Woot! I'm in a good mood coz I finally managed to beat that sea-BITCH, Ursula, just an hour ago! *dances* I love Halloween Town! ^^; Well, since I'm in such a great mood, I thought I'd write you all the final chapter to "Sora's Birthday Gift." ^_~ Ja!

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The two males headed away from the party and were now walking on the seashore. The Tiki torches made Sora feel like he was heading to a sacrifical ceremony of some sort.

"Hey Riku," he started, "what's going on? Why'd you drag me away from the party?"

"I'm going to give you your birthday present now," the elder teen said without looking at him.

"Oh." Sora looked down at his huge shoes. More than anything, he wanted to just leap on top of his friend and start making out. They were alone, barely visible from the others, so why not? Then it hit Sora, he needed to apologize to Riku about yelling at him the other night. 'That's probably why Riku tried to avoid me all day.' It didn't add up though. 'If he's mad at me, then why is he taking me away from the others, alone with him?' he sighed. 'Well, better now then never.'

"H-hey Riku," he stuttered. "I'm...I'm sorry about yelling at you last night. I didn't mean to. You were right," Sora saw Riku slightly eyeing him from the corner of his eye, "I shouldn't've kept that journal from you. I should've just came out and.. and told you.. that I liked you," he found his last words hard for him to say. It was still embrassing for him to admit it even though that Riku already knew. He looked over to his quiet companion and tried to figure out what he was thinking.

For a few moments, they walked on in silence. The only sounds audible were the insects making their nightly song, the faint music coming from Selphie's boombox, the boats creeking in the not-so far distance against the ripples in the ocean, and their sneakers sinking in and out of the sand. Sora had tuned all of these out a long time ago and the silence between him and his friend was almost deafening for him.

"Well... say something at least, please?"

Riku sighed. "Look, Sora, it wasn't your fault for what happened last night. I'm sorry for getting into your privacy and stuff... I'm also going to apologize for coming onto you so quickly like I had. I guess my horomones got the better of me. As for our arguement, I'm sorry about that too. I just felt hurt because it was like you'd throw me out of the circle or something. It hurt me," he stopped walking as he grown a sudden interest in his shoes, Sora ceased and looked at his friend with concern, "but I shouldn't've let my temper get the better of me."

'Wow, and I thought I had a lot of things to apologize for.' Sora thought to himself. He laid a hand on Riku's shoulder and smiled when the silver-haired looked up at him, "Let's forget about it. I promise that I will be more open and honest to you, as long as you promise to, uh, ask permission before doing things, ok?"

Riku smirked at this proposal, "Deal."

"Great!" he said with a relieved sigh. "So now that that's settled.." The teenager let his deep blue eyes look around to figure out where they were. "Why did you tell me to follow you to the pier?"

"I told you that I was going to give you your birthday present, right?" Seeing the younger teen nod his head, he continued, "Well, giving it to you requires us getting off of Destiny Island."

Sora raised an eyebrow at this. 'Getting off the island? What?'

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"Riku," Sora said in an anxious voice, eyeing the fog forming around them, "how much longer?"

The silver-haired boy shook his head, taking note of his friend's paranoia. "Soon. Just chill out, will you? Don't you have faith in my sense of direction?"

"Do you remember what happened the last time I trusted your sense of direction in these kind of conditions?"

'Huh? Last time? In these kind of conditions?' Riku blinked. "What are you talking about?"

"You don't remember?!" Sora exclaimed with an aggravated grunt. "You don't remember when I was five and you were six when we out to the reef that one day? You don't remember how we stayed out there so long that by the time we headed back, it was really dark and we were caught up in some fog and couldn't figure out where we were going? You don't remember us freaking out because we thought we wouldn't ever find our way home again?"

Riku laughed as he recollected that time. He remembered how frightened they were, how Sora cried the whole time and how he rowed around the sea the whole night. Everything looked the same no matter which way they went. But they were five and six years old back then, only young'ns. They were teenagers now, young adults, they'd gone through puburity, lived through Kingdom Hearts, and other things happened since then.

"It's not that I don't trust you." Sora's voice pulled Riku out of the memories and his thoughts. "Because I do. Even after Kingdom Hearts, I trust you with my life."

Before Riku could say something to this, he said, "Hang on."

"Huh?"

THUD!

Sora's body jerked forward and he was sprawled out on the boat's floor in front of Riku. He blinked in confusion as he tried to figure out how he ended up in his current location. He looked up as he heard Riku laugh and say, "I tried to warn ya." Sora stuck his tongue out at his friend and took a look around.

Riku climbed out of the boat and stepped into the surf, watching his best friend sit at the bottom of the boat, looking around curiously. 'So adorable.'

"Oi, Riku, where are we?"

"You remember the island we wanted to explore yesterday, right? Well, this is it. Firefly Island is what it's called."

Sora nodded his head. The name suited it well because he took notice of the little flashing bugs around him. His saffire eyes continued to wander around at his surroundings before two muscular arms lifted him up from his armpits. "OI!"

"Chill out." Riku said softly as he dragged his friend out of the boat. Sora held onto him for support while he struggled to stand on his two feet. He chuckled. "You're so spastic sometimes."

Trying to shake off the hand in his fluffy and untamed hair, Sora pouted. "Am not." Immediately, he picked up on a delicious scent in the air. "I smell...spaghetti..and and... Italian bread! Ooooh, and lasagna too!"

The silver-haired chuckled. "You're not full from eating at the party, are you?"

"Nope." Sora said as he jogged up to Riku. "Why?"

Without saying a word, Riku only pointed out into the distance. Sora looked in the direction he was pointing toward and noticed a table sitting near the surf with two seats on either side, and a lit candle placed symmetrically in the middle. The boy's eyes shimmered and he sprinted towards the scene. His sense of smell was correct, two dishes of spaghetti and lasagna laid on either side of the lit candle with the Italian bread in a small basket next to it.

"I cooked it myself." Riku's gentle voice piped up from behind Sora. "Well, actually, your mom helped me out a bit." All Sora could do was smile and stare admirablly at him.

'Why is he looking at me like that?' He cleared his throat and said, "We better start eating or else the food will get cold." Sitting down in one of the chairs, he took a bite at his lasagna.

Sora snapped back into his senses and sat in the seat across from his best friend. He reached over to grab an Italian bread and started eating it. "So, this is where you've been all day?"

"Mostly. I went here first thing this morning to make sure that there wouldn't be anything here to interuppt us."

"Oh." Sora said, blushing slightly. "So you've already explored this island without me?"

Riku glanced up at him upon hearing the hurt in his voice. "Well, no, not really. I only looked around on this side of the island, I haven't gone to the other side." He watched as Sora sucked up a spaghetti noodle, his face still kind of frowning. "I'm sorry about not being around the whole day. Did I miss anything big?"

"Hmmm." Sora took a sip of his drink. "We were playing a little truth or dare earlier into the party, and Wakka dared... he dared..." he broke into a fit of giggles.

"What?" he asked curiously, "What happened?"

Finally getting some control of himself, Sora let out, "He dared Selphie and Tidus to trade clothes! Hahaha, you should've seen Tidus in her skimpy little clothes! It was totally priceless!!!" At the thought of their blond haired friend dressed up in a mini skirt and tank top with hairclips, both boys broke out in laughter.

When Sora got full control of himself, Riku was still laughing. He was hypnotized with his friend's smile and the laughter brought music to his heart. Slowly, the older teen's laughs died down and he noticed his companion staring at him again. 'He's been doing that a lot lately.' "What? You know it's rude to stare at people?"

"I'm not starring. I'm admiring." Sora stated. "It's good to see you laugh like that. I can't remember when was the last time you had a really good laugh since..." he paused. A serious face broke across his face before he finished, "...since we've got back."

Silence.

For the rest of dinner, they didn't say a word to each other. They finished eating in an umcomfortable silence. Sora felt the tension in the air and felt bad for mentioning Kingdom Hearts. 'Me and my big mouth.'

"Ya know, I remember being stuck in the Darkness with King Mickey." Riku's voice called him back from his thoughts. "I remember everything."

"Riku, don't talk about it, please. I don't want to remember it, the time I lost you." Sora's eyes shifted downwards. "I don't want to ever loose you again, to feel what I felt afterwards. Never."

Riku blinked as he heard the chocolate-haired teen say this. "Well, I guess there's only one way to insure that."

"Huh?" Sora's eyes looked up into Riku's face. "What are you talking about?"

Riku took this time to take out the Paopu fruit he'd been hiding underneath the table and held it in his hand.

"A Paopu fruit?" Sora's excitement died down, "What's that going to insure, Riku?"

"Do you believe in that old wives' tale about the paopu fruit intertwining the lives of the two people who share it?"

"Not really," he said with a shrug, "I mean, it's only a legend."

"No it isn't."

Sora raised a brow at his friend's serious face. "Ok, I'm listening."

"You see, the only way it could possibly work is if the two people who share it really believe in it and have high feelings for each other." Riku paused as he looked into Sora's pools of deep blue, "So I'm asking you, do you believe? And most of all, do you... l..l-love me?"

Riku watched as Sora's brows buried and he bit his lip, indicating that he was in deep thought. As each moment passed by, Riku's heart started beating faster and faster. The silence was killing him and he was growing impatient.

"Oi."

"Yeah?" Riku said trying to keep the anxiousness out of his voice, but failing miserably as his voice sounded squeeky.

Sora held out his hand. "Hand me some of that."

Smiling, Riku ripped the fruit into two uneven halves and handed one to the younger teen. He had to contain himself from doing a happy dance as he kept eye contact with the other while eating the special fruit. The taste reminded him of a ripe mango, sweet and delicious. While chowing down on the fruit, some of its juice dripped down his chin. Before he was about to wipe it away with his arm, Sora reached over and wiped it away with his thumb. He then resumed his seat across the table and finished up fruit.

When they were done, they tossed aside the skin and sat back in their chairs in a satisfying silence.

"Wow, that was good. It even filled me up!" Riku said aloud.

Sora only nodded. Ever since his first bite into the sweet fruit, he felt a faint heart, not his heart, beating inside of him. As he'd eaten more and more of the paopu, the other heart grew more and more steady. 'What is this?' he remembered asking himself. Then when he reached over the table to wipe away the juice coming out of Riku's mouth, he'd realized that it was his lover's heart that was growing inside of him. The thought made the teen smirk, it made him feel happy knowing that he'd be with Riku forever... that his presence would always be there, even if they weren't together physically. It was like a part of him had been finally awoken.

He held a hand to his chest and closed his eyes. 'What a feeling.'

Riku observed his best friend from across the table. 'What is he thinking about?'

Then he copied Sora's actions, he closed his eyes and held a hand against his chest. He felt his heart beating against his hand, but felt another one, another beat slightly faster than his. 'Sora?' He heard his own voice talking about the legend of the paopu fruit, and smiled. 'I wasn't really serious, but it's good to know Sora will always be there for me... nothing can separate us now.'

"Hey," Sora's voice snapped him out of his thoughts. He opened his sea-green eyes and peered over to him, "you wanna dance?"

With a dreamy smile, Riku nodded.

"Now, how exactly do we do this?" Sora asked with a laugh as they tried to figure out their dancing positions.

Riku took a hold of Sora's arms and drapped them over his shoulders and around his neck, while he wrapped his arms around Sora's waist, pulling him into a tight embrace. He did all this without breaking any eye contact with those saffire pools in his significant other's eyes. They began to sway back and forth to the crickets' songs, both lost in the other's eyes.

"You know how I found my way back to Destiny Islands?" Riku said, breaking the silence.

"Hmm?" the younger boy mumbled absentmindedly.

"It was the thought of you," he said as their foreheads met, "The thought of being back home to you, to coming back to be with you... But then, when I got back, I barely got to spend anytime with you, like, actual quality time with you alone. So then I let go of the thought of us being together."

Sora felt his heart melt and beads of water emerged from his eyes. Next thing he knew, he was crying. This frightened Riku, so he held the younger boy closer and told him that everything was all right now that they were together, forever.

"No, it's not that. It.. it was my fault." Sora muffled out from Riku's shoulder. "It was my fault that you were taken into the Darkness. I should've pulled you through the door while I had a chance! But I just stood there..."

Riku shook his head as he let go of his grip on Sora. "No, no it isn't your fault. I wanted to stay. It was a punishment for my sense of jumping to conclusions, and all the things I did to you and Kairi. All those horrible things..."

Jumping into Riku's arms and nearly knocking him down, Sora held onto him like his life depended on it. "Don't ever leave me again," he whispered.

"I won't leave you, I promise," Riku started playing with his lover's wild hair when blue eyes looked into his.

"I hope not... you'd BETTER not," Sora said as he stuck his bottom lip out into a cute little pout. Riku laughed, and while he was doing this, Sora lightly flicked a finger against his noise, and before taking off, he said, "You're it."

Riku stood on the surf as his mind tried to register what had just happened. "But I'm not 'it,' I'm Riku," In the distance, he heard Sora say, 'That was real lame, Riku!,' before adding, "You don't stand a chance against me." He took off from his spot, as he closed in on his prey.

"Can't catch me!" Sora teased.

"That's what you think," Riku leapt forward, succeeding in bringing the other boy down with him. The lovers rolled around in the surf, both fighting for the top. Being the stronger one out of the two, however, Riku pinned Sora down by the shoulders and straddled his hips.

Sora tried to throw the silver-haired boy off of him, but found it to no avail. He really had him pinned down pretty good. "Grrr, I give up!" he said before he laid back against the damp sand.

The boy on top smirked. "I told you that you didn't stand a chance." Sora stuck his tongue out at him.

"So, hey, how'd your birthday been so far? Sorry that my present was really shitty and really cheesy.."

A giggle came from Sora as he shook his head at him. "You are the best present for me. The best one yet," he gave one of his classic smiles and continued, "I couldn't possibly ask for anything more than you."

Gazing into each other's eyes again, their lips eventually met for that one magical kiss.

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And wow, that had to be the shittiest ending in the whole world. --; I'm sorry that I had to throw in the Paopu fruit thing in there. I didn't have anything else to fill the gap with.

So, um, R&R? You like? You don't like? Tell me what you thought, JA!