Title: Simple and Clean
Author: Cold Silence
E-Mail: Cold
Pairings: Riku + Sora + Kairi
Warnings: Slightly AU. I added a chapter on yet another whim.
Children's laughter and soft, golden light shimmered from Destiny Island. The firefly catching game was quite literally in full swing. Glass jars already filled with the flashing bugs were tucked between big rocks to protect them from the occasional klutz.
Sora arrived in time to see Riku bring down his net on Kairi, and exclaim with a smile that he had just "caught a bright one." Her giggles fell like tinkling glass among the other voices in the area. Immediately, he rushed in their direction and captured Riku's head in his own net while he was distracted.
"Awww man, I caught I really dim one," he lamented with a mock look of sadness. Riku took the dis in stride, despite the way Kairi found it hilariously funny.
After removing the net from his head using the wooden end of his own, Riku smirked at the other boy. "You finally ready to lose?"
"I'm not going to lose!"
Already familiar with the boyish rivalry between Riku and Sora, Kairi merely smiled before leaning towards the annoyed boy. "I'll help you beat Riku! I even waited for you to come." She heroically brandished her own firefly net, which was distinguished from theirs by the white ribbon tied on its end.
"You guys are welcome to try." There seemed to be a secret hint of satisfaction in Riku's expression. Sora took it for the smug look of inevitable victory, so he grabbed Kairi's hand and began to tug her away so they could get started.
"You just wait! C'mon Kairi."
As the two of them walked away, Riku's smirk melted into something more serene. Finally, it seemed he was getting somewhere with those two. However, they were never going to beat him at ANY game, therefore he threw himself into the foray with all the gusto of youth.
He also noted that Sora was not letting him have a moment alone with Kairi. He wasn't really planning to give her a paopu fruit, but sometimes he found himself considering it and imagining what the outcome would be like. The happiness of it was almost always overlaid by the strain it would put on Sora. Even now, he could see the obviousness of his friend's feelings as he watched him bump into Kairi by accident, and laugh with her at their bad coordination.
Wickedly, whenever he saw that Sora's attention span was drifting away from the girl, he would be sure to produce the half eaten paopu from his pocket and bite significantly into it where he could be seen. Every time, Sora renewed his efforts to stay close to Kairi, which provided no end of amusement to him.
At the end of the night, they gauged who had won through the brightness of the jars rather than the actual number of fireflies in it. As usual, Riku's glowed the best, though Sora's and Kairi's combined lights were very nearly on an even par with his. It was called to be another draw, which didn't seem to outrage Sora for once. Instead, he seemed more interested in trying to catch an opportune time to talk to Riku privately, but he wouldn't let him.
When the game was done, all of the jars were brought to the docks, and Selphie and Kairi released the fireflies. They flew out over the water, where their lights were reflected back into the sky. As they watched them flutter away, Kairi tilted her head towards Sora. "Where do you think they go?"
"I don't know," he answered honestly. He was watching Riku leave the docks, perhaps to turn in for the night. "Maybe they go to bed."
She laughed, and lightly touched Sora's shoulder. "Fireflies don't have beds!"
He found himself blushing in response to that, and he palmed the back of his head self-consciously. "Ye-heah, I guess they don't, ha ha..."
Sora woke up the next morning feeling very strange, as if he had slept with ten blankets piled on his body. Although he felt lethargic and flushed with heat, he rolled out of bed and climbed out of his tree house. He usually slept with his clothes on, since it took too much time to take them off or put them back on whenever he wanted to go anywhere.
It was a hot day, perfect for playing in the water. He found everyone already there, splashing among the waves. He quickly kicked off his shoes, leaving them with the other long line of abandoned sneakers and boots by the shore, and rushed into the water to join them.
The cool temperature of the ocean made him feel much better, so he enthusiastically leapt into it like an eager puppy. The other children were calling him further out, so he rushed in their direction with a smile on his face.
Riku was lifting Kairi on his shoulders, and then falling backwards with her into the water. Wakka was doing the same with Selphie, but Tidus refused to lift up Sora, stating that to he was just too heavy.
"You want a lift? Here's a LIFT." Riku took Sora by surprise by wrapping a strong arm around his collar, the other beneath his leg, and pulling him out of the water only to powerbomb him back in. It started a chain reaction in which everybody was getting dunked left and right.
"TIDAAAAL WAAAAAAVE." Tidus suddenly pointed towards the open water, where a sizable crest was heading in their direction.
"Assume position, ya!" At Wakka's call, everyone lined up for the wave, positioning themselves side by side so that they could catch it at the right moment. Sora, on the other hand, was still coughing and sputtering from the previous onslaught. That weird feeling was coming back, and it was starting to make him feel nauseated.
When the wave came, everyone sans Sora kicked off against the sandy bottom of the ocean floor and body surfed all the way to the shore. Kairi became mired in the sand next to Riku, and they both laughed uncontrollably at the way Sora totally wiped out. The wave had crashed over him and sent the boy somersaulting in the current, before depositing him at the bank in a wet heap. He didn't make it as far as everyone else, and the ebb of water was tugging him back into the ocean.
"Better luck next time Sora!" Riku called out to the other boy, grinning from ear to ear. However, instead of the receiving the expected retort, Sora seemed too busy to answer in his struggle to lift himself off the sand. His slow movements were not quick enough to avoid the second smaller wave that crashed over him. Riku became concerned, so he got himself off the ground and jogged to where the foam was swallowing him whole.
Kairi followed close behind, as well as the other crowed of children. Sora was yanked out of the water by the back of his shirt, and he dangled meekly from Riku's grip like a wet cat.
"Did he hit his head on a rock?" That was Tidus, who feared that one of their predictions of Things Likely To Happen had occurred to the boy.
Kairi started patting his head for bumps, and she gasped when she felt heated skin beneath her fingertips. "He's really hot!"
Riku was the first one to put two and two together. "Everyone back away, he's sick!"
Tidus let out an almost girly scream as he jumped back, the movement joined by everyone else except Kairi and Riku. "Sick! Oh my god he's sick!" There was a pause. "What is a sick?"
"It's like having cooties, ya." Wakka seemed to know the best way to explain it, so Riku didn't volunteer any information. Instead, he worked on carrying Sora better by curling his free arm under his legs and scooping him against his chest.
Kairi looked very concerned, she intuitively knew that being "sick" was a bigger problem than they thought by Riku's face. "What do we do to take away his sick?"
Riku was silent for a few moments as he tried to reach for memories that had faded with time. He needed to know how to deal with this, something that has never happened to any of them before. Fortunately, he did partially recall an experience with something like this before, and he voiced this to the others. "He needs medicine. Do we have any?"
Everyone looked at Wakka, who tried not to flush beneath all the attention. Unwilling to lose face, he boasted that he did have medicine, even though he didn't completely understand what it was. "Of course ol' Wakka has got medicine! I got everything in my shop, ya."
"Good. Bring it to Sora's house. Somebody else bring something cool." Without another word, Riku began to rush in the direction of Sora's tree house. The boy in his arms barely had his eyes open, and through his blurred vision he caught flashes of Kairi's worried face and the strong line of Riku's jaw.
Nighttime fell, with no change in his condition. They had laid him down on the floor with a pillow of leaves beneath his head. Kairi was in charge of bringing fresh water, which was applied to his head with an old rag. When he began to shiver, Riku had somebody fetch the blanket from his house and bring it there.
Everyone had crowded into the room, the air becoming more somber when they witnessed that being sick was like being hurt; the feeling wasn't pleasant. Wakka had yet to produce the medicine he had promised hours ago, which was making Riku a little impatient.
"Is he going to be ok?" Ventured Kairi in a whisper. She was sitting to the right of Sora's shoulder, where she could easily dip the cloth back into the bowl of water to keep it wet before re-applying it back to Sora's forehead.
"He'll be fine," came an almost defiant answer from Riku. He was to Sora's left, also sitting with his arms folded.
"You know a lot, Riku." Kairi was inadvertently impressed at how he knew what to do so quickly.
Riku shifted his gaze to Sora's face, which was drawn up in an expression of discomfort, so similar to the one he made after he kissed him with the paopu. He felt personally responsible for this; that perhaps somehow, by doing that to Sora he brought about his illness. In a solemn voice, he answered Kairi, "I know too much."
Sora cringed and shifted in his fevered state, causing the cloth on his head to slip down the side of his face. Simultaneously, Kairi and Riku reached for it, causing their fingers to brush together. They both froze with indecision as to who should let who put the cloth back on its place. It was Riku who withdrew his hand first, leaving Kairi to fix things herself. Something silent seemed to pass between them, despite their averted eyes.
Wakka chose that moment to burst through the door with a bundle in his hands. "I had to fight ten bears for this, ya, but I finally got the medicine."
"Alright!" Tidus happily crowed from his place on the windowsill. He was getting bored of everyone just sitting around, so he was grateful for some entertainment. "Now what do we do?"
The tall redhead looked lost for a moment, before thrusting his bundle at Selphie. "Selphie knows what to do, ya?"
Indeed, Selphie did not know what to do, but that wasn't going to stop her from finally getting the spotlight shown on her. She snatched the bag from Wakka and imperiously motioned for everyone to move away. "Everyone get back, this delicate operation needs room."
There was universal obedience, except for Riku who stubbornly refused to budge from his spot. That was ok though, because Riku always did what he wanted anyway. Selphie knelt on the ground and opened the parchment, which was filled with smelly leaves, colorful flowers and spilled pollen. Everyone stared with curiosity as she began to shred the leaves and the petals, and then mixed everything together in her palms. She hesitated as she tried to think of something else cool to do, and then idea struck her. Picking up a handful of the paraphernalia, she walked around Sora once, while dribbling everything on the floor. Eventually, he was completely outlined in flowers, pollen and fresh leaves.
"Now," said Selphie as she wiped her hands together. "We have to say special words so he'll get better."
"Why?" Asked Tidus, wearing a blank look on his face.
"Because!" Selphie stamped her foot on the ground. "The medicine won't work unless we say something to it to make it work!"
"Oh." Tidus still looked blank.
"Now everyone say what I say." Selphie stretched her hands over Sora, and began to chant in her best witch doctor voice. "Sora, may your cootie sickness go away."
"Sora, may your cootie sickness go away," echoed the others in the room. Tidus was purposely using a voice that was laden with boredom.
"Your head is strong like a coconut, no cooties can get in!"
"Your head is strong like a coconut," Tidus was now drawing circles around one of his ears to indicate Selphie's insanity. From her place, Kairi had placed her hands together in supplication for him. There was no concept of a god or religion on Destiny Island, but there was a firm belief in magic, which was called on now to help their friend get better.
"You are the center of the sun Sora, nothing can touch you there."
"You are the center of the sun, Sora." Riku murmured along with the other voices.
"Nothing can touch you there."
His fever broke towards the sunrise, and Sora was surprised to wake up and find himself covered in leaves and his friends all sleeping in his house. He thought maybe there was a sleepover that he missed. Kairi was overjoyed to see him all right, and she nearly tackled him with her happy hug. Riku was immensely relieved, but he was less enthusiastic with showing it. Instead, he smiled at Sora's open eyes and told him, "Welcome back."
Sora insisted that he was fine, but Riku made him stay in his house an entire day before he was allowed out again. To reinforce this, he gave everyone permission to beat him up if he was caught outside. As a result, Sora spent a day at home, brooding petulantly over Riku's meanness.
He didn't get a chance to have that private talk with his friend until the second day. It was difficult to find him alone, because everyone wanted to tell Sora about how they made him better, and wanted to know what was it like to have the cootie sickness. When he finally managed to hide from them all, he set out to find Riku.
The older boy was sitting beneath the paopu tree, his eyes trained on the horizon. The sun was beginning to set, and it stained the ocean a brilliant russet. Sora crept next to Riku, and dropped onto the sand next to him. "Hey."
"Feeling better?" Riku asked, though he kept looking towards the open water. He had his hands behind his head to protect him from the rough bark of the paopu tree.
Because it was the billionth time someone had asked him that, Sora answered with just a touch of annoyance. "I'm fine. I'm not going to get sick again."
Riku tilted his head so that he could see Sora. The other boy was looking sulkily at the ground. "What's it like being sick?"
Again, another question that he had heard over and over again. "I felt really gross." After a few moments, he ventured a tidbit of information that he had left out for everyone else. "And I kept having dreams."
"What kind of dreams?"
Sora looked at Riku's light eyes, and he suddenly felt a rising sense of foreboding in his chest. "Weird dreams."
"You mean like with monsters?" He grinned before turning to face the horizon once more.
The other boy stared at the outline of Riku's face, and remembered how it looked on a sunnier day, with his back facing him as he looked out into the ocean. As he watched a Tsunami of a wave get bigger and bigger, and just let it come... "Just.. weird dreams."
There was no answer to that. Riku could sense that Sora didn't really want to talk about it, so he didn't push it.
After a stretch of silence, Sora finally ventured what he had wanted to say to him several days ago. "Riku, don't give Kairi the paopu the way you did me."
That made one of his eyebrows lift. He brought his hands out from behind his head, and placed them on his knees. "And why not?"
"Because you'll hurt her!" Sora's brows drew together with consternation. He didn't want Kairi to go through something so.. uncomfortable. "I won't let you be mean to Kairi."
Riku stared at Sora, before suddenly breaking into laughter.
"What's so funny?"
His laughter subsiding, he placed a gloved hand on Sora's shoulder. "I promise I won't give Kairi the paopu that way. But that doesn't mean that YOU can't."
"Ew!" Sora grimaced with disgust. "No way! I'm not being gross like you. What did you do that for anyway?"
"I wanted to see your face." Riku smirked as he moved his hand upwards so that he could rub the top of Sora's head. The other boy called out in annoyance, before scooting away from his reach.
Any further horseplay was interrupted by Kairi, who was calling out that it was time for dinner. Sora was famished, so he immediately stood up to go.
"We're still destined to stay together."
"Huh?" Sora turned halfway to look back at Riku. He hadn't moved from his spot, and by then he wasn't even looking at Sora anymore.
"Soooooooora! Riiiiiiiku! Hurry up, Tidus is eating everything!"
Sora's attention was once more grabbed by Kairi, and he rushed in her direction in order to get to his food before nothing was left.
Riku wasn't feeling especially hungry; besides, Kairi would save him a plate anyway. Right now, he simply wanted to look out into the ocean. The more time passed the more he thought that he needed to be out there. It was true that he knew too many things, and that set him apart from everyone else. As he watched Sora and Kairi get closer, he further felt out of the loop on Destiny Island. This paradise was shrinking for him, and even if there wasn't a family for him out there, maybe there was an adventure.
Maybe there was other people that he could meet. Maybe there was someone who could understand the feelings going on inside of him. He had never felt the true, blunt weight of responsibility until Sora got sick. He feared that he would not be able to save him from the next calamity, whether that be sickness or not, but at the same time he wanted to be free of the burden of watching over everybody. He wanted to see other things, but couldn't let go of the people his life was most intertwined with. He wanted to be out there, and it would be perfect if he could take Sora and Kairi with him, but he knew instinctively that being away from Destiny Island would change them forever. Was it worth that?
A clunking sound drew his attention, and he looked over the ledge of the small inlet to see what it was. The noise was caused by a glass bottle that was bobbing against the coral. He thought he spotted something in it, so he leaned over and plucked it out of the water. It was not unusual for stray things to float to the island, and in fact, they got many of their provisions that way.
He thumbed the cork out of the bottle, and spilled its contents into his palm. It was a paper, and when he turned it around he could make out writing in the fading light.
Please save me.
He pressed his lips together. It was most likely one of Kairi's. It was easy to tell by the way she talked about it that she really wanted to find her real home. Riku fished in his belt until he located the old pen that he found floating on the water one day. After straightening the paper out, he scribbled in two words.
Me too.
Then, the paper was folded up and stuffed back into the bottle, which was re-corked. He drew his arm back, and swung it in a powerful arc; releasing the glass at its apex. It landed at a distance so far, the "plunk" of it falling into the water was barely audible.
