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[Fic] KH2, "Touching Ground" ch.1
And the OT3 fic sees the light of day!
It came out shorter than I expected, and the fic title may be subject to change, but here is the first chapter for your viewing pleasure. 8D
Title: Touching Ground (chapter 1)
Words: 4,512
Pairing: SoRiKai
Rating: PG
Summary: You can't hide what's in your heart forever.
One of the things Riku had missed most about Destiny Islands was the heat.
It seemed like such a trivial thing to miss. For those first few months, he'd actually been glad to be away from it. The other worlds had all seemed so much more comfortable. The faint warmth of Traverse Town, the crisp sea air of Neverland... Hollow Bastion had been a little cold for his tastes, but it had to be better than a tiny, sandy rock where only the winds from the ocean made the summers bearable, and even those only made him restless...
Not that it mattered, he'd told himself back then. The place was gone anyway; it was just him, Sora, and Kairi out there. Best to move on, find Kairi's heart, and then... and then... well, he'd decide that when the time came.
But when the time had come, he'd been a prisoner in his own body, and then there'd been chaos, and darkness, and the locking of doors, and all in all it had been difficult to think too hard about home. It wasn't until that glimpse in Castle Oblivion, standing in the memory-altered room that felt like island sands and winds, that he finally understood the ache in his heart, and how much he wanted to go back.
It was never that easy, of course. He'd spent the next year in the chill of darkness, wistful thoughts of Sora's smile and the islands sustaining him even when he became certain he would never see either again.
"Whoa -- heads up, Riku!"
Riku turned, and dove just in time to avoid the blitzball spinning towards his head. Tidus was already halfway there when he surfaced, dolphin-swift in the water as he came to retrieve the errant ball.
"Sorry, man," he said. "Good reflexes, though."
"Thanks." Riku gave a wry grin. "You're not still trying to get me on your team, are you?"
Tidus's laugh had an embarrassed edge; Riku smirked and splashed him as he swam back to meet Wakka.
He'd been luckier than he'd ever dreamed he'd be. In the end Naminé had said too much, and Kairi had refused to let things be, and Sora had latched on and pulled him, almost kicking and screaming, back into the light. Back to the islands. Back to the warmth.
Back home.
He trudged dripping up out of the sea, hiking up the beach and the array of beach towels they'd spread over the sand. Kairi glanced over and gave him a little wave from her towel, rolling to face him with a grin as he settled himself down on his.
"Getting too pruney?" she asked.
"Those dorks nearly hit me in the head with their ball," Riku replied with fond annoyance, stretching and folding his hands behind his head. "Figured I'd get out of the crossfire."
Kairi giggled softly and lay back down, crossing her hands over her chest and gazing up at the sky. Silence settled between them, and with the sun on his skin and the sound of waves and laughter further down, Riku was content not to disturb it for now.
Eventually, mostly dry, he rolled over and rested his head on his arms. Kairi was still looking at the sky, and he peered at her curiously.
"See anything up there?"
"Oh--" She gave a little start and turned her head to face him. "No, I was just lost in thought."
"Lost in thought, huh."
"Mm-hmm." She sat all the way up, hugging her legs to her chest. Riku's eyes got caught on the dramatically plunging back of her swimsuit for a moment before he looked away and tucked his face into his arms to hide the sudden rush of heat. "It's just such a nice lazy day, you know..."
Riku snorted and looked around over his shoulder. "Lazy? Tell that to those three."
Down at the shoreline, Tidus and Wakka's practice had degenerated into what looked like a game of keep-away. Selphie had abandoned her shell-hunting to charge into the fray, and from the way she was frantically lunging after the ball, didn't seem to be doing overly well.
Privately, Riku gave it five minutes before Tidus caved.
"Well, you know what I meant." Kairi laughed softly, looking over at Riku again. "I'm so glad it's finally summer. That last school year was rough."
"Don't even say that word," Riku moaned, burying his face in his arms again. "I'd thought we'd, you know, get a break or something when we came home..."
"Sorry..." Kairi smiled apologetically and reached out to pat Riku's shoulder comfortingly. He shivered faintly. "You and Sora both scraped passing grades, though! Not bad for missing the first month of the school year."
"You're saying that word," Riku said, and looked up. "Speaking of Sora, shouldn't he be back by now?"
"The ice cream stand's a little far from this part of the beach," Kairi said with a shrug, "and it's probably all backed up since it just opened for the summer. He'll be back as soon as he can."
"Mmph." Riku let his head fall again and closed his eyes, listening to the wind and the waves. There was a distant, faded cry of "Keep away from Wakka!" in a voice that sounded like Tidus's, and he smirked. Four minutes and thirty seconds.
"Does that one look like a jellyfish to you?" Kairi said after a while, just as Riku was starting to think about returning to the water.
"Huh?"
"That cloud." Riku raised an eyebrow at her, and she giggled, lying back down. "Well, you asked if I saw anything up there."
Riku rolled onto his back and peered up, shading his eyes. "Guess it sort of does," he agreed after a bit. His eyes wandered from one puff of white to another. "That one looks sort of like a seagull if you look at it sideways..."
"Oh, and there's a palm tree right under it, look," Kairi said happily. Riku grinned.
He was looking intently for the next shape when Kairi added, "I think that one looks like a paopu."
Following the pale line of Kairi's arm and pointing finger, Riku gave a noncommittal grunt.
"I don't see it."
"It's sort of tilted. Look, there's the points - one of them's kind of squashed, though. And those wisps there are the leaves."
Riku squinted, turned his head. The distinctive starlike shape of the fruit should have been easy to pick out, he thought, if it was there. He couldn't seem to find it, himself. Maybe if you were really looking for it.
"I think you have paopus on the brain," he said mildly, the corners of his mouth quirking. "You and Sora both."
Kairi giggled and swatted playfully at him. He raised an arm to deflect the attack, grinning despite himself. "Oh, look who's talking!"
"Pfft, you know you're thinking about it," Riku retorted, waving a hand dismissively. "Don't think I haven't seen..."
He trailed off suddenly, the half-realized thought slinking back as it was finally understood. That wasn't something to talk about. It was barely something for him to think about.
Kairi noticed and sat up again, leaning towards him with a worried expression. "Riku?"
"It-- it's just you two are so sappy over each other," he said hastily. Damn it. Way to be smooth, Riku. "You're worse than Tidus and Selphie, I swear."
The thing about Kairi was: you could get some things by her if you didn't say anything, but she was very, very difficult to actually lie to.
"Riku," she said, painfully soft, eyebrows creased in concern, "is there anything you--"
"Hey!" Sora's voice rang out over the beach, interrupting the impending doom. "I got everyone's ice cream - you would not believe the line - it's melting fast so you'd better hurry and eat it!"
Riku jumped to his feet and ran to meet Sora, with Kairi trailing hesitantly after him. Sora was grinning, his hands full of ice cream pops, and he waved awkwardly as Riku and Kairi came up to him.
"You wanted the strawberry, right, Riku? And Kairi, you had the orange cream..." He held out his hand for them to take the appropriate flavors. They were melting awfully fast, so Riku started on his quickly. No sense wasting good ice cream, especially when it came with such a welcome diversion. It also kept him from having to look as Sora kissed Kairi easily on the cheek.
"And sea-salt for me... what are those guys doing?" He headed further down the beach, waving a handful of dripping ice cream like a beacon. "YOU GUYS, I HAVE YOUR ICE CREAM, AND IT'S MELTING SO IF YOU'RE NOT UP HERE IN THIRTY SECONDS IT'S MINE. I CAN TOTALLY EAT IT ALL SO DON'T THINK I WON'T."
There was an indignant shout from the water, and laughter, as the other three stumbled up onto the sand. Sora joked about something as he passed out the remaining ice cream, and the words were indistinct from this distance, but whatever it was caused Tidus to shove him playfully. Sora shoved back with his free hand, laughing, and Wakka interrupted Tidus's counterattack by smoothly stepping in and catching his teammate in a headlock.
"No fighting, ya?" Riku could just make out Wakka saying as he wandered closer. The older boy was grinning ear to ear.
"Hey! Wakka-- you're gonna make me drop my ice cream, Wakka!" Tidus choked out, struggling. Selphie wisely stepped back from his flailing arms, not wishing to be painted chocolate.
"Think of the ice cream, Wakka," Sora said, feigning solemnity.
Wakka held on a few more seconds before he relented, leaving Tidus to stagger back wildly, arms pinwheeling. Not having expected to have to take evasive action again so soon, Selphie wasn't quite quick enough to avoid the cold swipe across her cheek. With a shriek that could have been laughter or outrage, she struck back, streaking raspberry across Tidus's chest.
Riku shot a commiserating look over at Wakka. Wakka sighed and covered his face with one hand, shaking his head slowly.
"Hey, you two," Kairi managed through giggles, "Sora didn't buy all that for you to play with."
Sora just shrugged, though, swallowing a mouthful of sea-salt and grinning. "I dunno, if we're getting a free show..."
Soon enough the mock fight settled down, and there was no sound but the waves as the six teenagers ate. Tidus and Selphie plunged back into the water as soon as they were finished to wash away their sticky war wounds. After a while, Wakka turned to Sora in idle curiosity and asked if it was true that he'd met the person who produced the new salty ice cream. From the sound of it when Sora started speaking, his answer promised to be another long, meandering tangent. Riku grinned to himself and watched as Selphie mercilessly scrubbed blue sugar out of Tidus's hair.
Listening to Sora's voice cheerfully relating his meetings with Scrooge McDuck, surrounded by wind and waves and sand, with Kairi absently chewing on her ice cream stick next to him, Riku felt calm again. He sat back on the sand and looked up at the clouds again, basking in the heat.
-
"So, Riku," Tidus said suddenly, grinning, "did you decide what you're doing for your birthday yet?"
The sun was skulking towards the horizon, dyeing the whole of Destiny Islands in deep orange. The changing light had ultimately driven the group away from the beach and towards the town, but at the rate they were going it didn't look like anybody would actually be getting home until nightfall. As if ice cream at the beach hadn't been enough, Sora had half dragged them all, still damp and sandy in their swimsuits, into a café in the town square, where they'd been tolerated just long enough for Sora to buy them pastries and then been shooed outside.
While he did appreciate the gesture and the food was delicious, Riku sort of wished Sora would hold back a little. If he kept being this free with his munny, people were going to start taking him for granted.
"Um. My birthday?"
"Oh yeah, that is coming up, isn't it?" Sora said, turning to stare wide-eyed at Riku. "Crap, I completely forgot..."
"You two," Kairi said fondly, ruffling Sora's hair. "You still haven't gotten back on the calendar? You've been home for almost a year."
"I was asleep in a pod," Sora said defensively.
"Wandering in darkness," Riku added wryly, raising his hand. "I hadn't actually thought about that. I guess we could all go see a movie or something..."
"That'd be fun!" Selphie chirped from beside Kairi on the bench. "There's one I've been wanting to see..."
"Me too, but it's probably not the same one," Wakka said, chuckling. "Riku, you'd have your hands full finding one we could all agree on, ya?"
Tidus rolled his eyes dramatically and sat forward on the short wall he and Wakka were perched on. His sweet bean roll lay half-eaten in its paper wrapping next to him. "And we can do that anytime. Come on, man, it's your eighteenth. You've gotta do something big."
"Do I really." Riku arched an eyebrow.
"Well, yeah!" Tidus swung his feet back and forth excitedly. While he'd gotten taller and put on some muscle over the time Riku and Sora had been gone, and bleached his brown hair to a sunny blond, he was still more of a kid than any of them. Riku frequently heard Selphie telling him as much, but she was always laughing when she did. "In a week you'll be an official adult. You've gotta do something for it!"
"I don't know," Riku said, swallowing. Something cold curled briefly in his stomach, and he was suddenly, painfully aware again of the darkness in his body, the way he could still track any one of his friends from across the island by the scent of their hearts. "I don't feel very grown up."
"Says the guy who's taller than Wakka," Sora joked - but he glanced over at Riku, and there was only seriousness in his eyes. That was comforting. Sora understood, at least.
"I didn't say anything about being grown up," Tidus said, with a manic grin. "I mean you'll be an adult. You can do stuff."
"You're just trying to get him to go get drunk," Wakka deadpanned. "Better watch out, Riku. He wants blackmail material. He tried so hard to get it on me last year."
"It was hilarious," was Tidus's indignant response. "I'm not trying to blackmail anyone."
"Right, right, so that's why Selphie had to confiscate your cameras, ya?"
"More than one?" Sora asked bemusedly.
"Three," Selphie said, smirking.
"I TOLD YOU, IT WAS FUNNY."
"So, Wakka, you went out drinking for your eighteenth?" Riku put in, more to deflect the conversation than anything. The mental images of Tidus stalking through shadows for compromising photos were getting unsettling.
"Well, yeah, but it's kind of overrated." Wakka waved a hand dismissively. "If I did it over again, I'd just go buy a bottle and drink it at home or something. You don't gotta do something huge if you're just proving to yourself you can do it now, ya? I mean, if you want to that's fine, but..."
"Don't worry." Riku grinned, crumpling up his danish wrapper and tossing it into the nearest trash can. "I don't think I'm gonna do that."
He didn't plan to get drunk, anyway. Maybe he'd go out for a drink or two, for the novelty of it, but he couldn't see it being more than a formality. The truth was, even if he had felt the need to do something special for his eighteenth, Riku wasn't sure he could think of anything better than just this.
"Whatever you want, man," Wakka said, smiling easily. "It's your birthday, ya?"
"So, if you're not going to go drinking," and Tidus pronounced the 'if' with extreme skepticism, "what are you gonna do?"
"I dunno." He leaned back on his hands. The brick walk was still warm from the sun. "I'd be fine just calling today my party, to tell the truth."
"Does that mean I don't have to buy you a present?" Sora said brightly.
"Sure," Riku said loftily, allowing just enough time for Sora's confusion and curiosity to make themselves evident before he continued, "but that means I won't get you one either."
"You suck," Sora said, childishly crossing his arms and sticking out his lower lip. "Maybe I don't want your smelly old presents anyway."
"Sorry, wait, how old are you again?" Riku smirked. "Going on five?"
Sora cracked then, and the worry that had been building on Kairi's face smoothed out and cleared as he laughed. "Yeah, of course I'll buy you a present, you big doof. Anything you've got your eye on?"
Wakka and Selphie had started chattering between themselves, and Tidus's interest seemed to have shifted to whatever they were talking about. Riku looked up at the sky in thought, shifted his hands on the cooling brick, and let the sound of his friends' voices wash over him. Far down the path, underscoring it all, he could still hear the waves.
"I'll let you know if I think of anything," he said.
-
He did not, in fact, think of anything.
It wasn't for lack of trying, of course. Sora kept giving him that hopeful puppy face over the next several days, and Riku found himself wishing he wanted something, just to avoid disappointing him.
"You know," he said eventually, "you actually don't have to get me anything. You know that, right?"
"Well, yeah. That's why it's a present, right?"
Riku gave up. "Just surprise me," he said.
The odds were better, he figured, of Sora finding something that Riku would like once he had it than of him finding anything he could actually ask for. Nothing he really wanted could be giftwrapped anyway, and most of those things he already had.
The ones he didn't, well, they weren't really meant for him anyway. And that was all right, really.
He'd long ago decided it would be useless to shove down his feelings and pretend they didn't exist - the three of them were together entirely too often for that to be anything other than an exercise in futility. Reminders were everywhere - the way Sora and Kairi acted around each other, the warmth in the way they spoke of each other when they were apart, and paopu fruits scrawled on cave walls. Sora and Kairi were in love, and that was simply all there was to it. Riku had screwed things up enough for them all before, the last thing they needed was for him to blunder in and ruin this too.
Besides, for once in his life, he wasn't actually that jealous. Lonely, oh yes, but that would pass. In the meantime, he saw how Kairi curved to fit in Sora's arms, the way Sora's eyes went soft when she was close, and he was... almost content. They were happy, and there was nothing more important than that.
And when they still wanted him around despite everything, still included him in their jokes and diversions, when Sora trusted him enough to share his bed when they'd been up too late cramming and Kairi still threw her arms around him for a greeting, he already had more than he'd had any right to expect.
Any more, and he might start to feel greedy.
-
Summer seemed to be arriving in fragments, like encoded data, like unchained links being slowly guided together under a witch's crayons. During the school year, Riku had taken to waking up entirely too early after being up entirely too late, yanking clothes on blindly and bolting down whatever food he could find before devoting the hour or two he had free to studying. He went to school the way he went to battle.
(Within the first month of this, he'd fallen asleep in class often enough for Kairi to take pity on him and start making extra copies of her notes. Sora had been in nearly as bad a state, which Riku'd found a little comforting. He was glad to know it hadn't been just him.)
He'd been desperately looking forward to being able to sleep late again - his first chance to do so in, he'd realized with a jolt, nearly three years - but by now his body had settled well into habit. Up with the dawn, and not a minute later.
At least with summer came the luxury of closing his window and rolling over to drag the covers over his head. If not to sleep, then at least to savor the fact that he could lie there and have nothing expected of him at all.
And he'd almost managed to break himself of automatically calling for Soul Eater (no, Way to the Dawn - damn it, he would never get used to calling it that) first thing in the morning. He only did it from time to time, now, only when he woke still tired.
Riku wondered if, some day, he'd be able to stop reaching up to adjust a blindfold that wasn't there, stop sniffing around for Dusks and Shadows, or discard the mad urge to go dashing into the secret place and see for himself that the door was still shut tight. (He and Sora had locked it together, Way to the Dawn and Kingdom Key both - never again had been the sentiment they shared in their grim silence and their white-knuckled grips, never again.) He sometimes felt like he'd left a piece of himself out among the worlds, a part that still rested on black beaches, looked up to a heart-moon exalted by nothings, and knew it could never go home.
But in the meantime, this was his old bed, and his old sheets, and that had been his window he'd drawn the shade down over. Not the stately accomodations he'd been given by Maleficent, not an empty hotel in a dead city - his room, his own, his childhood home. It was a reality he could cling to until the nightmares went away.
Someone knocked on his window.
Riku blinked. He'd been halfway back to sleep.
The knocking continued. Riku rose slowly, disentangling himself from the nest he'd made of his covers. The shade was still down, blocking any view of what was outside, but there were only two people on the whole of the island with whom he was familiar enough for this. He'd have known them even if he couldn't smell them through the walls, bright and warm.
Rolling the shade back up revealed Sora's face, instantly grinning, and entirely too much awake for this hour. Kairi was right next to him, half hidden by the wall, and he could hear her muffled giggles through the glass. He fumbled sleepily with the latch on his window and pulled it up and open.
"What the hell, you two," he said.
"Happy birthday!" Sora sang out, forcing Riku to step back as he started to crawl in through the window. Riku blinked, and struggled to recall the date.
"Already?" he found himself asking.
"Sure is," Sora said brightly, turning back to the window as Kairi reached through to pass him a square, white box. "And we figured, why wait--"
"But. Five o'clock. It's five in the morning, you guys." Riku said blankly. "This is ridiculous. I'm only awake at this hour because I'm insane."
"Well, maybe we're insane too," Sora retorted, setting the box down on Riku's desk and crossing his arms obstinately while Kairi hopped down from the windowsill.
"But," Riku said again, momentarily distracted when Kairi embraced him.
"No buts," Kairi said firmly, giving him an extra squeeze, and then her expression softened as she pulled away. She looked up at him with her soft blue eyes and, oh, hell, you really couldn't hide anything from a Princess. "It is an important birthday. And we just thought, well... the dawn means something to you, doesn't it, Riku?"
The road to dawn. The promise of light after the deepest darkness. The hope that somehow, someday, you could make it all okay again...
"Kairi," he said, and his voice felt far away.
"So we're here now." Sora leaned into Riku's field of vision, wearing a faint little smile that showed more in his eyes than his mouth. "It's the best time, right?"
"You guys..."
"So, come on, man!" Sora slapped him companionably on the shoulder. "We've been up for hours making this. Kairi's whole kitchen died for this cake. Cocoa everywhere, it was horrible."
"He's right," Kairi agreed solemnly. "The least we can do is honor its sacrifice."
Riku looked between the two of them, completely lost. They were watching him with bright, expectant smiles, and the sun was just starting to break over the ocean, and...
"You said surprise you," Sora said warmly.
Riku did the only thing he could. He fell back against his bed and threw his head back and laughed, and laughed, and laughed.
-
The cake was rich chocolate, and every bit as delicious as Sora's tales of martyred kitchens deserved. Sora took the candles from his pockets and lit them with his finger, leading Riku to wonder when he'd gotten such tight control of his magic, and they'd sung so loud he was sure they'd wake his parents, and when he'd blown out the candles ("did you make a wish?" Sora asked; "I'm not going to tell you that," Riku replied) they cut and ate it straight from the box, getting crumbs in the carpet and icing everywhere.
And as Riku was licking his fingers clean of the sticky sugar, Sora and Kairi conjured two more little packages wrapped in brightly patterned paper. Sora's turned out to be a pocket flashlight, and when Riku had looked up at him to try and see on his face if it was a joke or not, Sora's grin had left him still wondering. Kairi's was a delicate contrivance of thalassa shells on a green and blue braided cord, and he'd carefully wrapped it back up and set it, gently, on his nightstand.
At some point Riku's mother had wandered in wanting to know what in the world they were doing raising such a ruckus in here at this hour of the morning, and of course Sora and Kairi were welcome in this house any time, but could they please be a little more quiet? And they'd apologized, but Sora hadn't been able to keep his voice down for very long, and then Kairi had suggested they go out for the day. ("What exactly are you planning for us to do?" Riku asked; "We'll make it up as we go," Kairi said.)
And that was how Riku found himself, on the morning of his eighteenth birthday, almost exactly where he wanted to be.
It came out shorter than I expected, and the fic title may be subject to change, but here is the first chapter for your viewing pleasure. 8D
Title: Touching Ground (chapter 1)
Words: 4,512
Pairing: SoRiKai
Rating: PG
Summary: You can't hide what's in your heart forever.
One of the things Riku had missed most about Destiny Islands was the heat.
It seemed like such a trivial thing to miss. For those first few months, he'd actually been glad to be away from it. The other worlds had all seemed so much more comfortable. The faint warmth of Traverse Town, the crisp sea air of Neverland... Hollow Bastion had been a little cold for his tastes, but it had to be better than a tiny, sandy rock where only the winds from the ocean made the summers bearable, and even those only made him restless...
Not that it mattered, he'd told himself back then. The place was gone anyway; it was just him, Sora, and Kairi out there. Best to move on, find Kairi's heart, and then... and then... well, he'd decide that when the time came.
But when the time had come, he'd been a prisoner in his own body, and then there'd been chaos, and darkness, and the locking of doors, and all in all it had been difficult to think too hard about home. It wasn't until that glimpse in Castle Oblivion, standing in the memory-altered room that felt like island sands and winds, that he finally understood the ache in his heart, and how much he wanted to go back.
It was never that easy, of course. He'd spent the next year in the chill of darkness, wistful thoughts of Sora's smile and the islands sustaining him even when he became certain he would never see either again.
"Whoa -- heads up, Riku!"
Riku turned, and dove just in time to avoid the blitzball spinning towards his head. Tidus was already halfway there when he surfaced, dolphin-swift in the water as he came to retrieve the errant ball.
"Sorry, man," he said. "Good reflexes, though."
"Thanks." Riku gave a wry grin. "You're not still trying to get me on your team, are you?"
Tidus's laugh had an embarrassed edge; Riku smirked and splashed him as he swam back to meet Wakka.
He'd been luckier than he'd ever dreamed he'd be. In the end Naminé had said too much, and Kairi had refused to let things be, and Sora had latched on and pulled him, almost kicking and screaming, back into the light. Back to the islands. Back to the warmth.
Back home.
He trudged dripping up out of the sea, hiking up the beach and the array of beach towels they'd spread over the sand. Kairi glanced over and gave him a little wave from her towel, rolling to face him with a grin as he settled himself down on his.
"Getting too pruney?" she asked.
"Those dorks nearly hit me in the head with their ball," Riku replied with fond annoyance, stretching and folding his hands behind his head. "Figured I'd get out of the crossfire."
Kairi giggled softly and lay back down, crossing her hands over her chest and gazing up at the sky. Silence settled between them, and with the sun on his skin and the sound of waves and laughter further down, Riku was content not to disturb it for now.
Eventually, mostly dry, he rolled over and rested his head on his arms. Kairi was still looking at the sky, and he peered at her curiously.
"See anything up there?"
"Oh--" She gave a little start and turned her head to face him. "No, I was just lost in thought."
"Lost in thought, huh."
"Mm-hmm." She sat all the way up, hugging her legs to her chest. Riku's eyes got caught on the dramatically plunging back of her swimsuit for a moment before he looked away and tucked his face into his arms to hide the sudden rush of heat. "It's just such a nice lazy day, you know..."
Riku snorted and looked around over his shoulder. "Lazy? Tell that to those three."
Down at the shoreline, Tidus and Wakka's practice had degenerated into what looked like a game of keep-away. Selphie had abandoned her shell-hunting to charge into the fray, and from the way she was frantically lunging after the ball, didn't seem to be doing overly well.
Privately, Riku gave it five minutes before Tidus caved.
"Well, you know what I meant." Kairi laughed softly, looking over at Riku again. "I'm so glad it's finally summer. That last school year was rough."
"Don't even say that word," Riku moaned, burying his face in his arms again. "I'd thought we'd, you know, get a break or something when we came home..."
"Sorry..." Kairi smiled apologetically and reached out to pat Riku's shoulder comfortingly. He shivered faintly. "You and Sora both scraped passing grades, though! Not bad for missing the first month of the school year."
"You're saying that word," Riku said, and looked up. "Speaking of Sora, shouldn't he be back by now?"
"The ice cream stand's a little far from this part of the beach," Kairi said with a shrug, "and it's probably all backed up since it just opened for the summer. He'll be back as soon as he can."
"Mmph." Riku let his head fall again and closed his eyes, listening to the wind and the waves. There was a distant, faded cry of "Keep away from Wakka!" in a voice that sounded like Tidus's, and he smirked. Four minutes and thirty seconds.
"Does that one look like a jellyfish to you?" Kairi said after a while, just as Riku was starting to think about returning to the water.
"Huh?"
"That cloud." Riku raised an eyebrow at her, and she giggled, lying back down. "Well, you asked if I saw anything up there."
Riku rolled onto his back and peered up, shading his eyes. "Guess it sort of does," he agreed after a bit. His eyes wandered from one puff of white to another. "That one looks sort of like a seagull if you look at it sideways..."
"Oh, and there's a palm tree right under it, look," Kairi said happily. Riku grinned.
He was looking intently for the next shape when Kairi added, "I think that one looks like a paopu."
Following the pale line of Kairi's arm and pointing finger, Riku gave a noncommittal grunt.
"I don't see it."
"It's sort of tilted. Look, there's the points - one of them's kind of squashed, though. And those wisps there are the leaves."
Riku squinted, turned his head. The distinctive starlike shape of the fruit should have been easy to pick out, he thought, if it was there. He couldn't seem to find it, himself. Maybe if you were really looking for it.
"I think you have paopus on the brain," he said mildly, the corners of his mouth quirking. "You and Sora both."
Kairi giggled and swatted playfully at him. He raised an arm to deflect the attack, grinning despite himself. "Oh, look who's talking!"
"Pfft, you know you're thinking about it," Riku retorted, waving a hand dismissively. "Don't think I haven't seen..."
He trailed off suddenly, the half-realized thought slinking back as it was finally understood. That wasn't something to talk about. It was barely something for him to think about.
Kairi noticed and sat up again, leaning towards him with a worried expression. "Riku?"
"It-- it's just you two are so sappy over each other," he said hastily. Damn it. Way to be smooth, Riku. "You're worse than Tidus and Selphie, I swear."
The thing about Kairi was: you could get some things by her if you didn't say anything, but she was very, very difficult to actually lie to.
"Riku," she said, painfully soft, eyebrows creased in concern, "is there anything you--"
"Hey!" Sora's voice rang out over the beach, interrupting the impending doom. "I got everyone's ice cream - you would not believe the line - it's melting fast so you'd better hurry and eat it!"
Riku jumped to his feet and ran to meet Sora, with Kairi trailing hesitantly after him. Sora was grinning, his hands full of ice cream pops, and he waved awkwardly as Riku and Kairi came up to him.
"You wanted the strawberry, right, Riku? And Kairi, you had the orange cream..." He held out his hand for them to take the appropriate flavors. They were melting awfully fast, so Riku started on his quickly. No sense wasting good ice cream, especially when it came with such a welcome diversion. It also kept him from having to look as Sora kissed Kairi easily on the cheek.
"And sea-salt for me... what are those guys doing?" He headed further down the beach, waving a handful of dripping ice cream like a beacon. "YOU GUYS, I HAVE YOUR ICE CREAM, AND IT'S MELTING SO IF YOU'RE NOT UP HERE IN THIRTY SECONDS IT'S MINE. I CAN TOTALLY EAT IT ALL SO DON'T THINK I WON'T."
There was an indignant shout from the water, and laughter, as the other three stumbled up onto the sand. Sora joked about something as he passed out the remaining ice cream, and the words were indistinct from this distance, but whatever it was caused Tidus to shove him playfully. Sora shoved back with his free hand, laughing, and Wakka interrupted Tidus's counterattack by smoothly stepping in and catching his teammate in a headlock.
"No fighting, ya?" Riku could just make out Wakka saying as he wandered closer. The older boy was grinning ear to ear.
"Hey! Wakka-- you're gonna make me drop my ice cream, Wakka!" Tidus choked out, struggling. Selphie wisely stepped back from his flailing arms, not wishing to be painted chocolate.
"Think of the ice cream, Wakka," Sora said, feigning solemnity.
Wakka held on a few more seconds before he relented, leaving Tidus to stagger back wildly, arms pinwheeling. Not having expected to have to take evasive action again so soon, Selphie wasn't quite quick enough to avoid the cold swipe across her cheek. With a shriek that could have been laughter or outrage, she struck back, streaking raspberry across Tidus's chest.
Riku shot a commiserating look over at Wakka. Wakka sighed and covered his face with one hand, shaking his head slowly.
"Hey, you two," Kairi managed through giggles, "Sora didn't buy all that for you to play with."
Sora just shrugged, though, swallowing a mouthful of sea-salt and grinning. "I dunno, if we're getting a free show..."
Soon enough the mock fight settled down, and there was no sound but the waves as the six teenagers ate. Tidus and Selphie plunged back into the water as soon as they were finished to wash away their sticky war wounds. After a while, Wakka turned to Sora in idle curiosity and asked if it was true that he'd met the person who produced the new salty ice cream. From the sound of it when Sora started speaking, his answer promised to be another long, meandering tangent. Riku grinned to himself and watched as Selphie mercilessly scrubbed blue sugar out of Tidus's hair.
Listening to Sora's voice cheerfully relating his meetings with Scrooge McDuck, surrounded by wind and waves and sand, with Kairi absently chewing on her ice cream stick next to him, Riku felt calm again. He sat back on the sand and looked up at the clouds again, basking in the heat.
-
"So, Riku," Tidus said suddenly, grinning, "did you decide what you're doing for your birthday yet?"
The sun was skulking towards the horizon, dyeing the whole of Destiny Islands in deep orange. The changing light had ultimately driven the group away from the beach and towards the town, but at the rate they were going it didn't look like anybody would actually be getting home until nightfall. As if ice cream at the beach hadn't been enough, Sora had half dragged them all, still damp and sandy in their swimsuits, into a café in the town square, where they'd been tolerated just long enough for Sora to buy them pastries and then been shooed outside.
While he did appreciate the gesture and the food was delicious, Riku sort of wished Sora would hold back a little. If he kept being this free with his munny, people were going to start taking him for granted.
"Um. My birthday?"
"Oh yeah, that is coming up, isn't it?" Sora said, turning to stare wide-eyed at Riku. "Crap, I completely forgot..."
"You two," Kairi said fondly, ruffling Sora's hair. "You still haven't gotten back on the calendar? You've been home for almost a year."
"I was asleep in a pod," Sora said defensively.
"Wandering in darkness," Riku added wryly, raising his hand. "I hadn't actually thought about that. I guess we could all go see a movie or something..."
"That'd be fun!" Selphie chirped from beside Kairi on the bench. "There's one I've been wanting to see..."
"Me too, but it's probably not the same one," Wakka said, chuckling. "Riku, you'd have your hands full finding one we could all agree on, ya?"
Tidus rolled his eyes dramatically and sat forward on the short wall he and Wakka were perched on. His sweet bean roll lay half-eaten in its paper wrapping next to him. "And we can do that anytime. Come on, man, it's your eighteenth. You've gotta do something big."
"Do I really." Riku arched an eyebrow.
"Well, yeah!" Tidus swung his feet back and forth excitedly. While he'd gotten taller and put on some muscle over the time Riku and Sora had been gone, and bleached his brown hair to a sunny blond, he was still more of a kid than any of them. Riku frequently heard Selphie telling him as much, but she was always laughing when she did. "In a week you'll be an official adult. You've gotta do something for it!"
"I don't know," Riku said, swallowing. Something cold curled briefly in his stomach, and he was suddenly, painfully aware again of the darkness in his body, the way he could still track any one of his friends from across the island by the scent of their hearts. "I don't feel very grown up."
"Says the guy who's taller than Wakka," Sora joked - but he glanced over at Riku, and there was only seriousness in his eyes. That was comforting. Sora understood, at least.
"I didn't say anything about being grown up," Tidus said, with a manic grin. "I mean you'll be an adult. You can do stuff."
"You're just trying to get him to go get drunk," Wakka deadpanned. "Better watch out, Riku. He wants blackmail material. He tried so hard to get it on me last year."
"It was hilarious," was Tidus's indignant response. "I'm not trying to blackmail anyone."
"Right, right, so that's why Selphie had to confiscate your cameras, ya?"
"More than one?" Sora asked bemusedly.
"Three," Selphie said, smirking.
"I TOLD YOU, IT WAS FUNNY."
"So, Wakka, you went out drinking for your eighteenth?" Riku put in, more to deflect the conversation than anything. The mental images of Tidus stalking through shadows for compromising photos were getting unsettling.
"Well, yeah, but it's kind of overrated." Wakka waved a hand dismissively. "If I did it over again, I'd just go buy a bottle and drink it at home or something. You don't gotta do something huge if you're just proving to yourself you can do it now, ya? I mean, if you want to that's fine, but..."
"Don't worry." Riku grinned, crumpling up his danish wrapper and tossing it into the nearest trash can. "I don't think I'm gonna do that."
He didn't plan to get drunk, anyway. Maybe he'd go out for a drink or two, for the novelty of it, but he couldn't see it being more than a formality. The truth was, even if he had felt the need to do something special for his eighteenth, Riku wasn't sure he could think of anything better than just this.
"Whatever you want, man," Wakka said, smiling easily. "It's your birthday, ya?"
"So, if you're not going to go drinking," and Tidus pronounced the 'if' with extreme skepticism, "what are you gonna do?"
"I dunno." He leaned back on his hands. The brick walk was still warm from the sun. "I'd be fine just calling today my party, to tell the truth."
"Does that mean I don't have to buy you a present?" Sora said brightly.
"Sure," Riku said loftily, allowing just enough time for Sora's confusion and curiosity to make themselves evident before he continued, "but that means I won't get you one either."
"You suck," Sora said, childishly crossing his arms and sticking out his lower lip. "Maybe I don't want your smelly old presents anyway."
"Sorry, wait, how old are you again?" Riku smirked. "Going on five?"
Sora cracked then, and the worry that had been building on Kairi's face smoothed out and cleared as he laughed. "Yeah, of course I'll buy you a present, you big doof. Anything you've got your eye on?"
Wakka and Selphie had started chattering between themselves, and Tidus's interest seemed to have shifted to whatever they were talking about. Riku looked up at the sky in thought, shifted his hands on the cooling brick, and let the sound of his friends' voices wash over him. Far down the path, underscoring it all, he could still hear the waves.
"I'll let you know if I think of anything," he said.
-
He did not, in fact, think of anything.
It wasn't for lack of trying, of course. Sora kept giving him that hopeful puppy face over the next several days, and Riku found himself wishing he wanted something, just to avoid disappointing him.
"You know," he said eventually, "you actually don't have to get me anything. You know that, right?"
"Well, yeah. That's why it's a present, right?"
Riku gave up. "Just surprise me," he said.
The odds were better, he figured, of Sora finding something that Riku would like once he had it than of him finding anything he could actually ask for. Nothing he really wanted could be giftwrapped anyway, and most of those things he already had.
The ones he didn't, well, they weren't really meant for him anyway. And that was all right, really.
He'd long ago decided it would be useless to shove down his feelings and pretend they didn't exist - the three of them were together entirely too often for that to be anything other than an exercise in futility. Reminders were everywhere - the way Sora and Kairi acted around each other, the warmth in the way they spoke of each other when they were apart, and paopu fruits scrawled on cave walls. Sora and Kairi were in love, and that was simply all there was to it. Riku had screwed things up enough for them all before, the last thing they needed was for him to blunder in and ruin this too.
Besides, for once in his life, he wasn't actually that jealous. Lonely, oh yes, but that would pass. In the meantime, he saw how Kairi curved to fit in Sora's arms, the way Sora's eyes went soft when she was close, and he was... almost content. They were happy, and there was nothing more important than that.
And when they still wanted him around despite everything, still included him in their jokes and diversions, when Sora trusted him enough to share his bed when they'd been up too late cramming and Kairi still threw her arms around him for a greeting, he already had more than he'd had any right to expect.
Any more, and he might start to feel greedy.
-
Summer seemed to be arriving in fragments, like encoded data, like unchained links being slowly guided together under a witch's crayons. During the school year, Riku had taken to waking up entirely too early after being up entirely too late, yanking clothes on blindly and bolting down whatever food he could find before devoting the hour or two he had free to studying. He went to school the way he went to battle.
(Within the first month of this, he'd fallen asleep in class often enough for Kairi to take pity on him and start making extra copies of her notes. Sora had been in nearly as bad a state, which Riku'd found a little comforting. He was glad to know it hadn't been just him.)
He'd been desperately looking forward to being able to sleep late again - his first chance to do so in, he'd realized with a jolt, nearly three years - but by now his body had settled well into habit. Up with the dawn, and not a minute later.
At least with summer came the luxury of closing his window and rolling over to drag the covers over his head. If not to sleep, then at least to savor the fact that he could lie there and have nothing expected of him at all.
And he'd almost managed to break himself of automatically calling for Soul Eater (no, Way to the Dawn - damn it, he would never get used to calling it that) first thing in the morning. He only did it from time to time, now, only when he woke still tired.
Riku wondered if, some day, he'd be able to stop reaching up to adjust a blindfold that wasn't there, stop sniffing around for Dusks and Shadows, or discard the mad urge to go dashing into the secret place and see for himself that the door was still shut tight. (He and Sora had locked it together, Way to the Dawn and Kingdom Key both - never again had been the sentiment they shared in their grim silence and their white-knuckled grips, never again.) He sometimes felt like he'd left a piece of himself out among the worlds, a part that still rested on black beaches, looked up to a heart-moon exalted by nothings, and knew it could never go home.
But in the meantime, this was his old bed, and his old sheets, and that had been his window he'd drawn the shade down over. Not the stately accomodations he'd been given by Maleficent, not an empty hotel in a dead city - his room, his own, his childhood home. It was a reality he could cling to until the nightmares went away.
Someone knocked on his window.
Riku blinked. He'd been halfway back to sleep.
The knocking continued. Riku rose slowly, disentangling himself from the nest he'd made of his covers. The shade was still down, blocking any view of what was outside, but there were only two people on the whole of the island with whom he was familiar enough for this. He'd have known them even if he couldn't smell them through the walls, bright and warm.
Rolling the shade back up revealed Sora's face, instantly grinning, and entirely too much awake for this hour. Kairi was right next to him, half hidden by the wall, and he could hear her muffled giggles through the glass. He fumbled sleepily with the latch on his window and pulled it up and open.
"What the hell, you two," he said.
"Happy birthday!" Sora sang out, forcing Riku to step back as he started to crawl in through the window. Riku blinked, and struggled to recall the date.
"Already?" he found himself asking.
"Sure is," Sora said brightly, turning back to the window as Kairi reached through to pass him a square, white box. "And we figured, why wait--"
"But. Five o'clock. It's five in the morning, you guys." Riku said blankly. "This is ridiculous. I'm only awake at this hour because I'm insane."
"Well, maybe we're insane too," Sora retorted, setting the box down on Riku's desk and crossing his arms obstinately while Kairi hopped down from the windowsill.
"But," Riku said again, momentarily distracted when Kairi embraced him.
"No buts," Kairi said firmly, giving him an extra squeeze, and then her expression softened as she pulled away. She looked up at him with her soft blue eyes and, oh, hell, you really couldn't hide anything from a Princess. "It is an important birthday. And we just thought, well... the dawn means something to you, doesn't it, Riku?"
The road to dawn. The promise of light after the deepest darkness. The hope that somehow, someday, you could make it all okay again...
"Kairi," he said, and his voice felt far away.
"So we're here now." Sora leaned into Riku's field of vision, wearing a faint little smile that showed more in his eyes than his mouth. "It's the best time, right?"
"You guys..."
"So, come on, man!" Sora slapped him companionably on the shoulder. "We've been up for hours making this. Kairi's whole kitchen died for this cake. Cocoa everywhere, it was horrible."
"He's right," Kairi agreed solemnly. "The least we can do is honor its sacrifice."
Riku looked between the two of them, completely lost. They were watching him with bright, expectant smiles, and the sun was just starting to break over the ocean, and...
"You said surprise you," Sora said warmly.
Riku did the only thing he could. He fell back against his bed and threw his head back and laughed, and laughed, and laughed.
-
The cake was rich chocolate, and every bit as delicious as Sora's tales of martyred kitchens deserved. Sora took the candles from his pockets and lit them with his finger, leading Riku to wonder when he'd gotten such tight control of his magic, and they'd sung so loud he was sure they'd wake his parents, and when he'd blown out the candles ("did you make a wish?" Sora asked; "I'm not going to tell you that," Riku replied) they cut and ate it straight from the box, getting crumbs in the carpet and icing everywhere.
And as Riku was licking his fingers clean of the sticky sugar, Sora and Kairi conjured two more little packages wrapped in brightly patterned paper. Sora's turned out to be a pocket flashlight, and when Riku had looked up at him to try and see on his face if it was a joke or not, Sora's grin had left him still wondering. Kairi's was a delicate contrivance of thalassa shells on a green and blue braided cord, and he'd carefully wrapped it back up and set it, gently, on his nightstand.
At some point Riku's mother had wandered in wanting to know what in the world they were doing raising such a ruckus in here at this hour of the morning, and of course Sora and Kairi were welcome in this house any time, but could they please be a little more quiet? And they'd apologized, but Sora hadn't been able to keep his voice down for very long, and then Kairi had suggested they go out for the day. ("What exactly are you planning for us to do?" Riku asked; "We'll make it up as we go," Kairi said.)
And that was how Riku found himself, on the morning of his eighteenth birthday, almost exactly where he wanted to be.