Off the coast of somewhere prettier than where you're from, there's an island called Destiny. For decades the children of the town on the coast have escaped there to relax, run free, and occasionally smack each other with wooden swords.
This is where Sora, Kairi, and Riku grew up, and even now, at 20, 21, and 22, respectively, on Spring Break, Sora, Kairi, and Riku abandon their textbooks on the desks of their dorms rooms, pack sunglasses and sunscreen, triple knot their threadbare friendship bracelets, and return to the town on the coast.
Each bright, tropical morning they make a pilgrimage in rickety row boats to the shore of Destiny Island. There they reclaim the ruts they had rent beneath their favorite palm trees and the forts and rafts they had built, if only for seven days.
"I bet you're wondering why I gathered you all here today," Kairi announces shortly after her arrival on the third day, now that they have fallen into something of a routine. She drops down into the sand, beneath the shade of broad palm leaves and across from her two closest friends. Her hands catch her ankles as she leans forward, the early morning breeze pulling at her short auburn hair.
In fact, Sora is dozing off on Riku's shoulder, his mouth half open, and Riku is preoccupied with sketching the vacant, dreaming expression on Sora's face in the pad propped on his opposite knee, intently shading the dribble of drool on the corner of Sora's mouth. So neither pay this announcement much mind.
"Ahem." Kairi's eyes narrow, her head tilting. Kairi treats everything like breaking news, which never fails to amuse Riku, but he figures maybe she actually has something important to tell them to be getting huffy so quickly.
Satisfied with his sketch, Riku rifles through a few pages of his journal and elbows Sora in the spleen.
"We're listening," Riku tells her, glancing up, just briefly, before his eyes fall back to Sora stirring beside him, glancing about, in a bit of a daze.
"Wh—what is it?" Sora's eyes brush Riku's teasing ones and fix on the pink clad girl who has appeared by his bulky yellow Vans. "Kairi?"
Her lips thin, one hand shifting to her hip as if further upset, but she can't help but giggle through it. "You lazy bums. I have news!" She unzips her pink mini pleather backpack, rummages around, and fishes out an envelope. This she brandishes with both hands quite close to their faces. "Ta-da!"
Sora and Riku stare at the envelope and then at each other.
"Um, you got mail?" Sora says, hands folding behind his head, back of his hand brushing the bark of the palm. "A secret admirer? Oh I know. You saved a bunch of money on car insurance by…" the words fade into a giggle at the sour pucker of her lips.
"Sora."
"You bought yourself a ticket to Paris?" Riku teases, brows up, mouth a thin, perplexed line.
Sora leans his whole body sideways and squints, his blue eyes trying to make out letters though the envelope paper, thinned by the sun. "You bought Riku and me tickets to Paris?"
She giggles, shakes her head, brushing back the strand of hair that shifts into her eyes.
Kairi slides her fingers to reveal a Disney logo.
"Gentlemen," she flutters her hand grandly toward herself and smiles, "you are speaking to a Disney princess."
Riku breaks into a grin, and Sora nearly topples over in his scramble toward her, arms wrapping her shoulders. Riku follows after, muscular arms wrapping them both, a surprised, fond chuckle escaping his lips.
"Wah—oh my god!" Sora exclaims squeezing her.
"Congratulations, Kairi," Riku echoes more smoothly. "Or should I say 'your highness'?"
"Thank you, my loyal knights." She gives them both a final squeeze around the waist. None of them much want to separate but the heat is oppressive, the salt breeze mild, so Sora and Riku fall back into the sand, still grinning.
"Knights, huh?" Riku smirks.
"That's right." She reaches for the toy sword resting underneath Sora's knee, and sets its blade on his shoulder.
Sora bows his head in mock reverence but there's a childish grin pinned to his face.
"I dub thee, Sir Sora," Kairi shifts the sword to his other shoulder, "the Sleepyhead."
Sora's eyes stay shut as he laughs and ruffles his permanent bed head. "Oh, thanks, Kairi."
She smirks, raises her chin a degree. "That's Princess Ariel to you, Sora."
His grin somehow brightens as his eyes open and he sees how pleased she is. Sora offers her a small bow.
Kairi shifts the wooden blade to Riku's shoulder and, he meets her eyes, an unexpectedly solemn expression on his face.
"And I dub thee, Sir Riku," again she moves the sword to his opposite shoulder, "the Ridiculously Attractive."
"Hey wait a second…" Sora objects glancing between them and pouting.
Riku reaches out to ruffle Sora's hair in solace. "You're cute too, Sora."
Sora crosses his arms but his pout lessens.
Riku sighs, diverting his attention to Kairi. "Princess Ariel, huh?"
Kairi's nose crinkles, as she watches the wind settle sand into his long silver hair. "What is it, Riku?"
He shrugs, kicking his leg straight and slapping his sketch pad shut. "Fitting is all. The Little Mermaid. Stuck in her castle."
"Hm," Kairi considers him and his words for a long moment and nods, "yep."
Riku settles closer to Sora, relaxing back into the tree, resting an arm across his friend's shoulder blades, and glancing to the ocean so he doesn't have to see her face fall. "So what did she say then?"
Sora glances between them, perplexed, mind still a little clouded with sleep, always a little clouded in general, Riku tacks on mentally, affectionately. "Who?"
"Grams," Kairi explains, picturing the petite old woman, who as they speak is probably out in the front garden, dandelions twined in the plaits of her white braid, pulling on her gloves, waiting for Kairi to retrace the path home.
Kairi thrusts the toy sword skyward in triumph. "She said yes!"
"Ah!" Sora lunges and wraps his arms around her neck in another hug.
Riku stays leaned back, brows up. "But I thought you said she was so worried about you going off on your own."
"Yeah, I remember," Sora nods and sits back on his haunches, the salty wind ruffling the brown spikes in his hair. "You said, 'It's the happiest place on Earth' and your grams said but is it the 'safest place on earth?' and you said 'um, yes '." Sora recites and cackles, until Riku's elbow gives him another jab.
"Hm," Kairi nods, her closed eyes suggesting she's recalling the conversation a little less fondly. They open again and her face bears a new sunlit smile, "don't worry. I already thought about that! I won't be alone." She sets a hand on each of their knees. "I'll have my best friends with me!"
It takes Sora and Riku a good thirty seconds to puzzle this out.
"OH MY GOD!" Sora claps, when the pieces click, bolting upright. "Why didn't I think of that?"
At the same time Riku, stretches a hand toward, atop, hers, "Now, wait just a second Kairi…"
"C'mon, Riku," Kairi wheedles. "You just said yesterday that you need a summer job. What could be better than Disney World with your two best friends! And you're going to be awfully bored with both of us gone."
Sora nods solemnly.
"Yeah, I was thinking of manning the front desk at the gym not," Riku pauses, frowns, sliding his tan canvas slide through the sand, "becoming a Disney prince."
"You don't have to be a prince, Riku," Sora says brightly. "I'm sure they'd let you be a dishwasher or something."
"Oh that's very convincing, Sora. Thank you."
"Don't worry, Riku," Kairi parrots, "I'm sure they'll cast you as Queen Elsa once they see how perfect you are."
"Hey…" Riku shifts his hand off of Kairi's and fixes Sora with a glare because he can't stop cackling.
For a minute they listen to the wash of the waves, and the song of the gulls, and Wakka's younger siblings shrieking in the distance, splashing each other at the edge of the water.
"You two are really serious about this?" Riku asks finally, taken aback.
Kairi shifts through her backpack and produces three pairs of mouse ears, bands twined with flowers.
"Oh you are serious." Riku snorts. Kairi doesn't break out the glitter and art supplies for just anything.
Sora squeals and lowers his shaggy mop for one, and Kairi obliges, crowning him and then herself. She turns the last one over in her hand, spraying her black surf shorts with glitter.
"Please, Riku," Kairi says, sweetly, folding her hands and batting her lashes at him.
"Yeah," Sora echoes, adjusting his mouse ears around the brown spikes of his bangs, scooting back to bump his shoulder against Riku's, and mimicking Kairi's batting eyes and folded hands. "Please, Riku?"
Riku makes a sound between a scoff and a laugh, just looking at the pair of them. The summer of surfing, jogging on the beach with Kairi, and lounging in the sand with Sora he had envisioned dissolving in his mind. But there's so much hope in their wide, ocean blue eyes.
He's never quite learned to say no to both of them.
Riku stretches out his palm for the final set of mouse ears, garnished with mint green flowers that highlight the sea green flicker of his eyes. Kairi places the ears in his hand and he slips them on his head, smoothing back his silver hair with a final sweep of his hand.
"Alright, you win."
Sora preemptively punches a fist in the air and Kairi whoops.
"Sora. Kairi." Riku eyes one and then the next. "We're going to Disney World."