Author's Notes: If shounen-ai scares or disturbs you, go away now. I anticipate a male/male pairing in the future, since there are two gay characters and they'll meet eventually.
I apologize if it seems to get off to a slow start. Certain readers can concur with the fact that I have a bad habit of leaving stories unfinished. I hope to break the standard.
If not already known, this is a first Kingdom Hearts story from yours truly. It takes place approximately one month after the end of the game. Riku and Sora returned to Destiny Islands two weeks after the defeat of Ansem, while Goofy, Donald, and King Mickey went back to Disney Castle. The "town" where our new character originates from is actually its own world(think Agrabah and Halloween Town).
I own nothing! Not Kingdom Hearts, not Final Fantasy X or IX, not even the computer this is being typed on!
Happy reading...
Across the Worlds
By Erik
Prologue: Observations of a Deviant
In one of Squaresoft's latest RPG hits, Kingdom Hearts, a major theme is darkness and light as they exist within the human heart. In keeping with the standard human conception, darkness is strongly linked with evil as light is linked to good. For the intents and purposes of this segment and all others following, evil is defined as morally wrong or wicked. Thus, good is morally excellent or virtuous. In Kingdom Hearts, good in the form of Sora, Donald, and Goofy battles with evil in the form of classic Disney villains like Maleficent and, most importantly, the Heartless. Though the villains use the powers of darkness for evil desires, the darkness, as well as the light, seems to be an independent force; it is nothing more than a tool. Throughout the game, unless I missed something, I do not recall the darkness itself ever being called evil. I believe this is because the darkness is not evil. Rather, the darkness is a tool, as is light. Good and evil are not based on darkness and light, but they come from the hearts of humans. It is those who use the two powers that are good and evil.
There is darkness in all hearts. In Ansem's Report 1, it is stated that the smallest drop of darkness can spread and engulf a heart. I agree with this assessment. The nature of darkness is to spread. The same is true of light. The heart is the battlefield of a war between darkness and light. It is the desire and will of the heart that determines the tides of the war and thus the actions of the person. If a hearts longs for darkness, then darkness shall prevail, and vice versa. The will of the heart, however, is not absolute. Like any will, it can be made to bend and give in to the darkness or the light within. The actions and words of others can affect the heart's will, as can the environment in which the person resides.
Is the light stronger than darkness? The answer is ultimately no. Light cannot truly defeat darkness, and darkness cannot destroy light fully. It is a battle, never-ending and eternal. They are a clashing balance of opposites; one cannot exist without the other. Darkness is not evil. Light is not good. Darkness just is, as light is. It is we humans that make good out of these ingredients. This is one of those simple truths that makes us who and what we are, for without these concepts, we would not be truly human.
Chapter I: Getting To Know Him
"Well, it's just like they say," muttered Tracy to the empty living room as he entered. "There is truly nothing like the morning after," he finished with a chuckle, his eyes gazing absently across the room.
It looked just as it always had appeared, though the sunlight that penetrated the curtains made it brighter than Tracy was used to. The door to the dining room was behind him, and the front door that led out into the chilly morning was to his right. Along the door's wall was a large window covered by a tan-tinted curtain. A three-seat couch rested before that window with a tiny table between the front door and its leftmost arm. That table held the telephone, caller ID, and a lamp. Another shorter couch was in the center of the room facing the big screen TV, while the computer was active in the far corner from Tracy. The walls were sporadically decorated with pictures and other ornate objects. Dog toys were around the brown-carpeted floor in certain places, but the three pets themselves were nowhere to be found.
"The morning after," the teenager whispered to himself. Walking further into his living room, his voice grew louder, since he knew there was none to hear him talk to himself. "Like a manic depressant soaring to the highest point before dropping like a meteor to the planet," he compared. "If it weren't for the terrible let-down of being alone after the fact, I'd have more sleep-overs." With that voiced to the nothingness, the young man sighed and sat down on the longer couch, brushing the hair out of his right eye.
Tracy Starlight was a fifteen-year-old boy, though he could hardly be considered normal. Many things about him seemed to be defiant against any established rules, and yet he maintained a level of conformity. Where most would bleach their hair or spike it, Tracy let his grow out and kept it out of his eyes with only a single rubber band on one side, letting the other side hang before his sight constantly. A ten-inch long braid on the back of his head also added to the sense of peculiarity about him. At that moment, his clothes were as casual as ever, consisting of blue corduroy pants, shoes, and a long, white T-shirt with an blue, unbuttoned overshirt. The only strange thing was that the overshirt's right sleeve was torn off from the elbow, but the other sleeve was perfectly undamaged. His golden class ring hung from a ball chain around his neck, a shining aquamarine resting within it. Eyeglasses rested in front of his dark green eyes, which were focused on nothing.
After about two minutes — or was it twenty? — the phone suddenly rang, much to Starlight's surprise. Before he moved over to answer it, he glanced briefly at the clock. 12:42, he read to himself. Who could it be?
To answer, he checked the caller ID before picking up. Knowing it to be a good friend, he greeted the caller, "Howdy."
"Hey, Tracy," his friend Ashlyn returned, "So, how's it goin'?"
He chuckled, "It doesn't go at all, really."
"Aw, that's too bad. Hey, I heard you had some company last night. Is he still there?"
"He left around ten," he replied, "It kinda got boring shortly thereafter."
"So, has that closet-case come out yet?"
Tracy laughed genuinely at the inquiry. "Who? Me?"
"Not you!" she laughed back at him, "We already know about you! What about Tac!"
He smiled as he thought about the previous night. Though his guest, a friend of his who went by the name Tac, was certainly heterosexual, they did speak of certain things, though Tracy remembered to keep them secret. Though the thought was tempting, a secret was a secret, and Tracy was not one to go back on his word.
"Straight as Star Street," he answered Ashlyn.
"Ah, give it time, Tracy. I'm sure he'll come out sooner or later."
"I wish I shared your confidence," he remarked. "I just don't see whatever it is you see in him. He's a little more tolerant than certain others, but I don't think he's gay. Not by a long shot."
"Ah, well... Suit yourself. Oh, did you hear that school was canceled tomorrow?"
"Yeah. Grandma called earlier. Don't ya just love February weather here in Madison?"
"Hell yeah! Maybe we'll get together tomorrow. No plans, right?"
The teenage boy laughed, "You know me too well."
—————
The light of sunset came quickly that day. The lamp within Tracy Starlight's bedroom was just bright enough to allow him to read the pages of writing he had finished scribing moments before. The boy sat at his desk, the binder containing the recently-finished paragraphs, as well as other pages of writings and observations, opened before him as he read to himself.
What draws a heart to the darkness? It has been said already that the heart's will, i.e. the mind, determines the amount of darkness or light in a heart. The will bends, causing the balance between dark and light, the balance upon which all emotion and feeling is based, to tip. What feelings are tied to darkness and which to light? Unfortunately, the views of society choose this answer for me: hate, anger, aggression, sadness, and so forth are of the dark, while happiness, love, compassion, and others are light. I loathe this view. It makes the darkness seem evil, and it is definitely not so. On second thought, emotions are only as good as the actions associated with them. Anger towards an injustice may lead someone to correct it, while one's love for another could direct one to kill to protect the object of that love. This is it. Light and darkness cause those feelings. Neither the two powers nor the feelings are evil. We humans make them good or evil with the acts motivated by them.
In trying to answer one question, another arose and was answered. The original question remains: What draws a heart to the darkness? There is a feeling — there may be a number of others — that is on both sides of this spectrum: pleasure. Another such concept is curiosity. These may provide an answer. The light is a force of brightness and illumination; it casts itself and makes things clear. In contrast, darkness hides things and throws the simplest objects into obscurity. This leads to mysteries. "What lies in the darkness?" the people wonder. Once the mystery is solved, though, the pleasure of the search ends. Fortunately for them, the dark is infinite, filled with new experiences. Darkness has a powerful lure that light, in its very nature, lacks. Our own curiosity leads us into the darkness to see what's there, and the pleasure of the experiences lead us further into darkness. For some, however, leaving becomes difficult due to the enticing nature of curiosity's need to be satisfied. Certain individuals who fulfill that need by using the darkness for harmful or unethical desires lose themselves to it. Others, such as a young writer with too much time on his hands, explore this abyss for the mere purpose of gaining knowledge and discovering new things. One thing can truly be said: the darkness is the greatest mystery of all.
"'And that, as they say, is that,'" Tracy finished aloud, though the words weren't written on the paper. Finished, he took a deep breath and stood from the chair in front of his desk, and he began to pace around the dimly-lit room.
"You think anyone would understand?" he asked himself. "No, probably not. What kind of fool spends his night writing about and analyzing the darkness, however badly his writing might turn out?" With a laugh and a shake of his head, he replied, "Me, but that's okay. No one needs to understand. It doesn't really matter if I'm right or wrong. At least I'm thinking. At least I—"
Interrupting his soliloquy, a brief thumping noise emanated from his closet, as if something fell down. His eyes instantly shifted towards the closet door, which was, to his shock, closed. Tracy's eyebrows lowered in thought as he spoke, "I never close the closet door, not unless I'm inside it." A terrible feeling of danger suddenly made itself present within his mind as he stepped towards the door. "What could've...?" Without thinking, he grabbed one of the various non-lethal weapons sitting against the wall next to his closet door. The weapon chosen was his favorite, a four foot-long, one inch-thick wooden rod that looked like it should be in the closet with coats hanging from it instead of in the hands of a fighter. Though the wall over his bed held three real swords, he did not feel the need for something that was truly deadly.
"Let's see what's in there," he whispered, and Tracy opened the closet door to be confronted by—
Nothing.
"What?!" he half-shouted, stepping forward and pulling the single string hanging from the ceiling to turn the light on. Even with the light, he could see nothing that could have caused the sound he heard. He was about to double-check when Starlight suddenly felt a cold chill across his skin from a sudden breeze of icy air that came from above. He grunted quietly as he shivered from the eerie wind, and on instinct, he looked up, nearly collapsing in horror at the sight he spied on his ceiling.
It was a swirling darkness.
"Holy!" he shouted, leaping backwards as far as he could from the closet. The staff was readied instantly, though he couldn't imagine what good it would do, but when something small and black dropped from the vortex, he knew that a wooden rod was better than nothing. The dark mass began to take a morbidly familiar shape, especially for someone with his interests; Tracy could only stand by and watch as the Shadow creature came to being before his very eyes. One solitary word rang through his mind like an alarm, blaring and repeating loud and clear through his being.
Heartless... Heartless... Heartless...
