Riku walked out of the wooden hut, now so dilapidated and old, Riku was half sure the next good storm would tear it to shreds. He was certainly glad for the muscle memory that allowed him to not fall through the holes in the steps, even though he had all but forgotten which steps to avoid on his way up them. Once at the top he didn't even need to turn the knob to step outside. It certainly was nothing short of nostalgic to be facing the bridge that connected the two islands that had been his stomping grounds for the majority of his life.
Once his eyes had adjusted to the sunlight again, he could see Sora, laying there on the directionally challenged tree they had always used as a bench or bed, depending on the user's needs. He had one yellow shoe resting on the tree, the other swinging languidly off the side of the trunk. He looked to have Mickey's letter in his hands, apparently reading it over again.
Riku couldn't help but take a moment to appreciate the scene before him. He hadn't really recognized until now just how much of a sight for sore eyes it was, to see his Sora, serene and comfortable, safe and in his home. Just because the islands had never returned to feeling like Riku's home didn't mean that it wasn't comforting to see Sora back where he belonged.
Continuing on across the bridge, it wasn't until he was almost to the steps on the other side that Sora looked over to him, greeting Riku with one of his smiles that had long ago replaced the islands as Riku's home. Of course, the only thing anyone faced with that smile can do is smile back, so that is what Riku found himself doing as he closed the gap between the end of the pier and Sora.
"Have you come to join me?" Sora asked, some semblance of genuine excitement at the prospect coloring his voice. Why, Riku would never understand.
"If you don't mind." Was his thrilling response.
Sora sat up, straddling the trunk and patting the space behind him where his head used to be, his smile only growing.
Riku found himself hesitating, like he often did when approaching Sora. Now that he was back with him, Riku could constantly hear the voice in his head, threatening him with the possibility that he might taint Sora, just by proximity, if he wasn't careful. That his time away from the islands had nurtured his darkness to the point where it was seeping out from him the same way Sora's light shone onto everyone who so much as interacted with him.
But, then again, Riku had never been good at telling Sora no. So of course his hesitation only lasted a few seconds before he had hopped up onto the tree too.
Immediately, Sora's head was in Riku's lap, with Sora's eyes directed back onto the paper in his hands.
Sora had taken to revisiting the letter over and over again, ever since they had found it. Riku figured it probably had something to do with the story of the "other Sora". If it were anyone else, they probably would have been uncomfortable with the idea of there being another version of them out there. Hell, Riku knew he was definitely unnerved by his experiences with having a replica. But this was Sora he was referring to. Knowing Sora, he was probably looking forward to meeting the inhabitants of the data world, hoping to befriend and help the other versions of themselves or something like that.
For Riku's part, he kept returning to the point in the letter where Mickey mentioned the other Roxas telling that Sora that "The hurt owns you now... It's a wound that will never mend. A hole in your heart that will grow bigger and bigger, until darkness finally claims it."
Aside from just being thorough in telling the story, Riku found it kind of odd that Mickey had put that particular detail in a letter specifically to the one person who was least likely for this to be an issue. Whose size of heart and shear radiance would vastly overwhelm any hole darkness could find itself lodged into. At least as Riku saw it.
Therefore, it stood to reason that this was not, in fact, there for Sora's benefit. It was a truth that Riku had always kind of known, but had stubbornly refused to acknowledge until Mickey, his royal friend, had spelled it out for him. It made him wonder if maybe Mickey had picked up on the specific, Sora shaped hole in Riku's own heart. While he had never divulged any of this information to the King, Mickey had a way of seeing everything and everyone for what they truly were. This was how he had so quickly recognized Riku after he had willingly taken Ansem's form (the only person to recognize him faster had gotten help, and also had the benefit of being not only the resident Princess of Heart, but also one of his oldest and dearest friends).
If Mickey was aware of the shape of the hole, then it only made sense that he had been aware of the flavor of hurt that had been born from it.
Looking back, Riku guessed it had all started around the time he was either thirteen or fourteen, before ever leaving the islands. About a year or two before they (and himself along with them) were lost to darkness. Being a year older than the other two had it's advantages. First of all, Riku had started going through puberty before either Sora or Kairi. He had gone through a growth spurt, his voice had dropped, and, just in time to start work on their never-to-be-used raft, his muscles started developing. At first, nothing about his relationship with either of his friends had changed, but eventually Kairi followed in Riku's footsteps and started treating him differently. Riku would probably never know if she had been aware of how she would look at him when she thought he wasn't looking, or how she would do all these little things to catch his attention, like making up those little songs of hers. To be fair, he had liked the attention, and couldn't help but respond.
It had been then that Riku began looking at both Sora and Kairi in a different light. Before he knew it though, Sora had caught up to them. As Riku watched, he had found himself getting angry that Sora wasn't responding to him the same way Kairi had been. Instead, he and Kairi began giving that attention to each other. Riku had never blamed them, they've both always been such incredible people, if any two people in the world deserved each other, it's the two of them.
But Riku had found himself hurting more and more. Not so much that Kairi had chosen Sora over himself, but that Sora, while still the best friend a guy could ask for, never even seemed to have a glimmer of the same interest in Riku that he was feeling growing stronger for the boy every day. He hadn't known what to do. They both would always be Riku's best friends and even as the pain of watching the two completely oblivious lovebirds slowly started dissolving Riku's heart from the inside out, he couldn't not spend time with them. It felt like two parts of him were fighting each other. Battling over Riku's love for Sora. Was his love for him a best friend's love? Or was it a different kind of love all together? Unfortunately for everyone, it hadn't yet occurred to Riku that both could exist simultaneously.
Riku had soon found he couldn't keep the pain hidden despite his best efforts. Shortly before falling into the gaping hole left in his heart by the hurt, Kairi began to notice how he had changed. For her part, she never questioned Riku, but he would see her giving him sideways glances, trying to figure out what had gone wrong. Riku couldn't blame her. Everything about him had become competitive. He found himself wanting to fight everything, in feeble, confused attempts to fight himself. By the time the islands were lost, Riku had been fighting the hurt for over a year. Trying to subdue and ignore the half of himself that wanted Sora to want him the same way Riku wanted Sora. The same way Sora had apparently wanted Kairi.
To be honest, the entire time Riku spent with Maleficent was all a blur. Riku had just never actually given her much thought, as his whole mind had been consumed with the obsessive need to get Kairi, and get back at Sora for abandoning him. Whether it was abandoning Riku for Donald and Goofy, or abandoning him for Kairi before that, Riku was still unsure.
What he would forever remember clearly, though, was the moment he met Ansem as he took over Riku's body. Up until that moment, Riku had deluded himself into thinking he was winning.
In horror, he had watched the Seeker of Darkness try to destroy Sora, and kill Kairi, while Riku was trapped and helpless from inside a body that had once been his but no longer obeyed his command or even resembled the person he once was.
The attempt on Kairi's life, once Sora had sacrificed himself to bring her back was too much. The idea of not only losing Kairi to the darkness Riku had so willingly let in, but of Sora, now gone, having sacrificed himself for nothing had given Riku the strength he needed to fight back. Riku had used everything he had left to fight for what little control of this body he could muster and sent Kairi away from the danger.
At the time, Riku thought she had listened to him, and with that knowledge, he had relinquished his hold over the Dark Seeker's new vessel and allowed himself to fall.
After returning to the islands and watching Sora and Kairi interact once again, it had become clear that all of the special attention Sora had been giving Kairi had long since mellowed out and receded into a very mutual friendship. Their time apart having given them each the same chance it had given Riku. The chance to explore their own hearts and come to understand where they stood. Though, it appeared that this exploration had yielded opposite effects in Riku than it had in his friends.
In fact, Riku was now convinced that Sora didn't have a single romantic bone in his body.
It wasn't until Riku heard the satisfied hum from Sora that he realized his hand had started running itself through Sora's unruly hair. His slow, gentle movements were doing nothing to tame it, and only succeeded in dividing the spikes already there into even more numerous, miniature versions of themselves.
At this, Riku found himself blushing as he felt a frown develop on his face, though his hand continued its petting. He needed to make sure he was careful. If he was going to allow himself to continue interacting with Sora, he would need to make sure he kept his feelings to himself.
There was no chance he was going to risk Sora's heart by allowing him to see the hurt within Riku's. Besides, in accepting his feelings for Sora, reciprocated or not, he had found the key to locking his darkness within him; therefore allowing him to exist within both the light and the dark, without losing himself. He didn't need to exacerbate it by bringing it out into the open.
However, as Mickey had so easily put it, Riku's eyes couldn't lie. And neither could Sora's. He knew Sora had been paying close attention to him ever since Kairi had reunited them. Riku was fully aware of Sora's unspoken questions about his time in the darkness, and what had caused him to get lost in it to begin with.
As if on cue, Sora's blue eyes looked up from the paper and connected with Riku's which had already found their usual place, looking at Sora.
"The letter says that you were feeling this hurt, too. Is that why you left the islands like you did?" Sora asked.
Momentarily worried that he had unknowingly been voicing his thoughts, it took Riku a moment to come up with a suitable answer.
"Well, yes. If I understand what he means by "hurt." I lost the person I had once been. Why?" That seemed to be a true enough answer.
"But if there was hurt in your heart, that means there was a hole." Sora sat up and turned to face Riku. A pouting worry drawing his eyebrows together and his forehead into parallel lines.
"That is the King's theory, yes." Riku responded, the worry at the conversation's subject matter warring for dominance with the recognition of just how cute Sora looked right now.
"Then what could have put the hole in your heart to begin with? Kairi and I were always with you and we didn't get holes in our hearts. Did something bad happen to you that I just don't remember?" Sora's worry, by now, had intensified so that it widened his eyes and turned his lower lip into a chew-toy.
Riku wracked his mind for any possible answer that could satisfy Sora's concern without opening a can of worms Riku had no intention of letting loose. At least not now.
It was at that moment that Sora apparently decided Riku needed a hug. Before Riku had even registered the motion, Sora had turned his body so his legs were hanging off the tree in the same direction as Riku's, while scooting over to him, closing the gap between them. Riku was hyper aware, however, of Sora's arms wrapping themselves around his waist, as well as Sora's head leaning against his shoulder.
There was no avoiding the smile brought on by the simple gesture, or the responding tilt of Riku's own head to rest against Sora's hair.
"I love you Sora." Was Riku's confession. He only hoped that Sora wouldn't see the extra layer of truth hidden beneath the acknowledgement of the love as his best friend.
"I love you too Riku. You are my best friend. Please don't ever leave me again." The catch in Sora's voice had a deafening wave of guilt crashing through Riku, sending his arms around Sora, completing the embrace and answering Sora's plea with an unspoken promise.
Maybe down the road, they would both notice how, upon their reunion, the essence of Sora's love for Riku had begun to change from what it had been when they were younger, complimenting Riku's
Maybe some day, when all of this was over, Riku would tell Sora the whole story.
Maybe at some point Riku would be good enough to both his friends and himself as to no longer keep secrets. But until that day, until he was ready, he figured it was okay to hide some truths, whether deep within himself or in plain sight.