Greetings everyone. A pleasure to meet you all. I posted this on AO3 back when I wrote this at Xmas, but I feel it only right to also post it here, where my writing began. This was the first thing I wrote for SoRiku after years of being dedicated to them, so I hope you can enjoy it!
x~x~x~x~x
Riku was proud of his body. It sort of came with the territory of being a personal trainer, really. One had to keep one's body perfectly sculpted and healthy, honing the body as well as the mind in the gym and helping others to achieve their desired results. Riku loved his job, loved seeing the pleased if exhausted smiles on his clients' faces after the end of a vigorous workout session. And when people achieved their ultimate goal after long weeks and months under his care, well, there was nothing quite like it.
He was busy on the bench press on the fateful day that everything would all take a turn for the ridiculous. With a grunt he lifted the iron bar once more, his arm muscles burning in that pleasurable way that they do when they're being tested. It was at that moment that a young woman with shoulder-length auburn hair leant over, her face distractingly close to his as she chirped out a friendly, "Hi, Riku!"
Riku, to his credit, was long used to the woman's blatant disregard for his personal safety when around heavy weights and only flinched a little bit before carefully setting the weights down, admirably keeping his grumbling to a minimum. Certain he was now no longer going to be inadvertently crushed to death, Riku turned to her with a wry half smile and said, "Hey there, Kairi."
Kairi was the granddaughter of the owner of Radiant Garden, the resort spa that not only sported the gym where Riku worked, but also meticulously manicured gardens where Pilates sessions were often held, a 'clean eating' restaurant with top chefs, a chic spa that offered indulgent massages in addition to the state-of-the art facilities that included a Jacuzzi, a sauna, and a steam room for those people that wanted to get as close as possible to an authentic 'lobster burning alive' experience without actually ending up served alongside garlic butter and dipping sauce. Riku wasn't much for that aspect of the resort as his pale skin would very quickly turn a shade of red that even the most lobster-ish of lobsters would be envious of. He didn't mind it so much when he was working-out, because at least there was a benefit to that, but sitting in an overbearingly hot room and getting all sweaty and red for the sake of it was never appealing.
Despite the boiling torture chambers, Radiant Garden did fierce business, and Kairi's grandfather, a man by the name of Ansem, was often called 'wise' to invest in the place, as if the man had a crystal ball that could have foreseen the outbreak of rampant veganism and obsessive gym-going. Still, it meant that Riku's job was steady and paid well and there would always be business for him.
"Good workout?" Kairi asked.
"It was until you nearly killed me. Again," Riku pointed out, though his tone was teasing.
Kairi giggled, "Hey, you barely even reacted this time! You're getting better."
"Only because I live in perpetual fear of my life thanks to you. Being crushed to death by weights and having my red, sweaty body dragged to a post-mortem is a scenario I'd prefer to avoid." He sat up on the bench now and Kairi saw fit to swoop on in and sit next to him, shoving him playfully. Though she was to one day take over the business and become his boss she was, first and foremost, a dear childhood friend despite all of his grousing, and the one who had suggested he go into personal training in the first place and helping him secure a job at this upmarket resort.
"Oh please, you'd still look stunning even if that happened." Riku rolled his eyes but Kairi ran her fingers through his hair, a thoughtful hum escaping her. "I know you cut your hair because it was getting in the way, but it really does suit you this way."
Riku appreciated the reassurance. His hair, until recently, had been long and flowing, but when getting sweaty was what you did for a living hair care became a veritable nightmare. One day, in a moment of pure impulse, he had walked into a salon and demanded most of it be chopped off. The results weren't terrible, really, but he had been so accustomed to walking around rocking a Legolas look that this new style was a shock to his system, and he had proceeded to call Kairi frantically rambling about hair and mistakes and wanting to die, and Kairi, bless her soul, had spent the rest of her evening assuring Riku that no, his hair didn't look ridiculous and no, nobody was going to make fun of him and that yes, he was still the prettiest girl in all the land.
Riku muttered his thanks before finally eyeing what Kairi was wearing. She was someone who, while aware that there were a wide array of colours in the world, nevertheless strongly believed that pink was the only one that mattered and went to great lengths to ensure that her ensemble showcased its many shades. Today her Dulux colour chart honed in on the pinks best described as 'sorbet' and 'berry smoothie', her Lycra gym leggings dotted with little hearts. Riku raised a questioning eyebrow. "You're here to actually use the gym?"
Kairi preferred Praline Frappucinos to protein shakes and could often be seen taking advantage of the spa facilities when she wasn't stalking the gym trying to give Riku a heart attack at inopportune moments. To see her dressed for exercise was rather rare.
"There's a new Zumba instructor who's amazing, so I've been making an effort to go to some of the classes," Kairi explained, her glossed lips turning up into a sly smirk as she asked, "Wanna come with?"
Riku snorted. "What? Prance around a room for an hour? I'll pass."
Kairi sighed and shook her head, having expected such a response. She had been trying to get Riku into an aerobics class for years and had never succeeded. "You know your opinion of it is wrong, right?" she asked. "There is more to exercise than just pumping iron."
"I beg to disagree," Riku said just a touch too primly even to his own ears. He knew that he was sort of… elitist, when it came to exercise. Weights were, of course, the best thing a person could do to sculpt their body, and he had respect for circuit and interval training. But when it came to dance classes? He couldn't help but scoff. What good could a bit of bouncing to some sugary pop music really do?
"Come on Riku, please?" Kairi asked, clasping her hands together in a 'pretty please' motion.
"Only if you agree to a session with me," Riku replied, the same reply he always used and the same reply that usually sent Kairi on her way. Riku was renowned for getting results for his clients, but he was also renowned for being tough and coming up with almost merciless training regimens. Kairi had once watched Riku running through his warm ups and had needed an urgent spa break as just watching him made her exhausted. 'Still,' Riku thought smugly, 'at least it pays off.' His body was in peak physical condition, toned and muscled in all the right places, and while Riku would often put on nonchalant indifference whenever he received a compliment, inside he would preen at the attention.
"Fine," Kairi said simply, rolling her eyes at the way Riku's own widened comically.
"S-Seriously?" he asked, voice incredulous.
"Seriously," she nodded. "You come to a Zumba class with me, and I'll go through one of your hellish sessions. Deal?" She held out her hand and Riku looked at it with suspicion. He couldn't help but feel like some dastardly scheme was afoot, but he couldn't for the life of him figure out what Kairi's motives may be.
Resolving to give her the most punishing session imaginable if his suspicions were proved correct, Riku took Kairi's hand and firmly shook it, sealing his fate.
He had no way of knowing at the time the impact that this handshake would have on his life.
x~x~x~x~x
Riku didn't often set foot in the exercise studios. His turf was the gym, and the few times he had ventured to the unknown lands of the exercise studios he hadn't felt compelled to stay for long. He found the Spinning classes boring and ultimately pointless; why pretend to ride a bike when you could actually go out and, well, ride an actual bike to an actual destination? He had no need of the toning classes for he did most of the same things with his clients over in the gym. He gave Body Pump a go once and decided it was bearable, but he ultimately preferred to lift weights without being surrounded by countless others all doing the same thing and to a soundtrack he had no control over. Solitary sessions and one-on-one sessions were much more preferable, and Riku had long since come to terms with his slightly asocial nature even if Kairi was determined to thwart his attempts to stay sane.
She was currently happily chatting away as she led Riku into Studio 3, and he surveyed the women already in the room having their own conversations and lightly stretching with a slight sense of unease. He knew that women tended to favour dance classes, but he didn't really feel like being the only male in this class and standing out more than he already would be doing with his tall frame and pronounced muscles that looked as though they sneered at the very idea of dance. He withered when a few of the class-goers looked over to him and started whispering amongst themselves, pressing himself closer to Kairi who seemed unaware of his current plight.
The walls in the exercise room were mirrored and Riku caught a glimpse of how awkward he looked before hastily looking to the back wall which, instead of being mirrored, was one great big window that provided an excellent view of the grounds of Radiant Garden. From what he could glimpse it looked as though a yoga session was currently taking place amongst the plush greenery, and Riku supposed that dancing to upbeat music was slightly preferable to doing silly poses to dolphin noises for an hour.
At some point Kairi had pulled her short hair up with a hair tie and was looking expectantly at the stage and wondering where the instructor was. Riku also looked over to the raised platform, noting the big sound system that lay to the side of it and picking out all of the speakers dotted around the room.
"So this instructor," Riku said, watching as more women trickled into the room and the noisy chatter grew, "What's she like?" If the woman was inspiring enough to get Kairi to voluntarily come here then there must have been something special about her.
Kairi grinned and opened her mouth to respond, but she never got the chance to as a young man practically bounded into the room, his absurdly spiky hair bouncing with each movement and a blinding smile directed at the occupants. Riku felt somewhat relieved to know that he wouldn't be the sole male in the class, but such relief turned out to be short lived as the man grinned and said in a voice that the sun itself probably sounded like, "Hey, ladies! My name is Sora and, as always, I shall be your humble instructor for today~" He bowed low, relishing in the giggles of the women of various ages around the room, including Kairi.
Riku gaped. A man would be leading the class? There was probably something to be said for stereotyping and assumptions, but right now he wasn't sure how he felt about this. Unfortunately, as a result of him being unable to settle on any particular emotion, the instructor's first impression of Riku when he looked over in his direction was of Riku doing his very best impression of a goldfish.
"He's cute, right?" Kairi giggled in a conspiratorial whisper, and Riku was about to snap something back about not noticing something silly like that when the instructor grinned and Riku felt like maybe he should have brought sunglasses to this class if that grin was going to be a permanent fixture of it.
"Oh, pardon me," the instructor laughed sheepishly, "Ladies and gentleman, today."
For a brief moment Riku felt trapped as startlingly blue eyes seemed to appraise him. Internally reminding himself that he had nothing to be self-conscious about— he was probably the fittest one in this entire room— Riku used the time to do likewise.
The instructor—Sora, was it?— seemed to be a cheerful young man that positively vibrated with excess energy. It wasn't that much of a shock, really, that he could be leading this sort of class. His hair looked almost as annoying as Riku's had once been to take care of in this line of work, and Riku idly wondered if the gel the other was obviously using would be able to make it through whatever Sora was planning on putting it through in the course of the next hour.
Sora was short, or at least, shorter than Riku, but given that puberty had seen fit to give him, as Kairi called it, "a freakishly big growth spurt" that seemed as if it would never stop until he levelled out when he was around nineteen, most people were shorter than Riku
Sora's skin was a deep bronze from long hours presumably spent under the sun, and Riku felt a pang of irrational jealousy at his own skin's inability to see the sun's rays as anything other than the most extreme aggressor. At least Riku could console himself with the fact that, although Sora clearly beat him in melanin production, Riku had the more impressive muscles.
"Right!" Sora smiled, clapping his hands and snapping Riku out of his musings, "Let's Zumba!"
He attached his phone up to the sound system and before long a relatively fast beat was pounding around the room. From Riku's very limited knowledge of what he was about to do, Zumba was an aerobic dance class inspired by some sort of dancing. If pushed he would have hazarded a guess at Latin ballroom, but really he didn't know what he was in for.
"Anyone here new to Zumba?" Sora called over the music, and Riku was slightly distressed to see that he was the only one awkwardly raising a hand. If possible, Sora grinned wider at this new fact, and nodded. "It doesn't matter how ridiculous we look in here, because the more we put in here, the greater we'll look out there! Just follow along and if you're stuck, just make your own moves up!" He laughed and turned the music up before hopping up onto the stage, immediately marching on the spot.
Like an army called to attention, the women around him had, at some point, formed up into distinct lines and began marching as well, copying the bubbly brunette's every movement. Riku sighed and, with a baleful glance over at Kairi who merely hid a laugh behind her hand at his annoyance, began marching on the spot as well.
It was just dancing. How hard could it be?
As it turned out, Zumba was much more than marching on the spot. Soon Sora was bouncing from side-to-side, his hips swaying along with his movements. It was at this point in proceedings that Riku began to realise that he might actually be rather screwed. Never having had much cause to shake his hips in the past, for them to suddenly be called upon to not only shake and sway, but do so in time with music, was rather more than he had been prepared to deal with. Thankfully the good people at Radiant Garden had seen fit to put all these mirrors into the studio, so Riku had a perfect view of how out of time and stiff he was compared to every other person in this room, who moved their hips with a liquid quality Riku hadn't the faintest idea how to achieve.
As if the hips factor wasn't bad enough, Sora opened his arms out wide, gleefully shouting, "Shimmy!" and began doing just that even as his feet were moving in some strange and unfathomable pattern to Riku's already overwhelmed mind. Beside him, Kairi was moving with such perfect precision that she looked as though she could be performing with a girl group later that evening and, Riku thought bitterly, her perfection was highlighting even more painfully his utter helplessness.
When Sora bounced right, the ladies bounced right, when Sora raised his hands in the air and swung them around, so did the ladies, and then Sora rolled his body in a manner that, had Riku not been using all of his brain capacity in a desperate attempt to keep up, he would have considered far too sinful for a mere exercise class.
Three songs in and the only reason Riku had not yet admitted defeat was because he had far too much pride to do so, even though one look at him was proof enough that such pride was in total tatters. While women over twice his age bobbed on the spot, ready for the next song to begin, Riku was falling upon his water bottle with all the gusto of a man deprived of water for a week, his face flaming, his hair stuck unflatteringly against his face with sweat, and practically wheezing.
He was in shock. He could lift weights almost effortlessly, would push himself to do an unthinkable amount of reps, and it wasn't as though he never did cardio as he made it a point to run regularly. So how was he practically on his deathbed after barely fifteen minutes of Zumba? He was out of breath in a way he had never felt before, felt like a veritable waterfall of sweat was drenching him, and muscles that he somehow must have missed in his own sessions were making their presence known and grumbling in a way that suggested they would be screaming and aching tomorrow.
Kairi was eyeing him with far too much amusement for his liking, but she had, to her credit, resisted bursting out laughing. Riku suspected that her admirable self-restraint in this regard was her attempt at lessening his inevitable wrath when he put her through her paces in the weight room. Until then, however, he grit his teeth with the steely determination of one going off to war and determined to return no matter how many limbs ended up being blown off in the ensuing battle, re-joining the ladies and Sora who seemed barely to have broken a sweat.
By the end of it all, Riku wasn't sure what had been the lowest point of the past painful hour. It was a toss-up between when Sora, expertly kicking his legs about in a jive, singled Riku out and called for him to "loosen up", and when a woman in her fifties with her face done-up with heavy make-up to give the illusion that she was in her forties, placed a consoling hand on his sweaty shoulder and told him that he could only get better from here.
It seemed as though Riku possessed that lethal combination of having no dance capabilities, no sense of rhythm, a crippling inability to pick up moves no matter how repetitive they may be, and no stamina for this sort of workout. He would have been doubled over if he hadn't had the forethought to brace his battered body against the wall, his hands out in front of him leaving sweaty imprints on the mirror. It was in this state that Kairi had the sense to not approach him lest he use the last of his energy to murder her for dragging him into this. Sora, however, had no such nous about his murderous intent and bounded up to the taller male once he had bid a dramatic farewell to his adoring female fan club.
"Hi," he greeted, and Riku was at least pleased to note that Sora sounded a little breathless after all that cardio. At least that was something. "I'm Sora. How did you find the class today?"
Riku was almost impressed that Sora had the courage to approach someone whose face was currently redder than the red Zumba vest-top that he wore. There were sweaty patches on the vest and his bronze skin shone with the sheen of sweat, but Sora made the look work all the same whereas Riku honestly felt hideous. He assumed the look he gave to Sora belied this fact as the other laughed sympathetically and clapped a hand on his back that lingered a little longer than it should have. "Don't worry, Zumba is easy to pick up. You'll be a pro in no time."
All Riku could do was muster up a look of the damned. If Zumba was Hell then Satan's name was Sora, and in that moment Sora's encouragement seemed more like mockery. Deciding that he disliked Sora immensely, Riku wheezed something about needing a shower and managed to leave the room with all the grace of a swan. Granted it was a swan that had just finished running a marathon after getting shitfaced the previous night, but a swan nevertheless.
He never wanted to take part in a Zumba class ever again.
x~x~x~x~x
Two days later and he was taking part in a Zumba class again.
His deal with Kairi was only for him to subject himself to the abusive aerobics once, but to never show up again would be to admit defeat. Images of his crimson cheeks and sweat plastered hair had haunted him in his sleep, and as the only man besides the actual instructor in the room, he had no doubt that everyone would remember him. He now needed to ensure that what they remembered wasn't a rhythmically challenged tomato-faced young man with a sweat problem.
This time he was determined that things would turn out differently. For one thing, he now knew what to expect from the class. For another, Kairi had decided that she would rather have a facial than an exercise class today and would, therefore, be absent. This meant that Riku wouldn't have to be dancing next to Kairi channelling Beyoncé, and would instantly look better than his sorry performance the other day.
Sora seemed genuinely surprised to see him there when he bounced into the room. He blinked for a moment before he turned on that blinding grin. "Hey, you came back! It's great to see you again, ah…?"
"Riku," the man supplied, if only so that his newfound adversary could gasp his name in awe of how much better he was going to be today.
"Riku," Sora murmured, an odd sound coming from lips that tended to broadcast everything they said at a pointlessly loud volume. "Well then, Riku, we'll get those hips of yours shaking today for sure."
Whether Sora intended to be cheeky or not was irrelevant to Riku, who took umbrage at the insinuation that they hadn't been shaking the first time around. He had definitely managed it towards the end! Sort of. He told Sora as much, and the brunette merely raised an eyebrow in amusement.
"That so?" he asked, smile benign. "Well then I guess we'll have to work on your ass today." All Riku could muster in response was a shocked splutter and Sora laughed, light and airy. "You have one for a reason, yanno. Gotta shake that too." He winked and then casually hopped away to go and set up the sound system, leaving Riku to ponder over that exchange for far too long.
Was… was that flirting? No, surely not. Sora had just been making fun of him and his (what couldn't rightly be called) dance moves. Well, he'd show him!
"Bring it on," he muttered, eyes ablaze with challenge.
It would be fair to say that Riku did, in fact, show marginal improvement, as long as one did stress the marginal aspect of it. He threw himself into the warm-up like a man with a point to prove, which he was, but whenever he was called upon to wave his arms one way while his body moved the other, he was still going the wrong way to everyone else in the class.
Despite very obviously being a man tasting bitter defeat for the second time in under a week, Riku battled on with steely determination even as Sora put on a track that began with what Riku perceived to be war drums, and he knew, really, that a wiser man would have simply surrendered. Sadly he was not a wiser man and he narrowed his eyes as Sora slowly took them through the moves for 'heads, shoulders, knees, and toes' before calling out, "Let's go!" and as one the class started shaking and shimmying to the right, their legs kicking up with practiced ease while Riku stumbled after them.
The rhythm that Sora possessed in his waist was simply criminal, hypnotising Riku in an entirely unfair way because it was already hard enough to figure out what the heck he was supposed to be doing without Sora's toned bum twerking all over the damn place.
"Can you keep up?" Sora mouthed to the song, and although Riku may have imagined it he was certain that Sora had been looking directly at him while saying it. If that wasn't the instructor throwing down the gauntlet then he didn't know what was, and he rose to the challenge they both knew he was painfully ill equipped to take.
At the end of the hour Riku was pretty sure he hadn't restored his reputation at all if the amused yet pitying looks from his fellow class-goers were anything to go by. He was just as out of breath, just as sweaty, and just as humiliated as the last time, the only difference being that there was a very real possibility Riku's waist would cease to support his upper body and simply collapse due to the stress he had put it through in an attempt to copy Sora's liquid movements.
Said man was currently approaching him with mirth in his eyes and before Riku would allow himself to be subjected to Sora's questioning as to why, after his bravado earlier, his ass had failed to shake and it instead looked as though Riku was having a seizure, he mustered up any remaining energy and practically sprinted out of the room.
x~x~x~x~x
It occurred to Riku that night as he opened up a WikiHow article on hip shaking that this was quite possibly his third defeat, and Sora wasn't even here for this one.
He had to question what had gotten into him as he stood before his bedroom mirror, doing his best to follow the instructions (it had been enlightening, for the article had helpfully informed him that there were different techniques to male and female hip shaking), but one thought of that bronzed, lithe body shimmying around the room while sparkling blue eyes challenged Riku to do the same had him shaking his head and committing himself to the cause of making his body move like water.
x~x~x~x~x
The key problem, Riku surmised during his third Zumba session, was that his body, as with most bodies, was a singular entity. It moved as one because everything was, obviously, connected. Sora, on the other hand, had the uncanny ability to compartmentalise his body, moving in ways that Riku had honestly not thought possible. It was almost as though he was a marionette, his limbs on hinges that allowed them to move independently.
He would intently study Sora's movements, taking in every little flourish of his hands, the graceful movements of his hips, the way his fast footwork looked as though he were walking on air for a moment. The way Sora moved was utterly captivating and that's what made all of this so infuriating, especially when Sora would look over to Riku's jerky imitations and smile at him in a way that Riku read as patronising.
x~x~x~x~x
One evening, when the amount of Zumba classes he had attended had exceeded double figures and Riku distressingly realised that he had somehow become a regular, he invited Kairi over to his place and, with a pleading look, showed her a YouTube video of a Zumba instructor whose moves, while professional and alluring enough, paled in comparison to what Sora pulled out every time he was leading a class.
When Kairi—whose outfit today featured pinks ranging from salmon to candy floss— raised a dainty eyebrow in question, Riku demanded, "Teach me. How do I move like that?"
Kairi blinked and, seeing that slightly desperate look on Riku's face, thought better of laughing and so instead bit her lip in a way she hoped seemed thoughtful and not like she was trying not to roll around on the floor in tears at how seriously Riku was taking all of this.
"Why does this matter?"
"You've seen me in that class!" Riku groaned, "I look ridiculous!"
"You've improved a lot," she pointed out, ignoring the dubious look Riku threw at her.
"Kairi, please," Riku said, changing tack and deciding that flattery would work better than grovelling, "Any time you're in the class you look like a pop star." Kairi preened a little at this and, encouraged, Riku kept on going. "The way you shake your hips puts everyone else in that class to shame. You know I bet, if you wanted to, you could even lead the class. And that thing you do, where you add that subtle shimmy to the cha-cha step?"—oh god he even knew technical terminology now—"Absolutely masterful! Don't think I didn't notice. You're absolutely, without question, the best teacher I could ask for."
Kairi was laughing now, rolling her eyes. "Okay okay I get it. While I do appreciate the praise, though, wouldn't Sora be the better teacher?" Her eyes twinkled and Riku blanched at the suggestion.
"I can't ask him!" Riku practically shouted before calming himself down, "I-I mean, the guy clearly thinks I'm a joke, and I need to prove him wrong! You've seen the way he calls me out, right? What kind of man would I be if I just backed down and didn't rise to his challenge? Just once I want to stand there triumphantly at the end of a lesson while Sora looks at me in awe because I proved him wrong!"
"So what you're saying is, you want to dance all pretty and sexy for Sora?"
"Yes- wait— no!" He gave Kairi a scandalised look. "Did you not listen to what I just said? This is a challenge! A rivalry! I'll make that smug bastard rue the day he asked me to shake my ass by shaking it better than anyone else!" He paused, quickly lifting his hand up as Kairi, a salacious smile on her lips, opened her mouth to talk. "Don't. Say. A word. I didn't mean it like that."
"Of course you didn't," she replied, that smile growing even wider. "Well then, if you're going to show Sora who's boss with your killer dance moves, we'd better get started."
Riku didn't appreciate the way Kairi would keep shooting him suggestive looks, but he did appreciate her patience that night.
"You're way too much in your head," she patiently explained, "You need to stop caring what you look like and just let go. Throw yourself into the move with the confidence that you are the star and loosen up! Um… Riku? Okay yeah maybe that's too loose. Okay how about this…"
x~x~x~x~x
Today was the day.
He had been to far too many Zumba classes to count at this point, and for the past month Kairi had coached him for a couple of nights per week in exchange for him treating her to those sugary coffee monstrosities she favoured.
Coach Kairi, decked out in fuchsia exercise gear with bubble-gum accents, was here to support her student, assuring him that today Sora would definitely be looking at him for all of the right reasons as opposed to because Riku nearly tripped over his own two feet (again).
Sora himself skipped in with his usual exuberance, waving cheerily to everyone in the class and pausing briefly to regard Riku, who was currently in a side lunge and stretching as if he were about to compete for his country in the Olympic Games. Sora pressed on to the sound system, the excess material of his baggy exercise pants pooling around his legs. When he was dancing, the material seemed to billow along with his movements in an impressive display, but Riku couldn't help but notice that Sora's Capri pants kept getting baggier in more recent weeks.
Sora's exercise aesthetic aside, Riku was determined to settle the score once and for all.
(Even though, really, this would be his first win out of numerous losses, but one victory was enough, he felt).
The warm-up music started and Riku moved to it easily, long used to the motions and the rhythm by now, and aided by Kairi's training. Once the warm-up was done and Sora launched into a high-energy, fast paced merengue, Riku threw himself into the class with a performance that he believed showcased a sort of seductive insouciance, but Kairi would later assert displayed the tenacity of a stripper who had gotten wind of there being a billionaire in the room and was determined to milk him for all he was worth.
Riku's hips, liberated from the constraints that had bound them all those weeks ago, now moved to the beat with abandon. Riku shook them in a way that would make Shakira eat her heart out; if her hips didn't lie then right now Riku's were going into painfully laborious detail on every aspect of the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. He even began to embellish his moves: just as Kairi would insert the odd sensual shimmy here and there, Riku would briefly run his hands over his thighs or up his torso, and as he ran a hand through his slightly sweaty hair and smirked up at Sora, he scored his first victory as the instructor, for possibly the first time in his life, faltered in his salsa step.
'How do you like that?' Riku thought triumphantly, shooting a quick, prideful glance over to Kairi, who was watching this whole thing unfold with an unreadable expression.
Sora recovered quickly enough, jumping off of the stage with a practiced flair and leading the class from within their ranks, something he usually preferred to do as it allowed him to pick a dance partner every now and then and the woman in question would laugh and flush a little as Sora led them in an energetic two-step for a bit.
Riku wondered if Sora had deliberately picked a punishing set for today's lesson, but no matter how high-octane it got, Riku was not only keeping up but ensuring that even if Sora may have his back to him, there was only one person he'd be paying attention to in the mirror. The copious amount of Zumba classes he had done had actually done wonders for Riku's dance stamina, and no longer was he practically passed out after only two songs.
For the next track, Sora divided the room down the middle and made the two sides face each other. Usually Riku would try and stick near the back of the studio, and way off to the side to try and remain somewhat inconspicuous. Today, however, he was front and centre, which also meant that he was now unintentionally heading up his half of the room while Sora and his side faced off against them.
Sora grinned, but it was less sunny and more cocky, goading Riku on, who now felt confident enough to successfully smash the challenge.
The song kicked in. A samba.
Riku's feet knew the basic steps and he did them with a few personal touches—a little extra flick of his feet here, a subtle roll of his body there. As the song built up into the chorus Riku explicitly called Sora out, pointing at him before making a 'come hither' motion by crooking his finger. Sora raised an eyebrow before kicking the energy up a notch and beginning to move in a way that he surely didn't expect anyone else in the room to keep up with. He flung his arms out in various complicated patterns while he circled his hips in a way that might have made Riku groan had he not been too focused on completely crushing the man before him. The women valiantly attempted to copy whatever it was that Sora was doing, but the man was channelling water, body fluid and smooth and flowing everywhere, and Riku realised that he couldn't do that and so went completely off-script by doing his own thing.
If Kairi was to be believed, and Riku was adamant that in this matter she was not, then it was at this point that Riku ceased being a stripper attempting to fleece a billionaire with his moves and instead transitioned into something she called "the dance equivalent of soft-core porn". Sora may have had fancy footwork and years of dance experience on his side, but Riku possessed the ability to lose all sense of perspective when it came to the instructor before him, and his sheer stubbornness and will to win saw him drop his ass down to the floor before taking his sweet time milking his subsequent ascent. Riku grabbed the hem of his exercise top and brought it up to quickly mop at some sweat on his cheek, but really it was just an excuse to expose his abs to his audience. He flung his hands in the air, tangling them in his hair and messing up the silver strands more than he usually dared, before smoothing them down his waist and hips. He was planning on repeating the motion if not for the flash of a red shirt and spiky hair suddenly crowding his vision.
As he was moving to bring his hands back up, Sora grabbed them and Riku felt a jolt of electricity run through his body. Sora had never chosen him to be his dance partner before, and the heated gaze of pure blue flame suddenly directed at him caused his face to feel a heat that wasn't altogether down to the vigorous dancing he had been doing.
Before he could think on this any further Sora was leading him in a sensuous samba, their bodies so close that they were almost touching. Usually these impromptu dance partnerships lasted about twenty seconds and were conducted at arms length, so for Riku to be so close to Sora that he could feel the body heat radiating from him was not only unexpected, it was making him dizzy. He did his best to keep up, not willing to be outdone just because Sora, as the instructor, was leading. Riku had totally forgotten that there were other people in the room with them as they whirled around the room, footsteps perfectly in sync and their bodies separating before coming together even closer than before. At one point when Riku rolled his hips unthinkingly he accidentally ended up partially grinding against Sora, who muttered something under his breath that was inaudible due to the loud music but he spun Riku around before bringing their chests together.
The song ended and the next began, but the two of them stood there, all boundaries of personal space having long been forsaken, and stared at each other as they took in deep breaths. As Riku looked down into Sora's blazing azure eyes, a realisation struck him with such intensity that he jerked back suddenly, shattering the moment.
Oh shit. Sora was attractive and brilliant and Riku liked him.
Riku was so busy reeling from the fact that the man he had dedicated the last few months of his life to beating, constructing a whole rivalry out of it, was actually someone he was pretty powerfully attracted to, that he failed to notice the way that Sora's previously hooded gaze widened in shock before he awkwardly fiddled with the hem of his loose Capris, repositioning them before stiffly heading back to the stage to continue on with the lesson.
Riku's dancing was a lot more subdued after that, and even Sora seemed to be slightly lacking in energy, his cheeks a deep crimson. When the class ended Riku was quick to scoop up his belongings and hightail it to the gym, avoiding Kairi and definitely avoiding Sora.
He needed time to come to terms with his monumental realisation and the more he thought back on how he had conducted himself in all of the Zumba classes, Riku thought that he genuinely might die of embarrassment.
Maybe being crushed to death during a bench press wasn't so bad after all.
x~x~x~x~x
If one thing had become startlingly clear to Riku in the days following his acknowledgement of how he truly felt about Sora, it was this: Zumba had been fun.
Pushing himself to get better, seeing Sora smiling brightly each class, his late-night dance sessions with Kairi, even making a complete fool out of himself, all of it had been a lot more fun than he'd had in a long time. Somewhere along the line his resentment towards the class had turned into anticipation, not just of seeing Sora again, but of actually being able to let loose and dance for an hour (even if the majority of his time thus far could hardly be categorised as 'dancing').
And now his feelings were ruining it.
Back when he was convinced that Sora found amusement in his failings and was therefore a rival that needed to be taught a lesson, it was easy to turn up and exchange banter and throw himself into the class. But now, when just the thought of Sora made Riku feel all unbalanced and weird inside, there was no way he could keep doing what he had been doing.
And was there really any point to continuing it? He had proven his point, hadn't he? Technically he had scored the victory he had desperately craved, and yet as he scurried past studio 3 to head to the gym, he felt like he had suffered the ultimate defeat.
"Oh, hey, Riku!"
Riku stopped, biting his lip before schooling his face into something he hoped was casual and slowly turned around, eyeing the man who had called out to him. Sora ran up, ever the ball of energy, and shot him a smile that seemed just a tad strained.
"Are you coming to class today?"
Riku glanced away, running a hand through his hair as he said, "Sorry, I've got a client booked for now, so I can't make it." Over the course of their relationship (what relationship? Student and teacher? Rivals, even if only one considered them as such? Acquaintances? Hardly friends…) Sora had learnt of his position as a personal trainer at Radiant Garden, but they never seemed to cross paths outside of Zumba.
Sora deflated a little and let out an uncharacteristically muted, "Oh," before trying to perk up. "Then, what about tomorrow's class?"
Riku's heart ached even as it did summersaults in the other's presence. He could barely hold a conversation right now, so how was he meant to make it through an entire hour of Zumba?
"I have a client booked in for then as well," he replied, before bowing his head and excusing himself before Sora could say anything else.
x~x~x~x~x
"You're ridiculous," Kairi said from where she sat, cross-legged, on an exercise mat. Her outfit today was neon pink with a rose-print design, such roses being a much softer blush shade. She regarded Riku, who was dedicatedly doing a set of bicep curls and doing his best to ignore anything she was saying. "You're just making yourself miserable."
Riku grunted, both from the exertion and as tacit acknowledgement of the fact that Kairi was speaking, and she carried on.
"He keeps asking me when you'll be coming to Zumba again, you know." Riku felt a pang of guilt at that, his rhythm faltering slightly. "I'm certain he likes you back."
"I don't—" Riku said through gritted teeth, but Kairi cut him off in such a way as to tell him she didn't have time for his bullshit. He sighed, putting the weights down, and gazed critically at himself in the mirror as he stretched his arms out. "It's not that simple."
"Yes it is," she insisted, "It's always that simple, but you just go into this weird self-destructive mode."
That was unnecessarily cruel. Way back when, Kairi had been the first person he had come out to. Well, sort of. It was less of an admission of him being gay and more of a confession that he wasn't attracted to women. While his crushes had always been on males, they were so few and far between that Riku wasn't even sure his usually absent sexuality even deserved a name. This did mean, however, that whenever Riku did end up feeling attracted to someone, it was with such intensity that he quite literally had no idea what to do with himself. He'd be so much in his head and overthinking every aspect of how he should behave and act that he would end up avoiding the object of his affections just to get a break from the stress of figuring out what he was meant to do in their presence. Naturally this self-sabotage never resulted in him 'getting the guy' and Kairi was usually the one who had to do damage control and stop Riku from consuming his own bodyweight in sea salt ice cream. Still, she knew he was useless in these situations, so calling him out on it was just adding insult to injury.
She seemed to have realised this and sighed, fiddling with a strand of her hair. "Sorry," she said, voice softer now, "It's just so frustrating, especially this time. That entire class was basically the two of you engaging in foreplay—" she ignored Riku's mortified and embarrassed groan— "and it's obvious there's an attraction, so for you to run away now is just…" She sighed again, standing up and shaking out her legs. "I think that this could lead somewhere great. Sora is just the type of guy you need to balance out your… you-ness," she said, giggling a little when this caused Riku to half-heartedly bat at her. "Stop running and just talk to him, okay?"
"But what if I say something wrong and look like an idiot?"
Kairi fixed him with a pointed look. "I hate to break it to you, Riku, but no matter what you end up doing, you can't look like any more of an idiot than you did in that first Zumba session."
x~x~x~x~x
Riku sighed as hot water cascaded down his body, soothing his aching muscles from the punishing workout he had been subjecting them to as of late.
Two weeks. It had been two weeks since his conversation with Kairi, and he hadn't talked to Sora in all of that time. Instead, Riku had thrown himself into work, taking on more clients and coming up with new regimens for himself that were borderline reckless.
Despite Kairi's words of wisdom, it was a lot easier in theory to talk to Sora than it was to rock up to a Zumba class and casually strike up a conversation. Whenever Riku replayed in his mind the last class he had been in and relived the shameless way he had danced, he was overcome with a paralysing mortification.
He had freaking grinded against Sora! How was he meant to make any sort of casual conversation now?!
After a few minutes of mentally berating himself he turned off the water and stepped out of the stall, wrapping a fluffy towel around his waist. Radiant Garden, being an upmarket resort-spa, had luxury facilities that staff were allowed to take advantage of. The changing rooms were no exception, with spacious shower stalls and tasteful artwork on the walls. Each locker was programmable with a personal code for its current user and plush stools lined one of the walls that had numerous backlit mirrors built into it.
Riku found that it was a pretty swanky place to come and have broody showers.
He was gazing into one of the mirrors and fiddling with a strand of his hair, wondering if he should blow-dry or towel-dry it, when the door opened and someone else came in. It was rather late and people didn't tend to shower at this time, which is why Riku favoured it, but he inclined his head to greet whoever it was.
His greeting got stuck in his throat when a tired-looking Sora wandered in, his spiky hair wilting a bit and his exercise gear covered in the tell-tale sweat patches of a good workout. Sora, presumably having heard the croak of what was supposed to be Riku's greeting, looked up and stopped in his tracks. He stared at Riku, almost as if not believing he was actually stood there, and the weight of that gaze taking him in, very obviously giving him a once over, caused Riku to flush (he would later attribute it to the after-effects of his hot shower) and wish he was more modestly dressed. Sora's eyes seemed glued to his towel for a few long seconds before he shook his head, as if remembering himself, and plastered on a smile.
"Hi, Riku."
"Hey," Riku managed, having retrieved his voice. "Good workout?" he asked lamely, not sure what else to say.
Sora hummed out a yes, moving further into the room and keying in a code for one of the lockers. "I stayed later than usual to go over the steps for a new song that I want to debut next week…" A pause. "I missed you in class today," he said carefully.
Riku bit his lip, shuffling on his feet. "Yeah, well, you know. Clients." Sora hummed again in a way that belied that he didn't believe that Riku coincidentally had all of these new clients that just so happened to want personal training during the exact timings of his Zumba classes, especially when Riku had been attending them pretty religiously before.
Sora faced his locker and lifted his shirt over his head, revealing his toned back to Riku, who gulped and quickly looked over to some of the artwork on the walls. He heard Sora shuffling around some items in his locker before he sighed.
"Are you avoiding me?" he asked, and Riku's blood ran cold.
"Sorry," he mumbled, pathetic.
Suddenly Sora was in front of him, crowding his personal space and causing Riku to back up. When he felt the plush material of one of the stools hit the back of his legs he had nowhere else to go, nowhere else to run to. Sora was gazing up at him, eyes so open and earnest, looking pained.
"Did I do something wrong?" he asked in a subdued voice that made Riku feel wretched. This was all his fault.
"No!" Riku said hurriedly. "It's not you, it's—I just—!"
What was he supposed to say? That he had decided on the day they met that he disliked Sora with everything he possessed and went and invented some strange rivalry in which he planned to achieve victory by actually becoming good at Zumba, and then along the way realised that his fixation with doing well and 'sticking it to Sora' was actually his own stubbornness disguising the fact that from that very first instant, Riku had been desperately attracted to the bouncy Zumba instructor and had craved his attention? It was all so ludicrous and pathetic that he couldn't possibly voice any of that!
Sora, perhaps sensing the fact that Riku's mind was dealing with a mini meltdown, pressed on.
"Did I read it all wrong?" he asked, his voice quieter now.
"What?" Riku just about croaked out.
"I thought I was being obvious," Sora said, a sort of amused bitterness painting his tone, "I've never had to flirt so blatantly before, but you kept coming back and looking at me in a way that made me think you were fine with it, or, you know… enjoyed it." He clicked his tongue in frustration, "But you're pretty hard to read, Riku. I didn't know if you liked me or couldn't stand me, if you knew what you were doing or were completely oblivious to all of it."
Riku was doing his best to keep up, he really was, but when Sora was inches from him and essentially had him pressed against a wall, his blue gaze never wavering, it was hard to puzzle all of this out.
"What I was doing?" He had wanted to get better at Zumba and show Sora who was boss. That's what he had been doing, right?
Sora laughed in disbelief. "Do you have any idea what it was like to stay focused on teaching a class when you were there, deliberately messing up all of my moves?" Riku wanted to point out that it wasn't deliberate, he really was just that useless, but Sora continued, "Looking so awkward and so cute."
Wait. Cute? Riku had been called a lot of things, but 'cute' wasn't one of them. In fact, it was an adjective that he would be inclined to apply to Sora, but not himself.
"Gods you were so distracting," Sora groaned. "My eyes kept gravitating over to you and you'd look back with this fire in your eyes and I wasn't sure if you were asking me to ravage you or start a fight with you." Riku cringed. Had he really seemed so desperate? So thirsty? His pride was never going to recover from this.
"And then, that day, the way you danced, it—" Sora took a shaky breath and moaned out a quiet "fuck" that Riku didn't think he was supposed to hear. "Do you have any idea what you do to me, Riku?" His voice was low, his eyes half lidded, and Riku's heartbeat was pounding in his ears as Sora was leaning up and he himself was leaning down, their lips so close that he could feel Sora's heated breath against his lips. Their chests touched and that same electric jolt shot through Riku's body as he suddenly became hyper aware of the fact that he was clad in only a towel and Sora was currently shirtless. He let out a breathy gasp, pushing into the other to increase the skin-on-skin contact, and Sora's breath hitched. "Riku, I—"
Someone bustled into the changing room at that point, making an almost comical amount of noise. For a split second Sora scowled, the expression alien on a face that was usually so cheerful, but then he quickly drew back, running his hand through his droopy spikes as he turned around to assess who had interrupted at such a crucial moment.
Riku, for his part, wasn't sure if he was incredibly relieved or bitterly disappointed at the intrusion.
It was the caretaker, wielding a trolley full of cleaning equipment, and both of them sensed that it was hardly reasonable to kick the poor guy out just for doing his job. They were here rather late, after all.
Sora's shoulders dropped in defeat and the look that Riku had thought he had wanted to see Sora wear didn't suit him at all.
"The weekend," he suddenly blurted before he could really think about it. His chest was still hot from where Sora had been pressed against him and his heart was beating so hard it was nearly painful.
Sora looked over to him, confused, and Riku decided that he really couldn't stand to let Sora become his latest romantic sob story to be gotten over with copious amounts of sea salt ice cream without at least trying.
"Um, are you busy then?" he asked. "We could do something," he suggested, mind desperately trying to remember what it was that people typically did on dates. "Food? I-I can treat. I guess I kinda owe you after, well, everything."
For one horrifying moment Riku was convinced that Sora would shoot him and his hopes down, but then the man smiled brighter than he ever had before, and his voice was pure melody as he said that he'd love to, it was a date.
The happiness that Riku felt in that moment was indescribable.
x~x~x~x~x
One week later and Riku made a mental note to never second-guess his first instincts.
Sora was utterly evil, the most heinous of rivals, and someone who needed to be brought down a peg or two. This fact was inescapable as Riku bravely limped his way through the Zumba class Sora had guilted him into attending again, his hips and ass protesting loudly at having to shake their way through a damn samba when they'd already been worked overtime the night before.
Riku was pretty sure his sadist of a boyfriend was punishing him for having dared avoid his Zumba class.
Sora, the smug bastard, was bounding about the stage and the room with an extra bounce in his step, positively glowing with the air of a man refreshed and fully energised. Occasionally he'd look over to Riku and get this self-satisfied look on his face that made Riku's cheeks heat up in embarrassment and indignation and caused Kairi, who was bopping along next to him and deriving far too much amusement from the pair of them, to burst out laughing.
Riku just smirked darkly to himself. Let's see if she was still laughing after he finally made her uphold her end of their deal and put her through the most intense one-on-one workout of her life.
Although, Riku reluctantly conceded, all of his punishing routines paled in comparison to the vigorous nightly 'workouts' Sora had been subjecting him to.
(And, despite his outward seething, he'd be lying if he said they weren't his new favourite form of exercise.)
x~x~x~x~x
Comments are appreciated :)
If it wasn't obvious, I think Zumba is great fun and everyone should give it a go. Shake it 'til ya make it!
May your lives be blessed with bountiful SoRiku goodness~