Masigla says, "Haha, oh snap! I'm sorry for the overall disappearing act, guys. You must all hate me now. ;.; The plain truth is that for a long while after beating Kingdom Hearts 2 knowing it would be the last game in the series (for a while, at least), I lost utter interest in the fandom and got absorbed in other ones as well, namely The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya (watch it!) and Xenosaga (play it!). But strangely enough, I suddenly got the spark of reinterest (if that word exists) while rereading this to continue it."
The Art of Love
masigla
Paranoia kicking in, Naminé let the phone ring and didn't answer. A little later it prompted her of a new voice message. Sora had returned from the bathroom already but Naminé requested for a little more time so she could check the message out.
"Hey, Naminé. It's Hayner. Do you miss me? I know you do! I know everyone does! Anyways. I wanted to call just to let you know I'm alive if you're worried or something. Okay. Bye…. I hope you haven't been dating. Even though I've only been gone for basically a day. You never know."
Chapter Five
to change someone
"Guys!" Naminé uttered under her breath, her hand nearly dropping the cellphone. "I-It's him! It's Hayner…"
"Hey, wait, what?!" Sora exclaimed, "He called your cellphone?"
"Using a payphone, yes," she responded, "I didn't answer in case it was a dangerous call, but he left a message."
"What does it say, Naminé?" Kairi gently situated her hand on her best friend's shoulder and calmly looked her in the eyes. "Did he say where he is or what he's doing?"
"No… he just called to let us know that he's alright." Naminé blushed slightly, almost haphazardly remembering to leave out the part about dating.
"Aren't you going to tell your parents?" Roxas scratched his cheek lightly with his forefinger. Naminé averted her gaze at him with unsure eyes. She wasn't sure what to do.
"I don't know…" she replied, "I feel like, if I do, I would be ruining his fun. I am worried about him, but I don't want him to come home… until he's finished what he has to do."
A moment of silence elapsed between the four, broken only when Sora clumsily sneezed and ran to the bathroom for some Kleenex.
"She's right, you know," Kairi suddenly said, "Her parents would most likely have the police trace the call and have them search nearby wherever that is."
At this moment, Sora returned with the entire box of Kleenex in his hands. "S-Sorry about that," he then mumbled. Kairi laughed and prepared to throw a pillow at him, but decided not to when Sora took a few steps back in utter fear.
"Shall we get back to the movie, then?" Naminé suggested. Relieved, Sora sighed and sat back down beside Kairi then smoothly snaked an arm around her shoulders. Kairi rested her head on Sora's shoulder in response, while Naminé and Roxas continued to watch the two awkwardly. Naminé decided she had better press play before the two blondes were subjected to any unwanted affection showing. Fortunately for them, throughout the remainder of the movie nothing beyond the occasional peck on the cheek was exhibited. When the movie finished, the three helped Naminé clean up and together with her, made their way up to the doorway.
"Well, see you tomorrow at the beach, Naminé! 10 AM's the meeting time, I think!" Sora called out as he and Kairi walked hand-in-hand down the cobblestone path towards her gate. Naminé smiled at the two and waved meekly while nodding her head in agreement. It wasn't 'till they reached the gate that she noticed something amiss.
"Roxas, aren't you going to go with them?" She asked in disbelief.
"Nah," Roxas grinned a little and folded his arms, "I figured I'd probably hurl if I went with the two of them, so I'm going to leave a little later. Is that okay with you?"
"S-Sure, it is, of course," Naminé said, "But I don't stay too long or my parents will get home."
"Okay, okay," Roxas chuckled, wondering at why the scenario of him being in the same place as Naminé's parents would be such a bad thing. He then took a quick look around what he'd only describe as the lobby of Naminé's grand home and surveyed the paintings and sketches displayed.
"Something wrong?" Naminé inquired while she locked the front door and approached her guest.
Roxas made his way to one of the sketches. It was one of a caged bird, downcast and drab. "Did you paint and draw all of these yourself?"
"Mmhmm," she replied, "I did that sketch not too long ago."
"A caged bird, huh?" He commented, still looking at the sketch and all its detail. Through every stroke, he felt the emotion she felt while sketching it resonating within him. It was a simple yet powerful piece of artwork that left him wondering what compelled her to draw something like that.
Naminé took this moment to join him by the sketch and looking at it. "Yes… that's how I feel like, most of the time. Like a bird who can't spread its wings and fly, because it's trapped in a cage by its owner and can't get out. I know being that way is probably what's best for my art because I can do more of them, but without Kairi and everyone else, I would probably be a full-fledged loner. I should thank my brother, too."
Roxas said nothing in response, only giving a small nod to at least let her know that he heard every single thing he said. He glanced around the room again, and noticed a remarkable pattern in her art that she herself might not have even thought about.
They were all relatively monotonous in color, as if showing the drabness and grayness in life. Even if she did use color, it'd only use different shades of the same color, and didn't' seem to explore the possibility of union within millions of different other colors. Most of her human portraits did not show their face, or only showed a mouth that curled ever so slightly downwards in a subtle frown. Rain, darkness, and always only one main subject. Always alone, never with anything else to accompany it but the surroundings that only made the loneliness far more obvious. Taking another look at Naminé, she beheld a small smile on her face, as if she had no idea of what she expressed in her work.
Loneliness.
But he understood perfectly. He knew that every painting, every sketch she made: they were all made with overwhelming feelings of loneliness and isolation pouring from heart to her hands to the canvas. Something welled up inside Roxas when he left after a smaller conversation of praising her and looking at her art that night.
He wanted to change her.
' '
It took some convincing over dinner, but her parents had reluctantly resigned and let Naminé go to the beach that day. It wasn't the first time she had gone to the beach with her friends, but for some reason she was much, much more excited for this one particular time.
Maybe it was the excitement in found in having another conversation with her newest blonde-haired friend, who turned out to be more of an art-expert than meets the eye. Either way, Naminé found herself awake at 6 AM nevertheless. Her mother found it unnatural for Naminé to have been up that early during a weekend, as even the organized teenager with the proper sleeping pattern would prefer to sleep in then. The mother, on the other hand, was up all night watching out for news of her son. Of course, Naminé was not worried one bit, as she knew of his well-being.
Naminé even chimed into the kitchen that morning, humming an unguided and spontaneous tune. Her father gave her an unnoticed suspicious glance, while her mother, less than awake without the effects of her morning coffee stood confused by her daughter's own actions.
"Mom, dad," she said happily, "Do you want any toast?"
"We'll pass, thank you, dear," her mother answered. Her father merely raised the newspaper up to his face again.
After eating breakfast, Naminé took the time to decide which art supplies to bring to the beach. Even though she expected she wouldn't even get much of it done at the beach, she figured that she might as well make it really seem as if though she were going there to paint or draw. She concluded that bringing charcoal, colored oil pastels and her sketchbook would be the most practical, since it would be a hazard to bring an easel and everything else needed for a full-fledged painting to the beach. Then she took a quick shower to refresh her already sweating from the tropical weather body and tried on her swimsuit. It was a white swimsuit with a line of green four-leafed clovers across the front. Naminé had picked it out shopping with Selphie, Olette and Kairi the summer before school started. Unsurprisingly, Selphie desperately begged for Naminé to try on at least one bikini during that particular shopping trip, but Naminé absolutely refused to do such a thing. Olette had to convince Selphie of how uncharacteristic it would be for Naminé to pick out a bikini, and that was the only way Selphie backed down. Remembering that comedic day, Naminé laughed softly as she pulled on some short blue shorts and a large white tee over her swimsuit. That had always been her default beach outfit.
As 10 AM approached rapidly, Naminé found herself a little restless. She couldn't control her mindless flipping of channels on TV, and even Kairi found this behavior a little strange for Naminé when the redhead decided to hitch a ride with her next-door-neighbor to the beach. Kairi then told Naminé that she had visited her mother the night before, and that the doctors assured her that everything would be all right. Then she went on saying how silly the whole fight she and Selphie had was, and was thankful that it didn't look as if though she was going to lose her mother, after all.
"Are you… okay?" Kairi asked. The redhead had been spending time focusing on nitpicky details like if her legs were perfectly shaved and if her toes "didn't look nasty."
"Yeah, I'm fine!" Naminé answered cheerfully. Kairi flinched a little. She knew Naminé was generally a happy person on the outside, but she never showcased it in a way that was so… bright and comedic, in a way. The two got so completely absorbed with trying not to be too excited about the beach trip that they lost track of time, even. At 10:03 AM, Naminé and Kairi hurriedly shuffled into the car and nearly yelled at Matsuzawa to "step on it." Arriving at 10:12, they were the last two to arrive. Surprisingly, Sora had gotten there earlier.
"I tried the rubber chicken idea," Roxas explained.
"Man, way to go, BHK! I'm so proud of you!" Selphie laughed and gave Roxas a nice, hard pat on the back that was almost comparable to actually slapping the living daylights out of the new kid. She wore a yellow polka-dotted bikini, which strangely fitted her as much as the song did. This made Tidus a little awkward at first, which was also a little suspicious and spontaneous, but his attention was quickly fully reverted to blitzball with Wakka. Kairi wore a white bikini but did not bask in its full glory until she pulled off the lavender short-shorts she was wearing it with before jumping into the water with Selphie. Olette wore a green bikini that had something more of a halter-top for the upper body, and a white sarong. All boys donned swimming trunks, although Pence wore a big red shirt over his black shorts.
While Selphie, Olette and Kairi were playing volleyball in the water, the guys occupied themselves with blitzball in the deeper parts of the water. Naminé decided to stay put on the shore and possibly attempt to make a sandcastle at first. Then she absently wondered where Roxas possibly could have been. She'd seen Sora, who was busy being a complete spaz and dork at Kairi in her flattering bikini, but no signs of his cousin after he had declared that he used a rubber chicken to wake Sora up.
"WOAH, LOOKIN' GOOD, BHK!!" Selphie hollered. It wasn't until then that Naminé realized where he was. Looking up from her mindless fidgeting with the wet sand, she saw a fairly medium-sized wave coming towards the shore from the distance. And on the wave rode a white, grey and black surfboard. And riding said surfboard was none other than Roxas, who Naminé guessed gained the ability to surf at the same time he gained the ability to skateboard. As he seemed to approach the area of beach where Naminé situated herself, she realized that he had the exact same exhilarated and peaceful look on his face as when she saw him skateboarding. She did imagine that surfing would probably be more refreshing than skateboarding, but she suddenly found herself studying the features of his face like before, as well. Immediately, she haphazardly waddled to the blanket where she left her art materials, and wiped herself with a towel before settling down and, almost as if she were in a panic, grabbed her sketchbook and sat down.
"Now, my black charcoal…" Naminé reached out for the dark instrument, but she caught herself. As Selphie's cheering continued in the background, she failed to notice Roxas reaching shore and, surfboard in arm, approaching Naminé to see what she was going to draw since she looked so inspired.
"No, I'll need color for this one…"
Roxas looked on curiously, having set his board to stand relatively near him and now bending over to look over her shoulders. Beads of seawater mixed with perspiration trickled down his face and off his hair. He watched as she clumsily opened her case of oil pastels. Most of the cool colors had been used, such as shades of dark blue or purple, but the vibrant and warm colors like pink or orange had never been touched. Roxas was reminded of all the monotonous art displayed in her home. Yet he suddenly found that Naminé's hand had instead reached for yellow. Not gray or dark blue or some dark color. Yellow.
"A lot of color."
Masigla says, oh my! What's this? A change? Whatever shall we do? Stay tuned, folks! Hopefully it won't take me as long to update. Ahahaha.