(no subject)
As spring drifted in behind an unusually cold winter, the whole of their town was awash in flowers. Azaleas exploded on nearly every street, blazes of purple, pink and white. Dogwood trees lined the roads, too, and filled the park with the soft scent of their blooms. It had been Kairi’s idea to go down to the park in the town center to enjoy the weather; it was a warm spring day with a gentle sea breeze, and, most importantly of all, a Saturday.
Kairi walked in between her two boys, arms casually linked with theirs, a position she and Riku had agreed upon back in January, as it seemed more normal, and neither of them felt like revealing the dynamics of this relationship quite yet, though Sora seemed perfectly content to let anyone and everyone know. Riku chalked it up to a naïveté cause by both a natural innocence, and having spent two crucial years of social development cruising the galaxy with a talking dog and duck.
Not, of course, that Riku was ashamed, but he knew that the world around them, conservative in the way of most small towns, would force Kairi to choose between them. Not only that, but Riku wanted to keep this for himself, this warmth that he, still, occasionally, when he dreamed, felt he would never deserve. The idea of telling someone, even his parents, or the King, he feared, would rain the happiness out of it.
He still saw, with perfect clarity, Christmas morning out on the island. They had been waiting for a gummi ship to pick them up and take them to Radiant Garden, only agreed upon after rather lengthy negotiations with their parents. Kairi had suggested they not get presents for each other that year, since, one, they had to get gifts for the dozen or so people they’d be meeting later, and, two, she had said “Gifts can’t really cover everything that’s happened.”
So Riku had come to the island at the arranged time, surprised and a little peeved to see that Sora and Kairi were already there, looking shifty. Kairi had approached him first, toeing the dirt and not quite making eye contact, while Sora grinned like an idiot right behind her. She had made a series of false starts before rolling her eyes, moving forward, and kissing him, flush on the mouth. Before he could react,(that is, move away), Sora hugged him from behind, laughing.
“Merry Christmas,” Kairi said, her smile threatening to break her face in two.
“It was my idea though,” Sora informed him, not having let go yet.
“I don’t, what?” Riku had spluttered.
“Idiot,” they had bother murmured and Kairi had kissed him again, and he felt Sora’s lips on the back of his neck, and he had made a soft sound like “Oh,” and finally, finally understood.
The almost violent joy that still bubbled up inside him at the memory drew a smile to his face and Kairi’s voice broke into his thoughts. “What are you smiling about?”
“Hm? Oh, nothing.”
“Sure,” Kairi drawled.
“I bet it’s us,” Sora commented, waving his free hand around. “We make him smiiile.”
“Shut up,” Riku muttered, and schooled his expression into one of utmost disinterest.
“Aw, you’re trying to hide it,” Kairi cooed, “that’s so cute.”
“And entirely useless, since we can totally unlock your heart,” Sora added.
“That was my power, actually,” Riku told him, as snottily as possible, “you can only open doors.”
“And save everyone ever!”
“He’s right about that,” Kairi admitted, and Riku settled for flicking a flower petal that had fallen onto his head and Sora. “Let’s sit over there!” She said, interrupting the staring contest Riku and Sora had initiated over the top of her head. “I brought sandwiches!”
“What kind?” Sora asked, still not looking away from Riku.
“Ham and turkey,” Kairi answered, taking her bag from Riku, “and stop staring, you both blinked when I said we should sit here, so it’s over.”
“That was unfair interference!” Sora whined.
“And we both blinked at the same time, so no one has an advantage,” Riku remarked, still locked in combat with Sora.
“Then I’m just going to eat everything by myself.”
“You wouldn’t!” Sora squawked.
“I would, and I will. There’s only three, and I’m really hungry.”
“Fine, we look away on the count of three,” Riku sighed, seeing the conflict in Sora’s eyes between winning and eating.
“I’ll count,” Kairi offered. “One, two, three!”
Riku waited half a beat after the call of three, just to make sure Sora wasn’t going to cheat, but Sora, who, Riku admitted, had learned the trick from Riku, didn’t look away either. Kairi sighed, and moments later, Riku felt himself being forcibly pulled away from Sora. Still, he didn’t blink or move his eyes, even though he could see that Kairi was now attempting to force Sora to look away. “C’mon, you two, cut it out!” She glared and stomped her foot.
“Did you really just do that, Kairi?” Riku asked, raising and eyebrow and trying not to laugh.
“Do what?” she all but snarled, even though, Riku knew, she wasn’t really frustrated with them yet.
“Stomping your foot? Really, how much of a diva could you be?” Riku had to struggle to keep from laughing, and could see Sora doing the same.
“Don’t laugh,” Sora teased, and for some reason those were the magic words, because both of them burst into peals of laughter as soon as the phrase left Sora’s mouth.
“Finally,” Kairi sighed, and pulled the two of them onto the ground with her. “Turkey or ham?”
“Turkey,” Sora replied, before the question had finished leaving her lips.
“Ham’s fine with me, then,” Riku said, and lay down on the grass. He watched a few scattered clouds wander around the sky, and closed his eyes, just for a minute, to enjoy the warmth of the sun through the branches, and the sounds, growing softer, of people milling about.
He woke up, an hour later, to Sora sitting on him and putting flowers in his hair. Riku sat up abruptly, spilling Sora into his lap and over his legs. He felt around in his hair, and looked down at Sora. “Did you give me a braid?”
“Maybe? Don’t kill me.”
“I won’t. Yet.” He extracted himself from Sora and stretched out. “Where’s Kairi?”
“She had to go home. Some sort of family luncheon? I don’t know. It must be a pain being the mayor’s daughter.”
“Probably. And she thought it was a good idea to leave me at your mercy?”
“You like it. I bet you braid your hair all the time at home. You’re just jealous I came up with the flower idea.”
“It’s just a ponytail, actually,” Riku muttered.
“What, what was that? Was I right? You do wear braids!”
“Shut up! A ponytail’s completely different.”
“Oh yeah? How?”
“For one, it’s unisex. And, two, it’s to keep my hair off my face and neck in the heat.”
“But you pull your hair back during winter, too.”
“That’s just for Kairi’s benefit.”
“What?”
“She happened to admit to me a while back that she rather liked my neck.”
“Oh.” Comprehension bloomed on Sora’s face and Riku smiled wickedly. “So,” Sora whispered, inching closer to Riku that Riku felt was strictly acceptable in public, “what if I said I agreed with Kairi?”
“Well,” Riku said, trying not to let his voice crack or show strain, “then I’d do it even more often, since it drives both of you mad.” Sora licked at his neck, then, and Riku stiffened and convulsively grabbed Sora’s shoulders. “This,” he ground out, “is not a good idea.”
“Fine,” Sora sighed and pulled back.
“No, look, Sora, I,” Riku stammered.
“It’s fine, we’ll talk about it later, all together.” Sora stood and offered Riku his hand, and as he pulled Riku up, he continued. “What we really need to be worrying about is Kairi’s birthday.”
“Oh, god, it’s in two weeks, isn’t it?”
“Yep. What are we going to get her?”
“Not clothes,” was the first thing that came out of Riku’s mouth, “they’ll be too hard to pick. Jewelry, maybe?”
“She never wears jewelry, though. I mean, if it was something really nice, she’d only have to wear it once or twice a year, so even if we picked something stupid…”
“It’d be ok,” Riku finished for him.
“So, what do you think she’d like?”
“Uh? Well, her ears aren’t pierced so, no earrings.”
“Right. Um, a necklace, maybe?”
“Yeah, a necklace could work, or a bracelet, she likes bracelets, right?”
“I’ve never seen her wear them much, but she wears that one necklace all the time.”
“She does too have bracelets,” Riku retorted, “they’re just not metal or anything.” He paused, trying to think of Kairi’s day to day outfits. “I think she has some anklets, too, but most of those are cloth.”
“So, necklace or bracelet, or, do you think she’d like a ring?” Sora paused a looked at Riku. Riku shrugged and looked around, as though the empty street around them was going to give him advice.
“I guess it depends on the ring. If we found a really nice one, maybe?”
“Like, how nice?”
“I don’t know. It’s not like I go out buying jewelry all the time.”
“Well, with hair like that, you can’t always be sure.”
“Hey!” Riku punched Sora on the arm, and Sora punched back, and their conversation was delayed for a ten-minute wrestling match. Not until he heard someone cheering, who sounded suspiciously like Tidus, but couldn’t be, since Kairi had told them in between laughter that Selphie had convinced him to take her on a date today, did Riku stop fighting and look at Sora. This startled Sora into stillness, too, and they both couldn’t help but chuckle.
“Anyway,” Sora said, dusting himself off and poking Riku in the side, “now that I’ve won, what should we get Kairi?”
“I won, and I don’t know.”
“I like the ring idea, since she doesn’t have one. And I beat you, you know it, and you’re embarrassed.”
“So, we need to get her a nice one. If we made it a present from both of us, that’d probably work better. And I’m not embarrassed, seeing as I won.”
“Obviously it’s going to be from both of us, and if one of us was going to steal the idea and use it for their own, we both know it’d be you, loser.”
“I think it should be silver, or silver-colored. And it wouldn’t be stealing since I’ve come up with everything so far, loser.”
Sora stuck his tongue out at Riku. “Anyway, if you’re done being immature,” he paused to let Riku snort, “should it have a stone, maybe? Not, like, a diamond or anything, because, whoa, that would be a little out there, but something pretty?”
“I think,” Riku sighed, “that we’re going to have to go look for them ourselves.”
That was how Riku ended up spending his Sunday afternoon ring shopping with Sora, something he’d never thought he’d here himself say, or ever really wanted to say, in that specific wording. Only to himself, and maybe not even that, would Riku admit that he had thought about rings, or their implications, and Sora and Kairi. He had not, however, ever, ever considered the buying of rings, primarily because he had suspected it was deeply boring, and, what do you know, he was right.
“Kairi had better love this,” Sora muttered to him as they looked at yet another jewelry case.
“Agreed,” Riku hissed back. They’d tried the little mall first, but everything there had been cheap, plastic, kitschy, or some combination of the two. Next they’d tried a tourist shop down by the shore, but everything there had been overpriced, wooden, and kitschy. Somehow, Riku had known they would end up here, at the jewelers, weeping for their masculinity and their wallets. The prices, though high, seemed pretty reasonable; everything was exceptionally nice.
“What about that one?” Sora interrupted Riku’s thoughts. “It’s silver and not too stupid looking.”
Riku barely glanced at it, but saw enough to say, “It is stupid, Sora. What about that one?”
“Too expensive.”
“Oh god, you’re right.”
“Aren’t I always? Oooh, look at this!”
“Hmmm?” The legitimate excitement in Sora’s voice caused Riku to actually give his full attention to the ring Sora was pointing at. It was, yeah, silver, but woven together in a way that Riku would probably understand if he were a metal worker, but he wasn’t. In the center was set a small green stone. It was perfect, and he said as much.
“And it’s not even that expensive!” Sora exclaimed, and the outburst finally drew the attention of the old man drowsing behind the counter.
“How may I help you?” He asked, in a soft, sleepy voice.
“We, uh, we’d like the buy that ring,” Riku told him, gesturing weakly. Something about the old man made him hesitant to make eye contact. Shame, he thought, it must be shame, somehow, some trace of normal teenage boy behavior left behind by the darkness that had swept through him.
Luckily the old man understood his pointing, and pulled out the right one. “Ah, the puzzle ring.”
“Puzzle ring?” Sora asked, widening his eyes and looking at Riku.
“Yes,” the old man replied, apparently not noticing the panicked looks Riku and Sora were exchanging, “the five strands here,” he gestured, “can come apart,” he demonstrated, and, true to word, the ring did separate into five separate, tangled pieces of metal. Riku, thought, for a moment, that he was going to cry, “and must be reassembled before the ring can be worn again,” he finished, and put the ring back together. “Would you still like it?”
Before Riku could even think of answering, Sora jumped in. “Yes, we definitely would, right, Riku?”
“Sure.” Riku acquiesced, since he would feel bad dragging Sora into a debate after they’d already assured the old man that they would buy it.
“Excellent.” He smiled softly and bustled over to the register. Riku felt himself die a little at the price the old man gave them, but he looked again at the ring and Sora’s smile, thought of Kairi’s face when they gave it to her, and knew that though some things are not worth their price, this was.
On Kairi’s birthday, they managed to wrangle the entire morning for themselves, and told Kairi to meet them out on the island. They got their hours before the appointed time, before sunrise, even, and, using flashlights propped up in the sand, pulled apart the ring.
That had been Sora’s idea, and no amount of reasoning and complaining on Riku’s part could convince him to change his mind. His train of thought, which Riku admitted was sentimental in the best of ways, went something like this: by already taking apart the ring, and putting it back together, there would be some sort of emotional impact, because the strands of the ring were meant to represent the three of them, who, at first glance, didn’t belong together, but then fit in a such as way as to produce something amazing, though the ring had five strands and there were three of them, which made Sora pout, but then Riku pointed out that it saved them from total cliché. Riku had no problem with the whole thing, intellectually, then, but he had practical complaints.
As they sat on the beach and realized, with horror, that they couldn’t figure out how to put it back together, Riku felt completely validated. But, as Sora practically threw the ring at him, and he hissed that they had to be more careful with it, Riku admitted that for once he’d rather have been wrong, because if they couldn’t put the ring back together, Kairi would kill them, or make fun of them, at the very least.
“This was your idea. I want you to remember that when Kairi kills us,” Riku hissed a Sora, who promptly through a handful of wet sand at him.
“You agreed to it, you know.”
“I argued with you for three hours about it, Sora.”
“And you gave in. A weak heart shall never win,” Sora proclaimed, and only the quirk of his lips saved him from a pummeling. Still, Riku cast his eyes down and bit his lip, because while his heart was strong it was far from pure, and even months on, it still stung to be reminded. “Oh, Riku,” Sora sighed, torn between empathy and something that sounded a bit like exasperation, “you know I didn’t mean it like that.”
Riku paused to consider his next move, eager to lighten the mood, since it was Kairi’s birthday. “Yeah, I do,” he drawled, and as Sora looked up with a smile, Riku shoved a handful of damp sand into his face.
“Cheater,” Sora spluttered.
“No, I’m just actually using my brain while fighting. It’s quite useful; you should try it sometime.”
“I do too think when I fight!”
“Alright, whatever. That’s so not what Cloud told us at Christmas.”
“You’d believe Cloud over me?” Sora squawked.
“In that matter, yeah. Either that, or you gave off the impression of not thinking, which is even worse.”
“I still kicked his butt, you know.”
“Sure,” Riku gave in, mostly to stop the argument and go back to losing a battle of wits with the ring, but he raised an eyebrow just to aggravate Sora.
“I did! I’ll make him tell you about it next time we visit.”
“Okay, okay! Just help me put this thing back together.”
“Right, I think these two fit together like this.” Sora fiddled around with the two parts in question, and bit his lip. “Or, uh, maybe not.”
“D’you think, these two?”
“Yeah, or maybe like this,” Sora demonstrated, and though the two pieces slid apart, a proverbial light went off over Riku’s head.
“No, it’s like this, I think,” he moved his hands in such a way, and two of the five came together perfectly.
“Yeah, yeah, and then this one,” Sora added a third.
“And here,” Riku clicked the fourth into place.
“And then like this,” Sora put the fifth with the rest, and they looked down at the ring. “It seems right, doesn’t it?” Sora asked.
“Even better than before, I’d wager,” Riku told him, a completely sappy smile spreading across his face.
“I think you’re right,” Sora said, then yawned.
“Tired?” Riku tried to say, but was interrupted with an even larger yawn.
“Yeah. We got up to get here so early, you know. And that was your idea.”
“Well, we’ve been here, like, an hour and half trying to get this thing together, so it wasn’t that bad a call, obviously.”
“Whatever. Tide’s going out, right?”
“Think so.”
“Great,” and then Sora laid down on the beach, mere inches from the hungry waves, and fell asleep.
“Good idea,” Riku muttered, and drifted off, too. He thought, as consciousness slipped away, that Sora said, “I always have the best ideas.”
Riku woke up to Kairi kicked him in the side. “Sleeping! On my birthday. I can’t believe it!”
“It was Sora’s idea,” were the first words out of his mouth, and Sora, who had clearly be woken mere seconds before, made a protesting sound.
“So,” Kairi drawled, fighting to keep a smile off her face, “did you get me anything for my birthday?”
“No,” Riku told her, tilting his head and looking as snotty and arrogant as possible. It was, he reflected, one of his better looks.
“No, he didn’t,” Sora agreed, “but I did.”
“What! No, he’s lying. We picked it out together!”
“You’re just saying that,” Sora teased, and Kairi’s stone still expression cracked.
“My wallet wishes I were just saying that,” Riku sniped. “Not, of course,” he added hastily, looking up at Kairi, “that I regret it.
“Oh, come one, what is it?” Kairi danced from foot to foot, fixing them with all the intensity her great blue eyes were capable of.
“Right, it’s right, uh, it’s here. Somewhere.” Riku shot Sora a panicked glance, and Sora pulled one right back at him. Then shifted and frowned.
“Oh, here it is. I guess I fell asleep on it.”
“Christ,” Riku bit out.
“I’m sure it’s fine.”
“It had better be.”
“Anyway, boys,” Kairi said, waving a hand at them. Riku would have also believed her spoiled brat act, except that she was still grinning like a lunatic.
“Fine, fine,” Sora sighed. “I suppose we should let her see it then, Riku?”
“I guess it is her birthday.”
Sora handed Kairi the box, which he had been holding behind his back and something in her expression changed.
“Oh my,” she stopped, and shook her head.
“Well, go on, open it,” Riku urged.
“I’m just savoring the moment,” Kairi retorted, but she opened the box anyway.
“Well?” Sora prompted, but Kairi continued to stare.
“I,” she began, “I.”
Riku and Sora looked at each other, then at Kairi. “I think she likes it,” Sora whispered, a little too loudly. Riku winced.
“Of course I like it! It’s…perfect.”
Sora caught Riku’s eye, and Riku shrugged, not sure if Kairi was messing with them or not, but as a choked sound snuck out from their girl he looked at her, horrified that they had upset her, and before either of them could apologize, she flung herself at them, asking why and how, murmuring about how beautiful it was into the cloth of Sora’s t-shirt, and whispering something into the space between their necks that Riku refused to think he had heard right.
Riku wanted, badly, to pull away and talk about things, not because he didn’t want Kairi’s warm breath and her nimble fingers, or Sora’s bright eyes and overwhelming eagerness, but he didn’t know how to be spontaneously happy anymore, or he’d like to believe that, as they somehow all pulled each other down to the sand, and the logical, terrified part of Riku’s brain knew that they’ll regret the locale later.
Still, he couldn’t, didn’t ever want to say no to these two, and as Kairi straddled him the sunlight glinted off her ring, he caught Sora’s eye, and smiled, and, before his world narrowed down to two mouths, and two pairs of hands and two hearts, that, together with his, made one he understood, finally, that he was forgiven, that he was loved, that here, now, at last, he was home.