Throughout his childhood Riku had only known greyscale, which could only mean one thing: he had no soulmate.
For the luckier ones, their sight supposedly became filled with the spectrum that reflected their soulmate's emotions. Yellow for happiness or fear, he'd been told. Green for peace or envy. Blue for strength or sorrow. Red for love or anger. Of course, he'd had no idea what any of those colors looked like, but he'd taken his parents' word for it.
That, and Sora and Kairi had become unbearable once they'd figured out their connection.
"Okay, okay, guess what I'm feeling now!" Sora would challenge her on the play island.
"Hmmm," Kairi would ponder and look all around, then back at his beaming face. "I don't need to notice the paopu fruit when you're smile is so big! You're happy!"
To be fair, Sora had always been happy, and Riku couldn't blame him. He'd heard that sometimes it took years, even decades for someone find their soulmate. He'd been happy for Sora and Kairi too, genuinely, but it hadn't helped numb the pain of missing out on the piece of the sunset that everyone else could enjoy. He could feel the sun's warmth as it slowly faded over the horizon and became overtaken by the cool sea breeze, but he could only imagine what those shades of grey may have looked like to his friends.
Having no soulmate was a better fate than having one with zero emotions, Riku reconciled. He could focus on developing his own strength, and when he did have an emotional outburst, he didn't have to worry about it having an effect on some random person.
If his soulmate had existed, then whoever it was would've seen alot of green after the destruction of his island.
It wouldn't have been peace. No, he didn't feel peaceful at all. His home was destroyed, his friends were missing, and worse yet, he had to watch Sora waltz around and goof off with new friends while wielding the sword that should've been his . The disdain ate him up inside. Even before Maleficent and Ansem had taken hold of him, he'd already lost a part of himself to his envy. Maybe he'd just made his heart easier to manipulate.
After it'd been too late for Riku, and all he could do was hold Ansem back and allow Sora and Kairi to escape the castle, he imagined that his nonexistent soulmate would've seen more blue than anything.
Blue and a hint of red.
While Ansem deserved Riku's anger, Riku couldn't direct it at anyone but himself. He hated what he'd allowed himself to become, what he'd gotten himself into. And now, Sora was cleaning up his mess with a smile on his face. Maybe Sora had always been the one worthy to wield the Keyblade. Maybe Riku deserved a life devoid of color.
Then he entered Castle Oblivion.
Long hallways and empty rooms flew past him, with walls he could tell had no color. But the white walls only made the contrast in a decorative pot of flowers stand out all the more, so much so that it stopped him in his tracks.
A bright, warm, crisp color stole the entirety of his focus. He blinked several times and rubbed his eyes to be sure that it hadn't just been his imagination. Already, it had begun to fade, but it had happened.
He needed to know what color it was.
The revelation left him surprised, happier than he'd felt in months, so whoever had sent him this must be seeing alot of yellow.
Yellow.
Back on their islands, Sora and Kairi had told him that his shirt was yellow, and sure enough, a glance down confirmed his suspicion. The flowers were a much more beautiful shade, but they were similar enough. Whoever his soulmate was, they were either feeling very happy or very afraid, and Riku prayed that the former was true.
Then another revelation hit him: He had a soulmate.
He wasn't destined to be alone. However long it had taken them, they'd still found their way.
Riku steeled himself, turned, and ran further down the hallway, filled with new resolve to amend his mistakes. Perhaps he just needed to make himself worthy of one.
Neither the now-familiar yellow nor any new colors showed themselves to Riku throughout the castle, and Riku began to doubt his own sanity. After leaving Castle Oblivion, however, the next color overwhelmed his sight.
The long dirt path and grassy fields kept him company as he made his way towards the distant crossroads, right where his heart was leading him. Then, out of nowhere, the fields surrounding him came to life with a fresh, vibrant hue. He knew grass was green, but the beauty of seeing it for himself nearly brought him to his knees.
His eyes were green too, his mother had told him. Did they…look like this?
And how could a beautiful color like this represent an emotion as ugly as envy?
Like before, the hue began to fade shortly after introducing itself. He ran into the middle of the field, wanting to scream and beg for it to stay. If this was what peace brought, then Riku would selfishly do whatever it took to make his soulmate feel as peaceful as possible.
When his vision returned to gray, he waited another minute in silence before slowly standing and making his way back to the road. Naminé had promised to help Sora, and Riku still had his Darkness to overcome before he could face his childhood friend again. But eventually, after it was all over, he would find his soulmate. Eventually.
Riku didn't notice the next color until almost an entire year later. Granted, wearing a blindfold had made seeing anything a challenge. Perhaps he'd just given up on paying attention, or his soulmate had stopped feeling emotional. Or worse, maybe they just didn't exist anymore.
But as much as he tried to brush it all aside and focus on helping Sora, he couldn't ignore the sky. Outside the mansion, he'd been walking through the forest when he thought he spotted a sliver of color through the gray tree canopy. It wasn't until he reached the clearing where the mansion lived that the sky stretched above him, clear and cloudless. It was all one color, the same soft, cool tone that he assumed was blue. In a way, it did evoke strength and confidence, but he easily saw how it could bring about sadness at the same time.
His gaze drifted back down to the mansion, which was still almost entirely gray. The only hint of blue lay within the second floor window to the white room, where the blue sky reflected off of the white curtains.
He spotted Naminé standing in the window, clutching her sketchbook. He expected her to be looking outside, yet her eyes were closed shut, and her shoulders were shaking. Despite his distance from the window, he swore that he spotted tears running down her face.
She was…crying? How was that possible?
He glanced back up to the sky. Still blue. Then, a realization hit him, and his body went numb.
Blue meant sadness.
Could she be…? No, not a Nobody. DiZ had insisted that it was impossible for Nobodies to feel.
Yet there she stood, crying behind a window.
He thought back to the colors he'd seen before.
Yellow inside of Castle Oblivion where she'd been held captive and forced to do the unspeakable. Fear.
Green after liberating herself and resolving to restore Sora's memories. Peace.
They'd both been quick bursts of color, lasting no more than a minute, but perhaps that was how Nobodies experienced emotions.
The sky still shone blue with no signs of fading. If his theory was correct, sorrow still filled her, and Riku had an idea of who'd caused it.
He burst through the mansion doors and made his way to the staircase opposite to the white room, down through the library and into the hidden laboratory, where he knew the mastermind always sulked.
DiZ barely acknowledged him when he strode into the computer room.
"You're wrong," Riku said.
The man slowly turned his attention from the computer screen and regarded Riku.
"About what, boy?"
"About Naminé, about Nobodies. They do feel emotions."
The man chuckled and turned back to his work, brushing Riku off. "Nonsense, Riku. Don't let their displays deceive you."
Riku ripped his blindfold off and stomped over to the man's chair, turning it to face him.
"The sky is blue today," he began. "When you met me at the crossroads, the grass around us was green, and the flowers inside Castle Oblivion? They were yellow."
DiZ regarded him like he was speaking nonsense, and maybe he was. But he wasn't finished yet.
"Do you know how I know that, DiZ?" He pointed up in the general direction of where Naminé's room sat within the mansion. "Because the girl living in here with us felt afraid, and peaceful, and sad. Maybe she doesn't have a full heart, but she needs atleast part of one in order to feel." He stood up straight and lowered his voice. "And if she does, then Roxas probably does too."
DiZ just stared at him for what felt like minutes before bellowing out a laugh. "You think Kairi's Nobody is your soulmate? How funny." He dusted his robes off. "I appreciate your candidness, Riku, but you're mistaken."
"I'm not," he said. "Before she existed, I'd only seen shades of gray. It's the only explanation."
The man quit his laughing, looking Riku up and down. "And what if she sees no color? What would that mean?"
Riku pondered the man's question, searching for DiZ's point until he found the effort meaningless.
"It doesn't matter. Even if that were true, it doesn't change what I'm about to say."
DiZ raised an eyebrow. "Which is…?"
"I'm not treating anyone like the Nobody you think they are." He walked up and slapped his hand on the desk, where Roxas' folder lay. "I'll get Roxas for you like you asked, but I'm not forcing him to return to Sora." He backed away and took a deep breath. "And I'm not disposing of Naminé once she's no longer useful to you. If she wants to return to Kairi, that's her choice."
DiZ's expression grew more impatient. "You don't know anything, boy." His chair swiveled back to focus on his work. "Do what you will, but you'll be wrong. And you'll come to me when you realize just how wrong you are."
Riku left the room before the man could finish his dismissal. A part of him wished DiZ had never inserted himself into this mission. Riku and Naminé could've found a way to safely restore Sora's memories on their own. Now, all three of them had become wrapped up in an old man's vengeful scheme.
He had left Riku with one final curiosity, however, so Riku soon found himself standing at the door to the White Room.
"Come in," her voice called after two quick knocks.
By now his world had returned to gray. Whatever she'd been feeling had subsided, which he supposed was a good thing in the case of sadness. Her gentle gaze greeted him from where she sat at the white table The curtains had been pulled closed, but their thin white fabric still allowed sunlight in.
"Riku, I wasn't expecting you." She appeared relieved to see him rather than DiZ, which wasn't much of a compliment. Then, her expression turned downward. "Your blindfold…"
"Oh," Riku turned and quickly retied it to cover his eyes. "Don't let me disturb you. I just have a question."
She set aside her sketchpad and gave him her full attention. "Ask away."
He inhaled to keep himself calm no matter her response, and did as she said.
"Do you see color?"
Naminé slowly blinked once. Twice. Three times before glancing around the room and answering. "I…I do actually. But only some at a time. It's very strange. I see some color through Sora's memories too, of course, but even with my own eyes…" she turned her attention back to Riku. "Why do you ask? Do you know why that happens?"
She had no idea what any of it meant. Of course she didn't. No one was born knowing about soulmates, and no one had ever told her. And Riku definitely didn't want to be the one to tell her, not in the middle of all of this. He couldn't place another weight upon her shoulders.
But his theory was correct. DiZ was wrong, and they would prove it.
"No reason," he lied, thankful that his blindfold hid his eyes' deceit. "But hey, if DiZ gives you a hard time, come to me, okay?"
She tilted her head to the side. "Why now?"
"I just…the closer we get to Sora's restoration, the more obsessed he's become, and I don't like how he talks to people."
"Oh." She glanced down to her lap, where her hands folded into one another. "Well that's…very kind of you, but I am a Nobody after all. I can take it more than a person can."
"That's…that's no excuse, and you shouldn't take it. Not alone atleast. So just…tell me, and I'll keep you safe."
Naminé's gaze drifted over to her drawings again, and a small smile graced her features. He wondered if she could see any colors now, and which ones. He felt angry, and he wanted to protect her, so maybe blue and red, the later of which still evaded his sight. Or maybe they'd mixed together to form a violet that he also had yet to see. There was another sensation there too, a stir within his heart that made him want to do more. More that he wasn't ready to do yet.
"Okay, I will Riku," she finally responded and directed her smile at him. "Thank you for looking out for me."
He nodded a silent acknowledgment and exited the room.
As fate would have it, his fight with Roxas pulled Riku even farther from himself. Unleashing his Darkness had taken more of him than he'd wanted, and he'd fallen back behind the starting point to redemption. No one could see him like this. Not Sora. Not Kairi. Not Naminé.
Colors continued to visit him more and more often as time went on, but he never saw red, the final color. Either Naminé didn't have an angry bone in her body, or he was just never around anything red when she did.
In the end, it was Naminé who revealed Riku's identity to Kairi, and Kairi who revealed him to Sora. He'd been avoiding eye contact with anyone since his transformation, and he wanted nothing more than to melt into nonexistence under everyone's relieved and empathetic gazes. Together, the three of them pulled him out of hiding. He knew that he should've thanked Naminé for initiating his return to his true self, but he couldn't bring himself to speak words to her. After the explosion of DiZ's machine, more eyes fell upon Riku and his original form, yet she was absent.
He did catch her gaze when she opened a portal for them to return home. Something about the spark in Naminé's eyes told him that she'd figured out the connection between her sight and his emotions, but it ultimately didn't matter when she joined hands with Kairi and vanished. With that, his world returned to gray.
Riku didn't need to wait for the call from Ienzo to know Naminé had awoken. All at once, the colors he'd known for an entire year revisited him on the beach of Destiny Islands, overwhelming his vision and knocking him off of his feet. The ocean, the sky, the palm leaves, the paopu fruit, they all came alive at once. Even with every color between yellow, green and blue, there was still much gray around him, and it astounded him how much one color blocked off an entire spectrum.
His replica's sacrifice hadn't been in vain. Naminé would get a life in her own body.
He was in the gummi ship before anyone could think to stop him. Silencing his mind as he stepped out onto Radiant Garden, he took in the brilliant blue sky, the green grass and leaves surrounding the courtyard, and the multi-colored flowers that gave the world its name, some of which were still gray.
Then he spotted Naminé running down the steps, her golden hair framing her face even as it blew in the breeze. When her blue eyes found his, the world around him sparked to full life. The grays of the field filled in with what could only be fierce reds, oranges, and violets that his eyes had gone too long without seeing. Light color dusted rooftops, frames, and storefronts.
But none of that mattered compared to the girl before him. He extended a hand that he should have a year ago, and she accepted it without hesitation. She smiled and stepped forward, taking him in closely before giggling.
"Green." she smiled and glowed like sunlight. "Your eyes are green."
"So I've been told."
She hummed and squeezed his hand more tightly. "They're beautiful."
A/N: Thank you for reading, and happy Rikunami Week! Apologies for not publishing as much these days, but I guarantee that there will be more in the future!
I've tried to write SoKai soulmate au's, but they always end up finding out they're soulmates early on and spending the rest of the time being unbearably adorable about it.