Love can mean a lot of things, but I only know two of them, personally – the love between parents and their children, and the love between friends. My mom is the kind of woman that will clap me firmly under the chin, spit on a napkin, and wipe a smudge off of my face. My dad, on the other hand, keeps a distance, but I think he understands me more than we’d both like to think. I can’t help but love them because they’re family. Yet… I had no problem with leaving them behind while I went off on an adventure.

My friends seem like family, too. Yet deep down, I care for them more than family. I tried to control the darkness to help Kairi, and I let myself be locked inside Kingdom Hearts so Sora and everyone else could be okay. Figures he’d just run off and lose his memories. I’m not openly affectionate towards them – it’s just awkward for me – but I care immensely for them.

Yet the word ‘love’ is most often related to romantic stuff: kissing, hugging, and holding hands. I’ve never loved another in that way. A lot of girls at school claim to love me and stuff like that, but how could they when they don’t even know me? Especially now after all that’s happened. I’m not the same kid I was before. I’m not even a kid anymore.

I’ve had a romantic interest in a girl before, but now it’s hard to tell why that was. Now that I’ve changed and she’s changed, things have followed suit, such as my feelings for her. It’d be nice, one day, to find that special someone. It’s just hard to imagine myself running across someone who can deal with me at the moment.

There’s got to be someone out there who won’t look at me like some lunatic when I tell them about myself.

He was walking past a window and a rock whistled past his head. He immediately jumped back, narrowly avoiding the spray of glass that rained onto his bedroom floor. If not for pure reflex he would have ended up in the hospital. It took him a few moments to realize what had happened, but as he spotted a fist-sized rock across the room, he knew one thing:

His parents were going to kill him. There wouldn’t even be a body left to find. Riku already was grounded – the punishment harsh, banning him from heading out to the island with his friends – and now he was six feet deep. No, make that twelve.

Thankfully, his room was on the opposite side of the house from his parents’, and it was highly unlikely they would have heard the crash. Nevertheless, Riku angrily pushed open the window, eyeing the shattered glass that still clung to it carefully before sticking his head out into the cool night air.

He was surprised to see Selphie.

She was pale as death, looking just about ready to cry as she talked a mile a minute, every other word a “I’m so sorry!” or “I’ll pay for the window!” or something like that. As she explained her reason for throwing the rock (“Well, I heard you were grounded, so I didn’t want to call and I always saw them do this in the movies! I’m SO sorry…”) Riku’s anger slowly faded away. In fact, a small smirk was on his face.

“Selphie.”

“You can tell your parents it was me, because… well, it was!! Oh nooo, I can’t believe I did that! I—“

“Selphie.” Riku repeated, waving an arm down at the girl.

She stopped, bit her lip, and looked up. “Yeah?”

“Don’t worry about it.”

“But--!” Selphie’s protests were waved away by Riku as she shrugged.

“It’s not a big deal. But,” he said, looking over at his bedroom clock and then back at Selphie, “You should get back home. It’s late. I’ll see you at school tomorrow, though, okay?”

The tiny girl shifted on the gravel path beneath Riku’s window, looking as if she wanted to protest more, but eventually thought better of it. He could tell she still felt bad as she nodded, still chewing on her lower lip. “’kay… I’ll see you later… sorry again.”

“Hey,” he called after her as she turned around. Selphie looked back over her shoulder to see Riku smiling. “Don’t worry about it, really. I’m glad you visited. I was getting bored.”

He watched the girl’s lazy smile cross her face before she turned and walked off. Riku knew she looked up to him, so sometimes just some extra reassurance would make everything okay. He knew how to deal with Selphie. After all, he was Riku.

Said boy pulled back into his room and closed the window. The broken glass stared back at him. He drew the curtains over the window and brushed the glass on the floor to the side as best as he could with his shoe, threw the rock into the trashcan, and went to bed.

The next day he awake to his mother having a fit and his father demanding to know what in god’s name he had done. Rubbing the sleep from his eyes, Riku calmly explained that he had snuck outside of the house and felt like throwing things. His mother shook her head and stormed out of the room before she yelled and his father gave him a questioning once-over. Riku knew he didn’t quite buy it, but he left Riku to get ready for school. It wasn’t the first time Riku had taken the blame for his friends, and he doubted it be the last.

Besides, they’d never believe that Selphie had thrown a rock into his window.

I don’t think I’ve ever gone out and made friends purposely.

I have friends, but not out of any real effort. Wakka, Selphie, Tidus, and Sora all became my friends simply because there was no one else on our tiny little islands. There were other kids, I guess, but they were all content with going to school and coming home to do homework. Us? We liked adventure. We liked fighting. We liked races and competition.

Well, maybe that was just me. I was the mature one that they felt drawn to. Even Wakka admired me. This makes me sound conceited, but… it was the truth. They were drawn to me, and over time, I became protective of them. That only intensified when Kairi became a part of our little group. All of my good times on the islands revolved around them – bonfires, burying Tidus in the sand and leaving him until the tide came in, sparring with Sora, races, climbing tress, you name it.

The King and Naminé were friends out of circumstance. I guess Mickey saw something in me that I didn’t, and he helped me out. Naminé was… different, and I was drawn to her for multiple reasons, really. I trusted her, and she had faith in me.

Looking back, I don’t make friends, I just get them. It’s beyond me how I’ve kept them for so long.

Sometimes, I think people who knew me when I was younger that know me today would say my spirit is broken. When I was younger, I was this kid with huge, unattainable dreams, but never would I believe that I couldn’t get them. I used to live in the moment. Today – heh, only a year later – I’m different. I don’t talk as much. I don’t speak unless I really need to. I don’t smile, laugh, or joke as much as I did. I’m not some emotionless shell, of course, but my spirit is calmer… not broken, just… tired, I guess. It’s hard to describe. Not broken, but beaten? Maybe.

Sora, on the other hand, is the definition of spirit. He’s everything I’m not. That’s a good thing, if you haven’t realized. I don’t have low self-esteem issues, so get that out of your head, but I’m glad Sora isn’t like me. When we were little he’d try to mirror everything about me. Fighting, speaking, even the way I walked. But he never could manage – he’d never be me, he’d just be Sora looking like an idiot. He’d start laughing or complain I stood in an uncomfortable way. That was his spirit showing through. Even if he messed up or complained, he’d keep trying. Just like all those times I’d beat him down. He’d keep fighting.

I’m glad he has that. If it weren’t for that spirit of his… I don’t even want to think about it. Things would not be good. I’ll just leave it at that.

… no.

I’ve woken up and not known where I was or what had happened to me, but I know everything that I’ve done. I’ve got a good memory, and unless you’ve got a severe case of amnesia or have had an encounter with Naminé, I don’t think there’s a good excuse for not remembering something. If you get drunk it’s your own fault.

I once had the chance to wake up and not remember what I did. Memories aren’t something I want to forget, good or bad. How do you learn from them, then? I’d just make the same stupid mistakes and end up back where I was. That would have been the easy way out. Memories make you or break you. What are you without memories?

That’s a different topic for another time, though. So in short: no, every time I’ve come to consciousness I’ve remembered what I did before. I intend to keep it that way, too.

I’m living proof that what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger. Physically stronger, that is. I’ve always been a strong kid. I could take on Tidus, Wakka, and Selphie all at once and not even so much as sweat. Sora was my only real competition, and even then… what can I say? I was the one always winning. I don’t even know why I was so strong. Maybe a childhood of climbing trees, building forts, and pretending to be a knight paid off. Or maybe it was just the luck of genetics. I could beat anyone on our little island and that made me the one the girls came to when they were frightened. It was a good feeling. I was their hero.

( Possible Spoilers. )