Dog Walking

"Last stop of the morning," I mumbled to both myself and the half dozen dogs trailing behind me.

I rang the doorbell to my last destination of the morning, and last dog to pick up for my morning walk. As a professional dog walker, I get to spend time with the creatures I truly adore the most as well as work out. The door to the spacious apartment complex opened up and a small, elderly woman stepped out with two beagles leaping around on red leashes.

"Hello Ms. Newman," I smiled politely as dogs I had on leashes were going insane at the newcomers, "And hello to you Temperantia and Castitas," I grabbed the two leashes.

"Now don't forget Kairi, dear," the old woman smiled polity, "Give each of them a treat-," I cut her off.

"Just before coming in, I remember Ms. Newman," I could feel the dogs beginning to get restless at staying in one place too long, "Well, Ms. Newman, I need to get these guys going for their walk. I'll see you later ma'am," I nodded in her direction before the myriad of dogs pulled me away from the apartment and down the filling streets of Twilight Town.

Several people stopped a moment to stare at me and my circus troupe of dogs. I honestly didn't care, because I had one goal in mind: the dog park. Once I got there, it would be a matter of keeping track of all eight dogs. This wasn't all that hard since they hung out in doggie cliques, sort of abandoning the other dogs in the parks like in a high school. Chuckling at the idea, I steered the dogs in the direction of the park and let them drag me the rest of the way there.

Barely filled, the lush green park was perfect to set "the beasts" free to run. I reached down to the dogs and unleashed each on individual dog. They all ran at the speed of light in one direction barking and making a ruckus in general. As soon as I was free of all eight, I sauntered to my favorite park bench and pulled out a book from my messenger bag. It was something I hadn't read since high school and since I enjoyed it then, I grabbed it from my collection to begin rereading it.

"The Great Gatsby?" a deep voice read the cover of my book as I pulled it out.

I looked up and was greeted by a pair of striking blue eyes and a familiar, playful grin.

"Sora?" I smiled back and stood up to give him a hug.

"Hey short stuff! What are you doing here at this hour?" I chuckled and teasingly glared at him.

"What do you think I'm doing here? At the dog park? On a Tuesday?" he rubbed his hand through his messy hair with a sheepish grin.

"Oh yeah… work," I sat back down as he said this to grab a ball from the mouth of my furry clientele, "Oh, cocker spaniel! What's her name?" he reached to rub her ears and took the ball from my hand.

"Prudence… as in the Beatles song 'Dear Prudence'," he whipped the ball across the lush green field and several dogs chased after it along with Prudence.

"That's nice…" he sat down and became silent for a moment.

"What is it Sora?" I knew that silence wasn't good.

For knowing him since I was in diapers, I knew that when he was silent, he was thinking. And when he's thinking, it's about something serious.

"Huh?" he looked up at me and I searched his eyes seeing nothing.

"When you're quiet, you're thinking. When you're thinking, it's always about something bad or serious or something going on. So tell-," another one of my doggie clientele jogged up to me with an excited look in her eyes and a ball in her mouth. I tossed it and turned to him again, "Me."

"Oh, it's nothing," he gave me a genuine smile but then sighed giving me a serious look asking, "How long have we known each other?"

"Easily over twenty-three years," I smiled and calculated out loud, "Twenty-three years, three months, and two weeks."

"Okay…" he turned away from me momentarily and let a pensive look cross his face again.

Not disturbing him, I opened my book and picked up my reading. That didn't last too long because Sora turned to me again with an excited glint in his eyes.

"You remember senior prom?" I closed my book and slowly looked up at him.

"Uh… yeah but," I placed it into my bag, "What does this have to do with… I dunno… anything?"

"Nothing really… I just was talking to Roxas the other night and we were just remembering high school stuff."

"Oh well… yeah that night was pretty… fun," I chuckled as another uncertain look crossed his face, "So why are you being so thoughtful about it?"

"That was the night Roxas finally got the guts to tell Namine he liked her, remember?"

"Mhm, she was so excited," I laughed at remembering her face a she animatedly told me, "I'm so glad he told her! I could bare the idea of having to listen to her babble on about him much longer," we both chuckled.

"You know he's… thinking about proposing to her soon," I turned to him wide eyed.

"He told you this?!" I leaned in closer in interest, making his cheeks tint a light shade of pink, "Has he bought a ring? Is it gorgeous? When's he gonna do it? Come on Sora tell me everything!"

"I said he was thinking about it. He's got a lot on his mind right now…" he dropped his tone at the end of that sentence, showing he too had much to think about.

"I see you're thinking too," I smiled and brushed a stray hair from his brow making his cheeks flare again.

"You c-could say th-that," he turned away, "I just was thinking about you guys… all of my friends really. Everyone seems to have paired up and fallen for each other."

"Not everyone, I mean… Riku and you haven't shacked up yet," I laughed and he whipped back to me.

"Hey!" he laughed with me.

"Everyone thought it was gonna happen! Ask Roxas," he debated for a moment about doing this and then shook it away.

"Well… what if you and Riku…" he left the end off leaving me to finish.

"Got together?" I laughed loudly earning a startled look from him.

"Didn't you guys like each other in high school?"

"Not exactly…"

"You guys were so close though. Almost like…"

"Family. That's it. He was like a brother to me. He did admit to a tiny crush on me but that was quickly dispelled after junior prom," I shuddered at the memory. An almost kiss… An almost knock out as well. He looked at me inquiringly as I remembered but I just shook it off, "We are just friends."

"Oh," he got silent again and let it drop going silent again.

"When is he gonna do it?"

"Who knows," he smiled, "At least he's going to do it, right?"

"Yeah…," I looked at my cell phone, "Whoa, it's already been a half hour. I gotta drop this group off before my next group," I searched the park spotting each of the dogs and I called out to them.

"You need help?"

"Just a bit," he held up his hand and grabbed the leashes from me as he ran around the park.

He jogged around and connected each one to the leashes. Each of the dogs were quiet excited to be jogging around with him as well so they complied with him. When he had all eight of the dogs I quickly handed out the treats while secretly checking that they were in fact the correct dogs.

"Thank you…" I grabbed four leashes from his right hand and smiled.

"Can I walk them with you? It's not like I have much to do today."

"Didn't you bring your own dog?" then it hit me, "Where is Pluto? I haven't seen him this whole time," the brunette shook his head shamefully.

"Uh… I left him with… Riku…" he covered his mouth and turned away.

"Then why, might I ask, are you here?" I looked at him confusedly.

"Uh… afternoon stroll?'

"It's eight-thirty… in the morning."

"Can't a guy just walk through the dog park and happen to meet his friend?"

"No," I said bluntly attempting to grab the rest of the dogs from him, "Tell me why you're here."

"I… I… wanted to see you."

"What?" I stumbled back slightly, "W-what?"

"I had to talk to you about something," he said quickly though his flushing face was giving things away.

"What?"

"I umm… I-," before he could say much the dogs he had in his hands had spotted a duo of chipmunks scamper by and soon so did my group.

"Gah!" they began jumping in different directions and controlling them was getting difficult. Sora looked to be just as troubled. One lurch of my arm suddenly came and I was flying forward, "Sora!"

*Whumpf*

I fell to my back and soon he was right on top of me. He pushed himself up and looked down at me with wide eyes.

"Hi K-Kairi," he chocked out with his face flaming red.

"Hiya Sora," I chuckled at his cherry red face, "You wanna get off me?"

"Not really," he smiled letting his courage comeback.

"And why is that?"

"Because… I still didn't tell you what I came here to tell you."

"Okay tell-," his lips covered mine mid-speech.

At first I was surprised, and then I let myself melt into his touch. I wrapped my arms around his neck and pulled him closer, clinging to him as his lips held my own. He finally broke the heat leaning his head against mine for momentary air and left a trail of burning, butterfly kisses down my neck.

"So what do you have to say about that?" he chuckled into my neck.

I thought about it for a moment.

"Riku's gonna be one lonely dog," and I leaned in for another kiss.

This one shot literally engulfed me on my walk with startscribbling12 yesterday. Okay well… hope you enjoyed it. Don't forget to read the studio stories that I'm a part of :)

Btw…

I am still on technical hiatus. Sorry guys… high school's annoying. I also have a concert festival this Saturday. I'm working there 12 hours and a few hours before that. Then I have sym band tryouts, section leader tryouts, guard [flag corps if that doesn't make sense] tryouts, and prepping for marching season haha. This month is gonna be crazy. Hehe

Love you and I hope you guys aren't made at my hiatus status

:3 chibi