AN: this chapter features grief and death of the abuser.

"I'm supposed to be happy right now, so why…?" Why would he cry? Why did this body react without his will? The teardrops rolling down his cheeks weren't his own, right?

Behind him, grass crunched beneath heavy feet.

"Goddammit." Vanitas didn't even need to look. "What do you want from me?"

"What are you doing?" asked Riku, the biggest annoyance in the entire damn universe.

Vanitas refused to turn around to the boy standing behind him, instead opting to bury his face in his hands. "What do people even do at a grave," came out muffled from both his hands and snot. Bodies were so gross when they got emotional.

"Normally, I'd say people pay their respects, but in your case, desecrate it, probably? Since you haven't trashed it yet, I have no clue what you're doing here."

Riku still hadn't noticed his shaking on his knees, wonderful. Next on his bucket list Vanitas could learn how to wash grass stains out of trousers.

"Go away." Vanitas patted his many pockets, found nothing, and so he wiped his eyes with his jacket. The movement evidently drew Riku's attention, who frowned deeper than his standard expression.

"Are you crying?"

"No, I'm not," replied the liar with red-rimmed eyes and a clogged nose, "Why should I?"

"Why visit Eraqus' grave?"

Being a smart lad, Riku decided against questioning the crying. If somebody said they're not, even when they obviously were, then that's the best course of action. Still, Riku acknowledged that hanging around the grave of a guy he hated is kinda weird.

"Just checking."

"Checking what?"

"That they're dead."

So that's it. "They?" If somebody talked about Master Eraqus and mentioned a "they", there's really only one other person who included in that statement. "You mean Xehanort."

By now, the shaking of Vanitas' chest subsided, to be replaced by expected hostility. "You can never be too sure that bastard is dead."

"I saw him off, so I'm sure he is. There's no coming back for him."

"Good." Vanitas ground his teeth. Even so, his eyes watered again.

"He was all you had, wasn't he?"

Finally, Vanitas rose from the soft grass. Not even bothering to wipe off the dirt, he pointed a hand at Riku in accusation. "Don't talk like you know what he did to me!"

Riku, in return, held up his own hands in what he hoped was a placitating gesture. "I know. He was a bad person-"

Vanitas crossed his arms. "Understatement of the year."

"-but you're still allowed to grieve, even though he was evil."

"Grieve?! I'm, I'm not-" for the first time, Riku managed to fluster Vanitas. He stomped in place and pulled his hair, until settling on a shallow facade of spite. "I'm not grieving him! I'm glad he's dead! Overjoyed!"

"It doesn't look like that now though."

"Oh, what do you know! You're just- just projecting! You're so sad Sora's gone when everybody else is busy moving on with their lives, so obviously everybody else has to be secretly grieving something because you can't be the only sad pathetic loser here." With each word, Vanitas' voice grew in volume.

He stalked closer to Riku, and when they came face to face, Vanitas pushed him as hard as his current state would allow. Riku stumbled backwards, barely catching himself before hitting the ground. "Get over it and get away from me."

Vanitas might've turned tail then to walk away to who knew where, but no quick enough to leave Riku's parting words. "And I think you're just running away from your feelings. You're pretending freedom is all you need to be happy when you're really just sad and lonely."

I'm happy, Vanitas told himself. Just look at the past few weeks! I've been to so many worlds, I've done so many things.

And everywhere he went, people would ask, Sora, is that you?

And he would reply, No, just a similar face.

It didn't sting that they always left.

It didn't sting that one of the only people he had a connection to wasn't here today.

Sora left a piece of his heart wherever he went, and so Sora found home everywhere.

There was a time before Vanitas realized Xehanort was a bad person. Before he knew leaving a child to fend for himself in the desert under the guise of training was a bad thing to do. Back then, Vanitas wanted desperately to make him proud.

Because Riku was right. He was the only person Vanitas had. The only person who wanted him, even if only to use him.

Vanitas hated Xehanort now. But some small part of him still felt that attachment, and he hated himself for it.

Vanitas didn't need connections.

Vanitas wasn't lonely.

AN: I feel like putting an AN after this chapter is kinda important, so I'll copy what I said on ao3, even if it's a little lenghty:

Just to clarify: grieving somebody is not the same as forgiving them. Vanitas' feelings toward Xehanort are incredibly complicated. Vanitas didn't start out cartoonishly evil; he started as an amnesiac pre-teen with a manipulative caretaker. And by the time he realized as much, that caretaker was the only figure in his life that wanted him. He had nobody else. And children do often want to make their parents proud, even if they aren't exactly the best.

The Vanitas of this fic is incredibly isolated. You may notice that he has exactly zero positive relationships here. So, of course he'll grieve one of the only connections he ever had, even if it was a bad one. A word for everyone: feelings do not have moral value. You're allowed to love or grieve bad people. You can love somebody and hate them at the same time. Sometimes there are even people who are nice to you but terrible to everybody else! You're allowed to like them for being nice to you while hating them for what they do to others at the same time. Feelings are complicated, yo.