Worms and Monkeys

It was one of those rare days of just the three of them: Sora, Kairi, and Riku. Tidus and Wakka were surfing on the main beach, Kairi's friends were gone to the mall, and Sora had refused to let Riku go to his books so soon. The three lay in the sand side by side, the waves coming up to lick at their bare feet. The warmth of the sun wriggled along their bare skin as they listened to the kids playing not too far away.

The island had long stopped being theirs. The three of them were unsure when, but somewhere along the way a younger generation had inherited it as their own. Kairi had told Sora that it was because of how little they visited the island since their lives had become so busy. Riku had said it was a part of growing up. Sora still believed it had happened when they stopped fitting into the secret place.

The days of the three of them together were becoming fewer and fewer. So unlike a few months before.

When they first returned, they had clung to each other. Sora became Riku's shadow, afraid his best friend would disappear if he looked away for too long. Although there wasn't much shadowing for Sora to so since Riku never strayed far from his side. And the string of steel that was their fate and their past always drew Kairi to the boys.

Sora listened to the kids laughing and screaming. There was a group of three that reminded him of himself, Kairi, and Riku when they were younger. They made him smile and remember, and be glad that they wouldn't see the darkness he and his friends had.

Sora smiled. "Would you ever eat a worm?" he asked his friends.

Kairi laughed. "Ew, Sora! That's gross!" Her voice held the same tone of disapproval it had all those years ago when she had called him a lazy bum for sleeping on the beach instead of working on the raft. Without thinking, Sora reached out, grabbed her hand, squeezed. She returned his grip and he sighed.

At first, they made it a point to see each other during the school day. Sora and Kairi would meet by the bathrooms and clasp hands. Sora would hold on as if the world would fall away without Kairi to act as an anchor. Then Sora would find Riku to eat lunch with, and sit close enough to the other boy that they were always touching, just to be sure the other was real. And Riku would laugh and tease, but let him.

"So you wouldn't eat worms, Kairi?" Riku asked, sitting half-up to be able to see her past Sora.

"No way," Kairi said. She shook her head and squeezed her eyes shut, as if trying to erase the thought. Sora thought that Tidus would probably eat worms and maybe Wakka if he was pushed enough. But Tidus would do it just to gross someone like Kairi out.

Sora listened to Riku laugh and smiled. It was so much like the laugh he had before kingdom hearts, before he believed himself to be some type of monster.

With his other hand, he grabbed Riku's and squeezed. The other boy also returned his grip and he sighed again. Riku and Kairi were a piece of his solace and sanity. They were proof it all happened. When he was alone, all he had were his memories and his restlessness. And he often worried about his memories being nothing more than remembered dreams.

It was a shared worry. It was part of what had driven them to the island night after night for months on end. Restless and unsure, having woken from nightmares of battles already won, Sora would climb out his window to go for a walk that always ended with him on the island. It was the place where it all began, and the place where it ended. Most times, Riku would already be there, sitting on the beach and staring out into the ocean. Sora wondered if he saw the black sea they had been staring at before they found the bottle with the message that led them to the door of light. Sora never asked. Once the two of them were together, it was never too long before Kairi was pulled to them by the string of steel that bound them.

There were days when Sora came close to telling Tidus and Wakka. He was sure one of them would understand at least a little if not all. But he didn't have the heart to tell his care-free friends that they had been dead for at least a year and didn't realize it. He didn't think it was fair to let them know that they should be a year older than they were, and that he was actually now several years older than them both. So he kept his mouth shut and enjoyed his time with them instead.

"What if you were offered money to eat worms?" Riku furthered the question with a stretch in the sand. Sora could feel his skin tingling with the beginning of a sunburn, and he fought the urge to move. He had a hold of both Kairi and Riku; both solid and real. He wondered when the last time that happened.

The meetings in school had dissolved into knowing smiles and glances, small passed notes, and pats on the head. The late night visits to the island had slowly stopped. Sora could get through his nightmares on his own now, and so could they.

Sora's days still revolved around the beach, the sun, and the ocean. From the moment school let out until the sun went down, he was in the water. He, Tidus, and Wakka surfed and pulled tricks for the bystanders on the sand. When the waves were low or the sun began to set, they would sit on the beach with their boards and do all the day's homework before they returned home tired, wet and smelling like salt and sweat. Sometime's Sora's mother would come looking for him, telling him dinner was ready and to do his homework before surfing.

On the walk home, Sora would sometimes see Kairi returning from afterschool activities. She had joined the Jr. Red Cross in the time he and Riku were away. She said that when she lost her memory of them that she felt as if she needed to save someone. Sora had nodded. She had never liked being helpless. On those days, he would call to her and walk her the rest of the way home. They were often silent, comfortable together without words. Then, at her doorstep, he would place a chaste kiss on her cheek before turning and running home.

Other times he would see her returning home with some girls from school. Their arms would be loaded with shopping bags and giggles would be echoing down the small street. Sora wouldn't call to her on those days, but smile to himself and continue on his way.

Sora had to pass Riku's house on his way home. It was unavoidable since they lived so near each other. Walking by, Sora would always see Riku's bedroom light on, the top of Riku's head as he was bent in concentration on some homework problem. Riku was determined to go to a good college, and to do so he needed to study and catch up on the years he had missed. Every once in a while, Sora would throw a small stone at his friend's window, a small tap to get his attention so Sora could wave. Sometimes, Sora didn't have to throw a pebble because Riku was already watching him walk back from Kairi's.

"Not even for money would I eat worms, Riku," Kairi said as she switched Sora's hand to her other and flipped to lie on her stomach. Sand clung to her bare shoulder, grains sprinkled from her red hair. Leaning on her elbows, right hand still holding Sora's left, she looked over Sora to the older teen. "Would you?"

"Depends on how much money is being offered," Riku replied with a shrug. "I'd eat worms everyday if it put me through college."

The three fell silent for a moment. After Riku passed his college entrance exam, he would be leaving for a place far, far away from Destiny Islands. He said he wanted to see the rest of what he had almost permanently destroyed. Sora knew that the other boy believed that darkness still clung to some part of their world. Riku looked at things closer than he used to, analyzed every aspect of his surroundings as if searching for the taint that was surely there.

Sora often saw him doing this and always wanted to tell him to stop, tell him that the darkness wasn't there anymore, that the world was full of light and okay and undamaged. But he never did. Maybe because he was partially afraid that the darkness was there and that he would miss it as he was wrapped in the security of his friends, his family, school, and the beach.

So Riku would leave in search of darkness once more, only this time he would be hoping not to find it. And Sora was going to let his friend go without a fight because Riku had to see the purity of the world for himself. Once, Sora would have argued and begged for the other to stay, or demanded he wait for him and for Kairi. But Sora couldn't ask his friend to wait when he never planned on leaving.

Riku nudged his arm. "What about you, Sora?" he asked.

"Huh?" Sora said, pulling his gaze away from the blue, blue sky to look into his friend's green eyes.

"God, you're spacey, Sora!" Kairi laughed with a slap to his hand. Wakka said the same thing to him every day. Sometimes it was for little things like forgetting sunscreen lotion, other times it was for big things, like going to surf without his surfboard. His mind liked to take small vacations through the day, and he wasn't sure when it had begun happening. It just did. Sora shrugged.

"Would you eat worms?" Riku repeated, emphasizing each word.

"Oh." Sora said, remembering that it had originally been his question to them. He remembered thinking Tidus would eat them without much convincing. "Sure," he answered. "I mean, I have before, so why not again?"

"You have not," Riku said and his stare was a challenge. Sora would have risen to the bait once not too long ago. It would have led to one of the duels that only ended when both of them were too tired to stand. But Sora didn't really feel like fighting Riku anymore. He didn't feel like fighting anyone.

"Yes I have," Sora said. "In the Pride lands with Simba." He looked back to the sky and wondered if that world were hidden somewhere beyond the curtain of blue and white.

"Ew," Kairi said. "I've shared drinks with you!" Her face was scrunched in disgust.

Sora smirked and stopped himself from reminding her that she had done more than share drinks with him. "They taste like chicken."

Riku snorted from beside him. "Slightly slimy chicken." Sora laughed. Kairi looked horrified.

"Slightly," Sora admitted. Then, to Kairi: "I was a lion cub at the time, if that makes it better."

Kairi sighed and laid her head on her forearm. "At least you were a lion club and not some—some—some renegade monkey!"

"What?" Sora asked, confused.

"Yeah, explain that Kairi," Riku said.

"Well if he ate worms as a lion cub think what he would have eaten as a monkey!" she said, picking her head up.

"You said renegade monkey," Riku said, sitting up all the way. Sora still held his hand.

Kairi shrugged. "Well, monkeys live in communities. Sora was always mostly alone. So he'd be a renegade monkey." She paused at the look her friends were giving her. "A rebel, you know?"

"And you think I'm strange for eating worms." Sora said, closing his eyes again and enjoying the feel of the sun and his friends beside him. He wondered if her fellow club members thought she was strange. She certainly wasn't an ordinary girl.

Suddenly Riku's hand was no longer in his own and there was a shadow blocking the sun. Opening his eyes, he found Riku standing beside him. His friend was staring out at the ocean as if something different should be there. Sora was again tempted to ask what the other boy was seeing, but stopped himself.

"Well," Riku said with a sigh, "I have to go. There is a study group at the library and I said I would go. Some of my friends are expecting me."

"Your notes still that good, Riku?" Kairi asked, getting up to sit on her knees.

Riku looked down at them and smiled. "You know it." Taking a few steps backward he said, "Well, see you."

"See you," Kairi and Sora called back. Sora pulled himself to a sitting position and watched his friends' back. Kairi laid her hand on his shoulder and he placed his hand over hers. "This is how it's going to be." He said.

"What do you mean," she asked, and leaned her chin on his other shoulder.

"We're going to be the ones left here watching him walk away. And then you're going to leave for your own adventure. And I'm going to stay right here because I've had enough adventure." Sora said, still watching Riku.

"Does that scare you?" Kairi asked.

Sora thought for a moment. He thought about life and school and family and friends and the beach. He thought about a life away from the sun and the ocean. He thought about Tidus and Wakka and all the places he knew so well he could walk them backwards blindfolded. He thought about how long he had been without all of it and he never wanted that again. He wanted to live in the sun and surf, swim, laugh, play, and make enough memories to make up for that time that was forever lost to magic and a sleeping pod. Then he thought about life without Riku, without Kairi. The thought once filled him with dread. He used to be afraid that without them, an icy hole would open up in the middle of his being and suck him inside out.

"It doesn't scare me as much as it used to," Sora answered his friend.

"Do you think we'll ever come back to each other?" She asked, pulling back and running her hands through Sora's untamable hair. "You know, after we all part ways."

Sora turned and pulled her arm so she fell over into his lap. He laughed as she smacked him in the shoulder for scaring her. "I think so," he said. He caught one of her hands in his own and entwined their fingers. He smiled from cheek to cheek. "I still have to get you to eat a worm."