[FIC] [KH2] Best Imitation
Title: Best Imitation
Fandom: Kingdom Hearts
Character(s): Sora/Kairi/Riku. (Roxas. Naminé.)
Spoilers: Vague vague end of Kingdom Hearts 2 spoilers.
Word count(!): 4,237
Summary: What is there to do after you've saved reality as you know it twice in a row? ...join a school play, obviously. Sora has an adventure of a different sort.
ACT I
Scene 1
“Oh man,” said Tidus, staring at the list. “I DON’T envy you.”
“What,” said Sora, trying to peer over the heads in front of him. The names had been posted. “I-woah-hey! What?”
“Yeah man,” said Wakka, as someone ducked under his arm: one of the girls, tilting to get a better look at the lead female. “That’s too bad.”
“What’s too bad,” said Sora, on his toes. “Guys just tell me! Am I on it or not…”
“Did you get a call back?”
“YES.”
“…darn.”
“WHAT. DOES. IT. SAY.”
“You’re on it,” started Wakka…
Sora dropped down, scuffling back a few steps, sneakers squeaking. He looked at the rows ahead of him, and the orange plume that was Wakka, at the end.
“Excuse me,” he shouted, loud enough for the whole hall to hear; just to cover his bases, before he took a running start and jumped over half of the drama club in one mighty bound.
Scene 2
“Lead role,” laughed Riku, hanging around the old stone wall that lead from the schoolyard. Kairi sat next to him in a crouch, hands fiddling with the short of her skirt and those little charms she liked to make for her schoolbag. They’d been waiting for him. “Not bad! …for someone who’s not even in the drama club…”
“I was in the drama club,” said Sora, immediately. “I was in it for, like, three weeks! Last year!”
Kairi nudged his ankle with her foot. “Two years ago.”
“The year before that!” said Sora, immediately.
“Three whole weeks?” asked Riku..
Sora opened his mouth-
Kairi stood. “It’s more impressive than you think,” she said, running her finger over the little glossy face of a doll made out of thimbles and yarn. “Sora’s never usually able to stick with a club for more than a day….”
“That’s not entirely true.”
“Okay, maybe three days,” Kairi looked steadily, in that quiet, vaguely apologetic way she did when she was about to be particularly blunt, “…you’ve never gone to school with him before. So you don’t know this. It’s kind of legendary. At the Activity Faire, Sora will put his name down for every single club there. Not to be a jerk-“
Kairi added this when Sora began to puff up at her.
“-but because they all just look so darn cool.”
“Has to try it all,” mused Riku.
“Yup.”
“What a flake.”
“Yup.”
“…yeah! A flake! Bet he’s standing right next to you! Both of you! -and I don’t talk like that, Kairi.”
“Anyway,” Kairi continued, “He’ll go to one of the meetings. Find it the best thing ever. ..and then he’ll get distracted by another one. And another. There’s always a bet going, over how long someone can keep him. The Drama club’s currently got the world record for keeping Sora in one place.”
“Next to us,” said Riku.
“Next to us,” she agreed.
Sora sighed and patted his arms experimentally. He then checked his legs, and his stomach, and his forehead. “…yup,” he said, sorely. “Still here.”
“…you know.” Riku turned to him. “I think people’ll notice if I tried to do the work for you with this one. You’re in for a long haul. Can’t wander away because you saw something shiny.”
“People already notice you’re ten feet tall and an ASS-and as if I would! I’m the lead role!”
“So what it is it?”
“The brave hero.”
“I mean the play.”
“..oh,” Sora’s pose faltered, “…Delita Rex,” he said, somewhat disheartened by the anticlimax of it all. Alas. Alack. Kairi started nudging his elbow.
“Heh,” said Riku, “You got a copy of that one?”
“Uh…”
“I do.”
Kairi blinked at him. “Did you study it, Riku?”
“At St. Ajora’s, yeah.” Nostalgia on Riku, in this particular case, looked a little like a toothache plus a foot in the door plus some really bad eggs. “Private schools, y’know. If their required reading doesn’t meet the standard for deep or controversial then someone’s writing a letter to complain about it…”
“Sorry you left?”
He smirked at her. “You mean sorry I got kicked out?”
“…you do have to settle for going to school with us.”
He sighed. “It’s a burden.”
“It must be hard for you.”
…he smiled. “… not really. And sure Sora, I’ll lend you the book. You can stop…contorting at me now.”
“Great!” said Sora. “So you’ll get it for me now!”
“It’s--”
He’d already leapt the fence.
“DID YOU EVEN READ WHAT THEY HAD YOU AUDITION?” Riku shouted after him, but Sora would hear none of it. He was off along the path and up the slope, leaving Kairi and Riku to roll their eyes and follow in his grand, dusty wake.
Scene 3
Riku’s copy of the play had “property of Saint Ajora Boy’s Academy” stamped on the inside cover in big, red blocky letters. This didn’t surprise Sora at all. Many of Riku’s things happened to have other people’s name written on them. This was no exception.
After Riku had left for tutoring and Kairi had gone off to help her dad with their new boat, Sora had reluctantly watched them vanish and made himself a resolution: before dinner, and before homework, and before all those silly other things he had to do, Sora would have this thing completely memorized. It couldn’t be too hard. After all, an adventure was an adventure. He knew them well. How different could they be on paper?
“--and don’t forget to wash your face!”
“Got it, Mom,” Sora called back as he closed the door. He ripped off his tie, threw his schoolbag over the bed. He extracted his necklace from where it had spent the day warming under his uniform’s vest. It winked between his fingers, against the orange light streaming through his window. Sora popped open the book and he read, and he read…
…and after about the first page he felt a terrible twist in his jaw.
“…a…hah,” he said.
This was going to take a little longer than he thought.
ACT II
Scene 1
“You know Kairi, there’s a princess in this…”
“Sora.”
“You know Riku, there’s a…”
“And you’re stopping right there.”
Scene 2.
“Sora! Dinner!”
“Not right now, mom! Saving the kingdom!”
“Oh…. did the king send you another note?”
“Huh? OH. No! No not that Kingdom!”
“Well, we’re having fish tonight!”
“…coming, mom.”
Scene 3.
“…so you do realize it’s probably not a good idea to improvise all of the fight scenes?”
“What, you mean the running up the walls and the flips and junk?”
“Yeah?”
“That’s how I got the part.”
“…stupid me, thinking you just smiled at them.”
“Love you too, Riku.”
“Maybe did a little dance.”
“So soooo much, Riku.”
Scene 4.
“…so. You know your lines yet?”
“Hey, Riku,” said Sora, looking up. “There’s a kiss scene in this.”
“I know. I’ve actually read the play. Because I had to. Like you d....” He paused. “…so you want to kiss the girl, huh.”
“What? No! Not like that. But…” Sora grinned, sheepishly.
“You think it’s sweet,” said Kairi.
“…” Sora flushed.
“Still blushing,” said Kairi. “Better practice. Better do that right now”
And oh, she meant that.
Scene 5.
“Oh, brave fool,” sneered Sora, into bathroom mirror.
He immediately frowned.
“You…” he began. “You …”
He dropped his hands onto the sink and hung his head.
”ARGH.” Rocking back on his heels, he started again: “Brave fool. Do what you…”
Will.
“Will. You won’t have me yet.” Sora lifted his eyes and leaned into his reflection; if he squinted at it funny enough he could make it blur and imagine it was his opponent. “Burn me. Break me. There’s nothing you can do...”
That will ever.
“That will ever shake me from my call! ….wow Roxas.”
Sora tapped the glass.
“Didn’t know you knew this one.”
He did. Sora felt a faint laugh bubble up somewhere in his chest. Sora put his hand over it. He did. By heart. It was familiar, he felt. This passage. He’d read it at least a dozen times…
“You like this.”
A lot. Sora could have help, if he wanted…
“Sure could use it,” answered Sora, with a welcome smile.
ACT III
Scene 1
“oh…GEEZ Roxas,” groaned Sora, after the umpteenth mental bark in his head that evening. “Were you always this much of a hardass?”
Faint surprise. And then amusement. And then his hand shot out to the journal he kept on his bedside table. The one that was forever teetering on the corner, halfway filled up. It matched another that had reached its quota, and had been slid under the bed. This was where many of Sora’s more closely coveted items were assigned, when there were no convenient pockets that could hold them. It was part of the old instinct that monsters under the bed made the best guard dogs, even when mothers didn’t let you leave cookies under there anymore.
Sora closed his eyes, and when he opened them again he saw something written in fresh pen, on the bottom of the page:
Ask my men.
you had men?? Sora wrote in reply.
A moment later the page now said: A thousand and none.
“…Nobodies,” murmured Sora. Writing: so did that make you like a king.
(he doodled in a crown, for emphasis)
of the Nobodies? Yes, kinda. We all were.
you were kinda made for this roll then.
…when Sora snapped back ‘roll’ had been crossed out, and ‘role’ had been written above it, in nicer, neater handwriting. Beneath it, in the same writing:
You will watch the world
With the sun in your eyes
And I will be in your heart
Just look for me…
“What’s that from.” …he circled the passage a few times.
Be my canary?
“Don’t have feathers.”
And Sora covered his mouth as Roxas began to really, truly laugh.
Scene 2.
“HAH,” bellowed Sora. It was a second or two before he realized it was the keyblade in his hand, and not the broom they used for the tree house.
Riku shut the book and put his hand along the flat of it. “Right, except for that last part…” He lowered it. “Pretty passable.”
“JUST passable?!”
“For a guy who couldn’t lie to save his life, sure.”
“What’s that got to do with anything?”
“C’mon,” said Riku, and they sat down under the paopu tree. Riku knocked a fruit down and broke it into pieces. One for Sora, one for himself, and one to save for Kairi-who said she’d come that afternoon, when she was done doing homework with Selphie.
“So,” Sora licked one of his sticky fingers, toeing off a shoe to dig his heel into the warm sand. “What’d you mean by that?”
Riku sighed and rested his hands behind his head.
“In order to play a part you have to be able to pass yourself off as someone else. In order to pass yourself off as someone else you need to lie. To your audience, sure, but firstly just to yourself. You have to believe down to your very core that you’re that person. That you can feel whatever the page is telling you to feel, even if it’s something you’ve never felt in your life…”
“I see,” said Sora, chewing thoughtfully. “So that’s why you don’t do it.”
Riku blinked at him.
Sora reached up and touched him at the corner of his eye. He drew his finger in a horizontal line, dipping it down over his cheek.
“ ‘cause your eyes can’t lie.”
“Sora…”
“I think that’s Kairi’s boat,” said Sora. “Let’s go help her dock.”
Scene 3
“Roxas has been helping you, hasn’t he?”
Their research project was halfway done-halfway at least in the sense that Kairi had finally gotten her partner to sit down and open the books. They were in her room, and they were surrounded by notes. Sora had been reading. Really, he had! …but he’d also been distracted by the way she’d been sitting on her bed, swinging her leg in a steady bob. She had to hang the textbook over his face, and whack him lightly over the nose. This, he had remarked, was terribly unfair. It wasn’t that he wasn’t paying attention--
“…it’s that you are,” Kairi agreed. “Now pay as much attention to the books.”
Sora had protested: “But the books aren’t attached to Kairi!”
Which was still, he pointed out, terribly unfair.
Now she was distracting him with something else.
“Yeah, he has. How’d you… hi, Naminé.”
“Hello,” said the witch, with that lightness of being that never failed to send a funny shudder through Sora’s spine. Then it was Kairi again, with her crooked smile. “That’s good. He’d be the perfect help, wouldn’t he?”
And Sora would’ve asked her more about that…but Kairi chose that moment to push a textbook off the bed and onto the floor.
“Okay,” she declared. “I’m tired of studying now.”
“…been waiting for you to say that like all day.”
She grinned and fell onto his lap.
Scene 4.
But later what she said bugged him. After rehearsals, where he’d done decently-Roxas feeding him the middle parts of the longer sections that were the easiest to forget.
“It’s kinda cheating though, isn’t it?” Sora asked the air, and in a flash he felt a number of complicated things: confusion, vehemence and then disappointment, unsurprised…..
“No! Roxas! No! You’ve been a big help!”
…the old woman sweeping sand off of her steps gave Sora a worried look.
“I was just thinking, you know? Other people don’t have friends like you….”
Sora’s mouth curved wryly-imaginary, he obviously meant.
“Except NOT.”
He was talking to himself. People were going to think that was… a little weird.
“So? People say Kairi’s an alien and Riku is Riku and I’ve seen ‘em both naked. Oh. And I saved the universe.”
…okay there was that…
“Twice,” Sora grinned. “So who’s NORMAL?”
Hearing voices was still a little strange.
“The voice in my head is you,” Sora pointed out. “Which is me. Which is…” his eyes crossed for a second. “…so that kind of makes you my conscience! Kind of like Jiminy and Pinocchio.”
…he was a real boy now.
“Exactly!”
Instead of…
“Nothing! You’re here. That’s all that matters to me.”
That…would do. Yeah.
It didn’t really answer the question Sora was pondering, but it was a step in some direction, he thought. For the rest of the day Roxas might’ve gone a little easier as he stumbled over his big war scene, took the scrub brush he’d been using to do chores, and beat the air into swift submission.
Scene 5.
That night Sora woke from a dream. It wasn’t one he remembered-which suited him just fine. The ones he did only tended to involve a lot of waves and Riku and doves, for some reason. Something about it troubled him, though, so he sat up, yawned, and looked around his room. It was all in order. No one had made off with the furniture in the night or anything. The place hadn’t really changed all that much over the years…except for the journal, which lay in a different position than when he’d gone to sleep.
Sora inched over and picked it up. There were six new pages filled, in Roxas’ cleaner, crisper script. Roxas actually checked his spelling and Roxas didn’t doodle in the margins, and Roxas had randomly written what seemed to be a sizable chunk of a play Sora didn’t recognize. Word for word. Stage notes and all.
Sora flipped to a blank page and scribbled: roxas?
Yeah? he saw under it, suddenly. The clock had jumped forward a minute. Roxas had mulled over even answering, obviously.
how do you know all this?? asked Sora.
The Castle That Never Was. It had a library. It was bigger than a normal library. (yes. bigger than the Beast’s, Sora.) Partly because it was really dark. And things in the dark always seem bigger… there was a lot there. A lot there that was written. A lot there that was unwritten, too.
unwritten? Sora put in the margin.
The place WAS called the Hall of Unwritten Scripture.
youre kidding.
Not telling you what some of the broom closets were called. Anyway it had every book that was ever written and every book that was never written and most of us didn’t go there very much
“Most of us? -WOAH.” Sora felt his hand jerk forward, this time, before suddenly there was a lot more to read, in bigger writing, that got messier as it went along…
Organization XIII. Yeah. Didn’t like novels very much. Well okay larxene did but she only liked kinda nasty stuff and they weren’t plays no one read plays most came down only once and awhile and when they were REALLY REALLY in a state in a state which wasnt a lot for the senior board they mightve come more before i came….
you’re not punctuating anymore.
There was another significant pause. Then, strongly: . . . /// ,,, !!!
“Hah,” said Sora. “But you went.”
Roxas underlined the most of us. Then added a - ♥. He drew an arrow up one page, then another, then another. Until Sora flipped back to the beginning, where he’d circled one of the stage directions in the excerpt he’d transcribed from memory.
with feeling.
Sora felt his cheeks burn, but he couldn’t figure out why. He couldn’t think of what to say and his heart had just begun to race. In apology, he put the notes down. He lay back. He thought about the beach, until his pulse evened out and he drifted off to sleep….
…and woke up again, when it finally occurred to him.
“Roxas!”
…he didn’t have to shout. He was very awake. Doubly awake, even. And he was talking to himself again, and he could wake up his mother. What was he thinking. The hell-
“Who’d you rehearse with?”
…he’d woken up for that? He knew the answer. Himself, of course-
“No. Those scenes you keep showing me,” Sora sat up and jabbed himself in the chest. He meant business, here. “You read them with someone, didn’t you. Who.”
That wasn’t the point. He hardly needed to know.
“Who.”
Something hot jabbed Sora in the thigh.
He fell out of bed with a yelp. It was like the stray crackle of a campfire. It was like someone had taken a poker to him from under his sheets… after a few embarrassing minutes of rubbing his rump against the rug, Sora realized, with a jingle and not a lightbulb, that it was coming from his pocket. He shoved his hand down and fished around, producing the culprit in his palm. It was cool to touch, go figure. And small, and round, and jagged. And….
Sora slumped back against the side of his bed. He held the keychain up for a long, long time.
“…got it memorized?” he murmured.
Yes. He felt the affirmative flow into him like a cup to the brim. Yes. Yes. Yes.
ACT IV
Scene 1
“You were friends.”
“Mm.”
“Best friends.”
“Mm.”
He looked up at the ceiling, and closed his eyes.
“He made one heck of a scene, didn’t he…”
“Yeah,” Sora felt a strange sort of joy at the glow of exasperation, bewilderment, affection that brought on. It was the kind of joy that made his throat tighten and his eyes burn. Like he’d never felt it before in his life…though he had, he had, that was the point. He had. “…he always did.”
Scene 2.
“Hey,” said Sora, after one of the last rehearsals. Walking back from school, realizing he hadn’t heard his head bark once.
“Hey,” he said again, loud enough that the old woman sweeping sand off of her steps just sighed.
“You talking to me?” answered… himself.
“I know all my lines now don’t I?”
“You know ‘em pretty good.”
“So. I was thinking…”
…this would be good.
“OH VERY FUNNY.”
Scene 3.
“…you didn’t know?” said Riku, sounding surprised.
“You did?!” cried Sora, circling around and lunging at Riku’s left, where he’d raised his arm a little bit too high-
Riku caught the stick in an open hand.
“-OKAY THAT’S A FOUL.”
“Thought you knew yourself better than that,” said Riku. He lowered his chin, and put some shoulder into a good shove. Sora sprawled back. “Then again…you always did miss these things…”
“Untrue! I knew about you.”
Sora stood, shaking sand off of his shoulders. Riku had taken his stick. He looked down at it, and chucked it off to the side. A salt breeze blew by, then. It was coming from the north-east. Somewhere a seagull cried, and headed for shore. There’d probably be rain, soon. The grey skies made Riku’s hair look more like ash.
“Did you.”
“About the liking guys part.”
Riku’s look turned very brittle, very fast. “That so.”
“…just not about the liking me part.”
“Ok. That’s--”
Sora’s head hit him the shins.
“DODGEROLL IS STILL MORE THAN A SOUMERSAULT!” crowed Sora, victorious atop his stomach. He held Riku’s wooden sword like a trophy, spun it over his head the way a mercenary had once taught him, and threw it to join his own on the wayside. He pointed: “And it DOES TOO make sense. You were going to tell me it doesn’t, right?”
“No.”
“….what really?”
“I was going to say it made perfect sense. Coming from you.”
Sora put both hands over Riku’s face and rubbed his head into the sand.
Then held his face, and looked down at him.
“I know it now.”
“I know.” Riku stopped struggling. “I know you know now.”
“I’m glad.” Sora touched his hair. “I’m glad you know. You’re coming to the show tomorrow, right? Kairi’s coming. You should come too. You should take her as a date. She’ll like that.”
“Hm.”
“You would too.”
“Hm.”
“Please come, Riku.”
“C’mon. Don’t get sappy on me. I wouldn’t miss it.”
“Good,” smiled Sora, laying his hands over his shoulders. “Great.”
He leaned down…
Scene 4.
“And that’s all I need.”
“…”
“Doesn’t have to be all you need.”
“…”
“Do it right.”
“Of course.”
Scene 5.
“…is there a reason you’re smiling so much?” asked Riku, settling into his seat-much to the horror of the small second year that had made the mistake of occupying the row behind him.
“It’s exciting isn’t it?” Kairi turned the flowers over in her lap. “What’s wrong with a smile?”
“Nothing. Just that one. That one kind of worries me.” When Kairi kept smiling, it dawned on him: “…those are starflowers and roses. Kairi. How’d you get ….”
“This is a new record for Sora, isn’t it? Someone must have won that bet.” said the girl, who was also a princess, airily. The lights flashed in the auditorium. “Oh! It’s starting soon!”
“…you both worry me.”
Kairi put her hand over his forearm and squeezed.
“It’s all right,” she promised, in another voice. The witch drew a circle over his wrist with her fingertip. “I’ll hold your hand. If it gets too scary for you….”
Then came the show.
THE CONCLUSION:
Scene 1.
Sora looked a little startled by the roar from the audience as he took his bow. He did it with more grace and experience than anyone else in the hall, but a funny stiffness in his stance, as though he’d never seen so many eyes on him before.
Afterwards though, slipping out the back of the auditorium and into the cool sprinkle of a fresh rainy night, he seemed to be more in his element when half the girls at school just up and attacked him.
“Mom said she’d take us all out,” said Sora, coming out of it alive. He ran a hand back through his hair again. It had taken gel the strength of cement to keep it down. In the drizzle it was beginning to make a slow, sticky recovery.
“That’s nice of her,” said Riku.
“Sora,” said Kairi and, because something’s were just required after the battle, she threw her arms around him.
“…I got you flowers,” she whispered, against his neck. “You were wonderful.”
“Was I?” Sora held her sleepily; the top of her head was damp and smelled really...fruity. It was nice, Sora found. He breathed it in. “I missed it. You’ll have tell me about it, some time…”
“Sora.” Kairi pulled back, blinking. “You…”
Bravo, hummed the witch. Bravo.
And, with a sharp noise behind them and an armful of the aforementioned flowers, Riku began to laugh.
Scene: the last
Sora’s copy of the program lay on his dresser for a few days afterwards. It was actually Kairi’s copy, but she’d given to him and taken Riku’s instead. (“To turn things around,” she said. “Just this once! …he’ll probably steal another one anyway.”) On the inside cover was a poem she’d written him; the mysterious, world traveling kind that she always loved to do. On the back cover, however, was something entirely different. Sora noticed it almost as soon as he’d first set it down, when one his markers had somehow ended up lying next to it.
On it, it said simply this:
That was fun. Thank you. -- Roxas
FIN.
Fandom: Kingdom Hearts
Character(s): Sora/Kairi/Riku. (Roxas. Naminé.)
Spoilers: Vague vague end of Kingdom Hearts 2 spoilers.
Word count(!): 4,237
Summary: What is there to do after you've saved reality as you know it twice in a row? ...join a school play, obviously. Sora has an adventure of a different sort.
ACT I
Scene 1
“Oh man,” said Tidus, staring at the list. “I DON’T envy you.”
“What,” said Sora, trying to peer over the heads in front of him. The names had been posted. “I-woah-hey! What?”
“Yeah man,” said Wakka, as someone ducked under his arm: one of the girls, tilting to get a better look at the lead female. “That’s too bad.”
“What’s too bad,” said Sora, on his toes. “Guys just tell me! Am I on it or not…”
“Did you get a call back?”
“YES.”
“…darn.”
“WHAT. DOES. IT. SAY.”
“You’re on it,” started Wakka…
Sora dropped down, scuffling back a few steps, sneakers squeaking. He looked at the rows ahead of him, and the orange plume that was Wakka, at the end.
“Excuse me,” he shouted, loud enough for the whole hall to hear; just to cover his bases, before he took a running start and jumped over half of the drama club in one mighty bound.
Scene 2
“Lead role,” laughed Riku, hanging around the old stone wall that lead from the schoolyard. Kairi sat next to him in a crouch, hands fiddling with the short of her skirt and those little charms she liked to make for her schoolbag. They’d been waiting for him. “Not bad! …for someone who’s not even in the drama club…”
“I was in the drama club,” said Sora, immediately. “I was in it for, like, three weeks! Last year!”
Kairi nudged his ankle with her foot. “Two years ago.”
“The year before that!” said Sora, immediately.
“Three whole weeks?” asked Riku..
Sora opened his mouth-
Kairi stood. “It’s more impressive than you think,” she said, running her finger over the little glossy face of a doll made out of thimbles and yarn. “Sora’s never usually able to stick with a club for more than a day….”
“That’s not entirely true.”
“Okay, maybe three days,” Kairi looked steadily, in that quiet, vaguely apologetic way she did when she was about to be particularly blunt, “…you’ve never gone to school with him before. So you don’t know this. It’s kind of legendary. At the Activity Faire, Sora will put his name down for every single club there. Not to be a jerk-“
Kairi added this when Sora began to puff up at her.
“-but because they all just look so darn cool.”
“Has to try it all,” mused Riku.
“Yup.”
“What a flake.”
“Yup.”
“…yeah! A flake! Bet he’s standing right next to you! Both of you! -and I don’t talk like that, Kairi.”
“Anyway,” Kairi continued, “He’ll go to one of the meetings. Find it the best thing ever. ..and then he’ll get distracted by another one. And another. There’s always a bet going, over how long someone can keep him. The Drama club’s currently got the world record for keeping Sora in one place.”
“Next to us,” said Riku.
“Next to us,” she agreed.
Sora sighed and patted his arms experimentally. He then checked his legs, and his stomach, and his forehead. “…yup,” he said, sorely. “Still here.”
“…you know.” Riku turned to him. “I think people’ll notice if I tried to do the work for you with this one. You’re in for a long haul. Can’t wander away because you saw something shiny.”
“People already notice you’re ten feet tall and an ASS-and as if I would! I’m the lead role!”
“So what it is it?”
“The brave hero.”
“I mean the play.”
“..oh,” Sora’s pose faltered, “…Delita Rex,” he said, somewhat disheartened by the anticlimax of it all. Alas. Alack. Kairi started nudging his elbow.
“Heh,” said Riku, “You got a copy of that one?”
“Uh…”
“I do.”
Kairi blinked at him. “Did you study it, Riku?”
“At St. Ajora’s, yeah.” Nostalgia on Riku, in this particular case, looked a little like a toothache plus a foot in the door plus some really bad eggs. “Private schools, y’know. If their required reading doesn’t meet the standard for deep or controversial then someone’s writing a letter to complain about it…”
“Sorry you left?”
He smirked at her. “You mean sorry I got kicked out?”
“…you do have to settle for going to school with us.”
He sighed. “It’s a burden.”
“It must be hard for you.”
…he smiled. “… not really. And sure Sora, I’ll lend you the book. You can stop…contorting at me now.”
“Great!” said Sora. “So you’ll get it for me now!”
“It’s--”
He’d already leapt the fence.
“DID YOU EVEN READ WHAT THEY HAD YOU AUDITION?” Riku shouted after him, but Sora would hear none of it. He was off along the path and up the slope, leaving Kairi and Riku to roll their eyes and follow in his grand, dusty wake.
Scene 3
Riku’s copy of the play had “property of Saint Ajora Boy’s Academy” stamped on the inside cover in big, red blocky letters. This didn’t surprise Sora at all. Many of Riku’s things happened to have other people’s name written on them. This was no exception.
After Riku had left for tutoring and Kairi had gone off to help her dad with their new boat, Sora had reluctantly watched them vanish and made himself a resolution: before dinner, and before homework, and before all those silly other things he had to do, Sora would have this thing completely memorized. It couldn’t be too hard. After all, an adventure was an adventure. He knew them well. How different could they be on paper?
“--and don’t forget to wash your face!”
“Got it, Mom,” Sora called back as he closed the door. He ripped off his tie, threw his schoolbag over the bed. He extracted his necklace from where it had spent the day warming under his uniform’s vest. It winked between his fingers, against the orange light streaming through his window. Sora popped open the book and he read, and he read…
…and after about the first page he felt a terrible twist in his jaw.
“…a…hah,” he said.
This was going to take a little longer than he thought.
ACT II
Scene 1
“You know Kairi, there’s a princess in this…”
“Sora.”
“You know Riku, there’s a…”
“And you’re stopping right there.”
Scene 2.
“Sora! Dinner!”
“Not right now, mom! Saving the kingdom!”
“Oh…. did the king send you another note?”
“Huh? OH. No! No not that Kingdom!”
“Well, we’re having fish tonight!”
“…coming, mom.”
Scene 3.
“…so you do realize it’s probably not a good idea to improvise all of the fight scenes?”
“What, you mean the running up the walls and the flips and junk?”
“Yeah?”
“That’s how I got the part.”
“…stupid me, thinking you just smiled at them.”
“Love you too, Riku.”
“Maybe did a little dance.”
“So soooo much, Riku.”
Scene 4.
“…so. You know your lines yet?”
“Hey, Riku,” said Sora, looking up. “There’s a kiss scene in this.”
“I know. I’ve actually read the play. Because I had to. Like you d....” He paused. “…so you want to kiss the girl, huh.”
“What? No! Not like that. But…” Sora grinned, sheepishly.
“You think it’s sweet,” said Kairi.
“…” Sora flushed.
“Still blushing,” said Kairi. “Better practice. Better do that right now”
And oh, she meant that.
Scene 5.
“Oh, brave fool,” sneered Sora, into bathroom mirror.
He immediately frowned.
“You…” he began. “You …”
He dropped his hands onto the sink and hung his head.
”ARGH.” Rocking back on his heels, he started again: “Brave fool. Do what you…”
Will.
“Will. You won’t have me yet.” Sora lifted his eyes and leaned into his reflection; if he squinted at it funny enough he could make it blur and imagine it was his opponent. “Burn me. Break me. There’s nothing you can do...”
That will ever.
“That will ever shake me from my call! ….wow Roxas.”
Sora tapped the glass.
“Didn’t know you knew this one.”
He did. Sora felt a faint laugh bubble up somewhere in his chest. Sora put his hand over it. He did. By heart. It was familiar, he felt. This passage. He’d read it at least a dozen times…
“You like this.”
A lot. Sora could have help, if he wanted…
“Sure could use it,” answered Sora, with a welcome smile.
ACT III
Scene 1
“oh…GEEZ Roxas,” groaned Sora, after the umpteenth mental bark in his head that evening. “Were you always this much of a hardass?”
Faint surprise. And then amusement. And then his hand shot out to the journal he kept on his bedside table. The one that was forever teetering on the corner, halfway filled up. It matched another that had reached its quota, and had been slid under the bed. This was where many of Sora’s more closely coveted items were assigned, when there were no convenient pockets that could hold them. It was part of the old instinct that monsters under the bed made the best guard dogs, even when mothers didn’t let you leave cookies under there anymore.
Sora closed his eyes, and when he opened them again he saw something written in fresh pen, on the bottom of the page:
Ask my men.
you had men?? Sora wrote in reply.
A moment later the page now said: A thousand and none.
“…Nobodies,” murmured Sora. Writing: so did that make you like a king.
(he doodled in a crown, for emphasis)
of the Nobodies? Yes, kinda. We all were.
you were kinda made for this roll then.
…when Sora snapped back ‘roll’ had been crossed out, and ‘role’ had been written above it, in nicer, neater handwriting. Beneath it, in the same writing:
You will watch the world
With the sun in your eyes
And I will be in your heart
Just look for me…
“What’s that from.” …he circled the passage a few times.
Be my canary?
“Don’t have feathers.”
And Sora covered his mouth as Roxas began to really, truly laugh.
Scene 2.
“HAH,” bellowed Sora. It was a second or two before he realized it was the keyblade in his hand, and not the broom they used for the tree house.
Riku shut the book and put his hand along the flat of it. “Right, except for that last part…” He lowered it. “Pretty passable.”
“JUST passable?!”
“For a guy who couldn’t lie to save his life, sure.”
“What’s that got to do with anything?”
“C’mon,” said Riku, and they sat down under the paopu tree. Riku knocked a fruit down and broke it into pieces. One for Sora, one for himself, and one to save for Kairi-who said she’d come that afternoon, when she was done doing homework with Selphie.
“So,” Sora licked one of his sticky fingers, toeing off a shoe to dig his heel into the warm sand. “What’d you mean by that?”
Riku sighed and rested his hands behind his head.
“In order to play a part you have to be able to pass yourself off as someone else. In order to pass yourself off as someone else you need to lie. To your audience, sure, but firstly just to yourself. You have to believe down to your very core that you’re that person. That you can feel whatever the page is telling you to feel, even if it’s something you’ve never felt in your life…”
“I see,” said Sora, chewing thoughtfully. “So that’s why you don’t do it.”
Riku blinked at him.
Sora reached up and touched him at the corner of his eye. He drew his finger in a horizontal line, dipping it down over his cheek.
“ ‘cause your eyes can’t lie.”
“Sora…”
“I think that’s Kairi’s boat,” said Sora. “Let’s go help her dock.”
Scene 3
“Roxas has been helping you, hasn’t he?”
Their research project was halfway done-halfway at least in the sense that Kairi had finally gotten her partner to sit down and open the books. They were in her room, and they were surrounded by notes. Sora had been reading. Really, he had! …but he’d also been distracted by the way she’d been sitting on her bed, swinging her leg in a steady bob. She had to hang the textbook over his face, and whack him lightly over the nose. This, he had remarked, was terribly unfair. It wasn’t that he wasn’t paying attention--
“…it’s that you are,” Kairi agreed. “Now pay as much attention to the books.”
Sora had protested: “But the books aren’t attached to Kairi!”
Which was still, he pointed out, terribly unfair.
Now she was distracting him with something else.
“Yeah, he has. How’d you… hi, Naminé.”
“Hello,” said the witch, with that lightness of being that never failed to send a funny shudder through Sora’s spine. Then it was Kairi again, with her crooked smile. “That’s good. He’d be the perfect help, wouldn’t he?”
And Sora would’ve asked her more about that…but Kairi chose that moment to push a textbook off the bed and onto the floor.
“Okay,” she declared. “I’m tired of studying now.”
“…been waiting for you to say that like all day.”
She grinned and fell onto his lap.
Scene 4.
But later what she said bugged him. After rehearsals, where he’d done decently-Roxas feeding him the middle parts of the longer sections that were the easiest to forget.
“It’s kinda cheating though, isn’t it?” Sora asked the air, and in a flash he felt a number of complicated things: confusion, vehemence and then disappointment, unsurprised…..
“No! Roxas! No! You’ve been a big help!”
…the old woman sweeping sand off of her steps gave Sora a worried look.
“I was just thinking, you know? Other people don’t have friends like you….”
Sora’s mouth curved wryly-imaginary, he obviously meant.
“Except NOT.”
He was talking to himself. People were going to think that was… a little weird.
“So? People say Kairi’s an alien and Riku is Riku and I’ve seen ‘em both naked. Oh. And I saved the universe.”
…okay there was that…
“Twice,” Sora grinned. “So who’s NORMAL?”
Hearing voices was still a little strange.
“The voice in my head is you,” Sora pointed out. “Which is me. Which is…” his eyes crossed for a second. “…so that kind of makes you my conscience! Kind of like Jiminy and Pinocchio.”
…he was a real boy now.
“Exactly!”
Instead of…
“Nothing! You’re here. That’s all that matters to me.”
That…would do. Yeah.
It didn’t really answer the question Sora was pondering, but it was a step in some direction, he thought. For the rest of the day Roxas might’ve gone a little easier as he stumbled over his big war scene, took the scrub brush he’d been using to do chores, and beat the air into swift submission.
Scene 5.
That night Sora woke from a dream. It wasn’t one he remembered-which suited him just fine. The ones he did only tended to involve a lot of waves and Riku and doves, for some reason. Something about it troubled him, though, so he sat up, yawned, and looked around his room. It was all in order. No one had made off with the furniture in the night or anything. The place hadn’t really changed all that much over the years…except for the journal, which lay in a different position than when he’d gone to sleep.
Sora inched over and picked it up. There were six new pages filled, in Roxas’ cleaner, crisper script. Roxas actually checked his spelling and Roxas didn’t doodle in the margins, and Roxas had randomly written what seemed to be a sizable chunk of a play Sora didn’t recognize. Word for word. Stage notes and all.
Sora flipped to a blank page and scribbled: roxas?
Yeah? he saw under it, suddenly. The clock had jumped forward a minute. Roxas had mulled over even answering, obviously.
how do you know all this?? asked Sora.
The Castle That Never Was. It had a library. It was bigger than a normal library. (yes. bigger than the Beast’s, Sora.) Partly because it was really dark. And things in the dark always seem bigger… there was a lot there. A lot there that was written. A lot there that was unwritten, too.
unwritten? Sora put in the margin.
The place WAS called the Hall of Unwritten Scripture.
youre kidding.
Not telling you what some of the broom closets were called. Anyway it had every book that was ever written and every book that was never written and most of us didn’t go there very much
“Most of us? -WOAH.” Sora felt his hand jerk forward, this time, before suddenly there was a lot more to read, in bigger writing, that got messier as it went along…
Organization XIII. Yeah. Didn’t like novels very much. Well okay larxene did but she only liked kinda nasty stuff and they weren’t plays no one read plays most came down only once and awhile and when they were REALLY REALLY in a state in a state which wasnt a lot for the senior board they mightve come more before i came….
you’re not punctuating anymore.
There was another significant pause. Then, strongly: . . . /// ,,, !!!
“Hah,” said Sora. “But you went.”
Roxas underlined the most of us. Then added a - ♥. He drew an arrow up one page, then another, then another. Until Sora flipped back to the beginning, where he’d circled one of the stage directions in the excerpt he’d transcribed from memory.
with feeling.
Sora felt his cheeks burn, but he couldn’t figure out why. He couldn’t think of what to say and his heart had just begun to race. In apology, he put the notes down. He lay back. He thought about the beach, until his pulse evened out and he drifted off to sleep….
…and woke up again, when it finally occurred to him.
“Roxas!”
…he didn’t have to shout. He was very awake. Doubly awake, even. And he was talking to himself again, and he could wake up his mother. What was he thinking. The hell-
“Who’d you rehearse with?”
…he’d woken up for that? He knew the answer. Himself, of course-
“No. Those scenes you keep showing me,” Sora sat up and jabbed himself in the chest. He meant business, here. “You read them with someone, didn’t you. Who.”
That wasn’t the point. He hardly needed to know.
“Who.”
Something hot jabbed Sora in the thigh.
He fell out of bed with a yelp. It was like the stray crackle of a campfire. It was like someone had taken a poker to him from under his sheets… after a few embarrassing minutes of rubbing his rump against the rug, Sora realized, with a jingle and not a lightbulb, that it was coming from his pocket. He shoved his hand down and fished around, producing the culprit in his palm. It was cool to touch, go figure. And small, and round, and jagged. And….
Sora slumped back against the side of his bed. He held the keychain up for a long, long time.
“…got it memorized?” he murmured.
Yes. He felt the affirmative flow into him like a cup to the brim. Yes. Yes. Yes.
ACT IV
Scene 1
“You were friends.”
“Mm.”
“Best friends.”
“Mm.”
He looked up at the ceiling, and closed his eyes.
“He made one heck of a scene, didn’t he…”
“Yeah,” Sora felt a strange sort of joy at the glow of exasperation, bewilderment, affection that brought on. It was the kind of joy that made his throat tighten and his eyes burn. Like he’d never felt it before in his life…though he had, he had, that was the point. He had. “…he always did.”
Scene 2.
“Hey,” said Sora, after one of the last rehearsals. Walking back from school, realizing he hadn’t heard his head bark once.
“Hey,” he said again, loud enough that the old woman sweeping sand off of her steps just sighed.
“You talking to me?” answered… himself.
“I know all my lines now don’t I?”
“You know ‘em pretty good.”
“So. I was thinking…”
…this would be good.
“OH VERY FUNNY.”
Scene 3.
“…you didn’t know?” said Riku, sounding surprised.
“You did?!” cried Sora, circling around and lunging at Riku’s left, where he’d raised his arm a little bit too high-
Riku caught the stick in an open hand.
“-OKAY THAT’S A FOUL.”
“Thought you knew yourself better than that,” said Riku. He lowered his chin, and put some shoulder into a good shove. Sora sprawled back. “Then again…you always did miss these things…”
“Untrue! I knew about you.”
Sora stood, shaking sand off of his shoulders. Riku had taken his stick. He looked down at it, and chucked it off to the side. A salt breeze blew by, then. It was coming from the north-east. Somewhere a seagull cried, and headed for shore. There’d probably be rain, soon. The grey skies made Riku’s hair look more like ash.
“Did you.”
“About the liking guys part.”
Riku’s look turned very brittle, very fast. “That so.”
“…just not about the liking me part.”
“Ok. That’s--”
Sora’s head hit him the shins.
“DODGEROLL IS STILL MORE THAN A SOUMERSAULT!” crowed Sora, victorious atop his stomach. He held Riku’s wooden sword like a trophy, spun it over his head the way a mercenary had once taught him, and threw it to join his own on the wayside. He pointed: “And it DOES TOO make sense. You were going to tell me it doesn’t, right?”
“No.”
“….what really?”
“I was going to say it made perfect sense. Coming from you.”
Sora put both hands over Riku’s face and rubbed his head into the sand.
Then held his face, and looked down at him.
“I know it now.”
“I know.” Riku stopped struggling. “I know you know now.”
“I’m glad.” Sora touched his hair. “I’m glad you know. You’re coming to the show tomorrow, right? Kairi’s coming. You should come too. You should take her as a date. She’ll like that.”
“Hm.”
“You would too.”
“Hm.”
“Please come, Riku.”
“C’mon. Don’t get sappy on me. I wouldn’t miss it.”
“Good,” smiled Sora, laying his hands over his shoulders. “Great.”
He leaned down…
Scene 4.
“And that’s all I need.”
“…”
“Doesn’t have to be all you need.”
“…”
“Do it right.”
“Of course.”
Scene 5.
“…is there a reason you’re smiling so much?” asked Riku, settling into his seat-much to the horror of the small second year that had made the mistake of occupying the row behind him.
“It’s exciting isn’t it?” Kairi turned the flowers over in her lap. “What’s wrong with a smile?”
“Nothing. Just that one. That one kind of worries me.” When Kairi kept smiling, it dawned on him: “…those are starflowers and roses. Kairi. How’d you get ….”
“This is a new record for Sora, isn’t it? Someone must have won that bet.” said the girl, who was also a princess, airily. The lights flashed in the auditorium. “Oh! It’s starting soon!”
“…you both worry me.”
Kairi put her hand over his forearm and squeezed.
“It’s all right,” she promised, in another voice. The witch drew a circle over his wrist with her fingertip. “I’ll hold your hand. If it gets too scary for you….”
Then came the show.
THE CONCLUSION:
Scene 1.
Sora looked a little startled by the roar from the audience as he took his bow. He did it with more grace and experience than anyone else in the hall, but a funny stiffness in his stance, as though he’d never seen so many eyes on him before.
Afterwards though, slipping out the back of the auditorium and into the cool sprinkle of a fresh rainy night, he seemed to be more in his element when half the girls at school just up and attacked him.
“Mom said she’d take us all out,” said Sora, coming out of it alive. He ran a hand back through his hair again. It had taken gel the strength of cement to keep it down. In the drizzle it was beginning to make a slow, sticky recovery.
“That’s nice of her,” said Riku.
“Sora,” said Kairi and, because something’s were just required after the battle, she threw her arms around him.
“…I got you flowers,” she whispered, against his neck. “You were wonderful.”
“Was I?” Sora held her sleepily; the top of her head was damp and smelled really...fruity. It was nice, Sora found. He breathed it in. “I missed it. You’ll have tell me about it, some time…”
“Sora.” Kairi pulled back, blinking. “You…”
Bravo, hummed the witch. Bravo.
And, with a sharp noise behind them and an armful of the aforementioned flowers, Riku began to laugh.
Scene: the last
Sora’s copy of the program lay on his dresser for a few days afterwards. It was actually Kairi’s copy, but she’d given to him and taken Riku’s instead. (“To turn things around,” she said. “Just this once! …he’ll probably steal another one anyway.”) On the inside cover was a poem she’d written him; the mysterious, world traveling kind that she always loved to do. On the back cover, however, was something entirely different. Sora noticed it almost as soon as he’d first set it down, when one his markers had somehow ended up lying next to it.
On it, it said simply this:
That was fun. Thank you. -- Roxas
FIN.