Heart of hearts

Hey everyone! welcome to my first ever KH fan fic! I hope this ends up being an awesome story for everyone, especially you guys, thanks for the clicks!

DISCLAIMER: I own no part of Kingdom Hearts, at all, like zero.

Chapter 1: Fractured Memories

It was three in the morning when Sora shot up out of bed, crying and panting, he summoned his keyblade and then he realized 'it was all just a dream again', he'd been having recurring nightmares about his time fighting against Xehanort and the thirteen darknesses in the keyblade war. More specifically, his nightmares would revolve around Xehanort murdering Kairi, on some nights he would slit her throat with the keyblade on others he would turn her to ice and break her, but worst of all was the nightmares in which Xehanort would unlock the darkness in Sora's heart and have Anti-Sora pierce her with his claws. 'I need to get some sleep' Sora thought as he mentally slapped himself out of his anxiety attack. And with that, he was fast asleep.

Kairi and Riku had been sitting on the play island that they once adored as children, Kairi was now 19, Riku was 20, they were both enrolled at Destiny Islands Community College. Kairi wanted to become a school teacher, while Riku was in school for criminal justice. Kairi had developed into a beautiful young girl, she stood at 5'5", with a slim figure and strawberry blonde hair that dipped just below her shoulders. Riku himself had developed into a bit of a ladies man, he stood at 6'1" with a ripped muscle tone, piercing aquamarine eyes and cascading silver hair that all the girls just seemed to fall for. Kairi and Riku had been sitting on the play island for what seemed like hours waiting for Sora to show up. The three of them have been friends since any of them can remember.

"Say, Kairi, you think we should go check on Sora?" Riku inquired.

"Sure, that lazy bum hasn't hung out with us in a week, I wonder what's up?"

"It's probably nothing" Riku seemed to have a look on his face etched with concern that contradicted his last statement.

The two proceeded to make the walk across the island to Sora's apartment, making small talk about life and the past as they strode up to the door of Sora's apartment.

KNOCK! KNOCK! KNOCK!

Sora looked down at his alarm clock, it was 12:30 in the afternoon! 'Shit I was supposed to meet up with Riku and Kairi an hour ago!' Sora made a beeline for his closet, tossing on his clothes, a black muscle T-shirt and some navy blue skinny jeans (hey he's not a complicated guy okay?). Sora didn't bother with his hair, because, well, he never did, his chestnut spikes just seemed to always do what they wanted. Sora splashed his face with water, put on a fake smile and answered the door.

"Hey guys, sorry for being late what's up?" Sora flashed his trademark smile, or at least he thought he did, but Riku and Kairi knew better, Sora was a mess, he had dark circles around his eyes and he looked like he hadn't shaved in a few weeks, both of them decided not to voice their concern for their best friend.

"Well, lazy bum, we decided to come here and check on you since you didn't wanna wake up early enough to see us" Kairi ribbed playfully.

"Hey, well since it's almost one in the afternoon, you guys wanna grab lunch? it's all on me" Riku chimed in.

"Sure!" Sora and Kairi chirped back in unison. They proceeded to walk down to a boardwalk restaurant called 'Paopu's delight' it had been owned by their friends, Leon, Cloud and Aerith.

Immediately they were spotted by their friends who owned the restaurant and embraced tightly by aerith; Leon and Cloud stood further back from the four and said hello. They proceeded to make meaningless small talk until Sora, Kairi and Riku took their seat in a booth facing the ocean.

"So, Sora, how have you been? we haven't seen you in a while" Riku asked nonchalantly, he was secretly surveying Sora's response.

"Oh, well, i've been f-fine, just uh doing the usual, ya know?" he lied. And Riku knew it.

Riku, wanting to keep the conversation light, and wanting to torture his friend in front of said friend's long time crush, dropped the bomb. "So, Sora, you got a girlfriend" Riku couldn't hide his sly smirk as he said this.

Sora nearly spit out his coke. "What the fuck!? no! I mean, no..." he trailed off looking at Kairi, she and Riku had been too busy laughing at Sora's initial reaction to notice him staring, that was until Kairi looked down to see two cobalt blue eyes staring at her...lovingly? no way. Kairi shook her head and Sora looked away both of their cheeks as red as Kairi's hair. Riku was eating this up. He almost fell out of his seat laughing when he saw this. He had always known they had a thing for each other and many a time he would try to encourage them to confess their feelings but neither one would tell the other. Pussies.

"So, Kairi, how's it going at school?" Sora asked, trying to reign in the conversation.

"It's nice, I love kids so teaching can't be that bad, I just wish Professor Yuna wasn't such a bitch sometimes, but other than that, the classes are cake. I think I can even finish early" she raised her head up in pride as she mentioned the last part.

"That's awesome Kai" was all Sora managed to say.

"So Riku, what about you? how's the criminal justice thing going?"

Riku sighed. "Well, I mean the law part is really hard, but i'm doing well in my combat classes, it's just, I get the urge to use my keyblade in combat situations and I gotta get used to fighting without it, man, Professor Tifa just keeps kicking my ass bro, i'll get it eventually though"

Sora smiled, and was about to say something slick until their food arrived, Sora and Riku had ordered medium sirloins served with lobster tail and butter on the side, while Kairi had the Paopu leaf salad. The three enjoyed the rest of their meal in comfortable silence.

When they had finished eating, Sora looked at his phone and noticed it was 5:00 pm already, they had spent a long time at the restaurant talking. He got up from his chair and he thanked Riku for the meal. "Hey guys I gotta go check in at the destiny defense academy, my shift starts at 6" he hugged Kairi and Riku and was off to the training center, he had been given a job by the mayor of Destiny Islands as a sergeant in the local defense army after the Keyblade war, Riku and Kairi were both given the same opportunity, but had decided to go their own way after the war. Sora smiled while thinking of his meeting with his friends earlier in the day, 'maybe things can go back to normal now' a smile formed on his lips as he thought of "normal" like he even knew what it was anymore. He told himself he was gonna call his friends, mainly just Kairi after work today, there was plenty they haven't talked about since the war, and he needed to get it off of his chest.