Hello again! Thanks for the two reviews:

Dodongo: yes, Sora will tend to be the emo one here. XD Hopefully I'll be able to make this story slightly original or something, considering I've noticed quite a few that focus around the same way Sora is emo…er…hopefully that will make sense after this chapter…

Chaos faith: Thank you for being so enthusiastic! I appreciate you loving it already. -- You're so nice.

Disclaimer: No, I don't own Kingdom Hearts. If I did, there would be more angst, more Sora, and more…er…Sora.

Please enjoy the chapter!

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The sound of a slap, of skin smacking against skin, of shouts and muffles screams. All it truly sounded like was pain. Beyond imaginable pain…bruising, cutting, ripping…nothing was left untainted; nothing was left untouched by-

"Uwah!" Sora jolted upright, a heavy sweat covering his entire body. He pressed his hand against his forehead and tried to calm his rapid breath. That dream…again, the same dream. "Why can't I even be free in my dreams?" he murmured softly, flopping back down on his bed with a soft 'umph.' Sora glanced over at his clock; the time read 7:30. He got out of bed and walked downstairs, clad in a large black shirt and grey sweatpants. Glancing out of the window as he got himself a glass of water, he noticed the still steady rain.

"Why does it have to rain today, of all days? It's a Saturday…I should be able to go and do whatever I want, to get away from here. Now I'll just be stuck here…"Giving a sigh, Sora began to walk back to his bedroom and was at the foot of the stairs when the phone rang. He was so surprised, and it had been so long since it had actually rung, that he flipped the plastic cup up in the air and it poured all over his head. Brown spikes sagging with wet hair covering various parts of his face, Sora went and answered the phone.

"Hello…?"

"Hello Sora."

"…R-Riku..?"

"That IS my name. I thought we went through that already." Riku gave a smirk as he heard the other person begin to stutter. "No, no, it's fine, really. Listen, do you think you could open your front door for a second?"

"Er…why..?" Sora asked, utterly confused; however, following Riku's instructions, Sora went and opened his front door. He began to gape as Riku was standing in front of him, under the shelter of his porch with a cell phone against his ear.

"Because, a friend needs to get out of the rain…"He smiled and shut the phone, stepping inside the dimly lit house. "Well, this is cheerful…"he said sarcastically, turning on the nearest switch.

"H-hey! Don't do that, my Dad's still asleep-"

As soon as Sora frantically reached for the light, a loud moaning was heard from one room over, followed by a rather harsh, "Sora! What is that light doing on? It's fucking 7:30 in the morning!"

Riku noticed Sora wincing at the language, or maybe it was the tone of voice, but he replied, "S-sorry, I was..I just needed to clean up this spill, I tripped and water fell-"

"Well then, clean the damn mess up already! I better not have stains on the carpet. I'm trying to sleep, hurry it up, you stupid, lazy ass…"the man grumbled before they heard a loud snore and figured he had either passed out or gone back to sleep.

Riku looked over to Sora, noticing for the first time that the top of his hair was wet. He was also blushing again, and he looked quite sad and embarrassed. "I'm sorry about that," he whispered," he always gets upset when people wake him up…" Sora traveled into the kitchen, reached into a drawer full of towels, and picked one up. He went back to the wet spots on the floor and began to soak them up.

Sora gasped as his eyes were suddenly concealed by another towel that had been thrown over his head. He felt Riku grab it and he gently rubbed Sora's hair against it. "Here, this'll make your hair dry faster…if you don't try to, you might get sick."

He almost literally purred like a cat; the oh-so-gentle rubbing against his aching head felt so nice, Sora forgot what he was doing and just sat there, letting Riku continue with his work. Soon he stopped, and Sora blushed again, noticing how Riku knew Sora had stopped working. Riku picked up the towel, along with the one Sora has been using, and hung them up in the kitchen. "Come on," he murmured, so as not to wake the man, "I know a place we can go to talk, ok? I want to ask you a few things. And it looks to me like you might want to get out of here while you can. The rain will become worse soon."

Riku said it simply and lightly enough, but Sora still felt uneasy. Depending on the questions Riku was going to ask, he didn't know if he wanted to answer. But he also…he also felt strangely attached to Riku. Riku just had a way of making him feel slightly better, even though he'd been talking to him for, what, less then 24 hours?

Sora took Riku's hand to help him up, and the two slipped out of the door and into the rain, sharing the umbrella, in silence.

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The two boys strolled slowly; they had entered a park-like trail, and because of the rain, nobody else was around. Riku was looking down at Sora, taking everything he could in. His hair was a dark cinnamon brown color, spiked in various directions; he was shorter then Riku by about a foot, and his clothes suggested that he either didn't care much about how he dressed or he didn't want attention.

Sora noticed Riku's stares; he always did, even if he didn't say anything. Looking up to the taller boy, Sora pointedly said, "You know, staring isn't very polite...I suppose I wouldn't mind, but you're looking at me like a hawk."

Any other person would have looked away at that, but Riku just kept on staring, and smirked. "I get that a lot."

Sora huffed, crossing his arms across his chest and running over to sit on a bench. It was hidden under a Weeping Willow, it the veiw from between the branches at a large lake was breathe-taking. Riku came over and sat by him, umbrella tossed to the side; the tree provided enough shelfter with its thick branches to keep the two dry. "So, Sora..."Riku began, "who was that man? In your house?"

Riku was looking so curiously at him that before he realized what he was doing Sora blurted, "He's my father." As soon as he said the words he covered up his mouth, face burning red.

"Why would your own father yell at you like that...?"

"...O-oh...well, you know...there are worse things then being yelled at," Sora managed to stutter out.

"Like what?"

He wanted to look up at Riku, he really did; but Sora's face was already burning with shame, and he knew two things: If Sora were to try and look at him, he would run away, and he wasn't going to escape answering this question. Not only did something in his mind demand him to answer Riku, but he had a distinct feeling that he might grab Sora's arms above his head and pin him against a tree if he didn't. "Like..." his speech started low and soft, slightly slurred, "like...being hit. O-or-"

"Or?"

"Or...just...hurt..."Sora's eyes gazed down in front of him, head turned down. He couldn't stand to look at Riku, because he knew that he would run away. Just like anyone else every did. He closed his eyes tightly when he heard Riku move and stand up, willing himself to forget this new person, willing himself to forget that he had maybe wanted to be his friend. Sora was concentrating on this so hard that he failed to notice Riku was still there until his warm arms envoloped Sora in a tight but gentle hug.

"R-riku-" Sora gasped, not used to the comforting contact.

"it's alright," Riku murmured softly, arms still pressing Sora against him. "He hit you? You father hurt you?"

"Hurts," he mumbled, correcting Riku's tense to make it present. He felt the arms tighten.

"He still does?" Riku growled, barely managing to control his temper.

"..." Receiving only silence from him, Riku grabbed Sora by the shoulders; however, his gaze still averted Riku's, so he took Sora's chin and forced it, along with his eyes, up onto his own.

"When was the last time he hurt you?"

"Last...last night."

"How often does he do that to you?"

At this, Sora shrugged. "It depends on how much he's drinken, what kind of day he's had, what I've done, and what kind of woman he has with him."

Riku narrowed his eyes. "How often? Give me a rough estimate."

"At least 5 to 6 times a week."

"Why?"

"Wait, why what?" Sora was utterly confused now. His whole head was in a jumble; after all, he had spoken to an almost-stranger about his deepest secret, and he had told that almost-stranger everything.

"Why..." Riku gace a frusterated sigh. There were so many why's that he couldn't figure out where to start. "Why does he hit you? And so often?"

Sora hesitated a moment before slowly saying, "Because I'm a worthless, unloveable person, and he needs to remind me of that..."

"Why do you think that?"

"It's all I've heard for sixteen years, and it's all that has been proven to me."

"Why have you told me all this? I can't imagine you've told anyone else."

"Riku, there's...there's just something about you, and it makes me want to be comepletely honest. It makes me...not want to lie to, or hide anything from, you..." He trailed off, eyes trained down ever since Riku had let go of his chin and sat beside him.

The two sat in silence for some time. Riku finally broke it, asking, "Would you like to go to the fair tomorrow? It opens, and my other friends have gone out of town for the weekend. I was wondering if you'd like to come with me."

For the first time since the walk, Sora looked up at Riku. He had been talking as if nothing had happened; as if nobody had ever been beaten or anything. He gave Riku the most incredulous look before replying, "Sure, but I've never been before.."

"Well then, "he said, smirking, as usual. "This will be an adventure, won't it?"

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Sorry if this is sort of sudden...I really have no idea where I'm going with this, or the whole story, for that matter. I just sort of have a basic idea on who has what, etc etc, not exactly what happens. So I decided to reveal a part of Sora's secret here. Er...yeah, this is bound to get more angsty and awful, but maybe in writing the next chapter I'll have an idea of where to take this.

Comment with any ideas, complaints, questions, and concerns, etc etc, pelase! All reviews are majorly appriciated...as is for most people on here. Thanks for taking the time to look at this.

--sora AI