Rusted Links

It's been nine years. Nine years since that day became note-worthy. That day which up to then was just another day to mark off the calendar when it passed by uneventfully, just like all the other days to come and go. No one minded it and no one cared for it for it was just another ordinary day
Up to nine years ago.
Ever since then that date became something to remember, to mark in your yearly planner and to not set plans on. It became a date people didn't want to have come and that absorbed all happiness for a while before and after it like a black hole. Everything looked mundane and dull at best around that day, that day which nine years ago became one to remember how long ago it happened on.

He doesn't like that day. In actuality he knows no one else does, but he likes to think it's different for him. For starters, he doesn't need a date to remember it on. You spend your whole life with someone, grow up with them, become more accustomed to them than you are your own shadow, only to have them be stolen, snatched away from you.
It wouldn't matter nine or nineteen or ninety years - he doesn't need the date to remember.
Second, it's that one day when everyone looks at him differently. Sadly, pitifully. Like he needs their comfort and support that one day a year but not on the other three hundred sixty four and a quarter days, or that just because it's that day of all others he suddenly becomes weaker, more fragile, or they - more reliable and comforting. He doesn't need their charity then any more than he does the rest of the year, since to him it's no different. He remembers, and he manages somehow, just the same as always, all on his own.
Well, that last bit was just a bit of a lie, he admits to himself and holds onto the crown shaped emblem hanging off his neck. He always wears it, never takes it off. Both the weight and the metallic sounds comfort him, oddly, a means through which he can pretend not all the promises each worn-out link holds to it were broken. It's just that on that day of all days he feels it weighing down as he feels every single broken oath and shattered dream.
This alone on that day is different.

He tends not to make it to the memorial services on time if at all. It wasn't a sudden decision he made, a whim, nor was it something he decided on instantly.
He came to the funeral. He came to the service that first year. He just didn't come afterward. It wasn't that he didn't feel the need to, nor that he finds the ceremony to be redundant, but if walking down the street got him treated like a beaten puppy on that day each year, showing up was all that much worse.
It wasn't just that sort of treatment that kept him away, though, and keeps him away still. If he shows up, people feel compelled to comfort him, to try and show him their support. And even those who don't keep their eyes on him constantly. Watch him, critic him. If he cries, he's an inconsiderate brat who imposes on the family; if he doesn't cry, he's a cold hearted bastard of a best friend. He never came there to please them nor gain their approval, but so long as he showed up he was forced to put up with that abuse.
He knows the dearly departed himself would've excused himself of the event if he could, too.
It was weird, actually, whenever he stopped to think about it. When he was a child and something like this happened, he wanted nothing more than to cry. To express his pain as loudly as possible and to let everyone comfort him.
Two decades later and he wants nothing to do with that. Let people keep up appearances away from him; that people that truly matter understand and forgive him.
After all, one can talk to a rock just as well if not better on his own.

It's almost time for him to do just that, he realizes as people begin to leave the cemetery. He watches them as they leave, each and every one a familiar face. Some more than others, though, and he purses his lips as he spots the trio of friends he knows for as long as he did the person he came to visit.
Selphie's bawling; she does every year, without fail, but he never once held it against her - he knows she's not the type to fake it.
Tidus tries to comfort her or at least keep her together until they reach home.
It leaves Wakka to stare out at where he knows he'll find him, the last member of their group and the only one who didn't show up. There's no accusation in his eyes and his lips remain shut. All he does is offer an acknowledging nod before following the other two away.
Because really, what's there to say?

He doesn't expect to see Kairi there yet. For the past nine years it was always like this, with everyone, even the family leaving while the girl stayed behind. Stayed, mourned by herself, and waited for him. Waited for him to come and talk to the rocks on his lonesome.
So it's really no surprise when he finds her there, crouching by the gravestone. She was hugging herself, the tears falling idly, slowly down her still moist cheeks. No matter how many times she folds her tissue she can't find a single dry spot to use, but has to make do regardless.
So much for taking care of her, he thinks as he watches her recover enough to meet him halfway, not letting him reach the grave yet. They both know once he'll get there, there will be no reaching him.

She's happy to see him there - of course, all things considered. Glad that he came - it means a lot to everyone. He nods once and lets her go on, knowing well she won't go away until this is over with. She retells things he already knows, was there to remember better than she could. Most of them he remembers differently because he did it while she just watched. He knows better than to try and argue about it though; the only person who could tell which of them was right can't really voice his opinion anymore. It's almost as though she tries to make up to it, and refuses to let it go for a long moment. How good it was back then, how good it is to see him again. How two thirds getting back together are better than nothing at all.
He never got upset with her for suggesting it before, never really blamed her for it, either. But finally, after nine years, Kairi said it too. That no doubt, this is what he'd have wanted...
This alone, he was never able to stand nor forgive. Not from anyone, least of all her - never her.
He'd have wanted to live. To not let any of them go through any of this. Wanted to laugh, to smile, to decide for himself what he wanted.
But dead men tell no tales; why should they want anything, either?

He doesn't look back even as she runs away crying. He'll have to apologize, he knows, even if everything he ever did on that day was forgiven. He still would because nine years ago he did something - or didn't do - and he can never be forgiven for that.
He failed to save him. If you asked him, having everyone else hold it against him too would certainly feel better.

He manages to lean against the gravestone without looking at the name. Eight years' worth of practice would let anyone do that, or so he thinks every once in a while. He never looks, at least not straight away. There's something very final about the letters forming the names, carved on the polished rock. Something inescapable. A reality he can't run away from.
If he doesn't read it it's fine though, it's not as bad. Like that, if he tries hard enough he can distantly pretend it's not that hard, and it's not that cold, but just as supporting - the way it should be and always was when they were back to back. And with no one around and the breeze blowing it's just the two of them, just like when they were children -
Sora and Riku, Riku and Sora, the way it should've been forever, and for half a moment he can almost force himself to believe it still is.
"Maybe we should've shared that Paopu..." he asks, and despite his best efforts, it doesn't sound at all like a joke.
The lack of response is deafening, and he tells himself it's because there's nothing to say back to that.
Because really, what can you say to that? Nothing, and he accepts that fact too simply. The same way he tells himself that head radiating at him from the stone isn't actually his own but someone else's. The way he accepts the unacceptable, the impossible, because then he can pretend. Pretend that when he closes his eyes, he's not really gone, just... away. Away saving the universe, or waiting for him in the dark to come and fetch him, but anyway he'd be back soon and they'll smile and laugh together again and then the necklace around his neck won't feel this heavy.

He wakes up a while later when the grounds' caretaker comes to make sure he doesn't need a plot of his own. He laughs and rubs his eyes before stretching. His back's stiff and his neck's killing him. Really, he thinks and pushes himself up; what was he sleeping against, he wonders and turns around.

Reality never is kind, he remembers as he stares at the name, and the date, and the carved crown emblem which became the boy's symbol to the point it was appropriate to carve on the stone as well. Reality never let him forget, or escape, or wake up from it. Even if he was distracted, even if he took his mind off of it, he was always brought back to why it was better to never turn away from it.
Each time he remembered was like watching him die all over again.

"You're not fair..." He mutters as his fingers trail over the name. "So... so unfair." He pants and grits his teeth. "You chased me when I was away. Swore to bring me back. So why..." A gasp interrupts him as his free hand clenches around the necklace, the sole, lone memento he was left with on that day nine years ago.
"Why did you go where I can't follow? Why did you go alone?" He wants to scream, but the voice dies in his throat as he leans forward, forehead pressing against the gravestone. His fingers twitch against the cold surface, desperate to get a hold on anything of someone who's nothing more than a name and forever more sixteen.
Someone who went and died without him.

"Come back... Sora..."