To reviewers of chapter 6:
LupinandHarry: I don't think losing is an option with Sora (wink). Of course, it's a lose-lose situation for Roxas since he has to treat the SOS Brigade to Seventh Heaven after that battle, haha. But on the other hand, at least it's a lot cheaper to treat his friends than to pay the Journalism Club, right?
The Only Love For Soujiro Seta: I'm glad you like this story. Hope to see you around more, X3.
Sheep are Fluffy: So typical of me to make a reference to other stuff, lol. But references are fun sometimes, hehe. By the way, good job with getting kicked out of the library for being too loud. I've actually gone to the library to play WoW before too, but it was for raids rather than battlegrounds (I'm a dedicated raider! Well, not so much anymore). I'm not a big fan of PvP, lol.
Chapter 7 – The Melancholy of Kairi Fischer
The weather, while not a surprise for the season, got super cold as we hit the middle of December. The campus was rowdy with winter break upon us, but the rowdiness was subdued by the obvious cold and the finals that were to take place two weeks after we resume classes in January. Once again, the heater that Sora had stolen from who-knows-where was put to good use after class everyday in the clubroom, where we still congregated.
Surprisingly, Sora came down with a cold and sat passive in the clubroom that last two weeks, if you could consider the two and a half days right before winter break as a week. Because of this, Sora didn't have the energy to come up with and carry out any crazy schemes that might've been brewing in that head of his.
I welcomed the reprieve with open arms.
Though at the same time, Sora's own subdued-ness made the clubroom a boring place to be. Every day was normal and very quiet. It was as though Sora's own melancholy's spread to the others. Riku didn't smirk annoyingly like he always does. Denzel was always quiet. And Kairi was probably the most miserable one out of them all. The only ones who weren't affected by Sora's rare depression were me and Naminé. But then again, Naminé doesn't get affected by many things.
Yet, thinking back on it, I don't think it was because of Sora that Kairi was melancholic. I think it might've been something to do with what she had to do that Tuesday before school was to be let out.
That Tuesday before school was to be let out for winter break was a glum one. Clouds covered Radiant Garden the entire day and the weather forecast had predicted a fifty-percent chance of snow. Sora had not shown up to class; probably feeling way too sick to even bother to show up for the last two days of class.
Surprisingly though, he did show up on Monday.
In any case, I was in no rush to leave for the clubroom after class since Sora wasn't there, so I stuck around the classroom after our last period to ask Ms. Skye some questions about our latest biology project.
It was almost four by the time I ended up leaving for the clubroom. As I left the classroom and headed out, I saw that it had started snowing. I shivered at the thought of making the short trek from the classroom building to the clubroom building in the snow. Even though it would have taken only seconds.
I stood in front of the metal double doors that separated the heated interior of the classroom building from the chilly weather. Drawing my thick overcoat closer to my body, I adjusted my grip on the bookbag in my hand. I pulled the edge of my woolen scarf over my nose to protect my lower face and made sure my gloves were snug on my hands before I hunkered down and pushed against the metal bar to open the door.
I cursed under my breath, berating myself for taking such a long time to stay in class when I should've just gone to the clubroom since now I would only be spending a maximum of an hour in the clubroom. My covering seemed to do nothing to insulate me from the cold as the freezing temperature immediately grabbed me. I hissed in a quick breath and hurried across the covered path between the two buildings. The sound of snow crunching under my boots made me weary of slipping on the melted snow, but thankfully I reached the clubroom building unharmed.
The muffled sound of Christmas music filtered down the empty corridor on the first floor of the room. The Dance Club was obviously having a party before the members all parted ways for winter break. Their production of the modern Nutcracker wasn't bad, but still left something to be desired, as Sora said after that opening weekend. Maybe it's because of that that I ended up not going to watch it.
Heaving out a breath, I made to dust off the imaginary snow on my overcoat, stopping when I remembered that I had been under cover the entire journey to the clubroom building. I then took my time to walk up the stairs, each step heavy with thought as I pondered what I was going to do in the clubroom.
All my thinking was for nothing as I turned at the fourth floor landing in the direction of the clubroom. Granted, I hadn't actually decided on what I was doing, but that was a lot of thinking on my part!
Kairi was leaning against the wall, her eyes looking downward. Her short curtain of hair blocked any sort of speculation forming on my part since I wasn't able to see her face. She seemed to be absent-minded though as she kicked at the ground with her boots, moving the two bags that were in her hands with each kick.
"Kairi?" I called out questioningly. Her eyes snapped up at look at me with alarm, clearly caught off guard by my presence.
"Ah, Roxas!" she practically exclaimed upon finally recognizing me.
"Where are the others?" I asked, noticing for the first time that the door to the clubroom was closed and the frosted glass window showed no indication that the room was lighted at all.
"They all went home early," she answered.
"Oh," I replied dumbly. Well, there goes my plan for the afternoon. Oh wait, I didn't even have any plans made for the clubroom. I guess it's time to go home too…
Wait a minute. Why is Kairi still here then?
"Um, Roxas," she started again. She was obviously nervous about whatever it was she wanted to say since she appeared to be itching to start chewing on her fingernails again. "Would you come with me to the marketplace?"
I raised an eyebrow at the strange request. Why did she ask me that?
"Uh," I drew out the sound as I scratched the back of my head. What was even stranger was when the red-haired girl in front of me did nearly start chewing on her fingernails. If it wasn't so cold, I could've sworn I saw her sweating bullets.
"Sure," I soon responded, praying that Kairi would calm down. Surprisingly, the stiffness that had been in her nervous self immediately disappeared with my response and she smiled brilliantly at me. Though she didn't actually breathe a sigh of relief, I could've sworn that it must've happened.
"Great!" she exclaimed, hooking her left arm around my right arm. "Let's get going shall we?"
I could only nod with surprise at the redhead's eagerness. I allowed myself to be led down the four flights of stairs before I finally realized that something was wrong.
"Um, Kairi," I voiced out before we were going to leave the building, a blush visible on my face.
"Hmm?" she cocked her head sideways to glance at me questioningly.
"You know that people are going to get the wrong impression if we keep going like this." I nodded my head towards where our arms were hooked together as though we were a loving couple.
"Oh!" she squeaked with mortification, quickly separating herself from me. Her face was so red that I hope she wouldn't faint with all that blood in her head. She gave a slight nervous laugh and scratched the side of her face. I laughed wryly and pushed open the door, gesturing her to exit like the gentleman that I am.
We made our way out of the walled campus and down the hill where my bike sat forlornly under the snowy weather. Neither one of us spoke since I was too cold to strike up a conversation and Kairi must've been too embarrassed to talk.
I would've talked to her at the bus stop but just as we reached it, the bus had come. I loaded my bike onto the bike rack and boarded the crowded bus with Kairi, grimacing at the hot, humid air that resulted from a mix of the heater being on full blast and the number of passengers compacted in the vehicle.
It was going to be a long, long twenty minutes to the marketplace.
When we finally reached the marketplace, we struggled along with the majority of the passengers on the bus to get off. The first step off of the bus caused me to shiver like mad, having been standing in something like a packed sauna for quite awhile. Even after I pulled my bike off of the bike rack, I continued to shiver, my legs refusing to move until my body warmed up.
Seriously, I could feel my teeth chattering with cold.
"I think we should go get something hot to drink," I suggested; I managed to not let my teeth chatter while I voiced the suggestion.
"I agree," replied Kairi. She was shivering as well.
Together, we made our way over to the tea shop that we had filmed our movie at, where a nice line had already formed, leading into the shop.
"I'm going to go lock up my bike," I started once we reached the end of the line just outside of the tea shop.
"Okay," was the quick reply accompanied by a small smile.
I returned the smile and made my way through the sparse crowd to reach the bike racks just a ways away from the tea shop. I quickly secured it in an empty slot, making sure the lock's tight, before literally running back to the tea shop, skidding to a stop with the melting snow. I saw that the line outside had dwindled down to a few people, so I entered into the bustling shop and found Kairi standing in the middle of the line between the doors and the counter.
The din in the shop made it difficult for me to verbally inform Kairi that I'm back, so I tapped her shoulder lightly. She jumped at the contact and turned sharply towards me, the flush that was on her face paled until she realized who it was. She gave me a nervous smile before turning back to the line, moving quickly when she saw a small gap in front of her.
I followed her at a slower pace, confused by the nervousness that she suddenly felt once again. I was especially bewildered by her constant checking of the giant watch that she was wearing on that day. Has she always worn that watch?
When it was our turn, Kairi seemed to stumble over her own words when she ordered a tall white chocolate mocha with an extra shot of espresso. While my logic questioned her choice of drink, since caffeine would've only made her more jumpy, I opted not to say anything and placed my own order simply—a simple chai tea latte.
It was strange that Kairi wasn't checking her watch constantly after we got our drinks. In fact, it seemed like she had completely gotten over her jumpy phase. Maybe coffee calms her down rather than makes her jittery?
But she always seems jitterier after serving coffee in the clubroom. Maybe it's Sora's fault that she's jumpier. Meh, I'm just throwing things out now.
We sat at the small table that just happened to empty for us for awhile, savoring our drinks and enjoying ourselves otherwise. Towards the end though, Kairi had started checking her watch again after drinking about half of her coffee. She looked out at the snowy grounds and back at her watch over and over again. It started to make me worry too.
I was almost done with my own chai before I decided to say something.
"Kairi, your coffee's getting cold," I pointed out.
"Oh!" she exclaimed with a jump. She quickly took her cup and downed several gulps of the cooling drink. Her face contorted with a grimace as the bitter cold drink went down her throat. I resisted the urge to burst out laughing, knowing perfectly well that Kairi probably would be mortified by that.
With our drinks finished, we left the tea shop and made our way through the sparse crowd on this cold day.
Kairi, once again, was preoccupied and seemed to have forgotten what she came here to do. As such, we probably wandered about for a good ten minutes, passing by the coffee bean and tea leaf store twice before we finally entered into the small establishment. The red-haired time traveler obviously had wanted to try some new teas, which was fine by me. Tea was actually a good substitute for coffee on days when I didn't want to drink coffee.
The smell of tea and coffee reminded me of the tea shop we were at a while ago and I saw that batches of tea leaves and coffee beans sat in large metal containers out in the open. The temperature and the dryness of the shop were obviously kept to allow for such displays of the roasted things.
While Kairi made a beeline to the counter, apparently asking the clerk about the special or what batch of coffee beans or tea leaves are of particular note this week, I opted to take a stroll through the place. The store was separated into two sections: coffee on the left and tea on the right, with the cashier's counter in the center of the shop. Smaller tins were placed on shelves that lined the walls of the store, organized into regions: Chinese, Japanese, English, Spanish, and others to name a few for the teas.
Some teas I recognized, others I didn't and I've never really been one to try out different teas. Maybe I should change that. I heard that Chrysanthemum tea was good for you. Or Jasmine green tea.
When I came to the Japanese section, I couldn't help but stare at the variety of Japanese green tea. Houji, genmaicha, sencha, konbu, ume, ume with konbu, etc. etc. etc. I'm sure if my mom was here, she'd had a field day with all this; she does love tea after all. God, this is rather confusing.
I looked back at Kairi, who was still talking to the clerk, and then back at the display of Japanese tea, wondering if I should buy a tin for my mom. But what would she want? I know we still have a batch of houji, genmaicha, and sencha at home. Would she want konbu cha? Maybe make some ochazuke? Mmm, ochazuke.
I was… unable to decide. So off I go to another section, which happened to be coffee. Ahh, caffeine…
Hmm, I think we've been here for awhile. Looking at my watch… yup, it's almost 5:30. Maybe we're killing time now? Especially since Kairi doesn't seem like she's going to end her conversation with the clerk any time soon.
Ironic, at the same time that I thought about that, Kairi looked at her gigantic watch and let out a rather loud "eep!" She quickly finished her transactions with the clerk, purchasing what looked like a pound of Nibelheim coffee and a 12 oz. tin of oolong tea.
Wait a minute, isn't Nibelheim coffee really expensive?
"Sorry I took so long," she said with a huff.
"No problem," I replied, still wondering what's going on.
"We need to go right now," she continued, a serious look on her face. I don't think I've ever seen her so serious before.
"Um, 'kay," I uttered lamely. Come on, what else was I supposed to say!?
I followed Kairi out of the shop and away from the bike racks and the bus stop. We exited the marketplace and hurried down an empty stretch of road towards a residential area. It was a rather eerie place to be honest.
We stopped at a random corner and Kairi pulled out a map from the paper bag that she had been carrying besides her bookbag. She looked at it for a few moments, panic apparently rising within her as she "um'd" and looked about our surroundings with mild confusion.
"We're here," I pointed out calmly—surprisingly actually, unfolding the map further to show the corner that we were on. Please stop being panicky, I'm starting to panic too!
My red-haired companion muttered a quick thanks and breathed a sigh of relief. She then placed the paper bag on the ground, stuffing the map into her book bag and pulled out rather odd things.
An empty juice box, a box of nails, and a hammer.
What the hell?
"Can you nail this juice box to the ground…" she pointed at a specific snowy spot. "Right here?"
"Uh…"
"There's no time to explain," she continued. "I'll tell you everything after this is done."
"Okay…" I was still confused, but there's nothing else I can do but comply. I'm sure it's one of her missions or something, but pulling a prank hardly seems like something time travelers would resort to…
It was rather amazing that there was no one else on that intersection, absolutely no traffic. There weren't even patrolling cops that should've come around.
But seriously though, I probably didn't take enough time for a police car to randomly show up at the intersection, heh.
Nailing the box to the ground was a lot harder than it sounds, especially when the ground is wet and pretty much covered with snow. I had to dig out a lot of snow before I actually managed to start securing the box to the ground. Even then, trying hard not to hit my numb fingers with the hammer was a challenge in itself.
Still, after fifteen minutes of work, with my soft curses and the thuds of hammer hitting the nail the only thing that filled the air in those fifteen minutes, I got it done. I was slightly tempted to start yelling louder whenever the hammer slipped to hit my thumb, but I was too embarrassed to do that.
Looking down at my handy work, I shoved a handful of snow back towards the corners of the box, just to cover up the nails. Why did I do that, I have no idea.
Kairi took the hammer and stuffed it into her book bag as well, tossing the wet paper bag into a nearby trash can. She then hurried over to the opposite side of the road, where a snow covered bush was conveniently located and hid behind it.
"What are we doing?" I asked, only to have her "shh" rather harshly at me. So I did what she was doing and watched the prank juice box sit there until some unsuspecting person comes along and trips over it.
Honestly, what the hell are we doing?
A few minutes after we hid, a rather angry looking kid came down this stretch of road, kicking at the snow at his feet to vent his frustrations. His walk down the sidewalk was rather slow, so it made sense that he would stop at the juice box. He kicked at the juice box, shouting out profanities when the box didn't budge, only leaving him with a few sore toes.
"What the hell!?" he muttered angrily, bending down look at the juice box, discovering that it had been nailed to the ground.
"What kind of a prank is this?" he said aloud once again, pulling at the box to free it. He did succeed once he applied a lot of force that ended with him losing his balance. He landed on his bum with another profanity just as a blue van raced down the street toward the corner when he was. It jumped onto the sidewalk, passing dangerously close to the fallen kid, and screamed through the intersection without even a stop.
All I saw was a glimpse of slicked back blond hair on a pale faced woman with a sadistic scowl on her face.
When I looked back at the kid, he was covered in muddy snow and the juice box was in his hand, the nails still stuck to the bottom of the box.
"This is the worst day of my fucking life!" he yelled. I feel sorry for the guy…
"Well, sucks for you!" came a reply from somewhere in the neighborhood. The kid scowled angrily, apparently not even phased by that brush of death. He chucked the box onto the road and patted himself off before continuing on his way. Only after he disappeared down the street did we emerge from our hiding place.
Kairi quickly picked up the juice box and tossed it into the trash can as well, a relieved smile on her face.
"Who was that?" I asked. "Did we just save him?"
"You did," she replied happily. "As a time traveler, I'm not allowed to interfere with what would happen in the past. Since you are of this timeline, you are allowed to." She gestured for us to begin our walk back to the marketplace.
"The boy that you just saved is a very important person in the future. He is the one who will discover time traveling," she continued. I opened my mouth to ask her something, but she stopped me. "I've been allowed to tell you this from my superiors."
"Oh." That makes sense. "What about the one in the van?"
"Some people in my timeline do not feel the same way that my organization does in regards to time traveling. They do not think that we should be allowed to travel through time as we do. The woman that you have just seen is one of the people who feel that way."
"So by killing the person responsible for the discovery of time traveling, she's hoping to alter the future?"
"Yes," she answered with a nod. "But we must preserve the timeline since it is Sora's wish."
"What kind of people don't want to time travel if they're from the future?"
"People who believe that Sora is not the One responsible for their powers," she replied grimly. "They believe in that other person and that other person does not want our version of time traveling to be possible."
"That… makes no sense," I uttered lamely. "If that other person gave them the power to time travel, then why would they kill the discoverer?"
"That's because they believe that the One responsible for their powers is the true discoverer of time traveling. Through Sora, the kid that you saved is given the knowing to discover how to time travel in the future. Just think of him as a middleman, an instrument of sorts."
"One that Sora uses to make his universe," I ended.
"Exactly."
I mulled over her words until we reached the marketplace, at which she left me with a grateful smile on her face. I waved good-bye rather absent-mindedly. To be honest, I'm starting to be worried about a future crazy war that's going to break out between Sora and this mystery person who supposedly has part of Sora's powers.
I guess technically Sora seems likely to make a mystery person who has his powers too. Sora's obviously looking for trouble like that. Or maybe someone else is actually the One behind all this and deliberately made Sora and this other person have the same powers and let their supporters think that Sora or this other person is the one who created them, but is actually not…
I'm confusing myself here now. Freaking chain of command is not making sense.
I shall focus on praying that when Sora meets his rival god, or something, the universe doesn't explode.
Of course, if war does break out, I'm assuming their respective supporters out of a science fiction novel would be engaged in this war as well.
That makes me wonder where does that leave me…
Please don't put me at the center of this conflict. I still have two and a half more years of high school to go!
Damn.
Disclaimer: Kingdom Hearts and Haruhi Suzumiya do not belong to me. This piece of work is purely fictional and free to readers. That doesn't give anyone the right to post this on a separate website without my permission though.
A/N: A bit on the short side, but that's how the chapters for this series are supposed to be. Short and simple, hehe.
In any case, we delve deeper into the "lore" of the story, setting up for a future encounter for Roxas with new people that might not be friendly. However, direct encounter with these people won't actually happen for another year or so in Roxas's time. As in, he'll be a third year at Radiant Garden High School before he finds out who this other person with powers identical to Sora's own. But I'm getting ahead of myself…
Ochazuke is a Japanese after-meal sort of thing with white rice (leftovers or fresh, doesn't matter) in a bowl topped with green tea, seaweed, rice cracker balls, and occasionally grilled salmon. It's a simple dish and I've had it many times for lunch or dinner on the weekends when I'm too lazy, hehe. Soupy rice is most delish, XD.
On another note, the second season of the Haruhi Suzumiya anime's being aired now apparently. Yet, I haven't had the time to check it out. Though, watching the anime might inspire me to write more of this series. Blahhhhhhhh.
Also, while this might constitute as a crossover in terms of KH being set in sort of Haruhi universe, the fact that I didn't put any actual Haruhi characters in this fic (besides the Data Thought Integration Entity and general terms used in the Haruhi universe) doesn't seem like this fic should be placed in the crossover section. Hmm. Maybe it'll be fine for me to just keep it in the general KH section, hehe.
Anyways, hope you enjoyed the chapter and my rambling. See you next time~