Warnings

Boy/boy pairings, the use and abuse of stereotypes, hints at original pairings, regular updates (I know people are not used to this), a sometimes excessive level of cuteness and a useless Warnings section at the beginning of each chapter.

Chapter Notes

Love is blind, friendship closes its eyes

Chapter 13: Sweet Memories

Sora looked at the peaceful sea while the sun of the early afternoon was warming him pleasantly. For the first time in the last few days, he was feeling completely relaxed: that bunch of rocks that was now surrounding him had always made him feel protected, like it could shield him from the rest of the world. He was sitting on the warm, golden sand, his hands in his pockets.

He felt a little surprised when he found in his right one a piece of paper. 'Talk to Roxas', 'Clarify the situation to his friends', 'Clear up things with Riku', those were the only words written on it.

"Never known you to be so sentimental."

A startled Sora instinctively put the paper back in his pocket and looked at the silver-haired boy who had finally reached him. "You're late!"

"I bought something to eat, it's already past one o' clock." Riku answered throwing a sandwich at the younger boy. "Nobody ever told you that you're cute when you pretend to be angry?" he teased while sitting next to his embarrassed friend. Sora heard a little voice in his head.

'Ask him!'

"Yeah, uhm, so... how are you doing?"

"Our secret place... Do you remember the day we discovered it?" Riku asked looking at the horizon and ignoring Sora's question.

The brunet looked a little surprised at the question."Uh? Sure, my first day in high school."

'Stop stalling for time, do it!'

"Right, and you didn't want to cross the rocks to reach it because you were afraid to fall into the water." Sora remembered too well the first time they had crossed the slippery rocks that were the only way to that place. And the consequent dive he accidentally took. It wasn't really hidden, but the difficult way to reach it made it a nearly unexplored spot, the perfect place to hide away when you need to detach from everything.

'You want to know what he feels for you!'

Now or never. He turned his head to look directly at his friend. "Alright, Riku! What's going on?"

He could see the eyes of his friend narrowing, but his expression didn't change. "What do you mean by that?"

"You know what I mean!" Sora said, settled on clarifying everything. Or at least the most. "First you didn't want to see me, then earlier today you stood up for me against Seifer and his gang and now you're suddenly all friendly and sweet-talking and... and... just like the last week never happened. What gives, Riku?"

The upperclassman smirked, slightly irritating his friend. "If I'm not wrong it was you that didn't let me go away after our meeting with Xemnas..."

"You came out and just told me 'I am sorry'!" the brunet answered promptly, more determined than ever. "And then you refused to say anything else, you would have gone away if I didn't stop you."

"Yeah, that's the reason why I told you to meet me at this spot. In that school even walls have ears."

Sora calmed down a little. He even smiled a little. "I thought you were the one who didn't care about what people think..."

"I don't. I care about what think the principal." Sora's timid smile disappeared.

"Afraid of that old loon? I mean, that guy is freaking scary, but... is the high-and-mighty-Riku afraid of someone?"

Riku stopped eating his sandwich and looked sadly at the sea. "Yeah, well, I suppose you have to be when they threaten someone close to you."

Sora's jaw nearly fell to the ground. 'What-was-that? Aren't you being a little bit over-dramatic?'

"Yes, Sora." he continued. "I'm talking about you. The principal used a refined circumlocution to tell me that if I don't keep at least one-hundred feet of distance from you he will expel you from the school."

Foul language: the most appropriate definition of Sora's mind at that precise moment. That was too much, even for that crazy bastard.

But until there, Sora had managed to stay focused on his priorities, so he forced himself to chill down. He made a mental note to come back later on the subject, though. "I'm sorry, Riku. I didn't mean to treat you the way I did, I..."

"Oh, stop it." he cut him short. "I've not been really gracious myself. We're guys, we don't need excuses. It's one of those things that keep us apart from the girls, like baseball, arm-wrestling, burping challenges, ..."

Sora made a grimace, amused. "You're gross."

"Stop being such a girl."

"At least I don't discuss with other girls about romance novels."

"It's a refined tactic to know them better."

"Suuure is, Rikky."

"Stop calling me that!"

Sora knew he had struck a nerve there: his friend hated that nickname since some crazy girl had given it to him. Together with a ton of affection manifested through embarrassing ways that, Sora was sure, Riku didn't want to remember.

"Or else?" Sora got up and took a few steps back: he wanted to be sure to be at a safe distance before keeping on teasing his friend, he had missed doing it too much. He then assumed a melodramatic attitude. "Rikky, you can't hurt me or evil Xemnas will get angry."

"I think it's time for little Sora to learn his place." Riku answered quietly slowly getting up too. Slowly until the moment he was standing in front of Sora, then the brunet had barely the time to realize that the upperclassman had sprinted towards him and that he was now eating sand, kept on the ground by Riku who was literally on him, keeping his right arm painfully twisted behind his back.

"C'mon, Sora, I thought you were stronger than that."

"Ouch, Rikky, it hurts!"

"Aw, poor little Sora." He apparently had no intention to let go of his friend so quickly. "Just say 'I will never call you that way, dear Riku!' and I'll let you go!"

"I will never call you that way, let me go now!"

"...'dear Riku'"

"dear Rikky- ouch, I was kidding! Riku, Riku, let me go, now!"

Riku let the arm go. When Sora was able to turn and look at his friend, he quickly noticed that he was giggling. "Wipe that smile from your face! It wasn't fun!" he lied, hiding the fact that he was enjoying to have (hopefully) got back to good terms with his friend.

"Have I ever told you that you're cute when you pretend to be angry?"

"Not in the last ten seconds."

"Well, I should have had."

'Ok, it is now or never!'

"Riku." The serious tone in Sora's voice had the effect to immediately make Riku stop smiling. "I'm serious, now. I know it's a... uhm... a strange question but... our... what happened the evening of the party..." He breathed deeply, standing in front of his friend. Riku's cold aquamarine eyes were impossibly difficult to face, but he forced himself to sustain the gaze. "It was only a joke, right?"

The older boy was looking at Sora in such an intense way that he couldn't help but gulp. "You have talked to Kairi, right?"

"Wha- No, no, I mean..."

"It's fine, calm down. I and Kairi have had a... divergence of opinion, as to say. I shouldn't have yelled at her the way I did." Well, that was new: Riku showing remorse for something he had done. Even better: the perfect Riku plainly admitting that he had done something wrong. "But, you see, I had things on my minds and I was a little upset when she talked to me."

"I can sympathize. Seifer did that to you, right?" Sora asked indicating the black eye of his friend.

"Yes, that idiot. And only because I politely asked him why he had aggressed you last week." The brunet looked at him skeptical. "With my fist." Riku added a second later. "Looks like he has some kind of fetish for eyes, don't you think?" he asked touching Sora's nearly healed, yet still bruised eye and making him fall on his butt from the pain.

"You really are a girl!"

"Shut up, it still hurts!"

"Well, if that's of some consolation I broke his nose. Again." He reached the younger boy and sat too on the hot sand.

"Yes, I've noticed it. So I suppose I have to thank you." Sora laughed a little, then he thought at his friend's words. "How did you know that he aggressed me in the first place?"

"Demyx told me the same day it happened. I think he had heard it from Axel." His face suddenly clouded over. "I didn't know you two were so close." Sora had the distinct feeling that there was a shade of jealousy in his voice.

"Me neither." he answered a little too quickly. "But the seniors have been really friendly with me as of lately." The image of Larxene insulting him popped up somewhere in his mind. "Well, most of them. They have even invited me and Rox for the weekend." Riku gave a jump at that.

"They... what? Where? With whom?"

"Uh? I-I don't know, they just told us that they would have brought us somewhere to party and that it would have been worth it, what's the matter, Riku?"

"...nothing."

There were times when Sora couldn't really understand his best friend. He was staring again at the peaceful sea with who-knows what kind of thoughts on his mind. And Sora was staring at him wondering what he had done wrong this time.

Without detaching his eyes from the sea, Riku spoke again, back to his usual calm tone. "Will you stop staring at me? Someone could get the wrong idea about us. Namely me."

And, suddenly, Sora was sure to have figured out what was troubling his friend. "You know, Riku, if you really want to come too, why don't you simply ask for it?"

From the way the junior student reacted, Sora had the confirmation that he had got that right. And knowing him the way he did, he already knew the answer too, which arrived three point five seconds later. "No, thanks. I've got other things to do." Of course, his overdeveloped pride didn't let him accept what he viewed as charity.

"Oh, please, do it for me! Aside from Rox I won't know anybody, I'd really like to have my best friend with me. It will be fun." He stopped when he realized that he didn't even know what he was talking about. "I think." He paused for another moment. "I hope. Anyway we'll be together, so we'll be fine, we have some catch-up to do, right?"

Game, set and match: Sora knew that he had played it perfectly, so when Riku muttered "If it is to do you a favor..." he simply smiled at him, happily that, for once, he had played it correctly.

They spent five or ten more minutes quietly chatting like good, old times, then, when the sand had managed to sneak inside their pants, they decided it was time to come back.

"You know, there's a thing that still bugs me..." Sora asked on the way back to the school.

"Mmh?"

"You were the first to leave the chemistry class, this morning. How comes that you were still around when Seifer and his gang aggressed me?"

Riku looked away, awkwardly. "Well, there's the possibility that since what happened last Sunday, I could've watched your back. After all, I was kinda responsible for putting you in this situation..."

Sora's eyes widened as he stopped walking. "So... you're saying that you've been following me all the week? Like, following me in a creepy-stalker way?"

"More or less. But I liked it better the way I said it." Sora was standing there mouth-agape and Riku quickly thought that it was the best moment to part ways with him. "See you later, Sora, rendez-vous with the seniors is at five o'clock on the main gate of the school, right?" And with those words he left the brunet at the entrance of the dormitory.

Only after a few minutes that he had disappeared, Sora realized that his friend had just skillfully avoided the main question he had asked him.

'Clever, Riku. Really clever.'

End Notes

Not my best chapter for sure, but there are some parts that I really like. It wasn't really easy to explain all of the the stuff I wanted to and do it in a natural way, but in the end I'm quite satisfied with the result. And the next time the weekend will finally begin :).

Preview

A long journey awaits!

Next chapter (05.03.2019): Hyperdrive