A/N: Just a fic I've been writing through the holidays for a friend at school. Future chapters will only be about 1000 words, this one is about five in one... Sorry about some lack of italics/forwardslashes for important things by the way, they didn't convert when I submitted the document, I'm going to have to manually edit them all back. Oh, and apologies in advance for spelling mistakes, I know they're in there somewhere.
*Kumo = Japanese for Cloud.
Warnings: Yaoi (lime's prolly as bad as it's gonna get), AU, minor plot spoilers.
Riku was never afraid of the dark.
All his childhood, he heard of monsters lurking in dark things like bedrooms: in the closet or under the bed, vampires or bogeymen which were invisible during the daylight but after twilight, became so realistically solid in the shadows. He heard of kids being afraid of these shadows, knew of kids being afraid of them. His best friend Sora was one, Riku privately thought, because whenever he slept over at Sora's house the boy would adamantly refuse to turn out the nightlight, no matter how tired the pair became or how hard his mum yelled about their skyrocketing electricity bills and poor kids in Wutai needing the refined mako energy more then they did.
Point being, Riku always dismissed these rumours as unreasonable, on the basis that if there were shadows, plural, (and not just one big shadow of night-time dark) then the scared kids' darkness wasn't quite dark enough, because real dark had no light to make more than one shadow, and if they had more then one shadow, they must have more than one light, which defeated the point of dark.
He often found this point hard to convince, however, because his mind was still young and he had trouble with big words, and long explanations, and because most people couldn't see the difference between dark and darkness.
It was all about plurals in the world of Riku.
Sora never noticed Riku's secret insomnia, just like Riku's parents never noticed him dismantling all the glowing digital clocks in the house, replacing his thin curtains with thick bedsheets and doona's, or on warm summer nights sleeping under his bed with the apparent monster that lived there, but it was one of the first things that Kairi first noticed about him.
Riku could remember her noticing, the day that they met, when Sora'd gone over to visit the mayor's daughter one faithful day – Riku'd changed his mind about meeting her last minute – and she'd been brought back to their special island. She'd been introduced to Tidus, Selphie and Wakka respectively, and gotten off on a bad start with them by asking Wakka why he wasn't playing with friends his own age. Riku had been kneeling in the insides of the Big Tree-house at the time, squinting to find a message scrawled in a place where a staircase would later be, and in a rare act of inscrutable countenance Sora asked Kairi to go find him there, so he could explain to the others that they did things a bit differently in the big city (and so he'd lecture them on being extra nice to her, not thinking on an apology).
Riku couldn't remember the first thing she said to him, hazed and black as his memory still is and was, but at some point or another Kairi had giggled in the same pitch of tone she always would later and said, "Reading in the dark-- well I don't know about you, but my mother always said that was bad for my eyes." He'd turned to give her a weird look because she'd said mother, not mum like the rest of the kid population, and because somehow he'd mistaken her for Selphie, who sometimes came to hang out and chatter idioms of small talk at him while he did something more important. But now Riku really, truly looked at her.
"You're not from around here," He noted. It came out like an accusation.
"No," she agreed, "I'm not."
"Double negative," Riku deadpanned, and for some reason Kairi found it hilarious: she collapsed into a fit of more of her own off kind of giggles and smiled at him, genuinely. Riku could've flinched: no one but Sora had looked at him like that for a long time.
"Come out into sunlight with me, I want to see if your eyes still work." Riku did, which was unusual for him (he was the type of rebel that never listened to anyone's orders ever, especially orders from someone years younger than him) and when he later looked back on Kairi's words, they didn't make the sense they did at the time. How would've she been able to tell and why would she even want to? Why did he follow her?
The image of the sparkling blue water and bright yellow sand still burned in his mind, and probably still in hers, when she turned it meant he related her deep blue eyes to the sea, compared and contrasted them with the sky blue of Sora's, and she was looking at his own eyes too, she moved up close and fingered the dark bags just beneath his eyelids and let her eyes flicker again to his, with sadness. In that moment Riku knew that Kairi knew about him.
As quickly as it had the feeling appeared it disappeared, and Kairi was suddenly bouncing about like Selphie, annoying him with a million all too personal questions and wondering what plaything she should use as a weapon when they all fought or if she should just sit out. Eventually Sora got jealous and stole him off her, and the rest of the afternoon they spent playing in the water and teaching the new girl how to swim.
When time came to go home, Riku opted to stay on their special island a bit longer to train. Wakka raised an eyebrow, and drawled something about doing enough training already and Tidus looked a bit wistful. Riku didn't have the nerve to look at Kairi.
Then Sora surprised Riku, by deciding, "If you're staying, then I'm staying too. I can't have you getting any better than me at fighting, after all."
But for some reason, they didn't fight. Riku simply surmised that that day wasn't a day for fighting and neither could muster the nerve to move from their spots on Riku's Papao tree, once they sat down there to watch the sunset.
The sun reflected so that the water shone, but that wasn't the real focus then. It was the sky, with its swirls of pink cloud on an orange backdrop, covering golden white mist overlayed by faint streaks of purple.
Something so natural and so beautiful, and Sora rested his head on Riku's shoulder, moved. It didn't seem fair that people as insignificant in life as them could bear witness to something so pretty.
It ended, and they were just two boys sitting on a tree on an island again.
"I need to pee." Sora said, and went off to do his business someplace Riku hoped he would never accidentally step.
It went without saying that they wouldn't be able to rowboat to the mainland in the sudden offspring of darkness. With saying, Sora and Riku agreed to get back as quickly as possible at sun up the next morning, and hopefully their parents wouldn't notice. (What was Riku kidding? It was really only hopefully Sora's parents wouldn't notice, because Riku's parents wouldn't notice a skinned chocobo if it danced to techno in their morning breakfast cereal.)
Taking the picnic blanket from the Big Tree-house, Riku decided to go sleep in the dark of The Secret Place. It wasn't that late yet though, so Riku was still awake when Sora joined him with the tablecloth, even though he pretended not to be.
"Riku," Sora's teeth chattered. "I'm cold."
"And I'm hungry." Riku replied, moving to share the picnic blanket.
"Go eat Papua then." A pause. "I can't see my hand when I bring it up to my face, Riku."
Riku didn't voice his solution for that.
The next morning's sunrise wasn't quite as awesome as the previous evening sunset, for some reason. The sentimental part of Riku said it was because when he woke up Sora wasn't next to him and he had no one to watch it with but the logical part said it was because media propaganda usually over enthused the beauty of sunsets, which left sunrises with the rather short and almost ugly end of the stick.
It wasn't long before Riku found Sora, curled up in a little ball in the beach-shack, and struck with a certain sadistic sense, he poked the younger boy until he stirred.
"No mama," He groaned, "I dun wanna go ta big school today."
"But Sora," Riku mimicked, "If you don't go today you'll have to go in the school holidays, and that'll make your poor kindi teacher cry."
Sora's eyes fluttered open, "What…? Hey, Riku!"
Riku was tackled to the outside sand, and they play-wrestled together, rolling in meaningless circles until Sora shoved Riku away to stand.
"Aww damn, now I got sand in my hair."
"What do I care, so long as we get home before half the island wakes up, that's all that matters to me."
They shared a dinghy home, because they were both still small enough to do that, and because Sora complained about a crick in his neck and not being able to row being still half asleep. Riku may or may not have murmured something at sea about doing all the work and Sora being lucky he wasn't woken up with a sponge to the face, and in the ensuing argument Riku threatened to rock the boat and swim back to shore by himself.
Riku didn't, of course, but they weren't speaking as they dragged the boat ashore and tied it at the dock.
Two months and a Monday later, Riku sat at home at the breakfast table, staring at his half eaten nutella toast while his mother gushed about how tall he'd grown seemingly overnight. There was a stewing urge to snap at her, say something like "gee, I'm surprised you've noticed, with all the time you spend home," but he wanted to go the islands that afternoon to cheer up Sora, so he'd resolved to be nice. Or at least socially acceptable. Long gone were the days where he could just row off to an island for the day and not have his absence questioned by over inquisitive parents.
God, and it was all thanks to stupid Selphie. She just had to look twice at that chalk picture on the staircase, didn't she? He was totally blissful in his ignorance before she came along but noooooo, she just had to ruin that and ask…
"Is that picture you're looking at drawn going downwards, Riku?"
He looked at her without turning his head, then looked back. Well duh. And it wasn't a picture. It was a message, a secret message that one of the last kids to use the island had written on the wall - instead of in the Secret Place, which was where their gang wrote all of their Cool People Were Here stuff - and Riku had thus been in the process of interpreting for the last few weeks, on and off. (It'd even been what he'd looking at when he first met Kairi, but for some reason, he sometimes felt as if he'd leave the most sacred musing in the world without a second glance, for her.)
The picture was drawn on four steps, that had a scribble, an eye, a heart and a sheep respectively. Riku hadn't gotten it at first, but after a moment or two of looking he caught: Fuzz, I love sheep.
Selphie was noticing other things. "The sheep has eyelashes."
"So?" Riku said.
"Well, it's a simple drawing, they must be there for a reason." She reached out to touch the three markings with her forefingers. "Do you know what eyelashes are usually meant to represent in cartoons like this one, Riku?"
"No," he drawled, quietly adding, "and I don't particularly want to."
Selphie either didn't hear him or pretended otherwise: "They represent girls— I remember Kairi showing me the difference the other day when I was watching one of her animes and mistook
k one of the characters for a guy."
"Lovely, great, it's a female sheep now, is it? Fascinating, just fascinating, that is, I can see it makes all the difference in the world."
"And if you'd let me finish, a female sheep is called an Ewe, pronounced You. So the message all well could be 'Fuzz, I love you'."
Riku glared at Selphie. Not because he was angry at her, but because she'd spoiled it for him before he could for himself.
She continued spoiling it for him. "In that case, Fuzz wouldn't necessarily have to be called Fuzz to make sense: it could just be a scribbled out picture, or maybe a thing, or a name. It looks a lot like a Cloud, don't you think? Maybe Kumo* then or…"
Riku snorted. "You're such a romanticist, Selphie." He stood up, "Look, just forget about the whole thing, alright? It doesn't matter, just some dumb drawing someone probably did when they were bored that's being looked into too much. I'm gonna go see what Wakka and Tidus are doing."
"Okay," she agreed, then, "You know, one of Sora's brothers' name is Cloud. It could be written from one of his friends, from when they still-"
Riku turned away. "I said forget it, Selphie."
But she didn't forget, did she. Riku's hand tightened on his spoon. She just had to go blab about the chalk drawing to Sora, who, of course, derailed at any mention of Cloud, and, by extension, his half-brother Roxas. And then Sora's mum caught on from that, and somehow surmised that Sora's upset state was Riku's fault: she loudly explained her opinions to Riku's parents, and Riku's parents fought with Sora's parent, and Riku's parents decided that the whole Strife family was bad business and Riku'd have nothing more to do with Sora.
Which wasn't a good thing, since Riku still liked Sora, and didn't want to see him sad, though he'd never admit it aloud.
Stupid Stupid Selphie, he should've left the moment he moment he saw her enter the room.
Standing up from the breakfast table, Riku shouldered his schoolbag and waved a goodbye to his mum. He wouldn't skip school today, no matter how much he wanted to curl up in a little ball in his dark Secret Place and cry angry tears. He'd go to school for Sora, and Sora would appreciate his effort and Riku would buy him a chocolate bar and they'd both be friends again. Screw Selphie. And Kairi. And the whole world, for that matter.
The first raindrops of a downpour began to fall on the path in front of him, and Riku squeezed his eyes shut as he walked to school.
It was downright pouring by the time Riku reached the wrought iron front gates of Destiny Island's only public high school, and his thick, white hoodie had soaked through to the inside to stick to his skin uncomfortably. He'd debated taking it off, exposing himself to the wind and the rain and the elements but for an umbrella, then kept it on, thinking with the foresight that if he did his t-shirt would probably start sticking to his skin too—and once he reached the school there would be someone else with a raincoat or an umbrella to share, anyway.
He was wrong.
There was only one car parked in the exceedingly spacious black gravel of the teacher's car park, and it was the sad Ute of a bomb which had yet to be toed away, after being abandoned there the week before. No one was huddling under the covered entrance area either. The gates were locked, meaning school had already started or was called off for the rain. Probably the latter, what with the stupid mandatory education system always overreacting to everything-- so what if Riku was a minor delinquent and never showed up, that didn't mean they had to call his mum at work about it.
On that note, Riku's mum was at work now, and wouldn't be back till a bit after school finished. Riku didn't have a spare set of keys, and never brought his mobile with him to school - it was worth a bit, it'd probably get stolen by some cheap lowlife - so there was no way of getting in at home unless he gambled the climb up the drainpipe.
Riku sighed, and promptly turned around. He'd have to go to Sora's place: Kairi's was the other option but she lived on the water on the rich side of town and he didn't want to walk that far in this weather. (Selphie was also close, but the thought of having to spend the day stuck in a house with her was a horrid one… Riku didn't know where Tidus lived, and Wakka had a tin roof, meaning that Riku's ears would be bleeding to death on the sidewalk with the noise of the rain.)
By the time Riku reached Sora's place, every exposed piece of him was completely and utterly drenched, and his sneakers were squelching with every step. Water was dripping into his eyes from his hair, so he had to keep pulling his fringe back, and his hands were numb, and unfeeling as he pounded the doorbell with his fist. When he looked, they didn't shiver at all but shake.
A single eye moved to the door's peephole to greet him. It wasn't a brilliant blue jem of Sora's but his one of mum's chocolate brown orbs, which widened with surprise then narrowed with anger, and then there was an ominous click. The door was now locked.
Riku swore loudly and gave the stubborn woman the mental finger, proceeding to walk around the back of the house to throw stones at Sora's window in hopes that the younger, kinder boy would appear at it to let him in. Sora didn't, and Riku wasn't about to wait for the old hag to suddenly hear and lock that entrance, so after a few minutes of nothing, he climbed through it and immediately shut Sora's door.
Riku wasn't sure where Sora was exactly, but he knew Sora'd understand him getting changed into some of his drier clothes there and then. Most of Sora's clothing was pooffy, bright, highly accessorized and a bit small-looking for Riku, so Riku spent a good fifteen minutes or so clad only in his boxers, thumbing through for pants that didn't have fifty million peace badges or fake pink pockets.
That was what he was doing when Sora entered.
"Umm, Riku…" said Sora. "What are you doing?" (But it sounded like 'what are you doing here'.)
Riku may or may not've flinched at the sight, looking up. Water ran a line down his torso: Sora had just come out of the shower or bath, and similarly wasn't wearing much. Just a towel around his waist and a confused grin on his face, but shit, Riku envied that figure, that gravity-defying hair, that consistently light tan there and then. How Sora even managed to keep it all lasting in the winter months Riku had no idea.
"I um," Riku stuttered, trying to find Sora's eyes, "got locked out of my house and stuck in the rain, and I needed to change into a dry set of clothes, I assumed you were out."
"Mama actually let you in?" Sora's tone was amused and he looked more relaxed than Riku had ever seen him. Umm. Unsexy thoughts. Unsexy thoughts… Wasn't Sora still supposed to be all emo about Roxas right now?
"That's the thing. She didn't, and locked the door on me, and I had to climb through the window and I did and I think I might've broken it." Technically it was the rocks that broke it, Riku mentally corrected.
"You think?" Sora's face suddenly darkened. "Riku, do you have any idea how much munny it'll cost to fix that break? Mama's gonna chuck a spaz, and I'll have to put up with cold drafts and rain all this winter, and— are you even listening?"
No. Riku'd stopped getting dressed, his face horror stricken for the sound of impending footsteps, from down the hall.
Sora freaked out, a little, quietly. "Shit! Give me those clothes – no, don't worry about the pants – can you hide in the dresser?" Riku didn't fit. "Never mind about that, maybe under the bed?" Riku's leg was stuck behind an iron bar in the wardrobe.
Sora stood on his bed and grappled for a knob at the ceiling, while also trying to hold his towel up, and for a moment Riku thought he'd gone mad. Then he saw the step ladder spring down from a trapdoor.
Two knocks on the door. "Sora, are you alright in there?"
Somehow, Riku managed to free his leg from the wardrobe: he survived unscathed, but the mahogany clothes storage unit toppled in the progress. Sora rushed down to set it upright and Riku scrambled for the stepladder: they bonked heads, and fell backwards.
"Idiot." Sora hissed, rubbing his forehead. More carefully, they detangled themselves of each other and crawled towards their appropriate destinations.
"Uh, yes mama, I'm just having a couple of issues with my floorlamp." Sora finally answered. Oh god was he a horrible liar. "Just a minute."
There was a heavy clunk like Sora pushing the wardrobe back up against the wall or being crushed by its wait. The former, Riku surmised, as he felt a He stuffed Riku's remaining limbs up and slammed the door shut. Silence.
For a couple of seconds, Riku dared not to even move, even breathe in the possibility of being caught, but as a quiet banter of conversation resumed below ("What were you doing in here, moving furniture?" "No mama, I just left the clock radio on before my shower … when I was coming in I moved to turn it off … tripped on the lamp's cord, knocked it over…") he relaxed and let his brain reacquaint him with the world.
It was a disused, narrow, attic-sort place that Sora had shoved him into, full of cardboard boxes and old calendars and dusty teddy bears that didn't get love anymore. There was a large, triangular window in the corner, facing the back of the house, and a rocking chair. Posters of famous army personnel, and some rockstars who had long since seen their time. Along one wall a bunk bed, with unmade bed sheets. A hammer.
Riku again froze before he turned to see the display cabinet with the shattered glass encasing, because he'd only just realized that this was Cloud's room. Cloud's old room. The room he had before he reputably went mad and killed his father, the room he had before something'd made him run away from the world.
Suddenly paranoid, Riku pulled his arms around his knees, nervously waiting for Sora to reopen the trapdoor and give him the all's clear for downstairs.
Maybe it was some form of irony, that Riku was sitting all curled up paranoid, waiting for something to happen above the trapdoor when Sora's mum pulled back it's flap. Riku fell back, tumbling down onto her surprised with a yelp and an internal hiss—there was a sharp, brief flare of pain in his wrist.
"Mama!" Sora cried. Riku quickly pulled himself off the older women, and Sora quickly rushed to her side to help her up.
The hag batted him away, and shakily stood up, waving a finger out at Riku. "You." She accused.
"Me?" Riku asked, swallowing.
"How dare you set foot in this house, after I specifically forbade you not to, after all of what you did to my son. Didn't your parents ever teach you manners, boy? I hope they're ashamed of you … trespassing on private property … invading forbidden part … home …" The lecture seemed to go on forever. Something about Sora's clothes, about the broken window; Riku's feet just moved backward and backward and his hands rose to in front of his chest in an unconscious gesture of defence.
Sora was stomping down the hallway, yelling, "No! No, mama, It's not his fault, it's mine, listen to reason. Please."
She wasn't having any of it: her eyes were ablaze with fire.
"Can I at least-"
The door slammed in Riku's face. "-get some clothes on."
He was standing on Sora's front door, in only his white silk boxers, in broad daylight. Not that was much light to be seen in the day. The thick, greyscale clouds blocked the sun and the rain blocked the clouds blocked the light blocked the darked blocked Riku. And in the background, the start of a fight he had never intended to cause ("Why do you always-" "Why do I? I was protecting you. It's for your own … know better … room, stay-" "-hate you!-").
Gods, this sucked. There was a lump in Riku's throat. He'd never meant for this to happen, he'd only ever been trying to help Sora, he thought that if he went to school, he thought that if he visited him, then maybe his presence could cheer him up. Or Riku could, or something else could, but he was wrong, like usual, and now they were both miserable and not even miserable together.
Riku didn't dwell on it. His wrist throbbed idly: he bent his arm and held it to his chest in remnants of something he remembered from a televised first aid course and looked up and down the street for any passer by who might catch him there, bereft, in a rare hour of weakness. No one. Nothing. Riku could yet still have his pride. It wasn't a far walk home either, if he took the shortcut through the park.
He did take the shortcut, in the end. He scared some innocent schoolchildren who were jumping in park puddles and got prickles all through his feet and mud, and became even wetter than he was before. Better than walking through town – he'd probably get arrested - but damn, was he cold now, without his clothes, and so hungry too, why did he forget his schoolbag, maybe it would've been heavy to carry around but at least it had lunch and a jumper.
This was Riku's line of mental thought, trudging through his front garden to the porch, not forgetting to check the snail-infested mailbox. He had no idea what he was meant to do, since the door was probably locked since his mum wasn't back yet but at least the mail'd give him something to think about before the neighbours let their dogs in and got the shock of their life.
He was saved from the trouble of finding something else when surprisingly, he found the front door unlocked, and the answer to his next unspoken question lying down on the couch absorbed in a newspaper.
"Afternoon, son." Riku's father didn't look up. "Hard day at school?"
Actually, he didn't go, as the gates were locked and the sky was kind of pouring, cats and dogs and llamas, just in case you hadn't noticed. "Yeah, dad. They whooped us up good, tons of homework and assignments and all that. Guessing since you're home you did night shift?"
"Morning." He answered. His eyes were fluttering. Hey, I stay awake when you talk, Riku joked mentally, except in actuality he was stumbling out of that room as fast as his feet would take him. He'd planned to do everything when he got home; take a shower, pig out on junk, watch some daytime T.V, read some more of his English novel… Now that he was there and ready to do all that his brain skipped out on him and told him to sleep.
It had been a pretty tiring day, admittedly. Half a day. It was really very lucky that Riku's dad hadn't caught him out on being home so early, or not, not wearing anything except his boxers, if it'd been his mum he probably would've got a roasting the moment he stepped into the neighbourhood. Riku yawned, ending that thought abruptly. All he had to worry about then, falling onto his bed and pulling unmade sheets over his wet, weary head was darkness.
He couldn't understand. Why would anyone ever be afraid of the dark?
Once Riku'd finished what he left off the night before, in regards to sleep, he waddled out of bed and did all the mundane things he'd put off earlier, like clean, dress and get something to eat. His father had gone out to buy some groceries from the general store, he'd left a note, and so Riku didn't have to worry about singing too loudly in the shower or being too much of a hassle. He did worry, however, about what he'd say when mum came home at her usual before-school ended time— she was likely to be more coherent and less understanding. Eventually Riku figured he'd just mumble something about it ending early because of hail warnings and retire quickly to his bedroom, but he'd been using that excuse a fair bit lately, (not that she'd ever notice) and he didn't want to sound suspicious.
Something that was also a mundane thing that Riku didn't want to sound suspicious in was calling Sora. Sure, he did it all the time, but he'd screwed up badly this time, and he wanted to sound as genuine as possible to Sora. He'd been avoiding it, but he knew he had to call sometime. He couldn't just keep things on the terms they left with.
After psyching himself up for it, Riku locked himself in his room with his mobile, and only a ticking clock for sound accompaniment.
It rang three times, then:
"Heya!" A bright voice said.
"Hey, Sor-" Riku quickly replied, his hopes skyrocketing-
"You've reached Sora Strife's voicemail-" Riku always confused it. Every. Single. Time. "-if you don't mind my mandatory alliteration. I'm not here to talk at the moment but if you'll drop me a line I'll be more than happy to call back any time."
That recording was so annoying. The rhymes sucked. Riku really was going to make Sora replace it one day. "Sora, it's me. Riku." He'd rehearsed this, it went fine, all he had to do was keep talking. "I just wanted to say I'm sorry for before, and if anything happened with your mum because of it. I shouldn't have acted so rashly, and if it was my rash actions that meant we were caught. Also, umm… Are you okay, man? I mean, not just okay now, but okay all round? I want to know what's got your neck because, well we've all, everyone, (like me and Kairi and Selphie and Tidus and maybe even Wakka), noticed the difference in your moods recently and just, if there's anything you ever need to talk about, whatever you have to say: I'm always there for you."
For whatever reason, Sora didn't reply to Riku's message until after school the next day. Riku'd been stewing about it, all through Maths and Geography and Science, not talking to anyone. Though what good did it do? It wasn't like anyone noticed other than Wakka, and who could blame the rest of them? Riku was hardly the most social of the class on good days and not paying attention to anyone but yourself is a great way for people to notice and care about you, note the sarcasm (it came next to naturally to Riku, him being such a self-centered teenager in desperate need of an attitude adjustment and all).
At least he'd actually managed to get into school today, Riku thought, even if it was a total drag and he got a detention for not handing in his science assignment. And detention wasn't that bad, compared to most days: he did get to share it with Wakka, who'd gotten run up for kicking a blitzball into the staff faculty window. The knowledge that everyone else was also stuck inside, staring boredly out classroom windows might've made detention a bit easier to handle. Same with the passing notes.
What the hell is miss even babbling on about anyway? He'd scribbled idly, aren't they supposed to leave us to our peace to study in detention, or has the world gone crazy when I wasn't looking?
Nah, Wakka wrote back, and Riku silently applauded his ability to not write the way he spoke, they changed the rules on us. Apparently one of the parents complained because their kid got bashed in detention and cried about it. They said it mightn't've happened if there was adult supervision. So, this.
That sucks.
Yeah. A pause. You know what else sucks?
What?
You being emo.
Riku sighed aloud. For the last time Wakka, I'm not emo.
Yes you are.
No I'm not.
You are.
How am I?
Wakka took the notebook away for a long time to write and by the time he handed it back the page was covered in dot points and stupid comments and a badly drawn picture of a cat.
"You know what, just forget it." Riku said, tearing out the page and scrunching into a little ball to throw. The teacher didn't even stop her mindless droning. "It never happened."
"Look ya, I dun think that how Sora's treating you is fair either, but that's no reason to go all pussy and throw a hissy fit about it. He'll come 'round eventually, jus' give him time."
"Whatever."
Conversation closed.
Lunchtime ended and Riku and Wakka and one or two nameless kids were let out of detention to return to class. Riku had Art, one of his electives, and the only composite class he had, like shared with the year before. It was fun, in it's on way: he and Selphie had a great little argument about which radio station sucked more and someone started a paint fight in which every one screamed and yelled at each other and Riku again decided he'd fulfilled his word quota for the day and wasn't saying another word to anybody, until he got blue paint in his hair.
Still, no Sora. What was the point in even showing up somewhere, Riku wondered, if your main reason to be there wouldn't show? Selphie had confirmed his presence at school that day, so it wasn't as if he wasn't there. So what was the deal? Was he avoiding Riku or what?
Wakka had told him not to worry about it but really Riku couldn't help himself, he'd been wondering all day and there was nothing else to think about except Sora Sora Sora, Sora as he yawned in maths, Sora as he glued in sheets in Geography, Sora as he stood under his umbrella at the school's looming front gate, watching as Kairi paired of with Selphie to walk home and Wakka with Tidus and Tweedledum with Tweedle dee and-
"Hey." A low voice said. Sora?
"Hi." Riku managed.
"Let's go." Sora said.
They did.
Sora quietly apologized, watching the slush fill the gutters while they walked. Riku didn't have to ask for what, and Sora then explained that his mobile had run out of batteries and he didn't hear the message, but Wakka told him all about it at recess (traitor, Riku's mind screamed).
"Don't worry, you probably wouldn't have wanted to hear it anyway. It was very… vocal." Of all the adjectives in the world. Damn did he have no vocabulary.
"But it's always good to hear what you have to say." Sora said, "Because you don't ever say all that much, when you do say something it's important."
"Way to be subtle, calling me quiet." Riku grunted, and Sora laughed, resting a hand on Riku's shoulder.
"See what I mean?"
No. Riku couldn't see himself as anything past an antisocial loser with a strange haircolour and weird sense of humour, who was way too sappy for his age and gender and didn't deserve a best friend so kind; damn, it was practically given that Sora was forgiven even before he apologized.
Of course, Sora didn't know this, and was always weary of Riku's reactions to everything, so it was with renewed hesitance that he removed his hand from Riku's shoulder and asked, "do you ever want to, you know, sail away from here and have an adventure?"
"Sometimes," Riku admitted, shoving his hands in his pockets. "But then I remember that this is my home, and how other people have reacted when their family or friends left them. I wouldn't want to worry someone I care about like that."
"Well, obviously, you'd be coming back." It was that you in the sentence that set off imaginary alarm bells in Riku's head. All Riku could think was he's gonna pull a Cloud, his mum will never be the same, why would he do that to her, can't he see she cares about him so much, even if it's the wrong way of expressing it, Riku would kill for that. Sora just throws it away like yesterday's nights sloppy stew.
"Sora, this is a purely hypothetical situation we're talking about, right? You wouldn't really-"
"I'm not sure what hypothetical means," Sora interrupted before Riku could start, "but Kairi and I were thinking of building a raft at the special island this summer and setting out to sea. We were gonna surprise you, but I guess I just can't keep a secret, yeah?" He winked. "This is my stop so gotta go, but I'd be happy to talk more if you wanna call me about it later."
Riku would, despite not wanting to.
Because he knew that the storm was coming.