Next chapter! Yay!
Disclaimer: Kingdom Hearts belongs to the lovely people of Square Enix and Disney. I own nothing!
Riku exited his room and headed down the hallway, followed closely by Sora. When Riku had told him he was fine, Sora had made a face that indicated his disbelief. Determined to get to the bottom of things, Sora had apparently decided to tag along with him and ask an abundance of questions about how he was feeling. Who did he think he was, a psychologist? Riku stubbornly refused to talk. Instead, he walked to a door at the end of the hall and knocked loudly.
After waiting for a few minutes and receiving no reply, Riku sighed and leaned against the wall. Sora continued to bombard him with questions, forcing Riku to block him out to try to think about his problem. He felt bad, but he didn't want to get him involved just yet. If it was something that he could solve on his own, he didn't want to bother anyone else with it. Besides, anything involving Ansem had always felt personal to him.
Unfortunately, he couldn't concentrate on what he needed to because Sora was still talking. Where did he get all of this energy?! Riku had to admit it was impressive, but it was really getting on his nerves. At some point he couldn't handle it anymore and snapped. "Sora, I said I'm fine!"
Sora pouted when Riku yelled, but the determined light remained in his eyes. "But you're not," he stated. "Seriously, Riku, what's wrong?"
Riku could feel his resolve crumbling when he saw the open concern on the other boy's face. Maybe Sora could help him. It wasn't like he knew what he was doing. Would it really be that bad if he told someone?
Before he could make a decision the door opened behind him, revealing a disoriented and wet redhead. Lea was as much of a morning person as Riku was, and he seemed to have just come from the shower. He blinked blearily as Sora started pestering Riku again. If the two of them hadn't been arguing, he probably would have gone back to sleep. He thought about doing it anyway, but he could see that Riku was already annoyed. He knew from past experience that a pissed off Riku would mean bad things for him. He opted to get things over with quickly instead. "Hey, I'm ready."
Sora was being too loud; Riku couldn't hear what Lea was saying. He slapped his hand over Sora's mouth. Sora let out a surprised squeak but stopped talking. After a sigh of relief, Riku turned to Lea and asked, "Sorry, could you repeat that?"
Lea pushed his still wet hair into a ponytail as he stepped out into the hall, closing his door behind him. "I said I'm ready. I'm feeling pumped," he said with a yawn. "Today's the day I finally kick your ass."
Riku grinned at the sleepy man's challenge. He had been put in charge of training Lea and Kairi on how to fight with a Keyblade, and Lea had said the same thing almost every time they sparred together. Even if Lea had improved tremendously from where he had started, he still had some fighting habits that didn't quite translate into Keyblade combat. His old weapons, chakrams, required a considerably different battle technique. That was why Lea and Riku continued to practice together in the mornings.
Riku lowered his hand, instantly resulting in a whine from Sora. When his surprise had worn off, Sora had adopted a look of indignation. Lea and Riku simply grinned at him before heading off to fight. However, before they good get very far, Sora yelled for them to stop. "Riku! I'm going to find out eventually, you know!"
Lea raised an eyebrow, slightly confused. He hadn't really been paying attention to what the argument had been about. Riku groaned and ran a hand through his hair, realizing Sora would never give up. He came to a decision. "Fine. I'll tell you, but not now. You can spar with Kairi while I work with Lea, and we'll talk afterwards, okay?"
Sora didn't seem very pleased with this, but Riku took his silence as an agreement. He was happy that his friend didn't argue the point further. Instead, Sora took off in search of Kairi. It was only after the boy was out of sight that Riku realized his mistake. He's going to tell Kairi about this. Groaning loudly, he headed through the halls towards an exit. Training was going to be interesting.
This is a bit shorter than I would like, but I want to save all the Keyblade shenanigans for the next chapter. I also have a lot of headcanons concerning Keyblade boot camp for Lea and Kairi. Should I post a separate story about that?