Kairi drops into the seat across his table with all the weight of an elephant recovering from a scare, eyes wide and empty, blinking while he looks up from his paperwork, lifts an eyebrow and then continues to write his report.

Even if it's quite confusing that she is quiet after another ten minutes, still sitting there, blinking like she's still figuring out her life.

"You okay?", finally, his patience runs out, the reports are giving him a headache and Kairi is making soft plopping sounds that are getting on his nerves.

"I… he… Riku, you… What did I just see.", she whispers.

"Okay, Kai, what the hell?", finally, he looks up and stops at her beet red ace, takes in her expression of utter disbelief, somewhat dazed, blue eyes hazy and floaty, hands clutching her gummi phone, "What happened?"

"Riku, he has a ponytail."

"What?"

"Sora is wearing a ponytail. And without his jacket. Outside. Training.", she breathes in, wheezes out a breath that is very reminiscent of a tea kettle whistling in the kitchen, "Riku, he is beautiful . His arms . I just…. Holy shit."

Riku's head snaps up, "Wait, what?! "

The answer he gets is a pointed glance, hands waving around and a phone shoved in his face. Well.

She was right.

Beautiful doesn't quite cut it.

Sora is beaming in the pic under his nose, face bright, freckles glowing in the sunlight. His eyes sparkle bright and eerily blue, reflecting the ice he just cast Lea's way, flames curling around his feet, dancing up his calves and fuck , Riku really needs to have this photo now. He sends it to himself and sinks deeper in his seat as he keeps staring at the pinned back strands of brown glowing gold and the radiant, absolutely breathtaking smile, the glint of a keyblade and the sheer power Sora excludes with his grin alone. Shirt skin tight, arms free and yeah, Riku gets what Kairi means. His mouth waters when he traces the faint line of muscles visible through the shirt and Riku….

This time, it's his turn to have difficulties breathing. He needs to touch that.

Kairi keeps waving at the phone, "See? See?! I can't even…! Riku, he is perfect, how is this man even real?!"

"I don't know.", he manages to wring out, still staring at Kairi's phone, "Fuck, I'm gay."

"You just realized?", she shoots back, laughs, "You should have seen me. I may have almost fainted. When he got to the training grounds, I just… died. I died and went to heaven. And then he had to go and take off his jacket and all I saw was arms and his smile and his hair in that ponytail and riku, I died. I was slaughtered by this brilliant man and his godforsaken smile."

She falls back against the back of her chair and grabs for her phone. Riku hands it over and shoves his paperwork aside, "I am not getting any work down like this."

"Simp."

"Like you are any different.", he throws a pen at her, she dodges, giggles, "Who came in and threw her phone at me?"

"Hey, my feelings are purely aesthetic and I am just appreciating a gorgeous man. You want to lick his abs. I want to kiss his smile.", she launches the pen back, hits Riku's forehead, ducks behind the table when he summons his keyblade, "You want to hold his hand too, I know, but I will never let you live down that one time you got drunk and told me about the abs thing."

"I told you about the abs thing?!"

Wow, Riku did not know he could scream this high.

Kairi snorts, "You told me much worse things. I think you waxed poetic about his ass for a solid hour, and I won't go into details what you said about his manboobs."

Riku chokes on air, hacking up a lung, "I can imagine, please don't keep talking. Let's just get back to him being perfect and leave it at that."

"He pulled his hair back, took off his jacket and I know exactly what you thought when you saw the photo.", Kairi cackles, still hidden behind the table, "I thought the same."

"Didn't you just say you wanted to aesthetically appreciate a gorgeous man ?", Riku curls his fingers into quoting marks, "Get out, you horrible woman, come back when you are ready to stop teasing me."

"You love me."

Her face plops up from behind the wood, scrunches into a grimace of a smile, she sticks out her tongue and slides back fast enough so Riku doesn't hit her with his blade. Instead, he sends a shock her way and relaxes with a gentle smile when she yelps and bolts from the door.

Then he grabs his own phone and opens the messaging app and sets the picture as his background.

Sora's smile lights up his whole room from the photo alone and Riku has to physically rip himself away from his screen and tugs his paperwork closer.

Back to work.

No matter how bad that picture keeps haunting his mind and heart.

He's going to dream of this.

But work first.