silver met the deep sea, swallowed by soft expression
an ocean's worth in starlit meekness, galaxies in succession
EVEN WITHOUT
* ST MONSTER
-from behind the fourth wall, the reach of love across whatever may be
(Could you ever look at that endless horizon in his eyes and expect me not to stare?)
Riku had unexpectedly fallen through the floor of his own stomach. In winter's preceding brittle chill, the fog of the cold air shifting through him had cast his gaze upward, against the glass spheres in that boy's face, and bounced all his expectations off into some unknown empty space. Those whispering eyelashes barely twitched, and despite intimidating clarity, Riku stared off into deeper depths than all of space itself contained.
Unimpressed Lady Winter blew against the other boy's face, bringing roses to his cheeks. Riku in his mind reached out to blow back against the wind for the sake of the boy's warmth, but that flower face was soft and forgiving of Lady Winter's harshness.
At some point, Riku realized he must have been staring for long enough to be suspicious. He took his time wading backwards through that boy's Atlantis eyes and through the spherical singing in his own ears. Yet even that boy's endless eyes brought him back too quickly into the suddenly unfortunate world into which he had been born.
The silver-haired young admirer thought nothing of it, but upon reflection, he understood that whole world he could see had less to do with some supernatural connection to the universe and more to do with the boy himself. The boy, Sora, his long time and forever friend, was a whole world in himself. He was light and waves and energy and had all the constitution of paradise. Riku firmly believed this: that Sora had himself been born with his own sun inside him. He had a core made of passion and optimism and strength that Riku wasn't sure he had.
Of course, the problem with reflection is that it sees what once was seen one way with the additional knowledge of what is known now. What was once seen can't be seen again in the same way. Therefore, Riku had no way of knowing if he did or didn't believe it at the time.
It didn't matter, though, really. What Riku knew now, much later on, was that from somewhere within Sora's blazing sun heart had been something like love. Riku, bless him, bless them, had reached for that love and held on with both hands burning, knowing love required pain. At least it hadn't been Sora that had burnt him, just the heat of something like love.
Lady Winter's creeping age was leaving their town in hazy grays. At some point in this age, Riku finally swooped down into that solid space of the boy.
It had taken a few confident words on the part of the metallic-haired boy, and his adored smiled with blazing kindness. Riku felt everything quiet down. It was as if the higher powers were allowing him this moment to hear and claim for himself those oceans of Sora's energy. A part of him thought it must have been the same higher powers that had put Sora and all his life force in the same jet stream of life as Riku. If anything was strong enough to create such a creature as Sora, there could only be one of them. Surely the universe couldn't handle much more of that kind of power.
But see, this is the way it seems now, in retrospect. We're looking over our shoulders down the timeline.
The story as it goes… is quite a bit less pompous.
Sora, being of some decently experienced age, had spent a good amount of his time being happy with Riku. Theirs was a friendship he felt in his bones, like it had been bred in him to swim life's tyrannous waters with Riku. The living sharks of surprise, dishonesty, failure, and commitment had been toothless with Riku by his side. His silver-haired companion had somehow interpolated into his life and neither of them needed to be anywhere else.
Sora had considered the fact he loved this boy. He hadn't thought much of it, because it was like him to love the people who took care of him and with whom he had a connection he thought must have been born of love. But in the late age of that year's Lady Winter, Riku had brought up a very good point.
"We're graduating this year!"
For many reasons, this was an exceedingly good point. Sora had reacted meagerly to that, smiling at his friend's earth-bound eyes. Inside, his blazing heart blew a little. His future lay in front of him like a mostly-blank map, sketched in a thousand different directions, between which only he could really decide. He had freedoms and choices and responsibilities, and yet he was still been thrown along his current jet stream of living, his hand in Riku's, waiting for footing. He only had so much time to decide, so much time to say hello and goodbye a million times over, so much time look at the same sky under which he'd been living for so long, see familiar eyes and hear familiar voices.
And only so much time for Riku now. Or not.
Sora, in the part of him that was after all a teenager, cheered for the end of his redundant secondary school era. The larger part of him that knew better suffered a small bite from that shark of realization. Cursed, fickle chronology scorned him then. He didn't want to leave Riku; he did love him after all.
Riku smiled at Sora like he was watching the sun set. Where would you go? Who will you become? Will I have been a part of it, or be part then? What about me? Sora, smiling to keep out panic, leaned against his friend's sturdy shoulder.
If life is an ocean, you have to swim it. Keep going, because the ocean is one giant current circling your whole Earth. Riku's was the life on land. His was broken and started again, around which the endlessness of Sora's ocean eyes spiraled and sang and continued on and on. Riku would remember thirst again without Sora. He didn't want to.
Riku reached up with a hand to turn the brunet's head into his neck and secured it there with his chin. They curled into something of a protective shell of each other and sunk into the other's world, disregarding Lady Winter's crippled fingers. It was their way of crying: allowing those quickly disposed moments of anxiety to crawl over them, curled away from the world, falling through the one they made between themselves. Sora's sun heart emptied into their shelling bodies, and there for the first time in that secret way, they shared vulnerability.
Riku's earthly vanity shielded them away from nature's peering. Sora's Atlantis spheres spilt a little out of their field, not in tears, but through the breath that exited him.
The angels in him let out their song so softly, only Riku's world, grounded in him, could hear it.
A good mutual friend of theirs named Kairi had recently been prodded by teachers to utilise her talent for singing. She had been taking singing lessons for the past several months. This had been impetus for Riku and Sora's recently increasing time spent alone and for her being picked to do a solo song at the senior graduation ceremony. It would probably be at the end, when people were socializing and everyone who would be distracting trying to leave would have left. In short, she would be the entertainment for the mini after-party the school put on in the courtyard for seniors and families.
On a Tuesday sometime in January, Riku entered the auditorium where Kairi was having her first practice on a stage, to get used to the space and microphone. His ginger friend waved shyly with a stretched smile that meant 'holy crap, I'm so nervous'. She jumped down to meet him a moment afterward, asking where Sora was.
"He'll be here, he said. I think he had to get his bag first." Not that he had to; he just didn't like to be without his laptop. Kairi nodded at this, glancing at the door.
Conveniently enough, Sora did step through not half a minute later. Kairi smiled again, more at ease than before, and gave him quick hug. Riku noticed the poor thing was still nervous about singing on a stage; he could tell by the way she tapped her fingertips together repeatedly. It was a cute tick, at least. Sora held both her hands in his to stop it.
"Kairi, I'm so excited! You know we're all dying to hear good you've gotten," Sora informed goodheartedly. The petite girl giggled in a breath with a half step back out of modesty and nerves. She looked behind Sora, toward the doors again, thinking of how to respond without sounding like a meltdown.
"Thanks… I'm just-" she exhaled determinedly, shaking out her hands and polysyllabically giggling. Riku and Sora smiled empathetically and wound her between their combined embrace. She smiled wide at that and cooed in appreciation.
"Kairi, whenever you are," came the voice of presumably her vocal coach over the speakers. They must have finished setting up. A few other friends of Kairi's were in a row of the audience, clapping for her now out of encouragement. She smiled at the floor, stretched it in anticipation, then held her fists in front of her in a 'let's go, come on me' movement before turning to take her place.
This was one of their young friend's most admirable qualities, in the opinion of many: she was quite humble. She was nervous because she wanted to do well and she loathed to disappoint herself. Standing on a stage only half set up and in front of no more than 8 of her friends, she was still driven by natural will to do what she could.
Kairi could do a lot. Sora and Riku, taking their places behind Kairi's other friends, held their pinkies together in a combined good luck notion for her. The others in the row ahead clapped more modestly until she took in a sharp inhale.
What was released had to be something from her very own sphere. No angel, no goddess, no earthly wind in the world could swell its sound the way she was. The candlelight energy of living and breathing within Kairi swarmed the seas of Sora's eyes and burnt through Riku's earthly vanity.
Riku thought a person wouldn't have had to even understand English to know what she was singing about. Her energy carried itself through years of experience, swimming life and floating and nearly drowning, and coming out the other side battered but not at all dead. This was the sound of teenage backwater. The ice of heartbreak and the unexpected depth of maturity, and the bloodiest battles you ever fought inside yourself that never leaked out- this is into where it all sunk for her. She was releasing the disposed minutes of her no longer fought life into song.
Despite the unprofessional setting, it was like everyone got it. Life doesn't care where you are, it will happen anyway. There was closure of something old, in a barely occupied room, being summoned by the sweet and sweeter notes of a girl barely tall enough to reach the top cupboard.
Riku's dad had invited Sora to eat with them that night. This was a frequent and informal gesture, because Sora was there every other day- whenever he wasn't out with Riku or asleep (sometimes with Riku). Sora nevertheless appreciated the constant invitation, and being allowed to be comfortable eating with Riku alone in the living room. He didn't like the obligatory making nice with parents; let's face it, teenagers want to talk dirty, and not all parents are quite the same about that.
Sora wasn't sure what Riku's dad was like, though. He loved that the man left them alone and let them out all the time and didn't really care what they were doing. All in all, from what Sora could tell, he was a chill dad. Riku said the typical nasty stuff about him, the way teenagers do, even if they get along with their parents, because that's what kids do, right? ("Ugh, my dad was such a douche the other day" and "That idiot father of mine pulled such crap" and the like, because boys are gruff, but lovable really.)
The topic had been Kairi for the past half hour. Sora still couldn't get over how haunting her voice had been. Riku looked pensive and stated, "That sounded like it came from the heart." Sora stared ahead, far off and sunk back into his Atlantis-deep thoughts, and Riku stared him in the eye, trying to catch up to him. When Sora finally shrugged, he threw Riku back into their jet stream of life, and tilted his head, still wandering around his own head space.
"She sure conveyed something. It could have been written for her," the brunet observed. Riku hadn't thought of that. In that case, whose story was it then?
"Well, either way," Riku spoke up, "it'll be awesome the day it's due to be performed." That excited Sora greatly, and he nodded vigorously so the spikes on his crown flew about him. Riku warmed up and smiled subconsciously.
Riku's dad ghosted past the room without entering, asking if the boys wanted to go with him to the supermarket. They shrugged and decided to go, being the adventurous little scamps they were. The fact Riku's dad always bought them donuts when they were out had nothing to do with it.
As it turned out, the two young rapscallions couldn't help themselves from degenerating back into that state of immaturity that is inherent in every single male in the world. Riku's dad had no sooner unleashed them into the supermarket than the boys had taken hold of a stray cart by the vegetable isle. Riku was flinging Sora about the frozen foods section, nearly ramming him into several shelves and the few families scattered about. Sora shouted apologies across the isles a few times. The two eventually quieted down when the sight of a worker reminded them they were being quite rude. Riku's dad had taught them better than that.
Riku helped Sora out of the cart when they stopped in front of the bakery isle, where Sora perused the delicacies. Meanwhile, the silveret left to return the cart and ran into his dad, equipped with a sly smile. The young boy shrunk back a fraction upon seeing the mischief on his dad's face.
"…what?" Riku hesitated. His dad responded with "here" and handed his son a few bills. "When you guys have stuffed your faces, go take him out and have fun," he offered kindly. Riku looked up at the fine lines around his father's eyes and felt like this was a significant moment. His dad was allowing something. Or maybe Riku was just being overly symbolic.
"Dad…" he almost didn't finish, "he's so cool. You really like him, right?" Linguistically speaking, that was telling his dad to say yes, but he knew his dad was honest.
"Yeah. He's a good one," his dad replied with his serious tone of fatherliness. Riku was a bit put off by the ambiguous quality of that tone, but he was satisfied with the answer. He smiled and ran off to rejoin Sora in front of friendly gingerbread faces.
They hadn't spent much of the money by the time they were due to return to Riku's house. Not much was open by that time, so they meandered back to the edge of the neighborhood while it was still light enough to see. Neither of them wanted to go back home while they didn't have to. Sora found a distraction in watching the sun go down- "it's like watching the clock tick down, but cooler", he said. His silver-headed best friend sat down on the slope of the hill, attaching Sora to his side with an arm around the other's shoulder.
Conscious of dying Lady Winter's heavy breathing that early evening, Riku dared not move an inch, forward or backward, for fear he would fall outside of their private world.
Sora, at that very moment, could have hit the floor of the earth and chained himself to the tumbling spheres inside Riku. He almost dove into Riku headfirst. He compromised by sliding his fingers between Rikus, heart in hand.
The earth swallowed up the sun, cooled by the watery sky.
Kairi hitched her pointer fingers into two belt loops and shimmied her skinny jeans up to their intended height.
"Kairi, how come you never wear a belt?" Riku asked.
"'Cause I always forget," she responded.
Sora laughed from behind her; she smiled at him gleefully. Riku rolled his eyes playfully. "I have belts," Riku informed by way of offering.
"Yeah, right, that'd fit me!" Kairi responded with a snort. "Guys jeans are bigger than girls!"
Riku began a response when Sora raised his voice to join the conversation with, "we should do something altogether like we used to!" Like when we were children, needless to say. All three of them were hit with quiet nostalgia: the beach, racing, rowing, cold fruit, not to mention the incredible tans they used to have and should have appreciated (sob).
The thing about growing up is that, when nostalgia hits, you put the self of your nostalgia against the self you feel you are at that moment. Suddenly there are two of you standing inside your head, and you don't really think about how you got from there to here or what happened within that; you just see the then and the here and the difference.
Six of them were standing in the hallway for a moment. The beach wasn't so far away, the walls not so thick, the stars not so faded.
It was in this moment- imperceptible except to the heart- that Riku had the epiphany that shaped his retrospective and perception of these people so close to him. His willow-green spheres went spinning behind his stable eyes, seeing the details of everything for the first time. The first time everything passing through the jet stream appeared in their grand design was in this moment, standing between himself then and now, and all six of them in the timeline of the jet stream in perfect order.
Riku thought back to the sinking sun from the hill. The now healing burns on his hand where Sora's blazing core had been between them. The light itch on his back when Lady Winter cradled them. Sora's spheres, Atlantis deep, where the beach stars of their youth were housed. That phoenix sun that died and was reborn in Sora's core. The candlelight colour of the sand absorbed by Kairi's skin.
His earthly vanity shattered, the constructed worlds in his mind colliding. It took a single vote of nostalgia to remind him that he had once upon a time merely lived life instead of trying to categorise and identify with it. It occurred to him that once upon a time he hadn't loved Sora so because he'd been jealous of those skylight eyes.
It was just… easy. It was- is- so easy to love him.
Sat at their own table in a coffee shop, Sora watched Riku tried to remember how to fold a paper napkin into a swan. Kairi returned to see this amusing display of failure, carrying a tray with three coffee cups. "Are you making a paper swan?" she asked skeptically.
"He's failing at ma-"
"Yeah, yeah, smart ass."
Kairi and Sora laughed while the silveret smiled at them from under his brows. Candlelit Kairi's smile smoothed the twinkling of Sora's skylight spheres. They looked really good together. The shattered vanity in Riku, now spinning out of him, was only a little jealous.
Soon it would be too warm to want to drink coffee like this. Lady Spring was waking ever so slowly, but the little bit of cloud cover outside was enough to make their huddled table as cozy as ever. Riku leaned back in his chair, feeling luxurious in the light of sky eyes and candle teeth.
"How's your song coming along Kairi?" the silver-haired teen asked contentedly.
Kairi flashed her candlelight a little brighter. "Ms Pearce," her vocal coach, they had learnt, "says I'm really hitting it." She smiled widely into her elaboration. "I've almost got the range for a couple songs I'm singing, and the one you guys heard," she pointed between them, "is just about complete. Just a bit of like… tweaking here and there. Ha, I cracked a couple times on this one bit, but, eh," she shrugged, giggling. Sora and Riku smiled at her enthusiasm. They couldn't help but be proud of her.
Sora piped up saying, "Oh my god, that's gonna be so cool! Man, graduation is gonna be so sad!" His eyebrows lifted and he hugged her around her shoulders, swaying them back and forth a little. The redhead giggled, embracing Sora's slim waist in return. Riku took a sip of whatever he had ordered and looked between them adoringly.
"Aw, you guys are so cute," he mocked jovially.
"Nuh-uh, no! That's what I wanted to tell you guys!" Kairi suddenly jumped, releasing Sora. She ran a hand through her hair to get it out of the way. You could tell it was going to be a big show. Kairi looked excited, her fingers flickering like a candle in wind, her energy about to wisp through the secret world Sora and Riku had lately been creating. Sora leaned in to catch it.
"So you know how you guys are totally gay for each other, right?" Tactful, Kairi.
Riku laughed at that. Quite hard as well; leaning his head back, then his whole body forward to put his mug down. Sora just slapped his hand to forehead. His deep sea eyes twinkled underneath it.
Kairi went on, "Well, come on you guys. You hang out so much, and you're like, I swear, oozing over each other all the time or something. You couldn't have not seen this coming." Funny how you can say something to someone without acknowledging what is actually being said. You can say 'this', and it's obvious what 'this' is. Ah, living languages. Mother Nature serves you well.
As Sora shook his head and Riku and chuckled into his cup, rolling his eyes, Kairi finished her announcement. "Well, anyway. People keep asking, like, "hey are they going out?" This one time Selphie was all like, "they're so cute together! How long has it been?" and she actually believed you guys were a couple."
There was the possibility they were already a couple without anyone knowing. Yet no matter how far the three of them were split, their friendship had been composed to much of each other's atmospheres for there to be such a secret. The world of Sora and Riku was intimate, unknown to others in its truest form, but everyone could tell they had one, and Kairi could of course see the things that made it up. She had once been a part of the sands, the skies, and the waters that made up that world. They were all borrowed from each other. Even if in years and miles distanced, they never were in their inner selves.
Kairi smiled at them equally. "Just saying. In case you guys couldn't already tell."
Kairi would've known if they were together already. It was part of her to be part of them. They couldn't be whole unless they remembered her.
"But seriously you guys, when's the wedding?" Kairi asked, sipping her mocha mischievously when the other two boys nearly spit laughing so hard. Not because it was impossible, but because when you finally verbalise an intangible state that's always been, the shift from internal to external creates an emotion. The words that put their emotions into the visible jet stream brought them to laughter, because it's so easy to laugh when you're relieved.
"I found out I got accepted at Isle University," Riku told Sora over the phone. This was some many weeks after their initial date with Kairi. She was busy with preparations for graduation, now that it was looming not far enough head. Sora and Riku kept busy watching Lady Spring unfurl. She was beautiful, colourful, noisy, but calm. She was mellow, not sickly like Lady Winter, though she was beautiful as well.
Sora leaned against the shoulder of Lady Spring through the window, holding himself up. "Oh. Wow, I can't- well, I can believe, but that's awesome!" he replied, perking up at what an accomplishment that really was.
Still. There wasn't enough time.
"You heard back from Blakely, right?" Riku asked, remembering how Sora had screamed at Riku when he found out. Not to mention how they had nearly died from falling to the ground when Sora jumped at him in excitement. Somehow, at that time, the brunet hadn't realized this all had to happen eventually: they had to go their own ways. Soon enough, they would have to pry apart the oceans that mingled them and allow that to become the distance. Like Riku's vanity, their private space would have to shatter, float out in space, never lost, but ever regained? The beach in their skin and the sun in their hearts and the stars in their eyes… the universe of their lives would have to split. The jet stream… it all would carry them away.
Sora sighed, and then covered it with a giggled, "yeah! Yeah, I did." Riku smiled across the phone line. He was feeling, too.
"Love you, Sora," he barely managed. It was the first time he'd said it out loud, with words, putting it in the jet stream to go where it would. Like before, acknowledging they were pretty meant to be, saying what was inside the invisible world created an emotion between them.
"I love you, too." Riku sighed in relief. He wondered what this meant.
"Hey, you wanna come over?" Sora asked, pleading the silveret was feeling the same miserable way he was.
He was.
How had this happened? Somewhere between being young and being not so young, this huge, surreal thing that made Riku poetic had been engendered. Sora and Riku had managed fit an entire world between the two of them, with millions and millions of beautiful things stored within it. Smiles and laughs and something like love.
How? How was it possible? How had there come to be such a thing? When did he start seeing things that weren't there, remembering things in Sora because he was everything to remember? When did he start feeling like something bigger than the thing they were in was between only the two of them, as intimate as that space was? When had he grown into something completely unlike life as he thought he knew it? What did he know about life, other than that which involved the one with Sora? What was it?
The silver-haired youth turned simple things like eyes and skin into paragons of beauty. He made the human natural and turned the natural into Lords and Ladies. How had the jet stream of life become a jet stream, instead of just life? Suddenly he was a philosopher? A poet? A lover?
Riku wondered what Sora would think about this. He wondered what Sora would say to the explosion of perspective that had become Riku's understanding of the things around him. He wouldn't say anything, but he wondered.
There isn't much to say about what happened that night. When Riku got to Sora's house, Sora had lead Riku up to his room, where they dove into their secret space and spent the rest of the night hiding inside it. They didn't come up for air not once, swallowing themselves inside the blue and green of that gripping horizon somewhere further out to sea the stars in Sora's eyes. Riku's earth shattered, gave way to horizon, and Sora sunk as deep as there was to go into Riku's endless miles of mind. He met the dark, kissed the light, fought the doubts, and held on tight to the beaches that bound them.
They fell into their world, something like love, and just how they got to the other side has nothing to do with anyone else. Not even Mother Nature, who left them alone for just one time.
Graduation day burst open with wild seniors howling for their finally tasted freedom. Lady Spring had matured into Lady Summer, whose friendly heat and colour put everyone in a good mood. It was only a matter of time before the festivities would come to their quick climax, which meant Kairi would be off to entertain soon. Selphie clapped at her friend's due performance, standing with the redhead and her best friends.
"I can't believe it's here! God, can you imagine? This is it, you guys. High school's over today!" Kairi exclaimed, wide-eyed and leaning forward a little. Riku and Sora, fingers entwined, looked at her smilingly, then at each other fighting fear. Selphie jumped twice and cheered for the long-awaited ceremony. "I'm so ready for COLLEGE!" she cried.
A hush fell as the vice principal announced Kairi's due performance. She took her place onstage as the general public clapped, her friends all the while cheering and whistling. Her done up eyes dashed around a bit as she thanked everyone and gave a word of congratulations and luck, being her usual sweet self. After a quick inhale, she began the song she had sung in the auditorium, even better than before, glazing the audience with candlelight spherical music.
This time, Riku felt less overwhelmed. He knew why: Kairi wasn't letting something die this time. She was singing sweet words, but that catharsis that had before been the resting place of some old baggage was gone. The words had already been thrown into life's stream; the emotion of them wasn't so strong because it was already there, now. It suited graduation day to be happy to sing for singing's sake, not to use it to let go. Nothing was wrong; life had just happened that way. It was a little better now.
Kairi finished and was applauded, and the awarding procession began. Each senior met the end of something, one by one, in alphabetical order. It was a long process, but the end came finally, unceremoniously, but thankfully enough. The proud faces of some hundreds of people- students and families alike- were beaming. The hooting and howling of countless youths made their crescendo as their caps flew upwards. This was pride. Freedom, finally.
Sora found Riku again and didn't let go of him. Riku's dad congratulated Sora and his son equally, hugging them both with fatherly pride. When the older man began a conversation with Kairi's parents, the youths went off for privacy.
The brunet got on his toes to kiss Riku hard, and it felt like flying. They held on to each other tight, eyes down, trying to find the floor of this happiness but scared to.
"I love you, Sora." It barely came out again. It was hard; he didn't want to feel like it could be the last time.
"I love you, too. I love you, Riku."
(I don't need to know the answers, or what does or doesn't exist. Everything… is nothing like you.)
FOOTNOTE; the idea of the spheres is from the Renaissance idea (taken from Grecian philosophy) that the universe is made of spheres, in which stars are located, which are all connected in perfect harmony. This harmony creates music, hence music of the spheres. Poets such as John Donne used this is Petrarchan-style poetry of the 'courtiers'. They wrote about 'courtly love', which praised women, often from afar. I hope that explains some of the influence of my writing…
AUTHOR'S NOTE; I took my SAT earlier today and I was UPSET. So I treated myself to a nice, long, cathartic fanfiction, instead of continuing on my miserable journey through high school education T.T
Now… this was quite hard to write. And, I'm obviously making up my own dialect of English here with all these bombastic sentences. I'm not even sure what to call this bit of work, since it's a bit metaphysical, but also has philosophical influences. So, as life goes, I'll let you decide if you even like it. It's barely *cough*not*cough* edited, and as always I can't be straightforward, what with all that ambiguous timeline and long sentences and all. And that fourth wall which may or may not be Mother Nature… hm?
I CLAIM NO RIGHTS TO KINGDOM HEARTS OR ANY AFFILIATION. SQUEENIX BEAT ME TO IT. GOHH.
I don't like when people are mean… if you don't like it, that's up to you. But please don't yell at me.
Mercy on your souls.
x ST MONSTER