I'm Singing For You

Chapter 1 White Album

The winter breeze tickled Kairi's nose as she carried boxes up to her new apartment from her car.

"Sure is cold compared to Destiny Islands," Kairi huffed, teeth chattering, holding her phone up to her ear, with her shoulder.

"Don't worry Kairi, you'll get used to it," Her cousin Xion said with a laugh on the other end.

"Haven't experienced winter since dad took me to Destiny Islands. Can't wait to get in touch with everyone though, especially Namine, haven't seen her since Grandma died a few years ago. It's been so hard living so far away since we were so young, hopefully we can finally start being sisters again" Kairi sighed.

"Gonna try to talk with your mom at all?"

Kairi grimaced, "The thought never crossed my mind."

"Come on Kairi it's been 14 years and you still haven't forgiven her?"

"Can we please change the subject..."

"Okay fine, so you excited for school at all?"

"I'm glad to have gotten out of that stupid community college, sure it was cheaper but still. I really wish I had done what Riku did and just came here to Twilight Town from the start."

"Riku ended up dropping out last year though, to pursue his artistic passion as he put it," Xion laughed.

"I'm not too worried about him, weren't you saying he had a band or something?"

A sudden boom on the other end gave Kairi a shock.

"Whoops, sorry Kairi I actually have to go, my ramen just exploded..." and then silence.

"How did she manage that...?"

"There we go all unpacked!" Kairi smiled as she stretched.

The small apartment consisted of a tiny kitchen, a little bedroom, a cozy bathroom, and a somewhat cramped living room where a coffee table now housed Kairi's laptop and record player, with a stack of vinyls underneath. The walls were lined with pale yellow wallpaper, probably pale from age if she had to guess. The ceiling was rather low too, she couldn't imagine anyone of above average height being too comfortable here and the floor was mostly covered in old yellow carpet that matched the walls, except for in the kitchen which had cheap, cracked tile, with what looked like plywood underneath.

"Well for 450 munny a month what was I expecting...," Kairi thought to herself as she placed a record onto the player, and dropped the needle. The familiar sound of Sgt. Pepper soon filled the room. "Should've lived on campus, Oh well I can do that next semester."

Kairi began to hum along as the vocals kicked.

"...we hope you will enjoy the show..." she sang along as a notification went off on her phone.

"Roxas!" She said out loud as she saw what the notification was.

It was a message from Roxas, one of her old friends from Destiny Islands, he had moved here to Twilight Town about 6 years ago after his mother had died.

Hey Kairi! Heard you just got in town from Riku. Speaking of Riku, me and him have a band and we have gig over at my godmother's bar tonight, why don't you come hang out, Namine and Xion are coming as well, and don't worry about paying I've already told Tifa to charge me for all your expenses. Here are the directions:

Kairi glanced over the directions as she stopped the record player, apparently there was a record shop on the way to the bar. The show wouldn't start for another hour and a half and the bar was only about a 30 minute walk based on the directions.

"Hmm.. well might as well go to that record shop they might have something neat," Kairi said as she slipped on her shoes.

"Dad isn't sending me more money until tomorrow though, so I doubt I will be able to do much more than window shop," Kairi sighed as she walked out the door.

"Better find a part time job soon though, I can't rely on Dad anymore, I'm 20 years old!"

"The Fuzzy Moogle?" Kairi said her eyebrow raised as she gazed at the record shop, which had a huge stuffed moogle doll in front,

"Welcome to the Fuzzy Moogle," A young man announced as Kairi entered the shop, he was a husky young man around Kairi's age with brown hair, wearing a headband and a red shirt.

"My name is Pence, if there is anything you need feel free to ask!"

Kairi nodded and began looking around, the walls were black with white stylized notes, the ceiling in contrast was white and the floor covered in red carpet. They had quite the collection of rock and metal music here, Led Zeppelin, Queen, David Bowie, Rolling Stones, Judas Priest, Black Sabbath, Dio Slayer, Metallica. they even had some more obscure artists like King Crimson. But what had caught Kairi's eye was a solid white album, The Beatles...

It was the only Beatles album she didn't have on vinyl! It's not really a hard album to find a reprint of but this one was in excellent condition, it was wrapped in plastic and looked like it had never been open, the name was embossed and it had a serial number too, 0018058! This was an original! Her excitement soon died down when she saw the price... 235 munny, about half a month's rent.

"Damn it... such a good find too..."

The door opened again and a young man with spiky brown hair walked in, he wore a hoodie and baggie pants. He looked like he hadn't shaved for a few days as he was sporting something of a beard.

"He kind of has a familiar look about him though." Kairi whispered to herself. "The hair is familiar, but the face seems all wrong..."

"Hey man what's up," Pence said with a smile.

"Nothing much just on my way to the 7th Heaven for the show, so I was in the area and I thought I'd stop by" The young man replied with a big smile on his face as he walked towards Kairi.

"Oh that's the original print of the White Album you were telling me about, 235, that's pretty cheap... Pence is that actually the price?" He asked looking at Pence.

"Oh, crap I musta labeled it wrong it should be 325." Pence answered.

Kairi's countenance dropped even further. "Why God..." She muttered as she hung her head

"Hmm.. Pence I think I'll take it, here's 350. Keep the change," The boy said tossing a wad of munny at Pence.

Kairi's mood had just been ruined. She found such a good find and it got snatched away from her by this random stranger! Damn him!

The boy picked up the album and put it in a bag and held it towards Kairi.

"I saw you were looking at this pretty intently, and I heard you groaning when Pence mentioned the price... so here have it, you don't have to worry about paying me back," The boy explained a huge smile on his face.

"Th..Thank you..." Kairi stuttered grabbing the bag from his hand. That was freakishly nice of this total stranger to just give her a gift, an expensive gift at that, was he trying to come onto her? If so he was coming on a bit too strongly. But maybe he was just freakishly nice, she'd known someone like that before.

"Um.. well I have to get going..." Kairi said as she walked out of the shop, she heard Pence exclaim, "Thank you, and please come again!" as the door closed behind her.

She was not even 2 blocks away when she turned around to see the spiky haired guy following her.

"Wait he said he was going to the 7th Heaven too didn't he," Kairi sighed. "Well this is going to be fun..."

"Hey so you like the Beatles?" He asked when he got closer. "Didn't take you to be one of their fans."

He didn't even know her and he was already making prejudgments of her taste in music, this guy was just weird. But Kairi decided to just be friendly, and wait it out until they got to the bar, then Riku could take care of it.

"Yeah, probably my favorite band ever," Kairi said with a smile.

"They're mine too, I especially love the White Album. You don't get how hard it was for me to give up such a cool find like that," the boy laughed.

"I prefer Revolver and Sgt Pepper myself, but the White Album has my favorite song by them," Kairi said continuing to smile.

"Oh and what song would that be?" he asked, smile still plastered on his face as well.

"'Julia'..." Kairi replied.

"That's a good one, probably my favorite song from John," he replied, his smile fading from his face. "Maybe it's because I can relate a lot to what it's like losing your mother."

That was surprising, opening up like that, well maybe not so much given how he had acted up until now, he was rather odd.

They were about a block away from the bar now and Kairi could see Roxas ahead.

"Hey Sora! See you found Kairi!" Roxas yelled.

Wait... Sora!?

"Huh!? Wait you're Sora!?" Kairi said nearly screaming. That explains why he was so friendly and open towards her.

Sora laughed as they got nearer to Roxas. "Gee thanks Kairi for not recognizing me, I know it's been 6 years, but I haven't changed that much!"

"It musta been the beard man, told you it makes you look totally different," Roxas teased, elbowing Sora lightly in the side.

Kairi went up and gave Roxas a quick hug. "Nice to see you again, but you need to do something about that brother of yours," She said pointing to Sora.

"What do you mean by that Kairi?" Sora asked, hand behind his head.

"I mean why didn't you tell me who you were, you ass! I thought you were some kind of creep!" Kairi huffed at Sora, somewhat jokingly, as she began walking into the bar.

"Sorry about that..." Sora laughed again "It's really good to see you again though..."

"It's nice to see you again too, Sora," Kairi said looking back, a small smile on her face. "And I'm sorry, for not recognizing you. That stupid beard threw me off."

They both shared a laugh as they entered the bar

A/N Hi I'm Illusionist, and this is my fanfiction. I will try to keep author's notes concise and usually at the end of a chapter. Hope you enjoyed chapter 1. Also a really big thanks to FlowerLady_Aerith for beta reading this chapter. Lastly I welcome any and all feedback, so please write some reviews if you feel like it.