Posted originally on the Archive_of_Our_Own at https://archiveofourown.org/
works/2350676.
  Rating:
      Explicit
  Archive Warning:
      Underage
  Category:
      M/M
  Fandom:
      Kingdom_Hearts
  Relationship:
      Sora_-_Relationship
  Character:
      Sora, Riku, Kairi, Squall_Leonhart, Yuffie_(Kingdom_Hearts)
  Additional Tags:
      Dark, Yaoi, m/m_-_Freeform, Surprise_Pairing, kingdom_hearts_-_Freeform,
      AU
  Stats:
      Published: 2014-09-23 Updated: 2014-10-04 Chapters: 3/? Words: 5148
****** Perfect Storm ******
by Cloudy_Boy
Summary
     Sora had a normal life. With normal friends, one day this is all
     turned upside down, and he is forced to change with the times as many
     things happen. Will he be able to stand the tests that life throws at
     him, or will he be be consumed by them.
Notes
See the end of the work for notes
***** Pilot: A look into the life of a normal boy. *****
The wind was crisp, and the chill bit at my skin as I walked down the street
toward the bright neon green light that represented my destination. "Coffee…" I
groaned quietly to myself as I walked in slow careful steps toward the sign. I
ran my fingers through my spiky brown hair and bit my lip, shivering lightly
when the cold air found its way up my sleeve. I stopped at the corner of Kalm
Road and Luca Street looking both ways before bolting across the road. I looked
up at the sky, a now fiery orange as the sun had begun to set and darkness had
taken over the other half of the sky.
"Sora!" Someone yelled, scaring me out of my skin. I flinched and looked
backward sighing in relief seeing it was only Yuffie, the girl that had lived
next door to me all of my life. She was about my height, with short black hair
and bright green eyes.
"God Yuffie!" I rolled my eyes with a small smile, "scare the hell out of me,
why don't you."
She grinned and ruffled her hair. "I'm sorry!" She said quickly, her eyes wide.
I smiled and nudged her shoulder lightly with my fist, then turned back to
walking toward the convenience store that has my beloved coffee. "You coming?"
I asked when I noticed she wasn't following. She laughed loudly and quickly
started running to catch up.
"Of course!" She said in a giggly voice. The rest of the walk was spent in
silence, both of us staring up at the sky, as the orange faded to pink, and the
pink to black, then the stars filled the sky. When I reached the store I didn't
go in, I just stared up at the sky as it changed, smiling to myself. Sometimes
the simplest things in life, they were what made me the happiest.
I shook my head and turned to face the store, walking in and smiling as the
warmth over-took the cold that I had become sort of used to. Yuffie followed
behind me silently and I turned back and grinned at her, her face broke out
into a huge smile in return. "Go get yourself some hot chocolate." I said still
grinning.
"You don't have to..." She started
"I want to." I said quickly, cutting her off. I smiled as she bowed out and
went to go get her hot chocolate from the dispenser. I then followed, grabbing
a coffee pot off the heater and a foam cup,pouring it in carefully, then
grabbed a creamer, pouring the cream into the cup with the coffee. I reached
across the little isle and grabbed a stirring straw and mixed it slowly making
sure all of the cream was distributed evenly, then put a lid over it, locking
it into place and taking a small sip. The warmth passed over my lips and I
tasted the bittersweet that was one of my favorite things in the world.
I walked up to the counter and pointed to Yuffie and I, and the cashier nodded,
ringing up the prices of the cups we had grabbed and I handed over a five
dollar bill offering a warm smile to the woman, she smiled back and handed me
my change. "Have a nice evening." She said sweetly.
I smiled. "Thank you, you too." I said smiling happily then turned around and
walked toward the door, back into the cool night air. I heard the bell above
the door ring as Yuffie followed me at a brisk pace. I giggled quietly and
stopped suddenly, causing her to bump into me. She burst into a fit of laughter
and gently smacked me in the back of my head. I grinned and turned to her.
"Hey, didn't your mom ever teach you to keep your hands and feet to yourself?!"
I asked in a mocking tone.
She stuck her tongue out at me and laughed so hard that she had to grip her
stomach. "Hah! Didn't you ever learn to keep your pace in line during
elementary school?" I smirked and grabbed her shirt dragging her along the way
back to the house, occasionally stopping to take sips of the coffee and to
rest, and pick on each other some more. When I got home I hugged her, and
watched her to make sure she got into her house safely, then walked to my
doorstep, grabbing the keys from my front pocket and unlocking the door.
The door opened with a creak that, in itself, seemed like was sighing from all
the labor it had been through, in all the years it had been there, all the
abuse that my siblings and friends had put it through that would make me weak
too. I smiled at the thoughts, hanging my keys on the hook that hung next to
the door, then quickly turned the deadbolt, and turned to dredge up the stairs
running my fingers along the wall in my daze, and slowly made my way to my
room. I sat the coffee on my desk and sat at the foot of my bed staring at the
floor. I yawned and lay back in the bed, and even though I had just drank
coffee, I drifted off into a deep, dreamless sleep.
***** In Which Things Change Drastically. *****
Chapter Notes
See the end of the chapter for notes
    I stared at the building with disdain coursing through my body. How I
despised this time of the year. It may have been my senior year, but I was not
happy with the fact that I had nine more months of attending this place that I
liked to think of as hell. I closed my eyes and took my first unwilling steps
toward the school building, sighing to myself. I thought of how each step
toward the doors was like surrendering myself over to some inhuman torture that
would somehow leave me scarred, this though caused a huge smile to cross my
face and I couldn't help but to chuckle at my strong hate for this place. I
grabbed the door handle just in time to avoid being toppled over by Rikku –
Yuffie's cousin – who oddly acted just like her, though maybe that wasn't as
odd as it seemed at first thought, more than likely they were raised together
and the excitement can be quite contagious.
    "SORA!" Rikku practically screamed into my ear, as she pulled me into a
death lock hug. I glanced her over once she released me and the difference from
her and the past few weeks was definitely there. Instead of the yellow bikini
top and short skirt she donned for the summer time, she was wearing bright
yellow skinny jeans with a white fade in the middle, that kind of made them
look awesome, a pretty magenta tank top that read "OMG!" in white print, and of
course her normal bright white hi-tops.
    "Rikku," I said with the grin plastered across my face still, "you act like
you haven't seen me in months." I said matter-of-factly and grinned even wider.
"When in reality, we just saw each other yesterday.
    She giggled a bit in her high pitched squeal and said "Your point being?
You act like it's not okay for me to be excited to see one of my best friends."
She put on her faux puppy dog look and blinked rapidly, I shook my head and
continued into the school.
     "Come on, I've got to get my locker assignment." I said, and she tilted
her head, I answered her question before she could ask. "I skipped orientation
to get some coffee last night." It never failed, her trademark laugh echoed
through the hall at my blatant disregard for the school. As if coffee was more
important than going to get my school schedule and locker assignment, but in my
book, it honestly was.
      My gaze directed toward the front office and mentally I cringed at the
blankness of the walls. No decorations, just white paint that had begun
to fade, due to the lack of maintenance. I closed my eyes for a second to
picture something that was a lot more beautiful than faded white paint and
hurried toward the door. The office was a bit more pleasant, probably because
the secretaries refused to sit in a prison all day, it was painted a dull
orange, one of the colors our school's mascot sported and was filled
with flowers. The room smelled like nature, and I honestly wouldn't have minded
spending my entire day there. I closed the door gently so that it didn't slam
and made my way to the desk, as slowly as possible.
     The secretary looked at me and brought a big fake smile across her
plump face, that actually made me want to slap it off her. "Hi, my name is Sora
Nomura, and I wasn't able to make it to orientation last night, I need my
schedule and locker assignment." I said with a polite smile, and ruffled my
brown spikes out of my face.
     "Student I.D.?" She said in a loud nasally voice that I wouldn't want to
attempt to hold a meaningful conversation with, because I would get really
annoyed really fast. I nodded and dug into my front jeans pocket, snatching up
my wallet and flashing my student I.D. She went to the "N" file and looked
through the names until she came across mine, pulling out my folder and handing
it to me. "Since you missed orientation last night, you need to have all that
paperwork turned in by tomorrow. If you need anything else, you know where the
office is, now get to class."
     I nodded and turned quickly, hurrying out of the only bright place in the
school and headed straight for the first class on my schedule. "Oh great," I
scoffed to myself. "Chemistry with Professor Hojo, the nut job." I scrunched my
nose unhappily and headed for the class, without a bit of excitement. This had
been my third year in a row in one of his science classes, and I honestly had
no hope for it this year, he made the curriculum almost impossible for the
average high school student to pass. I would have much rather had Professor.
Crescent, because her curriculum is just as informative covering all the same
bases, but in a way that is much easier to understand.
    I walked in slow, deliberate steps, on the way to his class, letting my
imagination run wild as I painted pictures on the walls of my mind, of how I
wanted this year to go. Senior year would hopefully be at least a decent year,
minus Nut Job's class. I smirked to myself and walked through the door that led
to his lab area, the smell of rotten eggs immediately invaded my senses,
causing every picture I had envisioned to smear out and run down the drain in a
rainbow swirl, my first reaction was to gag a bit and cover my nose and mouth,
hurrying to my seat so that I could use both hands to do this. My eye twitched
and I looked toward the lab area, Hojo was messing around with sulfur and its
chemical reactions. "Oh great…" I thought, "First day and he's already doing
borderline dangerous experiments, next thing you know, he'll be blowing up the
lab." I glared in his general direction and waited for the smell to dissipate.
    The rest of the class was him introducing himself, and the class staring at
each other in uncertainty of how he runs things. I chuckled softly to myself,
because I knew exactly how this year was going to be, with personal experience,
and with some of the stories my cousin Cloud had told me about his experiences
in the class. This year, this class was going to be a nightmare, and Ihoped,
no prayed that the rest of my teachers would be at least somewhat saner.
    The coolness of the door on my locker against the palm of my hand snapped
me out of my thoughts, and I entered the combination quickly, shoving the book
Hojo had assigned to me, slammed the door and walking toward room 405 for
English 12. I looked around quickly to see if there was anyone I knew, I sighed
when there was no one, of course there wasn't anyone here today, it was only
the first day, most of the people that I considered close never came on the
first day, the scatter in on the second or third day, and act like they didn't
miss anything. Then again, if I didn't hate staying home, I would probably do
the same. I hurried onto my next class, and grinned when the English 12 TBA
turned out to be Ms. Farron. She was a great teacher, I had her my ninth grade
year, and she was very helpful with the class, but was very stern and could be
harsh when it came to punishing her students. We all learned quickly not to
misjudge her kindness for weakness.
    The rest of the day flowed quickly and luckily there wasn't any homework,
not even from Hojo. I soon found myself at my front door wearing an exhausted
look and a lot of sweat pouring down my face from the walk home. What had
started out as a cool morning, had turned into a day that felt like Ifrit had
decided to visit. I jammed the key into the keyhole and unlocked the door
rapidly, practically sprinting into the cool air conditioned house, sighing in
relief when the cool air hit my face. I pulled the key out and shut the door
heading toward the living room to crash on the couch where I would lay until my
parents got home from work. I pulled my knees into my chest, closing my eyes
listening to nothing but the dull rumble of the air conditioner doing its work.
The sound eventually lulled me into a deep, but at the same time restless
sleep.
    I was awoken by the front door slamming viciously, the sound of my own
scream from the sudden noise caused the person responsible to break into a
belly aching laughter. I scowled and in a sleepy stupor, I walked toward the
front door and the source of the laughter, my older brother Squall. I glared at
him and he smirked at me. Though, with how rare a laugh from this guy was,
maybe glaring at him wasn't such a good idea. "Must be a special occasion, with
you laughing and all." I quipped.
    He stifled his laughter and nodded. "Yeah, hearing my younger brother
scream like a little girl, that is a very special occasion." He said with his
infamous smirk and patronizing glare, and then proceeded to ruffle my hair. I
quickly ran my fingers through my hair fixing any damage to it he may have
caused. "Where's mom and dad?" he questioned, I answered with a shrug and
looked toward the clock. They were late, about an hour or so, which was unusual
for them.
    "Maybe they were asked to stay overtime or something." I said mostly to
myself, and checked my cell phone to see if there were any messages or missed
calls from them, there were none, so I shrugged it off and turned back to face
Squall. "Looks like we're on our own tonight." I said with a grin plastered
across my face. He opened the door again and we left, going to our favorite
restaurant.
    Ever since Squall had gotten a job and car, when mom and dad weren't around
we would head out to Reno's Grille. Mom and Dad had taken us there on special
nights for as long as we could remember. Reno was Dad's best friend, they had
been friends since they were in diapers. I jumped into his car and buckled my
seat belt, and then the in the next moment the car was roaring to life and I
was watching the houses go by in a blur, I closed my eyes and rolled down the
window, leaning my head against the frame of the door, letting the wind hit my
face gently and I let my signature grin creep across my face. I always loved
the feeling of the wind when I was in the car, it felt like someone running
their fingers through my hair, and messing with it, the warmth of the sun on
your cheeks, even when it's just about to set. I opened my eyes when the
familiar smell of the Grille surrounded me, I knew we were close to it, only to
be horrified by the scene in front of me.
    There had been an accident that much I could tell, and the smell of the
gasoline that leaked from the motor was an indicator of how bad it actually
was. I looked over at Squall who had screeched to an immediate halt, his face
was twisted in what seemed to be horror. My body lurched forward in time with
the abrupt stop and then looked back over to the accident. The smell almost
gagged me, but what really got to me was the blood leaking from the car that
was overturned. It took me a few minutes to process the whole scene, and when I
had the first thing that became prominent was that the overturned car looked
almost familiar in some way. It hit me then, the car, was my parent's car.
There was no time for warning, my stomach turned and I gagged, I turned out the
window spilling the contents of my stomach. When there was nothing left to
heave, I began to sob, because I knew, in that moment, by the wreckage that was
in front of me, that there were no survivors.
Chapter End Notes
     Okay so chapter 2. Thanks to my beta reader. jobelle501 of
     fanfiction.net she is a big help when it comes to the quality of my
     work, grammar and spelling wise. Chapter 3 will be up next sunday,
     and 4 the following sunday. I hope to be able to post chapters once a
     week on a schedule.
***** In Which Yuffie Makes Sora Socialize *****
Chapter Notes
     A/N: Hey guys! Here is chapter 3, I am really loving the direction
     that this story is taking. Hope you guys like it.
See the end of the chapter for more notes
The weeks that followed were both horrendous   and painful. It was a pain that
was almost unbearable, like a hot dagger being dragged   down my back
repeatedly, but these cuts went deeper than mere flesh wounds. These were
mental, and emotional wounds that would possibly never heal correctly.
Losing your parents, is something that you don't ever fully recover from,
because these are the people that are there from the very beginning. It's
almost like losing an organ vital to the way you live, and when it's gone you
have to change the way you live for the rest of your life. This whole thing
seemed to be a big crazy nightmare, though it was a nightmare that I knew I
would never wake from, and the knowledge of that made everything so much more
frightening. Because of… everything, I had to miss the rest of the school week
that followed the accident. I couldn't deal with everything that was going on,
and I could barely perform everyday tasks, let alone going to school and
putting on a happy face.
We had a small funeral, just the people that were closest to them were invited,
and family of course. Though not many Nomura's were in travelling distance.
The week after, the idea of school was a little easier to process, maybe I knew
that I would have to do it sooner or later and that the sooner it happened the
easier it would be to move on with things. I guess getting back into the flow
of things worked. Thanks to it being the first week, I didn't miss much
homework and curriculum wise, just the introductory things that got us into the
heavier stuff. I sighed as the teachers droned on and on about things that I
didn't care about, watching the clock tick slowly toward the goal that was the
end of the school day. I bit my lip and shook my head, forcing myself to look
toward the lecture the teacher was giving, though I soon found myself
concentrating so hard on trying to listen to what she was saying, the words had
started to fade into the background. I growled under my breath to myself, my
lack of being able to concentrate was actually starting to anger me.
"Sora?" Ms. Farron said in a questioning voice, effectively pulling me out of
my rant.
"Yeah?" I said, even I could hear the uncertainty in my voice, and it was quite
possibly obvious that I wasn't really paying much attention to what she was
saying. I blinked again and looked up toward her.
"Can you stay after class? I have to talk to you about some of the things that
you missed last week." She said politely and went on with the lecture she was
giving, from the words that I got before I fell back into my thoughts, it was
about the book that we would be covering over the next month.
The bell rang, and I stayed in my seat, sighing when the class cleared out and
Ms. Farron made her way toward me with a concerned expression. I sighed,
knowing exactly what this was about. "Sora, are you alright?" She asked in a
mildly concerned voice. "I know you, you're an excellent student, and I have
never seen you so unfocused in class before."
I nodded. "Yeah, I have been pretty unfocused, it seems like even when I try I
can't concentrate on what any of my instructors are going over, and I know in
the end this is going to hurt my grades, but I'm trying." I said in a hollow
voice.
She nodded slowly. "I know how hard this must be. I lost my parents too, when I
was very young, my father died around the same time I was born, and my mom got
sick when I was 12 and passed away. I'm not saying our situations are the same,
because I know they aren't, but I am saying that it'll get better." She offered
a small, comforting smile, and I nodded.
I faked a small smile. "It'll get better." I said, my eyes starting to sting a
bit. "I have to go, I'll be late for class." I said quickly standing up. "Thank
you." And I was off, walking quickly to the door and making my way to my next
class. The rest of the day was a blur, I forced myself to focus in the
remainder of my classes, taking a many notes as I could. The end of the day
came, and I was out the doors of the school so fast I probably made people's
heads spin.
I felt ill, that was the best way to explain the grief. My whole body shook and
I was literally on the verge of tears at the drop of a hat. If one thing went
wrong, I had to stop myself from just breaking down. My stomach cramped at the
thought of everything that had happened in the past week and my heart dropped
all the way to my feet.
I opened the door to my home quickly and slammed it shut behind me, running
quickly up the stairs toward my bedroom. I had been lucky in some aspects of
this, I turned 18 a few weeks ago and wasn't required to move out, and my
parents had left the house to my brother and I anyway. Squall was moving in to
help keep the bills up while I was still in school, then he was going to move
back out and live with his fiancé Rinoa. But until then she would be living in
her apartment.
I plopped onto   my bed and sprawled out across the blanket that was on top,
pushing my backpack off of me and onto the floor. After lying there for about
fifteen minutes, I sat up and sighed, grabbing my phone to check the multiple
messages that had come through while I was walking home. My stomach churned
when I read them all, Yuffie was on her way with Riku, Rikku, and Kairi.
"Gods…" I grumbled to myself, "Knowing her this is going to be… fun." I
whispered and jumped out of my bed, as I landed in the most unsteady way
possible I heard knocks on the door and groaned, walking down the steps to
answer it, as slowly as possible, as if my slowness would possibly make her go
away. But she was too stubborn for that, she would wait around my house until I
got home if I wasn't there.
I got to the door and the four of them were waiting there, Yuffie in her normal
black t-shirt, jeans and converse outfit, while Kairi wore what looked like an
anime school girl outfit. These two were always quite different, even though
they looked and sounded alike. And Rikku was… Rikku, standing behind the two in
one of her outrageously colorful outfits just wriggling about. Sometimes I
swore she was on a constant sugar rush. And Riku was just standing back from
everyone, being his normal cool self. I forced a smile and stepped to the side
letting the quartet of people that I called my best friends in.
We had been a quintet since we were mere eight graders, always a tight group,
mostly because we didn't trust a lot of people, especially as we went through
high school. The group grew slightly in ninth grade, we had a lunch table of
about eight people that year, but as the year went by   the ones who had
attached themselves to us simply faded off into the noise of the other world,
either moving, or simply found themselves being a bit more distant from us than
they previously were. But us five, we were the original five, and no matter how
much one of us grew up, the others seemed to grow right along with them, and
our differences had simply brought us together. At the thought of all this I
cracked a smile, my first in about a week.
"Sora!" Rikku called out, practically pouncing on me. This caused my smile to
widen a bit more, her excitement had always been a bit infectious, no matter
how sad any one of us was, she managed to break through it and have everyone
laughing in a matter of minutes.
"Rikku!" I mocked her, and hugged her tightly. It's funny, I had actually been
dreading this a few seconds ago, but now I'm glad Yuffie had brought them over.
I wish I would have done it myself the day that it happened instead of pushing
them all away, maybe that would have made this whole thing a little easier. We
all moved to my room, the normal place we went to, even though that wasn't
really a necessity anymore, but some things become traditions among friends,
and no matter how what happens those traditions don't break. I wonder if 50
years down the line, if we're all still together, if we'll all come to this
room for our little meetings like this. 
I was pulled away from my thoughts by Kairi piping up. "What have you been up
to, ya lazy bum?" she said with a smile.
I shook my head. "Not a thing, being a lazy bum I suppose." I grinned and stuck
my tongue out, she was the next to hug me, and we sat on my bed. We were
quickly followed by the otherthree   who all basically claimed their spots by
jumping onto it all at once. When we were all settled we broke out into
laughter. These meetings were called when we knew one of us was in some sort of
trouble, I guess for the first time since I was about to fail my ninth grade
science class, and my grade depended on my final exam, that person was me.
Riku smirked, punching my shoulder gently. "You're such a loser." He said still
smirking.
"Me a loser? Nah, I think you got it reversed. You're the loser!" I quipped
back at him with a grin that reached ear to ear. He and I had always had the
strangest relationship, how two people could be so mean to each other and then
proceed to hug it out with no problem, eluded even my mind. But it was a
relationship that I wouldn't change for the world, because it was fun to be
able to pick on someone and not have them be pissed about it.
The gathering continued when Rikku's high pitched giggle broke the silence, we
all looked toward her and she pulled out a whole bunch of junk food. "Can the
party start already? This awkwardness is starting to get to me." The whole
group nodded, and Rikku pulled out a cd and practically sprinted over to my
computer set up. The next thing I knew our mix CD was playing and Yuffie was
pulling a bottle of green apple vodka out of her bag, along with some plastic
red cups. She poured the first cup   and handed it to me, I took it without
hesitation and took the first sip, it was strong, but it was vodka. The first
sip burned like hell going down, it smelled and felt like I had taken a sip of
rubbing alcohol. I shrugged and quickly downed the rest of the cup. At that
point, she had already poured everyone else's cups, and I reached for the
bottle pouring my own.
"Gods Sora, slow down." Yuffie and Rikku both said at the same time, Yuffie
giggled a little, and I shrugged again, taking a gulp out of the new cup. I was
already starting to get the calming effect, I stretched a bit, and noticed that
it felt like my limbs were going through water.
"I'm such a lightweight…" I muttered, apparently loud enough for the rest of
them to hear, because the laughter that erupted from them was almost ear
shattering, but I couldn't help giggle along with them, maybe it was the
alcohol that was making me laugh like this, but I didn't care. I felt good,
almost happy, for the first time in over a week, and I just wanted to enjoy it,
even though my parents were dead, I was allowed a little fun… I'm sure that
they didn't just want me to mope around for the rest of my life. Maybe this was
a step to a bit of recovery, maybe this whole gathering here, is exactly what I
needed. I mean, yeah they were dead, and that was sad, I was sad about it, and
it probably always break my heart when it came to it, but I couldn't just… lay
around the house, and fail school because of all this, I had to be stronger
than that.
I took another drink from my cup, and my head was getting fuzzier by the
minute, but I knew I would remember these thoughts, and that was enough.
Chapter End Notes
     Hope you enjoyed it, if you did drop me a comment, I would love to
     hear the opinions of the people who read my stuff.
End Notes
     A/N: Hey, this is a relatively new story. I posted it on FFN a few
     months ago, and have just now gotten around to writing it again. With
     what I have done now, I will be updating it weekly to keep a schedule
     intact. Hope you enjoy. Please leave any suggestions you may have and
     I will try to improve the best I can.
Please drop_by_the_archive_and_comment to let the author know if you enjoyed
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