Disclaimer: I do not own Square Enix's Kingdom Hearts, nor am I making any money off this fanfiction. San is © J.E. Jones and S.G. Smythe. Seiya is © S.G. Smythe. To use these characters without permission of the author is illegal and will be punished by law.

-o-o-

Author's Notes…

I could give you hundreds of excuses of why this update is so very late, but I'm sure none will suffice, haha, so I won't waste anyone's time. But at least an update is finally here.

Originally this story was going to be five chapters and an epilogue, but I've discovered that as the way things stand right now, I need to cut out what I had at the end here and slip it into the next chapter, because I'm not very satisfied with this particular chapter becoming as long as a few of the others. So it's going to be shorter than normal and push the story into possibly six or seven chapters.

We'll have to see.

Anyway—I love you guys, and your support over the last year!

Here's to hoping you enjoy.

-o-o-

A Careful Remedy

Chapter Four

There's Nothing Like Regret

-o-o-

Sometimes we find that no matter how hard we try, the things that matter most to us still slip away.

I want things to be perfect. I always have.

But the more I hold on to something—the more it becomes so eager to be free. I guess my love just smothers things. It's a slow, quiet death for them. I'm not sure which I'd prefer. For it not to hurt? Yet I find myself lacking the strength to just let go. I squeeze and I tear desperately at them until they're swallowed up by the tide of my anger, and my jealousy, and all my many, many fears.

Then they sink under, and eventually, they drown.

I haven't spoken to my parents in years. I estranged myself from them. I feared they couldn't accept me for who I was, and before they even gave me a chance, I let all the black feelings in my heart sever our bonds. It didn't even hurt much, at the time. I suppose that when the time finally came, the thread had been worn so thin that all it took was a careful snip. And slowly, they'd faded beneath the waves.

No phone calls. No letters. No visits.

People can only hold on so long before their fingers lose their grasp and slip, bruised and bloodied from fighting to stay.

Riku was next.

I don't know if I resent him more or myself.

In the wee hours of the morning, as I lay curled up on the windowsill watching the snow slowly fall outside to form a fresh white blanket on the ground, I ponder this.

Was Axel right? Should I just take Riku for myself, screw the consequences, who cares what Roxas thinks or feels? I only have so many days, don't I? Might as well enjoy them while I can.

But what will happen after I'm gone?

Who will Riku have to fall back on? Will Roxas still be there for him if he gives up Roxas while I'm still alive? Will Roxas want anything to do with him anymore? Or will he feel pity and take Riku back into his arms to comfort him and then more?

I just can't tell.

I love Riku.

I love him so much it hurts to breathe.

But now I'm wondering if I love him enough to let him go.

-o-o-

I'm enjoying a caramel macchiato with whipped cream when Squall arrives. My feet are propped up on the chair beside me, and I have an elbow on the table. I haven't bothered to take off the fur-rimmed Charlie Brown trapper Riku bought me last year, and my scarf is loose around my neck. I removed my jacket shortly after my arrival, however. It's toasty in the café I agreed to meet my temporary editor at.

He looks like death himself.

Or maybe not, considering I've seen Death, and they are hardly identical.

Squall doesn't even bother dusting the snow from his hair as he settles across from me, his leather jacket creaking. I see that he bothered to put on a scarf, as well, but his hair can't have seen a brush this morning. Not that I'm able to throw stones—there's a reason my trapper is still on my head.

"Mornin'." I wave cheerfully.

He grunts.

"Want anything?"

The bags under his eyes indicate that he probably needs a healthy dose of sleep, but he doesn't say so. He just rubs his eyes tiredly and then lets out an exhausted sigh, placing his forearms over the table.

"Sora," he says after a long moment. He almost fell asleep in the silence. His voice is thick with the desperate desire to curl back up in bed. "…It's six in the morning."

I flick my wrist up, only to belatedly realize I'm not wearing my watch. Squall isn't the only one who stumbled out of bed half-asleep, though I suspected that his had been a recent stumble. I was up at two.

My gaze darts over to the clock on the wall, and I nod, satisfied, sinking back into my chair. "Six o' three, actually."

"Whatever." He keeps rubbing his eyes.

"I take it you want to know what you're doing here." If I was in Squall's shoes and listening to how perky I sound, I'd shoot myself. Fortunately I'm not Squall, so I just drum my fingers over the table. I answer my own question before he can. "I have a dilemma for my new manuscript."

I slide the manila folder with its papers and the pen resting lightly on its surface over to him.

Awareness comes to those gray eyes, and Squall straightens his shoulders. He reaches for the folder, then slips it open, turning it to face him so he can read its contents. "…You're working on it already?" Surprise colors his voice.

I wet my lips, suddenly nervous. "Yeah."

Writing it wasn't so difficult. I could pretend that it wasn't… well. That what went on in that story was totally fictional. It hadn't been hard to distance myself from the keyboard. Now, though, when I know Squall is going to ask for a run-down, the words get tied up in my throat.

Using a story as a pretense for myself in order to get advice is so tacky.

But it's all I got left, okay?

Squall takes a few moments to read over what I handed him. In the meantime, I take careful swallows of my treat, letting my eyes survey the rest of the café. No one else is here yet, but cars are pulling up outside. People want their fix before they head off to work and wherever else. I'm just glad I have the option to sleep in.

When Riku first began his current job, I thought for sure he'd take up the habit of drinking coffee. Long hours, strenuous research, loss of sleep. Surely that required a need of caffeine? But Riku's love for coffee stayed the same—a cup in the morning, maybe, if he felt like making it. Nothing more. He invests in energy drinks for staying awake. Whatever floats his best, I guess.

Sometimes I privately feel that he doesn't want to join the line of addicts too lazy or too in a rush to make their own coffee currently trailing from the counter to the doors.

The hiss of steaming milk fills my ears, and I bite my lip.

Time for another day of life for all these people milling sleepily around.

Including today, I have two days left. In less than forty-eight hours, I won't be able to sit like this at a coffee shop, watching all these people.

I'll be buried in cold, hard earth.

"This is… different from your usual work, Sora."

Squall's voice draws me from my dark thoughts, and I perk up with a smile, lifting my eyebrows. My tone is purely calm, innocent. I'm tired of hurting people. I want them to be able to relax around me, even if they want to kill me for making them meet me here so early in the morning.

"Is it?"

"Hmm, yeah." The man's brows are drawn tight together in concentration as his eyes move over the typeface. "I mean, it's just a few pages, of course, but already I can tell." His hand gestures over the papers. His other must be resting on his lap. Slowly his fingers lift to one of those furrowed brows and scritch.

"Is it different in a bad way?"

"No." He shakes his head, chestnut locks following the movement. "So Shinji hasn't spoken to his parents in five years?"

"No."

"And he wants to again?"

"Yes."

"And he wants to take Hiroki with him."

"Yeah."

"I assume… what, some family drama is going to ensue?" Squall closes the folder, but his tone isn't derisive, merely contemplative. "Romantic family adventures usually aren't your genre."

I wince at that. He has a point. "I know. But this time I want to try something different."

"Just tell me where you're taking it." More awake now, he leans back in his chair just as I have done and folds his arms. I wonder if I should ask him if he wants a coffee and quickly dismiss the notion. Squall seems like the type who, if he wants a coffee, he'll get himself a coffee. Period.

"Well." I arrange myself more comfortably in my seat, pulling my legs down from the chair they occupy. "Let's see… Shinji is mostly in a dilemma because Hiroki, his boyfriend, is secretly having an affair with Shinji's brother Aoi."

"Mmm. An affair, huh?"

"Yeah. But Shinji, until this Christmas, has always sort of been a real asshole. But he wants to change things this time around, because he's realizing what, er… what all he's losing." I spread my hands as I talk. It's kinda difficult to not mention the whole "Oh, and he's turning over a new leaf because he's going to die," but I don't want to invoke Axel's wrath. I have a feeling that that will not go over well at all.

"Uh huh." Squall has pulled a pen and a paper from somewhere and is jotting down what I assume is notes.

I pause for a moment, suddenly awkward. Rinoa had never done this to me.

Squall lifts his eyes when he notices that I'm quiet. A brow arches, and he gestures with the hand that holds his pen. "Continue?"

"…Well." I clear my throat, deciding to take it all in stride. This is my grand idea—might as well follow through with it. "But now he's sort of starting to see—whereas at first he had been angry—why Hiroki might have gone to Aoi. After all, why would Hiroki want to be with a real jerk, right?"

"So as he's 'bettering' himself, he begins to realize that maybe Hiroki is better off with Aoi?" Squall mutters to himself. Scribble scribble scribble. He dots a few I's. Crosses some T's.

Annoyance flickers inside of me. "I didn't say that. I didn't say Riku would be better off with—"

Gray eyes focus on me sharply. "Riku? I thought you said his name was Hiroki."

Oh.

God damn it.

My face is turning red, radiating heat. My ears, too, but he can't see those, thank God.

God, this is so embarrassing. I didn't mean to slip like that.

And now I've paused too long, so I can't make a recovery.

Squall sighs and sets his pen and paper on the table before he leans back in his chair and fixes me with a knowing look. "This isn't about some guys named Shinji and Hiroki, is it?"

"No… not… not exactly…" I've never felt so small in my entire life, and I sound about that tiny.

He stands. "Let's go."

I blink at that and rise almost without thought, drink in hand. "Where?"

"Where I used to go with Rinoa when she needed 'inspiration.'"

-o-o-

I grip onto the reigns of my horse almost desperately, panic seizing tight in my heart. The last time I was on a horse, I was… what? Seven, eight? I can barely how to remember to ride as it is, and now Squall has me trailing beside him down the cleared paths.

Apparently he knows a friend of a friend who owns a horse ranch.

Goodie for me.

"Squall," I call out to him. He's gotten ahead of me again. I lean over my horse as he trots forward, and I lower my hands and the reigns they hold to the harness. "Squall, wait!"

He glances over his shoulder to spot me getting further and further behind. Especially further behind, because my horse stops entirely on the trail, and Squall's is still going.

The man snorts in amusement and turns his black stallion around to come back to me, hopefully to rescue. Instead, however, I receive a lecture.

"I thought you said you knew how to ride."

A pitiful mixture of a sigh and a whimper escapes me. "You never let me finish the sentence."

"I assumed—"

"Don't you know that assuming makes an ass out of u and me?"

When Squall's eyes narrow, I let a sheepish grin cover my mouth. Well, it's true. He shouldn't have assumed. He took one glance at the stables, questioned me on my riding experience, heard, "Yeah, although—" and then began busying himself with saddling our horses up. Never mind that we'd just spent an hour driving out here to get to his friend of a friend who owned a stable's place. Never mind that I'd barely had a chance to realize where we were.

The guy moves at his own pace, I'll give him that. But he should slow down for others to catch up! Some of us aren't quick on the uptake, especially when we haven't gone horseback riding in almost two decades.

I mean, really.

At least he gave me the gentlest mare. She's brown with a strip of white down her nose. There's another white spot behind her left ear. And she is rather sweet. She at least had the decency to stop just a minute ago.

"Come on, Sora. Here." Squall steers his horse around until we're side by side again. He reaches over and grabs onto my reigns and holds them with his own, and I feel the horse move beneath my thighs again as we take off.

That's much better.

I gaze out at our surroundings, growing quiet as I take everything in. The mountains bordering the horizon, covered in layers of snow and bare trees here and there. The evergreens remain ever in place, though, snow upon their boughs. There's a thick cloud of gray just behind the peaks of the range. I'm giving it a couple of hours until it begins to snow. Hopefully we'll be done with riding by then.

To my left are trees. There's a sapling poking up in odd places, but it's mostly pine, birch, and spruces. To my right—a nice little valley of snow, and then beyond the ring of that, another line of trees begin.

It's rather beautiful out here. Breathtaking, even.

And infinitely quiet except for the occasional snort from one of the horses and my breath in my ears.

As I watch another stream of white come from my mouth, I lift my attention from the scenery to the man guiding us along the path.

"So you took Rin out here?"

"Hmm… Yeah." Squall's gray eyes flick in my direction. "It's easier to think out here, away from the city."

I nod. "I can see that."

We ride in silence for another handful of moments.

Squall, surprisingly, is the first to break it again, as he had in the coffee shop. "Who's Hiroki—this… Riku person? Who is he?"

Something in my heart twists to the point of pain. This isn't a subject I want to discuss, but I started this whole shebang. And I was the one who slipped. Time to clean up my mess.

"My boyfriend."

"And Aoi?"

The vise on my heart tightens. It's becoming troublesome to breathe. "My brother."

"And Shinji?"

I take the longest time to answer then, keeping my gaze strictly on the horizon. I don't want to answer. If I answer, it'll slot everything into place, even though he already knows. And I've yet to talk about this to anyone—with their true names in tact, that is. I don't relish the thought of it. This is going to hurt. So bad.

But I need advice. It's the whole reason Squall's here in the first place.

I suck in my pride and look back to him. "Shinji is me."

"And you haven't seen your parents in five years."

I close my eyes and shake my head. "No."

"And you're a jerk, and Riku is having an affair with your brother because of it."

"Yeah…"

That's exactly how I summed it up earlier, at least.

I sigh and scrub a hand over my face before quickly lowering it back to the saddle. I need something to grip onto for support, or else the world kind of moves in an alarming fashion. Ugh, horseback riding. Now I'm reminded of why I haven't done it in two decades. I wonder if I have a very sensitive stomach or something—motion sickness. But with horses? Or maybe a fear of heights?

I think of the balcony I threw myself off and chuckle beneath my breath. Heights hadn't mattered then.

"I just don't know what to do," I hear myself saying.

"Well…" Squall trails off into silence. I get the feeling I've made him awkward.

"No, I'm sorry. That wasn't supposed to be where you say, 'Well, do this and this.' It was just me musing out loud," I clarify. I'd hate for him to think I'm just sort of pushing him into this whole mess without a gradual ease in. He doesn't seem like the type that can be bombarded with someone else's problems so straight-forwardly and take it so well.

Actually, he doesn't seem like the type that wants to help with someone's problems at all, but he's the one who brought me out here. I'm going to go along with it, nothing else to do. And if he blames me in the end—well… I guess I won't fault him for it. My story is pretty drama-filled and not something people necessarily want to listen to. Not people like Squall, anyway—people absorbed in their own lives and their own happiness without wanting drama to mess that all up.

Not that that's a bad thing. It's not.

At least he's out here listening to me. Before all of… this… I wouldn't have even given him that much if our roles were reversed.

"Okay, then."

"Yeah… um…" I lift a hand from the saddle again in order to scratch my gloved fingers awkwardly over the back of my neck. The cold on my exposed skin makes me flinch. "I just—I know I should confront him… or the both of them really. And say that I know their secret."

Even if I wasn't given evidence prior—even if I didn't know what to look for—I think that they would have slipped eventually. They're not hiding it so very well. You mention one or the other, and their opposite goes into panic overdrive.

"Okay," Squall says slowly. "So what if you do confront them—what then?"

I'm glad he's going along with this. "I don't know. I guess say that it's okay if—if they feel that way for each other." The words taste bitter on my tongue. I want to take them back immediately, but only because I'm being selfish and want Riku as my own.

"But will that make you happy?"

I hesitate for a long while after that, gathering my thoughts. Of course it won't make me happy. But then, that's… that's a lie. On the surface, I'll be miserable. One half of me, however, will be happy for them… if that makes any sense. Happy for them in a bitter way. Happy for them in a "I'm trying to be happy for you because I know I don't deserve him anymore" way.

And round and round do my thoughts go.

Argh.

"No. I mean, it'll hurt, but—I know that Riku deserves better than me. And if that person is Roxas, then so be it, right? I love them both. And I want them both to be happy. I've been so selfish for so long that my happiness doesn't really matter anymore." It stings more than you can possibly know to say that. I'm just glad I have the strength to give Squall the sugar-coated version, the one with all the hearts and sparkles and selflessness.

Inside, I don't feel like that at all.

It's somber here. Dark. Self-pitying. Possessive. Grieving.

But accepting.

"I wouldn't say that." Squall guides us around the trail as it turns, and I watch more scenery flit past. He has his eyes directly ahead, a sort of distant glaze to them, as if he's mulling everything over. Good, I guess. "Everyone's happiness counts."

"Well, they deserve more of it than I do." Lots and lots more.

"Fair enough," he agrees. "But how would you feel if they weren't seeing each other behind your back anymore?"

"I—I…" I trail off, unsure of how to proceed. With the truth? "It would probably kill me." Hell, it had—and they hadn't even known of my awareness of the situation. What would it be like to see them together instead of merely knowing that they hide it? Whatever, I won't be around to see it. This isn't something of a problem I should focus on. Unfortunately, I can't tell Squall that without revealing all the plot pieces to this story, and that's been forbidden to me.

"All right." He was going along with this amiably well. "What makes you think that you can't fix what's between you and Riku?"

"It would take too much time. Time I don't have." Something easy to answer, at last.

"You're going to think this sounds incredibly sappy…" Squall rubs a hand over his forehead, very pointedly not looking in my direction. Is he embarrassed? Now I'm curious. "But—someone once told me that if it's love, there is no time limit."

Someone? Rinoa? Sounds like something she'd say.

But I don't know how to respond to it. I guess ordinarily I'd agree. I can't now. I mean, I'm going to be gone very, very soon. How can I fight for Riku? How is that fair? I can't even give him the full, proper amount of time it takes to patch that up. It'd take days, maybe weeks, maybe months. If he hadn't already moved on from me into Roxas's waiting arms, that is.

What we have now, Riku and I, we're—it's—it's okay. It's getting to the point where we can maybe, finally, start to trust one another again. And I say this lightly. In the long run? Yeah, not going to happen. I won't be here, I…

"That same person," Squall continues after a pause, and he pulls on his reigns to the right, "told me that love likes to throw obstacles at you. Do you give up when the going gets tough, or do you persevere because the person waiting on the other end is worth the struggle?"

"It's too late for that."

"If you're saying it's too late…" My companion finally looks at me, and there's barely veiled sympathy in his eyes. I'm not sure I like that pity, so I break the hold of our gaze and look to the distant line of trees. "Then you don't deserve him to begin with."

That whole "fight for what's yours," Squall?

This is all good and well, but—how the hell can I apply it to my life when I won't be here? When my situation is beyond all of this? When I'll be gone from this world? The rules don't work here. They won't ever. All the rules about life and love and—that—God damn—bullshit, I want to say, when I know it's not really—it doesn't… it doesn't mesh with what's happening to me. It's automatically null and void.

I remind myself that Squall doesn't know the whole story, so the only advice he can give me is what he'd give others. Others who aren't in my current predicament.

"What if I die tomorrow?" I ask impulsively. I lift my gaze from the scenery and back to him. He's already watching me, one of his brows furrowed. "What if I try to make amends, and I somehow fix things between us—and then I die. How is that fair to him?"

"It's not. But… who says you're going to die tomorrow?"

I shake my head, the irony not lost on me. "I'm just being rhetorical."

"We can't predict the future, Sora. We never know what's going to be thrown at us. If you die tomorrow after trying so hard to win back his heart, then… well, then that sucks. But that's life, isn't it? In the meantime, the two of you will get to have enjoyed what you had while it lasted. It might be painful if one of you is gone, but… the memories that you had beforehand… Aren't those worth keeping?"

Wow, he actually spoke a paragraph's worth of sentences. I think that's the most I've ever heard out of him at once.

"You're pretty wise, aren't you?" I laugh to try and shake off the uneasiness his words have given me. He doesn't know my situation, so his advice can't possibly be all that useful, can it? Should I just ignore it, or should I listen to it? I don't know.

Then why did I ask him for help in the first place? I'm not being fair, even to myself.

Do I want to know I fail?

Does that make this all seem more real, when I constantly find ways to remind myself that I'm stuck, that this can't be salvaged, that I've done this to myself, that I'm going to die?

"I had to learn the hard way that love is all about taking risks," Squall says at last, the words quiet and thoughtful. "And that love—real love—is worth it in the end, no matter what happens."

Wind blows past now, and it's carrying snow.

The storm is arriving sooner than I'd thought.

"Just think about what I said."

-o-o-

The drive out to my parents' house later near noon is a quiet one. Riku asked briefly where I'd been that morning, but he'd let it go once I told him I was meeting with my editor. He doesn't need to know more than that. Besides, I'm still mulling over Squall's advice. To take it or not…? A man like that doesn't seem as if he bothers to offer such a thing lightly. Even when we'd been talking, it had taken a lot out of him. I could tell just by the set of his shoulders.

I glance over at Riku as the outside world whizzes past in varying shades of white and green. His eyes are focused on the road, one elbow resting on the edge of the window, his other hand on top of the wheel.

The radio is muted, so there's only the sound of the tires going over salt and ice on the road to occupy my ears. Our luggage is safely stored away in the trunk, about a week's worth. Not that I'm even going to be here another week, but let's not make Riku suspicious by only packing for a day, shall we?

As my head settles back against the headrest, I let loose a long sigh and push my fingers into my hair. My trapper was tossed onto the backseat some time ago. The air in the car is too warm to wear it, not that I'm going to complain. Riku's vehicle has a very good heater—much better than the one I've got in my truck. God, I should replace that thing eventually. I don't know if I could bear to part with it, though…

Something painful in my heart squeezes as the ordinary thought passes through my mind. How was I going to replace the truck when…?

I squeeze my fingers over my eyes as the car follows the winding road up the start of the mountains. Mom's house isn't too far away now. We'll be there in half an hour, maybe. That's all that separates our reunion.

Five years…

Riku must sense my distress, for he places his hand over my forearm and squeezes as his other hand takes the wheel. "It'll be okay," he says softly. "I'm here."

And so, I think, is Roxas.

There. At the house. Not like I can just avoid that, him being my twin brother and all. He's there every year for Christmas with Mom and Dad. It's as basic as breathing. I'm the only estranged member of our family.

God.

"I know," I hear myself say.

Would the troubles never end?

Or was this just divine punishment instead of a second chance?

-o-o-

No one answers the door as I stand huddled before it to knock. I swiftly put my hand back down to my stomach where my other is, clutching them together for a feeble attempt at warmth.

Riku stands beside me, his face cool, impassive. I know it'll change once he sees Mom and Dad. Impassive just seems to be his normal expression when he's thinking things and not having to put on a show for anybody. Not that Riku acts at being happy or anything. He's just pretty introverted, that's all. If he doesn't put on an effort to let people see how he feels, they'll never know.

But sometimes his feelings shine through all on their own, without any push. That usually happens in the extreme of things, though—when he's touched about something, when he's bursting with happiness, or when he's fucking pissed. Though the last doesn't always burst through. He's either ice or fire when it comes to his anger. So… his expression, then, isn't always guaranteed to change except for a tightening around the lip area.

He catches me staring at him and arches an eyebrow in question.

I shake my head ("Nothing") and look away.

God, isn't anyone going to answer the freakin' door?

"Let's just leave," I say.

I've got one foot in the direction of my car when Riku puts his arm around my shoulders to halt me. "Not," he says, "after we just drove all this way."

"I can pay for the gas?"

"You're missing the point, Sora."

"Which is?"

"It's not about the gas. It's about a waste of a drive for a scenic road trip."

I pout my lip out at him. "Hey, sometimes our scenic road trips are nice."

"Yeah… when they're planned for that purpose alone."

I sigh. Obviously he's not going to let me climb back into the car to hide away from my parents. Fine. Though if the number of cars in the driveway is any indication—we're not the only ones giving a visit. Unless they've signed for a lot of cars in the last five years and didn't sell the others. Though that still wouldn't explain the laughter suddenly pouring outside in a muffled fashion from the nearby window.

Jesus, I think, and try the knob.

No wonder they didn't hear me knock.

And inside I step to my not-so-waiting family.

-o-o-

It's gotten really quiet and Mom doesn't notice I'm there until she's halfway through a joke she's still laughing about. The mirth lingers in her eyes as she lifts her head to see what the disruption is, and then she spots me.

If I thought things were quiet two seconds ago, I was wrong. That's nothing compared to what it is now.

I want to look past her to find sight of my father, but I can't make my eyes move. They're glued to her, the woman who raised me, who I pushed away when she showed the first hesitation when she found out I'm gay.

I'm an ass. I don't have any excuse for why I didn't talk to her, except that I was miserable and I wanted to stay that way. What better way to help achieve this than to push one of the people who had once been closest to my heart farther and farther away? I've had a hundred excuses over the years to keep her at that arm's length. Now, as I meet her wide, blue eyes, I can't think of any one of them.

She stands from the chair she's occupying.

I swallow.

Behind me, Riku is tense, waiting to defend me if he must.

She crosses the room, and I completely forget to breathe.