disclm: not mine

a/n: yea, nothing's capitalized because i felt like it. it's artisitc license, bitch. more risokai weirdness and angsty!riku.

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it's amazing, he thinks, how sora can draw people in. and not just any people, but pairs of people. how he is the cornerstone for any trinity. he and kairi have always revolved around sora, and now that he has been torn from them, they are empty. kairi cries out in her sleep for him, sometimes, though he has not the heart to tell her.

the three will always be locked together, no matter how much it hurts them. or at least, he thinks that they are. sora doesn't seem to attach himself to any particular person, but others cannot bear to part from him. how unbelievably selfish. perhaps if sora were not like that, kairi would not love him quite so much and perhaps, just perhaps, he could love riku.

perhaps riku would not need him quite as much. he hopes that they can forget sora, as he dives deeper into darkness and she fades delicately. but when he sees sora again, he can't help but laugh at how wrong he was. they cannot, can never, forget him. he has found new companions, however, new friends.

he's different, riku thinks, he's different and it's beautiful and i love it. i love him. he's different, though, oh so different from me and kairi and anyone who's ever needed somebody.

where they are ever unfulfilled, he can simply fill his empty spaces. sora is different because he is irreplaceable. kairi- princess of heart and pure and perfect, is not. riku who fears replacement more than anything else, is not. they are dispensable because they were simply in orbit around sora- but not distinct enough to matter. as long as the space they left behind is filled, nothing is out of place in sora's life.

"but riku will come with us, right, riku?"

"you can't just invite people like that!"

it amuses riku how that duck is like him, how an oversized bird has filled his place by sora's side. the dog, if that's what it is, must be kairi. hah. he can't wait to tell her. she'll cry and scream and probably laugh at the horribleness of it all, and they will not hate each other because they are too much alike now. the trinity s broken and reformed as riku vanishes before sora can turn to face him again. it hurts to watch as he gives up looking for him, gives up on him, on her, on what the three of them could have (should have would have) been.

but sora is ok, because he has his trinity, he has his companions. that's what matters to riku, to kairi, so it's ok, it doesn't (won't shouldn't does) hurt. he still holds onto a picture, though. the three of them, sora standing in between kairi and riku and they're all smiling and laughing. on the back, in three different handwritings, 'best friends forever'. hmph.

below it, he had written trinity, on a whim, because he liked the word. he had shown it to kairi a week or so later, and she had run her fingers over the words softly, smiling. 'it's a good word, riku' she had told him. he hadn't needed to ask her to explain herself, 'trio, threesome, they just sound too casual. trinity makes it sound like we belong together for a reason.'

there are two thin pencil-lines through the word, where both of them have tried to forget, if not forgive. the photo is crumpled from a thousand attempts to let it go, but he can't. kairi left her copy on her bedside table, and sora's disappeared a week after it was taken.

she won't let him throw it away. she'll start crying and he'll shake her and beg her not to cry but she won't stop until he puts it back in his pocket and promises not to do it again. it's the same old thing of waiting and wanting to let go and fooling themselves into thinking they have. then they see him again and she's crying into his shirt asking why he isn't looking for her and doesn't he love me? he'll hold her hand and try to tell her that he's asking the same questions but silently and with different answers. he pulls out the picture and they hold onto it until it develops new creases and their hands hurt.

he needs to burn the damn thing.