Quoshoopy

'Prologue: Dominoizasm'

It began, as many things do, with a dream—a premonition of sorts—a divine intervention of the great Poobah in the lives of the small mortal ants crawling about and over his most immortal toes. Yes, it was a dream. A very troublesome, very different sort of dream which caused Sora to awake in a cold-sweat, blue eyes wide in the dark of his room, mouth open to say something, mind racing, frantically searching for, for—for what, he wasn't sure. He couldn't possibly be sure.

But he was certain that he knew someone who would be.

And it was with this beginning that Sora rolled out of bed, still shaken, still startled, still all out of sorts and pulling on a pair of sweat pants and a t-shirt, sliding on some sandals and jogging out of his apartment. He was going for help. He was going for counseling.

He was going to see his girlfriend—the only one he knew to provide help and counseling at all hours of the night.

x x x

"Sora! Wh-what are you doing here?" Kairi rubbed her left eye with a scrunched up fist before blinking blearily again at the young man standing in her doorway, anxious and confused. She shuffled to the side to allow him in, closing the door sleepily behind her and stifling a yawn with her free hand.

Kairi's apartment was a picture-perfect little thing, easily falling into that category of wealth in which the occupant was almost-but-not-quite capable of owning a house. Neatly furnished with warm, perfectly-coordinated colors, the rooms were dark and still as Sora flitted past them, his hands darting across the air in rapid movements as he fought to calm down and explain. Behind him, Kairi was staring once again, her half-conscious mind throwing a bit of a fit at not even receiving a kiss from her beloved boyfriend upon his strange little midnight arrival.

"I had a dream, Kai," Sora declaired.

"We all have dreams, Sora," she calmly stated, and could do nothing but follow grudgingly behind as Sora raced into the small den near the back of the apartment, pacing up a still greater storm there as Kairi seated herself at the computer desk, leaning back as Sora continued to breathe heavily and murmur quietly, distractedly, before her very eyes. It was sort of, in some twisted, abstract way, like watching one of those little white lab mice all the scientists love so much caught up in a giant maze. Sora's nose even went so far as to twitch along with the rest of his jerky motions. A little mouse, indeed, Kairi decided. Only with it's tail cut off and wearing sandals and pants. What a cute rat, Kairi thought.

"This wasn't any ordinary dream though!" Sora was saying. In between his thoughts came muttered phrases Kairi couldn't make out—maybe they were a word or two long, but then Sora was speaking audibly again. "It was... I mean… it was disturbing. It was real, but it wasn't. It was painful, but yanno, not in that normal way that dreams are painful or anything. No one was hurting me, I wasn't supposed to be hurting, and I don't think you can feel feelings in dreams—can you Kai? I didn't think you could. I never have before. But I mean, this thing really just... It really hurt! I mean I woke up and I was freaking out because I couldn't figure out if it was real or-"

"Sora. You're still freaking out," Kairi felt obligated to point out.

"No I'm not!"

"Yes you are." She rolled her eyes to emphasize her point as Sora blinked at his own erratic little hand motion before bringing his arms to his sides, pouting angrily.

"I'm not."

"Whatever, whatever! Fine! You're not!" Turning towards her computer, Kairi jabbed the power button and sat back again, now almost fully awake and functioning in her normal, logical manner. She leaned over and switched on the desk lamp while Sora fidgeted, wondering whether he should continue or not—wondering if there was really any point. ...Wondering why he'd raced all the way out here in the middle of the night after all. ...Wondering what on earth he'd thought Kairi would be able to-

"Describe it for me," she said.

"Huh?"

"Your dream. What happened in it?"

And so Sora resumed his pacing, but ensured that his hands were tucked safely into his pockets as his feet pattered anxiously across the floor, back and forth, back and forth, plainly and painfully out of sync with his voice as he rattled off as much as he could as fast as he could, clearly afraid of forgetting the slightest detail before he could get it all out into the open.

"Okay, okay, so I was on a beach and everything. Like... where we used to hang out as kids, remember?"

"I remember, Sora." Kairi typed something out on the keyboard. Sora ignored it.

"And... It's like—"

It was a beach like no other—beautiful and pristine like few are today. The community was too small, too normal to thrive off of tourism, and so the sand remained as clear as it may have been the day it was first scattered on the shore like so many pearls poured out of a bucket from the sky. He could only smile. He was walked on a beach of pearls—the fulfilled dream of every grain of sand—to become something beautiful and loved.

"I was standing there and I was watching the water or something, I guess, I don't remember, but it just... fwoosh! It just shot right back out into the ocean—the water zoomed backwards all of a sudden, and I started freaking out- don't laugh, Kai!- because I thought it was a tidal wave or something. And it was, right there, right in front of me and I was just standing there like a total idiot! But I mean, I couldn't move because..."

The pearls followed the water and rolled downward, and because he couldn't keep his balance he slipped, arms pinwheeling wildly, body trying to retain its balance on a ground trying to disappear. On his knees, his hands fell against hardwood planking—a straggling pearl rolled past his left hand, its path carrying it towards—and then past—the man in the now shallow water, who stood facing his end, oblivious to Sora kneeling behind him.

Here Sora gulped and glanced nervously towards Kairi, still seated in front of her computer and still jabbing a few keys every now and then. Her right thumb was pressed against her lips, its nail tapping against her teeth—a habit taken up as an alternative to nail biting. She glanced up from the screen at the pause, shooting her boyfriend an expectant look.

"You couldn't move because...?"

"Because of Riku," Sora mumbled. His palms were sweating then, so he hastily removed them from the pockets of his sweatpants, resuming his pacing, possibly wearing a hole straight through the floor. If Kairi noticed, she said nothing. She just waited patiently for Sora to continue. And continue he did.

"Riku was standing in the water, Kairi. And... the tidal wave was just building up like crazy behind him and I know I was thinking like... 'Holy crap, Riku's going to get killed!' And... I mean, I was really... I just... I was just really... terrified, I guess. More than you're supposed to be in a dream. But... when Riku just finally turned around, he looked calm as hell..."

Her head was tilted at an angle as she looked at her computer screen. Sora couldn't tell if she'd been listening to him or not, but he could only assume she had been. It was very rare that Kairi didn't listen, that she didn't pick up what all was going on around her. There was a slight twist in his chest as Sora thought this. He trusted Kairi to listen. He trusted Kairi to tell him what to do. Yet was it truly trust or was it dependence, after all?

She asked, "Was he dripping?"

"Was he whatta?" Sora asked incredulously, a sudden blush jolting onto his face with such force that he nearly felt dizzy with the rush of blood. Grabbing onto the back of Kairi's desk chair, he steadied himself as his girlfriend prattled on quite harmlessly.

"Dripping. Was Riku dripping? He was standing in the ocean, Sora. So was he dripping or what?"

"Well... I... I guess... so."

"M'kay." Sora blinked. Kairi smiled. She told him, "What you have so far is this. The ocean represents your emotions and feelings, or it could sorta be like... refreshing, you know? Spiritually and everything. And Riku's dripping with water signifies that you're losing your own spiritual will. Or something."

"...Wait... I'm..."

"'Losing your spiritual will,' honestly Sora. Or experiencing something disturbing that affects your psyche. Or it could apply to Riku, I dunno." Kairi grinned quite cheerfully and Sora's stomach clenched painfully inside him, way down somewhere past his ribs and buried beneath all the other guts and bones crammed into the human body. He had a bad feeling about it all. He didn't know how much confidence could be had in whatever information could be gleaned from some obscure dream dictionary website, but Kairi was perfectly oblivious, seemingly delighted by Sora's murky looking dreamscape. She urged him to go on, and for lack of a better plan, Sora did. He remained ever so trusting.

"Well... uh... and so I ran out to him because... I wanted to pull him back from the tidal wave and all..."

"The tidal wave apparently represents a sort of huge, overwhelming kinda… emotional problem of yours. It says here that for it to be a tidal wave, it must be pretty important and resolved quickly."

"...And..." Sora swallowed, but it couldn't get around the large lump forming in his throat. No way was this happening... "And um... and so I was running to him and his hair was getting in his face and all from the wind and the water and... I... uh..."

"Hair represents sexual kinds of things. Seduction, sensuality... things like that, you know?"

Kzzt--pop. Pop. Sora could practically feel the little cells in his brain zapping themselves to death over this. Thankfully Kairi couldn't make out much of his face in the dark. She might have seen how red he was right then, just a regular tomato. -You say poe-tay-toe, I say poe-tah-toe... Poe-tay-toe, poe-tah-toe! Tah-may-toe! Tah-mah-toe! Let's call the whole thing off!- Anyway. She might have seen that telltale blush -The Telltale Heart, ka-thunk, ka-thunk- and she might have saved herself a great deal of pain in the long run. But no, sadly, Kairi was busy typing away, her fingers striking the keyboard slow and accurate.

"What else was there, Sora?" Her words, her voice, his trust- the things that were still driving Sora on. He didn't know how or why, exactly, but he did know he wanted answers, no matter how painful they might be.

"I started falling... I mean... I was pulled beneath the water... Riku too. But I started falling through it... and he disappeared."

He expected to hit a wall of pearls and sand, for he himself had seen them roll into the waters and he himself was now falling through those very same waters. But there were no pearls—there was just a blurred image of a girl and the sky, and the man was gone and the water pulled him under—further than under, even. The water pulled in through.

Clapping her hands together excitedly, Kairi declared, "Falling through water means you're totally overwhelmed with your emotions- kinda like the tidal wave, remember?- annnd it says you probably feel it's easier to give up than to try and swim or fight the current pulling you un-"

That did it.

"This is too much," Sora whispered. He turned and was off like a shot, zipping down the hallway of Kairi's apartment, nearly colliding with the door as he fought to open it and run. Running was the only thought on his mind, and the power of that thought made it such that he couldn't even explain it to Kairi, and even his own overwhelming trust towards the girl could not anchor him to her a moment longer. He couldn't bring himself to care about Kairi's confused cries behind him, suddenly. He couldn't bring himself to care about an abrupt little jolt of pain that raced up his leg as he landed awkwardly during his mad sprint down the flights of stairs.

No time for the elevator, no time, no time...

He was dimly aware of the sound of the door behind him, the sound of footsteps racing after him. He was sure that they were Kairi's, and it was that very certainty that drove him onward, giving him a second, third, and fourth wind, for Sora-

"Sora!"

...Sora had never really been big into exercise. In fact, he'd much preferred lazing around on the beach, under the sun, on the sand, smiling, grinning, soaking it all in. He pointlessly tried to recount all these facts to himself as he flew out of the apartment complex into the night, sandals grating across the rough concrete as Sora's panic level rose to an alarming and painful little climax all its own.

Taxi! There's no taxi!

"Sora, what on earth-!"

That was it. He was finished. Why oh why had he thought that Kairi could make it better? What on earth had driven him to her, of all people, to help him with this one particular problem? They were questions he didn't have to ask himself. He wasn't about to deny it. Kairi was a crutch. A supporting, stable, loving crutch, but a crutch all the same. With that thought, he had an image of himself in his minds eye, old and emfeebled, charging down a hallway leading nowhere, hobbling madly, determined to overcome some sort of crippling condition or other. Was that really what she was? Was that really who Sora was?

My brain is screwing with me again…

"Sora..." She was out of breath. She reached for his arm but he jerked away suddenly, swiftly, like a puppy once kicked and now about to be kicked again, reeling back before a blow that wouldn't come. She shot him a puzzled, hurt look. He didn't shoot her any look, his eyes rooted to the ground.

Both stood there in the quiet dark of the small city. Both were now very aware that something was wrong. But only one of them knew what exactly it was. Only one of them knew what was about to happen next and only one of them knew where it would go from there.

"Kairi... I don't think... I think..." As Sora fumbled for his words, Kairi drew her bathrobe closer around her body, slow, painful realization beginning to dawn on her. Oh dear, her face seemed to say. It's Sora and he's thinking. This can only mean...

"I think we need to see other people!"

And yet neither Sora nor Kairi could tell if the exclamation was really an exclamation or not. In all honesty, it sounded like a yelp in the silence all around them, a kick in the pants of curfew and anything like it. And in all honesty, it was nothing but the sound of Kairi's heart being stabbed with a knife. Just once. It was a very neat, clean job and no one could have expected Sora, of all people, to do a nicer duty than what he did for her right then. But it was undoubtedly that sound, that very sound of a blade cutting through so much love—years of love and devotion and hope.

"What?" she managed to choke out.

"I think I'm in love with Riku," he said.

"What?" she repeated.

Yes, he thought, seeing the headlights of a taxi appearing just around the bend.

No, she thought, seeing the same and realizing the same, but desperately, desperately wanting things to be so different.

"It was just a dream, Sora, you can't really tell me you're just going to-"

"Yeah. It was a dream. But... I think I have to. Okay?"

There were times when Sora could be outrageously mature. These times were few, rare, and unexpected, often popping up in the moments in which many people believed he would've been far better off acting in his usual childish manner. But as Sora flagged the taxi down, Kairi could not manage to come to a clean decision one way or another. And in the end, all she felt was a blinding pain, dully throbbing somewhere behind her ribcage, yes, somewhere in that mass of guts that makes up the human body.

But her pain was not of the sort that comes from a dizzy spell, a rush of blood, a tipsy stomach. In fact, the root of her pain wasn't even a physical thing, not that it really mattered all that much in the end.

For as Sora looked back once, and only once, Kairi could tell that something was on the brink of change. There was some landmark point in their lives which they were rapidly approaching and Kairi wanted nothing more than to bring the whole ridiculous business to a sudden halt and be done with it. And be happy with her Sora.

"Sora! I-"

But Sora shook his head.

Kairi fell silent. The door slammed shut. And all was lost as the cab rolled down the road in the middle of the night.

And not knowing what else to do, Kairi began to cry.

x x x

It was a well-known fact that Riku had two loves in his life. The first love was that of boys. Everybody who was anybody knew Riku and if you knew Riku, you knew which way he swung on the metaphorical swing set. He enjoyed watching boys, he enjoyed talking to boys, and he enjoyed kissing boys. As a regular rule, he was not a fan of the 'female race.' Kairi was the only exception to that rule. Kairi somehow managed to be the only exception to many rules, and this would only help to fuel the poor girl's frustration later on.

But Riku's second love, the love less well-known... That was something entirely different.

Riku loved cars. Now don't be mistaken. He would never be caught dead splurging left and right in a car dealership, used or otherwise. He only owned one car and though he treated the little thing as if it were his own precious mutant child of sorts, it was not enough to quench his craving for cars. So what did Riku do?

"See that car, Sora?"

The two stood side by side, huddled behind a neat little hedge separating Riku's front yard from that of his neighbor's. Sora... was slightly puzzled.

"Um. Yeah, Riku. It's a car."

"It's a new car."

"Yeah, it's their new car, Riku, okay," Sora said, unable to keep a little note of annoyance from wheedling its merry way into his voice. "But seriously, Riku, I came here to talk to you about something impor-" He cut himself off as he slowly began to realize that Riku was paying absolutely no attention to him. In fact, the other man was practically drooling over the hedge they stood behind, watching the car with sheer adoration scrawled all over his gorgeous face in black and white letters.

Sora drew his bottom lip out into a stubborn pout, clearly being ignored as Riku ogled the shiny little silver thing. A convertible, of course. Riku knew he would look great in that car and he wasted absolutely no time in letting Sora know so too.

"I have to drive that car, Sora. So bad. So bad you have no fucking idea," Riku whispered.

"Uh huh. Yeah, great, Riku. Why don't you just go steal it?"

"...I can't. It's daylight."

"Riku!"

"Kidding, only kidding!" Riku laughed lightheartedly and clapped Sora on the back, accidentally sending his dear old friend slamming into the hedge face first, leaving Sora to be rewarded with a mouthful of prickly little leaves and another string of Riku's laughter as he fell to the grass, clutching his sides and attempting to apologize profusely.

"Man, Sora, sorry! Hehehe...! I thought... hehe... you'd catch your- hehehe!"

"Cut it out, Riku!"

Finally, something clicked in Riku's brain. "Sora...?"

And that was roughly how Sora came to be seated where he was. The back seat of a bus on a route that went nowhere in particular. He didn't care. It was crowded and he was next to invisible, just as he wanted to be.

"Sora... I... Listen, I'm really, really flattered that you-"

"Flattered? You're flattered?"

"Well, Sora, I thought you already knew."

"Knew what?"

"About Leon."

"...Leon?"

And Sora still couldn't believe it. Suddenly he was aware of what he'd done to Kairi the previous night, and though he certainly felt considerably guiltier than he had before, he still managed to find some scrap of truth behind his reasoning. I couldn't keep leading her on like. But that didn't keep a certain fifty kilo weight of guilt, stress, and self-pity from falling on his head and squishing poor Sora to the plastic coated seat of a noisy local bus line.

He fell into that state again. The state he'd found himself in a lot lately. That state of being there and yet being somewhere completely and totally different. Somewhere out beyond the glass window of the bus, far past the horizon framed within it, even. Sora acknowledged the new presence of a man who moved to sit beside him, the bus having pulled to the side of the road to pick up another stop's worth of passengers. Though the thought was tempting, Sora couldn't very well see himself snapping at the newcomer to go away, to sit somewhere else, to let a defeated boy-man wallow in his own misery for a while. No, ever so complacent, Sora pulled his body closer to the window, pulled his annoyance inside when the man sad closer than he would've liked and kept quiet and very much to himself.

The noise level increased as Sora's spirits decreased. A regular science experiment, alright. Sora figured he could whore his problems and data off in some middle school science fair and win a scholarship to go to college. ...Again.

The knee bumped into his and the voice reached his ears. "Sorry," it said. Sora shrugged it off, pressing himself against the window even further and into the cool metal wall of the bus. It was comforting, in some strange sort of abstract way in which only metal could be. Maybe it was the fact that Sora could press his fingertips against it and feel- and know- that it was solid beneath his hands and that there was nothing he could do to break or bend it.

His sad little musings were interrupted by a soft tap on his shoulder. Sora scowled, something he rarely did, complacency broken and rolling around on the bus floor, clattering and bouncing around the ankles of elderly women whose faces were turned to the ceiling, mouths open in a snore, and Sora turned to face the jackass beside him, ready to tell the bastard off and go back to sulking. ...Only he was surprised to find that...

He couldn't say a thing.

Who could possibly stay angry at such a pair of blue eyes that looked so genuinely concerned?

"Hey… you okay, kid?" the man asked. He was dressed in a light blue collared shirt, the top button undone and his tie loosened, a neat sport coat draped over his lap along with a smooth leather briefcase—brown and clean, and yet slightly worn. For some reason, Sora found the raw corners of the case ridiculously endearing, and he had to catch himself from saying so aloud. Yet the thing that truly caught Sora's eyes was the little mp3 player and the bitty black earphones popped into the guy's head- clearly not a dyed-in-the-wool professional, not going along with the whole business ensemble, but clearly fitting right in with the spiked blonde hair and those intense blue eyes.

Sora, if asked, would have summed up the man in three words. GQ meets rock n' roll. 'Rock n' roll' was one word for Sora. ...In case you hadn't figured that out.

The man smiled, though it seemed a bit stressed and puzzled, clearly wondering at Sora's mute nature. Maybe the kid actually was mute. That would be troubling, if only because the man would feel like an inconsiderate bastard for no real, concrete reason other than his obliviousness to the handicaps of others. A few awkward moments passed between the two and the man glanced around the bus, tapped a finger slow and steady against the tiny gadget in his hands, tapped his foot against the leg of the bench in front of them... Finally he said, "Forget it. Sorry about that. You know. It's really none of my business if-"

"It's okay!" Sora quickly interjected, falling silent again and blinking up at the older man with almost unnaturally large eyes. They could've rolled out his eyes and it probably would have taken him a few good seconds to realize it. And still, the expression must have struck the other as amusing, for the blonde laughed cheerfully and pull his headphones off. He curled the cord of one around the tapping finger of his—his left index—and surveyed Sora with a practiced ease, an almost invisible shadow of a smile still tugging pleasantly at the corner of his mouth and an amused look still firmly embedded somewhere within his gaze.

"It's Bob Dylan," he said quietly, obviously speaking of the strained trail of a tune coming through the earpiece he held. "You ever listen to him?" he asked.

Sora shook his head no, innocently oblivious as the blonde man reached over and popped one of the earpieces in Sora's right ear, the one closest to him. Into his own left one he put the other piece before edging the volume up slightly and resuming his routine of foot-and-finger tapping, a lazy look of raw satisfaction on his face. It reminded Sora of a certain laid-back innocence and warmth he'd only felt one place before. It reminded Sora of the island of his childhood, the one from his dream and the setting of the entire downfall he found himself caught up in then. It was, after all, the island dream that had caused his split with Kairi and the new rift growing between Riku and him. And yet there it was, that pleased look— reminding Sora of the sun's rays that -if you were awake early enough and in just the right spot- shone through the broad leaves of the island trees and fell upon the sand in gold ribbons.

'Life is sad, life is a bust. All ya can do is do what you must. You do what you must do and ya do it well; I'll do it for you, honey baby, can't you tell?'

Whether it was the words or the look on the man's own face, Sora soon found his own mouth being pulled and tugged upwards and outwards, a smile of his own, familiar and warm and blatant, spreading across his face. It felt good, after everything. After the dream, after Kairi. ...After Riku.

"Listen, Sora, I didn't know you-... I'm sorry. Really. I thought you knew, man."

"How was I supposed to know?"

"...How were you not supposed to know?"

"I thought he was just... I thought he...!"

"...What, you thought he was just my fuck buddy or something?"

Sora's smile was gone again and the other man was looking at him again, curious as ever, though his attitude was now laced with a more bold and daring sort of attitude. Now that he'd come to the conclusion that the boy beside him wasn't a deaf or a mute and he wasn't swimming through waters of inconsiderate shitheadedness. Which wasn't a proper word or description, but was the closest the man could come to describing the situation in his head. Maybe the thought bubbled up and out through the earpiece, down the cord and out through the other, into Sora's ear. Sora quickly became aware of the man's gaze fixed on him, and looked up.

"What's your name?" the man asked.

"Sora," he said.

"How old are you?"

"Twenty-three."

The blonde's eyes widened considerably and Sora felt his mouth prickling into a downward frown once more, though the action only managed to make the other let out a deep and easy chuckle. Okay, so maybe Sora didn't exactly look his age, he figured. Or often act it, either. But, in his own defence, it was one thing to privately think that—thinking never did much of anything for or to anyone—but it was another thing to just make a big damn joke about it. Especially on that day, of all days. The one day Sora didn't feel like joking around—couldn't possibly feel like joking around.

"Really now…" the man said. At least he wasn't laughing at Sora anymore. At least he was being genuine. "I've never sat next to anyone more down than me on this bus, you know?" The man leaned back into the seat, or at least, as far back as one could possibly manage to lean into industrial strength foam padding. He clasped his slender hands over his briefcase, left index finger once more drumming against the back of his right hand, the mp3 player clasped between the two of them like a sacred emblem. Bob Dylan probably has a cult following or something, Sora thought to himself. And I wouldn't really be all that surprised if this guy was a part of it.

Now that was a thought to entertain.

The man turned his attention away from his music and towards Sora again. "You're not offended, are you?" Sora shook his head no. The man seemed to be put back at ease. He nodded a bit, lowered his eyelids and studied Sora in a way that probably should have been impolite, but really didn't seem all that bad at all. The man said, "It just doesn't seem to suit you. That's all I meant by it… I mean... when you smile? Fits you much better."

"Oh yeah, like you'd know," Sora drawled back, partially surprised by how much he sounded like a hormone-crazed teenager, drugged up on rebellion and angst, angst, angst.

"I don't say it about everyone…"

Sora was again surprised, though this time it was by that all-too-familiar feeling of blood creeping up towards his face, slowly but surely darkening the shade of pink that was splashed across his cheeks. Was that some kind of shyness the guy had just shown? Should Sora revel in the attention lavished on him by some total stranger, or just be completely creeped out by an attractive, older man seeming to make a pass at him on the bus line? As Sora struggled with this little inner debate of his, he continued to blush stupidly, childishly… profusely. If the other man noticed, he said nothing, simply settling for closing his eyes and getting lost in the gravelly voice of some ancient old someone that most of the inhabitants of that world had long since forgotten.

"Well. You're not exactly all grins and smiles either, you know?" Sora could've punched himself in the face for saying it, because he could have—should have—just kept his ridiculous mouth shut until he'd come up with something meaningful and gratifying to actually say. Crap.

But once more, to Sora's everlasting surprise, the man took it all in stride. "See this whole crappy costume I decked out in?" he asked. Without opening his eyes, the man flicked his hand, one finger extended, gesturing towards the collared shirt and professional attire, almost with something similar to disdain. "It took half of my first paycheck to pay for it. And I have seven of them. One for each day of the week. Do you know how many paychecks that is?"

"...So why do you buy them?" asked Sora, who clearly had no idea as to where the hell the conversation was going.

"Because," he said. "I was told I had to. And as a general rule, I make a pretty religious habit of doing what I'm told."

"Why?"

"...Not sure. What about you?"

"Whaddya mean?"

"Do you always do what you're told?"

"...I dunno."

They returned to sitting in silence and Sora returned to looking out the window, the sounds of old Dylan still filtering in through one ear. It made the view not so depressing, but that may just have been because he then had something anchoring him to the bus. It was thin, metallic, and wrapped in plastic; one neat little black cord connecting one earpiece to the other, as well as their respective male holders. Sora smiled at the thought. And perhaps it was that realization or perhaps it was something else. Perhaps it was Sora's small sliver of hope and faith that he was standing on the brink of something new and important. Whatever it was, the dream, the depression, the music, the voice, Sora turned to the other man and said, "It's about my girlfriend."

The man made no motion other than sliding one eye open in a lazy manner to study the boy beside him. He blinked once and then gave a very slight nod, motioning for Sora to continue.

"See... I broke up with her because I kept having this dream. And I mean... I went to her one night—just the other night, I mean—because I figured she would know where to go to find out what it meant and everything. She's... pretty smart like that. And she doesn't get mad whenever I randomly show up or anything. But all her help… all it did was point out that I had this crush on my best friend- this huge, massive crush. And... well... I sorta ended up getting terrified, because I'd thought that for a while. I just didn't know if—if I was just being weird or something."

"Did you actually love him, though?"

"Yeah, I guess, I mean I- ...Uh..." Sora blinked rapidly, suddenly having been struck upside the head with the hand of absolute shock. "...How'd you know I was talking about a guy?"

"It was a guess." The man shrugged a little, his eyes falling closed once more as he said, "Don't let me stop you. Go on."

Sora gulped and glanced around, scratching the base of his neck with a fidgeting hand. What was up with him lately? He just couldn't seem to stay still or concentrate on much of anything. ...Except for stupid dreams that only ended up getting him royally screwed in the end.

"There's not much else to tell. I mean... He's already with someone and got totally defensive when I actually seemed surprised. ...I'm not trying to be mean or anything, but what they had... I... well... I dunno. It just never struck me as a relationship or anything. I mean, it almost seemed kinda they were just... um..."

"Fuck buddies?" the man provided. It looked like he wanted to laugh again, but Sora was grateful when he didn't. Sora nodded slowly, stupidly, and somehow... cutely.

If that made any sense.

Through his covered eyes, Sora didn't catch the head-tilt, the small, sweet trace of a smile, the hint of a look of adoration that had suddenly sparked. And by the time he'd removed his hands, a pout carefully crafted onto his tan little face, the look was gone. It was replaced by nothing more than that cautious manner that all adults wear when trying to guide a small child to the right decision. Somehow it bothered Sora, forcing his eyebrows further together, his bottom lip further out. The man laughed. Sora stopped pouting. He giggled instead, the two sitting side by side as the bus slowed to a halt. Outside the window, framed neatly within the smooth metallic skeleton of the bus, the sun was beginning its steady descent to the ground. Sora knew it would never reach it. The man beside him knew it would never reach it.

And it was universally accepted truth that the sun just didn't give half a rat's ass. It was going to keep trying, dammit, even if the rest of the solar system had it out for him in the end. The ground was a reachable goal because the sun was the sun and all things in the sun's galaxy properly revolved around it. Unbeknownst to the sun, that was the precise reason the ground was perfectly unattainable. A long, complex process. All that truly mattered was that one fact—all you need to get out of it was that one fact.

Because all things revolve around the sun, the sun can never get what it most desires.

Sora grinned happily at this thought. He felt so deep. He felt so insightful. Maybe it meant something. Maybe, like the dream, it was trying to tell him something- this crazy subconscious of his. But maybe it wasn't through analyzing the thought that he'd reach the answer. Maybe it's just through... Hmm. Maybe it's like that domino effect. Kinda like... that dream was only the beginning. And it's leading up to all these other things. One after other, each depending on the other in order to happen... or... something...

Maybe they're important, Sora thought. Sora hoped. He needed something important then.

Sora looked up as the man beside him gathered his things together, clearly preparing to get off at this stop, of all stops, just when Sora had had this brilliant revelation of his. If he didn't share it with this total stranger, just who the hell was he supposed to share it with?

And almost as though he'd read his mind, the man grinned. An actual, full-fledged grin. Sora didn't know why, but he had this gut feeling that he should feel honored somehow, priviledged to receive it. The man then—he pulled a pen from his pocket, he reached for Sora's arm. Across the back of his wrist he neatly jotted down a series of numbers, still smiling and saying, "Alrighty. Here's what we're going to do..."

He was so strangely gentle.

x x x

"Here's my number. I want for you to call me, okay? I'll be expecting it when I least expect it. Surprise me. I could use the surprise and… I'm guessing you could use one, too. …Just don't forget…"

But one thing the man didn't know was that Sora was, at the very end of every day, still Sora, and in being Sora, Sora did forget. And he didn't remember until almost a week later when he discovered the faint, smudgy imprint of a backwards phone number, right there on the very last seat of the bus.

...Crap.

And so it was that the first domino was tipped. But it was only the first of many.

(x) (x) (x)

Ehehe. Quoshoopy, Chapter One, version 2.0. Fixed Cloud's character so he's not a total idiot. Also fixed mild typos, added to and made slight improvements where the writing was too crappy to stand. Over and out.