For
kh_drabble. Prompt: memento.
Fandom: Kingdom Hearts
Title: Everything but Your Smile
Word Count: 442
Characters: Namine
Notes: She watches him as he sleeps.
When Sora finally says Kairi’s name, Namine cries.
She is alone in the white room, watching him sleep. She is watching his memories as she returns them, one by one, to their rightful place. The process is slow, painful to watch when she can remember how easily she had had taken them apart, how she had broken the chains that had bound them and painted over them with her colors, entering his world by pushing someone else out of it, into nothingness. It had felt wrong at first, but -
Namine is standing in the center of the room. Everywhere she looks, she can see only white walls, watching her in silence. It’s quiet; it’s cold.
It’s empty.
It was wrong, but that hadn’t stopped her then. Now, she is making amends to him. She is giving everything back, returning everything she had ever taken from him. She reaches into his heart and begins erasing her work, every pencil stroke, every picture, every painting.
And how hungrily his mind responds. She is nowhere near finished but Sora is already stirring, old memories rising up like a giant wave, ready to reclaim what was once theirs.
In the white room, she watches as Sora begins remembering Kairi; in the white room, she watches as Sora slowly forgets Namine.
It shouldn’t hurt, not when she’s a Nobody, not when everything - the jokes, the laughter, the promise - had been nothing but an elaborate painting of lies. It shouldn’t hurt, when Namine had never, not for one moment, existed in Sora’s world.
But still the tears come, impossible and real.
---
The day Sora wakes, Namine isn’t there to greet him.
She is standing in a white room, surrounded by white walls and white furniture. On the table, there is pile of her drawings; in her hands, she holds a match and a lighter.
For the first time since Castle Oblivion’s fall, she hesitates.
This is all she has left. These drawings are her last memento of the best times of her life - of a time that had never existed. And after she destroys them, she will have nothing.
I won’t forget you.
Namine remembers:
Sora is standing in front of her, making her a promise he will one day forget. His eyes are clear, a blue sky of honest determination. His lips are curved upwards, a true smile for her.
She closes her eyes, picturing the moment. With her mind, she frames the memory and hangs it up in her mind where she will never forget.
Sora’s smile for her.
Sora’s smile for Namine.
Taking a deep breath, she lights the match and lets it fall.