Disclaimer: KH and the lyrics of Destati belong to Squaresoft and Disney.
Summary: After a year, Sora stands in front of the Door again, asking for a five minute break.
+Note: Many thanks to Kirei, who helped me fix this.
Verge
Once again || Open the door
They are very tall, and though a long year has passed, he still feels very small before them. They are very white, and the half-tanned half-pale color of his skin is only a speck of dirt when he places his warm palm against wood. They are very hard, closed and wanting to remain closed, unyielding against the force of his push. They are very cold, standing in an empty void where there is no sun, no shine, and the chill almost burns his fingertips except they are too calloused. They are very lonely, emerging at the end of a toiling journey, since most do not get past the middle.
Sora thinks that if he does not stop craning his head up to look at them, his neck will cramp. He says, "That's funny. I thought things were supposed to get smaller when you grow bigger. They still look pretty damn big to me."
Donald is only about three feet tall. "That's because you're still a pipsqueak."
Sora smirks, pointedly looking down at the top of Donald's head. "Really. Heh."
Goofy raises a finger to his dropped jaw and shifts his lanky weight from one clumsy foot to another. Their voices do not echo because there is nothing to echo off of, but it doesn't matter because the only ones who need to hear are Sora, Donald, Goofy and the Doors. "Gosh, do you think we'll be able to open it again, Sora? It sure looks mighty hard to open, doesn't it? Last time, it was hard to close too. And we had King Mickey's help that time."
The not-quite-boy flashes a grin that owns no word to describe it except that it is so completely Sora, not requesting but demanding people to trust in him, and trust they do. It is so common but so rare; strips defenses like apple peels and onion layers, and is so uncannily strong because he knows nothing of its strength. Empires had been felled by less. "Of course," he says confidently, "We're stronger than we were last time, after all. Of course we'll be able to open the Door."
His eyes are hard and determined, and they say that even if the three of them really are not capable of opening the Door, they will anyway.
Donald huffs and mutters something about overconfidence because he always does.
Sora doesn't know what it means when his chest threatens to implode towards his heart or when it almost rips in three. He knows that it is different from a stomach pain or a head cold. Maybe it is heartache or maybe it is just a more general sort of ache without a specific name. Standing like a person does on Judgement Day, he grips the part of his jacket right above his heart with strange ferocity as the body underneath throbs. Somehow he is sure that on the Other Side, it will stop, this heartache, this everything ache.
He misses the friends that aren't with him, wishes he hadn't been so careless when they were still in his company. Now the inseparable three from his homeland are parted by worlds and sorrows. Kairi waits on beaches under palm trees, Riku waits in the Other Side, fighting his own demons. Sora stands in the middle, going in every direction but never drifting nearer to either one. He knows that when he finds them, it won't be the same, separated by invisible walls, but anything is better than what they are, or rather what they aren't, now.
"What if they're not there?" Sora whispers, raising his hand as if to touch the boundary, but it drops back to his side before it gets there.
Only three feet tall, but sometimes Donald sees a great many things. He turns from those endlessly blue eyes, glazed and raped of its shine, the gloved hands digging into the fabric of a simple jacket and the heart beating so violently beneath it, the small set mouth and the almost-casual way Sora stands that is so hopeful and hopeless at the same time. Facing the spotless doors, he nods curtly and crosses his arms before him. "King Mickey will be on the other side, so."
So Riku will be there too, except Donald will never be caught say anything remotely comforting like that. Nevertheless, Sora shoots him a grateful smile.
"That's right. We can always trust the king," Goofy says, laying his hand on Sora's shoulder. The weight of it is warm and familiar beside Sora's neck, and he cannot imagine his life without these two anymore, just like how he cannot imagine life without Riku and Kairi. In the midst of battle, there is something reassuring in hearing battle cries ripped from the throats of comrades, even as he is knocked from his feet while the wind is stolen from him so that for a moment, he struggles to remember how to breathe.
"Yeah," nods Sora. "Mickey'll be alright. They'll be alright."
Goofy's brow is creased, and compared to the almost eternal grin on his face; the worry makes him almost unrecognizable to the common stranger. Sora and Donald are not common and are not strangers. They have been to their own and each other's hells long enough to recognize the heart even if the face isn't the same. After a short moment, Goofy drops his hand and looks at Sora quizzically. "Are you ready, Sora?"
It doesn't matter, of course, whether he is or is not because in the end, he will step through the door anyway being that he is the only one who can. Sora gives a sigh and retreats a step from the coldness seeping through the crack of the Doors as it teases goose bumps into his skin. He says, "Not really."
Donald rolls his eyes. "What's there to be ready about? We go in, we go find what we're looking for, we kill some Heartless, and then we come back. Even Goofy could understand that."
But even Goofy cannot understand Donald sometimes when the duck resorts to rambling, especially because through a gritted bill, it seems more like quacking than speaking. "Huh?"
Sora sags, and Goofy pushes him down to sit. The snow on the ground crumples under his weight, molding against his shape. It is cold and brittle, but somehow he doesn't feel it through the fabric of his pants, the numbness under his skin. He sets his weapons beside him and though they are weighed with the black blood of many Heartless, they remain light enough not to even disturb the white surface it lays upon.
Sora stares at the silver and gold metal. His blurred reflection is distorted and he can vaguely make out the bulging silver of his necklace, falling over his heart.
"Will this be the end?" Sora blurts out, breathing deeply. He is loud most of the time, even in sleep. In fact, the only thing he's quiet about is battle.
Goofy looks at his feet, while Donald frowns slightly. "I don't know," they both say and Sora nods. It is an unfair question.
"I wish it were."
Donald turns away, looking at the towering Doors. He almost falls backwards when he tries to see the top. "Who doesn't wish that." Period, and not even Goofy asks if the question mark should've been there instead.
For a second, Sora's expression is serious, and then the next second comes, because it is never tardy. The sunburned face is round and red and vivid, even in the not-quite-dark and not-quite-light. The boy is always vivid. "I'm tired." Except sometimes, Sora isn't just a boy. "Of everything."
"Sora, we'll have to go," Goofy reminds softly, gently.
"Yeah, okay, give me a few more minutes. My legs are sore."
From the expression on Donald's face, it is very clear that he wants very much to bash the adult-child's head at least five inches into his skull. He raises his wizard's staff, but not to bring it down, though Sora doesn't know that as he raises his arms to shield his head. The curing spell feels like a rush of cool water against sweat-dampened skin. Sora stretches and falls on his back with a breathless laugh. "Thanks. I needed that. It feels better now. We'll just go in a second or two."
A second or two passes in silence, and no one moves.
Sora is in perfect condition to leap into another war, weapons cutting through the air with a deadly hiss, blood in his vision, adrenaline in his veins; he is ready to take on an army of millions and emerge unscathed and victorious. His accuracy is always deadly, his strength hidden behind the thin lanky limbs of a growing youth and an innocent's face. All around him monsters fall, light prevails as the shadows retreat, and yet the ramming in his heart never lessens.
"So," he says.
Donald scoffs. "If I have to hear another one of your speeches again, Sora…"
The child-adult laughs so hard his eyes squeeze shut. It is a good look for him. "Haha! Nah, I won't just for you then, Donald."
Goofy looks like a skyscraper as he leans over in curiosity, but still he is shorter than the Doors. "Hey, what did you have to say anyway, Sora?"
Tucking his hands and interlocked fingers behind his head, Sora looks up into the black abyss, yearning for white clouds or glittering stars. He hasn't seen the sky in a long time, eyes focused more on the suspicious corners and the slinking shadows these days rather than the endless sky that used to promise so much. "Hey, Donald, Goofy, when," he says it like that because there is no 'if' in his vocabulary and there never will be, "we get out of this, let's go camping."
The other two blink rapidly until Goofy says, "Camping?"
Donald is unimpressed, getting to his webbed feet and heaving his shoulders in irritation. He is not really angry since he hardly ever is, but somehow his biting words and easy annoyance are reassuring. He puts one of his feathered hands against his own forehead, and the other against the boy's. Sora's skin is feverish and warm compared to his downy brow. "Funny, you aren't sick, Sora."
"Of course I'm not!" Sora chuckles.
"Were you poisoned then? I don't have a curing spell for mental problems, Sora."
Again, he grins. It is almost infuriating, except for the fact that they shudder at the thought of what Sora's face would be like if he were not even allowed to smile anymore. "No, I really want to go camping – just once. Back in Destiny Islands, we used to do it a lot. It was always warm there. You guys would like it." The price of a hero is the loss of a boy, because to what other child is a camping trip too expensive an indulgence? Lowering his head, "I want to see the sky, all of us, just once."
Goofy smiles lopsidedly, and makes a promise he doesn't know if he can keep. He tends to do it a lot, and though it may end up breaking a great deal more than it mends, for the time being it is a rather endearing trait. "Okay."
Donald looks at him for a long moment, and then says, approaching the Doors, "Well, are you going to sit there all day? We've got a number of things left to do."
With an exaggerated sigh, Sora makes as if to kick Donald's shins, but the wizard is faster than he seems and dodges without a second glance. "Yeah, yeah," he says, with old eyes, made of sunshine turned to gold, dreams to waking hours, fairytales to odysseys, "you prissy worrywart duck. Just give me a few more minutes."
"Good for nothing lazy boy," the other mutters, but does not take a step further.
It is not surprising. In actuality, Sora is not the only one who is reluctant. None of them knows what lies beyond those white doors, but they can be sure it is anything but good. For more than a year they have opened so many Doors, and behind each was darkness. Sometimes, just sometimes, they doubt that there really is one that leads to the light. They have fought before, suffered before, cried without tears and yelled without voices before. It is not a wonderful experience, that warrior's burden, and not even Donald, who always worries about time and precision, is unwilling to sacrifice a few minutes to go leaping into that.
Sora lies on the floor with his head in his hands and stares up at the mountain of white wood. They are large and they are dangerous; they do not scare him. From the corner of his eye he can see Donald and he can see Goofy. From somewhere past vision he can see Kairi behind and Riku before him. As long as they are there, he is afraid of almost nothing.
No one knows when it will end, but they are sure it will, somewhere along the way. This is what hope is, what light is, the blind believing mortal heart. It is an amazing thing, everything they've done, everything they'll do, everything they haven't even thought about. The world waits for this knight, this wizard, this boy as they come rushing at a snail's pace. The ground will shake, the sky will fall, and somehow it'll be alright in the end.
Sometimes when he sleeps, he sees familiar faces, and they all smile. It is enough; it is all he has, to keep him going. They aren't even grins.
For Kairi, it is the sweet little curve of lips she has when she finds him amusing, set against a setting sun. For Riku, it is the half-mocking, half-caring smirk and the laughter in his sea born eyes that Sora grew up with. For Donald, he isn't too sure, but it's when he's positive the wizard isn't frowning. For Goofy, it's the way he always looks. Wakka's knowing nod, Tidus' lopsided laugh, Selphie's high-pitched squeals, Yuffie's challenging spark, Aerith's kindness and well…Leon, Cid and Cloud aren't really the smiling types in the first place, but he's sure that sometimes they smile.
Sora sighs, and it is nothing but an escape of used breath.
When Goofy notices that five minutes have passed, he turns around to look at the other two and say, "Uh…so why aren't we going then?"
Donald turns to Sora expectantly.
Striding up to the door, Sora looks back with a cocky laugh. "Let's go then, guys."