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During his travels, there was always one thought popping up in Sora’s mind each time he saw something new.
I have to tell Riku!
It happened again and again and again, and more often than not for things that were, objectively, not all that impressive. Sure, he wished to tell Riku about Deep Jungle’s waterfalls and how they put the ones back at home to shame—We gotta race to the top, Riku!—He wanted to complain about the headache that was Wonderland and show off his detective skills—See how capable I’m now, Riku?—Sora spent hours racking his brains to come up with the best, most heroic, most jaw-dropping way of narrating his victories at the Olympus Coliseum—I won’t lose another fight, Riku!—But he also got the urge to rant to Riku about how the desert felt different from the beach despite both of them being sand and how Donald and Goofy had the most obnoxious snores he had heard in his life and he wondered which world’s food Riku liked the most and if he also had strange dreams at night or if he missed being able to just turn around and see the sea.
Regretfully, whenever he and Riku met, Sora never managed to get a word out. At least, not a good one. It was like anything he said made Riku angrier and he couldn’t understand the reason. Sora had turned cool! Sora was a hero! The Keyblade Hero! Was Riku really so put off about having to share the top that he wanted nothing to do with him? Or was Sora, simply… still not good enough? Admittedly, he felt a tad ridiculous sometimes while swinging Kingdom Key around, the weapon almost as big as he was and feeling uncanny on his hand. Besides, Donald berated him enough about his magic, correcting him on aim and stance and power. It was difficult to feel proud of being able to cast literal fire when a talking duck could do it a thousand times better.
At the end, Sora discovered that Riku had been possessed by Ansem; and as horrible as that was to witness, he couldn’t shake off the relief that overflowed him. Because that meant that the cruel Riku that rejected him, the harsh Riku that mocked him and the vicious Riku that had ripped Sora’s heart out of his chest to leave him defenceless and alone in the ruins of a broken world (the Riku that tried to kill him and nearly succeeded) wasn’t his Riku. His Riku was the one who appeared at the other side of the door of Kingdom Hearts and sacrificed himself for the Realm of Light, his last words a request for Kairi’s sake.
That’s why, once Sora awoke in the pod, he kept adding to the list of things he needed to talk about with Riku. He refused to let that be their last conversation; Riku conducting the ultimate act of heroism while Sora managed, yet again, to not get a single word out. A repetition of their days back on the islands, where Sora felt his silences getting longer as Riku seemed to get stronger; that one year between them a crack that, at some point, had grown into an unsalvable canyon.
What a bunch of nonsense.
Sora had been so stupid. A small, insecure kid with dreams of greatness that looked impossible from under Riku’s shadow.
Well, Sora reached that greatness. He befriended people in all the places he visited, he saved worlds with a weapon out of legends, he defeated every Big Bad Guy that came his way and then the Big Bad Witch that commanded those Big Bad Guys and then, finally, the Super Big Bad Guy that had been possessing his best friend for who knows how long and was planning to steal his other best friend’s heart. No one could deny that Sora was standing at the top of the universe. No one would doubt his strength again. Not a single soul, in Destiny Islands or beyond, could ever debate that Sora was anything less than the saviour of the worlds.
It sucked.
Because being a hero meant nothing if Riku wasn’t there to bask in the glory with him. The top was a lonely, cold place without Riku to push him even higher. To do better. To be faster, go further, get stronger, smarter, more ambitious, more… Simply more. With Riku nowhere to be seen, life’s zenith had turned into a dead end.
Also, Riku was his best friend. Sora wanted him back.
He had to tell him that. To apologise, perhaps, for his envy. For choosing the easy route of avoidance and laziness when Riku’s presence became too overwhelming. Maybe if he had been more observant, if he hadn’t been such a petty, jealous coward, he would have noticed when Ansem started haunting Riku; he could have done something, he could have stopped this mess before it even began and no one would have had to suffer.
Soon, those feelings joined the list, longer by the day.
When their reunion came to be and they ended up on that grey shore, gazing at murky water under a cloudy nightscape, Sora got surprised when Riku also had things to confess himself. Always one step ahead. After that, Sora’s ever-growing list got suddenly scrapped and he was content with laying on that beach, next to his best friend, letting the darkness inside his heart fester until it consumed him completely.
But they got out—miraculously, may he add—and the list rematerialised inside Sora’s head like it had never disappeared.
For three days, he talked nonstop. With Riku on his left and Kairi on his right, seated on their bent paopu tree, Sora retold his adventures with as much grandiosity as they deserved.
He told them about being a merman.
“They put on whole concerts under there and with their own instruments too! There was this big, blue fish playing the saxophone and an octopus on the drums and the princesses sang this really catchy song-“
About Halloween Town.
“Donald turned into a mummy, Goofy was some kind of reanimated corpse and I had a vampire-demon thing going on, fangs and everything! But then we went to Christmas Town and Donald was a snowman, Goofy a reindeer and I was- uh… A vampire-demon Santa, I guess?”
About the Pride Lands.
“Simba is going to be a dad! I couldn’t believe it! Between our first visit and the second there was only, like, a week. Time really does pass differently in every world.”
About Pooh Bear and the others.
“They live inside a book, which sounds crazy, but it’s a really cosy place. Kanga, Roo’s mom, bakes the best blueberry pie in all the worlds; I could eat twenty of those at once and still ask for seconds.”
About the cursed servants in Beast’s Castle.
“We went back to the gummiship whenever one of us had to use the bathroom. I have no idea how Belle managed it, but we weren’t risking it with a talking toilet.”
And all the other worlds he visited and the friends he met in them. Including Olette, Pence and Hayner, whom Kairi had nothing but praises for. She had been listening actively, laughing along at the funny stories—Mushu did what? My stars, how did Shang not notice anything sooner?—and playfully chastising him when he described his most reckless stunts—Geeting inside a book is okay, but a computer? Sora, you are terrible with technology!—Kairi had known some of his anecdotes, since Leon, Aerith and Yuffie had shared the ones Sora told them during his first adventure (besides them being technically together all along), but she still reacted like it was the first time, questioning him worryingly about the ninety-nine puppies he rescued—How did those poor dalmatians end up inside the chest?—or encouraging him with excited—And then? What happened then?—that had Sora puffing out his chest, before continuing the tale.
To make sure nothing could dampen the atmosphere, Sora didn’t mention the parts he would rather forget himself. So, he kept quiet about finding Kairi’s comatose body in Hook’s ship, about stabbing himself in the chest to free her heart and his experience as a Shadow, along with most of what Ansem forced Riku to do.
It surprised him a bit how much he was able to talk only of the good things. Perhaps if Sora kept it up, he could forget anything bad happened at all. He was good at that, apparently; everything related to Naminé remained an inscrutable static at the back of his consciousness.
Riku, though, barely spoke a word.
He gave his light chuckle of a laugh at times and would shake his head fondly at Sora’s antics, but he mainly remained stoic. A silent presence at Sora’s left that warmed his side, but didn’t comfort his heart.
And Sora tried; he really did. He tried to make his stories as interesting as possible, but Riku flinched at the mention of Alice. Hearing about Agrabah made his shoulders rise to his ears in unease, even when all Sora did was sing praises about the magic carpet. His eyes got lost in the sea after Sora complained about Peter Pan and his whole body stiffened like a plank when Sora addressed Pinocchio while reminiscing about Jiminy.
As an attempt to include Riku in the conversation, Sora interrogated him directly—Were you there? Did you see this? Did you do that?—getting a nod or a muttered answer that was barely three words strung together before Riku looked over Sora’s head and asked “And how were things around here, Kairi?”, which gained them ten minutes or so of the latest Destiny Islands gossip. Even in a world like theirs, a year didn’t lack eventful days.
The only time Sora managed to pluck more than a small laugh from Riku was at the mention of The Land of Dragons’ mountains. “I didn’t know snow would feel like that.” He said, looking at him with the happiest smile he had worn since the king left. Sora couldn’t help but give his biggest grin in return. Riku’s teal eyes seemed to soften behind his silver bangs. “Powdery but compact all at once. Now I understand how it is possible to have a snowball fight.”
“We have to have one next time! We should go to Christmas Town, though. The snow there is made specially for that and you” he pointed an accusatory finger at Riku, who looked suddenly a little nervous, “are going to apologise to Santa Claus for telling all the kids in your grade and mine that he didn’t exist.”
Riku’s brow furrowed, his gaze defiant despite his body still leaning away from Sora’s. “I told you and no one else. You were the one who went from class to class yelling about him not being real.”
“Because you told me!”
“I didn’t exactly force you to believe me, though.”
“Come on! You know I believe everything you say, Riku!”
At that, Riku’s face made a complicated expression that Sora didn’t have the opportunity to examine before Riku hid behind a curtain of silver hair. “You shouldn’t.” He said, in a voice almost drowned by the waves.
Again, Sora had proceeded to say the bad thing at the wrong time in the worst way possible. Riku withdrew from the conversation, again, and Sora would swallow a pound of sand (beach rubbish included) if that meant he could relearn how to talk to Riku without feeling he is dealing emotional damage every two sentences.
His frustrated musing got interrupted by Kairi’s hand on his shoulder. “Were you on the naughty list, Sora?”
Sora forced himself to keep on track, continuing his role as storyteller, although Riku’s presence at his side was growing colder. Like a gush of winter, trying to keep Riku close was akin to catching snowflakes.
He didn’t understand. In the Dark Margin Riku had been so open, vulnerable like Sora had never seen him. For a moment, Riku wasn’t the perfectly composed role model everyone in the islands looked up to, nor was he the capable leader of their mismatched band of teenagers. The battle against Xemnas left him weak and it was that undisguised exhaustion what made Riku approachable for the first time in years, because while carrying Riku’s limp body to the shore, Sora realised that he couldn’t remember the last time Riku had relied on him. What a sad thought to have about your best friend.
Now, Sora was different. Trustworthy. He saved the universe twice! If that wasn’t proof enough of how dependable he was, then nothing would ever be (and he would rather not think about that). Riku must have noticed too, didn’t he? That’s why he confessed his jealousy to Sora, right? He valued him as a friend. Sora was irreplaceable to Riku. He was important. He was loved and he would never doubt that again.
He just had to make sure that Riku knew he was loved as well, but for that, they had to talk. Riku especially had to do a lot of the talking.
How could he accomplish that, though? It wasn’t like he could go to reanimate Xemnas (which would imply killing Xehanort, and, yeah, that was something Sora could see himself doing, but not right now) and let him beat Riku half to death each time he wanted to have a heart-to-heart with him.
What he could do was recreate those conditions. That had him knocking at Riku’s window past midnight and dragging him out the moment his hand was within reach.
“Sora, what are you doing?”
“Going for a walk.”
“And you are taking me along because…”
“Why? Did you have anything better to do? Looking at the ceiling doesn’t count; I know you weren’t sleeping.”
The bags under his eyes were visible enough to be undeniable and Riku decided, apparently, to pick his battles accordingly. He brought one hand to the apple of his cheek, outlining the hem of black fabric that was no longer there and Sora knew that Riku was wishing to have it back. Tough luck; that blindfold was safe in Sora’s magic pocket and there it would stay. Finders keepers.
“I was going to read a book, actually.”
“I’m more interesting than a book.” Sora looked over his shoulder; Riku’s gaze was directed at the stars above their heads. It was a beautiful night and Riku blended in with the moonlight, another pale shadow among the palm trees.
“I’m not so sure; it was a pirate novel.”
“I was a pirate! A real one.”
“Three random guys let you tag along in a boat; that doesn’t make you a pirate.”
“Firstly, it was a ship.” Sora stopped walking and dropped Riku’s good wrist so he could turn around and glare daggers at him and his smug, unfairly mature face. “Secondly, they weren’t three random guys; they were pirates. And I sailed the seas with them, that makes me one too.”
Riku tilted his head to the side, appraising him with eyes that, after everything, Sora knew held nothing but fondness, despite the lopsided smile that was starting to curl the edge of Riku’s lips. “The only pirate there was Jack and going by what you told us about him, he barely counts.”
“He has a pirate’s heart.”
“And a drinking problem.”
Sora stuttered for an answer, ending up with none. Only Riku could get him doing things as ridiculous as trying to defend Jack Sparrow’s honour—That was a sinking ship if Sora had ever seen one—At least, Riku was laughing and Sora’s indignation puffed out of existence. They weren’t even at the Play Island, but his plan was already being a success. Sora patted himself on the back.
“I was a pirate.” He proclaimed, hands on his hips and shoulders squared.
The defiant look Riku directed at him flared a fire between his lungs.
“Where is your pirate ship, then?” Riku, the little shit, put a hand over his eyes while squinting at the horizon, his whole body leaning into it, because not even the darkness could strip him of his dramatism. “And your crew? Ah, don’t tell me, they are the bugs under these rocks, right?” Riku poked at a stone in the path with the tip of his sneaker until he flipped it over and then let out a hiss. “No, no luck here.”
Nocturnal sea breeze should be colder than this, yet Sora felt himself warming up. One year ago, it would be by anger. Now, though, it was jittery happiness the one curling up his fists.
He jumped at Riku, trying to put him in a headlock that the other evaded with surprising grace, taking into account the stiffness of his left side. His second attempt was sidestepped, so was his third, Riku staying on the defensive with his bad arm close to his chest.
“You will see! I will get my own ship, I will get my own crew and then” Sora stood tall and proud in the middle of the path, swaying one fist at Riku with what he thought was an intimidating glare, although Riku only laughed harder. Sora had to push down his own smile, he was threatening him, after all. “I will put you to scrub the deck until your knees bleed.”
This late at night, Riku’s eyes were forest green, darker than the trees at Deep Jungle, yet livelier than the noble firs at Christmas Town. Just the tone of jade that surrounded Sora in his travels through the Land of Dragons and its bamboo-lined trails. In that world every sight evoked the image of Riku’s happiness. “You won’t even give me a mop?”
“Show some respect to your future captain and I might reconsider.” Sora crossed his arms and craned his head.
As an answer to his provocation, Riku brought a hand to his chin, his elegant features—time had only refined them and Sora was still coping with the reality that Riku could and did look prettier with the years, how unfair, when would be Sora’s turn?—burrowing in thoughtful consideration.
Then, Riku sprinted past Sora, his stride as awkward on the sand as it was determined.
“Win the race and I might reconsider!”
That familiar view tickled at his legs and his hands and that flickering feeling on his ribcage; however, the differences stunned him in place. Riku’s back was broader, his whole shape longer and defined under the clothes he had to borrow from Sora’s father after his were two sizes too small. There was something in that visage of youth and childhood nostalgia that had Sora taking a deep breath, silver hair flittering at every step like a snake, like a dance, like a call.
The Caribbean sirens couldn’t have made him follow faster. If Sora were a wiser man, he would worry about his single focus on his best friend; he would stop and think why he would be willing to follow him into hell. Why he would be happy to stay in hell with him, forever. What bliss it would be to chase that laugh for the rest of his days, and what a pleasure it was to catch up with him and see his profile outlined by the moonlight. Innocent competitiveness flaring up his spirit in a way that was not new and yet so known.
Sora ended up stumbling and falling face first on the sand, so Riku grabbed him by the back of his shirt and dragged his limp body to the docks (the fact that Riku could do that one-armed made him feel some-kinda-way that he was too dazed to dwell into) and dropped him in the boat Sora had used earlier in the day. Once he landed on his feet and stabilised himself, Sora looked up and Riku was a tall and imposing shadow in the night, or would have been, if he weren’t wearing the red shirt with the faded paopu print that Sora remembered puking onto when he was ten and ate too much seafood at the summer festival.
“You row.” Riku announced, while gingerly getting on the boat, opposite to Sora.
“Why me?” He asked, already taking the oars tucked from the bottom.
“Because you lost.”
“You cheated!”
The sea breeze caressed Riku’s hair, moving his bangs away from his eyes, if only for one cherished second. “It’s the pirate way.”
Sora sank one oar in the sea and used it to splatter water all over Riku.
“Hey!”
“It’s the pirate way.” He parroted in the most grating voice he could manage.
Moments like these should never end—Sora enjoyed that train of thought from time to time, usually when Riku’s genuine laugh, as rare as it was since he hit puberty, turned his stomach into an acrobat that flip-flopped all over his guts—but then, he wouldn’t be able to create new memories to enjoy as well. It was an ironic tug-of-war between melancholy and dread, because one never knows how long good things last. Sora could be spending his final moments with Riku and be none the wiser. If that were the case, wouldn’t it be fine to stay like this? Frozen in place under the moon as they were about to embark to their childhood paradise, knees knocking because the boat was too small for two teenagers, Riku half drenched, with his wet silver locks sticking to his face and shining the same dull metal of Kingdom Key, old t-shirt and sweatpants run thin by multiple washes and that smelt more like Sora’s house than Riku’s. The picture of comfort. The dream of an exhausted warrior.
Riku wouldn’t like that, though. He didn’t like staying put. He would resent Sora for caging him, no matter how sweet the trap. Forward, Riku would go always forward, even into a precipice, and Sora would jump after him without thinking twice about it, because falling to their doom together sounded better than living a single day without Riku’s company.
What did that say of him? What did that say of them?
Like with many other things, Sora didn’t want to think about that. Instead, he set the oars in the correct position and rowed them to the Play Island, his mouth already articulating the words of their past adventure in the Caribbean.
By the time they reached the shore, Sora had already exhausted all the gruesome details about fighting zombie pirates that could only be killed by magic that he didn’t consider appropriate to tell in front of Kairi, so he started to reflect on his friends and their eccentricities.
“And Jack runs like this.” Sora jumped out of the boat as soon as its side touched the dock’s post and started a mad dash across the beach with his limbs flailing violently at his sides like a windmill during a tornado. For accuracy’s sake, Sora added some of Jack’s characteristics, guttural screams and moved his knees as rigidly as possible while stomping on the sand on his way back to Riku, who was crouching at the end of the dock, his whole body shaking with laughter. Good to know he still appreciated when Sora put on a show.
“Why does he do that?” Riku asked, eyes glazed with mirthful tears, cheeks a shy shade of red.
“Because he is drunk.”
Another guffaw spluttered its way out of Riku and the wave of pride that washed over Sora could be compared to the rush of victory after defeating Ansem the first time. Lately, getting Riku to truly laugh felt as heroic as saving the world.
Sora quite liked the idea of being Riku’s hero, even in mundane ways like this.
They didn’t come to the Play Island to perform some comedy show, though. He was a man on a mission.
“So…” He waited for Riku to get back on his feet, clammy hands in his pockets. “How is it that you didn’t see Jack running around? You said the king and you watched over us when we were going from one world to the other.”
“We weren’t always together.” To Sora’s surprise, Riku started walking on his own.
“I figured.”
Riku made a noncommittal noise behind closed lips, which was a non-answer that Sora hated to receive. “Well,” he prodded, the waves getting louder the more they approached the high tide, “what were you doing when you weren’t together?”
“I had my own tasks.”
“Like what?” Why was talking about this like pulling teeth? Sora had an easier time dealing with the Queen of Hearts—truthfully, no, he didn’t, but the frustration level was similar enough. “Fooling around in the snow?”
“Like saving your ass from a horde of heartless in the snow.” Sora was about to protest when Riku continued: “And from a black void.”
“We could have gotten out on our own, you know!”
“I know.” The smile Riku gave him was a small, fragile thing. It paused Sora’s pulse for a heartbeat. “It would have taken you forever, though. And we were kind of in a rush.”
“Yeah.” Sand, sea and a starry sky extended before him; a knot in his throat made it difficult to breathe. He finally knew what lay beyond that horizon; the worlds among the stars were no longer unknown. Uncountable adventures waiting for him, but did Sora want to depart? Destiny Islands had never seemed as small and his heart was so full of others’ hurt. Roxas… “It’s weird to have this much free time.” The last thing Sora wanted was to use it to think, his mind was his worst enemy here. He would rather fight the Organization again.
“We should enjoy it while we can,” Riku sat down, took off his sneakers, his socks and stretched his long, pale legs close enough to the water for it to lap at his heels with each lazy pull and push of the tide. “I have the feeling it won’t last.”
Sora’s mouth got suddenly dry; he had to unstuck his tongue from his palate to ask: “Just a feeling? Didn’t the king say something about what’s next?”
“He said Jiminy wanted to discover what happened to his journal. How that includes us, I have no idea.” Then he gazed up at Sora, still standing, and arched one eyebrow. “Didn’t the cricket say something to you?”
“Jiminy says a lot of things,” he sat next to him, a palm of distance between them, Sora hoped it was enough, “I don’t always listen.”
Another laugh burst out of Riku, tamer than the others, but no less free. “Pinocchio said the same.”
“Yeah?” Sora inched closer.
“Yeah.” Riku lay on his back, eyes closed and arms resting over his middle. Serene. Corpse-like. It made Sora’s insides twist. “He was a good kid.”
He poked him on the ribs; Riku looked at him. That was better.
“Jiminy said he had an attitude problem.”
“His problem was that he had a magical nose that didn’t let him get away with lying.” When Sora prodded at him again, Riku slapped his hand, the move as gentle as it could be. “All kids should have an attitude, it means they have grown a backbone.”
“Don’t let any parent hear you or your goody-two-shoes reputation will crumble to pieces.”
“I don’t have a goody-two-shoes reputation.”
“Yet everyone thought I was the troublemaker between us.”
A grin quirked Riku’s lips. “Because I knew when to shut up and not blow my cover.”
“Nah.” This time, Sora nudged him under the jaw with his knuckles. Its edges had gotten sharp, defined, closer to man than boy, like the rest of him. “It was because you were cuter.” Warm, saccharine childhood memories weighted him down and Sora allowed them to tip him towards the sand until he was resting next to Riku and his perplexed eyes, half covered by moonlighted hair. “Selphie called it pretty privilege.”
“Everyone is cute at that age.”
You more than anyone else. The thought crossed his mind, but remained unsaid. This—Riku being unable to take a compliment—was a new development, too. One year ago, his best friend would have bragged about it, teasing Sora to hell and back for admitting such a thing, which would have had Sora regretting ever opening his mouth. It was kinda funny (and sad) to remember how much he praised Riku growing up, and how weird it felt stopping abruptly one day. Sora wouldn’t mind picking it up; Riku could use a confidence boost or two. And wasn’t that the strangest thing to notice? Riku? Lacking confidence? What a joke.
Nevertheless, it wasn’t one. Sora had to remind himself that Riku was fragile, too. Human, just like him. The fact that the realisation made him giddy with happiness was another can of worms entirely.
His hand moved on its own accord and brushed Riku’s bangs to the side with the tips of his fingers, the eyes that met his own, finally free of obstructions, appeared a little afraid. Green forest turning brilliant teal with the moon shining directly on them.
Sora heard Riku gulp and wondered if his throat had also gone dry. The opportunity to ask got lost once Riku turned his head to the stars above, breathing oddly ragged. “These waves sound the same as the ones in the Realm of Darkness.”
What a way to change the subject, his awkwardness dug a thorn in Sora’s heart. Had he done something bad? He just touched his hair, was it that bizarre? Or was it one of those things that they weren’t allowed to do anymore? Riku came up with a lot of them when Sora entered middle school. No handholding, no sharing a bed during sleepovers, no drinking from the same straw, no eating from each other’s popsicles, no hugging in public and, in private, it couldn’t be for too long, either. To this day, they still made his stomach churn. What was wrong with holding hands? They were best friends.
“It surprised me because, during the year you were recovering-”
Waitwaitwaitwait- Hold on- Was that really happening? Was it Story Time, at last? Sora had to force all his muscles to not jump in celebration; that would scare Riku off. It was of utter importance to proceed with caution: not too excited, not too uninterested. Just the right amount of attentive. Sora could do that. Yeah, he could totally pull off the nonchalant act.
“Why are you staring at me like that?”
Sora forgot nonchalant people blinked.
“Nothing, nothing. What were you saying…?” He started drawing circles in the sand with his finger—one big and two small ones on top of it, like the king’s ears—because that’s what not too-eager friends did when their best friend was about to spill the beans about their travels while they were coping with all-consuming darkness threatening to take control of their body.
Riku chuckled, called him “Weirdo” under his breath and went on with his tale.
It was the story of a sea monster, a few years younger than them, living in a dilapidated tower on an island. The sea monster had been abandoned by his family when he was but a guppy, and since then survived each day on his own.
“He wasn’t very good at it.” Commented Riku with a pained face. “He didn’t know how to hunt or fish and had been living off of algae and barnacles until I taught him.”
The sea monster was curious about the humans he could only see with his spyglass, young but wise enough to know he mustn’t approach. And from the distance he observed their festivities, he wondered about their customs and longed to walk among them in the dry land that held as many dangers as it did wonders.
“Half the tower was filled with human junk he had collected from around the reef.” Sora couldn’t help but be reminded of Ariel and her grotto; if Alberto was anything like her, he would love to be his friend. It seemed he needed a few. “I told him what most of those things were for, although I’m not sure how much he was listening. He had a… big imagination and I could tell my answers disappointed him.” His fingers drummed on his sternum and Sora recognised instantly the ‘regretting past mischief’ grimace that furrowed his features. “So, I might have gone a bit overboard with some explanations.”
“What do you mean?” Riku pressed his lips into a thin line. Sora propped himself on his elbows. “Riku, what did you tell him?”
“I told him that the stars were anchovies.”
“Riku!” He jolted upright, staring at Riku and his ‘I know I fucked up’ face. “You didn’t.”
“I wish I didn’t.”
“Rikuuuu” Sora let the name roll on his tongue, borrowing some of that dramatic flair that Riku always used whenever he wanted to get under his skin. This was payback, yes. “That was so mean.”
“He was getting on my nerves.”
“You are just easy to annoy.”
“Maybe.” When Riku closed his good hand over his heart, Sora was the one feeling like a jerk. He still wasn’t used to the fact that his words could affect Riku. Sticks and stones and all that dance and song. Those years expecting each conversation to turn into banter had sharpened his tongue and he had to remember that Riku wasn’t wearing armour anymore. “I should have been kinder.”
“You were dealing with Ansem’s darkness,” he inched closer, and since he didn’t protest, Sora nudged Riku’s hip with his knee, “everyone would be a little rude in your situation.”
From where he was sitting, Sora could see Riku’s left hand digging into the sand, fingers shaking in febrile spasms that Riku swore weren’t painful, although he could never look Sora in the eye when saying so. “It was my darkness, Sora. There is no one to blame but me.”
Blame. That was a word too bitter to pronounce.
“Your darkness, his darkness; it doesn’t matter.” Riku was about to protest, so Sora pressed his fingertip to Riku’s nose and he went cross-eyed. “You were going through a lot, all on your own. And it was difficult and it was exhausting and you told a little lie, so what?”
“It wasn’t just that.” He grabbed Sora’s wrist and put his pointing hand away.
“Whatever you did, I’m sure it wasn’t that bad.”
“He wouldn’t be happy to see me again.”
“You can’t always get along with everyone, it’s normal.”
Riku turned his head to look at him, an awed sort of look in his eyes that filled Sora’s skull with cottony softness. “You do.”
Thinking coherently was such a difficult task with Riku gazing at him like he hung the moon and the stars and everything he loved about the night sky. “That’s not true, I have a ton of enemies.” He fumbled with his words and his hands, sitting straight. “Did you forget Hades? And Clayton, Shan Yu, Ursula- and the Cheshire Cat said the Queen of Hearts put a price on my head in Wonderland.”
Images of his adventures popped up in his mind, one after the other: all the people who had ever meant him hurt, those who managed to strike, the ones who made him bleed. A carrousel of faces and nightmarish darkness mixing into dizziness. What a headache. These were the things Sora wanted to leave behind; he won, that’s all that mattered. Why did it still ache? None of the stories he read had the heroes dealing with ghosts of past victories. Perhaps he was the problem.
“They had it coming.” Riku’s voice startled him. It was calm and so secure, the baritone of someone speaking the truth. “You went from world to world saving people, Sora. While I… I’m not sure what I was doing besides pushing everyone’s buttons.”
You are so dramatic tickled Sora’s tongue. It would be an easy thing to do, to just fall into their usual banter. To reach his hand and brush his thumb over Riku’s creased frown. Stop brooding, he could say and the words wouldn’t be foreign, because he doubted Riku had acted half as bad as he was painting himself to be. He could be an asshole and possess natural talent to talk back like a snarky little shit under the right conditions, but it was impossible to be angry at him for long. Riku was just… so honest, all the time, so visceral in his reactions, like his rage was a weapon out of his control that ended up cutting him twice as much as it did his opponent.
Kindness shone through his actions, even if he was blind to his own light.
“Come on. That wasn’t the only world you visited, right? I’m sure most of the people you met would love to have you back.”
I do. He bit the inside of his cheek; that would be too much, definitely.
Riku looked at him for a few seconds, contemplative gaze and wary expression. His arms were resting across his ribcage, an armour of flesh, bone and plaster over a heart Sora knew was vulnerable and all the more precious for it. Whether he was searching for something on Sora’s face (double meanings, tricks, bait for the foolish fish), whether he was waiting for him to give up and change the subject, Sora didn’t know. He stayed put, he stayed quiet and he smiled at Riku because he trusted him and was sure that someone out there, in the wide Realm of Light, had had to notice how worthy Riku was of being called a friend.
At the end, after minutes of silent consideration, Riku took a deep breath and confessed to the stars twinkling peacefully over them. “There was this couple…”
What followed was the story of a lazy, hedonistic prince that was cursed to become a frog after trying to find an easy solution to his lack of income and how he ended up dragging a hard-working, principled commoner into his mess. To find a solution to their predicament, the unlikely pair ventured into the bayou in search of a wise priestess that could break the enchantment, meeting an array of odd swamp critters and growing to appreciate each other as they learned more about themselves and the wishes hidden deep within their hearts.
At that point, Sora had to interrupt, because one detail in Riku’s retelling was, simply, uncomprehensible. “The alligator played the trumpet?”
That got him the patented one-lifted-eyebrow look of judgement. “That’s what caught your attention?”
“Of course! Alligators haven’t got lips, how did he even-”
“And ducks don’t have fingers, yet there is Donald.”
Any rebuttal he came up with disappeared; he felt himself sagging. What a weird life we live, uh. Where talking ducks not wearing pants smacked him on the shins with a magical staff held by feathery hands whenever he misspelled a thundaga. Thinking like that, an alligator being able to pucker its mouth didn’t sound half-strange. “You’ve got a point.” Then, Sora got comfortable on his back, laying, again, next to Riku. Crossed arms cushioning his head. What a normal night. “Go on.”
The mismatched group overcame many obstacles in their journey, but even after encountering the wise priestess and defeating the Shadow Man who plotted their demise, the curse remained, since both prince and commoner had chosen each other over the opportunity to regain their humanity. Pleased with staying together, even in their hexed forms, they held a ceremony in the heart of the bayou, where swamp critters and the wise priestess witnessed the spell being lifted after their marriage vows.
“True love kisses are really a cure-all spell.” Sora mused, transfixed on Riku’s profile.
“It wasn’t that.” He said and it sounded bitter. It made Sora blink twice. Riku’s features had wrinkled like he was disgusted by the idea and that felt like a stone sinking, heavy, in Sora’s stomach, he wasn’t sure why. “I mean, they loved each other, but the reason why the curse broke is that Tiana was marrying Naveen, a prince, so when they kissed-”
A lightbulb might as well have appeared over Sora’s head. “Naveen was kissing a princess! His wife!”
“Yeah, the conditions were met, even if the man who set them was already gone.”
Sora chuckled. “Magic is so weird, man.”
“Yeah.”
“I think that Yen Sid or Merlin-or, well, Yen Sid and Merlin could give me classes for the rest of my life and I would still not get it. For me, it all comes from here.” His hand slid from where it was supporting his nape and he settled it on his chest, over his beating heart, joyful and serene, keeping secrets and promises forgotten even by him.
“Yeah.”
Not the reaction he was expecting. Yet, when he looked at him, Sora didn’t have it in him to complain. Riku’s eyes were reflecting entire constellations, a full via lactea sprinkled over sea green. Wishfulness painted him in dreamy shades of midnight blue. He looked pensive. He looked sage beyond his years. He looked like lost, precious treasure, found at the edge of the world.
“I wonder which one of these stars is Evangeline.”
Sora followed his gaze to the tapestry of marvels hanging over them, heart heavy between his lungs. So many unknown worlds before him, blinking drowsily in the deep darkness. Once upon a time, the both of them had rested on this very beach, glancing at these very stars while coming up with a thousand and one adventures to go through in each of them. Someday, he thought, searching among the celestial dome, someday, Riku; he promised quietly to himself, fingers closed around his necklace. His tongue felt thick, clumsy, but that didn’t stop him from leaning closer to him—shoulders touching—and pointing upwards.
“That one.”
“Why?” Asked Riku in a whisper of a voice.
“Because it looks like it is holding hands with the other one.” Sora let down his own, sand cold and soft under his skin, Riku’s fingers warm where their knuckles bumped together. “That must be Ray.”
“Yeah.” This time, it was a blissful sigh. “It shines the same as him.”
Fireflies weren’t common in Destiny Islands; Sora might have seen them once or twice in his life and always in small clusters inside the forest. They looked funny, like drunk fairies going in circles because they couldn’t distinguish left from right, bumping into each other and flying lazily around ivy-covered trees. Now, though, Sora could imagine them exactly as Riku described: jubilant voices and joyful songs, guiding lost souls out of Fate’s murky waters. A tiny, mundane bug in love with the brightest star in the sky. Sora wasn’t sure why, but when he intertwined his fingers with Riku’s, he thought he could sympathise with Ray. He knew what it was to have an unreachable Evangeline.
Sudden movement at his side shook him off his daze. Riku had sat upright and dragged his hand away from his; Sora was trying really hard to not be hurt about it.
“We should go back, it’s late.”
It was.
Luckily for Sora (and he counted this as a miracle, because Riku could be difficult to deal with when he wanted), that night wasn’t a one-time thing. It turned into a routine: Sora knocking on Riku’s window past midnight and making the trip together to the Play Island. Laughs, jokes and secrets shared with the moon, because Riku turned braver under its silver veil, like he was wearing moonlight as a shield that protected without restricting. A spell, not an armour, that accentuated all his expressions. It was at night that Riku smiled bigger, talked longer, gesticulated wilder and it might cost Sora having to wake up at noon for the rest of forever, but he could give up mornings if it meant that Riku wouldn’t flinch at his proximity.
It was splayed supine on that beach that Riku told him about the haughty emperor that was turned into a llama by his old hag of an advisor, the young warrior whose divine punishment was to be transformed into one of the bears he so despised and the fiery princess who unknowingly prompted a forest with to curse her mother into being a bear.
“What’s with you and people being turned into animals.” Asked Sora, half-laughing, half clutching at his stomach and wondering why he felt sick after listening to Riku talk about Merida. He looked too eager, his eyes holding too much admiration for a girl that seemed the personification of a free spirit. An amalgamation of all the traits Riku found desirable—and she was a redhead on top of that, just like Kairi!—A match made by Destiny, his mother would say and she might have been right. “First a sea monsters, then frogs, then a llama, then a bear and now a bear again?”
“Hell if I know.” Riku answered, also laughing. “And Alberto was a sea monster who transformed into a human, not the other way around.”
“Next thing you are going to tell me you turned into a giraffe or something.”
“Hey, I’m not the one who turned into a merman, a lion, a demon-vampire thing, then a Santa demon-vampire th-”
“I get it! I get it!” He punched him playfully on his good arm, surprisingly supple despite being thick with muscle; Sora was trying not to focus on it, that train of thought always knotted his guts into ribbons. “Geez, just admit you are jealous I got all the cool form changes while you were stuck with the coat.”
“I’m happy with my body staying the way it is.”
Sora would have also been happy if he had Riku’s body. It was a recurrent daydream of his when he was younger. To be tall like Riku, buff like Riku, pretty like Riku, cool like Riku. He would spend hours in front of the mirror just watching his body move, tense and relax like every action was part of a dance. Riku managed to be effortlessly elegant in everything he did and Sora was aware he couldn’t replicate that, for it was part of Riku himself, but he would enjoy trying. Flexing long and nimble fingers, stretching strongly trained limbs, brushing away silky, silver hair and talking in a voice that could be as soft as a caress and as gleeful as a creek. His blood boiled just imagining the expanse of pale skin responding to his every command, the little grunts and sighs, the arch of that nude back while holding the arms up and all the curves that followed it.
No, no, Sora had to stop those fantasies. His stomach was doing impossible flips again, cartwheeling over his intestines like a contortionist in a circus show. There was no way to explain his flushed cheeks without Riku’s smug smile becoming permanent on his face. He would never let him live it down if he knew how envious he was of the body he had worked so hard to sculpt.
It occurred to him, amidst his embarrassment, that Riku may have been referring to being glad about no longer looking like Ansem and, soon, grief overcame any other feeling. Thankfully, Riku had returned to his storytelling, so Sora could drown in his own shame peacefully, closing his hand tightly around his necklace so the spikes could dug into his palm and serve as punishment; teal eyes didn’t usually wander away from the stars unless Sora interrupted him.
Later on, with the sunrise illuminating the path back to home, Sora considered that it made sense for Riku’s heart to have led him to those people, trapped as they were in a foreign, uncomfortable form that slowly corroded their mind into delirium, chipping at their soul until it morphed into a new shape, as unfamiliar as their body.
In the bifurcation that separated their streets, he asked Riku for a hug and when he accepted, expression shy and posture stiff, Sora whispered to his ear how happy he was to have him back and thanked him for not giving up, despite how easy it would have been to leave him behind, rotting inside that lotus cage. No one would have blamed him, no one remembered Sora. Riku could have gone on his merry way, free as he was to explore the worlds, without having to sacrifice his very being for someone forgotten by all the hearts he had once touched.
So he squeezed him with all the strength he could gather in his arms and his eyes dampened once Riku returned the hug, his grip iron tight.
One of Sora’s favourite things to do during their nightly conversations was to throw at Riku all his accumulated questions.
Like which was the world with the best food.
“We went to this local diner with Kuzco disguised as Pacha’s wife and don’t ask me why, but Kronk was cooking the food and everything was delicious, Sora. I can’t remember half of the names; just how good they were.”
“Wasn’t Tiana the one who wanted to open a restaurant?”
“She couldn’t really do much as a frog and I left after she and Naveen turned human.”
“What a wasted opportunity, Riku.”
“I don’t overstay my welcome, Sora.”
Which was the world with the best scenery.
“It wasn’t like anything I had seen before. There were so many colours, moving like the waves on this sea, like midnight dawn and if you closed your eyes, you could listen to the spirits singing inside the Northern Lights. I’m… really glad Kenai and Koda convinced me to wait; I think I won’t ever see a sky that beautiful again.”
Among the people he met, who was the one he disliked the most.
“Being with Kuzco humbled me, in a sense. He was insufferable, Sora. Realising that I acted like that at some point-” Riku cringed in disgust. “It made me not want to be anything like him ever again. It felt like a slap to the face.”
And, also, among his new friends—because, yes, they were friends; it didn’t matter how broody and hopelessly dramatic Riku was being about it—who was his favourite. If Sora crossed his fingers behind his back, wishing for them to not be Merida, then that was a secret between him and the moon.
To Sora’s surprise, the name uttered by Riku, velvety and dripping with fondness, was one he hadn’t heard before.
“That would be WALL-E.”
“Wally?” Sora was lost. Riku gave him his ‘if I were less cool I would be laughing my ass off’ smile.
“Wall-E.” He punctuated, slowly. Sora followed his lips with utter attention; they were moist and plump, Riku didn’t have much of a cupid bow, but that only made them look fuller.
“Wall-E.” Repeated Sora and Riku nodded, oddly satisfied. “Who is that?” Riku’s smile widened, becoming even softer at the corners.
Apparently, WALL-E was the last functioning robot in a decaying world swarmed by trash. Going by what little information Riku could gather, the humans previously inhabiting it left in a spaceship, waiting for the environment to recover so the surface could be habitable again. Regretfully, garbage from others’ worlds kept finding its way onto the planet, burdening WALL-E with the impossible labour of cleaning what was ever-growing pollution. That didn’t dampen the robot’s mood; quite the contrary, WALL-E loved scavenging in rubbish, collecting every trinket that picked their interest.
“They had a truck full of knick-knacks. Everything was really organised, even if I couldn’t tell what the system was, WALL-E clearly had one. Whenever I left something out of place, they would put it back where it was, but they were never angry with me about it. WALL-E was… happy to have me there.”
WALL-E wasn’t completely alone before Riku’s visit. With them there was another robot named Eva—sleek and white and way more modern than WALL-E in every sense of the word—in what appeared to be a hibernation state. Their unresponsiveness didn’t deter WALL-E from spending time together, though.
“It was like they were going on dates. But WALL-E had to drag Eva around by a string of Christmas lights tied around them.”
Riku talked with undeniable affection about WALL-E’s antics. How they had a pet cockroach that slept inside a biscuit called Kremie that had somehow remained edible. How they danced using a trashcan lid as a hat. Their fascination with fire and lightbulbs and holding hands, that was, like the dancing, something they learned from a musical movie that was treasured as their greatest possession.
“There was a couple in the movie, singing together a love song. I guess WALL-E was imitating them because they wanted to experience love too, with Eva. I know how it sounds; they were robots, they had no way to feel things, love or happiness or anything else. DiZ told me as much, whatever emotion I could sense in WALL-E was just wishful thinking on my part. But…” Riku brought one hand to his chest, reverent, hopeful; Sora felt his own constricting as well. “If a puppet like Pinocchio could grow a heart, then why not a robot? Because… I believe WALL-E had a heart, Sora, even if there was no magic involved. Their curiosity was real, their frustration and their sadness were real. Their love for Eva was real. Code and wires can’t fake that.” He dragged his hand to his face, brushing his bangs away, looking tired, somewhat defeated. “That’s when I started thinking that Nobodies could also grow hearts, if they were surrounded by the right people.”
Sora’s heart was screaming inside him, beating at his ribs. It burnt behind his eyelids, but this misery wasn’t his; this pain was foreign. His eyes were the ones crying, but these weren’t his tears. “People they could love?” He clung to his necklace.
“And loved them in return.”
His strangled sob echoed louder than the waves, Sora coiled on his side, his muscles pulled by invisible strings, aching, yelling in a voice that wasn’t his either. Around him, Riku flailed, not touching him, just hovering out of reach, not knowing where they stood and that hurt more than the grief gripping at Sora’s throat. He reached out, grabbed his good wrist and pinned his hand to the sand, squeezing his cheek against his palm.
“I think it’s Roxas, he is agreeing with you.”
Riku caressed the apple of his cheek with his thumb and then brought his other hand to cup Sora’s chin, cleaning off tears and sand he could feel sticking to his face; the movement of his left fingers was rigid, not coiling all the way over his jawline. Not that he cared, not when this was the most Riku had touched him since they returned. The cast on his broken wrist was rough and scratched his neck, but the rest of him was warm, gentle in a way Riku had stopped being with him and he missed more than he dared to admit, even to himself.
“Roxas would never agree with me on anything.” He said, something Sora could tell was between a joke and a real concern.
“He will, if he wants us to be friends.”
The laugh Riku let out was light and cottony soft where it slid against Sora’s nose, it tickled his eyelashes and Sora closed his eyes on reflex, breathing deeply in the sea breeze. Soon, the sun would come out and Riku would hide again in a shadow of himself, so, until then, Sora wanted to remain like they were, with Riku cradling his face.
“WALL-E was a lot like you, Sora.”
Murmur of sand shifting beside him and the constant lullaby of the tides. Cold moonlight above and a warm body against his. The familiarity of this beach and the novelty of his words. Some things had changed; others had stayed the same and he was still trying to figure out the differences between them. But Sora was happy to be lost at Riku’s side. Not knowing what will come next didn’t seem as scary as long as Riku was there.
“That’s why they were my favourite.”
The giddiness zapping his nerves wasn’t new, either, yet it felt different from before. Amplified, undecipherable, a box holding more than it should.
“Is that a compliment?”
“You deserve one from time to time.”
Sora smiled wide enough for some sand to fall from his cheeks on its own and he heard Riku snicker. Whatever, he wasn’t the one being all sappy and unprovokedly sweet.
They left once Sora started drifting off, with Riku explaining how a spaceship came to retrieve Eva and the mad dash WALL-E had to do to reach it on time and cling to its surface as it ascended to the sky, leaving behind Riku and the pet cockroach.
“The cockroach will be okay, Sora, I got it some more Kremies before going to the next world.”
“Still, it must be feeling terribly alone.”
“Who knows? WALL-E and Eva might have already come back.”
That was a nice thought to have. Sora entertained it as he walked alone to his house. Riku said that WALL-E was a lot like Sora, but he didn’t quite agree. If anything, Sora was Eva, unresponsive while submerged in artificial sleep, requiring someone to guard his white cage. Riku was his WALL-E, too caring for their own good, protective to a fault.
WALL-E did it out of love, so did that mean that Riku…
Sora stopped in his tracks, his body too warm. Riku’s words kept repeating in his head and he looked down at his own hands. They were broad, with short fingers and ridiculous tan lines due to weeks of wearing combat gloves. The skin was dry and slightly callous, but the sand had softened it. When he clasped them together, fingers interlocked like in prayer, Sora thought about WALL-E and their musical movie. Serenades. Dancing couples. One hand holding onto another. To WALL-E, that was love.
What was love to Riku?
He pondered on it while fidgeting with his necklace.
The night before their Mark of Mastery Exam (not even two weeks after their return to the islands; it was the shortest vacations in his life), Riku was the one entering Sora’s room, although he did it the boring way: going through the main door and then the stairs. It isn’t that Sora didn’t want him there, but it wasn’t late enough for their usual stroll; the taste of dinner still lingered on his tongue.
“I’m supervising your packing.” Was his excuse.
Sora was, indeed, in the middle of stuffing a toilet bag with soap and shampoo bottles. During his first adventure, Sora had to resort to using Goofy’s body wash since he hadn’t got any of his own and the realisation that he smelt like wet dog after each shower was enough to teach him a lesson about the importance of bathing supplies.
Perhaps unwisely, Sora revealed this little shameful anecdote to Riku, who, surprisingly, didn’t laugh.
“I did notice that you smelt a lot like Goofy.” Was what he said instead, perched comfortably on Sora’s bed. “And that your hair was weirdly shiny.”
Oh, well. There went his dignity.
“Why didn’t you use Donald’s?”
“He doesn’t shower.”
“What?”
“It’s a duck thing, I guess? He gets under the showerhead and then preens his feathers with oil and stuff like that. But, nope, no soap for him.”
Riku spluttered a laugh, sounding half incredulous. “Maybe the solution to his anger problems is having a proper hot bath.”
Sora joined in on the laugh. “Like the pigeons playing in the bird baths at the park?”
“Exactly.”
The conversation continued in good spirits while Sora packed, with him jumping at the opportunity to ask nonsensical questions like: did King Mickey enjoy cheese, or was that a mouse stereotype? Was Donald afraid of compromise and is that why he and Daisy weren’t married yet? If both Pluto and Goofy were dogs, why was Pluto a pet and Goofy a person? What happened to Pete’s tail? Was Yen Sid going commando under his robe?
“Why would you even mention that?!” Riku was doubled over himself, trying to silence his laughter and not looking as traumatised as he sounded.
Emboldened as always by Riku’s happiness, Sora sat next to him, bumping their shoulders together, like they were sharing a secret. “I’m just saying that he must have been born before underwear was invented, so maybe he never got used to it?”
“Sora, that man is going to test us tomorrow,” he said, stoic and flushed pink, “and I need to look him in the eye without wanting to die.”
“Look at his hat instead, do you think he is going bald under that?”
“Sora.”
“Come on! The long beard and the tall cone hat must be compensating for something, right? Unless the thing he is self-conscious about is-”
“Sora!”
Riku tackled him and they both fell onto the bed, sparring half-heartedly because they were too busy laughing to put any real strength behind their shoves. It was nostalgic, reminiscent of a time when fighting was for fun and not to prove something. Sora had felt a lot like that lately, like the Riku he recovered wasn’t the one from one year ago, but the one from his childhood days—Honeyed and everlasting afternoons at the beach, games played in the streets while they waited to be called for dinner and sleep. Splinters on his hand from wooden swords and his heart racing from love.—That was the ‘before’ Sora yearned for.
Once they had done a proper mess of each other, they laid on the floor, gazing at the pirate ship hanging over their heads. Since he had been back, each morning after waking up, Sora looked at it and thought about Captain Hook. He tried to replace those memories with his most recent ones about the Caribbean, but Sora’s brain had never been known for being cooperative. That asshole.
“Sora.”
Oh, that was his serious voice.
“Riku?”
“There is another world I visited that I didn’t tell you about yet.”
He flipped onto his stomach, crossed arms holding him up. This conversation was starting in a more solemn mood than any other. It made him uneasy.
“Is that the one where you met Roxas? Because I understand if you don’t want to talk about it, Riku.”
In the last week Riku had opened up about a lot of things and Sora learned that, while Riku would spy on whatever member of the Organization DiZ asked him to, following them from world to world, he would also visit places out of his own volition whenever he wasn’t assigned a mission. His stay at Portorosso and WALL-E’s planet were instances in which his heart had, for some reason, guided him there, promising a way for him to control his darkness. Meanwhile, his encounter with Kenai and Koda occurred because Riku jumped in to protect them from Demyx. Riku didn’t elaborate much when the Organization was involved and Sora didn’t really care; he would much rather hear about the interactions Riku had with people who didn’t deserve to be beaten to death.
To be completely honest, he was curious about Roxas and whatever had transpired between them, but he wasn’t about to risk losing Riku to self-loathing again.
“No.” His frown was furrowed and his limbs tense, like he was fighting his own determination. Well, Riku’s greatest enemy had always been Riku himself. “It isn’t that one.”
Sora lowered his head until it rested on his forearms and in a voice that he hoped came out as chipper, assured him: “Then I’m all ears.”
He regretted his choice as soon as Riku finished his story; every inch of his being was brimming with outrage.
“But that’s not fair! Things can’t end like that between Tod and Copper!”
“They did.”
“They shouldn’t!” Sora punched the floor and flinched at his anger. It was difficult to think straight when his mind was as shaky as his hands, when his heart was racing and a dark, twisted part of his soul wanted to go out there and strangle Amos with the strap of his own rifle. “No friendship should end like that.”
“It isn’t that bad, they are both happy.”
Was Riku messing with him on purpose? How could he not see the problem?
“But they aren’t TOGETHER!”
“They were never meant to be.”
A wave of righteous fury got him on his feet. “Says who?!”
“Common sense, Sora.” Riku looked up at him, his back against the side of his bed, an exhausted expression on his face, like this wasn’t their first time discussing this. But it was and Sora felt he could cast firaga by glaring at him. “Copper was a hound and Tod was prey to be hu-”
“To hell with that! They were friends, Riku! Did that mean nothing!?”
“It meant everything.” He said and his voice was so sad, so resigned.
“Then-” Sora stuttered, gesticulating wildly because he had words in his heart that refused to make the trip to his mouth and it was frustrating. This whole tragedy was infuriating and impossibly frustrating. “Then they should have- They could-”
“It’s sad.” The affirmation was final; it shut Sora up. What could he say to that? It was the truth. “But Tod got together with Vixey and Copper made peace with his past. At the end I would say the situation isn’t half bad.”
“It’s bad. It’s very bad. That isn’t a happy ending at all.” He stomped towards his desk chair and sat on it like he was dead weight; the wood creaked. “If I were Tod, I would follow Cooper around until we could see eye to eye and be together again.”
Something shifted in Riku’s posture.
“And it’s exactly that attitude of yours what gets you into so many messes.”
Sora took it as a challenge. “Stop running into messes and I will stop following you into them.”
That had always been their dynamic, right? Riku advanced into the horizon and Sora pursued desperately, one upsetting step behind each time. The unsalvageable distance that he was determined to shorten one way or another. Because Sora wasn’t Tod and he wouldn’t be content with watching Riku from afar, giving up a future together because staying away was the easier path.
And Riku knew that, Sora didn’t doubt it. Riku knew that Sora wouldn’t accept separation, that he would fight every inch of distance until it got burnt to ashes. He could see it in his teal eyes: the understanding, the appreciation that set loose fireworks in Sora’s insides, because it meant that Riku wanted the same. It didn’t matter how stubborn he could be, at the end of the day he would always reach out his hand and wait for Sora to take it.
“I will try my best.” Riku said, with a smile that was almost bashful and so strange on him.
Sora sighed, anger finally suffocated, and got up from the chair. “Don’t try too hard. I want to enjoy getting into trouble with you a little longer.”
“How much longer?”
The answer was obvious, but Sora derailed it; Riku’s attention on him was something he liked to relish in thoroughly.
“Until we are as old as Yen Sid.”
When Riku threw his head back and barked out a laugh, Sora felt like he had already passed the Mark of Mastery Exam with flying colours.
“Hey, Riku.”
The sea breeze was warm and humid, clouds in the sky obscuring the moon and promising a rainy morning. In attestation to the oppressive heat, Riku had tied his hair in a high ponytail, which lose Sora was already mourning, because his best friend spent the last two days muttering how he was going to chop it. Receiving the king’s letter acting as the perfect excuse to grab the scissors and put his munny where his mouth was. A pity, truly.
“Once we defeat Xehanort for good and we are free to do whatever we want, let's go to the worlds you told me about.”
Riku stopped walking and Sora turned around to face him. Dark green eyes scanned him, searching for something; doubts, perhaps. But Sora had none.
“Do you believe it will be that easy? What if Xehanort isn’t the end and there is someone even more dangerous?”
“Can’t you be positive for one day in your life?” Riku shrugged. Sora exhaled an exaggerated sigh. “Fine, once we beat up the biggest bad guy of all the bad guys in the Realm of Light and beyond; would you go on a trip with me?”
“No.”
“Wha-?!”
“I refuse to cram all those worlds in a single trip.” His smug bastard of a best friend smirked, stuffing his hands in his pockets, full of nonchalant confidence. “You will need to present me an itinerary first.”
“I will give you itinerary- come here!”
It was a promise, then. Sora couldn’t wait.