Hide and Go Seek
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"If you can't see that I'm lost, you can't save me."
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Riku had gone missing again.
It wasn't unusual. Not really. Riku had gone missing before on Destiny Islands,
long before he started this new and rather disturbing trend of disappearing (at
least to the denizens of Traverse Town) at nobody's notice. It was typical of
Riku, he thought, to leave as he liked and return when he wanted to.
But it was still worrying. Back then, Destiny Islands was safe and familiar,
and there were adults always watching, even though the tiny group of islands
always gave the illusion of having no one around, and, very nearly, reeked of
safety. There were virtually very few places to hide with no one else watching,
but even then, Riku could do it. However, he wasn't afraid, because Riku was
Riku, and Riku would never deliberately get himself killed.
It wasn't so now. Traverse Town, despite its reputation throughout the worlds
as the safest haven from the Heartless to all who could get there, had sporadic
breaches that were fraught with danger and death for those who were caught
unprotected. It didn't help that even though he was sure that Riku had
abandoned the Heartless a long time ago, other more innocent people were not.
They viewed the silver-haired teen as the virtual entity of the man that first
brought the Heartless on them all, and when they did not fear, they hated.
He supposed that it could be one of the reasons why Riku took to hiding so
often. In fact, it sometimes was.
Still, it was dangerous, and it seemed that he really should try to find Riku
as soon as possible to stop the rumours and the unprovoked attacks. He knew
that Riku had shrugged off those as easily as a duck shrugs off water, but he
couldn't stand them anymore. And while it would take days and weeks and sheer
effort to try to convince everyone that Riku wasn't evil, it seemed so much
easier if he could just get Riku to stop disappearing.
In retrospect, maybe convincing people would be simpler.
He sighed, raking one gloved hand through still untamed hair. Riku wouldn't,
and still didn't, like it when people found deliberately him without a good
reason. He remembered Kairi getting snarled at, one sunny afternoon, when she
'accidentally' found one of the rare hiding places Riku was in on the island.
The redhead left the place in tears, chastised so badly that she took her anger
and embarrassment out on him later.
A smile tugged at his lips. They were only children then. That life seemed so
far away now.
He got up, dragging the chair across the floor with a rough sound, before
waving to Aerith. Finding Riku would be hard, but it would just be like another
game of 'Hide and Seek'. And it would be easier for him to search for Riku in
Traverse Town, since he knew the place like the back of his hand. How hard
could it be to search for one lonely teenager?
Besides, he had an excuse ready, should he need to use it. And he had enough
faith in his friendship with Riku to know that the other boy would not ignore
him. Hopefully.
Knowing how to find people was easy, if you know the boundaries of the game. He
had played enough to know the tricks of hiding, and he also knew enough of the
old Riku to guess where were the likely places. Even then, it would also be a
similar task of searching every nook and cranny and eliminating the districts
one by one. And he also knew that Riku would not leave the world, neither
through the Heartless wormholes (because the reason was obvious) nor through
Gummi Ship travel (because not only Riku can't drive, he also suffers from, he
supposed, Gummi ship-sickness).
Of course, he did contemplate, just a bit, on the fact that Riku might not stay
in one place but instead move around, but he dismissed the idea immediately. No
need to further complicate matters when it was already quite complicated.
Despite his intimate knowledge of the world, it still took quite a while to
actually find Riku. Yes, he was usually sidetracked by new otherworlders (who
seemed to be popping in quite frequently nowadays), but truth be told, finding
Riku was hard.
Well...theoretically, finding Riku was supposed to be hard.
He was mildly surprised to see the teen sitting on the crates on top of the
clock tower, hood drawn low over his distinctive silver hair. If it weren't for
the bright moon overhead, capturing the leather sheen of the cloth, he mused
that he might actually miss Riku. The hood shifted just a bit as he approached,
and moonlight fell through, highlighting a proud chin and pale, full lips. Legs
scraped noisily against the wood, pulling up to rest the chin on the knees.
"Hey," he said, suddenly uncertain. He knew that Riku's eyes were
watching his every move, body wired and tense. A tiny seed of worry that had
festered in his gut ever since Riku came back, almost monosyllabic and withdrawn
from the world around him, reared its ugly, now full-grown head and roared.
"Go away." Riku's voice was harsh, as if it hasn't been used for a very long
time. The hood moved again, cloaking what was left of the face in darkness. He
moved forward, hand almost reaching out to grasp the edge of the nearest wooden
crate when a flash of light and a sudden touch of cool material lightly grazed
his chin.
A silver key hung warningly at his throat, threatening to cut skin. "Go away,"
Riku growled.
He swallowed once, very loudly, and winced.
"Riku…" A stab of pain flared under his chin, and he gasped, his own keyblade
appearing into his hand in response. "Listen," he continued, tripping over his
words as he tried to finish his sentence, his Adam's apple bobbing
uncomfortably against the deceptive-looking weapon. "I just want to talk with
you. It's been so long."
"No."
"Come back with me, Riku. Back to Destiny Islands. That's all I want." His voice was pleading. "Come back with me." He thought he saw Riku shiver, thought he saw Riku flinch, and his heart lifted just a fraction. "Come back home with me."
"No."
Shock, and, surprisingly, anger raced through him at the answer. He pressed forward, pushing dangerously against the keyblade, feeling it cut deeper into his skin. It hurt, but the anger that was surging through him blocked most of the pain, such that it felt like a mere ant bite. Clenching his hands into tight balls, he began to rage, "Why not? Isn't that what you wanted? Don't you want to go home?"
Riku's voice cut through his words. "Tell me why I should go back." His voice trembled, but his hand continued to hold the keyblade steady. The older teen's body was painfully tense, as if he was getting ready to fight or flee. They stared at each other, both unwilling to back down. Both as relentlessly stubborn as they had been when they were only children.
Or so they were.
He expected that he would have to eventually back down, as always, but Riku surprised him by slowly lowering the keyblade, and turning his hidden face away. The action seemed to signal finality on Riku's part.
"I'm not going back," he said quietly. "You can't make me."
His hand had found its way onto Riku's coat sleeve before he even realized it, gripping the cool smooth material tight between his exposed fingers. Riku jerked away, but his reaction wasn't as violent as before. "Stop it," he spoke again, tiredness laced in his voice. "Let me go."
"Riku."
"Let me go!"
The older teen tore himself roughly from his grip, nearly leaping off the crates in a rather successful attempt to put more distance between them. Somehow, in the process, his hood had fallen off; letting the moon highlight his already pale features almost distractingly. For one moment, he felt his heart stop.
Even with the blindfold, even with the ghost-pale skin, the shoulder-length hair, he could suddenly understand how the people saw Ansem in Riku. Why people saw Ansem in Riku. Involuntarily, he took a step back.
"You're seeing him." The tone was bitter, defeated. "Even you don't see me. You see him." Riku drew the hood over again, turning away.
Perhaps it was his voice. Perhaps it was the way he moved. Perhaps it was his words, the few, spare syllables that showed him how broken Riku was, how hopelessly entangled the older teen was in a past the both of them never wanted. But all he knew was that he was running towards the retreating back, suddenly flinging his arms around the shuddering body in a tight, unforgiving hug.
"Come back with me," he said. His nose was buried in the back of Riku's head, and he noticed idly that he was just slightly taller than his friend. The leather was cool on his bare arms, but he could feel a slight heat coming from Riku. Memories came flooding back, gamboling on the sand, him grabbing his arm whenever they ran from Kairi and that single, dreary day. "I'll be lonely without you, Riku," he answered the unvoiced question quickly. "No one else there could understand what I went through. Not even Kairi." He breathed, noticing that Riku had stopped trying to fight. "Only you. Please come back with me."
"What do you take me for? A fool?" The body in his arms tensed. "You don't even understand what 'lonely' means, you've never really felt it! You'll never understand what it means being there in a million nightmares!" Riku struggled anew, words breaking into sobs. "I'm a thousand times, ten thousand times more lonely than you'll ever be!"
The words felt like a slap in the face, far harder than any blow the Heartless could deal.
"I'm sorry," he took hold of Riku's gloved hands, grasping them tightly in his own. "I'm not going to let you go until you forgive me. And even then, I'm not going to lose you anymore." He moved himself to face Riku, almost surprised to find the blindfold damp as he brushed his fingers against it. Riku's hands circled around his waist now, the pale face resting on his shoulder.
"Then I'm not going to forgive you." Riku mumbled, leaning so hard into him that he almost lost his balance.
"That's okay with me." Sora sighed, tilting Riku's head to face him, pressing his lips against Riku's forehead. "Because all that matters is that I've found you at last."
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The objective of Hide and Seek
Is for the one who is seeking to find the one who is hiding,
And for the one who is hiding to want to be found.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Author's Note: I'm not too happy with this fanfiction. It's been dragged on too long, but it's my first shot at a Sora/Riku, or at any remotely shounen-ai piece. Eergh, just not happy with it. And, for those who are waiting for Sleepwalker, it's on hold. I'm sorry, but it's kind of stuck, and I am rewriting it anyway.