Notes: Oh, GOD the sap! (cringes) Well… eh. Whatever. This has actually been lurking in the back of my computer for some time. I've just been too lazy to finish it until now. This was actually a lot of fun letting this write itself. P

Disclaimer: I'll put them back, I promise.

Today Only

It's been weeks.

Weeks don't seem to be enough to ease the transition, though. It's like they'd never been gone, for the most part.

Kairi remembered that morning most of all. The first few weeks were simply the easiest— getting used to life again, getting used to simple things again. She'd stood at Sora's bedroom doorway, frowning at him the best she could while Riku was leaning in the frame, one arm crossed over his chest, looking for all the world rather amused by Sora trying to buckle his pants while simultaneously chowing down the toast Kairi had been smart enough to think of and bring him. She was glad she'd skipped putting jam on it. That'd only have been a mess waiting to happen. But the odd thing was that she had come, with Riku, expecting Sora's mother to look at her and Riku like she was peering at a pair of aliens on her doorstep. But she hadn't. She'd only smiled sweetly and told them she'd go and wake Sora up, the lazy boy. She didn't seem to have noticed that her son had been gone a whole year.

But Sora hadn't been sleeping at all.

None of them have.

"Sora, you lazy bum, now we're going to be late," Kairi chided him the best she could, trying to at least half-mean it.

She must have been successful in her in devour.

Or maybe it was just Sora being cute, loveable, just-plain-Sora, and at least half-trying to make himself believe her for her sake more than his.

Sora swallows the last of his toast with a sheepish grin, scratching at the back of his head, blue eyes peering at the other two sweetly, very much like his mother had before. "Sorry," he said. "Kinda didn't sleep till before you showed up. It's not that late, is it?"

But Kairi can't bring herself to say anything. She's just so happy she'll burst.

"Nah," Riku cuts in intuitively, like always, his crossed arm dropping and his pale fingers briefly touching Kairi's bare arm for just a second. Not entirely by accident. "We can still make most of the sunrise."

He leaves little touches like that. Just to let them know he's not trying to be distant.

And Kairi really does burst, grinning so wide that she thinks it hurts, but happy; happy to the point that she grabs Riku in the best squeeze-strangle-death-grip-Kairi-hug she can manage for his muscular frame. And Sora's laughing, moving to toss his arms around them both. Riku tenses under Kairi's arms for a split second, and then loosens up with a sigh.

"You two do this every time…"

"Aw, Riku! It only means we love ya!"

"Yeah! Sora's right!"

Kairi's not so tiny anymore. She has a little bit of strength in her arms now, and can hold him tight around one arm and a rib; Sora somehow weaseling his way in. Though it had never mattered much how they fit together, just that they managed it in one way or another.

-----

It was hard. She spent a lot of time learning, quickly as humanly possible, how to use different ways to cover up their scars.

Their parents didn't remember anything, nor did their friends; the three had a special secret that they felt they needed to keep away from the town as best as possible. That meant acting as normal as possible (if they could ever remember how to do that to begin with). Normal didn't even seem to want to touch them at all, not if it was paid a hundred bucks and given a ten-foot pole, in Kairi's opinion. That was fine. When she first met Sora and Riku, so long ago it seemed, in that far away place she liked to fancy as childhood… when she first met them, Kairi knew there was nothing normal about them. Maybe that was just a silly Princess of Heart thing. Responding to them, like she always would everyone. She knew she wouldn't need to expect normal; never has. But she does her best to act like she always had. And so do Riku and Sora, best as they can.

Grandma was proud when Kairi asked for her first makeup kit. Kairi even used a little on herself to please her family.

Mostly, she used it to hide Riku and Sora's scars.

Kairi would sneak in, early, early in the morning, into Riku's bedroom window where Sora and Riku would already be waiting. She would sneak in, like a stealthy cat, a shadow, learning it from Riku, with her makeup kit in hand.

That'd been how it'd first started, really.

"Alright, Sora. I've got to do yours first, since you're smaller than Riku," Kairi said frankly to the boy, brows knitting down.

Neither of the boys had complained about this 'being girly'. It was either this or try and explain (if one happened to wander in the kitchen without a shirt late at night to get a snack and your mom catches you, 'cause you tripped over the family dog) to your parents those scars, at how nasty they looked; try and give explanations you don't have. Explanations that are so whole-heartedly true, but at the same time too out-landish to be comprehended. No one would believe them, anyways, except maybe Selphie. Though even that was doubtable…

"Huh?" Sora gave Kairi a scowl.

Kairi rolled her eyes and whispered in the slight darkness of Riku's bedroom, "Take off your shirt. I need to cover up some of those scars."

Sora had turned too many shades of red too fast, gapping like a fish out of water.

-----

But that morning, Kairi was stepping onto the dock of their island with a picnic basket in hand. She hadn't had to cover up any scars this morning.

"Tidus, Waka and Selphie stopped coming here a long time ago, so this place is all ours now!" she exclaimed with a bright smile, tilting her head towards the other two.

"Really?" Riku asked, his face straight but his eyes terrifyingly, brutally honest in the sense that he was slightly shocked.

Even slightly so, it was a little frightening to see it there so clearly.

The boat was tethered down in the shallow sand, and they were laughing, talking, flopping out onto the beach with their shoes kicked off so that they can feel the warm, summer temperature of the ocean lapping at their toes. Kairi is on Sora's right, grasping his hand tight, and Riku is on the other side, and they're holding hands and not letting go. Sora mentions a dream he had like this. But instead, he makes the first move, like usual, and laces all their fingers together this time.

Kairi's a little scared.

She's the one who does the reminding, the worrying, or used to, anyways. Now all three of them seem to be doing their fare share. And it was Sora who was so brave back in the bedroom, admitting that he felt things. And for once…

For once Riku didn't reject it all flat out.

Kairi's a little scared that she might not understand it. Though that's not entirely true.

They aren't normal. None of them.

Normal doesn't touch them.

But maybe, she begins to wonder, as Sora's calloused hand tightens its grip around her smaller, softer one (and she's tightening back to answer his silent question like she always does— yes, I'm here), everyone else is weird and they're perfectly normal. How odd can it be for three people to be destined to be together? Even Selphie, the romantic of everyone, could understand that. Maybe even simple, sweet, soft-eyed Tidus could see that Sora, Kairi and Riku were connected.

If they did, Kairi never caught word of it, even with Waka's big mouth.

-----

Sora hadn't put his shirt back on.

And Kairi was diligently applying a base pale enough to match Riku's skin across a nasty, jagged, terrible scar over Riku's chest, right in the center of the sternum, where the heart was. She didn't avoid the memory. As a matter of fact, she embraced it. Even marveled at how Riku's chest was something amazing, sitting across the bed from him, Sora looking over her shoulder. They were both wide-eyed, awed.

"What?" Riku asked. One silver brow rose in question.

"Um…" Kairi tried to make herself think of something, but the simple matter of the fact: she couldn't.

She just stared, face heating up when it'd been Sora who voiced her thoughts.

"Wow, Riku, you really have a good six pack! I don't understand why I can't get rid of the baby fat."

Riku had to clap a hand over his mouth to keep from laughing too hard, flopping on his back, and Kairi smacking her forehead with her palm in complete and utter disbelief at Sora's serious tone.

-----

They didn't avoid the cove or their secret place like before, flittering in and out like memories, tracing hands along drawn-on walls. Over sand, collecting starfish and shells and washed-up sticks.

The door as gone.

So was the raft.

And come midday, for lunch, it was Riku who said something unbelievable all together:

"Hey, do you think we should try that paopu legend? You never did get one, Sora."

And Sora had paused mid-bit of his bologna sandwich to tilt his head.

"That's right," he said simply, matter-of-factly, like he'd never missed a year or two between back then and now. "Nah. I don't think we need it."

"Are you two for real?" Kairi found herself asking with a slight smile.

The thought of it was romantic, but unnecessary.

Sora was right, Kairi realized. They didn't need some silly legend. And she plowed through her sandwich in order to hurry up and help build the giant sandcastle that Sora won't stop asking for.

-----

The lamp flickered out in a heartbeat, and Kairi was breathing in the smell of cosmetics and Sora as she was braced against him in the closet for on long, terrifying moment.

"What was that thumping noise? Are you alright?" a female voice asked, sounding a little far off with the space of two doors between Kairi and the source of it.

It'd been a mad scramble when the hallway light had flickered on, stark and gold and bright from under the crack of the door compared to Riku's soft, small desk lamp that they'd been using with what was left of moonlight. Kairi and Sora dove for Riku's closet, Kairi nudged under Sora's slightly taller stature, shelves digging into her lower back, shoulder blades, and elbows. Both of Sora's hands were on the shelf up above her head, and his cheek pressed to the side of hers in the dark. She could feel his breath tickling her as they both tried to control their fighting hearts and lungs.

Sora smelt like cosmetics and powder and sea-salt. Almost to the point that Kairi could taste it. Which was different than Riku's smell, which was with the same cosmetic-like scent thanks to the cover-up she'd been using but with something close to just… something simple. Clean. Skin, yes; skin was what it was. Save for the same undertone of darkness there in both of them, in all of them.

"Nothing, mom. Just fell out of bed is all."

It wasn't a complete lie. He did silently laugh himself off the side.

"Well, alright. I'm headed off to the morning shift. Be careful today, alright?"

"Alright. I will."

When the coast was clear, Sora let out one long sigh across Kairi's neck. "Your hair smells good, Kairi…"

Riku had joined them in there, in that cramped, pathetic excuse for what Riku claimed was a closet, all of them grinning in the dark.

And that's when Kairi gave her first kiss.

-----

By the time the sun was going down, Kairi was taking pictures of the sandcastle and of the high tide taking it awake in minutes. Water fights, swords fights, lying in the sand, sharing sloppy kisses flavored with soda, soft and meaningful looks. And they all sat and listen to Sora talking about all the people he's met, the places he's seen. But he never mentioned the heartless or Roxas or Naminé or anything like that. None of them needed to hear it— not with Riku listening so intently and Kairi leaning on his shoulder to try and maybe defend him from a little bit of sunburn. Sora only grins through his stories…

It was a relationship-commitment-love-triangle-whole, Kairi decided. Because those where all the words that summed this up; this day, this moment. Because she was committed to them, and they proved they were too, over and over, reminding her that they had coming looking for her. And then she and Sora had gone looking for Riku, because they couldn't be whole without him. Sure, they were all tainted. In some form or another. They had their nightmares and memories, and ticks and times when there was pain. But not today. Kairi wouldn't let that happen today. Even if they never spoke sweet-things or went on romantic dates. That's not what it was about.

It'd all started awkwardly in Riku's bedroom, and had landed here. Landed them here, at home, of all places, after sneaking off to go swimming late at night, and doing things together, having secret slumber parties. Kairi would have them over at her house, pulling them up the lattice to her window, at least twice a week. They'd laugh and giggle under bed-sheet-teepees and fall asleep where ever, knowing full well that at least someone was going to get up in time to get whoever wasn't supposed to be over out. It happened even during the hard times.

Kairi was happy with that.

Even if there was going to be a time when things would change, when there would be more pain and fighting. She was happy with it. Happy because she could be there. She'd been learning to sword fight from them, to cast magic, to be strong like them.

Because if Riku was the perfect sum of light and dark, and Sora was the brilliant spark of Courage, then she'd gladly be the middle-woman. They liked Kairi there, with them.

Which was everything that mattered to her.

"Riku? Sora?"

"Yeah?"

"Hm?"

Kairi paused with the words in her mouth, waiting, tasting them, and her heart swelled with it. "I love you guys."

They were gripping her hands again with their own, calloused, tight holds. And she had her head on Riku's chest with Sora half cuddled up behind her. All of them twisted up in a knot on a blanket in the seaside shack. Where the waves sounded hypnotic the way the tide rushed the shore, audible even through the cracks of the wood— pushing and pulling, hushed in a way the only pure silence over the sea could ever managed, dousing everything in a calm of sorts.

"Yeah," Riku answered first, surprisingly, delighting Kairi with a hand threading through her hair.

Sora shifted, laughed, and said, "You bet I do!"

There was change on the wind. Kairi knew these sorts of things for some reason. Whatever. She'd meet it head on.

Today only, the hot afternoon hours crawled past at a snail's pace, and they dozed on.