It's almost a dance.
"I don't understand what you're getting at!"
A soft smile, faintly trailing gossamer that is all too soon blown away. You want the wind to continue, don't you? You know how it makes you look, you know how it accentuates innocent curves and you know more than you ever let on.
You must know, surely. ( a small part of him wonders if perhaps he doesn't he doesn't know does he he needs you can't you see stop being such a rat bastard.) You've got to know.
" 'Oh, no! I don't understand what you mean! Woe is me! My life is SO hard'"
Taunting, falsetto, adamantine-sharp mockery to cut away the curves, my dear, to sharpen them into rock solid edges that repel and prickle. For it's the way of the world to do this; it's the way of the world to cut everyone who dares to try into pieces; to mangle and twist. Noody gets out alive, even if you're not aware of dying.
"Do you… hate me or something?"
Plaintive, now, in tones that will cut almost as badly as mine, but unintentionally, like sawn off crystal stars that rip at the sky remorsefully, crying showers of glitter and dust. You don't understand, Sora, that you are both the stars and the sky; you don't understand so much and that is a blessing to you, and a curse for me. (it's so funny how he can wax so elegant in his hatred and yet no one's laughing are they no one's laughing now.)
"You're just an… aaargh, you stupid, fucking MORON!"
You don't know how you rip away at me, and I don't either, but it happens piece by piece, like a tap that drips hard rusted spikes, drip drip drip, ceaselessly. I never noticed how much I cared, or how far apart we are, until I focused on the blood and the cuts and the jagged stains from the rust. I never noticed how you can take so much and I can't, or how pathetic I've become.
"Tell me what's WRONG, come on! I'm your friend!"
I'm the land and you're the sky, and no one knows why, (a small part of him laughs that but then again he always laughs in the wrong place after all sadness brings mirthful chuckles and happiness makes him cry if only he were able to.) do they? Apart from me, of course, but then again it's been my job to forever pick up after you and only recently has it become so bone wrenchingly horrible. The sky will exist forever and it will be torn into millions of shards by stars and their cruel needle-points but it will manage somehow and it will still be beautiful, and it can make a hundred thousand people stare and cry and laugh, and it will always make them happy no matter what. (don't you see he wants to ask but he guesses not.)
"Oh, are you, Sora, are you really? That's news to me, that's real fuckin' news to me."
And the land stands underneath; it supports and protects but people trample it and everything belonging to it. They recognise all the horrile things on show, all the horrible things that they have created but the land plays host to (after all no one wants to examine the jungle closely do they no one wants to scrutinise that which goes bump in the night and no one wants to face up to a reflection of their own fears. the land is only a body of land after all and it's what is forced onto it by others that's scary and eventually the land accepts these things because it has no choice in the matter no fuckin' choice.) but they never do anything about it, do they? They don't care, and neither does the sky, although it might fool you into thinking so with its beautiful silver-jewelled that stare down and see everything, and yet you'll see one day that they haven't seen anything.
"Riku, please, tell me what the hell is your problem?"
He sits there in that ever-so-languid pose that Sora knows so well; on his side, with one knee up and one arm draped casually over it. Carefully calculated to give off an aura that he doesn't care. Sora knows otherwise; he knows but he doesn't see why he should share that knowledge. If you look closely, you can see the threads of tension, you can see the strung out muscles and you can see nervous he actually is. He's a cat, ready to jump skittishly at the shadows, which is pretty funny when you think about it, since he seems to favour them now.
Sora's not laughing either. (why isn't he laughing dammit he should be he has every right toi would laugh)
He's always so desperate to exude nonchalance, and Sora knows this well. Sora knows he does care, and a long time ago Sora tried to get him to show this. No one else looked close enough to see the shadows in the hollow of each tightly clenched muscle except him, and Sora finds this hard to accept. Once, he saw the shadows in the eyes, too; the writhing, twisting doubts that giggled and ran here and there.
He mentioned them once, Sora did, he tried to get him to open up but instead the other boy's facade tightened and before he knew it, Sora was unable to see the shadows because the eyes were made of darkness.
Riku had taught him an important lesson accidentally. If you have any knowledge about me, chances are I don't know that you do, and your knowledge is a dangerous thing. Not everyone is as insighful as you are, Sora, and not everyone has the kind of understanding you do.
Sora never gives up and he didn't give up, he persuades himself, he didn't give up on Riku that long time ago. (of course you didn't sora you're too angelic aren't you aren't you) He just decided that Riku was worth a more sutle approach.
Riku doesn't know, of course, that Sora can see right through him, and in Riku's opinion, Sora gave up on him such a long time ago, and now no one knows what's going on with him.
This is why Riku has to protect him, because Riku has unknowingly created someone far more intelligent than he knows; Riku has to protect him because Riku fell for Sora's little masquerade, not the other way around.
Sora wonders if there was ever a time that there were no lies between them, or if there was ever a time when Riku gave someone his soul without withholding or pretending, and Sora wonders if Riku knows that he's being incohorent and loud and condescending and longing and bitter and so horribly sad all at once.
"My problem?" Riku giggles, almost, with a sickening maniacal twinge to the words. "I don't know, Sora! Isn't that just the funniest thing?"
Sora wonders when Riku's pretence became his character and Sora's character became his pretence. He wonders when they switched places, and Sora became the protector. He wonders how he became such a skilled actor, and how Riku managed to twist into such an unrecognizable shape, and he wonders about the roots of evil and how it began, because he's as likely to know that as he is to know the other answers.
Most of all he wonders how things got this bad.
Riku is standing now, he sees, and lurching in a way that makes him sad towards them. His eyes gleam in the shimmering sun, because it's too hot, but Sora prefers having him out here in the sun where he can keep an eye on him, because who knows what might happen if he lets Riku out of his sight? (but you already have haven't you there's no use pretending now) He feels so bad because he feels sorry for Riku and that's akin to heresy. He should never feel sorry for Riku because Riku is a strong, intelligent and above all capable person who doesn't need anyone's help (what an apt self-description). But Riku's not an example of a brilliant human, but of someone who needs help as badly as a drowning man. He wasn't waving, Sora, he was drowning and you were so used to pretending to be oblivious you became that way and you didn't notice when his struggles overwhelmed him. He's clutching at straws, Sora thinks, (mixing metaphors there how sad he could have done better) and he's like an old, obsolete piece of machinery because I don't need him any more.
He's become dependent on me and it sickens him because he prizes being better than me. He doesn't see that I do need him, just not as a protector any more. And he doesn't see that he needs me.
Riku grins and leans over. How is it possible that someone can be so close, and still a hundred million miles away, Sora questions himself. But then again, Riku was always a master at being distant, and being distant will be his downfall because he's so damn talented at concealing everything.
"I guess I do need you, Sora," he says, words with a snarling twist intended to shock. "You just won't know when, will you?"
Sora opens his mouth to reply, to tell him that he has made it his business to save Riku and that he's going to win, because the good guys always win. And Sora will recognize when Riku needs help, because Sora (thinks he knows much more than he does) knows more than Riku thinks. Sora knows more about Riku's character than he lets on, and this card will help him win and it will help Riku and with Riku's help they'll resuce Kairi and everything will be fine.
(but sora you don't know jealousy because if a naturally generous, not-jealous person studied an envious person for a million years they still wouldn't understand because you are not jealous and he is and you both think you've got the other figured out but this is one thing that will always cause a rift)
Sora is staring at the sun alone when Kairi comes. She is carrying a huge piece of cloth in her hands, and excitement thrills through his system because they're going to build the raft!
"I saw you! I knew you were going to slack off soon!"
He jumps and protests, because he wasn't sleeping, not really, although he must have been because that was one of the saddest things that has ever happened to him and Kairi couldn't possibly smile, not if that was actually happening. He doesn't know if he could, because that person who coped when the superhuman Riku fell to pieces couldn't be him, and equally that Riku that fell to pieces isn't the one practising with the wooden sword over there.
So when she smiles it surely means that this awful degenaration has never happened and never will. Sora wonders, fleetingly, when he got so casual about his friends, and when exactly Riku turned so badly, and whether Kairi notices and why she never says anything.
He wonders when they all became so fallible and flawed, but only for a second, because Riku's the one who thinks about that kind of thing.
Sora grins when he sees Riku, his carefree almost-elder brother who doesn't need anyone's help, waving to them without any hesitations, and resolves to never eat cheese before going to sleep again, because that was one hell of a trippy dream.