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There once was a boy who was equal parts Light and Darkness. He was happy, carefree, and full of smiles. Along came a man who promised him greatness. The boy had smiled and accepted the man’s offer. What the boy didn’t know was that the man was a deceiver full of Darkness who only wanted to hurt him. Being young and naïve, the boy trusted the man and as such did everything the man wanted until he couldn’t. The man struck the boy down, not caring if the boy was hurt in the process. The great deceiver pierced the boy’s heart and pulled the Darkness from him leaving the boy with only Light left to fill him. From the Darkness emerged a young boy who knew nothing of what he was or what the world was, having been hidden within the boy now made only of Light. To him, the name Vanitas had been given.
Vanitas had known nothing of the world thus when the deceiver had offered him greatness he had accepted without prior knowledge of the truth of his creation. The boy, Ventus, he had been told was on the verge of death and as such, the man had taken him to his final resting place. Only the great deceiver had been wrong and the boy lived thanks to a heart so pure and clean it couldn’t have been foreseen. As such, Ventus was sent to live with another Master. One that would nurture him as a father should and prepare him for great things of the likes no one but the deceiver knew.
Ventus had healed and prospered and grown. He knew love and happiness and friendship. His Master, though tough, was always fair and helped him grow. His friends were great warriors that nurtured him and loved him and helped him prosper and learn. Ventus had known love and strength and joy. He had been granted laughter and freedom and family; things of which Vanitas had never known.
Vanitas had been tortured and abused, shamed and broken until he was submissive to his Master and only his Master. The boy full of only Darkness had not known love or joy or friendship. He had known pain and loneliness and grief. His Master had beaten him until he could perform in the way that he saw fit. His body had been marked and marred and thus filled with rage and hate for the boy filled with such pure light. Vanitas had never known family or freedom or laughter. Anger and jealousy consumed him.
The fated day arrived before either boy was truly ready and thus they had struck one another down in their pursuits. The boy so full of love had been sent into eternal slumber, his heart shattered and fragmented. The boy so full of hate had vanished into the Darkness, his heart broken and in ruin. Both had been ultimately betrayed by the great deceiver.
The years flew past, neither boy fully aware of what had truly become of them. One stuck in an endless sleep and the other floating within a dark abyss of which there was seemingly no return. The great deceiver wasn’t done with the boy of Darkness and as such had summoned him from his darkened void to fulfill the charlatan’s greatest goal: to strike down the wielders of Light and plunge the world into Darkness to start anew.
Vanitas, who had known only pain and hate, had welcomed the deceiver and his plans. The man had brought him back into the land of the living and as such, he bent to the deceiver’s every will. Ventus was awoken from his eternal slumber thanks to the heart so pure and clean it had hidden his own heart until it could be returned. The two boys, two halves of one whole, were destined to meet again. Only this time the purest of hearts, to which the name Sora had been given, had joined Ventus in his fight against the Darkness. Vanitas was struck down again, destined to fade back into his empty void. Only, Ventus had refused to let him go, offering the boy so full of Darkness the things he had never known.
Vanitas accepted his counterpart of Light’s offer and thus, with the help of the wielders of Light, they had struck down the great deceiver. It had taken time to adjust but the Darkness in Vanitas’ heart had quietened the more time he spent with his Light counterpart. Ventus, true to his word, showed the boy of Darkness the love and friendship he had never known. The boy of Light had shown him freedom and joy and happiness. As a result, the boy of Darkness had fallen irrevocably in love with the boy of Light and the boy so full of Light had plummeted into equal depths of adoration for his darkened counterpart.
The two boys orbited one another in such a way that it appeared they possessed their own gravitation pull. Where one boy went the other was destined to follow. Their friends had become accustomed to never seeing one boy without the other and it was just as they liked it.
The first time the boy of Light had pressed his lips to Vanitas’ it had felt like lightning jolting his system. Vanitas’ nerves had sparked and crackled. Vanitas’ heart had flamed, being filled to the brim with joy of which he had only ever dreamed. Ventus had smiled at him as he pulled away. ‘I love you’ had dripped from the boy of Light’s lips. And though the boy of Darkness had felt it, the words had not come. Ventus, undeterred, had pressed soft lips to his again.
The two existed and co-existed in a universe of their own, never one without the other. It was then Vanitas had wondered if he would be enough for the boy so full of Light. If he would ever reach the level of which Ventus existed.
“Ventus?” Azure eyes had turned to him, an ever-present smile emerged on his lips. “You are the stars and I am the darkness that surrounds them. How can you love me?”
Ventus had smiled and placed a warm hand upon his cheek. “My dearest Vanitas, the stars could not exist without the darkness. Without the darkness, where would they shine?” Vanitas had kissed him as he had had no answer.
And so, they had existed and co-existed, orbiting around the other as they fell more in love with every passing day. Never one without the other. The two boys grew in their intimacy, learning and growing one with another. Vanitas had peered at his counterpart of Light and wondered.
“Ventus?” The boy of Light had turned brilliant azure eyes on him and smiled. “You are the sun and I am the moon. How can you love me?”
Ventus had smiled and pressed his forehead to his. “My love, the sun is warm and bright but cannot be gazed upon without fear of being burned. The moon, so full of beauty, can be observed in all its glory for the wonder that it is. You, my love, are the most beautiful moon of all. How could I not love you?”
Vanitas made love to him that night and he had finally known the truth of what they were. Two halves of one whole that completed one another in ways only the two boys, one made of pure Light and the other of pure Darkness, could. And they had existed and co-existed as one whole, never one without the other.
“Ventus?” He had smiled as he turned toward his counterpart of Darkness. “I love you.”
The boy of Light had radiated, glowing so brightly the boy of Darkness almost couldn’t look upon him. “I love you too.”
And the two boys orbited one another, completing each other as only they could. They were never one without the other. Two hearts beating as one whole.