Riku wasn't good with words. Thus the reason he was, year after year, a tree in the annual school play. It wasn't that he didn't want to speak. It was more like the few words that he could produce were always utter shit. His mouth, he thought to himself, was literally a toilet.
"You can keep that shit to yourself," Kairi told him during their lunch period when he offered her his salami and mozarella sandwich. Riku sighed and dropped the offending foodstuff on the ground, where it was promptly attacked by several hundred pigeons. The courtyard was teeming with acne-ridden teenagers furtively showing off their breach of dress code and generally harassing each other, and the sun beat down on the backs of their necks mercilessly, as if to say, "You're all nasty."
"Everyone knows you hate salami," Kairi said in tones of wonder, shaking her head at the cluster of birds as they fought over the sandwich. "Your mom's been packing you the same lunch for years. Why does she do it?"
Riku shrugged and pushed his bangs out of his eyes again, even though he knew they'd just slither back into place in a few seconds.
"Because you've never told her otherwise," Kairi answered for him, wagging her finger mockingly.
"Even if I told her not to she'd still do it," Riku replied, thinking of his four brothers and the general air of chaos that permeated his home life. "She'd forget and do it anyway."
"That might be true." She flicked her red hair over her shoulder and rummaged through her own brown paper bag, coming up with the usual second helping she had been packing since she and Riku had started high school and handing it to him.
"Thanks," Riku said shortly before stuffing half of the peanut butter and jelly into his mouth. Kairi gave him a look and turned away to survey their surroundings. Riku followed her gaze and-yep, there he was.
"Does he even eat during our lunch break…?" he heard Kairi wonder, but Riku didn't know what came after that because he had stopped listening. In the corner of the courtyard an impromptu game of basketball was being held, and he could easily pick out Sora amongst the players: he was the shortest of them all. Despite his size, though, we wove easily in and out of the straining bodies with ease, stealing the ball and sidestepping even the bulkiest of the boys. Riku had to admire his spirit, though admittedly he looked ridiculous and out-of-place beside the tall team players.
"Here comes the hero," Kairi said when Sora finally shook hands with the captain and made his way over to their table. "Nice of you to join us."
"Excuuuse me for not wanting to bear witness to Riku's crappy salami masterpiece," Sora quipped, running a hand through his slightly damp, brown hair. It remained as unruly as ever. He sat down next to Riku, looked at his uneaten sandwich half, and picked it up.
"Help yourself," Riku muttered as he took a bite, and Kairi laughed.
"I'm not going to pack three lunches. Sora, you definitely have your own food. Stop making poor Riku here thinner."
"Mmf," Sora answered, licking his fingers. "Riku doesn't mind. Do you, Riku?"
Riku busied himself with rolling his shirtsleeves back, trying to ignore the sensation of Kairi's eyes boring into him.
"Well, in that case, eat up. Maybe it'll help you grow a bit taller."
Riku watched Sora's face fall; that was cutting below the belt, and they both knew it, though Kairi was obviously unaware as she began to pack up her belongings at the sound of the bell. More than anything, Sora wanted to be on the basketball team, but for the past three years he had been ignored by the coach. "Maybe when you gain a few inches," he always said. Gain inches he did-two, to be precise, placing him about a head shorter than Riku, who stood at 6'1".
"See you guys later," Kairi said, bringing Riku out of his reverie. He and Sora watched her retreating back in silence as the courtyard slowly emptied. At his elbow, Sora stared down at his lap, a look of mingled indignation and hurt etched across his face.
Riku tried to think-now is the time you, as a friend, should say something nice, he told himself, crossing his arms and imagining shoving a plunger down his throat.
The problem with Kairi was that she always said the first thing that came into her head; that, unfortunately, was never guaranteed to be polite or kind. It was like she had no filter for her thoughts. Riku envied her at times, her openness, her ability to speak without fear.
There was nothing inherently wrong with Sora being short. He wasn't even that short. He just didn't qualify for the team. Of course, Sora never saw it as simply as that-he never had. Everybody had one personal trait they were overly sensitive about. For Riku, it was his large hands (apparently they fit his body, or so Sora told him). For Kairi, it was her butt (neither Riku nor Sora felt comfortable confirming or denying such a claim). For Sora, of course, it was his height. But Riku could not imagine him any other way; in fact, he liked Sora exactly the way he was: a perfect fit between him and Kairi, the glue that smoothed the quiet/loud dynamic between them. Could he at least say that?
"Well…I guess we should go to gym," Sora said finally, breaking the silence and scratching the back of his head. Riku blinked-he had been looking at the dirt under Sora's fingernails (bitten, a vice of his)-and said, without preamble, "I like you." There.
Sora stared at him. Riku stared back. Somewhere, in the back of his mind, he felt that something had gone terribly wrong, but he could not put his finger on it. Sora's mouth was a little open, a feature so terribly characteristic of him that Riku had to smile a little. He might have even laughed, had the situation not been so awfully quiet all of a sudden. But Sora's eyes remained fixed to his, wide, blue, and confused. Riku looked away, cleared his throat, looked back, coughed, and said, "So, yes. Gym. Right."
"…Right," Sora repeated, tearing his gaze away and standing up. Riku, however, began to walk towards the gym without waiting; his mind was racing, searching for a possible explanation as to how he'd fucked up this time.
Maybe he should just never speak again and everything would be better. Yeah.
xXx
"Dude. Dude."
Riku shook his head and glanced at Tidus, who was hovering somewhere near his elbow. They were in the locker room; Riku, who had been nervous for the duration of the class, was further nauseated by the smell of sweat and feet. Whatever Tidus had to say could wait-he couldn't stand to linger here any longer than it took to pull his uniform back on. "Tidus, I really-"
"Dude, don't take this the wrong way, but Sora's been, y'know, staring at you. Like, the entire time you were changing."
Riku blinked and frowned. "What?"
Tidus shook his head and gestured somewhere behind him; Riku peered over his shoulder just in time to see Sora whipping his head around.
"See? It's like-weird. Did something happen between you guys? Is he mad at you? He kinda looks like he wants to kick your ass."
"I doubt it," Riku said finally, sure that the strange behavior could be attributed to his own blunder from before.
"He's a weird kid on his own, I guess," Tidus conceded. "But watch out. He ain't weak by any stretch of the imagination."
Riku did not answer. In his private opinion, all of his friends were more than a little weird. In the ninth grade, Sora had courted Kairi all year by bringing her a different fruit every Monday. To no avail, obviously, but still. Weird.
Riku gathered his hair in his fist and pulled a hair band over it from his wrist. As he fastened the last button on his shirt, he glanced over at Sora again; the other boy was occupied with his belt. Riku was familiar with his physique-you don't quickly forget the body of someone you took mandatory swim classes with for summers-and noted, not for the first time, how thin he was. Adolescence had warped both their bodies, but it seemed like Sora had never quite grown accustomed to his; he moved clumsily, his fingers tripping over the fastener. He pulled the trousers further up over his bony hips and paused-was that a blush creeping into his cheeks? Riku looked away and collected his bag. Now he was the weird one.
He was halfway down the Science Hall before Sora caught up with him.
"Hey," he heard him pant, feeling a tug at the hem of his shirt (untucked-better fix that before MacIntyre notices). He swallowed and turned to face him.
He was terribly close. Riku could count the individual brown lashes surrounding his eyes, and he could even see, in perfect detail, Sora's chapped lips-one was disappearing into his mouth, bitten almost to the blood.
"Um."
"I was thinking," Sora began, and then stopped. He rubbed the back of his ankle with one foot, ran a hand through his messy hair. "I thought we should talk about this, right?"
"About…?"
"You know."
Riku did not know. What Riku did know, however, is that he suddenly wished that he would never have to talk to anyone. Being a mute was starting to look very attractive.
Sora huffed and blushed and looked away from his face. "About what you said. You said you liked me."
"Oh." That. "Yeah."
"Well…why?"
"Why?"
"Why do you like me?"
Riku stared and thought. Then he thought some more. Unbidden images rose in his mind-Sora's small back in the locker room, his awkward stance as he leaned against a wall, the calluses on his palms, rough on Riku's arm whenever Sora grabbed him in excitement. He opened his mouth.
"I like you. I like your hair and your hands and the way you laugh. You're good at basketball, better than most of the team members. You're always the first to try something. Your shirt's too big for you. You always steal my sandwich…I like your face, too. I like everything about you. Are you mad at me or something?…" he trailed off, unsure of what Sora wanted to hear, surprised at the words that had welled up inside and suddenly spilled out.
Sora put his hand on Riku's arm (those calluses) and leaned up on his toes and kissed him.
Suddenly the dry scrape of his chapped lips. The warm pressure, the small puffs of breath from his nose brushing against his own.
Oh, Riku thought.
Oh.