I had a dream again. Aren't I supposed to eat them? Only his, I suppose. Just another instance where I was his glorified protector. If only those creatures were real. I would want them to make sure to sate themselves on every dream I have. I don't need any of them.
I don't need any of this. My heart should just give up like my brain has, instead of seeing fragile possibilities that could never come true in my life. I almost want to cut it out, but I've gotten this far. I have to keep telling myself that.

Just once, I want him to look at me.
Am I a fool? Definitely not as big of one as he is, so I think it's okay.

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Through the blue eyes of

I know he's had a hard time. Though I can be oblivious about most matters, I can see it in his eyes. I've always known him, so I can read his eyes like a pop-up book.
When I thought I had lost him, my heart faltered. I am only as good as my friends around me. He was my best friend, no one could ever compare to that. I wish he had known that then. Maybe things wouldn't have gone as wrong. I could have grabbed onto his hand and reassured his worries of being replaced. Riku could never be replaced. He calls me an idiot, but by thinking I would ever replace him, I think he's just as much of one.
Before then, had I reached out enough I could have grabbed his hand tightly. I wouldn't have let the darkness drag him away from me. If the darkness refused to release its grip, then I'd just have to follow his path and lead him to the light without ever letting go. I blame myself a lot, but I know he blames himself too. No matter how much he smiles at me, there is always a tinge of sadness in his eyes.
Though I may be able to tell how he feels on a simple scale, I can't actually see that deeply. I can't place his every expression, but I can try to piece it together through the ones that I can. He's still burdened with something no matter how much he tries to hide it.
When I think about it, he's always had some sort of reservation around me. I want to understand what it is and how I can help break down that barrier, but I don't want to frighten him.
For now, I have decided to do what I do best and just be there for him. I can be by his side again, and this time I won't let anything happen to tear us apart. Little by little, I hope he can open up to me. I will accept him no matter what demons he's intent to hide. I've already seen the worst of him, anyway. I wonder what it could be.

Seeing the boy with moonlight in his hair smile made the whole trip worth it. He loved nothing more than to bring smiles to others, and though Riku smiled often, Sora would like for him to smile even more. As Riku observed the area they were about to climb down to, Sora only watched his face for any hint of change. He could only see excitement in the larger boy's face.
Just like old times. Sora felt like he had made some sort of progress with his friend, tearing down his walls one by one.
Riku then looked over at his face with the very same expression. Sora had to look away after a moment of that smile. Something was overwhelming about it, though he couldn't figure out how.
Riku noticed this and quickly asked, "Are you alright?" His voice was dripping with concern.
Sora snapped back to reality and returned his gaze. "Yeah. Yeah! Ready to go?" He thought for a moment and then made sure to add, "No racing this time."
Riku nodded slowly. "Alright, alright. I get it. Safety first." He opened one eye to catch Sora's reaction. "For once you are using sound logic, you know."
Sora frowned. "I'll have you know that I use logic all the time!"
Riku chuckled. "Yeah, yeah. Let's go." He started to climb down the path before Sora even had a chance to react.
"Hey! Don't think I can't tell when you're mocking me-Wait up!" Sora followed suit, trying to be careful yet fast enough to keep up with Riku's descent. "Be careful."
Riku looked up at him curiously. "You do know that I'm more careful than you ever are, right?" He sighed. "The one who should be taking that advice is you. Don't hurt yourself."
Foolishly, Sora had let himself take that as a challenge even though it had been anything but.
"I'll show you you don't need to worry about me getting hurt!" He stopped holding on to the side of the steep hill, instead opting to slide down on his shoes.
He easily passed by Riku's spot, as his way was a faster one.
Riku looked very alarmed. "What are you doing?! How is that safe? Sora!"
"I'm fine, I'm fine. This is fun! Don't worry so much, Riku. You'll get wrinkles." Sora smiled to placate the other boy. So far so good.
Riku was not placated. "Please, Sora. Grab my hand. Stop being reckless!"
"You really do act like a mom." Sora sighed, still wearing a smile. He managed to come to a stop on a lower ledge, not that it was very wide, but it was something. "I'm fine, see?"
"Don't move. I'll be there soon." Riku's words were frenzied and authoritative. He did not want Sora moving even an inch.
Sora scoffed. "I'm fine! I'm not a kid anymore, so stop treating me like one!"
Riku's descent slowed. Had he been treating him like a child? He had only wanted him to be safe.
"I'll stop treating you like a kid when you stop acting like one!" He was surprised at his own words. He really had been thinking of Sora as a child. He quickly sounded apologetic. "Just... I'm coming down. Stay put." Was all he offered, and resumed his earlier pace.
He admitted it! Sora was sad to have his fear confirmed.
"Stupid Riku." Don't. "I can get by just fine on my own." Stop. "I've had to do it for quite a while now already!" Why am I saying this?
Riku was stunned into silence, his face becoming as cold as a frozen stone, letting no readable reaction surface. His hands betrayed him, however, as they started to visibly shake, causing his hold to become ever so lessened. He had stopped moving, seemingly putting all of his effort to stay as still as possible. It wasn't working.
Sora regretted the words before they even left his mouth, and yet he had still said them. He couldn't hold them back. He was bitter that Riku had left him, and he couldn't contain it forever.
But why did I have to say it like that? He berated himself. He could see Riku's usual collected demeanor change in a way that he hardly ever saw.
Is he... is he afraid? That was all Sora could think, his surroundings disappearing from his priorities. "Riku, I-" He was cut off after taking a slight step forward towards him. He shouldn't have forgotten where he was, but he had for one moment and that was all it took. Sora's balance was thrown off, and he overcorrected it. Before he could even realize what was happening, he was falling back.
As he fell, he had plenty of time to think during the moments he wasn't hitting the ground and stones, tumbling further and further down.
Maybe this wasn't the best idea, after all. Sora felt like a fool for letting himself get so worked up. He almost laughed. I really have been acting like a spoiled child.
"Sora!" Riku's voice tore at his vocal chords as every single worst fear came true right in front of him. Without a moment's hesitation, he let go.
Sora was having a hard time staying conscious after all of the injuries he had sustained and was sustaining even now. This hill... is taller than I... thought... His sight dimmed and he accepted the oncoming sleep.
Once he opened his eyes again, he was on the ground. Is the falling over? He moved his eyes a bit, accepting it as truth once he realized the only movement going on was from his dizziness.
But he felt warm. It didn't hurt as much as he thought it would. He knew his body wasn't in the best shape right now, but he had expected a lot worse from that fall.
Sleep threatened to overtake him again, and he was so exhausted that he almost let it, until he remembered.
"Riku?" His raspy voice managed at least that much. He tried to push himself up, but his arms were in too much pain. I have to find Riku. His mind was set on only that, but then he noticed something once his dizziness had subsided: he was still moving up and down ever so slightly.
"Huh...?" Fighting the fog in his mind and vision, he tried instead to listen.
He heard only ragged, pained breaths. They weren't his own. Lifting his head what little he could, he found the source of the warmth he felt since awakening.
Riku's body looked broken underneath him. Every breath he took sounded like it might be his last.
"Riku!" Sora rolled over, grunting as he fell on the ground beside him. He crawled over to his best friend. "Riku! Riku!" Tears started to spill without constraint. "Wake up! Riku!" He lightly shook his friend's shoulder, hoping it wouldn't hurt too much. I have to wake him up.
"Please..." Sora pleaded to him. "Wake up..." It was reduced to nothing but begging now. He sat on his battered knees, hardly feeling the pain as adrenaline pumped through his veins. He tenderly lifted Riku's head and placed it on his thighs, thinking it would give his friend at least a little comfort.
Riku grunted in pain for being moved, or rather just by being conscious at all. His eyes barely opened and the ragged panting continued. He moved his lips to talk, but nothing but a few raspy sounds escaped his throat.
"Riku!" Sora was excited but still very much afraid. Riku was in terrible condition. He held him in place with his arms, cradling his head.
Riku's eyes fluttered, trying to focus. They eventually locked with Sora's and didn't stop.
"Riku? Riku, can you hear me?" He barely managed to nod in reply, never breaking his gaze with Sora.
"Riku, why are you here? Why are you hurt? I was the only one who fell." Sora couldn't stop his questions from overflowing. He didn't understand what had happened.
Soon realizing Riku couldn't answer all of that at the current moment, he instead settled on a different question: "Are you in pain?"
Riku slowly smiled. In-between his labored breaths, he once again tried to answer, but still no words could be heard.
Seeing Riku like this was tearing Sora up inside, and he was already more than torn up enough on the outside. "Hold on. I think I can help you a little." He mustered what concentration he could, and suddenly a faint green glow emitted from his hands. The hands were already in contact with Riku's head, so it didn't take long for the effect to start showing.
His body was bleeding considerably less now, several wounds stitching themselves closed with muscle and skin fiber.
Likewise his breath became more shallow and calm. He closed his eyes peacefully, given reprimand from most of the pain.
Sora sighed in relief. "I'm glad I can at least still do this." Still cradling Riku's head, Sora's eyes started to droop. I guess I used up all of my energy. He nonchalantly thought to himself.
Now that Riku wasn't in such a dangerous condition, Sora let himself relax a little and closed his eyes.
The two stayed like this for a while.

Sora ended up falling asleep from exhaustion and yet managed to keep his general seated position, with the exception of his upper body leaning forward as gravity took its toll. Riku had been awake and hadn't been able to fall asleep no matter how hard he tried. There was no way he could calm himself down this dangerously close to Sora. He kept as still as possible, mostly due to the crippling fear this position gave him, daring not to move. His eyes were strained, locked on the face mere inches above his own. He didn't get a terribly lot of breathing accomplished. If ever there was a trial to test his will power, this would take the cake. Every second felt like it would never end, and Riku fought internally about whether or not to wake Sora up. On one hand, he had only dreamt about such a scenario with Sora, but on the other he didn't know how long he could hold himself back from doing anything that went beyond the line of friendship.

Whatever remnant of pain he felt from shielding Sora during the fall went unnoticed. There was already a sensory overload in place, and he couldn't focus on more than this. There was no longer any way to contain his feelings, so he decided to wake Sora up to keep that from taking place.
Sora felt a tug at his cheek. Opening his sleepy eyes to find the source of the feeling, he spied a rigid Riku. His mouth was a hard line, holding everything back while his eyes were strained and wide, revealing the fear his lips did not tell of. Sora's foggy mind couldn't link together why his friend had such a face, and all of his alertness would need to be focused instead to his own mouth. Riku had been pulling on the edge of it and hard.
"Ow! Ow, ow , ow, ow, ow. Riku, whad awe you doin?" Sora tried to speak with a thumb in his mouth and didn't move. Riku's eyebrows furrowed in annoyance. He pulled even harder now.
"Ow! Shtop id! Why-I'm shorry for whadeber I did, okay, sho shtop-" Giving up on Sora moving away of his own accord, Riku had pushed his face back with a bit too much strength. Sora's body threatened to topple backwards, but he was finally a good distance away from Riku's gaze. "Wha-Whoa!" Managing to right himself, most of the fog had cleared from his sleep-addled mind, not that it did anything to alleviate his confusion. It was his turn to furrow his brows in anger.
"Riku! Why were you-" He paused when the source of his outburst had disappeared from the spot he was sure he still occupied. Then he spied the other boy a fair distance away in his peripheral vision, dusting himself off and standing as well as he could with his remnant injuries.
He glared at him. "Was that really necessary? You could have just gotten up without doing that to me. You really make no sense sometimes." Sora exhaled deeply, closing his eyes. After a few seconds of silence he tentatively opened them to see whether or not Riku had taken his complaints to heart. His face was... difficult to read. Usually by now he had some comeback to throw Sora off, but none came, so he was left trying to decipher his expression. He hadn't been looking at Sora. Riku seemed alarmed as if he had realized something.
"Riku? What's wrong?" Sora started to get up until he felt the pain that reminded him of the fall. "Ow, ow, ow. Okay, getting up is not in the cards right now." He noticed Riku walk over to him, no doubt to help. Looking up at his face, he got an inkling of why Riku had been so anxious. His lips were moving but there were no words to accompany them.
"Riku...?" The worry in his tone was obvious. Riku turned his face away.
"Can you... still not talk?" A solemn nod was Riku's only response as he kept his gaze on other things. Sora was worried about the other boy, and tried to help in the only way he knew.
"So that's why there has been a significant decrease in your cocky attitude." Sora prodded at him with a joke to relieve the tension. Riku immediately set his eyes back on Sora and opened his mouth no doubt to voice some heavy objections, but of course none would emerge. Sora laughed a bit.
"You're a lot more bark than you are bite, huh?" He could see the other boy growl, flaring his canines into view.
"Um, I mean-Don't bite me!" He pleaded. After a few moments where no biting occurred, he looked up to see his friend's shoulders shake with silent laughter.
At least he isn't growling at me anymore...