Sora remembers when Kairi first came to the island; how he and Riku had scorned her, saying that she was just an icky girl. Later Kairi proved herself to be just as adventuresome as they were, and fun to be with, and Sora stopped thinking of her as an icky girl, and started thinking of her as a friend.

Sora remembers when they were old enough to go to the other island for fun. He remembers the first day they climbed trees together, and explored the Secret Place, armed with wooden “swords”. He remembers getting into arguments over who really found the pretty shell that ended up breaking anyways, and he remembers almost all of the scraped knees, bruises, and cuts.

And Sora remembers that night when the sky was violent with the promise of a storm; remembers checking the raft, finding/losing Riku, finding those weird shadow-y things and finding/losing Kairi. He remembers vowing to find her and to find Riku and to protect them both.

Namine sees all of these, and remembers them too. She replaces dark hair with blonde, replaces dark blue eyes with lighter ones, replaces “Kairi” with “Namine”.

“There.” She drops the pencil crayon, lets it fall with a soft clatter to the ground. “I’m finished.” She closes the sketchbook, clutches it to her chest, and hopes that some day, Sora will forgive her.