.White is Every Color.

She tires of staring at the white ceiling, the four white walls, the white, cloudy overhang through the window. The splashes of pastel colors around the room do not hold her attention as her blue eyes, deep as the most precious of sapphires, scan the room for anything she could value, anything to keep her sane, to catch her attention, to cure the stifling loneliness and boredom.

Seven-year-old Kairi sits up slowly, pushing herself from the white bedspread. She stares at the little, white vanity mirror, at her own fiery red hair reflected back at her. She watches her lips purse into a tight frown, cheeks puffing out in a pout befitting her age.

The little, white dove next to the little, white mirror ekes out a high tone. Her frown grows broader. The bird is a new addition to the girl's white room, a gift from her parents, the man with the light hair and kind eyes, the woman with hair like her own, eyes soft as the breeze.

"To keep you company," they told her when she came home to find the animal sitting in a pristine, white cage. "You get to name him."

She does not name the bird and, in fact, thinks he is terrible company. It is shy and it can't talk to her; she can't discuss the bird's favorite color (though she has a sneaking suspicion that it is white), or whether or not Mommy and Daddy will like her newest drawing, or how many thalassa shells will fit on a necklace. The bird is feathers and noise, and Kairi is still lonely.

She walks to the mirror, watches her actions mimicked in the glass, and suddenly she seems a little less lonely. This mirror self can talk to her, this illusion can talk just as much as she can.

It doesn't hold up.

Kairi only knows she is crying because she can see the tears trickling down from her eyes. Her loneliness has returned ten fold.

The dove begins to coo.

Kairi feels the world begin to collapse around her. The tears come faster, more plentiful. Why can the bird make itself known, but she must remain invisible? Why is she prohibited to the existence she cries over?

"I just want someone to talk to!" Her mind roars through her turmoil. "A friend!"

She's never thought so much about a simple friendship before, despite the many times her parents leave her to her own devices with the disheveled babysitter who smells distinctly of smoke.

Kairi is a big girl. She does not need the lady who smells like smoke. She is not supposed to cry. She is Mommy's Gorgeous Flower, Daddy's Little Warrior.

She is a big girl, she swears it.

"Hey, why are you crying?"

The voice scares her so much that she has to block her scream with teeth welded shut. The tears stop, if only due to shock.

The redheaded girl in the mirror who copies her is gone. She sees brown hair, the strands comically done up in spikes. This reflection is not her own, even if she locks and sees eyes as blue as her own watching her.

The reflection of a strange boy with curious eyes stares back at her.

"I-I'm not crying!" Kairi protests as she rubs furiously at her eyes. The fear has ebbed and her embarrassment has set in. She reminds herself that big do not cry, once again.

"Don't lie," the boy admonishes. He raises a hand and points at her. Kairi knows she cannot possibly be seeing this, but she is looking at the mirror as though through a window. "Why are you crying?"

Kairi distantly notices that the silly dove has stopped making noise. Caught in her lie, she said, "I'm feeling a little lonely." The admission makes her blush, a dusty pink spread across her cheeks.

The boy looks perplexed as he hears her softly spoken worlds, and Kairi thinks that he looks a little pained as he tries to ponder this information. She almost giggles, and probably would, but her tears, drying on her face, silence her.

Suddenly the boy smiles, and it is as if the sun itself has decided to shine on Kairi and only Kairi, radiating a friendliness that alleviates the darkness encroaching around her, lighting up her heart. Kairi is surprised when she feels her lips pull into a shy smile in return.

"You don't have to cry anymore!" the boy proclaims. "You don't have to, really! I'll be your friend, and I'll be here whenever you want me to be! I promise!"

Kairi stares at him, confused, when he jabs his pinky finger out towards her. She knows this gesture ("Pinky Promise, Daddy!") and has seen the oath it represents fall time and time again.

She considers the sitter downstairs, negligent as always, and she considers her parents who are off at work. She considers the little, white dove in its cage beside the mirror.

"We can't make it a pinky promise," she whispers as she touches her pinky to the mirror, imagining she can feel the warmth of his skin, knowing her can hear her words. "because we can't touch. I think I'd like to be your friend, though."

His smile does not falter, even as he lowers his finger. "What's your name?"

"Kairi," she answers. Her tiny smile has grown.

"I'm Sora," the boy in the mirror says. "I'm really glad that I got to meet you. Friends forever, okay? Promise!"

.Blooming Colors.

The heavy satchel hits the plush carpet with an impressive thud. Kairi saunters over to the bed, collapses, and shuts her eyes tightly. The throbs in her cranium beat at a study rhythm.

There is a soft chuckle and Kairi feels some kind of relief settle over her. "Hello, Sora."

She turns her head and stares at the old vanity mirror, unsurprised to see the brown-haired, blue-eyed boy (not quite a boy anymore, having spurted into his teenage years as swiftly as she had) in the mirror. She never noticed when his baby fat has vanished to lean muscle, or when he suddenly had a deeper voice. She only knows that the boy in the mirror is her friend always.

He keeps his promises.

Sora nods at her in acknowledgement. "Tough day at school?"

"I can't say 'tough'," she answers with a sigh. "Confusing seems to work better."

"You wanna talk about it?"

Kairi smiles. Sora has always been curious to the point where she once believed he was just in it for the gossip. She had learned, though, that if she denied him, he would not try to wheedle it out of her. He is always respectful.

"I think someone likes me," she admits, blushes red. She reaches above her head to grab a white pillow before smashing it to her face, hiding.

"Who?"

Kairi pulls the pillow away from her face just enough to give Sora a once-over. His voice is tinted with a spot of something unidentifiable. He is pouting, just a bit, lips tugged down childishly.

She takes pity on him and replies, "His name is Riku. He's a senior."

Sora's expression does not change, but she can see a contemplative cloud pass over his eyes. "He's older than you."

"Is that bad? I'm older than you, you know."

Sora looks surprised. "What? Only by a month and a half! And it's not bad, it's just...I don't know." He shrugs and it seems like a weighted, resigned gesture. "I guess I'm just trying to look out for my best friend as best I can from here."

Kairi has asked where Sora lives, where he comes from. She still does not know.

"I appreciate it," Kairi mollifies him. His boyish smile returns.

With visible effort, Kairi sluggishly crawls across the bed to reach out for the abandoned bag, dragging it across the floor until it reaches the edge. She digs through it blindly until she withdraws her hand, a silvery cellphone gripped loosely. Almost as though sensing her, the phone suddenly chimes a polyphonic tune.

Kairi pops the cellphone open with her thumb. The message inside it makes her fading blush renew itself.

Sora leans forward until Kairi is sure that he will hit his head on the mirror (a fumble he as made several amusing times in the past) as he fails to hide his desire to know. "Is that from this Riku?"

She nods vigorously. Her fingers are tapping rapidly on the QWERTY keyboard of th phone. "He wants to hang out with me tonight," she confirms with a smile.

Kairi misses the immediate scowl on her friend's face. "But-"

"I'm so excited! He's really cute...and I do want to get to know him."

"But-!"

"Sora, go away for a tad! I need to change!" Kairi's newfound energy propels her body to her closet, hidden behind a boring, white door. It is wrenched open and Sora sees her tossing spontaneous articles of clothing out into the room.

"But Kairi!" he exclaims. The urgency he projects gives the girl pause as she peeks from over her shoulder.

"Sora?"

He looks upset, an expression so foreign on his face that Kairi wonders if the boy in the mirror is truly Sora at all. It is wrong on his face because Kairi thinks that Sora should only smile.

"But...," he continues. Now that he has her attention, he becomes nervous. She would call it endearing, but she knows that Sora is serious. "But you went out last night with your friends from school. And you just got home. I...missed you. I don't want you to go out tonight."

Kairi feels a pressing guilt settle beneath her breast. It is almost painful. His eyes stare into her won, and he just looks so sad.

Her heart aches, both for the boy she cannot touch and for the boy that is expecting her.

"But I just told him I'd meet him, Sora," Kairi murmurs. She does not look at him, she does not want to see that heartbroken face. She glances anyway.

Sora's head is lowered. When he raises it, his vibrant smile is back in place. "Go ahead, Kairi. Forget about it. Don't let me monopolize your time."

Sora has never lied to her before, but somehow Kairi doubts his sincerity. "Sora...?"

"Don't worry about it," he encourages. He even waves her away. "I'm gonna let you change now. See you?"

Kairi's heart plummets as she hears the question in his farewell. "Of course. But are you really sure this is okay with you?"

Sora's smile hardens. "I can miss you a little longer, I'll live. Go have fun." He appears to be turning around, and at the end of his turn, he fades away, and Kairi sees herself reflected in the mirror.

It is not until after she leaves, properly primped and dressed appropriately, that a teenage boy looks into a little white room, looking more forlorn than ever before.

"But Kairi, you already told me you'd be with me tonight. I asked first."

.Washed Out.

Kairi watches distractedly as the thick-muscled movers bring the ancient, white vanity mirror into the pastel-yellow room. Naminé is watching from her lap in wonder.

"Mommy, I really like this house," she says, clutching to her mother's blouse.

"It's really big," says Roxas as he peers into his sister's new room. "The house is really, really big."

Naminé slips from Kairi's lap and grabs her twin's hand. She all but drags the boy to the old mirror. "Mommy," she chirps, and Kairi is reminded of the little, white dove that a dear friend of hers had named Jacobi. "There's a big crack in the mirror you took from Gran's. Look!"

An unfamiliar panic seizes Kairi as she almost flies to the mirror. She prays under her breath that this is not the truth her child is speaking.

Her prayers are in vain.

The crack begins at the top of the mirror and snakes haphazardly down the right side. It might as well have been an open laceration, infected and sore.

"Why don't you two see what Daddy's up to?" She mutters as her fingers gingerly trace the crack. She waits patiently as she hears Roxas coax his sister from the room, the padding of their feet, the echo of their voices slowly fading further away.

"Sora...?" Her voice trembles as the age-old name tumbles inelegantly off her tongue. It has been years since she has last spoken it, and the guilty from the night of her and her husband's first date returns with the force and weight of a military tank.

There is no answer from the cheerful friend she might have loved, once upon a time.

How many years, she wonders, have passed since she had begun to ignore him? The little boy who saved her from the darkness of her own heart, who helped with her homework if he could, who was there always, without fail.

Why could she not return the favor? She remembers the day he had been so distressedm but she had been allowed to do as she wanted. He spoiled her silly. He always knew what to say to make her happy, he knew what to do. He knew what to sacrifice.

How many years, she wonders, have passed since she stopped using that child's vanity mirror? When did she forget about him, leave him behind? When did he give up trying?

She sees a solitary tear slip from her eye, as though in a sad tribute to the grievous blemish on the mirror, only because she is finally, once again, staring into the world of reflections. She reminds herself of her childhood, crying and lonely.

High school has tarnished her friendship, and Sora had paid for it with his happiness.

She had moved in with Riku without Sora's consent, leaving her little, white room to her parents' mercy.

Family life had kept her busy, still does, and Sora had been alone.

Was that when Sora broke, the crack forming in the mirror as though it were his broken heart?

"Sora...?" She tries again, the sorrow tunneling into her aching heart.

Her blue eyes stare back at her. Sad, sad, sad, sad, sad.

And then her eyes disappear from the reflection entirely.

"Kairi...?" The question rings heavy with uncertainty in a voice that is not her own, and she brings in the figure before her eyes.

The boy in the mirror is no longer a boy, he's no longer a teenager. He's a man now. He's no longer cute, no longer boyish. He would be handsome, but...

His right eye is missing, crimson blood steadily flowing down his face. And still, he smiles when he recognizes her.

"Kairi," he breathes. He is smiling, his right eye is a grotesque mess, and his left is tearing up. "You came back."

Kairi cannot find the words to speak. What can she possibly say to him?

"I missed you. You were gone for a long time. How is Riku doing? Last time you said he was having a fight with his dad."

So simple. He is talking as though the many, too many, years have not passed. As though he is not critically injured. As though she has not betrayed him.

Kairi remembers the last time, now, that they talked. It had been raining, and Kairi had just gotten off the phone with Riku. He had been fighting, and he was going to stay the night. Sora had disapproved and had promptly left the moment the doorbell rang.

She had given Riku her everything that night.

"I...I'm sorry, Sora!" Suddenly, she is bawling. Bawling like Roxas and Naminé did in their earliest years.

"This room is new," Sora says. He does not acknowledge her apology, but this also can mean that he does not accept it.

She takes a deep, shuttering breath before she bothers with speaking. "This is my daughter's room. She's six."

Sora smiles and it looks brighter. "Daughter? What's her name?"

There is blood and tears, but he still retains the aura of normalcy.

"H-her name is Naminé," she almost chokes on her raging emotions. "She has a brother. His name is Roxas. They're twins."

"Good names," Sora states with a tone of finality. "It's also good that they have each other. They won't be lonely."

"R-right."

"You're crying again. Are you feeling lonely?"

Kairi's head snaps up so fast that she worries about the state of her neck. Her bleary eyes widen when she seems him watching her, blood and tears streaming down his face, pinky extended towards her.

Her hands shake. She touches her pinky to the mirror.

"No, Sora. I'm not lonely anymore. I'm sorry. I have to break our promise."

The mantra of apologies and self-depreciation thunders in her skull.

Sora slowly closes his eye. She knows this part of the dance. She can see his acceptance.

"It hurts," are the words he says as he opens his eye again. The blue in it is changing, almost to a green. His hair is growing darker. His hands draw back from the mirror's edge and repeatedly clench and unclench.

"I know. I'm sorry."

"Can you do me a favor?"

"Anything," Kairi says so quickly she wonders if he catches it. His bitter smiles reflects that he has.

His green eye is yellow now, ethereal and scary. It does not belong to her friend. His hair is black. His skin looks frozen, decaying before her.

"Absolutely anything," she promises. "I owe you that much."

"Make it stop hurting," he pleads. She sees his blackening fingers begin to reshape themselves into something deadly. He is not Sora. Yet she still...

"I will," Kairi whispers. She leans forward and presses her lips to the mirror.

.Red.

"Naminé?" Riku querries. Roxas is perched on his shoulders, Naminé clutching at her father's hand. "Why is your bedroom door shut? We need to unpack your things."

Roxas is the one to answer. "Mommy was in there. She was worried about the old mirror from Gran and Gramp's."

Riku makes an interested sound. "That mirror belonged to your mom when she was a little girl. It's really important to her."

He pushes the door open and does not understand what he sees at first.

There is blood, tears, and glass.

An artifical silence hangs in the room. Riku removes his son with admirable speed, ushering the children our of the bedroom.

Kairi is on her knees amidst the wreckage. Her fists are sliced open to unimaginable degrees, blood oozing out and falling into a macabre puddle on the white carpet. Reflecting pieces of glass lay scattered about, clutched tightly in her fists and pressing mercilessly into her legs.

He cannot differentiate between her crystalline tears and her ruby-red blood. Dimly, he notices it matches her; hair of the richest red, eyes as clear as water. She is beautiful, even as a bloody, weeping mess.

She looks up at him and neither can speak for a time.

Concerned calls from Naminé and Roxas become white noise.

She manages to smile; the sight is frightening. "He wanted it to stop. I promised. I promised." The rest of what she splutters is nonsensical as her wall of emotional restraint falls to pieces like the mirror fragments.

Her sobs are heart wrenching.

"Kairi," Riku says at length, stepping forward cautiously, holding out his hand. Her hand slips into his and she rises on unsteady legs. "Let's get you to the hospital. You're hurt."

"I hurt him more," she insists. "I promised, 'Ku. I promised."

No, you kept your promise.

First time in the Kingdom Hearts fandom. Be gentle with me! Also, I'm considering on doing a 2nd part from Sora's point of view, let me know if I should even bother, okay?

Ah. My low self esteem is starting to kick in.