- CHECKMATE -
a Roxiri story by Jamjari
x Roxas POV x
I used to watch her.
We used to go to the same elementary school, she and I. We were never friends, though. I was a quiet kid, and I rarely spoke unless spoken to. I never paid attention to anything or anyone, making me a sort of outcast, I suppose.
It was all because one person stole away my attention. Her name was Kairi.
She always hung out with that other kid Sora. I doubt she even knew of my existence then, but I admired her from afar, watching her laughing and goofing off with Sora. He always brought out her true smile, which was a brilliant and beautiful thing. It used to make my heart flutter so, and I always envied Sora for being able to draw that from her. He was the only one who could, as far as I could tell.
Was it sadness that I felt back then? Envy or self-loathing? Because whenever I saw Kairi's beautiful smile and I spotted Sora to her side, my heart clenched. I knew that she would always be his.
When we graduated, I was supposed to move onto the same middle school as her. But just before I had officially moved in, I got into a terrible car accident, which basically crushed my legs and rendered me immobile. It also dealt a lot of damage to my ribcage, which in turn delivered near-fatal blows and caused problems to my heart, making it fail to work properly. I would have been dead if I wasn't sped off to the hospital quickly.
Months of extensive surgeries and an artificial heart transplant later, I was well and off again, though my legs forever lost their power to stand and walk around. I was now to live inside the hospital, because of my handicap and for frequent checkups and maintenance on my "heart". The strangest thing was that the artificial heart didn't give a pulse. No heartbeat, but I was still living. Well, I wasn't so sure if staying cooped inside a hospital was actually considered "living", but I stuck to it anyway.
My days went by, slowly but surely, as I sat there in my bed surrounded by curtains. I didn't speak with the other patients in the room much. So, I devoted most of my time on chess, a game I enjoyed and was already skilled at. I used to be the statewide chess champion, after all. The game helped me put my mind at ease, making it blissfully ignorant of everything else in the world, and served as a relaxing, time-consuming pastime.
When I first heard that a volunteer named Kairi was going to be the caretaker of this room, I didn't know what to make of it. I doubted it was the same Kairi I had known and secretly admired before, but when she arrived, I knew it was her. It was her voice that I heard from the other side of the curtain, speaking softly to the elderly patients and laughing with the children. I wanted to run out and say hi; to see her face again. But I couldn't budge an inch from my bed, and both my pride and fear kept me from requesting to see her.
But one day, Kairi dropped by to my corner.
I was surprised, and my artificial heart skipped a beat when I saw her again. She gave me an awkward smile, and was the first to speak. "Nice to meet you…" I saw her eyes shift to the edge of my bed, where my name was displayed. "…Roxas. I'm Kairi."
My spirit dropped a bit, as she went on further apologizing and explaining who she was. She didn't remember me. Sure, that was expected, but it still upset me. She didn't even say, "Haven't I seen you somewhere before?" or "You look familiar." Of course, I was but a miniscule speck in Kairi's life.
I snapped out of it, and returned her greeting. I didn't know what else to say. I was never much of a conversationalist, after all. But I didn't want Kairi to leave. I wanted to keep her at my side. So I asked her to play a game of chess with me.
I lost purposely, multiple times. I didn't want her to leave. I thought that if I won, she would've left, thinking that there was no need to go on. I know it was selfish and rotten of me, but I kept losing anyway. I knew that Kairi was a kind girl, and wouldn't leave if I acted as though I really wanted to win a game against her. And I knew that I could use her pity to get her to return every day. I also knew that she wouldn't purposely lose to me, either.
Day after day, visit after visit, we kept playing chess. She had brightened up my monotone lifestyle in the hospital just with her presence. I made myself lose every single time, by handicapping myself to absurd limits, just to get her to stay. Just to get her to come back the next day.
But one day, she didn't come back. I waited and waited, but no Kairi.
This went on for weeks, and my life slowly returned to what it was before, with me sitting in my bed alone, playing chess to myself. Except now, it hurt so much more.
Could it have gotten any worse? It did. After one of my scheduled checkups, the doctor told me that my body was beginning to reject the artificial mechanism that was pumping life into me. They didn't know any way to stop it, and they tried everything they can. Finally, they dropped the bad news on me, saying that I only had a month left to live. I laughed at first, because I didn't feel anything different in my body.
A week passed. The pain began then, in short intervals every few days. They gave me medication to dull the pain. It subsided for a while, before returning full on with more frequency, and I found myself in excruciating pain at least once every six hours. Everyday, I ticked off the days on my calendar to my death day, when the doctor said he would have to remove the heart surgically. He'd given me the option to peacefully die through injection before the set time if the hurting was unbearable, but I refused. I still didn't know why, though.
Those days were torture to me. I knew I was dying, and there isn't a worse feeling than knowing that your string of life was being slowly snipped off, an inch a day.
The day of the surgery came around. I was exhausted and drained of all my energy after wrestling with pain and death over the past month. Nothing had been achieved in the previous few weeks, and I wondered if I should've taken the shot before, because I had endured through so much without reaping any benefit from it. Only if I could see Kairi one more time, then I'd be able to die a happy man.
Someone up above must've really liked me, because that day, Kairi came back. I was so overjoyed, that I wanted to tell her about everything and anything that I possibly could –to fill in the times that I had the chance to go up and talk to her, but I didn't. To catch up on the days that we missed. I wanted to tell her about my life, my happiness, my pain, and my soon-to-be death.
But when I saw her weak smile, I knew something was wrong, so I kept my mouth shut. I immediately knew what it was about, too. I was able to read Kairi like a book, after having watched her so many times before.
Sora.
Sora was the cause. I didn't know exactly what happened, but I knew that it was about him. It was obvious because she avoided making eye contact with me, or even looking directly at my face. I had always been told by people that I reminded them of Sora, because of my eyes and my face. Even the elementary teacher and Sora himself had mentioned it to me before. I didn't think I was anything like Sora though; he was everything that I wasn't, and all that I wanted to be. After all, he was the only one to make Kairi smile her true smile.
But right now, I knew that when Kairi looked at me, I reminded her of Sora. And she had been hurt by him. I thought of the only thing that I could do, and asked her to a game of chess. Thankfully, she seemed to cheer up a bit at the request.
This time, I played seriously. There was no more need to keep losing. This was going to be the last time, anyway. She seemed surprised at my sudden change, but I guess that was to be expected. I wanted to cheer her up, too. I gave her what I hoped would be a motivational line – yes, me, ever the philosopher – and I guess it worked, because she smiled. Her true smile. At that instant, all my troubles and worries fly out the window. Who cared about death? I made Kairi smile. Then the nurse came in to take me out for my surgery, and she and Kairi helped me into the wheelchair.
"Thank you, Roxas."
It was a good life, to say the least.
"No problem. When we see each other again, you better bring me some ice cream. I love ice cream."
Maybe one day, instead me reminding her of Sora, Sora will remind her of me.
"Oh, yeah… About that… I'm sorry about stopping my hospital visits without telling you. I had school… you know, the works. I won't do it ever again. Sorry."
Maybe. I could hope, can't I? If a dead man was allowed to hope...
"Forgiven."
And maybe the place I was headed for was nice. Maybe I'll get wings to fly and move around freely.
"I'll come by tomorrow. I promise."
Kairi, you better bring that ice cream along next time I see you.
I doubt they'll have any up in heaven, nor any angels as pretty as you.
"I'll be waiting."
- fin.
A/N: Roxas side. I never give Roxas a break. But he's like a ball of angst, so I can't help it! Feedback, please!