Riku/Namine! Yeah. I love that pairing. But, remember, I haven't played Kingdom Hearts II (no mocking, please), so the situations are different and don't follow the game in any way close to accuracy. So please, don't kill me.

Oh, and about this fic, well, normally I portray Riku and Naminé developing a relationship when they've known each other a while and can talk a lot. This time, I tried something new and touched on them kind of being strangers, the relationship just starting. And…I kind of like it, too.

Will you like it?

Disclaimer: Eh. No. I don't own Kingdom Hearts.

She watched from a distance, blonde hair waving constantly in front of her face and teasing her vision as she tried to concentrate on his form. He was more daring than she, bothering to go out time and again to live the life that wasn't theirs. She studied him, wished she could be like him, and admired his ambition.

But it made her sad, to see him so alone.

In one quick, fluid movement he jumped, almost flying through the air as he sailed to the ground. She couldn't see him anymore, but she heard him run, taking off to fulfill the destiny he believed he had.


"Pining again?"

She tilted her head up to see Riku looking down at her, a seductively dark look in his eyes as he surveyed her in curiosity. He was the one who'd walked in darkness and chosen light, the one who was a mix of the good and the bad and lured you in with a single stare; the Keyblade Master's opposite, and yet his closest friend.

She looked down, into the white of her notepad, and said nothing.

"You two an item or something?"

Again, she said no words. What did it matter? Did he have to know, in all entirety?

"Probably are, since he's the only one who ever sparks a reaction from you."

She blinked, startled. There was a subtle note of loathing in the dark warrior's voice.

"He's not gonna notice unless you say something, though. He shuts the people who aren't close to him out."

She picked up her pencil.

"Do you ever talk?"

"When it matters," she whispered, already sketching out lines on the page.

He snorted, and she lifted her eyes to see him. He was scowling at the ground, looking somewhat impatient. What did he want with her?

"What is wrong with you, huh? Jeez, how am I so different?"

She sighed, lowering her eyes to the paper. Of course. It was that argument again. He was about to accuse her of hating only him, as she so obviously paid more concern to the Keyblade Master and his other half.

He was like a child, hating to be the younger, more inferior one. He always fought to be number one in someone's eyes.

She shrugged him off, drawing more lines in her sketchbook and hoping all the while to hear his retreating footsteps.

"So you hate me, huh?"

The sound of his voice was so soft and wounded that her pencil stilled, and she blinked away the words that revolved in her ears. Lifting her eyes, she stared at him with a wide gaze, peering through the blonde bangs that covered her face and protected her from the world.

"Does it matter how I feel about you?"

He smirked at her, eyes bright with an emotion that was hard to place. Then he shifted his weight, a sign that he was growing uncomfortable, and finally retreated into himself and looked away from her stare.

"I don't know. But it definitely bothers me when someone hates me and I don't know why."

"I hate you?"


She hummed a little to herself, startled by this news. That's how he saw it? That's the excuse he made to cover for why she would have nothing to do with him?

It fascinated her, how people could be so wrong judging others.


She felt him staring at her as she started to form a shape under the sharpened point of her pencil, and she tilted her head more to let the stray pieces of her hair fall before her eyes.

"You hide."

She smiled.

"Not well, though," he added. "I can see your smile."

"Do you understand why I'm smiling?"

"No," he admitted.

"Then you don't understand me," she said softly. She looked back at him innocently. "So why do you bother?"

"You interest me," he said, shoving his hands into his pocket and not looking the least bit ashamed. "You're the only one I have to chase after to get an answer to my question."

"I don't just remind you of the one you lost?"

He was silent for a long time, and she suddenly wondered if she'd hurt him. And more so, she wondered why she suddenly cared.


This time, she didn't pick up her drawing again. She let the pencil sit on the page, and she stared at it for a while.

"You're not Kairi. You never will be Kairi. And you'll never have anything in common with her." He shifted, and she looked up to see him staring at the sky. "Kairi's her own person, as are you. And it's the same with Sora and Roxas. You all think for yourselves and decide your own fates, different fates." A shadow of a grin appeared then. "It just happened that all of your fates tied together."

"I'm her shadow."

"I don't agree with that." She stilled, a chill running through her body. No one had ever refused that before. "But, even so, isn't a shadow different than its embodiment?" She tilted her head in confusion. "It can follow, lead, break away, retract, grow in the light, shrink from the darkness, and decide not to be where expected. Almost," he said, looking at her now, "like it has a mind of its own?"

She flushed and ducked her head down, hiding now from the kindness he tried to reach out to her with. Trusting was too hard for her. She would only hurt him if he tried to pursue whatever it was he felt between them.

"Kairi never hid from her fears," he said, smile in his voice.

"Then I guess I'm not her," she said softly in retort before she even knew what she was saying.


Flustered, she picked up her pencil and tried to ignore the fact that he was still there, watching her. Her hands brushed in trained movements, springing to life the image in her mind, and piece by piece the world began to fall away, leaving her in the place she was happiest.

"Don't think I'm done with you after this conversation," he said idly, and she couldn't help herself. She looked up again, drawn by the curiosity he sparked in her. He glanced at her, confidence radiating from him, and ran a hand through his hair. "I want just the same treatment and interest you give to Sora and Roxas."

She didn't answer.

"Jeez, I thought you'd blush at the name of your boyfriend."


He sighed. "So you don't listen to me at all?"

She blinked.

"I asked if you and Roxas were an item. Ringing any bells?"

She shrugged.

Groaning, he shot her a withering glance. "Naminé, can't you regard me with at least some importance and listen to the things I say?"

A weird sensation prickled at her cheeks and she chewed her lip slightly. Why did the fact that he said her name affect her? He'd said it before. It was nothing new.

"I listen," she whispered.

And he didn't press. It shocked her that he seemed to believe everything she said without contradiction or question. No one had ever put so much faith in her.

And she'd never realized so much about herself in one short exchange with a boy she hardly knew.

"Well, I think I forced enough conversation out of you, huh?" he declared, and she stared at him. "I'll let myself on back, since I invited myself here in the first place."

She nodded slightly, feeling the word 'stay' on the tip of her tongue. He seemed to sense her silent plea as well, for he hesitated, staring at her with those dark eyes of his, tempting information from her.

"You can…stay, if you want to," she relented at last.

He raised an eyebrow. "You gonna talk to me?"

She shrugged. "I don't know."

He smiled warmly and sat down in front of her, mimicking her cross-legged stance. "Fair enough."

For some reason, she'd half-thought he'd leave. He seemed the kind of guy to do things that weren't expected of him and to go places he wasn't invited, and then leave when he was actually wanted.

It was a rather warming thought to think he wouldn't leave her if she asked for his protection.

"Drawing your boyfriend?" he asked with a cocky smirk.

She looked down and smiled. "He's not my boyfriend."

"But you want him to be?"

She blinked, feeling that warm sensation again in her cheeks. "No," she lied, and he knew it, too.

Still, he didn't press, and only leaned back with a small smirk.

"Maybe one day you'll bother to draw a picture of me," he said. "I like to think I have a fairly alluring physique."

Again, her cheeks tingled, and she finally realized she was blushing. Smiling down at her paper, she brushed away pencil shavings, staring into the copy of the person before her. Those same dark eyes, that cocky yet not too-full-of-himself smirk in place, and that confident stance with his arms crossed over his chest stood out and commanded the page, just as he commanded anyone's attention and affection. Yes, it was alluring.

She smiled and closed the notebook, meeting his eyes. "Maybe."

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