I'm worried about them.
They've always been close, since long before I came to the island. I was never able to break into what they had. I loved them both, and they loved me; but there was always a bond between them that I couldn't touch.
And then they separated- we separated. I was thrown into the darkness, and Riku jumped in after me. As many times as he insisted that it was to save me, I know that's not entirely the case. Riku wanted to stand out, to be a bright pure color in contrast to the monochrome of life on the island. He wanted to make his own path, independent of everything he knew, independent even of Sora. So he entered the darkness eagerly.
He didn't realize that by doing so, he'd pull Sora after him.
Where Riku goes, Sora follows; it's always been that way. I remember Sora padding softly after Riku on the beach, watching with wide eyes as the older boy sparred with the other kids on the island. Sora and Riku were always together, not necessarily because they valued each other's company, but because they were two sides of the same coin. Complete opposites, and yet it was impossible to separate them.
So Sora came for Riku, and tried to bring him out of the shadows even when it became apparent that Riku was too far gone. Sora begged him to turn back, to let them be friends again. And Riku refused. Riku threw it in his face.
And despite this, when Riku/Ansem presented the unlocker of hearts to Sora, he used it without hesitation. He trusted Riku that implicitly.
Somewhere inside Ansem's twisted soul, that trust must have sounded some kind of alarm; Riku recognized it, and managed to pull himself out in time to help lock the door to Kingdom Hearts. At that point, though, Sora and Riku were in parallel dimensions- following the same path but never intersecting. So they sought each other out.
The Nobodies, I've always thought, had simple motivations for their actions. Two halves seek to become a whole; and so a body sans heart and a heart sans body will attempt to reunite. Sora and Riku are much the same way. One was utterly lost without the other.
Somewhere in the recesses of my mind, there is a quiet white room full of drawings on the floor. When I'm in that room, I can remember Namine's existence clearly. I can see through her eyes the pain that Sora felt when Riku abandoned him a second time, or so he thought. I witness, over and over again, the soul-rending shame on Riku's face as he looked up at the sleeping pod in which Sora was contained. I hear every word that he said as he promised to bring Sora back.
Riku gave up everything to try to earn Sora's forgiveness. He tried so hard that he forgot that Sora didn't need to forgive- he had never held a grudge.
They are utterly devoted to one another. The emotions that bind them go deeper than friendship, deeper than love; I don't think there's a word for it, because so few people ever experience it. If one were to die, the other would die with him. That's why I'm worried. To be so closely tied… it can't be healthy.
Are they symbiotic, or mutually parasitic?
Author's Note: If you happen to like this story, please don't click "story alert." This is a one-shot, and there won't be any more of it. If you like my writing enough to want more of it, please click the Author Alert button. If you just like this, Favorite it or comment. If you don't like it… then why'd you read all the way to the end? XD
Disclaimer: I don't own these characters. Square Enix and Disney do.