled about the garage and the backyard while others lingered in the kitchen around coolers full up with soda and beer—Roxas stole away to the front yard where he stood under the porch lights and watched them drive up the street in expensive cars. There was music playing at an obnoxious volume. He still held onto his Coke can, though it had been empty for a while now. He saw Axel in the living room through the window behind him, laughing about something and leaning with an elbow on Isa’s shoulder; Isa was laughing too, his lips curled upward in a grin—an expression Roxas saw appear in his face only once in a blue moon. But when Axel spotted him through the window and got up to move toward the front door, Isa’s lips returned to their usual pursed form.

“You doing okay out here?” Axel said, peeking out from the doorway.

“It’s a bit loud, is all.”

He joined Roxas under the porch lights, crossing one leg over the other as he leaned against the wall.

“Can I ask you something?” Roxas said, looking up at him but not focusing on his face, just staring at his jawline and the stray hairs in front of his ears. “Music makes you feel better, right?”

“Sure.”

“Zexion said something really weird that I didn’t understand.”

Axel laughed a barking laugh. “Don’t talk to Zexion when he’s reading.”

Roxas lowered his gaze to stare at his feet. “Everything hurts all the time. I just wanna feel better.”

“I’ll tell you a secret,” he said, his head lolling back against the wall. “There’s music inside you. The very first music there ever was.”

“What does that even mean?”

Axel tapped at Roxas’s chest. “Your heartbeat, man. Your heartbeat.”

He smirked and punched Axel in the arm. “That’s the lamest thing I ever heard you say.”

“That’s what my guitar teacher taught me, so watch your mouth.” He was grinning, though.

It was loud, so loud, and Roxas felt claustrophobic squished between so many taller people but he was halfway through a second can of Coke and he felt good. He could just barely see the top of Axel’s head dancing like a flame above the crowd, but that was enough for him. He was lost between the drum of the music and reverb in his chest, awash in pride seeing his friends perform for a crowd larger than just himself.

The two sodas caught up to him, at some point. He managed to squeeze himself through the mass of sweaty people and back into the house, grateful that he was almost the only person inside. He made his way back from the bathroom and entered the kitchen to claim a third Coke, but he paused when he did so. It’s just me in the kitchen , he realized, eyeing the other cooler. He could take a beer. He could take it and no one would know.

So he did.

It was gross, disgusting, awful--every manner of bad Roxas could think of, but he was on a mission from god to drink that can as fast as he could and that was what he was gonna do. It was for nothing more than the novelty of it, getting away with doing something he wasn’t supposed to. It went up his nose and gave him hiccups, made worse by the fact that he hadn’t eaten dinner. He was halfway through when he got to thinking that, as long as he kept his hands cupped around the can, he could get away with looking like he was drinking a soda. So he ambled back into the garage, carefully covering the logo on the can with his palms as he squeezed himself back into the center of the crowd.

A couple songs later the harsh vibrations of the electric guitar exacerbated by the less than satisfactory acoustics in the garage stopped hurting Roxas’ ears and died down to a inoffensive thrum. He was sweaty and his face felt hot. He felt himself smiling a wide and stupid grin.

Did they always sound that good?

His legs ached, but he kept swaying and bobbing his head. He hadn’t realized he’d made it almost to the front; through the spaces between the multitude of shoulders and elbows he could see Axel, stray hairs sticking to his sweaty forehead, makeup still perfect, looking completely in the moment. Demyx spotted him first. He gave him a wink of acknowledgement. Larxene noticed him as well and stuck her tongue out at him; Roxas stuck his tongue out back at her. And when Axel opened his eyes and saw him swaying in the crowd, red-faced and smiling, he grinned back and Roxas could see the green of his eyes glowing in dim light.

“This next one’s a cover,” Axel said into the microphone when they finished the last song, “For our friend. Happy birthday, buddy.”

Maybe Axel hadn’t listened to the CD he’d given him, but he’d listened to Roxas listen to it enough to know which song was his favorite. He was dizzy with gratitude. His vision was a bit blurry.

I’m gonna get on my knees, would you kick me in the face, please….

Maybe he was dizzy with something else. His face really burned.

And as my gums begin to bleed, the words will fall like teeth…

He’d never enjoyed anything as much as this moment. His chest felt full.

I’m scared I’m gonna die as lonely as I feel. I’m scared I’m gonna die as lonely as I feel right now.

He didn’t feel so good.

Roxas kept his eyes at the top of Axel’s head, ‘cause the ground was moving and that was the only constant he had. The music stopped at some point and the garage emptied, and Zexion was in middle of disassembling the drum set.

“Roxas!” Demyx called, more stray strands of hair hanging over his face than usual. “What are you doing standing around over there?”

“Yeah,” said Roxas blankly. He realized he’d lost track of Axel’s hair.

“Feeling alright?”

“I’m tired.”

Larxene squinted at him and smirked. “Aw. Baby’s up past his bedtime.”

“Larxene. Shut up.” Zexion grunted, struggling with a pair of cymbals. “I think Axel went to use the bathroom, if you’re looking for him.”

Roxas stubbed his toes on the step leading back inside the house. He threw the empty beer can in the recycling bin and tried to remember where the bathroom was.  He wandered around the house for a while, muttering to himself about his smarting toes, until he spotted Axel’s shadow at the end of a hallway.

Isa was with him. They were leaning against the wall, shoulders touching, laughing about something the way they were when Roxas had seen them through the living room window, but quietly. The way he saw his brother laugh with Riku and Kairi sometimes—like it was just them in the whole world. It made his stomach sour in envy, but he did not possess the higher judgement to either leave them alone out of consideration or to ruin their moment out of spite.

“Axel,” he interrupted, watching Isa’s eyebrows furrow and his lips purse. “I don’t feel good. I wanna go home.”

Axel’s eyes widened as he looked him up and down, the corners of his mouth stretching into a twisted grin. “Holy shit. You’re drunk,” he cackled.

Roxas stared at him, exasperated. “I wanna go home,” he repeated.

Axel was still laughing.

“This isn’t funny.” Isa gave Axel a hard stare, his voice a low growl. “Take him home.”

Roxas threw up in the bushes by the driveway. He crouched there in the dark while Isa—who had hardly ever said a word to him, so much as a kind one—rubbed his back. Axel hung back with Larxene a few feet away, leaning idly against the side of her car while she smoked.

“The others need the minivan, so Larxene will drive you home,” he said. “Sorry about that. I’ll make sure she drives carefully.”

Roxas tried to say “thanks,” but it came out as a pitiful groan. He felt stupid. He wanted to cry.

He lay in the back seat with his head resting on Axel’s thigh, seat belt cutting into his stomach, watching the orange glow of the street lights flashing and casting strange shadows inside the car. With his nose so close to the seat he could smell the lingering stench of cigarette smoke that had long settled into its fibers.

“Larxene, why do you smoke?” He mumbled. “No one who lives here ever smokes.”

“She started ‘cause she thought it looked cool, and now she can’t stop,” Axel said.

“Axel, I smoke because of you. ”

Roxas began to hum, because he was entertained by the way the vibration of his throat against Axel’s leg felt.

Scared I’m gonna die…

He couldn’t remember the rest of the words.

Scared I’m gonna die.

Chapter Text

When he was fourteen, things began to hurt. It wasn’t like the time he’d fallen off the play structure at the park, and it wasn’t like the concussion he’d gotten playing Capture-the-Flag. It was something Sora was unfamiliar with—pain in strange, indeterminable places. In his muscles, in his bones, and probably his spleen, but he couldn’t tell.

He thought maybe he’d begun to understand now, why Roxas spent so much time lying in the slide at the park listening to the same two songs on repeat. Why sometimes he would go outside and punch the side of the house until his knuckles bled. Why he started wearing long sleeves. But he wasn’t sure.

Eighth grade sucked. He didn’t understand his homework, he didn’t get enough sleep, and buying cookies and Gatorade from the a la carte line at brunch had stopped being novel halfway through sixth grade. Plus, there was something about that last year of middle school that transformed kids into the meanest people on earth. Classmates he thought he got along with suddenly wanted to shove him into his locker, and there were words which they called him with such venom in their voices it echoed in his mind and returned to haunt him in his sleep.

There were only two things he looked forward to during the week, and that was seeing Kairi at lunch, and meeting Riku after school. That was the other thing—Sora missed Riku during the day.  When he started high school it felt like he’d moved to a different planet and left him behind.

Kairi had field hockey practice after school and aside from the weekends, Sora saw her only at lunch and in between classes. For a while it was just Sora and Riku in the afternoons. Sometimes Riku took him to the cafe on the corner facing a major street half a mile up from the high school. It was a quirky but warm place. Sora hadn’t known Riku had such an affinity for caffeine. Usually, Sora just ordered an iced tea. When he was feeling brave, he ordered a mocha with extra whipped cream. Riku sat across from him with his homework spread neatly before him, his face illuminated by the curtain of gold afternoon light falling through the window, drinking from a steaming cappuccino cup despite the autumn heat. His hair was getting a bit long and it was beginning to fall over his eyes; sometimes, when they were working together in silence, from his periphery Sora caught him staring at him with a faraway expression from under the shadow of his bangs.

Other times, Sora brought Riku home and they did their homework on the floor of his room. That was always the intention, anyway, but lately just the state of being awake weighed so heavy on his shoulders, pushing him into the ground, that now his limbs always seemed to ache; he would lie in his bed instead and sometimes Riku would lay down beside him and they’d doze with their legs tangled together, and the times when Sora did not fall asleep he thought about how one day he would probably be too tired to breathe and die.

Field hockey season ended sometime early in November, when the incessant heat of October finally gave way to weather cool enough to need a jacket all day instead of just in the mornings. Kairi greeted Sora at the school’s front gate looking a bit more banged up than usual with calloused palms and a knee brace peeking out from under the hem of her capris.

It was fun to have Riku to himself, but the world felt more balanced when he was with both of his best friends. AIM just wasn’t a good enough substitute for their voices. He was content to sit together with them at the cafe, watching Kairi pouring an unorthodox amount of honey into her tea and listen to her mumbling something about how she was hoping for a new iPod for the holidays but she wasn’t counting on it, while Riku stirred a single packet of sweetener into his latte and thumbed idly through the book he’d been reading. The sunlight through the window felt good on his shoulders.

The fog rolled into Sora’s head and settled between his thoughts, and he couldn’t remember things anymore. He forgot what the sun felt like.

Some of the persimmons were on the ripe and squishy side, but the man at the hardware store was just going to have to deal with it because Riku wasn’t willing to shuffle alone through the dim building carrying heavy paper grocery bags of fruit any longer than he had to. In the dark, the shelves in the aisles loomed nauseatingly close together and it made his chest feel tight. Kairi was more at home with the smell of paint and wood fibers than he was. She had spent the first nine years of her life running around in the woods in the dark; Riku had not. He’d slept with a night light until he was ten.

He was beginning to lose faith that anyone still worked here; he faced the severely neglected nursery and trudged toward the exit, where daylight waited for him.

“Just you this time, huh?” A rough voice from behind him broke the dead silence. Riku nearly hit the ceiling. He whipped around so hard his neck made an audible cracking noise and, clenching his teeth, met eyes with the owner of the voice.

Or, eye.

And that eye narrowed at him, and the scarred lips of the face it belonged to curled into a grin still as intimidating as before—even in a bright orange apron with a waterlogged nametag labeled ‘Xigbar’ pinned to it. “Where’s your girlfriend?”

Riku swallowed wrong. That was an idea. If she’d been with him, Kairi would be cackling until her face turned red as he bent nearly over his knees choking on his own spit.

“Jesus Christ,” he said. “I’m fucking with you. C’mon.”

With his eyes watering, Riku held out the persimmons and rasped, “You’re gonna help me, right?”

Xigbar took the bag from his hand, spun around, and began marching into the dark abyss while motioning for Riku to follow him.

Riku blinked slowly as he stood around awkwardly and watched him (who was particularly talkative and saying a whole lot of words at him that Kairi would understand but he himself did not) pile wood and miscellaneous items onto a platform dolly. The realization came to him that he felt lightheaded.

“Hey, kid, what’s the matter? You look a million miles away.”

There was a hand waving in front of his face suddenly. He inhaled sharply and pushed it away. “Sorry,” he mumbled, noticing that Xigbar’s other hand, the one that hadn’t been in his face, was holding a half-eaten persimmon, the thought of which eating unwashed made his insides shrivel a little.

“I was saying , we’re about done here. I’m thinkin’ your car probably can’t fit more than this at once,” he said, stuffing the rest of the persimmon in his mouth, seeds and all, and began to cart the dolly down the aisle.

Riku was trying to imagine the face Kairi was going to make when he told her that the man who had survived an apocalypse ate cyanide for fun. Oh, Kairi. She was going to make a good face when he surprised her with building supplies. But he could still do a little more.

“Dirt.”

“Excuse me?”

Riku fumbled with his tongue. “Soil, I mean potting soil. Do you have any left? Um, please.”

“Is this how kids talk these days? Or can you just, like, not talk?” Xigbar didn’t wait for him to answer; he swung the dolly in the opposite direction, toward the nursery.

“Is there anything more I can give you for your help?” Riku said, doing his best to resist the impulse to speak in a more biting tone.

The edge of Xigbar’s lips twisted into an ugly, crooked grin. “I’m fucking with you.”

Riku narrowly avoided a face full of hair lashing him across the nose when Xigbar whipped around again to face him, barring him from the nursery. He leaned back against the dolly with his palms planted firmly on the handle, still grinning. “This entire time. I’ve been fucking with you.” He paused to let out a sound that was more of a wheeze than a laugh. “You don’t owe me a single thing. Corporate quit checking on this store a month ago. I’m the only one here.”

Riku crossed his arms and chewed his cheek.

Xigbar wheezed again. “It was quite a bit more of an ego trip than it was just being manager, scaring off kids who came just to take crap and make a big mess--you know some of those assholes are setting fire to shit now? I coulda’ taken the fifty bucks you tried to give me. But god, I can’t do it to you. You’re not even here for yourself.” He turned around again and resumed pushing the dolly toward the nursery without pausing to see if Riku was still following him.

“Why are you still here, then?”

“‘Cause I’ve got nothing better to do. There’s no one waiting for me.” Riku watched him stop to inspect a row of shelves before hefting a bag of soil onto the dolly, and then a couple more. “Eh, but that’s not new.”

“I’m… sorry?” Riku mumbled, just to say something, but the truth was that he was a little irritated and a lot uncomfortable, and he found it hard to feel sorry. It earned him a squint from one deep brown eye.

“Whatever.”

The clouds continued to roll overhead. The nursery darkened as a dense patch of cloud passed above the skylight. Xigbar swung the dolly around again, then paused and dug his fingernails into the handle. His expression grew distant. But when the light shifted again the look was gone, and so was Xigbar himself, who had strode a few aisles over and was in the process of digging something out from behind another shelf. Riku tapped at his thigh impatiently before he returned to press something into his palm--a stack of seed packets held together by an old rubber band. The packet at the top of the stack was labelled “Green Zucchini.”

“Zucchini never stops fucking growing as long as you keep tending it. Zucchini won’t let you down,” Xigbar said. Then his voice lowered. It wasn’t quite a growl; Riku figured it was his attempt at sounding gentle. “You’ve got people to go home to, yeah?”

Riku bit his cheek again, a little harder this time. He nodded slowly.

“Good for you, kiddo.”

Riku continued to bite his cheek.

“I used to have buddies,” he said. “Worked in a lab together, maybe fifteen years ago, back when stem cell research was starting to get really hot. Used to drink together sometimes, too.” Xigbar looked away. He crossed his arms over the handle of the dolly and dug his fingernails into his skin. He leaned into the dolly and began shuffling slowly toward the exit. “I don’t know how the hell they ever put up with me as long as they did, ‘cause I never learned how to be a decent fucking person, and they knew it.”

Riku thought he tasted blood.

“We’d been drinking. We got into--no, I started that fight. A brief stint with the hospital and the cops and the next thing I know I have no eye, no job, and no friends.”

Definitely blood in his mouth now.

“And they’re all dead now. They’re all dead and I’m still here. It’s fuckin’ poetic, isn’t it? Nothin’ like bein’ completely alone to remind you that you’re lonely ‘cause you spent your entire goddamn life being awful.” He turned his gaze back to Riku, his face darkening as his scarred lips curved downward from a crooked grin into an intense frown. “No apology could have ever fixed the way I acted. Even though I cared about them; even if I told them so.”

Riku quit biting his sore cheek and chewed the skin on his lip instead. Somehow they had moved from the nursery to the parking lot without him noticing, and he was standing in front of his car.

Then Xigbar’s expression lightened and, after shoving the wood and bags of soil into the back of the car, straightened himself and said, “Anyway, I’m sorry; I shouldn’t have dumped all that on ya when you kids have it hard enough already.” He pressed a hand against Riku’s shoulder for a brief moment. “What’s a normal adult thing to say? Tell people you love them, preferably before they die. Wear sunscreen. Eat your fuckin’ veggies.”

Riku had run out of words at least an hour ago, and his cheek stung. He blinked and nodded, hoping it was enough to come across as something vaguely like an expression of gratitude. Fortunately, Xigbar had been an endless fountain of words and didn’t seem to notice that he had hardly spoken at all. He didn’t wait for Riku to say goodbye; instead, he shoved the dolly away and allowed it to roll somewhere further down the parking lot where it was probably doomed to sit forever, rusty and forlorn, and turned away.

“That’s enough of that. I’m leaving to go die in a ditch somewhere,” he said, and walked away without looking back.

Riku watched the sky through the windshield. From the moving car, the clouds seemed to hang still. He never thought he could ever miss the sun in the middle of a drought, but the fact that he did hardly felt like a strange development in the midst of everything else.

“Are you ever going to tell him?” He heard Kairi’s voice echoing in the back of his mind.

“I can’t,” he mumbled out loud.

Suddenly there was a rush of static in his head and a deafening ringing in his ears, and his stomach felt full of lava. He pulled over at the side of the road, opened the car door, and vomited onto the asphalt.

“How long are you going to stay in there?”

“As long as I want.”

“But you’ve been sitting in front of the toilet for an hour.”

Riku glanced up from the abyss of the toilet bowl to catch the outline of Sora peeking in through the cracked open door.

“I’m coming in,” Sora announced.

“Let me barf in peace.”

Sora ignored him, sat himself on the floor beside him and offered him a hot mug of something that smelled enticing. “Sorry we don’t have any more Pepto Bismol. Kairi made you some ginger tea.”

Riku accepted the drink, sat back, and held it delicately under his nose. “I took some Nyquil, but I don’t think I should have.” In truth, he had only thrown up the one time, but the image of Ventus curled over the bucket on his lap tortured by endless dry heaving was burned into his mind and he was determined to purge any illness he might have contracted as quickly as possible.

He felt Sora lean against his side. The bathroom tile was cold, and Sora’s shoulder felt comfortable and warm. He was humming something in the back of his throat, mostly to himself, so softly Riku could hardly hear.

“Ok, so if it was zombies--”

“Zombies again?”

“If it was zombies,” Sora continued, resting his cheek against his shoulder blade, “And I got turned--how would you kill me?”

“Really, Sora?”

“How would you do it?”

“Uh, fuck, I dunno, I guess I’d…” Riku paused to take a sip of his tea hoping that Sora would get distracted and talk about something else, but it didn’t happen. “I guess I’d use a shovel.”

“A shovel? Where’s your sense of romance? At least use a pistol or something.”

“I don’t like talking about this,” Riku mumbled, though he did wonder where he saw any possible romantic tension in slaying the undead. “You sort of have a history of being close to death.”

“Kairi says to set her on fire.”

He groaned and returned his gaze to the toilet bowl. Nyquil-induced sleep was beginning to pull him in; he bobbed forward and snapped his head back before his bangs dipped into the water. He felt Sora’s hands gently pulling his hair away from his face, and then a slight tickling at the back of his neck before Riku realized that he was trying to braid it. Sora was braiding his hair and humming, and Riku’s stomach grew so hot he was afraid he might he might throw up again. Crossing an arm over the rim of the toilet seat, he buried his face in the crook of his elbow.

Only a few minutes later Sora released his hair with a soft huff of defeat. Riku rose, observed his handiwork in the mirror, and snorted.

“Kairi does it so well, I don’t know what I’m doing wrong!”

“You could actually learn to braid,” he teased. You could use my hair to practice, he wanted to add. Instead, he said, “I’m gonna take a nap.”

Another wave of dizziness washed over him when he crawled feebly under the covers; he groaned and pressed his face deep into his pillow. He then turned onto his side to find that Sora had followed him into the bedroom and was sitting on the edge of the bed, eyes fixed on his face with unwavering focus. There was a crease between his brows that made Riku ache.

“Don’t you have your own bed?”

“I’m tucking you in, stupid.”

“I’m a big boy and I don’t need to be tucked in, stupid. ”

Sora straightened the covers anyway and patted down the creases, but the crease between his brows still remained. “I feel bad that you’re not feeling well. I feel like…” He glanced away for a moment. “I wish I could do more, y’know?”

“Seriously, I’m fine.”

“I dunno...”

“You and Kairi are the only things keeping me from going crazy. Just being here is more than enough.”

“But—“

“More than enough, Sora. Now please go away, I’m trying to sleep.”

On a sunnier day Riku figured the room would probably be awash in the watery orange light of a late winter afternoon, but the overcast sky made the light dull and diffuse. Out of the corner of his eye he stared absentmindedly at the edge of Sora’s hair, backlit by the light from the window; perhaps on that sunnier day it would be a brilliant gold halo, but today it was mousy and pale. He let his eyes slip shut. The waves that had jostled him before returned; he felt as if he was floating on his back in the dark ocean.

For the briefest moment, there was something wet on his cheek. He fought to crack his eyes open once more, helpless in the grip of chemical sleep. He saw a blurry Sora take a half-step away and clasp a hand over his mouth.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered. “It’s a habit... I didn’t ask... I’m sorry.”

Riku couldn’t feel his legs.

“I’m sorry,” Sora whispered again, and shuffled quickly out of the room.

Riku tried to call him back but his throat wouldn’t work, it came out as a pathetic huff and he could only ball the fabric of the blanket into a weak fist. Then it was dark and he was floating on his back in the ocean once more.

In his dream, he was sewing. He was sewing by hand a whipstitch into the chest of a rabbit. Its insides were spilling out from its breast to its belly, and its fur clumped between his stitches. Unbothered, it turned its head and fixed him with a single, wide eye.

“Stop that,” he begged the rabbit.

The rabbit continued to stare.

“I can’t do this when you’re looking at me like that.”

He blinked, and the rabbit was no longer in the grip of his hand but instead he held the familiar tan, bony wrist of Sora. His head was turned away.

Look at me, he tried to say, but no sound came from his lips.

From his wrist spilled ribbons and ribbons of endless, dark, and oily magnetic tape. Somewhere within its frames, Atreyu screamed and cried for his horse in the Swamp of Sadness.

The wound would not close. The more he stitched the wider it became, until the soft skin of his forearm fell away completely, leaving nothing but darkness.

Please, look at me.

He did not look.

Kairi was alone in the living room watching a movie with the lights off, upside down with her back on the floor and her legs on the couch cushions. A mostly-eaten bag of popcorn rested on her chest. She glanced at Riku when she heard him enter the room, gesturing at the bag of popcorn; she patted the space next to her when Riku shook his head.

He sat down on the floor with his knees tucked into his chest. “What are you watching?”

“13 Going On 30.”

He sighed.

“Quit the tough-guy act. I know this is your favorite movie.”

“I hate that you’ve known me long enough to know that.”

“Sing ‘Love Is a Battlefield’ with me?”

“No.”

Kairi shrugged and worked on the kernels stuck between her teeth. Riku exhaled softly. Kairi made a very convincing show of appearing to know what she was doing despite being strung tight as a rubber band. But she seemed fine--or better than she was, at least, and Riku felt like he could breathe. He watched her making faces as she hummed.

“Where’s Sora?”

“He went to bed early.”

“Oh.”

“He helped me fix the downspout earlier. He also left while you were taking a nap saying he was going for a run. Guess he finally tired himself out.”

From where he sat, Kairi’s feet were close to his head. Without thinking Riku reached out and touched the scar on her ankle. He pulled his hand back in embarrassment, but she didn’t appear to react.

“Kairi,” he said after a while, lowering his voice as much as possible without turning it into a whisper. “Can you listen to me for a sec?”

“I’m listening,” she replied without looking at him.

“Wait. Fuck.” He shoved his face into his knees. His chest was on fire. “Sorry. I’ll tell you tomorrow.”

Kairi reached for his hand and, prying it gently from his knee, squeezed his fingers. “Do you remember that Twilight Zone episode—the one with the guy who just wanted to read books, but something always kept stopping him?”

“I’m not sure.”

“He survived a nuclear apocalypse and he came out of his bunker to find himself completely alone, but then he found the ruins of a library. Just him an an endless pile of books. All the time in the world, he said, but the minute he sat down to read them, his glasses broke?”

“I definitely don’t remember that one.”

“Don’t be that guy,” she said, still squeezing his fingers.

He wondered why he’d hadn’t thought of doing so first, when as they prepared to head home, Kairi leaned over and kissed him lightly on the cheek.

Sora stared at her for a beat with his mouth hanging open.

“Sorry,” she whispered, clasping her hands over her mouth. Her freckles stood out boldly against her bright pink cheeks. “Was that okay?”

He closed his mouth and grinned. “No, it’s--I, uh--is this what we’re doing now?”

“If you want.”

“I’d like that,” he said, and kissed her back.

Riku scrunched up his face when Kairi tried the same. His shoulders shot up to his chin and his eyes squeezed shut.

She laughed, then apologized. “You’d think I’d know better by now, huh. You don’t like being touched much.”

“Kissing me is a bit much.” Riku opened his eyes one at a time and pressed a hand to his cheek where Kairi had kissed him.

“I like it,” Sora interjected.

“I’m sure,” Riku said. “You’re a regular social deviant.”

“So you won’t let me touch you but you’re fine when Sora does it. How is that fair?” Kairi narrowed her eyes and shoved at him gently.

“I learned at the tender age of four that Sora is an unstoppable hurricane of physical affection.”

“I like that,” Kairi said.

“I’m sure.”

She leaned into Sora’s ear and whispered, “I bet he’d let you kiss him.”

Riku turned away and pretended not to hear, but Sora saw his ears turn red.

Chapter Text

“Naminé’s not keeping her promise,” groaned Xion, shoving her fists as deep into her pants’ front pockets as they would go. “I’m having a shit week.”

Roxas flipped his skateboard into the air and caught it under his arm. “Tell her!”

“I did. She hasn’t texted me in a couple days.”

Roxas hummed. “Hey, I know what will make you feel better. Let’s crush some recycling.”

“I’m out,” she sighed.

“I’m sure we can find some nice garbage to crush in the dumpster behind the Safeway. C’mon, let’s go!” He broke into a jog before Xion could say anything.

She chased him down the street, wheezing with her hands on her knees when he stopped abruptly in front of the public pool to stare wistfully at the murky water through the gate. No one had bothered to cover it with a tarp. No one had bothered to drain it, either. A mass of dead and rotting leaves floated on the otherwise completely still surface of the water. He let out a sigh as he fumbled with the grip on his skateboard before continuing making his way down the street, walking this time.

When they wandered into the empty parking lot of the surrounding strip mall, Xion paused. “Were these windows smashed before?” She mumbled, peering into the cafe she had once made a habit of stopping into after school.

Roxas made a soft hissing sound like steam leaving a kettle before it began to whistle. He kept walking towards the rear parking lot, a little slower and more cautiously than before. “Over here,” he called upon deciding that they were alone behind the grocery store. He grinned when he saw that the dumpster had been left unlocked, tossed the lid open, and leapt inside. He rummaged around for a few minutes making sounds of approval before he began tossing its contents onto the pavement.

Xion inspected the pile of garbage. It was mostly cardboard boxes that had already been crushed and folded. “What am I supposed to do with these?”

“I dunno, rip ‘em up or something,” echoed Roxas’ voice.

“I don’t think you brought me here for me. I think you brought me here so you could go dumpster diving.”

“Hold on, I found what I’m looking for.” He stood up, hoisting a couple six-packs of empty glass bottles into the air with triumph, and clambered out of the dumpster.

Xion planted her hands on her hips. “What are you doing with those?”

“Skipping stones,” replied Roxas, handing her one of the bottles. “Except they’re bottles and I’m throwing them at the wall.”

It was brilliant green and without a label. She hesitated, dragging her fingers over the molded glass instead, picturing the collection of sea glass she had abandoned on her dresser. Her old dresser, in her old house, where bad memories lived. She knew it took ten years for a piece of glass to tumble about amongst the waves before it could be considered sea glass, beautiful, with no sharp edges. She wondered if it would take that long for her own edges to soften, and she could lie on the beach where someone might one day come along to take her home and love her.

“I used to do this with my brother. It goes like this,” Roxas continued. “You tell the bottle something that’s bothering you; that traps the worry inside. Then you throw it at the wall--bam, it’s shattered, gone. I’ll go first: my knees fucking hurt.” He hurled the bottle at the wall where it exploded in a firework of glass.

A cocktail of amusement and hysteria bubbled up within her and Xion couldn’t help but giggle. Roxas elbowed her in the shoulder, and she inhaled and readied her aim. “I wanna hear from Naminé,” she told the bottle. Once more it collided with the wall in a spray of glass. She giggled again.

Roxas began to chuckle as well. He bent down and picked up another pair of bottles. “ Everything hurts,” he hissed, and threw the bottle. They were laughing louder now; Roxas had one hand clutched to his stomach and Xion’s cheeks were beginning to smart.

“C’mon, that doesn’t count! You brought me here; what’s really bothering you?”

“Fine.” Roxas picked up another bottle. He was silent for a moment, frowning and running his fingers along the glass. Finally, he growled, “Things that should make me upset make me feel numb, and things I shouldn’t care about so much make me angry.” He hurled the bottle at the wall with so much force that some of the debris skittered all the way back to his feet.

“Me too.” Xion threw the bottle.

Roxas let out a barking laugh that descended into a cough and a dry sniffle. “Get your own problems.”

She grinned as she snorted at him. “I keep having this dream--like those dreams where you’re being chased and it’s like you’re running through water? Except in my dream I’m chasing something, and I can never run fast enough. That’s not really what I want to talk about, through.”  While she dug at her brain for the words to give voice to her complaints, she found herself worrying her lip when the thought she had been after suddenly zipped through her and turned her insides sour. Finally, she said, “There’s something I’ve been trying to reconcile.”

“What’s that?”

“I think it’s something like being lonely.”

Xion watched Roxas’ brows furrow and cast a shadow over his eyes; for the briefest moment, she thought he looked hurt. She continued talking before he could open his mouth.

“No,” she said hurriedly, and then with an exasperated sigh, tugged the hair at the back of her head. “It’s… different. I want to tell you. But I don’t have the words.”

“Don’t worry about it,” he said. “Throw the bottle.”

“When I find them--” She laughed dryly as she raised her arm and planted her feet far apart. “You’ll be the first person I tell.”

Amid the spray of glass, Roxas’ raucous laughter was cut off by a high-pitched yelp. Xion whipped her head around to see him grasping one hand with the other, his nose crinkled and his teeth gritted, and her heart sank.

“Fuck, Roxas, I’m so sorry!” She clasped her hands around his wrists. “Let me see.”

“It’s fine.” He groaned and gingerly lifted his fingers away from his hand, revealing a mess of red spilling out from the meat of his palm. He quickly clapped his other hand back over the wound.

“Uh, that doesn’t look fine. I think you might need stitches. Let’s go home.”

He slipped away from her grip, his eyes growing wide as he uttered a long and creative stream of curses. Xion reached out to place a hand upon his shoulder, but when she lifted her arm she noticed that she had blood on her fingers.

“Fuck, I can’t go home yet. My brother’s either gonna kill me or he’s gonna cry and I don’t know which one is worse. Fuck. ”

“I’m sorry,” she gasped again. “I only know your brother from what you’ve told me, does he usually get that upset?”

“It’s not like that,” he replied. “I would tell him the truth, but he won’t believe me. I sort of--”

Roxas cut himself off and fixed his eyes on the street. Xion suddenly became aware of rambunctious, cacophonous laughter echoing through the strip mall, and even where they stood in the rear parking lot of the Safeway it was loud enough to be intimidating. She swore she could feel the hair on the back of her neck stand straight up and resisted the strange and primal urge to bare her teeth at the silhouettes that came into view as they crossed the space between the buildings.

Boys. A lot of them. Carrying bats. Laughing that horrible hyena laugh that made her blood run cold.

Roxas was gritting his teeth so hard she could practically see his jaws straining. He stood where he was with his feet planted far apart and his shoulders hunched and his breathing restrained. For a solid moment Xion was terrified that he might attempt to fight them then and there, and then not only would she be out of a best friend but she’d have to find some way to explain to his brother why his skull looked like a deflated soccer ball. That was, of course, if she didn’t get her own brains bashed in first. But he stayed silent. Xion didn’t breathe until the noise began to fade, and then she exhaled so hard she was almost wheezing.

“Take me to Lea’s house,” Roxas said in a low voice. “He has a First-Aid kit in the hallway closet. Don’t ask me how I know.”

She collected his skateboard from where it had been leaning against the dumpster and wordlessly led him out of the parking lot.

“What the fuck did you do to your hand?” Lea hissed as he pressed an alcohol-soaked cotton ball to Roxas’ trembling forearm.

“What did I do. What did I do to his hand,” Xion corrected.

“What the fuck,” Lea repeated.

“We were--”

“Having knife fights?!”

“Smashing bottles we got from the dumpster behind Safeway,” Roxas interjected. “Could you please fix my hand before grilling me?”

There were a few seconds of relative silence during which Lea exhaled through his teeth and muttered something about his failure as a role model. Roxas squeezed his eyes shut and turned his head away when Lea informed him that he was going to begin; the metallic clicking of the forceps was immediately followed by a scandalized yelp and a stream of curses. Xion could see his eyes welling up as he jerked his arm away.

“You can squeeze my hand if you want,” she offered.

“Fuck you,” Roxas said, but he took it anyway.

Three stitches, a roll of gauze, and two very sore hands later, Roxas was still sitting cross-legged on a kitchen chair, picking at his wrappings and pretending that he hadn’t spent the last fifteen minutes threatening to poke Lea full of holes with a needle once he was finished because people usually used anaesthetic instead of ibuprofen as Lea repeatedly hissed at him to shut up and that he was sorry he didn’t have anything better. Xion, meanwhile, kept silent while she graciously allowed Roxas to crush her metacarpals and shoved her hand between her knees once he finally let go.

Roxas groaned when Lea announced that he was taking him home, but complied without further protest. He exhaled heavily into Xion’s shoulder as he hugged her goodbye. Then he gathered his skateboard, slipped on his shoes without bothering to tie them, and allowed Lea to escort him out the door.

Alone, Xion lay down on the carpet with her arms spread out and her knees in the air and pretended she was a sea star, but she found that pretending she didn’t have ears or eyes or a brain was boring and rolled over onto her stomach to check her phone. Something in her chest fluttered when she noticed that she had an unread message from Naminé, timestamped a half hour prior.

Sorry for the radio silence, she said. I ran away.

She got up and paced around the room for a few minutes before texting back a long series of question marks.

She responded immediately. I’m sorry, that sounded bad. I’m completely fine. I’m staying with Terra and co.

Xion sent more question marks.

Do you have some free time? I’d like to see you again.  

“You’ve never had pearl milk tea?” Xion repeated, incredulous. She glanced up from fiddling with the dashboard of the BMW Naminé had shown up in. It had a rear view camera; she’d never seen one before. Fancy.

“Never,” Naminé replied, a tiny grin gracing her lips. “I got intimidated by how complicated trying to order something was.”

“I wish that’s what we were doing right now.” She sighed wistfully and returned to fiddling with the dashboard. A burst of static slammed against her eardrum when she turned on the radio by accident. She twisted the knob the other way and slumped down in the passenger seat with her hands between her legs.

Naminé giggled and returned her gaze to the road. In the driver’s seat she appeared to be even slighter than she was, but her posture was confident and Xion found herself admiring the angle of her chin before she caught herself and quickly turned her head to the passenger window and hiding her mouth behind her fingers. The radio static was in her brain now, making her stare like an idiot.

“I didn’t know you had your driver’s license already,” She mumbled after a few minutes when she dared to move her focus away from the window.

“I don’t,” Naminé said, grin spreading across her face and her eyes crinkling as she lifted her index finger to her lips.

“This is super illegal.”

“I stole my cousins’ car, too.”

Xion made a choking noise. “Naminé, you have to tell me what the hell is going on with you,” she gasped.

“I ran away,” she replied simply.

She gave her a pointed look.

“And I stole a car.” When she realized that Xion was still staring at her, she tugged at the collar of her sweater as her face fell and added tensely, “I had to get out.”

Xion felt somewhat shaken; all she could do was utter a knowing hum.

Aqua answered the door. She greeted them with an enthusiastic smile that grew wider when she saw Xion and proceeded to bombard her with formalities, and she did her best to answer the question “How are you” with anything other than a low whine and a strained smile. When she finally allowed Naminé to gently tug her away, her posture fell from being upright and receptive to an exhausted slouch and it was clear that she, too, had lied.

Xion followed them to the kitchen, close enough to Naminé to gently pinch the sleeve of her sweater.

“Do you want anything to eat or drink?” Called Aqua as Xion shook her head. Aqua sat herself down at the kitchen table in front of a laptop and a couple notebooks and chewed on the end of a ballpoint pen as she pushed her unkempt hair away from her face and attempted to tuck it behind her ear before it fell over her forehead again.

Terra sat across from her with a similar setup. He shifted in his chair to catch Naminé as she flung herself at him, wrapping her arms around his neck for a brief moment; he laughed and ruffled her hair as she let go.

“If you guys do get hungry, don’t eat from the dishes at the top of the fridge… It’s not leftover kimchi,” he informed them.

Aqua took her pen out of her mouth. “Did you try to eat my cultures?”

“Could you stop doing science where food goes?”

“How’s Ven?” Xion asked tentatively, before Terra could run through the exact same formalities as his sister. “Lea and Roxas told me he was sick last week.”

“He’s fine,” he replied. He lowered his gaze slightly. “You should go say hi--he’s been stuck at home with his dumb siblings all week and he’ll be happy to see a new face.”

Naminé’s face lit up and she grabbed Xion’s shoulder. “That’s right, you haven’t met Ven yet!”

Xion allowed her to tug her away from the kitchen and into the living room. Resting on the couch with an iPad in his lap was a boy with straw colored hair who Xion assumed was the much talked-about Ventus. A pair of crutches leaned against the couch within his arm’s reach. It tickled her that for an instant he reminded her of Roxas--but only if Roxas had all the anger sucked out of him and some of his color, too. On a second glance she realized they did not actually look that much alike.

“Hey,” he said, sitting up straight but not moving from the couch.

“Hey,” Naminé replied. “This is my friend, Xion, who I was telling you about. We met at the same camp I met you at!”

Ventus leaned slightly to one side to look Xion in the face. Then he grinned and nodded at Naminé. “I’m Ventus, but I usually go by Ven.”

“Are--how have you been doing?” Xion stuttered, nearly wincing as she realized she’d just asked him the question she’d been trying to avoid answering herself for the past fifteen minutes.

But almost to her relief, he sighed and said, “Hard to say--is anyone ever doing alright lately?”

“No shit,” she said.

Ventus let out a dry laugh. “You don’t have to hang around me; I’m a bummer. Look—“ He motioned to the pair of crutches leaning against the couch. “I still can’t walk.”

Xion rubbed the back of her head, out of words. Reassurances seemed empty. Ventus offered her a strained smile and announced that he was going to take a nap; then he rolled over and pulled a blanket over his head.

Naminé suggested they go for a walk. Xion nodded and hurriedly slipped her shoes and jacket on, feeling guilty about seeming so eager to leave the house, but by the second deep breath she took of the crisp, biting air she felt better. There was a sort of pall hanging over that house and everyone in it.

Neither of them said a word until they were all the way down the block, and then they said “Sorry,” in unison, laughed, and said “Sorry” again. Naminé paused a couple steps ahead of Xion, fixing her with a gentle smile and apologetic eyes. She held out her elbow; Xion, who was always in a state of having her hands shoved into the pockets of her bomber jacket, just stared blankly. Naminé moved toward her and looped her arm delicately around hers.

“Bad moods are kind of contagious. I don’t think I’ve seen Ven in a mood like that before,” she sighed. “I thought it would be fun if we could so something together, but…” She trailed off and sighed again.

The butterfly migration was in Xion’s chest again, apparently back from Michoacan just to fill her insides with their relentless fluttering. She leaned in anyway, aware of the smell of fabric softener on Naminé’s sweater and the tickle of her hair. It was nice, for a moment. Then the other feeling was back, crawling out from the pit of her stomach, turning her gut back into a sour, roiling cauldron of acid. Her palms went from tolerably warm and sweaty to freezing. She stopped walking and unhooked her arm from Naminé’s.

“What’s wrong?” She asked, tilting her head. Her eyes were apologetic still; she always looked very sorry about something, Xion thought.

“I don’t know why I did that,” Xion mumbled, staring at her own arm still hovering in the air. She curled it around Naminé’s once more and hid her hand in the pocket of her jacket. The feeling still lurked somewhere in her intestines. She willed it to go away but it stayed defiantly in her body, just watching, like chaperones at a middle school dance waiting to shove themselves between thirteen year-olds who came closer than an arm’s length away from each other.

Naminé hummed something melodiless quietly at the back of her throat and played with the edge of her sweater, staring at the sidewalk with a tiny grin.

“So, uh,” Xion began, still trying to will away the unsavory feeling. “You and Terra seem kinda close.”

“Yeah--I mean, I did meet Ven first. Terra and Aqua were taking summer classes at the same time me and Ven were at camp, and they always came to pick him up. Remember how I never had a lunch or a snack or anything?”

“Ugh. Even my own mom still let me eat lunch.”

“Terra was actually the one who insisted he feed me. He used to take me to eat all the time.”

“That’s actually really sweet.”

“Also, no one ever bothered me when I was in the shadow of a huge jock,” Naminé giggled.

Xion laughed a barking laugh. “That reminds me of why I hung out with Lea, ‘cept it was ‘cause he used to look a lot more like he crawled out of the underworld.”

“You have interesting friends.”

“Does that include you?”

Naminé’s face turned pink and she shook Xion’s shoulder as she laughed.

They kept walking. Eventually Xion forgot about her palms feeling sweaty. There was smoke in the air, but it smelled bitter somehow. She ignored it in favor of being distracted by Naminé’s hair, and her spiel about how Ven was teaching her how to cook, and how he’d taught himself because his family was often busy. How Aqua did not have any idea about what foods taste good together but she could accurately measure out leavening ingredients. How Terra was a skilled baker but he disliked sweets, so whatever he made usually sat molding above the fridge unless he took it to campus and gave it away. Xion listened intently.

Naminé drove her home. Xion didn’t think she had anything interesting to say, but she talked anyway. She talked about how Roxas’ idea to throw glass bottles against the wall ended up with Lea sewing up his hand. She talked about how she usually spent her evenings playing video games with Lea but she’d only even beaten him in Super Smash Bros once. She talked about Roxas teaching her to skateboard at the schoolyard.

As she parked in front of the townhouse complex, Naminé grabbed Xion’s arm as she was getting out of the car. “Wait, wait,” she said, hurriedly digging for something in one of her front pockets. When she finally drew it out she took Xion’s hand and placed in delicately in her palm. “Ven has so much extra embroidery floss, he started teaching me to make these, too… I, um, made you one.”

Xion observed the object in her hand. It was a bracelet a lot like the ones her classmates used to make for each other in elementary school, but in the hands of a high schooler, it was careful work--patterned with diamonds in a mix of blue and lavender, fixed with a loop and a wooden button at the ends. No one had ever made anything for her before. A bit verklempt, she could only stutter, “You remembered my favorite color.”

“Duh,” she replied. “What do you think I use my sketchbook for?”

Xion allowed her to lean over and wrap her arms around her neck, while she--with one leg dangling awkwardly out of the car--could only stare blankly at the knit of her sweater. Then she waited until the BMW was around the corner and out of sight before she turned back toward the townhouse complex, weaving the bracelet between her fingers inside the pocket of her jacket.

Lea was smoking out on the lawn again, wearing something warmer than just a T-shirt this time but still looking a bit cold. The dark circles under his eyes seemed darker than usual--not the shade of makeup he used to emphasize them, but dark as in he hadn’t slept well. She wasn’t sure if this was new, or if she had just failed to notice it earlier. When he saw her approaching from the street he held out his arms; she ran at him and threw herself at his chest, and he patted her shoulder before she pulled away, squeezing her eyes shut as he ruffled her hair.

“How’s your girl?”

“She made me this,” Xion said, holding the bracelet under his nose.

He let out a wheeze that descended into a cough. He held one fist to his mouth until the fit passed, nearly dropping the cigarette he was holding in his other hand, and then with his eyes still watering he laughed, “She made you a bracelet? She likes you, man.”

“It’s a friendship bracelet. Roxas says Kairi makes them for his brother and his friend all the time.”

Lea wheezed again and threw his head back. “Holy shit, Xi. You’re killing me.” He crushed the cigarette under his heel and lit another.

She pouted and stuffed the bracelet back into her jacket. “Can I talk to you about something, though?”

“Of course. I’ll meet you back inside in a little bit.”

Xion left him on the lawn. She threw her shoes haphazardly against the side of the wall and lay down on the floor of the living room, but this time she didn’t pretend to be sea star. Instead, she took the bracelet out from her jacket again and wove it between her fingers. She put it on. She took it off. She wove it through her fingers some more. She thought about Naminé’s head resting on her shoulder, and the smell of fabric softener on her sweater, and her slim, sure fingers--

She was just kidding herself. Girls were just like that.

Her stomach began to complain again. She rolled over and checked her phone. She scowled when she realized it had been an hour and Lea still hadn’t come back inside. She got up and opened the door; it had gotten dark, but she could see the faint orange glow of Lea’s cigarette. Without putting her shoes on, she braved the freezing sidewalk to march up to him barefoot and cross her arms.

“How long have you been smoking today?” She pressed with her voice as low as she could make it go.

Lea narrowed his eyes and exhaled a plume of smoke through his nostrils. “That’s none of your business.”

“So?”

“Leave me alone.”

“Stop smoking, then.”

He stood up straight and tilted his jaw upwards to look down on her with his nose crinkled, glow of his cigarette reflecting sharply in the slivers of his eyes, and growled, “Leave me alone. ”

Xion was startled. She could feel her chest strain and hot tears begin to well up in her eyes, and she willed herself not to cry.

She turned on her heel and ran back into the house and up the stairs, into Lea’s bedroom. There were unopened packs of cigarettes still sitting on top of the dresser; she stuffed them into the pocket of her bomber jacket and began to pull open the drawers one by one rummaging around for more. She found some hidden under his shirts and she stuffed as many of them as she could fit into her jacket. She figured there were probably even more in the drawer of his nightstand, but she didn’t dare to look. Then she ran out the door (having slipped her shoes on this time, but not bothering to either tie them or  to fix their heels) and into the dark.

She kept running until she came to a small park a few blocks away where she stopped to catch her breath. The streetlights has gone out there and she could barely see, but she didn’t care. There was a bitter smell in the air. She shivered despite the warmth of her jacket.

Xion emptied the contents of her pockets onto the ground. She stared at the pile of cigarette packs at her feet and clenched her teeth so hard she thought she might lose a filling, her vision blurred by her watering eyes. Then she lifted one knee and came down hard upon the pile with her heel. Pain shot up her leg; she doubled over clutching her ankle and let out a sob. She clasped her other hand over her mouth, sucking in her breath through her nose until her foot was only throbbing.

She stood there, just panting, head hung low, staring blankly at the ground. This wasn’t going to get her anywhere. This wasn’t going to fix anything. She reached back into the pocket of her jacket to grasp the bracelet in her fist. She wished she hadn’t gone home; she wished she was still walking with Naminé’s arm looped around hers; she wished her nose was buried in her sweater. But the more she thought about Naminé the more her insides hurt. She was going to give herself an ulcer over it.

It was so easy, letting Naminé’s arms fall around her shoulders, to let her pull her in, to fall asleep in that kind of touch. It was easier to take a wrong step, to ruin absolutely everything.

Something like being lonely.

She remembered the collection of sea glass on her dresser again. Roxas’ yelp, the spray of glass, and the open wound on his palm shoved its way to the front of her mind, and she shook her head trying to dispel the image like an Etch A Sketch.

She brought her heel down on the pile of cigarettes once more, digging them into the ground until she was only making a mess of tobacco under her feet. Somewhere between the trampled cigarettes and the rest of the mess she’d made, she finally found the word she’d been searching for.

Xion felt guilty.

Chapter Text

The note in his backpack was in Kairi’s handwriting. Sora didn’t find it until he got home and it was there--taped to the front of his folder where he’d see it, patterned paper folded into the shape of an envelope and wrapped with twine tied neatly into a bow. He wasted a few minutes admiring how cute it was before opening it as delicately as he could. They hadn’t passed notes since fourth grade, but he didn’t have time to wonder why she’d suddenly started again because upon reading it he was granted his answer. He folded it hurriedly, stuffed it into his pants pocket, and ran out the door.

She was waiting for him under the walnut tree at the park like the note said she’d be, her arms folded over her stomach, looking a bit chilly even in her sweater. She was staring at her feet as she idly crossed and uncrossed her legs, and only looked up when she heard the leaves crunching under his feet as he approached and skidded to a stop in front of her.

“Are you teasing me again?” Sora wheezed, holding out the note.

Kairi planted her hands on her hips. “Do you think I’d be here waiting for you if I was?”

He was bent over with his hands on his knees as he tried to catch his breath. He looked up, wiped his forehead with one arm, and grinned, feeling his face burning a lot more intensely than it was a moment ago. “I never really thought about it before.”

“So?” She pressed, folding her arms again.

“I like you, too.”

Her eyes crinkled. “You like -like me?”

He groaned and buried his face in his hands. “You said you weren’t teasing me!”

She cackled with her hands on her stomach. She took a deep breath and exhaled slowly once she finally collected herself, sliding down the trunk of the tree and sitting down at the base. Sora sat down beside her.

“What should we do now?” She asked.

“I think people who like each other usually go on dates,” he replied.

Kairi giggled. “That’s not what I meant, but we can do that. What do you think?”

“I’d like that,” he said.

He’d done stupid things, of course. He had a habit of acting before thinking, so in fact most of the things he’d done in his life were stupid. When he was younger, he and his brother had made a game of throwing darts between each other’s fingers as the backs of their hands were pressed against the center of the target. He’d once fallen off the roof watching the fireworks on the fourth of July and had somehow only sprained his wrist. He’d once allowed his friends to dare him to skinny dip in the river and gotten scolded by the campground staff at Yosemite as they stood by and snickered. Then there was that stupid thing. He’d trespassed on the properties up in the foothills (‘cause really, keeping a view of the entire bay like that to yourself was just selfish) but never before had he broken a boundary.

“I’m going for a run,” Sora announced, fumbling with his shoes at the front door. He couldn’t get them on fast enough.

“You’re not tired?” Kairi called from the other side of the house.

“Nope,” he lied. His legs were full of jitters and it was unbearable, like when he tried to drink coffee and he was still exhausted but the world was spinning around him at a hundred miles an hour.

“Want company? I can get dressed right now.”

“It’s fine, I think I’ll go by myself.”

Kairi crossed over from the kitchen, caught him by the wrist before he could escape, and stuffed her pocket knife into the front pocket of his jacket. Sora made an exaggerated groan but didn’t resist. He looked back up at her face and grinned before noticing that she was giving him a look, the one where her eyes went wide and her eyebrows were raised like she knew something. She did have an obnoxious habit of knowing, and she knew that, too. It was a confidence game--sometimes she acted like she knew just so he’d spill, and he would, because he still told her everything.

He gave Kairi a tight squeeze, assured her he wouldn’t be too long, and sprinted across the lawn and down the street. The knife in his pocket banged against his hip as he ran with the cold air stinging his lungs. The rain appeared to have stopped for good, and though the sky was still a patchwork of clouds, the sun shone warmly through the gaps.

The weather brought him no peace of mind. The cold bit at his cheeks and his thighs burned. There was a cocktail of feelings commingling all at once under his skin and he only wanted them out before they caused him to spontaneously combust. Why did I do that? He kept repeating to himself, the words jumbling with the melodies of Carly Rae Jepsen that had become inconveniently stuck in his head. He supposed he’d spent one too many afternoons with his CDs spinning in Roxas’ old boombox. Why did I do that? He asked. Hey, I just met you, said Carly Rae.

He didn’t ask. That was it--he didn’t ask, and he only had to apologize. It was an impulse, no different from picking up sparkly rocks and poking his brother in the navel. Riku had been his best friend since he was three years old; he was more comfortable with him than he’d ever been with anyone else. Their mothers had bathed them together, same as the way Sora had shared a tub with Roxas until they were four. When they slept over, they’d shared the same twin bed until the two of them couldn’t fit in it anymore. And all the millions of times he’d hugged him and held his hand and played with his hair--those were impulses, too. Why did he feel so weird about it? Kairi kissed him sometimes, and he didn’t like it, but it was no big deal. He kept digging at his thoughts, but it was useless. Call me maybe, said Carly Rae.

Sora kept running until he couldn’t feel his legs, until his lungs were burning so badly that he was beginning to taste iron, until his hair was sticking flat to the back of his neck. He stopped to catch his breath, hunched over wheezing with his hands in his knees, and when he looked up again he realized he must be the next town over as he was now standing directly in the cold, blue shadow of the mountains. He could see the beige prism of the Mt. Umunhum observatory clearly now. He’d been here before; there was a gelato shop on the corner with an Italian name he never quit misreading, and there were a number of summer evenings he’d stopped to watch the dogs at the park with a cone in his hand. He could continue up the foothills, but he knew that no matter which route he took passing the cemetery was inevitable. It was either that or he would get mauled by a mountain lion while he was up there, and if he was being honest with himself, death by mountain lion was slightly more appealing. He turned back.

It was dark by the time he returned. The porch light was on as usual. Sora could see the shadows of Kairi and Roxas through the shuttered window blinds shuffling about in the kitchen. He didn’t see the shadow of Riku. He took a breath before opening the door anyhow, quickly waving to Kairi and Roxas and excusing himself to go take a shower.

The door to Riku’s room was closed; Sora figured he must still be asleep. It was still closed when he left the bathroom. At the risk of waking him, Sora felt compelled to go in--just to check on him, he told himself, because he had been sleeping a long time. It was definitely not to stare at him while he slept. Maybe he’d already be awake and he could apologize to him then. He wasn’t, though, because as Sora slowly cracked the door open he found that the room was completely dark and the blinds hadn’t been shut.

Riku was just a shadowy lump in the center of the bed, the orange light from the street lamp falling through the window and over his shoulders, his hair fanned out behind him. His brows were furrowed and his nose was crinkled, and his bangs were sticking to his forehead. His lips were moving ever slightly. Sora debated nudging him awake, to rescue him from whatever nightmare that seemed to be gripping him, but he decided against it--if he was sick, he wouldn’t be happy about being roused. Sora left him sleeping.

Roxas fed them frozen fish sticks and tater tots, which Sora would have been more excited about had he not fed them the exact same thing the last time he was in charge of dinner. He ate without a word while Kairi made that wide-eyed look at him, and he did the dishes without protest.

“Hey,” Kairi said sternly as he finished drying off the dishes, cornering him against the sink.  “Spill.”

Sora turned around, pressing his palms firmly against the counter behind him. “Okay, but--” Her nose was only a millimeter away from his face. “I wanna talk in the backyard.”

He was hardly comfortable sitting outside on the concrete porch--his tailbone hurt and his ass was frozen--but that wasn’t the issue. He took a deep breath and blurted, “Kairi, I might have... kissed him.”

She squinted and shook her head incredulously, but there was an apparent grin spreading across her face which she had to purse her lips to hide. “ This is why you’re upset?” She paused to cough and Sora nudged her shoulder forcefully with his elbow.

“On the cheek, before he fell asleep,” he continued. “I didn’t ask. I don’t know why, I just… did it.” He nudged Kairi again when he noticed her hiding her grin with her fingers.

“Oh my god, you nut,” She said under her breath, looking like she was trying to filter a number of things through her mind before she decided to speak again. “Okay, so? You kiss me all the time.”

“But I don’t kiss him. ”

“Why not start? The world’s already ended. You can kiss Riku all you want.” She had not quit wearing that teasing squint and shit-eating grin on her face.

Sora groaned and shoved his face into his knees. After a few minutes of silence he lifted his head again and mumbled, “I dunno, we just don’t. Riku’s just my best friend.”

Kairi stopped grinning. “Aren’t I just your friend, too?”

“Yeah, but--”

“Shut up and listen to yourself.” Her voice grew low. “What color is the sky?”

“It’s blue,” he replied.

“Is it? Sora, look up. What color is the sky?”

He looked up. Beyond the shivering trees, beyond the patchwork blanket of clouds, beyond the glow of the half-moon, beyond Mars and the Milky Way and the uncountable billions of stars, was only the infinite darkness of the universe.

“It’s black,” he said.

Kairi’s face brightened and her grin returned. “You--you know how people work. You’re the only person who’s ever made Riku laugh so hard he pissed his pants, and you’re the only person who ever could,” she said. Then she sat up straight and hissed, “But you don’t have an ounce of self-awareness! If you were any dumber, you wouldn’t be able to recognize your own reflection. It’s tragic!” She shoved him so hard he nearly fell over.

“I don’t even remember what I did to make Riku piss his pants,” Sora mused, righting himself and dusting off his sweatpants.

“I don’t either,” Kairi replied. She snorted and immediately lost her composure. Her laughter was contagious, and they both found themselves wheezing and clutching helplessly at their stomachs. With her eyes watering, Kairi cleared her throat and said shakily, “I think you get these ideas in your head that things are supposed to be the way you think they’re supposed to be.”

He shook his head. “I don’t get it.”

She didn’t elaborate. She only smiled a tight-lipped smile and kissed him softly on the cheek.

Sora was roused by the clamoring of birds in the trees outside his window. It was early enough that the sun had not yet risen and the morning light shone blue. Beside him, Roxas had shoved himself firmly into the crevasse between the bed and the wall, snoring so gently it was almost a purr. The bedroom was freezing and Sora swore he could see his breath; he shuddered and pulled the duvet up to his nose. He was about to roll over and go back to sleep until he heard the clatter of cutlery coming from the kitchen. He sat up and shoved his feet into the pair of slippers he kept by the bed and slipped on the sweatshirt draped over a chair before treading out into the living room.

It was Riku, still in his pajamas with his hair fixed into a sloppy bun, a blanket draped over his shoulders as he shuffled about in the kitchen. He knelt down to search for something in the cupboard under the stove; when he stood up again he caught sight of Sora lingering in the living room and paused to fix him briefly with an expressionless gaze before turning his attention back to his search. Sora continued his journey to the kitchen and, too tired to say anything, only wrapped his arms around Riku’s stomach and pressed his cheek to his shoulder blade.

For a moment they stood in the kitchen, just breathing, and Sora was sure the cold tile was the only thing keeping him from falling back asleep right there until Riku slowly stretched an arm outward to turn on the faucet, cupped his hand under it, and flung a handful of water over his shoulder into Sora’s face. He yelped and let go of Riku to rub his face with his arms, laughing into the crook of his elbow. When he glanced up, Riku was looking down at him with a lopsided grin.

“Morning,” Riku mumbled, stifling a yawn and pulling his blanket back over his shoulders.

“Feeling better?”

“Mhm,” he hummed.

Sora hoisted himself up onto the counter and sat scrutinizing Riku’s face. There was still a little sleep crusted onto his eyelids. He didn’t seem to be angry or upset at all; Sora wasn’t sure what to think. He continued staring at him trying to discern his mood, but he eventually lost focus and found himself lost in his jawline. He shook his head and looked somewhere else, which happened to be the bare spot on the back of his neck. Sora shook his head again.

“What’re you making?” He asked, only to distract himself from his distractions.

Riku turned around and leaned back against the stove. “I dunno,” he replied. “I can’t decide. What do you think I should make?”

Sora kicked his legs. “Chocolate cake.”

“Unless you can find me eggs and butter, it’s gonna taste like shit.”

“Please?” He sat up straight with his hands in his lap and batted his lashes imploringly until his vision was obscured by Riku’s hand in his face.

Riku said nothing, but the corners of his lips were curled into a delicate smile. He retrieved his hand when Sora, laughing, shoved it away.

“Hey--” He began, kicking his feet against the cupboard door. He held his breath as he watched him tilt his head and raise his eyebrows. “Aren’t you mad at me?”

He blinked.

“About yesterday.”

“Oh.” He made a croaking noise like he’d swallowed wrong. There was a gentle flush creeping onto his face. “Not really.”

“But--uh...You’re sure?”

“It’s fine,” he mumbled, and rubbed at his neck. Then he said, a little too loudly, “I’ll make you a chocolate cake.”

Sora managed to resist cheering out loud (out of respect for the residents of the house who were still asleep) but he pumped his arms in the air so hard he nearly fell off the counter. Riku lunged forward to catch him by the knees. Sora was struck with an odd sense of deja-vu. Their noses were awfully close; he could smell the shampoo lingering on Riku’s hair. Old Spice or something. The light outside was changing, illuminating the side of his face with a watery yellow as the sun rose and highlighted the angle of his jawline. Sora began to reach out to touch the light falling on his cheek, but before he could do so Riku laughed dryly and turned away to continue his rummaging through the cupboard under the stove.

Sora remained seated on the counter, staring absentmindedly at the bare spot on the back of Riku’s neck.

“Roxas,” Sora hissed, slumping dramatically against the couch with his controller in his lap in defeat. “Wavedashing is fucking cheating and you know it.” He shoved at his shoulder.

“You’re just mad ‘cause you can’t do it,” Roxas replied with a smirk, and started a new match. “C’mon, it’s your turn to pick the stage.”

“I miss when you weren’t such an ass about playing games. I’m gonna apply for a new brother.”

“Good fucking luck, at this point you’re stuck with me the rest of your life.” Roxas watched him select Fountain of Dreams for the fifth time. His hand smarted, and it was difficult to ignore. He’d torn off the bandages as soon as he’d gotten home and pulled on an extra large hoodie to hide his hands in the sleeves. Even when he pushed them up to play video games, the wound remained hidden as long as he didn’t let go of the controller. It had seemed to be working, at least until the ibuprofen began to wear off and he became even more distracted.

Sora‘s arms shot into the air as he whooped, “I beat you!”

“Once,” Roxas replied. “And only ‘cause my controller is sticky.”

“You’re such a sore loser. It’s not sticking.”

“No, my hands are sweaty; it’s stick—” He looked at his controller. A wave of dizziness washed over him. His hands were definitely sticky, but they weren’t sweaty.

Sora let out a squawk. “What happened?” He grabbed his wrist before he could pull away, squinting as his examined his hand. “Stitches?”

Roxas hadn’t planned to be caught; his entire plan was to not get caught until the wound closed on its own. But he realized only now that it was exceedingly stupid that he thought he could hide it from his twin, and he should have instead prepared for the storm that was beginning to cross Sora’s face as he tightened his grip on his wrist.

“You promised you wouldn’t do this anymore,” he said, his eyes growing dark.

Roxas struggled to retrieve his hand, but Sora had a grip like a vice.

“It was the first thing you said to me when I came home from the hospital.”

“It was an accident,” he gasped. The futility of the situation made his skin prickle.

“That’s what you said last time.” Sora’s voice was at a near growl. Roxas’ blood was trailing down his forearm, but he made no move to wipe it away. “Lea did these stitches again, didn’t he?”

“Where the hell am I supposed to go?”

“To me. ” His voice broke as he said it, and the tears he had been holding back began to stream down his cheeks.

There he goes, thought Roxas. He hated it when Sora cried. It was too easy to make him do it. Since they were little, Riku had always been so concerned whenever Sora cried, and suddenly began treating him like something delicate. It made him furious.

“Aren’t you remembering to take your medication?”

“I’m almost out. I’m saving it for when I need it.”

“Roxas, you need it now. ”

Some switch somewhere in his mind flipped and suddenly drained him of all desire to care. He knew there was no way of convincing him of the truth from the start. There were years of scars that were deliberate, though they were silver and faded now. But to Sora, deliberate or no, it was all the same. It was none of his business what he did with his body, anyway, he thought. With his wrist still trapped in his brother’s grip, Roxas squeezed his other hand into a fist, swung his arm, and socked him square in the jaw.

Sora recoiled with a yelp and cradled his cheek. Before he could retaliate, Roxas grabbed him by the shoulders and bowled him off the couch, pinning him to the floor. Sora let out a hiss as his ankle collided with the edge of the coffee table on the way down.

“What the fuck was that for?!” He rasped. The blood from Roxas’ hand was beginning to soak into his sleeve.

“None of this is any of your business,” Roxas growled. There was a terrible pressure to his gut as Sora lifted his knees and kicked him in the stomach, sending them somersaulting across the living room snapping and clawing at each other until Roxas found himself pinned on his back with a Gamecube controller pressing into the curve of his spine.

“I think it is my business,” Sora retorted. He grasped at the collar of his shirt with a sob. “You’re the only family I have left!”

“You’re a fucking hypocrite. After all that, you’re mad at me for hurting myself? I’m not the one who--” A punch to the face cut him off. He bit his cheek by in the process and groaned pitifully as he tossed his head.

Sora was still straddling him, pressing his spine against the controller hard enough he was sure his vertebrae were bruising. Sora’s knuckles collided with his jaw again, and he tasted iron. Roxas heaved him off his stomach with a roar and he stumbled backwards, the back of his head crashing into the glass sliding door. Sora rose shakily to his feet. As he leapt forward to tackle Roxas to the floor, the door opened and Kairi burst through.

“ Boys, ” she shrieked, her eyes wild, running her hands through her hair in exasperation. “What the everloving fuck do you two think you’re doing?!”

Sora froze, hunched over and stuttering like a raccoon caught rummaging in a garbage can. Roxas used the opportunity to knee him in the groin. Kairi dove for Roxas, knocking a pair of drinking glasses off the table and sending them clattering to the floor. Riku appeared in the doorway just then, one hand plastered to his forehead and his hair in a similar mode of dishevelment.

“Grab Sora before they kill each other!” She commanded as she held the ankles of a writhing Roxas in the air.

Riku slipped his hands under Sora’s armpits before he could strike the immobilized Roxas, continuing to snap and struggle against his hold. “What the fuck is going on,” he wheezed, wincing as Sora kicked and crushed his toes with his heel.

“Fuck you,” Sora spat. “You promised!”

Roxas tried to kick himself out of Kairi’s grip as she began to drag him across the floor. He was staring at Sora’s tear streaked, upside-down face and the darkening bloodstain he’d left on the sleeve of his shirt. “You’re a fucking pathetic crybaby of a brother; we’d both be better off--” He yelped as Kairi kneed him hard in the small of his back and hissed at him to shut up.

Sora only began to sob harder, crying that he didn’t mean it. Roxas said nothing. He quit struggling and allowed Kairi to drag him into the hallway before she pulled him to his feet and shoved him into the bathroom, shutting him inside.

“You can take a shower if you want,” she called from the other side of the door. “But I’m not letting you out until you cool down.” She was probably standing with her back to the door and there was no way he’d be able to force it open; Kairi was strong and Roxas knew when to give up.

He sighed, and the room began to dance and spin around him as his breath left his body like the air in his lungs was the last thing keeping him from keeling over. His reflection in the mirror was warped and blurry, further obfuscated by an ever-shifting pattern of spots. He wondered idly if something had happened to his eyes. He could still see his jaw growing red and swollen, and the mass of scratches etched onto his skin when he wriggled out of his shirt.

Roxas turned on the bathtub faucet and just sat there on the side of the tub letting the water run over his feet and swirl down the drain. There were good things in his life and he knew it, and yet the impulse to ruin things—to cut to the bone, to reopen wounds and rub dirt in them—overcame him every time. It was fucked up of him, he thought. It wasn’t bad enough that his body hurt; his soul had to hurt, too.

He wondered if it would ever stop. He wondered if he’d grow out of it. How long would that take? He wondered.

Chapter Text

Xion was woken from that dream she kept having—the one where she’d run and run after something she could never ever catch—by the sound of the doorbell echoing through the house. Lea must’ve locked himself outside; he could deal with it himself, she thought. She rolled over, but the doorbell rang again, and then a third time before she kicked away the blankets and threw on a sweater to trudge downstairs and give him an earful. It was too fucking early for him to be bothering her with the consequences of his bad habits. But it wasn’t him standing on the doorstep—it was Roxas. His backpack was slung loosely over his shoulder and he gripped his skateboard under his other arm with his head hung low, his eyes shadowed by his bedraggled mess of hair.

“Roxas—what happened to your face?” She breathed.

“I know, it’s gross, isn’t it?” He laughed dryly and contorted his face into something she assumed was supposed to be a grin, but the bruise on his jaw was so swollen it turned out awkward and lopsided. Xion ushered him inside and, after closing the door behind him, allowed his backpack to slide off his shoulder and onto the floor. He let his skateboard down with only just a little more care.

“Did something happen?”

He shrugged, then shook his head. Xion extended her arms and he let his head fall onto her shoulder, wrapping his arms around her waist and balling the fabric of her sweater loosely into his fists. She heard him sniffle, and then his back began to gently quake. She held him until the shaking stopped and he let go.

“I’m tired,” he said. He rubbed at his bloodshot eyes. “Do you mind if I sleep here?”

She shook her head. He discarded his shoes and flopped onto the couch with a sigh that made him sound like he was deflating. Xion gathered the blankets from the hallway closet and threw them over him, patting them down at the edges as he grinned and pulled them up to his nose. She sat herself down on the floor and leaned back against the couch.

“You do this a lot,” she told him.

“I know my face makes this sound unconvincing, but god, it’s nothing like you and your parents--honest. Me an’ Sora get along.” Roxas sighed, then rolled onto his back. “There’s something you’ll never understand about having siblings--it’s like you’re programmed to hate each other. Fighting’s normal, and nine times outta ten it’s about some really pointless shit.”

Xion crossed her arms over her knees. “Even for twins?”

“ Especially for twins! That’s why when we fight about something real--well, you see what happens.”

“Your hand--” She’d noticed that he’d removed the bandages at some point. The wound looked swollen and irritated.

“Reminded him of something we don't talk about.”

There were a lot of things Roxas didn’t talk about. She didn’t press. Instead, she hummed and smoothed down the creases of his blanket again. He let out another long, deflating sigh and closed his eyes. It was still obnoxiously early; there was no one else to talk to since Naminé was definitely still asleep, and she wasn’t quite prepared to face Lea once he woke up and figured out what she’d done with his belongings the night before. Xion debated going back to bed herself, but she hadn’t been awake this early since school was still happening and figured she might as well enjoy her precious last few hours alive.

Being up before the world was awake was a different sort of boring. Xion wasted an hour or so returning scattered CDs and records to their respective shelves, opening them and reading the inserts. Some of them were clearly Roxas’ taste, but some looked like they must have belonged to other people altogether. One such article was hidden somewhere at the end of one of the shelves—a jewel case with a handmade insert she believed to be what a mixtape looked like, but the writing on its cover had long bled out and become indecipherable. It was one of those things she’d only noticed after she’d moved in, like the Casio and exactly how much Lea smoked. She burned another couple hours lying on the floor and playing her old Gameboy with the volume off. Then she shuffled around the second floor bathroom organizing the medicine cabinet. There were at least five different shades of black nail polish sitting in one of the drawers under the sink; she sat on the lid of the toilet and painted her nails with one of them.

It wasn’t till noon that there were other signs of life. Roxas (who snored very softly, and Xion always pictured the sound belonging to a very tiny lawnmower) spluttered awake, kicked off his blankets, and demanded a glass of juice. Xion obliged and brought it to him. He drank it with a blank expression and his eyes half-lidded, and when he was finished with it he handed back the empty glass, rolled onto his side, and went back to sleep. Not long after Roxas’ tiny lawnmower purring began to worm its way into her ears again, Xion heard a bedroom door open. Lea appeared at the top of the stairs. Woohoo, I can’t wait for my face to look exactly like Roxas’, she thought.

He ambled down the stairs, reaching under his sweatshirt to scratch at his stomach with one hand and stifling a yawn with the other. He tousled Xion’s hair as he passed by her leaning against the back of the couch. Then he stopped and turned around. Xion braced herself, but his attention was not on her. He raised his brows as he peered over the couch. “Rox? What happened to his--”

“He sorta had a rough night,” she interrupted.

He reached out to brush a few stray strands of hair away from Roxas’ face as he frowned and chewed his lip. Roxas did not stir. “I guess we’ll catch up when he wakes up.”  

Lea continued his way across the living room, slipped on his shoes, and disappeared beyond the front door followed by a freezing rush of air tinged with the scent of cigarette smoke. Xion realized she was just being stupid. Of course she hadn’t gotten rid of his entire stash. Lea probably had packs hidden inside the walls. She probably hadn’t even made a dent. Xion wanted to be angry, but she was too tired.

It was nearly five o’clock in the evening when Roxas stirred again. He coughed and demanded another glass of juice, but immediately got up to obtain it himself. He sat outside on the front step as his drank it, and Xion followed him as she wasn’t entirely sure if he was lucid until he spoke.

“I had one of those dreams about my brother dying again,” he said.

“I could’ve woken you up if I’d known you were having a bad dream,” she offered.

He shook his head and took another sip of juice. “I never see him die; in my dream, he’s just gone.” He stared blankly at the ground while Xion scrutinized the bruise on his face; maybe it was the vanishing daylight, but it appeared have become darker already. Then he shrugged and lolled his head back on his shoulders, gazing ahead at the sun setting behind the mountains. His chest quaked briefly in silent laughter.

Xion crossed her arms over her knees, resting her chin in the crook of her elbow. The sun looked terribly small and distant, like it really was the size of a quarter and she could just blot it out with her thumb. She held her hand up against it and squeezed one eye shut; with the sun out of her vision, she became distracted by the bracelet on her wrist. When she squinted, the blue and lavender woven together melted into a delicate periwinkle.

Roxas tipped her arm downwards. “That’s the girliest thing I’ve ever seen you wear. When did you get it?”  

Xion felt her face grow hot. “Naminé made it,” she replied, stifling a groan when she saw Roxas’s brows shoot up to his hairline and a grin spread rapidly across his face. She slapped her palm against his mouth and he cackled into it.

There was the rumble of a car engine echoing from somewhere down the street that drew their attention before Roxas could tease her any further. Xion retrieved her hand and leaned forward as the car came into view and parked across the lawn. She tried to recall where she had seen it before, until she glimpsed the familiar peacoat and hair of the driver--both navy blue--as she stepped out and began to walk towards them along the twisted sidewalk path of the townhouse complex.

Aqua did not look well.This was not a new development. Each time she saw her she looked exponentially more exhausted, the dark circles under her eyes darker each time and the black roots of her hair showing through a little more. As she came closer, Xion could see the shirt she was wearing beneath her unbuttoned coat--a maroon tee hand-embroidered with a lazy drawing of an evergreen tree with a cartoon face and a pair of legs in lieu of a trunk. Beneath it read “ STANDFOR” in collegiate font. In addition to the odd juxtaposition of clothing in her ensemble, she had partially tucked her shirt into her faded, paint-stained sweatpants and wore a pair of black ankle boots that looked expensive. Roxas waved to her; Xion still found that being around her made her underarms feel unbearably sweaty, so she kept her hands to herself.

“Hello, you two,” she said, and tilted her head as she fixed Roxas with her light-eyed stare. “What’s happened here? I thought Lea was supposed to keep you out of trouble.”

“He doesn’t know about my secret underground boxing gig,” replied Roxas with a deformed grin. Aqua frowned and raised her brows. “Just kidding. I fell off my skateboard yesterday.” Xion elbowed him in the shoulder, causing him to let out a squawk, his voice cracking in the middle. He rubbed at his arm and kicked at her ankle as she giggled.

“Hey,” interrupted the voice of Lea from behind them. He was standing in the now open doorway with a bright grin and his hands planted on his hips. “You didn’t tell me you were coming! What’cha doin’ out here besides interrogating my kids?”

Aqua ran hand through her hair, sighing as her head lolled to one side. “Lea,” she said. “Let’s get hammered.”

She was already on her third beer while Lea was still nursing his first. Beer was all he had, though Aqua had initially asked for something stronger. Xion exchanged a look with Roxas, and then that turned into five looks, and then that turned into ten looks and counting. Aqua obviously had a goal; she had the same dark focus in her eyes that Xion saw in Lea on the days he stood out smoking on the lawn for an especially long time--the same one she saw the night before. Xion chewed on the edge of her glass of juice, distracting herself with the clinking noises her teeth made against the glass while Aqua droned on about how she’d taken her cultures home to keep an eye on while she was away from the lab while Ventus was sick, but they weren’t doing well in the kitchen fridge.

“Anyone tell you that you look like crap lately?” Lea interjected as he observed her pull open the metal tab on a fourth beer. “The hell’s the matter with you? I swear you were still a goody two-shoes the last time I saw you.”

She shrugged.

“I’m confiscating this,” he said as he plucked the can from her hand mid-swig. She groaned and pawed at it helplessly as Lea held her back with his hand in her face.

It was becoming increasingly apparent to Xion that the two of them had more similarities than she’d thought, but she still couldn’t imagine how a former punk musician with a delinquent streak might have become friends with an admirably diligent student of an elite university in the first place. She thought bemusedly that it could have been the subject of a Hollywood summer romance movie, some “opposites attract” kind of cheese, were Lea not so vocally open about his interest in other boys. That was definitely for the better.

“How did you guys even become friends?” Xion asked, interrupting their feud over the can of beer.

“I was his chemistry tutor in high school,” Aqua informed them, looking Xion in the face but still attempting to reach for the beer with one arm. “I used to be part of the after school tutoring program.”

Roxas wheezed. “Lea? Going to tutoring?”

Lea continued to slap Aqua’s hand away. “Hey, my dad was so neglectful at that point in time that the most rebellious thing I could do was to get help with my homework.”

“And, ah, well,” Aqua hummed, lacing her fingers together. “When we started talking about other stuff, it turned out we actually had some things in common.”

“Yeah, like not having any other fucking friends,” cackled Lea.

Xion wondered how Aqua could have possibly been bad at making friends in high school. People without friends ended up hiding in the bathroom stalls, like herself--at least until she’d met Lea. Aqua did not look like someone who spent her time in a bathroom stall. The dark spot in Lea’s timeline seemed to grow darker the more she learned about him. “So, uh,” she began tentatively, because she desperately wanted to know more about his days before she’d met him, but he had always been irritatingly defensive about it. “What’s the deal with you two? What did you do that made Aqua so mad at you?”

The response was immediate boisterous laughter from the two of them. Aqua laughed with a hee, hee, hee noise as her face turned lobster red.

Roxas sat up straight and pounded on his thighs with his fists. “ Please tell her! I haven’t even gotten to hear the whole thing!”

“Shh,” interrupted Aqua, finally retrieving her can of beer. She held up one hand while she took a long sip.

Lea grumbled something about being an enabler before he clasped his hands together and cleared his throat. “So,” he began, before Aqua set down her drink. “This was when she was a senior and I was a junior, a couple months after she started tutoring me. This was a few weeks before senior prom tickets were about to go on sale and Aqua mentioned that she’d always wanted to go, but she couldn’t find anyone to go with--”

“What do you mean you couldn’t find anybody to go with?!” Xion blurted, feeling her face begin to burn amid her breathless outburst. Lea was attempting to stifle a laugh  but it came out of his nose instead as an ugly snort. “You could have asked any guy you wanted to go with you and they would have said yes! You’re so smart and pretty and tall--”

“And gay,” said Aqua with a tight-lipped grin.

Her face felt like the surface of the sun. It sure was a lonely thing, sometimes. Roxas nudged her shoulder with his own. Lea was still snorting through his nose.

“I asked him if he knew anyone I might be able to go with and he said he had this friend… ” Her nose crinkled a bit as she enunciated the word “friend” like she was tasting something bitter. “We went on a couple dates beforehand. She seemed nice enough. But mostly I thought she was really hot.”

Roxas sat up on his knees. “What was her name?”

She rolled her eyes around for a moment and chewed her lip. “It was… Arlene? No, it started with an ‘l’... L-La…”

“Larxene?!” Roxas nearly shouted. Aqua nodded and snapped her fingers. “Lea, you set her up with Larxene? What the fuck?!? ”

“Who’s Larxene?”

“The worst,” hissed Roxas, grabbing Xion’s wrists and looking her straight in the eye. “She played guitar in Lea’s old band, and she was the worst .”

“That’s definitely one of the top ten biggest mistakes I’ve ever made.” Lea ran his hands through his hair and took a large sip of his beer. “Where did they have the prom again? The Hilton?”

“The Hyatt Regency in San Francisco. Really fancy. Nice view of the bay.” Aqua’s tight-lipped grin returned. “I told Dad I was going stag with my friends; only Terra knew who I was going with.”

Xion wished she could have gone to prom. TV was her only reference, and she could only hope it was just as exciting and important. She wondered if she would have been brave enough to ask Naminé. Probably not. The image of her parents flashed briefly through Xion’s mind, and she felt ill. She shook her head and tried to dispel the memory of her mother’s overreaction to that first haircut--the screaming, the crocodile tears, the sobbing that her daughter wanted to become a boy…  There was no way on any planet in the solar system she could have been brave enough to ask Naminé to prom.

“Technically, we weren’t supposed leave the prom until it was over,” Aqua continued. “But I’d heard about seniors who’d managed to sneak out in the middle. So when Larxene said she wanted to get out of there I thought, cool, I’m gonna get--whoops, there are kids here.” She buried her nose in her beer.

Lea began snorting through his nose again. Roxas pouted. Xion just blushed.

“So we made it all the way to the parking lot and she hops in this Tesla. I ask if it’s hers, she just says, sure. I get in with her, because I’m an idiot. We get all the way to Millbrae before I see police cars behind us, and she doesn’t pull over--she just keeps going faster.” She rubbed at her temples, mussing her unruly bangs. “It’s at this point she tells me the car is not hers.”

Xion stared wide-eyed with her mouth hanging open. Roxas was grinning.

“Now you know. That’s how I spent my prom night in holding. I was really lucky that my dad bailed me out, but I had to explain a lot more to him that night than I anticipated.”

“I’m so fucking sorry, Aqua,” Lea groaned.

“It wasn’t really your fault. I was just teasing.” She shrugged. “Terra thought it was hilarious, but Ven was horrified.” She opened a fifth beer.

“I can’t believe it was Larxene…” mumbled Roxas, mostly to himself.

“How’s he doing? Ven, I mean,” asked Lea in a low voice.

“Ven’s with Aerith.” Aqua brought her shoulders up to her chin and grinned like she had gas. Then she pushed her bangs away from her forehead and took a very long sip. “He’s in the hospital.”

Xion looked towards Roxas; Roxas stared back. Lea stood up and brushed off his jeans; he extended a hand to Aqua and she took it, wobbling as she allowed him to pull her to her feet. Then with one arm around her shoulders he said, “Let’s go outside,” and steered her towards the front door. Xion watched the door shut behind them and, holding her breath, just sat on her feet for a long moment until she heard their voices again. They must be sitting on the front step, she figured. Roxas fidgeted with the zipper of his jacket.

“...My fault,” She heard Aqua say. “Seemed… better than…”

“No… fine…” Lea’s voice said.

There were a few hissing whispers followed by a loud sob. Xion’s impulse to be nosy was stronger than her inclination to be polite, so she got up and sat on her haunches by the door. Roxas followed suit.

“He might not be able to walk for a while… If I’d caught it sooner—“

“Sorry to be blunt, but if you hadn’t caught it at all, he might be dead.”

Xion didn’t know what they were talking about. Didn’t Ventus just have the flu?

“I should have caught it sooner,” Aqua’s voice said again. “I should know these things!”

“You always act so damn responsible that it kills me,” hissed Lea. “You’re still pre-med; you can’t beat yourself about shit that you haven’t even been trained for yet. Aerith’s a resident! She’s among the best people you could leave him with right now.”

There was a burst of hysterical laughter--an ugly hee, hee, hee noise punctuated by sobs and sniffles. “When did you start sounding so rational, Lea?”

“Hmm, maybe around the time you made it clear to me that you’re developing a drinking problem. Give that back.”

Groaning noises. “I need to go home…”

“You need to take a nap. Let’s go back inside. I’ll tell Terra that you’re staying over.”

They scrambled to their feet as the doorknob began to turn. Roxas flipped himself over the back of the couch and Xion tumbled into place next to him, and they began furiously and rhythmically slapping their hands together and chanting “Concentration 64; no repeats or hesitation; category is--”

Aqua stumbled through the door hanging off of Lea’s arm. “And you have to tell my brother that he has to get rid of all the canned goods, not just the ones he thinks look suspicious. All of them,” she instructed him as her coat slid off her shoulders and onto the floor.

Lea grunted and motioned for the two of them to make room on the couch, and they scattered like startled pigeons. Xion picked up her coat and draped it over the kitchen chair while Roxas watched Aqua flop onto the couch and hit the back of her head against its arm. She didn’t appear to notice. She fell asleep nearly immediately after Lea buried her under a mass of blankets from the hallway closet. Xion had felt so intimidated by Aqua until now, and here she was passed out in her living room. It was humbling, in an odd way.

Roxas leaned into Xion’s ear and whispered, “Is that what I looked like?”

“I think you actually looked worse,” she replied, poking his bruised jaw.

He scowled and clapped his hand against his cheek. Then he shoved his fists into his pocket and exhaled slowly, closing his eyes and swaying as he did so. “I’m gonna go home,” he said after a long while. “I miss my brother.”

She did not have the running dream.

She dreamt that she was crouching in the bathroom stall, holding her breath as she stared over her knees at her dirty sneakers. Her friends—whom she only used the word to describe something they had once been, but willfully forfeited the title in even the most liberal sense—waited to ambush. The walls of her fortress of solitude disappeared around her, and she was vulnerable. They they touched her; they put their faces close, they sat in her lap. They squealed and laughed and pretended to wretch.

“Ew, she touched my chest! She molested me! Are you guys seeing this?” Whined the girl Xion had grown up with, once held sleepovers with, had attended the birthday party of just a few months ago, as the others cackled and skittered around her like water in a hot pan. “You don’t think she has a crush on me , do you?”

Xion woke with her heart pounding and her blood running cold in her veins. Her pillow was damp and her neck was wet. She turned it over and sank back into it, doing her best to take deep breaths as she pulled her blankets up to her chin. She stared at the ceiling, doing nothing but breathing and watching the shadows shifting across it.

There were expectations. She knew them well. There were things she was allowed, and one thing she wasn’t. And if she defied them, well. Those girls hid in bathroom stalls.

She’d hated herself for making her life miserable. She’d tried to convince herself that these things weren’t her fault, but she still could never shake the feeling that she deserved whatever came to her. Flowers that grew through cracks in the concrete were bound to be stepped on.

She squirmed under the covers for what felt like hours, entertaining the idea of shaving her head just to feel comfortable. She gave up wriggling and pulled her phone out from under her pillow as she rolled onto her side. Xion squinted at it. She had unread messages.

Check it out—matchy-matchy, said a text from Roxas. Attached was a blurry picture of himself and his brother behind him; they were sitting at the dining room table eating what she assumed to be dinner, but appeared to be bowls of cereal. His brother’s tan face was marred by a split lip and his fingers were curled into a peace sign. Roxas’ own arm was extended out behind him and his middle finger was bared at his brother’s face. They were both grinning, and they both looked awful. She snorted and couldn’t help but grin back.

There were still texts from Naminé. Xion covered her lips with her fingers and forced herself to quit smiling. I hope you’re taking good care of Aqua, she said. Make sure to bring her back in one piece. Xion cringed and decided that she wouldn’t tell her that Lea let her drink most of a six-pack. Oh, I forgot to give you your reading for this week, Naminé continued. A line of exclamation marks separated her next sentence from her last. If you come over tomorrow, I’ll do it for you in person.

Was this an excuse to ask her to come over? Xion attempted to sound casual by sending nothing more than a few thumbs-up emojis but immediately groaned and covered her eyes with one arm, feeling stupid. Maybe she’d drive someplace an hour away, to The City, to see a different psychic reader--someone who made her stomach turn in a different way.

Xion thought about neon psychic signs hanging outside second story windows until sleep finally came to claim her again, and then she dreamt of nothing.

Chapter Text

“ Where was this farmer’s market supposed to be again?”

“It was supposed to be… here,” Sora replied, gazing forlornly out at the empty parking lot.

“You’re sure.” Riku raised an eyebrow.

“That’s what it said online, I swear!” He held his phone under Riku’s nose, the webpage with the announcement pulled up on his browser.

Riku crossed his eyes and squinted at it. “Sora, this post is from August.”

He glanced at his phone again. Then he threw his head back and let out a long groan. All he wanted was to eat an egg, but he’d shattered his own dreams; he’d give a kidney for a hard boiled egg at this point. Anything besides frozen vegetables, endless varieties of spam, and brown rice.

“Your eyesight alright? No corneas scratched or anything? Dyslexia acting up?” Riku said, the corner of his lips upturned in a smirk. Sora spun around to return the look by puffing up his cheeks in a pout and immediately wincing as it made his busted lip sting. After a beat his face softened, and he said, with his voice low in his throat, “But really, are you alright?”

There was a toy that Sora used to have—an Oldsmobile that could be wound up by dragging it backwards, which he’d used to send puttering off along the sidewalk in front of his house. Except that one day a crack in the driveway caused the toy to take an unfortunate swerve onto the street, where it ran out of momentum and sat for an achingly short moment before being crushed by the thousand-pound metal contraption it was modeled after. That was what Sora felt like when he’d woke. It was like being fourteen again, when he’d always wake up sick and miserable as if someone had taken a bat to him while he was sleeping… or run him over.

“It’s called dyscalculia ,” Sora informed him. “And there’s superglue on my face and I feel like I got hit by a car.” He stumbled as Riku brought the palm of his hand between his shoulder blades with a couple hard thumps, whipping around to mouth “hey” as Riku’s eyes crinkled in a silent cackle.

“Let’s go home. I’ll make the cake without eggs; I’m getting really good at this vegan baking stuff.”

Sora exhaled through his nostrils and pursed his lips. Across the parking lot, above the line of redwoods, loomed a weathered sign. He stared blankly at it. The neon had long burnt out, but it was still legible in the daylight. Vallco Fashion Park, it read. The monolith had been there since before he was born, and cast its shadow over him ever since.

“Don’t even think about it,” Riku said, shaking him out of his trance.

“I wanna go inside.”

“And see what? It’s been completely empty for the last two years.”

“Maybe I wanna make sure it hasn’t changed.”

Sora had seen pictures of abandoned places on the internet--shopping malls, houses, amusement parks, barns. They all shared one haunting aspect, and that was how it seemed that nothing but the relentless march of time had ever touched them. As if their inhabitants had just been spirited away. Everything was all still there with no effort of cleanup to be seen, left only to gather dust as nature reclaimed the earth they had been built upon.

Vallco was no such place.

Vallco Fashion Park was a skeleton picked completely clean by rising rent prices and irresponsible management. Only the scars of store signs suggested it had once been a place for retail; the storefronts themselves had been shuttered, some even boarded off and spackled over to give the impression that there was never a store there in the first place. The fountains had been dry for as long as Sora could remember, though when he was younger he still wished upon the pennies he threw into their parched beds. The dry and dying foliage that adorned the surrounding planters reached feebly toward the skylight. It was a desolate and melancholy place. He felt an odd sort of pride in it. It was awful, but it was his place.

After a lot of badgering on Sora’s part, they clambered over the cyclone fence surrounding the establishment and found their way in through the east facing entrance. The glass door had apparently been shattered at some point, and the shards were scattered across the floor inside.

“The second anything weird happens, we’re leaving,” Riku grumbled, kicking glass out of his way. “No more sick freshmen, no more hardware store employees who overshare their life stories.”

Sora stuck his lip out at him. “You’ve lost your sense of adventure, and I’m gonna find it.” He surveyed the environment around him, spinning in a slow circle from the scar of the Sears sign above its empty storefront to the shuttered seafood buffet and back again to the southeast entrance. Everything was in the same place as he remembered it, but in the two years without regular upkeep, the building had begun to fall apart faster than he’d expected. The place looked like it hadn’t been touched in five years at the least. Some of the ceiling tiles had fallen onto the floor, chipping the floor tiles and exposing wires and the ventilation system. The floor itself had collected so much dust that each time Sora took a step, a comical cloud of dust puffed up from beneath his feet.

“I think I lost my sense of adventure when everyone died. I just want to stay at home--hey, where do you think you’re going?” Riku interrupted himself when Sora found himself wandering farther into the mall.

“Do you think the theater still has movies?” He wondered out loud.

Riku reluctantly shuffled into step beside him, shoving his hands into the pockets of his windbreaker and sticking his chin out as his shoulders shot up to his ears. Sora thought he looked like a big heron when he did that. “Doubt it.”

Ahead, a fountain sat beneath the broken skylight, despondent. The withered foliage, usually a considerable fire hazard, was a step away from crumbling entirely into dust. A shallow pool of dirty rainwater had collected within the fountain. Glass and coins glinted from beneath the surface.

“I think I would have liked to drown here,” Riku said.

Sora hummed and began to dig hurriedly through his pockets, causing the bow strapped to his backpack and the arrows zipped into the large pocket to clatter noisily together. There were always stray coins hiding in his clothes, but aside from Kairi’s pocket knife (now having taken up permanent residence in the pocket of his jacket) he found only a single menthol lozenge. “Got any quarters?” Riku lazily patted his pants pockets, then shook his head. Sora unwrapped the lozenge and popped it into his mouth. “I guess this could work,” he mumbled, leaning down to pick up a small chunk of loose tile from the floor.

“You’re not gonna stone me with that, are you?”

“I’m makin’ a wish. You should make one, too.”

Riku let out a sigh before inspecting the floor and picking up a fist-sized piece of tile.

“That’s a really big wish.”

He stared at his hand for a moment. “Huh. Maybe I need a really big wish.” Then he closed his eyes, tilting his head up towards the skylight and swaying back and forth on his feet ever so slightly. The corners of his lips were delicately upturned in a smile that, to Sora, looked horribly sad. When he opened his eyes again, he reassumed his neutral expression and wordlessly tossed the chunk of tile into the fountain with an unenthusiastic underhand throw. It landed among the glass and coins with a loud plunk.

Sora threw his own piece of tile into the fountain without thinking of anything in particular. “Whoops. I forgot to make a wish.” He heard Riku laugh as he bend down to pick up another piece of tile. He drew back his arm, but then hesitated. He could not think anything to wish for. He didn’t know what he wanted, and that made him uncomfortable. It wasn’t that he had nothing to want, but wishing for a carton of eggs seemed too petty and wishing for world peace seemed too big. He threw the tile into the fountain anyway.

“So? What did you wish for?”

“If I tell you, it won’t come true.” Sora could see Riku squinting at him from the corner of his eye. He ignored it and crushed the lozenge between his teeth.

“Hey, can we get out of here yet?” Riku took his hands out of his pockets to cross his arms and tap his foot in an exaggerated display of impatience.

He shook his head. “I wanna see the theater.”  This was met with a resigned sigh. With his hands returned safely to his pockets, Riku tailed him closely as he led him further into the mall.

Beside the balcony which allowed them to peer down into the dark and barren ground floor stood what once had been readable as a map, but water damage had begun to rot the paper inside the display. On the opposite side was another rotting poster of a child holding a video game controller in juxtaposition to a child holding a turtle; that one had been there for at least ten years. The storefronts that stood challenging each other along the aisle had been closed and stripped of signage long enough before the mall was abandoned that Sora could not remember what used to be there. There was a storefront that had obviously belonged to a bakery, but he’d never seen the place operational. Scattered amid the empty storefronts, fallen skylights, and dark corners were candy machines he believed had not once been refilled between now and his birth. When they were twelve, he and Kairi had dared each other to eat a gumball from the machine outside the Macy’s, and Sora found himself violently ill the following morning. Hidden in the rear was a food court with a constantly rotating selection of takeout places that seemed to be perpetually closed save for the Burger King in the corner; this was all stationed upon a ring of linoleum tile with a nauseating checkerboard pattern.

Then there was the theater. It had been the most recent addition to the mall, and it stood square in the center of it with its blood red painted motifs and a shiny glass elevator, hoping to draw in business to stall its inevitable death. It died anyway, of course. Now, the paint was chipping and the movie posters had all been stripped away from their frames. The escalators which led upstairs from the ticketing area to concessions had become merely a plain case of stairs. Sora paused abruptly on the steps to glance over his shoulder and into the darkness, but he stumbled forward as Riku crashed into him, knocking his shins painfully against the edge of the steps. He gripped the railing to right himself and Riku frowned before waving to usher him onward. Sora turned to continue the climb, but something moving caught the corner of his eye. He whipped around again, this time his temple colliding with Riku’s chin.

“Sora, you’ve got to stop that,” he grumbled, rubbing his jaw.

Sora tapped rapidly at his shoulder and pointed into the void below them, cupping his other hand over his mouth as he did so. Riku knitted his brows for a moment, looking like he meant to say something, but then turned his head to peer delicately over the railing. The light dappled the ground floor two floors below to faintly illuminate the tines of a cervine figure. Sora held his breath as he fished an arrow from his backpack and began to slowly draw his bow.

“Can you get him from this far?” Riku whispered so softly that he was mostly just mouthing the words. Sora shrugged.

The deer glanced upward. He could see its face with its telltale mule deer eyebrows that gave it an intense and accusatory expression. It held him with that dark-eyed stare, silently daring him to shoot. Its long ears twitched. Slowly, slowly, he drew his arm back, and

There came an ear-shattered scream that echoed through his chest and froze the blood in his veins. Beside him, he saw Riku flinch and squeeze his eyes shut. His bow was still drawn and the arrow was still firmly between his fingers. Sora blinked. The deer was lost beneath a writhing mass of coyotes. They held their breath, watching, unable to look away. The deer kicked and flailed below. Whenever it shook one coyote, another seemed to latch on.

Sora saw Riku inhale, cup his hands around his mouth, and lean over the railing. He put a hand on his shoulder. “Don’t,” he told him.

Riku blinked and pursed his lips. “Why?”

“Scaring them away won’t save him,” he replied. He tilted his head. He saw the hindquarters of the deer dyed red and its chafed legs raw. “It’ll just take longer for him to die.”

Riku hummed in solemn understanding, and they continued to gaze wide-eyed at the brawl below. For a moment the deer surfaced above the sea of coyotes; there was a piercing yelp as it brought its hooves down upon one unfortunate coyote again and again until it lay still on the tile floor. But immediately the deer began to sway and its legs buckled, and it collapsed. Even as it disappeared under a shifting tide of fur and blood, it did not move.

“Nature is terrifying,” Sora heard Riku mumble. They abandoned the scene and climbed the last few steps up to the theater.

Concessions was the darkest corner of the mall by far, and it smelled a nauseating mix of moldy carpet and stale popcorn. Sora dug into his backpack to fish out his flashlight; it flickered pathetically for a moment as he turned it on. Its light revealed that the place had sustained the least amount of damage, and aside from the emptiness of it all, it almost seemed as if the theater had only just been closed. In the corner where the arcade machines stood, there were only dark stains and wall outlets. Just like ticketing, the frames which once displayed posters of the season’s movies were empty as well. Most of all it was just dark; every screen, every corner, every display case was dark. Sora kept moving through the layers of shadows with Riku hovering almost directly over his shoulder until he came to the nearest screening room door which, to his pleasant surprise as he tugged on the handle, had been left unlocked. It was then he felt Riku hesitate, and he heard him let out a groan that sounded like someone slowly letting the air out of a bicycle tire.

“We saw the theater, aren’t we done now?”

“Just one more place,” Sora assured him.

Riku frowned. Sora offered him his hand, but he did not take it; he kept them in his pockets instead. He sighed, then wordlessly pushed himself past Sora into the screening room where he paused after a few steps to turn around and tilt his head and mouth, Well?

“I’ve always wanted to be the only person watching a movie in the theater,” Sora said, sweeping the beam of the flashlight along the aisles, the light just barely catching the tail of a mouse as it scurried out of sight. Once he reached the centermost aisle, Sora sat himself in one of the seats in the middle; he suddenly became a lot more aware of the smell of moldy upholstery, but elected to ignore it.

“Oh? What would you watch?” Riku sat down beside him. “I think it’d be pretty cool to see a space movie by yourself.”

Slumping in his chair so that his knees touched the seat in front of him, he said, “I dunno. Anything.” He wasn’t really thinking about movies. He was more preoccupied with the space itself—empty, quiet. It was kind of nice. He began to feel sleepy. He leaned his head against Riku’s arm and exhaled slowly, cupping his fingers over the head of the flashlight so that it emitted only a soft, orange glow. Even though he was dirty, more than a bit sweaty, and a whole lot hungry, sitting there in the theater was comfortable. Being alone with Riku, he thought, was just comfortable. Even when everything else wasn’t.

If Kairi was an exciting noise--an upbeat song, the rumble of thunder--Riku was a comforting quiet, like the low hum of the generator from the bottom of a swimming pool. Neither was better or worse than the other. It was just different.

“Hey,” said Sora after a while.

Riku hummed a low hum that Sora could feel in his chest.

“You know the last ‘Back to School’ dance we went to? When you weren’t feeling well so the three of us ended up sitting around at the edge of the quad drinking sodas?”

“What about it?”

“Nothing much, really.” Sora fiddled with the zipper of his jacket. “I was just thinking about how being quiet is kinda nice after a lot of noise.” He heard Riku snort, and felt the seat next to him begin to shake violently. Sora sat up in concern before he realized that he was laughing.

“You,” Riku wheezed in between his silent laughing fit, “Being quiet? ”

Sora shoved at his shoulder while Riku, eyes watering, continued to wheeze and clutch at his stomach, but he let the flashlight slip out from his grip in the midst of his shoving. It clattered to the floor, where it proceeded to roll under the row of seats and fizzle out. Riku let out some combination of a groan and a whine as they were plunged into inky darkness. Sora expected him to utter something clever and soaked with sarcasm, but he only heard him breathing.

“Let’s get out of here,” Sora said. He stood up and began to head back out through the aisle, but Riku said nothing, nor did he follow him.

Sora shuffled back towards him, reaching through the dark until his fingers could grip the material of his windbreaker and tugged at his arm until he managed to jerk Riku’s hand away from his pocket and squeeze his own around it. He led the owner of that one very clammy hand out of the screening room with more caution than he cared to take, but Riku refused to move any faster than a couple tiny steps at a time, and Sora thought that this was very much how he imagined what leading a nervous horse over a rickety bridge might be like. When they returned to concessions he released his hand, and it went right back into hiding in the pocket of his jacket. For a moment Riku pursed his lips, staring at him through the fringe of his bangs with knitted brows and a vague look of expectancy.

“I won’t tell Kairi you’re still afraid of the dark,” Sora said.

“Oh, I’m sure she knows.”

He grinned sheepishly. Riku just shrugged.

They made their way to the nearest exit. It lay at the northernmost part of the mall, past the overpass which looked over the street. An old toy store, a retro diner, a soft pretzel kiosk--all of these lay along the way, and none of them had Sora ever seen in operation. There used to be mannequins dressed in a variety of awful clothing (one such mannequin happened to be wearing an white suit, a black shirt, and a green tie) lining the walkway. They stood in various, vaguely judgemental poses, occupying barren showrooms like some horrible version of IKEA. Sora always suspected that they were watching him. But now they were gone, and the windows to the street were boarded up.

Beyond another row of candy machines sat a tiny carousel. Its horses had faced quite a bit of wear and tear, both from the children who had once rode them and from the years of neglect by maintenance; their paint was chipping and their joints were red with rust. Sora pointed forcefully at the horses, bouncing on his heels and tugging at arm of Riku’s windbreaker.

“You’re gonna break it,” Riku warned him.

Sora hopped on a horse anyway (a tiny brown one with roses in its hair) but he found that his knees knocked against the rear of the horse in front of him. Still, he grasped the pole with one hand and leaned away dramatically as he stuck his tongue out. Riku appeared to attempt a disapproving frown, but the corner of his mouth twitched upward, giving him a crooked and unflattering grin. His expression tickled him and he began to laugh, but it shook him from his grip on the pole and he fell backwards onto his shoulder.

No teasing came from Riku. Sora glanced upward, tasting the blood from his busted lip. He caught the underside of Riku’s chin pointed somewhere further down the walkway.

“Hey, Sora,” he said. “Take a look at that.”

It was the JC Penny. Or, that’s what he assumed it was supposed to be, because what Sora saw looming at the very edge of Vallco Fashion Park was a deeply charred skeleton. Maybe he wasn’t looking at it right? He righted himself and sat up on his knees. No, it was still the burnt-out husk of a retail store. He suddenly became aware that the bitter smell of smoke and wet charcoal had been in his nostrils for a good while.

“What the fuck,” he said.

“Wonder when this happened,” mumbled Riku.

“That explains the weird stench,” Sora replied. “It probably wasn’t that long ago. I bet Kairi would be able to tell.”

The exit was to its immediate right, but he couldn’t resist taking a better look at the disaster. He drew closer to it with caution until he’d reached the entrance where a line of structures he realized were the remains of detectors that had melted to the floor. Riku hovered just a few steps behind him pretending he wasn’t interested, but Sora caught him peering over his shoulder with raised eyebrows. He drew closer still, until he was tip-toeing into the rubble.

Riku waved his arms in a crossing motion. “Get back here, idiot,” he called. “You said we could leave now!”

“In a minute,” he replied as the sign for the makeup counter caught his eye and decided it was worth investigating. A groan echoed from the remains of the structure, somewhere above him.

Riku crossed his arms and tapped his foot, humming a melodyless tune. Sora ignored him and pushed the rubble around with his feet instead. There wasn’t anything terribly interesting, as most of it had been burnt to ashes, and what hadn’t turned to ash were unrecognizable charred lumps of… something. He wandered a bit further in, stepping over and in-between the wreckage. The groan came again.

“You think someone left the stove on?” He wondered aloud as he kicked away the metal frame of what he figured was either a clothing rack or a shopping cart.

Riku hadn’t budged an inch from the entrance. He just stood there watching him with pursed lips, and couldn’t seem to decide whether he wanted to keep his arms crossed to run his fingers through his overgrown bangs. “We can discuss the details of whether or not a retail store would have a gas stove to leave on when you get your bony ass back here. ”

Sora glanced backwards and opened his mouth to retort with something clever—only he didn’t get that far, because a deafening cracking noise resounded above him, and the world began to turn in slow motion. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see it descending--a black mass, like the night sky--and it was falling on him. He watched Riku’s face shift from an expression of surprise to one of abject horror, saw him reaching out, thought he heard him call his name, but the blood was pounding too loud in his ears for him to hear.

Oh, this is it, Sora thought. I’m really gonna die this time.

He dove. It was the only thing he could do.

He hit the floor with an electric shock stabbing at his forearms like bolts of lightning from Zeus himself, scrabbling at the ground with his fingernails to earn him any distance at all, wondering if this was the last time he was going to see Riku’s face, missing Kairi, missing his brother, scrabbling, scrabbling, scrabbling…

There was an intense pressure to his spine, but nothing more. He looked up.

Riku was there. He looked sweaty and his hair disheveled, pushed away from his face and sticking to his neck. He was mouthing something. Sora swung his head over his shoulder. He was lying under a charred wooden beam. There was another beam that had fallen beside him, creating a miniscule amount of space between that beam and the ground--the space where he was trapped. He pushed against the floor with his palms, trying to squeeze his hips out of the wreckage, but it was no use. There was a sound that he began to hear over the pounding of blood. He heard it over and over. What the hell was it?

It was Riku’s name. He realized suddenly that his throat was sore.

“Hang on,” he heard Riku say. His voice sounded vague and far away. “I’m going to get help.”

“No!”

He blinked.

“The rest might fall on me,” he rasped. His voice was getting tired. “I’m fine, I can feel my toes and everything. Just get me out!”

Riku hesitated. He looked toward Sora, then back at the entrance, and to Sora again before he leaned forward to grasp his hands. Slowly, he began to pull. But only a short while later Sora felt like his shoulders were in danger of dislocating, and the beam was still pressed firmly into his back.

“Stop, stop! It’s not working.” Frustration and hysteria began to rise in his chest. He thought he might cry. He watched Riku’s face fall, his sheepdog hair falling over his shoulder as he tilted his head. He let go.

Riku righted himself, furrowing his brows and planting his hands on his hips. Then he leaned forward again, gripping the underside of the beam with both hands. “Get ready, ‘cause when I say ‘go,’ I need you to wriggle outta there like the fastest snake on the goddamn planet,” he said.

Sora squawked. “Don’t, you’re gonna throw out your back!”

He laughed dryly. “Fine, then.” With a grunt, he began to lift.

It was only a few seconds, but it felt like an achingly long time before Sora heard him nearly scream the word, red-faced and sweaty, as the pressure on his back lifted just enough for him to squeeze himself through in a mad scramble to freedom. Riku let the beam go, and it came crashing down inches from his feet. He stood up dazedly and adjusted his backpack. Riku was in the midst of taking some very deep breaths and rubbing at his arms, but seemed to otherwise be fine. Sora curled his fingers gingerly around Riku’s wrist and bolted. He heard him let out a noise of surprise as he dragged him along, but he soon fell into step beside him. They sprinted toward the exit and wordlessly tossed themselves over the cyclone fence and onto the sidewalk outside. They kept running. The adrenaline was still pumping in Sora’s veins, and he wanted to be where he couldn’t see the mall as soon as possible.

That place happened to be a small park a few blocks away, where Sora tossed his backpack aside and threw himself onto his back at the top of a small, grassy hill. Riku sat down beside him with his legs crossed. The ground was still a little muddy from the rain, but neither of them cared. Sora stretched his arms as far as he possibly could as he stared up at the sky, watching the gaps in the clouds shifting, trying to see where the blue ended and the blackness began. He took a deep breath and began to laugh.

It was a little bit at first, just a quiet giggle. But it kept bubbling up in his chest and he couldn't stop. He saw Riku’s face twist in concern, but then his lips curled into a crooked grin and he began to laugh, too. Amid the cacophony Sora began to wheeze and clutch his stomach, tears streaming down his cheeks, watching the same happen to Riku beside him until they were both rolling around on the lawn, coughing and gasping for air. When he finally managed to take a full breath, he lay on his back again.

Riku stared back down at him. His mouth turned downward. “I’m so mad at you,” he said. His voice cracked as he said it, but his expression remained stern.

Sora looked up at his tear-stained cheeks. “I’m glad you’re here,” he replied.

“Boy, so am I.”

“I don’t mean just today—I mean in general. I’m glad you’re here,” he repeated.

Riku opened his mouth, but couldn’t seem to decide what he wanted to say and left it hanging open. He blinked, and a leftover tear began to trail slowly down his cheek. Without thinking about it, Sora reached up to wipe it away with his finger.

“I’m still mad at you.” But the curve of his lips softened a little anyway. He really had such a nice face, Sora thought.

“Yeah, I know.”  

A silence settled softly between them, interrupted only by the breeze through the trees and the calling of crows within them. Riku leaned on his hands and let his head loll back against his shoulders as he stared at the clouds. There was a lot more cloud than sky, so Sora began to find the shapes in the gaps between them rather than in the clouds themselves. He spotted a dog, a vegetable knife, and the state of Minnesota before he became distracted by the folds in Riku’s windbreaker, and the space between the locks of his hair where he could see a part of his jawline. He wondered how long they could sit here before it got dark. Some kind of warmth had begun to wrap itself around his insides like a flannel blanket on a cold night, and it made his pain fade out to a barely noticeable brown noise.

“Hey,” mumbled Sora, but he realized he didn’t actually have anything to say. Riku tilted his head to look at him, shifting his weight to one arm and curling himself inward like a weeping willow. His hair fell over his shoulder and into Sora’s face, tickling his cheeks and making him snort and giggle.

Sora reached up to tuck his waterfall of hair behind his ear. He felt his own hand hesitate as he trailed his fingers along the edge of his jawline. Their noses were terribly close. Riku really, really did have a nice face. His hand was still hovering behind his ear, and before he could really think about what he was doing, he cupped his palm around his cheek, curling stray strands of his hair around his fingers. Sora heard him suck in his breath, saw him close his eyes for just a moment.

“S-sorry,” Sora blurted, retrieving the offending hand and clutching it against his chest with the other. He squeezed himself out from Riku’s shadow and sat upright, the warm fog dissipating from his limbs. He noticed suddenly that his underarms were sweaty.

This time, the silence was crushing. The pain worked its way back into Sora’s spine, and the breeze through the fabric of his clothes. It was hard to breathe, as if something were squeezing the air out of his chest, playing his lungs like an accordion.

“Could you…” Riku mumbled suddenly after what felt like an achingly long time, his chin buried between his knees and his eyes hidden under his bangs. “Could you do that again?”

It caught Sora off guard. He had been in the middle of planning how he was going to move out of the house and go live by himself in Wyoming or somewhere equally as devoid of people before being startled out of his train of thought. Riku’s shoulders shot up to his ears and he was curling in on himself again. Where it was not under the shadow of his hair, Sora could see his face turning pink. The knot in his chest seemed to come undone all at once and he was… tickled. It bubbled up inside him like foam from a soda can that had been rolling around on the floor of a car for ages, overwhelming everything else, and he felt himself break into a stupid wide grin that he had to bite his lip to hide.

He reached out with both hands now. Riku leaned closer, eyes half-lidded, letting him run his fingers through his hair and push his bangs away from his face. His face was warm--hot, even. Sora brought his palms against his cheeks and kept them there.

“I’m sorry,” Riku began in a low voice, “For letting you think I was upset with you the other day. I wasn’t.”

“I thought you hated that. You always make a face when Kairi does it.”

“I never hated it.”

Sora blinked. He let his hands fall from Riku’s chin and onto his lap.

“I’m just—“ His bangs had fallen back over his eyes. Exasperated, he pushed them away with one hand. “Look, I nearly saw you get squashed like a bug today. You were that close to beating your record for almost dying.”

Sora frowned. “Gee. Thanks for reminding me.”

“I want you to know that I never hated it, Sora, not once.” Against his flushed face, Riku’s eyes were strikingly blue.

Perhaps it was the leftover adrenaline turning his stomach, making it flip and flop like it were on a trampoline with a million bees and a billion butterflies. He wanted to hold that face again. He wanted—

“I want something for almost dying,” he said.

“I’m already making you a chocolate cake.”

“I want something else.”

“You spoiled asshole.” He squinted and furrowed his brows. Then he sighed. “Tell me.”

“I want you to kiss me.”

Riku’s eyes widened. Then a shadow crossed his face and made it unreadable; for a beat, Sora was terrified he’d misstepped, that he thought he was only teasing.

“I didn’t ask the first time; I’m asking you now.” Okay? He mouthed the last word, balling his fists and pressing his fingernails into the meat of his palms as he was met with more silence.

Then Riku gave him a slow nod, his lips curling into a shy smile. His shoulders fell and he made a sound that wasn’t quite a sigh. Sora threw his arms around his neck, buried his hands in his hair, and drew him close until their foreheads met. For a moment there was only his heart beating in his throat and the wind through the trees. He squeezed his eyes shut and thought about what Kairi had said—about the sky being blue, about the way he thought things were supposed to be. He wasn’t sure he really understood what she meant, but he knew that today the sky was grey. It was going to change in an hour, and it was going to keep changing until he died, and then it was going to keep changing long after that. He was okay with it. He liked it better that way.

Riku closed the gap. Their noses bumped together before their lips met, chapped and overlapping awkwardly with a vague taste of chapstick. His hair tickled Sora’s cheeks and he could smell oranges on his breath.

“That was terrible,” Riku mumbled when he pulled away.

Sora’s heart sank for a horrible, guilty moment.

He took a breath. “Let me try again.”

It was a little better, a little gentler, a little less painful this time, until Sora’s fingers got caught in his hair and Riku grabbed at the lapels of his jacket when he swayed to one side as he lost his balance trying to free his hands from his tangled hair. Sora grinned, and then he began to laugh. He felt Riku smiling against his lips, and the smile grew wider until he started to laugh, too. Their teeth clacked together, but they kept laughing until Sora yelped and pulled away.

“Your lip--” stuttered Riku.

Sora poked at his busted lip gingerly; it stung, and there was blood on his finger when it came away. He glanced from his hand to Riku. “There’s blood on your face,” he informed him, licking his thumb and rubbing it from his jaw.

“There’s blood on your face, you walnut.” Riku rolled up the sleeve of his windbreaker and dabbed at his lip with the edge of the sweater he was wearing underneath.

Sora thought about kissing him back right now despite his stinging lip that wouldn’t quit bleeding, until he felt a raindrop land on the tip of his nose. He blinked and another landed on his forehead, and then his cheek, and then on his eyelid. Sure enough the sky was changing, darkening and opening up above them. Laughing, they leapt to their feet as the wind rose and what began as a gentle pattering quickly became a steady downpour, but they stood there on the hill for a little while longer letting the rain soak their hair and muddy their shoes.

“For the record,” Riku said as they shuffled through the wet grass holding their arms uselessly over their heads, breathless and and aching from laughter, a little bloodier than they’d like, “I’m glad you’re here, too.”

He was too tired to protest when Kairi took one look at his lip and decided that he needed at least one stitch, and he was too tired to whine or cry when she gathered Riku and Roxas around him and said, “Watch close, ‘cause I’m gonna give you guys a sewing lesson,” before stitching him back together over the kitchen sink. As he gripped Riku’s hand and squeezed his eyes shut while she worked, he was struck by a sense of deja vu. It was over faster than he’d thought, and though it didn’t hurt any less, being older made it easier to bear.

He slept on the couch until the ibuprofen wore off and the dull ache returned to a sharp pain. It was dark outside when he woke, and he was alone except for Roxas, who was sitting at the kitchen table eating cereal and reading a book with his headphones on. Sora’s attempt to remove himself from the couch was a belly flop onto the floor before his legs would allow him to stand up and wobble his way into the kitchen. He sat down in the chair next to Roxas.

“I’m still mad at you,” Roxas informed him without looking up from his book or taking off his headphones.

“I know,” Sora replied. He rolled the sleeves of his sweater up to his elbows and held out his forearms. It was all a mess of scrapes and scratches, most of them red, some turning purple, and every single one of them stung. “Check it out—this happened today.”

Roxas slid his headphones down to his neck, but gave him no more than an apathetic glance.

“I knew your hand was an accident.” Sora kept talking anyway. “I don’t know why I got so angry.”

Roxas finally set his book aside and looked him in the face. It was a thoroughly confused look. “I think the fact that it sounds like you’re apologizing to me right now scares me more than anything that’s happened in the last few months,” he said. “Where’s the body?”

“In the tub.”

“Sora--”

“I’m serious, Rox. When you said you’d stop, I held onto that for a really long time.” Sora felt himself running out of breath. “I knew you wouldn’t break a promise that you made. I just--I think I’m just stressed out.”

Roxas’ face twisted into a crooked smile. “Well, I punched you first, so I think we’re even.” He held out his hand. The wound was still swollen and irritated; the stitches were sloppy and the skin was raised and red. It was the only bright mark on his arms among the mess of silver scars visible when he rolled up his sleeves. Then, slowly, he twisted his wrist around to expose the back of his hand and unfurled his middle finger.

Sora grinned. His lip stung and his whole body ached, but he felt like he could finally ignore it. It didn’t really matter anymore.

Chapter Text

Arizona Iced Tea cost 99 cents a can, and it was the only thing Xion allowed herself to buy from the school vending machines on days when she felt like spoiling herself--not that the price mattered anymore, but she still appreciated the fact that it had always been cheaper than a bottle of water. A number of cases she’d pilfered from the local Safeway sat in a corner of the townhouse. She took a can from the pile every other day or so, and it slowly became nothing special.

This is what she thought about as she sat in the passenger seat and watched a hungover Aqua beside her attempting to drink from a can of Arizona Iced Tea. She would take a sip, pause to squint and rub at her forehead with a low groan, and take another ginger sip. It continued on like this until she finished the can, after which she crushed it effortlessly with one hand, stuck the thing in the cup holder, and sat back in her seat with another groan. She shoved her bangs out of her face again.

“Are you going to be okay driving?” Xion asked. “Maybe I should get Lea.”

“I’m fine,” Aqua replied, though she clearly wasn’t.

The drive over was not the disaster she expected it to be, but Xion gripped the fabric of her jeans the entire time. She wanted to ask Aqua questions--questions about Lea before she knew him, questions Roxas knew the answers to but wouldn’t tell her--but by the time she found the right words, they were pulling up into the driveway and she’d lost her chance.

Aqua slung one arm over the back of the seat, the other hand resting on the steering wheel. “Sorry about the last twenty-four hours,” she said. Her hair was hopelessly messy; her eyes were endlessly dark. Xion shook her head.

No one greeted them at the door. Aqua let them both inside, kicking off her shoes at the front step before shedding her coat onto the floor without bothering to pick it up. Xion left her own shoes neatly by the door. The house was freezing, absent of the low rumble of the furnace. The blinds were drawn shut as well, and the darkness made the space feel considerably colder. Aqua shuffled over to the front window and pulled at the cords until the thin daylight spilled over her shoulders and into the room. It appeared that they were the only two people home. Xion’s heart sank a little.

“Want anything to drink?” Aqua saw her hesitate. “We have soy milk. I can make you a hot chocolate.” Xion nodded, perhaps little too eagerly, and Aqua laughed.

So they sat in the kitchen. She watched Aqua make the hot chocolate, wondering what kind of family she belonged to, before everything. She spoke like they got along, and that was almost too wild a concept for Xion to grasp. They were also a family who didn’t warm their milk in the microwave but instead used the steamer attached to the small espresso machine sitting on the counter, and had homemade marshmallows sitting in a Tupperware atop the refrigerator. When Aqua slid the mug over to her side of the table, she stared into her drink and the marshmallow floating lazily in it. She willed it to quell the dull ache of longing rising in her stomach.

“Did you always get along with Terra?” Xion asked after a few minutes of silently burning her tongue.

Aqua let out a snort and fell into a coughing fit, after which she wiped her face and laughed, “Absolutely not.”

“Roxas is always fighting with his brother.”

“Terra and I were exactly like that,” she replied with a grin. “Doesn’t mean I ever really hated him. But I’m three months older, and I had to make sure he knew it—and sometimes that meant beating him with a pool noodle until he cried.”

Xion gnawed at the edge of her mug. “If you didn’t always get along, when did you start?”

“When we got Ventus.”

Xion glanced toward the living room, at the couch she had last seen him as if she expected him to be there. On it rested only a rumpled blanket and a pillow at both ends. The beginnings of project—a piece of fabric stretched out in a small embroidery hoop with a half-finished sketch that was too light for Xion to decipher, a basket of floss, a pincushion—cluttered the coffee table. A pair of crutches still rested against the back of the couch.

“We were fostering him. Terra and I were fifteen and mostly concerned with our own teenage business, but Ven was just ten. He didn’t have anyone else,” she continued. “He wouldn’t talk. He just had this empty stare.”

A sudden rattle of the window pane distracted them for a moment. A mourning dove had landed on the empty planter box and settled into it, its head buried in its puffed up feathers, staring at the two of them through the glass with its perpetual smile.

“We didn’t know how long we’d get to keep him, but at the very least we wanted him to be as comfortable as possible before he got sent away into another frying pan or fire or tiger’s mouth.”

Ventus must be the most beloved boy in the world, Xion thought.

The sun was in her eyes by the time she reached the bottom of the mug. Her insides felt like a lukewarm bath. She excused herself to use the upstairs bathroom and for a while she just stood leaning over the sink scrutinizing her face in the mirror. The impulse to cut her hair always came with such urgency when she realized that it had gotten too long. She was tempted to dig through one of the bathroom drawers for a pair of scissors, or perhaps a razor with which she could just shave it all off. But she didn’t. She finished her business without bothering with her hair any further, and instead admired the philodendron in the planter outside the window before leaving the door open just a crack behind her.

A soft voice called her name from down the hall, and Xion saw half of the face of Naminé peering out from behind the bedroom door, still in her pajamas, her hair tangled and falling over her shoulders. She covered her mouth with her fingers, then beckoned her to come closer with her familiar apologetic smile. Then she drew her into a loose embrace. “Sorry, I overslept,” she said into her ear, and as she pulled away she trailed one arm down the sleeve of Xion’s jacket until her fingers met her wrist. She tugged her through the doorway. “Come in, you can sit on my bed.”

The room didn’t look like it belonged to her. It didn’t look like it belonged to anyone. The walls were painted a pleasant shade of grey, and the rest of the decor were matching shades of grey, white, and yellow. It was too coordinated; the only thing in the room with any sort of individual personality was a striped tote bag with a couple keychains hanging off the straps which clearly belonged to Naminé.

Xion wanted to hide in the bathroom, but as she’d already used it, she had no good excuse. Sitting on Naminé’s bed felt too intimate. She hesitated in the doorway and picked at a hangnail from inside her jacket pocket. Naminé retreated into the room, glancing at her expectantly until Xion gave in and sat gingerly on the edge of the bed with her hands resting on her knees. She stared at her hangnail.

There was a shuffling noise, and then she felt the bed dip slightly. Crawling over from the opposite side, Naminé dumped a deck of cards out onto the duvet with a soft thump .

“Do you just want the one card, or would you like me to do a spread?”

Xion wrinkled her brow.

“A spread is multiple cards—three, or sometimes even nine cards used to answer questions with greater detail,” she clarified.

“Just one is fine.”

She began to shuffle them, letting them pour one on top of the other with a pleasant flip, flip, flip. Then she drew a single card from the top of the pile and laid it facedown on the bed before flipping it over. Xion leaned in for a closer look.

It was a woman sitting up in bed, her face buried in her hands. Beside her, a row of swords adorned the wall. They pointed toward her back.

“What does that mean?”

Naminé frowned. She quickly collected the card and shuffled it back into the deck before returning it to its case. “Sorry,” she said. “I just realized this is stupid. It doesn’t mean anything.”

Xion opened her mouth to respond, but instead she sat there with her mouth hanging halfway open. Naminé slid off the bed and dug through the closet with a bounce in her step as if she hadn’t just spoken in a tone Xion was more accustomed to hearing from the irritable Roxas.

“I’m going to change,” she announced, tossing a cardigan and a long-sleeved shirt onto the bed from across the room. “You don’t mind, do you?”

Xion swallowed wrong and spent the following seconds silently choking on air. Once she composed herself, she shook her head meekly and stared at the floor. She thought about the jar of seaglass on top of her dresser again.

The mattress dipped again a short while later and Naminé scooted into place beside her fully dressed, fair hair brushed neatly into place over one shoulder. “I want to get out of this house,” she said. “Anywhere. I don’t care.”

“Actually, do you mind driving?” Xion replied tentatively. “There’s someplace I want to go.”

The driveway Naminé pulled into belonged to a small house barricaded by a front gate and a rhododendron so overgrown it cast the front yard in shadow. The roof was in bad shape with displaced shingles and the gutter descending from its eves at a sharp angle straight into the ground. Xion felt disappointed that her old house seemed the same as it always was, and that she hadn’t returned to a smoldering pile of ashes.

The gate was unlocked. Xion had held onto her house key, making entering simple and unceremonious with no breaking down doors or smashing windows involved. It was a lot like coming home on a normal day--house empty, stuffy, dark, and cold.

“Sorry, it’s kind of…” Xion noticed Naminé eyeing the upright piano nestled in the corner of what she considered the living room. “...Small.”

“You play?” Naminé asked, her face lighting up. She reached out to the well-worn book of gymnopedies resting upon it and flipped through it delicately.

“Since I was six.”

“What kind of music?”

“Sad stuff, mostly.”

Naminé hummed and returned the book to the piano. “Lea used to be in a band, right? Were you their keyboardist?”

She shook her head. “That was before I met him. He doesn’t play music anymore.”

“He stopped.” It was a statement, but she said it almost like a question.

Xion pictured the candy-red bass with six strings and a bolt-on neck her mind’s eye had assigned him hibernating at the back of his bedroom closet. Gathering dust. Waiting for him to wake it. “He stopped,” she echoed.

She motioned for Naminé to follow her.  She avoided glancing toward the kitchen, where cooking utensils were still laid out on the countertop and the lid to the rice cooker had been left open because she hadn’t bothered to tidy the place before she left. She also avoided looking into the other bedroom as they passed it in the hallway. Her own bedroom was at the far end of the house, near the bathroom and the closet where the door to the crawl space lay hidden beneath a vacuum cleaner.

“I like your whale poster.” Naminé gestured to the print hanging above the dresser. Then she focused on the dresser itself, its surface laden with memoria Xion had collected from years of trips to the beach. She took a closer look at the abalone shell before taking a step back and giggling softly, “You never told me how much you liked the ocean.”

“I wanted to study tidepools.” Xion scanned the contents of the dresser for the item she was searching for. It wasn’t there.

“Guess I’d figured you more for a ‘cute, fluffy mammal’ kind of biologist.”

It wasn’t on her nightstand, either. She leaned down and squeezed herself under her bed, but retrieved nothing but dust. “Tidepools are really important. And I like sea cucumbers.”

“How about sea otters?”

“I guess they’re important too.” Xion sighed and sat on the edge of her bed.

“You remind me of one. A sea otter.”

There was a hand ruffling her hair suddenly, only for a very short moment, more gingerly than the rough mess Lea liked to make of her hair. “Sorry, my hair’s not as soft,” she said, watching the edges of Naminé’s eyes crinkle.

Naminé sat herself beside her, humming a few melodiless notes before leaning in and wrapping her arms around her shoulders. Her hair tickled Xion’s cheek until she let go. It fell away from her collarbone as she did, and without thinking Xion found herself reaching out to gather it and brush it back over her shoulder.

“Don’t,” Naminé gasped. She caught Xion’s wrist and held it in an iron grip.

Her fingers were already tangled in the locks behind her head. She wanted to be lost in how fine her hair was, how soft. But where she’d expected to find more of it to bundle between her fingers, there was nothing. A significant amount of nothing, hidden just above her neck. Her heart fell through her stomach and dizzying tide of guilt began to rise under her skin. She tried to retrieve her hand as her mind screamed at her to abort, but Naminé did not let go, only let Xion slip her wrist through until their fingers met and then she curled her own around them and squeezed.

There was no anger in her eyes, nor was she wearing her usual apologetic smile; there was only pleading. “It’s just a bad habit. I didn’t want anyone to know.”

She released her fingers and Xion sat back, trying to increase the distance between their knees. The guilt kept piling itself on her shoulders. “Sorry,” she mumbled.

Naminé shook her head and her smile reappeared. She was staring down at her hands. “It’s okay. I’m growing it back,” she whispered. Then she looked up and put a finger to her lips. Xion nodded.

She turned her attention to the closet instead. She found that the door was jammed, the wood swollen shut against the doorframe as it happened sometimes when the house settled and shifted. After a moment of desperate tugging she managed to pry it free, and she stumbled backwards, hitting her heel against the corner of the bed frame. A couple binders crammed with schoolwork from previous years fell from the upper shelf and onto the floor. Xion stepped over the flurry of math worksheets from sixth-grade to dig behind the sweaters and jackets she never touched anymore and there, nestled inside a rotting cardboard box, behind one of the ugly sweaters her mother used to force her to wear, she found it.

It. Just a small, dirty marmalade jar, not where she’d even imagined she’d left it. Its contents were about half an inch of brown, green, and clear glass, save for a lonesome piece of turquoise glass. She sat back on the edge of the bed and cradled the jar in her lap. “Tell me what your high school was like,” she said.

“My high school?” Naminé echoed. She put her hand up to her chin for a moment. “I dunno. Nothing special.”

“I bet you were popular.”

“Terra always says popularity doesn’t mean anything once you get to college,” she mumbled, her fingers moving from her chin to her lips. “But I guess I had a lot of... friends.”

“You were! You were popular!” Xion laughed dryly. “Did you get invited to parties like on TV?” She felt embarrassed the second she said the words ‘on TV,’ but she had no other reference for what she figured high school was supposed to be like for girls who didn’t hide in the bathroom.

Naminé’s eyes grew glassy.  “I don’t think you get it. It’s not that fun.”

“Parties aren’t fun?” Pressed Xion, who’d always wanted to be invited to a party.

“None of it is. It’s empty and fake.”

Xion blinked.

Naminé was still smiling. She gestured to the jar in Xion’s lap. “Is that what you were looking for?”

“No. Didn’t find it.”

“Too bad,” Naminé said.

Too bad.

The jar had fit easily into the pocket of Xion’s jacket. She alternated turning the jar over and over from inside her pocket and picking idly at her hangnail while Naminé shuffled along beside her. She was quiet; the only sound she made was the scuffing of her shoes as she kicked up leaves where they formed piles on the sidewalk. When a maple leaf drifted down from the clear sky and landed perfectly atop Naminé’s head like a fashionably red beret, Xion laughed but didn’t attempt to pick it out of her hair, instead letting Naminé purse her lips in worry while she snickered until the wind dislodged the leaf from her hair and sent it tumbling over her shoulder.

“Why won’t you tell me what my card means?” Xion said, breaking the cold silence. She’d been tasting the words over and over for the past half hour. Her mouth felt dry.

“I told you. It doesn’t mean anything.”

Xion kept picking at her hangnail. “Bullshit. You’re just in a mood.”

Naminé frowned. “I don’t want to tell you because your cards make me sad. Your cards make me sad, Xion.”

“What, something bad’s gonna happen to me? Worse than this?”

Naminé shook her head. “Tarot doesn’t predict the future. It reveals patterns. People are a self-fulfilling prophecy, and unless something compels them to change, they’ll keep following those patterns,” she said in a low voice, speaking more to the leaves under her feet than she was to Xion. “And your patterns make me sad.”

Of course they do, Xion thought bitterly. She knew she wasn’t the happiest person. Naminé knew that, too. In her daydreams they left the valley behind to start over and live their melancholy lives together somewhere else, but her own depression apparently saddled the girl with the gentle smile and apologetic eyes with a heavier burden and she felt that daydream fading like sun burning away the summer morning fog. Maybe it was time to just call it a wrap on this relationship and start over on her own; maybe she’d live where she could see the ocean, and she’d come back in five years to try the friendship thing again. She realized there was a ringing in her ears that had been growing in volume with the velocity of her thoughts, and for a moment she squeezed her eyes shut. When it finally subsided, she mumbled, “That sounds about right.”

“Sorry, I shouldn’t have said it like that. I started reading tarot because I wanted--” Naminé paused, throwing a sidelong at nothing in particular. “...Control.” She returned her gaze to Xion’s face. “But so many of your cards are the same as mine.”

Xion nodded thoughtfully, but she didn’t understand. There were things she knew about herself that were intrinsic. Among those facts was that she was doomed to be a sad person. Everything that happened to her was the way her life was supposed to be; there was no point in trying to fix it. Despite reminding herself of this, frustration began to simmer under her skin the way it usually did. She turned and shuffled wordlessly toward the curb where Naminé had parked.

“It’s funny--almost everyone I’ve ever met only treated me like an accessory,” Naminé began as they clambered into the BMW and she buckled herself in. “I used to try to get into trouble because I thought it might get someone to pay attention to me. Now Aqua and Terra and Ven give me more than enough attention, and all I want is out.”

Xion grinned. “Hmm, should’ve known you were a troublemaker.”

“I really did go to parties. The seniors took a liking to me.”

“Dang, Nams. Tell me more about your escapades.”

“I’ll tell you,” she said and she started the car and pulled away from the curb, a  wild sort of look surfacing on her face, her eyes not quite sparkling as they were glazed over. “That senior boys really like it when you pretend not to know what they’re up to.”

The BMW had taken that long to detect Naminé’s phone and begin to softly play a song Xion couldn’t tell whether she’d heard somewhere before, because it simultaneously reminded her of standing in front of the drink fridge at Rite Aid and also of nothing at all. She stared out the passenger window with her elbow against the door and her chin in her hand, chewing her lip. The Naminé who did things like make her bracelets and hold her arm and talk to her--the one she remembered from tech camp--gave her butterflies like no one else. Whoever she was talking to now struck a sort of fear deep in her gut, but it was not for herself.

“What if something had happened to you?” Xion asked her. “Weren’t you ever afraid of that?”

“No, I didn’t feel afraid,” Naminé replied. That smile was still on her face. “I didn’t feel anything.”

There was a lot of pain in a teenage body. Lea had told her so. Sometimes there was nothing at all, just a black hole, dense and empty at the same time. Trying to fill that void was like trying to drink from a cup with a hole at the bottom. Some people cut their hair. Some people cut their skin.

Xion sat up. “Hey. If you decide to take off again, you should take me with you. It’ll be just the two of us.”

Naminé laughed.

“I’m serious. We’ll start over. Everything will be fine.”

“You have people who would miss you.”

“Lea won’t care; all he does is smoke and sleep all day. And Roxas would understand.” And there was the annoying thing Lea did where he was super secretive of everything in his life before she’d met him  how she’d noticed it a lot more since moving in. But she didn’t feel like telling Naminé this.

Naminé’s lips twitched into a subtle grimace. “That’s not true. You don’t mean that.”

“No, I mean it. Let’s go.” Naminé was right, but she’d gotten started and she couldn’t stop. The voice in her head that kept screaming at her to shut the fuck up was drowned out by the blood rushing in her ears.

“Running away with me won’t make everything better.” The grimace became a frown. “I knew you for three weeks, a year and a half ago. You don’t know me. And I can’t fix you.”

“Oh, and your stupid cards--”

“My stupid cards what? I wanted an excuse to talk to you, Xion, but now I think maybe we shouldn’t.” A branch from a tree above hit the windshield with a loud snap, but she did not flinch. Naminé turned her steely eyes toward her. “Get out of my car.”

“I’m still a mile away from home.”

“I said get out.”

Contrary to what she’d seen in movies, it did not begin to rain when Naminé drove away. She walked home with her hands in her pockets, and once she reached the townhouse complex, she drew the jar of seaglass out from her jacket and threw it against the wall.

Chapter Text

Riku was in a fog, idly rearranging the oranges he’d picked earlier from most to least fucked up in a line on the kitchen table.

He was pulled away from his intense focus on the prolapsed navel of the orange currently in his hand as Kairi called to him from behind the stove where she was making a ruckus rearranging cookware in the cabinet, “You know what day it is, right?” 

“Is it Monday?” Grumbled Riku, because it always seemed to be Monday. He briefly mourned the loss of the weekend. Then he returned his attention to the fruit. 

One particularly bumpy orange appeared to have grown horns; another had what looked like every human orifice at once. He couldn’t decide which orange he should place where. 

“It’s the twenty-first,” she replied, as if she expected it to mean something to him.

“And?”

“I hope you’ve remembered my Christmas present?”

He sighed and shuffled one of the oranges to the front of the line. “I’m not telling you where I hid it.”

She stood up and huffed, crossing her arms and tapping her foot in an exaggerated display of impatience. 

Riku grinned to himself. “Tell me that’s not what you’re looking for in the cupboard,” he said. 

“I’m looking for the muffin tin.” 

He rose and shuffled to the kitchen. “Up here.” He drew the tin out from the cupboard above the oven. Kairi clicked her tongue. “What’re you planning on doing with this?”

“I’m starving,” she said, bouncing on her toes for a couple seconds and pushing her hair back when it fell over her face. “You have to teach me how to make those muffins I like.”

“I promised a certain someone I’d make him a chocolate cake,” replied Riku. “ Then I’ll teach you how to make the muffins.” 

She stuck her tongue out at him. A noise from the hallway and the owner of a familiar mess of brown hair redirected her attention. “Speak of the devil.”

Sora wandered halfway into the living room before pausing for a long moment with no particular expression on his face at all. He was half dressed, outdoor jacket draped over his shoulders while still in his flannel pajama pants and slippers. Kairi danced up to him, grasping his hands and shaking them as she continued to babble about the muffins.

“Woah, are you gonna have an episode? You remember that manic Kairi is not allowed to cook,” Sora informed her, and Riku laughed when she turned her scandalized expression to him.

“I started a grease fire once,” she protested. “I just wanted scrambled eggs. It was one time!”

Riku turned his gaze to Sora. They stared blankly at each other for a moment that was a little too long. Riku felt his chest tighten. “Want any breakfast?”

Sora shook his head and pulled his arms through the sleeves of his jacket. “No thanks, I’m, uh, I’m not hungry.” He began to head toward the front door before appearing to remember that he hadn’t finished dressing, then directed himself back toward the hallway. He reappeared a few minutes later wearing jeans, shoes, and his backpack slung lazily over one shoulder. “I’m going back to the creek today. I’ll see you guys later.” 

Kairi frowned at the door when he shut it behind him without lingering long enough for her to lean in and peck him on the cheek the way she always did, and she stood there for a moment looking like she’d stifled a sneeze. Then she lolled her head to one side, swaying on her heels and narrowing her eyes. That look always made Riku break into a sweat. She seemed to decide that her energy was best channeled elsewhere though, because she didn’t press. Instead, she rolled up the sleeves of her sweater and dragged the vacuum cleaner into the living room.

It left Riku the time to focus on the promised cake, though by “focus” he meant “focus on anything but that.” He ran the recipe through his head over and over while he fiddled mindlessly with the cake pan because it was the only way he could keep all his other thoughts out. He listened to Kairi humming under the sound of the vacuum cleaner, and then when she was done with that, it was just her voice soft and out of tune in an otherwise silent house.

He poured the batter in the pan, he put the pan in the oven, he set the timer, and then he stared absently at the cake through the glass. There was a slight ringing in his ears. A harsh prod between his shoulder blades made him jump.

“Riku.” 

Riku raised his eyebrows and tried to casually push his bangs away from his face, except he poked himself in the eye and ended up squinting in the direction of the voice with his eyes watering. 

Kairi removed one earbud and let it dangle over her collarbone. “You’ve been standing there doing nothing for almost 45 minutes,” she remarked. 

“Uh-huh,” he replied.

“Are you gonna keep standing there?”

“Uh-huh.”

Kairi planted her hands on her hips. “No, you’re not. You’re going to finish baking that cake and then you’re gonna teach me to make those muffins like you said.” She began to shove at his back when he responded with a low grumble. He slumped against her efforts to slide him across the kitchen floor, though the fact that he was wearing socks was to his disadvantage and she managed to push him from the oven to the kitchen sink before he slipped and landed solidly on his tailbone.

Riku let out a yelp, and then somewhere between the first instant of pain shooting up his spine and opening his mouth he realized that the following five minutes of agony meant nothing in the grand scheme of the universe and its inevitable entropic destruction, so he lay on his back on the cold kitchen tile and sighed. 

Kairi peered down at him with her hands on her knees. “Is that comfortable? Do you want to talk about your feelings yet?” She asked.

Riku rolled his head to one side and mumbled, “Does the planet Venus care about my feelings?”

Kairi sat down cross-legged beside him. She picked a stray hair away from his face and began to trace something on his forehead with an index finger, her lips still curled into a grin. He hoped fervently that she wasn’t doodling something vulgar, but he knew better. “You sound exactly like Roxas,” she said.

“That’s a terrible thing to say to someone.”

She giggled as she leaned over and placed the stray earbud gently in Riku’s ear. 

“Enya?”

“Shut up and feel the Orinoco Flow.”

Kairi scooted over and lay down so that they were ear to ear with their feet at opposite ends of the kitchen. Riku closed his eyes. What was it they used to tell him in therapy? Count his breaths. One, two, three. 

Enya sang Caribbean Blue into his left ear. The pallid sunlight fell through the window and warmed his shoulders, like the ghost of a blanket. He could hear mourning doves having a melancholy exchange in the neighbor’s tree. He imagined himself floating on his back in the ocean until the water beneath him became too cold and the sky above him turned too fast and he was afraid that if he moved his arms to balance himself he was going to drown, but then the oven timer went off.

Riku blinked dazedly. Gravity kept its hold on him. Kairi placed a delicate peck on his forehead before getting up to fetch the cake from the oven and place the pans on the stovetop; then she twirled and held out an arm to him. He took her hand and his bones made an audible creaking noise when she pulled him to his feet.

“So what are you using for frosting?” Asked Kairi, inspecting the clutter of ingredients Riku had gathered on the stovetop. 

“I’m doing it from scratch. I’m going to try using coconut oil and almond milk as a dairy substitute.”

She nodded, but didn’t appear to have been listening. “I like that powdered sugar frosting stuff.”

“Gross,” Riku replied. Royal frosting was good for only a delicious minute until the powdered sugar taste overwhelmed everything else. Buttercream, he liked. Buttercream, Sora liked, too. 

“Want coffee?” Kairi interrupted his train of thought again by holding a Keurig cup directly under his nose. It smelled nice.

He tilted his head and sighed. “Okay.” He blinked slowly, unfocusing his eyes as she twirled away from him and fetched a mug from one of the cabinets until her hair was just an auburn blob dancing around the kitchen. When he blinked again she was holding the mug under his chin. He curled his fingers around it tentatively, almost sure he was going to drop it the instant she let go because his day just seemed to be going that way. He peered into his drink, expecting his gaze to meet his own tired eyes in his reflection, but there was nothing to be seen but darkness. 

He sipped at his coffee while Kairi made her own, and the world around him slowed down just a bit. It was enough for him to count his breathing and return his focus to his initial task. He wanted to turn to her and ask, how did she manage to put up with him on the days he functioned as well as his aunt’s shitty 2001 Ford Explorer on an especially frosty morning? But he could see her pouting and pinching his cheeks if he worded it like that, so he didn’t. 

The cake was frosted and hidden at the back of the fridge and Riku was just finishing stuffing leavening ingredients back into the cupboard with the squeaky lazy Susan when the front door rattled and swung open, hitting the wall with a bang that shook the house. Sora burst through the doorway in a flurry of feathers and a loud honking wheeze. For a moment he was concerned that Sora had brought home a curse that was transforming him into a goose, and listening to him let out another couple honks as he bent over with his hands on his knees didn’t exactly help convince him otherwise. 

Riku peered over the counter. He met Sora’s eyes just as he glanced upward, red faced and grinning that stupid wide grin. He felt his own face grow hot.

“I… got… duck!” Wheezed Sora. He stood up straight, still panting but sounding a little less like a goose now. A feather dislodged itself from his hair and floated humbly to the floor. Kairi let out a whoop. Sora let his backpack slide off his arm and drew a duck proudly from the main compartment. “I’ve got more!” He opened his backpack wider. Kairi whooped again. “I’ve also got two rabbits!”

“How the hell,” Riku mumbled, more in awe that his perseverance in the face of constant disappointment had finally nabbed him a decent bounty than anything else. 

As Sora handed his prizes over to Kairi, Riku turned away from the backyard door so as not to catch even a glimpse of her gutting them over the compost pile. Instead, he stared at Sora’s flushed cheeks and tousled hair. He watched the edges of his lips twitch and fall from an ear-to-ear grin to something of a stretched out grimace.

“You’re getting good at that,” he told him.

“Yeah,” replied Sora blankly. 

There was a long pause during which Sora appeared to be looking past him rather than at him, and Riku tried to pretend he didn’t notice how quickly that gaze dulled under the fringe of mousy brown hair. Then he disappeared beyond the hallway, leaving Riku alone in the living room wondering what kind of shade was Caribbean blue.

The nights Roxas stayed over at Lea’s place, the house belonged to just the three of them and so did the couch, which they’d made a ritual of squeezing themselves onto after dinner and vegetating in front of the TV for a while before Sora inevitably fell asleep halfway through the movie, as well as whichever one of Riku’s arms he happened to be leaning on. If Kairi decided to drape her legs over his, then he’d spend the latter portion of the night absent of sensation anywhere below his neck. 

“Don’t you usually sit in the middle?” Kairi said when Sora shoved himself against the arm of the couch. 

“Yeah, but then I couldn’t do this,” he replied, draping his legs over the edge of the couch and resting his head on her thigh.

Riku figured the planet Venus was probably not even breathing in his direction. 

A short while of relative silence passed before Sora sighed at the ceiling. “I’m not going to the creek anymore,” he informed them. “I dunno when it happened, but the place is trashed.”

Kairi’s shoulder grew tense against Riku’s. 

“There’s graffiti and broken bottles everywhere--like, more than usual,” he continued. “I’m not going in there again; it freaks me out.” 

“Oh? Since when were you afraid of anything?” Riku teased, but the idea that something horrible enough happened to Sora’s already creepy playplace to keep him away from it sent a cold shiver down his spine. How was the guy who willingly traversed spaces Riku himself would not set foot in a million years--were it not for Sora leading him by the hand so gently, of course--suddenly too spooked to go back?

Sora laughed into Kairi’s thigh, but to his disappointment it was at something on the TV and not his half-hearted jest. Riku curled his legs inward and rested his elbow against the side of the couch with his chin in his palm. He pictured the yawning mouth of the storm drain, wondering if something heinous had taken up residence there. He tried to shift his focus to the movie, but the image wouldn’t leave him. It yawned wider and wider until his vision was swallowed entirely by a cold and inky darkness.

His forehead smacking against the crook of his elbow when his hand slipped away from his chin is what woke him. Everything was still dark. In the brief moment before he began to panic, his eyes adjusted and he realized that both the TV and the living room lights had been turned off. Being the first to fall asleep during a movie was a new one; it usually took him an eternity plus another hour to get to sleep. 

Riku reached out to the space beside him, but where he thought Kairi’s shoulder should be, he patted an empty cushion. Did they go to bed already? He looked out across the emptier couch, then at the front door. The porch light was shining through the shuttered window blinds, illuminating the floor where stripes cut across it. 

He heard Sora’s voice mumbling something. It was muffled, like it was coming from… outside? Why was Sora outside?

Then he heard Kairi’s voice. Riku felt his stomach twist. Oh, no.

“...Out… all night,” he heard Sora say.

“You… sh… hhh… stand,” Kairi hissed, her reply even less intelligible.

“Side… you’ll--”

“ No.”

She said it with such force that in the dead quiet of the night it sounded like a shout. Riku froze when the door knob rattled, and continued to stay frozen as Sora opened the door a crack and squeezed himself through it. Through the gap, Riku could see Kairi hunched over on the front step. He didn’t bother squinting to see what she had clasped in her hands.

Sora closed the door behind him and stood with his back pressed against it. He almost disappeared into shadow, only a silhouette against the porch light falling through the shuttered blinds. Riku gazed at him through the darkness. 

It took what felt like hours for him to fall asleep again. The gentle trilling of the screech owl he’d gotten so used to hearing was uncomfortably absent. He stared blankly at the tragic expression of his stuffed tiger, which was still tucked neatly under the covers on the side of the bed opposite him, until he couldn’t keep his eyes open anymore. Then he dreamt of nothing but the sensation of his body being squeezed and torn apart by a familiar pair of hands.

“Hey, get up,” said a voice whose owner happened to be shaking him violently by the shoulder, jerking him from his fitful sleep. “I think we have some things that need talking about.” 

Riku smacked the offending arm away. He blinked blearily at what he assumed was the shape of Kairi standing over him. Her hair was done up in a tight ponytail and she was dressed in a violet zip hoodie and a pair of leggings. That was her I’m going somewhere and you’re coming with me look, so rather than rolling over and going back to sleep the way he would if it had been anyone else shaking him awake, he said, “Yeah, I really think we do.” 

She hardly gave him time to his throw clothes on and tie his shoes before shoving him out the front door, and then she broke into a jog that was a bit too fast. 

“Wh-where are you going?” Riku huffed when he caught up to her at the end of the block.

“Running,” came the flat reply. Riku watched her ponytail swinging from side to side as she dashed off again.

He held back for a moment, watching a pair of pigeons getting comfortable atop the streetlamp the next house over. He didn’t really feel like chasing Kairi all over the neighborhood if it wasn’t for fun, but on the other hand, he figured he could use the exercise. He had a tendency to eat his feelings, and last night he’d eaten another two bags of popcorn by himself when the others weren’t looking. Riku groaned, bounced on his toes for a second, and sprinted to catch up with Kairi. “What’s your problem?” He gasped.

She twirled to face him, jogging backwards without stopping as she pursed her lips at him. Her ponytail would have smacked Riku in the face when she turned around again had he not been a whole head taller, and instead it brushed harmlessly against the front of his windbreaker.

“The hell is wrong with you?” 

“Oh, am I the moody one now, Mr. I-Think-I’ll-Take-a-Nap-On-The-Floor?” 

“I only have one mood and you know it.” 

Kairi slowed to a walk and tilted her head to look at him from the corner of her eye, the glint of defiance disappearing when her expression suddenly grew serious. “I’m sick of whoever’s been trying to fuck things up for us.”

Riku blinked.

“We’re not running from zombies or murdering each other for supplies; there’s no reason for trashed houses and burned down malls. Someone must’ve just really got off on seeing The Purge.” She shook her head and began to jog again, but this time she allowed him to keep pace with her.

“Is that why you’ve been sitting out on the front step all night? I don’t think that’s healthy, Kai,” he told her. “Do you plan on stabbing them? You can’t just stab people.”

“We’ll see,” she said.

Kairi’s running route was different than the one he ran with Sora. He’d never actually gone with her before. Sora liked to run south towards the mountains, down where the rich people lived in the neighborhoods that were too posh for sidewalks or streetlamps, and sometimes they’d run up the hill to the coffee shop and get something to drink. Kairi seemed to enjoy running west, toward the foothills where a different set of rich people lived in big houses tucked away amid oak trees and golden grasses. There was a spot on top of one of those hills where if he bypassed the gate on one property to hike up a short deer trail, he could see across the whole valley. He’d been up there a couple times before, because it happened to be a good spot to watch the Perseids even if the twinkle of the stars competed with the glow of the city lights below.

Kairi led him up to where the train tracks ran hidden behind the lines of trees and houses. It wasn’t quite afternoon yet but he could feel the air begin to stir, like the earth was inhaling before it blew the wind down from the bay the way it did the same way every day. He felt the wind blow through him--not in a way that made him cold, but the way he felt when he opened all the windows on a warm day and it scattered the dust all around. Even Kairi’s tense expression had eased, and she was chuckling and trying to recall a joke she claimed to had been told in elementary school but couldn’t remember how it went, only that it was purposely long-winded and ended abruptly and unsatisfactorily. Was all they needed really just a good run? Mental health was beyond his understanding and therefore it was stupid, Riku thought. 

As they crossed the tracks, Kairi stopped short. She motioned for Riku to lean in. “There’s someone hiding behind that bush,” she said in a low voice.

He peered over her shoulder to where she was staring. Sure enough, he could see the tip of a sneaker peeking out from the edge of a juniper bush which framed the edge of the railroad crossing.

“What if they’re dead?” She whispered.

“They’re not dead,” he hissed, though his mind echoed with the immediate afterthought of Oh god, what if they’re dead?

They both leapt about five feet in the air when the shoe retreated. Riku took a couple steps closer, trying to crane his head to see who it belonged to, while Kairi hung back with a pout on her face. He took another step closer; she frowned harder. Then, with a sigh that was very dramatic for something that was completely silent, she pushed herself past him to face the other side of the juniper bush directly.

The owner of the sneaker was a very much alive boy who Riku figured couldn’t be much older than himself, wearing a puffer vest and a beanie and sitting slumped over behind the bush looking very, very angry. “What the fuck do you want?” He said in a tone that was likely meant to be a growl but it came out more as a breathy pant. 

He cleared his throat. “Why’re you just sitting out here on the ground?” 

“What are you, the police? A guy can’t have a little sit-down on the ground once in a while?”

Kairi rolled her eyes and shot Riku a look. He shrugged back. It was then he noticed the pallor of the stranger’s skin and the shine of sweat on his forehead. 

“Are you sick?” 

“No,” he scoffed. “I got bit.” 

Kairi gasped. Her eyebrows shot up to her hairline. “Sora was right!”

“Stop talking to him about zombies!” Riku frowned and smacked her against the back of her head.

“It wasn’t a zombie, dumbfuck! It was a bug!” 

A beat of silence passed as the three of them stared at each other. Then the strange boy gritted his teeth and winced as he grabbed at his upper arm for a moment before continuing to return their stare. He waved at them dismissively. 

Kairi chewed her lip. She held out a hand. “Let me see it.”

“Go awa— hey,” he yelped as she was already forcibly rolling up the sleeve of his jacket before he could push her away. 

There was a dirty cotton pad wrapped with gauze around his horrifically swollen arm. Kairi wrinkled her nose. She delicately peeled the cotton away and made a gagging noise. “Don’t think skin is supposed to be that color,” she said.

  “Ya think?” Replied the stranger, rolling his eyes.

Riku peered over her shoulder to observe, more out of impulse than morbid curiosity, but when he saw the state of his arm he wished he hadn’t. 

“That’s a spider bite. You can see the two little puncture marks.” She rewrapped the gauze and cotton pad around his arm. “Why’d you let it get this infected?”

“I didn’t.”

“What does that mean?”

“The group I was living with didn’t have even the most basic first-aid supplies, and then they kicked me out once I started getting sick.” He paused and squeezed his eyes shut like he was sitting out a head rush before continuing. “It’s like Lord of the Flies or something. Everyone was nice to each other the first couple months… then some kind of switch flipped and they suddenly thought destroying crap was super funny.” 

Kairi shot Riku an incredulous look. As she glanced back at him, a shadow crossed her face. 

Kairi, as Riku had come to know her, had a terrifying side that was not so much buried underneath her bubbly and outgoing exterior as it was a part of her that stood in plain sight, but went unnoticed until she made it seen. It amused him to watch kids unfamiliar with her reputation carelessly press her buttons. He knew that glint in her eyes. 

This wasn’t that look. There was no telltale sparkle of mischief, or mania, or fury. Her eyes glazed over, and she only stared blankly straight ahead with no discernable expression. It froze his insides. The worst part was, like the first night she’d sat out on the front step, she hardly ever remembered. And like the nights she sat on the front step, she’d unsheathed her pocket knife—

“Kairi, hold your shit together,” demanded Riku, grasping the wrist with which she was now using to direct it at the stranger’s throat. She was holding her other arm held out behind her, barring the way between him and Riku. 

“You’re with them? ” She growled, ignoring the sweaty fingers holding her back. “Forget the Benadryl. I’m amputating your whole damn arm right now.” 

The stranger’s eyes widened, but he otherwise seemed unbothered by the knife being pointed at him. “Naw. I told you. They kicked me out ‘cause I got a spider bite and I have nothing better to do than sit here ‘till my arm rots off.”

“That’s bullshit.”

“It’s not. They think if you’ve got the audacity to get sick or injured, you’re not fit to survive.” The stranger furrowed his brows. “Two of us died from the flu last month,” he muttered in a much quieter voice.

Kairi lowered her arm and pocketed the knife. Riku was reluctant to let go of her entirely, so he kept one hand on her shoulder. Slowly, she mumbled, “There’s a college a half mile away that’s one of the designated food drives. There are people there who can take you somewhere they can fix your arm.”

She didn’t make eye contact with the stranger as she and Riku knelt to slip their arms under his to pull him to his feet, and she continued to look away with her lips pursed as they walked at an achingly slow pace, supporting him with their shoulders. Every now and then she jostled them both to kick at the dead leaves under her feet. The stranger waved with his one good arm as they left after they’d delivered him to the oddly chipper duo who greeted them at the campus office, but Kairi still didn’t look.

“What happened to stabbing him?” Asked Riku once they were far enough away from campus.

She shook her head. “I wouldn’t be much better than the guys who abandoned him-- even though I really wanted to.” 

Riku thought about the man at the hardware store. That guy had said he had nothing and no one. People weren’t built to have no one. He wondered when they started believing that they shouldn’t need anyone. (And then, guiltily, he remembered once having felt the same thing.)

“Glad to know you won’t kick me out for being sick,” he said. 

“You know I’m always happy to do the absolute bare minimum for our friendship.” 

An outburst of dry laughter erupted between them, startling the finches that were chattering amongst themselves upon the fence of a house they’d just walked past. Then they strolled in silence for a while, following the path up the foothills to the spot with the telephone pole with the wires that buzzed. The grass had almost grown high enough during the rain for Kairi to disappear from view were it not for how easy her auburn hair was to spot now that the rain had also changed the iconic golden hue of the native grass to a calming shade of green.

Riku slowed down, ignoring the hair on the back of his neck beginning to rise because his body reacted the same to the buzz of a faulty wire as a hive full of bees. “Why did you and Sora break up?” He asked.

Kairi stopped short. She let out a barking laugh. “‘Cause we were fourteen. Nothing lasts when you’re fourteen,” she told him.

He didn’t laugh with her. “Why, really?”

She tilted her head upward to look at him from the corner of her narrowed eyes with a tight-lipped smile. “Why? ”

Riku felt his ears growing hot. He was also a little nauseous, but he couldn’t tell if this was new or if he’d been nauseous this whole time. “Even I thought you guys were such a match.”

She seemed to think about this very hard. The smile on her face disappeared, and for a split second her expression looked very far away. She clasped her hands behind her back and shuffled her feet. “It didn’t make me happy... and that made him unhappy. I think maybe I thought I had to.” She shrugged. “Maybe he thought he had to, too.”

Riku chewed the inside of his cheek, wanting to say something, but he couldn’t come up with anything worth saying. Some part of him felt bitter--but only a little. He focused on listening to the buzzing overhead instead, following her swinging ponytail until the sound was far away.

“So what are you and Sora fighting about?” Asked Kairi abruptly in an obnoxiously upbeat tone.

Riku chewed his cheek harder.  “We--we aren’t fighting.”

“You guys haven’t made eye contact in two days.”

Sometimes, Kairi was so smart and so annoying. Living with her superhuman powers of perception combined with her infuriating nosiness was the price he had to pay for surviving the end of the world and not accidentally killing himself due to his own stupidity, he supposed. He wished she would let him mope in peace, but then he’d probably still be lying on his back in the middle of the kitchen. It wasn’t any use trying to fight her about it. That girl carried a knife in her pocket.

He took a deep breath. “The other day when we came home and you sewed up his busted lip… It was kind of my fault it started bleeding again, because he--” Riku paused to take another breath, because saying it out loud made his stomach do all kinds of flips. “He asked me to kiss him.”

Kairi’s eyes went wide, and then she grasped his fingers in her hands and shook him viciously. “He--you guys-- Riku…!! ”

“Then, a couple days ago he asked if I was interested in being a thing and I told him--”

She wrinkled her brow and frowned. “Oh, no,” she grumbled. “What did you do?”

“I told him he could do better than me.”

There was a sudden pain in his arm that nearly bowled him over; it felt like he’d been hit by a cannonball. It took him a second to realize Kairi had punched him. 

She was standing there with her shoulders tensed and her arm half raised like she was getting ready to strike him again. “Are you stupid?” She snapped.

Riku took a step back. That had actually really hurt. He felt a lump forming in his throat, and he thought about how stupid he’d feel if this was what finally got him to cry. 

“What was your goal here, telling him something you knew would upset you both?” She didn’t wait for him to answer, continuing without pausing to take a breath until she was almost wheezing her last few words. “The reason Sora’s looked like a deflated balloon all week is because, what? You can’t cope with the idea of something making you happy? I’m starting to think that you’re only happy when you’re making yourself miserable.”

He stared absently at the ground. He watched a shiny black beetle skitter across the gravel and into the grass. He noticed that Kairi had dried blood on her shoes. “What if--” 

Kairi stood on her toes and shoved her face so close to his that their noses nearly touched and he could feel her breath on his cheeks as she hissed, “If you don’t kiss that boy back by the new year, I’m evicting you.” 

He shook his head. If anything was going to make things worse, it was exactly that. She grasped his fingers, gentle at first, and then squeezed them tightly enough to hurt--but only for a moment. Then she let go. Behind her, the valley sprawled out for miles with the bay at its edge, and he could see the outline of foothills farther away still. She looked at him with so much exhaustion in her expression that the guilt he felt became a physical pain. It was probably the same look deities gave mortals when they inevitably failed the test of morals they’d been given, and he was afraid that he’d failed his and she was going to turn into a bird and fly away. 

“Just fix it,” she said.

Chapter Text

She was her corner of the room. She was the relief of shade under bone-bleaching sun, and Naminé wanted to drape a blanket over that patch of cool grass and curl up in it and sleep forever. She was a river stone in human form, pleasant, tough, and constant. Always with a melody on her tongue. Always with her eyes hidden behind her hair.

They met at Tech Camp, the summer before high school. On the first day, she offered Naminé the French fries she’d stolen from the cafeteria just for her when she noticed she had no lunch to eat. For three weeks they sat next to each other in the same programming class, and when the month was over, Naminé sat up in bed at night and wondered if she’d been born human just so she could lace her fingers together with hers.

“When you go back to school, don’t forget about me,” Xion had said.

Naminé did nothing but think about the dark eyed girl she’d met. It was then she noticed there was something missing. Had she lost it? Had it even been there in the first place? Was it a hole, or just unbearably heavy? She tried to flush out the feelings she thought couldn’t be right but no matter what she filled her heart and body with, she only found a hollow dysphoria. 

Then she saw changes in the mirror. She could see the veins behind her eyelids, and her sweaters hung a little too loose. She’d hung on the arm of others and they’d said nothing all this time. She might as well be a cardboard cutout--just something to look good in a photo on someone’s Facebook wall. 

How small can I make myself before someone notices I’m gone, she thought bitterly, as a hot blackness started to prickle at her scalp.

In December, she began to pull out her hair. 

It was so beautiful as it shattered, like a firework, sparkling green and brown and white and blue. Then it lay at her feet, and she felt worse than she did a minute ago.

“Think we need to talk,” said Lea immediately after Xion closed the front door behind her. He wasn’t even looking at her; he was watching something on TV with the volume muted and his headphones on.

“Thought you couldn’t hear me,” she said.

“Saw your reflection on the TV.” 

She hesitated in the foyer. There were too many things he could possibly grill her for. She thought about sprinting back out the door, but Lea had those weird giraffe legs and he’d catch her in a second. Lea slung an arm over the back of the couch to turn and face her. His face fell immediately when he saw her standing frozen in front of the door with her hands shoved into her pockets and her shoulders up to her ears.

“Hey now,” He said, his voice softening. “What happened? What’s wrong?”

Xion figured she must look pathetic. She shook her head, but she felt her eyes welling up against her will. She wiped her face with one arm and sniffled into her elbow so he couldn’t hear. Lea scooted to one end of the couch and stared at her expectantly.

She threw herself over the couch and shoved herself against his arm, still trying to hold in her sniffling. She didn’t look at his face. She just stared blankly at her knees.

“Do you want to talk about it?”

Xion shrugged. Lea returned his eyes to the TV. She pulled his arm over her shoulder and rested her head against his ribcage. Lea was too bony for that to ever be truly comfortable, but she liked it because it made her feel safe. 

“Why are you watching TV with your headphones on?” She mumbled into his armpit. He had a slight tremor; she could feel it against her cheek.

“Sometimes I like putting on a movie and listening to an album at the same time and pretending it’s just a really long music video.”

“So… what are you watching and listening to?” 

“Amélie and IAMX.”

“Um.”

He laughed, jostling her head as he did so. “Wanna play games?”

“Help me with Little Big Planet. It’s too hard to beat some of the levels by myself.”

Xion let herself flop onto her side when Lea got up to dig through the library of games arranged neatly on the shelves of the TV console. For a guy who seemed to care little about most other spaces in the house, he took great care in how his CDs, records, and video games were stored. He had a designated space for each system unlike Roxas and his brother, who were content to leave their Wii sitting on the floor. 

“Hey,” she said once Lea had sat back down and handed her a controller. “How come you never play your PS2?” She gestured to the dusty console sitting on the shadowy bottom shelf.  

“That one doesn’t belong to me,” he replied. “I’m holding onto it for someone.” 

Xion wondered if he was saving it as a present for Roxas, but Lea wasn’t at all secretive about how he loved to spoil him. There were people he talked about sometimes—but never by their names. And he always talked like he was waiting for them to slip back into his life somehow. The PS2 must have belonged to one of those someones. That annoyed her. She felt compelled to throw it out. 

The level in Little Big Planet she couldn’t get past had a large rotating wheel with traps and platforms. Always, just when she thought she was about to make it out of the maze, she died. It wasn’t so much that she needed Lea’s help with that one as it was reassurance that it wasn’t just her who found it needlessly difficult. It was maybe the tenth time they’d tried to beat the level and failed when Xion felt her chest begin to quake and her eyes watered up so much she couldn’t see. They made little droplets when they fell from her face onto her controller. She set it down in her lap and buried her face in her arms.

“I know this level makes you wanna tear your hair out, but...” Lea paused the game and set his controller on the coffee table. He draped his arm over her shoulder again and let her sit there and shake.

Xion curled into herself onto her side, resting her cheek on Lea’s thigh and shaking and feeling guilty about dampening his jeans where her head lay. It felt like forever until she was able to breathe again, and then she did so with deep shudders until her stomach was too sore to take anything but shallow breaths. 

“All the friends you make when you’re young,” Xion mumbled after a long time, “Are they just stepping stones to get to better places?” 

“Sometimes,” Lea replied. 

“Am I?” She asked. “...Are you?” 

She looked up to see him staring at her with his mouth hanging slightly open and face twisted into an expression of concern. “What’s this about?”

“When are you going to decide that you don’t want me around anymore?” 

Lea opened and closed his mouth for a few seconds, looking like he was about to cry too, but instead he shook his head and squeezed her tight. “That’s not gonna happen,” he said. 

“You have all these old friends you never talk about, and you don’t let Roxas talk about them, either. I don’t want to be one of them. I want you to talk about me.”

He pushed a hand through his hair and sighed, still looking more and more like he might cry (and she realized that she had never actually seen him do it, and the dark part of her heart wanted him to--but she wasn’t holding her breath.) “Xion, you’re not one of my old friends,” he said. “You’re my family now.” 

She gave him a crooked grin. “My family didn’t care about me.” 

He laughed dryly. “Welcome to the club. That’s why I got a new one.”  She squealed when he squeezed her again and rubbed his knuckles against her scalp. When he finally let her go, she frantically fixed her hair while he leaned back and exhaled loudly.

Xion stared at the underside of his chin, her head pounding and her eyes burning. She watched him knitting and unknitting his brow with his lips stretched out into a weird grimace. She wondered if he really believed what he told her.

Their city had no skate parks and Roxas never let her forget. They did, however, have dried up swimming pools. There was one in particular that used to be the townhouse complex’s community pool, and he eagerly threw himself into its nine-foot drop much to her abject horror. Most of the time he made it out in one piece, but there were times when he’d gash his shin or his shoulder but he’d grin like it didn’t hurt and tell her he was still having a good time. 

Lea used to join them. He used to sit at the deep end of the pool with his legs dangling over the edge and a cigarette between his fingers, looking kind of proud when Roxas showed off his fancy footwork. He stopped at some point, and they didn’t know why. Xion still saw Roxas glancing up at the ledge expecting to see that mane of red hair, even though it had been months. 

It was just Xion at the pool ledge now. She watched Roxas out of the corner of her eye while she kicked her heels against the concrete. She held her phone firmly in her hands, thumbing the buttons continuously as if it were a rosary and turning it on and off and on and off again. She checked her messages, but there were none. Xion just kept staring at the last few texts Naminé had sent her, and shifting her gaze between that and the bracelet she still wore on her wrist. 

Roxas’ voice echoed as he sang to no one in particular. She watched him practicing something that looked as if he were trying to replicate figure skating, propelling himself backwards in big arcs with one leg in the air, but he stopped when he noticed she was watching. He shuffled over to where she was sitting and hoisted himself up onto the ledge with his skateboard resting across his lap. “I’m going to buy Yahoo once the domain name runs out,” he announced. 

“Why Yahoo?” She turned her phone on and off and on and off.

“Everyone else is gonna want Google and stuff. Nobody wants Yahoo.” 

Xion didn’t think his reply was really all that funny, but it still drew a giggle out from her. It made her aware that her insides felt sore.

Roxas flopped onto his back with his hands cradling his head. “Tell me what’s new with you,” he said.

“Well, I cried about a girl,” she informed him, still staring at her phone, “So that’s new.”

He hummed. “Is that something I can I help with?”

“Only if you know how to fix everything wrong with me immediately.” 

“Once I figure that out for myself, you’ll be the first person I tell.”

Xion thought about talking to Aqua about it. She was an adult, right? Adults knew things. She wondered if she had it figured out yet, but then she remembered how quickly she was putting away those beers with her face tomato red and thought maybe not. She turned her phone on and off a few more times.

“I found out my brother and his boyfriend haven’t actually been dating this whole time,” Roxas said suddenly, and the way he said it was so matter-of-fact that it made Xion sputter and choke on her own spit. “I found out because they’re having a fight.” 

“Explain the words, ‘haven’t actually been dating.”

Roxas sat up with his eyes comically wide. “Oh my god, you don’t know . You haven’t had to live with them. They’re so gross I can’t stand it.”

“Your twin brother… and the junior varsity water polo player everyone has a crush on.” 

He nodded. 

“You jealous?” 

Roxas promptly elbowed her in the ribs, causing her to squawk. Then he lay back again and let out a sigh. It was cold enough so she could see his breath leaving his lips directly upwards like he was a smoking chimney. “We gotta drag Lea back out here,” he sighed.

She huffed a bit just to watch her breath dissipate in the pallid sunlight. It reminded her of cigarette smoke; she almost thought she could smell it. “What’s up with him lately, anyway?”

“You could ask any one of us that.” He frowned and ran his fingers through his bangs while making a faint groaning sound. “But you’re right, he’s been acting weirder than usual and it’s pissing me off.” 

The way he’d uttered that sentence with a growl startled her; she assumed he was compliant with the behavior that annoyed her. For instance, she was aware that he had a smoking habit before she’d moved in, but when she complained to Roxas about it he only responded with a passive, “Yeah, he does that.” She realized now that it was a stupid assumption—Roxas didn’t put up with anything that annoyed him. Maybe the smoking didn’t bother him, but there was something that did.

“He was a completely different person before you and I met. Something happened, I think,” Roxas continued. “I mean, it’s not like he changed in a bad way! It’s just lately he’s been so… weird. ”

There it was again, the blank spot in his timeline that they brought up an awful lot for something they said they didn’t talk about. She wasn’t stupid; she knew “something” was the reason they didn’t. “Something” was the reason why Lea wouldn’t let Roxas tell her. It burned her not knowing what “something” was. It was definitely none of her business and she would probably be better off not knowing anyway, but...

“What happened to Lea’s old friends?” She asked, doing her best to keep the bitterness out of her voice. It wasn’t Roxas’ fault. 

“Pretty sure they’re still alive.”

She gave him a pointed look.

He ran a hand through his bangs again. He opened his mouth looking like he was about to answer her, but then he smirked and leapt off the ledge and onto his skateboard into the concrete bowl below. 

Xion cupped her hands around her mouth and shouted, “You’re a real asshole sometimes, you know that?” And she leapt in after him.

He looked like he was riding a wave of concrete with the way he had his arms out and his knees bent. She intended to grab him by his jacket as he was racing toward her from the opposite edge, but she caught him by the sleeve instead and immediately realized she’d make a terrible mistake. She heard him let out a shriek as it sent him spinning with her dragging along behind him, but only for a brief moment before they both landed flat on their asses a few feet away from each other.

“Sometimes, you’re an asshole,” Roxas grumbled. He picked himself up and dusted off his pants. Then he took a couple wobbly steps toward her and sat back down.

Xion stayed on the ground. Her knees stung badly but she didn’t feel like rolling up her jeans to see what the damage was. “Tell me what happened.” When he shook his head, she crawled over to him and grabbed him by the shoulder. “Roxas.”

He slapped her hand away and his face darkened. His lips curled downward in that particular way that made creases on his chin. “They all had a huge falling out, and Lea gets upset for real if anyone talks about it so I don’t, alright? I was there! I don’t like talking about it, either!” He snapped. He was trembling slightly, but she didn’t know whether it was because of the spill he’d just taken or because he was angry. 

“Alright,” she said even though she wasn’t satisfied with his answer. 

There was a beat of silence punctuated by a car alarm going off somewhere in the distance. Then Roxas scooted close enough to briefly wrap his arms around her shoulders and mutter, “Sorry.” 

A long shadow crept over the concrete. Xion glanced up to see where it had been cast from. Someone was gazing down at them from the edge of the pool. The sun was at their back, hiding the details of their shape in shadow. They had the hood of their jacket up so she couldn’t see their face. In one hand they gripped what looked like a walking stick.

“Can I help you?” She called. Her voice echoed, but was met with no response. The figure did not move. 

“You need something?” Roxas said with a slight edge to his voice.

Three more figures appeared and took their place behind the first one. They stood there quietly, staring. 

“Say something or leave us alone,” Roxas growled. 

Xion looked to him when they continued to do nothing but stand and stare, feeling her heart making its way up to her throat and beginning to detect a faint ringing in her ears. Roxas looked back, his eyes wide with confusion. He shook his head slowly and shrugged. 

The total amount of time they were being stared down was probably only about five minutes, but time felt so much longer when she was aware of every single movement happening inside her body. She could feel the blood pulsing in her knees where she scraped them and it stung. The figures left as suddenly as they appeared, and soon the extraneous noise in her ears quieted down. 

“Those were people, right?” Whispered Xion, her stomach still turning. “Ghosts don’t appear in broad daylight.”

“Sometimes,” Roxas replied, slowly rising with his skateboard firmly under his arm, “I still think we’re all ghosts.”

She took his hand (which happened to be unpleasantly clammy) when he held it out to her and let him pull her to her feet before discreetly wiping her hand on her thigh. “Well, I touched you just now so I’m pretty sure that’s not true.”

“Ghosts can still touch each other, duh. Everyone knows that.” He hooked his free arm around hers as if to further his point, but he kept it there as they shuffled back home.

Xion didn’t believe in ghosts, so there was no way they could ever be one. She kept looking at Roxas out of the corner of her eye to make sure he wasn’t really see-through, just in case. 

“I’m hosting a Christmas party,” Lea announced. “Well, it’s a non-denominational holiday party that I’m throwing on Christmas. Tell all your friends.”

“You’re all my friends,” said Xion as she hung upside down off the back of the couch.

“How come?” Said Roxas, who was also hanging off the back of the couch. 

“For fun!” 

“You sound like you’re up to something,” Roxas hummed.

Lea put one hand on his hip. “Rox, you sound like you could use a good party.” He turned to the stereo and proceeded to dig through his library of LPs. “We’ll put on some music and put out a ton of snacks… C’mon, it’ll be fun.”

Xion, who’d always wanted to be invited to a party, had a hard time containing the squeak of delight that came out of her mouth. It wasn’t going to be the raging house party she fantasized about, but she was ecstatic at the prospect of having more than two other people in the same room at once.

She heard Lea make a noise of approval and there was a soft click, and something mellow and jazzy began to hum through the speakers. 

“I didn’t know you listened to anything besides bad music,” Roxas said. 

“Yeah? And who introduced you and gave you that bad music for your birthday?”

“All I’m hearing is that you’re a bad influence,” Xion added.

Lea looked scandalized while Roxas let out a loud honking laugh that caused him to fall off the back of the couch and hit his head.

The music had a nice sort of beat to it; Xion couldn’t help but wiggle. “Hey, Lea,” she said, still wiggling, “Do you think you’ll ever make music again?”

She was answered by a long hum that turned into a groan. “I’m not sure,” he said finally. When she asked why, he replied, “Haven’t felt like it.” 

“Give it up. He’s not gonna play anymore,” Roxas hissed in a low voice so Lea couldn’t hear.

“You said it used to make you happy. What if I got him to do it for you?” 

Roxas frowned, and then he shook his head and grumbled, “If he hasn’t played anything for you already, he never will.” 

Xion kept checking her phone. Roxas had fallen asleep on her shoulder, and she kept it clasped in her hands waiting for the screen to light up, but it never did. She felt something heavy beginning to settle in her chest. All the threads she wanted to follow--their ends didn’t want to be found. Maybe her real goal was to deliberately ruin all her friendships seeking answers that didn’t matter. 

“...Back,” Mumbled Roxas suddenly.

“What?”

“Text her back,” He said. “Quit turning your phone on and off, it’s obnoxious. I can’t sleep.”

“Sorry.” She opened her messages. 

But she didn’t know where to start. She didn’t know what to say. The way things were going, the probability of making it worse was pretty damn high. On the other hand, it was probably all so easily fixed. If only she could make herself say anything, anything.

She didn’t text back.

Instead, she rose and made her way upstairs in the dark. Roxas, having fallen back asleep, didn’t budge as she left him curled up against the arm of the couch. She stubbed her toe against the first step as she usually did and muttered the quietest fuck she could manage. The hallway was even darker, but the light in Lea’s room was on and shone through the crack in the door. She nudged it open.

Lea was sitting cross-legged on the edge of his bed, curled over a thin book which he hurriedly closed and lay face down when he heard Xion in the doorway. He looked up. “Hey.”

“I’m sorry about the cigarettes,” she said.

He tilted his head. “We can talk about this later.”

“I shouldn’t have taken your things.”

He didn’t say, It’s alright (it wasn’t.) He sighed and rubbed at the back of his head, squinting at her like he wanted to say something cutting. She kept standing in the doorway, staring blankly back at him not really expecting anything but unwilling to move anyway. Rising from her chest came the overwhelming urge to claw her own skin apart. 

“Lea,” she said finally. “Could you cut my hair?”

Chapter Text

The house was too quiet. 

Under the cacophony of noise his stomach was making, Sora could hear a faint ringing in his ears.

“Isn’t Kairi usually up by noon?” Riku’s voice floated over from where he was hiding behind the stove hood in the kitchen. Sora knew he was hiding because they hadn’t made eye contact in about a week, and it was mostly because lately Riku spent his time hiding behind the stove hood. 

“Maybe she’s not feeling well.”

Riku made a groaning noise in the back of his throat before mumbling, “I’m going to check if she’s okay.”

Sora hurriedly dogeared the page of his book before setting it down on the coffee table. He stayed a few feet behind Riku as he followed him into the hallway and remained there while he slowly nudged the door open and rapped his knuckles against the doorframe. When there wasn’t an answer, Sora sidled up next to him to peer over his shoulder.

Kairi sat on the edge of the bed, unmoving, her back toward them. The window blinds were half shuttered, casting striped shadows over the bedspread. The dust illuminated by the light continued to float lazily without ever settling, like visual snow. Her bed was made but she was still in her pajamas like she’d intended to get dressed, except she hadn’t quite gotten to that step yet. Sora thought that her nightshirt hung off her shoulders a little looser than usual.

“Kairi,” Riku called. She jerked her head slightly but didn’t reply. 

Sora shuffled across the room to crawl across the bed and seat himself next to her. “Are you feeling okay?”

“I’m not sure,” she muttered, staring blankly at the window.

Riku sat down on the other side. “Are you sick?”

“I don’t know.” 

“Are you having an episode?” Sora pressed.

“I don’t--” She paused and blinked, and her eyes unclouded. She brought her knees up to her chin and sighed heavily. “I’m fine.”

Out of habit Sora shot Riku a look, and he happened to look directly into his cool gaze. He’d almost forgotten how intense it was. His heartbeat sped up too much too fast and he had to look away.

“Sorry,” She muttered into her knees. She gave them a sheepish look. “Could you... Could you take care of me? Just for today?”

Sora wrapped his arms around her neck. “Of course.” 

“We’ll take care of you for as long as you need us to,” Riku said as he placed a hand on tentatively on her back.

She grinned before brushing them away and chuckling softly, “Don’t burn down the house.” 

Riku gave her a half-smile. When he rose and shuffled politely out of the room, Sora scooted a little closer to her while she lifted the covers and nestled back into bed. He wanted to squeeze in next to her, but it wasn’t exactly a good time to be playing sleepover. 

Even though they were shoulder to shoulder, she felt far away. Sora tried to ignore the fact that on top of whatever the hell his situation with Riku was, he felt a twinge of loneliness deep in his gut. “You worked on building the new planters some more,” he said, just to say something.

“Do you ever wish you’d died along with everyone else?” She asked abruptly.

Sora bit his lip. 

“I shouldn’t have said it like that. Sometimes it’s hard to wake up.”

“I know,” he replied. 

“When do you think it… stops? Feeling like you’re always in pain, I mean. When does it stop?”

The recollection of Roxas screaming at him, “ When does it stop?!” over the kitchen table came to him so vividly it made him dizzy. That had been a year or so ago, but it could’ve been two years, or possibly last week. He couldn’t remember exactly. 

She offered him a sideways smile and leaned back against the headboard with a deep sigh. “Tell me something nice,” she said.

Sora thought for a minute. “Well,” he began, crossing his legs. “There’s an owl in our backyard. It’s stopped raining non-stop. There’s still some hot chocolate in the cupboard. Um, Christmas is this week.”

Kairi laughed, hitting the back of her head lightly against the wall. “Sora, you’re a peach.” Sora grinned. She leaned in like she was about to peck him on the cheek but stopped partway. “Talk to Riku.”

Sora stuck his lip out at her. He didn’t ask how she figured out what was going on. He didn’t even know if she’d actually figured it out. Kairi always knew even when she didn’t, and sometimes it was really annoying. He hummed and unfolded his legs, leaning back on his hands and staring at the ceiling. He wanted to talk to Riku. He couldn’t stand the weird stalemate they had going on--it made him feel lonely. But every time he tried he felt his stomach twist and his mouth fill with cotton. Also, Riku spent a lot of time hiding behind the stove hood. Sora hummed louder. 

“You know, back then,” Sora said, finally sitting upright. “I really did like you.”

Kairi was watching him through narrowed eyes. Her lips curled into a delicate smile. “I know.”

The bedroom door opened and Riku shuffled in with a mug of what smelled like coffee. He transferred it delicately to Kairi’s outstretched hands, informing her that he’d already put sugar in it.

“Thank you, Riku, now I’ll have to get up to pee.”

“You’re welcome,” replied Riku. 

Sora leapt to his feet and leaned across the bed to plant a kiss on Kairi’s cheek before sliding past Riku and ambling out of the room. He immediately felt guilty. He froze in the middle of the hallway when he heard his name. Riku was calling him as he closed the door to Kairi’s room behind him. Sora flattened himself against the wall expecting him to pass by on the way to the kitchen, but instead he leaned against the wall opposite him. The hallway was narrow enough so that their toes were almost touching. 

“Hey,” Riku mumbled, with his gaze directed at the floor and his hands behind his back.

Sora finally gave his face a proper look instead of the way he’d been looking at him out of the corner of his eye. Oh god, Riku had his hair tied up in a bun. “Hey,” he said.

There was at least a solid five minutes of silence before Riku opened his mouth and said, “Listen,” only to be interrupted by Roxas emerging from their bedroom and shooting them both a sideways glance as he squeezed through the gap between them and shut himself in the bathroom. Riku cleared his throat. “I wanted to ask if you’d come with me to retrieve Kairi’s present today.”

Sora shrugged and nodded.

“Aqua was kind enough to let me hide it at their house.”

“You hid it at someone else’s house?”

“You know Kairi cleans when she gets anxious. I didn’t want to risk her finding it.”

They shared a moment of awkward dry laughter. Sora felt his phone buzz in his pocket and promptly withdrew it just to have an excuse to look away. It was a text. He slid past Riku and flopped onto the living room couch to answer it.

Queen to h5. It’s lonely up here. I can’t wait to go home. 

I’m sorry, Sora responded. Knight to c6.

Queen to f7. Checkmate.

He threw his head back and groaned, then politely declined the offer to play another game as this was the fourth time in a row that he’d lost and he’d misplaced the scrap of paper he was using to keep track of his moves. 

“Are you alright?” Riku was standing over him.

“Just fine,” replied Sora, scooting over to make room for him out of habit and mentally kicking himself because he wasn’t entirely sure he wanted him to. Riku kept standing in front of him with his hands in his pockets instead anyway.

They spent the entire rest of the day dancing around each other like that. Sora would take a step too close and Riku would step back; Riku would hover over him and Sora would look away. Their fingers brushed together when they both reached for the tap as they washed the dishes and Sora nearly dropped the plate he was holding because it felt like a hot iron against his skin. Kairi called Sora to her room and as he handed her a third mug of coffee she brought his face close with one finger under his chin and said, “You boys kiss and make up yet?”

So what do you do when you’ve accidentally made a situation worse? Sora tapped out in another text as he hid in the bathroom so he could afford himself a solid fifteen minutes of isolation. Like, way worse?

Everyone makes mistakes. If you didn’t kill anyone, it’s probably fixable.

What happens if I don’t do anything?

You know what happens, came the reply. 

He threw his head back in another groan. He wasn’t stupid. He knew exactly where he went wrong and he knew exactly what he needed to do to right it, and he kept running the scenario over and over in his head but when he thought about Riku’s downturned lips mumbling that he could do better, he recalled how he’d felt the crushing weight of disappointment turn his stomach sour so that all he could say in reply was—

“Are you okay in there?” Roxas’s voice called from the other side of the bathroom door. 

“Peachy,” grumbled Sora.

“We should go,” Riku informed him the minute he’d finished his dinner and his plate was empty.

Sora, who was not very hungry to begin with so his plate had been clean for a while, nodded in agreement. He was eager to leave the table which was suddenly so much quieter without Kairi there.

Roxas informed them that he’d do the dishes, and when Sora asked him if he was sure, because Roxas never volunteered to do the dishes, he just shrugged and waved him out the door.

It wasn’t that late in the day but the sun was just going down, and in the long shadow of the mountains the clear air was freezing. Riku’s car was not much warmer than it was outside and as Sora climbed into the passenger seat he swore he could still see his breath. Turning on the heater graced them both with another blast of cold air and they sat there shivering and swearing for a couple minutes before Sora could feel warm air coming from the heater.

“Music?” Asked Riku, finally pulling out of the driveway.

“I’m good,” replied Sora, mentally kicking himself for keeping them in uncomfortable silence yet again. 

Being in a car, for whatever reason he never fully understood, afforded the safest possible space for the toughest conversations. He figured now was probably the best time to talk. Sora then proceeded to not utter a word until they were parked in the driveway of Aqua’s house. He just wasn’t quite sure where to start with, Uhh, about that thing you said--it hurt my feelings on behalf of yours, so he just kept rolling sentence starters around in his head like the little balls in the bingo machine.

No one appeared to be home; the windows were all dark except for the one where the kitchen faced the road, where a dim light shone through the shuttered blinds. 

“Ven says the key’s under the mat,” Sora called when he noticed Riku inspecting the underside of stones that had been placed decoratively on the front step. 

He raised an eyebrow. “Ventus?”

“We text now. He’s nice.”

Riku shrugged and knelt to retrieve a key from under the doormat, but rather than let himself into the house, he used it to fumble with the lock on the backyard gate.

Sora was used to breaking into houses now (well, he supposed it wasn’t really “breaking in” if they’d been invited)--he and Roxas had made it into a pastime. Often, especially in the evening when he could see the silhouettes of people moving about behind kitchen and living room windows, he found himself overcome by sonder. Every time he saw the edge of someone’s couch peeking from behind the drapes, the smug face of a content cat lounging on a window sill, or the poles of a trampoline rising above a backyard fence, for a moment he imagined himself in the life of someone who lived in that house. So, he usually didn’t condone the breaking and entering of houses--even if they were recently abandoned--but it ever so briefly satisfied his curiosity to imagine the lives of others from the view of the space they’d once occupied. This was the first time in a while he’d entered the backyard of people who were still living, though. In a way it felt wrong. Still, there was comfort in knowing that the chance of them finding something horrifying was pretty low. 

Riku brought him to a tarp draped over something leaning against the side of the house. He drew it back to reveal a decently sized pile of lumber. “Help me carry this to the car.”

“This is Kairi’s present?” 

“It’s to build a treehouse,” he replied. “Well, it’s supposed to be, but there’s only enough here for a small deck. It’s a good start, though.”

Sora hid a grin behind his fingers. He’d almost forgotten that Kairi had mentioned wanting a treehouse, but Riku always remembered everything. “She’ll love it,” he assured him.

It was a tight fit even with the back seats down and the trunk popped open. It took them longer than they thought it would because Sora’s arms got tired quickly and by the time they’d finished stuffing all of the lumber in the car, his limbs felt like they were floating an inch away from the rest of his body. Riku, though--he had those shoulders that were stronger than they had any right to be. If there were two of him, it would have only taken them fifteen minutes. 

Sora leaned heavily against the side of the car, trying to catch his breath as quietly as possible and wiping away the sweat from the back of his neck so it didn’t look like he was as winded as he was. He gazed up at one of the bedroom windows on the second floor; the windows were open and he could see the vague shape of curtains shifting behind it like a nervous ghost. “Being here is creeping me out,” he said.

Riku let out a soft snort. “You’re telling me the guy whose favorite activity is traipsing around abandoned buildings is ‘creeped out?”

“People are still living here,” he hissed. “It’s different.”

He saw Riku tilt his head and roll his eyes at him. “Okay. What’s the worst thing you’ve seen in an abandoned house?”

Sora opened his mouth, about to tell him the afternoon early last month when he’d entered the master bedroom of a house to find a dead cat curled up in the middle of the bed and it had bothered him so much that Roxas had to sit with him outside on the curb for a half hour while he cried. He and his brother decided that entering bedrooms would be off limits during urban exploration from then on. But thinking about it made his stomach turn, so he said, “Usually it’s whatever got left in the fridge.”

Riku returned the spare key to its spot under the mat and then they got back in the car, leaving the empty house behind. The lumber stuffed into the car divided the space between the drivers’ seat and the passenger seat, making Sora feel like he was suddenly a lot farther away from Riku than he wanted to be. He rested his chin in his hand and stared out the window, watching the headlights casting shadows against the facades of houses with darkened windows as they passed them by. 

“We missed our house,” Sora said suddenly when they passed an unfamiliar street.

“I know,” said Riku. “We’re not going home yet.”

He sat up and observed the trees lining the road, letting out a hum of curiosity. Most of the street lamps still came on at night, but without the glow from shop signs and living room windows it was still dark. There was a point where the street lamps stopped altogether along with the sidewalk, so he figured they must be in one of those neighborhoods where the residents hated pedestrians until he saw the silhouette of the round railroad crossing sign and felt the rumble of the tracks beneath them, and then he knew immediately where Riku was taking him. 

They stopped at a cul-de-sac nearly at the top of a hill. Sora couldn’t see it in the dark, but this was where he knew a short deertrail off to the side at the edge of the lot ran up to the very top. He used to bring Riku here.

Riku fumbled for something in his jacket pocket, making a clicking noise. “Crap. Flashlight’s outta battery.”

Sora held out his hand. “Forget about the flashlight, we don’t need it.” 

Without pause, Riku grasped it gingerly, and Sora led him slowly up the deertrail. He felt the corners of his mouth tug his lips into a grin. About halfway up the trail, Sora snuck a peek over his shoulder to see Riku staring blankly straight ahead. What starlight that fell through the leaves in the brush was reflected by his pale hair, shimmering in the darkness. Knowing he couldn’t see him staring, Sora spent a slightly guilty, self-indulgent moment admiring him.

At the top of the hill, the brush fell away. The city glittered beneath them unobstructed--once a bright orange glow like rivers of lava, now it resembled scattered and fading embers. Farther beyond, the delta and the bay lay on the horizon. Above them sparkled an uncountable number of stars. Sora held onto Riku a little longer than he needed to before letting go. He felt like his hand was the only warm thing in the entire world.

Riku sat down on a patch of dirt just before the edge of the hill. Sora stayed standing, lingering just behind his shoulder. Neither of them talked for a while. 

“Why did you take me here?” Sora asked him.

“I dunno,” Riku said. He yawned and stretched his arms behind his head. “It’s nice up here.”

Sora hummed and sat down next to him. He swore he could see the Milky Way from where they were, even though he knew the valley was still too bright. There did seem to be more stars out than usual anyhow. 

“The last time we were here it was when you brought me to watch a meteor shower.”

That was a while ago, two years at least. They’d seen a lot of shooting stars that summer, but Sora couldn’t remember any of the wishes he’d made on them or if they had come true. Suddenly feeling vulnerable thinking about the lightyears between him sitting there on the cold ground and the nearest star, he shivered a bit. 

“Are you cold? We can go home.”

Sora shook his head. “I’m fine,” he replied. “Actually, I thought being out at night bothered you.”

“It does, but...” Riku trailed off and hunched over with his fingers over his lips.

“But what?”

“Uh, no. It’s embarrassing.”

Sora narrowed his eyes and grinned. “You can’t just cut yourself off and tell me it’s too embarrassing, that’s just asking for it!” He hissed, leaning over at grabbing at Riku’s underarms, causing him to jump and let out an undignified yelp. Tickling him for an answer he didn’t actually care about was very third-grade of him, but he was enjoying seeing him squirm and wheeze too much to stop just yet. Riku had fallen over onto his side, clutching his stomach with one arm while Sora was practically sitting on him. Finally he managed to pry Sora’s hands away. “Riku,” he begged.

Riku pushed back the hair that had fallen over his forehead. “Because you make me feel safe,” he gasped, his face pink and sweaty. “You make me feel safe, alright? Now get off me, you asshole.”

Sora let Riku shove him off. He sat back on his heels while Riku sat up. There was something ticking his insides and it made him let out ugly nervous giggle. He slapped a hand over his mouth. He wanted to ask, how? He was five-foot-three and didn’t weigh more than a hundred and twenty pounds soaking wet. He was pretty sure his biceps were actually flattened dinner rolls. When he was in second grade, a particularly strong gust of wind had once picked him up and carried him six feet backwards. His own twin brother was infinitely more intimidating than he was. In short, there was no way he could keep a six-foot tall former high school water polo player safe from anything. 

“I hate creepy places. I hate them so much. But I like having you with me,” said Riku. “Everything feels like it’s going to be okay.”

Sora leaned in and pressed his head against his shoulder. It was a lot warmer than the ground they were sitting on. “Why did you tell me that I could do better than you?” 

Riku pulled away and fixed him with a stare. “Why the hell did you just say, ‘Okay,’ and avoid me for a week?”

Sora gritted his teeth and returned his stare until Riku looked away; then he stared down at his hands. “Kairi--she was so unhappy. And I never stopped feeling guilty about it,” he mumbled, chewing the inside of his cheek hard enough to hurt but not enough to taste blood. “I don’t want to be the reason you’re miserable.” 

“Sora.”

“So why did you say I could do better?”

“Sora.”

“It’s your turn to give me an answer.”

Riku let out an exasperated sigh and ran a hand through his hair. “I thought I was going to make you miserable.”

Sora found himself reaching for and gripping Riku’s hand with both of his, shaking his head as he ran his thumbs over his palm. He let out a dry laugh. “Do you know that we’ve been friends so long I can’t remember when we met? No way you’d ever make me miserable,” said Sora. “I can’t picture my life without you there.”

“You know what? Neither can I,” whispered Riku, staring down at his hand clasped within Sora’s. He laced his own fingers through his and let their arms fall comfortably between them as Sora withdrew his other hand.

“You hurt my feelings with all that, you know,” Sora told him.

“I know. I’m sorry.” 

“Maybe I’ll forgive you. Only maybe, though.”

Riku made a low groaning noise, but he still shot him a crooked grin. 

All alone under the dark sky, their problems suddenly seemed very small. Sora felt small, too. He could see Jupiter hovering above Mt. Um; it was so far away and so much bigger than him, bigger than Earth and anything that lived on it, and it did not care about him. He used to fall asleep watching old Carl Sagan tapes, and he was haunted how infinitesimal they made him feel--almost ironically so, because nothing Carl Sagan said should have made him feel that way. Whether anything beyond the orbit of the space station cared about him didn’t matter to him like it did when he was fourteen. Unlike Jupiter, he’d been born with the capacity to care. He almost felt sorry for it. The planet he admired from where they sat could not care about the owner of the hand he held as much as he did. 

By now Sora was freezing, and he was fighting with himself internally about whether to finally let Riku know he kind of wanted to go home or to resign to slowly becoming a popsicle just so he could hold his hand forever. Thinking about space and popsicles and turning into popsicles in space was not helping him feel any warmer, but as long as they didn’t move, they were in a bubble where time didn’t pass and he was safe and free of worry, like a snow globe filled with stars. Oh, snow. How come it never snowed here?

“I’m cold. Let’s go,” said Riku, sitting upright like he was getting ready to stand up.

His chest tightened and his heartbeat sped up. They couldn’t go home yet. Sora gripped his hand tighter. “Wait.” He tugged at Riku’s arm, pulling him in and bringing their faces close. He saw his eyes widen as Sora leaned in and planted a kiss on the corner of his mouth.

Suddenly he had a headful of hair tickling his nose as Riku slumped over and buried his face in his neck. It was a very warm face. “That’s not fair. That was supposed to be me,” Riku mumbled into Sora’s collarbone. “I was supposed to kiss you.”

Sora wrapped his arms over his shoulders and held him. He wanted to keep kissing him. He wanted it to be sweet and guiltless. “Kiss me, then,” he said.

Riku lifted his chin until their noses were nearly touching and Sora could see starlight reflected in his wet eyes. He hesitated; Sora felt only his breath on his lips. “I’m scared.”

“What do you want to do?”

“I want to kiss you.”

“Then kiss me, you coward.”

So Riku kissed him, and he kept kissing him, and Sora felt like his lips were the only warm thing in the entire world.

Chapter Text

He wasn’t really sure what he’d expected—maybe a new outlook on life or a sense of worth—but everything was more or less the same as it always was. Not that it was a bad thing. There were a few things that were different. Sora kissed him now. Sora kissed him a lot. And each time he did, his stomach did a little flip and his limbs felt like overcooked spaghetti. Actually, kissing Sora was probably the only thing that was different. Riku liked to think that he would’ve introduced it to their relationship sooner or later anyway.

The end of December continued to race toward them at a steady pace. It had only been winter for a few days, but it felt like it had already been an eternity. It was way too easy to forget which month it was without the inescapable looming presence of capitalism to remind them of which holidays they were supposed to get ready for three months in advance (and as much as Riku enjoyed Halloween, seeing the Halloween section at Target set up in the middle of July just made him feel tired.) It began to rain again, and when the wind blew the last of the leaves down from the trees they had to scoop the soggy mush out of the gutter to keep the rain from flooding the front yard. They found that the roof over the garage leaked; they put a couple old barf buckets under it and hoped that it was enough. Sometimes the heater didn’t work, so Riku often woke up freezing. There were these, and a few other handfuls of problems they just crossed their fingers and hoped would resolve themselves somehow. 

They were slowly adjusting, though. They were familiar with most of the survivors living in their neighborhood now and it was easy to exchange provisions with them as needed. And other people, more often than not, were nice. Roxas had even come home one afternoon with a shoebox full of eggs, because some kids a mile away happened to keep chickens. There was still no luck on the dairy front, but Riku suspected he’d probably been lactose intolerant this whole time anyway. 

There was just… one thing, and well, when Riku sat down to eat dinner and Roxas described what he’d seen in the dried up swimming pool, it reinstated the feeling of dread in his heart. Somehow he, who made a hobby out of fretting, had conveniently forgotten the tens of forum posts about smashed windows, charred houses, and places otherwise trashed by people who spent their free time seeking chaos. Kissing boys had got him all twitterpated. Riku felt stupider than ever. He was probably gonna die. 

“Do you know what the Dark Watchers are?” Sora mumbled through a mouthful of peas.

“Those are centuries-old ghost stories,” replied Riku.

“So?”

“Aren’t they supposed to be ten feet tall?” Said Kairi.

“Well, no one’s ever actually seen one up close. It’s hard to tell how tall something is from far away.”

“Sure. Xion and I saw Dark Watchers in broad daylight,” Roxas scoffed. “I saw a group of Fresno Nightcrawlers crossing the street in front of our house just last week. They waved to me with their feet.”

“Fresno Nightcrawlers only live in Fresno.”

“I think they migrate up and down the central valley,” said Kairi.

Riku decided to take an antacid after dinner.

Sora took up sleeping in Kairi’s room. Just for a little while, he said. He believed she wouldn’t spend the night awake on the front porch if he did, what with the Dark Watchers and Fresno Nightcrawlers and all. So Riku, consequently, had his room mostly to himself. Roxas was enthused about not having to share a bed either. But Riku ended up lying awake staring at his stuffed tiger, which he still kept tucked in at the other end of the bed with its head resting on the pillow. Its tragic expression always remained the same. Riku looked into its melancholy eyes, expecting it to begin weeping at any moment, but it never did.

“You’re always so sad,” he told it. “Why are you so sad?”

His stuffed tiger didn’t answer, because it was a stuffed tiger. 

Sora woke him on the morning of the twenty-fourth by pouncing on his stomach and causing him to scream because he was having that dream about the rabbit again, and for a horrible moment he thought he was being gutted like a small animal. 

“There’s a deer in the park,” Sora informed him. 

“Awesome,” replied Riku groggily. He tried to roll over and resume his restless and unsatisfying sleep but Sora was straddling his diaphragm and he couldn’t breathe. 

“Come help me get it.” 

“Don’t you feel bad killing things this early in the morning on Christmas?”

“It’s not Christmas. And right now, you’re killing my heart. And also my stomach.”

“You’re killing my spleen,” groaned Riku, and shoved him off.

Sora rolled over onto his side and rested his head on his arm so their faces were close. He leaned in like he was about to kiss him, then suddenly pulled away and pounced on his chest while Riku let out an undignified squawk. “This could be food for months but I need help carrying it,” he insisted.

“Sit on me again and I’m gonna punch you in the throat,” Riku spluttered, sitting up and feigning readying his arm.

Sora let out a shriek and scrambled backwards off of the bed, followed by a heavy thump and a yelp.

“Go put your shoes back on,” Riku told him after peering over the edge of the bed to insure there were no injuries. 

This was received with a wide grin, and Sora leapt to his feet and raced out of the room.

It was early, way too early--the time between night and morning where the world looked like a grey and barren Tony Hawk Skater Pro game from the early aughts where the area textures hadn’t loaded all the way yet. The air was crisp and biting, and it carried the scent of woodsmoke. When the sky was clear and cold like this, he always felt as if the edge of space was closer than usual and if he wasn’t careful he might trip and fall upward. There was frost on the grass as dense as a thin blanket of real snow, and Riku watched Sora shuffling through lawns while he made a mental note to tease him if he complained of soggy toes later on.

Sora seemed to be in a cheerful mood for someone who was not usually a morning person. The carabiners on his backpack clinked softly as he walked with a skip in his step. Riku watched the top of his wild hair bouncing up and down until he stopped abruptly to kneel by a dried out plant growing along the sidewalk. Then he stood up carefully, turning around to reveal a small, brown praying mantis in his hands.

“Look what I found!” Sora grinned, holding the xenomorph-thing up to his cheek. “Isn’t she a model?” 

“Neat,” Riku replied, doing his best to show interest in the bug he’d picked up so he wouldn’t disappoint him. Creepy crawlies were not his thing at all and by god did he try not to wig out when Sora proudly showed off his prize catches. This was everything from banana slugs and handfuls of worms to the pet rose tarantula he kept when he was ten, which he’d affectionately named Rosie. 

Sora spent a little longer admiring the mantis. “She’s out late. They usually lay their eggs in the fall. That’s why she looks like a dead leaf,” he said. He reached out to it with his finger, and it cautiously extended a foreleg to touch his fingertip. Then he returned it gently to where he’d found it and blew it a kiss.

The glow of the sunrise began to prickle at their backs. The sky shifted from hazy blue to gentle lavender, and as the sun broke the horizon, their breaths were illuminated by a wash of pale light just before dissipating above their heads like ghosts in the daylight. Sora slowed down just as they reached the park. He hung back, extending an arm behind him as he scanned the area before motioning for Riku to keep following him. 

The chatter of house finches in the surrounding shrubbery almost masked their footsteps as long as they kept off the frost laden grass, which made a loud crunching noise when they tried to shuffle through it. They went around the toddler playground (which happened to flood every time it rained as it was on slightly lower ground than the rest of the park and was currently occupied by a family of ducks) to squat at the edge of the field. At the far end, all the way at the baseball diamond, was a three-point buck peacefully grazing on the overgrown turf. 

“It’s him.” Sora slowly drew his bow out from his backpack and threaded an arrow loosely between his fingers. “Hello, pretty boy,” he cooed.

Riku felt a little twinge in his stomach and wanted to groan when he realized that he was jealous of the way Sora spoke to a mule deer. Fuck. Just more twitterpated nonsense. 

They continued to skirt the field. The deer didn’t seem to care about their presence, as most deer in the area were apathetic about humans in the vicinity, but they kept their movements slow so that they could edge closer without startling it. 

When the deer was finally within range, Sora stood still and his expression grew solemn. He fished Kairi’s knife from his jacket pocket and took Riku’s hand as he unfurled his fingers and pressed the knife into his palm. “One or two shots is probably not gonna kill him immediately, so…” Sora bit his lip, looking guilty. “You might have to grab him and…” He drew a finger across his throat.

Riku felt a little ill. But he trusted his judgement ( some of the time, at least), so he nodded and unsheathed the knife.

Sora drew his bow, and everything seemed to move incredibly fast and in slow motion at the same time. The deer startled as the arrow buried itself deep behind its shoulder with a heavy thunk, making no noise from its mouth but throwing dust into the air as it scuffled and kicked madly across the baseball diamond. Sora pumped his fist and readied another arrow to follow up when it slowed down and began to stagger. This time he wasn’t quite as lucky, and the arrow stuck squarely into its belly and dragged along the ground. It felt like an eternity between the first arrow and when the deer finally collapsed onto the grass, but it was not any longer than a few minutes.

Riku sprinted over to it with his heart in his throat. He watched it take ragged breaths, fixing him with its large, dark, wet eye. Don’t look at me like that, he begged it silently. He grasped one antler and tipped its head back. It didn’t resist him. Too exhausted to kick, it just continued to gaze at him with that one eye. He flipped the knife open. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” he muttered, feeling queasier the longer he hesitated. He wanted to close his eyes but he kept seeing the rabbit from his dream, its even gaze, its fur clumped between his messy stitches.

A shot rang out that echoed painfully in his ears and for a moment he could hear nothing else. The deer jerked violently under his grip, and then its gaze went blank. Riku leaped to his feet. There was a hole in the flank of the deer.

“What the fuck.”

“What the fuck,” agreed Sora.

Their shadows, which fell over the carcass as the sun rose higher in the eastern sky, suddenly grew darker and longer. Riku felt the hairs on the back of his neck prickle. He spun around to face a small band of heavily dressed kids who seemed to be about his own age as far as he could tell, which was difficult because their faces were obscured by respirators. The tall one in the middle cradled a hunting rifle. They must have been watching them this whole time, but Riku couldn’t figure out where from, and that thought made him uncomfortable.

“What the hell are you doing? You could’ve killed one of us,” growled Sora. 

“You can’t be shooting at people like that,” added Riku, with a little less force in his voice than Sora. There was something familiar about these people, but he was distracted by their dramatic presentation. It reminded him of how they’d found Ventus, dwelling in the storm drain.

“Give us the deer,” said one on the right, ignoring their complaints. Riku, still distracted, noticed that they wore a Peet’s Coffee pin on the strap of their shoulder bag.

“You guys can have half if you want,” Sora offered. “There’s way more than we can eat, so--”

“The whole thing.”

Sora blinked. He looked at Riku. Riku blinked back. They glanced back and forth between themselves and the group.

Then Riku snorted. “...Really?”

There was an unsure murmur.

Sora planted his hands on his hips, snickering. He knelt to grasp the deer by its hind hooves and Riku did the same with its forelegs.  

“We said the whole thing,” said the one in the middle, raising the rifle with a metallic click. Dirty neon yellow shoelaces, mud on the bottoms of their sneakers. The hems of their jeans ragged. Small hole in their left jacket pocket. 

They let the deer fall back onto the grass. “Okay, fine,” Riku said, raising his hands to about ear level. “Don’t fucking point that at us. Christ.”

Sora bent down again to pull his arrows from the deer’s flesh. “Let me just--” He said, but his hands shot up again when the rifle clicked again and found the barrel pointed at his chest. “Enjoy your free arrows, I guess.”

Riku had to hold himself back from landing a punch square in that masked jaw, because while he was surprised to feel apathetic about having a gun pointed at him, seeing it pointed at a friend made him feel a rage so hot he could spit fire. Instead, he patted Sora’s shoulder to let him know he was more than ready for a French exit and they backed away slowly across the street until they were out of range half a block away before they turned around and sprinted as fast as they could, somewhere, anywhere away from the park.

He let Sora lead him by the hand as he always did. They cut through their old elementary schoolyard, which was a couple blocks away from their house. Riku was surprised to find that it was almost entirely unchanged. There was a little more garbage and graffiti than he remembered, but otherwise it was almost exactly as it had always been. Sora slowed down as they neared the playground and let go of his hand. He stood silently for a minute, looking distant before marching onto the tanbark, letting his backpack slide to the ground and crawling into the yellow covered slide where he curled up at the bottom with his face buried in his arms. Riku lay down beside him. It was a tight squeeze; these structures were made for small children and he had to tangle their legs together in order to fit, and Sora’s coarse hair tickled his nose.

“I’m tired,” said Sora, his voice muffled.

“I know.”

“I want it to be over.”

“I know.” He pressed his lips against his forehead.

Sora uncovered his face, revealing his bloodshot eyes. There were no tears--only empty exhaustion. God, did he feel the same. Sometimes all he felt they could do was cling desperately to each other. He wished fervently that loving him could make everything perfect, that if he said “I love you” out loud everything would suddenly snap into place, wherever that place might be. 

“So, do you think those guys are LARPers whose plot got out of hand?” Said Riku.

“They sniped our deer. They even took my arrows,” replied Sora shakily, and then he began to laugh. 

Riku laughed too, and they kept laughing until he felt nauseous. He took a ragged breath and said, “We can’t tell Kairi what happened.”

“She’ll never sleep again.”

“She’ll know something’s up if we go home now.” Riku squeezed himself out of the slide and drew the knife from his front jeans pocket. He flipped it open.

“What are you doing?”

“Faking an injury.”

“What? Wait, stop--!!” Sora cried, reaching to grab his wrist, but Riku had already slid the sharp end of the blade across his own palm. Sora clasped his wounded hand between his and squeezed. “Why the hell did you do that?!”

Riku winced. It hurt a lot more than he thought it would. “Well if we come home empty handed looking all freaked out she’ll be suspicious, but if I… come home bleeding she’ll… be distracted…” He trailed off and sighed into his other hand.

“That’s a stupid idea even by my standards,” said Sora.

“Yeah, I just realized.”

She didn’t ask questions when they burst through the front door while Riku clutched his bleeding hand like he was giving himself a good handshake (but she knew everything, so it was only a matter of time.) He stumbled through the living room to get to the kitchen sink and watched the water turn red and then pink and then clear as he ran it over his hand while he waited for Sora to come back from the bathroom with the first aid kit. He bit his lip and swore when Sora swabbed his palm with an alcohol soaked cotton ball, because it briefly amplified the stinging sensation to “I’m about to cry” levels. Sora teased him when he noticed his eyes watering, asking him if he should kiss it better. Riku covered Sora’s mouth with a gauze-wrapped hand, to which Sora responded by sticking his tongue out and slobbering all over his palm.

Riku had been planning to cook dinner that night--originally it was supposed to be Christmas dinner, but Lea had decided on inviting everyone he knew to his house for a party. Then he’d gone and sliced up his hand. So he carefully guided the others in the making of the meal he’d planned: the ducks that Sora had shot roasted with an orange glaze, potatoes and parsnips Roxas scrounged from the community garden, and a frozen vegetables sauteed in olive oil. It turned out nice. What Riku enjoyed the most, though, was that he could rest his chin on Sora’s head as he guided his hands and he didn’t feel guilty about it at all. He held the feeling in his thoughts as he waited to fall asleep.

Now he was older, Christmas felt very much like every other day. But this year it happened to come with a sort of fanfare in the form of both Sora and Kairi bursting into his room early in the morning and pouncing on the bed, shouting, “Riku, wake up! It’s morning! It’s Christmas!”

He had little emotional connection to the holiday; his family never really celebrated it. His mother got a tiny plastic tree one year to display the crappy ornaments he made in class when he was in elementary school, and she hung a pine-scented air freshener on it to make it smell real. Sometimes they went out to eat on Christmas Eve, but that was about it. He missed his mother. The ache settled in his heart the moment he was rustled awake, but he didn’t push it down; he thought about the fake tree and plastic ornaments filled with colored sand. 

As he’d promised, he showed Kairi how he made his orange muffins. Roxas pretended to snort the orange zest until he actually got it up his nose and spent a good five minutes hacking over the kitchen sink while Sora laughed hysterically. When he put the muffins in the oven to bake, Kairi insisted they exchange gifts. 

To Sora, from both him and Kairi: a crossbow and a matching set of arrows. When he unwrapped his gift, his face lit up like the sun and he looked like he was about to vibrate out of his skin. To Roxas, from Sora: a portable record player that was dusty but in working condition, and a handful of LPs labelled with band names Riku had never heard of. To Kairi, from Riku: the pile of lumber he’d hidden in the garage behind a conspicuously placed tarp. It was specifically to build a treehouse, he informed her, and she hid her lips behind her fingers as her eyes went dewy. 

Miscellaneous gifts were passed around. Then Roxas, who’d mostly sat quietly the whole time, heaved a plastic grocery bag onto the kitchen table just as they were about to disperse. “A whole year’s supply of each of your meds. You have no idea how much I had to beg to get a year’s worth of legal speed for someone, ” he said, tossing his head in Sora’s direction, “so you’d better thank me.” 

It was a weight off Riku’s shoulders not to worry about how long he could make his current supply last without getting brain zaps, which was a lot more important in the short term than how long the half-life of Prozac was and how many pills he might have to take a day in five years’ time.

“I didn’t know you were capable of being thoughtful,” said Sora. Roxas shoved a hand in his face.

Riku dozed for most of the afternoon, anxiety about the upcoming party boiling in his stomach and making it impossible for him to fall asleep. He usually sat on the sidelines when it came to these things; it was easy when he didn’t know anyone, because no one noticed or really cared that he wanted to stand in a corner and drink Fanta. He’d met most of these people at least once, though, so he had no good excuse. The time to leave rolled around sooner than he’d liked. It was dark, and he didn’t feel like going anywhere. He wanted to keep napping on the couch. He hoped that if he hovered over Sora and Kairi’s shoulders the entire time maybe no one would notice. 

He’d only been to Lea’s house a couple times before--for what, he couldn’t really remember. It was a small, but standard sized place for a townhouse in the area. When they arrived, it was the only house with lights on, which would have made it easy to find even if it was lost somewhere in the maze of the complex instead of sitting close to the road. There was a tinsel wreath hanging from the door by a crooked nail and a mass of dollar store decorations sitting in the living room window. The muffled sound of music and laughter carried far in the cold and otherwise silent night. It looked warm inside. Maybe it wouldn’t be too bad.

The door swung open almost the second they set foot on the front step, the bells tied to the front door making a cacophonous, tinny ringing, announcing their arrival to the entire house as Lea greeted them from the other side of the doorway.

A dark-haired girl, who Riku assumed was probably the much talked-about Xion, shoved herself under Lea’s arm. “Roxas!” She exclaimed.

“Hurry and come on in, guys. It’s fucking freezing,” he said, ushering them into the foyer and quickly shutting the door behind them. Riku noticed that he was wearing what appeared to be holiday pajama pants. He was not very familiar with Roxas’ friends, but from what little he knew about him, being underdressed at his own party did not seem out of character.

There came a chorus of “hello” from the attendees in the living room. It appeared that they might be some of the last guests to arrive as there were a good number of friends here already, but then Riku didn’t know how many people Lea had invited in the first place. Roxas immediately broke off to gravitate towards Lea and Xion (who he’d never met in person but had seen often around the school campus.) Kairi waved to Olette and Pence, and joined them to play Uno on the coffee table.

“Sora,” called a voice that belonged to the boy Riku recognized as Ventus. It was like seeing an “after” picture of rescued abandoned cats--Ventus looked a lot better than the last time he’d seen him. Definitely a lot less half-dead. He probably wouldn’t tell him that. “Do you wanna play Mario Kart with us?”

Sora left Riku’s side to squeeze himself in front of the couch where Aqua and Terra were sitting. He enthusiastically accepted the controller that was handed to him and made himself comfortable. “You look way better,” Riku overheard him say, to which Ventus responded with a shy chuckle. 

“I’m gonna grab a soda,” he told Sora. He nodded and waved, and Riku slipped quietly into the kitchen. He was alone like he’d wanted but it didn’t feel good. He took a handful of potato chips from one of the open bags on the kitchen table and munched on them thoughtfully, spacing out as he watched the others playing Mario Kart. 

He was startled out of his trance by a voice beside him. 

“You know, I don’t think we’ve ever met.” He jumped and whipped his head around. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to startle you.”

“It’s fine,” he said. “You’re Roxas’ friend. Xion, right? He talks about you.”

Her face went a little pink. “He does, does he?” She giggled. “I only know about you is that you’re dating his brother.”

Riku spit out his drink--except that he actually tried really hard not to spray Coke all over her face and ended up just opening his mouth and letting a waterfall of soda fall onto the kitchen floor. “Oh my god. I’m so sorry. I’m going to clean this up right now.” 

Xion covered her mouth with one hand to hide a snicker and wrapped her other arm around her stomach. “Shit, did I get that wrong? I feel like we’re just standing around apologizing to each other here.”

“N-no, you’re not wrong. Sora’s my boyfriend,” he stammered. He wasn’t used to hearing it out loud. Sora was his boyfriend . Holy crap. He glanced over at the TV to see how the how the race was going. (Sora was in twelfth place.) 

She grinned and leaned against the table with a vaguely wistful look in her eyes. “Good. That makes me happy to hear.”

This girl was so nice. Riku couldn’t believe he’d never spoken to her all this time. There was something about her that made him feel a sort of kinship. They chatted for a little while until there was a knock on the door and another girl let herself in—a blonde girl practically drowning in the sweater she was wearing—who Xion immediately excused herself to go greet. He watched the other girl wrap her in a brief but tender embrace before her hands trailed down her arms to grasp her fingers. Then Xion led her to where Lea and Roxas were sitting and watching the others play video games, giggling about something. He hummed to himself.

He lingered alone in the kitchen for a little while. He couldn’t say he was really enjoying it, but he wasn’t hating it, either. He opened another Coke and spent some time spacing out and gnawing on the metal tab instead of drinking it. He realized that he should probably move himself back into the living room when he his mind found his body again and realized that Aqua had gotten up from the couch and was now standing in the kitchen with him.

“You alright?” She asked him. 

He could never answer that one truthfully. He finally took a sip of his soda. “Yeah.” 

“You want to take over for me on Mario Kart?”

“I’m going to crush you!” Called Roxas, who had overheard her offer. He’d taken over Terra’s controller, and Terra himself was lounging on the couch with his legs folded like a model, stuffing handfuls of marshmallows into his mouth at a time.

Riku shook his head. As casually as possible, he sat himself down next to Kairi where she was still playing Uno with Pence and Olette. He was familiar with the other two; they were exceedingly friendly and often went out of their way to say hello to him if they saw each other on their way to or from school. He distinctly remembered there being a third one, though. Riku wondered what happened to him.

“You wanna play with us? You can join the next round,” Pence offered.

Riku waved his hand. “No thanks. I’m just gonna watch you guys.”

“You sure?” Asked Olette. “Don’t be shy!” She set the last card in her hand in the pile as she said this, and Kairi stood and let out a roar, cussing her out while Olette and Pence laughed and shrieked.

Riku rested a chin in his hand, hiding a grin in his palm. “Yeah. I’m sure.”

It was another hour or so in when Riku decided suddenly that he absolutely needed to go outside. He was getting tired and it was starting to get late, but everyone was still there with no intention of leaving anytime soon. Sora was still playing Mario Kart against Ventus and Roxas. Terra was passed out on the couch with his coat draped over his chest. Lea and Aqua seemed to be trying to remember their middle school dance education, stumbling over their own feet to music with the wrong beat. Kairi was demonstrating her ability to scuttle around bent over backwards like broken-limbed horror movie character while Pence and Olette laughed and applauded. Xion and the blonde girl appeared to be having a moment in the kitchen. 

Without telling anyone, Riku got up and slipped out the front door into the clear and quiet night. He stood out on the lawn shivering but feeling moderately better. The cold air felt like a punch to the chest. It was almost too dark to see his breath, and his surroundings were illuminated only by the porch light.

All of a sudden he missed everything. He missed his mother. He missed the routine of school, missed weekends, missed water polo and the coffee shop and new video games and bookstores. He missed being ten years old and daring Sora to skinnydip in the river in Yosemite, the how carefree they were and how inconsequential it all was. He missed thinking he was going to grow up and be somebody, but when he was fifteen he stopped being able to see a future past the age of twenty. Riku felt a terrible squeezing in his chest, but he still could not cry. 

He heard the front door open and a burst of noise, and he turned to see Sora making his way over to him, shuffling over the lawn with his sneakers not slipped on all the way. “Are you ready to go home, Riku?” He asked, and stifled a yawn.

“I just needed a moment.”

Sora hummed. They stood in silence for a while. Then Sora said, “I think we should get out of here.”

“Okay. Let’s go get Kairi.”

“That’s not what I meant,” he chuckled. “I meant I think we should get out of this neighborhood. We should go somewhere else.”

“That doesn’t really sound like you,” Riku remarked.

Sora tilted his head and grinned at him. “Hmm. I guess.”

“Where would you go?”

He bent down to pick up a short stick that happened to be lying at his feet and squatted over a bare patch of lawn. He began to draw a system of geometric shapes and squiggles in the dirt that Riku couldn’t parse.

“...What is that.”

“House by the ocean,” said Sora. 

“A house by the ocean,” echoed Riku.

“Mhmm, and it would have, like, a vegetable garden and a porch with a hanging plant and lots of flowers that butterflies like.” He paused to think a little harder. “Like those houses in Carmel,” he added.

Riku wanted to be lost in the sense of romance he was describing (how badly he wanted to look out the window of his kitchen and see the ocean!) but his voice belied a sense of urgency.  “Do you really want to move?”

“Yes. No. Not really.” Sora kicked dirt over his drawing. “But I don’t want to stay here.”

Tentatively, he curled his fingers around Sora’s. “Listen, what happened this morning was stupid. Those guys are stupid. It’s not gonna happen again. You really think people who act like that are gonna last very long?”

Sora laughed, and then he chewed his lip. “They took my arrows,” he whined.

“Sora, it’s really obvious they played a few zombie video games and then decided they should live out this weird power fantasy where they wear dirty clothes, antagonize their neighborhood, and let other kids die from the flu.” 

He seemed to be satisfied by this. His lips curled into a grin and he pulled away slightly, tilting his head and fixing him with a gentle gaze. Riku blinked and mouthed, What? to which Sora replied, still keeping his eyes on him, “Nothing. I’m glad you’re here.”

Riku looked away, but he held his hand tighter. “Tell me more about your house by the ocean.”

Chapter Text

It never rained on Christmas. It also never snowed on Christmas. It never snowed anytime, actually—everyone knew winter didn’t exist here, just fire and earthquakes in a sunshine purgatory punctuated by fog. But the weather in the days coming was a different story, and was not bound to an arbitrary day of the year. The sky opened up again, but rather than the torrential downpours which had flooded the gutters in the weeks before, it was instead sporadic showers with rain so shockingly cold each drop was like being pelted by an ice cube. 

Xion enjoyed it. She had decided at some point that lying facedown on the living room carpet moaning “I’m saaaad” every half hour or so was a good hobby to take up, and the weather was a nice backdrop for her pitious wailing. When she was not wallowing in the living room she was sitting on the front step with her head in her hands hoping that Roxas might come skating down the sidewalk soon. And when she was not doing that, she was busy cleaning the house and getting it ready for guests.

Even though he was the one who had spontaneously decided that he was going to host a party, Lea turned out to be surprisingly little help. Xion couldn’t decide how frustrated with him she wanted to be, so she kept her mind off it by continuing to vacuum and spray the shit out of the bathroom tile with Mr. Clean. Meanwhile, Lea spent a lot of time crouched in front of the stereo looking a bit sick. He would pull a CD down from the shelf, remove the leaflet, turn it over a few times, and then put it back.

Amidst her cleaning spree, she found a sizable collection of holiday decorations crammed into the back of the master bedroom closet. It was small stuff, mostly--stuff that she might find for cheap at a pharmacy or dollar store. There was a plastic nativity set with half its pieces missing, including the baby Jesus. There was also a toy snowman that had a sticker that said “press me” on its hand, implying that it was probably supposed to sing a cheery jingle or do a little dance, but pressing it did nothing. She drew out multiple hopelessly tangled strings of lights in varying colors, but she didn’t have any expectations for them to be in working condition. Towards the bottom of the box were no less than five menorahs, most of them plastic. Xion felt more items laying at the depths of the box but everything was so crammed together she couldn’t drag them out, so she turned the box over and dumped the rest on the floor, but all this accomplished was startling a large family of silverfish who were shaken from their home in the rotting cardboard and scuttled away somewhere into the carpet fibers. She resisted letting out a disgusted shriek and instead rubbed viciously at the back of her head (which was now buzzed very short, thanks to Lea.)

Xion heard the front door open and she stumbled downstairs to catch sight of Roxas with his face hidden by an armful of potato chip bags, kicking his shoes off and causing him to spill them all over the floor. He greeted her by throwing a bag at her face and snickering when she squeaked.

“Hey,” called Lea, putting the CD he was holding back on the shelf but remaining where he was. “You can put those over there,” he said, pointing to the kitchen.

“This would go a lot faster if you would drive me—or better yet, teach me how to drive,” Roxas huffed, piling snacks back into his arms only to drop them again.

“Whaaat? You can’t drive yet. You’re too young.”

“I’m sixteen.” 

“No you’re not.” Lea stood and ran a hand through his hair. “Wait, shit, you are.”

“So you’re gonna teach me to drive?”

“No. I’m gonna drive you. Put your shoes back on,”  Lea ordered. He ruffled Xion’s hair as he passed her by on his way to grab his coat from the back of the kitchen chair. “We’ll be back in a jiff. Lock the door if you decide to go out,” he told her, and then Xion was all alone in the house before she could ask to join them.

That’s fine, she thought, because she could just lie on the floor some more. She could play that game where she pretended she was a sea star. Sea stars often seemed to live their lives in the tidepools huddled together, and Xion wondered idly what that meant to a creature that couldn’t form memories. Did they enjoy the company of others? Did they get lonely when rough waves stripped them from their homes and stranded them on distant rocks to cling to alone?  Actually, this sucks.

She played “air piano” for a little while, which was exactly as it sounded—with her arms out in front of her, she tapped the keys of an invisible piano as she hummed a melody. She could have been a professional pianist. She was good enough; her teachers had told her so. She hated thinking about that. She only wanted to be back in the practice room, playing the spinet piano while Roxas napped. 

Xion had begun to doze off with Schubert still at the back of her throat. She almost didn’t hear the doorbell ring. She was about to lay back down when she realized that Lea wouldn’t ring the doorbell to his own house, and Roxas usually just let himself in. She stood up too quickly and had to take a moment to press her palm to her forehead while she waited for the head rush to pass.

Naminé, pale-faced and sad-eyed, stood on the front step gripping her cardigan tightly around her shoulders. “Xion—” She startled when the door opened. “I’m sorry, how I treated you the other day was awful and you don’t have to forgive me butIneedyoutoknowI…”  She trailed off to catch her breath.

“Uhm,” mumbled Xion. 

“...I like your haircut,” Naminé said after a long pause.

“Thanks,” she replied, fumbling with her bangs.

“I can see your eyes now.”

“I guess that means I can see your eyes now, too.” Xion regretted letting that come out of her mouth until she heard Naminé chuckle softly. “Aren’t you cold? Do you want to come in?”

“No, let’s go for a walk,” said Naminé.

Naminé walked briskly as if she had somewhere to be. Xion had a hard time keeping up with her and her much longer legs, until she stopped abruptly a couple blocks away and briefly buried her face in her hands.

“Xion, I’m sorry,” she repeated. 

“It’s fine.”

“It’s not. You didn’t deserve that.”

Her thoughts came to a halt. She didn’t… deserve that…? She sat down at the nearest curb to process what that meant. Naminé sat down next to her, but she left an amount of distance between them.

“You’re allowed to be angry with me. You probably should be angry with me.”

“But I’m not mad at you. You were mad at me. ”

Naminé opened and closed her mouth. She gazed down at her feet and the soggy dead leaves clumped in the gutter.  

“I never learned proper conflict resolution because I spent my whole life being afraid of what my mom would do to me if I disagreed with her,” Xion deadpanned. She was trying to be funny, but hearing herself say it out loud made her stomach twist. 

Naminé let out a dry laugh. “Sometimes I wish I never met you.”

Xion caught her sheepish look out of the corner of her eye. “You’re trying to make me mad on purpose now?”

“You ruined me; I’ve never met anyone like you. But I’m a hypocrite—I had this picture of you in my head, and it was all wrong,” she said. “How could I expect you to be the exact same person I met a year and a half ago, when I’ve become unrecognizable? I want to know you. I want to be your friend for real.” 

“Come to the party tomorrow, and I’ll think about it.”

Naminé giggled softly as she cast her a sidelong glance. They sat in silence for a while, listening to the wind in the trees whistling through what leaves were left clinging to them. Xion wanted to tell her everything, everything about her. Everything that had happened in the last year. All her thoughts, even the ugly ones. Everything.

“Why didn’t you ever call?” Blurted Xion. She winced as she said it and took a strained breath. “Even when you moved to Santa Rosa, you still had my phone number. You promised you wouldn’t forget. Why didn’t you call me?”

“I didn’t forget. That was the problem.” Naminé sat forward and pressed her palms against her eyelids, shaking her head into her hands. “I saw you when I closed my eyes.” 

Xion frowned. I lost all my friends because of you, she wanted to say, as if it was Naminé’s fault somehow.

“I don’t have a good excuse. I thought something was wrong with me. I waited so long to call, I thought it had become too late. So I went back to camp to look for you.” 

She sat back on her hands, letting her gaze fall over Naminé’s hunched shoulders and how her flaxen hair flowed across them and hid her face. “It’s funny,” she murmured. “You’re right here, but I still feel like I miss you.”

Naminé tilted her head so that Xion could see one sad eye. “I think we can fix that.” She set down her hand on the cold cement curb, brushing against Xion’s own, and gently she curled her fingers over the knuckle of Xion’s pinkie.

Xion kept her hand where it was. 

The anticipation of a real party was burning a hole in Xion’s stomach and she couldn’t sleep, though the expired Hot Pockets she’d eaten for dinner were not helping. She’d gone to bed early, but instead she spent that extra hour staring at the carpet, watching the illusion of patterns shifting in the dark. Eventually she kicked off the covers and rolled over onto the floor. 

The lights were off in the hallway but the light to Lea’s room was on. He was always up a lot later than she was, so that wasn’t out of the ordinary. She hesitated for a moment, clicking her tongue and trying to decide whether she felt like kneeling in front of the toilet for a while or going back to bed. She ended up delicately pushing through Lea’s door to find him sitting on his bed with a thin book in his lap again, and he turned in her direction when he heard the door creak but this time did not close the book.

“I heard a thump, are you alright?” He asked.

“I can’t sleep.”

Lea scooted over an imperceptible degree. Xion trudged across the room and plopped down next to him. She leaned over to peek at the book in his lap, but he slapped a hand over her face to push her away.

“Ew, you’re all cold and sweaty,” she squealed. She leaned over again anyway. “What are you looking at?”  

He tilted the book so she could see. “Middle school yearbook.” It was open to a spread titled “Sixth Grade” and occupied by a mosaic of school portraits.  

“Gross. How come?”

“Missing some old friends, I guess. And I don’t have a high school yearbook.”

Xion scanned the crowd of grimacing pubescent faces but failed to recognize any of them. “Which one are you?” 

“Uh, no. I’m not showing you a picture of me from middle school. You understand.” Then he thumbed a couple pages ahead. “Here’s one of my best friends, though.”

She focused on the photo Lea had his finger pressed to. A baby-faced boy with pursed lips and hooded eyes glared back at her. She almost laughed out loud, because she couldn’t imagine Lea ever being friends with someone who looked as uptight and sullen as the boy in the picture.

“Uh-huh, that’s the same face Roxas made.”

“I didn’t say anything,” she replied, biting her cheek and turning her head away from him to hide her creeping grin.

“Oh, your face says it all,” Lea teased, and proceeded to aggressively ruffle her hair until she squealed at him to stop.

She curled up onto her side, tired, her stomach sore. “Talk to me until I fall asleep?”

Lea told her stories about how long the days were on Venus, and about the paintings on the wall of a cave in France, and about the blind creatures at the bottom of the ocean. He did not talk about himself, or his friends. 

Roxas said he was probably going to be late. Something about his brother and his brother’s boyfriend (he didn’t actually use the word “boyfriend”—he said “that fucking asshole Sora won’t stop making kissy faces at”—but she knew what he meant) taking their time having a moment, which he said he wasn’t going to interrupt out of the “spirit of Christmas.” She couldn’t really keep track of what went on in that house.

Xion had gotten up early. Christmas, whatever—she’d never really celebrated it. She only cared about the party and the people who were going to be there. She’d met everyone at least once, so she had no fear of awkward introductions. Maybe even Naminé would come. It was gonna be nothing but fun.

She spent the day setting up the living room so everything was just right. Extra chairs around the TV. Snacks organized neatly on the kitchen table and drinks in the cooler. All the decorations she could fish out of the box were thoughtfully placed around the first floor of the house. Around noon she took a break to drink a cup of the instant coffee buried at the back of the spice cabinet she needed to stand on a chair to reach, which she then made the mistake of watering down with almond milk and creating a horrid, bitter mess, but she drank it anyway because she enjoyed how professional and adult she felt. Like Martha Stewart. But by five o’clock her eyes were burning from being awake so long and she had a headache that throbbed above her browline. 

Aqua and her brothers were the first to arrive. They were almost exactly on-time. She heard their voices from downstairs as she fretted with her outfit in front of the bathroom mirror. A nice sweater over a shirt was probably nice enough. Was wearing three earrings on each ear too many earrings? Lea, she discovered as she bounded down the stairs to greet their guests, didn’t appear to have worried at all what he was going to wear because he was still in his pajama bottoms.

Xion’s heart sank a little when she saw that Naminé was not with them, but it was still early. That aside, she was happy to see that Aqua looked well; she still had dark circles under her eyes, but she was smiling and had evidently trimmed and re-dyed her hair at some point. The crewneck sweater she wore under her coat was lovingly embroidered with the image of a dove above the word “Noel.” Ventus looked even better, his face full of color and his eyes no longer glassy, and walking with his crutches didn’t appear to pain him. Terra, who looked exactly the same as he had the last time she saw him, proudly offered them a tub of homemade marshmallows, which Lea instructed him to set down in the kitchen.

Aqua presented her with a box with a label which made her feel nauseous. “Want a pineapple cake?”

Pineapple cake. They were square, individually wrapped pieces of shortbread with a pineapple paste filling. Everyone brought them home as business trip gifts, and no one ever wanted to eat them. They’d go uneaten for so long at the back of the pantry and become so hard that they became an effective projectile weapon.They reminded Xion of her father.

When she noticed the pained grimace Xion was giving her, she mimicked her strained expression and said, “I understand. I’ve been trying to get rid of these. I’ll just set them with the rest.”

Roxas’ friends Olette and Pence showed up not long after. Xion had met them a few times but she’d always found them intimidatingly friendly. It wasn’t that there was anything wrong with them, it was just that she never knew how to receive their open and inclusive attitudes. She was afraid that they felt bitter towards her for turning down their offer to go to the mall with them so many times, but she knew they weren’t, because that’s how Olette and Pence were. Just friendly. 

When Roxas did arrive, Xion had already downed two sodas and was too preoccupied with the way her skin on her legs felt like it was twitching to care that she’d already lost to Olette at Uno a handful of times. She heard the tinkling of bells as Lea answered the door and abandoned her spot at the table to stick her head under his armpit and exclaim, “Roxas!”

“Hurry and come on in, guys. It’s fucking freezing,” said Lea as he ushered them in.

Roxas was accompanied by his brother and his brother’s friends, Kairi and Riku. She’d always found it funny that Sora acted nothing like Roxas—he was one of those kids at school everybody knew because he was so friendly. He always went out of his way to say hello. Kairi also had a similar reputation. She had also been on the student council, so everyone knew her face. But Roxas had been telling her for years that if you got on her bad side she wouldn’t hesitate to break your bones, and she’d do it with a smile. Riku, on the other hand, she’d always heard was aloof and standoffish. He had a resting expression that made him look angry. But at school he always seemed perfectly amicable, and Xion hardly ever saw him with anyone other than Sora or Kairi, so she wondered if he must just be shy.    

Roxas grunted and wheezed when Xion squeezed him. He hurriedly fixed his hair with his fingers and waved to Pence and Olette across the room, and Xion followed him as he sat down at the table where they were playing Uno. Kairi had already seated herself next to Olette with her own hand of cards.

“How’s it going?”Asked Pence warmly.

“I’m glad you guys could make it,” Roxas said. “You guys know Xion.”

They nodded, and Olette directed a grin at Xion and waved. She felt a little warm under her sweater.

“I got you guys presents. Find me before you go home so I can give them to you.” Suddenly Roxas’ forehead came in near contact with the table and let out a loud squawk that made Xion jump in her chair, and when he realized it was Lea who had mussed his hair so forcefully he twisted around and hissed, “Fuck off.”

“What kind of guest doesn’t greet his host?”

“I see you every day of my life.” Roxas fixed his hair again and squinted at him. “You look terrible.”

Lea planted his hands on his hips. “Gee, thanks.”

Amidst their ribbing, Xion’s attention drifted and she gazed across the table toward the kitchen. She watched Riku lingering there alone, leaning against the table and staring into space while nursing a can of Coke. She excused herself and made her way over to him, feigning interest in the array of snacks, but he didn’t appear to have noticed her. “You know, I don’t think we’ve ever met,” she told him.

He jumped and whipped his head around. She swore his hair stuck up like a frightened cat.

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to startle you.”

“It’s fine,” he replied. “You’re Roxas’ friend. Xion, right? He talks about you.”

“He does, does he?” She giggled. “Only thing I know about you is that you’re dating his brother.”

His cheeks turned very pink, and he made a movement that looked as if he was retching but instead he gargled and let Coke dribble out of his open mouth. “Oh my god. I’m so sorry. I’m going to clean this up right now.” 

 She had to slap hand over her face to keep a laugh from escaping. “Shit, did I get that wrong? I feel like we’re just standing around apologizing to each other here.”

“N-no, you’re not wrong. Sora’s my boyfriend,” he stammered.   

Xion grinned and leaned back against the table. “Good. That makes me happy to hear.”

She was definitely right about him. She imagined that they could have been friends in another universe where they met sooner. She got him to keep talking, so she kept listening. He had a clear and even voice that carried, but was not loud. 

There was a knock at the door followed by the tinny jingling of the bells hung around the doorknob. Xion held her breath as she watched it open, wincing at the cold draft that came with it. Then Naminé was there, hair tucked behind one ear so Xion could see that her nose and ears were red from the cold, shivering in her decidedly too-large sweater as she closed the door behind her. Xion politely excused herself from their conversation to throw herself at her.  

“You made it,” said Xion into her sweater. 

“I made it,” she replied.

She let her hands trail down Naminé’s arms to grasp her fingers. Realizing that she’d already been holding onto her too long and suddenly keenly aware that Lea was staring at them from across the room from where he was sitting on the floor with a plastic bowl full of potato chips, she let go of one hand and used the other to pull her over to him. “Naminé’s here,” she informed him, grinning widely while Naminé offered him a shy wave. 

Lea gave her a narrow-eyed smile. She silently begged him not to embarrass her; she could see his thoughts moving behind his eyes. She knew he wanted to. Roxas, having been hidden from her view on Lea’s other side, leaned over and shot her a look that said, I’ll beat him up for you, and she snickered.

“You like Mario Kart?” Lea asked Naminé. “I can get one of those guys to give up their controller.”

She shook her head. “That’s alright. I’ll take some of those chips, though.”

Xion, sitting between all her favorite people now, felt content. There was a warmth in her stomach where she usually felt nothing. Music was on in the background though it was mostly drowned out beneath the rest of the noise. Roxas and Naminé seemed to hit it off; Xion never knew she could be so loud. They were moving about trying to catch the potato chips Lea was throwing into their open mouths like eager sea lions, but when Roxas tossed chips back he kept hitting Lea in the eye—though to Xion, it seemed like he was doing it on purpose. 

“I think you should get your guitar out and play, like, Wonderwall or something,” Roxas said in the midst of a yawn. He threw another potato chip at Lea’s face.

Lea’s made a noise that sounded like air escaping a balloon and ran a hand through his hair.

“Doesn’t have to be Wonderwall. I miss your music.” He nudged him with his foot. “C’mon, Axel.”

Lea narrowed his eyes.  “Don’t call me that,” he said evenly. 

Roxas shrugged, and they went back to what they were doing as if the previous exchange hadn’t happened.

Xion leaned back and took out the mess of string she had been keeping in her pocket, clipped it to a fold in her pants, and began to twist and tie it. 

Naminé leaned in. “What are you working on?” 

“I started it last night when I couldn’t sleep. It’s supposed to be a bracelet.”

“You messed up on a knot right there.”

“Shut up, I know.” She kept working on it. When she looked up next, she realized almost forty-five minutes had passed, that the sodas she drank had passed right through her, and that her leg had fallen asleep and she needed to get up. She held the bracelet to her wrist and frowned when she saw she’d made it too long. If it wouldn’t fit on her own wrist, it definitely wouldn’t fit on Naminé’s wrist. Maybe Terra could wear it. She also realized that Roxas had gotten up at some point and not come back. 

With a lot of agony, Xion stood up and began to stumble her way upstairs. There was a light shining through the bathroom door, but the door wasn’t all the way closed. She knocked gently. There came a grumble in response. “...Roxas? You okay?” She thought she heard something that sounded like her name, but it was very quiet. “I’m, uh, coming in.”

He was sitting on the edge of the bathtub with his elbows on his knees and his fingers pressed against his eyelids. “Xion,” he mumbled without looking up.

“Want me to leave you alone?”

He shook his head.

She sat down on the rim of the tub next to him. “Did something happen? Want to talk about it?”

“There’s nothing to talk about,” he said, taking his hands away from his face. His eyes were bloodshot and his cheeks were blotchy. “There’s something wrong with me. I’m just—” he continued, gesturing vaguely, but didn’t finish his sentence.

She hummed, curling her fingers over her lips thoughtfully. “I don’t think we’ll feel like this forever.”

Roxas grumbled, looking unsatisfied, but he gave her a forced smile anyway. “Thanks, Xi,” he whispered. In a more upbeat tone he said, “Hey. I won’t tell you what it is ‘cause it’s a secret, but I got Lea an extra present. He’s gonna flip.”

Xion put her finger to her mouth. “My lips are sealed.”

She actually had to go, so she informed him she would just use the downstairs guest bathroom, though she felt guilty for leaving. She wished she could tell him with certainty that they had only so many years left to endure whatever ailed them. She wished she could give it to him as a Christmas gift. But she couldn’t. She could only hold him when he needed it and hope it was good enough.

She found Naminé waiting for her in the kitchen, entertaining herself by swaying back and forth on her toes so that her skirt swished around her legs. She smiled when she saw her and beckoned for her to join her. The kitchen was dim and warm. They were alone there. The rest of the house thrummed with music from the stereo, laughter from the card table, chatter in front of the TV. Xion leaned back against the table and sighed.

Naminé dug into her pocket and drew out the deck of cards she always carried with her. “Do you want one last reading for the year?” She asked.

Xion shrugged. “Sure, why not.”

She resolutely shuffled the deck before she drew the card, her eyes sparkling. “The Tower,” she announced. Then she laughed and flipped it around so Xion could see. “Just kidding. It’s Judgement.”

“Is… Is that good?” Xion asked.

“It can be.” She paused. “Yes, it’s good. It means rebirth can come from self evaluation.”

“Um, I don’t know what that means, but I’ll take your word for it.”

She smiled and put the deck away. “I have to confess something,” Naminé told her in a low voice, folding her hands behind her back. “I didn’t really want to come. I don’t like parties.”

She felt a twinge of guilt. “You didn’t have to come.”

“I came because I like you.” She was almost leaning into her now, close enough that her toes were planted firmly between Xion’s.

Oh, mouthed Xion. She did not ask her to elaborate; she was afraid what she said did not mean what she hoped. At the same time, she was terrified that it was for reasons she couldn’t discern. So she just laughed and said, “Giving exposure therapy a shot, huh?”

Naminé narrowed her eyes. “Yes, I suppose.”

Their attention was drawn by the sound of the front door opening followed by a gust of cold air sweeping in. Xion watched Riku, Sora, and Kairi heading out into the winter darkness, laughing with pink faces, waving the others goodnight. 

Naminé took a step back. “I think I should be going home, too.”

“Oh,” Xion replied, failing to hide the disappointment in her voice. She hadn’t realized how late it had gotten. She solemnly followed Naminé to the foyer where she slipped on her shoes and gathered her shoulder bag, debating whether to persuade her to stay a little longer. Only until everyone else had left. 

She took a step out the front door before turning around again, illuminated by the glow of the porchlight. Her hair seemed almost incandescent.

“See you, Nams,” Xion tried to say as casually as possible, but she winced when she heard herself say it.

Naminé gave her an entertained grin. “‘Night, Xion.” She drew her into a quick hug. Her fingers trailed down Xion’s arms to gently grasp her wrists, but just as she thought she was about to let go, she pulled her back in, pressing her nose into her cheek. Before Xion could process the sensation, Naminé offered her a coy smile and a wave, then turned to hurry into the night.

Xion held her fingers to where her face had been, feeling her cheeks grow hot. She closed the door behind her and leaned back against it. Her first impulse was to open her mouth to call for Roxas, but as she gazed across the room she thought, no, she’d tell him later. 

Roxas was standing with his arms crossed and his lips pursed directly opposed to Lea, whose posture was noticeably less tense. “You always say that,” she overheard him groan.

“He’s right, though,” added Aqua.

“You two are terrible. Someone ought to keep you guys away from each other.” He pursed his lips harder. Noticing Xion, he called, “Xion, tell them they’re stupid.”

“Sorry,” she said. “I don’t know what you guys are talking about.”

“I love you so much, but you’re too nice for your own good,” Roxas grumbled.

Aqua laughed a little too hard for a normal reaction. Then, abruptly changing the subject, she launched into a story about something that had happened to Ventus three or four years ago.

The party continued to thin out. Roxas’ friends left, and then Aqua and her brothers shortly after. The stereo was still on mostly because Xion was too lazy to turn it off, but she enjoyed its sonic company as she packed empty wrappers and soda cans into a garbage bag while Lea and Roxas pushed the furniture back to their previous arrangements. She was almost entirely too exhausted to think about anything in particular while she cleaned; she kept forming half-thoughts that melted as soon as she tried to focus on them, like snowflakes melting under the smallest patch of sunshine. 

Lea and Roxas talked in the meanwhile. They sounded like they needed a rest, because Roxas kept setting chairs down with a lot more force than was needed and the tone of Lea’s voice was strained. 

She came to a point where she knew the house wasn’t going to get any cleaner than it was at that moment, at least until after she’d gone to bed. She could clean the rest in the morning. The couch was free of garbage at least, so she flopped onto it heavily and let out a weary sigh. Lea stepped over the back of the couch and sat down next to her with one of his legs dangling over the arm. Roxas promptly draped himself over her legs.

“I’m dying,” Roxas moaned into the couch cushion. “Hold on. I’ve got your other Christmas present. I’ll be right back.” He pushed himself off the couch and hobbled off.

“So? Would you say the party was a success?” Lea asked her.

“Get back to me tomorrow. I’m too tired to think,” she groaned. Her head was beginning to hurt. This was her second caffeine crash of the day.   

He cackled, then stretched and leaned back with a contented sigh. Despite her growing headache and utter exhaustion, Xion was struck by the idea that, right now, she was comfortable. She opened her mouth to tell him, but Lea suddenly whipped his head in the other direction.

“Where did you get that?” 

She leaned to the side to see what had drawn his attention. Standing in the hallway was Roxas, and in his arms he cradled a bass guitar—a Stratocaster, red as an overripe persimmon, shining as if it were new. He held it like something fragile though the scratches on its body betrayed the many years it must have been loved. “I cleaned it and tuned it, and I replaced the string that was broken.”

Xion could see a kaleidoscope of emotions shifting behind Lea’s eyes, but none of them were positive. “I didn’t want you to do this,” he said. His expression grew cold. Roxas huffed and carried the bass over to him. Lea nearly leapt off the couch and, with the slightest waver to his voice, demanded, “Put that back.”

“You can’t keep running away from this,” Roxas said. “You can’t keep deflecting and pretend that everything’s totally fine.”

“You don’t know what you’re talking about. There are things I left behind. There are things I don’t want in my life anymore.”

“No, you’re avoiding it like an idiot,” he replied, his tone growing acidic. He set the bass down, leaning it against the couch. “You can’t even talk about it, Axel.”

Lea rose slowly, his expression hardening and his eyes narrowing into fox-like slivers as he towered over him. “I said, don’t fucking call me that,” he snarled. “I’m not Axel anymore.”

Xion felt like she was watching everything from outside her body like a fly on the wall. What was going on? She said it out loud but neither of them paid attention to her.

“It’s none of your business.”

“It became by business when it started getting in the way of everything. You quit making music. You started smoking. You broke up with your friends. You can’t touch half the things on your record shelf. We used to do fun things but you don’t go anywhere anymore--all you do is sleep and smoke all day, and it sucks!” 

“I quit smoking,”  said Lea flatly.

“Good for you,” Roxas replied derisively. Xion saw him flinch as he said it. 

Lea looked very much like he was about to sock him. Instead, he lowered his eyelids and said in a voice colder than anything she’d ever heard come out of his mouth before, “You’re such a brat.”

Oh. Oh, no, no. Xion wanted to cover her face. She wanted to scream at them to stop, but she was frozen where she was.

Roxas’ face grew really red, really fast. His eyes seemed to glow an electric blue. “And you know what pisses me off the most,” he said, his voice cracking. “Is that I liked you because you treated me the same as all your other friends. But now you only treat me like a kid!”

“You are a kid, Roxas.”

“You always fucking say that! That I’ll—that I’ll see it when I’m older—” 

“Shut up for a second,” Lea interrupted. Roxas went quiet immediately. “I almost killed you at least a dozen times before a single pimple showed up on that cherubic face, and then I almost killed you a dozen times more. I wasn’t watching out for you, Rox, and I shoulda been.”

“I’m not a toddler. I don’t need to be baby-sat!” 

“No, you don’t.” Lea exhaled through his nose and rubbed at his eyes. “But I was awful to you. I want to do better for you. I had to do better for you. I needed to do better than anyone ever did for—” His voice was wavering, and he paused to take a breath. “...I could’ve killed you and not known it.”

“I plan to stay alive,” said Roxas.

“Not everyone did.”

Silence fell between them, long enough that Xion could have fit all the years she hadn’t known them in between.

“Do you still think it was your fault?” Roxas asked him. 

“I might as well have shot him in the head,” Lea replied.

“He was sick, Lea.”

At last, Xion broke through the paralysis that had choked her and cried, “Stop it! Stop it, stop it!!” It seemed as though her voice suddenly snapped them out of their trance. As they both turned to face her, she could see tear stains on their faces. She had never seen Lea cry before and it terrified her to see him do it now. With his withering posture he looked, as Xion could best describe, like a sick tree. In a much more timid tone, she whispered, “What is going on?” 

“I had a best friend before I met you—either of you,” said Lea, his voice sullen and hollow. “His name was Isa. He died two years ago, and it was my fault. Merry fuckin’ Christmas.”

Chapter Text

They’d thought it was an accident, at first. There was no note and no explanation. Then they thought it was a joke. But they said he didn’t come to school the next day, or the next, and he didn’t answer his phone. Three days later, his number was disconnected.

“He’s really gone, huh,” said Demyx, voicing what they’d all begun to come to terms with but didn’t have the stomach to say. Once someone said it out loud, it became real.

There came a solemn muttering of acknowledgement from the rest of Larxene’s garage. Isa was gone. The memorial was that weekend. They wouldn’t even be able to see his face one last time. Still—no one really believed it.

Roxas had only one prior experience with death: Riku’s father, who had passed away when he was seven. They said he’d had a heart attack. He remembered Riku telling him that for at least two years after that, he knew he was gone, but he still kept expecting him to walk through the front door one evening and reveal that it had all been an extensive prank. But it wasn’t like a death in his own family; it felt far away, and it hadn’t mattered to him. It was always something that happened to someone else.

This was a little different. Roxas felt like how he felt when he saw his parents cry--lost, and so, so vulnerable. He had always expected Axel to know what to do. Now Axel only stared blankly ahead; he would appear to make eye contact when he was spoken to, but Roxas only felt as if he was staring through him. Someone had taken his friend away and replaced him with something sad and hollow.

“I’m sorry, man. I know you guys were pretty close,” Demyx said. 

“Did no one see it coming? He wasn’t exactly the happiest guy.” Larxene lit a cigarette, which Zexion promptly leaned over to slap out of her hand and crush into the floor. 

“Show some sensitivity,” Zexion said. “He was sick. Would you say that about someone with cancer?”

“Yes. They had the audacity to get cancer,” she yawned. “If you get sick, you probably deserve it.”

“I hope you get lung cancer,” Demyx told her.

All this time, Roxas was quiet. He kept staring at the empty space on the couch next to Axel where Isa used to sit. He wanted to comfort him, but he could not sit there. It wasn’t his place to sit.

Sora hugged him when he got home. Roxas was hesitant for him to let go; he was afraid that his brother would disappear. Then he locked himself in his room, popped in the CD Axel had given him, and isolated himself from the rest of the world’s noise with his headphones.

The wake was on Friday. He was trying to think of something that he could say about Isa and kept coming up short. It wasn’t that he’d been a person who lacked depth—obviously the others saw a friend in him. Perhaps he’d just never seen Roxas as a person worth knowing, which was honestly hard for him to feel bad about anymore considering most high schoolers didn’t want much to do with someone who still had a bedtime. When they met, Roxas thought he’d hated him. He probably did, at least a little. He kept thinking about his thirteenth birthday and how Isa had rubbed his back while he threw up in the bushes. Isa had cared, and maybe that was the best thing he could say. 

Roxas let his room grow dark as the sun set. He didn’t get up to turn a light on. There was a thought that kept bothering him: Isa could have been him. He wanted it to be him. At least, he thought he did. He’d spent so long wishing it was him, hoping one day maybe he just wouldn’t wake up. Roxas had been born sick, and he knew he would be sick for the rest of his life, and that made him angry. He’d wanted to be in Isa’s place—there would be no more pain in his body, no more medicine to take. Now he wasn’t so sure. He felt guilty.

It was probably about three in the morning when Roxas got up and crept into Sora’s room, crawled over the lump in the middle of the bed, and tucked himself into the crevice between the lump and the wall. The lump was awake; it rolled over and shed its blanket so that Roxas could see his brother’s face emerge from under it. 

“I can’t sleep,” Roxas informed him in a whisper. “Tell me something nice.”

Sora stared at him for a long time. Finally, he sighed and said, “I’m tired.”

“At least try a little.”

He let out another weary sigh. “Mom got that cereal you like. You can have it for breakfast tomorrow.”

Roxas didn’t say anything more. Sora closed his eyes. He kept watching him for a little bit longer, just to make sure he was still breathing.

Axel told him a wake was “like a party” and didn’t elaborate. Roxas snuck into the living room to look it up on the computer before school and was surprised to find that he was mostly right, at least by 21st century standards. His parents insisted that he bring food. So it came to be that at four in the afternoon on a Friday he was standing beside Axel and the others at the front door of Isa’s house with a glass pyrex container filled with brownies, feeling alien and underdressed. His discomfort only increased when the door opened to reveal the dour face of a middle-aged woman who looked as if she’d never smiled in her life. He didn’t have time to wonder what her relation was because Demyx immediately pushed past him, saying, “Thank you for having us, Miss Isa’s Mom,” and so did the others, leaving Roxas the last to enter the house. He shyly presented the brownies, and without saying a word to him, she nodded in the direction of the dining table. 

Isa’s house was large, at least in comparison to most of the houses in the neighborhood built before the turn of the millenium, and tucked away in the neighborhood behind the high school. It was one of those houses that he could tell had been remodeled with a second story at some point after it had originally been built because it maintained the same architectural style. Most other suburban residences constructed after the millenium were huge, ugly beige boxes with too many rooms, and the rate at which they’d sprung up had once sparked a campaign against them because they ruined the view of the mountains for everyone who lived in the surrounding neighborhood (and that fight had been lost because people happened to care more about property values than being able to see Mt. Umunhum from their backyard.) This house had both a kitchen and a proper dining room where the bereaved currently thronged, and it opened to a back patio where the afternoon light fell and warmed the wood.

If it was a party, it was a glum one. He could have mistaken it for the memorial. As he scanned the crowd of family members and family friends, he realized where Isa had gotten his mannerisms from—tragic matter aside, these were all sour-looking people. It didn’t help that his friends were making a ruckus and earning themselves dirty looks. Roxas lifted the aluminum foil off the top of the brownie container and slid one out to fill his mouth with something in case someone tried to speak to him. He listened to what Isa’s family were saying about him. It happened to be surprisingly little. He felt sorrier and sorrier. 

Zexion kept quiet and mostly to himself as he usually did. He was sitting in the darkest corner of the living room with one of those pocket edition books printed with unreadably tiny text, holding it almost to his nose. Roxas found himself hovering around him instead of following Axel around. He didn’t want to look like a delinquent in front of people he’d never met, although he was sure it didn’t matter at this point. He was guilty by association. He ate his fifth brownie and eyed the black upright piano sitting against the wall.

“You want to leave,” Zexion said flatly after a half hour of squatting awkwardly in the living room. “So do I.” This was punctuated by the sound of shattering glass coming from the dining room, where they saw that Larxene had accidentally dropped her glass on the tile floor and instead of cleaning it up, she and Axel stood there cackling about it. Isa’s cousin, or uncle, or family friend, or someone, gave them the stink eye as they cleaned up the mess for them.

“What’s wrong with them?” He mumbled.

“Those two are just having a minor breakdown.”

“No, I meant Isa’s family. What’s wrong with them?”

Zexion closed his book around his thumb and frowned. “That’s a loaded question.”

“They haven’t said his name at all. Isn’t that what this party is for? Telling stories?”

He lowered his eyelids and stared at him. “You’re a nice person, Roxas,” he said gently. He looked like he wanted to say something more, but he didn’t. He let out a sniffle and quickly hid his nose in his book again. Roxas left him alone.

“You doing alright?” Axel asked him when he joined the others on the patio. He was still looking through him, his face fixed into a placid and unemotional smile. He looked like he hadn’t blinked in hours.

Roxas gave him a half-hearted nod. Larxene slapped him a little too hard on the back and laughed. He pretended that it didn’t sting.

“Hey, how much longer do we have to stay? I’m ready to bounce,” Demyx interjected, and Roxas let out an internal sigh of relief for bringing up what he was too reluctant to. Thank you, Demyx, for your every unfiltered thought.

“Ten more minutes and then we can go,” replied Axel. He appeared to be staring at the half-eaten cake sitting in the middle of the dining room table, because Roxas heard him mumble under his breath, “Isa liked pie better.” Then he went inside and wove through the crowd before stopping at the bottom of the stairs. He paced in circles like there was something upstairs he wanted to see. He did not go upstairs. 

He noticed Roxas watching him expectantly from the dining room. He made his way back and put a hand on his shoulder, and he told him he was ready to get out of there but first he wanted to tell Isa’s mother that they were leaving. They found her hardly a minute later speaking with another woman who looked similar enough that Roxas assumed this was likely her sister. He couldn’t help but overhear them. He wished he hadn’t. He heard Axel suck in his breath, felt his grip tighten on his shoulder so hard that it hurt. So they did talk about Isa. 

“We’re leaving,” he hissed.

Roxas meekly allowed him to escort him out the door where the others were already waiting. Larxene offered them a ride. Roxas shook his head; his house was walking distance anyway. Axel turned her down with a hollow grin and told them he could use a good walk, then immediately turned and began to stride across the lawn. Roxas shrugged, and his gaze briefly met Zexion’s as he did. It was still even as ever, but there was a level of solemn understanding he could only dream of finding in Demyx or Larxene’s faces. Roxas tried to chase Axel down the sidewalk, but he gave up after a few steps. 

When he got home, he shut himself in the bathroom and took a shower. He sat down in the tub and let the water run over him and he turned it hotter and hotter until he thought his skin was gonna melt. He kept thinking about what he’d heard Isa’s aunt say; he turned it over and over in his mind. A coward. That’s what she thought of him. That’s probably what his whole family thought of him. He felt as if his stomach was boiling, it made him so angry. He wondered if they’d call him that if he’d died of cancer. He wondered if they’d call him that if he’d died of the common cold. Roxas decided to go to bed without eating dinner.

At the service, the framed portrait of Isa stood near the entrance staring blankly into the middle distance. Roxas averted his gaze from it, feeling nauseous and angry. He didn’t want to be there with the same dour crowd from the day before. When he took his place in the auditorium, he found a seat next to the aisle and looked down at his sneakers. He decided he wasn’t going to listen to anything his family had to say about him. Axel sat down on the other side of him and Larxene, Demyx, and Zexion filled the rest of the row.

The whole thing was uncomfortably like a marriage ceremony. They all sat in an auditorium while someone made a speech. Then they played a video montage and a couple more people made speeches. Roxas ignored it the same way he used to pass the time in the nurse’s office in elementary school. He pretended he wasn’t there, instead imagining that he was a bird flying above the valley, recounting the way home street-by-street as he flew over it in his mind. Then they opened the stage to everyone else to have the opportunity to say something nice and short about the deceased. Axel tensed up when Larxene elbowed him in the side.

It took him a while. Demyx and Larxene kept urging him; Zexion stayed silent. He eventually made his way up. He climbed the three or so steps to the stage like it hurt him. Then he stood there in front of the microphone, staring directly into the stage light.

Tell them they didn’t deserve him.

Axel just kept breathing into the microphone. In the spotlight, he looked thin and brittle. Like a sad tree. Roxas chewed his lip as he watched him trudge off the stage without uttering a word, walk stiffly past the row where he’d sat, and leave the auditorium. There came a momentary mumbling from the crowd which was quickly drowned out by the words of someone else on the stage. 

Larxene grabbed his attention by reaching over and poking him on the cheek. “We’re getting out of here,” she hissed, and he gave her a blank look until both Demyx and Zexion nodded in affirmation. 

“I feel kind of bad,” said Roxas when they had all made it outside. He was sure he still felt the eyes of Isa’s high school portrait boring holes into his back, even when he was in the church parking lot. 

“Naw. The real service is yet to come,” Demyx told him as he ushered him into the back seat of the band’s beat-up minivan. 

“Where are we going?” 

He breathed an internal sigh of relief when Larxene leaned back from the passenger seat to say, “The beach.”

Roxas squished himself into the middle seat, Axel and Zexion on either side of him. For the next hour he wanted to ask Axel if he was going to be okay, but he couldn’t get the words out; he didn’t want to hear him say no. Demyx drove too fast along Highway 17 and Roxas did his best to keep from swaying and hitting his head against Axel’s shoulder with each twist and turn of the road. At least when they could finally see the ocean above the treeline, he could press his nose against the window to stare out at the sun sparkling over the water still miles away before their descent and the endless rows of trees whizzing past made him feel sick despite the fresh air.

Saturdays were a busy time for the beach all year round, even in the dead of winter. Somehow Demyx had managed to find the only beach in California that was empty on a Saturday afternoon in March. The dunes created an overlook between the water and the road, and from where Demyx parked the minivan, they were standing a good eight feet or so above the sand. It was picturesque. Like a movie. 

“Gimme a hand with the stuff,” Demyx ordered as soon as they stepped out, and Axel promptly pulled a cooler out of the trunk that Roxas didn’t even know had been there the whole time. He should’ve known they’d planned this from the start. Zexion slung a tote bag over his shoulder, and Larxene grabbed her guitar case.

They carried it all onto the sand. When they found the perfect spot—somewhere not too close to the water but not too far away from it either, and free from mounds of rotting kelp—Roxas asked what was in the cooler. Axel opened it to reveal beers and soda. Of course. He asked what was in the tote bag. Larxene told him it was ingredients for s’mores, but not without a heavy dose of derision. 

“Rox,” said Axel—the first word he’d spoken to him nearly all day. “Let’s go find wood for the fire pit before it gets cold.”

Roxas followed him across the sand. When they were out of earshot of the others, he asked, “Why’re we at the beach?”

“Well, if you were gonna pour one out for someone, where would you go?”

“The beach, I guess.”

Axel let out a dry laugh. “Exactly.” Then, in a quieter voice, he said, “Isa liked the ocean. He was one of those people who always said he wanted his ashes scattered into it… but they put him in a columbarium.”

Even in death, his family seemed to hate him.

Roxas, not having known he was going to spend the evening at the beach, did not bring a warm enough jacket for the occasion and began to shiver as the sun set. Fortunately, there were a couple of beach blankets tucked away in the trunk of the minivan. While he waited for the others to finish up the fire pit, he stood at the edge of the water with the blanket wrapped around his shoulders. He was thinking about Sora, because the beach always reminded him of how when they were both very young, Sora had once walked right into the water and their parents had screamed as they watched him disappear under a wave. It was funny in retrospect. He’d always been like that. He tried not to think about what life would be like if the ocean had not spit him right out. Roxas also tried not to think about how much he wished he himself had been lost to the ocean before he could even form memories.

“All life on Earth came from water, you know,” said Zexion, suddenly next to him and talking the way he did every time he was in the middle of a book. “We can feel the ocean pulling us in because we want to go back.”

Roxas hummed and nodded as if he was saying something that made sense. The half-moon began to rise humbly above the water, its goldenrod light spilling over the horizon. He heard the others calling them over and he eagerly strode as fast as he could to sit down in front of the pillar of fire they’d created.

“You want a beer, Roxas?” Demyx asked him as he knelt over the cooler.

“Hey, gimme one,” Larxene demanded.

“I wasn’t asking you.”

He shook his head viciously and asked for a soda. Demyx tossed him a Coke (which he failed to catch and landed with a pathetic crunch on the sand) before opening one himself with a pout when Zexion reminded him that he was still their designated driver.

Demyx pulled the tab on the can with a hiss. He held it up to the fire. “To Isa,” he said. “The world wasn’t ready for you.”

“To Isa,” Axel repeated.

“To Isa,” echoed Zexion and Larxene. Instead of taking a sip, Larxene tossed a portion of her beer into the fire, causing it to hiss and flare while everyone else hooted.

The sky grew dark. The fire cast their flickering shadows across the sand. Beyond the shore, the ocean became a void so terrifyingly black that it seemed to appear as a hole in the universe with only the crashing of waves to signal its presence. Not even the glare of the moon sparkled on its surface when the fog rolled in and overtook the stars. Roxas scooted a little bit closer to the fire, uncomfortably aware of the ocean’s beckoning. 

They took turns playing Larxene’s guitar through all of it as if they were keeping the night from growing too close. Everyone talked and laughed, and Roxas’ hands grew sticky from marshmallows and chocolate as he sat there and learned more about Isa than he’d ever learned while he was alive. He learned that Axel had met him in the second grade, but couldn’t remember how they became friends in the first place. He learned that he used to visit the shelter on the weekends because he loved dogs but was not allowed to own one. He learned that he’d stolen every copy of Goosebumps he could get his hands on from his elementary school library over a period of three years. He learned that in seventh grade, he’d dyed his hair blue. Knowing these things about him didn’t make Roxas feel like he knew him better—just sad that he hadn’t known them before. A creeping sense of guilt tickled his spine. Could he have put more effort into being friends? What if this was somehow his fault in a way that he could never have been aware of?

Demyx pulled out his pack of cigarettes; he drew one out and held it to the fire before passing the pack to Larxene.

“Hand that over,” said Axel just as she was about to pocket it. She raised her brows and let out an entertained snort, but she gave him the cigarettes anyway.

“You don’t smoke,” Roxas said, surprised, but feeling mostly betrayed. Axel shrugged and lit one, inhaling and immediately lurching forward coughing and spluttering. But he kept doing it, and Roxas stared at him with his brows twisted and his lips pursed. “It’s not good for you,” he added. Larxene and Demyx cackled in response. 

Axel offered him an empty, narrow-eyed look and shrugged again.

Die early, then, thought Roxas bitterly. 

He woke up to Demyx shaking him awake, only just realizing he’d fallen asleep on the drive home.They were stopped in front of the townhouse complex where Axel lived. “Hey, Roxas, how do I get to your house from here?”

“I think I’ll walk home,” he said groggily. He’d dreamt that he’d fallen into the ocean but when he should have drowned, he felt just the endless back and forth motion of the waves in the infinite blackness.

Demyx didn’t insist on driving him, just shrugged and said, “You do you.”

“Axel,” called Zexion after Roxas had slid out of the van behind him, and Axel leaned back in. Zexion pulled something out from under the seat and strained to hand it to him. It was Isa’s Casio. “I stole this yesterday but you left before I could give it to you.”

Axel made a strangled noise. He ran his fingers delicately over the keys before tucking it safely under his arm. “Thank you,” he croaked. Zexion waved and slid the door closed, and they drove off.

“Um, see you later,” Roxas said, unsure of how to leave in a way that didn’t make him look insensitive.

“I’ll walk you home.”

He blinked. “But you’re already home.”

Axel ran a hand through his hair. “Get a clue, Roxas. Would you keep me company for a bit? You’re the only one of those guys whose brain hasn’t rotted out of their skull yet.”

“Okay,” he replied, a little tickled. Axel was good at making him feel special.

Roxas’ house was barely two miles away. That wasn’t terribly close, but it wasn’t very far, either. He was exhausted, though, and Axel had those long legs he struggled to keep up with even when he wasn’t walking very fast. For a while they were quiet except for Roxas’ light huffing, Roxas kept thinking about how much he couldn’t wait to swallow a handful of ibuprofen once he got home because his body tended to scream at him whenever he was awake for too long.

There was a park across the street from the high school that signaled that Roxas was halfway home, and as they cut through the grass Axel slowed down. “I don’t think I’ve been a good friend, Roxas,” he announced suddenly. 

“Oh,” said Roxas.

“I’m planning on quitting the band.”

“Oh,” Roxas said again. “Does that have something to do with the first thing? Because I don’t think that’s true.”

Axel let out an exasperated sigh. There was a bench a few feet away illuminated by a park lamp; he sat down and lay the Casio across his lap. Roxas gingerly seated himself at the other end, leaving a foot of space between them. “No. It’s my fault Isa’s dead.”

“How could it be your fault?”

Slowly, he said, “A couple months ago he gave me his PS2 and all of his games. He really liked that thing. But I was too concerned with how flattered I was to see it as a warning sign. There were so many signs. I could’ve… Things could’ve been different. I did everything wrong.”

Roxas stared at him. “That’s stupid.”

He blinked.

“If it was anyone’s fault, it was his family’s. You know, the adults who were supposed to take care of him?”

Axel made a sound like a barking cough. “You’re still the smart one.” He kept making that sound, and then it descended into some kind of gurgle before stopping completely. He stared straight ahead with his fingers wrapped around the edge of the Casio so tightly his knuckles were white. Roxas glanced up at his face again and watched something roll down his cheek. 

Oh. He was crying. He had never seen Axel cry before. 

He made no noise at all. The tears continued to drip from his cheeks onto his lap and the keyboard that rested upon it. 

Roxas wasn’t sure what to do. He scooted closer.

 “I don’t want to be Axel anymore.” He curled in on himself, burying his face in his hands; his red hair under the sodium park lamp looked like fire, animated as he quaked. It was a long time before he uncovered his face again. It was ugly, puffy, and blotchy. “I miss him,” he said with what sounded like the last bit of air left in his whole body.

“I know,” said Roxas.