Sitting forward, Riku dusts off the computer screen with the sleeve of his oversized hoodie. The blue fabric is starting to fray apart around the wrists and elbows, but he wears it anyway. Almost without thinking, his fingers brush the paint splattered on the shoulders. Standing out in stark relief against the fabric are two white handprints.

A small smile tugs at his lips, memories of the distant day surfacing.

A bright smile, behind which are two even brighter blue eyes. Laughter, floating on the gentle breeze. Warm sunshine and warm feelings inside. Two small hands slapping excitedly on his shoulders, followed by the voice he's known for what seems like all his life.

"Hey Riku!" Sora said, a sheepish grin on his face. "I'm basically done!" His eyes widened slightly as he took in the dripping white handprints now gracing Riku's favorite blue hoodie. Sora looked down at his own hands, covered with incriminating paint, and then back up at Riku. His smile turned sheepish.

Riku inspected the marks, then let his sleeve drop and shrugged loosely. "It's not a big deal."

"But that sweater's your favorite!" Sora protested, gesturing widely and flinging white paint in every direction.

"It still is," said Riku. "So what if you got fence paint all over it? Now I have something to guilt-trip you with."

Sora went to the side of the house and turned on the garden hose, leaving smears of paint all over it. He ran icy-cold water over his hands, trying without success to scrub them clean.

Riku retrieved the paper towels from the kitchen and ambled over to where Sora was succeeding in drenching himself thoroughly. "Here," he said, offering the towels. Sora wiped at his hands, somehow managing to end up with a streak of white down his cheek and a blotch slowly dripping down his knee. Riku shook his head, fighting an urge to laugh. The look on Sora's face was akin to that of a puppy during bath time.

Eventually deciding he was clean enough, Sora popped to his feet and shook himself off. Water sprayed everywhere. "Well, I guess we should maybe finish with painting the fence," he said. Most of the boards were already white and drying in the sun, but there were a few brown ones near the end that still needed to be done. The grass was streaked white beneath the sections Sora had done, and splotches of the original color showed through. Riku's, on the other hand, were evenly covered with not a stray brushstroke marring their surface.

"We?" said Riku, smirking. "Last time I checked, my side's done."

Sora harrumphed and shrugged, not affected in the least. Instead of picking up a brush, though, he spun on his heel and went to the gate.

"Come on, Riku! Let's get ice cream! Roxas said he'd meet us the park when we were done with the fence."

"But the fence isn't..."

Riku trailed off. He looked at the fence, then down at his hoodie, and then at the garden hose - all of which were liberally daubed with Sora's handprints. Screw the fence. Getting Sora away from anything to do with paint was definitely the smartest thing to do.

He ruffled Sora's hair. "Sure, why not? I think you've left enough memories on my hoodie for now."

Sora grinned and ran out the gate, blue eyes alight. "We'll make more later!" Hoping that making more memories would not involve Sora managing to get sea-salt ice cream on his hoodie, Riku followed.

The doorbell rings. Shaking himself free of the memories, Riku pushes the chair back and gets up, hands burrowing back into the worn sleeves of his hoodie. Stretched by time, they cover all but the tips of his long fingers. Only by long practice is he able to turn the doorknob.

"Hi," he says as the door swings open.

"Hey," says Roxas. His perpetual toque covers his blond hair; Riku is sure he has more different toques than Sora has ways of getting into trouble. "You've really got to stop locking me out one of these days." A small smile takes any possible sting out of his words.

"How about you start remembering your keys?" says Riku. "You're an adult and I still have to remind you about all this stuff. You make me feel old!"

"Heh, sorry," Roxas says. He's already halfway to the refrigerator, no doubt making a beeline for the leftover chicken stew Namine brought over the day before. The comforting sounds of clanking dishes and the microwave float out from the kitchen. Riku smiles and goes back into the living room, sweeping Roxas' abandoned textbooks off to the side before sinking onto the couch and curling his feet underneath him.

Sora has always said that Riku looks like a monk when he sits like that.

"Meditating again?"

Riku looked up from the couch, where he'd been sitting for the past hour in the company of his Playstation. He paused the game and raised a questioning eyebrow at Sora.

"You always sit with your legs kind of crossed underneath you, but not really. Like one of those monks with the little caps who do this." Sora plunked himself cross-legged on the floor with his hands arranged on his knees. He sat up tall, closed his eyes, and made a low humming noise before cracking an eyelid and peering at Riku.

"I do?" Riku had never really paid attention to anyone's sitting habits, much less his own.

"Yep!" Sora, already bored with pretending to be a monk, crossed to the cabinet and pulled out another controller, managing to get the cord hopelessly tangled on his way back to the couch. With a sigh that he really didn't mean, Riku uncurled his feet. The springs gave a tired sigh as he got up to correct yet another of Sora's messes.

Out of the corner of his eye, he could see Sora attempting to mimic his posture. He finally managed to twist himself into something that looked more than a little bit uncomfortable, only to lose his balance and topple onto the floor. He grinned from his upside-down position. "Okay, I'm ready!" he said. His bright blue eyes were alight, reflecting his smile.

Riku snorted. "You're never going to beat me sitting like that," he pointed out. Sora made a face, but hopped onto the couch and sat on his heels. The cushions twitched up and down with his excited bouncing. Riku smiled. Sora would never beat him anyway, regardless of how he was sitting, but it was fun to watch him try.

The Playstation sits in the corner, cables wound neatly with twist ties and tucked alongside. Riku gets off the couch, the springs sighing predictably, and goes over to brush a finger along the surface. A thin line of darker black shows through the gray of the dust that has gathered along the top. Riku looks out the window, half expecting to see rain. The sunshine seems out of place, wrong somehow, when there isn't a certain pair of blue eyes to hold the brightest rays in their depths.

A picture stands in its frame on the windowsill. Picking it up, Riku studies it, though he's seen it so many times before. He doesn't hear Roxas calling from the kitchen until something pokes him in the shoulder.

"I said, do you want coffee?" Roxas says, the tone of his voice suggesting that he's already asked the same question more than once. He holds an empty coffee pot in one hand and several sticks of licorice in the other.

Quickly setting down the frame on the sill behind him, Riku crosses his arms and summons a smile. "The coffee's coming out, huh?"

"Yes," Roxas growls. He glares at the pile of textbooks and scattered papers on the end of the couch.

"How many papers do you have to write this time?" Riku asks. His roommate hates coffee. Riku knows perfectly well that Roxas only drinks it when he's juggling at least three assignments - all due within the week.

"Two papers and a presentation," says Roxas.

Riku winces. "You can have the whole pot."

Nodding, Roxas gnaws at a stick of licorice and wanders back to the kitchen. Riku can hear the sound of running water and the gurgle of the ancient coffee machine. The scent wafts through the house, and Riku can imagine the disgusted look on Roxas' face.

Eventually, Roxas comes back into the living room, balancing a large mug full of coffee thick enough to be pudding in one hand and a plate of cookies in the other.

"Where did those come from?" Riku demands. They're chocolate oatmeal, the kind he and Sora used to bake - or burn - as kids.

"Namine felt sorry for me," says Roxas, his mouth already full as he plunks down on the couch and snags a textbook. He pats his pockets for a few seconds before realizing that he's left his glasses behind. He gets up, and with a look at Riku, says, "Don't. Touch. The. Cookies." He darts into the kitchen, nearly losing a sock in the process.

Riku snorts. Roxas might be fast, but he's faster. Snatching a cookie from the plate, he beats a hasty retreat from the living room and dashes up the stairs to the relative safety of his room. He can vaguely hear Roxas uttering threats from downstairs.

Flopping onto his bed, Riku nibbles at the cookie. He stares up at the walls, plastered with photos of his friends, at the 5x7 tacked above his scratched wooden headboard.

No photo can ever truly capture Sora's eyes. The color is there, but the inner fire never is. Riku thinks it makes him look lifeless, like a doll with a beatific smile and dead eyes. He rubs his thumbs over the worn blue material of his hoodie, just looking at the photo: the two of them in the park with Roxas, smiling and laughing. Sora's ice cream melting off its stick. Roxas with his toque on in the middle of summer, blond hair poking out beneath it. And himself, half-grin on his face and Sora's handprints drying in fence paint on the arms of his favorite hoodie.

All memories.

Riku sits up and tucks his feet beneath him, pulling out the sleeve of his hoodie so he can look at it.

"You okay?"

Startled, Riku jerks his hand away from the print and turns his head to find Roxas standing in the doorway with another cup full of pudding-coffee.

"Yeah," Riku says, his voice cracking on the word.

Roxas comes over and sits on the bed next to Riku, setting his mug on the desk after nearly spilling it all over the blankets.

"I've always wondered why you kept that picture," Roxas says, his voice quiet. "And the one downstairs."

Riku says nothing. Nothing ever stays the same. Things are different, too different. They can both pretend they've dealt with it, but shoving thoughts and emotions in a corner and letting them collect dust only works until you wipe the dust off and see what used to be underneath.

"I should get back to work," says Roxas, pushing himself off the bed and retrieving his coffee. He pauses in the doorway and half-turns. "I'll forgive you for the cookie."

Riku nods, not entirely trusting his voice to work properly. Roxas pads down the steps, trailing the scent of paper and too-sweet coffee.

It's been ten years and still Riku can't stop hoping that, one day, he'll see the sun in a pair of blue eyes just one more time.

"I think you've left enough memories on my hoodie for now."

"We'll make more later!"

Those words, spoken so long ago in the purest meaning of friendship and love. Riku wraps his arms around his calves and rests his chin on knees.

Though the times we shared together are dead to all but my memories, I still remember you. How could I not? Your fingerprints aren't just on my hoodie - they're on my heart, too.