Dedicated to Tom, for being the best brother I have (which I promise has nothing to do with being the only brother I have). And also to apologise for him not being able to read any of my other fics due to me writing stuff for fandoms or pairings he just can't deal with.
The school bell rang and the Key Stage 1 children filed out of the classroom and through the corridors to the outside of the school eagerly, not wanting to miss another second of their afternoon on the islands. Sora exited the classroom with Kairi close behind him; smiling at the girl, he began walking in the opposite direction of the other kids, heading instead deeper into the school, moving through the winding corridors and past brightly coloured displays towards the Year 3 classroom. Riku was always out late.
The two 7 year olds walked peacefully, chatting amicably about the games they wanted to play once they were free, and about the upcoming summer holidays. Sora was happy to have made friends with Kairi so quickly, despite the fact she had only been on the islands for a little over a month; it could get boring in his classroom without his best friend around to keep him company.
"Hey!" Came a voice from the door of the classroom, snapping the two children from their discussion on whether marbles or skipping ropes were better. Sora looked up immediately to see Riku already standing there.
"Riku, you came out early today!" The boy cheered, smiling readily.
"Not really. You're just late," Riku sighed, appearing as serious as ever. "So are we gonna go play now?"
"Yeah, let's go!" Sora replied.
"So, what do you wanna do?" Sora asked later, once the three friends were dropped off on the islet they always played on.
"Hmm… I wouldn't mind play-pretending something," Kairi suggested.
"Like what?" Sora continued, while Riku just watched on silently.
"Well… We could all be 'warriors'. And we could fight some kind of 'dragon' or something." She smiled a little.
"You mean like playing a game of knights and kings and queens?" Sora mulled it over a little. "That'd be okay, I guess… You could be a 'princess' in a tower or something."
Kairi seemed to take offense to this. "Why should I be the damsel? Why can't you be a 'princess in a tower'?"
"But princesses are girls. And that's what princesses do!" Sora answered, as if it was obvious.
"Just because I'm a girl doesn't mean I should have to be the one needing rescuing." Kairi shot back.
"All right! Just stop already!" Riku cut in, exasperated. "We can all fight the 'dragon'. We could just be rescuing treasure or something."
"Okay," Sora agreed. "We'll need a treasure to rescue though. Something a 'dragon' wouldn't want to let go of."
"Well…" Kairi thought for a moment. "I do have a bracelet that looks kind of pretty. That could be our treasure."
"Okay! We can fight to recover 'princess' Kairi's bracelet of power!" Sora replied eagerly, padding out the story with ease.
"Yeah, and we could both be 'knights' helping her," Riku added. "And whichever 'knight' manages to do the best against the dragon is sure to impress the 'princess' the most, right?"
"Huh?" Sora questioned, confused. Was Riku making this into some kind of contest again?
"What's wrong? You want something to make it more interesting, don't you? So why not make it a competition?" Riku explained.
"Why does Kairi have to be involved in this?" Sora whined, not liking the idea of Riku impressing his new friend more than him.
"Afraid you'll lose?" Riku taunted, wanting to spur his rival on.
"No way!" Sora cried, rising to the insult.
"So let's go," Riku concluded, already walking off towards one of the wooden structures on the island.
"Okay then, so the item we need to get back's all the way up there," Riku explained, pointing to one of the treehouses the bracelet had been put into. "To get at it, we first need to kill the 'dragon' standing guard."
"What dragon?" Sora queried. Riku waved his hand at the ground in front of the treehouse, where several pieces of jagged, loose driftwood had been jabbed into the sand.
"These are the scales of the 'great dragon'," he told the other two children. "Whoever knocks the most over wins, and is the one to rescue the treasure."
"Okay," Sora smiled.
"Yeah," Kairi agreed.
"Are we ready then?" Riku checked, waiting for both of the others to nod. "Okay, let's go!"
Some chaos ensued as the three children charged towards the driftwood, Sora and Riku armed with toy wooden swords and Kairi holding a long stick she had picked up off the ground. While the two boys appeared to have a greater grasp of their individual fighting styles and control of their weapons, Kairi more than made up for it with pure enthusiasm and a desire not to lose. After only a few seconds, it became clear that Sora and Riku were always targeting the same pieces of wood as each other, each seemingly trying to beat the other to each hit and therefore deprive his rival. Neither boy noticed nearly half of the driftwood remained completely untargeted by them. Kairi meanwhile threw all of her energy into toppling as many pieces of wood as she could; avoiding the areas Sora and Riku were feuding over.
Overall there were several minutes of thrashing and knocking over pieces of driftwood before the 'battle' was over. Sora and Riku stood facing each other, swords crossed from where they'd both struck the final piece of wood at the same time. Kairi, tired out from the exercise, sank to the floor to rest. For a moment, all was still, and only the sound of breathing could be heard.
"No fair! I got to it first!" Sora yelled, throwing his sword to the ground and crossing his arms.
"What does it matter? I bet I still have more hits than you anyway," Riku replied, brushing off his friend's anger.
"Really? Because I got five hits in," Sora stated proudly, smiling again.
"Only five? I got six, even if we don't count that last one," Riku shrugged, clearly not impressed.
"Huh? No way! You can't have just won again!" Sora's face fell.
"You're right, I can't…" Riku continued, looking down. "I set up twenty targets…"
"Then who got the other nine?" Sora questioned.
Kairi giggled from her seat on the sand, surrounded by destroyed driftwood.
"Looks like the 'princess' didn't need anyone's help after all," Riku assumed. "So neither of us won. Kairi rescues the treasure, and nobody gets the girl." He shrugged again. "It doesn't matter. It was just a game after all."
"Whatever." Sora sighed, kicking the sand below him. Not only had he lost again, but he'd really messed up trying to impress Kairi… And for whatever reason, that really bugged him. Riku had lost too, but he had surely looked more impressive than him. He didn't really want his two best friends to decide he was dead weight, even if it was just a game. But then… Was it more than even that? The young boy didn't really know.
In the time Sora had spent standing around moping, Riku had cleared up the results of their game and Kairi had retrieved her bracelet.
"Well, I'm going to go explore the island some more," Riku decided, shoving his hands into his pockets and walking off towards the treeline.
"Okay!" Kairi replied, waving. "Hmm… I might go collect seashells," she added, turning to Sora again and waving before walking towards the sea.
"Yeah…" Sora acknowledged, standing on the sand still. As he saw his friend walk off towards the shore, he felt a little insecure. Maybe he was just sore about still losing, but he felt the need to talk to Kairi about it anyway.
She had already waded into the azure surf and crouched down on the wet sand by the time he had caught up with her. The boy's feet made large splashes against the waves as he touched the shoreline, alerting his friend to his presence.
"You look a little sad… Do you hate that you lost?" She asked, picking at the multi-coloured shells at her feet. She hadn't even had to look up at Sora.
"Maybe," he admitted. "I don't like losing to Riku all the time. He's better at everything than me. It's not fair."
"But he's older than us." Kairi pointed out. "Wouldn't it make less sense if he wasn't better at stuff than us?"
"But Kairi, you won!" The boy shot back. "Why is it you can win sometimes, but I never can?"
"I won because you two were so busy competing with each other," she told him. "You guys never pay attention to anything else when you're trying to get one up on each other. Neither of you noticed me, so I was able to do better than both of you without you knowing." She shrugged as she finished speaking, and placed a few of the shinier shells into her pocket.
Sora pouted. Great, was he really that easily preoccupied?
"You really take it so seriously, your rivalry with him." She continued, tilting her head to look slightly at Sora. "What's so important to you that you keep fighting over it?"
"Well…" Sora thought out loud. "I just don't want to be seen as worse than him at stuff. I want to be the best."
"What's so bad about being second best?" She questioned.
"It just is bad! I don't want people to only think of me as the guy who's worse at stuff than Riku." He answered.
"Hmm…" She responded, standing up fully and joining her hands together behind her back. "Well… I don't think of you as just the guy who's worse at stuff than Riku. You're my friend."
"Really?" He smiled a little, seemingly hopeful.
"Yeah." She blushed a little as she turned to face him fully. "You… Kind of were always my favourite, really. Even from the start."
The young boy blushed, and smiled with all of the intensity of the sun. Maybe he didn't have to worry about impressing the girl after all. And maybe Riku was wrong when he said that nobody got to be with the 'princess'.
Sora looked down at the charm that Kairi had given him to ensure his journey was safe and smiled. Somehow, such a simple thing had reminded him of pleasant memories from before, but there wasn't time to sit and reminisce. He had to make sure to finish this fight once and for all, so he could once more create happy memories with his princess.