It's been a long time since I published this, but I decided not to let this story slip away, as the idea is one I've always liked.
So, I've written a second chapter, and consequently will keep writing :3

I'll appreciate any feedback from readers, it always helps to know people are enjoying/hating my story!

-- KD

Don't You Remember?

Chapter One: A Change in the Atmosphere

Sora hummed softly as the soothing water lapped continuously over his toes, enjoying that gentle and unique feel on a particularly hot summer's evening. Oh, how he loved Destiny Islands! It was the perfect place to live. He had his friends, his family, and a huge beach practically reserved for him. Of course, life couldn't get any better now, could it? He had it so good that it was easy to think it wouldn't fall apart. Nothing could ever spoil it for him, not even the tiniest of things. Sora was evidently in one of his dreamlike states, marvelling at the world and wondering how he could ever have doubted it in the past, if at all.

The young boy sat lazily taking in the hot breeze while time just flew by. He didn't want to just lay about looking cosy, but he didn't want to get up either. He was stuck in a tight spot between two options. His mind was having a mental struggle making a choice. Should he get off the warm soft sand, or go and find the others for a big game of Pirates?

Mind lost in contemplation, Sora's face looked weird as it changed from one odd expression to another. His thinking set him behind, for it was already too late to decide either option. Sora felt his nose turn numb after what hit it had fallen to the ground with a soft 'thud'.

"Hey Sora, you lazy monkey!"

He didn't look up but he could already tell that it was Riku's voice. A voice so tauntingly mischievous yet hair-curlingly calm in one instance. Sora was annoyed at Riku for throwing a paopu fruit on his nose- and it seemed to have been the sharp edge that it collided with, too- but this momentary feeling of anger dissipated into something negligible as his best friend sat down beside him.

"Riku! Where have you been all day?" he asked, curious. His curiosity was justified, seeing as usually the two boys would have rendezvoused with one another the moment dawn cracked.

Even though they were sitting, Sora still had to look up to Riku to face him. Sora hated this, it made him feel tiny and insignificant compared to Riku's formidable form-- because however much he thought he'd grown, he never seemed to surpass Riku's height. It was yet another competition between the two, adding to too many unnamed but undoubtedly existent.

Riku shrugged at Sora's question, not entirely remembering his previous events. "Well, I remember walking round the market, then after that I went looking for you. Can't remember the rest." He said, inserting one hand into and eagerly ruffling Sora's mane of brown locks.

"Sora! Sora!"

Riku aptly retracted his hand and the two of them spun their heads around and met the doting figure of Kairi. She was waving her hand vigorously in the air more towards Sora while gradually nearing them. Kairi was a bright girl, with a very sunny disposition.

"Hello, Sora! I've been looking everywhere for you today!" she stated in confusion, as she was always seen either with him alone or when Sora was with Riku, but that quickly changed into joy. Kairi smiled and Sora smiled back at her, no aware of holding in his hand the Paopu he had picked up off the ground from before. "Oh, Sora, where did you get that Paopu?" she gasped as the brown-haired young girl spotted the star shaped object in Sora's hand.

"Oh! It's... a Paopu." Sora said, stating the obvious and slightly hesitating. It was as if he'd just realised he had a Paopu in his hand, which wasn't completely untrue. He felt a blush coming on. Sure, he had a crush on Kairi, he knew it himself fully well and normally held that feeling under impenetrable control, but somehow the sudden concept of sharing a Paopu with her in his mind got him so embarrassed. "It was on the floor."

Kairi beamed at Sora and in her head, little images of butterflies and sharing the Paopu with Sora popped up. She knew that there was a legend: whoever you shared the Paopu with, your destiny, and their destiny would bind together forever. She continued to beam at him, awaiting his next words, while Sora, having just stood, was feeling uneasy.

All the while, the one person, at the first hint of being ignored, had already left. Riku had decided to leave the moment that Sora commented that the Paopu was on the floor. It wasn't on the floor! Well, it was only on the floor because Riku threw it at him! Today had been the day when Riku was going to ask Sora to share the Paopu with him, going to finally instigate some progress with the younger boy. His plan had failed the minute a certain girl entered the scene. Riku cursed the situation, asking himself why something always interrupted when he managed to get Sora alone.

He wasn't afraid or anything, he would gladly tell Sora that he loved him, but if only he had two minutes in between one interruption and the other! Sometimes Riku wondered if Fate was against him or something, if it was never meant to be, but that in no way stopped him from trying once and again. He was adamant on at least letting Sora know.

Riku was now at the other side of the beach, the part with the coconut trees and the boulder covering the cave. Kicking the sand beneath his feet, Riku could feel the sun on his back and the heat was slowly dehydrating him. He was too far from home right now to fetch a drink, so he decided to go for the next best thing, and dive into the sea for a cooling, and undeniably tension-relieving swim.

-
o
-

Kairi clung onto Sora's shirt as she waited for him to cut up the Paopu. They were back in Sora's house, above the beach, after Kairi implied with obvious hints that she wanted to share the Paopu with him. Sora was overall very happy about this but there was a part of him that protested against his every, aching, action. The Paopu was- albeit thrown- from Riku; sharing it with Kairi seemed wrong. There was probably no emotional attachments when Riku had passed it onto him but yet, if he was to ever share a Paopu with anyone, let alone Kairi, he'd never want someone else to harvest it for him. Sora's inbuilt heroic instincts stated that it was tradition for Paopu lovers to have a hand in the picking of the fruit. Sora blushed to himself at this thought. It's more romantic, he assured himself.

"Kairi, I really don't want to eat this Paopu..."

The girl looked up with incredulous blue eyes and narrowed them at the sheepish-looking Sora. "You.. don't?" she asked, with a hint of disappointment in her voice.

Sora's body screamed at him. Say you do! If he said he wanted to share it with her, then they could finally be together!

"I don't."

Sora mentally kicked himself for upsetting Kairi, for now her eyes were hidden and she was bidding farewell. "I really have to get back to dinner, Sora." she said darkly, having told such an obvious lie.

Before Sora could say or do anything to stop her, Kairi had already made her way out of the kitchen and out of the front door.

Rats, why did he have to be so stupid! Why couldn't he just ignore his foolish pride and give in to Kairi? No, he didn't like the thought of merely 'giving in'. But this was Kairi! He simply worshipped her!

All of a sudden feeling very vexed and with a gallant change of heart, Sora followed Kairi's previous path and planned to scour after her.

Riku hastily removed his soaking shirt as he got out of the water. Who knew that it would be so cold, when everywhere else was so hot? He'd been putting up with the cold water for about ten minutes before he realised that staying any longer could land him with illness. Forcefully wringing the shirt, he was too busy to notice that a certain brunette was approaching from around the tall cliff.

The sun was setting now, marking the end of another useless day. Riku was preoccupied with watching the sunset until he was snapped back to reality by bumping into something, or rather, someone. It seemed that the other person hadn't been watching where they were going either.

"Woah, hey, Sora." Riku greeted warmly as he identified this as another chance to make some sort of move- anything. "Sorry I wandered off earlier, had to--" Riku stopped when he saw the frown on Sora's face. "What's wrong?"

Sora rolled his eyes and placed them onto the ground. He was very annoyed with Riku for some unknown reason. The best he could work out was that his guilt over Riku had stopped him from sharing the Paopu fruit with Kairi. As if that wasn't enough, Riku was now standing before him dripping wet in a situation that Sora regarded as highly serious.

"Nothing's wrong." Sora mumbled, watching a bead of water roll down Riku's abdomen, clearly showing even more signs of impatience.

Riku just sighed. Now or never was the time to do it, right? Sora was showing signs of a short temper, but when would he again get a chance like this? He drew in a deep breath and began to speak.

"Sora, can we talk alone for a second?"

Sora furrowed his brows in confusion and looked at Riku. "We already are." he tartly said, with a tone of increasing annoyance. What had gotten into Riku? He was making him go mad! These stupid things just had to come along right in the middle of more important things, didn't they?

"No, I meant that if anyone... forget it. I just really need to tell you that..."

Sora bore his eyes cruelly into Riku's, putting the poor boy right on the spot, which said a bunch. Riku was never just a poor boy on the spot. He was trying as hard as he could to put his feelings into appropriate words. When he found that he couldn't find any decent way, the image of Kairi giggling was all it took to fuel a totally different feeling, devoid of any real direction and inevitably ruining what could have been a purely calm conversation.

"You've been spending so much time with Kairi, it's like I don't even exist anymore!"

Riku inwardly gasped at his extremely sudden anger-motivated words, which was physically symbolised by the contracting of his stomach muscles, and his breath froze while awaiting a response from Sora. What was done couldn't be reversed; he just hoped Sora didn't hate him for it...

"Shut up!"

Riku inwardly gasped again, but this time with total offence. He'd never expected Sora to say this!

"No!" Riku barked back. "I won't! Sora, I know you have a crush on her, but you've totally thrown me away!" Now, it seemed, Riku's words did possess an ounce of substance to them, but nevertheless, he was going about it the wrong way.

Sora's frown turned into a glare and he was aiming it at Riku. "You're so jealous, Riku! Why don't you admit it, you're jealous that Kairi likes me, and not you! You've always been jealous, how can you even call yourself my friend? You can't bear to see me happy, can you?"

Fingers clenched into fists as Riku lowered his head. He was trembling slightly and Sora's words had shaken him to a great deal. How dare Sora accuse him of being jealous? How dare Sora dismiss him as a best friend, when all that he ever wanted was to see the other boy smiling? How could he have got it all so wrong?

Riku's breathing intensified as the water in the sea trembled along with his every short-lived breath. The situation came to a darker turn as dark grey, nearly black; clouds stormed overhead and leaked little droplets of rain onto the ground, and fusing with the drops of water on Riku's still-bare midriff.

Sora noticed the change in weather and his live wire was temporarily annulled. He looked up into the sky with large, questioning eyes, but was brought once again to reality by the sound of Riku.

"Don't you know, Sora?"

Unlike it should have seemed, Riku didn't look angry. Instead, he had a peculiar expression on his face, that between calm and menacing. He released a slight chuckle as he faced the sky where Sora's eyes had previously searched.

"Know what?" Sora impatiently asked.

"That I'm really, really jealous? That I just love Kairi and that all I plan to do is to make your life a living hell?"

Sora gasped with disgust and in a fit of rage punched his thighs. "I hate you, Riku! Hate, you!"

Of course he had known Riku was merely mocking him, teasing him, but he didn't care. He wanted to take out all of his anger, every single atom of it, on Riku. Sora didn't know what possessed him to do what he did next, but he sure felt better afterwards.

The Paopu hitting his nose; the look of hurt on Kairi's face; the terrifying smirk on the silver-haired boy; all the times he'd fallen; every time he'd been picked on; every time his mother had scolded him; every moment he'd felt hurt, was channelled into one single sentence.

"Riku, you're the worst thing that's ever happened! I HATE you and I wish we'd never met!"

A crash of lightning added effect to these words like nothing else ever could. After screaming them at the loudest his lungs could allow, Sora clenched his teeth, growling madly as he scurried back to his home, leaving his once closest of friends standing in the rain, his silent tears melding with the angry drops of the Heavens; his black mood standing out, if it were possible, distinctly against the ebony sky.

-
o
-

Sora woke, feeling the worse that he had ever felt since he could remember. His thighs were painfully throbbing where he had punched them, his eyes were sore from the heavy raindrops beating on them, and his head was in a non-stop spin. What was the last thing that had happened? He couldn't remember exactly right now, but he knew that first things first- he needed to get some water down if he didn't want to slip into unconsciousness again.

Sora was just about to get off his bed when he moved and hit something hard. What had happened? Since when had there been a rock where the pillow was?

But then the fact hit Sora that he wasn't in his bed; he wasn't even in his house. Sora was lying on wet sand outdoors. Great, he thought, what a way to wake up.

Summoning all his strength, Sora pushed himself off the sand and saw that he'd made an imprint of his body. Unfortunately, Sora wasn't in the mood to speculate at it, or even call Riku over to see his creation.

Riku.

Sora gasped, or managed what was supposed to be a gasp, out loud as the revelation smacked his head like a blind bird. He was so stupid, why did he let loose on his friend like that? Thinking about it now, Sora couldn't even recall why he was so angry. Something about Kairi…

The thought of getting water fled from Sora's mind as a new one entered- find Riku now and apologise like crazy.

The early morning market was as always swarming with bright and cheerful dawn risers. From numerous clocks and sundials about the market, Sora made out that it was briefly six: way too early to even dream about waking up. What caused him to run straight to the marketplace, Sora couldn't understand. But the metropolis of people somehow rang a bell in Sora's head. He remembered hearing something about it from Riku, and so this was the most likely place to find him?

Sora brushed his puzzled thoughts aside and wandered about. He was walking around for so long that the buzz of people slowly died down and all that was left was a bunch of stock being prepared for the next sale at around lunch time.

He really wanted to slump onto the floor and whine, but after many thoughts about it, Sora decided that it probably wasn't the most sensible thing to do. It wasn't like there wasn't any hope left; Riku had a house that he might by a small chance live in!

And so he set off to call his friend, whom he hoped to God wasn't angry with him. But when he hadn't even taken a few steps, his stomach doubled over inside him as he realised he was really thirsty.

"Sora?"

The brunet looked up, a familiar feeling in his craning neck. His eyes trailed up the thin legs of the girl he recognised as Kairi.

"Kairi…" he whined slowly. "I need water, please. I'm so thirsty."

How extraordinarily embarrassing this was for him, pleading for water at the feet of the princess he was supposed to pursue. He felt a rising level of shame as this was not at all what he imagined heroism to depict.

"Of course, Sora!" she cried, alarmed, supposedly only have found her feet because soon she was kneeling by his side pouring water from her leather gourd into his mouth. After hydrating her friend, Kairi proclaimed, "Well, I don't mean to be rude, Sora, but I should be going."

"Huh, where are you going?" Sora asked, confused. Why on Earth would Kairi leave him all of a sudden like that—?

Oh, no. The Paopu fruit! Why was everything ruined like this?

"Well, I was heading over to Riku's before I saw you, y'know. And-" Kairi paused when she saw the stunned look on Sora's face. "Oh, silly me, I forgot you don't know him. Well, anyway we're preparing for my birthday party, but didn't you know about that already? I had to go to the market-"

Wait a minute, what did Kairi mean he didn't know Riku? Sora thought to himself, all previous fears of Kairi loathing him now pushed to the back of his mind. And then the worse dawned on him, as it seemed to be doing a lot today- what if Riku had told Kairi of their 'incident' the day before? What if Kairi thought less of Sora now that she knew what kind of a friend he was? Sora wouldn't have put it past her.

"-say, it wouldn't be such a bad idea if you came with me, it's a perfect opportunity for you to meet Riku, you two would get along great, I can feel it! Sora?"

"Err…yeah, sure…" was the only answer he could utter beside his astonishment. He hadn't actually been listening to Kairi; otherwise he wouldn't have missed the part where Kairi acted as if she genuinely thought he didn't know Riku.

-
o
-

Riku sang a song in his head as he dusted off the rugs in his house. Having a birthday party for Kairi was tiring to say the very least. For one, it was extremely difficult to find decorations that would portray her zest for life on the island, where the only type of décor material available were coconut skin in various dyes. But it would have to do; at least Riku knew how to use his hands and had a brilliant eye for colour.

And it was always worth it because he loved her; Kairi was his first and only girlfriend. Ever since she'd walked into his life at the age of nine, Riku had developed feelings towards her. At first, he wasn't sure whether they were caring feelings similar to those of a brother, but since Kairi was practically the only girl on the island, Riku had a hard time identifying his confused feelings. He had never really had feelings towards anyone else, besides those of friendship towards people like Tidus, Wakka, and Selphie.

Even though Riku was entirely content with his life, he couldn't help but wonder if there was ever any more to it. He'd occasionally question why he'd been put in this world, and how many other worlds with totally different people were out there? He'd often get into a private daze where his thoughts would roam his surroundings freely. He loved those little moments but found they were rare due to the confinement of Destiny Islands and everyone's expectations of him to be the island's support beam. It was true, people lived to depend on his strong character and skills and he felt privileged, but surely, there must have been someone out there who would need him for him alone? At times it seemed that even Kairi was one of 'them'. One of the people that expected him to do everything...

"Riku!"

The young man was snapped from one of his valuable reveries as a boyish voice called him from below the balcony. "Riku, it's me, Sora! Let me in!"

Suspiciously, Riku placed down the rug and made his way all the way down to the front door, where Sora awaited him.

"Yeah?" Riku asked dully, wondering why he was being approached on such a day. What did they need now, the roof fell in somewhere? He didn't even know the boy standing in front of him.

Sora sighed at Riku's words, mistaking them for ones concocted from bitterness. "Riku, I'm sorry." Sora murmured. "I'm so sorry for saying all those mean things to you; I didn't mean any of them."

Sora waited for a reply, looking at Riku's face remorsefully, watching Riku's turquoise eyes dart from Sora's face to his hair and then back to his face again, but there was none, until-

"What are you talking about?"

Sora's shoulders dropped in disheartenment. Was Riku just playing a joke on him by pretending not to know? Or maybe Riku had forgiven him and was indeed trying to act as if it'd never happened! Sora would have given the world for the latter to be true, but no matter how much he hoped, there was a nasty tugging at the bottom of this stomach which told him something was not as it should be. "Riku, I'll do whatever it takes for you not to be mad at me anymore." he sighed, staring into the other boy's eyes.

"I'm not mad at you." were the only words from Riku. "I don't even know you."