Sora never wanted to let go of Riku or Kairi ever again.

He had spent the better part of two years searching, always searching; he would find one only to lose the other, one of them would come within inches of his embrace only to be swept away again, and to say it frustrated him, made him want to drop to his knees and endlessly repent to whatever deity thought he was deserving of such a divine, twisted, malicious, cruel prank, would be the understatement of the millennium. Worry for his friends haunted his every waking moment and turned his stomach sour; there was never a moment when they did not consume his thoughts, whether he be strolling with a smile or fighting for his life. If you bothered to ask, he would tell you dreamt of them nearly every night, and that was why it was a common thing in the morning for Donald and Goofy to wake and find the boy curled up in some secluded area, staring into space while stroking his Wayfinder charm almost obsessively, the evidence of a long night spent crying, instead of sleeping like he should have been, clear on his face. It seemed to Sora that no matter what he did to try to get them back, he always messed up; if only he had worded that differently to Riku, if only he had moved more quickly to Kairi. Why couldn't he do anything right for a change?

Sora never wanted to lose either of his best friends. They were so important to him... So important that he found that when he tried to explain just how much, he found himself at a loss for words. They were his light, the center of his existence, the reason he was able to continue to face each day with a smile, the motivation behind his each and every step- quite simply, they were everything.

And he had lost them both.

When he and Riku finally got back to the Islands, it took Sora a while to realize that they were home. Riku was back to normal, Kairi's heart was perfectly in place, and they were all safe as could be. No stifling darkness, no blinding light, no empty nothingness. Home. Safe. Together.

He held them both close and cried himself dry into their shoulders, his bone-dissolving relief canceling out any words he had waited so long to say. So what if he was a hero and heroes didn't cry. So what if he had shed so many tears for them already that he shouldn't have anything left. He was home and now he honestly couldn't care less about anything else.

He refused to lose them again.

But even as he draped a protective arm around Kairi's small shoulders, searching nervously for any breaks in the land under their feet or strange white-haired men who might steal her heart, and even as he dragged Riku away from dark alleyways because you never knew who might be in those shadows and if there were people in there, no way were they getting anywhere near Riku... Sora knew he couldn't keep them safe forever. There would still be times they would have to fight, and Sora could not always be around to make sure his friends were completely shielded from harm. Sora, one of these days, was going to have to loosen his hold, because their fates were to fight for the light and it wasn't a safe business.

One of these days, Sora would have to risk losing them again.

But for now, the smiling boy holds one of each of his friends' hands, and dreads the day when he will finally have to let go.