Summary: (For illbewaiting) Sora's Nobody had always been baffling to Riku since day one. He was the only person, Riku thought, that could be just like Sora, while contradicting everything about him at the same time. (Riku/Roxas, implied Riku/Sora)
Disclaimer: I do not own Kingdom Hearts. I don't even own my own house. I'm a poor high school student who lives with her parents. Please don't kill me.
Dedication: Dedicated to the wonderful illbewaiting from deviantART—byebyebluefish on livejournal. She had requested the creation of a RikuRoku fic, and although it's certainly not my forte—or even a pairing I typically (read: never) read or write—I decided to give it a shot. See, I've had this idea stewing in the back of my head for a while, so…now's a time as good as any, I suppose…
Rant: With the creation of this fic, I threw two of my strongest practices as a KH writer straight out the window. The first one being that I never delve into waters that are not marked specifically on my profile as the pairings I work with. I am not a real fan of Riku/Roxas, and that will probably be glaringly evident in the fic. Truthfully, I'm writing this as an experiment. Secondly, I wrote angst. I hate writing angst. It makes me sad.
Still, in spite of all this, "Bitter" has come into existence. Let's just see if it's an existence worth having, eh?

Started: January 22, 2008.
Completed: February 3, 2008.

"What's in a name? That which we call a rose
By any other name would smell as sweet."
-Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet (II, ii, 1-2)

Bitter
for illbewaiting

DiZ had told me that Nobodies were essentially part of the people from which they had been stripped. He told me that a Nobody was not its own person—that it was merely a physical manifestation of a Heartless' mind; a perfectly rational being without the limitation of emotions to hinder its processes.

He seemed rather fascinated with Nobodies. Like they were simply another lab result that had to be carefully observed, documented, and filed away for later use and further examination.

I thought that they sounded terrible. In my own sort of perverse way, I thought that the best thing I could do to ease their empty existence to a conclusion was through obliteration.

I figured that there couldn't be anything much worse than living without one's heart.

I must've been right, too, seeing as Organisation XIII was so adamant about trying to retrieve their hearts or whatever it was…

DiZ was distressed about this and told me to go and stop them. I really didn't complain or protest. What did I know? I was just a stupid kid from the islands. Everything I'd done based on my own decisions had ended horribly.

I guess I viewed this as a sort of atonement on my part—something for me to repay for all the pain I'd caused for all the people I loved…and for the countless people whose lives I'd destroyed without a second thought.

Killing Nobodies was easy. The weaker ones, especially. They had no capabilities of communication, so I've decided. They never make any sounds, not even when they're falling apart into black clouds of smog. They just…disappear. It's like they never leave a trace of their non-existence.

I had absolutely no problem hacking through the twisting, malformed bodies of the Dusks. It was only when I stumbled upon that one particular Organisation member who'd been directing that band.

I must've dropped Soul Eater on the spot, I was so shocked.

Standing in front of me, crouched and ready to attack, was Sora…but…at the same time, it wasn't him.

What caught me were his eyes. They were the same…just angrier. Sora's—my Sora's—eyes were never like that. They were nothing like this impostor's, flashing and smouldering cold fire, practically burning acrid holes in my head.

I drew near him, slowly, tentatively, extending a cautious hand. "Sora," I said carefully, eyes wide, not quite sure how to approach the fake. "It's me, Riku."

The Nobody furrowed his brow, Keyblades clanking loudly in his grasp. "Riku?"

Again, it wasn't him. The voice sniped through the air, slicing all of my confidence aside and leaving me feeling alone and naked.

It wasn't him.

"I don't know any Riku's." He narrowed his icy eyes, his lips thinning. "And my name is Roxas."

Roxas…

I think I laughed. It just wasn't a happy laugh. "Stop it."

The impostor gave me an odd look, like he didn't get the joke.

I cracked a strained smile at him. "Sora," I said. "You're Sora."

"Keep away from me." He raised his Keyblades menacingly, clearly trying to conceal how disturbed he was. "I'm Roxas, not Sora."

He was lying.

He called himself Roxas, but he really was just Sora's Nobody. He was just the misplaced mind of the Heartless. He really wasn't his own person.

This is what I had to constantly remind myself of. It was…strange. They both were so similar, and yet…just completely different.

I came across him a few times, and during each encounter, I found myself fervently enforcing the memory I had of Sora as himself, not as this incarnate.

We never really bashed heads after that first meeting, in which he kicked my ass and fled. It was more like we'd catch fleeting glimpses of each other, just silently watching the other until one of us tore his eyes away and escaped into the shadows.

I didn't notice for the longest time that I was always the one to break away.

Sora's Nobody never seemed to feel particularly threatened by me. In fact, it always felt like he was under the impression that I was weak…or maybe that I'd never be able to hurt him.

If this was the case, then he was right.

I could never bring myself to approach him. Not just because he held the form of a person I hold so dear to what's left of my heart, but there was just such a level of hostility that he projected that I couldn't even get within fifty metres of him without flinching. I couldn't even explain why he felt so much resent for me.

"It's because you don't see me," was what his apparent reasoning was.

These encounters were just a series of horrendous messes that I never want to remember.

DiZ had told me that Sora's Nobody was crucial to the mission of his revival, and that we'd need him in secure captivity. The containment was not an issue—DiZ had an underground computer lab in some world…Twilight Town, I think. The only real difficulty would be the actual subjugation of Sora's Nobody. And, as luck would have it, that's what DiZ wanted me for.

"What do you want?" The tone of Sora's Nobody's voice had been so cutting that it was almost physically painful. His Keyblades had been poised for attack, never mind that I had made a big production of telling him that I just wanted to talk.

I told him I needed his help. He told me that I was an idiot if I thought that he would actually trust me.

Honestly, even though he was just a Nobody, hearing that stung me.

I told him that I needed him to come with me—that his help was necessary if we were to awaken Sora's heart and mind.

His Nobody looked both horrified and intrigued by such an idea and immediately began hissing that he didn't want to disappear. He didn't want to ever meet Sora.

Maybe he didn't know it, but there was something in his eyes that said otherwise. I think he sort of did want something to do with Sora.

And I told him this, which was, predictably, flatly denied. He snarled his abhorrence of ignorant people like me, people who are "whole." He said that I could never understand him, never even begin to comprehend what his life was like.

Privately, I agreed with that. I could never understand him. He was Sora, but at the same time he contradicted everything about Sora. It was a bizarre sort of mix, in my mind. Seeing Sora's Nobody was like seeing an image of Sora distorted by a frosted glass. Sora's Nobody twisted and warped everything about Sora, turning my definition of my friend on its axis.

I remember briefly wondering if Sora's Nobody existed as a mirror image to Sora—still intrinsically Sora, when it all came down to it, but reversed and at opposition on the surface.

I ended up deciding that was probably it. They shared a lot of similarities—things I had only begun to start picking up, many of them during the last meeting we had.

We battled for a second time, and it was during this fight that I began to see all the qualities of Sora that he had—perhaps unconsciously—fought to bury beneath his paradoxical exterior.

He got that same look on his face every time he was in a tough spot, moved the same way, spat the same verbal banter as him, and his sense of strategy was a dead ringer for Sora's.

I thought the stupidity behind his denial was just overwhelming. I had to surrender myself to darkness before I could even begin to properly handle him. It was just too emotional of a battle for me to take as myself. I was too personally involved, I suppose. How could I not be? He was Sora.

Even when I had beaten him to the point of unconsciousness, there was no pride or satisfaction in my success. If anything, I felt terrible, the guilt weighing down even worse when I pulled myself out from the darkness and stared down on the Nobody's ruin.

In a way, I had just all but killed my best friend—the only person who had ever cared about me. Again.

It was this realisation that was even more overwhelming than anything else I'd grasped in the past.

This was Sora.

I was sure of it.

If we were back on the island, if none of this had happened, he would be the same. He'd make the same jokes and laugh the same way and compete with me in all those silly races.

He would be exactly the same.

If I were to kiss him, it would taste the same, too. It would be sweet. Nobody or not, this was Sora. Sora's Nobody was part of Sora, and therefore Sora was his Nobody.

They were the same person. There was no difference.

Maybe it was to prove a point to myself. Or maybe it was just to get a taste at something I'd never gotten the privilege of having.

I kissed him that night, knowing that it would taste the same as Sora—just as warm. They were the same person. It would be the same. It would be just as sweet.

But it wasn't.

It was bitter.

The Afterword: Hmmm… Well. That was…interesting.
I've gotta say, Riku's voice sounds weird in my hands. His thoughts were all disconnected and jumbled and really…short.
Like, I dunno how to explain it. I just felt like he'd be kind of to the point in his thoughts, not over-embellishing, you know? Very direct and not waxing poetic beyond what he feels up front.
He's always seemed like a deep thinker in my mind, one who never answers the questions correctly, at that, and I've tried to throw in a sense of…philosophy, I guess.
He sounds strange… I don't know how else to put it.
Anyway, I probably won't delve out of my supported pairings, for now on. This was a bit forced, on my part.
I also think I'll try to avoid the Riku POV. It's a bit too sad for me. (At least in the canon.) There's something incredibly woeful and wounded in his voice, and it makes me feel rather sick to my stomach…