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a c o l l e c t i o n o f k a i r i k u ( k a i r i x r i k u ) d r a b b l e s & o n e s h o t s
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a.u thor 's n.o te;;
These shall most likely not be related in any way but the pairing they include.
Kingdom Hearts does not belong to me. Your pants do.
And remember children: Kairiku not only equals life, but is greater than life.
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e T E R N A L
kairiku collection x;
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i . paopu tree ;;
White-yellow rays of brilliance projected from the heavens and hurtled down onto earth, illuminating Destiny Islands with a halo of warmth. The vegetation looked much greener than it would at night or sunset, when the light (or lack there of) marred or obscured its natural lush emerald hues. The children would see the plants and trees and plunge themselves into a world of imagination, and they would suddenly become jungle explorers, blundering through dense verdure like dazed individuals who spent too much time looking at the sun. In fact, they did just that. Sora, Selphie, Wakka, and Tidus had ventured out not long before to the tropical areas of the isle, where sand switched to dirt that could barely be seen beneath tangles of weeds and grass. May God help whoever they deemed worthy of leader in their expedition.
This rather abrupt adventure Riku did not decide to partake in. The pastime allowed him to lapse into a blissful solitude where he couldn't care less that he was alone. The thirteen year-old sat on his crooked paopu tree, idly gazing off across the solid cerulean plane of ocean and at the bleached horizon. He was careful not to directly stare at the sun, however – and we all know what happened to Sora when he did so.
"Hey Riku, is it nighttime?"
It was most certainly not nighttime. It was noon.
"Because I'm seeing stars."
Sora was not able to attend school the next day because he caught a nasty case of pinkeye. When he came home, he had made it clear that he'd chosen to become albino and refused all of Riku's claims that he had watched the sun for so long, henceforth frying the whites of his eyes and turning them raw. Somehow, that fact was too graphic for Sora to accept.
Riku liked the paopu tree because it gave him a sense of security. Even though its trunk was sunken and depressed, there was a filmy aura around it like a blanket that enveloped him with comfort whenever he wanted to get lost in something. At the moment, he was currently lost in a daydream. I won't tell you what his daydream was about, but what happens next will leave little to one's pondering mind.
"Riku!"
He seemed to float out from his reverie like a soul departing from the body and turned his chin to the side. It guided his turquoise vision down the strip of beach where Kairi was, not too occupied with getting out of her boat on account of her waving hand. Nearly absent minded he offered her a slight smile and waited for her to walk over.
She did, but it was more like a leisurely stroll after she got tired from running on the loose sand where he shoes sunk into the billions of shell fragments and held on. After a close call of tripping, and some shared chuckles (giggling on her part, and Riku was just being kind by showing amusement – all thought it was somewhat funny), the girl with short burgundy hair paused at the tree base and placed a hand on the trunk, pale against pale.
"Hi, Riku."
"Hi, Kairi."
Kairi never seemed quite as bubbly without Sora or Selphie around to aid her. Their happiness was contagious. Riku sometimes found himself regrettably wondering if it was he who caused her dampening mood.
"Help me up?" Riku bit back his tongue, which was ready to lash out with something bitterly joking: You aren't a baby anymore. He looked into her water drop eyes and realized she was just too innocent to deny, and that, on second thought, he'd be glad to comply to her every need.
He hopped off his perch temporarily and cupped his hands around her petite waist, using strong arms to hoist her up on where he had been sitting moments before. She giggled into her fist like a little kid and swung her bony legs that were miles from the ground, content.
The boy returned to her side, using his palms to push himself up next to her. With a faint smile toying on her lips, she watched the sun while Riku thought of how horribly typical it was to do so.
"Where's Sora and the others?" She sweetly put out in the open. Now that you've got that over with.
"Around. Playing, somewhere. I don't know." He sounded remotely unconcerned and disinterested with the younger kids' wanderings. He had stopped playing jungle explorers years ago.
"Mmm," The legs swung with more viciousness now, as if Kairi thought she could chop the air in half. It was dreadfully obvious that she wanted to say something but was waiting for Riku's allowance of such trivialness.
"So, how're you, Kairi?" His question slipped from his mouth easily, because it meant nothing.
Kairi noticed this as her key to begin. "You know, I always wondered what it'd be like to have a paopu fruit." Her eyes had moved and locked onto the cluster of the yellow fruit nestled beneath the palm tree-like leaves a distance away.
Being the extremely educated teen that he was in paopu fruit facts and information, Riku stated, "If you share it with someone, they say your destinies will become intertwined." Of course, he didn't believe such mushy nonsense. He could predict that there were other worlds out there, but that was about the extent of his idealism. Esoterically, he wished he could share one with a certain girl whose name is quite obvious, as she was sitting right next to him at the present time.
Said girl sighed, shoulders falling delicately. "I know. Too bad they're too high to reach . . ."
She really looked crestfallen. An idea popped into his head – brilliant only to himself. "Huh, I could climb it," He declared as he looked up at the treetop with a determined expression on his face.
Kairi seemed to brighten a little, but still remained dubious. "Really?"
"Sure." Riku stood up on the tree branch suddenly, surprising the girl aged twelve last November, and looked down at her like a regal statue would to any passerby. "Do you doubt The Great Riku?"
Releasing a chortle, her cheeks blushed. "You sound like Sora."
Turning away from her and focusing his attention on the tree, he scowled. Riku then wrapped both arms around the trunk as though taking it into an embrace and began to climb. His shoes made scuffling noises until he was no longer using primarily his feet but his arms to inch his way up. From below, Kairi gasped quietly in unveiled admiration.
Riku felt like he was literally on top of the world. It felt good, it felt great, and the best thing of all was that Kairi was watching him and he impressed her. No one could deny that it took skills to climb this paopu tree like a native islander, the ones that went out each day and scaled coconut trees for the ripe, sweet fruit at the top. Do I remind you of Sora now, Kairi? He'd never be able to do this.
He'd be able to do this, though.
All at once, Riku felt himself slipping. His soft hands slid from the virtually textureless tree trunk, ergo causing him to spin around and putting him in a position away from the ground and over the water. With a short yell, he fell and disappeared into the shallow cyan depths.
Kairi's ululation echoed throughout the deserted isle, and she clambered off the tree and ran across the bridge and down the steps and on the beach
(o god i hope he's not hurt i hope i didn't kill him)
and down on the shore. What she thought she'd see in her panic would be Riku's drowned body floating on the surface (or sunken to the bottom, she had never seen what a corpse did in water), but instead she saw him splashing in the water and getting up, quite alive. She cried out again, this time in relief.
He came to her dripping, dark navy blue pants sagging around his ankles and bloated like jellyfish. She reached out to him, as if to touch him.
"Are you okay?"
Riku shook his head in impatience. It was just a little drop that had been broken by water.
His hands that had been hiding behind his back came into view. One of them he outstretched, and in his palm he held a large, five-pointed paopu fruit.
At first she was mystified; then her eyes twinkled and she smiled despite herself.
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