Lost Heaven, Part One: Awakening

Words in italics are Sora’s dreams…

WARNINGS: bad language…angst…SI…child abuse…

“…Emptiness is loneliness
and loneliness is cleanliness
and cleanliness is godliness
and god is empty just like me.

Intoxicated with the madness
I’m in love with the sadness
Bullshit fakers, enchanted kingdoms
The fashion victims chew their charcoal teeth…”

—“Zero” Smashing Pumpkins…

Chapter Two:
Zero…

He stood in a pristine room. Everything was white. The walls, the desk, the chair, the bookshelves, even the hundreds of thousands of books that were stuffed on to the shelves were a perfectly untainted white. He loved it. Though he would have enjoyed a little more color, the room radiated innocence and purity.

There were only two sources of color in the room. The first was a man and, though he wore a long white robe and his skin was almost as pale as the walls that surrounded him, his hair and beard were a magnificent shade of blonde and his eyes were a piercing gold, watching Sora’s every movement. The second was his blonde-haired twin, whose magnificent black feathered wings stood out more than anything in the room.

The brunet crossed the room to the armchairs that sat in front of the desk. He winked at his twin, who returned the gesture with a quick smile. Ansem the Wise, or DiZ as he liked to be called, sighed and steepled his fingers beneath his chin while he took his time choosing which armchair he would sit in for this “talk.”

“Please take a seat, Sora. We don’t have time to deal with your childish behavior at the moment.”

He growled and plopped down into the nearest chair, his arms crossed over his chest and a frown on his face. He had been unceremoniously pulled from his bath after being summoned by Ansem. He wondered what could possibly be so important that he couldn’t have waited a couple more minutes to speak with him.

“You know why you’ve been summoned?”

He shook his head and furrowed his brow. “No, Sir. If I’ve done something to upset you…”

Ansem laughed, cutting him off. “You’re not here for a scolding, young one. I have other…more important business that I would like the two of you to attend to.”

He frowned and cocked his head to the side, a sudden feeling of joy building in the pit of his stomach. He cast a side glance at the other boy and saw that he had a bored expression on his face but his eyes sparkled with excitement.

“We need an ambassador who is strong enough to walk into the darkness and not be overtaken. I’ve chosen the two of you. Will you prove to me that I was correct in that decision?”

He nodded. “Of course, Father.”

“We won’t disappoint you,” said the other.

Ansem nodded. “The darkness is strong and there will be many opportunities for it to try and overtake you, but I believe that the two of you are strong enough to defeat it. Sora, never once have you let darkness into your heart.” He looked to the boy who sat next to him. “Roxas. You have been a valuable asset to us in our war against the creatures of Kurai and I place all of my trust in you.”

Ansem stood from his chair and examined the books on the shelf behind his desk. “Sora. You are to pose as the ambassador while Roxas will be your guide. As Roxas is a being of Kurai, he will be accepted into the walls without fault. Roxas. You are to be sure that Sora is taken care of while he is in Kurai. As he is a being of Akari, he will not be so well accepted.”

The two nodded in understanding. Ansem turned from the bookshelf and gave them a soft smile. “I want the two of you to return here tomorrow at dawn for the rest of your orders. You are dismissed.”

The two boys stood and bowed briefly to the man before leaving his quarters. The corridor outside the Elder’s room was much more colorful that his chamber had been. The walls were painted a pale blue color and artwork depicting the millennia long war between the kingdoms of Kurai and Akari hung on them.

Once they were safely out of earshot from the room, Sora jumped around to face Roxas with a smile on his face. “We’re going to Kurai. We’re actually going to the kingdom of Kurai!”

Roxas rolled his eyes and continued walking past him. “Oh, yeah great. We get to be submerged in darkness for gods know how long, right in the center of our worst enemies. Yeah. Sounds like a party.”

Sora frowned and ran to catch up with the boy. “Oh, it can’t be that bad…”

“Have you ever seen the place outside of images in books?!” Roxas suddenly stopped and Sora had to jump to the side to keep from running into him. “It’s crawling with vile demons who will try to kill you in your sleep.”

Sora sighed and shook his head. He closed his eyes and gently touched the crown pendant he wore around his neck with his index and middle fingers. A warm tingling sensation filled his body as a pair of brilliant white wings sprouted from his shoulder blades. He jostled them gently with a satisfied sigh and laid a soft hand on Roxas’ shoulder.

“Come on.”

Roxas nodded and followed him to the nearest balcony. They walked to the edge and climbed on top of the thick marble wall. The kingdom of Akari spread out before them. It was beautiful in the day light, but Sora enjoyed it more when it was dark. The warm candle flame-like lights of the town beyond the walls of the palace broke the cold, nothingness of the dark night in places few and far between. It was late and most of the townspeople were already lost in their own dreams.

Sora smiled at Roxas and spread his wings, pointing to the mountain that loomed a couple miles ahead of them. “Race ya to it,” he said and jumped over the edge.

o-o-o-o-o

I awoke with a gasp. My eyes flew open and I jolted upright, my hands reaching behind me to grope my shoulder blades and the air behind them. I sighed and broke out into laughter when I didn’t feel anything behind me. What had I been expecting? For a pair of giant white wings to be hanging from my back? I laughed again and fell back into my bed. Yeah, right.

I closed my eyes and was just beginning to drift back of into a state of semi-unconsciousness when my cell phone started to vibrate across my nightstand. My eyes snapped open again and I glared at the phone in annoyance. Who the hell would be calling me now? I grabbed the phone and checked the caller ID on the front, growling when I didn’t recognize the number. Screw them; whoever they were could wait.

I haphazardly dropped my phone back on my nightstand and rolled onto my side so I was facing my wall. I felt Bo move around a bit on the end of my bed, but that was the last thing I knew before I drifted off to sleep.

This time I didn’t have any dreams or weird premonition-like nightmares. It was silent and black, the kind of sleep you only get when you’re extremely exhausted or intoxicated out of your right mind…the kind of sleep that borders on death… Just the way I liked it. I didn’t feel or hear anything that was in the outside world. I slept like a baby.

And I repeat. I didn’t feel or hear anything that was in the outside world.

Which means that I didn’t hear my alarm clock when it went off at its usual seven-fifteen. I didn’t hear mom’s usual morning routine as she got ready for work. The next thing I knew, I was rudely pulled out of sleep by the home phone ringing. I grumbled a few curses under my breath and blindly reached out to answer it, pulling the receiver to my ear when I finally found it.

“What?” I grumbled.

“Is this Sora Leonheart?”

I sighed and rubbed at my eyes. “The one and only.”

“Hi, Sora, this is Miss Kavins from school. I’m just calling to check up on you and make sure that everything’s okay.”

I frowned and yawned quietly, making the mistake of glancing at my clock for the time. I think my heart may have skipped a beat. It was nine-twenty-five. I had overslept! I had over freakin’ slept and now school was calling to make sure I was okay! They probably had snipers on top of the houses around mine, just waiting for me to make the wrong move so they could shoot me with their magical tranquilizer guns and carry me in for questioning.

Using the best plan I had in my still sleep-clouded mind, I coughed painfully. “Yeah, everything’s okay. I just don’t feel very well is all. I was up all night vomiting and now my head hurts so bad I can hardly think straight.” Okay…so what if I gave them the symptoms of a hangover? They could use their imaginations.

Miss Kavins laughed. “Okay, well take some medicine and get some sleep. Would you like someone to bring you a list of your assignments after school today?”

I inwardly groaned, dreading the homework I would have to make-up. “Sure. That would be great.”

“Alrighty then. I’ll have Roxas make a list and drop it off on his way home.”

“Thank you.”

“Uh-hm. Bye.”

“Bye.”

Groaning, I returned the phone to the receiver and flopped back down onto my bed. I couldn’t believe that I’d slept through my alarm. I had the thing on the loudest setting it could be on and it still hadn’t woken me up. I shook my head and pushed myself out of bed, glancing back at the black mass of hair that was still fast asleep on the end of the bed. Oh, what I wouldn’t give to be reincarnated as a dog. They sure did have the life.

I left my bedroom and went to the bathroom so I could empty my bladder before slowly making my way downstairs to the kitchen. I dug through the kitchen cabinets and refrigerator for something to eat, settling on a whole-some bowl of cereal and my daily glass of orange juice, and then made my way into the living room. Bo slumped down the stairs just as I was making myself comfortable on the couch and curled into a ball on the floor beneath my feet.

I ate my bowl of cereal in silence, the television as my company. There was something odd yet humorous and most definitely annoying about Regis and Kelly but I couldn’t stop watching it. I blame it on the subliminal messages that my father had always joked the TV sent into my brain, drawing me in until it was too late. At least it didn’t make me feel so bad about watching Veggie Tales on Saturday morning.

My heart twisted into a tight, painful ball at the thought of my father. It hurt so bad that I stopped eating and clutched my chest. My breathing was hard and my eyes watered. I doubled over and my bowl of cereal fell to the floor, spilling Lucky Charms and milk all over the living room floor. The curses I tried to spit out were choked in my throat. It felt like my windpipe was constricting to about half its size.

Then, as quickly as it had happened, it stopped. My eyes watered as I gulped down breath after breath of oxygen, quiet little whimpers slipping through my lips. I fell sideways onto the couch and curled my legs up to my chest, wrapping my arms around them.

“Riku…”

The words came as a whisper…as a plea. For no reason at all, I wanted him more than anything I’d ever wanted in the world. I didn’t try to hold back the tears that started to fall sideways down my face. I didn’t try to hold back the sob that seemed to come from my toes.

I was alone. Here I was, having yet another breakdown, and I was alone. I buried my face in the couch cushion and screamed as loud as I possibly could. I wanted to cut myself more than anything. No, I needed to do it. I pushed myself up from the couch and ran upstairs. The sound of my cell phone vibrating across my bedside table as I walked past my bedroom was the only thing to distract me. Grumbling quiet curses under my breath, I went to the table and grabbed the annoying thing from it. I didn’t need to check the caller ID to know that it was Roxas.

“What?”

“Where the hell are you?”

He shouted so loud that I had to hold the phone back from my ear so I wouldn’t go deaf. Somewhere in the back-ground, I heard a teacher utter Roxas’ name as a warning and I laughed.

“I’m not kidding, Sora. Where are you? Miss Kavins asked me to get your assignments for you. Are you okay?”

I laughed again. “Yes, I’m fine, Roxas. I just overslept.”

He sighed loudly in the phone and it came to me as a loud scratching sound across the receiver. “Good. I was worried that something had really happened to you yesterday. Seeing you breakdown like that was freaky.”

“I broke down yesterday too?” I muttered.

Somewhere in my head I pictured him nodding during his pause before realizing I couldn’t see him. “Yeah. In the bathroom during chemistry. Don’t you remember? And what do you mean by ‘too’? You didn’t freak out today, did you?”

I sighed. “You’re being a mother hen, Roxas.”

“Someone has to since your mother never seems to care too much about what you do and who you do it with.” He paused and I pictured him blushing with my mental eye. “No…sorry…that was wrong of me to say…”

“No, you’re right. I know my mom’s a bitch so you don’t have anything to apologize for.”

He laughed quietly. “Hey, Miss Kavins is giving that look.” He sighed. “I gotta go, but I’ll see you after school, okay?”

“Yeah… Oh hey! Roxas!”

“Hm…?”

“Do you know of a place named Kurai?”

There was a long pause before: “I’ll see you later, Sora.”

I sighed. “Yeah.” I closed my phone with a loud snap and slouched down into my bed.

There had been a small hint of something in his pause—something that told me he knew what I had been talking about. But how? It was a dream world, same as Akari or whatever the hell the other place had been called. Maybe his pause had just been an “okay, my best friend is crazy” pause. Or maybe it actually did mean something. I sighed loudly and fell backwards on my bed. Whatever it had been, it wasn’t going to do me any good worrying about it since I wouldn’t get to see him for another few hours anyway.

I pushed myself up from my bed and headed back downstairs, completely foregoing my previous plans. As quickly as the feeling had come, the need to cut myself was gone. All I wanted now was to take a nap. But first I had to clean up the milk that was splattered all across the living room floor. Thankfully it was hardwood so it didn’t take long to get it up, but it was still physical labor and it annoyed me to no end.

But when I was done, I happily flopped down into the couch and pulled the blanket draped across the back of it over my body, turning the TV down a few notches as I did so it wouldn’t wake me. My eyes slid closed and I was lost to sleep almost immediately.

I woke up two hours later to my stomach growling like a gianormous, malnourished beast. I groaned loudly and rubbed at my eyes in irritation as I pushed myself up from the couch and headed for the kitchen so I could ransack the cupboards.

Yeah, and remember that old nursery rhyme about Old Mother Hubbard who went to the cupboard to do something that rhymed with Hubbard and cupboard? Well…we had more food than that, but of course we didn’t have any food that I could just pop in the microwave and eat to quickly quiet the monster in my stomach. Because that would just be too easy, and the gods seemed to think that it would be rather comical to watch little ole’ me whip something up.

I muttered a few censored words under my breath and started to dig around the cupboards for anything I could throw together to make lunch. I checked the clock when I set a pan of water on the stove after setting on some ramen. It was quarter after three, which meant that Roxas would be over in fifteen minutes to save me from my poor, pitiful day of lonesomeness. To give me some minor company, though, I turned on the radio and cranked up the volume.

I was blissfully zoned out of the world around me as I dropped my noodles into the pot of boiling water, mumbling the lyrics to the Smashing Pumpkin’s song “Zero” under my breath as it started on the radio. I was really getting into the song by the time I got to the second verse. Forgoing the mumbling, I belted out the lyrics and did a little jig while I stirred.

“Emptiness is loneliness and loneliness is cleanliness and cleanliness is godliness and god is empty just like me…” I played a little air guitar with my spoon before using it as a microphone. “Intoxicated with the madness. I’m in love with my sadness. Bullshit fakers, enchanted kingdoms. The fashion victims chew their charcoal teeth…”

“Wow…you really get into cooking ramen, don’t you?”

I yelped loudly and turned around, my spoon/guitar/microphone clattering to the ground as I did. Roxas was lean-ing against the entryway of the kitchen, an amused smile on his face.

“Forgive me for interrupting but I couldn’t stand to let you embarrass yourself like that anymore,” he said with a chuckle.

I glared at him and picked my spoon up from the ground. He laughed again and pushed himself away from the wall, settling down in a chair by the table instead. I ignored him to the best of my abilities. I rinsed the spoon with some water before I dipped it back into the pot to stir my noodles.

He watched me in silence for a while, tapping his foot along with the new song on the radio, a new Iron Maiden song that I’d only heard once before. The silence was killing me. I sighed and turned to him with a cocked eye-brow.

“Want some?”

The smile I got was purely Roxas. It seemed to spread all the way to his ears and it brushed along his eyes, giving them that small twinkle that made him look younger than he really was. It was cute, in all honesty, though I would never say that to his face. While it was okay to hear from girls, I can only imagine how freaky it would be to hear from your best friend.

Humming the song on the radio, I finished up the ramen I had been making and handed it to Roxas. He took it with another smile, bursting out in laughter when my stomach growled loudly.

“You sure you don’t want this one? I can make my own.”

I shook my head. “No. Go ahead. I can wait.”

He shrugged and happily dove into the bowl before him. I snorted and turned to add the new pack of noodles to the pot. Somewhere between five and ten minutes later, my ramen was done and I ate it with breakneck speed, slurping up the noodles and drinking up the broth. Roxas laughed at me when I threw him a Coke from the fridge when I was done.

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen you eat that fast before in my life. It’s like you were starved or something.”

I shrugged and popped open my can of Sunkist. “I slept through lunch.”

He laughed and took a long swig from his Coke.

“Did I miss anything important today? Well, besides Selphie’s latest gossip…” I sighed. “I don’t understand why she won’t sit with Tidus and Wakka anymore.”

“Because Kairi was the only one of the three that really liked her. It’s kinda easy to get the hint when you’re disliked by everyone at the table with you,” Roxas muttered. “But no, you didn’t miss anything important. We do have quiz tomorrow in chemistry, though.”

I sighed. “Chemistry… Sorry. How was it?”

He shrugged. “Not bad, actually. We had a sub so we didn’t get to work on our labs. Riku and Axel mostly kept to themselves.”

I nodded and took a long drink from my Sunkist. “I don’t understand why they hate us so much. I mean, we haven’t done anything to them, right? So why do they think they can treat us so badly?”

Roxas laughed sadly and closed his eyes. “Who knows, Sora? Just let it go.”

I frowned and furrowed my brow. “No! I won’t let it go!” I slammed my can onto the counter and fell down into one of the chairs. “And I think you know something. You know why they hate us, don’t you? Why? What did we do wrong?”

He sighed. “It’s nothing, Sora. I don’t know why they hate us.”

“Liar!”

He jumped and looked at me with surprised eyes. I got even more pissed as tears welled up in my eyes and I pounded my fist down on the table.

“Don’t lie to me! I know that you know. Now tell me. And you know about Kurai and Akari… They’re real, aren’t they? I don’t understand how they can feel so real if they aren’t. And the comet. You see it too, don’t you?”

He sighed again and looked me straight in the eye. His eyes were so sad, the usually sky blue irises that matched the color of my own a few shades darker.

“You’re gonna get even more pissed at me for this,” he muttered, “but I can’t tell you. It’s something you have to find out on your own, like we did.”

I glared at him, anger flaring in my chest. “What do you mean like ‘we’ did? Like who did? You? Riku and Axel? What? What am I missing? Why can’t you tell me if you already fucking understand?!”

Roxas shook his head and pushed himself up from the table. He grabbed his can threw it away on his way out of the kitchen. I stood and followed him. He went to the door and shrugged his backpack over his shoulders. He dug around in the back pocket of his jeans and his hand reemerged with a piece of paper.

“Here. It’s your assignments…” he muttered.

I took it silently and shoved it down into the back pocket of my own jeans. He pulled the door open and fixed his bag on his shoulders.

“I would tell you if I could, but it would be breaking the rules. I’ll tell you if you don’t remember soon, okay?” he muttered. I answered him with more silence. He chuckled and shook his head. “Just…look… Don’t do anything stupid tonight, okay, Sora? I’ll call you later to check up on you. And I’ll just keep calling if you don’t answer your phone so don’t try that, either.”

And then he was gone. He walked down the steps to our porch, crossed our lawn, and headed toward home when he reached the sidewalk.

I sighed and closed the door when he was out of my line of vision, guilt slowly overcoming me. I shouldn’t have been so cold…so harsh. But dammit! I didn’t understand why he couldn’t explain things to me when he already understood them. He hadn’t denied the existence of Kurai and Akari and he hadn’t denied that he’d seen the comet either. What did it mean?

I growled quietly to myself and made my way upstairs. I ignored my bedroom and the cell phone that was vibrat-ing across my bedside table. I wouldn’t let it distract me this time.

I closed and locked the bathroom door behind me and dug around in my drawer for what I knew would be there. I just held the blade in my hand for a moment before I did anything, taking the time to breathe. It was harder than it should have been.

I shook my head and, for the first time in months, watched my hand as I pressed the blade to my skin and drew. I was amazed as I watched the blood well at the opening of the cut in small bubbles before they burst and sent three rivers of crimson cascading down my arm. But it wasn’t enough. No. I needed more.

I dragged the blade across my already scarred flesh again and again. It wasn’t until the upper half of my forearm was covered in blood that I let the blade fall from my hands and clatter to the ground. The sigh that followed the clang of metal against marble echoed off the walls of the bathroom.

Relaxation stole over my senses and it felt like heaven. I closed my eyes and smiled. I was able to breathe and the grey fog that had started to cloud my mind was cleared. When I opened my eyes again I saw things in vivid color. The brightly colored fish that decorated the shower curtain stood out and seemed to blend together. The pale blue of the walls looked more like the sky than it ever had, feeding my sense of calmness.

But then I looked down at my arm. Red was everywhere. It stained the leg of my jeans, the loose sleeve of my jacket that had slipped back over the wounds when I had moved. It was on the floor and, of course, my skin.

The shining blade seemed to wink at me from where it had landed on the floor. An immediate sense of shame overwhelmed me. Growling, I picked up the blade and threw it across the bathroom.

o-o-o-o-o

Mom was late getting home from work. Like usual. And, also like usual, she was angry when she got home and saw that I hadn’t made anything for dinner. I stood in the middle of my bedroom and took the verbal abuse as she ranted…and ranted…and ranted. All I could do was stand there and in silence and nod whenever the need arose because I couldn’t tell her what had really happened. I don’t know how she would have taken it if I had told her that I hadn’t gotten around to making dinner because I was washing the blood out of my clothes that had gotten there from me cutting myself, but I don’t think it would have been very good.

“I work my ass off to keep a roof over your head and food on your plate, and you can’t even repay me by having a simple dinner ready when I get home? Do you just want me to work even harder for you, my little failure? My little mistake?”

I flinched and she laughed. Closing my eyes, I gathered the courage to do something I knew with my heart of hearts would backfire.

“I’m going to see Leon soon and I’m going to tell him what you do to me. He won’t want anything to do with you then.” I know that it was a lie, but it was only remotely hurtful thing I could think of to throw back in her face.

Now, my mother is a beautiful woman, with long brown hair and bright blue eyes, but the rage that marred her face from those words transformed her from an angel into the demon that she really was. Her eyes narrowed and her hands instantly found my throat, her favorite starting point. She shook me back and forth, my head flopping like a rag doll, and the pain that came with it was excruciating, but I refused to let it show. I would let her have her moment of release because it was only fair. I would get mine later.

“How dare you do that to me?! How dare you!” Her face was inches from mine and bright red from her anger. It would have been funny had she not been spitting on me with every word she spoke.

“He deserves to know that the mother he cares for is a psycho-bitch from hell. He knows that you’re no angel, but he would never expect you to do this.”

She screamed and smacked me hard across the face, but her hand around my throat kept me from falling. I could feel blood seeping from a cut in my mouth and the pain from one of her rings reopening the cut that was still healing on my cheek from the last time she had beat me.

“How dare you disrespect me like that! How dare you!! All I want is a little respect. Is that too hard to ask for?” She was shouting so loud that her voice was cracking. I’d be surprised if the neighbors couldn’t hear her. “You are a bastard son! You don’t deserve to be alive!”

I hated my mother, but those words were like a knife through my heart. I stared at her with wide, blinking eyes, trying to grasp on to what she said, to know that it had been real. She let go of me with a quiet snarl, tears in her eyes, and shoved me away from her. I stumbled and fell backwards on to my bed when my knees hit its edge.

I stared at my mom, cursing at the tears that had started to form in my eyes. “Is that how you really feel, Mother? Well…I guess you do. Since I’m your little mistake, and all.” I didn’t try to hide the hurt in my voice because I knew that it would have only made it worse than it already was.

She stared back at me with wide eyes and a hand over her mouth, tears dripping down her cheeks. Be-fore I had the chance to ask another question, she turned and ran away. I heard her footsteps as she ran down the hallway and the loud slam as she made it into her room. Her muffled sobs filled the silence of the house after that.

I violently wiped the tears from my cheeks in frustration and got up to close my door. I peeked out in the hallway to see Bo lying at the top of the stairs, looking at me sadly. I smiled at him and beckoned for him to come to me. He did, albeit slowly and with his tail between his legs. I closed the door behind us when we were both inside my room and sighed. Bo sat on the floor in front of me and watched me intently. I smiled at him and dropped to a knee so I could be at his level.

“It’s okay, buddy,” I said. “You didn’t do anything. Momma’s not mad at you, it’s me.”

He whined quietly and licked my hand before standing and jumping up onto my bed. He curled up into a ball by the wall and watched me as I checked my reflection out in the mirror. I actually didn’t look too bad. My clothes were still intact and my hair was moderately presentable. The only thing that didn’t go with my slightly rumpled appearance was the steadily bleeding cut on my cheek. I touched it gently and hissed as pain shot across my nerves. Great. Not only had she reopened the cut, but she’d made it deeper too.

“Stay,” I said to Bo and quietly crept out of my room to the bathroom.

I searched the cabinets for rubbing alcohol and cotton rounds, bandages and tape, and set to work on cleaning the wound. It wasn’t pretty. The rubbing alcohol stung and the cotton from the balls stuck to the drying blood. It hurt like a bitch, but I welcomed the pain. I didn’t want to put a bandage over the cut, but I knew that it would keep bleeding if I didn’t. I settled on a cotton round folded in half, held down with a piece of medical tape.

I was about to leave when something else caught my attention. Bruises were starting to form around my throat. I sighed. I was tired. I would take care of that in the morning. But now…

I quietly left the bathroom and returned to my bedroom, closing the door behind me. Bo was still lying on my bed but he was asleep. I smiled at him and pulled my sweater over my head, trying my hardest to keep my head from drifting to my reflection in my closet doors. I hadn’t had a decent thing to eat in about a month. My ribs were just beginning to peek out from my chest and cuts were scattered here and there across my chest and stomach.

I shed my khaki pants next and replaced them with a pair of plaid pajama pants. I really, really wanted to cut myself, but I was too tired and I wanted to call Roxas for some reason before I went to bed. I wanted to apologize to him for how I had acted when he stopped by after school. He answered on the second ring.

“Oh, well this is a surprise,” he said with a hint of laughter in his voice. “What’s up?”

I sighed. “Just wanted to say sorry for how I acted earlier today. It was wrong of me to be so…mean.” I frowned at my lack of a better word but “mean” seemed to work perfectly fine.

Roxas sighed and I pictured him running a hand back through his blonde spikes with my mental eye. It was scary how well I knew his habits and how well he knew mine. It was almost like we were long lost brothers or something like that.

“It’s fine, Sora. I understand. You had every right to be angry with me today. I know it’s not fair and I know that it sucks.” He sighed again. “If I could, I would tell you everything in a heartbeat. You believe me, don’t you?”

I nodded, but didn’t need to correct myself before I heard him laugh.

“Good. Anyway…” I could hear more sadness entering his voice and it made me frown. “I talked to Naminé today.”

I sighed. Great. That sadness in his voice combined with the mention of Naminé most definitely couldn’t mean good news.

“And…”

He sighed. “As of five-thirty tonight, we were done.” He sighed again. “She said she was getting the pain over with before it would be too difficult to handle.”

“Do what?” I plopped down into my bed and ran a hand through Bo’s hair. He groaned and rolled over onto his back so I could rub his belly. “What’s she mean by that?”

“It’s Naminé. She knows these things. And I knew that it was coming too. It’s hard to hold myself back whenever he’s around. If she hadn’t broken things off now, I would have cheated on her and then left her or just left her.” He sighed. “It’s better this way.”

I furrowed my brow. “Who are you talk…” My eyes widened and my mouth fell open. “It’s Axel, isn’t it…? She was afraid that you were going to leave her for Axel?”

There was no response. I couldn’t even hear Roxas’ breathing on the other end. I sighed.

“Oookay. Sorry. But, seriously. He hates you and you hate him, right? So how could anything happen between the two of you?”

Still no answer. It was starting to annoy me.

“Roxas. Please. Answer me. I know you can’t tell me the details or whatever, but I want you to talk to me. You’re my best friend. I’m worried about you.”

Roxas sighed. “You’re a pain in the ass,” he muttered. “And a hypocrite.”

I laughed. “And so what if I am. It only makes you love me even more.”

He chuckled quietly. “I guess… Anyway. I can’t talk about it right now but I’ll talk to you about it tomorrow. I promise.”

I nodded and he laughed.

“Okay. Goodnight, Sora.”

“’Night,” I muttered and closed my phone with a snap that made Bo jump.

I sighed and put the phone on my bedside table and snuggled into bed. I lay on my side and buried a hand in Bo’s soft fur, smiling when he stretched and I heard him groan. It wasn’t long until I drifted off and found myself wandering aimlessly through the dreamland of Akari, the black-winged Roxas at my side again.

TBC…
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Bleh…it took me forever and a day and a half to write this chapter. ::sighs:: Oh, well. ‘Tis done now and that’s all that matters, I guess…

I’m going to write five chapters that give little snippets into Riku’s thoughts about everything that’s going on…the first one will be next the next chapter. The segments are called ((Another Side, Another Story)). Original, ne? Hehe…

To Laura...Thank you very much for your review! I'm glad that you enjoy reading "Awakening" so much. And thank you for pointing out the misplaced hyphens. I didn't put them there on purpose. It's because I use the hyphenation thing in Word while I write and when I copied the chapter to put it on aff.net the hyphens came with it. Sorry, but I went through a fixed as many of them as I could find in both this chapter and the last...I also edited the prologue and changed it a bit, just to let you know...::hugs::...Thanks again for your review!!...

Alrighty...until next chatper, adieu...