Title: Squandered Opportunity
Summary: Stolen from his life and parted from his twin brother, Sora thought being auctioned in the black market was the worst thing that could have happened to him. But when Riku was the one who bought him, Sora was read between the lines of what was messed up and everything was all right.
Meanwhile, Roxas fell into the organization's hands. Aided by Axel, he thrived his way to get his brother back while being forced to hold the duty of Number XIII.
Main: RikuxSora, Side: AxelxRoxas.
Special Thanks to Carefreecat for beta-reading!
Disclaimers: KH belongs to SquareEnix and Disney. Song: Music for a Nurse belongs to Oceansize.
Note: I actually got the idea from the anime No Money (Okane ga nai). The similarity is only at the beginning, but the entire plot will be different. Riku is not a pervert and Sora is not a girl.
Chapter 1 Stolen Lives
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Sora lived a blissful life with his twin brother, Roxas, at Destiny Island. He had always been a happy boy. Despite the death of their parents in their younger years, they still managed to grow out of tears and fears. As long as they had each other's back, they knew they could go through everything and anything the world decided to throw at them.
Things were going just fine for them until the day they were stolen from their home island.
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He felt the numbness course through out his entire body even before he came to full consciousness. Far off noises that were incoherent to him filled his ears, he could barely make out that someone was speaking through a microphone and many others were conversing. Then his ears caught the sound of rattling chains. He had no idea where the chains were until he felt himself being jerked forward by the throat. It was only then that he realized those chains were bound to his throat.
Then he felt himself being lifted from whatever ground he was on and he was being carried in some general direction. Voices were coming in every direction. He tried to see, but he was blindfolded; he tried to move, but he couldn't feel his limbs anymore.
Fear finally crept up; he knew something was very wrong. He tried to sort through his memory and finally it came in slow waves to him, lapping sluggishly at his mind.
He was walking home from school with his older twin brother in the late evening. Contrary to every day's usualness, some cars suddenly drove in, out of nowhere. A group of four men climbed out of the vehicle. When the men approached them, his twin had taken the precautious step and tried to fend them off. He followed his brother's lead and they had managed in bringing two of the four men down, but a gun was issued from another man. Then they could do nothing.
He had seen his twin being knocked unconscious by the two men before everything around him turned dark.
Sora gasped as another yank to his throat had him stumbling onto his knees, but he was picked up. The impact had left him in a clearer state of mind. It was not long before Sora felt himself being lowered to the floor and the loud chattering voices filled his ears, followed by a loud voice over a microphone.
"And for our last product, a 16 year old boy, a student from a far away land. He has the most captivating blue eyes, smooth skin, small frame yet boyish features. A truly beautiful gift from Destiny Island." As the speaking went on, Sora felt a rough hand circling under his chin, forcing him to tilt his head upward. Then the blindfold was removed, obliging him to crack his eyes open. The sudden bright light blinded his eyes, he shut them instinctively.
"Open your eyes, kid," a nondescript voice commanded.
Sora felt like he shouldn't obey it, whoever it was, he knew that the intentions were far from good. But he needed to know what exactly was happening to him, and there was only one way to figure that out. He slowly gathered his courage and he forced his eyes open again and let them adjust to the light.
Sora took in the sight before him. Thousand of people in their seats were starring flaming holes into his shivering body. Normally, Sora never fazed under an audience's stares, but he felt like this kind of audience was killing him now. And the air around him was different from what he'd been breathing his entire life, it was too thick, too heavy, too…hostile.
This wasn't Destiny Island, nor was it Twilight Town, the only two places he'd ever been living all his life.
Sora shifted his eyes from the audience to search his surroundings. He was on a stage, with one announcer and two men that seemed to be the guys who had bound him with the chains. His neck was cuffed and attached to those chains, which one man was holding the end tightly in his hands.
Everything was completely different, saved for his school uniform that was still the same.
And his twin brother was missing.
Sora's whirlwind thoughts were cut short when the bidding resumed.
"In fact, this product was brought along with his elder twin. Due to some circumstances, the elder one was sold off. But I guarantee you that they both are still a piece of art without each other."
Sora kicked himself mentally at that. In spite of all the confusion, he managed to string the events together. 'Roxas, sold, auction…me? A product?' In Destiny Island, crime rate was very low, but Sora had learned in school that some other worlds usually had high crime rates. Little did he know about black market and its details, but he did know what they were.
Panic rose up inside him, forcing Sora to go through with his weak attempts of breaking free. He actually almost made it, if not for the two huge guys holding him down. His struggles seemed to catch the room's attention and soon the audience began to whisper with one another. And then he heard the auctioneer (as he now knew) say something to the man who was now holding him.
"Let go of him."
Sora didn't understand, nor did he care. Once he was free from the man, he attempted to get on his feet. But he fell. Then with his hands shaking, he tried to support himself and get up. He tried to move, only to fail again. So he tried to scrape the cuff off of his neck instead of trying to get up a third time. On the top of all that, his head still spun like hell.
He heard the snickers emitting from all over the audience, but he ignored them. If he was back home, he would have found the sound of laughter pleasant and inviting to his ears. He liked being able to be the source of laughter, but not here, not now that he knew the laughter that attacked his ears were different from back home. The one caused Sora to realize just how scared, humiliated, and angry he truly was.
The auctioneer must have known that he couldn't get anywhere in such a state, and that was the very reason he was let free, on the stage, to entertain these twisted-mind audiences. How twisted they were, Sora yet had no idea, nor did he want to think about what kind of product they were presenting him to be. To his horror struck with growing intensity, his unwanted question was answered.
"As you can see, he's just woken up and is new to all of this. My, my, see how stubborn and audacious he is. For those of you who preferred a lesser obedient type, this should be the very toy for you. In this area, I trust you can see what a great toy he could become." The auctioneer said and Sora could hear a tad bit of mocking in his voice.
Sora swore if he wasn't in such condition, he would have punched the guy right in the face, but the best he could do was to manage a weak glare.
"And we shall begin the bidding! Starting from 1,000,000 munny!"
In such short moment, the excitement of bidding rose higher and higher in the hall. The loud noises of their greed made Sora want to gag. Even though he could have joked with himself that he was worth that much, he still couldn't imagine what they would do to him after the bidding was over. He only knew it couldn't be good or anything near to being okay. He'd never felt this sick in his life. No illness could have made him feel the way he was feeling now. It sent his mind reeling.
Here he was, in a place far from home which God knows where, and he was about to be sold to some twisted person with a sick mind.
'Giving up already? C'mon, Sora, I thought you were stronger than that.'
That line again. The very one that always broke his fall when he was about to. Someone had said those words to him, but he now couldn't recall who that person had been.
'Roxas, I have to find Roxas!' with only one thought clear in mind, Sora breathed in deep and began and pulled himself together. Glancing once at the auctioneer and the other two men who were momentarily busy with the bidding, Sora gathered every bit of his strength that he had left. Then he batted the tail of the chain from the man and he dashed off with as much speed he could, attempting to reach the side door of the stage before someone could stop him.
The guys were already after him. Sora looked behind him to the two men and doubted he was going to make it. He could barely stand earlier, let alone run. Still, that didn't mean he would quit, he would die trying. When his eyes caught sight of the others behind him, his mind descended into negative presumptions. He would be yanked back, beaten up until he couldn't move a finger, and be sold to whatever he was for.
His last wish was only to find Roxas and go home with his brother.
What Sora never anticipated was that he would run right into someone's waiting arms. When he jerked his head to his captive, he saw a boy not much older than himself. In his right mind, he would have thought about the oddity of a young boy with oceanic green eyes, silver-hair, and ethereal features which resembled anything but a twisted-minded person unlike the rest of the audience. For some reason the current situation made him feel like everyone there was going to hurt him, badly. He needed to escape.
Sora struggled vainly in the silver-haired boy's tight grip. Unfortunately, he was much smaller that only one arm holding his waist was enough to keep him there, but Sora blamed it all on the improper of his body functioning.
Out of frustration with the runaway property and misunderstanding that the silver-haired boy had only appeared to assist them in retrieving the product, one of the guy gave a small yank to Sora's chain by the end of its tail, causing the brunet's head to jerk back slightly. Between a yelp, Sora missed the dangerous glint in oceanic eyes as the owner of them grabbed the middle of the chain and yanked it towards himself forcefully so the man holding the tail of it was pulled along. The man didn't make it all the way to them though. The silver-haired boy lifted one foot and literally separated the man from the chain by kicking him in the gut. Then the boy took the end of the chain in his hand and held Sora who was struggling fruitlessly in his arm.
"Back off, he's mine," the boy hissed with a glare.
Before the bruised man could draw a gun, the boy kicked the bag that he'd dropped earlier (when grabbing the chains that bound Sora) in the middle of the stage where the auctioneer was watching them. The bag fell open in front of all the bidders' eyes, and they gawked at it.
"30,000,000 munny, in cash," the boy revealed the amount, which was by far higher than the amount that the bidders were trying to top each other.
The auctioneer was the first one to pull himself away from the gawk worthy amount and resumed his position. "Well…would anybody give more than 30,000,000?" When the silence lasted for a few moments, the auctioneer finally announced, "30,000,000 it is, to number 960!"
Sora deadpanned.
"Oh, no, no, no. No! What the heck is going on! This must be a bad dream. Roxas! Come wake me up!" Sora wailed frantically. He couldn't bring himself to believe what was happening to him. It seemed unreal, even his parent's death seemed more real than this. This was not happening, it couldn't be.
"Hey, it'll be okay. Relax." the silver-haired boy cooed softly into Sora's ears.
Unfortunately, Sora rejected it, and he struggled on. He'd missed the sound of comfort. In his right mind the words would have sounded reassuring. And those eyes watching him tenderly would have put him at ease if he'd looked at them long enough. Moreover, if he actually remembered it, he would have recognized that the voice was the same as the line that told him not to give up. But he didn't. All he could think about was his brother, and of what was happening to him now.
"No! Roxas!" Sora scraped, pushed, and did everything in vain to break free. All of this was draining every last bit of his energy and before long he barely had any fight left in him. He feared for a moment that his sanity would waver. But before long everything started to fade to grey, darker it went until all that was left was never ending blackness.
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And a piece of the pictures bitten right out of the middle
I'm alone and thinner I feel
Is this a prayer?
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Here it goes; this fic is the second thing I couldn't believe that I actually have written it. Before this, I wasn't much for AU. Without canon thingy, I felt that writers are using characters for their own good, now I'm doing it myself. I've drafted this in my head sometimes ago and dumped it, then retrieved it later and got it written for real. Seems like I can't reject the urge after all. Anyway, I don't intend to go on without canon, I'll see what I can do with this plot line. Meanwhile, I'm open for comments, bad or good or so so, let me know!