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Emotional Mix-Up

Prologue

It wasn't that she had a hard time making up her mind. From her earliest memory, she knew what she wanted. She wanted to be happy and she wanted to be free, and she wanted to always and forever be with the boy she saw first when she opened her eyes all those years ago, washed up on the shore without a memory of her home. She stayed close to him, and when he went away, she chased him, with waiting being a self inflicted punishment she ended up not serving. She thought of him, dreamed of him, longed for him, wished for him, and eventually he came home, finally, at long last. The boy she loved and that promised to see her again finally came back to be with her, and there was nothing more she ever could've wished for – or so she thought.

Kairi always knew what she wanted. However, while for over a decade it remained the same single wish, no one ever said Kairi wasn't allowed to change her mind.

It was a gradual yet rapid change. Being apart for so long, going through such different experiences after a life-time together, changing in such unsimilar manners and extreme ways that she could no longer tell if it wasn't that just one of them changed while the other didn't – and then, not knowing which changed how… which one was to blame… it was a painful yet inevitable conclusion Kairi reached after only so long she got to spend with the boy who was effectively her reason for living up to that point – Sora was not the boy Kairi fell in love with any more after all.

He wasn't the only one Kairi knew that changed, however, and much like with Sora, his change was impossible not to notice. The slight lack of arrogance in his step; that odd softness in his voice as he spoke, so unlike his bravado from two years ago; the gentle sadness that painted both his eyes and smile whenever he looked at his childhood friends and the world he grew up in, as though gladly accepting the weight on his shoulders. The person who casted away everything before it could push him away first, only to reach for it desperately once it was gone, just out of his reach. That lost, confused, naïve boy she always managed somehow not to get a proper look at… but now did.

It could've been simply that she was lonely; she had lived her whole life loving someone, after all, and giving that up was no easy feat. It could've been she felt his own self condemnation, his self-brought isolation, and knew that it would take more than a kind word and a fond smile and a squeeze of one's own cheeks to make him see he was undeserving of it. It could've simply been that she wanted to stop aching over his saddest of smiles, wanted her own heart to stop breaking – even If it meant patching up his own in the process.

How exhilarated, elated even she was when she finally reached her arms out to him, pulled him close against herself and refused to let go. How overjoyed she was then when she called out his name, told him it would be alright, that he wasn't alone anymore; that she'd be there for him – never leave him. That even when the whole entirety of the worlds wouldn't – she'd go on, and she'd love him.

There was nothing Kairi could've wished for more when he held her back, stayed close, and thanked her. She needn't hear him say it back; he was, after all, crying for her. What more could she have asked for… aside from losing that last tiny bit of regret.

It had been several months since. It wouldn't be a stretch to say that being with Riku had made Kairi the happiest she had ever been. He cared for her, laughed with her, smiled at her, and was gentle during those bashful, awkward moments he reached to caress her in. She on her part was honest with him, let herself be weak next to him, vulnerable around him – and he never betrayed her, not even once. He had truly changed that much.

Or was the one that changed – she herself? After all, back in the day, she only had eyes for one person… Oh. How she missed those days…

Kairi never once had a hard time making up her mind. Even if she changed it, she always knew what she wanted at any given time. She just never wanted two different things at the same time before.