Title: Into the Mist

Rating: T , I'm just not feeling a lemon for this one xD but the rating may go up later.

Warnings: Shounen-ai, yaoi, boyxboy love (of the SoraRiku variety with a hint of AkuRoku on the side, oh, and there's a dash of SoraKairi on the side, but that's not a yaoi )

Summary: I wish I'd been there for him. I wish I'd been the shoulder he could cry on… I wish I hadn't been so stupid.

Its been two years since Sora, Riku, and Kairi returned to Destiny Islands, but it didn't take that long for Sora's friends to find out just how much he'd changed during their travels. There's something sinister haunting Sora's heart, and as Destiny calls again and the Keyblades return to their wielders, they find out just how much darkness is lurking in the shadows.

Spoilers: Kingdom Hearts and Kingdom Hearts II

Disclaimer: I do not own any of the characters or worlds seen in this fanfiction, they belong to Disney and Square Enix, and I am just using them for my own personal pleasure D

Prologue

If there's something I've learned in these past two years, living in the light and staring peace straight in the face, its that Sora's changed. No longer is he the naïve little boy who played with us on the beach, getting his face rubbed in sand and returning the favor, making sand fortresses and then engaging in all sorts of rock and stick wars, building tree forts and rafts, looking for a way to escape the monotony we had found the island possessed. He's no longer the carefree boy I've been best friends with all of my life, he's no longer my Sora. Hell, he's no longer Kairi's Sora, and that's saying a lot.

There are times when I look into his face as he tells us his stories, sitting under the stars and trying to guess which one is which world, and I see an older and wiser man where my friend used to sit. There's just this look in his eyes that he gets every now and then that reminds me of the darkness I was steeped in so long. When he speaks of pirates, of genies and lamps, of swimming in the sea and breathing water, there's a sort of excitement that lights up his eyes, and makes me both happy for him and sad, because I was too wrapped up in my own issues to be there with him, to be experiencing the same things that caused that smile to spread across his face. But then there were times when he speaks of people like Cloud, Sephiroth, Ansem the Wise, Axel, and Roxas, people with so much anger and confusion wrapped up within them they keep stepping over the line of good and bad, and I look at his face, really look, and I see a pain behind the nostalgic smile. Its then that I realize that Sora's changed, that Sora's been through so much more than I have in these past years, and even though my experiences seem horrific to him, they don't have the same emotional scarring on me. I've always had one foot in the darkness, wanting it, craving it, but never quite lost enough to entirely give into it. My experiences over those few years were nothing, a mere blip on the radar, an uncomfortable period, much like a voice change during puberty. For Sora, seeing people die, knowing that others had died for him, watching a struggle between light and dark, seeing just how weak the heart really is… for Sora, that's life shattering.

I wish I'd been there for him. I wish I'd been the shoulder he could cry on… I wish I hadn't been so stupid.

I know for a fact that Sora never broke down around Donald and Goofy, I know for a fact that he kept a brave face while he was with them, their expressions when they saw him crying over me in the World That Never Was told me that much. Sora needed an emotional outlet, he needed one of us to soak up his tears as we have since kindergarten, but he didn't have us. All he had was a key that couldn't even save Kairi, a key so easily taken out of his pacifist hands… and a heart so pure he didn't want to burden anyone else with his troubles.

I've always told him, in my own sadistic way, that his kindness would be his downfall, that his selflessness will drive him to ruin. He always gave me a heart-breaking smile, his clear eyes telling me that he knew exactly why I was being so mean to him, and said the same thing, time after time. "I know, Riku, and nothing could make me happier."

Now, as we lay side by side on the beach, Sora nestled in-between Kairi and me, I turn to face him, and I see the echo of my words on his face, etched into his skin and written so deep into his muscles that it will never leave. His head turns, and I look into his eyes, my own impassive and his sparkling with a sense of knowing that Sora hadn't possessed four years ago.

A grin spreads across his face, and suddenly I'm five years old again, sitting on the dock and glaring out at the sea. Suddenly I'm a kid, looking up to see a smiling face, brilliant as the sun with eyes as blue as the sea that I love. Suddenly, I'm looking up at a face that hasn't quite lost all its baby fat, and a voice is ringing in my ears, pure and strong, filled with enough childish song to bring a smile to my face, even now. Hi, it says, echoing from my memories to spill from Sora's lips, eyes glittering amusement as he mouths the words, and I know we're thinking the same once again, both of us lost in the same memory. I found a cave with a monster inside! Wanna see? It can be our secret!

Kairi reaches over to pinch Sora's cheek, drawling out something along the lines of boyfriends shouldn't cheat on their girlfriends with their best friends, and Sora makes a face, the moment gone, before turning back over, releasing my hand to gesture upwards to a pointing star, and my heart breaks and not only his words, and not only the tone he says them in, but the hand stretched up towards the sky as if his fingers were trying to smooth out the wrinkles in a large, velvet cloth, as if he was still trying to fix the world all by himself.

"There goes another one," he whispers, and I watch the path of the star intently, hearing Kairi shift in the sand from the brunet's other side. "Another star, another world, off on its own journey, on its own path," his voice catches, and stops. I don't need him to continue to know what he was going to say.

Another one we couldn't save.

I want to yell out, to dunk him under the surf and tell him to stop wallowing in self pity. I want to tell him calmly that it isn't his fault, that there was nothing he could have done to help that world, that he was saving so many, that he had saved so many, but I know he'll just smile at me in that way of his and tell me he knows, over and over. I know Riku, I know. And I know he knows, and he knows that I know, there's always something you can do for someone, and there's no excuse for doing nothing, no excuse for standing aside and letting things run their course.

There's this part of Sora, the part that always emerges when we're alone, just relaxing like friends do, watching the stars twinkle in the sky, playing along the beach, cooling off in the cave with the door, now locked shut against the pull of other worlds its heart completely its own, that scares me. It the part that reminds me of staring straight into darkness, of feeling a steady tug of sorrow at my heart.

Something happened to Sora in those years of fighting for his life, protecting others, watching people die over and over again, that I missed. Maybe that's the worst part of it all, that I missed Sora, my Sora, growing up. I missed his awkward transition from cute to handsome, that I missed his lanky, awkward puberty, that I missed being there when he really needed me. I know Kairi feels the same, sorrowful that she missed being at his side, missed being there for him, but I'm not sure she realizes just how different my feelings are.

There she is, Sora's girlfriend, best friend, and mother all gathered into one small girl. She's fire and energy, adding to Sora's limitless supply of niceties and smiles. They're a match made in heaven, but left on their own, they'd burn out. I'm the cool that calms their fire, silent and somewhat icy, and sometimes Kairi hates me, sometimes she wants Sora all for herself, without the presence of the best friend, but she knows that I'm needed in order to keep the balance completely in the middle. One push in either direction, and both of us are afraid Sora will spiral out of control, loosing the fragile stability he's achieved.

But as we lay there, staring up at the sky, smiling at the soothing twinkles of worlds we both know and want to meet, such thoughts are pushed down and away. Sora once told me that if it meant the world could be safe, that light could thrive and heal, that we could be the darkness, that we could remain there, at the End of the World, for all eternity, and he'd be perfectly content. The darkness there was so different from Kingdom Hearts. There was no evil in that darkness, and I felt completely at home in it. That beach, with the dark sky and water, with the sun setting green over the waves, wasn't an evil kind of darkness, it was necessary darkness, it needed to be there in order for its other, its opposite to live on and light the lives of the people in the different worlds.

Now, laying in the dark of the night, utterly content and happy for even a fleeting moment, I know what he meant, and I think I can understand him just a little bit more. I feel like I've managed to enter his heart again, to learn a new chapter of Sora-speak. I feel like we're becoming one again, like we're going back to old times.

But… that shadow in his heart is still there, just an echo in his eyes, the flicker of a frown on his lips, and its so unlike the comfortable dark enveloping us, so unlike the necessary presence of an endless beach made of black sand. This shadow is sinister, and growing larger and larger the more Sora denies its presence within himself.

And, honestly, it terrifies me.