TITLE: The Hardest Thing (Working title)

RATING: PG-13

CATEGORY: AU, drama, romance

CHARACTERs: Kairi, Sora, Riku, Axel, Roxas, Namine, others

PAIRINGs: Beginning Sora/Kairi, Eventual Riku/Sora, Eventual Axel/Roxas, possible Kairi/Namine

AN: The majority of this story will be KAIRI-POV, except for where I may go into third-person omniscient in order to describe something she couldn't know or witness.
I hope you enjoy it!

CHAPTER ONE

When you think about it, life is truly amazing. All it is is a series of circumstances-- a maze of twists and turns and forks in the road. Do you ever imagine what your life would be like if you'd just taken one different turn? You look back on the past and think, "If I'd just known the consequences, I would never have done that."

Everyone has regrets. Everyone, at some point, wishes they could go back in time and take that fork in the road, if only to see where it would have lead them. But nobody ever gets that chance. They just have to keep going, keep traveling down that road, until they hit the next off-ramp on the highway of life.

OoOoOoO

Throughout my life, there have been countless changes. Choices made, changes made. That's how it is with everyone, isn't it? When I was fifteen, I had a big choice to make: would I stay in my hometown with my mother and her new husband, or would I follow my father to the island where my grandparents lived? It was a difficult choice, but I eventually decided on the latter. And with that one decision, my life was changed forever.

I was scared out of my mind by the prospect of moving, but I felt sure that it would bring more good than bad. After all, I would be escaping the mainland to live on a tropical island, not to mention escaping my mom's horrible boyfriend. Besides, I knew I wouldn't be alone. My dad would be there, and my cat Miko, and my grandparents just on the other side of the island. And, of course, Namine.

Namine was probably my best friend in the entire world, even though we hardly saw each other. She was the little blonde girl I had come to be friends with during my first stay at my grandparents' house, all those years back. We were together almost constantly during my visits, and we wrote back and forth during the school year. Though I wasn't around very often, I always felt perfectly comfortable in her presence. There was something about her, something that made me feel as if we'd known each other all our lives. I feel she understood me better than anyone else in the whole world.

My apprehension about moving to Destiny Islands was completely drowned in how excited I was about seeing Namine again. And to think--! Now she'd only be across the island from me, less than an hour's travel by car. I think if it meant that I'd be able to see Namine more often, I'd have moved anywhere.

But even if it hadn't been for Namine, moving to the islands would not have been that bad. Shortly after I arrived, I met and befriended several of the local boys. Sora, Roxas, Axel, and Riku adopted me as one of their own, and I quickly fell into the routine of life with them.

Time passed, and I became used to my new life on the island. As different as it was from my past on the mainland, it was by no means bad. I was happy here. I fit in. I had friends. There wasn't much more I could hope for.

Eventually, relationships and standards formed. I started to date Sora. Rather than being separate people, we became known as Sora-and-Kairi. To tell you the truth, I wasn't very eager to give up my individuality like that, but I accepted it as typical. Everyone had some sort of label. That's just how it was.

I was Sora's Girlfriend. I was the new kid (even if I had been there for more than a year). I was the girl from the mainland. Rarely did anyone ever just see me as Kairi.

The others didn't escape this fate.

Axel and Roxas were known commonly as Axel-and-Roxas, the pair of friends with a collective bad temper, harsh opinion, and tendency to fight anything that disagreed.

Riku was The Quiet One, the tag-along who didn't get on very well with Axel and Roxas, and who seemed to hold some sort of resentment towards me, but stuck with the group because he was Sora's long-time friend.

Sora himself had fewer titles, but more of a role as a leader. He was the glue that stuck this ragtag group of friends together. Everyone liked him, everyone respected him. Because of Sora, Axel and Roxas wouldn't bully Riku too much, Riku wouldn't glare a hole in my face, and I would keep quiet about all the problems I thought Axel and Roxas had.

Things continued as they were for quite some time, and I thought everything was fine. Sora-and-I were fine. The group was fine. School was fine. Life was… fine.

But I began to think—Maybe fine wasn't enough. Maybe I was just deceiving myself. I wasn't really satisfied with this life I lived. Something was wrong, I could feel it.

I started to reassess things. And I realized that nothing was right.

Over the past year, things had changed drastically. My feelings had changed, my friends had changed, my whole life had changed. Nothing was the way it was supposed to be.

I suddenly realized that my life was one big lie. Something had gone wrong and turned it upside-down, from true to false in the blink of an eye. And, in just as short a time, it was back to true again, and I could see what was real.

The truth was that I wasn't in love with Sora. Sure, he was incredibly dear to me, and I liked him the most of any person I'd met while living here. But what I felt for him was not the love of a girlfriend to a boyfriend. He was not what I wanted.

What I wanted was the same thing I had wanted for as long as I could remember— To be close to Namine. I wanted nothing more than to hold her, to be near her, to be completed by her presence. I was consumed by this newly-realized need.

And I was scared. I was scared out of my mind. What in the world was I supposed to do? There was no way I could simply dump Sora, run to Namine, and refuse to let go of her. I couldn't possibly break Sora's poor little heart like that because, even if I didn't love him, I liked him far more than enough to do nearly anything to keep him happy.

Even if it meant staying with a boy for whom I felt nothing.

I told myself again and again that I needed desperately to break up with Sora. It was cruel to lead him on, and I felt horrible for doing it, but I simply couldn't bring myself to betray his loyalty with such a selfish act when he had been nothing but saintly to me.

I was, once again, trying to convince myself to do the right thing as I lay on the sandy shores of my favorite beach, but to no avail. The setting sun was no good for my wavering resolution— It put me in too calm and complacent of a mood to make important decisions. In fact, I found that it put me in no mood to even stay awake, and I was soon drifting off into sleep. The sound of the waves and the seagulls lulled me into the darkness of unconsciousness.

OoOoOoO

It was midday when I woke up. I started violently when the meaning of that fact sunk in. Had I seriously slept all night and through the morning, here on the beach?! My father would be worried sick! I was just scrambling up out of the sand and starting to jog back home when I saw Sora, Roxas, and Riku walking leisurely along the road in the direction of the town. They caught sight of me and waved me over.

"Hey, Kairi." Sora greeted me with a casual smile. The other boys waved shortly.

"Hey," I responded, still in a hurry but somewhat distracted by my friends. It seemed somehow that something was slightly different about them. I couldn't place it, though, and didn't have the time to waste thinking.

"What're you up to?" Sora asked conversationally.

I rubbed my nose in an embarrassed gesture. "I kinda… fell asleep on the beach." They laughed. I didn't want to be rude and just run off, and I figured another few minutes wouldn't hurt much, so I asked, "Where are you guys off to?"

Roxas answered this time. "Axel just got his license (hopefully), and we're off to congratulate him for having finally gotten up off his lazy ass to do it." He paused and added, as an afterthought, "Wanna come?"

I was just about to respond that I had to get back home soon when I noticed that there was a severe problem with this situation.

"Wait… Didn't Axel already get his license like forever ago?!"

This confused question received me no less than three skeptical looks, and a cautious answer from Sora, whose tone clearly implicated that I had lost my mind.

"…No… This is the first time he's taken the test. Don't you remember how much he's been complaining about it for the last month? Griping about how he had to wait the whole year after getting his permit?" He raised his eyebrow at me, as if asking 'Any of this ringing a bell?'

I gaped at them with my mouth hanging quite unflatteringly open, still confused as all hell. "But… but wasn't he… I thought…?" I stuttered a bit through my muddled thoughts. "I thought he was like… two years older than us, though!"

Roxas nodded. "He is. Two years older than us, anyway." He gestured to himself and Sora. " He's about to turn 18, remember?"

Sora laughed again. "So how old are you then?" he asked me with a teasing smile.

My eyes glazed over as I thought this through. I knew for a fact that Sora and I were the same age. Either they were screwing with me, or something was seriously wrong here. All at once, I truly noticed their voices, their strange clothes, and the extremely casual tone Sora had used with me. I swallowed the sticky lump that was forming in my throat and tried to control my voice as I answered, almost uncertainly, "Fifteen."

END CHAPTER ONE

AN: I must apologize, now. You see, I wrote this about a year ago, and after planning out most of the story, quickly forogt about it and wrote no more. Now I'm back into my writing, but I've got a lot of real-life stuff, and several (or more) other projects. I would have liked to wait to post this until it was more complete, but I decided that I might post the first chapter in order to use the response as a way of gauging which project to work on most. I will certainly get another chapter up eventually, but how soon, I do not know. So, I'm sorry if it's a while before I update.
Of course, if you have any questions, comments, etc, feel free to contact me! Thanks for reading!