So yeah, here's my first serious oneshot. It takes place right after Kingdom Hearts II ends. I always wondered what their parents would think of their kids returning after being gone for such a long time, so I experimented with the idea.
DISCLAIMER: Kingdom Hearts is owned by Square Enix and Disney.
It killed him, the way her eyes lit up for the briefest of moments, frozen in the ecstatic revelation that her eyes met those of her son for the first time in two years, only to droop downward in disappointment. He ran toward her and secured his presence with a tight embrace, noticing how hers was grateful, yet somehow distant. He sensed something in her expression as he smiled back at her tearful blue eyes. Yes, she was thankful her son had returned from a place her mind could scarcely imagine, but she wondered why this unknown presence lingered behind his smiling eyes.
"Sora, you're finally home," she broke the embrace, touching a hand to his cheek as though she was trying to see into his soul, to comprehend what had changed him.
Tears welled in his own eyes. "Yeah, Mom; I'm back."
"Thank God," she whispered, but refused to take her eyes from the boy, as though doing so, even closing them for the briefest moment, would yank him away once again. She tried to speak. "Where have you been? Were you… kidnapped? Y-you didn't run away…?"
"No, Mom, I wasn't… and I'd never run away," he had learned to mask his lies well in the years he'd been away from the island. Sora knew it would break her heart to know that her only child had been planning to leave on a raft when he was viciously thrown into a war about which he'd never heard.
She marveled over how this calm, stoic boy could be Sora, the once bright-eyed child she had raised from birth. His voice was deeper, his hair longer. She frowned at his black attire, wondering what had happened to the red outfit she had lovingly stitched together those years before. Surely he was too tall for it now, too old and world-weary to wear the similar clothes that still hung in his closet, just in case her little boy would return one day. She had never even considered the possibility that the Sora who returned would not be the Sora that had left.
"Where were you? What happened?" she was buzzing with questions to which she was apprehensive to learn the answer.
He could barely tolerate the expression on her ghosted face. What would she think if she knew what he had survived through? The atrocities he had committed?
"It was like a long vacation, Mom. That's all."
Sora knew that she was suspicious of his lie, but neither mother nor son remarked on the obvious evasion from the truth. How could he possibly tell her that her son, that innocent, naïve boy she had lost two years before, had killed more beings than he could count? He couldn't let her know that that boy was gone, forever caged and doomed to linger in the shadow of his mind.
"You grew," she managed a wide smile that looked more like a grimace. "I can't believe you're taller than me now. Aren't you glad I told you to eat your vegetables?"
He couldn't bear to tell her that most of his meals consisted of scavenged scraps.
They spent the evening in idle small talk, Sora fabricating stories of his boring misfortune of being yanked from his home, his mother recalling mundane events that had happened since his departure, of friends - Tidus, Wakka, Selphie - with whom he no longer shared any commonalities. Sora went to bed that night relieved that his mother would never know the horrors he had seen.
No one had ever mentioned to Sora that he screamed through his frequent nightmares, but his mother heard them on the first night he had lay his head on his own pillow in two years. She rushed downstairs, afraid that someone was taking her helpless little boy away again, only to see a squirming figure drenched in sweat and wrapped in a twisted blanket.
"I killed them!" he yelled. "How could you let me kill them?"
His mother rushed to his side, waking him from his terrifying trance. "Sora, sweetie, wake up; it's okay…"
Sora snapped awake, his eyes opening as his mother stroked his sweat-soaked head. His heart rate slowed and his breathing shallowed as he perceived his surroundings, recalling reality once more. Overcome with an overwhelming sense of sadness, Sora closed his eyes. He realized it wasn't the presence of his mother that was keeping his fears at bay. That protective security that had once enveloped her being had vanished completely, leaving not even the trace of a veil to soothe his worries. No, the only thing that comforted him was the fact that he had awoken, that he could now control his destiny. But his tranquility fooled his mother, and that was all that mattered.
"Sweetie, what's wrong? How long have you been having these nightmares?" her voice echoed in the moon-blanched room.
He smiled, eyes still shadowed in sleep. "I didn't even know I had them. I'm sure they don't mean anything."
Sora fell asleep mere minutes later, oblivious to the fact that his mother spent the rest of the night pacing around with a glass of water in hand, fearing what vile acts her missing boy had perpetrated. Had he really gone so far as to murder another being, to take a precious life, to yank away its soul with the stab of a knife, the shot of a gun? At breakfast the next morning he didn't take heed of the circles under her eyes.
"I'm gonna go hang out with Riku and Kairi," he said, wolfing down the last bit of egg and toast.
She scoffed internally. They no longer played; they were too good for wooden swords and games of war. No, not too good… too old. She watched out the window as her son walked purposefully down the old, worn path toward Riku's house. The specter of her worried expression reflected through the glass pane. Two years ago it would have been an eager run, a lumbering, childish gait. She turned away, unable to look at the person her son had become.
Sora returned several hours later with Riku and Kairi, the two friends he had disappeared with those years before. Kairi she had seen more recently. Kairi had returned, but refused to utter a word about the condition of the others. After awhile it didn't matter; everyone on the island forgot about Sora, that bright, happy boy who had lived there his whole life. A guilty twinge plagued her heart. How had she forgotten her own son?
"It's good to see you again," a silver-haired stranger greeted her with a quiet smile.
"Riku, I'm so glad you're home," she embraced the newcomer with a hug meant for the boy who had been her son's best friend. The Riku she knew would have bounded right past her and into the kitchen wondering what was for dinner.
"You too, Kairi," she said, hugging the girl who had once been so cheerful, whose calm expression now held only a somber melancholy.
She stood back and watched the three saunter into Sora's room, closing the door. Normally his mother wasn't one to snoop, but the way her son and his friends were acting worried her almost beyond their disappearances in the first place. She crept to his bedroom door, putting her ear to it.
"That's why I was wondering if my keychains would work on your Keyblades," Sora's voice came through the muffling door.
"I think they're blade specific," Riku suggested. "But Ultima would come in handy fighting more powerful Heartless, I'll give you that."
"Do they work as effectively against Nobodies?" asked Kairi.
She walked away from the door, attempting to make sense of the jargon her son and his friends were speaking. Heartless? Nobodies? Keyblades? What on earth did they mean? She tried to abstain from eavesdropping, but found herself perched outside the door once again.
"Where'd you tell your mom we were?" asked Kairi.
"I was pretty obscure on the details," Sora's voice once again. "She thinks it was like a vacation for me. You know, sunshine and ponies and all that."
Riku laughed cynically. "You couldn't have gotten much further from the truth."
"It's not funny," Sora snapped back. "If I told her what I'd really been through, she'd never see me the same way again."
Sora waved goodbye to Riku and Kairi a couple hours later, each retiring to their homes. He smiled gratefully at the cup of hot chocolate his mother had prepared for him, sipping it as he took a seat on the sofa. It had been so long since he had enjoyed the simple delicacy. His mother sat down across from him, her apprehensive eyes growing concerned as they moved to the silver earring at his lobe.
"Why did you get that?" she asked, pointing.
He shrugged, trying to think of the proper response. He couldn't bring himself to tell her that it was for protection against the greatest evil the worlds had ever known. For all he knew, she was only aware of the existence of their own world.
"I went through a rebellious stage awhile back," he tried to brush away the disdain in her voice.
"You're only fourt-"
"Sixteen, Mom," he reminded her. "I'm sixteen."
"Right," she set her own mug on the coffee table with a shaking hand. "Sixteen, of course."
She tried to remain rational, to remind herself that everyone changed over the course of two years. But this new dimension to her son was something she couldn't comprehend, a new dynamic that knotted her stomach and twisted her heart. She couldn't stand it; she had to say something.
"Sora, what's a Keyblade?"
His jaw dropped, the cup of hot chocolate almost falling from his hand. "Where… did you hear that word?"
"I overheard your conversation with Riku and Kairi," she admitted.
"Jeeze, Mom; how about some privacy?" his eyes narrowed in a disgust she had never seen before.
"I'm sorry," she whispered, tears gathering in her eyes. "It didn't used to bother you… but you've changed. You're different."
And there it was, the simple sentence she had been wishing to speak since she was first reunited with her son. Sora slumped down in his chair, putting a hand on his head in exasperation. So he wasn't masking his internal appearance as well as he had hoped. Perhaps he just couldn't pretend to be that happy island boy with dreams bigger than his world could hold. He had wished and hoped beyond all else that he would be delivered from his dull destitute, and he had been. But at what price? His innocence, that was certain. Perhaps he just couldn't feign being the person he once was… because he couldn't remember what it was like to be so jovial and lighthearted, so optimistic and sure.
"What do you want me to say?" he cast his eyes downward in shame. "It wasn't exactly a vacation. What I told you couldn't have been further from the truth."
She shook her head slowly. "So that nightmare you had. When you said you killed…"
Sora frowned, refusing to meet her eyes. "Yeah."
Tears fell onto her pink cheeks. "Why? How could you?"
"You act like I had a choice!" he snapped, clenching his hands into fists until his knuckles turned white. "Look, you want to know what happened, fine. Here it is. I was sucked off the island with no way to get back. I was told, at fourteen, that I had to save the worlds. That's right, in the plural. Kairi had her heart stolen and I had to reclaim it. Riku was fighting for the wrong side and I had to convince him that he was wrong. Me and two friends basically stopped the Heartless - these evil creatures without hearts - singlehandedly. After that was done we decided to look for Riku and Mickey, my friends' king. We were lead into this castle and all our memories were erased. It took a year to put them back together. I was asleep in a pod for a whole year of my life. When I woke up, Riku and the King were still missing. So we had to go look for them and stop an organization of Nobodies while we were at it! I've almost died more times than I can count! I've been betrayed, starved, poor, forgotten… That's what's happened to me in the past two years! Are you happy now?"
She stared at him in shock, too flabbergasted to respond.
Sora looked at her apprehensively. "Mom, I'm sorry. I'm sorry I told you all that. I'm sorry it came out like… I don't usually act like this. It's just weird being home, like I don't belong here anymore. I-"
His words were muffled by a strong hug. "I'm so sorry I've been treating you differently. I had no idea… Don't worry; I understand. You've been through more than I can imagine. I won't pester you about it again."
She left him with a sense relief as she walked upstairs to her bedroom, shutting the door behind her with the excuse that she was tired despite the early hour. As Sora slept peacefully that night, she sat at the window, staring out at the star speckled heavens as she sobbed at her sudden epiphany.
The son she knew, the boy she had raised since the day he was born, was dead.
Well, there it is. Hopefully Sora wasn't too OOC, I reread it and think I might've gone overboard trying to make him dynamic. Thanks for reading; reviews are appreciated!