musefic | Kingdom Hearts fic: To Find a Balance Between

Still a day behind! But here is the Day 6 fill for AU-gust. The prompt was "Domestic AU."
It follows directly from the Day 4 fill for "Runaway."

The title comes from another Jimmy Eat World song off the same album. The song (and the album) is "Futures."

"I always could count on futures
That things would look up, and they look up.
Why is it so hard to find a balance between
living decent and the cold and real?"

The feeling tended to creep up on him by surprise, and when it did it was overwhelming.

This would have seemed impossible for so long.

Years after they decided to leave, Riku thinks about where they are now.

The feeling tended to creep up on him by surprise, and when it did it was overwhelming.

This would have seemed impossible for so long.

It hadn’t been easy to get here. He knew they’d been lucky, certainly. Lucky, and persistent, and stubborn, and completely certain they’d made the right choice.

The first night they arrived in the city, it felt full of limitless potential. Even in the middle of the night everything was lit up, and if it wasn’t crowded like the middle of the day, it was still anything but deserted. It felt like having made one enormous, life-altering choice, they’d unlocked the chance to make hundreds more.

That initial burst of hope had collided with the reality of leaving everything behind. There were way too many nights in seedy motels, ones with distressing stains on, well, every surface.

There were also better nights spent camping on the beach above the tideline, taking advantage of the warm nights.

He remembered one morning in particular, waking up on a blanket which had still wound up with sand all over it over the course of the night. The sun was just rising, turning everything to pinkish-gold. Sora sat up, running his hands through his hair to knock yet more sand out from the spikes. Kairi laughed as she watched, and Riku reached over to brush more off her cheek.

“It got you overnight, too,” he teased.

“Everything is about balance,” she said, still laughing.

It felt hopeful when she said it, even if she’d only meant how the joy of spending the night on the beach meant the annoyance of having to dump sand out of everything they owned.

They’d held onto the phrase like a talisman after that. It meant that sometimes the good still came with tradeoffs, but more so it was a reminder that even the worst nights would someday be replaced by better ones.

Of course, none of their parents were happy with their decision to run away. Why would they have been? And if they’d been willing to understand or approve of the trio making their own decisions, they never would have had to run away.

They knew that leaving was ultimately selfish; they just still thought it was right. It was worth trading familial expectations in order to be together. It was not surprising to any of them that they were the only ones to believe that.

Even so, they weren’t trying to hurt anyone, so of course they called home, wanting to be sure everyone knew they were okay. Alive. Mostly safe.

There was a bit of initial begging, pleading with each of them to return, promising that they could all just move on and forget this “little act of rebellion” or this “poor decision.” Riku could still take that job at his father’s company, and they’d never have to speak of this indiscretion again. Kairi still had a spot waiting for her at the foreign university, where she’d be in the right place to meet and marry a man of sufficient future influence. Sora could still go to the neighboring island to train, because didn’t he want to own a fishing fleet someday?

Then it turned to threats. Riku wouldn’t be welcome at his father’s company, and in fact, they’d ensure he was never hired by anyone they did business with either. Kairi’s acceptance to the university had been rescinded, and her parents would never help pay for schooling again. Sora had made a terrible impression, and he’d be lucky if one of the fishing fleets would hire him for even the lowest of grunt work now.

“It’s all about balance,” Kairi said through tears.

It was right after her father told her not to bother calling home again, because he’d never answer her calls. He no longer considered that he even had a daughter, and he hoped she’d never been planning to come home, because she wouldn’t be welcome.

It sounded more bitter when she said it then, instead of at sunrise on a beach.

But she was also saying it while perched on the edge of their bed, in the first apartment they’d been able to rent—the very thing she’d called her father to tell him, because she was proud of that, dammit—so it still felt true.

Riku held her while she cried, as Sora did the same on her other side, wanting to make sure the balance was worth it.

“Can you check and see if there are any peppers?” Sora called from the kitchen. “They weren’t ready yesterday, but might be today.”

It snapped Riku out of that stuck place in his brain, pushing him to walk outside. “I’ll go check.”

He walked out the back door into the garden behind their house. They weren’t quite on the beach, but in less than a fifteen minute walk they could be. They still smelled the salt water. If it wasn’t the same beach they’d visited in their childhoods, this was the one that felt more like home, now.

The stars were beautiful at night.

Kairi was already in the garden. She was weeding one of the flowerbeds, while also tying top-heavy flower stalks to the trellises set up behind them. She smiled at him when he came down the path.

There were peppers finally ready in the vegetable bed, and some of the sweet peas they’d planted were ready as well. A few of the raspberries were clearly ripe, too. He’d have to come back out for those.

He kissed his wife on the cheek when he passed, and brought the peppers inside to their husband. He got to help dice the peppers, then go back out to let Kairi know breakfast was nearly ready.

This all would have felt like an impossibility, the night they loaded a bag each into the back of his car. Or for the years after, struggling to get to this kind of place. If things were about balance, then he still thought they’d come out ahead. This was worth everything they’d chosen to leave behind.

Funnily enough, I'd written the lines about "balance" before I remembered the lyric I ultimately picked for the title, but when I did remember it, it was too fitting to pass up.

Initially I was going to title this one "Gonna Call This Home" from yet a different track on the same album.

Instead I decided that was a better title to tie the two fics together. That line is from the song "The World You Love." It's another one that's a mix of hopeful and melancholy, a mix of being happy with things you have while also missing the things you've lost.