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Riku had never missed one of Sora's birthdays and that was absolute fact.
There was a photo of him at Sora’s first birthday, both of them smiling with frosting smashed across their face. Their mothers had been part of the same pottery class for years, and when they’d both had sons, they’d thrown them together from the start. Riku was one of the few people who had the pleasure of knowing Sora almost his entire life.
Riku had a photo of him at Sora's birthday every single year, actually. Sora's parties had ranged from just him and Riku, when they were really little, to him and Riku and Roxas when they were three and Roxas was just a baby. The pictures included Kairi when they were four. Each photo added more and more of Sora's friends, which was, of course, kind of the problem.
Well, it was Riku's problem, not Sora's. One of the best things about Sora was his ability to make friends with anyone and everyone and Riku wouldn’t change that for the world. He just knew where his place was in that world, which was nowhere.
“Don't look at me like that,” Riku said to the photo of fourteen-year-old Sora, who was leaning on Riku's arm and smiling. He had a party hat tilted precariously on his head, and fifteen-year-old Riku, a boy who felt a lifetime away, did too. They were both sunburned, arms thrown around each other on the beach, and somehow, it was just them in the picture, even though dozens of people had showed up. Of course they did, it was Sora’s birthday.
That was before everything changed. (Before Riku had willfully changed it.) This was probably the last year they’d been really happy. Sora’s fifteenth and sixteenth birthday had been much the same, just everyone hanging out on the beach. The fifteenth had been awkward to go to, since he hadn’t hung out with Sora very much lately, and the sixteenth had been hellish, since everyone there mostly didn’t interact with him at all. He’d used to be Sora’s best friend, the guy everyone asked questions to when Sora was out sick, but now he was just the kid who smoked outside on the bleachers and showed up to the captain of the soccer team’s birthday parties.
Sora kept making friends. Riku kept … not.
He fully intended to make this year the year he didn't go. Sora had asked him to, of course. He'd searched Riku out during lunch, none of his friends wanting to following him.
Sora usually ate with a big group, with kids on the soccer and lacrosse teams with him and people who knew from surfing, and some of the girls’ softball team, including Kairi. It made sense. Sora was popular, Sora was well-liked. Everyone wanted to talk to him or go to his games. His face would probably appear more times than anyone else in the yearbook, as would his signature once summer hit.
Riku, on the other hand, usually spent lunch on the soccer bleachers. The football bleachers were too close to school, and a lot of kids went there on their weird quasi-dates, but the soccer bleachers... now those were far enough away from the rest of campus that teachers didn't look for them there and Riku could peacefully light up a cigarette. It didn’t
“When did you start smoking?”
Riku was so surprised to hear Sora's voice at all that he started coughing.
“That's what you get.” Sora crossed his arms disapprovingly as Riku whipped his head around to look at him. He hadn’t looked at Sora in a while.
Or, well. He looked at Sora, of course. Their friendship being over didn’t mean he didn’t look. And Sora looked back, constantly. Whenever he saw Riku in the school hallway, he'd smile. It was something everyone at school loved about their probably Prom King and general Most Popular Boy in School. He didn’t bear a grudge, people probably gossipped, look at the way he is still so nice to his old friends!
He'd used to smile big and wave, but Riku had slowly weaned him off that by ducking his head and turning the other way.
But this was definitely the first time in three years that they’d really looked at each other like this. Sora had his arms crossed, but the look on his face was fonder than Riku deserved to see. It didn’t look any different for not having seen it in three years, and it didn’t affect Riku any less for not having seen it that long, either. He swore he could feel his heart stuttering.
Sora made his way up the bleachers and seated himself on Riku’s left, away from the cigarette in Riku’s right and blocking Riku from the wind, too. He didn’t say anything.
Riku raised the cigarette to his mouth, determined to not say anything either, but Sora was always a stubborn brat and he looked kind of annoyed, too. “What.”
Sora grinned at him, clearly thrilled to have won. “My birthday party is next Friday and I want you to come.”
Riku blinked. “I – what.” The thought of Sora asking him to go made him feel warm, even in the slight chilly breeze, but the thought of actually going immediately formed a rock in his stomach. Sora’s birthday party was probably going to be a huge rager. “We’ve barely talked in like, three years.”
“So?” Sora lifted his chin and looked Riku directly in the eyes, the challenge clear. He had never backed down from anything. “I want you there.”
Riku snorted, blowing out smoke. “Right. Your mom made you ask me?”
Sora waved the smoke away, nose wrinkling. “No, I haven’t said anything to her about it. Could you put that out?”
Riku rolled his eyes but obligingly stubbed it out on the sole of his boot. He couldn’t deny Sora anything, even now.
With the cigarette out, Sora refocused. “So are you coming?”
Riku tried to ignore the way Sora was leaning on him. He knew Sora wasn’t stupid; he knew that Sora was willfully ignoring everything that had built up between them for the past three years. Riku ignoring him, ditching out of hangouts, practically disappearing when they’d used to always do their homework together - Sora knew all that. Sometimes, he even accepted it. Today, though, with the way he clung to Riku’s arm, clearly he didn’t want to accept it. So Riku offered up a lame “I’ll see.”
Sora frowned. “Okay.” He reluctantly released Riku’s arm, his slow motions driving Riku crazy. “I know that’s probably all I’m getting out of you, huh?”
“I’m a man of mystery.”
Sora laughed, a kind of bitter thing, as he stood up. “Yeah, nice try, I remember when you wore Axe body spray.”
Riku’s face burned. “Shut up.”
“See you Friday!” Sora shouted, waving good-bye. He jogged across the soccer pitch to where Riku could make out someone he thought was Kairi. The pit of jealousy and bitterness in his stomach threaded its way up his throat as Sora threw his arm around her.
-
Riku had never been very good at sharing. He’d hated Kairi for ages because she was the first kid who’d tried to butt in on what he and Sora had. Roxas didn’t count, because Roxas was a baby who didn’t know how to do anything important other than raise his chubby baby hands and say “Sora!” Whenever he did, Sora would swoop in and pick him up, cuddling him, but Roxas was Sora’s beloved baby cousin and Riku could speak in full sentences, so it had never really been an issue.
Kairi, though. He’d grown to love her too eventually, content with their trio, but they’ve always both known without saying a word that Sora was what they revolved around. She hadn’t pushed as hard as Sora when Riku had begun dodging their hang-outs and Riku hadn’t expected her to.
Sora, of course, never truly gave up and Riku never provided an answer. It was hard being the odd one out, the only kid in high school. Kairi and Sora were only getting closer when left alone.
And Riku really has never been good at sharing.
It wasn’t that he couldn’t. But sometimes it hurt too much, when it was Sora. The way Sora would focus on him, his warm hands getting Riku’s attention with a light tap on his wrist. Riku couldn’t handle the full strength of Sora’s gaze, but he was less equipped to handle when Sora’s gaze was on someone else.
Riku wasn’t good at dealing with people. He never had been. He remembered the first time he’d called Sora, asking if he wanted to go to the movies, and Sora had said “I can’t, Tidus and I are going surfing, do you want to come?” The curl of jealousy and dread in his chest had been terrifying.
“No,” he said into the phone instead of saying what if you forget about me? What if you decide I’m too much work? Are you supposed to make plans with people without asking me first? because he knew none of that would convince Sora not to drop him. “I’m fine.”
He knew now that it was a kind of fucked up thing to think, but he was fifteen and couldn’t help it. The only truly good thing in his life was Sora and it always had been. Clinging to the phone long after Sora had hung up, he kept imagining Sora leaving him.
It was supposed to hurt less if you did the leaving. Riku couldn’t say whether that was true, since Sora still hadn’t left him, but even if the hurt was less, the bitterness had coated Riku’s entire body.
All things considered, he’d kind of thought he’d be over it by now, but the feeling just kept burning at him.
Riku rolled over and looked at the picture of little fourteen-year-old Sora again. It was the only one he’d allowed himself to keep up; the rest had been torn down and dropped in a box somewhere.
The little Sora taunted Riku. “We aren’t best friends anymore,” Riku hissed, but the truth was - well. He already had a gift for Sora and everything. You didn’t forget a birthday after eighteen years of knowing it.
-
Riku rang Sora's doorbell, awkwardly adjusting the box under his arm. Sora’s party might be Friday, but there was no way Riku was going to that. He didn’t need to stand around with five hundred of Sora’s closest friends around a bonfire on the beach, watching Sora get cajoled into dancing with everyone who came his way. Besides, unlike the last few years, Sora birthday was actually on a weekday. Usually, this meant that Riku and his mom and sometimes Kairi or Roxas would come over and Sora’s mother would make pizzas with homemade dough and they’d all have a good ridiculous time decorating them and laughing. The last time Sora’s birthday had been on a weekday, they’d still been friends.
But Riku’s mother, thankfully, was working today. So Riku rang the bell at a quarter till seven, standing alone, shifting his weight from foot to foot.
Sora threw open the door the way he always did, grinning like he knew who it was even though he never checked the peephole. His grin slid off his face when he saw it was Riku, though.
“Uh, hey.” Riku wished he had a better opening line. He kind of hated himself but he couldn’t decide if it was for putting that upset expression on Sora’s face which should never have been sad, or just coming at all. He held up the present. “Happy birthday.”
He was not at all prepared for Sora to burst into tears, though he probably should have been. Sora had always worn his heart on his sleeve, his emotions clear on his face so that anyone could see. His used-to-be best friend showing up with a birthday present was probably a bit much for him to handle.
Riku envied that, actually. He sighed to himself and pushed Sora gently inside, shutting the door behind him and dropping the present on the entry table. Clumsily, he pulled Sora into a hug: his body still knew what to do, he still knew how to comfort him, even if Riku had shattered their friendship. Sometimes, when Riku saw Sora, his hands would involuntarily shake, like he was just waiting for Sora to reach over and grab his hand. Sometimes he thought - realized - that he’d never be free of Sora, that the memory of him would be written into every nerve and muscle Riku had.
“I knew you'd come,” Sora sobbed into Riku's chest, his hands fisting in Riku’s shirt. If anything, he was pulling Riku closer, closer than they’d been in years, maybe closer than they’d ever been. “Everyone kept telling me that you wouldn't but I knew, I knew, but I was so worried, Riku.”
Riku cleared his throat. “I haven't missed a birthday yet, have I?” He tried to sound as gentle as he could, something he definitely wasn’t used to doing anymore, but it only set Sora off on another round of tears. “Aw, jeez, Sora, please stop crying, I wouldn’t have come if I’d known you’d be so unhappy to see me.”
Sora jerked his head up. His face was a mess, tear tracks and snot everywhere. Riku felt a knot in his chest ease. Everything about Sora was so familiar. Sora’s hand on Riku’s collarbone tightened, his fingers digging in. He always had a habit of clinging to Riku like he never wanted to let go, Riku had forgotten that. “You can’t go,” Sora said desperately. “I’m so happy to see you, Riku, I thought you hated me!”
Riku had long known his heart was a bitter, shriveled thing but with Sora’s words it ached, feeling too small. “I - I don’t. I - why did you invite me to your birthday then, if you thought I hated you?”
Sora’s fingers on his shoulder slowly uncurled. “Well I don’t hate you, Riku.”
“Well I don’t hate you either,” Riku replied, the most honest he’d been with Sora in years, even before what his mother teasingly called their break-up. He used his shirt sleeve to clean off Sora’s face and that too was familiar. Sora was always crying when they were children. “Would I have got you a present if I did?”
Sora let out a watery laugh. “No,” he admitted, wiping at his face too. He just got snot everywhere instead. “I’m just so happy you came. I knew you would.”
Riku didn’t say how because it wasn’t like he’d given any indication in the last three years that he liked Sora a single bit, let alone loved him more than he knew how to be capable of. He didn’t say I didn’t even know until ten minutes ago because despite it all, he loved Sora’s faith in him. “Well.”
Sora beamed up at him, face messy and absolutely glowing. “Come on.” He wrapped his hand around Riku’s wrist, his touch sparking against Riku’s skin. Every nerve in Riku’s arm was singing out, electric.
“Where’s your mom?”
Sora made a face. His mother worked odd hours all the time, being a nurse. “She had to work.”
Sora’s house was, in fact, totally empty, except for a box of pizza from Doc’s Pizza Palace and blue Gatorade, Sora’s chosen flavor. Riku figured it was definitely better that no one was around to see him be stupid, but... “What about Roxas?”
“He didn’t come.”
Riku frowned down at Sora who was still pulling him towards the kitchen. It was weird to think about but he was much taller than Sora now. He hadn’t seen him up close in so long, and the boy had gone and cried on him. “He didn’t?”
“I told him not to.” Sora made a face, like he knew Riku wasn’t going to like what came out of his mouth next. “I just wanted you to come.”
Riku processed that, then gave Sora a little shove. “So you’d have been alone on your birthday if I hadn’t shown up?”
Sora stuck his tongue out. “I knew you would, though.”
Riku didn’t want to think about Sora’s breakdown in the hallway less than ten minutes ago, the way he admitted he was scared. It was hard to think of Sora as someone who could be afraid, but it made sense, if Sora was going to keep believing in people this much. Sometimes, people you believed in let you down. It probably hurt to have faith. “I didn’t know,” he said flatly. Better to break that faith now. “I didn’t know until fifteen minutes ago that I was going to come.”
“So? You didn’t have to know.”
Riku groaned. “I don’t know why you insist on thinking I’m going to come through for you! Don’t you get it? We aren’t friends anymore, okay, one day I’m not going to come through!”
Sora dropped his wrist. Riku tried to hide how much he missed Sora’s warmth by shoving his own into his pockets. “But you did.”
“But I won’t always,” Riku said through gritted teeth. It would be ideal if Sora could just let him go. Let him be free to sit alone and to drive past the school fields on a Friday without thinking about how Sora’s soccer game was going. But even as he said it, he knew he’d never get it through Sora’s brain. “You’re not getting the stupid picture!”
“Why,” Sora demanded. “Why not, Riku? Just because you want to pretend, we were never friends, it doesn’t mean that I’m going to! You’re my best friend, Riku! And - I know you don’t ever want to talk to me but you care about me!”
Riku’s breath caught in his throat. He still did. “I - that was years ago! We aren’t friends now!”
“Oh yeah?” Sora’s voice was getting louder, bouncing off the ceilings. It made Riku feel extremely small. Sora had always been very good at making him feel like that, though he course he never meant to. “Then what’s in my fucking present, Riku?”
Riku’s jaw ached from how tight he was clenching it. “What?”
Sora took a deep breath in, rib cage expanding. He looked exhausted already from the yelling. “If you don’t care about me, then you got me something stupid, right, like a shirt or a gift card. But you didn’t, did you.”
He hadn’t. Riku made a desperate grab for the present on the counter, face burning, but Sora was faster, snagging it and backing out of Riku’s reach before Riku even realized. Riku covered his face with his hands as Sora tore into the snowflake wrapping paper, because Riku hadn’t had any birthday ones. He tossed the paper over his shoulder, like he’d done with every single piece of wrapping paper he'd ever put his hands on, and opened the top of the box.
Inside was a Meow Wow stuffed animal. Sora had wanted one since they were kids, kicking their feet in the air on the rug watched their favorite TV show. They’d released the stuffed animals ages ago, but Riku had only managed to snag Sora a Komory Bat before everything had sold out. Sora loved the bat but he’d been upset for days, saying he wanted a set of his and Riku’s favorites.
Riku had seen the stuffed animal in the front window of a toy store nearly six months ago. He’d bought it without thinking about it, dropping his cigarette on the ground even though he’d just lit up. The thing had cost way too much, but that hadn’t mattered; the only thing on Riku’s mind was that Sora definitely still had that Komory bat, because he constantly posted random pictures on Instagram, the bat in the background, and Riku was pathetic enough to still follow him.
“Riku.” Sora’s voice was soft as he lifted the Meow Wow up. It was huge and super soft. He hoped it didn’t smell too much like smoke. Sora looked on the verge of tears again. “Why don’t you want to be my friend anymore?”
“I,” Riku said intelligently.
Sora buried his face in the Meow Wow’s blue fur. “If you give me a real answer, I’ll give up.”
Riku snorted. “No you won’t.”
“I won’t,” Sora agreed, voice muffled. “But Riku, it really hurts.” He pressed a hand to his chest, right over the crown that Riku had given to him for his fourth birthday. Riku frequently pretended like he didn’t check, nearly daily, to see if he was still wearing it. “I don’t even know why you stopped talking to me and I’m not trying to be mean, but I know you don’t have a lot of other friends and you’re always alone on the bleachers-”
That was, unfortunately true. Sora was still Riku’s only real friend. There were a couple of people Riku could bum cigarettes off of, but Demyx played the ukulele all through lunch no matter what, which was more than mildly annoying, and he and Ienzo had been dating for years, so Riku had never really became friends with them. They just sometimes sat in the same vicinity on the bleachers, smoking.
Riku panicked, realizing that Sora could still read him just as well as he used to. That wasn’t supposed to happen. “I’m gonna go-”
Sora raced around the kitchen counter, skidding to a stop in the hallway, blocking Riku’s only entrance with one hand raised. He had the Meow Wow tucked under his other arm. “Fucking talk to me!”
“Maybe I don’t want to!”
“Maybe I don’t care!” Sora shouted. He was crying again. Riku remembered being a kid and naively promising to himself that he’d never make Sora cry again, which was a promise he’d actually diligently stuck to, until now. “And don’t even think about going out the back door because I’m faster than you and you smoke now.” It was a good threat, too. “Riku, tell me.”
“No!”
“Why not?”
“Because you’ll hate me,” Riku screamed, because he’d never been able to handle Sora crying, and oh, it felt good to say. The words echoed around Sora’s empty house, bouncing off the high ceilings so they could both hear it twice.
Fire burned in Sora’s eyes as he said “I will never-”
“Sora, shut up, that’s the fucking reason, it’s because you’ll hate me,” Riku spat. His hands were shaking as he curled them into fists. “Not now, but eventually, you’ll get really annoyed with me, right, and you have other friends - and I couldn’t handle it, okay, I just couldn’t handle if you hated me so I left first, and it doesn't even matter now!” He took in a deep gasping breath, desperate for any air. “I made you hate me anyways!”
Sora put his arm down, that fire that Riku knew so well settling into understanding. He probably understood better than Riku, honestly, what was being said. He’d never had learned the word fear, if Riku hadn’t been there with his anxiety and his worries and needed Sora to calm him down, always as kids. He’d always wrapped his hands around Riku’s wrists, forcing Riku to look and him. He’d take comically big breaths, in and out, tricking Riku into breathing with him.
“You were scared I wouldn’t be around to make you not scared,” Sora realized, which Riku hadn’t known until now. But - Sora had been making so many new friends. Riku was bound to get left behind. “Riku, I’m so sorry, I should have been there for you.”
“It wasn’t your fault,” Riku mumbled. Sora had blooming like a flower, his attention scattered, and Riku had been wilting. There’s no way Sora could have noticed that Riku was drawing in on himself, scared of being left behind. He’d felt it before, but before Sora had always noticed and talked him out of it. But that wasn’t Sora’s job. It had never been Sora’s job and yet Riku had counted on him always being there.
Sora slide his arms around Riku’s waist, placing his head on Riku’s chest. He must have been able to hear the frantic rhythm Riku’s heart was beating against his rubs. “Of course I don’t hate you,” he reassured Riku. The Meow Wow was wedged against both of their arms. “I could never, even when I thought you hated me. I was so worried, that’s all. I wish you’d talked to me!”
Riku allowed himself to wrap his arms around Sora and bury his face into Sora’s hair. He was so warm. Riku could hardly believe that after all this, Sora was still willing to touch him. He refused to let Riku ruin everything by sheer force of will. “I couldn’t.”
“Of course you could have,” Sora mumbled sadly, but he didn’t sound like he believed it. They both knew it was hard, sometimes, for Riku to convince himself to do things like that. “It’s okay, Riku, I get it. You were really lonely, huh.” He pressed his palm to Riku’s chest, right over Riku’s fast, traitorous heart. “You didn’t know how much I love you.”
Sora’s fingertips burned where they met the edge of Riku’s shirt and his collarbone. Riku gulped. “Don’t say that.”
“But I mean it,” Sora protested. “Riku, you’re the most important person to me. You always have been. I -” he turned bright red all of a sudden, but even Sora’s rare embarrassment couldn’t stop him when he was on a mission. “I used to hope we’d go to prom together.”
“Don’t say that,” Riku breathed, feeling a little dizzy. His hands clenched in the back of Sora’s shirt. The way Sora made him feel, sometimes, like he was the most important boy in the universe, like he was lighter than air -
“I’m done not saying things to you,” Sora declared. “Riku, I miss you. We might not hang out anymore, but you’re still my best friend. You still know me better than anyone and I still know you. And I know we don’t have very long before you go to college and I know you’re scared, but go to prom with me. Be my friend. Be my boyfriend.”
Hot relief raced through Riku’s veins and he stumbled; Sora’s arms the only thing holding him up. “I don’t understand how you can forgive me.”
“I was never mad at you,” Sora told him, turning Riku’s face so that they were looking each other in the eyes. “Just worried, I guess.”
Riku looked away, focusing on their shoes instead of Sora’s eyes. “I - I just -” He wouldn’t have thought Sora was one prone to worry like that. “I just couldn’t, I didn’t mean to upset you.”
“I think you did,” Sora said good-naturedly, because of course he’d never hold that against Riku, and in the back of his mind somewhere, Riku had wanted Sora to hurt a little bit, the way he was hurting. To feel like he was losing a friend. “It’s okay, your actions now are making up for it.”
“That’s not how it works!”
“I think your action right now should be kissing me,” Sora decided.
Riku let out a really unattractive noise in the back of his throat that made Sora laugh. “That’s - we should talk more - this isn’t just fixed-”
Sora pulled him down. Riku wouldn’t say that he’d thought about this a lot. Sometimes, when he was really lonely and the cigarette was burnt down to his fingers, maybe. Just a brush of the lips. He’d thought about it more before he’d forcibly distanced himself, and after, it felt like he shouldn’t get to imagine things like that if he wasn’t even going to be Sora’s friends.
Sora kissed him enthusiastically. Riku’s neck was craned and his hands sweaty but none of that seemed to bother Sora, and Riku would never want to be anywhere else. Stupidly, he thought he’d do anything to keep this, which had kind of been the original problem. He settled his hands on Sora’s waist, feeling Sora smile against his lips. Only Sora could make him feel like this. He’d missed being this close; missed thinking about this at all.
“So.” Sora was panting when they broke apart. His lips curved into the smile Riku had felt. “Stay with me for my birthday? I got pineapple pizza and ginger ale for you.”
Riku pressed his forehead to Sora’s. “I’m here, aren’t I.”
“Of course you are,” Sora agreed. “Where else would you be?”