Disclaimers: I don't own Kingdom Hearts. I'm simply using the characters for my and my muse's entertainment.
Pairings: eventual Riku/Sora and Akuroku
Mirage by Yaoi Girl
All my life, since I could remember, I've grown up with this ethereal boy beside me. But I'm the only person who knows that he exists. I'm the only person that can see him.
The first time I laid eyes on him, I was only four. My family and I were traveling the world looking for stories. You see, my mother was a journalist and my father was a photographer.
We were in a desert someplace on our world. I just remember being miserable in the backseat of the car, strapped into a car seat no less. I cried and squirmed, but my parents wouldn't let me out or loosen me for anything. They just kept driving, sweat pouring down their own faces as the turned and smiled at me.
But their smiles quickly vanished when a tire burst from beneath us in the middle of nowhere. I remember my father sighing and asking my mother to let me run loose for a little while so he could replace the flat.
Once freed from my prison, my mother held my hand and we ventured a little ways into the sandy masses and dried shrubs. And once we were far enough away from the road, although there were no cars passing by that I can recall, she let go of me and let me run wild through the cacti and shrubs.
My father called for her, and smiling, she told me to stay away from the road and keep playing like I was. I nodded, grinning like crazy. And then she headed back to the car.
I was smart enough to know to stay with eye sight of them, but something caught my eye off in the distance. Peering over my shoulder to my parents, deciding that I would be back before they were done with the tire, I sprinted out farther towards what looked to me like a small pond. And it looked like someone was wading in it.
When I got there, however, there was nothing. It confused me then because I had no clue what a mirage was or why something I had seen a moment ago disappeared before my very eyes.
With a sigh, I turned to head back, my family and the car a small speck on the horizon. As I started to walk back, I heard a noise behind me, so I turned back towards the "pond", again finding nothing as my eyebrows furrowed in curiosity.
Then I heard my mother calling for me, so I turned back again, my eyes widening in surprise as a teenage boy stood before me. He was way taller than me with eyes the color of the ocean and hair as silver and shiny as could be. He smiled at me, holding his hand towards me.
I stepped back a few steps, still vaguely hearing my mother calling for me, but I was scared. What was this boy doing out here all alone? And what did he want with me?
During a time that I had blinked, he vanished, and I could see behind where he had been standing only moments ago, my mother running towards me. And in his place was a beautiful stone that matched his eyes.
I picked it up and placed it in my pocket before my mother reached me, kneeling in front of me.
"Sora, are you okay? Did you get bit by something? What were you thinking wandering this far out?"
"I'm fine, mom," I smiled as I hugged her. I knew that was the only way to get her to calm down. "Really, I am."
"Alright," she said as she scooped me up, heading back to the now repaired car. "Roxas is starving, so you must be getting hungry too."
My twin brother, Roxas, had been asleep in the car the whole time. I don't know how he managed, seeing as the tire had popped, I was whining for who knows how long, and we had no air conditioning in the vehicle and it was who knows how hot out. I still don't care who says dry heat's better than humidity. I'll take humidity anyday!
"Where were you?" my brother asks, stretching and yawning in his car seat.
"Out playing," I said as I pointed out the window as my mom strapped my back in.
"Oh," he simply replies as he leans back, squinting against the all too bright sun outside.
From there, I don't really remember anything until that night when we stopped at the hotel.
Mom was in the shower and dad had gone somewhere in town to get the flat tire fixed or replaced. I had thrown myself onto the bed and yelped as the stone I had forgotten about in my pocket dug harshly into my side.
I pulled it out, and without a sound, Roxas was hovering over my side as I laid on the bed.
"What's that?"
"I don't know. A boy in the desert dropped it."
"A boy in the desert? You had someone to play with?"
"Not really. He was there, and then he disappeared really quick. I don't know where he went. But I found this when he left."
"Where did you find that, Sora?" my mother asks as she emerges from the bathroom, drying her hair with a towel.
"A boy in the desert dropped it," Roxas repeated what I had just told him.
She looks at me quizzically. "There was no boy out there, Sora."
"Yes there was! I was tall and has long silver hair and had eyes the same color as this rock!" I had protested.
Apparently my mother had chalked it off as my imaginary friend stage because she asked nothing more about the boy.
"Well, so you don't loose this pretty rock, why don't we find some string tomorrow and we'll make it into a necklace for you? Does that sound good?"
I nodded excitedly. Roxas pouted.
"What about me? I want one too!"
Mother laughed. She knew that Roxas couldn't stand not having something that I had, and vice versa. "We'll see if we can find you one tomorrow then."
And we did find him one a lot like mine, but his was red, like fire. And apparently he had met a boy with fiery red hair and cat-like green eyes. But he wasn't in the desert. He was in the marketplace for the town we were in. And again mother shrugged it off as the imaginary friend stage. Apparently so did dad.
Then it wasn't until years later that I had seen that mysterious boy again, this time, hovering over me as I woke in my own room.
My first shot at a KH fic. I'll get more interesting as the chapters go by! I hope... :shifty eyes: