Fast Food Madness: The Epic Return

Namine felt confused when she heard Roxas' voice from the area near the front door. Kairi? What was she doing here? The blond girl moved away from her place at the counter and headed over to where Roxas was, standing two steps behind him.

Sora closed his eyes in concentration. How was he supposed to explain this to his friends? He hardly knew what was going on himself. The first thing he had to do, though, was convince them that this was a real threat.

 

Kairi looked at the boy with fearful eyes, seeing her best friend behind him. "Roxas," she said softly. "Can I come in, please?" If Sora was right, she was probably being observed, so she had to make her voice show her sadness. And she did just that.

Roxas furrowed his eyebrows but nodded. "Yeah," he said, moving out of the way. As she came in the door, he was slightly confused. She looked scared, but her voice showed sadness. And there was one person missing, which made Roxas nervous for whatever he was about to hear.

 

Namine shot Kairi a confused, worried look. Her friend looked really upset...The blond's eyes wandered around the house a little bit, noticing that all the shades were shut and the windows closed due to it being night-time out. Good; her friend could have some privacy. If she needed it, of course.

Not only did he have to convince them that the threat was real, but Sora also had to try and figure out what was going on. And how he could somehow break out of the position he was in and save Riku before it was too late. What did this man want from him, anyway...?

 

Kairi stepped inside the house and immediately stopped next to Namine. She saw the look on her friend's face, and simply nodded to her, giving her a look as if to say: I"ll explain. "I'm here," Kairi told Sora finally. Now it was time to be informed. By the looks on her friends' faces, she could tell they were just as curious as she was.

"Kairi?" Roxas asked as soon as he shut the door. He locked it too, getting a bad vibe from this sudden get-together. "What's going on?" He really would like to be filled in here, considering this seemed serious.

 

Namine nodded in agreement to Roxas; She really wanted to know what was going on, since it wasn't every day Kairi came to them late in the evening with a frightened expression on her face.

Sora leaned forward on the couch, elbows resting on his knees as he tried to compile his thoughts. "I got a call earlier," he started. "Right before I called you. It was a man...saying that he had Riku hostage and unless I did whatever he wanted, he would kill him."

 

Kairi bit her lip at what she was hearing, the message reaching her heart. But she knew she had to tell her friends. "It's Riku...and Sora," she started, looking at them. "Someone called Sora and told him that if he didn't do what he asked, Riku would die..."

Roxas's eyes widened. "What?" he asked, immediately alarmed at the words. "How did you find out about this?"

"Sora called me, pretending to break up with me," Kairi explained, and then pointed to her heart. "But he communicated with me in here, and told me that I needed to get here as soon as possible. He wants you guys to know the story too." She kept her hand on her heart as she exhaled softly, speaking to Sora. "Go on," she encouraged gently, ready to hear the rest.

 

Namine's eyes were wide in surprise. Riku!? She hated hearing that he was in trouble; he had been a good friend to her at several points in the past. She swallowed hard and washed Kairi, waiting for more to be said.

"The first thing he told me to do was break up with you, Kairi," Sora told her, closing his eyes at the painful thoughts of what he had said to her. "I had no choice but to believe the threat was real, and he emphasized that I do it quickly. Probably just to see if he had my attention or not."

 

Kairi looked to her two friends, reciting what Sora told her. "Our break-up was an act, the first instruction he gave Sora on the phone," she explained. "The man told him to do it quickly, and Sora thinks it's so he knew he had his attention. Sora didn't have any other choice but to believe it."

Roxas's eyebrows furrowed as he listened to this, the three of them still standing in his foyer. This was unbelievable. Where did this threat come from? And why?

"Okay," Kairi said to Sora, ready for what was to be told next.

 

Namine stayed silent, still in shock. Hearing that something happened to Riku was the last thing she had expected. Riku was the strongest out of any of them; how could he have been caught? And for what reason was he still...alive? She didn't like thinking like that, but she needed to make sense of this.

Sora clasped his hands together in front of him, his eyes gazing blankly at them. "I believe this man really does have Riku because of two things," he said, knowing that Roxas would especially want to know what the proof was for the accuracy of the threat. "One is that he even knew about Riku at all. He's been gone for a while, so it seemed unrealistic that anyone in New York would know about him."

 

"He thinks the man really does have Riku, especially because he even knows Riku's identity, and it seems odd that anybody even knows about him since he's been gone," Kairi recited to her two blonde friends.

Roxas's jaw tightened, the boy's hands having curled into loose fists. He didn't like this, at all. "If he called Sora, he obviously knows who he is too," he said. "And since he knew that you were dating him, Kairi, that means he might know who you really are as well." Roxas looked from Kairi to Namine. This guy could know who the two blondes were too, by the way things looked. But Roxas wasn't going to jump ahead of things.

Kairi pressed her lips together, her heart having repeated what Roxas had said to her without thought. Sora needed to know the other side of this conversation.

 

"I'm not so sure about," Sora said in response to Roxas' words. Whoever was on the other side of the phone call, he had never said Kairi's name. "It almost seemed as if this centered completely around me doing his bidding. And to do that, I had to be separated from his friends and loved ones. I'm not even sure he knows your name, Kairi," he added, grateful for that one bit of assurance.

 

Kairi glanced at Roxas at the response she got. "Sora isn't so sure on whether he knows my name. It's mostly centered around him following this guy's instructions and not having contact with anyone close," she said.

Roxas stared at the ground, ruffling his hair. "What does he want us to do?" he inquired, and waited quietly as he watched Kairi close her eyes, obviously delivering the message.

 

Namine stood two steps away, the three of them in a triangle of sorts. She waited for an answer from Sora through Kairi, the blond wanting to help out in any way possible.

"I want you to spend the next few days with Roxas and Namine," Sora told Kairi, sort of answering the question. "I want Roxas to be able to keep an eye on you, since I won't be able to." It stung to say those words, but he knew they were true. "It'll also look good for the break-up," he added. "If all the shades are shut, it'll just seem like you're being comforted instead of being protected."

 

Kairi's eyes opened, and she bit her lip. She should have known she wouldn't be able to see Sora after their "break-up", but actually being told that upset her. She actually had to bite her quivering lip. "What are you going to do?" she asked, not yet reciting the words spoken to her.

Roxas watched Kairi's expression change throughout the silence. At first she seemed pretty calm, but then that changed to fear, and then to sadness. Whatever she was hearing obviously wasn't something she wanted to believe. But he waited patiently, knowing that this was probably harder for her than him and Namine--it was her two oldest best friends in danger here, one someone she cherished with her heart, and the other one of her best guy friends since childhood.

 

Namine's eyes turned sadder when she saw her best friend's misery. She wanted to step forward and give her best friend a hug, but she knew that wasn't the best thing she could do at the moment. After all, Kairi was in the middle of something. So she stayed where she was, waiting to hear what would be said next.

"I don't know," Sora confessed with a sigh. "I just know that for now, I need to keep my distance from other people. Unless--" He stopped mid-sentence, feeling his phone vibrate in his pocket. He unfolded his hands and immediately pulled it out of his pocket, checking the caller ID. Unavailable. He answered the call and lifted it to his ear.

 

Kairi waited, but Sora never finished. "Sora?" she called, her eyes closing as her eyebrows furrowed. There was obvious worry spreading from her heart, mostly because he ended so abruptly.

"Kairi?" Roxas asked, noting that her distress seemed to worsen suddenly. He gazed at her, concerned.

The redhead opened her eyes at the sound of her name, looking at her two friends. She decided that now she should actually explain what Sora had told her, remembering that she had neglected to do that a few minutes ago. "Sora suggests I stay with you guys for the next couple days," she started softly. "And...Roxas? He would like you to watch over me...since he can't."

Roxas nodded. "Of course," he agreed immediately.

 

"What's wrong?" Namine asked gently, too aware of the fact that Kairi was distressed not only by the idea of not seeing Sora, but by something else. It didn't take a genius to see that; it just took a good friend.

"You did well," the voice on the other side of the phone said.

Sora furrowed his eyebrows further when he heard the man chuckle. "What do you want!?" he growled in frustration, his hand clenching into a tight fist without thought.

"I'll call back in the near future. Be ready."

"Wait!" Sora shouted again, but just like their previous phone call, he had been hung up on. He snapped his phone shut, anger and confusion seething inside him. What now...? He supposed he'd just have to stay away from everyone until he got another phone call, just as he had told Kairi. But still, that was much easier said than done.

 

Kairi turned her head slightly to look at her best friend. "Oh, um..." She tucked a few strands of her red hair behind her ear. "It's Sora. He's not...talking anymore." The way she said it made it sound a little worse than it really was. She would try again, but obviously there was something distracting him.

Roxas's eyebrows furrowed a little more, his blue eyes darting from Namine back to Kairi. Obviously there was something else going on here. He just wasn't sure what. Evidently, Kairi didn't know either.

 

Namine shifted uneasily on her feet, wondering exactly what that meant. Was Sora harmed, or was he just distracted?

Sora did trust Roxas to watch out for Kairi, but after leaving things so open-ended with her, he didn't want to not be able to see her. It felt as if he were in a cage, and he hated that feeling. The teen exhaled silently, forgetting that he had been in the middle of a conversation with Kairi.

 

Kairi bit her lip again, worry washing over her as she decided to try again. "...Sora?" she called. He hadn't responded the last time, obviously occupied by something. But this situation was serious, so his distraction had to be as well.

Roxas crossed his arms, watching Kairi as she looked past him and at the wall. It was obvious what she was doing, because every time she did it she had a certain look in her eye. He couldn't describe it really, but at least he knew what it meant.