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Salt Skin, Paper Hair

.......

It wasn't anything special for them; just a day at the beach grabbing shells from the yellow-white sands. Playing in the surf, splashing each other and Kairi, having little dunk fights to see which boy could hold his breath the longest....

Perfect fun-in-the-sun. Innocent-like. Like they weren't seventeen and sixteen and god knows they're too old for this...

None of them noticed the sun dip down into the horizon like crackers into cheese, nor the bluish blush creeping along the edges the sunset.
Not till Kairi started wading into the fuzzy foaming water to join the boys herself did Riku see how the dark red of her hair blended in with the eastern skies and realise....

It was late.

But it was Saturday. A weekend.

And Sunday.... was a long way off.

So he decided not to say anything about it. (For once.)

Truth was, they could stay up past midnight with each other and never get bored.

..........

It started off as a mild bluish tingle. Fast-running water, a slice of paper-light newness against her ankles. Gentle and weak.... like a string pulling her away.

It's just the tide, she told herself, even though she kept thinking at the same time that wasn't there something...

........else?

Something she should know about...?

She didn't pay attention to it, for once.

Kairi knew about the sea and no alarm bells were ringing; even Riku hadn't said anything and he was a little further away, standing in the ocean up to his waist. So she started wading in a diagonal line towards her friends.

And then......

PULL!

The tingle started transforming into a rope around her legs that drew her down, sucking her under like a snail, under the shining blue sea--

"Aaah!"

She lost her balance and breathed--coughed out her lungs as salt water invaded them, then dragged herself up.

"Riku! Sora!"

A flash of white hair and brown were the last things that came to her eyes before she went down again, vision stinging and blurry under the waves that touched her face...

"Kairi!"

The boys started running--half-swimming, really--till Riku stopped and held his arm out to halt Sora. "Hold on, it's a rip tide!"

And that was her cue--Kairi started remembering things. The tingle, the voice at the back of her head that knew the sea and its secrets, its dangers...

"Kairi, swim!" Riku had got himself out of the water, dragging a conflicted Sora behind him. "Sora, I don't want to have to rescue you, too, just get out of the water!"

While he was saying that, Kairi turned her head northward and swam.

.......

It was a little known fact outside their group that Kairi could swim like a demon. Even faster than Riku could run, if she was feeling particularly up to it. Beneath that little stick-skinny body and muscles that had all the strength of an insect... fragile looking arms and frail skin... there was a spirit that was truly at ease in the water, floating with grace and elan.

She couldn't stand learning more complicated moves--a simple 'swim,' the traditional wheeling of the arms and legs kicking, that was enough for her--and they'd never bothered teaching her.

It was pretty much the one thing that she could really, truly best the boys at.

......

Besides waiting for them.

...........

Riku runs. Outstripping Sora with ease and just about keeping up with the red spot in the water--but then, she's not swimming straight, she's swimming /diagonally/, and the water is pulling her out (/she's getting pulled, away from me, away from us)/...

They spend moments, hours, definite minutes trying to keep up with each other, Sorah panting in the background.... and then even Riku gets winded and has to catch his breath.

Gasp......

Breathe...

He holds on to his chest for a moment, then stands up and yells, "Kairi!"

She submerges for a moment, a half-beat, then drifts languidly up to the surface.

Still pulling away...

"Kairi!" Sora yells, panicking.

Riku clenches his fist and swears.

"Dammit!" Kairi's winded too--and the rip tide still isn't over yet, not by a long-shot.

They're panicking.....

They're winded...

Tired....

Their best friend is getting swept out to sea....

You haven't seen the last of me.

"Kairi!" He throws off his jacket and jumps in, scanning the water for clues.

The blue water gets in his hair--he shuts his eyes quickly before they can get washed.... breaks through the surface and breathes.

He doesn't need to swim hard today--the current is taking him out to her, quickly.

In a second...... in which he is not properly rested.... he reaches Kairi. Coils one long arm around her waist (there is no time for embarrassment now) and checks to see if she's breathing. She is, and that's good.

He starts pulling her, half-aided and half-hindered by Kairi's struggling strokes.

"Don't--" Riku gasps in another breath. A little water, salty and plain, gets into his mouth. "D-don't move.... you're just making it harder for me to..."

She stops.

Sora is running along the shore, maybe a few feet behind. But he's keeping up magnificently, and when Riku finally feels the malicious pull of the rip-tide fall away under his feat to reveal pounding, gentle waves...

He collapses.

Well, not really.

But he definitely goes a little limp with shock and relief.

"K....Kairi?" he asks, feeling his lungs burn on the out syllable. He's somehow inhaled a match.... two matches..... because he feels like he's breathing in smoke...

"I'm okay."

A gentle arm around his shoulder, gentle like the tides......

.....And Kairi begins towing him to shore.

"Hang on, Riku."

Riku...

"It's my turn."

Land....

................

Exhausted like the both of them and nearly crying with relief, Sora runs to his house to get blankets while Riku coughs and gags on the shore, on his hands and knees in the crumbling white sand.

In front of him, Kairi smooths her wet hair out of her eyes and looks at him, earnestly. Like she's waiting for something.

For god's sake.... it's like she's rescued him from the rip tide....

"R-riku?" Kairi asks, starting to shiver.

He blinks. About to drag his fingers across his forehead, he sees the sand covering it and uses his wrist instead. "Hey.... you're shaking...."

"...Yeah, but--"

He stands up--shakes off the dead, limp feeling in his arms and walks over to where his jacket lies discarded on the sand.

It's not that far.... when Riku picks it up and shakes the sand out of it, he can just barely see the dips in the ground where he and Kairi were sitting.

She meets him halfway there and pauses.

"Here." He drapes the jacket over her shoulders and falls down on the sand where he is. "Aggh..." Massages a cramp out of his leg.

"Are you okay, Riku?" She kneels next to him, concerned.

"Y-yeah, I'm just... I gotta catch my second wind... I'll be fine, all right?"

He needs to do this more often. Not rescue his friends from the deeps, because that's horrible and time-consuming...

He needs to swim more often.

Seriously.

Build up just a little more endurance so they'll squeak by with more than the skin of their teeth.

And so his lungs won't feel like popped balloons after...

"Hey--guys!"

An indifferent, battle-weary gaze and a curious one attach themselves to Sora, running up to them with indistinctly coloured blankets in his arms.

What are they, purple? Blue? Well, one of them looks brown from this angle...
The brunet throws one of them to Riku, who eyes it distastefully and more than a little bit trustlessly...

Sora stops when he sees Kairi is under Riku's jacket and finally drapes it over her knees.

She grins and says thank you.

Together, they watch as the last bit of red bleeds out from the middle of the sunset, leaving tumbling stars out behind.

The day is over.... and now nighttime begins.

Saturday.... half the time is gone....

...............

They sit there, exhausted. Drinking in each others' presence.

Watch the stars twinkle and shine, one by one....

Try and count them with unobserving minds.....

Two.... three......

Five....

And then Sora shifts. "Guys?"

"Hmm?"

"Yeah?"

"Sometimes I wonder...."

The rest of it slowly blanks out, filling Riku's head for a second and going out the other ear. He doesn't bother paying attention this time because Sora doesn't mind if they don't listen to him once in a while..... and really, there's something more important.....

He's watching Kairi.

And..... Kairi is staring at him.

....He wonders....

"...." Sora leaves off at the final word and looks at them. "Guys?"

Kairi ignores it, or maybe she just doesn't hear it because she says this at almost the same time: "Hey... Riku?"

"Yeah?"

An uncomfortable silence. At least, on Kairi's part.

She squirms.....

Wait.....

She'd started to ask him something before......

So maybe this is it.

"......."

".....I just realised....."

Sounds like something earthshattering, Riku thinks.
".........You have........ a lot of hair........"

........Oh, god.

She curls her shins under her thighs and looks up at him earnestly, gaining momentum.

"In fact, you have more hair than the both of us combined."

Sora starts sniggering silently but stops at a glare from Riku.

Kairi stares.

"........It is way longer than before....."

Now Kairi hasn't blinked for two minutes and it is freaking him out.

Numb...... completely lost for words...... Riku picks his words slowly. Like paopu fruit.

"It's not like..... I...."

"......."

"......" Sora struggles; there's a manic grin on his face.

"Could have cut my hair....." Riku continues....

Thinking......

"......With the keyblade."

Silence.

"....Kairi." He finishes.

Dead silence.

Then....

"Hahahahahaha....!" Sora clutches at his stomach and points at him. "Oh, man--you should've seen your face, Riku!"

"Shut up!" Riku whips his head around to bark at his friend, then looks up when Kairi stands up. "Kairi?"

She crouches onto her knees behind him. "Just one second, Riku.... hold still."

PULL!

"Aaggggggghhhhh!"

......

In the space of two seconds, his vision goes from sandy white to the clear, oceanless sky up above. His neck cranes and red blurs start to swirl behind his eyes.

"KairiwhattheheckareyouDOING?!" It comes out as a tortured, breathless squeal due to the four clawlike fingers stuck into a clump of his hair.

"Combing your hair."

"Ahahahahaha--!"

"Shut UP, Sora!"

"Geez, Riku...." She pulls the fingers out and inspects them critically. A few white strands of Riku's hair are tangled in-between them. "I mean, your hair looks all perfect and shiny even when it's wet, but it's really all tangled inside...." She flutters her fingers nonchalantly and starts again.

"Ow!"

"Oh, stop it, you big baby."

"Owww!"

"Do you ever comb your hair?"

"OWWW!! Quit it, Kairi--leave me alone!"

"Hang on--I'll get a proper comb and--"

"No, no, no, no, NO! I said LEAVE IT ALONE!!"

................................

Riku stares at himself in the mirror. Neutrally.

Scrutinising.......

Streaks of white salt and pale skin, washed into one colour.......

Wet, salted shirt...... Slightly dripping hair......

......He frowns.

........

....He......

........

Comb!

........

He picks it up and gets to work, combing.

Pulling it through his long hair.......

Gently....

......

"Ow."

......

"Ow."

.........

"Ow."

..........

After twenty minutes, he is left with silver in the comb..... and a wet, untangled mass of silver hair to match. The comb clicks as he palms it onto the dresser......

Smooths his hair out of his eyes.....

........Oh, god, it is so silky, and......

...................

............................

...and............

.................

......done.