So... This is just the first thing that comes to my head. And yes, I know that no one reads this anymore, but if you do, pleeease tell other peoples about it, coz feeling unloved is not cool :P Oh, and yeah... The start of this chapter may be strange, and I dunno if some people will like it. I just wanted to add something unusual to this story xD Haha

I don't own Kingdom Hearts, as we all know, or anything of the characters and whatnot.

Thanks! And remember to R&R coz you love me!

When I was a kid, I used to try and go into this one side of the CoolThings store. It would sparkle and glare and hurt my eyes if I looked at it for too long, and that was only from a distance. I always wondered what it looked like up close. Was it sparklier, shiner, brighter? Would it make my head spin more, give me more of a thrill when I walked up and down the aisle?

But... I always got stopped by someone or something. An adult would push me to the side, telling me that I was a kid, and it 'ain't nothing I should concern myself with for the while' or I just wouldn't have the time. As I got older, to about elevenish, I came to know that part of the shop as the triple X section. Apparently it was full of 'adult' things.

Whatever that meant.

By that time, I had figured out, from all the talk filled with false bravdo that everyone knew wasn't really there, but never said anything about it, that anyone who somehow made their way into that section of CoolThings was concidered a God, a Legend of some sort.

So, gathering a small crowd, leaving out Roxas, Riku and all the rest who would try to stop me or tell my mother, I stood up straight and marched right into CoolThings. Several adults passed me, and so I grabbed a random friend, which one I do not know, and we pretended to oogle over an action figure collectable that was on new release. "Cool!" I exclaimed. "I've been waiting for this to come out for ages!"

They were all fooled, those silly adults, and so the friend resumed his position at the front of the crowd, trying to hide the fact they were hunching over merchandise to see the poor Sora, the little Sora, the protected, cutesy 11 year old Sora go into the XXX part of the store.

I looked towards the lights, flashing, and took a mesmerised step forward. I could now see the three X's flashing dimly from the ceiling, the chains the sign hung own from slightly rusted. So that was why they called it that. Stumbling my way through all the people, I made it into the aisle. There was no one else around, and so I hid behind a giant-

I looked in horror. It was a giant plushie toy of a naked woman. The sign on the box told me that if you squeezed her hand, she made various groaning noises. I looked around and saw all sorts of plastic shapes, different flavoured butters, and even some horrifying looking DVD's standing on a rackety stand in the corner.

I bolted out of that aisle, as fast as I could, into the arms of someone taller than me. I knew they weren't an adult, but they had that same authority about them. I saw that silver strands before they tickled my nose, and gulped. I should have known - Riku would always find out.

And that, right then, made me feel safe, protected, like no one else in the world could hurt m...

The pencil snapped. Sora had been staring at that last sentence for well over five minutes. Just staring.

Kairi had told him - ordered him - to write down what he was feeling right then. But instead of feelings, he got stories. Memories. Well descripted memories, that really had nothing to do with anything. Hmm, maybe hanging with Olette had boosted his English skills. Or maybe his depressed state was just getting to him; his body needed some way to let it all out.

"Was pretty scary in there, right?" Riku had said to him not harshly, but not softly either. More like a maturnal scolding. The small Sora had nodded, while the older Sora got all teary.

Scratch that, Sora wrote. Everything that Riku does, did, and will ever do will make me feel like that. I'm nothing without him really. I've always been with him, and he's always been with me, no matter how far apart we are. He's my everything, not my nothing. How could I have said that? "You're worthless than me," I had spoken. The words don't even make sense, that's how angry I was!

But I wasn't me... I was someone else. Why couldn't you guys see that? I was screaming to you from inside myself, but no one noticed... I thought you would notice...

Sora couldn't write anymore. He didn't want the tears to overflow. So instead, he pulled out his cell phone and sent a text to Tidus.

Hey come pick me up im bored outa my mind kairis got me hostage lol :P

Kairi walked in the door, picked up the piece of paper, and tucked it under her arm. She didn't want to read it until she saw Riku, which would be very soon, if she had anything to say about it.

Which, as usual, she did.

"...And so," said Tidus. "That's how I got her number."

Wakka chuckled. "You're kinda... cruel, ya? You and I both know you're not gonna call her back."

Sora grinned. His was exactly the distraction he needed. Tidus' pointless chitchat about all his little girly groupies that were lusting after him now. Sora swore that Tidus got a new fanclub every two to three weeks. "So, was she pretty?"

Tidus looked over at the brunette, his face going slack in a mocking expression. "Well DUH!" he said loudly, and Sora jumped. Then they all laughed.

Sora liked this feeling. He could make any mistakes that he wanted, say anything he wanted - because it was Tidus and Wakka and they make mistakes of their own all the time too. He lowered his blue hues to his feet and tried to magnify the feeling of fake happiness in his chest.

It was nice but uncomfortable, because, as said, it was fake. Sora wasn't happy. He was lost, dead. Upset. Sad. Angry. At himself, no one else. Only himself. He felt like he was on drugs in something - the high was amazing, but one he cleared his head a little, it started to hurt. His act was more to fool himself, no one else. But he wasn't fooled - not in the long run, anyway.

A small voice in his head told him that he should go see Roxas. It wasn't the harsh voice, the cruel mocking one; it was more of a kinder, more loving one. Sora trusted this voice, because he knew talking to Roxas would somehow fix everything. But that would come later, for now he would stick to the one thing he never failed at - goofing off. "So," he said, sounding thoughful but playfully accusing. "Why don't you ever call any of them back?"

Tidus scoffed. "Call 'em back? Why? Then I'd have to stick to one girl, and face it" - the blonde lifted his arm up and flexed his biceps arrogantly -" there's too much of me for just one girl. Poor woman, she'd be to overwhelmed."

"Well," jested Wakka. "I suppose it's good you've got muscles, ya? Makes up for your lacking down below."

It took Tidus a second to figure out what Wakka meant, but when he did, blonde to redhead staredown. Tidus looked jokingly pissed off, and Wakka looked extremely amused. He was smiling calmly, but Sora knew that if anyone said anything else, the said boy would snap.

Then Sora figured out what Wakka had meant. He burst out a laugh, just one short giggle. "Wakka," he said. "You're funny."

"Sora," said Tidus, mocking the said brunette. "You're slow. He said the joke, like, two minutes ago, and you just catch it now."

Sora punched the blonde weakly. "Shut up," he whined, dragging the words out like a small child. "Leave me alone!" he then cried out dramatically, before flinging his face into his arms and pretending to sob.

Tidus and Wakka laughed. "You're a bit strange, ya?"

Sora lifted his head up from his hands and grinned at the redhead. "Yup, sure am!"

This happiness, this distraction, wasn't fake. It helped him get his mind off things. Although he felt a stab of pain everytime he thought back to the fact that he was distracting himself. He wished he could just get on with his day, let loose, and not have to think about the fact that he was letting loose. It helped knowing that only two other people know he was upset, and that not everyone had found out they were dating before Riku and him had spilt up.

I guess that's always a good thing, thought the brunette as the three boys reached the edge of the hot sand where it connected the even hotter cement that was seeming to singe small holes in the soles of their feet. No one knows that I am sad - so there is no pretenses for other people, only myself.

"Ouch," winced Wakka as he and Tidus tiptoed onto the white sand that seemed so inviting, yet so deadly hot. Sora thought he could almost see the steam rise from the thin grains, all bunched together to somehow make one large subtance of space and matter. "Sora, you comin', ya?"

Sora looked up from his feet to see his two friends looking expectantly at him. He knew that whether he stayed or not, Tidus would go grab his surfboard from the shack in the corner, or maybe a blitzball, and the two boys would race or battle until they were so winded and wet with massive stitches, that they collasped on the sand for half an hour, just like they usually did.

But Sora's heart felt so drowned in everything already, that he was scared of what he might try and do, faced with so much water at once. He could make his death look like an accident, a slip, a weak body against a rough sea. But no... Sora wasn't like that, he wouldn't give up. His feircely innocent determination was something Sora was proud of in himself, even if he was unable to feel pride or any other positive emotion at that moment of time.

No, he could only feel a need to go see Roxas. "Uh... Nah, I think I'm gonna head off. It's too hot, ya know?" Roxas.

Tidus turned and shuffled backwards, wincing again the burning of his feet. "But c'mon, look at the waves!" As the blonde pointed out towards the sea, Sora's head started to throb. Roxas.

Wakka nodded eagerly. "Don't they look temping, ya?" he asked Sora casually. "We haven't hung in ages. It'd be nice to hang around together again, ya." Roxas!

Sora shifted. "Uhm guys... I really have to go, feeling sort of sick." This is taking too long. You have to see Roxas!

The brunetter saw his friends open their mouths again, as to plead him to stay, but he was already off. He was running towards the car park before he had even turned around. He rolled his head around in time to dodge a thick wooden electricity pole, and that made even more of his breath leave his pounding chest. He was running, he just kept running and running.

"Sora!" he heard a voice call, though whom it belonged to he wasn't sure. "What the hell?"

Tidus, Sora guessed as he sped around the corner and up the road. He didn't think he had ever ran this fast in his entire life. The pressure of the wind was so heavy that his eyes were watering and his lids kept flapping shut. His tongue was vibrating, making a repeated bzz-bzz-bzz sounds against his lips with every speedy thud his thick heels made against the ground.

Sora could feel the need for Roxas strengthening the closer he got, no lessening as he expected it would. The world around him swirled and suffocated in Sora's blurred dash past it all. The wind seemed to be a sort of colour, a light green or something, as the sea aroma tugged and pulled on the colours dying and fading in and out of it.

Suddenly he could see the sign. The sign that told him he was on the corner of Roxas and Axel's street. As he struggled to turn his neck against the force of the wind whipping towards him, he saw the familiar purple peeling off the red brick box they called a house - a fading result from Axel's last birthday, the paint war that no one could be bothered cleaning off.

He slowed down, suddenly feeling worn out and tired. While running he had felt exhilerated and high, but now he just felt exhausted. He stumbled and panted his way up the rest of the street, up the driveway and then up the half cement, half green and blue and yellow paint, stairs and heaved against the door. "Guys," he rasped softly, banging a weak fist against the red door, "Let me in."

Just as the roughed brunette thought no one was going to asnwer, he felt his leaning space jerk backwards, and suddenly he was on the prickley carpet ground. He cried out in pain as his head hit the ground, his shins getting scraped by the metal doorframe connecting the stairs and the house together with that little ridge that made the hallway higher than the miniscule veranda out the front.

"Sora?" questioned a high voice much like his own. "Is that you?"

All the brunetter could muster was a weak nod and a groan of intense pain. He tried to roll over, feeling all the sweat pool in between the middle of his back and his green t-shirt, but all his muscles seemed to pull the other way, and he cried out in even more pain than before. "Ouch, Roxas, help me!"

Roxas didn't know what was going on with his little brother, but it looked bad, and Sora was crying. "Ah, Axel?" he called out. "I need some help!"

The groggy redhead stepped into the hallway, sleepy and groaning. Then he caught sight of Sora and jumped. "The fuck?" he exclaimed. "What's with this kid?"

Sora giggled tiredly, painfully, and then whimpered. "You... Shut.. Up..."

Axel chuckled. "Toughen up kid," he said, but he bent down and slipped his arms under the crook of his knees and his neck, picking him up into a princess cradle, regardless. "Now," he said to the brunette boy who was paling even further. "Let's get you onto the the couch."

And onto the couch he went. Sora could feel his hair, that was maybe a little bit too long, fan out behind him and tip off the arm of the couch, dangling into the nothingness of the living room air. He groaned - his head felt horrible; his neck being stretched out by the arm of the chair. Inwardly, Sora was groaning for another reason. He wanted to tell Roxas everything now, but he just couldn't. He couldn't speak without causing more pain and Axel was there.

"I..." he gurgled. "I'll tell you later..." And then he closed his eyes, allowing sleep to fill him completely. It was a dead, uncomfortable sort of sleep; his mind as exhausted as his body, but still sleep none-the-less.