Chapter One

Xemnas

Sora stared up at the neon lights of the place he couldn't believe he was about to enter. Surrounding the neon were giant LED panels displaying glamour portraits of five immaculately handsome men. Each one was striking a dramatically sexy pose, and large numbers, one through five, were overlaid on to their pictures. The largest panel was dedicated to portraying a perfectly chiseled, tan, silver haired man who posed with one arm draped lazily over his head and the other down by his side. He wore a lose, cocky half-smile that couldn't have been as effortless as it seemed. The bright text overlaying the portrait declared him the #1 Heartless Host. Sora wouldn't have believed there was anyway he was actually that good looking in real life if he and his best friend Riku hadn't met the man just last night.

Speaking of Riku, where was that guy?

As if to answer Sora's thought, a tenor voice said "Sorry I'm late," behind him.

"Jeez, Riku! You scared the living daylights out of me, you know?" Sora said, trying to catch his breath.

"My bad," Riku said, though Sora was already moving on.

"Hey, this is some pretty great lighting for a selfie," Sora grinned. "Without the weird men in the background, people might think we're out for a night on the town." Riku rolled his eyes.

"C'mon," urged Sora. "Didn't you say your dating profile pages need updating anyway? You still have so many pictures from when your hair was long."

"Alright, alright," Riku said. "As long as you'll calm down."

After snapping the selfie, they both stepped back and stared into the neon lights, both lost in the exact same thought. Finally, Riku said it out loud. "What are we getting ourselves into, Sora?"

"I mean," Sora said, "I'm broke."

"Me too," Riku agreed.

"So this will just be another adventure!" Sora declared. "Just one we kinda have to get ourselves into if we don't want to be broke forever."

"We're not in grade school anymore, Sora, you really don't have to be calling everything an adventure."

Sora smirked, wagging a knowing finger in Riku's direction. "Well, Riku, I'm sure you're going to get far with that sourpuss attitude of yours working at a nightclub."

Riku looked up at bright LED Panels. The five men were gone now and a promotional video was playing, welcoming gawking pedestrians into the Heartless Host Club, "where bad boys come to play."

"Some nightclub," Riku muttered under his breath.

The whole ordeal began late last night, when Riku and Sora were making their own broke boy fun, in this case, trespassing on a private beach at the edge of the city. Riku had already secretly dumped the contents Sora's flask into a public bathroom sink and refilled it with city tap water, which he hoped wouldn't kill Sora in its own way. The wasted eighteen-year-old was too drunk to notice.

"Riku, this tequila is fuckin' weak," Sora half-shouted through a hiccup.

"Yeah, so weak you can barely walk in a straight line," Riku replied, still easily sipping from his flask. "Also, keep it down, unless you're trying to get us caught."

"Oh, am I being loud?" Sora whispered, loudly.

Riku sighed. He knew a night out with Sora would be a lot to handle. All through high school, the kid had mostly survived parties by acting drunk and filling beer cans with water. Now that he was actually interested in trying alcohol, though, Riku knew he would have to be supervised by someone with his best interests in mind.

Suddenly, Sora collapsed onto the sand.

"Are you alright?" Riku called out, not sure if the action was on purpose or not.

But Sora didn't seem to hear him. He stared out to the ocean, city lights bouncing off of dark waves and into his bright blue eyes. Riku sat down next to him and followed his gaze, unsure what he seemed so transfixed by.

"Do you ever wonder what's out there?" Sora asked him.

"Um, I mean you sure could just look at a map," Riku replied.

Sora shook his head. "No, not which country is across the ocean. What life is out there. What people. What adventures."

Riku had to work to hold back in his laughter because he knew in this drunken state Sora might take it badly and cry. But he really didn't want to laugh at Sora. Just the earnestness of the question brought out something in him. "Yeah," Riku said, "I do wonder."

Sora flopped down, lying like he was about to try to make an angel in the sand. "Too bad finding out costs money," he said with a sigh.

Riku grinned and raised his flask. "To being recent high school grads," he said.

Sora raised his flask too. "With no prospects."

"Here, here," Riku chanted, and they both took a long sip. Even drinking water made Sora hiccup. Granted, he was lying down.

As Riku began to get lost in his own thoughts, Sora sprang up with a huge grin on his face. "Wanna race to the pier?"

Riku rolled his eyes. "What are you, twelve?" But something inside him did want to take Sora up on his challenge. The two had always competed against each other, ever since they were kids, and even now neither of them was ever able to pass up the opportunity to one up the other.

"C'mooon," Sora whined, pulling on Riku's arm. "You're so boring!"

"What are you doing here?" a low, silken smooth voice demanded behind them.

Both boys whirled around. The man who spoke was dressed in a black leather sleeveless vest and a white tank top. His ripped jeans clung to his toned legs, and his long bright white hair accentuated his tan skin and sharp, golden eyes. His piercing gaze knocked the breath out of Riku. Sora was the first to speak.

"We're so sorry, officer!" he shouted, waving his hands frantically in denial. "We didn't realize we were trespassing, please don't call our parents!"

The man cocked his eyebrow in confusion. "Do I look like a police officer?" he asked.

"Oh, uhh... Undercover?" Sora guessed.

The man laughed. It was deep and rich, like chocolate, but also seemed guarded, practiced. Still, Riku could feel his cheeks getting red and prayed the darkness obscured them.

"No, not at all," he said, walking past the two boys, toward the ocean. "I hope you'll forgive my question, I mistook you for someone else." He placed his hand on his chest as a gesture of introduction. "I too, am a trespasser who comes to wonder what lies beyond." As he passed Riku, his hand, perhaps accidentally, grazed Riku's knuckles, sending an electric pulse through his whole body.

"Wait, really?" asked Sora.

"That feels like a line," Riku said, unsure if he was trying to flirt back or not. He had to carefully measure his voice to make sure it didn't crack.

The man laughed again, again stirring something in Riku. "No, I assure you I'm quite serious. This city feels so small, don't you think?" he said.

"And you don't have the money to leave either?" Sora asked, a forward question to be sure, but one he probably would have still asked stone cold sober.

"Maybe I do," the man mused. "But I have... other things keeping me here."

Riku looked the man up and down again, trying to be more objective this time. His clothes were nice, so maybe he came from money. He certainly didn't look like he worked in technology, the field most city dwellers made their fortune in. His build was too muscular, and his fashion sense was too stylish. But Sora possessed no skepticism or shame.

"How did you do it then? Make that money?" Sora asked.

The man smirked. "Are you asking for my job title, or what I do?"

Sora shrugged. "What's the difference?"

"I'm a reality bender," the man replied, "a creator of fantastical impossibilities. I realize existences for people beyond their own fantasies."

"And so what's your job title?" Riku asked, not sure if he was annoyed or impressed with the flowery bullshit.

The man bowed with a wicked smile. "Host," he said. "At your service."

"Host?" Sora asked. "You mean like, at a restaurant?" Riku had no idea what he meant either.

"If you're curious," the man said, "and if you're looking for work, why don't you come to my nightclub tomorrow. If you're eighteen, that is."

Sora's eyes lit up, "Really?" he asked. Riku couldn't blame him for his enthusiasm. Despite both of their best efforts, they truly had no prospects. But even so.

"Wait, what kind of nightclub is this?" Riku asked, stepping out in front of Sora a bit.

"It's a respectable establishment, I assure you," he said, then procured a card from inside his jacket. He handed it Sora, but Riku quickly snatched it out of his hand. The man chuckled.

"It was nice to meet you, gentlemen," he said, turning to leave. "If you're interested, come to that address at five tomorrow night. We open at seven. I might have a job for one of you."

Figuring they both had nothing to lose, they agreed to show to up to the club the following night. At first, Riku had worried about this leading to anything because they never caught the man's name. But now, on the biggest, brightest LED panel, with the number one overlaid on his picture, there he was, with his name, XEMNAS, glowing bright for all to see.

A/N: Please leave a review to let me know what you think! Thank you so much for reading. Please check back very soon for Chapter 2.