I rearranged my plans for this chapter. I was going to have half of this chapter focus on Sora, Riku, and Kairi, and the other half focus on Namine, Roxas, and Xion. But then as I was writing I decided to just focus on Sora, Riku, and Kairi so that I could give you all a look inside Riku's head.

4 more chapters to go. It's a little shorter, but we're going to get inside Riku's head a little bit this time.

Episode 28: Shop 'Till You Drop:

Destin Islands – Market Plaza:

August 28, 2015

"I've gotta admit," Sora remarked as he, Riku, and Kairi walked through Destiny Island's market plaza towards the stores where they could find all their school supplies, "I did not miss school when we were all out flying around the worlds."

"Definitely," Riku commented. "It was hard enough getting back into that routine when we came home from fighting Xemnas, but after all fighting against the Organization over the summer it's going to be a nightmare going back to the dull monotony of school after all that excitement."

"I don't know," Kairi added. "It won't be all dull this time." She shot Sora a playful smirk as they walked arm in arm into the store. She was of course referring to the fact that the two of them had most of their classes together. Sora blushed before smirking back. Riku rolled his eyes at the couple's antics before pulling out the supply list for their upcoming school year. Breaking up the two lovebirds long enough to figure out who was going to grab what, Riku set off towards the office supply section to pick up paper, notebooks, and notecards.

Meanwhile, Sora and Kairi split up to tackle the remaining school supplies. Or they were supposed to at least. Riku half expected to find them making out in one of the fitting rooms in the clothing section. But to his surprise, the younger teens actually got everything done. Especially considering how crowded it was. A lot of people waited and bought their school supplies the last week before school started, and this year was no exception. But they nevertheless got their shopping done surprisingly quickly. As the trio walked back to his house to organize and divide up the supplies, Riku couldn't help but think of how much things had changed.

A year ago he'd been insecure of his worthiness to wield his Keyblade despite his acceptance of darkness. Now he was a Keyblade Master, hailed as a hero all over the known worlds. He used to be a bit of loner, but now he had friends all over the place. In the last few weeks, he'd been going around visiting all the friends he'd made in the last month. He kept in touch with Namine too. He'd done his best to keep her spirits up in the face of Ansem's verbal abuse (which he'd apologized profusely for) while she was fixing Sora's memories, and they'd bonded over their feelings of regret while his friend was asleep.

When they got back to his house, they quickly swapped school supplies so that each of them had everything they needed, then spent the rest of the afternoon on the small island messing around like they used to and sharing stories of all the crazy things they'd done while they were out traveling the worlds. Riku laughed at all the messes Sora had gotten into, and congratulated Kairi on being princess of Radiant Garden.

When their adventures had first began, Riku had something of a crush on Kairi. He'd always been jealous of the fact that she spent more time with Sora than with him when they weren't doing group activities, but when he stopped by the small island while Sora was asleep and saw the additions the two of them had made to their cave drawings, he realized that Sora and Kairi were meant for each other. So Riku decided to stop pining over Kairi when he knew she would choose Sora, and let the two figure things out on their own. He'd caused enough conflict between their little trio already and didn't want to exacerbate it by making Sora jealous of him.

He was happy for the two of them, and he'd since moved on from his shallow crush. He and Kairi were still friends, but he wasn't interested in her romantically anymore. He put aside his reflections on the past as Sora challenged him to another one of their old wooden sword duels for old time's sake. Riku smiled as he and Sora charged at each other from across the beach. The two Keyblade Masters were like brothers to each other, and while they both got along, they still enjoyed some friendly competition every once in a while.

I was going to have half this chapter focus on Roxas, Xion, and Namine, but I decided to have this chapter focus solely on the Destiny Islands trio and have some stuff with Riku's POV.

Regarding the friendship I've just established with Riku and Namine, I still haven't decided who Namine will be paired up with yet, but I figure Namine needs to have some friends outside the Clock Tower trio before I decide who she'll be paired with, if I do decide before the Acolytes of Chaos saga kicks into gear.

As for Riku's former crush on Kairi, it was something mentioned in the Kingdom Hearts novels and implied a little in KH1, but nothing ever came of it. There's not going to be a Sora/Kairi/Riku love triangle, I just wanted to give a nod to the novels and get inside Riku's head a little more. And the comment about Riku and Sora seeing each other as brothers is to put a bullet in any attempts to interpret their interactions as romantic subtext.

Coming up next: Elsa and Lea catch up on each other's lives and chat about how things are going for them.