Disclaimer: I do not own Kingdom Hearts

Summary: Ventus struggles with his desire to reunite with Vanitas. Drabble.

It was his dark secret, a sentiment that he will never let spill from his lips, lest he give cause for the Gods to smite him for his insolence.

His terrible yearning for his corrupted half, Vanitas.

It used to be tolerable, but now was impossible to overlook. The grawing, clenching emptiness that he became more aware of with each day that passed. As he and his friends were forced to endure tragedy after tragedy, and they falsified smiles and laughter for his sake, his were sincere, and he hated Vanitas for taking away his ability to grieve.

Bereft of the merest hint of darkness, he was a bastion of light so bright that even the shadows hid themselves under his intensity. He was unfinished, unbalanced, and the more he was denied the right to feel anger, and hatred for the injustice wrought upon them, the more he longed for his darkness.

Ventus disliked knowing that such a blackened soul was half of his own, but he was beginning to understand why Vanitas was the way he was. If he felt numb from not being able to experience any of his negative emotions, he could only imagine what ailed the other, doomed without choice to be engulfed by them, and never know a single pleasant thought.

Each suffered, and both knew that reunion was the only end to their torment. But only one of them was willing to bring calamity on all worlds to do so.

Ventus would sacrifice his absolution, the solidarity of being able to share in their sorrows. And when all was said and done, he would sleep, and cold tears would fall from eyes tightly shut.

Even if the pain that fed them was of another.