If he were honest, which was not always a guarantee, then Vanitas
might be able to admit to himself that this journey in self reclamation was far from easy. Some days were better than others. Some days had sparring matches and comfortable banter, and a tiny circle of company that (almost) felt like home. Other days came with monsters and scared silence, and a lingering fear that maybe that old bastard was right, maybe he did only have one purpose, and he had failed at it.

Some days, neither option was appealing. On these days, Vanitas would often find himself wandering, alone.

He takes a dark corridor to a world at the corners of his memory, a tiny speck of land and sea insignificant to many but important to the ones who mattered. Vanitas didn’t want to take a chance on the still-fresh unfamiliarity of his keyblade armor, but throughout the journey, he can’t help but think about what the others would say if they knew he still preferred this method of travel. Perhaps they wouldn’t say anything at all. Terra would smile, sadly and knowingly, and Aqua wouldn’t scold him, but she would fix him with that reprimanding stare that told him everything he needed to know. Sometimes, he was appreciative of the way they could communicate without words.

Ventus was a different story. Whether he’d see it as a detriment to Vanitas’ development, or as a harmless reliance upon something familiar, it didn’t matter. Whatever his thoughts were, he’d shout them loud and clear. Ventus was never quiet when it came to Vanitas. His light made him loud, a perfect counterweight to Vanitas’ preference of silence.

They fit together in more ways than two halves of a heart ever should.

Vanitas settles himself into the sand, letting thoughts pass through his mind like water through his fingertips. If nothing stuck around for too long, then it wouldn’t get the opportunity to tip today’s scales in any specific direction before Vanitas could decide if he even wanted it to. Solitude had its perks, sometimes.

“So, here’s where you ran off to.” A familiar voice cuts through the tranquil silence, and Vanitas turns his head to follow the sound. His eyes fall on Ventus as he makes a beeline across the beach, coming to a stop next to Vanitas. The last remnants of his own armor recede into wisps of light around him.

Vanitas shrugs. “I don’t think running’s the right word.”

Ventus huffs, settling himself down in the sand next to Vanitas. “Well, whatever you wanna call it,” he says, folding his legs together. He plucks a half-buried stick from the loose sand, giving it a few light tosses before throwing it forward with little vigor and watching as it sails airborne for a few meters before falling, just short of the waves’ reach.

Vanitas watches his motions with a tilt of his head. “How did you find me so quickly?”

“How d’ya think?” Ventus responds in kind, palm splayed open across his chest. Above his heart. Right. Ventus continues. “You come here for any reason in particular?”

“Not really,” Vanitas muses, turning away from Ventus to catch a glimpse of the fading sun. Its’ rays stretch like arms across the sky, painting even the tiniest cloud fragments a soft shade of pink. “Don’t really have a whole lot of connections to other places, you know?”

Ventus hums in acknowledgement of his words, letting a comfortable silence take shape between the two of them. Vanitas lets his eyes drift from the horizon line to the ebb and flow of the waves. The tide is low, and despite the constant cycle of pushing and pulling, the water seems to come up short of the discarded stick every single time.

The stillness of the scene takes Vanitas aback. The waves of these waters weren’t all that dissimilar to the darkness, with its twisting torrents and crashing currents. In that same vein, this island itself wasn’t all that different than the bodies it claimed to its depths, wearing skin and bone down to dust.

That’s all sand was, really. Dust. Tiny fragments left in the wake of waves and the sinking of stones, a wordless battle with casualties far greater than anyone could comprehend. The beach beneath him probably came into existence long before the world itself ever did. Vanitas sinks both his hands beneath the grains, letting the diminutive fragments consume his skin with gluttonous motion. They were hungry little things, but their bite hardly had enough teeth to draw blood.

Perhaps that’s why the waves continued to kiss them with such softness.

Beside him, Ventus traces his index finger through the sand. The patterns he makes are all soft curves and sweeping spirals. Not lines, never any lines. If there was ever another wedge between the two of them, it would not be drawn by their own volition. Vanitas pulls his hands free, and lets the soft fragments slip slowly through clenched fingertips. He thinks they’ve had their fill.

“Y’know,” Ventus says suddenly. “We could just go. See the worlds. You and me.”

Vanitas snorts softly. “Not a chance.” He reaches out between them, linking two of Ventus’ doodles together with a single looped line. A moment passes before he finally glances up again, meeting Ventus’ hopeful gaze.

“Aww, come on!” Ventus pushes off the ground, moving to sit on his knees and face Vanitas more directly. His words are playful, but his eyes shimmer in earnest, and Vanitas can’t tell which emotion is winning out in his mind. “It’d be a while before anyone would catch up to us. We’d be able to go to so many places!”

“You think time and space is a strong enough force to stop Terra and Aqua from dragging you back here for your exam?” Vanitas asks pointedly.

“Maybe.” Ventus purses his lips, matching Vanitas’ tone.

“You’re ridiculous.” Vanitas’ words are blunt. “You can’t just drop everything because you want to go on some grand adventure.”

“Says who?”

“Says me,” Vanitas says. “And hopefully anyone else with enough sense to understand that taking off on a whim is a horrible idea.”

“It’s not like we’d disappear forever,” Ventus counters. His voice is softer, pure enthusiasm replaced with a serene contemplation. He moves forward, taking Vanitas’ hand in his own, and Vanitas swears that even the heart of the world had gone still. He remains quiet as Ventus winds their fingers together, calluses and curves and scars and softness fitting together like puzzle pieces. Like every other part of them. “I just… we’ve gone without this for so long. If we’re gonna be apart again in the near future, I wanna make sure I share a part of my path with you.”

“I’ve been to the same worlds as you,” Vanitas says, almost breathless.

Still holding onto his hand, Ventus lifts his other hand and moves to cradle the curve of Vanitas’ jaw. His fingertips trace the tiny scars that line the skin, remnants of a mask that had come down long ago. “Not with me, you haven’t.”

Vanitas wonders if Ventus knows what he’s doing, if he’s seen the way Vanitas orbits him like a planet around its star. The gravity is gradual, but Vanitas knows how fast he has the potential to crash, and in moments like these, it’s almost palpable enough to taste. He wonders if Ventus feels it, too.

If that’s the case, Vanitas knows he can’t truly be mad at him. He also knows that, if it were up to him, he would chase Ventus through adventure after adventure until the worlds met their end once more. Selfishness is not a stranger to him, despite his efforts to curb its conversations with him.

“Please,” Ventus tries again, his voice practically a whisper. He leans forward, and Vanitas lets his eyes flutter shut as their foreheads brush together, Ventus’ words filling the rest of the space between them. “Come with me.”

It takes every ounce of strength Vanitas has for him to pry his eyes open again. When he does, he meets Ventus’ gaze, just as earnest as it was at the start of their conversation. There’s something else there too, something hopeful and longing that swims just beneath the surface, waiting with bated breath to break for air. Vanitas thinks he sees himself in the reflection of those waves, too.

It was fitting, he thought.

After all, he never really did mind drowning.

Vanitas blinks away as he laughs, quiet and breathy.

“You’re really something, Ven.”

If Ventus knew the right cards to play in order to goad Vanitas into compliance, then Vanitas was no different. The familiar nickname was something he used sparingly enough to catch Ventus off guard whenever he spoke it. Ventus’ surprise is concentrated in an airy chuckle, and Vanitas can feel the flush in his skin where their foreheads meet. “Wha—?”

“You got me,” Vanitas continues, softer. He pulls back just a little in order to mirror Ventus’s movements, hand moving to cradle the side of his face, too. “Let’s go.”

The smile that Ventus gives him absolves Vanitas of nearly every doubt he ever harbored about this proposition. When he leans forward again to fling his arms around Vanitas’ shoulders, he wonders how he could have entertained the notion of anything else. “Your friends are gonna have my head,” he murmurs after a moment, returning the gesture gratefully.

Ventus laughs behind his ear, and it sounds like music. “I’ll be sure to keep them off your back if they catch up to us.”

If they catch up. What a novel concept, Vanitas thinks. Of course they’re gonna catch up. Even if Ventus wasn’t on the cusp of his Mark, there were other factors to consider. Like time. What Ventus had gained with Aqua and Terra still couldn’t make up for what they all had lost to those carnivorous sands. It’d take more than winning a war against the waves to rebuild those beaches.

Somewhere beneath his skin, Vanitas feels his heart churn with something akin to guilt. But then Ventus buries his chin in the space between his shoulder and his neck, and murmurs a quiet thank you into the shadows of his skin, and Vanitas thinks that maybe, once more, he can allow himself to be selfish.