Sorry this chapter took so long & that it's a little short, this past month has been chaos… My grandfather passed away and shortly after that, I had TWO emergencies with two of my cats (out of three) and I had to take both of them to the vet within one week of each other. So my brain was just fried most of October… But I've finally finished this chapter lol. Hope you guys enjoy it!
I Can Barely Say
Chapter Sixteen: Reunions
"Wow, you two have really grown up!" Yuffie circled Riku and Kairi, both smiling sheepishly as they watched her.
Sora crossed his arms, asking curiously, "What about me?"
"Huh? What do you mean?" She squinted and tilted her head.
Aerith chimed in, "You've grown up too, Sora. But we haven't seen Riku and Kairi in quite a while now."
"Yeah, I know. I was just kidding." He took a step back to give them more space, a little frown still clear on his face.
"This one'll always be a kid to me!" Cid reached over to roughly grab Sora's shoulders, causing everyone to turn their heads.
Sora huffed at first, but smiled as he said, "Thanks, Cid."
"Sorry, Sora, but I've got to say the same thing." Leon admitted with a small smile of his own.
His mouth dropped again, "Aw, c'mon, Leon! I've been able to take care of myself for how many years now?"
"Still. I'm always going to think of you as the goofy kid I first bumped into in Traverse Town."
"No problem with that. He still is a goofy kid." Riku commented, stepping between them.
Sora thought about sending a glare his way, but instead replied nonchalantly, "I'm the goofy kid who can let the Heartless have you for lunch if you're not careful."
Riku rolled his eyes, "Please. Like I can't protect myself from some Heartless."
"You're forgetting you're out of practice." He pointed out in response, "Don't worry, you'll apologize later when I have to save your butt."
"Right." Riku scoffed.
"Alright. Enough, you two." Kairi interrupted, holding her hands out between them.
Aerith gave a small giggle, "We really should let you go do your job."
"It was nice seeing everyone!" Kairi pushed Riku and Sora forward, who were still arguing under their breath, before she turned around to say, "We'll be back later for dinner!"
"See you then!" Yuffie called back.
"Would you two stop picking on each other for five seconds?" She sighed as they started walking, heading towards the outer garden.
"C'mon, Kairi. This is the first time ever that I can brag that I'm better than Riku. Let me enjoy it." Sora whined, taking a step closer to her.
"Yeah, Kairi. Let him enjoy it." He smirked, "Because later he's gonna have to take it back."
Sora immediately shot back, "Am not!"
She groaned, reaching up to rub her forehead, "You know, I really didn't picture this trip starting off with you two both acting like you did when you were kids."
"But it's a good thing. Makes me feel more at home again." Sora laughed, "But I guess we can tone it down. Or I can, at least."
Riku shrugged, "Fine, I'll tone it down too."
"Thanks." She gave a small smile.
As they walked through town, many of the residents waved to the trio; a few specifically calling out to Sora and stopping to talk to him for a few minutes.
"Wow, seems like everyone here knows you almost as well as people do back home." Riku commented, a little bit intrigued.
"Well, this sort of was my home away from home, in a way." Sora scratched the back of his neck sheepishly, "Plus this is kinda where the chaos started. Even though there's been a lot of progress, there's still a lot of darkness lurking here from Xehanort's experiments… so Heartless tend to pop up here more often than on other worlds."
Kairi looked down at her feet with a frown, "Oh, wow…"
"Uh, well. Even if they're more common here, it's still pretty spread out now. They can go months here without any trouble. And even when there is, most of the time Leon and the gang can handle it." Sora quickly clarified, his voice a little nervous, "I think it's getting better with time."
"I hope so." She answered softly.
Sora started to frown until a familiar voice caught them all off guard, "Why the long face, princess?"
Kairi whirled around faster than any of them, immediately retorting, "I told you not to call me that!"
"Lea," Riku called out, surprised, "What are you doing here?"
"I live here? Besides, I wasn't going to let you guys take all the glory." He walked out in front of them, a smirk on his face.
With her hand on her hip, Kairi suggested, "We could leave all of them to you and let you have all the glory if you want."
He laughed nervously, admitting, "That might be a little too much for me."
"I still swear you two could be brother and sister the way you two fight with each other." Riku smiled with a shake of his head.
Grinning, Sora chimed in, "Hey, Kairi. If Riku and I had to cut it out, shouldn't you try to get along with Lea, too?"
"That's right." Riku echoed.
"Oh, I will." Kairi looked entirely displeased as she stared at Sora, "But you're going to regret saying that."
His mouth fell open, pleading, "C—c'mon, Kairi, it was just a joke!" Her expression remained unchanged.
"They're dating now." Riku mumbled to Lea, though Sora wasn't paying attention.
"Ah." He nodded, "Finally."
"Tell me about it."
"Well, enough of this awkward stuff." Lea grabbed Sora's shoulder and tugged him forward a little bit before letting go, "Let's get to it before the Heartless spread to other parts of the town."
The brunette let out a little sigh, "Right." He led them through the entrance to the garden and Heartless immediately made their presence known, materializing out of nowhere and wasting no time in lunging towards the group. "Here we go!" Sora summoned his keyblade and rushed in, his friends following behind him before splitting up across the garden.
He hadn't been fighting long when he took a few blows from a Heartless. After lashing out in response and defeating it, he felt the warmth of a cure spell wash over him. "Wha?" He did a quick spin and spotted Kairi who gave him a brief smile as she continued fighting. "Thought you were mad at me." He commented loudly before moving on to another Heartless.
"I'm over it for now." She answered, sounding a little out of breath.
The new Heartless vanished into smoke with Sora's next strike, "Tell me if you need any help!"
"I'm fine for now." She took a breath, "Just a little tired."
He nodded, doubtful, "Uh huh. Okay."
As the Heartless seemingly began to clear out, he moved towards Riku, who seemed even more wiped out than Kairi had been when he last checked on her. "Cure." Sora lifted his keyblade in Riku's direction. Though it seemed to help a little bit, Riku was still slow in some of his movements.
"Thanks." He sighed before taking another strike.
"Do you want me to finish them off for you?" Sora suggested, "I mean, the sooner we're done, the sooner we can all go relax."
He could tell by his face that Riku wanted to say no to keep his pride. But in the end, he gave in, "Fine. Sure."
Sora gave a little smirk before effortlessly taking out the last two Heartless. Looking back at everyone, Lea seemed to be just a little tired while Riku and Kairi looked like they were both ready to collapse.
Scrunching his eyebrows, Lea looked over to the other two, "What's wrong with you guys?"
"They've gotten to slack off at home." Sora answered in an amused tone, dismissing his keyblade and putting his hands on his hips.
"I wouldn't call going to school slacking." Riku snapped back.
Kairi nodded and exhaled, "Yeah, what he said."
"I guess, but me and Sora are the ones doing all of the really hard work." Lea bragged before catching sight of Sora's stare, "Okay, well, maybe mostly Sora. But hey, I've kept this place safe when you're not around!"
"And I'm sure Leon, Isa, and everybody else have nothing to do with that." The brunette answered sarcastically.
Lea groaned, "Alright, alright. It's a team effort. But I'm the only one with a Keyblade here on a regular basis, so I do have to do some of the heavy lifting sometimes. At least give me that."
"Okay, I'll let you have that." He answered, letting his hands fall back down to his sides. Though Riku and Kairi had laughed a little during his and Lea's exchange, they still didn't look all the way recovered quite yet. "Are you guys gonna be okay to head back?" He tilted his head.
"Maybe at least half way. You might have to carry us after that." Kairi answered with a smile.
"Great." Sora laughed.
"In that case, consider yourselves left behind." Lea replied with a wave of his hand, "Unless Sora's carrying both of you."
He quickly shook his head, "No way. I'm pretty sure my spine would break. I don't even think I could lift Riku—maybe when we were closer to the same height, but not now."
"Thanks, Sora." His best friend answered in a mumble, "But really, we'll be fine. Let's just get going."
"Alright." He let Lea lead the way, hanging back to keep an eye on both Riku and Kairi since he was worried they were underplaying their conditions since it wouldn't be the first time. It frustrated him immensely, but they were both so stubborn that they truly believed what they said so it was a hard habit to get them to break.
Thankfully they managed to make it back to Merlin's house without issue, where they had a relaxing yet chaotic dinner. Merlin prepared most of the food with magic, but Aerith made a few things that, to be honest, were very odd. Too nice to really say anything about it, everyone ate them with no complaints. They weren't really bad to Sora, just not really pleasant either. Aside from that, Yuffie accidentally flung her tea across the table when she was using her hands to describe the latest addition to town, causing everyone to scramble away from the table. It turned out that it wasn't hot enough to really do anything and Merlin's magic made it easy to clean up, but it was kind of terrifying in the moment.
Needless to say it was a huge relief when they finally made it back to their hotel room.
Until Riku dropped the bomb that he wanted Sora to share Kairi's bed rather than his.
"C'mon, it's only a full size bed. We'd barely fit, but you and Kairi are both small so it'd still be comfortable for you two together." He argued, already sprawled out across the one bed.
Kairi walked out of the bathroom and walked past them, crawling under the covers and laying down immediately, "I really don't care either way. I'm tired and going to sleep so you guys can figure it out on your own."
Sora looked back to Riku who answered, "I'm not moving. So your choice: with Kairi or on the floor."
"Okay." He grumbled, grabbing his pajama pants from the top of his bag and taking them into the bathroom with him. He took his sweet time changing and brushing his teeth before finally walking back into the room, dragging his feet across the floor as he did so. Kairi looked like she was fast asleep and Riku looked like he almost was, despite the fact he was still wearing all of his clothes and still on top of all of the blankets.
He wasn't sure why he was so hesitant and why his face felt like it was on fire. Even if he'd never spent the night at her apartment, they'd still taken naps together and it's not like they were going to be doing anything other than sleeping. Still, he shot a glare over to Riku's sleeping form before sitting down on the bed and slipping his legs underneath the blankets.
Kairi blinked open her eyes before turning over and whispering, amused, "So you gave up arguing with Riku?"
"Well, yeah, you told me to do that hours ago." He joked in response, grinning.
"Hmm. Guess I did." She closed her eyes and moved closer to him, resting her head against the bottom of his neck and his chest.
Sora blinked, feeling flustered again, his voice low as he pointed out, "Uh. What about Ri—"
"He's sleeping." She interrupted him and he felt the vibrations of her voice against his skin, "And I wanna go back to sleep too."
"But what about in the morning—"
She reached up lazily, briefly touching his face with her eyes still closed, "Just get comfy and go to sleep. Don't worry about anything else." So he did, draping an arm around her and intertwining his legs with hers, enjoying her warmth and easily drifting off.
He slept better than he had in years and he came to the conclusion that waking up to see Kairi next to him was definitely one of the best feelings in the world.
