Love Love Contest! Fight!
Disclaimer: Don't own KH characters or rights.
Warning: shonen-ai (boy x boy romance), crude humor, language, SoraRiku below.
Chapter five: Sora?! Fall in love?!
Previously…
"Naminé, I have something to say." Sora expressed affirmatively. "I'm not afraid of you. I know how much you love Riku, and how hard it is to take him out of your hold, but I'll do it. I'll show you. I won't let you control me anymore. I won't let you control anyone's life anymore. Just watch. I'll change this. I won't lose to your love for Riku."
"Well, well, well." Axel sniggered, especially at Riku's slowly blushing face. "That's what I'm talking about."
----
Sora brought up courage before he knocked on the door of Roxas' hotel room. He had come to return the gummi ship ticket Roxas gave him last time. However, it was not the blond who opened the door to greet him. Sora's jaw dropped ten feet below when the person appeared before him.
"What do you want?" Axel asked with half-lidded eyes, a cigarette dangling at the corner of his lips. He was half-naked.
"I-I just wanted to… give this back to Roxas." Sora handed the paper sheepishly.
"Oh…" Axel chewed the cigarette a little and took the ticket from the brunet's hands. "Okay. I'll tell him when he wakes up." Then he proceeded to slam the door shut. Sora blinked, and then walked away giggling.
----
"So in the end you didn't come back." Kairi's voice sounded pleased. "Did it finally get through your thick skull that you're the only one who can win this?"
"That's not true!" Sora disagreed. "Naminé is still on the top so far."
"Oh yeah… What a tough one to beat down." Kairi sighed. "…Well anyway, you definitely need to go on a date with Riku first. How about a surfing date?"
"But I don't know how to surf!" Sora whined. "Tidus told me not to do anything I don't know. It'll make it worse!"
"Well DUH I know you can't surf." Kairi rolled her eyes. "But he can."
"What are you trying to say…?" Sora cocked an eyebrow.
"Argh. Forget it. You'll find out." Kairi smirked. "Just go ask him to go on a surfing date with you."
Pouting, Sora helplessly agreed to Kairi's proposal without knowing how exactly it was going to work out. Girls always speak in riddles. Geez.
----
Miraculously, Riku agreed to Sora's proposal. But then he asked, "Do you know how to surf?"
"No." Sora replied straightforwardly. Real nice, Sora, too honest. Riku raised his eyebrows at the boy, then Sora remembered that he just made a fool out of himself. Amidst the chaos in his mind, he blurted out one question.
"Can you teach me though?"
"Sure." Riku shrugged, a grin growing on his face. "I'll see you at two, then."
"Okay." Sora couldn't help the smile that spread across his face either. When Sora walked away, he finally realized what Kairi meant. I know you can't surf. But he can.
They met up at two on the beach. Surfing turned out to be a lot more difficult than he thought. They shared a board, Sora standing in front and Riku standing behind him. There were some points when Sora could feel Riku's breath on his ear and he couldn't help but blush; but mostly he was just focusing on not falling.
"Ah!" Sora made really girly squeals, Riku found out, as the boy squeaked at another wave coming at them. "R-Riku… I'm falling…!"
In a hasty motion, Riku swooped his arms around Sora's waist, pressing the brunet to himself. Sora whimpered, and blushed when he could tell the proximity between them. Riku blinked embarrassedly before letting go of the brunet.
"You okay?" He asked gingerly.
"Y-Yeah." Sora nodded hastily. Thank goodness Riku was standing behind him so he wouldn't see that color on his face.
Before their scrambled thoughts were sorted out, another wave came splashing down onto them. The entire surfboard was thrown off-balance, and among the confusion Sora grabbed onto whatever his hand could first, which was Riku's hand. Both of them ended up falling into the water, of course, soaked and drenched in the salty seawater. With much struggle, they managed to surface; and when they looked at each other, they laughed. Purely amused laughter came out of their mouths; no worries of any kind, just happiness.
"I had fun today." Riku smiled genuinely at Sora, the surfboard in his right arm.
"Hm." Sora nodded. "Me too."
They parted there, Sora with a satisfied smile on his face that he didn't know of. As he walked back to the hotel to get a shower, Tidus found him and jeered.
"Hey, look who's got a totally love-struck face!" He playfully shoved Sora's shoulder. "I bet your date with Riku turned out well."
"That's not it!" Sora pouted. "I'm not in love with him… I just had fun, 's all."
"Right." Tidus cleared his throat, rolling his eyes. They continued to walk down the hall, unaware of what was awaiting in their room.
"Hi Sora!" Was the first thing they heard when they opened their door.
Sora froze. Well, both of them froze, actually.
"K-K-K-K-KAIRI?!" He sputtered in an unmanly fashion.
"What's that face?" She pouted. "Aren't you happy to see me?"
"That's not the point!!" Sora's eyes were now widened in horror. "What are you doing here?!"
"This is what I get for being such a great friend? So much for coming all the way over here." She rolled her eyes and sat herself onto Sora's bed. "Why, of course, I came here to help you, Sora."
"Help?" Both boys tilted their head the same direction.
"I was starting to think that just small dates with Riku wouldn't work, so I have to come here for a personal check; and to develop new strategies, of course." She twirled her wise-old-sorcerer-finger-twirl again.
"Can you be…" Tidus blinked. "That friend of Sora who sent him those limited edition high heels before?"
"Bingo!" She snapped her fingers at the blond. "Why, you know it too?"
"Of course!" The boy rushed up to her. "I've got so many questions for you! How did you get it? How much…"
Sora tuned out after that. He grudgingly stalked off to the bathroom, leaving his two other friends behind in their own fashion-infected world. When he was in the shower, he found his thoughts drifting back to Riku, to how fun the date was. But no matter how great that was, Sora was convinced that their relationship can only be called at most as platonic lovers… if that makes any sense.
----
Kairi went on a "geographic study" of the island the next day with Tidus, leaving Sora behind. The boy resorted to relaxing at the beverage shop. And it just so happened that Naminé was having a date with Riku there. The brunet remained discreet, though, hiding at the corner closest to the hotel. Sora was observing the couple from the corner of his eyes when Roxas walked past in front of him.
"Ah! Roxas." Sora called out before the blond went too far away. Roxas stopped and looked back.
"Oh, Sora. Hi."
"Hey, did you get that ticket I gave you back last time?" Sora perked his eyebrows.
"Ticket… O-Oh, yeah." Roxas nodded, then blushed when he remembered he did not get it directly from Sora, but through Axel. "Axel told me…"
"Eh… You're blushing." Sora poked his nose into the matter teasingly.
"I'm not!" Roxas denied halfheartedly, then hung his head low. "Can I sit here?" He pointed at the bamboo chair across from Sora's.
"Of course." The brunet agreed heartily and Roxas climbed through the wooden railing to sit down. "So… you and Axel… did it?"
"Hey, it's not like we're not dating properly!" Roxas' blush grew harder. Sora chuckled.
"I'm not saying it's anything bad." He said, making Roxas feel a little more comfortable. "But I'm just curious… why him? I mean, this sounds really stupid but… you didn't seem to be the one who'd like that type."
"Well, yeah. He was not my type." Roxas laughed. "I was bi but I still preferred girls. I never thought I'd meet someone cocky enough to dominate me… until Axel appeared. He's just special, I guess." He shrugged. "It's kind of funny, but when I met him, he was just the same as he is now. Cocky, cold on the outside, kind of like that 'I'm too cool for you' type, you know? I didn't like him then. But for some reason, I wanted to put a smile on that face." He expressed. "Stupid, isn't it?"
"No, not at all." Sora responded, eyes diverting to Riku who was never the initiative one to make conversation. He seemed so unfocused, so out of it even when Naminé was talking. Where was the smiling face he saw yesterday? "I can understand how you feel, Roxas. There's someone I want to keep happy, too."
"Well, that's love." Roxas sighed.
"Is that so?" Sora bit his bottom lip, thinking profusely. Roxas smiled and nodded.
----
Kairi came back with a clamor, loudly and excitedly claiming that she had discovered something remarkable. Sora perked his eyebrows, stared at her like she was crazy, and then finally asked her what she was all giddy over about.
"Tidus and I found an island!" She whispered breathlessly. "I can't believe it! It sits just right out to the southwest of the main island, and it's really small."
She took out a piece of paper, drawn on it was an outline of the Destiny Islands. Sora could see that Kairi drew something at the bottom left corner of the map.
"Here." She pointed at the outline she drew. "We mapped the beach of the smaller island. There are other places we didn't go to, but we saw that there was a way to get there."
"Okay…" Sora tilted his head. "So?"
"So, you should totally go explore it with Riku!" She shook his arm, a grin on her face. "We rented a small boat to get there, so you should be able to do so too without any problem!"
Somehow Sora didn't have a very good feeling about this. But he didn't dare to contradict Kairi's intentions. Not when the girl was present on the island. Not when she could perform murder so easily and hazardously.
----
Again, Riku agreed to Sora's offer miraculously. With much urge from Kairi, they set out for the smaller island very soon. There were a few traces of clouds overhead, seagulls squawking noisily as Riku rowed the boat forward towards the small island. It really was small, like Kairi had said. But it seemed to nest undiscovered secrets, too. Well, at least to Sora's sixteen-years-old-pea-like brain.
Kairi and Tidus had left a fat wood stick stabbed in between two rocks as the pier. Riku expertly tied the rope around the stick after they arrived. Sora observed intently at the way Riku worked, his muscled arm moving, his soft-looking silver hair swaying in the wind. Suddenly goose bumps grew all over the brunet's skin, and he looked away. The island seemed enticing, like an adventure yet to be begun.
They decided to go explore the mountain of the island. Yet halfway through their climb to the peak of the island's mountain, the clouds gathered. Far off in the distance, Riku could see globes of light flashing amidst the white yet heavy clouds. The lightning bolts seemed to come closer all the while, as he gradually stopped his movements.
"Sora." Riku called, stopping the boy. "It looks like it's gonna rain."
"Huh?" Sora didn't even get to blink twice before large pearls of raindrops started to fall hard onto his head.
"Let's go back down." The rain suddenly rushed in through large curtains. "We've got to bring the boat onshore."
"O-Okay." Sora yelled through the swashing sound of the rain. Riku held out his hand for Sora to grab, safely leading the boy back down to the beach. The sky was completely dark now, the once gentle breeze an unyielding airstream. Ignoring the soaking of their shirts, they ran through the muddy sand and untied the boat, pulling it out of the swallowing ocean.
By the time they got the boat anywhere near out of range from the sea, they were completely drenched. Riku yelled something, and promptly let go of his end of the boat, prying Sora's grip away from it and pushing him towards the dense trees in the center of the island.
There was a dark, secluded road among these trees, and at the end of it they found a cave, just shallow enough to shelter them from the storm.
"Take off your clothes." Riku demanded.
"What?!" Sora cried, a blush threatening to form on his face.
"I said take off your clothes." Riku peeled his off of himself. "If you keep wearing those wet clothes you'll get sick."
"O-Oh." The brunet obediently did as he was told, handing his sopping shirt to Riku afterwards. Riku laid their shirts out on the floor of the cave before hurrying to the other end of the place to find some dry wood.
"What are you doing?" Sora could not interpret a thing Riku was doing.
"Making a fire, duh." Riku replied distractedly as he rubbed one of the timbers against the other. "Go find me some more wood."
"Okay." Sora went further into the cavern and picked out some wood from the corners. He threw everything into a mess around the wood Riku was using. Then he could only wait, as he watched the tip of the wood closely while drifting his eyes off to Riku from time to time.
Ten minutes later they finally got a fire.
"There we go." The silver-haired teen smiled, throwing the stick he'd been using into the clutter of wood on fire. He then took their clothes and placed it near the flame.
"Wow." Sora mumbled, sitting across from Riku with his knees to his chin.
"Some useful survival skills." Riku grinned, shaking his head of wet hair.
They sat there for minutes, waiting for the storm to pass. But it just seemed to be relentless, for the trees that encircled the cave were the only things that prevented the rain from entering the place.
"Riku…" Sora started tentatively. "Why… did you hold this contest?" He asked cautiously, wondering if what Kairi told him was true.
"Well… I kind of… made a bet." So it was true. "I must find a lover – no matter if it was a girlfriend or boyfriend – by the school year ends or else I'll have to be with this person, which I really don't want to."
I wouldn't want to, either. Sora added sourly in his mind. "Is that… the only reason?"
"Kind of. Yeah." Riku shrugged.
Sora frowned. He agreed to the severity of the consequences of the bet alright, but it wouldn't justify a love contest. There must have been other ways to get a lover rather than a love contest. "But isn't that… just using whoever's winning this competition?"
"What? Are you saying that this thing is wrong?" Riku asked back.
"It is!" Sora cried out. "This is wrong. You can't find a lover by making people fight and cheat their ways out of each other!"
"Then why'd you enter?" The silver-haired teen sputtered back.
"Well… that's because…" Sora stuttered. Wasn't he, too, just using Riku to prove a point? Who was he to say that Riku was wrong? "Why I entered is not the point. Aren't you just using me, too? I heard it all from Axel. He said that you wanted to get away from Naminé, and that's why you're letting me stay here."
"That's… not entirely true…" Riku looked away. "I kept you here not only because I wanted to get rid of Naminé…" Sora didn't see the emotional change in Riku; he was too blinded by his own anger. "I kept you here also because I-"
"Oh, just get over it." Sora rolled his eyes, standing up. "You're not a baby, Riku. Don't make others interpret what you want to say. If there's something you want to say, just say it out loud! If there's something you don't like, then just tell others that you don't like it! If you don't like Naminé, then just be honest and tell her that!" Sora's hands were fisted at his sides. "Don't use others to 'send an indirect hint'!" With that, he angrily stomped out of the cavern, ignoring the silver-haired teen's calls after him and the rain.
There was only one cave on the island, and Sora was forced to sit somewhere under some trees. One raindrop would fall onto his face, and he would move over a little to get away from it; then another one would hit his cheeks again, and he would move over a little again to avoid it. The poor boy was cold, and wet; the only way he could stay warm was to hug his legs to himself. Oh how he shivered and shivered through the cold, the merciless storm swaying all kinds of cold water drops onto him.
Guilt nibbled away at Riku's heart as he sat motionlessly in the cave. Sora had been out there for a while, and hadn't come back at all. Shouldn't there be a limit as to being angry? The storm was getting worse, and if he didn't come back now…
Wait… What if something happened to him?! Riku widened his eyes and shot up. What if he needs help?! The boy just ran into the rain on impulse. With the storm going at this rage, the brunet couldn't have gone too far. Riku searched around the cave, taking no notice of the scrapes he was getting from the stinging needles of the bushes.
"Sora!" He shouted into his palms. "Sora!"
Sora's head shot up at a distant sound calling his name. Riku came looking for him?!
"Riku!"
Riku's head snapped to the direction of a weak voice. He ran with all his might, chopping off the bushes in his way with his hands until he found the brunet sitting in a dark corner all curled up.
"Sora!" Riku whispered harshly. "You alright?"
"I-I'm… c-cold…" Sora said through trembling teeth.
"Of course you are." Riku said worriedly, picking the boy up in his arms. "You shouldn't just run out like that."
"S-Sorry…" Sora swallowed hard, his breath starting to hitch for his bronchi constricted from the coldness.
"I should be the one apologizing…" Riku sighed, putting Sora down next to the fire once they reached the cave. The silver-haired boy picked up his fairly dried shirt from the ground and placed it over Sora's shoulder. When Sora thought he was going to just rest there until he got better, Riku suddenly wrapped his arms around him and embraced him.
"R-Riku?" Sora squeaked, some life returning to him.
"It's warmer this way." Riku explained, although he was blushing madly. Sora blinked a few times before letting out an "oh", wrapping his arms around Riku's neck for dear life.
To be honest, it felt kind of nice, to be held against Riku's warmth. Sora could feel the other boy's heartbeat as the heat transferred from the silver-haired teen and the fire to him. They were silent, just holding each other like that for a long time, neither of them wanting to part.
"Sora… I didn't get to finish just now." Riku began, a small smile creeping its way to his face.
"Huh?"
"I said I didn't keep you here only because I didn't want Naminé to win." Riku said, bringing the previous conversation back to life. "I kept you here also because… because I think I'm falling in love with you."
In love…… with me…?! Sora widened his eyes. His heart felt like it stopped. His face became a shade of deep pink, as he still tried to process the information he just received. Riku's breath was steady as he pulled slightly away, enough to let him gaze at the brunet.
He kissed Sora. At first Sora was shocked, until his left hand slowly went up to touch a side of Riku's face tenderly as he slowly kissed back. Then he realized.
I'm… in love with Riku.
A/N: can't believe I forgot to upload this last time!! Well my dear readers you got lucky. Next chapter coming right up!
