Kingdom Hearts Here

Disclaimer: Kingdom Hearts belongs to Disney, Squaresoft and other respective owners. The lyrics to "Here" belong to Maaya Sakamoto.

A/N: Nameless midnight encounter after Riku first reappears. 

Here

    Here I am 
    I've walked a promise 
    But it can take so long 
    Here I am 
    I've walked the shadows
    It's time that I move on 
    With myself 
    I share the silence 
    I jus' walk along 
    Walk along.

"There were so many times – so many, many times that I thought I was going to die!"

Brilliant, beautiful eyes drew upwards, as deep a blue as the summer sea and as clouded as a tornado's day. They focused and rested on him with an emotion that he thought was nothing more but fondness. Of course, that was what he thought. It had always been fondness until now. How could he have known? How could he have had any idea about anything? A deep, alluring and sadly far away voice asked,"Oh?" 

"Yes." It was accompanied by a small nod. Sora lifted the hand of a child and spread it across the air above his head like a rainbow, but darker. "The air would smell like blood and magic. I would be hot because I was so tired, but the air would be cold because the Heartless always made the temperature surrounding them freeze. It felt feverish."

Riku's gaze had trailed Sora's fingers as they soared through the air. They were so thin and pale and fragile. They were the fingers that held the Keyblade, a weapon that could vanquish anything that dared to stand before it. Those fingers belonged to small, little Sora. 

Sora smiled softly and sweetly, as he did when they were children. He took a step towards his friend and never noticed that Riku took a step back. "I wish you were there. It was hard, I didn't want to do it alone. I kept on pushing and pushing and never pulling until I was so exhausted that I thought my arms would fall off of my shoulders and my knees would crumble into dust." He paused, looked at the floor quizzically as if he was trying to fathom why the distance between them was still the same. 

"You could have said 'no' and just have waited for someone else." Riku said bitterly.

Sora couldn't hear the bitterness. He couldn't see or hear anything past that great, wonderful image of an infallible, indomitable guardian friend. He laughed gently. It was a crystalline sound that tore at Riku until he almost stepped forward. The space between them was so large and devouring. Was he the only one that noticed? "No," Sora said, "Donald and Goofy would have killed me."

Sora didn't notice when Riku's being tightened either. "Donald and Goofy…where are they? I thought they always were with you."

"They're sleeping. I came out only because I couldn't, I didn't know I was going to meet you on the way. I thought you had left after this evening. Who knew that you were going to come back?" 

Yes, who knew indeed? "Oh, I see." Riku was going to say something more, but then there was always Sora – vibrant, lively Sora who never stopped talking, just the same as before. Riku chanced a look to his face and found it filled with such joy. Sora seemed to be everything pure and good sometimes. 

"You know," Sora started softly with a voice so gentle that the sheer contrast of the tone made Riku stare, "I'm really, really glad you're alright, Riku." 

Sora said it as if he cared, Riku noticed. He wanted to scream.

"You still have to look for Kairi." Riku said, and that was probably the best answer he would have given, the only answer that he could possibly utter because that searing, roaring pain in his chest was blocking most of his thoughts from becoming words. "You shouldn't let your guard down so quickly. There are those heartless that'll keep on coming for your keyblade. They'll just keep on getting stronger and stronger, you know, so I wouldn't be so sure of myself if I were you."

Sora shrugged lightly. "I don't know, I guess I shouldn't." He agreed, looking down the balcony at the lighted fountain. His face neither fell nor rose but rested solemnly on his face. Sora wasn't young anymore, as childlike as his features was, his eyes were darker. What had made him grow old? What tendril of time had dared touch his competitive, sunshine friend? "But they won't come now; I don't have it with me. So we can talk."

As if I really want to talk to you, Riku thought ironically, because he knew, of course, that that was the sole reason he had returned at all, against Maleficent's will. He leaned on the stone wall and found it very hard and very callous. Its dark, unyielding bricks burned through his clothes with almost unbearable cold, but who was he to pull away and appear affected by anything at all? If he was alright with the fact that his friend had abandoned him for others, he was definitely alright with a little chill running up his spine.

"What do we have to talk about?"

"Riku, are you alright?" the other said suddenly.

The question startled him. His eyes flew open and focused in complete confusion. It had been so blunt and frank that it was more of an accusation than a question. He knew that; Sora knew that. What he didn't ever know was that Sora actually noticed those things about him. It surprised him, shocked him, and made him want to kill Sora a little more – whether out of scorn or out of friendship he wasn't sure. He was sure, however, not to flinch or waver. "What do you mean?"

Sora approached him and to his horror, he found that his back was still against the wall and he had no where to retreat. The younger of the two leaned forward slightly and looked up into his face, searching for something, anything, which he couldn't find. Their friendship, perhaps, their childhood, perhaps, kindness and gentleness, perhaps, Riku, perhaps. "You've changed." Sora said, close enough that Riku noticed his breath was very warm. "Kairi was right, you've changed." 

Riku turned away, stared at the door that led to second district, which was wooden and dead and not possessed of pure and untainted eyes. "So?"

Sora withdrew, creased his brow and said, "I don't know, I'm not sure if that's bad or not." His doubt faded and flashed into a confident grin. "But it's probably a good thing, right?" 

The answer was, "Not always." 

"Well," Sora answered, not to be defeated, "it's not bad for you, right?"

Riku said nothing, of course, but Sora took the silence as an affirmative. 

Sora turned around, sauntered near the door of the small house and came so close to it that Riku dreaded the boy would leave him alone in the cold. He raised his hand unconsciously, a movement which Sora noticed and perplexed him, causing him to turn around. His eyes became very soft like snow and cotton. "What's wrong?" He stopped himself, however, as instincts kicked in and he looked around suspiciously, eyes lingering near shadowed corners. "They're not here, are they?"

Riku noticed that Sora's knees wobbled slightly, because his hand was empty and the keyblade was too far away. "No." he said flatly. "I was just seeing things."

Instantly, the tension faded from the boy's frame and his frown melted away into a relieved smile. "Oh. I was worried for a second there."

Yes, so was I. "Besides, they can't find you if you don't have the keyblade in your hand." 

Sora nodded vigorously. "That's right." 

He acted as if he had time under his thumb. Sooner than he would realize, the night would wisp away and Riku with it. The chance to talk would be over and there would be no turning back ever again. Riku said nothing, of course, because right now, just this was enough for him. He had grown accustomed during these past few days that had seemed like years, to not getting what he wanted. In turn, his demands had dwindled in strength. 

"So, how have you been?"

Of all things, he should have known that Sora would result in small talk. "Fine."

Sora laughed again. "No, I mean, what have you been doing?"

Dying. Trying to find you, only to discover that you weren't trying to find me. Searching, looking for something to which I didn't matter. Wishing, hoping, knowing that wishes and hopes mattered little or not at all. Chasing, being chased, by nightmares and unattainable dreams. Wanting, not having, plummeting to an unseen and untimely death. And then just dying all over again. "Nothing really." 

"Mustn't have been very fun, then."

No, it was just dandy. "It wasn't."

Sora grinned to himself, laughing at something silent and unknown. "Well," he said, as he looked up at Riku, "It'll all be over soon anyway. We just have to find Kairi, and then we'll just find a way to go home or stay here and travel with the Gummi ship. We could live here, with Leon and Yuffie and Aerith, and whenever we wanted, we could go visit other worlds." He said this so happily, as if everything would actually be okay in the end, as if sad endings didn't exist, as if this was a fairy tale. Sora only forgot that it wasn't. "That's what you wanted, right?"

Was it really? What I wanted before? "I guess."

"It'll be great." Sora whispered.

"Sora."

"Hmm?"

A pause. "It might not be like that, you know."

He turned around and fixed Riku with a questioning gaze. "What?"

There were exactly seventy-three pebbles from the tip of his left foot to the doorframe of the small house. "It's not always that great. We might lose; the good guys don't always win. Sometimes, things don't turn out the way we wanted. Sometimes, they're the complete opposite. Finding Kairi won't make everything better. There's a lot out there we don't know about – a lot of dangerous things that know about us. It's not that simple, not that easy."

"Oh, I know." Sora said.

"You do?"

"Sure." Sora said, "But we'll win anyway, right?"

He was so painfully innocent sometimes. Would he be surprised, Riku wondered, if I came and yelled it so loud that he would actually understand? He doesn't even notice that everything's not the way it's supposed to be. He doesn't even know that it's his fault. "Of course."

Then, Sora did the strangest, most unexplainable thing.

"What are you…?"

"I was afraid you were gone and that I was alone." Sora said, throwing his arms around his friend in an act of childish possessiveness. He buried his face in Riku's shoulder so that most of his words were either incoherent or rather muffled. Sora's arms were horribly tight; his embrace was horribly warm and comfortable. "I was really happy when you came back." He drew away at an arm's length and smiled at Riku cheerily. "But all that matters is that you won't be going away."

Oh…does it really matter? "Hn." Riku muttered, and then, "Again?"

Sora nodded into his second embrace. "Right, that first one was for coming back. This one is for tomorrow, just in case…right?" He chuckled mildly, as if it were a joke, as if there was anything slightly funny about it. "Just in case that one of us doesn't come back tomorrow, or any time after that." 

Maybe Sora wasn't that innocent. 

"Right…" because I will be the one that won't come back. Riku, in all his desperation to stay aloof and indifferent, wrapped his arms around Sora's smaller frame in return, all he could do not to blurt out anything and everything he wasn't supposed to say. Here was his best friend, offering him what seemed like the world and all he could do was refuse. He said nothing else and Sora remained silent. The wind that rustled the leaves and waltzed with them like ballroom dancers – that was the only sound to fill the night, not that either of them needed any sound.

Finally, Sora pulled away. "We'll go look for Kairi tomorrow."

Was that a promise? Could he really afford to make a promise now? "Right."

When Riku was the only one standing out on the balcony, the night was old and weary. It wasn't very warm, but the twilight had faded away and it was no where as cold as a few hours ago. He didn't know for how long he just stood and waited and thought about things that really needed no thinking. All he knew is that in the end, he did move and when that happened, he was moving away in no set direction, not knowing whether or not he wanted or would ever return.

The sun rose in the morning. 


End file.

Kingdom Hearts