A/N: Well, this isn't what I had in mind for my next Kingdom Hearts fic. I was kind of hoping for a Leon/Riku…I failed.

Disclaimer: Well, shall we go through the reasons you can tell Kingdom Hearts isn't mine? It's a long list. Seriously, you'd have to take an hour just to read the disclaimer. Do you really want that? I didn't think so.

Riku pulled into the parking lot of a bar and grill, glancing at the clock in the car to see that he was late yet again.

He was supposed to be meeting Sora and Kairi for the monthly luncheon so they could catch up on how the others were doing. They had been doing this ever since they had split the group up—Riku having gone to Twilight Academy to study architecture; Sora going to Traverse University to study in medicine; Kairi stayed on Destiny Islands, going to the local technical institute to become a beautician. They couldn't stand to stay apart from each other for so long, though, having been friends since before school had even started. They didn't like the thought of only seeing each other once, maybe twice a year. So the three of them had made a plan to meet the third weekend of every month, pooling whatever money they could after rent, bills, and school fees, to pay for a small lunch party.

He parked next to the entrance, before gracefully gliding out of the car. Looking around briefly, he noticed Kairi's little blue convertible parked not too far away from his. He didn't see Sora's beat up little truck, and thought that, for once, he wasn't the last one to show up. He felt proud about that. He was almost late to his own high school graduation, not that that was a big surprise. He almost hadn't shown up at all. Had it not been for Kairi and Sora dragging him off to the high school gymnasium, he wouldn't have bothered.

Riku pulled his jacket out of the car, always taking it with him when he went to these luncheons, because the bar and grill was normally a little chilly and he hated being cold. He locked his doors and then trotted inside, looking around immediately for Kairi.

The place was set up a little awkwardly. Walls sprouted seemingly out of no where, making it hard to see most of the tables. The bar was located in the center of the building so most of the tables past it were invisible. Not to mention the thick haze of smoke that made his eyes water upon the first thirty minutes in this place. Thusly, finding Kairi would be a bit of a problem.

He swore to himself, while pushing his arms through the sleeves of his jacket, one of these days he would just wrangle his boyfriend into coming to the monthly meetings with him. Axel was six foot five and could see over most rainbows. He would have no trouble in this bar. In fact, he also smoked so Riku wouldn't have to wait for his boyfriend's eyes to adjust to this haze. Axel could just pick out where Riku's friends were and he would be set.

However, Axel wasn't here, so Riku would have to wait until he spotted his friends or grab one of the waiters or waitresses to help him out. He sighed, thankful when a cute little waitress walked up to him 

with one of those 'I'm so forcing this smile right now' faces. She bounced up to him and asked with grudging politeness, "Is it only you eating this afternoon?"

He shook his head gently, his hair swaying loosely with the motion. "No, I'm meeting a few friends. Kairi?" he asked, his hand flying to hover around his shoulder. "She's about this tall, red hair, enormously huge blue eyes."

Her eyes widened with recognition of who he was talking about. "Oh, okay," she said. "Follow me." She took off, not even waiting to see if he was following her. She led him into the back room, away from the haze of smoke, and into the depths of the pop-up wall horror. She stopped and turned her head back to him, pointing towards a table in the back, and telling him, "Just down there. What would you like to drink?"

Whilst nodding, he said off-hand, "Water," and then left her to go sit by Kairi.

When he closed in on the table the waitress had pointed out, he saw that Kairi wasn't alone. Sora was there too. He sighed, catching their attention, "Damn, I thought I wasn't the last one to show up for once in my damn life!"

As if rehearsed, they both shot up from their chairs, yelling, "Riku!" He was then attacked by Sora, who had practically jumped on him. "Riku!" he yelled again. "I've missed you so much," he said, elongating the word 'so' as if it would prove just how much Riku had been missed. "Kairi's been yakking my ear off about nails. Do you know what she threatened?" he asked, barely giving Riku enough time to say a quick, 'no?' before he carried on. "She threatened to do my make-up for a show she has coming up. At least with you here I won't be the only one she's targeting!"

Riku stared at him for a second with a concerned look before asking, "How do you breathe when you talk?"

Sora rolled his expressive blue eyes and pushed away from him in a gesture that clearly said, 'you're so no help at all,' returning to sit down at the table while Kairi came up to Riku and gave him a quick peck on the lips as welcome, as she was prone to doing ever since she found out he was gay. Riku guessed it had something to do with her never having to worry about him chasing after her so she could kiss him freely whenever she wished. Riku internally shrugged; at least he knew he was loved.

Kairi stepped back, fixing his hair that had been shaken loose. It was a very maternal thing to do, but he put up with it, because she was his friend and…she had one hell of a temper. Then, as soon as he was all perfect in her eyes, she said in one of those too sweet voices that should make one quake just at the sound of it, "He's really not that lucky, and I really am going to put make-up on him."

Riku shrugged, really not one to care how his friends tortured one another as long as they didn't drag him into it. "Reach your goals, Kai," he said, causing her to smile, and Sora to spin in his seat to beg silently for him not to encourage her.



Riku smirked at him as he and Kairi went to take their seats at the round table they were seated around. The waitress brought him his water and asked if they were ready to order. Riku said no before Sora could start off on his order that would most likely be enough to feed an army. When the girl walked away he picked up the menu that was in front of Sora, since the grumpy waitress hadn't brought him his own and began looking it over.

"What are you two having?" he asked looking at the salads section, seeing if there was anything that caught his eye and appetite.

Kairi took a sip from her soda, most likely diet…whatever that meant, and said, "I'm having the club sandwich."

Sora seemed to be mimicking her, hoping she wouldn't notice and took a sip of his soda, most likely the most caffeinated on the menu…great, and said, "I'm having the double cheeseburger."

He nodded absentmindedly and looked over the salads one more time before putting the menu back in front of Sora. Sora tossed the menu on top of Kairi's, asking uninterestedly, "So, what are you getting?"

"Caesar salad."

Sora made a disgusted face, and asked incredulously, "How can you eat that green stuff day after day? It's gross!"

Kairi laughed, while Riku said seriously, "That green stuff is very good for you, Sora. You'd probably be taller if you ate more of it."

He smirked as Sora's mouth dropped and Kairi's laughing tripled as soon as the sentence left his mouth.

Sora yelled indignantly, "I'm five foot seven!"

"With or without your hair?" he asked running his hand through Sora's spiky brown locks. Sora shook his hand out of his hair, glaring mildly at Kairi who had her head down on the table trying to breathe through her cackling.

"Without!" he screeched.

Riku shook his head in disbelief. "There's no way. I'm five, ten, and you are not just three inches shorter than me."

Sora puffed up, a rather impressive thing for him to accomplish since he still looked twelve and gangly. Glaring, with pout full on his face, he said "I am too five, seven. When I stand up, I can stare you eye to nose," as if it were the greatest achievement of all time.

Riku actually laughed at that, shaking his head at Sora's odd pride. Kairi was nearly falling off her chair she was laughing so hard. He couldn't help but think that she was way to easily amused, especially when it came to his and Sora's ridiculous arguments. He supposed that was why he loved her so much though. Every friendship group had to have three people, he had noticed once, and those three people had to be 

ridiculously different from each other. Kairi was a laugh-a-holic; Sora was a goofball who made her laugh; and Riku was the instigator, he guessed you could call it. If they were duplicates, the group wouldn't be sitting at this bar and grill every month in desperate attempts to stay close to each other.

The waitress came back to the table, and Kairi's laughing died down so that the waitress could hear Sora's order of double cheeseburger, fries, a side of corn, and Texas toast. Kairi ordered her club sandwich and Riku ordered his salad with Sora still making faces at the thought of anything green.

When the waitress was gone, Riku turned to face his friends throwing the proverbial ball onto the table and rolling it towards Kairi. "So, Sora tells me you're seeing Tidus," he said to her with a smug smile.

Kairi raised her eyebrow, looking between him and Sora with a put out pout on her face. "What? You'll talk to Sora and not me?" she asked sulkily, trying to make Riku felt bad that they hadn't talked at all in the previous month. It would have worked to if it weren't for the fact that Kairi was almost never at home, and there was no chance in hell that he would call her sister, Selphie's house and risk getting his ear yakked off by a sugar-sniffing maniac.

Riku shrugged and told her as if it were the most obvious thing in the world, "Sora's cuter than you are."

She scoffed. "You're such an asshole," she said, smiling through her comment as she threw a crumpled up straw cover at him.

He deflected it easily simply tilting his head to the side. Sora was sitting beside him, smiling smugly at the praise Riku was giving him.

Riku had to give his friends credit. When he had come out to them two years ago, he had been expecting to be shunned. Kairi always having had a bizarre crush on him and Sora having never said anything either way to homosexuality. He really didn't see it coming when Kairi had said, "And?" Sora had looked at him in the same manner, telling him in later months that he and Kairi had sort of discussed his preferences several times over the past years. They hadn't been shocked at all. Even better, their friendship hadn't weakened in the slightest. It was a bit bizarre, that was sure. Kairi would hang on him like her personal statue, and Sora, straight as a board Sora, would take his flirting in stride as if it were an every day occurrence.

Come to think of it, the flirting was probably an everyday occurrence for him. Sora had told him about a few gay people he knew in the big city of Traverse. He had said they were like his best friends away from best friends…

Kairi started speaking again, starting with a huff as she gave Sora a stare that clearly said, 'not only am I doing your make-up, but you just might end up with a perm now, too.' "Yes, Tidus and I are dating…in a very awkward, retarded way," she sighed, rolling her eyes.

Riku gave a short laugh, "An awkward, retarded way? Care to expand on that, princess?"



Her eyes became unfocused, and a simple smile crawled across her features. "Yeah…well, he never really asked me, you know? We went to a few movies with our mutual friends, 'cause everyone knows everyone on the islands, as you both very well know," shaking her head at the teeny-tiny islands she had chosen to stay on. "Well, we would sit together through the movie and talk about how stupid they were, especially horror films. Pretty soon, it was just us going to the movies every Friday, and not long after that we would go to dinner. Then before I knew how it happened we were making out and having sex," she finished with a simple shrug, as if that sort of thing were normal for her.

Sora made a face of disgust, muttering to himself, "There are some things I just don't need to know!"

Kairi shared a smirk with Riku, shaking her head at their virginal friend. Sora would blush if anyone even hinted to sex around him. If they actually said the word, 'sex' he would quickly change the subject. The thought of his friends having sex…it was a miracle he didn't faint.

Riku elbowed him playfully, asking, "What about you, short stack? Have you found someone in that city of stars to date?"

Sora glared. "No!" he huffed prissily. "But there is a girl that I'm currently in pursuit of, if you must know."

"Oh?" both Riku and Kairi said in sick curiosity. Sora was almost never in pursuit of a girl. Most of the time, a girl was in pursuit of him and he was just too nice to say no to her. He was almost painfully shy, so he would normally keep his attractions under wraps. If he was actually going after this girl, then she must be a perfect specimen of the female persuasion.

Kairi unleashed a Cheshire-cat smile as her hand reached up to twirl her short pony-tail and asked, "What's her name, lover-boy?"

"Her name is Namine, nosy."

"Namine?" Riku asked, leaning back in his seat. He considered the name for a moment, rolling it around in his head. "That's a pretty name," he decided. "Does she go to school with you?"

"No, she goes to an Art college. It's supposedly really prissy, and you have to be extraordinary to even have them consider you," Sora shrugged. "I had never even heard of it before I met her."

"Where did you meet her?" Kairi asked curiously.

"She's a friend of Roxas and Ollete."

"Roxas, your roommate?" Riku asked making sure he still had all of Sora's friends down in the correct order.

Sora looked at him stupidly, taking his question in a different way as he asked sarcastically, "Do I know another Roxas?"



Riku smirked, his feathers unruffled by Sora's random mood-swings. "It was just a question," he soothed. He looked over to Kairi who was hiding her amused smile behind her hand and asked, "Can you believe him? He's getting grumpier and grumpier every time we see him."

"I think making him speak about his love life makes him uncomfortable," she analyzed, taking a sip of her soda.

Sora took a deep breath. "I'm sorry," he said. "Leon and Roxas have such a bad influence on me," he snapped his head around to Riku and said, "Before you ask, yes, Leon, my gay friend."

Riku pulled back a little, staring at him in mock-disbelief. "My god," he said dryly, "he reads minds now too."

Kairi sat up straight with forced enthusiasm and practically yelled, "Oh! Me next! Me next!" waving her hand in the air, and doing a small, impatient dance in her seat. Riku smiled and Sora huffed, crossing his arms over his chest.

"The two of you are ridiculous," the brunette said, looking down at the table. Riku knew his friend was trying to hide the smile that was taking over his face.

Kairi resettled in her chair, saying, "Give it a few minutes, Sora. You'll be just as ridiculous as we are after you've had some food."

His head perked up instantly, "Where is that, anyway? I'm starved."

"The real reason behind his grouchiness," Riku said under his breath.

Sora looked around, as if the waitress would magically appear with their food. In the mean time, Kairi looked at Riku with her enormous, blue eyes, asking, "So, how are you and Axel?"

Riku didn't even blink as he said, "We broke up."

Kairi face contorted into grief for her friend. Sora whipped around, guaranteed shaking his brain around, and yelled, "Riku, when did that happen? I'm so sorry."

Riku smirked. "Imagine how much worse it would be if it were true," he said smugly. He had always been able to lie to them about almost anything, and they never, ever caught on to him until he felt fit to tell them.

Sora punched his arm and she threw her napkin at him, exclaiming, "You are terrible!"

His smile grew as they beat on him, rubbing lightly at where Sora had hit him. "I couldn't resist," he amended, before trying to answer her question. "Axel and I are…ourselves?" He gave a half-shrug.

Kairi looked at him expectantly, rolling her hands around in the air, prompting him to continue. He shuffled through his mind, trying to find something interesting to say about their relationship. Axel had tried quitting smoking for all of about three days. That had been a very interesting. They had repainted 

the living room—they would have to paint it back to white before they moved out of their apartment, but they had painted it a deep orange. Oh! Axel had gotten a new computer… there was nothing really spectacular going on.

He shrugged again. "We've been dating for a year. What do you want from me?"

Sora chuckled, "Well, are you still happy?"

"Happy is a primitive word," he said carelessly while taking a sip of his water. He continued as he set his glass back down, "I mean we've been living together for eight months now. Every now and then we go see a movie, but other than that we live with a monotonous routine."

"In other words, you're as happy as the Great Riku allows himself to be?" Kairi asked cynically.

"Sure."

Kairi shook her head, while Sora played in the condensation that had gathered on his glass. Riku took another sip of his water, watching as Kairi engaged Sora in a conversation about the sparring team from the Community College in Destiny Islands. Apparently they were really sucking this year and she was blaming him, because if he had stayed they would be magnificent. She'd blame Riku too, but Riku had never joined the team in high school, so it couldn't be his fault.

Most of the time passed like this, as it did on almost every luncheon they shared together. It wasn't that wonderful to anyone looking in, but this was Riku's life, these two people, and slowly joining the group was a tall redhead who had work this morning so he hadn't seen Riku off. It wasn't fantastic, or dramatic. It was just them taking one breath after another, but it worked.

A/N: Okee Dokee…I do have an idea to make this into a multi-chapter, if it is so wished by everyone. I kind of like it like this, a kind of light-hearted meeting between friends. However, if the reviewers wish to see more of this story, I won't hesitate to get my butt in gear and give you more of this story.

If it is a multi-chapter I promise it won't be as heart-wrenching as Listless.

Please review and tell me what you want.

InnocentGuilt