Chapter Text
Two weeks. It had been two weeks now, and Kairi felt like she was slowly getting crazy. And so lonely. Lea was doing his best to cheer her up, but that wasn't helping much. Any hour she wasn't spending searching was spent training, but her heart wasn't into it.
"If Riku were here, he'd know what to do…" She sighed, tying her hair up.
"Oh? What happened to that strong, independent woman I used to train with? She kept on telling me how she would be doing great on her own." Lea teased her, but his words sounded as hollow as her heart.
Two weeks.
"Yeah, tell me about it…" She gasped. Had she spoke out loud, for Lea to answer? She felt bad. They both were doing their best to pretend they were okay for each other's sake. She couldn't let that game of pretend end now.
"But we'll find him, okay? We will. No matter how long it takes, we will bring your boy back." He looked at the sky through the window, and for a few seconds, his eyes were clouded with sadness. "And mine too." He softly added, his voice just a whisper.
Kairi stared at him in silence for a moment. He had changed a lot. She remembered the first time she had met him, and it wasn't really a happy memory. He had kidnapped her. Taken her to the worst place ever, a place she'd still get nightmares of and wake up in tears in the middle of the night. All he had seen in her was a good to trade against his best friend. In a way, she could now admire and even respect a bit how far he had been ready to go just to save Roxas. But back then, of course, she only feared him. Hated him. Despised him.
The first weeks of training with him had been chaotic. She wouldn't trust him, and he would avoid her, feeling like she had every right to stay away from him. It was only when Master Yen Sid told them it was important that they should get along, and Lea fell to his knees, throwing his Keyblade away and asking Kairi to hit him until she felt better, that she decided to trust him. After smacking him a couple of times, of course.
And now, now that she would put her life in his hands with no second thought, it appeared he was all she had left. She was glad they were now friends, because it would have otherwise been insufferable for both of them. Riku and Mickey weren't back from the Realm of Darkness yet, on their quest to save Master Aqua. Kairi missed Riku. He was the stable, reliable one of them three. She always could count on him, and he was an awesome listener. Right now, she needed his advice, she needed his calm. She needed someone to tell her that all would be alright, someone who would believe it. Lea said it a lot, but he lacked conviction.
The redhead young man turned his face to the redhead young woman and smiled. She gave his smile back. It was unfair of her to miss Riku, when Lea was missing more than anyone his own best friends. He talked a bit about Roxas, sometimes. About how they spent their time eating ice-cream at the clock tower, about how he was the only one who made him feel like he had a heart, back when he was a Nobody. Lea and Kairi would sometimes share an ice-cream by the clock tower, too. Lea said he didn't want to lose this habit, for when Roxas would be back. He never spoke about his other friend, but Kairi remembered him. She was just a little girl, back then, and had close to no memory of these times before she'd go to Destiny Island, but somehow, this picture got stuck in her mind: a boy with bright red hair, always seen with his blue-haired friend. Kairi couldn't explain why she remembered them. Maybe her 5 year old self admired them, the big boys who never feared anything. It wasn't until really soon that she realised it had been Lea, and… She heard the other one's name by accident, once, a bit after Lea saved Sora. The redhead was yelling at Master Yen Sid about someone else controlled by Xehanort, someone they could maybe save. Isa. But he never talked about him in front of her, and she never brought it either. Lea had lost all of his friends, and Kairi wished she could soothe his pain away.
But it was a difficult task when she was in so much pain herself.
"I think we both could use an ice cream right now, what do you say, Lea?"
"Always in for some sugar!"
They took the train from the Mysterious Tower to Twilight Town. Kairi could never get tired of the view from the train. Lea stared at the clocktower the minute it appeared on the window. He always did.
"Hey, Kairi. We're here. Kairi?"
She snapped out of her thoughts when Lea gently nudged her. She had not noticed the train had come to a stop. Concern was painted all over Lea's face, but he simply offered his hand to help her get up, and chuckled when she refused his help and jumped on her feet.
"Okay, you go first!"
She frowned for a second, focused. "I'll go with seven."
"Well, I say eight isn't a bad number either!"
They had been playing this game for a while now : they would bet on how many people they would see on the streets before reaching the ice cream shop, and the one that gave the closest number was being treated to by the loser. Twilight Town was always really quiet at this hour of the day, so they never met that many people.
"The old lady over there - one."
"These two boys skating - three."
"That woman and her dog - five."
"Lea…"
"Just kidding. Four."
"Lea."
"Kairi, we cannot count ourselves, that's cheating."
"Lea!"
Only then did he really pay attention to her. She was livid, out of breathe, staring at a dark shape in a dead-end. Her hands were shaking, but her body was very still. She couldn't move. She couldn't move at all.
"Let's have a look." Lea had lost all of his jovial tone, switching for a much more serious voice. Kairi's legs still wouldn't take a step forward, until Lea gently took her by the wrist, pulling her softly behind him. Her mind went totally blank, as she stared at the black shape. The black silhouette. The black hair.
Two weeks. It had been two weeks now. Two weeks, since Sora went for a trip in Twilight Town and never came back. Two weeks since Donald and Goofy came back with the sinister news that the boy had been captured by Xehanort. Two weeks since Kairi had been scouring every world she could to find a trace of him, a hint, anything, in vain. Two weeks she spent remembering what she'd been through when she was Xehanort's captive, two weeks wondering what Sora was going through, two weeks fearing they would make him their vessel, two weeks fearing they would kill him.
And suddenly, on the day when Lea and her had decided to have an ice cream to forget for a few minutes how helpless they were and how little they knew about where Sora was, an unconscious boy in a black coat, with black hair, but more importantly with Sora's face appeared right in front of them.
Being close enough to see his face didn't help Kairi. It was a beautiful, sunny day, and yet her limbs were frozen. Time itself was frozen. She wanted to believe, and she wanted not to. Maybe they were mistaken. Maybe it was just a coincidence. Maybe it was just a boy looking just like him.
"Hey, buddy, can you hear me?"
Lea was crouched next to the boy, gently tapping his cheeks. The boy was very pale, and Kairi feared for the worst. But just when she was about to finally get her eyes off him, he took a deep breathe in, gasping for air as if he wasn't breathing before. He opened his eyes, staring right at her.
"Kai...ri?"
He then passed out again, as Lea caught Kairi whose legs gave out.
Sora. Sora called her name. But, more importantly…
Sora's eyes were now golden.