So...my first story in what's probably forever.
My first slash story on this account so I'm a bit nervous. Even more nervous-er about the fact that this is my first Kingdm Hearts story.
Disclaimer: ...look. If I owned Disney, Square Enix, and Kingdom Hearts, Sora and Riku would sooooo be gay for each other.
Ancient hinges squeak in protest, alerting Riku to the fact that they haven't been oiled for several years now, even though he's only been living in this apartment for one. To show he doesn't care, the silver haired teen only slams the door harder than he usually does. Kicking off his shoes, he crosses the hardwood flooring before collapsing onto the leather couch, face down. He just lies there for a moment, not moving, not thinking, barely breathing, just looking like a part of the couch.
All he wants is for the day to hurry up and become night already so that everything is shrouded in darkness, everything except for what the moon touches. It's easy to lose himself in the darkness, to forget everything that's ever happened. He just wants to become a Nobody...because a Nobody's heart can't break.
He shifts so that he's looking up at the ceiling now, the blank whiteness an unusual shade of pink and orange, the color of the sunset. Riku closes his eyes as his hand lifts up towards the ceiling and reaches, reaching for someone that won't ever notice him longing.
"It doesn't hurt." Riku fiercely tells the empty apartment out.
But he wants to lose himself in the darkness anyway. To forget that he knows how to feel, numbing himself away to the rest of the world. Because although he can walk the line between light and darkness, Riku knows that he was always closer to the darkness than he was to the light, as if he was meant to be shrouded in shadows.
It's a fact that he hides from Sora, and Kairi, and pretty much everyone else on the Islands. He keeps this fact close to him because it's personal and he doesn't want anyone else to know, even though he has a sneaking suspicion that King Mickey knows. Maybe even understands, though he doubts it. He keeps it close because they would never understand and it bothers him sometimes, but it's okay. After all, there are a lot of things about him that they would never understand.
Like the fact that he wonders whether he should have just stayed on the shores of that beach in the Realm of Darkness and not returned to Destiny Islands.
It's not like he had that much to come home to in the first place. His parents had left the Islands for who-knows-where after he'd disappeared, supposedly distraught over the disappearance of their only son. Riku didn't doubt it. They hadn't been the most loving family in the world, but they had still been a family. He felt guilty about the fact that he'd forgotten about them for the most part while he'd been out destroying and then rescuing the worlds. It was honestly a bit weird and a bit disheartening to come home to an empty apartment all the time. But he didn't mind anymore. Not too much anyway.
And sure, he had his friends on Destiny Islands, but could he honestly call them his friends? If anything, they were always Sora's friends and Riku was just the guy that happened to hang out with them sometimes. Since he didn't exactly have that much of a foundation, it was hard to pretend that he belonged again. Even Sora found it hard, but Kairi was there to help him along, having been on the Islands while they had been away. She'd tried to help Riku out too, but he had just pushed her away.
Because honestly?
He hated Kairi. Yes, hate was a strong word, but hate wasn't stronger than what he felt towards the redheaded girl. All he wanted, after all, was for her to just go and disappear.
Because she took Sora away.
He would have given anything, anything, to keep Sora happy. But whatever he could have given Sora, it wouldn't have been enough.
All Sora had ever needed to be happy was a redhead who never belonged on the island in the first place.
For Sora, the day they had met Kairi was the day he found his purpose in life.
For Riku, that was the beginning of the end.
But for Sora, he had tried not to hurt her. Had even tried to befriend her. After all, he had been the one to invite Kairi on their little let's-get-the-hell-off-this-dinky-little-island excursion after all.
How the fuck was he supposed to know that he had been digging his own fucking grave?
It had fucking hurt when Sora had held back, unwilling to go with him when the Heartless had come. That Sora had looked back.
For her.
He had hated Sora a little bit for that. But while he hated Sora for failing him like that, he had hated Kairi a hell of a lot more.
It had been such a relief to give into the darkness where he could lose himself and forget, couldn't fucking feel, and it had been so damn easy to pretend that none of it had mattered.
But then Riku had completely screwed up while half dazed and overtaken with rage...so he'd done everything he could to make things right. It had been terrifying, being swamped in the darkness and being reminded of what he had done when he had given in to the darkness by demons, both personal and otherwise. But he had fought, fought to regain what he had lost in the darkness so long ago, trying to return back to the world of light where his life was. Where his world was.
Where Sora was.
But when he had come back and found Sora again, everything had been so freaking confusing.
But he had been sure of one thing.
When he had told Sora that he would be perfectly fine, sitting on the shores of that dark beach forever, he'd meant it.
And when Sora had resigned himself to that fate, he had been perfectly serious too; just not in the way that Riku had been because Sora hadn't understood what Riku had been trying to say.
But that was okay. Just as long as he stayed, everything was okay.
He should have known better though. No matter how Sora tried, no matter how much effort he put into it, it wouldn't have worked. Because while Riku could have walked the Road to Dawn confidently and easily fallen to either side, Sora had only ever been meant to walk down one path.
And that was the Road to Light.
Riku could have stayed in the darkness, should have stayed in the darkness and let Sora go back to the world of light on his own. He would have been safe in the Realm of Darkness. He had defeated his demons a long time ago and the darkness couldn't hurt him anymore.
But it seemed that Riku's heart, masochistic as it was, enjoyed getting broken again and again and again because before he knew it, he was sailing over the worlds and then pretty much slam dunked into the ocean and he'd forgotten how to breathe but he was still managing to gasp because he was crying but no one knew because, thank god, he was salty and wet from the ocean water anyway and for a moment he'd been happy.
He was home again, and that was all that mattered.
It only took a few days for Riku to wake up from his momentary bliss. He had no family anymore, any friends that he had had all moved on, and everything was all wrong.
And today, his heart finally agreed with his brain; he should have just sat on the Dark Beach, protecting the world from the monsters that would eventually try to emerge. Because even if he had been eternally alone in the Realm of darkness, he wouldn't have had to see Kairi and Sora.
Or rather, he would have to see Kairi with Sora.
As in, they're together.
As in, they've got boyfriend-girlfriend status.
As in, it's fucking killing him and he can't do a fucking thing about it.
So he takes comfort in what darkness his apartment has to offer now because this darkness is easy, is protective as it wraps around him and hides him from the light outside. Because he doesn't want to see them together. He doesn't want to see Sora with anyone that isn't him.
Because today, Sora had come to him with the good news.
He had asked Kairi out.
She had said yes, like Riku had known she would.
And something in Riku had died then, and he was pretty damn sure that it wasn't going to come back to life anytime soon.
So here he was now, just an hour after Sora had come running up to him, eyes shining. Here he was, wishing that he could just die already, or maybe just run away to the Realm of Darkness where he could look at the moon and dream of an alternate universe where Kairi had never existed.
But most of all, he was just wishing for the sun to go down and for the shadows to settle in his apartment so that he could try to lose himself. He had tried to live in the light and the light had rejected him, leaving him burned and scarred. Right now, he needed the dark so that he could hide and pretend that nothing mattered, that he was okay.
"I don't love him." Riku whispers hoarsely. "It doesn't hurt."
But nobody's listening.
And he knows it's a lie.