Experimentation with POVs, characterization, and tenses. It's all intentional and there's a purpose, but it probably fails. This is also (kind of?) a continuation of my first drabble.


5. Broken

She had always assumed Riku would be the one to have trouble readjusting to life on the islands. And he had, somewhat. After all, no one could be expected to return to such mundane simplicity without a few demons lurking in the back of their mind.

Sora, however… She hadn't expected him to come home the broken one. Maybe it was because he once possessed an optimism that Riku had always lacked. Perhaps his sense of right and wrong had become so skewed that his bitterness ebbed through any other emotion he may have felt.

Whenever words like "destiny" or "fate" were mentioned, he shrugged them away. After all, how could he believe in something built upon the shells of battered promises?

"But I've learned that deep down, there's a light that never goes out."

He'd never learned anything of the sort, and to even believe such nonsense was ludicrous. That had been one of the last nuances he let slip away from the tattered being he had become… and he knew it was for the worst.

Riku worried about his friend. He'd overheard their mothers whispering about how their kids had returned as different people, about she'd wake up in the middle of the night to find Sora sitting at the window, staring at the stars with an expression that pained her as much as the day he had gone missing.

So Riku will sit with his friend, fingers clamped on his shoulder as Kairi strokes his hand with the same meaningless comfort. It does little to cease Sora's turmoil, but they've seen enough in their lives to know that some things just can't be mended.