Geez, I hope you guys still read this. I'm seriously sorry for the long wait. Gosh, things have been sooo busy lately! Ugh. Psychology homework got the best of me :/ Hehe anyways, I hope you guys like this one. I tried to get them a little more... Intimate in this chapter. Yes, yes, I know, I know, I should make this a lemon, but I'm just not that kind of person, I guess.
I don't own Kingdom Hearts/the Kingdom Hearts characters or any random little references I make to it along the way :D Thanks, peace out.
Sora's eyebrow twitched. There was the slight possibility that Riku was slightly over-protective. Olette had ended up needing to go to Sora's place for the study date... No, session... because her parents needed the house to host a work party.
Riku, of course, found out and invited himself over. Sora refused that the older boy could stay the night, because he just felt weird about them sharing a room, let alone the only bed that Sora owned. Plus, Riku was cunning and also very into Sora.
"C'mon, Sora, it's not like I'd do anything to you!" Riku had been trying relentlessly to get the brunette to give in. But Sora was surprisingly hard headed. He was also very, very aware that he could mess with Riku's mind. So he looked at Riku with big eyes, hiding the rest of his face behind his hands.
"I just..." Sora's voice was high pitched, making him sound lonely, and he acted like he wasn't aware of this fact. "I don't want to do anything I might regret. It's not you I don't trust, Riku. It's me. I'm just..." And Sora needed not to go further, because Riku, at that point, already felt guilty enough.
"Ooh!" exclaimed Meiko. "Sora, you're finally inviting a girl over! What's she like? Is she-" She caught the look on Riku's face. "Sorry, Riku, dear, but a girl coming over is special to a mother, no matter the relationships going on already."
Sora stuck his tongue out at Riku, and the older boy grimaced. Meiko had been one of the only people they had agreed on telling because, one, she wasn't a person to judge preferences like that and two, there was no way that she would betray Sora by telling Kairi or anyone else.
What surprised Sora what that it had been three weeks, and still no one had figured it out. Which gave Sora a sense of indirection and unease. He had the slightest feeling that all of them had known from the start, and were planning something.
Riku had turned up about ten minutes before, and it was then that the bell rang. Both Sora and Meiko jumped, and Riku sighed, walking over to the door. Sora knew that if his boyfriend answered the door there would be trouble, so he raced to get there first.
Riku, expecting something like that, reached his arm out and grabbed Sora around the waist. Sora yelped, stretching his arm out and grabbing the handle with the tip of his fingers. "Riku!" he yelled. "Stop it!"
Riku just laughed. He bent over, bringing Sora down with him. This made Sora's wrist bend, and the door swung open to reveal Olette. She took in the current scene and her eyes widened. "Um... hi, Sora?"
Sora laughed, extremely embarrassed. "Riku, cut it out," he said, feeling the older boy's arms go limp. He unwrapped himself and stood up straight. "Hey, Olette. Sorry about the house. It's kinda... yeah."
Olette looked around in amazement. "Are you serious?" she exclaimed. "It's huge!"
Sora laughed, forgetting completely about Riku. "My mother, ah, wants to meet you. She's kinda excited."
"Is she in yet?" Meiko asked, stepping out of the kitchen. Her black fringe was curled and styled away from her face, and she was wearing a pale yellow sundress. Olette gasped.
"Wow! You're beautiful!"
Meiko blushed, looking away. "Sora, you have made a lovely friend."
Olette blushed, too. "Oh, it's nothing really. I was just curious to see what life style he was living in. He is definitely lucky to have a house like this with a mother like you."
Meiko had always been a sucker for sweet talk. "I am so glad Sora invited you over. Now, is there anything you're allergic to?"
Olette shook her head, and then Meiko bustled back into the kitchen, attaching herself to her apron, and then got cooking. Sora looked after, smiling. Olette laughed. "You're Mum is so great."
Sora looked around for Riku, but he wasn't there. He looked at the door. It was still closed, and Sora would have heard it if Riku had left the house. He looked over at Olette. "The lounge room's that way," he said, pointing to a doorway parallel to him. "Just to through there and get all your stuff ready. I'll be down in a few minutes."
Sora was halfway up the stairs, when a tall figure appeared in the doorway of his room. The figure was glaring at Sora, but not very convincingly, and Sora laughed. "You need to chill. C'mon, it's not like I'd ever study without you!"
A look of shock crossed Riku's face, before he blocked it off, and something clicked in Sora's brain. Oh, so that's why he got like that. Sora giggled. He was jealous!
Sora laughed a little harder, until he was actually doubled over the railing, clutching his stomach. His stomach muscles were tight at that point, but he couldn't stop laughing. "R-Riku..." he spluttered. "Y-you..."
The silver haired boy smiled, and then chuckled quietly. Sora looked at him, and immediately stopped laughing. He felt his face go slack. Did someone so beautiful really love Sora? As much as Sora loved him? Really, and truly?
Sora walked up the rest of the stairs. "C'mon," he prompted Riku, taking the older boy's hand. Every single thing Sora felt leaked out in that one word and it felt as if half his soul had escaped him. A dark hole had been swallowed up, and he was free from something he didn't even know had captured him.
He pulled Riku down the stairs, and just as he went to walk into the lounge room, Riku pulled him back with a swift tug. Sora was – softly – thrown against the wall, and soft lips touched his almost straight away. It was a chaste kiss, simply Riku teasing, and Sora blushed. "R-R..."
Riku grinned. "Yeah, I know."
The rest of the sentence went unsaid. Yeah, I know, because I love you too.
"So... this one here is meant to equal up to that?" Olette asked, and it was obvious to Riku that she was overjoyed to be able to study with Sora.
Sora nodded. "Yeah, because if you read what's in those brackets, you can easily multiply that."
Olette's eyes lightened up. "Oh, Sora, you're a genius!"
Sora stretched a hand behind his head, cupping his neck. "Not really. I learnt it all of Riku."
Olette turned to Riku, who was sitting on the couch, pretending to read some manga. But even though it had been in his face for the last half hour, he had no idea even of what the main character's name was. He had been too busy watching Olette and being frustrated that he couldn't do anything to stop her, because that would give them away.
Not that Riku actually cared if anyone found out. In fact, he would love nothing more than to grab Sora in his arms to kiss him roughly, just to flaunt it to Olette that her simple attraction was nothing against the way Riku felt for Sora.
"Well then," she said, smiling kindly. "I guess I should thank you. Hopefully I won't fail on my Math test now. Ugh," she said. "I'm hopeless at Math. You are so lucky to have your brain."
Riku decided to play nice. He didn't want Sora to be mad, which he would be if the silverette wasn't nice enough. So he laughed – and, to even his surprise, it sounded genuine. "Sora tells me that all the time. No problem, though. Just simply sharing my common knowledge to grateful classmates."
Olette grinned, turning back to her work. Riku smirked at her back. He obviously had her fooled. But Sora was glaring at him suspiciously. Riku gave flipped him a peace sign, before going back to 'reading' his fascinating manga.
It turned out her name was Azumi. The main character of the manga Riku had actually read quite a bit of. It was a romance between two people – a girl and a guy, to Riku's distaste – and once he got past the mushiness of it all, it was somewhat entertaining.
One thing he noticed, though, was that the romance scenes involved the girl being swept of her feet. Why didn't the guy get his time to blush and wonder how much his girlfriend loved him back? Although... these worried were probably just because he was gay.
Riku hid a wince. Gay.
That was a bad word for Riku. He was very sensitive on that subject. It was more like he was just into Sora. No one else. No guy would ever get close. Also, he wasn't disgusted by the thought of going out with a girl – it was just that she wasn't Sora.
Peeping over the top of the manga, Riku found himself smiling. Olette wasn't a flirt, that was for sure. Although it was extremely obvious she liked Sora, she didn't act upon it. She wasn't taking advantage of his cluelessness, if fact, she was probably relieved he was like that.
Then he realised he was feeling a fondness of sorts for the poor girl, and he pulled his smile away. Just because he could relate to that Olette chick...
Ba-boom. Ba-boom. Riku looked down at his chest. It was twitching, and the rhythm of the beat was jumping out of place, like a broken record spinning on the floor.
He knew what it was like to love Sora with all his heart...
Ba-boom. Ba-boom.
But to be hesitant about Sora loving him in return...
Ba-boom. Ba-boom.
Riku took a deep breath. Nausea swirled in his throat, dragging a knife down his body until it reached his lower stomach. He stood up abruptly. "I'll be back soon."
He felt Sora's worried gaze on his back, and he knew it was because of the lack of emotion in his voice. He held a hand out behind him, bringing another up to his forehead. His head was now throbbing in the beats that his heart was not. Was this a heart attack? No, Riku had heard that you didn't get nausea when it the midst of an attack.
Sora seemed to get the message, because, behind the dull ringing in the back of his head, Riku heard Sora say with an obvious fake edge to his brightness, "So, have you figured that part out yet? I can't get it."
Riku felt a surge of pride and love go out to Sora, his Sora, but then he felt worse, and he bolted to the bathroom. Leaning over the toilet, on his knees, he felt kind of like the pregnant teenagers on those movies Kairi seemed to love so much. He closed his eyes tightly, and pressed the thought into his head that the smell was not there, and he was not vomiting up his last three meals.
But, his head being full already of thudding, his distraction didn't work very well, and he found himself vomiting up even more, simply because of the smell. He tried to distract himself, thinking back to all the medical training he had received in the past. He winced. He didn't have much to go with.
Although, it was possible he was wincing at the dry, vulgar texture building up in his throat. He tried to swallow some moisture onto it, but that just made him vomit even more. Distracting. Distracting...
Maybe it's a stress thing. People tend to feel sick in the stomach, faint in the head, and they hear a ringing in the back of their brain. Sometimes it can even cause stomach upsets, and they can vomit. But that depends on the extent of the persons' blood pressure and stress levels.
No way. Riku wasn't stressed. He was just... probably a little tired form sketching so late last night, right?
But the pain in Riku's heart had nothing to do with nausea. It didn't really have anything to do with stress, either. Even though, somehow, it was the creator of the stress. It didn't mean anything, though.
Sora did. Sora always meant something. He always had. He always would.
"Riku! You're throwing up? Oh my God!"
Riku wanted to tell Sora to go away, but he couldn't speak. He couldn't move. All he could do was heave dry sobs into a white porcelain bowl. Sora's arms went around Riku's shoulders, and the silverette felt waves of love from the younger boy wrap around his heart, soothing it, and his head started to hurt a little less.
Sora whispered in his ear. "It's okay, Riku. You're not alone. I'm here. Do you what caused this?" It was just those sentences over and over again. But Riku liked that. Sora cared for him. Soon, Riku had stopped vomiting, and had taken to staring at the swirling mess that had been inside his body only moment ago.
The smell seemed to have faded, but, surely, it was still there. Sora was still comforting Riku, and it was actually working. "Are you alright?" asked the brunette, and all the thoughts of Sora in a nurses or house-wife uniforms from previous nights come flooding back to Riku, and he found himself exhausted.
He slumped his shoulders down, before realising that his head was about to go head first into-
"Don't even think about it," said Sora, pulling the silverette back up. "That's just gross." He turned the silverette towards him, and even though he could feel vomit all over his face, Sora didn't flinch, or even move away. He just smiled, reaching behind him to grab a flannel.
He got up onto his knees and turned on the hot tap. After thirty seconds or so, he quickly scooped up some water into the flannel, before squeezing it and turning the tap off. Then he turned his attention back to Riku.
He dabbed the older boy's face lightly with the flannel, not seeming to mind the sight or the smell. He was smiling a normal smile, one that told Riku he was blissfully unaware of how much the silverette felt, just from the simple task he was doing of caring for the older boy.
He hummed quietly under his breath, just smiling. Riku found himself in a bliss, peaceful state.
I don't think I've ever been this calm before. It's like there is no emotion anywhere, because everything is already filled up with all emotions possible. I love this boy so much.
He felt his eyelids drooping, and Sora laughed goldenly. "Stay awake for another two seconds. I'll help you up the stairs."
And so Riku, supported by Sora, compelled not only his eyelids but his whole body to move according the arrangement layout of the house. "God, Sora," brawled out Riku. "Why did you get a house with stairs?"
Sora chuckled. "Quit complaining and lift your left leg up."
The last Riku remembered before closing his eyes were soft hands sliding off Riku's fevered skin, the electricity decreasing as they lost contact, Sora's unfamiliar lips touching his, and a soft voice saying...
"If you don't wake up soon, I will allow Axel to maul you."
In Riku's dreams, things didn't progress very quickly. They tended to be in frames, just picture after picture. And they were all timed – 26 seconds each, and then the next picture would appear.
Because of this, Riku knew he never fully slept, and he used this time to think. As he watched pictures of Sora and Riku, posed as a 1930's couple, he saw that even though Sora was the female in all of the pictures, Riku still liked that lingering feeling of being taken care of.
He wasn't the kind of person who would let people know if he was in pain. He would shrug it off, telling the other person to get over it, not himself. So that was why he wondered so often why if it was Sora caring for him, that his heart would swell painfully and he wouldn't speak, because who knew what would come pouring out of this trembling lips.
"Will he be okay?" Riku registered that as Olette's voice, and realised he was becoming more awake. He made sure to not squeeze his eyes shut, but let them flutter for a bit. His mouth was open, slightly, so he closed it, licking his lips. They were the things people did in their sleep.
He felt a hand go to his forehead, and it had to be Sora's. No one else had hands like Sora's. "Yeah," the brunette said. "I hope so."
"I-I... I still like you, ya know. Even if you like that other girl. Whatever her name was." It took Riku everything he had not to sit up screaming at that one sentence. What the hell was that supposed to mean? Had she taken advantage of Sora? Did she kiss him? Did he see anything that might offend him?
"Stop freaking out, Riku. She's gone." Sora's beautiful voice.
Riku grimaced. "Damn you," he said, sitting up. "What gave me away?"
Sora laughed, and Riku found himself leaning in closer to the brunette. "Just the fact that I've known you since I was born. Don't worry, I am nearly one hundred percent sure that she didn't realise."
Riku felt sleepy again, and he reached his arms out to Sora. "I feel tired," he mumbled, wrapping his arms around the younger boy's neck. Sora laughed and patted his back. Then he pulled Riku back, and gave him a quick kiss on the lips. He laid him down again, and sat on the edge of the bed, looking down at him.
"Forget what I said about Axel mauling you," Sora compromised. "You look green. You should sleep."
Riku felt a need to be with Sora, without the 1930's flapper dresses, and bow ties. "No," he whined. "I wanna stay with you."
Sora chuckled. "No. You're sick." He reached a hand out again to feel Riku's temperature. "Wow," he mused. "You're boiling."
"That could be because you're sitting next to me, ya know."
Sora fought a blush, but it came anyway. "Sleep," he said. "Before I start fighting to keep you awake."
Riku's eyes fluttered shut, the exhaustion taking over him again. "Yes, Mom."
Sora giggled, and that sound seemed to shift something inside of Riku, changing him for the better.
"Are you sure you guys won't go out?" Kairi nagged, for the fifteenth time in that last five minutes.
Sora giggled, and, going along with him, Riku chuckled. Simply because he couldn't send the brunette a warning look – not with Axel staring him down, once again.
"What if we already are?" the brunette quipped, and Riku looked at him in surprise. Thankfully everyone took that as a 'what the hell do you mean by that?' and not 'are you seriously gonna tell them? Why?', which it actually was.
Kairi squealed. "Seriously? Like, fully, seriously?"
Sora laughed, winking at Kairi. "Nope, but you so wish."
Kairi pouted, and Riku saw Sora's eyes soften. He smirked. Sora knew how to do that face perfectly, but he was so naive that he, in return, fell for it.
Riku looked up to see Olette take a seat next to Sora. She looked at Sora, blushing. He blushed also, looking down at his knees. Axel laughed loudly, before practically calling out. "Oh, and what's going on here?"
Olette looked up, her eyes wide. "It's nothing! Just..." then she started laughing awkwardly, and Sora joined in, before Riku joined in, simply because he had been there on the weekend, and it was hilarious to think of Sora loving anyone but him.
Roxas, Kairi and Axel all exchanged looks, before going back to staring at the three, who were in actual hysterics by then, completely bewildered.
Around ten minutes before school finished that day, Sora looked over at Riku. He looked bored. Not just because of his non-emotion showing habit, but as in, he was truly bored. Not that Sora could blame him. Riku had only chosen cooking because Sora had.
Sora grinned. "C'mon, Riku! Cheer up! We're cooking lavender choc tart!"
Riku snorted. "No, you're cooking lavender choc tart. I'm just admiring how great your ass looks while you're doing it."
Sora's face went a shade that Riku couldn't really describe. It was sort of red, purple, blue and green. He looked around, his eyes wide. When he was sure no one had heard, he looked back at the silverette. "Do you mind? Seriously?"
"No, not really." Riku shrugged. "I've been doing it since the start of the year."
Sora took a deep breath, looking down at the decorations for his tart. He picked up a chocolate covered raspberry and quickly popped it into his mouth. He chewed, smiling satisfactory, the juices flooding his senses. "Yum..." he gurgled, closing his eyes. Then he opened them, and got to work adding the finishing touches to his tart.
Riku was being strangely quiet, so Sora turned his head to look at him. His boyfriend was gripping the table, staring intently at Sora. Sora blushed, looking away. "What up with you?" he muttered, dabbing a napkin on a bit of cream that was trickling down the side of his dessert.
"After school," Riku managed to grit out. "We are spending some, um, alone time together."
Sora nodded happily, clueless. "Okay."
The bell went, and the brunette found himself being dragged out of the classroom, with only just enough time to place the tart in the fridge, and scoop up his bag.
Once they were around the back of the school, Sora winced. Riku had slammed him again the wall. The brunette looked up at the half-crazed Riku, and wondered what had gotten into him. Then he remembered where he had seen that look before. He had been reading a manga, and that was the look that main protagonist had worn on his face just before...
Sora blushed. Would Riku really do anything like that when they were at school?
Apparently, he would. He wrapped an arm around Sora's waist, pulling him forward. His mouth was so urgent on Sora's, that the brunette didn't have time to think about any consequences. All he could think of was the tongue fumbling around inside of his mouth, and how warm it was, compared to the soft fabric of the older boy's t-shirt.
"No way..." said a voice. "You guys really are going out?"