Summary: Okay, so we all know the story of Kingdom Hearts 1. If you don't, well, that's too bad. Anyways, this is a kind of "what-if" story. What if, when he was reaching for Riku's hand that one fateful night, what if Sora hadn't missed?

Rating: T for Yaoi. Cute yaoi, but yaoi nonetheless. Also, I'm sure violence and profanity will come in somewhere in there. (At first, a little Kairi x Sora, then later Riku x Sora, and maybe other pairings)

Disclaimers: First things first, the obvious: no, I do not own Kingdom Hearts. Otherwise, Axel would 24/7 have Roxas banged up against…while Hayner…well…let's not get into it. Don't wanna creep you all out before I even begin, do I? Ha ha. Secondly,no, sadly, I do not own Apple or the iPod. I own AN iPod, but not the actual product. Lo siento.

Oh and, in case you are curious, the whole iPod thing isn't just a random thing I threw in for no apparent reason. I plan on making a lot more references to music in the future. By the way, any bands I mention in here will, no doubt, NOT be owned by me. Yeah. And so, without further ado…

Kingdom Hearts: Altering Promises

Chapter 1: The Door Has Opened

The Destiny Islands practically glowed that day. Nobody could explain why, but the islands, which were much like a Hawaiian Island, glowed prettier than anything any of its inhabitants had ever experienced. The sun beat down on the pearly white sand so the sand glistened when touched gently by the seemingly endless seas waves. The palm trees swayed calmly in a warm breeze, bowing to the powerful yet tender invisible force. The islands, which were usually teeming with life, seemed to have trees and bright green plants growing on every square inch of it.

It was almost as if nature was taking advantage of its last day to flaunt its beauty.

As brilliant as the day was, so much more stunning was the sunset. It was like a masterpiece painting, in which the artist's raw emotions just spilled onto the blank canvas. Red, yellow, orange, blue, pink, purple, white, black, and other colors the citizens of these Islands could not even come up with a name for streaked through the sky, creating a spiral shape that glowed with brilliance.

Unfortunately, only three teenagers were still awake on the islands to experience this thrill. Little did they know, these three would soon become very familiar with places that they did not even know about.

One of the teenagers was sitting on the roof of a wooden hut everyone referred to as the Seaside Shack. He was dressed in such a complex outfit, he wasn't entirely sure how he got it on in the mornings. He dressed in a very strange red zip-up t-shirt his friend had made for him when he was little. On top of that, he wore something else strange, which was a blue, white, and gray hooded sweatshirt that had no sleeves, slightly defeating the purpose of a hooded sweatshirt. Two belts were cris-crossed in between his belly-button and his privates. His legs were covered down to the knees by red shorts, and his feet were covered by ridiculously large yellow shoes. He had brown hair put up in spikes, colored the same color as the Hershey's milk chocolate candy bar. He had ocean blue eyes that engrossed those who glanced into his eyes. He had naturally tan skin. His name was Sora.

There was a girl who was sitting on the edge of a dock not far from Sora. She was just a little younger than Sora. She had short red hair flowing down to the start of her neck. She had blue eyes that were just a tad lighter than Sora's. She wore an off-white tank top that had stripes of dark blue outlining the holes for her head and arms. She wore a light purple mini-skirt. She looked to be the textbook definition of innocent. Her name was Kairi.

The final teen stood near a hole in a large rock wall that led to a hidden room entitled the Secret Place, neither of the other two noticing his presence. He was older than the both of them. He had silver hair that he wore down just past the end of his neck. His skin was less tan than Sora's, but the boy was just ever-so-slightly more buff than Sora. He had always outdone Sora in the category of brute strength. His eyes, deep and aquamarine, were nothing short of gorgeous. He wore a yellow tank top with blue straps across his chest. He simply dressed in jeans for his bottom half, ending at shoes that were slightly smaller and slightly less outlandish looking than Sora's. This boy's name was Riku.

So, the story begins with Sora. Laying on top of the Seaside Shack, which by day served as a diner, making island-famous hamburgers, he closed his eyes and inhaled the serene ocean breeze. He opened his eyes. A speck in the sky glowed a brilliant white. Sora smiled. Star light, star bright, he told himself. Sora had always believed most superstitions to be true. He was self-admittedly a little naïve, but after all, one of them could be true…you never know.

First star I see tonight. A perfect example of Sora's superstitious belief system was the legendary paopu fruit. This was a fruit, yellow-orange in color, extremely smooth in texture. It was shaped like a star, each segment of it ending in a soft point. A leaf sprouted from the topmost point. Sharing this extremely rare fruit with someone was about the equivalent of marriage, only there were no expensive dresses, no lengthy ceremonies, and no mothers crying in the background muttering, "my little baby has grown up and found a man!"

Wish I may, wish I might. The paopu fruit and, more importantly, the bigger concept of love, had recurrently come to his mind over the course of the past week or so. He had noticed Kairi taking an interest in him, and Riku had been acting kind of funny towards him. Sora couldn't place the emotion Riku had been feeling towards him, but it probably revolved around Kairi. The two had been competing for that girl since Riku was seven, and Sora was six. Now that the girl was officially falling for Sora, Riku was probably feeling some form of negative emotion. Whether it was contempt, jealousy, or some other sentiment, Sora did not know.

May I have this wish tonight. The conclusion of this nursery rhyme posed an interesting question for Sora: what DID he want? Did he want a relationship with Kairi? Did he want Riku to re-befriend him?

I guess…I wish…something happened. Something new, something different. I wish I could go on an adventure that would solve all of my problems for me.

Poor little Sora had never learned the lesson that he ought to be careful what he wishes for.

Meanwhile, on the sandy beach not far from him, Kairi was laying down, finally, for once in her day, at peace with herself. She listened placidly to her iPod. IPods were, despite the Islands being filled to the brim with luddites (thus why one did not see many televisions), a much sought after item. Only a select few people had them, mostly rich kids, but Sora and Kairi, who both came from middle class families, both had one. Kairi listened as she internally monologued to herself.

Today is the big day, she had told herself when she had risen from her peaceful slumber that morning. Kairi turned thirteen today, and she had been thrilled. Her excitement was not just because she was having a birthday, she was now officially a teen, which meant her parents gave her extended rights. These rights entailed that she could now stay out until eleven and not nine, that she could go to parties without a full background check on the host by her parents, and, most importantly, she was now allowed to date guys. For years, she had looked forward to this, the day she can look him in the face and tell him the god-honest truth of how she felt about him.

To tell him, "Sora…I love you." Really, the excitement of it all had been making her sick all day. She waved it off when confronted about it as "just a stomach flu," but everyone knew SOMETHING was up, something far more than a stomach flu. When she had woken up, she had promised herself that she would finally ask him out today, without fail. Unfortunately…she failed. When she approached him about it, she got flustered, and ended up lamely asking for a cookie. Now, she needed to postpone popping the question until tomorrow. Maybe on a better night's sleep, she could do it.

It was then that she decided to open her right eye, and the seemingly-emo state that had overcome her vanished, while she returned to her normal, upbeat self. She smirked as she watched Sora innocently bounding over to where she lay. She closed her eye, and pretended as if she had been sleeping. As the song came to a close, Kairi subtly reached beside her and shut off her iPod. She wanted as few distractions as possible during this. My God, she thought, am I really about to do this? What if he totally rejects me?

Sora bounded up, taking note of Kairi's relaxed position. He giggled mischievously to himself, and crouched down, putting his hands on her left side. Without warning, he violently shook her back and forth, while shouting at the top of his lungs, "WAKE UP, YOU LAZY BUM!" Kairi groaned in protest, but then her groans morphed into screaming commands. "Ugh…stop…STOP…STOP!!!"

Sora obeyed, but not without one last chuckle at Kairi's misfortune. "Good mor-er…evening, Kai!"

"…Five more minutes…" she grumbled, mimicking her actions every day when she woke up to her mom rocking her aggressively, telling her she was late for school.

Sora laughed loudly. "Kairiiiii!" he whined, and put on the best pouting face he could muster. Opening one eye, she saw this expression, then opened both her eyes, rolled them, and said, "all right, I'm up…what?"

Sora got disconcerted all of a sudden. "Erm…well…something…seems to have been…bugging you lately…" His voice trailed off at Kairi's facial expression, or lack thereof.

"…and?"

"Uhm…mind sharing?"

Kairi sighed. Sora…little naïve Sora. "Well, I've been thinking lately…"

"About?"

"You."

"Huh?"

"Sora…I'm happy where I am, but…maybe we could make things between just us a little more special?"

Sora cocked his head to the side. "Eh?" he questioned vaguely. This infuriated Kairi. How much clearer do I have to be?

Kairi decided to just come out and explicitly say it. "Do you love me, Sora?"

"Um…well…" he started, his voice cracking in that pubescent way all teenagers know and hate. "You see…uhhhhh…" Sora suddenly found himself trapped between a rock and a hard place. He had never really been attracted to Kairi, not in that way at least. Kairi was like a best friend, but Sora had never considered the two more than that. However, if he were to say "no, I don't love you" right now, that would completely trash their relationship, which was something Sora was not prepared to do. After five seconds (which felt like eight hours) of internal debating, he finally came to a consensus with himself that, though he didn't particularly want to be Kairi's boyfriend, he would rather have that than not have Kairi as a friend at all. So, he drew in a deep breath and spoke rapidly. "YesKairiIloveyouandwillalwaysloveyouandwouldlovetogooutwithyou!" He found it slightly amusing that very little of the breath he had inhaled earlier was gone.

Kairi made a sound that sounded disturbingly like an overly joyous pig, and hugged HER Sora tightly. After about ten seconds of this, she tilted her head back to get a good look at her new lover's eyes. They were a deep blue, not like the ocean, but more of a navy blue. They were very beautiful. They kind of looked like Kairi's, only Sora's were ever-so-slightly-lighter.

And then came the moment that Kairi would look back on and celebrate, but also mourn. Acting on impulse, she leaned in to Sora's face and captured his lips with her own. It started as an innocent enough event, until Kairi took it a step further by widening her mouth, and licking his bottom lip, begging for him to allow her tongue to enter. When he didn't catch on, she bit his bottom lip, with just the right amount of force so as to not hurt him severely, but just enough to get him to open his mouth, even if it was just by that little crack, it was just enough for her to plunge her tongue into this new, unknown abyss. Her fingers traced the outline of his slightly muscular torso, making her new man quiver.

As this passionate battle of tongue waged on, a certain silver-haired teen watched with mixed emotions. Riku watched, getting the usual delight he got from watching any other couple make out, be it at the Destiny High School, where lovers would sneak away from class and "hide" from the world behind the bushes, where, ironically, they were clearly visible to any passersby that cared to look their way, or be it from his stash of pornography (okay, so Riku couldn't exactly claim to be as innocent as Sora or Kairi). However, mixed in with this delight were feelings of jealousy. Whom he was jealous of, he could not place, but the sight of those two making out gave him a feeling that felt like someone had put his stomach on a roller coaster ride, and it wasn't any ordinary kiddie ride, either.

Eventually, he decided he needed to do something, and came up with a solution rather quickly. If his father had taught him one thing in the fifteen years of his life, it was a simple, well-known phrase: If you can't beat them, join them. "Hey," he called out to the two, causing them to lose interest in the other's face, and turn to Riku. "I don't remember being invited to this make-out party!" He ran fingers through his hair in an attempt to look smooth, an attempt to impress…someone.

Kairi giggled innocently, which completely contradicted what he had just caught her doing with Sora. Sora, on the other hand, turned an oddly bright shade of red in his cheeks, while his ears glowed a darker, more intense version of that color. "Well," Kairi called out, "you wanna join? Then sit your ass down over here!" Yeah, Kairi was not as guiltless as she came off as.

Riku chuckled coolly, and said "You bet." He jogged over to the two, who appeared to now officially be boyfriend and girlfriend. Sitting down next to the two, he glanced up and grinned, only to be tackled by the young girl of the group. Straddling Riku, Kairi joined their lips, while Sora looked on, kind of jealous and kind of turned on (hey, he wasn't going to lie.)

Twenty seconds later Kairi and Riku lay on each other, panting, while Sora watched them, a grin growing on his face. All three were at least a little red in the face.

Riku glanced over at Sora and smirked mischievously. He leaned in closer to Sora, the smile on his face growing with every passing second. Sora didn't seem to notice until their faces were about four inches apart. When he finally noticed, he let out a very small squeaky sound, and his face took on a hue that was similar to that of a tomato. "Our turn," Riku whispered in a husky voice. Without stalling any longer, Riku's hand grabbed the back of Sora's head, and pulled him on top of Riku, catching Sora's lips with his own. Plunging further into the kiss, Riku imitated Kairi's actions with Sora, and licked his bottom lip. This time, though, Sora had gotten used to the concept of a tongue in his mouth, and, in fear of being bitten again, quickly opened his mouth to allow Riku to explore the newly found space. Riku spent little time on this, however, and decided to teach the brunette a thing or two about necking. Moving slowly down the boys face, he found the sensitive spot on Sora's neck, and fiercely kissed it. Sora elicited a small moan of pleasure in reaction.

Kairi sat for a second, shocked that her boys would do something like this. But, as the seconds ticked by, she slowly let the Yaoi fangirl inside get the best of her, as she burst into a fit of giggling childishly, and holding her knees to her chest while watching all of this take place.

Two minutes later, all three were lying on the sandy beach, staring at the slowly-darkening sky. The sunsets on the Islands were Sora's favorite part of living there. The sky slowly, around ten PM during the summer, drifted away from its normally cloudless blue to a rainbow of colors. The sky was most brilliant when it was streaked with all of its brilliant colors- blue, red, purple, black, and orange, giving off a dark, fiery tint that looked something like the color red-orange.

"Do you think we'll be together like this forever?" Kairi asked, breaking the silence that had been standing for a while now. Both Sora and Riku gave her quizzical looks, wondering where the question had come from. "Whaat?" she said in a slightly annoyed tone

"Well…" Riku began, "something tells me that, sooner or later, one or all of us will end up being isolated from the others, but as long as we never forget about each other, will we really ever have left each other?"

Sora giggled. "That's deep…where'd you get it? Off a fortune cookie?"

Riku play-glared at the boy, his eyes softened, showing that he really didn't see what the boy had said as insulting. "Thanks, Sora," he said bitterly.

The three laughed. After a moment of silence, Kairi arose, and said, "Sora…Riku…don't ever change." While the two boys pondered what she meant by this, she turned to them, as hyper and cheerful as ever, and said, "Good night, both of you. Get some sleep. Tomorrow, we set sail!" She blew Sora a kiss, and just waved to Riku.

"Oh my God…" both of them said simultaneously. They had both forgotten about what the three of them had been working on for the past two months. Kairi, Sora, and Riku had built a raft, in which all three were going to sail off to foreign lands, and go on the adventures they had always dreamed of when they were young. Tomorrow was the day they left the islands, possibly forever.

Little did the trio know, that day was sooner than they expected.

"You forgot, too?" Riku asked.

"About the raft? Yeah." Sora sighed. "Are you sure you want to leave?"

"Yeah, positive. Why, do you not want to? Because, I don't want to force you to do anything you don't want to, save for a few things, but hell, who can control themselves when it comes to doing them with you…?" Riku smirked naughtily.

Sora chose to ignore the fact that Riku, one of the hottest guys on the islands in Sora's opinion was now flirting with him, and chose to answer the first question. "Yeah, I am ready to leave this place and start my own life, but…are you sure this is a good idea? I mean, what if we all end up in a place that we don't want to be, like, broke, homeless, and hungry, with nowhere else to turn?"

Riku stood up and chuckled, ruffling Sora's hair gently. "Don't worry, if that happens, I will think of something to make you safe." He offered his hand to help raise Sora off the sandy beach. Sora took advantage of this help, and soon found himself trying to get steady on his own two feet after a while of just sitting there.

"Promise?"

Riku gently squeezed Sora's hand. "Promise." His voice comforted Sora, made him believe it.

Sora giggled. "OK, well, good night!"

As they parted, Sora felt content. And later that night, just before dinner, he decided to take a nap. As he stripped down to his boxers and climbed into bed, he knew that he had grown a much stronger connection with his two best friends in one night then he had created with them over the course of his whole life. And as he drifted off to sleep, his two friends ran through his mind. So glad to have them…

Sora found himself on an all-too-familiar beach. The sun was out, the waters calm, or so it would seem. It was mid-day, but nobody was out on the beach, which was extremely peculiar for this beach. Normally, Tidus or Wakka, or even Selphie would be out running around, getting ice cream and fighting with other kids (playfully, of course), or something along those lines. However, today, this was not the case.

He saw a figure out in knee-deep water. The boy turned around, giving Sora a good look at the boy's face, though Sora had to squint as the sun glared in his eyes.

The boy was Riku, who was displaying a facial expression of utter neutrality. He maintained this look, even as a giant tidal wave collected behind him, about to crash into him. Riku extended a hand to Sora, a silent plea for assistance.

Without second thought, Sora sprung into action. Try as he might, however, he knew that he was never going to make it. "No! Riku's going to die!" he thought, "and it's all my fault!"

Unexpectedly, his legs used a newfound strength, and Sora's speed nearly doubled. Just before the tidal wave hit Riku's back, Sora tackled Riku, sending the two plunging into the waters. Though it should have been only waist-deep, the two, still embracing each other, kept falling into the darker depths. Sora could hardly breathe, but Riku did not seem to mind. Eventually, their feet hit something solid. It was a platform made of stained glass. Though it was too large for Sora to see clearly, Sora could tell it was very pretty.

The actual platform only interested Sora for about a second. His eyes soon wandered up to what exactly was ON the platform. There were three platforms, almost like miniature pillars, each holding a different weapon- one holding a sword, another holding a staff, the third holding a shield.

It was at this point that Riku snapped out of his calm behavior, and gave Sora Riku's good-old "What the hell?" look, which Sora promptly replied to with his infamous "Don't ask me, I'm just Sora" look.

"So much to do, so little time. Take your time. Don't be afraid. You will always have each other."

"What?" Sora felt himself saying soundlessly, and then proceeded to watch Riku yell what Sora made out to be "If you don't get us out of this goddamn place, I swear I will…" and then came a long string of curse words oddly enough ending with what appeared to be the word " waffles."

"You must choose what you shall wield, and what you shall give up in return." And, as if it felt that was enough explanation, the voice shut off, leaving Sora and Riku in the dark, metaphorically and kind of physically, except there was light that seemed to originate from nowhere.

Sora and Riku got the picture, though. They were supposed to choose one, and give up the other. Sora chose the Staff and gave up the Sword, and Riku chose the Sword and gave up the Shield.

Once this had happened, the glass beneath them shattered. The voice came on and, calm as ever, it droned on. "We must end this, for the outside world calls you into its chaos, into its darkness. But don't be afraid. Just remember-you are the ones who will open the door.

Sora shot up in bed. Sweat pouring down his face, he glanced around, then realizing it was all just a dream, he fell back onto the mattress. The world's chaos? Open the door? Psh, that's not cryptic or anything. He sighed noiselessly. A strange pattern of lighting caught the corner of his eye. He turned to face the window. A large spherical object was hovering in the sky, as the shadows moved ominously. Lightning wreaked havoc on the ground, as the rain pelted the world mercilessly.

"A storm?" Sora asked nobody in particular. He shot up into a sitting position, revelation and horror overcoming him. "Oh no, the raft!" Realizing that the raft that was supposed to guide Sora, Riku, and Kairi out to their own little adventure may now be floating away with all of their collective dreams on it, he rushed out the door, barely throwing on clothing.

Arana Kawaii slaved over a pot of Yarisora, a sushi dish. She was a woman in her mid-thirties. She had brown hair dangling down to her shoulder blades, and entrancing blue eyes. Blue eyes that mirrored those of her own son, whom she was preparing the dinner for.

Arana always worked hard to make sure Sora was happy with everything. His father had abandoned the family when Sora was merely six. Ever since then, Arana has made a point to assure Sora's pleasure, be it buying Sora a new toy, letting Sora borrow $100 and the car for the weekend, or trusting Sora to make good decisions in life. She even went as far as forgive him and love him and support him despite the fact that he had openly admitted to her that he may or may not be homosexual-it was something he was struggling with, apparently.

Arana sighed. She just hoped Sora and she would be, if not together, then at each other's beck and call forever. She walked over to the stairway to call Sora down for dinner.

"Sora, dinner's ready, come on down!" she called, and was immediately concerned. Normally, when she had spoken the word "dinner," Sora would come barreling out of his room like a puppy dog going to its owner. Seeing no response, she walked up to his room, asking concernedly, "Sora?" She entered his room, hoping he wasn't doing anything…er, "that she wasn't prepared to see", only to find an empty room. As she looked out the window at the unprecedented storm that had rolled in during the past thirty minutes, she saw her baby on a boat, drifting off to sea and headed towards Paopu Island.

Arana sighed. "Sora Kawaii," she muttered to nobody threateningly, "I swear, if you don't make it back by curfew, I will have your head on the silver platter I was going to serve you Yarisora on…"

(A/N: Yarisora is the name of a sushi dish I made up. Like it? It can also be found in another story I wrote called, "Sanctuary: Another Side, Another Story")

Sora reached the island called Paopu Island with much difficulty. As he docked his boat, he noticed two ever-too-familiar boats were also there. "Riku's boat…and Kairi's…" That meant the two were somewhere on the island.

He looked up, scanning for his two best friends, who were nowhere to be found. What he did find, however, was frightening beyond his previous comprehension of the word.

The ominous-looking shadows literally came to be three-dimensional. They popped out of the ground and became real monsters. Sora gasped. They had a body structure that looked like a small child's drawing of an ant. They had a sphere of a head attached to a sphere of a body. The head had two bent antennas sticking out of it. Their eyes glowed a fierce yellow.

Without warning, the beings spring for Sora. They caught him with a swipe of their claws, knocking Sora back. Reeling from the sudden attack, he pushed the demonic beings out of his way as he ran blindly. Where he was running to, he wasn't sure. Maybe Riku's out on his island… the agitated teen thought.

Sure enough, Riku stood calmly on a small island, connected to the rest of the island by a small bridge. As the darkness clustered around him, he just stood, looking at the sky, trying to remain calm. A million thoughts rushed through his mind at the same time. What has happened to his island? Who had brought this attack? Why had they done this? Was this just a random end of the world? Or was it planned out? Was it an attack on their world? If so, what had their peaceful little islands done to deserve it? Most importantly, what now? Was there a way out of being consumed by the darkness?

Riku didn't bother turning around as he heard footsteps frantically running towards him. They stopped, and he heard a familiar voice call his name. "Riku!"

Riku couldn't speak at first. Finally he came up with something, enigmatic as it may seem. "The door…has opened."

"What?" Sora asked, slightly taken aback by his friend's ambiguity.

"The door has opened, Sora! Now we can go to the outside world!" Riku spoke with an air of determination, though the words that he spoke were now a mere stream of consciousness.

"What? What about Kairi? I thought she was with you!"

"Kairi's coming with us!" Riku snapped, immediately regretting being so harsh with Sora. However, how could Sora not see the opportunity in the disaster. "Once we step through," he continued, even as Sora pouted his adorable pout because Riku snapped at him, "we may never see our parents again. There's no turning back!" A smile creased his lips, as he felt oddly heroic. "I'm not afraid of the darkness!"

He stood, an expression of utter neutrality plastered on his face. He reached out a hand, a silent command for Sora to take it.

While he did this, the ground beneath his feet became darker by the second. "Riku…" Sora said cautiously. Riku didn't seem to care, or mind, as he still remained disinterested in everything but Sora taking his hand.

It was then that Sora knew he had to save his friend from the spreading darkness. He took a few steps back, then ran towards Riku at full speed. Just as his feet were about to become cemented into the darkness, he leaped, diving at Riku and tackling him with full-force. Riku let out a surprised yelp, as they plunged into the dark portal beneath their feet, forever abandoning their former home.

Riku felt Sora's body go limp in his arms. Whether the cause of it was the vertigo received from spinning in the Apocalyptic midnight that currently consumed the two, or just total shock, Riku could not blame Sora. After all, it took all of Riku's strength to not copy Sora. He cradled Sora's body in his arms.

Riku felt his eyes studying the younger's body. Sora Kawaii. Riku thought. I…I think…I love him. He's so cute, his face shows the perfect mix of childhood and adolescence. He always has an upbeat attitude, but when he gets sad or, apparently, when he is unconscious, he always does the cutest pouty face. Riku sighed out loud. Maybe, when they were making out, maybe I wasn't jealous that Sora got to kiss Kairi. Maybe it was the other way around.

As Riku serenely stroked Sora's hair, put up in their usual spikes, only now they were a bit more ruffled, he thought back to a song.

Riku thought silently of a song, he often used it as a lullaby for himself. Without fail, it always put him to sleep, and this time was no different. He soon found that he had slipped into the quiet oblivion of sleep.