Kingdom Hearts Fan Fiction ❯ Untitled Notepad ❯ Purely By Chance ( Chapter 2 )

Ch.2: Purely by chance

 

-Meep Meep woooooooo. Nothing really story-relevant to say here. Hm....well, I've just been ad-libbing this thing and hoping it turns out right. With my other stories I've always planned everything out beforehand. Right now my little sister is screaming her eyes out. I had to put this story on hiatus due to the sudden relocation of the computer.

 

The sack of skin and bones formally known as Kairi bobbed her way down the sidewalk by her house, listening to her CD player. Unlike her friend Sora, who ran around with his CD player wherever he went, she rarely turned the thing on. Usually she was either on her laptop or sitting around by the phone waiting for Sora or Riku to call. But not today. Even she had to admit, she spent way too much time by herself. Her parents said that if she stayed that way she'd end up like the lady across the street that pushed a shopping cart full of cans up and down the street. Usually whatever her parents had to say about her personality quirks annoyed her so much she chose not to listen, but it was a little obvious, even to her, that she was just a tad bit too introverted.

That being said, she suddenly felt inspired to get up and get out.

In other words, go down to the park.

 

Small steps Kairi, small steps.

And so, as she walked down the street and into worlds unknown (the only time she ever went out was to go to school or Sora or Riku's house-and they were in the opposite direction), she held the unwavering feeling like the whole outside world would swallow her up whole when she least expected it . Aside from whatever people in her chat room or her teachers talked about, she knew next to nothing about the world. Even when she, Sora, and Riku would still hang out on a daily basis, she was unconsciously standoffish.

"Kairi, you need to learn how to have fun" Riku would tease her whenever she refused to swordfight with him and Sora. She would usually join in on the stupidity, but as the three of them got older and she started to drift apart from the two of them, she found herself reclusive and shy around them, even though they were her two best-and only-friends.

'It's not my fault I'm not outgoing...' she thought as she stared at the moving sidewalk. `It's just that I'm not…made for interacting with people.'

All around her she would see couples holding hands, unruly teens and children running for their dear lives for some unseen entity, some unexplained feeling she'd just never grasped before. In a world so full of people it made her feel…

`Lonely…'

Kairi continued her mini-journey of the outside world and headed for the swings on Broken Slide Park (that wasn't the actual name; it just had a broken slide).

 

Once she sat down on one of them and set her CD player aside, some guy with a tattoo on his face noticed her and yelled in her direction. He was playing football with a bunch of people, or at least looked like he was, when he said "Hey, how old are you? Five? Get off the swings, idiot!"

Kairi's face flushed in shame. She felt like an idiot. It really shouldn't have mattered to her, what some random guy she didn't know had to say to her. But it did. No matter how hard she tried to block other people out, hurtful words seemed to be more easily heard than helpful ones.

“…”

Kairi averted her gaze and considered just putting her headphones on so he'd leave her alone. Would he really have left her alone, though?

`No, I should've just left my headphones on…or never have walked out of my house in the first place…'

Kairi knew it was stupid, and didn't really want to, but got up off the swing and started to walk in the other direction, causing the guy and some of his friends to howl with laughter.

'Why do I have to be so timid?' she thought as she blinked back her tears of frustration.

'Why can't I be the kind of person to stand up for myself? I wish I could just be able to stand up and say-'

 

"Hey, fuck off!"

With wide eyes, Kairi spun around to see who had said that (and if it had been said to her).

To add to her shock, she could see Yuffie standing with her back to her, talking to the guy with the tattoo.

"It's not right to pick on people; she's just a kid..."

"Whatever, Yuffie. She looks the same age as you" Tattoo guy said as Yuffie turned around and jogged towards the swings.

Kairi stood there with her mouth open as Yuffie approached her, wiping sweat off her forehead.

"Don't listen to Zell" she said as she stopped walking, "he gets angry when he looses. And loose he did".

Kairi smiled weakly and tried not to look at Yuffie.

She was wearing the smallest tank top Kairi had ever seen and very short khaki shorts.

 

'How can she wear something like that in front of all those boys?' Kairi thought wildly as Yuffie continued.

"So I guess this is the second time I've saved you, huh?” she teased.

"Uhm, yeah..."

Yuffie's smile faded and she tilted her head and rested her hand on her hip.

"How come you never talk? You act so meek all the time".

Kairi shrugged.

Yuffie shook her head and smiled giving Kairi a weird look.

"Look, just be careful or whatever. Pretty much every time I see you you're in some kind of trouble. You're just as bad as Rinoa, and from experience I know that that's a little bad…"

"Hey hey hey, Yuffie!"

Yuffie spun around and Kairi could see a girl with long black hair waving comically as she approached them. She looked so comical, in fact, that Kairi actually had to suppress the urge to grin at her as she bounded over to them. She looked ridiculous.

 

"Oh, hey Rinoa" Yuffie said, abandoning Kairi.

'Who's that? Older sister?' Kairi thought as the girl...Rinoa...smiled at the approaching Yuffie.

"Nothing much, just came to pick you up" she said, kissing her on the forehead.

....Huh?

“Oh hey, this is Kairi, she goes to my school.”

“Ah? The Kairi? Pleased to meet you.” Rinoa smiled, offering a hand to an awkwardly stunned Kairi. It wasn't really that big of a deal that Yuffie was gay. Right? Riku and Sora were, and she didn't have any problem with them…

“Kairi? You alive?” Yuffie asked, waving her hand in front of the other girl's face (which was undoubtedly blank as ever in an attempt to not seem rude). “Huh? Oh, sorry, I was…lost a bit-I mean! I, uh, I'm not having much of an appetite lately!”

“You wha?”

Yeah….more than a little awkward.

 

 

___________________

 

Yuffie whistled a happy tune as she stalked the main school hallways. She was looking for Irvine...or Kairi. For some reason, just because Irvine had seen Yuffie say hi to Kairi in the hallway once, he seemed to think they were best friends and that she could hook them up.

Regardless to say, Yuffie knew practically nothing about Kairi other than the fact that she was so introverted it was crazy. But hey, Irvine was a friend and that's what friends do.

'Even though I don't think Kairi would go out with someone like Irvine', she thought, thinking of Irvine's rather erratic behavior. In all honesty it was hard to imagine timid little Kairi in a relationship with Irvine, who seemed to be the embodiment of everything wrong with guys. In spite of herself, Yuffie felt kinda bad setting them up. Irvine wasn't even really all that much of a friend- just someone who hung out with people she hung out with. If anything, he'd probably end up hurting Kairi somehow. `But it's not like Kairi and I are friends, so why am I worried about it…? Oh, right, like I can just sit around while Irvine takes advantage of random girls…'

Just as she began to ponder where she would be if she were one of them, there was a flash of red, white, and purple, and Yuffie was practically ran over.

"Wh-what the hell?!" she yelled as someone ran full speed in the opposite direction without bothering to ask if she survived the mauling.

'Kids these days' she thought as she rubbed her arm. Whoever that was sure had legs on 'em.

 

"Hey! Kairi wait!"

Kairi? “Hey, was that Kairi?”

Next thing she knew, two guys were lumbering down the hallway in her direction.

"Don't run me over!” she yelled, dodging out of their way. She wasn't really in the mood to be ran over again.

"Hey Yuffie, have you seen…seen…?” Riku asked, clearly out of breath.

"H...hey, have you seen a little redhead run by here?” Sora asked, clutching his knees and gasping for breath. The boy obviously needed some exercise if running around a school the size of a small child was exhausting to him. Poor thing.

"Ehhh...maybe. Someone ran me over, that's for sure".

"Kairi" both the boys said in unison.

Yuffie laughed.

"Lost your groupie, eh?” it was funny, honestly, how pathetic they looked. At that moment Yuffie realized that she had almost never seen the two of them without their tag along girl.

Sora smiled and ran his fingers through his hair.

"Maybe for good, actually..."

Yuffie blinked.

"How so? What, ya'll get in a fight?"

Riku and Sora exchanged nervous glances and laughed weakly.

"Well...let's just say she saw something and got a little upset" he said, smiling off into the distance.

"You can just leave it at that" a smiling Yuffie said, not wanting to hear the finer details.

 

"She went that way" she said as she pointed to the freshman hallway.

"Thanks" they said as they strode off in hopes of finding her.

'Hm' Yuffie thought as she continued her never-ending search.

'So Kairi didn't know they were going together, eh?'

"....Wonder why".

 

*******************************************

 

Kairi held her head high as she walked the school hallways.

No more being pushed around! Kairi of Old ended today, she had decided. After all, she couldn't go through life with her head down (even though she didn't really consider high school "life"). She made it to her locker and managed to talk to her friend Selphie without being humiliated or anything. Not that she was the target of school bullying, but she did seem to be an embarrassment magnet.

Today was a good day.

'Oh!' she thought, suddenly remembering that she'd left her laptop in the computer club room so Selphie (who seemed to have disappeared of the face of the world) could use it. She'd left it there yesterday after the last meeting, saying she'd get it the next day. 'How could I be so stupid?!' she thought. That's why she'd come to school so early, after all. Usually she didn't get to school a little while before school started. Her computer was like an extension of herself, not having it with her was like…not having an arm or something, but not as disfiguring. `I had to watch TV with my parents all day' she thought, shuddering. She never did like TV too much, or at least the shows her parents watched.

 

'Good thing I remembered...' she thought as she headed towards the club room. Hopefully it wasn't stolen or whatever. That'd be a little hard to explain to her parents.

She twisted the doorknob and prepared to enter.

As she opened the door expecting just to grab her laptop and leave (maybe snagging one of those nasty cinnamon candies for Sora that he liked even though he spat them out and said they were too “hot”), she was met with an...unexpected sight.

Once again, she knew Sora and Riku were an item, but such a blatant display of…being coupled was kind of startling, not to mention embarrassing.

"Eh!" she yelped.

"Oh, uh, Kairi, what're you doing here so early?" Riku said with a nervous laugh as he backed away from a blushing Sora.

Kairi just stared. They were not. Tactful. Why in the computer room in the first place? Sure, it's pretty much empty 24/7, but still…they knew Kairi hung out with Selphie there sometimes. Plus, they had to recognize her laptop ( it was on the table right behind them, for crying out loud…).

Sora rubbed his neck nervously and said, "Uh, it's...not what it looks like, we were just-"

 

"Do you think I'm stupid or something?" Kairi asked, frowning at them with all the backbone she could muster. It wasn't like she was mad. It wasn't like she was jealous or anything like that, she just felt…betrayed. To find out like that was a little hurtful. Sure, she already knew, but why couldn't they have just came out and said so?

Sora and Riku looked at Kairi in shock.

"What?"

"I'm not an idiot, you know!” Kairi said as she stared at the ground and balled her fists. She was going to regret this later on, she knew it, but she still couldn't help herself from getting mad. They'd been friends since kindergarten, and if anything she had the right to know about them being together. The only reason she was so upset was that they were hiding it from her, Kairi, their best friend in the whole world. Or supposedly.

"I know you two are dating! I mean, how I could not? It's so obvious- everyone knows! Why couldn't you guys tell me? Aren't we friends? Haven't we known each other forever? I don't keep anything from you; so why do it to me?”

Riku bit his lip and Sora nervously cracked his knuckles. This made her feel bad for yelling. She didn't want to fight or yell or any of that. She was just so frustrated.

"Ehm...Kai, we only didn't tell you because..."

Sora glanced nervously at Riku, who kind of avoided his glance and paid unnecessary attention to the room door, looking like he wanted to run out of it.

"Because..."

"Because what?" Kairi yelled, shocking even herself.

 

"Why, Sora? Riku? You should know that you two can tell me anything. Why are we…”

`Drifting apart' she finished to herself, not even mustering up the gumption to say it out loud. In truth, the two of them were her closest friends. Sure, she had Selphie, but that was totally different from what she had with the other two. Not having them was like not having a part of herself. What had she done to them to be cast out like she was?

Sora looked at the ground and Riku looked away.

"Why did you have to hide it? I wouldn't hide something like this from you two!"

There was an awkward silence, something that had never, in all nine years of knowing each other, happened. Kairi sighed and hung her head. This was bad.

Now they were probably mad and wouldn't ever talk to her again. She'd probably ruined their friendship because she felt left out.

`But even so, I have a right to be upset…right?'

 

"We...we weren't trying to hide it..." Sora began.

"It was just...too hard to say" Riku said, looking at her.

"You are our best friend, Kairi...we didn't want you to think any less of us because we're gay..." Sora said, doing that watery thing with his eyes that always made Kairi think of him as a puppy. His timing sure sucked; he had no right to pull that when she was on a rant.

"How could you even think that?" she yelled back, trying not to fall for the Puppy Eyes.

"I'm your friend, for goodness sake! I would never think less of you two for anything you do!"

Sora and Riku said nothing.

"I would never..." she continued.

 

'Is that true?' she thought.

'Would the way I see them have changed if they had told me? I said it wouldn't, but with Yuffie...'

It was hard to know. She barely even knew Yuffie and had judged her because of her sexuality, so what would she had said about the two of them?

Kairi brushed past them and grabbed her laptop.

"I'll see you later" she muttered as she strode away. `If I ever see you again.'

"It's cause you're so sheltered, you know" Riku said, turning towards her as she began to leave the room.

"And Kairi, you can't say you wouldn't have been freaked out. Because you're just so naive when it comes to the world you get upset when you encounter something you don't know how to deal with. No, you wouldn't have done it to be hurtful to us, but just think about it. You would've been awkward about it and so would we. Then what do you think would happen? You'd avoid us, like you do with everything you have problems with. That's why we haven't told you, Kairi."

Kairi turned to him, wide-eyed and unable to reply. He'd hit the nail on the head.

"Riku..." Sora muttered sharply.

 

Kairi's lip trembled as Riku stared a hole through her. He was right and they both knew it.

“I…well, I don't really know what to say. Sorry. Hope you two are happy together; don't let my naïveté get in the way of things” she said, moving through them and into the hallway.

"Riku, you idiot!" she heard Sora snap as she skidded down the hallway. She didn't care what she had told herself earlier about not being so cry babyish and timid, but she couldn't help herself. How could this happen?

The three of them had always been best friends!

Aside from minor fights, they had never gotten that angry. And these minor fights were always over dumb stuff, like who got to scare Sora on Halloween, or who got to eat the last tater tot.

'This is my fault!' she thought as she turned to run down the main hallway. 'They only couldn't tell me because I'm too naive to be able to accept it!'

 

In the great hurry she was in, she ran into someone in the usual cliched fashion.

She wasn't really in the mood for another argument, seeing as how she'd most likely just lost her two best friends, so she just kept going until she reached the freshman hallway, gasping for breath and clutching her knees like an idiot.

She leaned against the wall and hung her head as she tried to fight back the tears that were probably going to claim another victory over her.

'I'm so stupid...' she thought miserably.

Of course all this had to happen on the day she was going to make her miraculous change. She was being more Kairi-ish than usual that day. The only thing missing was someone to witness the spectacle that was her awkwardness-

"Hey, you okay?"

The Voice From Nowhere surprised her so much she jolted up, bumping her head on the wall.

“Oh, gosh, sorry! I didn't mean to scare you; you're so jumpy, though. Here, take this.” Looking up, she saw one of Yuffie's friends, the one with the cowboy hat, giving her a look somewhere between amusement and curiosity. The first thing she could remember about the first impression he left on her was wonder about just how he managed to get away with his hat thing when hats were against dress code in the first place. She knew enough about him, though; he was a troublemaker (as were most of the people who Yuffie seemed to associate with). "I'm fine!" she said as she straightened up as much as possible without her head throbbing in agony. Maybe she had a concussion.

"Here" he said again, holding out a handkerchief with a huge smile on his face like on those teen dramas Sora used to watch. In all honesty, it was totally creepy. Kairi didn't even know him and he was shooting crazy psycho vibes all over the place. But, then again, she started off distrusting everyone, so maybe the crazy psycho vibes were just in her head.

"Use this..."

 

'Who carries these around anymore?' she thought as she took it (checking for any weirdness) and wiped her eyes in an attempt to look not creeped out, even though she was fighting the urge to sprint away.

She had to admit, though, it was rather nice of him, as long as the handkerchief didn't have some kind of date rape drug infused in it.

"I'm sorry..." she muttered as she handed it back, trying not to touch his hand (more creepiness).

"Now it's all wet..."

"It's fine,” he said, putting it in his pocket and smiling a smile that looked rather…creepy.

"That's what it's for, after all".

Kairi smiled up at him, wondering if he was going to kill her then or wait to stalk her for a few days. Yes, those thoughts may sound crazy to others, but this guy seemed a little off the spectrum. He even looked the part.

Sure he was acting nice enough, but...something just seemed off about him.

 

"See ya, uh...?"

"Kairi" she said quietly, cursing herself for not making up a name. Now it'd be relatively easier for him to find her if he did go all weirdo crazy.

"Oh. That's a pretty name,” he said with a wide smile, stepping way too close for comfort. By then Kairi was wondering why the freshman hallway was totally empty, and why this guy, who was obviously not a freshman, was prowling around. Probably looking for random girls to murder and eat or something.

"See ya later, Kairi" he said, putting emphasis on her name.

She stood there staring at him for a while, her heart fluttering nervously from the contact with the serial killer. Did he just...flirt with her?

'Nah' she thought, shuddering a bit. 'He was probably just trying to lull me into a false sense of security before he decides to hack me up into little pieces. I should totally tell Selphie about this...'

Even if he did seem to have some kind of weird aura, she was grateful he had come along when he did…maybe. Possible serial killers weren't really all that important, though, seeing as how she'd just ruined her friendship with her two best friends ever. She was such an idiot, yelling like that. She should've just kept her mouth shut as usual. `But…I did stick up for myself…kinda. I guess it was just the wrong place at the wrong time, though.'

As she turned to head for her first period class, Sora rounded the corner behind her, Riku-less for the first time in about a few months.

 

"Kairi please! We need to talk!”

 

 

-Mwah ha ha...another chapter down. This story is...hard to explain. I'm not even sure if it's any good. I just feel like typing so I am. Give plenty of reviews, good or bad. I do need an opinion. This story I drew really heavily on my life. The way Kairi acts and the way she feels like she's drifting from her friends, that is. Did anyone get the "Dirty Little Habit" reference? It's a little vague, you'd have to read that chapter over closely to catch it, or just know Dirty Little Habit by heart. And Irvine. Ahhh, Irvine. I guess it would seem like I'm an Irvine-hater, but not actually. He's actually one of my favorite FFVIII characters...its just that he seems better suited for the weird roles. And another thing; check out my greatestjournal! I haven't updated it in forever, but....whatever.