Title: Raat
Prompt: kingdom hearts is light
Character/Pairing: Riku, Mickey
A/N: So this is just covering the gap between KH1 and KHCoM. Riku and Mickey have such an adorable friendship.
Summary: Despite it all, despite what he had done, Riku wanted to live.
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"Take care of her," Riku requested, a last wish. Through the crack of the door, he took a last glimpse of the light.
"I will." Sora's expression twisted, on the verge of tears. He smiled, despite that. He had always been the stronger one, emotionally. Riku could see that now. "Don't worry. I'll save you."
And really, he shouldn't be saved, no one who had hurt their friends as much as he had should be.
"I know you will," Riku replied. Despite it all, he wanted to live.
-x-
Time had no meaning here. Days, hours, years could have passed during the time they walked.
There was no night, no day. Just darkness, black as a starless sky. Just a single sun, an orb of light they left behind long ago.
"Are we walking in circles?" Mickey wondered.
It was pointless to guess. There were no landmarks to mark their path. Heartless, their eyes a lantern in the depths, were the only thing he could differentiate now.
"Maybe this place expands forever," Riku replied, just to hear the sound of his voice. Muffled as it was, as though the darkness was eating it, it was a sound.
"Maybe." Mickey sighed. "At least it's not cold."
But it wasn't hot either. If there were a temperature, he couldn't tell.
In the dark, it was almost like he was disembodied, an unconnected being.
The only thing he could feel was the warmth of Mickey's hand. Riku gripped it a little tighter, afraid of losing this one constant.
If Mickey noticed, he didn't say anything.
-x-
The heartless, oddly enough, didn't attack them. Not anymore. Riku could see them, the pinpricks of light that were their eyes looking like stars in the distance.
"I thought we'd have to fight more," he confessed. He still remembered the feel of the dark keyblade, the feel of darkness himself.
Ansem's voice had called out to his and he never should have answered.
"I think we'd have to if we stayed near the light," Mickey guessed, looking behind. In the distance, a single pearl shone, its light so bright they could still see it here. "Maybe they're protecting it?"
"Maybe." Riku turned back too, if only to see something for once.
"Should we have stayed there?"
"No." Riku shook his head. "There was no way out there."
Mickey chuckled. "Well, aside from the one we closed."
-x-
"Pink," Mickey said, suddenly. "I like the colour pink."
"Pink?" Riku tried to remember the colour, remember the word. There was unending black and blinding white and what else existed?
"Minnie's favourite colour," Mickey added, brightly. "So it's my favourite too."
Riku chuckled. "Of course that's the reason."
"What about you?"
"I...I think it used to be red. Red or was it blue?" His friends, his friends were those colours, he knew. Her hair had been such a soft red, like sunset, like an ending.
And his eyes were a blue of the sky, infinite and open.
"Maybe both?" Mickey prodded.
"Maybe." Riku paused, then shook his head. "Wait, no, it was yellow."
-x-
"It's a little hard to remember why we're doing this." Riku halted, tired. Mentally, at least, though not physically.
They didn't get sleepy, they didn't get hungry—was it an effect of the keyblade or was it because of this place?
Mickey was uncharacteristically quiet. Maybe he couldn't remember either.
Sora's voice, those white doors, even the white ball behind them felt like a fairytale.
"Let's take a break," Mickey finally said, sitting down. Riku followed him down and closed his eyes.
Open or not, they made little difference.
"I thought kingdom hearts was made of light," Riku muttered. He heard those words before, he was sure.
"It is," Mickey agreed. "But...light cannot exist without darkness."
-x-
He was lying down, for some reason. He was lying down and his hand still clutched the king's.
An anchor, a lifeline, it was all he had in this small world.
"Your majesty?" Riku tried to say, but his voice cracked. What happened? He wasn't sure, he couldn't remember.
His body felt exhausted.
Riku a voice called. A light appeared in the darkness, a door to another world.
Come, Riku.
A lifetime ago, he had heard those words and opened another door, on another world. Without thinking, without stopping, he had started a chain reaction that was still continuing even now.
Come.
Without hesitation, he opened the door once again.
Anything was better than this not-death.