"Come on Riku! If you don't hurry we might miss her!" a six year old Sora yelled as he grabbed his best friends hand and attempted to drag him to their destination.
"I'm coming Sora. She moved here we won't miss her don't worry so much." At seven Riku was much more mature and much wiser than his younger (even if it was only a year) best friend.
"I know but I want us to be the first ones!" Sora was so sincere and so anxious that they might not be the first people she met. He had even woken up early and made Riku get out of bed complaining when Riku said he would go in his pajamas that "PJ's where not appropriate clothing for meeting anyone let alone a girl."
Riku had tried to be excited about this but it was just one more person who might take away even more of Sora's attention than the other kids already did. But he knew that he would go and try to be nice because it mattered to Sora.
That all went out the window when they saw her there in her knew yard picking flowers that matched her deep red hair and ocean blue eyes perfectly. Sora stopped and looked for a moment and then whispered "wow Riku she's so pretty!"
Riku decided then that he didn't like her one bit.
He had to shake his head at Sora. No matter what he told Sora about how girls were just weird and probably had those cooty things that the older kids on the island seemed to worry about, the younger boy just wouldn't listen.
She looked up at them then and smiled. It was a smile like Sora's: it just made you feel warm. He told himself sternly that he would not fall for that. It was probably a trick.
He was trying to think of something nice to say to her while Sora introduced them, then their eyes were on him.
"What?"
"Riku aren't you going to say hi?" Sora said with a small frown. The girl, Kairi was her name, just looked curious.
"Hi."
She smiled at him and he decided it was best to just look the other way.
Then Sora said the dreaded words 'Hey you wanna come play with us? Would that be ok Riku?' Riku was at a loss for words, he didn't want her to come but if he said no then Sora would be upset with him. He settled for the middle road.
"Huh, what do I care if some silly girl comes along, it's just too bad that she won't be able to keep up with boys like us."
Sora's mouth dropped open. His Riku never said things like that! But what surprised him most was that Kairi didn't cry like Selphie would have. She didn't even yell or call him a meanie. She HIT him. No one had ever hit Riku. When they played swords was different, but someone punching him, in the face, was unheard of.
Riku half sat half laid where he had fallen and slowly touched his face. Kairi didn't even look sorry as she challenged Riku with a single sentence.
"So now do you think I can keep up?"
Riku thought that he may have been wrong. He might just be able to like this girl, and maybe, just maybe, she didn't have those cooty things.