Riku sat on the well in the 2nd district of traverse town, it was the middle of the night and riku had been overwhelmed by the quest he had chosen to undertake. it sounded easy on paper, travel through the worlds in search of your missing mother and sister. But it was a lot more harder than it sounded, riku never had a clue where his home world was or even if it still existed, he had no idea what his mother or sister looked like, though he did think they would look similar to him, as his father had always said riku looked more like his mother. But another worry that crossed riku's mind was what would happen once he found them, what would he say?, how would they react?, and did they even want him in their lives?.

Riku sighed. Where was even supposed to start looking? There were so many worlds with so many people, it would take riku months if not years to find them.

"there are so many worlds to search, and I have so many questions to ask" riku said. Looking up at the stars

"the answers are closer than you think, boy."

riku looked ahead of him, only to see a familiar figure hiding in the shadows.

It was Ansem (the seeker of darkness) now know as Xehanort's heartless. He stepped out of the shadows and greeted the young keyblade wielder. Riku (thinking this was an attack) had summoned his keyblade and entered his fighting pose. The heartless of xehanort only chuckled.

"relax yourself, boy."

riku didn't let his guard down. He knew Xehanort's heartless couldn't be trusted, everything that had happened to riku was a constant reminder of that fact. This heartless had almost destroyed his life, he forced riku to accept the darkness, he used his anger and jealousy as a weapon and made him attack and attempt to kill his best friend. Riku still hadn't forgiven himself for that.

The heartless of Xehanort saw that this was going nowhere and instead decided to vanish in a cloud of black smoke.

"that's right, hide coward!" riku said as his keyblade had dispelled.

After some thinking, riku decided that now wasn't really a good time to start his search, he was tired and it was getting late. After checking his pockets, he saw that he had more than enough munny to get himself a good hotel room for the night. That's what he'd do, he would rest for awhile, regain his strength and start his search first thing in the morning.

After a few minutes of searching, he soon found a rather decent hotel and checked in at the front desk, the manager handed him his room key and directed him to where he'd be sleeping for the night.

His room had a green theme to it. green walls, green sheets and blankets, wooden floor that had a small green carpet in the center of the room. The room also had the basics, cable television, phone, lights, bathroom.

Riku didn't really prefer the color of green, but he was only staying for the night, so he wasn't complaining.

After getting himself situated, he went to the bathroom, brushed his teeth with a complementary disposable toothbrush and began to prepare himself for bed, he sighed in annoyance when he forgot to actually pack any clothing, all he had were the clothes he was currently wearing (his yellow vest and stonewashed jeans) 500 munny in his pocket and kairi's good luck charm that riku was supposed to give to sora when he found him.

Kairi...

riku never understood it, what did she see in him that had her so attached? Why Sora? Riku knew sora had a thing for kairi and he knew kairi had a thing for sora, but he always thought it was some kinda childhood crush that would ether die down as they got older or be forgotten once they each found someone better. Riku should have known, because he had his fair share of childhood crushes that he grew out of, and there were a few girls he had forgotten about once he met others that were better. Yeah he was a heart breaker. But even though riku did rapidly switch from girl to girl, he always had this ability to stay on friendly terms with his ex's, well maybe friendly wasn't the right word, but he hasn't seen any death threats on his front door yet, so that counts for something, right?

Riku set the charm down on the nightstand that was beside the single bed with green sheets, riku crawled into it and let sleep take him.

Sora and ria had been playing board games for what seemed like five hours strait. Even though it was three in the morning, they weren't tired, sora guessed it must have been the board game adrenaline rush that he and riku used to get when they played board games in his basement.

The two of them must have played every game at least twice, yet it never seemed to get boring, this was also a great way for sora to get to know ria a little more. The shy, quite girl that sora was had known just disappeared, every time sora's words came out wrong (which happened a lot) ria just laughed and giggled, instead of feeling awkward and insecure. they could both talk to each other easily since their brains were distracted by the game, sora had even told her about his nobody, roxas.

Sora had also mentioned how kairi would never play a board game with him, and how riku always quit before the game got intense. It was fairly difficult for sora to actually keep his friends from quitting, but with ria, it was a different story, she was always ready for a rematch, even if they were playing for so long.

"right foot, green" she said as she moved her foot to the appropriately colored circle.

"hey, could you spin for me?, if I move i'll fall." sora said from under ria, both of them being tangled in each other.

Ria stretched her hand out to the spinner but her balance failed her, and both sora and her fell to the ground. The two of them stood up and stretched out a bit, laughing the whole time.

"ow, I knew i shouldn't have played this game with you." ria said.

"hey, if it makes you feel better, i'd love to be tied in a knot with you again." sora said, but then gasped at how inappropriate his sentence sounded.

Ria looked wide eyed at him for a while, before bursting in laughter (which sora joined her in).

The gummi ship had then came to a stop, signaling it's arrival at ria's world.

Great, now that they were here, sora could finally see the place ria called home, he didn't bother looking at the terminal that told the name of the world, since he wanted it to be a surprise, instead he looked at the huge mess he and ria had created. Board games and bags of chips, cookies and other snacks had been spread across the floor of the ship. Ria had also noticed the mess and began picking up bags of chips and putting board games back in their proper boxes.

"what?, your not gonna help?" she said to sora, who was just standing there, watching.

He soon began to help after ria threw a bag of snacks at him, a few minutes later and the gummi ship's floor was swept free of snack crumbs and all board games were put back in their boxes and were returned to the cargo hold, ria smiled at her work, even if sora had done most of it.

They soon went to the exit of the gummi ship which was some kind of teleportation pad. Ria and sora had stood on the pad and a large flash of bright light had gleamed itself in ria's eyes, causing her to give a small sound of pain as a reaction to the bright light, when she opened her eyes, everything was all blurry and hard to see, after rubbing her eyes, her vision soon adjusted and cleared up.

"oh, sorry ria, I forgot to tell you that your supposed to shut your eyes when the teleport pad activates"

"thanks for the heads up, sora" she said sarcastically.

Ria and sora were now on her home world, everything in this place was familiar to her. The two trees that stood in the middle of town, The large gate to the south, the cafe to the east, the accessory shop to the north. Ria had finally remembered the name of her home.

"traverse town..." she said. She had spent most of her life in this place, even though she rarely got out of her home, she often loved taking moonlight walks at night, it was just something that calmed her.

Sora held his hands behind his head, (as he usually did) while taking in the scenery of traverse town. so many memories had been made here, so many good times. Sora wondered, he had been to this world many times and he got to meet a lot of new people, but why had he never met ria here? If she spent her whole life here then why had he never seen her before?

Sora yawned, man he was tired, it was four in the morning after all, normal people were asleep at this time and that was apparent here, the whole town was pitch black, all lights, even the street lights were out.

"so... what now?" ria asked. "should we start looking for the keyhole, or do we track down the organization's heartless?"

"umm, to be honest, i'm kinda tired. Maybe we could start in the morning?" sora asked.

Ria nodded after she felt a yawn escape her mouth, and sora could tell by the bags under her eyes, she was ready to knock out. They could have gone back to the gummi ship but ria suggested they go rest in her house, before sora could even say anything, ria just began walking in the direction of her home, assuming sora would follow (which he did) it was something that would be seen as rude but she must have been so tired she probably couldn't even hear if he said anything. The two of them kept walking through the streets until they came to an aged red brick apartment building, the place was old and judging by the cracks in the bricks, time was probably not the kindest person to it. Ria had led sora in and the two of them got in to the elevator.

The elevator wasn't in such good shape ether, the lights inside flickered and buzzed constantly, the thing wobbled like it was going to break at anytime, there were only thirteen buttons which sent them to one of the floors that held the apartments, ria's was on the 11th floor.

The elevator's doors squeaked as they opened slowly and ria got out along with sora.

The inside of the building was worse than the outside and the elevator combined. boring, grey old walls that were begging for a new coat of paint. a red, cheap carpet that didn't match the walls at all, it all brought one word to sora's mind. Tasteless...

they soon came to a red painted wooden door that held a plaque with the number 22 on it, ria tried to open the door but soon discovered it was locked, after checking her pockets she gasped and sighed in defeat.

"whats wrong?" sora asked.

"i left my keys in my old outfit, which I left in radiant garden" she said. Clumsy ria, bad girl! Her mind scolded her like a mother would do when she caught her child throwing eggs at peoples houses.

She checked an ugly looking plastic plant, in hopes that her guardian had remembered to put the spare key back in its hiding place.

surprise surprise, the spare wasn't there.

Ria sighed as she moved her hand towards her scalp and gently pulled out a bobby pin that was hidden under her locks of silver hair, she then used the bobby pin in an attempt to pick the lock to the door.

"what are you doing?" sora said, surprised by her actions.

"i get locked out all the time, so I taught myself how to pick locks" she said as she concentrated on breaking into her own home. "come on baby, let me in." she said, hoping the door would take pity on her. The tumblers of the lock were lined into place and the door was opened.

after they entered the apartment, ria shut the door and locked it, just for safety measures she put the chain that prevented the door from opening all the way, into its slot on the door, this wasn't exactly the safest place to live. so the more security, the better. Siting on the shelf next to the door was the missing spare key that was supposed to be in the plastic plant outside. She sighed, again. Her guardian was the most forgetful person in the world.

Sora had looked around the apartment and found it was... how would he put this nicely? It matched the over all theme of the building.

A grey carpeted floor that had stains all over, walls that were still begging to be painted a different color, and cheap looking furniture. Sora couldn't imagine a girl as pretty as ria living in such a place like this.

Ria gave another sigh as she saw sora looking around her living room.

"Great, now he must think i'm a filthy slob." she thought. It wasn't her fault for living in such a disgusting place, the other homes of traverse town were expensive with high rent and her guardian would never be able to afford a nicer place. If ria could, then she would have moved out years ago, but that was impossible, she was sixteen, not allowed to live alone until she reached full adulthood.

"well... we should call it a day" ria said. Oh wait!, where is he going to sleep?! Her mind said as she came to the realization that her home lacked a guest room, the only places that were made for sleeping was her guardian's room and her room, this means he and I would have to, ria gulped, share my bed...

"yeah, so where do I sleep?" sora said. judging by the size of the place, there probably wasn't a guest bedroom. After turning around, sora saw a shocked expression on ria's face, then a wicked thought came into sora's mind. If there is nowhere for me to sleep then she and I would have to, sora gulped, share her bed...

sora quickly pushed that thought away, he would never do that, sora was a gentleman and he would act as such.

"hey, no worries ria, i'll just sleep on the couch." sora said, turning to a brown couch that was caddy-cornered against the wall. He began to walk over and jumped onto it.

"no sora, you don't wanna-" ria tried to warn him.

"ouch!" sora said as he landed hard on the couch.

"-do that"

sora was laying on what must have been the most uncomfortable couch in the world, when he landed on it he hurt his back, it felt like he was sleeping on pure concrete. He scooted and shuffled but no matter what position he took, he couldn't find a comfortable way to sit on this thing.

"hey, if you want, you could take my bed and i'll sleep on the couch." ria said, seeing how uncomfortable he was on that horrible couch. It wasn't right, he was a guest, he deserved a proper place to sleep, it would also be made even worse if ria's guardian was to wake up and see sora sleeping or trying to sleep in their living room, she would probably think sora was a thief who broke in, but it would also be worse if she found out ria had brought a boy home. She really didn't think this through.

"no, this will do" sora said, pretending to look comfortable.

It was late and ria was too tired to argue, she would just have to deal with this.

Ria then went into the hallway which had a small closet at the end of it that was filled with small pillows and blankets, after giving sora all the things he needed, she then began to walk down the small hallway to her room, she passed by her guardian's room and saw the door halfway open, inside the master bedroom was ria's guardian and caretaker, laying down on the large queen sized bed, her head hidden under the pillows, completely knocked out.

That was how it went, the two of them only gave each other passing glances, in the morning ria would wake up to find her guardian had left to go to her job, while ria would prepare for school. during the weekends the two would just spend the two whole two days in their separate rooms, only coming out for food.

Ria sighed. She didn't really like the fact that her guardian never cared about her, even if this woman had raised ria.

They used to be close, but that was when ria was only six. Her guardian just ignored her more and more as the little girl grew older, now they barely looked at each other. Why? Why was ria treated this way? Had she done some unspeakably horrible thing that destroyed their relationship? Or did this woman simply think that ria was old enough to live her life without someone constantly holding her hand?

Ria slowly shut the door of her guardian's room and began entering her own room.

After changing into a white nightgown, she crawled into her bed and waited for sleep to take her.

Sora had been tossing and turning on the couch for what seemed like hours. He knew most couches were uncomfortable to sleep on, but this couch was also uncomfortable to even sit on, riku's basement floor was more comfortable then this crap!

"what's in these things, rocks?" sora said, as he fluffed the couch cushions for the one-hundred and sixty-sixth time.

He laid his head back down and at least tried waiting for the sun to rise, he glanced at the clock that had been hung on the wall over the arch that led to the kitchen.

"5:am, just two more hours" he said as he closed his eyes, eventually sleep had come for him.

Sora was having the best lucid dream of his life.

He and kairi were sharing a strawberry milkshake at a cafe on destiny islands, everything was perfect, no riku to upstage him, no selphie to draw kairi away from him, no tidus with his stupid sokai, everything was perfect.

Kairi giggled at him, sora smiled at her.

"oh, I have to go to the lady's room for a second, sweetie" kairi said as she got up from her chair.

"don't keep me waiting too long." sora said, not wanting to waist the rest of his dream waiting for her.

"don't worry babe, if you start to miss me, then just dream me back" she said as her fingers slid off from sora's chin, and she began walking toward the restroom.

Sora laid back in his chair, and closed his eyes, confident that dream kairi would return soon.

"i'm back, sweetheart!" she said, returning to him. That was fast.

He opened his eyes and gazed upon the flawless face of... Ria?

"sweetie, eat it before it melts" she said pointing at the milkshake, sora looked at it only to find that the strawberry milkshake was replaced by a bowl of chocolate ice cream that was covered in white chocolate syrup, and had two small cherries at the top.

Ria giggled as she took one of the two spoons from the bowl and began eating.

Something was wrong, ria wasn't supposed to be in his dream. Sure, he liked ria a lot, but not this way. He saw her as a friend, not a love interest.

She dipped her spoon back into the bowl, and took a rather large part of the ice cream with it, she held it up to sora's face, gesturing for permission to feed it to him, sora tried to protest but he just began stuttering, as soon as he found the words to say, ria pushed her spoon into his mouth, her face still holding that beautiful smile.

After sora had eaten the ice cream, kairi returned with a shocked expression and slammed her hands on the table in anger, causing sora to fall off of his chair.

"sora?, what is she doing here?" kairi said in a somewhat hurt tone.

"isn't it obvious? Me and sora are on a date" ria said, with a prideful smile on her face. Her voice was calm and collected, were as kairi's was nervous and shocked.

"but he's supposed to be here with me!" kairi shouted.

"well he's not. face facts, sora doesn't love you anymore, and why should he when he has an amazing girl like me?" ria said, still holding that confident smile.

"sora, how could you?!, after everything we've been through!" kairi said with a frown that could destroy a heart.

"after all you've been through? Don't make me laugh, you're the one who just wants to be friends"

"that, thats not true!" kairi said again.

"oh, please! Just accept the fact that sora doesn't love you the way he loves me!" ria said, standing up from the table.

The two of them began yelling and screaming rather hurtful things at each other, calling each other out on their appearances and flaws.

"albino!" kairi shouted.

"tomato head!" ria shouted back.

"home wrecker!" kairi shouted.

"TONGUE CHEWER!" ria finished.

Kairi gasped, "you take that back, you... you" the two began arguing again.

"but the charm I made was for him!" kairi said.

"what? This?" ria said, pulling kairi's lucky charm out of thin air.

"that's mine!" kairi said as she tried to grab her charm, but ria kept it out of reach.

"oh sora, please take my poorly made collection of useless sea shells and remember that wherever you go, i'll always be with you!" ria said, impersonating kairi. "really?, this is supposed to win his heart?!, a bunch of old sea shells on a cheap piece of string?!, you are so pathetic!, poisoning my sora's mind with your cheap trinkets!"

This was bad, really bad, sora's perfect dream had quickly turned into a nightmare, and the worst part was the fact that he couldn't fix it, he tried as hard as he could to dream ether kairi or ria away but it didn't work, all he could do was watch them in fear as they both went at each other like dogs fighting for a bone.

"he said he loves me more!" kairi shouted.

"he never said that!" ria shouted. "just admit that i'm better than you!"

"why don't we let him choose?" kairi said, both of them glared at sora, expecting their answer.

"well?, tell tomato head to take a hike!" ria said to him.

"sora, tell the albino freak to leave us alone!" kairi said to him.

"can't we just get along?" sora said, trying to calm them down.

"NO!" the two shouted at him

"answer the question!" ria said.

"don't let her tempt you, sora!" kairi said.

"TELL US WHO YOUR HEART BELONGS TOO!" they both shouted in unison.

"i-i don't know!" sora shouted.

The two of them just stared at him wide eyed, both of them breathing in and out erratically.

The world around sora began to melt, along with everything in it, including ria and kairi. Now all that was left was a black void. Sora gave a sigh of relief, maybe now the nightmare was over and he could wake up. Sora closed his eyes and opened them again.

Now he was on a board walk, he began hearing quiet sobs, he turned his head around only to find riku holding a crying kairi in his arms while glaring at sora.

Sora felt a gentle tap on his shoulder, and when he turned around again he saw ria, she didn't look happy.

She held her arm up in the air, and slapped sora hard with the back of her hand. The sudden contact of skin on skin followed by the pain he felt was enough to wake him from this kingdom hearts-forsaken nightmare.

Sora had awakened on the floor, with sweat dripping from his brow, that was one messed up dream. But the weirdest part was sora's inability to control it, he was lucid dreaming for years, so why couldn't he control the dream he just had.

He stood up from the floor and gazed at the clock.

5:27 am. He had only been asleep for twenty seven minutes?

Not wanting to go back to sleep on that horrible couch, he decided to go to the bathroom to wash his face

He walked down the hallway and came to two doors, one of them held a woman sleeping on a queen sized bed, her head was under a pillow so sora couldn't see her face, but judging from the size of the woman, it wasn't ria, it must have been her caretaker.

The other door was ria's room, her room was a lot cleaner than the living room, her walls were purple and her floors carpet was clean and stain free. Sora shut the door and soon found the bathroom at the end of the hall.

After washing his face he thought about checking on ria, just to make sure she was okay.

He opened her bedroom door slowly, and the first thing he focused on was her small single bed that was caddy cornered against the right wall at the back of the room, to the left of the bed was a small nightstand that held a book, a bottle of water and a small reading lamp.

To the other side of the room was a dresser that probably held her clothes, the dresser had a mirror mounted over it and a few framed pictures sitting on it. The room also had a closet, and a television

Sora took a few steps in and looked around a little better, it was somewhat large compared to the small living room, but that was probably because there wasn't that much furniture taking up space.

Sora didn't want to sleep on the couch so he took the blanket and pillow off of it and returned to ria's room and slept on the floor next to her bed.

The floor was way more comfortable than the couch, sora just laid there waiting for sleep to come for him again, as soon as he heard a yawn escape his mouth, ria moved over the other side of her bed, now sora was gazing at her sleeping face, he still had to admit, she looked adorable while she slept.

Outside Xemnas was gazing at the ugly red bricked apartment. He heard the sound of a corridor of darkness opening, the figure that stepped out was none other than Xehanort (or ansem, the seeker of darkness) Xemnas's heartless.

"Beautiful night, isn't it?" the heartless of Xemnas said.

"i was wondering when my foolish heartless would show his face again" Xemnas said.

"how goes your progress with the girl?" the heartless asked.

"slower than I planned"

"perhaps it is time you make your presence known to her?" Xemnas's heartless suggested.

"she will recognize me" Xemnas said.

"then maybe we should talk to her as one." the heartless said.

Xemnas didn't like the idea of rejoining with his heartless, but if any real progress on ria was to be made, then he would have too.

"fine" xemnas said in a low pitched voice.

AN: wow this one was a long one for me, hope you enjoyed it!

Leave me some feedback so I can know somebody actually likes my dumb stories :)

Thanks for reading.