In retrospect, the first few weeks after Sora disappears are the happiest Riku will have for years. The only thing is, he doesn't know it yet.
Yen Sid's tower, where they've all gathered to plan the rescue, is full of good cheer and camaraderie. And with so many victories under their belts, why wouldn't they be? Kingdom Hearts is safe. Aqua, Terra, Ven are safe. Roxas and Xion and Lea are together again. Namine is free. The worlds are whole.
Everyone is so sure of Sora's impending return that Riku can't help but catch their optimism. He lets Lea pat his shoulder and allows the King to clasp his hands and listens to Aqua make solemn speeches about friendship, courage, the Light. Riku nods and smiles like he's supposed to. He should be flattered by their faith in him. He won't let them down. He won't let Sora down. He's a Keyblade Master, after all. If anyone can find Sora, it's Riku.
But months go by, and they don't find Sora.
They search every far-flung world, from jungles and oceans and cities to the bowels of the earth, and they don't find Sora.
They search the Realm of Darkness and its desolate coast, half-hoping the Keyblade's chosen-or what's left of him-isn't there, but they don't find Sora.
They hook Kairi up to a horrible machine that makes her sleep and they search her heart for clues, fragments of him, anything to let them know he's alive, and they don't find Sora.
They can't ignore the texts and calls from Sora's parents anymore. Riku and Kairi go back to Destiny Islands. At Sora's house they sit in the cozy living room, across from Sora's gentle-faced father. (Sora's mother would not, could not sit; she knew Riku as well as her own son, knew what his expression meant before he'd opened his mouth.)
Holding hands for courage, they tell Sora's parents that their boy, their only child, their sunshine, is gone.
One year later
And when I say you are dreaming, I am dreaming, too. -Zhuang Zhou
"I have to go back to school," Kairi announced one morning over breakfast.
In the tiny ground-floor kitchen of Yen Sid's tower, surrounded by bustling broomsticks, Riku didn't process her words right away. "School?"
"Yes. School. And you should go back, too."
Riku studied his coffee, avoiding Kairi's gaze. "We're in school, though."
"No, we're doing school work, between searching. When we have time," she added, and Riku knew she had seen the stack of incomplete assignments growing in his room.
"But it's fine. You always get good grades."
"That's not the point. Ugh!" Kairi jumped when a passing broomstick plucked her fork, which she had been twirling anxiously, out of her hand on its way to the sink. Riku tightened his grip on his mug (his wrist twinged in protest; it had been hurting him more than usual lately) and waited.
"We're juniors this year," Kairi continued, a little crease appearing between her eyebrows. She was too kind to point out that Riku was a junior for the second time now. "We need to get good grades if we want to pass our exams and go to college."
"College?" Riku said, a little louder than he meant to. Then, gathering himself: "College."
"Yes. I…"
"What?"
Kairi stared at him across the table, heat rising in her face. "I want to study sculpture. At the fine arts college on the next island over."
Silence, except for the clinking of dishes and silverware as the magicked brooms cleaned their breakfast things. Kairi folded her arms and waited. Clearly she had been working up the courage to share this news, but why?
"Sculpture," Riku repeated. The unfamiliar words-grades, fine arts, college-bumped around uncomfortably in his brain. He had been going from world to world for weeks, sleeping on the floor of the gummi ship between journeys, poring over Cid's data until he fell asleep in front of the panel. "Can you do sculpture online?"
Kairi paused. "No, Riku. I'd live on campus."
"Oh."
"And I can come back on weekends and help out."
"Come back?"
"Yes. And breaks and holidays…"
Kairi was trying to sound cheerful. Running on a few hours of sleep, on his third cup of coffee, Riku couldn't figure out what she meant by it. Then it dawned on him.
"You're leaving," he said. "You're giving up."
"No!" Kairi reached across the table and put her hand on Riku's arm, eyes searching his shuttered face desperately. "I would never do that. I just need to go back to the islands and actually be in my classes for a while, so our teachers know who I am..."
"Teachers?" Riku thundered. "Who cares what teachers think? Our best friend is missing!"
"Without recommendations I won't get into the school!"
"I don't care."
Kairi's face crumpled.
Riku looked at her, registered her hurt, her bunny pattern pajamas, and instantly felt ashamed. "I'm sorry. That was a horrible thing to say."
Lip buckling, Kairi shook her head. "No, Riku. You're tired and worried. We all are. But..."
Her grip tightened on his arm.
"I can't put my whole life on hold."
Back on the islands, Tidus, Selphie, and Wakka were going to school, dating, crashing parties, rolling their eyes at their parents, studying for college entrance exams-all the things teenagers were supposed to do. Things Riku and Kairi should have been doing.
But instead, between missions and sleeplessness and real life, Riku was barely scraping by. He was repeating his junior year and pulling Cs and Ds by the skin of his teeth, and that was only thanks to Kairi. She and Riku's father wanted him to finish high school. He didn't say it, but it was getting harder to see the point.
A year had passed. More than a year, now. People who went missing under normal circumstances, without interference from power-hungry, time-traveling demigods, were usually assumed dead after that much time.
Kairi knew what he was thinking. "If he was gone, we would know. We would feel it. Don't you think so?"
What Riku thought was that he hadn't felt a single tug on the dream-link he shared with Sora in over a year, and he didn't know what that meant. But what he said was, "Yeah. You're right."
"He's alive somewhere. He'll be okay."
Riku was quiet.
Kairi squeezed his arm again. "Don't be mad at me."
"I could never." Riku managed to conjure a smile for her. He should have been the one reassuring Kairi, not the other way around. "You should go. You're really good at art."
Kairi smiled back, relieved. "Well, not drawing. Namine got all of that. But crafting, and building things…"
"You'll be brilliant."
"Slow down, I have to get in first! Riku…" Kairi said slowly. "What do you want to do after high school?"
Riku peered into his cup again. "Never thought about it."
"Never?" Disbelief.
"It didn't seem important compared to everything that happened over the last few years."
"A lot has happened," Kairi agreed. She gave him another appraising look. "Maybe you could try-"
But before she could finish, Riku pushed himself back from the table. "Sorry. Just remembered I promised to meet up with Leon and Cid about a new piece of data. I'll be late if I don't get ready soon."
"Sure," Kairi answered, a little taken aback, but she took her hand from Riku's arm.
Upstairs in his room, as though his body was a machine someone else was piloting, Riku went to his desk. He shoved the stack of assignments, the textbooks, and the neat cursive notes Kairi had made for him onto the floor. Then came the chair, the uniform, the stupid checkered tie and school-approved bag, and finally the little magical desk lamp with its perky blue flame. It all burned so well that Riku had to retreat a few steps. He sat on his bed and put his head in his hands. The leaping flames were comforting, familiar, like warm rays of light.
Like a drowned person giving up the fight, Riku floated up through darkness. He couldn't see or speak. He couldn't move. He could only hear soft rustling noises all around him, like wind moving through trees. Little currents of air brushed across his skin-his arms, his throat, the tip of his nose, like someone was whispering into each part of him: wake up.
But it had been months since Riku had felt so peaceful. Fourteen, to be exact. The fire seemed very far away, like it had happened in another place, another time, to someone else. He could almost imagine he was lying on the shore of the Dark Meridian with-
You dork.
Riku's eyes snapped open. He rolled over, tried to push himself to his feet, and pitched forward on unsteady legs, falling face-first into sweet-smelling grass.
The soft noises around him quickened, like someone laughing, then quieted.
Riku picked himself up. It was slow going. His old injuries were flaring up, pins and needles erupting through his hip and wrist. He rubbed the wrist (just his luck to land on it) and squinted in the half-light, not believing what he saw.
Butterflies. Hundreds of them-thousands of them. There was just enough light left to see them by: blue and red, with gold lace-like patterns. The gentle chorus of flapping wings was unlike anything Riku had ever heard.
I'll still see you every day…
Riku spun around. He was alone.
It won't be the same.
A different voice now. But there was no one else; Riku was alone. Alone in this place, this dark field, surrounded by dark trees and more butterflies than he'd ever seen in his life. They filled the strange clearing, never seeming to need to land.
It's only a year. It'll go so fast.
Riku's skin erupted into gooseflesh. "Who's there?" he demanded, taking a few stiff steps forward. The butterflies spun away from him, but no one answered.
You don't get it. You don't care.
The sadness in the voice made Riku's breath catch in his chest. He came to a halt, still clutching his aching wrist, straining his ears for the other speaker.
Don't be such a baby.
As he looked around, Riku noticed a butterfly had landed on his shoulder. He eyed it apprehensively, wondering whether it was some kind of Heartless in disguise. But it looked and behaved like most butterflies did, wings lazily opening and closing.
Holding his breath so as not to disturb it, Riku held out a finger. The butterfly reached out with whisker-thin legs and climbed on. As it did, the voices came again-louder and clearer than ever, as though they were standing right next to Riku.
I hate you.
Fine.
Abruptly the butterfly flared with a brilliant, blinding white light. Riku gasped and looked away, tears streaming from the corners of his screwed-up eyes, but as quickly as the light had come, it was gone. When it faded completely, Riku realized he was home.
Home on Destiny Islands, standing on the wooden deck of his house.
The sun was setting and the air smelled like salt-and dinner, Riku realized with a pang, breathing in the smells wafting from the open dining room window. He could hear his father singing inside, probably with a little help from the whiskey jar on top of the fridge.
But something wasn't right. His body felt strange. Riku looked down at his hands and saw thin fingers, thin wrists, and a peeling sunburn. He ran those hands up to his biceps, felt-nothing. Just thin, bony arms.
Riku realized, with a jolt, that his wrist didn't hurt. He lifted it, rolled it around, flexed experimentally. Again-nothing. No twinge of darkness, no dull ache. Riku made a fist and felt tears spring to his eyes.
"How can you say that?" a voice wailed behind him.
Riku turned around.
It was Sora.
Sora as a child, to be precise.
Sora at ten or eleven years old, with scabby knees and dirty elbows and hair that wouldn't stay flat, no matter how much he combed it. Sora standing in Riku's own backyard with angry tears streaming down his face.
Riku ran down the steps. He took them two or three at a time, clumsy in that strange body. He ran right up to Sora and threw those weird skinny arms around him with every intention of never letting go.
It felt so good Riku thought he might die.
"Hey-" Sora said, trying and failing to push Riku away. "Get off me. We're not friends anymore."
"Never, never, never," Riku chanted, hugging him harder. It didn't matter. This was a dream, he'd realized. He would enjoy it while it lasted.
"Let me go or I'll-I'll hit you." Sora stumbled over the threat-probably because he'd never made one in his life. He sounded on the verge of tears again.
"I don't care."
"Stop saying that!" Sora brought his knee up and kicked Riku's leg; caught off-guard, Riku let go and sat down hard on the ground.
"You don't care about anything anymore. You don't care about the fort and you don't care about me." Sora scrubbed the tears on his face with dirty hands. "I'm glad you're going to middle school. I don't wanna be friends with you anymore."
Riku's heart made a painful thmp in his chest. Somehow, the world was collapsing. He blinked and rubbed his eyes. The red brick houses in their neighborhood, the purple evening sky, the green grass around them-they all began to melt, like paint running down a canvas.
Sora, too, was fading away. Riku heaved himself up and lunged at the small vanishing form, but it passed through him like smoke.
He was alone again. Riku bit his lip until he tasted blood. Alone, like always, in the dark.
That was who he was.
And it was obviously who he had always been.
The ground beneath his feet began to rumble. Shadows moved, coalesced, rose above Riku in a familiar form.
"Darkside," Riku snarled. In his twelve-year-old voice, it didn't sound as threatening as he'd hoped. Instinctively he held out his hand to summon Braveheart-
-and nothing happened.
Riku swore. Was it because he was dreaming? No, he had summoned weapons and fought in plenty of dreams before. Maybe it was his body-a body that hadn't learned to be strong yet, and a heart that hadn't been steeped in jealousy and hatred.
And in loyalty, and love, he reminded himself, imagining what Sora would say.
The Darkside leaned forward and batted Riku the way a cat batted a toy mouse.
Riku landed hard on his back, gasping for breath. There was nothing he could do. The Darkside picked him up by the ankle and lifted him high above the ground. Dimly, Riku heard Sora's voice-Sora crying again, somewhere in the nothingness.
I'm sorry.
I'm sorry.
I didn't mean it.
I was just trying to look cool.
Riku fell nearly thirty feet into a bruise-colored nightmare. The little body that had felt so strong just a few minutes ago shattered. He thrashed, to no avail, then began to sink.
The darkness covered his eyes and filled his mouth with the heavy taste of iron and dirt. It was swallowing him up, digesting him, taking him back to where he came from.
"I'm sorry," Riku said, with the last of his breath.
And felt a hand on his wrist.
Someone was pulling him up, up, out of the darkness. Riku couldn't make out their face, but he knew the voice. He knew it better than his own. How could he forget? He'd heard it nearly every day since he was old enough to remember anything at all.
"Who are you?" it said.
Cold rain falls on your head and shoulders. The next bus isn't for twelve minutes, and you've forgotten your umbrella at home. You try to cover your head with your purse. It's too small to make a difference. It's a foregone conclusion, you realize, your heart sinking: you're going to show up for your interview completely soaked.
"Take this," someone says beside you.
You turn around. It's a teenager with messy brown hair and a smile bright enough to power a city. He's holding out a red umbrella.
"I couldn't," you begin, but the kid shakes his head.
"The rain'll ruin your nice suit. Go ahead."
After a moment you accept the umbrella, hardly believing your good luck.
No-not luck. Kindness.
"Thank you," you say, and you mean it.
For a moment you hold the umbrella over both of you. The kid smiles sheepishly.
"Well, I gotta run."
"Thanks," you say again. "You saved me."
"No problem," the kid replies, and he jogs off into the rain.
The rain in your hair is cold, but somehow, you feel warm.
Riku opened his eyes.
He was in his own bed, in his room in Yen Sid's tower. There was no sign of the fire-no smoke, no cinders, no black scorch mark in the middle of the room. The writing desk and its little lamp were good as new. Like it never even happened, Riku thought, except for the faint smell of smoke in his clothes. Yen must have magicked it all back. Riku wondered whether he could lie his way out of the conversation he knew was coming.
Kairi was sitting on the end of the bed with a book in her lap. She hadn't changed out of her bunny pajamas. As Riku watched she brought her thumb up to her mouth and worried the nail, a habit she'd had as far back as he could remember.
Riku sat up and ran a hand over his face. Immediately Kairi's head snapped up.
"Riku?"
"I…" Riku looked at his wet fingertips. "I think I've been dreaming."
"This is real life," Kairi said slowly, eyes full of concern. "There was a fire. You passed out. I thought..."
She trailed off, watching Riku pass his hands over his arms and wrist.
"Yen Sid said you might have breathed in some smoke."
Riku touched his chest. "I feel fine."
"Are you sure-"
"Listen, Kairi. I dropped."
Kairi stared at him.
"I dropped." Riku closed his hand into a fist. "I saw him. He's alive. Sora's somewhere out there. But..."
"But what?"
Riku hesitated. For a moment he could pretend that it wasn't true, that saying it out loud would make it true. As if he didn't know the truth the moment Sora's hand touched him in the darkness.
"He doesn't know who I am."
"A year is not enough time to forget one's dearest friend."
They were seated in Yen Sid's study, where Kairi had brought Riku to recount his story. To Riku's relief, the wizard seemed more interested in the dreams than the fire.
"Furthermore, I do not understand why Sora would forget you." Yen Sid stroked his beard. "Your ventures into his dreams have left marks on his heart that cannot be erased, even by the passage of time."
"Maybe someone cast a spell on him," Kairi suggested. "Someone with Namine's powers, who can change your memory."
"It is possible," Yen Sid admitted. "I do not know that a similar witch exists anywhere else in all the worlds, but it is possible."
Kairi frowned. "Riku, are you sure it was Sora who rescued you? Did he say anything else?"
"It was him," Riku said. "Absolutely, it was him. I know his voice like the back of my hand. Who are you? That was all he said, and then…"
He hesitated. He hadn't told Kairi about the last part of the dream yet.
"Then I was someone else." He raised his eyes to Yen Sid's stern and wise face. "I was a woman, and I was late for something. It was raining. There was a city."
"A woman?" Kairi echoed. "Do you know her?"
"No. But Sora was there, and he gave me an umbrella."
Kairi smiled. "That sounds like something he would do."
"Describe the city," Yen Sid said, sitting forward in his chair and folding his hands. "It may be somewhere we know."
Riku shook his head. "It was like nothing I've ever seen. If I had to compare it to something-San Fransokyo, maybe? But much darker. Gray. Lonely."
"So Sora could be in a place like that…" Kairi mused, and they were all quiet for a few moments.
Finally Yen Sid said: "How do you know it was Sora's dream, and not your own?"
Riku hadn't thought of that. "I don't," he admitted. "Something in my heart says it was."
"I see." Yen Sid turned to Kairi. "Would you let me speak with the Keyblade Master alone?"
Kairi looked from the wizard to Riku and back again. "Of course." Briefly, she laid a hand on Riku's shoulder, then slipped out of the study.
Yen Sid looked at Riku sternly over steepled fingers. "I believe you already know what I have to say about the fire you started in my tower. So, I will not waste time saying it."
Riku held his breath.
"Simply put, you must leave. No, not forever," he continued, when Riku opened his mouth to protest. "This was never meant to be your home. Of course, you are welcome to visit...When you learn to keep your temper in check. But I cannot teach you that. In fact, I have nothing left to teach you, under the circumstances. You are a Keyblade Master now. Living here is not a productive use of your time."
In an instant Riku was on his feet. "Master Yen Sid, that's not true! Kairi and I use the library all the time, and there's a dock for the gummi ship."
Yen Sid shook his head. "You may have use of the library, if you so choose, whenever you visit. I have arranged for the gummi ship to be returned to the King-"
"Why? Why would you do that? We need it to look for Sora! We're closer than ever. I can feel it."
"Calm yourself, Keyblade Master!"
Yen Sid's eyebrows furrowed dangerously, and Riku sat down, clenching his fists.
"As it so happens," Yen Sid continued, "the King requires the vessel for his own errands."
"But why? He knows I've been using it to search the worlds…"
Yen Sid rose from his desk and went to the study window. The view from here was always a lovely one: rolling hills, blue-pink skies, and in the distance, the train tracks leading to Twilight Town with its quaint shingled roofs and elegant clocktower.
"Riku. Are you any closer to finding the Keyblade's Chosen than you were a year ago? Do not answer yet," he said, raising one hand. "Consider, then speak."
Riku scoffed and looked at his hands. He had only just realized he was in pain, and not just his wrist this time. His palms were scored with red, angry, crescent-shaped indentations. Tightening his brace, rubbing the marks, Riku tried to gather his scattered thoughts.
"Sora didn't leave any trace when he disappeared," he said slowly. "I haven't sensed any of his dreams all this time. Today was the first. That has to mean something."
"It does not have to mean something." Yen Sid turned and regarded Riku, somewhat less sternly than before. "I do not know whether it means anything at all."
"Of course it does," Riku said stubbornly. "A year of no dreams, and now this?"
"How do you know your heart did not conjure these things?"
Riku froze mid-protest.
"How do you know your heart is not trying to comfort you? Or absolve itself of the guilt you feel for failing to retrieve your friend?"
When Riku still didn't answer, Yen Sid sighed and went back to his desk. He sat rather heavily, as though the years were finally starting to get to him. "Your experiences recently have indeed been extraordinary, but most dreams are quite ordinary-commonplace. I do not know that yours have any special meaning. You dreamed of a time when you were small and weak. You dreamed of Sora's kindness. Comfort," he said again. "I would not fault your heart for wanting that."
There wasn't much to pack. Riku gathered his few pieces of clothes (hand-me-down flannel shirts from his dad, cargo pants he had never quite grown into) and shoved them into a duffel bag with his toothbrush. Th magically restored textbooks and uniform he left where they lay on the desk. Kairi's notes had not reappeared with them. Perhaps they had been nothing more than ash by the time Yen Sid arrived to extinguish the fire.
Riku closed the door behind him quietly, not wanting to alert Kairi to his presence. Her room was a little ways down the hall and he could hear music drifting from under the door. Almost tiptoeing, Riku crossed the landing and slipped inside the room directly across from his own.
It was empty, of course. In the weeks after Sora's disappearance, they had torn it apart searching for clues. All they had found was a few comic books and a pair of mouse-eared slippers Sora had stolen from Donald, long presumed missing by the victim in question. These things, and the normal trappings of life, now cleared away by the diligent brooms: crumpled up drawings and school essays, socks with holes in them, and dozens of sticky popsicle sticks. Trash Riku would have given anything to hold in his hands now, just because they had been held once before.
Riku sat down on the bare mattress and looked around. The room was in the part of the tower that received the most sunlight. It was the perfect place to lounge around, and avoid homework.
In his pocket, Riku's phone pinged. As he fished it out, a few crumpled scraps of paper came out, too, and a coin. The coin bounced onto the floor and rolled unceremoniously under the bed.
Sighing, Riku dropped onto his knees to retrieve it, wincing at the pressure the angle put on his hip. He needed every piece of munny he had to take the trolley back into Twilight Town and find a place to stay until he figured out where to go and what to do. Back to Destiny Islands, where he'd have to endure his father's drunken interrogations and dodge Sora's grieving parents? Back to school and chores? It would be easier to go back to Atlantica and live out the rest of his life underwater, as a mermaid.
But along with the coin, there was something else under there, caught between the frame and the wall.
Riku squinted at it. His arm wasn't quite long enough to reach it, so he shimmied further under the bed, wrinkling his nose at the dust bunnies the brooms had apparently missed. The object resolved itself into a crumpled piece of clothing.
Heart in his mouth, Riku closed a trembling hand around it and pulled it close to his face.
It was a shirt. Black, a little speckled with dust. Small-too small to be Riku's, too big to be Kairi's.
Somehow, in the chaos of searching, it had been missed. And then, in the aftermath of furious scrubbing and dusting, it had been missed again. Now Riku held it in shaking hands and pressed it against his face. How sad, he thought, to be forgotten for so long. Then, dimly: what a silly thing to think about a shirt.
What a silly thing to do-lying under a bed, and crying into a shirt that still smelled like its owner.