Disclaimer: I own nothing but my body, I think. Or so the Transcendentalists would have me believe...

XD XD XD YES! WE BOUGHT A PS2! +dies+ I'm so friggin' happy I'm gonna explode. ^___^ Now, I know what you're probably thinking: "If she just bought a Playstation, then how does she know so much about the game?" Simple. I wasted about $60 renting it for two weeks. That's exactly how long it took me to beat the damned thing, and my dad shelled out about $20 for a memory card so we didn't have to leave it on pause all night and risk another power outage (living in FL, it's bound to happen, and it did, right after I'd gained access to Agrabah. I was ready to have a seizure.). But now it's mine! All mine! Well, and my sister's too, I guess. And I don't even get to use it 'til Christmas. . BUT AT LEAST IT'S THERE!

BTW: Snowy- It /will/ get fluffy and romantic. Mark my words. Just not yet. Gotta set things up first.

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'FUCK! What the hell was that? What's going on? Was that... Real?'

Sora ran down the ladder connected to the treehouse and headed straight for the Secret Place. 'Oh, this is bad, this is bad...' He got to the back of the small cave and slumped down against the cold stone. His mind and heart were racing. Had he actually enjoyed that?

'But... But Riku's a /guy/. Guys aren't supposed to like other guys.' His shortness of breath surprised him. Had he really been running that fast? Or was he just caught up in the passion.....? These feelings confused him more than anything ever had. He was torn between reality and morality. They reality being that he /might/ actually like Riku back. The morality being that liking another boy was flat wrong.

Tears that had started in the treehouse slid silently down his cheeks and splashed onto his shirt. 'God. What am I supposed to do? I... I think feel for him too. Could I love-? But what about Kairi? Don't I love her? I don't know anymore...'

Sora had spent the last two years of his life searching for Riku. He just wanted his friend to be all right. He'd known the other boy his whole life; it was only natural that he go look for him, right?

"Take care of her for me."

But Riku had told him to take care of Kairi... Hadn't he? So... Why had Sora abandoned his promise to look after the girl he 'loved' and looked for his best friend instead?

Because he knew that he loved him. He /knew/. Love, to him, was not to be taken lightly. What he felt for Kairi was hormones at best. What he felt for Riku, though, was much deeper. For a long time he'd thought it was just a great friendship. In a way he had /forced/ himself to like Kairi. His idle daydreams about Riku being anything more than a friend should've been pushed out of his mind by thoughts of Kairi.

But they weren't. In fact, they became more frequent. So he freaked out and tried to stop thinking about Riku altogether. But that's really hard when he saw him every day. He became a bit withdrawn from Riku shortly before they were to depart on the raft. Pretty much the only contact they had was during their swordfights. Things were beginning to return to normal in his mind until that night, two days before everything happened.

"You wanted one, didn't you?"

When Riku had given him a Paopu, he immediately thought it was meant for him and Kairi, though Riku had mentioned no names (which he now mentally noted). It was like a nail in the coffin. Riku did not, would not, could not ever love him back. He became even more withdrawn from Riku the next day, trying to accept this fact. His races brought him great satisfaction when he won, but that initial loss was devastating.

"The winner gets to share a Paopu with Kairi."

Crap. So if he lost then he would lose his sweet distraction and be forced to watch the one he loved be with the one he wanted to love. He did all he could think to do. He ran. He ran his ass off. But he still lost. Even Riku's claim that he was joking offered him no consolation.

But Riku /had/ been joking. Sora didn't know it, and at the moment was too crushed to realize. He once again overlooked a small but important detail. The tone in Riku's voice, though careless, had an underlying sound of concern, and even hurt. He didn't mean to hurt Sora. That was the /last/ thing he wanted to do. Sora knew nothing of Riku's own competition for the boy's heart. That evening, he decided to stay away from him and try to reassure himself of his relationship with Kairi.

"Let's take the raft and go. Just the two of us!"

His conversation with her that night had been a strange one indeed. She wanted to go away with him. Good. That was his goal, right? She liked him, and it showed. But... He couldn't leave Riku behind. Even if it meant risking his very sanity, he wouldn't leave him after all they'd been through. Kairi's comment that Riku had changed struck him a bit off-guard, but it made him think. Yes, Riku /had/ changed. He'd become even more withdrawn than usual; living deeper in his fantasy worlds about getting away from the islands. What Sora found even stranger was the fact that this behavior had started around the time Sora had tried to avoid Riku. Sora's remark that it was Kairi who had changed was merely a way to bail himself out from the situation.

"Maybe..."

Kairi's voice sounded sad, almost knowing. Could she have known? Was she trying to get him away from Riku? To divert his attention from her competition? This was all making sense to him now in a strange, twisted way. They had been competing over him while he had been competing with his own heart.

Sora sank into the ground and licked his lips. They still tasted like Riku, mixed with his own tears and pain. 'I love you... I'm so sorry.'

So, in light of new evidence, if Sora loved Riku so much, what had caused him to say such hurtful things at a time when he /should have/ been overjoyed?

Panic. And fear. He was afraid of what admitting he loved Riku would mean. It was that 'I know this is right but society will shun me' kind of mentality that said those words, not him. He had hurt him to avoid him, and now he hated himself for it. 'I never meant to hurt you. I never meant to try.'

He looked across the cave through the filtered sunlight to the old drawing of Kairi and himself. "How foolish I was." He threw a rock at the image of his own face, making a scratch across it. 'Good.' He thought. 'Good.'

Sora stood and brushed himself off. He needed to find Riku now, if only to apologize to him. He cycled through his mind thinking of places he might be. Knowing what he did about Riku, he assumed two things of his whereabouts. 1: He wouldn't be in the treehouse, because he had been hurt there. He wouldn't want to dwell on it in the place it happened, or at least didn't want Sora finding him there at the moment until he'd thought things through. 2: He probably didn't want to be seen by anyone else yet, so he wouldn't go somewhere obvious, like the Paopu tree.

Sora pondered for a moment, then left the cave and headed to the other side of the island.

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Yes, I know this chapter is shite. I was getting tired of writing at the end. I actually wanted to move off the angst and write some fluff. My God, did I just say that? +checks her temperature+ I think I may be dying! I actually wanted to write fluff! Oh, dear God, no! Oh well. I shall proceed with the fluffiness soon enough, my dears. Pleasant RikuSora filled dreams!