Later on Sunday...

My day has been a veritable rollercoaster of emotion.

So first, there was waking up in bed with Riku, which was initially shocking, then saddening when I remembered why we in bed together in the first place. Poor 'Ku. Had his heart ripped out by a magical mythical creature in public.

He told me everything she'd said at Pride Lands, and then I went to hug him and he rested his arms over mine and laid his head on my shoulder and I sort of rocked him from side to side for a while, saying nothing. Then his breathing evened out a bit and I realized he was getting really sleepy, and right on cue he said, 'Would it be okay if I went to bed now? I know it's early but I'm so tired.'

'Sure,' I said, a little awkwardly, because he still hadn't lifted his head or let go of my arms. 'Do you want me to sleep on the couch…?' I knew he was okay with the fact that I'm gay, obviously, but people can be weird about that stuff when it comes to sleeping arrangements. Understandably, in Riku's case, because you'd have to be both blind and impotent not to want to jump his bones.

This caused him to lift his head however. 'God, I didn't even think,' he said, berating himself. 'You take the bed, I'll take the couch. I'm being an idiot, sorry, of course Leon wouldn't want-'

'Leon can deal,' I interrupted; I didn't want him on my dad's lumpy second-hand couch after the day he'd had. 'I don't mind sharing as long as you're cool with it.'

His forehead creased in uncertainty; he was definitely only a few minutes away from Nod. 'Are you sure?'

'Yes,' I said firmly, scooting back in the bed and reaching out to turn off my lamp.

The room went dark and I crawled under the covers; I could see Riku's outline doing likewise at the other side of the bed, and I paused as I tried to figure out which way to face. Usually I face into the center of the bed, and I can't really sleep on my other side, but I didn't want it to be weird. I was about to lay down facing the window, when Riku, who was already asleep, grunted quietly and nudged back in the bed, his body close to mine. If I rolled over now I'd fall out of the bed. I pondered for a few more minutes before I heard Kairi's voice in my head, screaming at me to stop being such an idiot and just go with it. It wasn't like I was taking advantage of him. So I sighed and let my eyes flutter closed, breathing in his smell, which was sweet and spicy all at once.

And then when I woke up this morning, we were wrapped up in each other like a pretzel. It was awks (can't believe Kairi has me using that word, but w/e) since I woke up first and I wanted so bad in equal measures to both kiss him and not be in that situation at all. I knew he was close to waking up because his eyelids were fluttering a little, and his long dark lashes were brushing against those amazing cheekbones. His lips were all sleep-swollen and lovely and one of his hands was thrown across my chest while he was laying on one of mine which, I noticed was numb.

I felt like such a pervert just staring at him, and quickly closed my eyes again, pretending to be asleep, when I saw he was waking up.

'Hm... Oh, sorry…' he muttered, lifting his hand off my chest and wiping the sleep out of his eyes (I peeked). 'Looks like I practically pushed you out of bed,' he mumbled, tiredly, rolling over to his own side and off my arm.

'It's okay,' I said, flexing my arm to try and return some feeling to it, then flinching when pins and needles rushed in.

'What time is it?' he asked sleepily. I noted he was dopey in the mornings. It was adorable.

'Uh…' I reached for my phone and glanced at the screen. 'Ten in the morning.'

Riku groaned. 'I can't go home till she leaves,' he said, then looked at me apologetically. 'I can go hang out in the cinema or somewhere if you had plans though…'

I shook my head. Leon was supposed to be coming over but Riku was my friend and he needed me right now so that was my priority. 'You can stay here. We'll watch trashy TV and eat crap food, it'll be great.'

Which was how, three hours later, we were to be found in front of my dad's shitty TV, on the lumpy second-hand couch, watching old Monty Python films and eating our second tub of Ben and Jerry's Chocolate Fudge Brownie… Each.

'Girls just have the entire answers dude,' Riku said through a mouthful of ice cream. 'Ice cream is the answer. They have known this for generations and I always thought it was bullshit. But aside from the brain freeze, I feel much better!'

'You're OD-ing on serotonin,' I told him. 'All that chocolate and comedy.'

'I think I will just live on your couch and watch Monty Python and eat ice cream for the rest of my life.'

I laughed. 'Fine with me.' I got up to switch from The Holy Grail to The Life of Brian when there was a knock on the door and I glanced at Riku.

He shrugged. 'Don't ask me dude, I don't live here. Yet.'

This sent a thrill of excitement through me which I ignored, and got up to answer the door. Of course it was Leon. In the excitement of actually managing to cheer Riku up I'd forgotten to text him and tell him not to come over.

'Oh,' I said, deflating. 'Hey.'

'Hey,' he said, frowning, obviously picking up on my tone. 'Everything okay?'

'Uh, yeah, sure. Come in.' I stood back and he walked into the apartment. It was his first time being here, and I could tell immediately he didn't like it very much. He tries not to let his distaste show but I can always tell from the slight wrinkle of his nose, the way his mouth turns up a little at the corners.

'Where's your dad?' he asked. My dad has never been anything but polite to Leon, but I think people can always tell when somebody doesn't really like them. Sometimes I get the feeling that Leon doesn't really like me, but I know that has to be bullshit because why else would he go out with me?

'He's out,' I said. 'Not sure where.' Then, trying to make it sound like a treat that he would enjoy, 'Riku's here though!'

Leon glanced at me and then looked into the sitting room on reflex, where Riku was looking over the back of the couch at him. They wore matching expressions of dislike and I swallowed nervously.

'May I speak to you in private for a moment?' Leon asked me. I knew that tone and I was very tempted to say "no way in hell" but I didn't want to cause a scene, so I just shrugged and led him to my room, making an apologetic face at 'Ku as I closed the door.

'What's up?' I asked as breezily as I could, trying to make it sound like there was nothing for anybody to be worried about because, let's face it, there wasn't. Everybody needed to calm the fuck down, in my opinion.

'What's he doing here?' Leon demanded.

I raised an eyebrow. 'He's my friend,' I said flatly.

'I don't like him,' Leon said seriously. 'I don't think you should be friends with him.'

'I'll be friends with whoever I want,' I snapped, raising my voice slightly.

Leon sighed impatiently and waved my words away like they didn't matter. 'How long has he been here? Can't you tell him to leave? I thought we were going to spend the day together.'

I fidgeted awkwardly. 'I can't tell him to leave. He can't go home yet.'

Leon rolled his eyes. 'Why on earth not?'

'He's having some… Relationship troubles,' I said. 'So he's hanging out here for a while.'

'It's one o' clock in the afternoon, how much trouble can he have gotten into?'

'It happened yesterday. He stayed over last night.'

Leon stared at me as if I'd misplaced my senses. 'In your bed?'

'Of course in my bed. Does this apartment look big enough to have a spare room to you?'

'You let some strange boy sleep in your bed and you didn't even think to mention it to me?' Leon was shouting at this point and I was uncomfortably aware that Riku could probably hear everything on the other side of the door. And he wasn't the type to turn the TV up just to drown it out.

'He's not a "strange boy",' I retorted, offended. 'He's my friend! And since when do I ever ask you permission to do anything?'

'We are in a relationship, Sora!' Leon shouted. 'That means something. Did anything happen?'

I gaped at him, slack-jawed. 'Are you being serious?' I demanded after a moment.

'Perfectly!'

'You are seriously asking me if something happened with Riku?'

'Yes I am! And the fact that you won't answer the question is a little worrying!'

'No, nothing happened!' I shouted. 'I can't believe we're even having this conversation!'

'Oh, don't be so naïve, Sora. Do you really think I don't see how you look at him? Do you really think he wouldn't take advantage of that?'

'He's straight!'

'You just said yourself that he's having relationship troubles! Not to mention the way that he looks at you!'

'We don't look at each other any way! You're being paranoid!'

Leon laughed bitterly. 'Just because I'm being paranoid, doesn't mean I'm not right. You're being a total slut, Sora!'

I gaped at him again, rallying myself for a comeback, when the door opened and I turned to see Riku standing in the doorway, looking bored.

'Take that back,' he said mildly, directing it at Leon.

'This has nothing to do with you,' Leon said in his normal voice. 'It's none of your business.'

'It wasn't until you dragged me into it. I think you owe both of us an apology.'

I swallowed, glancing between Leon and Riku nervously. I was still really angry with Leon though, which, though I'm ashamed to admit it, put me firmly on Riku's side.

'Can you please call off your guard dog?' Leon asked me impatiently, gesturing to Riku.

'No,' I said stubbornly. 'I think you should apologize to us.'

Leon made a noise of impatience and moved towards the door. For one heart-stopping moment I thought he was going to do something stupid like try to hit Riku, but he simply moved past him into the sitting room and towards the door, saying, 'I'll speak to you tomorrow at school. Have sex with him for all I care.'

I followed him, pushing past Riku to shout, 'Fine! I will have sex with him! And you can't stop me!'

Leon slammed the door closed behind him and I gave a strangled noise of frustration, taking a few calming breaths before turning around to face Riku again.

'So…' he said conversationally. 'Shall we do the sex now then, or wait till later?'

'Ha, ha,' I said sarcastically, dropping onto the couch even though my entire body had reacted favorably to that suggestion. Riku came and sat beside me, and I noticed the movie was playing silently on the TV screen. 'Sorry you had to hear all that,' I mumbled. 'And sorry you got dragged into it.'

'That's okay,' Riku said breezily. 'It's nice to know I'm irresistible to both genders.'

I elbowed him. 'Shut up,' I muttered. 'I don't look at you any differently than I do anybody else. Just like you don't look at me any differently.'

Riku looked surprised. 'I do look at you differently,' he said, as though I should have known this. 'You're a really good friend, Sora. That's really important to me.' There was a pause as I tried not to blush and Riku pretended not to notice me trying not to blush, and he reached for the TV remote to turn the volume back up on Monty Python.

'Everybody's breaking up,' he commented monotonously.

And even though we spent the rest of the day like we'd spent the morning; watching TV and eating things to make us fat, I had to wonder if he was right, and whether Leon and I had just broken up or not.