I keep going round and round on the same old circuit
a wire travels underground to a vacant lot

Wind blew softly through Sora's soft brunette hair. It was so lovely out here; so… peaceful. While in reality, his life was anything but.

Six long years ago he had been fourteen. Six long years ago he had lost his best friend and the girl he loved. Six long years ago, he had died.

Where something I can't see interrupts the current
and shrinks the picture down to a tiny dot

Well, not literally died. He had merely lost his will to go on living. The life he was living now was a lie; a shell of his former existence. A ghost of a smile flitted across his face.

After five years of searching for his young silver-haired friend, he had given up. He chose to return to his previous life, though it would be a mere shadow now that Riku was gone. He came home and fell into the arms of Kairi. He said he loved her, and for a time, he meant it. For a long time, he believed it was true.


And from behind the screen it can look so perfect

They stayed together through everything: his recovery, his paranoia, his episodes. She never wavered, never questioned, and he was grateful. He needed someone to stand by him. Kairi was his rock, his touchstone. They seemed so very much in love.


But it's not.

It didn't take Sora very long to realize that feelings of gratitude weren't love. When Kairi took him home; asked him to live with her, he was very reluctant. But she was so insistent. Everyone was so insistent. He smiled weakly and accepted after some time. When the hospital released him, he went with her to the small apartment she lived in.

And for a time, it was good. They were happy together. Sora convinced himself that he loved her. But the longer they lived together, the more he felt she was expecting something; something he wasn't prepared to say.

So here I'm sitting in my car at the same old stop light
I keep waiting for a change but I don't know what

He knew she wanted him to ask her about marriage. They were only twenty, yes, but on the islands, most people were married by seventeen. He couldn't ask her, though. He didn't love her that way, and deep down, he knew he never would.


So red turns into green turning into yellow
but I'm just frozen here on the same old spot

Their relationship was almost touch-and-go. He never knew when it was okay to hold her anymore. She would show signs of want or need, but he was afraid to act. He grew afraid of rejection constantly. Maybe something in him thought that if he didn't love her, how could she possibly love him? But that was cruel, wasn't it; to let her believe that he loved her? But he needed so badly to have someone love him, especially when he felt so alone.


And all I have to do is to press the pedal

All he had to do was ask. He knew she would say yes, no matter what the current status of her emotions was. He just had to say four words, and it would be done.


But I'm not

No I'm not

He couldn't fool her like that; he couldn't. Even if he didn't love her, he did feel something for her. He didn't want to hurt her. He didn't want to get years into the relationship when he knew that it would inevitably die out. What if they had had children by then? Would he ever have children? Would she? She probably would. He couldn't say the same for himself.

People are tricky you can't afford to show
anything risky, anything they don't know

He would never tell her the reasons that he couldn't love her, and there were just so many. He couldn't love her because of all they'd been through together. He couldn't love her because they had been apart for five years. He couldn't love her because she was almost untouchable to him. He couldn't love her because he was in love with someone else.

Sora had fallen in love with Riku during the time he had searched. Most of his mental anguish after giving up looking was caused by the guilt he felt for abandoning the one he loved. He would have gone on searching forever, gone to the ends of the universe, but he couldn't take it anymore. Even the government declared people legally dead after two years. He belonged somewhere else. He was meant for other things, he thought, but this didn't feel right either.


The moment you try - well kiss it goodbye

He knew that if he told anyone how he felt about so many things, they would put him back into psychiatric care, claiming he was suffering a relapse. And who was he to argue? He was so mentally and physically exhausted by this point that he would do whatever was expected of him. He would forget everything just to resume a normal life, even if it was just a façade.

So baby, kiss me like a drug, like a respirator
and let me fall into the dream of the astronaut

Kairi knew their relationship was in trouble. She tried so hard to save it, and once again her efforts were not unappreciated. Sora wanted so badly to make things better. Mutual work should've salvaged something, shouldn't it have? Kairi loved him so much, and he wanted to love her. His mind was in it- set on it- but his heart was not. His heart was still searching the universe for the one he had loved and lost. His heart was crying somewhere in space.


Where I'll get lost in space that goes on forever
and you make all the rest just an afterthought
and I believe it's you who could make it better

They tried to be together because they needed to be. Sora believed that Kairi could fix things for him. He believed that if they were together, things could go back to the way they were. And he believed in it so blindly that he couldn't see past the fact that everything he knew was based on a beautifully complex lie.


Though it's not
no it's not
no it's not...

It's Not - Aimee Mann