Well, despite the overwhelming lack of response, I figured I'd go ahead and post chapter two. Not much Silent Hill in this one — it mostly focuses on re-introducing certain characters, but I think you'll like it anyway.

Chapter 2—Sora, Riku, and Kairi (4 years after the events of KH2….)

"Did you make cookies?"

Sora's head snapped up from the Game Boy, eyes shifty. "Noooooooo…no cookies. Why would you think that?" He gave a nervous chuckle before turning back to his Pokemon game.

Riku rolled his eyes. "I don't know, Sora, maybe because the entire apartment smells like cookies? Not to mention the cookie crumbs still stuck in your goatee…"

"There are no cookies! There never were any cookies! You can't handle the cookies!"

The older boy blinked and shook his head. He had a feeling that he'd be in need of aspirin, shortly. "Look, Sora, I'm not upset, I just wanted to know if there were any left—"

"There's no such thing as cookies! I've never even heard of cookies! You can't prove anything!"

Sora's voice was becoming progressively louder and more distressed, and this last volley of hysteria was followed by a long silence from Riku.

While he waited for Sora to get a hold of himself, he couldn't help but think that what with Sora's frequent outbursts and Kairi's penchant for singing along with rap music at ungodly noise levels, it was shocking that they hadn't been evicted yet. He idly wondered whether buying muzzles for the two brunettes would be considered inhumane. After Sora had calmed down a bit, Riku resumed his attempt at conversation.

"So, you made the cookies, but you ate them all."

Sora's head hung low with shame. "Yeeeeeees…"

Riku massaged his temples. "See, that's all I wanted to know."

The sound of the apartment door being opened distracted them both.

"Lucy, I'm ho-ome!" Kairi's voice rang out from the front hall.

Riku had just enough time to get an earful of Sora's joyous reply of "Ba-ba-loooooooo!" before being caught in a constricting sandwich-hug between the two of them. "Ah. You're home early, Kairi. Slow night at the club?" He managed to choke out, struggling for air all the while.

"Uh-huh. I mean, it's a freakin' Tuesday, right? Who goes clubbing on Tuesday? No people, no need for music, and no need for the fabulous DJ Paopu." She managed to gesture towards herself without releasing her death grip on her two lovers.

Sora snuggled closer to both of them. "We always need DJ Paopu. Right, Riku?"

Riku nodded tersely. "Right, right. Hey, guys, you know what'd be awesome? If I could breathe."

Kairi snorted. "Oh, please. You make it sound like breathing is important." But she did release him, and Sora followed suit.

Riku smoothed out his shirt, making unhappy noises. "For future reference, please feel free to never do that again." He paused, then added with a smirk, "At least not while I'm clothed."

--

All things considered, the past four years had been relatively uneventful for the trio. Things had calmed down pretty much immediately after the defeat of Organization Thirteen. There was some measure of panic in all three of them, when, upon their return to Destiny Islands, they had found a mysterious letter from King Mickey waiting for them. They had opened it with dread, expecting, naturally, some new threat to the Universe-As-They-Knew-It. What they found instead were three, fully paid college scholarships to any university on any world. The letter included free room and board (both on and off-campus) and a large check for each of them.

Apparently, when you rescued multiple worlds from sure destruction—twice—you were entitled to some kind of reward. At least, that was how the King seemed to feel. Sora, for his part, was under the impression that accepting a reward was wrong somehow, and was trying to figure out how to send the bottle back when Riku and Kairi told him (in no uncertain terms) to shut up and take the freaking munny. At any rate, the three of them decided to sit down and discuss what their plans for the future would be.

Riku found that, after his experiences with darkness and the nature of hearts, he was quite fascinated by these subjects and wanted to pursue them as further learning. He wrote down what he had learned from his own adventures and decided that he would continue Ansem's original studies—albeit his research would be purely observational and devoid of experimentation. Riku was not about to go around creating more Heartless and Nobodies, not now that they'd gotten rid of them. He would be an odd combination of philosopher and scientist, and his companions agreed that he would be well suited to such a vocation.

Sora, on the other hand, found that after his experience with darkness and the nature of hearts, that he was quite fascinated with cookies, and wished to look into that as an area of further study. Shortly after this realization, Sora announced to Kairi and Riku his intention to pursue a career as a world-class dessert chef. He pleasantly surprised them both by turning out to be a rather excellent cook.

Both boys had been eager to know what Kairi had been up to in their absence, and as it turned out, her interests had turned towards music. With both of her best friends gone, and one of them very nearly forgotten, Kairi had been left with Selphie, Tidus, and Wakka as pretty much her only companions. Kairi was quite fond of Selphie, but unfortunately, the girl insisted on playing Paris Hilton CD's whenever they hung out. Kairi found that she much preferred Tidus' Gangsta Rap and Wakka's Hip-Hop and Reggaton, and, after borrowing a couple of CD's from the boys and a Paris Hilton CD from Selphie, Kairi decided it was time to commence Operation: De-Crapify Selphie's Music.

After talking her parents into buying her a set of turntables, Kairi taught herself how to work them with surprising aptitude. Then, after messing around with the Garage Band application on her computer, Kairi began work on her first great masterpiece. Three days later, she gathered her friends together at her house and proudly handed them a CD. "Listen," she commanded.

Selphie popped it into the stereo, and her eyes widened with awe. It was her Paris Hilton CD, remixed to perfection. Everyone had to admit that Kairi's doctored disc far surpassed the original.

"You put some Ivy Queen in there, ya?" Wakka asked, his voice reverent.

"And Lil' Wayne! And Chamillionaire! I definitely heard them!" Added Tidus.

Selphie was speechless for some time. Finally, she managed to squeak out, "It…it sounds great! What did you do to it?"

Kairi folded her arms, tossed her hair over one shoulder, and haughtily declared, "I fixed it."

Kairi's remixes grew in popularity and fame amongst the islanders, and it was a natural decision for her to want to make a living off her music. That settled, she felt that courses in music appreciation and music theory would be right up her alley.

Now that they knew what they wanted to do with themselves, Kairi, Riku, and Sora set about looking for a college that would cater to all three of their interests. As luck would have it, Destiny U was well equipped to handle this, and so the trio would not have to leave home. With their academic lives pretty much settled, the three friends immediately fell back into their normal routines.

At least, they tried to.

There was a tension pervading the air that had not been present previously, and all of them felt it. There was an awkwardness any time they were alone together, a sense of something under the surface that was unresolved. Each had their own theories, but none were spoken aloud.

For Riku, it was obviously his betrayal that had caused this unease. He had turned his back on his friends, and now, neither he nor they could forget it. It was an indelible stain in the back of everyone's mind — Riku's in particular. Despite the assurances of forgiveness from Sora and Kairi, the fact remained that Riku could not forgive himself. He carried a Darkness with him, and while it — she — was not malevolent, she was there, and she served as a constant, though unintentional reminder.

For Kairi, it was her lack of involvement, of strength. While Sora and Riku had been struggling with darkness, she had been twiddling her thumbs in captivity. It was humiliating, and more than that, it was distancing. She found herself relying more and more on her internal conversations with Namine for comfort—Namine, who had been in such a similar situation. Despite herself, Kairi found that she was disappointed in her Other, though she desperately worked to keep Namine from finding out. The girl had so much power. Had she thought to use it, she could have left Castle Oblivion at any time, destroyed the minds of her captors and gone free.

It made Kairi look at herself, and wonder: why hadn't she put up more of a fight against the Heartless? For that matter, why hadn't she put up more of a fight against Axel? Looking back, she was sure she could've taken the skinny bastard. There was a weakness in Kairi, and in Namine as well. It had kept her from her friends before, and now, it was doing it again.

For Sora, it was a lack of comprehension—there were so many things he still didn't understand. The Organization bothered him. All the while he'd been fighting, something had felt…wrong. They'd been looking for hearts and going to any lengths to obtain them. They'd been hurting people, he understood that, but with the exception of maybe Larxene, none of them had really seemed…bad. There was one in particular, a water elemental, he couldn't remember the name. In fact, he was a little fuzzy about the fight itself. The boy —f or he had been only a boy, not much older than Sora himself — had done nothing threatening, and yet, something had goaded Sora on.

He'd killed him, and for the life of him, Sora couldn't figure out why. There was something truly awful about that, he thought. He had a sense of many more things that had escaped his understanding, and the frustrating part was that he couldn't put his finger on what those things were. More than anything, he wanted to talk to Roxas, to see if maybe he knew something that Sora didn't. He could feel him in the back of his head, but whether it was Roxas' doing or his own, Sora just couldn't seem to reach him.

And so, things progressed through high school like this, with Riku, Sora and Kairi desperately trying to be comfortable with each other again. It wasn't until the trio began college that things were finally resolved, and it was discovered that the actual problem had nothing to do with any of their theories.

--

It was the first year of college for Sora and Kairi and the second for Riku when Kairi decided enough was enough. Sora and Riku were roommates at the time, while Kairi lived in an apartment by herself and hated every minute of it. She felt more distant than ever from the boys, but she also felt that Sora was not quite ready for the conversation she wanted to have. So, she set up for Riku to come over to her place by himself. They expected to have a heart-to-heart and resolve their own issues before talking to Sora.

They did not expect to have sex.

"I cannot believe we just did that," groaned Kairi, her head resting on Riku's bare chest.

Riku blinked lazily and murmured, "I can…"

Kairi snorted and punched him lightly in the arm before sitting up, clasping the sheets to her breasts. "Look, Riku, I don't want this to come out the wrong way. I enjoyed myself, I really did, but…didn't that seem…"

"…Wrong, somehow?" Riku nodded. "Yeah, I felt that too. Like something was…"

"…Missing. That's what I thought. I mean…" She sighed and ran a hand through her hair. "I love you Riku. I think you know that. But there's also—"

Riku sat up abruptly. "Sora?"

Kairi nodded. ""You're not mad, are you? Because I—"

Riku cut her off with laughter. "Mad? Of course not. I feel exactly the same. It took me a while to figure it out, but I think it's fairly safe to say that I love you both as more than just friends."

"So….we both love each other. But we also both love Sora." She looked at Riku's calm demeanor and made a face. "This doesn't seem at all weird to you?"

He gave her a rather deadpan stare. "Kairi, I was trapped in the heartless body of an evil thirty-year-old man for months, fought my best friend's Nobody, visited all manner of nasty, dark places during that time, and I still have voices in my head. I've forgotten what's weird and how to react to it. Cut me some slack."

Kairi frowned, then nodded her head. "Fair enough. From now on, I'll tell you whether or not you should be weirded out. This is one of those times."

"Duly noted."

"So…now what do we do?"

Riku lay back with his hands behind his head and looked up at the ceiling. "I think that's pretty obvious. We talk to Sora."

Kairi laughed out loud. "Pffft. C'mon, Riku, do you really think he'd get it?"

Riku held his hands up defensively. "I didn't say he'd get it. I just said we should talk to him."

Kairi was quiet for a moment, then said with a grin, "We should prob'ly put some clothes on, first."

Riku cracked a small smile. "If you insist…"

--

Sora was a happy, happy boy. That was his general state of being, but it was particularly so when he was playing Katamari. So entranced was he that he only vaguely registered the knock on the door. "I almost have a cow!" He hollered. Whoever was knocking correctly interpreted that as, "I am playing Katamari, but you are most welcome to let yourself in nevertheless, dear visitor." Kairi and Riku entered, both looking tired and somewhat disheveled. Not that Sora noticed.

Riku began with "Look, Sora, we need to—" but was abruptly cut off by Kairi, who shouted,

"Sora! Sex! Now."

The astonished Riku opened and closed his mouth a few times before nodding weakly. "What she said."

Sora's brain, fully focused on cow ownage, did not quite comprehend, although he probably wouldn't have under normal circumstances, either. "What? That's not part of this game…"

Kairi sighed. "I'll get the front, you get the back?"

"Works for me."

Sora was still somewhat befuddled. "Huh? Back of wha-AH-OH!"

--

Things went quite well until the trio reached climax, at which point Sora, still clutching the controller, sat up and screamed, "I HAS A PLANET!" before collapsing back and falling happily into slumber. Kairi stared at the TV screen in disbelief.

"He…He's been playing that damn game this whole time?" She made as if to wake Sora and berate him, but Riku pulled her back down, clutching both of his friends a bit closer to him.

"Leave it. It's just how he is. Besides, doesn't this feel like the way things should be?"

Kairi settled back, anger fading. "Yeah. It absolutely does."

The two fell asleep holding each other and Sora between them, and for the first time in years, all three felt truly connected again.