A Scattered Memory
Chapter 13: Painting the Sky

I'd never felt more magical underwater; the feeling overwhelmed me, feeling nothing like on land. It almost felt that if I were to be shipwrecked on some big ship with my mysterious,forbidden maiden and we were to drown at any moment, I would find pleasure in those last seconds with her as our lifeless bodies catapulted into oblivion. Of course, that wasn't the situation that day, and it was by our own free will that we had ended up this way.

I wasn't simply underwater for a long period of time to enjoy the soothing depths of the sea. I cared a lot more about Naminé's wellbeing, but seeing as I had time to spare, I felt that now all I really needed to do was get away. Maybe under the bridge would help, I had thought to myself, and that's when I had to tug along Naminé with me, our breaths running shorter and shorter by the minute. Suddenly, I felt the pressure release from my hand, and I could feel the empty space of water envelop my hand. Frantically, I risked the action of turning my head and saw that Naminé was swimming on her own, her dress floating in a thousand different waves, but it didn't look like it bothered her.

In those splintering seconds, we reached our breaking point and broke the surface of the once-serene waters. The city lights dawned on us, and I saw a crowd of flustered-looking people that had been disturbed to observe the spectacle that was...us. There was no sign of the man, from what I could see.

"Roxas!" a deep and piercing voice screams from atop the bridge. "Are you absolutely mad?" His suit is all messed-up and wrinkled in all different places, the spikes on his head looking a little less agitated than normal.

"Why are you here, Sora?" I called up to the boy, groaning and slightly disappointed in his petty disobedience. I literally told him not so long ago to wait his turn for a good prom. His expression did not falter, and I realized he was probably pissed at my mental health or something.

I didn't worry about the gel in my hair being soaked away. I didn't pay attention to the water seeping into places I thought they'd never go with clothes on. I turned my head towards the matted-down and wet Naminé that still looked a bit surprised and overwhelmed. I sighed to myself again, while keeping myself afloat.

"You alright, Naminé?" I asked, my arms still waving and my legs still kicking to keep myself afloat. The small and petite body of hers was continually getting interrupted by the puffs of the evening gown, so I finally let up and wrapped a free arm around her waist so we could float to shore. Her waist was easy to hold onto, and after she nodded in reply, I made my way towards the shore.

"I must have death-glared two-hundred people in the past two hours."

"Roxas! It isn't polite to stare intensely at others like that..."

"'You've gone mad if you can withstand all these people looking—"

"...Aren't you the one who decided to—?"

I sighed loudly. "I know," I said, hugging the fabric closer to me. Naminé did the same, her damp and moisture-collected gown now hanging limp and colorless, but still overly-fitting for a girl like her. It seemed as though it was meant to be sunken in. She hugged herself closer, and I reached over in a kindly gesture and put my arm around her, my towel extending to cover her as well as me. We were like two superheroes, sharing a cape, which, in a way, I was trying to think fit for us perfectly.

"All right, all right, that's enough from everybody," a very assertive and colorless Xemnas says to break up the overall weight in the air. "I think we've had enough for today. Just...everybody go home." He ran an aggravated hand through his silver-stained hair while the flock of the genuinely-disappointed students scattered, but the several of us who stuck around to listen to Mr. Xemnas remained glued to the grass.

What seemed to be a lot of annoyed and tedious hair drawbacks later, he finally forced his eyes upon us, a group consisting of those he asked to stay; the student council; Naminé and I; and definitely not Sora. His eyes were misty whenever he'd glance at me, and so he finally gave up on it and kept staring onwards to face Mr. Xemnas. I held Naminé closer, and she acknowledged this when she stepped a little closer to fit perfectly by my side.

"In all my years of running this prestigious academy for obscene children like you, I've never encountered such a petulant group of young students, much less you, Roxas. I expected better of you, and to take care of this young lady. What had gotten into your head, now, boy?"

I didn't really have an answer for it, because all-in-all I did this to save Naminé from something I couldn't think to even explain to Mr. Xemnas. Sure, my education and social status were probably on the line, but it's not like they would have to punish me too harshly. I mean, I was the son of the president and all.

I didn't let that get to my head. "Sir—"

"It was my idea," Sora said, walking out of his own shadow. His eyes were too hurt to look at me, because he was pulling this excuse out of thin air and almost no concern for me. He was just doing it as a side job. Distrust was what it was.

"I was chasing them. They fell into the river. I'll take their detentions." I was astonished at how Sora's ability of duplicity had finally come a long way, but I didn't want him to take blame.

Sora wasn't backing down. Mr. Xemnas looked wearily confused and it also started to look like he had just been roused from bed because of our incident. "Alright, but Roxas and his friend are still getting detentions for causing public disturbances."

He sighed yet again, his eyes growing weary of this entire situation. He turned to me and Naminé, with high regard to me. "I'm sorry, Mr. Strife, but after all this commotion, I don't know what else to say. Your father will be notified."

I let go of my closely contained cover. "Ah, that won't be necessary, I'll be sure to tell him myself," I said. "To redeem myself on my own time."

I held my breath as he released another long breath. I looked to Sora, but he didn't return my glance. "As you will. Have a good rest of the evening."

"To you too," I said myself.

I felt like I had just made a deal with the devil.

It was late at night when I had walked Naminé home, keeping quiet the whole time. The crisp autumn evening forced us to cover our wet backs with towels, leaving our hair to stay exposed. I pleaded that somehow, with the amount of shivering we did, we wouldn't catch a raging cold that even I wouldn't be able to tame. The worst part was that the gel in my hair wore off, and my hair lost its usual ecstatic feel. For so long, it felt so comforting for me.

We reached our block, and Naminé kept eyeing my empty house like she knew something was wrong. I nervously pleaded that she wouldn't invite me to sleep over, because not only was that awkward, but I would have to tell Cloud about what I'd done. I figured that I could last a day without seeing him.

Naminé still looked like she had something to say. Instead, she walked ahead of me as I turned to go into my house. "You take care of yourself," she said, smiling enthusiastically. The gold of her dress shimmered while damp, and the artificial light brought shines in my eyes. I had to turn away from her.

I didn't have house keys that night, so I left the door partly unlocked instead of climbing through window. I didn't even know if Tifa was home, so I checked the unoccupied kitchen before making a swift check in the bedroom. The empty bedroom almost startled me, the imprint of Tifa being home from work and lying in bed a pre-recurring setting. I unconsciously removed the still-dripping suit jacket and pants from my clingy body and put on something less damp. And I sat at the corner of my bed, my eyes wavering back and forth to where my equivocal mess had to be straightened out, and the sodden box of bargained and reserved coloured pencils that was supposed to help me straighten things through.

Xx

At lunch the subsequent day, I had made it a point to find Naminé and reserve a table just for us. She said it wasn't a problem that she wouldn't attend her lunch period class. She obviously had found a way to get out of class, because she met up with me and showed me her hall pass. Our table was a little farther away from my usual group of friends, which included Sora and Kairi, and out of the corner of my eye, I could see Sora had switched seats to have his back turned to me.

Naminé took a seat across from me, her posture cross but relieved at the sight of me sitting across from her. She always seemed to lighten up to my appearance, like a sunflower deprived of light brought back from the shadows.

"We need to, kind of, discuss this first," I deadpanned to her. She took a bite out of her sandwich, and didn't acknowledge my sentence until she had ceased chewing.

"All I know is that this man doesn't have good intentions, Roxas," she replied, the corners of her mouth smoothing to a clear expression of how she was sincerely and genuinely concerned. I didn't want to notice, but I could see the expression of guilt and duplicity hidden in her expression.

"Well, any man that tries to kidnap a girl and fight a boy obviously doesn't have good intentions," I reminded her. I didn't think I had to coax her out of anything, but if I was going to get her to tell me what really bothered her, I'd have to sneak around. "Question is, why?"

We sat in complete silence, but this time, it wasn't serene or still, the equanimity slowly settling in while we continued eating lunch. The sandwich grew to be even more dingy than from when I had made it for myself this morning. Tifa, I thought, would know how to handle this. This whole situation—Tifa would be home by now.

It was like this for a long time. I saw that Naminé had looked up, and once again, she saw the concern drowning my eyes, because I felt it too. It just seemed to flood out of me, and I couldn't stop it. I dropped my sandwich, which was already beyond question not appetizing. Naminé dropped hers too and rested her hand on top of mine, while I sat there. And I did it. For the first time in what seemed like too long, I let myself cry it out.

XX

"I hope you get the point that I was really worried about you," I said to Naminé while we were walking along the corridors. Her hand was holding my arm lightly, keeping me at not a big distance from me. I didn't want to notice at all, but the warmth of her hand kept me close to her, almost wanting it to stay as it was.

She squeezed my arm and led me through more corridors, some I felt I had never seen before. "That is what you've been doing lately, Roxas," she said. I followed her light footsteps around the entire school until it felt like we had circled the campus twice. What came after circling the campus was all her idea. "Let's get out of here," she said, the rebellious smile already apparent.

I almost froze in the middle of the hallway, but I kept walking stiffly. This was the second time we were going off campus, but this time, it was all her idea. If I was going to get a reputation now as a class ditcher, what else am I going to do to keep Naminé on a leash?

"In the middle of lunch? They're gonna have to take our names down, and then they're gonna make sure we're back in school by the end of the period—"

She rolled her eyes deviously and seemingly stomped all over the rules. Her allure alone wasn't all that forced me to follow her lead to sneak past the campus security. She convinced me thoroughly that she knew how to get out. At one point, she reached up to ruffle my hair, but she didn't playfully toussle my hair like she usually did. She smoothed my demanding spikes, and I felt her hand coming up behind my neck. Standing in that near-empty corridor, her face leaned closer to mine, her blue eyes closing gently, before she took her hand off my arm and took my hand in hers.

"I want to show you something."

XX

Nothing happened, really. I swear.

"This is one I did last weekend, and this one a few weeks ago, I'm lucky I even found this place," Naminé explained in vivid audacity. This was the most I'd seen her talk, even to me. She had led me, almost blindly with her hand over my eyes, to the abandoned rooftop of some kind of shop in the middle of Twilight Town. The sun was high in the sky, but it was still dim light that flooded the town at this angle.

I had set myself down on the rooftop pavement to look at a mural that seemed to be painted from this angle—on the floor, with a paintbrush raised to the air. "And you did all of this?" I still said skeptically. "Not that I'd doubt you'd not be able to do this, but...this kind of stuff doesn't usually happen to people from Twilight Town."

Naminé went to lay next me. Her eyes were at the same level as mine, and she saw how her painting now looked at this bizarre angle. "I did paint this stuff, and it's all I ever do when I'm not home, suffocating under a watchful glare," she said in almost one breath. "But, I don't think I'll have much freedom to leave after what happened earlier."

I went up to the large scale mural. Almost like a reflecting mirror of the entire town from this rooftop, it was painted stretching out into the atmosphere behind me, the view from the end of the building outwards. The sunset was even spot on, a hazardous mixture of sunny oranges and flaming reds.

"Does anyone else know of this?" I said, feeling the deteriorating paint. It looked like it had been washed away by early November rain.

Naminé was still looking at everything at a different angle. She hadn't sat up when she said in a so-so voice, "Not really." I turned to her, and saw how she wasn't looking at the mural anymore. Her eyes were directly and firmly fixed to the sky. I watched to see if her eyes would glaze over at the amount of time she had spent looking upwards. I sighed before I rejoined Lady Craziness on the floor.

When I wasn't staring at the spot-on representation of Twilight Town from the mural, I could just look up to see how the same flaming ambers and charcoal burned the sky permanently above Twilight Town. It was beautiful, really. Naminé had really gone on to replicate the actual emotions in the atmosphere to a mural she worked really hard on. It really startled me when Naminé broke the silence I had become already accustomed to.

"I'll let you in on a secret," she said, her voice no higher than a whispering wind breeze. It seemed like she was really serious to let me know her secret.

At first I almost tuned her out. Then I realized that the whole reason I was here was because of her having to show me something, and I didn't want this adventure to be just one-sided. I propped myself on one elbow and looked down at her from an angle. Her eyes were still fixed, but her smile was always bright and rosy.

She finally lifted her eyes from watching the sky. "I painted that sky." Her voice was lower, again in an almost whisper I had to lean closer to hear clearly. She looked to me with startling sincerity, and I couldn't help but to believe her.

"You...painted that, hm," I said lightly but sardonically. "Well...great job?"

She was still staring up at the sky, not saying anything at all. "It looks pretty for us, doesn't it?"

I went back to my position laying flat next to her. "It does." I now understood a little more on how Naminé saw her world as differently as everyone else. Whatever way she looked at it, the sky was hers, and if you looked way into the far corner of the heavens, you'd see scrawled in little black strokes, the script of "Naminé".

XX

We didn't hold hands or anything on the way back to school. It wasn't that I was pushing her to come back into the school the way we came out, anyways. Classes were ending for the day in a few minutes, so we parted ways at the courtyard and went to retrieve our belongings from our lockers. I looked back at her turning the corridor, wondering if this was the same girl I met not too long ago on the bell tower rooftop.

Once the bell had rung, I nonchalantly merged into the crowd effortlessly, crouching a little down to avoid the gaze of my afternoon teachers. Despite my efforts to stay out of sight, a strong grip fastened around my shoulder and pulled me into one of the classrooms, saying in a deep and playful voice, "Come here, lover boy."

Zack put me down in one of the stools and looked me straight in the eye, sitting at the table in front of mine with his chair facing towards me. He had such strong aqaumarine eyes that I didn't dare break my stare towards the table to face the ultimate guilt face. He said to be in heavy-set words: "You thought I wouldn't notice you gone this afternoon."

I sat in the chair, wondering if I should feel guilty for ditching classes and leaving Mr. Fair in a class without me. I didn't regret much of it; if I had told him where I had gone, then maybe he would've understood. Well, as far as trying to be excused to go into town and sitting on a rooftop looking at the sky would've been accepted. Mr. Fair continued sighing and messing up his spiky hair by pushing it back stressfully. "You, my favorite student, missing from the class? The question is, where'd you lead her off to, and what—"

I finally lifted my gaze to try to look him in the eye. "Nothing, Zack, it isn't anything major—"

Zack stopped me abruptly. "Look, Roxas. As I said, you're one of my favorite students, and it's not only that I want to see you in class, it's also that I want to help you pass. Don't know what it would do to ol' Cloudy if he learned his son would get a detention from me."

I looked up at the wall clock, seeing that I was going to be late for my already scheduled detention. "I'm actually late for my previous detention. You think my dad doesn't know I got into trouble...?"

Mr. Fair once again pushed back his hair, a bit agitated at having to babysit someone like me. He loosened his tie and let it rest around his neck. "Tell me what happened, Roxas." His teacher tone, the one where he sounded booming and full of charisma, had been replaced by a confidential and less serious tone. I had to tell somebody what I was thinking, and I finally got the chance to do so freely.

The steam I blew was enough to fill a swimming pool. Zack looked like he was listening when I described my stories about going to prom with "a certain someone" and jumping into the river because we were "being chased by Sora". So, technically, I didn't tell the whole story about what happened, but somewhere deep in my stomach, I felt it wasn't my place yet to describe the events to other people.

I briefly summarized where Naminé had gone on to bring me to, and Zack looked even more intrigued. I chose not to include the part about how Naminé disclosed her secret, but the parts about how she told me about her paintings were the highlight of my discussion with Zack. He just nodded and let me finish the story.

Zack had seemed to loosen up a little once he heard my experience, which was what I was aiming for. The last thing I needed was the only reliable adult I knew to be angry at me. Although he still sighed audibly at my story, he obviously didn't want to let me take it personally.

I don't know if it was because he gave up on me or if it was from feeling sorry for me, but he let me go easily. "Just go," he said, exhaling a weary breath. "I think I'll let you off the hook once for looking at vandalized rooftops to serve the detention you earned for causing the biggest commotion this school never wanted."

I myself breathed a sigh of relief to find that Mr. Fair was just his normal teacher self. I got off the seat and sarcastically threw him a "Yeah, okay," and grabbed my bag off the floor. Mr. Fair went back to his desk, where he sent me another salute and left me alone.

I strolled out of the classroom still a little flustered and too nervous to think about anything else but what was going to happen if I stuck around Naminé. It wasn't that she was a bad influence, but I didn't know exactly why I had the incentive to follow everything she said. It haunted me while I walked alone down the corridors to the detention room.

XX

I was walking slowly, glancing on the walls every so often to look at the various things posted on the walls—school events, paintings donated to the school, and various amounts of student work—and was lost in deep thought when I almost ran into a certain person I had been meaning to see. Ventus himself looked like he was just headed out to go home. His backpack was slung one-sided on his shoulder, and he had that carefree expression on his face that he always had. Apparently he had earbuds in his ears, because he didn't notice me almost running into him.

"Ven!" I called out to him, a little louder than normal since he always listened to louder music. He turned back, his eyes wide at the sight of seeing me. I don't know what washed all over his face: guilt, surprise, or relief. But he soon rushed over to where I was after what seemed like him avoiding me at the intersection.

"Roxas! Hey, I was trying to find you sooner or later...you didn't even show up to Fair's class, so I figured you were long gone," he said, all while he only had removed one earbud.

I wanted to make the conversation quick, to avoid a second detention from Mr. Xemnas. At first, I staggered with my words, but eventually I began to realize that this was Ven, and I was not mad at him. I surprised him enough to take his other earbud out when I said to him, "I just wanted to thank you, for what you did at prom."

His attention wholly devoted to me, I could see that he wasn't as surprised anymore, as he was smiling appreciatively. I went on to saying, "Er, well, I mean, what you didn't do, at prom."

He nodded, I suppose in agreement, and just waited to see if he was going to say anything more. "There's no need to thank me," he said, in an almost joking manner, before he continued saying, "I didn't want you to feel hurt."

"Feel hurt?" I immediately said, a little surprised Ventus would think like that. He put his bag down on the floor and leaned on the adjacent wall, listening to what I was supposed to say. Instead, he just said so nonchalantly, "I know you like—no, adore—Naminé. And I'm not just going to accept an invitation by a girl I barely know and am aware that someone else wanted to be with her. You'd actually think I thought you wouldn't go to prom, after that?

"So I made my decision, that I wasn't going to my senior prom, because I thought, well, I already had one of those, and it wasn't like it mattered anyways, since it was going to be a usual drag. I never saw much appeal in formal dances. So, you don't have much to thank me for, other than me knowing you so well."

I didn't mean to stare at Ven for such a long time, I just hadn't thought that he was that smart enough to realize my motives. He knew I was listening to his conversation with Naminé, and he knew what I would try to do afterwards. This time, I didn't blame it on twin physics, but I honestly felt that he knew me well as a friend.

All I could reply with was a standard nodding, since I was so astonished at Ven. He was still leaning on the wall when started walking in the opposite direction, but he didn't start picking his bag off the floor until I turned around, and said, again, "Thank you, then, for that, Ven."

"See you around, Roxas," Ven said, his earbuds already back in their original placement, ready to have him walk home silently. I turned the corner, past all the conversation we had, and finally found the detention room.

XX

The smell of sweat and afternoon detention filled the half-empty room. Seated at the front desk was one of the ambigous teachers I had never seen or heard about, his feet propped up on the desk while he scanned what looked like a car magazine.A dingy aura had been from the lack of sunlight in the room, the windows a little more tinted than usual. I saw that ten desks were occupied, larger than the average amount attending, possibly from the prom weekend. I didn't make eye contact with the teacher, who just said to sign my name and take a seat anywhere but "next to my friends".

Naminé hung her head low, almost flat on the desk, with her arm serving as some pillow. I took a seat in front of her, and she abruptly looked up. "Hi, Roxas," she mouthed, followed by a fleeting smile. I smiled a bit uncomfortably, still remembering the short conversation I had with Mr. Fair. Her head went back down to lie on her arm, but she kept her head up to face me. I turned my back and faced the front of the room, avoiding any kind of attention towards myself from the proctor.

I had missed the first five minutes of an uninteresting detention, but it wasn't like I didn't want to be late. We were hardly allowed to move, any sudden movements sometimes catching the attention of the automobile magazine-reading teacher. I didn't have a good view of the wall clock, so I just had to estimate the time that was left.

I had somehow found a way to make the wait a little more comfortable by propping my elbow up and leaning on that. I didn't want to make eye contact with anyone else, but I suppose that was unavoidable, since almost everyone was staring at me. The people here didn't look very troublesome, more like they had been caught at the wrong place at the wrong time. But none looked the least guiltless than the boy sitting at the front of the classroom, with spiky chocolate-colored hair, his elbow propped up and resting his head as well. It didn't look like he found it any different being in detention, but he still looked like he was annoyed to be here.

I couldn't catch the brunette's attention, much less begin to call out Sora's name. I sat a few desks away from him, but all I could do was watch and wait for my first sour detention to be over.

Once our quiet group had finally been allowed to leave early, I got up from my seat and followed everybody out of the class, most of them eager to leave and trying not to be seen leaving the detention room. Sora took his time taking his backpack from the huge pile of them at the front of the classroom, while I waited for him to even begin to look enthusiastic about anything. He looked drained of color and charm, looking like any ordinary boy from this school. But he wasn't any ordinary boy from The Twilight Terraces; he was Sora, and I knew just by looking at his face that he was not enthusiastic about seeing the boy that landed him here.

Someone tapped my shoulder, and I found a still-smiling Naminé waiting for me with her bag slung over her shoulder. She looked eager to tell me something, to which I had to try and turn her down. Before I could however, Sora brushed right past me, trying to avoid eye and physical contact with me. I didn't want to chase Sora through the hallways, since it wasn't time consuming, but I didn't want to just leave with Naminé to go see more of her paintings, no matter how much of an alluring idea it was.

I took my backpack along with me out the door, myself avoiding Naminé, and told her, "I'll talk to you tomorrow." I turned my back on her again, my eyes forced to look at the floor to avoid any eye contact with anyone myself.

XX

"Hi, I'm here to, um, see my mother...her name's Tifa Lockhart, she was admitted a few days ago," I stiffly said to the hospital secretary at the desk. I didn't like talking to anyone in a hospital, since they seemed to know a lot more about me just by looking at my face. It was like, they already knew who I was looking for before I even said so myself.

"You're her son...Roxas, I take it?" the secretary asked me. I nodded, a little anxious about seeing my mother for the first time since the dinner party. The nurse stepped out from behind her desk and led me to the elevator farther away from the front desk. She got in with me, and pushed one of the buttons in a long row of numbered buttons. When the doors finally opened, she didn't step out with me. She merely said, "Room 21," and pushed one of the buttons on the elevator to make it go back down. I was left all alone in the middle of a quieter hallway, but there were still doctors and nurses bouncing around, sometimes wheeling a mobile bed across multiple hallways.

I didn't bother asking for help or directions. I was in some unknown part of a large multi-story hospital, but I knew that most rooms went in numerical order. So it took me a few tries to find the right hallway to go through, and prepared myself from outside Room 21. The door was shut, but the placard read, "Ms. Tifa Lockhart". I didn't read the chart hanging below the name, figuring that whatever it was, I could wait a little longer to find out.

I knocked cautiously before entering, but I just went inside myself and to see her. She was in usual hospital attire, a blanket reaching up from the end of the bed to cover almost her entire torso. She was half-asleep from what I could tell, but I didn't think my judgement skills were spot-on.

Sitting next to her bed on one of the hospital-provided chairs, I saw, dressed in the same clothes as this afternoon, the same spiky-haired detention-casual brunette staring blankly towards the bed Tifa rested on. He didn't raise his eyes, but I could tell that he knew I was there. For what seemed like a long time, I just continued looking between the resting Tifa and the blank Sora. Finally working up enough courage to stand beside her bed, I was inches apart from Sora, when he finally said, "I'm sorry."

I didn't act like I was mad, because I wasn't truly angry at him. "I'm not angry at you, Sora."

"You're not? Hmph," he scoffed, and I noticed that Sora was now long-past his original self.

I still wasn't making eye contact with him when I blatantly told him, "I'm disappointed in you, that's what."

I could sense his body tensing up, and I knew that he wasn't happy I was chagrined by his behavior. It wasn't like I was trying to coach a dog, but Sora had been one of my loyal friends for a long time, so it would've been upsetting if I didn't agree with his actions.

I was now brushing Tifa's hair away from her face, her body not reacting to any nimble touch. Sora still didn't say anything, but it wasn't because he had run out of words. It was because he was a little scared of what he was going to say next. He wasn't out of words to say, but he didn't want to say anything after that.

"She's going to be like that for awhile," he finally interrupted, his voice heavy and stressed. I stopped stroking Tifa's hair, completely interested in what he was going to say. He was finally telling me something I wanted to hear.

"That's just great," I said, and before I wanted to sit down, I realized that Sora was sitting down in the only chair in the room. That's why I slowly, but smoothly, sunk down to sit on the floor. I didn't know how sterile hospital floors were, but I couldn't stand any more. I lifted my knees off the floor and looked up to Sora to see him still not looking at me, his eyes still fixed forward in time.

I knew she was sick with something, and Sora didn't have to tell me that I was somehow the cause of it. His eyes were weary-looking, and it didn't take much to see that he was here a few times before now.

"I was the first to visit after Mr. Strife dropped her off. The doctors thought I was his son, so they told me her diagnosis." He stopped to run his hand through his hair and straighten out his spikes. "Uh, I just wanted to show up and see her again. I, uh, haven't seen her since...we were younger, I guess."

I nodded, understanding what he was saying. "You're right." He didn't know how correct he was.

A/N: I'm so so soooooooooooo sorry for my absence from fanfiction. I lost track of time, or someone must've played the Song of Time, because apparently I jumped like 10 months without updating D: Truth is, my life changed...sadly. I mean, these are good changes, but it's affected my writing schedule. I'll write more about it later, but, few things to mention:

KINGDOM FREAKING HEARTS 3DS in 2 WEEKS in America! I'm literaalllly dying. I got a 3DS like last week and I finished Ocarina of Time, so I'm pumpeddd

I'm going backpacking across Europe starting August 4, so I'm trying my hardest to get OCS updated too. As stated earlier, I have a really bad schedule now, so I will be updating this a little later. I PROMISE that it won't be too long, and I hope it doesn't take too long...I'm sorry...