A/N: Welcome to the second installment of 20 pieces featuring the couple Sora and Riku from Kingdom Hearts. As a reminder, this series is updated as I write them for the LiveJournal community 20 Songs, a wonderful and supportive group foraspiring writers/artists.
Disclaimer: I do not own any of the characters from Kingdom Hearts except in plushy form. One day it is my dream to own Riku. For now, I settle for dressing like him at Anime cons. I do not own the lyrics to the song Wherever You Will Go because they belong to The Calling.
WARNING: This story is a work of Slash fiction, meaning it highlights to relationship of two boys. Read at own risk -- I will not be tolerant to homophobes or complaints about the content. You have been warned.
Necessary
So lately, been wondering
Who will be there to take my place
When I'm gone you'll need love to light the shadows on your face
If a greater wave shall fall and fall upon us all
The between the sand and stone could you make it on your own...
When you're a kid and looking up at the stars, you never really wonder about what happens in those worlds or what kind of glory or horror that could mean. When you're a kid looking up at the stars, it's all awe and wonder. You see the pictures that you were told about in school, and you marvel at the brightness of something that's so very far away. They hold a kind of innocent allure. That's what I always thought when I'd lay on my back in the warm sand and stare up at the stars.
It wasn't until I started growing up that I began thinking about far-off worlds and great adventures. It wasn't until I started getting older that I began dreaming of great falls and huge waves, and the outstretched hand of someone I trusted. Sights that frightened me more than I could ever really say.
When you're a kid, your best friend is your best friend. You don't see him as something vital to your existence, you just see him as the guy that's always there to hang out with. He's the one you play games with and tell jokes to, the one to pick you up when you fall. It wasn't until I started growing up that I began seeing the person constantly beside me for what he was, necessary. But like most things that are taken for granted, I never truly understood this until he was no longer beside me.
But just because he was necessary to me, didn't make me necessary to him. He proved that when he forced me to fight him. Still, I wouldn't give up. I refused to believe that the person I needed most in this world would betray me so casually. So I fought him, and I chased him, and I freed him from his prison. But just as it had happened before, when I first began to understand how much he meant to me, Riku was gone.
It wasn't just betrayed or hurt feelings that motivated me, it was a deep desire of mine to simply be with him. My best friend through all things.
If I wasn't there with him, who would keep him grounded? Who would support him and hold him up when he was about to fall? What if that wave crashed over us again and I couldn't reach his hand?
What if he really didn't need me anymore?
If I could, then I would
I'd go wherever you will go
Way up high or down low, I'll go wherever you will go
I began this journey for one reason, and one reason only: to find my best friend.
Heartless. Nobodies. Organization whatever. To hell with them all. If they get in my way, I'll beat them down. If they have information, I'll beat it out of them. It doesn't matter how long it takes or how many of them I have to kill. I will keep going until I find him.
Maybe it's a little selfish, considering I'm the one chosen by the keyblade. The world expects me to be this saintly hero who goes around, championing for the weak and downtrodden, but what do they really expect from me? I was locked away for over a year inside of an egg! I gave up that time from my life that I will never get back, time away from my home and my friends. I'm risking my life and my heart, time and again, all for the sake of the worlds. They have no right to tell me that I don't deserve the right to find him. To have him.
Riku is mine. He's always been the source of my strength, the person who always pushed me to do my best and fight for what I wanted. Sure, we were brats, so we fought and competed all the time, but that doesn't change what was between us. We have a bond that no one can break. Not even with a keyblade.
That's why, no matter where Riku goes, I'll follow. No matter what stands between us or how far the distance I need to cover can stretch, I won't break under the pressure. I'll keep fighting, keep walking, and I'll reach him.
And maybe, I'll find out
A way to make it back someday
To watch you, to guide you, through the darkest of your days
If a greater wave shall fall and fall upon us all
Well then I hope there's someone out there
Who can bring me back to you
Forgive me, Kairi. I can't keep my promise and come back to you. I can't go home without Riku. Maybe you want me to, but see, if I were to give up and just go home...I wouldn't be me. What is Sora without Riku? I'm only half of a person without him. I need him to be with me to be whole, to be the Sora you want me to be. One day I'll come back, but only if Riku is with me. I know you doubt him, doubt his heart because of what he's done in the past, but still hope I can find him. Believe that I'll find him. Please be patient and wait a little longer.
I never doubted Riku's heart, because I know it as well as I know my own. Riku was never truly evil. The darkness crept into his heart because he always has it open and accepting, because he is one of the few, brave people that can take in everything and not fear the change that comes with it. It's because he can't love or hate in halves. In his heart, he didn't see things in the way of black and white, good and evil -- he saw things in the way of discovery and experience.
That is simply how he is, how he's always been. Where I would hold back or get conned, he would always be rational and curious. I was a dreamer to Riku's doer. In some ways, the differences in our personalities is what made us so close. We balance each other out.
It was because I wasn't beside Riku that he got lost in the darkness. For those brief, flickering moments that would have made all the difference in the world, I was not by his side. I wasn't there to keep him grounded and make him feel needed. I was high on my own independence, on my own sense of adventure, and so he got lost in a search for new meaning.
I have to find him now, if only to reassure him that I am still a helpless idiot without him next to me.
If I could, then I would
I'd go wherever you will go
Way up high or down low, I'll go wherever you will go
Runaway with my heart
Runaway with my hope
Runaway with my love
It's funny that when you're surrounded by people you can still feel all alone. That's what I feel like, hopping from world to world. I meet all these people and go on countless adventures, but all I can think about is how far I still have to go until I can find Riku. I start thinking that maybe it's a kind of test, making sure my heart is strong and constant and worthy. A lot of the time I think that I might not be good enough for him and that's why I can't find him.
Tell me it's not true. Someone, anyone.
If I had the power, I would be with him right this second. I don't care if I have to be a sidekick. I would love to have him make fun of me for the rest of my life. As long as it means hearing his voice and seeing his face. As long as Riku was there, I don't care what he would want to do to me. If it was up to me, I would be with him always. He is crucial to my world.
If there was one thing that I have learned by leap-frogging through the worlds in the past two years, it's that there is no such thing as one world. There are a billion different worlds out there, and not all of them are simply separate stars. Every living thing has its own world because every living thing has different components that make up their scope of the universe. Riku is one of the things that makes my world, that makes it worth living in my world.
He has a place in my heart, in my life, in my world. He has an important part of my love. Finding him is all that I hope for.
I know now, just quite how
My life and love might still go on
In your heart, in your mind I'll stay with you for all of time
If I could, then I would
I'd go wherever you will go
Way up high or down low, I'll go wherever you will go
I don't think that I am smart enough to come up with clever words for a poem. I can play a mean air guitar, but I'll never write a song of my own. I can't paint a picture worthy of consideration. Fighting is the only art I have, the only way of expressing myself, and even that is a pretty sloppy way of telling someone how much they matter. Maybe if I was smarter or more talented, or just better, then Riku wouldn't have had to go away.
When I think like this, it gets hard to fake a smile for my friends. But I'll smile, and I'll fight, and I'll find him, because that's all that matters now. I just hope that he knows how much he means to me, and how much I need him. I just hope he can understand that he is my purpose and that he doesn't need to look for anyone else out there. I'm still here. I'll still go with you on whatever raft you build next. I'll even let you name it whatever you want.
It has always been the two of us against the world, right Riku? Ever since those days when we'd lay on the warm sand of our island and watch the stars come out. Remember the stories we'd tell, the huge plans we made. Some of that really did come true, even if we weren't together at the time. But we can be together now, until the end of things. You and me against the world again. That's what I want more than anything. More than the keyblade, more than defeating the darkness.
There will always be darkness because there will always be evil hidden among these worlds. But there is always light too, and I believe that my light comes from you, from knowing that you are always by my side.
So Riku, won't you come back to me? I've looked for you everywhere, and I'll keep on looking, no matter how long it takes. Just remember that, okay? Remember that I'm always with you, and I won't give up on you. Never.
When you're a kid, you never consider your best friend to be anything other than the kid who is always with you when you go out into the world. It wasn't until I grew up that I understood that my best friend is my world.
If I could turn back time
I'll go wherever you will go
If I could make you mine
I'll go wherever you will go
I'll go wherever you will go