Being best friends with someone for more than ten years allows you a certain insight into their mind. You can tell when they're upset or sad. You know what to say to make them perk up or smile. You build these inside jokes that can make soda come out their nose at just the mention of it. Sometimes you can talk for eight hours straight without getting bored while other times you can go without talking for days and pick up right where you left off. It hurts when you can't help them and it's the best feeling in the world just to be by their side.
Riku feels his chest clench a bit when he walks into Sora's last period to see him just sitting in his chair and staring at his desk. Riku wanders inside and takes the seat next to Sora's. The brunet doesn't even look up at him, which makes Riku worry more than he had in the past few days.
Sora had started acting weird three days ago for no reason that Riku could discern. From experience, Riku knew not to force Sora to talk about his problems lest the brunet blow up at him. Riku glanced at the paper on Sora's desk; the essay he'd been stressing about last month is sitting on his desk with a large red C sitting on the top. Sora's paper is covered in little red comments, which means he must have messed something up.
Considering the nearly three years they'd missed, that was actually quite a good grade. Then again, Kairi had been tutoring the two of them since they'd come back to the island after defeating Xemnas seven months prior. They'd been given a special waver after they'd explained where they'd been and given proof.
"Hey." Riku breaks the eerie silence.
Sora snaps his head up to look at Riku, looking shocked that he's sitting there.
"Hey, Riku." Sora doesn't smile at him.
Riku worries some more.
"You weren't at the front gate. We'd made plans to go hang out on the island today." They probably needed to study more if the large letter on Sora's paper was anything to go by.
"Sorry, I've just been…in my head a lot lately."
"What's wrong?" Riku prods.
If Sora was willing to bring it up, then Riku felt it was safe to pry just a bit. The minute Sora says he doesn't want to talk, Riku will back off.
"I just…I don't know. Do you ever just feel…off? Like…you don't know what you want to do, but whatever it is you're doing, it's just not it?"
"Yeah. I've felt like that. I usually just lie around for a few hours until I figure out what I want to do."
Sora doesn't look like that's the answer he was looking for.
"What happens if you feel like that for more than a few hours?"
"I do what I need to do and just...don't really think about it."
Sora looks like he's thinking it over and Riku sighs, wishing he could help Sora more.
"I-" Sora cuts himself off before starting again, "Are we still going to the Island?" Sora look up at Riku and he looks a little less troubled. Riku counts it as a small victory for now.
"Not if you don't want to."
"It's better than going home and having my mom ask me to do more chores." Sora grabs his papers and puts them away into his backpack before standing and slinging the pack over his right shoulder.
Riku smiles and stands, too, before they make their way out of their school.
They spend time just lounging in the sun, and Riku tries to think about how he can help Sora only to come up empty and feel helpless.
Then he feels bad for feeling bad because he should be focused on Sora, not himself.
After they'd split ways, Sora takes his time getting home. He feels so lost that he's actually dizzy.
He stamps down on his feelings as he walks on, making sure to try and shake them off. If Riku noticed there was something wrong, that mask he'd perfected while riding the Gummi Ship must be slipping. He wonders if anyone else has noticed, or if it's just Riku.
It's probably just Riku. Riku could spot something wrong with him from a mile away, blindfolded and facing the opposite direction. Sora hopes he'd be able to tell if something was wrong with Riku.
Probably not, considering what happened to set him off on his journey in the first place. He'd merely thought Riku wanted to see other worlds, not that he was feeling abandoned or that Darkness had gotten a hold of them.
He turns onto his street and slows down even more.
On his journey, he'd learned a lot of things. He'd learned how to read people better. He'd learned how to cheer people up. He'd learned how to use magic and wield a sword better than he ever could have if he'd been stuck on the Island his whole life.
He thinks about the Keyblade and about how it didn't chose him but had instead chosen Riku and was forced to use Sora as a replacement. He knows how strong he is, but he wonders how Riku felt when he'd practically stolen the Keyblade from him. That nagging voice inside his head reminds him that technically he stole it from his best friend twice.
Sora opens his front door to find his mother wandering about in the kitchen while cooking dinner and his father passed out on the couch, remote in hand. He calls out to his mother to let her know that he's home before heading upstairs and flopping down onto his bed.
He wonders how his parents can live this life; so stagnant and monotonous.
He misses traveling. He misses his friends from all of the worlds' he'd visited.
That feeling in his chest returns. The one telling him that he should be doing something. He should be doing anything but lying on his bed.
Riku's advice, while insightful, was useless on Sora. When he just laid down, he felt the feeling strengthen. Just lying there with Riku for a few hours had been a chore.
Lying here is a chore, too. But he doesn't know what he wants to do. He doesn't know what he should be doing. And that frustrates him more than anything.
He closes his eyes and tries to think about the weird dreams he'd been having.
He sees people, people he feels like he's supposed to know, and a place that feels like home but he's never seen it before. He can't hear anything, but he sees flashes of their lives and how their time together is drawn short. He can't see by what, but he knows it is. His instincts are telling him that.
It reminds him of when he'd adopted Roxas' memories. They'd felt like his, but he'd never lived them.
When his mother calls him down for dinner, he makes small talk with his parents – telling them how school is going better than it was and how his friends are all okay – and quickly makes his way back to his room.
Walking had felt…better than just lying around.
Maybe he should go for a walk? Just a walk. It seems so simple and as he makes his way down the stairs, he wonders why he hadn't thought of it before.
He tells his mom that he'll be back and not to worry because he has his key so they can lock the door.
She stops him as he's halfway out to hug him and tell him that she loves him.
When he asks her why she'd done that, she smiles at him with a very sad smiles and she tells him that she'd just felt like she had to do it. So he hugs her back and he tells her that he loves her, too.
Outside, he feels a bit more refreshed, a bit less cooped up. The sea breeze that floats throughout town is a comfort in the hot, tropical climate of Destiny Islands. He heads off, without a real destination in mind.