I CAN BARELY SAY
Chapter Fifteen: Too Fast, Too Slow
"Sora!" He heard Kairi's voice only a moment before he was nearly knocked over by the force of her body crashing against his. "Thank you so much for your present." She hugged him as tightly as she could, "I love it so much. It made me cry."
He grinned widely as he hugged her back, carefully slipping his hands between her back and her backpack, "You're welcome."
"How did you get all of those pictures of the three of us?" She leaned back, looking at him curiously.
"I dug around my house, got some from Riku, and a few from your parents too." He let out a smile laugh, admitting, "It took a while…"
'A little too long', he thought. Now he was completely clueless as to what to get her for Christmas since he had put so much energy into this gift.
She smiled sweetly before pecking his lips, "Thank you, again. It's just too perfect." Giggling, she reached up to touch his hair, "I think my favorite page is all of our graduation pictures together. Mostly because of your cap."
"Yeah, me and hats don't really go well together." He laughed as well. "I really liked putting it together, too. It made me feel like I got to experience some of the things I missed, in a way. Plus I'm looking forward to taking pictures for it in the future."
"That's great, Sora." She answered enthusiastically before pulling away from him, though she held their hands together still, "Speaking of the things you missed… Remember what I said about setting up a day to talk?"
He tilted his head, "Yeah, but I thought you were joking."
She shrugged, "I kind of was… but I want to tell you soon because I know it's been making you uncomfortable and I just want to get it over with, too. So I want to talk about it shortly after we get back."
"Whenever you want." Sora kissed her forehead, "But we should get moving. Don't want to keep Riku waiting too long."
"Right, right." She nodded and let go of his hands, both beginning to walk. "So," Kairi called to him in the sweetest voice she could muster, "Can you tell me what world we're going to now? Please?"
He made a face as he considered his options, "I guess I could. But I might need a little more convincing that I shouldn't keep it a surprise."
"Please." She repeated, putting on her best pout and grabbing one of his hands, "I'll let you have some of my leftover birthday cake."
"That's a start." He shrugged thoughtfully, "But not enough."
Her shoulders fell and she whined, "Sora."
"C'mon, I'm not that hard to impress." He looked over to her with a grin, "Just think a little."
She slid in front of him to block his path, pressing both of her hands against his shoulders roughly as she leaned in to kiss him. And she held nothing back, her tongue pressing against his lips almost immediately.
Sora obliged and followed her lead, but was pretty shocked at how quickly she could turn from her usual sweet and gentle self into this.
It was actually kind of impressive.
The kiss was brief despite the intensity, but his head was completely spinning by the time she pulled away. Wide eyed, he mumbled the words, "Damn, Kairi." He usually didn't curse much, but he could think of nothing better to say.
And she seemed fairly proud of herself too, a smug look on her face as she asked, "Will you tell me now?"
"I'll tell you anything after that." He took a breath, "Radiant Garden. We're going to Radiant Garden."
She gave a brief smile before beginning to walk again, "It'll be nice to see everyone and see how the town's looking. They've got to be almost finished rebuilding by now, right?"
"Yeah, they were pretty much doing the finishing touches the last time I was there." He followed after her with his shoulders slumped, his mind becoming more clear from the little bit of disappointment he was feeling, "I thought you'd be more excited since it's your home world and all."
"I've told you before, this is my home." She made a circular motion with her hand, "All of my memories and the people I care about most are here." She reached out to squeeze his hand, "And I am excited. Remember how I reacted when you first told me? Besides, you were the one saying we needed to hurry up before you made me beg."
She washed away any of the doubts he had when she squeezed his hand. Smiling widely, he admitted, "I guess I am guilty of that."
"I didn't mind too much." She answered in a suggestive tone and flashed a smile.
"I was honestly just expecting you to offer to make my favorite cookies for the Christmas party at Riku's or something." He raised an eyebrow and leaned in closer to her, "Are you sure you're a Princess of Heart? It seems like you've got more darkness than I do."
"Lust and love go hand in hand a lot of the time, it's not always linked to darkness." Kairi started off seriously before elbowing him lightly in the chest and winking, "So, whether you like it or not, I'm always going to be more innocent than you."
Sora mumbled to himself, "Lust, huh?"
He barely ever associated that word with his feelings for Kairi. Things like love and adoration, sure. Of course not all of his thoughts about her had been completely innocent, but he usually tried his best to stop his mind from wandering too far.
Despite the jokes he made, he did always believe that she was pure; that he needed to be careful around her and to go slowly because surely her wants were certainly different than his wants. Yet here she was, telling him that all of the thoughts he had been having were perfectly normal. That he'd probably been protecting her when he didn't need to again.
He truly was clueless.
"Hey, Kairi," Sora started out, sheepish and quiet.
"Yeah?" She tilted her head to look up at him.
He took a breath, "Do you think we're moving too slow? Or too fast?"
"Does it matter? We're almost there now." She pointed out.
"I, uh...I mean in our relationship." His eyes were focused on the ground and he felt like was fourteen years old again, so uncertain around her.
"Oh." Her lips parted in surprise, letting out a small laugh, "Well, maybe a little slow in the beginning, but I think we both really needed that. But it's perfect the way it is now. You kind of really surprised me with what you did at the Halloween party once we were away from everyone, but that was anything but a bad thing. I liked how confident you were."
Sora laughed at himself, "And of course I thought I went a little too far."
She shook her head, "Sora, I've only told you about a thousand times that you don't need to worry. If you do anything I don't like, I'll tell you. I'm not exactly shy, you know." She stroked his arm lightly with her free hand, "What exactly made you bring all of this up, anyway?"
"Just something Riku said." He answered automatically with a shrug.
Kairi suddenly seemed embarrassed and pulled away, though their hands remained linked together. "D-do you talk to him about what we do together? Isn't that kind of weird?"
"No!" He shook his head and waved his free hand, starting to blush as well, "No, I haven't told him anything like that. It's just that when I was at his house to ask him about this trip, I was talking about being with you that morning and he assumed I spent the night. So after what you said in combination with that, I just started worrying maybe I was being too hesitant."
"Just let me know whenever you're feeling unsure and we can talk about it." She swung their hands back and forth, "And I'll do the same for you."
He nodded, "Okay, I will. But for now, let's just focus on getting the gummi ship packed up."
"Aye, aye, Captain." She replied teasingly, putting two fingers up to her forehead and doing a salute.
Sora laughed and rolled his eyes, "Psh. If anything, you're the captain. This is supposed to be all for you."
"Hm." She smiled thoughtfully, "In that case, let's leave today."
"Whoa, whoa, whoa. Calm down, Miss Over Eager. We all need to catch up on our sleep. Plus no one's expecting us until tomorrow." He continued to pull her along, the gummi ship finally coming into view.
She gave an overdramatic sigh, "Fiiiine…"
"At least you were planning on bringing Riku along this time." He lowered his voice.
Kairi squinted, "Of course. Why wouldn't I?"
"Well, you were the one suggesting that we took the raft without him." Sora reminded her with a raise of his eyebrows.
Her mouth fell open and she stumbled over her words for a moment before finally saying, "I was just trying to drop hints that I liked you because you were so oblivious. I wasn't serious."
"Okay, okay. If you say so." He laughed again as the approached the gummi ship's door. Letting go of Kairi's hand, Sora stuck his head in and called out loudly, "Riku?"
"Took you guys long enough." Riku emerged from the storage room, "I just finished loading up all my stuff."
Sora took a step in and shrugged, "We've just got to arrange everything, make sure it's strapped down and then make sure all the controls are working okay. It won't take too long."
Kairi stepped in after him, commenting sarcastically, "Good morning to you too, Riku."
He waved her off, moving towards the front of the gummi ship, "I'll let you two get to it."
"Alright." Sora walked to the storage room, Kairi following just behind him. "Do you have anything you don't want to get squished?" He glanced back to her.
"Um… Just this one." She grabbed a small purple bag off from the pile of things they'd loaded up the day before and held it in her arms.
He started grabbing bags from the floor and stuffing them onto the shelves, "Okay, just set it to the side for now and we'll put it up last."
She nodded, putting the purple bag down in a corner before reaching over to help Sora. Once they had gotten everything up off the floor, she asked, "You said something about straps?"
"Yeah. Uh…" He looked around the room before he finally found them hanging up above his head, "There they are." He reached up and handed some to Kairi before demonstrating, "So all you have to do is clip it through one of these little holes around the middle of this bar. Then just pull it across and clip the other side the same way and you're done."
"Seems easy enough." She clipped the first side easily, but struggled to pull the strap across far enough to make it to other side.
Sora gave a little smile, "Need help?"
"N-nope." She huffed, pulling harder until she finally managed to make it reach. Securing the clip to the other side, she exhaled, "Phew."
"Guess it's that whole arm strength thing, like you were talking about when I first got home." He shrugged.
She turned back to him with a smile, "Probably. But I should get some of that back starting tomorrow!"
"We'll see." He motioned to the straps still in her hands, "Do you want me to go ahead and do the rest of these?"
"If you don't mind." She dropped her straps into his open palm and pressed her lips against his cheek, "Thank you."
He closed his eyes and leaned slightly closer to her as she kissed him, smiling. "Sure."
"I'll get out of your way and wait outside the door." She slipped past him, her hand briefly grazing his shoulder as she did so.
As he started to work on the next strap, he heard Riku call out to Kairi, "Did you bribe Sora into doing something for you?"
She giggled, "Sort of. I didn't really have to bribe him, though."
"Can't say I'm surprised."
After finishing up, Sora stepped out into the main area of the gummi ship, "If you guys pick on me when I'm in earshot, I can imagine what you say by yourselves."
"Nothing but good things, of course." Kairi smiled widely with a rub of his shoulder.
"Right." He looked at her doubtingly.
Riku changed the subject, "So are you gonna check out all of this stuff?" He waved his hand over the control panel of the gummi ship, "It's been so long since I've touched any of this, I don't really remember how to do anything."
"Jeez. Guess I have to do everything around here." Sora made his way across the ship, nudging his friend out of the way. After he had pulled a few levers and flipped a few switches, the gummi ship's engine started with a loud roar, "See, that's all there is to it."
Riku crossed his arms, "I just needed a reminder."
As Sora shut down all of the controls, he turned his head to ask, "You want to fly it tomorrow, then?"
"Uh…" He reached up to scratch his neck sheepishly, "Probably not."
"Ah, how the tables have turned." Sora gloated with a wide grin, leaning back against the wall.
Riku rolled his eyes, "Enjoy it while you can."
"What's that supposed to mean?" The younger boy raised an eyebrow.
"After a few more of these trips off the islands, I'll be back to my usual self. Just wait." He started to head out of the gummi ship, "Let's lock up and head home."
Sora let out a huff of air but felt his annoyance fade away once he felt Kairi's hand on his shoulder, "You coming?"
"Yeah." He answered loudly before he leaned into whisper into Kairi's ear, "But maybe we should go tonight; without Riku."
She smiled, answering, "We both know we'd feel extremely guilty tomorrow if we did. Especially you."
"Still. He deserves it." He whispered back, smiling as well.
"I think your ego will recover." She held his face in her hands briefly and smiled at him, then reached down to loop her arm around his and pulled him forward, "C'mon."
