Sea Salt Confession
----------------------------------------
One bright summer day, Selphie invited all of her friends for sea salt ice cream then bullied Tidus into paying. When asked for a valid reason, she said that she still owed Wakka a favor, Sora had spent the last of his allowance buying them ice cream last time, and Riku… At this point, she broke off and huddled with Kairi, giggling and shooting glances at Riku. Tidus found this unfair but forked over 75 munny plus tax.
They had all grown. The girls were starting to notice the guys, especially Riku. They quietly vied for his attention as young girls do but faced a pressing problem. There was only one Riku and two girls. Neither wanted to share. The next obvious choice was Sora, since he was more visually and emotionally appealing than Tidus or Wakka. On that sunny day, licking their ice cream together at the beach, Selphie popped the vital question.
"Sora…" here, she hesitated a bit, "Who do you like best? … in this group, that is," she added hastily, not wanting to hear "Olette!" or some other girl at school. Everyone turned to Sora, waiting for his answer.
Sora pondered this seriously for all of two seconds before announcing with a smile,
"Riku!"
Riku choked on his ice cream stick while the rest stared at Sora in disbelief. After a stunned pause, Kairi started to giggle, which started the Selphie, Wakka, and Tidus off. Who were they kidding? This was Sora. He hadn't hit puberty yet, let alone thought about girls that way. Sora stared at his laughing friends for a while then joined in the laughter even though he didn't realize the reason for it. Only Riku didn't laugh. He took those words seriously, held them in his twelve-year-old heart, and waited.