Airplanes Above Moonlight.

Airplanes flying across the great, unknown compass skyline always seemed to calm him.

He tried to forget, but it kept coming back. The same old notion kept sweeping over his mind, setting his world in motion. He really did do his best forget, but with the sweeping and the remembering, it reached impossible. It began driving his mind in circles, as he kept remembering her champagne wisps and lemonade bottle eyes. Every time he smelled it on another girl, he was brought back to the past; that smell of whimsical vanilla that clung onto her skin lightly, and her graceful arms that wrapped around his on summer days.

Many summer days ago.

He passed her photograph, and regrettably, he turned it down, chuckling out sarcastically. "And maybe love is the reason why." Sun slid through the thin glass windows, reflecting intimate patterns sporadically over his face, crossing into his marine eyes, causing him to squint his eyes and look the other way.

He figured at this moment he just needed to talk with Sora and Kairi who both seemed to hold the key to life, because the both always seemed so happy. Especially in each other's lovely company.

But, it was his own fault, he supposed. He was too brash and arrogant and stubborn to actually listen to what she said, and only added to the chaos. Of course, he regretted such actions now. But now, what good did it do him? None, of course.

She was gone, and he had to accept it, he supposed. He did a lot of supposing lately.

Love was the problem. It always destroyed everything. It took his perfect content and mixed it up with things like confessions and unanswered feelings. Only, he never dreamed that she with the grace of a rose and with the way she only let out petite smiles that warmed his heart, that he would be the one to say 'no', and reject her confession.

But, that was many summer days ago, and he didn't want to remember things like Vanilla and the thousands of ways love could destroy a relationship, as stupid as it sounded.

She was far away now, far from him. Now, she was nothing more than transparent memories to him, and he told himself he didn't really care anyway. She was only a girl.

He rested his hand over his knee, opening up his door, and going to sit on the steps of his porch, moving under the beating sun. As he sat there, her face kept coming back, and he kept on pushing it. Still, he felt the strong urge just to hold her hand like he used to; to feel her gentle fingers clasp into his like he mattered the world to her.

But he at that time had told her that she wasn't his world.

Because when his life was women, women, women, how could he see eye to eye with her?

- -- - -

"I love you." She said, with her fingers loosely around his, facing him. Her normally solitary eyes were vibrant with feeling, and her face bright with ambition. She glowed divinely, with the words sliding out naturally. He didn't move, and for a few moments she thought he might not have heard.

His cerulean orbs were trapped behind his silver hair, hiding. She turned her lips straight, dusting his bangs aside gently with her fingertips. He released her fingers, and when she almost succeeded in freeing his eyes, he grabbed her wrist away roughly.

"What?" He asked, his voice husky, whispering.

She pushed her hair behind her ears, forcing the words out again. "I love you, you heard me." The still night was silent, with the two the only inhabitants of the humble park. He neither spoke nor moved for some time. Neither did she.

The two were dead silent, and Naminé more than knew what is meant. She moved to Riku's back, sifting her hands gently into his hair, pulling back his platinum locks in her fingers. He turned to face her with an aquamarine glance.

"Tell me you don't love me, Riku." Her words were short and soft. He closed his eyes, ready to speak under the moonlight, words that would break her.

"Open your eyes, Riku." He did, mildly surprised at Naminé, now wide-eyed. He watched Naminé, her hands folded behind her back, and her eyes to the great encompass of the sky.

"Riku, I've never loved anyone before…" The Ethiopian sky was bright with little paint daubs of randomly placed stars; sort of like love, and people. Riku was the last person she ever thought would capture her difficult heart. He was brash, selfish, and egotistical… and she was completely in love with him. But how was it that the it was he, she wondered.

Her words faded out into a whisper of the night. She reminisced on the time up until now on how almost obsessed she'd been with Riku. She would wait hopefully on corners as he passed, just to get a scent of his sea-salt smell, and she even memorized his gestures. She watched every time his eyes grew a deeper shade of aquamarine and when he was playing blitzball he tied his hair back, making him even more handsome.

But where had it gotten her, really? Nowhere, but in love.

"Riku, I thought it was a notion you'd understand."

She walked light and slowly to Riku, looking him straight in the eyes. She spoke softly again. "Eye to eye, Riku."

He looked at her, eyes full of desperation. "Namin…"

"Tell me."

At first his eyes averted. He then looked at her, grading his teeth. His lips opened up, and he said rather loudly.

"I don't love you." He just lied.

He watched Naminé's delicate features; they were unchanging, in fact, she smiled.

Her champagne hair swayed as the wind's object. She pulled up and kissed the side of his mouth gently, bringing the sweet perfume of vanilla to his senses.

"I dearly hope you can find someone to love you as much as I did."

He took in a deep breath. He assembled his normal persona of calm-and-collected.

"I have many." He laughed, empty.

You have (n)one.

She smiled softly, and her having been reaching for his hand, released.

- -- - -

It was thoughtless of her to misplace her sketchpad, especially with it filled with the sketches that weren't particularly meant for eyes other than hers. Riku, the boy who had captured her fragile heart, had always done his best to peek in on her sketches had never even seen them.

She knew what she had been getting herself into when she began seeing Riku. Of course by "seeing" she meant occasionally going out on dates with him unless a better offer came up, which was sometimes the case.

Therein, another woman.

Casual dating was something she never thought she did, but Riku was her exception. She was a quiet and responsible girl who never did anything out of the ordinary, until Riku came down her path.

She hurried down the halls, on her way to check to see if she had left it near the tree where she had lunch. A number of thoughts swarmed her mind. About life, about Riku, and in general… most things about Riku, and she wondered about what thoughts swarmed through his mind.

Fate was coursing through. She made it to her destination. Only, her mind turned into a collision course. She saw him there, under the tree she sat so unrested earlier, with another girl, kissing her passionately. She didn't show anything on the inside out, remaining in her expressions of silence.

Riku in a moment peeked over, smiling while pulling away from the girl he had propped against the tree. In his other hand, he held her sketchbook.

"This yours, Nami?" He chucked, almost with a tone of mock towards the silent girl.

She smiled lightly, nodding. "Thank you Riku."

In an air of nonchalant that Riku had never seen her personify, she gently took the art pad from him.

"Goodbye, Riku." She said, her legs carrying her away.

Which meant forever.

Her heart spoke differently, but neither listened.

- -- - -

Riku woke up to the scent of the wind skipping across him. It had been ages since he dreamed about her. He shuffled his quick hand through his hair, as he often did. He yawned, taking notice to the sun sinking beneath the spiky mountains. Slowly, but surely, the magnificent star grew less and less and was once again unreachable.

It had been years since he had seen her again, he mused. About three, actually.

Riku stared up at the sky, as most people do when looking for answers, because clouds seemed to be mirrors peoples' souls.

He began thinking of her again. He couldn't formulate any reason, because he hadn't thought of her for so long.

He began thinking about just how perfect his arms fit around Naminé.

"I should have known it all along." He spoke to the sky.

"But… we're so far apart. And maybe love is the reason why."

His thoughts were on her again. He felt a loneliness shake his heart and his bones that he hadn't felt in so very long.

Listen to her(your) heart.

- -- - -

It was odd how the sound and vision of airplanes flying over moonlight calmed her. Summer was at its heels again, she mused. She watched the rounded star, the sun pour vibrant, vivid streaks of orange and yellow across the dying sky. It almost seamed that the mountains moved aside for the majestic transition between night and day, with the breaking of moonbeams, out powering the sun, and occasionally an airplane flying by, making people mistake if for their lucky star.

A thin pad of paper slept away on her lap.

"Perhaps I'll draw something poetic and lovely." She said softly, talking to the out-branched arms of the trees that sheltered her, cutting different shapes of moonlight onto her porcelain skin.

Her hands glided over the sheet, with her fingers loosely grasping the pencil. She had a god-given talent for things like sketching and imagining not so simple things. She hardly looked at what she was drawing; it was more like the pencil was directing her hand, and not the other way around.

The wind swept at her heels, lightly, playfully. She closed her eyes, letting her hand flow along freely.

When she opened her eyes and down at her sketchpad, her pencil broke in half. Her arm thrust so violently, surprised against the pad that the pencil actually snapped in two.

Her eyes were needled with fear and shock.

"Maybe love is the reason why…" She said slowly, examining the paper closely. Without her realizing, on it was a rough sketch of the boy from so long ago, Riku, holding his hand up towards her.

"We're never too far apart." She chuckled mildly. So, she never did recover from her heartbreak then?

She was frightened. She could have sworn her heart had forgotten him.

A plane flew overhead, and without warning, she was struck with intense loneliness.

She closed her art pad promptly.

- -- - -

He watched, idly. He walked down the sidewalk slowly, in taking the breath of summer. Summer was always perplexing to him, unlike the children laughing away at lucid things. He missed those times.

She was still on his mind from the day before. He was irritated. He shoved his pockets roughly into his pockets, doing his best to refuse entertaining thoughts about her.

Gosh, that girl drove him insane.

A wall was between them, and still his heart was reacting to the scent of vanilla.

He had let her down.

He looked at the sky again, scanning for answers within the whimsical pattern of the woven clouds. He blocked the world around him out. He thought about things when he looked at the sky. Things like life, and love, and he was always angry at his heart for cleverly suggesting thoughts of Naminé.

When he thought about her and looked at the sky, he found it hard to breathe.

The sky listened to his heart, and never seemed too far apart.

He was crashed from his thoughts when he collided against something. As he found himself on the ground with a loud thump and a sharp pain at his side and a weight on top of him, he was looking at the sky.

He froze. In his vision, he saw wisps of vanilla. He smelled it to.

Instantly, he pushed the girl from atop him, aside. She breathed out a stubborn 'jerk' while rubbing her temples.

Her delicate breath was on the other end of the spectrum next to his heavy breathing like a mustang. She hadn't yet taken to liberty to look at the person whom knocked her down, venting her anger else direction. He looked at her, in awe and fear.

His eyes were small and unmoving from her.

"Naminé?" His voice was raspy. She looked his way, a response to her name, and then her rambling stopped- it was instantaneous.

She looked at him and he at her.

"Riku…" Riku stood, taking back his splendid composure. He reached out for her hand, to help her, and she hesitantly took it. Something inside him sparked alive the moment her gently fingers touched his hand.

He began to help her from the ground, gently and carefully.

"Freakin' pisses me off." She said sharply.

Riku inhaled a heavy breath, shocked.

"Naminé!" He said. He would never expect such a comment from her, near vulgar.

In fact, that was generally his catch phrase.

He gaped at her for a few moments more, consulting in his mind whether to be shocked or amused. In the end, with the girl from his memories and her shining lemonade bottle eyes laughing at him, sticking her tongue at him playfully, he decided being amused was the easiest thing to do.

"Just kidding." She teased.

For a moment, his heart was in repose.

Naminé stopped laughing, noticing she'd kept her hand in his long after he had helped her. She cleared her throat, suddenly being thrust into the last clear memory she had with Riku, when they had left on a bad note. She looked at him much like she did that night under the stars, and something was different about the way he looked at her this time. Afraid, terribly afraid, she spoke, her voice trembling.

"How is Yuffie?" She referred to the last girlfriend she had word of.

Riku blinked, unsurely. "Oh." He rubbed the back of his neck.

"She hit it off with Leon, actually." He chuckled lightly. "I've seen weirder couples."

Naminé laughed, giving him silent apologetics. "No, no it's okay. It wasn't meant to be."

It took him a battle in his mind, bur he grained the courage to ask her, "And Roxas?"

She shrugged her shoulders, cracking a tiny smile, breathing out. "I guess it wasn't meant to be. It was just a notion that things didn't work. We just didn't see eye to eye, or understand each other as well as we'd hope. From what I hear, he is with Orette now."

The fact that Naminé had not been with Roxas had made Riku smile.

"Then, who?" He was anxious to ask, wondering it was no Roxas, then perhaps is was another.

"No one." She sighed. She was feeling the loneliness right about now, especially in his presence. A long sigh was drawn from Riku as he looked at the girl who he had broken years ago. She looked at beautiful as before, but now, more so. Her skin was porcelain as before, and her champagne wisps still played together with the wind in the same way.

Nostalgia hit him.

"Hey, Naminé…" His voice was hesitant, and second thoughts lingered in the back of mind, taunting him. He ignored them, looking at her, eye to eye. She raised an eyebrow, suspicious at his sudden tone that was differing from his normal.

"Riku?" She said, almost forgetting that it was not that past, and she and Riku were no compatible and didn't share any chemistry. Or so she told herself.

"If you aren't busy or anything…"

"No, Riku." She said promptly, not evening allowing him to complete his question. She knew where it was leading, and she knew she had to end it. She didn't need any pain.

"I have an early flight tomorrow, and after that, I won't be coming back."

She mumbled a quick 'bye' and left him with his mouth open, in the crowd of faceless strangers.

A wave of loneliness swept over him.

Then, he noticed an art pad sitting on the sidewalk.

"Namin…" He said softly, realizing she'd left it behind. He sighed. "Freakin' pisses me off." He mumbled, picking it up.

Something inside him screamed, Take a look inside and see.

He opened up the flap, beginning to sift through the sheets, freezing. He brought his hand to his mouth, whispering,

"…We should have known all along."

He tucked it beneath his arm, and began his way home.

- -- - -

"Where is she?" Riku screeched, shoving through the momentous crowd at the airport. He received a barrage of unseemly looks from different faces among the people occupying the port. He looked for vanilla wisps from above all the heads clustered in several directions, making his heart sink.

He bit down on his lip, roughly hurrying through the crowd, still scanning among everything.

"Dammnit! Freakin' pisses me off." He ran a free hand through his hair, sweat beads falling over his brown, he in dismay. He couldn't remember ever feeling so, so desperate. He cleared his throat, thrusting himself like a bullet through the crowd again, anxious and worried.

Another flight took off. It could've been her.

He stopped in a crevice of the crowd, just big enough to where he could set his hands on his knees and huff from the entire running he'd taken part in. His breath shown like powder in the cold, brisk morning, heated up by body heat of what seemed like millions of travelers.

Is that was he was?

He felt lost and suddenly very lonely, among the crowd of scurrying souls. He closed his eyes for a few moments, before making his way to press his hands against one of the windows.

He stopped, looking straight into the sky. The sky was a murky gray, and then he realized that clouds really were the reflections of peoples' souls. His hands slid solemnly against the thick glass.

"That girl sets my world in motion."

As if fate dawned on him, like sun onto the world, he caught sight of lemonade bottle eyes. Eye to eye.

This wall that had come between them, that was too high to climb and too high to break through, suddenly it seemed that love could bring him through.

Nothing was going to stop him now. He had come this far, and it wasn't going to be for nothing.

He ran from the window, towards the plane in which he'd seen her. He had to hurry or that would be it, goodbye forever. He would not make the same mistake twice. He ran from the cavity he'd broken into, and back out into the crowd that was busy at full and over flowing capacity.

He trudged through the staggering lines and annoyed glances, pushing them aside.

Then, he was there. Standing before the entrance of the plane. Without thinking, he yelled at the top of his lungs- her name.

"NAMINÈ!" From within the plane, with the shouting of her voice, she nearly jumped up. The voice was very discreet and unmistakable.

A small smile tipped onto her lips, as she laughed ever so slightly. "Riku."

She looked out the window, musing what things would have been like, had she decided to stay.

"We're simply too far apart." She ignored the call.

He called, loudly, several times following, to the point when security guards were doing their best to pull him away and she was hiding her face in her lap.

Finally, as he was being dragged off, when he screamed one last thing, her heart nearly stopped.

"If you're ever lonely, stop. You don't have to be." She froze, clutching the side of her aisle chair.

In an instant, she pulled her things and ran down the aisle of the airline, grasping for the exit. She pulled her stuff along side with her, swiftly. She made it from the port to the exit, and before she knew it, she was facing him. Eye to Eye.

Naminé smiled slightly to him, setting her things aside, letting a sigh fade from her lips. "Why, Riku?" She asked, her eyes falling into sympathy, and love tugging at her heart. Loneliness swept over her.

"Maybe love is the reason why?" He grinned, making her heart flutter and her eyes spark.

Riku pulled at something tucked beneath his arm, disheveled. Naminé looked at him carefully. It was her notebook; she can't believe she'd actually hadn't noticed it was missing.

"Naminé," His breathing was heavy, desperate, as he clung to the art pad. He flipped open the several sketches of him.

"If you listen to your heart…" He paused. "No, my heart. If we listen to each other's hearts, you'll find,"

He smiled, running his hand along the sketch of him holding a star fruit with a curled leave on it, and finished.

"We're never too far apart."

Naminé was speechless, and her hands were at her chest, finding it hard to breathe.

"Reach for my hand, Naminé."

She was hesitant, unsure, and frightened.

"Listen to your heart." Her hand slowly began progressing to his outstretched palm, her eyes averted to the floor. Above her heartbeat, she heard him chuckle.

"Eye to eye, come on now, Naminé." She looked up at him, instantly, shocked. Her mouth dropped open, her lips going into an awry, tangled mess. Her heart pumped, and in an instant she ran fast, throwing herself into his arms.

He was surprised by her sudden collision into his chest, but then he realized, just how meant for her his arms were.

"Nothing's going to stop us." He smiled into her hair, in taking the vanilla he'd so often missed.

"Together is where we both belong." Riku held her tighter, above the sound of her heartbeat.

The sky began to clear.

Above the noise of the souls of strangers who could find reflections in clouds, Naminé brought the taste of Riku into her, kissing him deeply.

She looked at him, both of them, eye to eye, and smiled.

"Riku, listen to my heart…."

"it's beating just for you."

- -- - -

Yay, this took forever!
Gosh, I am so proud of this. I don't know what you guys will think,
but I worked my butt off on this, even though it's not incredibly great,
I am awfully proud.

Through the stress of my dad, and everything else,
I finally got to finish!

This is for doodle's
Nobody Dances Anymore challenge, and
I was SO HAPPY, because she delayed it till Monday!

TOO HOO HOO HOO!

FINISHED!

Anyways, the song? Hahaha.
Yes, I used 'I 2 I' or eye to eye,
by powerline from yes, the goofy movie.

UBERLUFF for powerline & maxanne pairing.

Well, this goes out to;

Feria : miyori : Felly
because really, she has been supporting my namiku's like crazy.
felly is an awesome person whom I enjoy to talk to.

She's wonderful and writes incredibly beautiful.

If you read, please review?

disclaimer; standard disclaimer applies.

¤ composed by lunamaria.