For Hizachan. I love all three of the characters in your prompt, so I knew I had to make this good. Sorry this took so long to get started, but no good ideas came to me until very recently. I hope you enjoy my canon-verse-like take on this twisted trio!

Just a heads-up: the prologue and epilogue will be from a certain someone's first person point of view, but the rest of the story will be third person omniscient and/or limited. I'm not sure how many parts it'll be, but each part will be very short—much shorter compared to my other stories.

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What Happily Ever After?

Prologue
The Overshadowed Ones

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Alright.

I've never been that great with words, not even when I was somebody, so bear with me as I try to make this beginning make sense.

Someone's gotta tell it or no one'll ever know what happened. It's been bugging me. I need to do this even if no one's there to listen to me.

Hah, that sounds strange coming from me. But… I guess even people like me—y'know, Nobodies—can feel the itch to tell a story. Kinda weird how an empty shell can at least feel that much, yeah?

Anyway, I digress. Let's start this thing.

For every fairytale, there's a hero.

For every hero, there's an underappreciated best friend left overshadowed by that hero. That best friend will do anything for the hero, even risk his honor, suppress his heart (if he has one), and surrender his life.

The hero probably won't even notice. It's not in the hero's nature to turn to his best friend and say, "Hey, thanks pal! I totally would have died a gruesome death back there if you hadn't roasted that heartless," or whatever.

But the best friend expects to be overshadowed.

Why?

Because for every hero, there's also a princess—literally a princess or figuratively, they come in all shades of the rainbow—and with every princess comes a happily ever after.

Except, it's not so happy for everyone.

For every happily ever after, someone's left behind, someone's neglected, someone's forgotten. Those someones don't get to share the happily. Heck, a lot of times, those someones don't get to share the ever afters either.

Those poor someones are usually the hero's best friend who, in the end, must sacrifice everything for the hero just so the hero can get his happily.

Heh, and as much as we deny it, we all know what the ending of the story will be.

The hero will save the princess, or the princess will save the hero, and despite what the poor best friend sacrifices for them, it's the hero and the princess who will look each other in the eye at the end and smile. They'll be the happy ones.

This fairytale is no different.

So what about the poor best friend?

Who knows. Maybe he stays alongside them and pretends to be part of that happily ever after. Maybe he already died… or faded into nothing.

See, not all best friends get to be someones. Like me. I'm a no one. I'm one of the ones who got left behind, neglected, forgotten. Well, maybe not completely forgotten. The story I'm gonna recount to you will make sure of that.

For every fairytale, even this one, sometimes the best parts are about the overshadowed someones.

This story is about three of us.

Roxas, the hero's nobody who happens to be quite the hero himself.

Me, Roxas's nobody best friend.

And Riku, the hero's best friend. The guy who complicated things.

It all started one night when me and Roxas were out doing our normal rounds. You know, exterminating heartless and releasing those captured hearts, all for the sake of Kingdom Hearts and the Organization's Big Plan.

I had been assigned by the Superior to basically babysit the kid and keep him in the dark about certain going-ons that weren't necessary for him to know. At this point, Roxas was still clueless that the Organization was just using him for those keyblades of his.

He had no memories of when he was a somebody, aka Sora, aka the hero, but since Sora was still around and still had his heart, sometimes Roxas would do weird things—weird things that led me to believe that he was more than just an amnesic nobody.

What can I say? He grew on me. I may not have a heart, but Roxas was… Well, he was special. Not just a special nobody, but he was special to me. I couldn't help liking the kid. Before things fell apart, we got to be good pals. We hung out a lot, on missions and off, mostly in Twilight Town. Even Roxas found the Organization headquarters to be too empty—too much like a shell, just like ourselves.

Roxas liked watching the people in town. I once heard that a place is as lively as its people, and if our headquarters is any indication of how unlively nobodies are, then Twilight Town is just as good of an indication that the saying is true. The town is rich with life. Even I like it there, and take it from me: when you're a nobody, there's not much to like.

Ah—damn. I digressed again, hehe.

Let me start over.

Okay, the story's about Roxas, me, and him.

Riku.

So how did he come into the picture?

Well, like I was saying, it all started when me and Roxas were out on a mission.

Hollow Bastion was a lot quieter than Twilight Town, especially at night when the heartless were at their worst. And I say at their worst mostly because the Organization's control of the heartless factory there allowed them to send batch after batch of heartless out into the ravines surrounding the bailey. With more heartless on the prowl, the more Roxas could work, the more hearts were released each night, and the quicker Kingdom Hearts would be ready.

To get things done faster, I suggested we split up like we sometimes did. If we got done before midnight, we'd have enough time to report to Xemnas or Saïx before taking off to catch Twilight Town's sunset. Whether or not it was after a mission, we watched that sunset every day while eating sea-salt ice cream on the big clock tower overlooking the town.

And that particular night, I was really looking forward to getting done with the damn mission just so I could hang out with my buddy. Things were going smoothly with the heartless, so smoothly that it was kind of boring, but I had later to look forward to. Just me 'n Roxas, our ice cream, the town sprawled below us, and the sunset on the horizon. It was always the highlight of my day.

Little did I know then, things were about to get complicated.

Got your attention yet?

Good.

Grab a potion for that bleeding heart of yours and brace yourself.

There isn't a happily or ever after waiting at the end of this tale.

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