Riku –x- Kairi | songfic | AU | angst
Make you smile.
The last time I saw you, you walked away . . .
Riku stood near the edge of the water, feeling it splash up beneath the edge of his shoes as the sun set in the not so far off distance. Kairi was in Sora's arms, hugging him as if there were no tomorrow. Little did she know there very well might not be; it was a dark premonition that Riku held deep down within the bottom of his heart, whether he had any proof or evidence to back up his terrible fear at all. Someday things won't be this simple, his heart told him; it made every second with her that much sweeter . . .
. . . and every second away that much more painful.
I couldn't see with the sun shining in my eyes . . .
Kairi had seen Sora first; the sun was just going down, beaming out its last glimmering warmth upon the shores of the island. Had she seen Riku first, she'd have waited for him to come to her side, as well.
I said 'hello' but you kept on walking . . .
Riku sat bolt upright in his bed a week later, after having one the strangest dreams he'd had in a good, long while. Or was nightmare more like it?
"I was standing beneath a bridge, Kairi," he would tell her as nonchalantly as possible the next day. "There were strange machines on the overpass. You were walking toward them, facing them, moving right along, and you never answered me when I called your name."
"Maybe," she said a moment later, after giving it a bit of thought. "I was going deaf from the sound of the freeway."
Maybe, Riku thought. "It felt weird I guess since the last time I saw you, you walked away."
"That was the sunset's fault," Kairi said, looking perfectly contented and carefree as she smiled back at the silver-haired young man. "As for dream-me, I couldn't hear with the noise ringing in my ears!"
Riku went along with this and forced a questionable laugh, but he kept the part of the dream where she kept walking onward until she got lost altogether within the machines an upsetting secret that he figured he'd have to bear all on his own.
Do you remember where we used to sleep at night . . . ?
Riku sat up on a higher branch of a tree outside Kairi's bedroom window after the sun had set that day. He couldn't see into the window and he frankly hadn't been trying to. He just wanted to be nearer to her, somehow. He closed his eyes and leant back against the tree's trunk, easily envisioning a moment now lost to time – it was a vision of he and Kairi and Sora lying on the beach and holding hands without a single care in the world. Now everything was suspect, potentially corrupt. It was driving him insane, yet, even the thought of being closer to Kairi kept him grounded. Somehow.
I couldn't feel you – you're always so far away . . .
Kairi rolled over onto her side in her bed. She felt too uneasy to fall to sleep. Riku had had a dream where she walked along, not hearing him. She hadn't let on at the time, but it rang too true. He was always lost in some thought - some thought or notion that brought sadness to his eyes. Where was her Riku? The laughing, snarky, let's-play-chase-on-the-beach-Riku? Oh, she'd laughed about it earlier but, truth be told, she'd give anything to have him back.
I don't, don't wanna take you home . . .
It had been an almost-kiss. Riku still wasn't quite sure how it'd come about. At the same time, he felt that maybe he was. It felt strange but not terrible and even as he looked back up at Kairi, who'd accidently tripped over her own shoes and fallen atop him, he still felt very much as if he wanted to kiss her, but Sora was a few feet away, laughing at their predicament and so . . .
Maybe he'd only imagined that Kairi was about to kiss him? And in either case, was he willing to do that to Sora right in front of his very eyes?
Torn.
Riku now knew the word to describe how his heart felt – torn.
Please don't . . . don't make me sleep alone . . .
Kairi looked back down at Riku, vaguely aware of Sora's laughter ringing out in the background. It was playful, it was happy. Riku, on the other hand, looked nothing of the sort. Was he angry she'd fallen? Angry she'd fallen on him? Their faces had, after all, come within a mere inch of each other. She'd wanted to kiss him, wanted to kiss that persistently sad look right out of his beautiful eyes. But he seemed resistant.
If you're so damn resistant, she thought to herself, why were you outside my bedroom window just last night?
. . . . . . . .
"Riku, I saw you last night. I don't know if you could see me, but I saw you up in that tree. What was with that?"
Riku turned his head to look away from Kairi, clenching his hands at his sides. "I didn't see you. 'Didn't think you could see me, either."
"But why were you there?" Kairi asked him again, and the pair took to looking back at each other, the both of them willing one another to understand what their inner objective was; what motive they had.
Oh Riku, thought Kairi, I just wanna make you smile . . .
Kairi, Riku inwardly said to himself, suppressing his urge to blurt it out loud instead. I'd like for you to stay with me a while.
-x-
Song: Make You Smile by +44