FINALLY SOMETHING THAT ISN'T AKUROKU! anyway.

i don't own it. riku, dashboard confessional, vindicated.. nope, not mine. -sadface-

AND BTW. this is set right after CoM. just to inform you. xD

i am vindicated
i am selfish, i am wrong

Things aren't so easy anymore. They were once, a long time ago. Back before I had the bright idea to change things, everything was so much simpler. It wasn't as complex, the motives and actions weren't so deep, before sides were chosen and friendships were pushed toward the breaking point. Before I knew so much, when being content was all there was to it… before being content caused discontent.

I think I wish I could take it all back… but maybe I needed this. Maybe this is what I needed to prove myself. I'm a traitor to the light, but now I won't take darkness anymore. I'm caught in between, and now I need to put things back together again. I need to pick up the pieces and then, maybe, things will be clearer. Then I can look at all of this in perspective, because right now that's virtually impossible. You can never think about the present until it's become the past.

And until that time, I've got the past of the present to think about. Forgive my lack of logic, but it isn't exactly important. Anyway. Let me tell you, I can say it right now, there's a whole lot of shit to think about right now. I'm not trying to make you sympathize with me, I'm not even forcing you to listen while I bitch about my screwed up situation. I just need to get this out; I just need to say it, just for myself.

My initial thought, immediately after the whole Destiny Islands ordeal, was that Sora was a stubborn dumbass. Then it was the whole 'where the hell am i?' kind of thing… Well, of course, now I know Hollow Bastion like the back of my hand, but I kind of wish I didn't. And then I started to worry. After shock and curiosity had worn off, I was left to my own devices, and my own pessimistic mindset began to cloud my judgment.

I don't think I cried, but I can't be too sure. I only know that I yelled a lot, I talked to myself a lot, and I worried a lot. I worried about my friends, I worried about my home, and I worried about myself. I had no idea where I was going; I had no idea what I'd done. Well, that's not really true… I knew what I'd done, but at that point, I was becoming unsure of my own motives, and for a while I was beginning to regret my reckless actions.

But then she came, and she convinced me that I'd done the right thing. She convinced me that the past wasn't worth a second thought, and she convinced me that darkness wasn't really as bad as everyone thought. Was she persuasive? You could say that… or maybe you could just say that I was a really stupid kind of guy.

But once I discovered Sora, once I saw that he wasn't even looking for me, I think it added insult to injury. It wasn't enough that I was unsure of myself, it wasn't enough that I didn't trust myself… But now my best friend had forgotten me, and there wasn't anything I could do anymore to fix it. I think that was what pushed me over the edge, that's what made everything fall into (or out of) place… It convinced me that the light didn't have a place for me anymore.

So I put everything behind me and I changed. I became a new person, and I became the darker part of myself. I changed thoughts, I changed foremost concerns, I changed sides and I changed mindsets. I even changed my wardrobe for crying out loud. Garments of darkness aren't exactly easy to come by, you know. I was really very different… I looked different and I acted different, but I didn't forget. I never forgot, and I never stopped worrying.

I'm good at hiding what I really feel, which can be both bad and good at times. Sometimes it's good, like when I really don't want to talk about something. But sometimes I just want to be able to wear my heart on my sleeve, sometimes I wish it was impossible for me to lie, to hide. It seems that it's all I can do sometimes; all I can do is conceal the truth from those people in whom I should be able to confide anything and everything. I just can't help it, that's how good I am.

I even hide things from myself. I push them to the back of my mind; I try never to think about them. I think that's what I was doing… That's why I never asked for help, that's why I never surrendered. That's why I fought Sora, and that's why I let myself be taken. That's why I yielded to the darkness, and that's how I lost myself. I hid from myself, ashamed of everything I was doing, but continuing to be willing all the while. Contradiction is one of my closest friends.

Selfish, that's what I was. But I don't know if I was selfish for myself… I don't know if it was me that was always first. I think everything I did was just selfish in general, and everything was misguided. It was all so wrong, but I kept going. I kept lying to myself. I cared… I was worried that I would stop caring, but I persuaded myself to believe that I was too smart to do a thing like that.

Wrong. I was now not only a selfish liar, but I was stupid and wrong as well. I was wrong about a lot of things… the majority of them being moral, but some were just false knowledge. I found that it was easier to feel bad for the mistaken moralities, as it was easier to not get carried away with beating myself up about those kinds of things… Trivial things had my mind harping on for hours about my stupidity. Don't know why, don't even want to know.

Then I woke up.

I had a sudden and brief flash of intuition, and for that moment, I knew what I had to do. I gained control, forfeiting myself for only a moment, and I helped him. Now I can only hope that he noticed the fact that I was beginning to come back… I'd realized what I had done, I realized why I had done it, and I realized just why I needed to undo it. I can only hope Sora's able to figure it out, before I have the chance to spell it out for him.

And now I'm leaving it all behind again, returning to what's left of what once was. You could say I'm fickle, or you could just say I suck at figuring out exactly what it is that I want. Or who I am… or what I need to do. You could say I'm stupid, you could say I'm selfish, but I think I've already beat you to it. You could say I'm hopeless, or you could say I'm lost… But there's one thing you can't say about me. You can't say I'm destined for darkness anymore.

i am right, i swear i'm right
swear i knew it all along

yeah. well. there you go. xD REVIEWS ARE NICE AND I LOVE YOU.