Disclaimer: Not mine.

Warnings: Some yaoi, weirdness, angsty, kind of AU.

Probably part 1 of 2 or 3. First time writing Kingdomhearts fic.

Please read and review.

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Sora tugged madly at the chains binding him to the wall. When he found the resistance just as strong as ever yet again, it finally sunk in that he had no chance.

"Heh. Finally come to terms with your destiny, eh, Sora?" sneered Riku, just inches away from his face.

No.

Not Riku.

Riku was gone.

Forever.

"Get away from me," Sora spat, his voice breaking as tears welled up in his eyes.

Damnit, Riku, you ruined it. You ruined everything. It wasn't meant to be this way. None of this was ever supposed to happen.

"Aww," mocked Riku. "Is the big hero uncomfortable? Would you like me to change that for you?" He moved closer.

Sora backed away in rage, his breath coming in ragged gasps. "I said, LEAVE ME ALONE."

Well, buddy, I hope you're happy now. Happy now that I'm broken and alone, how you always saw yourself to be.

You even lied to yourself. That's sad, Riku.

Yes, you always had to be the big dramatic. The center of attention. The best. Well, you certainly got my attention. You had me at your beck and call from day one. You were my idol, and I worshipped you with everything I had.

And where are you now? What have you done with the faith that so many bestowed upon you without question?

You betrayed it.

You left me.

And now you're never coming back.

"I think you need to be taught another lesson, boy," Ansem hissed, letting his true form emerge.

He was never good enough to even merely lay his eyes upon your body, much less steal your soul and lock it away. I hate him. I hate him with every fiber, every shread of my being.

And I hate you, too.

You had to be weak. You always put up that facade, that mask of ice that never let anyone through.

But that parasite broke through your steel, far too easily.

You let the darkness eat you from the inside out, you idiot.

You never even saw it coming.

The ice blocked your vision constantly.

That stupid, ever-present wall between you and the rest of the world that you tried your very best to make impenentrable.

But there was something I never told you.

You messed up.

That's a shock, isn't it? That you, the most perfect, godlike being to ever walk the earth, would have your walls breached by a simple human boy, on a day like any other.

But it was different, somehow. It was different because that day, that day I saw you. The real you.

And I fell in love.

Ansem stopped, and looked at Sora through golden eyes. Eyes that were empty, just like his heart.

"Are you ready?" he asked. Sora tensed up.

No. I'm not ready. Not ready for any of this. But I don't really have a choice.

Just like my heart didn't.

"No," Sora just barely managed to breathe out.

I wasn't prepared, Riku. Why couldn't you understand that? Why did you have to do this to me?

I hate you.

I'm crazy about you.

But you aren't here.

I'm forced to talk to myself like a fool, for I still mourn you, and it hurts. It hurts like nothing else I have ever felt for anyone else before.

Only you.

I won't let myself be lost like you were, my love, for I am stronger than you were. My heart needs no walls.

Sora raised his head, his eyes suddenly crackling with determination. "But I will fight you to the death. Because unlike everyone else," he whispered, "I remember."

And I do.

I remember the way the sun reflected off your sparkling hair, the way your eyes twinkled when you had an idea, even the way you would look at me when you thought I wasn't watching.

I remember everything about you.

And I remember that day.

The day I fell for you.

They say a person's eyes are windows to their soul. They are right.

It was just another day, filled with the same things as always. We would laugh and roll about on the sand for hours, stopping occasionally to fight or swim.

Those were the best days of our lives, though we never knew it until they were taken away from us.

Another bitter irony.

You were the first to tire from our daily routine, our way of giving life meaning.

You started to drift away.

I was so worried. My whole world revolved around you. Sometimes I think it still does.

We searched all your spots, Kairi and I, but we couldn't find you anywhere. Deciding to split up, she took one side of the island, and I the other.

And so I went to our traditional sparring area, only to find Tidus and Wakka engaged in battle. You weren't there. Neither of them had seen you, either.

I remember looking hopefully toward the paopu tree, your tree, and finding disappointment once again. Frustratedly, I had taken one of the legendary fruit and chucked it toward the waterfall.

I heard it clang against the top of the shack, and knew I hadn't been strong enough. When I retrieved it and was washing the sand off it in the pool, the slightest hint of a footprint from a creature that had been heading toward the base of the tree caught my eye.

Yes, I had thought. The secret hideout. I had not entered there for years, not since you, Kairi, and I were very young. But why would you be there, of all places?

I walked to the entrance of the neglected spot and walked inside.

Right now, I feel an overwhelming homesickness for the spot I had never cared about. I want it back. I want it all back.

But it will never come to me, and I cannot go to it.

It is lost.

Just like you.

I had crawled noiselessly inside, to find you running your fingers across a carving on the wall. Something was not right. I could tell that simply by the feeling in the air.

But the thing that was truly the sign that the world had gone wrong, was sliding down your cheek.

A tear.

My whole universe is now inside out. All from one tear.

"Riku. . . . ."

At my whisper, your head turned, and our eyes locked.

For what seemed an eternity, my vision was filled with the picture of your soul.

It still haunts me.

I saw in your eyes, the eyes of a being not from this earth, the eyes of a being for whom everything was perfect and mother nature obeyed every whim, a small child, lost, alone, and frightened to death.

Time stopped somewhere in there, and waves of confusion and sadness crashed against my heart, all blurring together incomprehensively.

But I remember it all, just as clearly as I remember you.

Before I knew it, your lips were on mine and we were gripping each other as if for life itself.

You pulled me to the ground and pinned me, us making out fiercely, your tears starting to overflow onto my face as well. You started to strip me desperately, and I have no doubts that I would have lost my virginity to you then and there had we not been interrupted.

I would have been readily willing, too.

Anything for you.

Your wish was my command.

But then the ever resonating voice of Selphie interrupted our moment. She had gasped our names upon seeing us as she entered to do her own secret little activities. I hate her, as well.

The moment was lost, but the memory lived on, as it even still does.

As you slowly untangled yourself from my body, your aqua orbs drifted up to meet my own brilliant blue ones, and something changed between us.

What exactly it was, I cannot say.

But it was in that moment that I realized why you mattered so much to me, why I would give up the world for you.

I adored you. I worshipped you.

And I loved you.

And those feelings expanded to an alarming size over the span of a few seconds.

But we never spoke of that again.

You would come to sit with me some evenings, when no one else was watching. But you never said anything to acknowledge that something had happened between us.

I remember, it was one of those nights, when suddenly I burst into tears, the confusion becoming too much to bear.

I was happy, sad, angry, desperate, and longing all thrown into a horrible mixture.

You looked at me in alarm and asked me what was wrong.

With one look at you, my emotions overwhelmed me and I ran.

I ran away from it all.

But I should've known that it was destined for you to follow me.

Just as it was destiny that I ran to the most obvious place on the entire island.

The paopu tree.

You caught up and grabbed my shoulders, shaking me. My tears would not stop.

I think it was more out of desperation than anything else that you kissed me.

Only this time around, I was the one on the brink.

When we came up for air once again, you cupped my chin in your hands, and looked into my soul.

Just as I had yours.

I am still not sure what exactly you saw there.

You climbed up the paopu tree and retrieved a fruit. You looked at it, then at me, then back at the fruit again. You made a decision. You broke the paopu in half.

And offered one of the halves to me.

With that simple gesture, my will to live was restored. And I think that, after more frozen seconds, when I took it from you, smiling weakly, yours was too.

We ate in silence, and then our lips claimed each other's once again.

That was the most perfect night of my life.

But now I know the truth.

Perfection is never more than an illusion.

Never.

For the very next day was the day I was sucked into this nightmare.

They say life sucks and then you die. They are right again.

I would give anything to know where they get this wisdom.

Ansem smirked at Sora, his canines glinting.

"Then it is time, boy."

Two more tears slipped down Sora's cheek.

"I will do what I must," he said defiantly, his eyes betraying his fear. And his determination.

Did you know that paopu's a ripoff?

No truth whatsoever in that damned legend.

Because you should have to forever remain a part of my life.

And you're gone.

But I will never forget you, Riku.

Even when everyone else does, I shall carry you in my heart to the end of all time.

Ansem once took me back to my island how it used to be, knowing that that would torture me like nothing else could.

I hate him.

For when I ran to the secret place, I discovered the truth.

On that day, eons ago, you were brushing your fingers over the wall, when you were crying.

And the answer to my pain was there all along.

You were brushing your fingers over a carving. An inscription that you had made, putting everything you had into it.

And all it said was three small words.

The three small words that bring about the fall of so many.

I love you.

It was right next to a drawing of me.

And that scarred me deeply, lighting a flame inside.

Now, that flame is burning with more passion then ever before.

You said those words to me.

But I never said them to you.

I think you knew, somehow, all along.

But I never got to say it.

And that tears me apart.

The chains binding Sora fell to the ground noiselessly.

Ansem raised his hands, and Sora felt the very ground beneath him morphing. His eyesight swirled as he was sucked into another dimension.

One that was far too familiar.

Sora released all his tears as he looked around at his island, destroyed and distorted to the liking of Ansem's twisted heart. Determination set in, and his heart hardened. He set his battle face, and advanced toward his enemy.

But Riku, I remember.

And I will fight for you.

I will not let my heart be ruined.

I won't be like you.

I'm not going to die.

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tbc?