Sora slowly shakes his head. "That was the point, though. If I was something, I could've just... made it so Riku couldn't take it from me. I wasn't." He's still not, and it's hard for him to stop thinking about it. "I realized that the friends that got me all the way there were the reason why I was even still around. I was... kinda ungrateful before that, not gonna lie."

Did he eventually relax and have fun with his new friends? Yes. Did he learn that he liked talking to people and listening to their problems? Yes! Did he learn that optimism and hope in the face of impossible odds does actually matter? Oh, absolutely! Did he give his friends a single thought outside of the ways they made his life more interesting and fun? If they weren't Riku or Kairi, absolutely not.

"It made me realize that I wasn't really anyone special without them, and once I remembered that they all believed in me, and that I needed to care about that bond..." He mimes the Keyblade in his hand. "It came back."

He was just a teenager who wanted to go home with his friends and sleep in his own room knowing his mom would wake him up for school the next morning. Even now, that's who he is. It's just that he can't have that anymore. It isn't what he's learned and made of himself. It's just something he can't really escape, when it comes down to it. "So, that was how I learned what friendship was and how to make friends. The hard way."