Summery: Three years ago Riku vanished from Twilight town, leaving confused friends, worried parents, and a town crazy with fear of the truth. Why did he leave? Why didn't he tell anyone? Where has he gone? … Will he ever come back? Three years ago today Riku vanished, three years later he appeared in the mist surrounded by people in colourful outfits, flanked by waving flags and a giant tent as their only shelter.
A/N: Story is based off of the music by the Hush Sound and Spindle. Also, this is the first time I've ever attempted Kingdom Hearts fanfiction, so it may be a bit rough. Also, I do not like Kairi... I just figured I'd make that clear. My laptop has been pretty messed up and I just got it fixed. So... here's something I started writing in a notebook.
Pairings: Sora/Riku, Roxas/Axel, Leon/Riku, several others
Disclaimer: I'm doing this once. I do not own Kingdom Hearts, nor do I own the music this story is based off of.
A black cloaked figure escaped into the night, falling from its window into the void of darkness, open wide for it like the maw of a massive and starving animal. The bushes, bathed deathly blue and green in the darkness, swallowed the figure whole. Sora watched it vanish into the foliage and he wandered when it would come out.
The sky spun sickeningly around him. He saw the figure darting from the bushes, cloak trailing behind it like an aura from another world, a more ill world, a darker world. Out of the bushes and into the void of night the figure ran, and all the time the world around Sora spun. He could hardly keep up with the figure visually, let alone go after it.
He looked back at the window. There was a monster there. It was a shadow against the flickering candle light of the room. Sora couldn't see anything but its eyes and its smile. The smile stretched up into where cheeks would be, almost cracking the silhouette's face in two. The monster was pleased with itself as it watched the figure go. It turned its back to the window. The grin and the glowing eyes vanished.
Sora stood in a wide circle of dirt. The black void was gone, leaving behind a snap and crackle in the air, as if the atmosphere was full of pieces of glass being broken in half. The circle was lit up from above. All around were rows of empty white chairs with paths of red carpet between them. All the paths led to Sora. From the paths came monsters.
They weren't like the monster from the figure's window. That monster was a sedated and full beast. These monsters... they were starving.
Sora woke, head being tossed like a rag to the whim of his body. He convulsed, arms shook, legs twitched. His back hit the wall as he sat up. It hit so hard, in fact, that Sora momentarily lost his breath and bearings.
As he rubbed his head and thought about latent content and sexual undertones in dreams he caught sight of his calendar. The calendar hung, innocently enough, on the wall of his room, right next to his wooden door. The date was April seventeenth. That explained the dreams.
In the early morning Sora listened to his brother's light breathing while running his fingers over his own stomach distractedly, trying to calm himself from the silent horror that he was still feeling. His face conveyed nothing but a thoughtful tightened lip and concentrated eyes. He wiggled his toes to make sure they weren't numb with cold. They weren't.
He got up, pulling up his sleeping pants as he went. His feet missed the small carpet ("Damnit!"). The shock of wooden cold jolted up to his arms and they moved against his will again. Once he was certain there were no knives entering his feet he made the rest of the way to the closet to look through his clothes for the day.
Sora was eighteen. Three years ago on April seventeenth his best friend, Riku, vanished into the night. It almost seemed that some great mysterious beast had lowered its massive clawed hand and plucked out the only flower amongst the sharpened and threatening rocks of Twilight Town.
It took Sora months to forget Riku's smile. It took him another year to forget the colour of his hair and eyes. As time went on things began to fade and Sora was horrified that the memory of Riku was doomed to be only that of a cloaked figure escaping into the void of the night to get away from the prison of walls and locked doors. Sora didn't want that memory to fade.
But it was unfortunate. The only thing Sora really could remember was tears. He remembered the tears and the crying. He remembered it being dark and late. He remembered being tired. He remembered not listening. He remembered not caring. Words echoed through his mind.
"Riku, it's late, go to bed."
"Please, Sora. Please, please. I can't..." choking noises, "I can't, Sora. I can't take anymore. Sora, please. Please listen, Sora. Please..."
Sora blinked sleep and morning tears out of his eyes. Memory dulled, but his guilt never really did. The tide of time can wash away faces, even names in time. But it could never do away with the feeling of regret, of what he could have heard the night before Riku left.
He threw the closet door open. The loud noise was mostly to wake Roxas up, which it did, quite thoroughly, in fact. Roxas rolled out of bed, taking his covers... and sheet with him. He looked like a porcupine stuck in a white sack.
Sora laughed, trying hard to make it appear that the date wasn't getting to him. "Morning," Sora said, plucking a button up blouse out of the closet. He wasn't sure why, but he felt inclined to wear something more than usually presentable. He had the same inclination this time every year.
"Hey, Sora," his brother offered, trying to untangle himself, mostly unsuccessfully.
Sora managed a wry smile and looked out the window. The day wasn't unusually cheery, but it was more so than the past several days had been. Sora had hoped the dreary weather of fall would have kept up longer, at least just until the eighteenth. But he had no control of the weather, of course, and several dismal days led to one perfectly happy one.
"Such a waste," Sora said under his breath. Selfishly he somewhat wished you could celebrate the day that reminded him of coming spring. Instead, he felt inclined to mourn. A dog barked off in the distance.
Dogs had really liked Riku.
"Yo, Sora!" Roxas yelled, stuffing his legs into a pair of khaki pants. He jumped on one leg, looking goofy, but his face was asking something serious. "Are you driving today?"
"Hm? Oh, yeah, sure," he said, waving at his brother distractedly. He shed his pants and got dressed, staring out the open window. There was no breeze and the heat was getting miserable. Perhaps the weather was appropriate. Firm in that conviction Sora finished getting ready.
Both boys went downstairs to the smell of coffee and to the sight of their eldest brother leaning on the pristine counter in the kitchen, swirling a cup of coffee and looking like he was trying rather hard not to think about something. The coffee didn't seem to be helping him much, his face remained pretty much contorted in thought.
"Please, Sora."
Sora shook his head. This house of theirs was hardly a home. Leon was the type of person constantly lost in thought and lost in propriety. The house was immaculate and nearly empty of their habitation there. There was a small library that no one but Leon was allowed to touch. Some reality had chased him into the wonderland of the written word. What it was, neither of the brothers knew for sure.
"Good morning Leon," Roxas said, sticking his head in the refrigerator. He came up with nothing good it seemed, and left the refrigerator with a sour look on his face.
"Good morning boys," Leon said, looking up from his coffee, misty grey eyes hazy from the steam. "Need a ride to school?"
"No, Sora said he'd drive."
Leon nodded and looked back at his cup, running his calloused finger around the edge of the rim.
Sora and Roxas knew that they weren't getting anything out of Leon again that morning. It would be best to move on. The only other person that took Riku's disappearance harder than Sora was Leon. Riku had been one of the man's best friends. And Leon had felt the sting of disappearance before. One of the town outcasts, Cloud, had run away in the night. No one had really cared. No one but Leon. Cloud had been special to him.
Neither boy had time to think. Not that they really wanted to anyway. They both left without goodbyes. Although, Roxas had to return to the house, having forgotten his book bag. He trudged back to the car blushing and pretending that he wasn't embarrassed.
At school Kairi was waiting for them. Kairi was one of those pure people that saw the world in accordance to an innocent and beautiful schema. She always found wonder in life, always had, and as far as anyone knew, always will. Kairi was one of those people destined to die young and in misery.
"Sora, Roxas!" she shouted, waving a hand towards them, smiling a pure smile that most people had to teach themselves held no fakeness or ill will. "Sora, you look nice."
Of course she wouldn't remember what day it was.
She brushed down her skirt. It was short, distractingly short. She thought it was cute and good looking on her. She never quite understood why all the boys stared. She never really cared. She was, after all, blissfully unaware of her own beauty.
"Thanks Kairi, you too, as always," Sora said back, giving her a fake smile that burned his heart to give her. It was going to be a long day, he could just tell.
Roxas had already taken off to join the vague forms of Olette and Pence sheltering in the shade of a neglected little tree before school started. That left Sora with Kairi, who smiled and balanced herself on the tips of her toes to give him a broader and more magnificent smile.
Sora wished to God that he could love her. He thought he'd be happy with that smile. He would gladly wake up to a look that pure and happy every day of his life. But there was no having that. He always felt she deserved better than him anyway. And she did. She was so good.
"Do you want to go to the library?" Kairi asked, twining her hands together in front of her nearly flat chest. The action was pleading. Her tone was demanding. Sora worked up a smile for her.
"Sure."
"Want to see if Olette and Pence want to come with?" she asked, already walking towards the door, shadow from the concrete awning casting a cold and lonely line over half of her. One eye shown like a diamond in the dark, the other faded into her in the light.
"Why?" he asked, jogging a few paces to her to take her arm in his. The action delighted her.
"I don't know. Just because, I guess. I haven't talked to either of them in so long and I didn't have the guts to do it without you here."
She fluttered her lashes at him. He managed a real smile at her. The playful tone and gesture made him feel slightly better. Maybe the seventeenth would lapse into the eighteenth quickly and painlessly.
Kairi walked him through the throngs of students in the hallways until they reached the library. It was empty except for a youngish woman with a cute face and bright clothes who acted as the librarian. Kairi speedily texted both Olette and Pence to come join them, so by extension, Roxas too.
A flyer caught Sora's eye.
As Kairi had been setting her things down a folded piece of paper hit the floor and stubbornly unfolded half way, revealing something dark and twisted looking, splashed with neon. It made Sora think of starving monsters again.
"Please."
"Hey, Kairi. What's that?" he asked, moving to her side and bending to pick it up.
When she shrugged he took that as the okay to unfold it all the way. It was an advertisement for 'Radiant Garden Traveling Circus, Featuring the Heartless and the Nobodies.' That didn't sound so very promising. It also featured a sketchy painting of a tall dark tent flanked by multicoloured flags against a disturbingly happy background of sky and a city horizon.
"Where did you get this?" he asked, turning it upside down to examine the grass under the tall imposing tent. The flyer promised fun and laughter, but the picture suggested death and terror.
"I found it blowing on the sidewalk this morning. I thought the painting was pretty and I wanted to frame it,"she said, looking at it over his shoulder. She seemed to be really studying it for the first time since she found it. "Well, maybe it is a little creepy."
Sora just nodded and handed it back to her, the matter forgotten.
They took a seat and were joined shortly by Roxas, Olette, and Pence. Hayner wasn't with them. He never was in the morning. He was typically chronically late.
Olette sat next to Kairi and Sora couldn't help to compare them. Kairi was slender framed and girly, always kept her hair neatly done and cute. Olette was more of a tomboy with girly flair, with a fuller frame, and long hair that was clean, but never really tidy.
"Why the get together all the sudden?" Pence asked, snapping the edge of a candy bar. He leaned on his elbows to look closer at Sora, his massive eyes wondering, but not judging his reasons.
Kairi smiled. "No reason really. I needed to do some homework before class and I haven't talked to you guys in a while."
Roxas leaned back in his chair, propping his feet up on the table and popping the gum in his mouth. He looked sideways at Olette who was looking at Kairi's notebook, green eyes narrowed in thought. She always tried to help when she could.
Sora really kind of hated the people he hanged out with. Together they were just so sickeningly good and perfect. Not to say that Sora was not a diligent student or a particularly bad person, but he certainly was not up to their standards.
He sat watching them for a while, Olette trying to explain psychosexual stages to Kairi, Pence finishing his candy bar slowly and with purpose while he read some teen romance novel that Olette probably roped him into reading, and Roxas lounged back, half asleep with one ear-bud stuck in his ear, the other hanging down to his collar. Sora lowered his head and listened to the melodic and slightly husky drone of Olette's voice while being eye level with her chest.
She had really grown up, he thought. Not really the same way as Kairi or as Roxas or Pence, but she had. Her bust had filled out enormously, as had her mind. And laying there like he was, he felt that he really was watching two girls just enjoying being girls together. Kairi's eyes kept darting below Olette's chin. That was a slight motion that only Sora was likely to notice, and it made him feel a little uncomfortable and weak.
He turned his head away to watch the people in the hallway. None of them thought of Riku. He was sure of that. At the table he was pretty sure he was the only one who was thinking of Riku. He decided then that, just for one day a year, he was allowed to hate the people he hanged out with.
He was allowed to hate everyone. Just one day. He closed his eyes and waited for the bell that signaled that students needed to begin getting to class.
There was a lighthouse. It was far off. Everything was black and white and the ocean beneath him was a void of darkness and cold water. Sora floated inches above it.
A cloaked figure lay face down in the water someways off, arms out, legs out, train of the cloak floating languidly between the legs. There were no ripples in the water. There was no movement anywhere. Sora walked on the air closer to the figure.
Eerie quite settled all around the two figures. Sora could see the beach at a distance. It was an odd type of a thing to see in the distance. No waves moved on the shore and something framed it like massive ribs. It seemed like there was supposed to be a heart somewhere among the ribs on the beach.
Or maybe thousands of people lost there hearts there. Perhaps the figure in the water had been the latest casualty. Sora looked back down at the figure, and then back to the lighthouse. It was gone, and was replaced with something pulsing...
There was a struggling sound. Sora looked down.
The figure was drowning.
"Sora!" Kairi yelled, shaking his shoulder.
Sora's eyes flew open. He saw five sets of eyes looking at him. Hayner had apparently joined them at some point during Sora's little nap.
Kairi smiled. "Get up, sleepyhead. We'll be late for class."
Roxas was already up out of his chair, a sucker stuck in the side of his mouth. His bag was slung over one shoulder and he looked down at Sora, looking concerned, but trying to pretend that he wasn't. In one hand he held the flyer.
He noticed that Sora caught sight of it. He smiled wryly and waved it in his general direction. "Hey, Sora. Wanna go?"
"Not really,"
"Tough." Roxas winked at him, waved to the others and went off to his class, whistling around his sucker. Sora watched him enviously. Roxas was cool. That's just all there was to it. When he wasn't disoriented from grogginess he was the epitome of high school cool.
Hayner put an arm around Olette and smiled at Sora. "Well, we gotta book it. See you later, kays," he said, steering Olette away.
She smiled and waved over her shoulder. "Bye, Kairi bye Sora!" She blew a kiss at Pence, who was rushing to run after them.
That left Sora with Kairi again. Kairi's smile had never left her face.
"I like your brother's friends. Why don't we hang out with them more?"
"Kairi, do you like Olette?" Sora asked, always straight to the point. He smiled a big goofy smile and planted his hand on the small of her back. The force of the push didn't even let her speak. She let out a puff of air and dusky pink coloured her cheeks.
"Sora... you won't say anything, right? I don't really want anyone thinking I'm... you know... weird. And I mean, maybe it's just because I don't hang out with other girls much. And she's really pretty and she's..."
"Woah, woah. Don't taze me, bro," a voice said from somewhere.
A small crowd of students were gathering in the halls. Sora and Kairi joined them. At the center of the group was the principal, a tall proper man with astounding long silver hair. And with him stood a total stranger the likes of which no one present had ever seen. He was tall like the principal and had red hair that stuck out like a porcupine. His eyes were strange as were his clothes. His clothes were black and white, a striped shirt and plain black pants. But all over it were belts in various colours. Many lines of chains hung around his neck. He wore one pink glove and a pair of bright yellow Chuck Taylors.
"I don't intend to do any such thing, but unless you are visiting and have a guess pass, I suggest you vacate the premises immediately."
"Aww, man, c'mon. I don't get to give any love to my old school?"
"Not if I can help it. You had your fun, heathen, please leave." Sephiroth pointed in the general direction of the door. His eyes were dangerous and narrow.
The tall red head held up his hands and backed out. "Sure, alright." He smiled hugely. "Don't forget those of us that are heartless and those of us that were never someones." He bowed dramatically, his nose nearly touching the floor. He stood back up and then held out a hand. Sephiroth had the decency to look at least mildly interested. The red head snapped the hand open. There was a loud and concentrated bang. A puff of black smoke that held no odour or heaviness swept over the gather group of students like a plague swarm. When all was clear there was no red head left and Sephiroth looked irritated.
"Get to your classes, all of you!" he shouted, gathering his posture and standing as tall as his frame was allowed, which, as it were, was very tall indeed. No one needed to be told twice. Well, perhaps except the masochists. But even they didn't want to suffer the glare the came after the statement. Everyone left the hall, buzzing with wonderment.
Some of them recalled flyers that had been put up that morning. Most of them had been taken down before breakfast.
"Sora," Kairi started, "I think he was one of the circus people. Maybe we should go see this thing. It seems like a neat idea, don't you think? I've never been to a circus before."
"Yeah, Kairi. You know that your parents would say that it'd be damaging to our moral fiber. Is there even a use in asking?" he inquired, propping open the classroom door for her.
She talked as she took out her books and sat her bag on the floor. "Yes, there is! Sora, this is so cool. Nothing interesting like this ever happens here. Ever. This could be the last time they come. And besides, I'm sure you could use some cheering up today."
Sora looked a little stunned. "Kairi, I thought you'd forgotten."
She shook her head, nibbling on her lower lip. "Sora, he was my friend too. I miss him just as much as you do, just not the same way. I remember the date. I pray for him all the time."
"He's probably dead, what good will that do him now."
She could have, should have, slapped him then, but she didn't. She just looked at him for a long minute. Over her shoulder Sora could see that people were starting to come in, talking louder than the environment typically called for. "He isn't dead."
She didn't say anything else to him until that evening when she called him, asking if he wanted to go see the show. Naturally he agreed, told Roxas to come with them, and then told Leon that he was going out. Leon hardly looked up from a battered copy of A Clockwork Orange to acknowledge them.
Roxas, ever eager and more 'edgy' than Sora, was bouncing off his seat almost the whole way to Kairi's house. Despite the drive not being very far Sora was already good and tired of his brother.
Kairi was waiting for them on her dimly lit porch, wrapped in a knit sweater and little cap. Sora had the same desire to love her again. But he had to painfully admit that he couldn't.
She ran to the car and slipped in, waving to her parents who were watching through the window with creepy tired eyes. The reminded Sora of the American Gothic painting the way that they just stared blankly. Only there were husband and wife as opposed to father and daughter. That train of thought made him wonder what Kairi might look like staring out that window with them.
Kairi spoke to him again. Although she was mostly quiet the flush of excitement and rebellion dashed across her features made it clear that she was internally ecstatic. The prospect of doing something that her parents wouldn't approve of made her feel like an animal. And she was loving it. It didn't matter to her that she was only sitting in a car on the way to a circus, something a lot of people much younger than her had experienced several times. It was astounding to think she was doing something so out of the ordinary for her.
Sora stared at the flyer, trying to make out the directions that Kairi had written down on it in the mounting darkness. He drove with one hand for almost an hour before pulling off into a spacious parking lot with a modest gate over top that announced they were at the local fair ground.
There were hordes of people there already. There were so many people that it made Sora a little nervous. Kairi took his hand and gave him a smile that said she wouldn't let go. Roxas hung close too, trying not to act over excited.
But really, it got down to the fact that he had never been to a circus either.
"Hey!"
All three jumped and looked behind them. There stood a strange woman with sleek blonde hair with strange feeler like additions curling up from the temples. She wore all black and her face had been painted odd colours. She looked less like a clown and more like a Cirque du Soliel reject.
She smiled, sensing their discomfort. "Hurry up, you'll be late." She shooed them on with hands tipped with bright multicoloured nails. "You'll be late," she reiterated before retreating into the darkness as though she had never existed.
Sora, Roxas, and Kairi almost ran to the entrance. They didn't want to offend, and they were pretty sure she was still watching them so they set for a rather brisk walk. The three of them decided that their general freaked outness could easily be mistaken for excitement. Deep down, though, they knew that she knew they were made uneasy. Something in Sora's stomach suggested that she liked it that way.
They approached the booth. It was somewhat old and worn, but the faces painted on were discernible, as were the deep and unnatural colours. The person taking the money and doling out tickets was a man with a callow face and blonde hair. There was a feminine and icy air about him and he looked as though if someone tried cheating him out of money he could strike them dead with his mind. He was a pretty good choice for running a ticket booth, Sora thought. He doubted anyone wanted to mess with a face like that.
They paid, a modest seven dollars each and stepped passed the high flimsy gate. There were people, and then there were the people who were never someones. It was pretty easy to pick them out. They all wore black or purple, accented by something loud and and colourful. Most had their faces painted in a simultaneously complex and human way. There weren't too many of them, but they were doing their job entertaining those who were looking for freakish company before he show.
"Come, come friends! Do not be shy," a voice called from over the three's shoulder. There stood a pink haired man holding a huge flytrap with one arm, he was using the other arm to entice people to move close.
Sora, Roxas, and Kairi took him up on the offer and crowded around him. There didn't seem to be anything special about it besides that it was very large. They watched it for a moment. And then suddenly it moved. It seemed to open up slightly, revealing a thin row of teeth.
Sora bounced back a step and the pink haired man roared with laughter. "See, kind of creepy isn't it?" he asked, holding it closer for them to look at it. It flopped open, splitting at its middle to lay like a line, revealing that it had two rows of razor sharp teeth.
"Does it... hurt, or bite, or something?" Roxas asked, reaching a hand forward before he thought better of it and retracted the appendage.
"Nah, not people. Otherwise I probably would have named it Audrey II," he said, flipping one side up so that the flytrap closed. "It's a species I developed, and it works a little like a pitcher plant..."
"Marluxia! Stop boring them. It's about time to start, get in costume."
The man who said it looked oddly familiar to the three, namely to Sora. He was dressed in street clothes and had a headset on and he was holding a clipboard under his arm. Clearly he was some kind of technical worker. He was also very blonde and had stunning blue eyes.
Kairi nudged Sora in the side and turned to whisper in his ear. "Sora, that guy looks like you."
He was tall, wearing a sleeveless black shirt with well formed arms that looked like they'd be able to haul a semi off its wheels.
"Well... he must use the same hair gel, anyway," she corrected.
Marluxia glared at the dark man who watched him go with a flat face. There hung in the air some amount of distaste for each other. The blonde turned to them. "You guys better go get your seats. Fills up fast. The entrance is to the left, have fun," he told them before turning on his heels to walk away.
Then it hit Sora.
"Cloud!"
The man paused, shoulders seized. He looked back a split second before continuing to walk at a quicker and less calculated pace.
"What?" Roxas asked, watching his retreating back.
"Guys, that's Cloud. You remember Leon's friend that disappeared when we were like five? I mean, yeah, he's older and has different clothes and stuff, but that's him."
Kairi and Roxas squinted at his back as if trying hard to remember. They decided to agree with him, even though they weren't sure. Roxas told them that they better hurry, the throngs of people mulling about had been drastically reduced over the past couple of minutes.
When they entered the tent the coolness of the night gave way to tight hot air. The shadow cast an unusual kind of aura inside. In the tent the three rings could clearly be seen. There was a trapeze set up and a net being removed by several people wearing dark hooded jackets that hid everything about their features. The tent was in dark colours, as was most everything else.
The people in the coats danced off, carrying the net with them as they went. When they were out of the way all the spot lights shining from the top of the tent shut off. There was total darkness stretching over the hushed crowed. After almost thirty seconds Sora could pick out worried voices asking about what was happening, when the lights would come back, and so forth.
"Don't forget the people that were never someones," a voice called over the voices. They all fell into quiet again. "The flotsam and jetsam of society seem to find themselves in one place."
The lights came up. A man wearing a stereotypical ring master uniform stood in the center of the middle ring. He had his head bowed, hat pulled over his face. He walked closer to the edge of the ring, his knee high riding boots making the loudest noise in the whole place. He tipped his hat back and threw it. A woman with insect like hair caught it and slinked back into the darkness like a mist on four legs, moving like a jointed puppet.
The ringmaster's hair flew, light glittering off of it like sunlight blasting off stars. It was sliver, the same silver as mercury, and those eyes. They were like looking at the ocean through old sea glass that still retrained light. He stood, hand up where he had thrown the hat. Sora could see a small microphone on his cheek. He tried to focus on that.
Sora tried his hardest to concentrate on the microphone. He didn't want to acknowledge that this man, wearing this rackish red outfit with all of its buttons and its tight pants, was Riku.