Bruising The Sun

Originally published March 4th, 2019.

~~~

Kairi's alone.

She's seen countless worlds, the likes of which she couldn't have imagined before that storm. She saw them through Sora's eyes, but she still saw them. Seen Hercules, Ariel, Jack Skellington, Pooh Bear, and all the others.

She's seen the door the leads to Darkness, or Light, or Hell, or Kingdom Hearts, or whatever it was. She's seen her knowledge of the world collapse in on itself as Riku descended into gods-know-where.

She's seen that she's special. A Princess of Heart. Whatever that means. There's other princesses, too; six more, each of them wielding the same power as her. Something to do with the forces of light. How can someone's heart be totally pure, much less hers?

Kairi's seen all of this. She's seen how vast the scope of the universe is. How vast the power of light and darkness is.

And, after seeing all of that, she's alone. Stuck on Destiny Islands.

Sora and Riku were wrenched away from her, Sora in a literal sense and Riku in a metaphorical one, and she's never been more lost.

Sora said he was going to go look for Riku, and now she wants to scream at him that she can feel Riku's heart. Scream across the universe and tell Sora she can feel both of them, tell him that she can help. But both of her boys are gone.

Both of her boys are gone, and she's on Destiny Islands, and she's fifteen, and she has to go to school on the mainland, has to do her homework, has to know what a polynomial is.

Can't tell Selphie or Wakka or Tidus. Have to keep it a secret.

When she falls asleep at night, the sound of the ocean thrumming outside her window, she can't focus on anything but the events that have transpired.

The boys are a constant presence. At school, at home, on the play island. Kairi's connection to their hearts is flimsy and cloudy and muddled, but she hangs on to it for dear life. She considers herself lucky to still be able to feel it at all.

(It's different than keeping someone in your heart in the normal way; she knows it is. This is more of a tangible, real feeling, like there's landline in her chest.)

She wonders if it's a Princess of Heart thing, being able to maintain connections across worlds. But she can't be certain. Don't know, don't care.

She walks to school every day. Walks home after. Stares at the sky and tries to catch a glimpse of something, anything.

Restlessness fills her to the brim. How can it not, after she's witnessed the edge of time and space?

Kairi tries mentioning Sora and RIku to the other kids. They only remember Riku, and even then, they just treat him as someone they knew for a bit in their youth. Sora's entirely absent from their memories. Kairi tries not to worry about it. She worries about it.

Only a day or two after she gets back, she pays a visit to the secret place, and she sees Sora's addition to their self portraits. She feels like weeping.

She takes up sparring with Tidus. He doesn't complain, but he's a little surprised at first. Says she "never seemed like the fighting type."

And that's true, to an extent. She acknowledges that. But it's different these days. She has a reason to fight now.

She chooses to swim to the play island instead of rowing, now. Wears her swimsuit under her uniform until school's over, and leaves the mainland, her backpack left hiding in a bush.

The first swim is hard. The second one is harder; all her muscles are sore. The water is cold, and it stings her eyes. But she persists.

Sora and Riku aren't here, but Kairi's gonna make sure she'll be ready when they come back.

It's the beginning of her self-imposed routine: swim, spar, swim back. Sometimes, she spends the night on the play island, when she's able to send one of the other kids back with a message to the mayor about her plans.

Those are the nights she uses the barrels and boxes as makeshift weights. Fills them with coconuts and sees how many she can carry across the length of the island before her muscles burn and plead for her to stop.

Those are the nights she falls asleep in the island's lookout tower, on the side of the island that faces away from the mainland. She uses one of the old, ratty sleeping bags they kept stashed here for when they'd have sleepovers as children. Waking up on time for school doesn't even cross her mind; she's too busy remembering the time she, Sora, and Riku played wedding in this very spot when they were little.

Those are the nights when she tries reaching out to the hearts connected to hers. She sits with her head in her hands, frustrated to tears, trying desperately to make her boys feel her the same way she can feel them. The moon washes over her, and she stares at it, she stares at it so hard it almost burns her eyes.

Later on, she begins feeling a third connection, too. It's not Sora or Riku. It's definitely not one of them. It's someone unfamiliar, and it only surfaces when she isn't trying to reach it.

It manifests as a sensation like TV static in the back of her head while Kairi's in pre-cal. When she's taking a shower for the first time in a few days, trying to get the scent of the ocean off of her, but never really succeeding. When her guardian is lecturing Kairi about her grades slipping, and she's tuning him out.

Always gone as soon as it was noticed. The only thing Kairi can glean is that the presence is sad.

Eight-ish months pass. Selphie says one day at lunch that she's worried about Kairi. Kairi picks up her plastic fork in her now-calloused hands and puts a bite of sub-par macaroni and cheese into her mouth. Shrugs, smiles, and brushes it off.

During P.E., she retreats to the weight room. None of the other students use it, and she has some privacy. She figures out quickly that barbells work better than crates and barrels, and resolves to make the switch.

Kairi sees Sora's mother at the grocery store one day, and ducks behind a display until the woman passes. She doesn't move from that spot for several minutes. She stares at a shelf until spots form in her vision, and she's brought back to reality by an employee asking if she needs assistance.

Destiny Islands runs like clockwork, and Kairi's a broken spring.

And then, there's a new boy in her head, one named Roxas that just waltzes into her mind like it's an open door, and he puts a name to the mysterious third presence: Naminé.

After that, she tries talking to Naminé and Roxas again, but they don't respond. She screams into her pillow, and then feels stupid for doing so.

Kairi doesn't give up on Sora and Riku, of course. She reaches out to them even after she stops trying for Roxas and Naminé. (she's not giving up on the two new kids forever, though; of course not. she just needs to conserve her energy)

Sora's connection becomes static at some point. Kairi doesn't remember when it did. She doesn't want to acknowledge the fact that it has. Doesn't want to acknowledge what it might mean.

Riku's stays active, but distant. Like he's underwater, and she can only hear muffled conversation on his end.

It's during a history lecture at the end of the school year that the boys change. Kairi feels it the moment that it happens, and it feels like her breath is stuck in her throat. Sora's conscious again, and Riku's in the realm of light, she knows he is.

She blinks hard.

Kairi excuses herself from class and walks out. She leaves the bathroom pass, a laminated piece of paper, on a bench outside the schoolhouse.

She doesn't stop walking until the reaches the beach. 

There's a chill in the air, and she can smell smoke, like something's burning, but there's no fire around.

Kairi suspects she won't be alone for much longer.