A/N: This is something that may be considered enjoyable for those who love a good RikuxSora fic... I started writing it a long time ago, well... a couple of months ago and I've gone through and changed a few things around... I'd like it to be considered a good story, because we ALL have had those strange, overwhelming crushes at one point... but maybe not one under these circumstances. And with so cute a little kiddo like Sora!! Hee... Disclaimer: I don't own KH, or Sora or Riku or Kairi or Sephiroth, or all the others... Crossing and its peoples are mine, though.

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Shadow of Heart

-by Darker Angel

Riku trembled unconsciously as he wrote the first consonant letter of the note. A sweeping, gorgeous long-hand 'S' that made all others preceding it vanish in blots of black ink. He smiled with pleasure, continuing with the delicious breathy sounds of the rest of the name. He thought it inside his head, breathed it before he went to sleep at night, dreamed it while he tucked himself into the cold, lonely corners of his bedroom where no other sounds disrupted his impossible fantasies.

With the first letter of the name, he profaned all that was good and clean and righteous. He wanted to write Sora a letter... it shouldn't have felt wrong. Wrong was when he stared too long at the fine lines of the youth's body as he stood silhouetted against the island sun, glistening with salty water and sweat, trying to understand Blitzball lessons from Wakka and Tidus. Wrong were the thoughts that danced with his itching hands to caress the island-browned skin, smooth the blasphemous droplets of liquid down and make all shine like fine, milk chocolate silk.

Riku swallowed, tapping the pen against the notebook's edge, chewing the inside of his cheek. He closed his eyes and indulged in a small, guilty daydream before struggling to continue the message.

'Sora. I know we promised we'd stay away from each other for awhile until things cool down. I know Kairi isn't happy with the decision at all, but it can't be helped. After all that's happened, I think it's time we just chilled for awhile. We've got to have time to recover, ya know?'

"Recover?" Riku mumbled, growling as he raked a hand through his unruly white hair. "Recover from what?"

'All that fighting... it must have tired us out. I'm so glad to be home... I used to think that I hated this place, and I wanted to get away. Now that I'm here again, it's like... I've been floundering out in an unfamiliar sea and I've just crawled ashore again. I can kiss the sand and make pretend I'm happy... but I can't help having the dreams. I know you probably can't remember... but... I envy you a little. You're lucky you can't remember the things I do. The pain and suffering and... if I told you I betrayed you (like an idiot, I might add), you'll probably hate me for the rest of my life.

'It doesn't matter. Who am I kidding? I'll never send this letter. I'm only writing it, in hopes that... someday you might remember. You're too pure to remember the darkness that was in us. That infected us all. The light inside of you still burns bright... I guess that's why I wish I could tell you. About everything.'

Riku exhaled slowly. He wiped at his eyes, closing them tightly, feeling his heart pound with a sudden peculiar lurch that was almost... painful. Tears dripped down his face like opal crystals. Before he knew it, he ripped the paper out of the notebook and crumpled it up tightly in his fist before he froze and just stared at his arm.

He would burn it... evening campfire every other night. One was being held tonight. No one would notice... or care what the paper said. Riku always was the weird one, with his strange habits and chores. Kairi, Tidus, Wakka, Selphie... what they thought was not his business, but if he had to take a guess, he would guess they believed him to be psychotic and depressed.

They couldn't be closer to the truth, he brooded darkly, tossing his utensils aside onto his bed without another glance. As he brushed his way past the swinging coil-secured door he looked for the signs of fire he was familiar with - dim orange light, smoke-sign in the sky. He saw them, and followed them to the beach where the other teenagers were gathered, still gripping the paper tightly in his leather-bound grasp.

Having seized a smoldering branch, he sat beside his usual place next to Sora. The boy was, naturally, munching something crunchy but most likely awful. Sora carried odd tastes, but indeed he was happiest when he had something in his bottomless pit.

He stared into the fires, watching the flames licking with snobbish fickle hesitation along the logs gathered by the others. When high enough, he tossed the crumpled paper toward the flames.

A hand darted forward from beside him, Tidus' familiar smiling face winking at him as he drew the paper forth from the threatening blaze. Riku's stomach lurched, blindly lunging toward Tidus and reaching for the intrusive fingers that had stolen the letter from being cremated.

"Give it back!" Riku raged, red-hot with anger and terror. If Sora reads this... His hands missed the object as Tidus tossed it out of reach, where, of all people, Selphie pounced on it.

She made an inquiring noise, apparently blonde to his rapidly increasing state of alarm, she proceeded to pry at the edges of it.

He was airborne in less that a second, throwing himself at the small girl and pinning her against the ground, wresting the paper from her grasp with little consideration that she might be squished beneath his weight.

"O-OW! You're...h-hurting me, you JERK!" she squeeled, kicking uselessly. He turned, flung his arm into the fire, paper, glove, flesh and all, and made sure to deliver it into the heart of the flames. He jerked his arm free, sending sparks and embers flying in every direction, clutching his arm to his chest.

Riku felt his anger die as the paper crumbled from black to white and finally, to ashes. The relief it gave him was only brief, but at least no one would read it. No one would procure its secret from the ink-blotted pages.

Everyone was staring at him. He looked at everyone else but Sora. Sora's gaze would hurt the most, so he avoided it as best he could. Rising to his feet, he curled his lip derisively. "Stupid," he hissed at the remaining eyes he could meet. "Don't try to do that again!"

He stormed away to the tune of "--was only a joke--" and "--weirdo!", feeling tears hotter than the flames burn his eyes again. Somehow he had the good sense to stagger up to the fresh waterfall and soak his arm in the crystal-glittering liquid. He watched the fine molecules, tied together by a common bond to stay close, lap around his burned flesh lovingly, trying to cling as long as possible as though sensing his turmoil.

"That was really mean," the mouse-haired boy said behind him. "And really stupid for sticking your arm in the fire. You didn't have to get so upset." Disappointment... that hurt a lot. He had expected something like loathing and disgust to fill his voice, too, but no... this was Sora talking. Instead Sora managed to sound increasingly worried.

Sora sat down next to him, sneakers back at the fireplace and he stuck his bare feet into the cool waters. He leaned forward, turning his head to try and get a better peek at Riku's face which was curtained by his hair. "What was on that paper?"

"It was something stupid. One of my ...problems."

"Like your poem thingies?"

Riku smiled. Trust Sora to remember Riku's old poems. "Yes... sort of like my 'poem thingies'..."

Sora smiled brightly, kicking his feet lightly in the pool and he tilted his head back. This far from the comfort of fire, washed with moonlight, Riku stole a glance in safety and his eyes followed the nubile lines of his throat to his jaw, to his blushing lips.

"I like your poems, Riku," Sora murmured, looking over at him. "How come you don't write anymore? You're so different... are you alright? You've been acting real...well, bitchy to everyone lately."

"I've been through a lot," Riku mumbled, leaning his chin on his unburnt arm. "Like time goes by...slowly for me... if I told anyone... it wouldn't make sense... like I've spent years of my life somewhere else..."

Sora regarded him coolly. When, possessed by an impulse, he scooped an amount of water into his palm and sprinkled Riku with it, although most of it ended up straight into the pool again. "Cheer up!" Sora whined, before turning and laying down next to him on his stomach by the water. "Life's too long to be depressed all the time." He paused, wetting his lips uncertainly as a thought creased the perfectly unblemished forehead. "Riku...? Are we still...friends? I mean... you're not mad at me, are you?"

"I was sorta worried you were mad at me. But... yeah, we're still friends. Of course we are." Riku smiled uncertainly, closing his eyes and trying to recall that distant, forgotten time without worries and dreams unfettered by the darkness.

* * *

Whether or not he wanted to readily admit it, Riku was hopelessly jealous of Sora's friends. Kairi, in particular. Especially Kairi. He watched the pair of them sit on the Paopu Island and talk, their words lost in the murmur of the surf. He recalled a time before when he had felt another jealousy, this same way, seeing them so close while he felt miles and miles away.

He reached up and rubbed his hands through his hair. His arm was healed, little trace of burn scars left, even if it was only three days hence the 'accident'. His mysterious heritage granted him certain advantages... over others.

He didn't want to think about them right now. So, treading over the sun-bleached sand he found himself once more alone with his thoughts and miseries, teasing his lower lip with his teeth obsessively until he tasted raw skin. He remembered:

Years ago (in Riku's experience anyway), he and Sora were still close playmates and often tousled about in the shady grass when the sun was too hot and the waters too shallow to swim in. They weren't old enough to care about the consequences of their actions or to respond to them. They were too busy trying to fit in all of a day's play into what time they had.

A child's mind worked out the math unconsciously, that one day equaled approximately five minutes and their life consisted of filling those five minutes with as much acvitity as possible. Little time was left for thinking, surprisingly on an island where most people would rather have stretched out on a beach towel and rested.

Riku pinned Sora in the grass again, choke-holding him and giving him a well-deserved noogie, for the brown-haired boy had just attempted to stuff a handful of sand down the front of his swimming trunks. Exhilirated at overpowering the smaller kid again, he leaned close and bit into his shoulder with a victorious growl.

"O-OWW!"

"Don't be such a baby. Here. You can bite me back."

Sora blinked, looking over his shoulder at him while Riku slid off, and plunked down into the sand, profering his arm. "I don't wanna bite you! But.... I *do* wanna kiss ya!"

"AH--!!"

The two boys tumbled further into the foliage, while Sora making wet kissing sounds alternating between squealing shrieks of amusement as Riku struggled to keep the kissing boy at bay.

Riku closed his eyes again, remembering. He almost wished the stupid young Riku had let Sora have his way. But would Sora have acted differently if he hadn't resisted? Was he expecting him to? Did it make any difference, either way?

"We were just kids," Riku mumbled with a smirk. "Besides... it would have been a little sick."

Still, as it was such a long time ago, he regretted being unable to recount his old thrashes with Sora, beating him over the head and in turn getting beaten with a broomstick by his mom.

Suddenly he heard a shout from the beach. He jerked upright and tumbled from the shade, dashing over the sand to see what was going on. Sora staggered from the water, clutching a bloody nose and carrying Wakka's blitzball.

"What the hell!?"

"Man!" Wakka bowed his head in shame, his face animated with the most expressive despair Riku had ever seen. "He just jumped up to get the ball and it came and whacked him right in the face. Then he fell off into the water! It's not my fault!"

Sora tossed the ball aside and clutched his nose, blood gushing from between his fingers. Riku's heart skipped at the sight of it and he almost ignored everyone else, hurrying to him and ripping a shred off the hem of his shirt. "Here. Head back! Hold this to your face--"

"Ouch," Tidus observed with a nervous laugh. "Hey, man, you gonna be okay?"

"Of course," Sora muffled, his eyes shining though his mouth was smothered partially with the bit of cloth. "Just a bloody nose that's all. Really, Riku, you don't have to hold onto my arm!"

Riku pulled his arm free, blushing a bit but still, he followed him into the shade and watched him sit down. He seemed troubled, as though the bloody nose was just a mosquito bite and he wasn't really thinking of it at all.

"I was talking to Kairi," Sora said, as though the whole island was oblivious of the fact.

"And...?"

"Well, she said... that everyone thinks that you're getting sick or something. That something's wrong with you. She was worried it was her fault, somehow... that you've changed."

Have I changed?

After being the mind-whore of a madman, after watching you fall and rise again into and out of darkness, after being poisoned to my core by darkness itself...

Have I truly changed?

Riku chose to say nothing. The words hurt. There was nothing he could do about them, except listen.

Sora wiped his nose, which had ceased its deadly flow. At this time, he wrung the blood-stained cloth in his hands. "She was asking me if we... I mean, me and her... could make a promise. And it sorta scared me, that's all. I want your advice on it."

Riku folded his arms over his chest, tilting his head to one side, his posture and mannerisms betraying nothing of his truest concerns. "Tell me, Sora. What did Kairi ask you?"

Sora wiped his nose again, and for a moment he assumed the look of a young man torn between two very important choices. "Well... she said if ever something happened to you or... anyone else on the islands... she... she wants me to marry her!"

Somewhere, on the distant black little isle in his soul of shadows, a bell gonged and shook the wretched world into ruin. He felt a sting in his chest, not just an ache or a pinch, but a sting like burning. He recoiled slightly, his eyes dimming. "What...?"

"So we won't get seperated. So at least, if you go away, we'll find you together."

He had no idea how to respond to it. At first, he was horrified. Then touched. A welling hole of despair opened anew, tearing old scars open once more.

"Riku?"

"Huh? Yeah?"

"What do you think?"

"Well, what do you want to do about it?"

"I don't think I'd want to marry her. I-I want to say no... but she'll be mad at me!" Sora dropped his face into his hands, tossing the cloth aside. "I... don't know what to do!"

Riku sat next to him at once, and seized the opportunity to throw a comforting arm across his quaking shoulderblades. He rubbed his back, shivering himself with more than a little emotion.

"Sora," he soothed softly, "don't cry."

Did Sora look... surprised? He looked up, crystal blue eyes flashing with tears, unspilt bright gems clinging precariously to the tender flesh of his lower eyelashes, like precious crystals in a forest broken by blades of moonlight. Then they vanished as his head bent suddenly and he crushed his face into Riku's chest, fiercely hugging him.

Tender affection replaced his hopeless pain. He pressed the younger boy closer, breathing deeply and unable to prevent himself from smiling broadly. He pursed his lips instead, then he pressed them into Sora's sweet smelling hair.

"I love you, Riku," Sora sniffled, snuggling closer and inevitably drawing Riku into an even tighter circle. "You're such a good friend. I don't wanna think that you might go away."

"I'm not going away," Riku replied in kind, feeling tears sting his eyes harsher than any flirtatious flame.

The rest of the afternoon passed by with the pair of them chewing on sun-sweetened grass ends, staring at the white fluffy clouds in the azure sky. But aside from the sky and the cool earth beneath their backs and the sweet grass tucked between their teeth, Riku found serenity only in Sora's company. There would have been rain and thunder pounding about their ears with all the fury of Thor, all the ferocity of Zeus. He wouldn't care.

Maybe Sora's love would shield them both.