SUMMARY:

What would've happened if Kairi had never come to Destiny Islands? What would've happened if Destiny Islands had never been flooded by the Heartless? What if Sora had never been the wielder of the Keyblade?! One Shot, Sora/Riku.

LOL, hai! Now I've got a Kingdom Hearts story! So excited ^_^! My youngest sister just started playing Kingdom Hearts, and this idea hit me like a brick to the head! Hope you enjoy it!

"Hey, Riku…" Sora said, the two of them watching the sun set from their usual place (1) on the island. It used to be the two of them, Sophie, Wakka, and Tidus, but they had stopped coming to watch the sun set.

Sora had asked once why Sophie and the others never came anymore. She'd told him "I dunno. I guess that with you and Riku there, we felt sorta weird. Like we were interrupting something…"

He and Riku did get pretty deep into their conversations. How could they not? They'd been best friends since his own birth, practically. The adults thought the relationship the two of them had was strange. They thought the way the two of them were always together, always side by side in everything, was…Sora couldn't find words to show what they felt about the two of them (2). The two of them knew the other almost as well as they knew themselves…

"What is it, Sora?" Riku asked, the gentle ocean breeze coming up as the sun began to fade ever so slowly, sinking beyond the horizon. He'd wanted to say something to him all day, all week, all month…No, he'd been waiting to say it since the moment Sora was born.

He'd never had meaning in his life before Sora. That first year of his own life was painful, always seeming to be in a different world from his parents, the people in town, the world. His own mother, not understanding him, had thought he was autistic. But that had all changed. He remembered the day he'd first seen Sora, in the hospital. He was in for another checkup with the doctor, more tests for autism…

He knew, the moment he saw Sora, that tiny baby in a doctor's arms, passing him off to his mother, what he'd been born to do. His own mother had always talked with Sora's mother when they played as young kids, about how, all of a sudden, her little Riku was a normal boy.

It's still like that, Riku thought. It's still the same as it was all those years ago. There's no one who can understand me except Sora, and there's no one who can truly understand him except me. There'd never be anyone like the two of them. Thick as thieves, as the saying went. The two of them were as thick as thieves…

"…Why did you steal those cigarettes from the convenience store? I saw you grab them, along with a bunch of other things. Like that lighter." Sora said with disdain. He loved Riku like a brother. But he hated his evil habit. Yes, he thought. It's evil. What Riku does is evil.

This had been going on for some time now. Whenever Riku got angry or—he would never admit it—scared, he'd start stealing things. It was always little things, stuff he could hide in his pockets or his backpack. He'd stolen countless things before, but he'd always found a way to use them to help someone else. If he stole a bag of chips, he gave it to someone who had nothing to eat. If he stole medicine, he gave it to someone who had a sick family member.

But there was no need to steal the lighter and the cigarettes. No one would need them. It wouldn't benefit anyone.

"Answer me, Riku. I know you don't steal for yourself. At least, you used to not steal for yourself. Tell me what's going on." Sora commanded him.

He didn't want to tell Sora. He didn't want to tell him that, since his mother had died, his father had started getting abusive. He didn't want Sora to know about the bruises on his chest and back, the scars on his hands from lit cigarettes being pressed into his palms.

Yes, the cigarettes and lighter were for his father. He hardly ever went to his own home anymore. It was always sneak into the house, leave the stuff behind, and come back to the island to sleep in the shack (3).

Instead, he said, "I don't steal for myself. I steal for others, and you know that, Sora. These aren't for me, if that's what you're angry about."

Sora glared at Riku in silence as the sun began to creep downwards, less than 10 minutes of sunlight left. Riku was not going to tell him. If Sora wanted it badly enough, he'd figure it out on his own. The two of them were the island's top students. Not to mention Sora was the most stubborn islander in history.

"Then why aren't you just telling me outright what this is about? We're closer than anyone on the island. We know each other like no one can know us…Why won't you let me know what's going on in your head anymore…? Do you hate me now…?" Sora asked, feeling his eyes tear up. He didn't want to cry. Crying was for the weak, the young. He wasn't any of those. He wasn't a little kid anymore, he wasn't weak. He could take care of himself. So why did he want to cry so badly…?

Riku grabbed Sora and pulled him into a strong embrace. Sora wrapped his arms around Riku's waist and buried his face into his best friend's chest. One of Riku's hands ran through the short hairs on the back of Sora's head soothingly as Sora gave in and cried.

Sora hasn't cried in years. He's never stopped crying for anyone but me, not even his mother. I can't believe I made Sora cry… Riku thought, mentally cursing himself. If it hurt Sora's mother to see him cry, it hurt Riku 10 times worse.

"W-why, Riku? Wh-why won't you l-l-let me in…?" Sora cried against Riku's chest. Riku whispered into Sora's ear soothingly, "I don't want you to cry more, Sora. Who I'm doing this for, why I'm doing it, I can't say. You'd be hurting just as much as me. I can't stand to watch you hurt…"

"T-then why're you keeping it from me…? Riku, I don't wanna lose you. Everything here, it never seems real. I see people every day, fake smiles and fake happiness, and I just want something real, y'know (4)? You're the closest thing to real there is in this world, Riku… And it feels like the realness of you is slipping away when you lie to me…" Sora explained, removing one of his hands from around Riku and wiping his eyes.

"I don't wanna say it out loud, but…" Riku began to say.

"But what?" Sora asked, looking up into Riku's eyes and wrapping his hand back around
Riku's waist, pulling their bodies closer. He sighed and looked away as he said, "…I can show you.

Sora saw it in his eyes. His hands, softly and cautiously, began lifting up the hem of Riku's shirt. Riku went a little pink, until Sora gasped and he went back to his normal color.

The bruises on Riku's chest and stomach were the worst he'd ever seen. The centers of the older bruises were a sickly yellow color, ringed with a layer of deep pink maroon, rimmed by a dark purple, and finally, a deep black (5). The newer ones had only faded, at most, to the deep pink. He thought about how he'd hugged Riku back so tightly, and a look of pain crossed over Sora's face.

"…Who did this to you?" Sora asked, his face dark. He wanted to kill the one who did this to Riku. Riku was his. No one was allowed to hurt Riku. Sora could feel himself trembling with rage, and so could Riku.

"Someone who's not worth the air he breathes, Sora. Just drop it. The effort it would take to even spit at him is more than he's worth." Riku said, pulling his shirt down quickly and pulling Sora close to him.

"Doesn't that hurt…?" Sora asked, his voice going high and squeaky as his eyes watered up some more.

"Not when it's you, Sora…" Riku told him, a light pink dusting his cheeks. Sora went bright red, his emotions showing like neon lights.

"So… What if it was a girl? A really cute girl?" Sora asked. If Riku answered that way, he'd be hurt more than ever.

"Girls? Not my thing," Riku said, Sora catching the implications of Riku's tone. "We're thick as thieves, Sora. We don't need anyone else to be happy in this world. No one knows you like I do, and you're the only one who's ever begun to understand me. The two of us, that's all we need."

"…I'm glad I didn't have to be the one to come out and say it." Sora said with a smile, looking into Riku's eyes.

Riku's heart leapt. This is what I was born to do…

Riku's mouth smashed almost painfully into Sora's, their bodies as close as they could get with their clothes on. With their clothes on… Maybe that's not such a bad idea…Riku thought to himself, his thumb already on the inside of the waistband on Sora's pants.

Sora moaned as Riku touched him everywhere he wanted to be touched. This was why he was born. To be with the one who knew him as well as he did, the one who could always make his tears stop, the one who was the stability in this twisted and ever-changing world of lies. He was with someone who loved him, and this kind of love was real.

Sora and Riku lay next to each other, panting, their bodies pulled close to each other. Sora saw the burns on Riku's palms and licked them gently, taunting Riku with his tongue (6).

"That tickles, stop it…" Riku said, shivers rolling down his spine each time Sora's tongue moved on the little circular burn marks.

"Mmmph." Sora moaned before kissing the burns and leaving Riku's hands alone. "Riku?"

"Yeah, Sora?" Riku asked, trying not to get aroused by the sound of his lover's voice.

"Love you…" Sora said, his eyes fluttering as he strained to keep them open.

"Love you, too, Sora…" Riku said, kissing his lover's forehead as Sora's eyes shut.

FOOTNOTES:

1. I'm talking about the place with the paopu tree in the cut scene where Riku says, "If you hadn't shown up, I probably would never have thought of any of this." Or something like that…

2. I was actually going to quote something Bella's mom said in Eclipse by Stephanie Meyer, but then I remembered that that's the only book in the series I don't have… T^T

3. The seaside shack on the island that has a save point inside.

4. This is a good way to describe how I felt about most of my classmates for a long time, cos it's like everyone is doing something for someone else and not themselves and they're acting like they like it but they really're hating it, Y'KNOW?!

5. I had a bruise that looked like that, once. It was painful…

6. As my friend Bella-chan would probably say (if it were Hikaru and Kaoru) "YOU KNOW THAT'S HOT!!"