(no subject)
Hey guys! *waves "First Post In This Community" flag* I bring fic.
Title: The Pact
Rating: PG makes me look weak but there's no denying it!
Word Count: 2,175
Pairings: I totally ship RiSoKai, but if you don't and you read this, you probably wouldn't suspect anything romantic. That is to say, the fic implies relationships, but there is no hardcore sexors.
Summary: Living life after the journey is often the hardest part; real life dulls in comparison to adventure. Sora, Riku, and Kairi have changed drastically since their journey started, but how do they plan to cope with it ending? With a new promise, of course. Oneshot. Post-KH2, so beware of spoilers.
The Pact
Sora was on top of the game today, and with any luck he would bring them both up to par; no day was allowed to slip through their fingers free of sweat and a bruise or two. It was a part of their pact.
Riku remembered it clearly. So clearly, in fact, he fancied it blocked out all the bad memories that were so heavy and grey they were out of place in the brain of a boy in his bright yellow bedroom, trying to live a normal life.
The pact was something made between the two of them, the boys, but Kairi quickly joined in, to their relief. It was still up in the air whether or not Kairi wanted to keep their journey fresh or have a new, complete life with her men.
It was a mixture of both.
When Sora first mentioned it, it took Riku aback, but he thought it through and realised that was what he wanted as well. Lately, everything Sora wanted sounded like a good idea to him. This yielding to his friend was the clearest sign-clearer than his face, hair, voice, scars-that he was an entirely different person, no longer bold, bossy, and egomaniacal. Now he became pastel and passive. It is amazing how bad experiences can tear a person into shreds.
“When I look at the sky, the islands,” Sora began, “I think ‘This is so great’.” There was a soaring smile on his face that disappeared when he continued. “But right after I think ‘This is it?””
Home was the most savoury word to the tongue, the most picturesque sigh. But it was quiet and boring. After a week of rest and the recounting of their tale, they were left bored, all three of them, in the wake of an emotionally-altering journey.
“Sora?” The brunet stood pensively at the end of the dock, the rope moor for his wooden boat still clutched in his hands.
“I want more of it, Riku. I don’t wanna sit around all the time. There are still Heartless out there, just a few. Part of me wants to go out and defeat them, to see my friends and make some more. I wanna see more worlds. Then the other part remembers all the worlds are closed now and besides, I worked-we worked-so hard to get back home. And now I wanna leave it again?”
Riku thought it all over, so quiet for so long that Sora turned around and gazed at him questioningly. Framed against the azure sky and the bright afternoon sun, Sora’s eyes were luminous and boyishly large; breathtaking with their rings of colour.
It was so hard to believe how much they’d changed.
In his spare time Riku collected photos of the three of them, from a year ago and more recently (Sora posing with the Keyblade, which, to the camera, was nothing more than a giant glowstick, was a favourite of his) and compared them. In his head he played their voices before and after.
Kairi, once a wiry, bubbly girl, destined to be either pushed around or desperately popular, filled out in body, voice, and mannerism.
Rather than her charmed-to-impress voice from before she was mature and likeable; whether she met male or female, she was everyone’s big sister.
And Sora-don’t even get him started. Sora’s face was longer, wider, spreading out the chubby cheeks. He was as gangly as ever and nowhere close to having an adult physique even then. The eyes were less round and took a defining shape; his hair, longer. Sora was growing up, and it made Riku’s stomach twist in guilt to think that a whole year of Sora’s maturation was lost in that basement and it was all his fault.
Of course, it wasn’t his fault, but after their homecoming Riku’s favourite hobby was blaming himself for things. And, oh, the empowering ring of Sora’s voice-it was something to get used to. Even the words spoken in that voice were a little different, but Riku had changed a lot too, hadn’t he?
After all, Sora and Kairi were still trying to grow accustomed to a shrug rather than a forceful suggestion when they asked such simple things as “What should we do today?”
That morning on the dock, with the gulls cawing in the distance, Riku asked Sora what he wanted to do.
“What will we do to fix it? We can’t go adventuring forever, but we can’t stay here.”
“I’ll race you to the paopu tree!” the younger suddenly said, grinning. He dashed off and Riku, by instinct, shot off after him, spreading his feet as far as height would allow, intending to use every inch against Sora.
“Sora?” he called. The brunet shouted back, “I’m thinking!”
Riku gauged the distance and guessed that by the time the younger reached the shack he would surpass him; in climbing, Riku was the superior.
But Sora was a bag of tricks since his return and despite holding back to avoid frightening friends and family (more of the latter, as their friends were more than eager to swoon over everyone’s abilities) Sora was on the ball and leaped once, twice, clearing the shack’s roof like a panther.
When Riku crossed the bridge, Sora was mere paces in front of him, and if he’d only had more distance he could have won. The smaller boy vaulted over the paopu tree’s cheerfully bent trunk. The bark was old and familiar, worn smooth but not killed from its coexistence with young teenagers.
While Sora settled against the tree Riku perched upon it, roles reversed after that time so long ago when Riku was the confident explorer and Sora and Kairi were only along for the ride. Now the aqua-eyed boy waited for the other, watching him intently. Sora was gazing at the sky, panting, with a satisfied smile upon his face. Exercise to the kid was like a rush of endorphins.
That expression, though still being learned by Riku (as all Sora’s new traits were), was one Riku knew he’d worn after battles many a time, data drawn from observing and, at the very end, fighting alongside him, and even if the fights’ results left things just as dark as they’d been before, Sora was thrilled beyond comprehension.
Riku couldn’t stop looking. His mind struggled to wrap around the fact that Sora was older now. When he gripped the Keyblade and crouched into stance, he was by no means a goofy kid with a key-he was a warrior, ready, despite Riku’s wish for it not to be so, for the slaughter.
And slaughter is far too harsh a word to describe the hearty endeavors of a kid with a smile so brilliant. At the same time Sora fought in blood, sweat, and hearts, he was only a kid, like a child taught by their parents to steal. Sora was taught to take up arms and he was very good at it.
“You know,” he said, and Riku immediately tuned his senses. “It used to be that every day Donald and Goofy and me would be out in the stars, fighting and helping.” One finger pointed to the sky with its hidden autumn stars. “Now I have a bed, parents, homework”-disdain-“All that stuff.”
“It is a little overwhelming, having a normal life for once.”
“But what we did before was normal, Riku,” he protested.
“You’re right.” As always.
There had always existed a pair of realities: school, work, sleep reality, the kind that makes one obey laws, and the other reality-that their world is only a part of something much greater.
When one knows there are worlds out there that don’t follow natural rules, it is fairly easy to say “Screw it” to school, work, and so on. There is an endless sky of worlds and places. What is to stop a person from going to a place where the laws suited them?
Ah, but the worlds are isolated. Sora was truly privileged to dart between them like the little rule-breaker he was.
The journey, the only name they gave it, had distorted the first reality. Which was more real: school and work or enemies, battles-your best friend betraying you and then returning?
In Riku’s case, it was the typical angst of teens against true darkness, the kind that tainted even what he looked like.
“When you do something for a long time, it’s strange to go without it.”
“Why do we have to go without it?” Sora questioned. “It’s not fair.”
“Don’t whine, Sora; you’re too big for that.”
A year ago Sora would have pursed his lips into a pout, but now he did not. Perhaps it was acceptable when he was a rookie; it was not now. Riku kind of missed it.
“I don’t mean it like that.” He relaxed further into the loving bark of the paopu tree. “The islands get all three of us, and the worlds out there have to share the same six princesses. We can’t do anything for them here.”
“Oh,” it dawned on Riku. “You’re guilty, aren’t you?” Sora turned a wide-eyed face but nodded when Riku smiled. “Because you feel like a bum relaxing on the islands while other people contend with Heartless and Nobodies.”
The words felt out of place. They were terms meant to be spoken in darkness, now exposed in the islands’ sunlight, like the morning after a frightening night.
Riku felt the guilt as well, not only for choosing the darkness, but for getting off so easily.
“Yeah, I guess I am.”
“So what will you do?”
“Well, you remember the promise we made that we’d find another world? Or the promise I made to Kairi? They worked.” Even if it wasn’t how I expected.
“You want to make another?” A graceful leap saw Riku and Sora on the same level though, to the younger’s dismay, the silver-haired creature was still taller and probably always would be. It was alright with the brunet; a part of him would always rely on Riku. A child may surpass their mother but they will always have the attachment.
“Yeah!”
“Okay. What do you want to promise?” Questions, questions. Never pushing, always waiting for the Keyblade master.
“Let’s promise that…every day we’ll work really hard, just like we used to do. We’ll even train Kairi up, if she wants. We can fight each other and teach each other.”
Riku ‘hmm’d and nodded. “We’ll work hard and stay strong.”
“Even if we don’t get to go on any more adventures.”
To this, Riku shook his head.
“No. If I make this promise, if I train and work with you, you have to make a promise with me.” Ah, there was the pout and then, at last, a smile. Always gracious. “If I do that, you have to promise me that every day we’ll have an adventure, even if we’re only going to the store for our parents. And, as soon as possible, we should go on our own.”
“The three of us?”
“Yeah.”
“Yeah!” Sora chuckled and braced his fists. “Every day we’ll do something.”
“Challenge ourselves constantly.” We’re smarter than everyone. We’ve gone through more in less than three years than our parents in their whole lives. There’s no reason to stop being better. There’s no reason not the live a full-to-bursting life.
Two hands linked, pale fingers in tanner ones, both calloused. They shook and held because what of Kairi had hoped for-‘we hope that our hearts will blend’. And they had. Riku had been in Sora’s presence for such a short time after the separation, but it was the most amazing thing: though they’d been in very different places, doing different things, it made them that much closer, as if they’d spent the year together rather than apart.
Kairi arrived mid-afternoon. With her she brought sun-kissed skin ready and waiting for the touch of her boys, and nothing was more beautiful than the light catching in each fibre of her blue-violet eyes. Grace and light. It used to be that she was the odd one out, cast from an unknown sky.
Forgetting them wasn’t her fault; when she remembered, she put in more than enough effort. And after all, her Other Half called, and who wouldn’t desire the pale little flower Namine, whose linguistics mirrored Kairi’s in their perfection?
The two of them linked together with Kairi were a triangle of brains, brawn, and loyalty, pulsing like a series circuit; if one bulb of the circuit goes out, the others do as well.
Riku remembered that day, and the day after, and the next day and, the day after that, because every day was an adventure and every day they got stronger. When, before, life looked bleak-the boring return home after a life-changing journey-it was now a throbbing joy, a thrilling elation, consuming every day of their lives like a long summer they never wanted to waste…and they didn’t.
-End-
Comments, complaints, questions? Spot something wrong? Let me know; I love feedback!
Title: The Pact
Rating: PG makes me look weak but there's no denying it!
Word Count: 2,175
Pairings: I totally ship RiSoKai, but if you don't and you read this, you probably wouldn't suspect anything romantic. That is to say, the fic implies relationships, but there is no hardcore sexors.
Summary: Living life after the journey is often the hardest part; real life dulls in comparison to adventure. Sora, Riku, and Kairi have changed drastically since their journey started, but how do they plan to cope with it ending? With a new promise, of course. Oneshot. Post-KH2, so beware of spoilers.
The Pact
Sora was on top of the game today, and with any luck he would bring them both up to par; no day was allowed to slip through their fingers free of sweat and a bruise or two. It was a part of their pact.
Riku remembered it clearly. So clearly, in fact, he fancied it blocked out all the bad memories that were so heavy and grey they were out of place in the brain of a boy in his bright yellow bedroom, trying to live a normal life.
The pact was something made between the two of them, the boys, but Kairi quickly joined in, to their relief. It was still up in the air whether or not Kairi wanted to keep their journey fresh or have a new, complete life with her men.
It was a mixture of both.
When Sora first mentioned it, it took Riku aback, but he thought it through and realised that was what he wanted as well. Lately, everything Sora wanted sounded like a good idea to him. This yielding to his friend was the clearest sign-clearer than his face, hair, voice, scars-that he was an entirely different person, no longer bold, bossy, and egomaniacal. Now he became pastel and passive. It is amazing how bad experiences can tear a person into shreds.
“When I look at the sky, the islands,” Sora began, “I think ‘This is so great’.” There was a soaring smile on his face that disappeared when he continued. “But right after I think ‘This is it?””
Home was the most savoury word to the tongue, the most picturesque sigh. But it was quiet and boring. After a week of rest and the recounting of their tale, they were left bored, all three of them, in the wake of an emotionally-altering journey.
“Sora?” The brunet stood pensively at the end of the dock, the rope moor for his wooden boat still clutched in his hands.
“I want more of it, Riku. I don’t wanna sit around all the time. There are still Heartless out there, just a few. Part of me wants to go out and defeat them, to see my friends and make some more. I wanna see more worlds. Then the other part remembers all the worlds are closed now and besides, I worked-we worked-so hard to get back home. And now I wanna leave it again?”
Riku thought it all over, so quiet for so long that Sora turned around and gazed at him questioningly. Framed against the azure sky and the bright afternoon sun, Sora’s eyes were luminous and boyishly large; breathtaking with their rings of colour.
It was so hard to believe how much they’d changed.
In his spare time Riku collected photos of the three of them, from a year ago and more recently (Sora posing with the Keyblade, which, to the camera, was nothing more than a giant glowstick, was a favourite of his) and compared them. In his head he played their voices before and after.
Kairi, once a wiry, bubbly girl, destined to be either pushed around or desperately popular, filled out in body, voice, and mannerism.
Rather than her charmed-to-impress voice from before she was mature and likeable; whether she met male or female, she was everyone’s big sister.
And Sora-don’t even get him started. Sora’s face was longer, wider, spreading out the chubby cheeks. He was as gangly as ever and nowhere close to having an adult physique even then. The eyes were less round and took a defining shape; his hair, longer. Sora was growing up, and it made Riku’s stomach twist in guilt to think that a whole year of Sora’s maturation was lost in that basement and it was all his fault.
Of course, it wasn’t his fault, but after their homecoming Riku’s favourite hobby was blaming himself for things. And, oh, the empowering ring of Sora’s voice-it was something to get used to. Even the words spoken in that voice were a little different, but Riku had changed a lot too, hadn’t he?
After all, Sora and Kairi were still trying to grow accustomed to a shrug rather than a forceful suggestion when they asked such simple things as “What should we do today?”
That morning on the dock, with the gulls cawing in the distance, Riku asked Sora what he wanted to do.
“What will we do to fix it? We can’t go adventuring forever, but we can’t stay here.”
“I’ll race you to the paopu tree!” the younger suddenly said, grinning. He dashed off and Riku, by instinct, shot off after him, spreading his feet as far as height would allow, intending to use every inch against Sora.
“Sora?” he called. The brunet shouted back, “I’m thinking!”
Riku gauged the distance and guessed that by the time the younger reached the shack he would surpass him; in climbing, Riku was the superior.
But Sora was a bag of tricks since his return and despite holding back to avoid frightening friends and family (more of the latter, as their friends were more than eager to swoon over everyone’s abilities) Sora was on the ball and leaped once, twice, clearing the shack’s roof like a panther.
When Riku crossed the bridge, Sora was mere paces in front of him, and if he’d only had more distance he could have won. The smaller boy vaulted over the paopu tree’s cheerfully bent trunk. The bark was old and familiar, worn smooth but not killed from its coexistence with young teenagers.
While Sora settled against the tree Riku perched upon it, roles reversed after that time so long ago when Riku was the confident explorer and Sora and Kairi were only along for the ride. Now the aqua-eyed boy waited for the other, watching him intently. Sora was gazing at the sky, panting, with a satisfied smile upon his face. Exercise to the kid was like a rush of endorphins.
That expression, though still being learned by Riku (as all Sora’s new traits were), was one Riku knew he’d worn after battles many a time, data drawn from observing and, at the very end, fighting alongside him, and even if the fights’ results left things just as dark as they’d been before, Sora was thrilled beyond comprehension.
Riku couldn’t stop looking. His mind struggled to wrap around the fact that Sora was older now. When he gripped the Keyblade and crouched into stance, he was by no means a goofy kid with a key-he was a warrior, ready, despite Riku’s wish for it not to be so, for the slaughter.
And slaughter is far too harsh a word to describe the hearty endeavors of a kid with a smile so brilliant. At the same time Sora fought in blood, sweat, and hearts, he was only a kid, like a child taught by their parents to steal. Sora was taught to take up arms and he was very good at it.
“You know,” he said, and Riku immediately tuned his senses. “It used to be that every day Donald and Goofy and me would be out in the stars, fighting and helping.” One finger pointed to the sky with its hidden autumn stars. “Now I have a bed, parents, homework”-disdain-“All that stuff.”
“It is a little overwhelming, having a normal life for once.”
“But what we did before was normal, Riku,” he protested.
“You’re right.” As always.
There had always existed a pair of realities: school, work, sleep reality, the kind that makes one obey laws, and the other reality-that their world is only a part of something much greater.
When one knows there are worlds out there that don’t follow natural rules, it is fairly easy to say “Screw it” to school, work, and so on. There is an endless sky of worlds and places. What is to stop a person from going to a place where the laws suited them?
Ah, but the worlds are isolated. Sora was truly privileged to dart between them like the little rule-breaker he was.
The journey, the only name they gave it, had distorted the first reality. Which was more real: school and work or enemies, battles-your best friend betraying you and then returning?
In Riku’s case, it was the typical angst of teens against true darkness, the kind that tainted even what he looked like.
“When you do something for a long time, it’s strange to go without it.”
“Why do we have to go without it?” Sora questioned. “It’s not fair.”
“Don’t whine, Sora; you’re too big for that.”
A year ago Sora would have pursed his lips into a pout, but now he did not. Perhaps it was acceptable when he was a rookie; it was not now. Riku kind of missed it.
“I don’t mean it like that.” He relaxed further into the loving bark of the paopu tree. “The islands get all three of us, and the worlds out there have to share the same six princesses. We can’t do anything for them here.”
“Oh,” it dawned on Riku. “You’re guilty, aren’t you?” Sora turned a wide-eyed face but nodded when Riku smiled. “Because you feel like a bum relaxing on the islands while other people contend with Heartless and Nobodies.”
The words felt out of place. They were terms meant to be spoken in darkness, now exposed in the islands’ sunlight, like the morning after a frightening night.
Riku felt the guilt as well, not only for choosing the darkness, but for getting off so easily.
“Yeah, I guess I am.”
“So what will you do?”
“Well, you remember the promise we made that we’d find another world? Or the promise I made to Kairi? They worked.” Even if it wasn’t how I expected.
“You want to make another?” A graceful leap saw Riku and Sora on the same level though, to the younger’s dismay, the silver-haired creature was still taller and probably always would be. It was alright with the brunet; a part of him would always rely on Riku. A child may surpass their mother but they will always have the attachment.
“Yeah!”
“Okay. What do you want to promise?” Questions, questions. Never pushing, always waiting for the Keyblade master.
“Let’s promise that…every day we’ll work really hard, just like we used to do. We’ll even train Kairi up, if she wants. We can fight each other and teach each other.”
Riku ‘hmm’d and nodded. “We’ll work hard and stay strong.”
“Even if we don’t get to go on any more adventures.”
To this, Riku shook his head.
“No. If I make this promise, if I train and work with you, you have to make a promise with me.” Ah, there was the pout and then, at last, a smile. Always gracious. “If I do that, you have to promise me that every day we’ll have an adventure, even if we’re only going to the store for our parents. And, as soon as possible, we should go on our own.”
“The three of us?”
“Yeah.”
“Yeah!” Sora chuckled and braced his fists. “Every day we’ll do something.”
“Challenge ourselves constantly.” We’re smarter than everyone. We’ve gone through more in less than three years than our parents in their whole lives. There’s no reason to stop being better. There’s no reason not the live a full-to-bursting life.
Two hands linked, pale fingers in tanner ones, both calloused. They shook and held because what of Kairi had hoped for-‘we hope that our hearts will blend’. And they had. Riku had been in Sora’s presence for such a short time after the separation, but it was the most amazing thing: though they’d been in very different places, doing different things, it made them that much closer, as if they’d spent the year together rather than apart.
Kairi arrived mid-afternoon. With her she brought sun-kissed skin ready and waiting for the touch of her boys, and nothing was more beautiful than the light catching in each fibre of her blue-violet eyes. Grace and light. It used to be that she was the odd one out, cast from an unknown sky.
Forgetting them wasn’t her fault; when she remembered, she put in more than enough effort. And after all, her Other Half called, and who wouldn’t desire the pale little flower Namine, whose linguistics mirrored Kairi’s in their perfection?
The two of them linked together with Kairi were a triangle of brains, brawn, and loyalty, pulsing like a series circuit; if one bulb of the circuit goes out, the others do as well.
Riku remembered that day, and the day after, and the next day and, the day after that, because every day was an adventure and every day they got stronger. When, before, life looked bleak-the boring return home after a life-changing journey-it was now a throbbing joy, a thrilling elation, consuming every day of their lives like a long summer they never wanted to waste…and they didn’t.
-End-
Comments, complaints, questions? Spot something wrong? Let me know; I love feedback!