Chapter Text
The clock ticks on, the days go by, and the bonfire grows ever closer, their friends intermittently bringing it up in excited, hushed whispers at lunch. Riku feels, somehow, as if that will be the catalyst. For… something; he doesn’t know what. It feels like it’s the only thing his life is leading up to anymore, like he’ll just live in a constant, pervasive loop of slowly-worsening anxiousness and depression until something in him snaps when finals are over and he sits with his friends around a fire on the beach.
And Sora. He’ll be there with Sora.
The thought isn’t as comforting as it used to be, what seems like forever ago. It hurts that the things he does most with Sora now are forcing himself to perform specific, unnatural actions, pretending, and keeping things from his friends.
Lying.
The mental strain is getting to him physically, too, Riku notes. He stares at himself in the mirror, noticing his tired eyes, dark circles, and eye bags. He’s not sleeping well, not thinking well. He’s not-- anything well.
But that’s okay. He doesn’t know how much longer they’re going to keep this up, but-- he can deal.
During finals week, Riku’s not exactly sure that’s the case. He and Sora have holed themselves up in Sora’s room, reading vast sections of their textbooks out loud to each other, quizzing each other with flashcards-- anything to help each other study.
They’ve reverted back to a strained sense of normalcy like this, in a way they haven’t been for a long while. Riku’s voice still has that exhausted lilt to it that one can only get from losing so much sleep, but maybe, maybe, as they sit at the ends of Sora’s bed, this is okay.
But it’s so hard. And frustrating. To not reach out and actually intertwine his and Sora’s fingers, to not genuinely tug Sora’s laughing face into a kiss, to not honestly trace the curve of his smile with a featherlight touch, to not truly tug Sora into his lap while they read.
What’s even harder is how much he’s mentally beating himself up for thinking the way he is. He’s just so tired.
He does get halfway to exposing himself for real, once, when Sora’s grinning at him, teasing him for getting such a simple calculation wrong, and he’s about to put his hand to Sora’s cheek, something not easily written off, but he catches himself and-- shuts down.
He retreats to his books and reads silently, scribbling calculations on his papers. By this point, his brain is almost too tired of reprimanding him and sending furious spikes of anxiety and self-hatred through him that he can’t even feel it. Maybe he’s gotten used to this feeling around Sora.
If he notices the sudden withdrawal, he doesn’t mention anything.
---
Riku wakes up on the last day of the semester, the day they’re going to the bonfire, and finally, finally stops lying to himself.
That day, he can feel Sora’s eyes on him questioningly, when he’s not looking. He knows he definitely doesn’t look well, and he’s especially jittery. When Sora takes his hands in the hall after class, he jumps nearly a foot, Sora stepping back in shock.
Mumbling an apology, he hurriedly grabs Sora’s hand in his, the gesture lacking any sort of the romantic intent it used to hold for him.
The bonfire party is all their friends can talk about during lunch, that and finals finally being over with, but Riku is silent; Sora is uncharacteristically so, watching Riku out of the corner of his eye and making a weak comment every now and then.
And Naminé watches Sora watching Riku, eyes dipping down underneath the table. They aren’t holding hands and many-- way too many-- of Riku’s nails are bleeding, hands shaking almost imperceptibly so as he tries desperately to hide them from view. She closes her eyes.
The rest of the day goes by in a flash. Finals are over and they’re finally free, at least until next semester. And, Riku gathers, from everyone else’s reactions, it’s time to celebrate.
He just feels kind of empty. He’s washed the blood from his nails away, so he feels okay about holding Sora’s hand-- or, as okay as he can, in his mental state. But he pulls Sora aside and he’s a second away from telling him that he can’t do this any more, but Sora can maybe see something in his eyes, so instead he presses his lips to Riku’s and says, “I’ll be at your house at nine.” He’s gone as soon as Riku registers what happened, his fingers trailing across his bottom lip, hating himself.
Letting out a shaky breath, he trudges home, mind working over the fact that he has to keep up the act.
If he has to wash his nails free of blood again when he gets there, no one but him has to know.
---
True to his word, Sora does indeed show up at his house at nine, give or take a few minutes; Sora is chronically late. The walk there retains their silence from lunch, and the few words they exchange don’t turn into sprawling conversations the way they usually do.
When their friends come into view, their hands find each other’s instinctually. Knowing something’s different, Sora drops his forehead on Riku’s arm. “Riku, I…” he tries.
“Sora, it’s…” Riku doesn’t want to lie and say it’s okay. Instead, he lets the sentence end there, cupping his hand over Sora’s cheek, aware of the way Hayner and Xion are staring over at them, confused. “Let’s go,” he says, softly, to the sound of their names being called and Tidus waving them over.
They talk about nothing and everything, school and work, friends and romance, once they join everyone at the bonfire, pressed impossibly close together in groups to squeeze everyone around the slowly-dying fire they’ve made, fueled by homework.
“I just wanted to know… how you knew we were dating, I guess,” Sora pipes up from Riku’s side, arms looped around one of his. Riku’s mind is on tepid, listless high-alert. “We weren’t exactly advertising it.”
Riku suppresses an audible snort, and covers it up by pressing a kiss to the top of Sora’s head, forcing himself even now to keep up the farce.
He regrets it instantly, his brain half-heartedly sending him an “ABORT MISSION” signal. But hey, Sora’s mindlessly happy smile up at him alleviates what surface thoughts it can.
“Well,” Xion says, “look at that. Look at you.” She gestures at them, and Riku cocks his head up.
“What?” Sora asks.
He gets a laugh from Xion, and the guys lose themselves in raucous laughter, Pence nervously scooting away from Hayner, who’s flailing around in his laughter. Kairi rolls her eyes.
“Sora, aside from Riku, we’ve been friends the longest. How many times have you hugged me?” she asks.
“Um.”
“How many times have you held my hand?” she continues, taking her hands out of the pocket of her hoodie to count off on her fingers. “How many times have you sat as close to me as you do with Riku?” She pauses. “The fire’s almost dead and I’m cold, so I’m going to stop, but… Sora, you’re really uncomfortable with anyone that’s not Riku.”
Sora opens his mouth to protest, but Kairi cuts him off, hands burrowed deep in her hoodie again.
“Not uncomfortable! Not… uncomfortable, that was the wrong word. I know you care about us, you just have trouble showing it, physically at least, when it’s not Riku. I’ve always known that between the two of us, or anyone else even, it would always be Riku for you. Always.”
Through the ringing in his ears, Riku feels the side of Sora’s face press against his arm, feels more than hears a muffled, “Oh.”
Riku’s still having trouble processing all of this when Kairi continues. “And Riku… you’ve been just as obvious, just in a different way. Like we were talking about a while ago, you’ve been in love with Sora since we were kids. I always knew, ‘cause anyone can see it on your face, when you look at him. That’s… it’s… I’ve never seen someone more in love than you when you look at Sora.” Her eyes soften. “I mean, love that genuine... it gives me hope.”
In contrast to Kairi’s warm words, Riku feels his blood run cold. His face is elastic, rubbery; he has no idea what expression is on it, and he knows his body is too stiff the instant he feels Sora’s thumb start stroking his bicep, an effort to calm him. How can he be acting normal when Kairi’s just confessed Riku’s stupid, idiotic, pure, undying, actual real love for him, how can he just sit there and take that--
He knows he’s overreacting, he knows he is, but his breathing is starting to speed up, so he shrugs Sora off of him, mutters a “Sorry” to the group at large, and, avoiding Sora’s eyes, marches off to have a proper panic attack away from everyone.
When he’s completely out of sight, Sora lets out a breath he wasn’t aware he was holding.
“I fucked up, guys,” he announces to the group at large, and without further explanation he’s off after Riku.
On his way to Riku’s house, Sora kicks at a rock and finally thinks. If he’s being honest with himself, this was selfish of him from the start. He just wanted to date Riku in any capacity, regardless of Riku’s feelings on the matter. He put him on the spot and now-- Sora gives the rock a particularly strong kick in anger at himself-- now Riku’s been doing worse. And he knows it, too. He can see the bags under his eyes, his dark circles. How he twitches away from Sora whenever he moves to touch him. This has been unfair of him, unfair to Riku.
Riku, his best friend. Riku, the person he cares about most. Riku, the person he’s in love with (and who’s in love with him?). Riku, his everything. Riku, Riku, Riku.
When you love someone, Sora’s brain supplies helpfully, you don’t treat them like shit and cause their mental health to slowly get worse in front of your eyes, then offer absolutely no help.
“I know,” Sora says aloud, to himself. He steps up to the rock and is about to kick it away from Riku’s door, then halts, pulls himself away from the action. He pulls out his phone, Googles “how to treat a person having a panic attack,” reads up for a few minutes.
It’s late, very late; it feels almost like it’s too late. But, Sora figures, he had to do it at some point.
Riku’s mom isn’t home, so he goes straight up to his room, knocking softly at his door to alert him to his presence, coming inside and closing the door behind him.
“Hey,” Sora says, eyes catching on Riku sitting hunched over on his bed. He wants so desperately to be near him, to comfort him, like they were able to do for each other before he went and ruined everything they had. He’s so afraid to push.
“Why are you here, Sora?” he gets. It seems like Riku’s recovered from his attack if he’s so hostile.
Blinking, all he can get out in response is, “Huh?”
Riku stands, maybe a little to use his height advantage over Sora and maybe a little for the drama factor. His gaze is intense, not full of anger but some mix between that and confusion, his eyes searching Sora’s. “You heard what Kairi said!”
“Yeah, you love me. And I love you, so what’s the problem?”
Way too blunt, and way too soon. Sora scrunches up his nose, backpedaling. “Shit, sorry, I-- okay.” He conks himself on the forehead, grounding himself. Taking a deep breath, mentally fumbling through an unrehearsed speech, he opens his eyes and starts--
But Riku’s stepped away, his face closed off, completely devoid of any emotion.
“Don’t lie to me,” he whispers, and even though Riku is a head taller than Sora he has never looked smaller. His shoulders are hunched up by his ears, and Sora can see dried blood on a few of his picked-at nails. “Please, Sora.”
Heart aching, Sora takes a timid step closer, a hand reaching halfway out. “Riku…”
Riku imperceptibly twitches away from him, and that’s when Sora knows he has to do something to make him understand.
“Riku,” he says, stronger this time. “Look at me.” He does, like he can’t resist what he’s saying, and Sora steps closer to him, plants himself in his space, looking directly up at Riku.
“Okay?” he whispers.
When he gets a shaky nod, Sora cups a hand over Riku’s cheek, thumb tracing gently over the deep, dark circles under his eyes that he’d caused Riku to get.
He’s about to ask if this, too, is okay, when Riku closes his eyes and takes a shuddering breath, leaning into his touch, and he doesn’t have to.
Leaning up on his tiptoes, he presses his lips to Riku’s, and he has to communicate everything he’s feeling in this one kiss, so he turns it soft and tender, more loving than he’d ever let himself while they were faking. Lips moving minutely against Riku’s, Sora brings his other hand to rest in Riku’s hair, playing with the soft strands as he tries desperately to make Riku understand.
In what Sora thinks is a reflexive move, he can feel Riku’s hands rest on his hips, but he pulls them away instantly as if he’d been burned. And then Riku steps away, gasping for air like he’d run a marathon. Sora opens his eyes to see Riku’s face with a blush like he’s never seen before, even while his eyes are panicked, looking away.
“Riku.” His eyes snap to Sora’s at his voice.
He looks almost reverent. “You--” he’s barely able to choke out. He can’t get past that. His hands are shaking, and he balls them up into fists to attempt to stop it.
Sora waits for him, this time, nervous.
“You love me?” Riku brings his eyes to Sora’s without his prompting, and Sora beams.
Letting out a breathless laugh, he leans up and peppers featherlight kisses on Riku’s cheeks, chin, neck, lips, anywhere he can reach, until Sora manages to pull a laugh out of Riku, too.
And then just because he can, he pulls Riku into a longer, sweeter kiss.
Breaking it off, he murmurs an, “Always,” against his lips.
That’s embarrassing even coming from him, and he’s about to say so, blushing, when Riku pushes at his chest, dissolving into heaving fits of laughter he hasn’t heard from him in a long, long time.
“You’re a sap,” he wheezes out when he can, wiping a tear from his eye, and Sora has never been so glad to have the Riku that will actually tease him and touch him casually, the Riku that’s actually himself, back.
“Only for you,” Sora says, trying to keep his voice steady but failing. He’s just so… in love. “I love you,” he adds, face breaking into a wide grin.
Riku colors again, blush resting high on his face, and oh can Sora get used to that.
“You can’t just say that,” he complains, but adds, quietly, “I love you too.”
“I can, and I will,” Sora teases, sing-song. “I’ll say it every day, every minute I’m with you.” He pauses, and his voice turns softer. “I have a lot to make up for, anyway.”
Riku winces. “Honestly, Sora… I do wanna talk about everything. But not right now. I just kinda wanna… stay like this.”
“In the morning, okay?” Sora promises, and Riku nods. His eyes search Sora’s face, and he lets out a small laugh.
“I love you,” he says, and his voice is quiet with wonder, like Sora’s somehow allowing him to get away with saying it. He looks happier already, and even though his dark circles and eye bags are still there and won’t be better for a while, Sora feels like he’s noticing them less and less.
“Riku,” Sora teases. “Bed. Okay?”
“Yeah.”
When they’re situated, Sora murmurs that he loves him, too, into the curve of his neck, not actually wanting to be cruel and withhold him from hearing it. Riku wraps a tentative arm around him, pulling him closer, and Sora can feel the smile he presses into the kiss on his cheek.
They fall asleep like that, both of them grinning like fools.
---
In the morning, Riku wakes up to an imperceptible weight on his chest, and he startles himself fully awake, which in turn wrenches Sora out of his slumber.
“Riku, what…” he says, rubbing at his eyes sleepily. Cracking them open with difficulty, he squints at Riku, who’s staring at him with wide eyes.
“G’morning,” Sora yawns, and shuffles closer to Riku, wrapping his hands around his waist and pulling him closer. Mumbling a “C’mere,” he pushes his head close to his chest, wiggling his way so he’s draped haphazardly across him again in a mock-up of the pose they’d woken up in, only sitting. “Love you,” he says, ending on a yawn, squeezing his arms around Riku’s waist.
Blinking in shock, Riku allows himself a second to take all of this in. Sora’s half-consciously uttering declarations of love, and Riku had somehow-- missed that?
Wow. His self-hatred made him oblivious. It’s the biggest wake-up call he’s ever received.
Shaking his head to clear his thoughts, he nudges Sora fully awake, letting himself press a kiss to his temple in giddy abandon.
Sora hums under the attention, slowly waking up completely, and when he does, he shuffles himself into a sitting position, pressing a kiss to Riku’s lips. But he leans back almost a second later, scrunching up his face.
“Morning breath,” he says, by way of explanation.
“You kissed me!” Riku protests, crossing his arms and leaning back from Sora.
“I know,” Sora replies, vaulting himself off the bed. “So let’s go brush our teeth so we can do it some more.”
He holds out a hand to Riku, still on the bed, who’s blushing as he takes it.
Sora’s still brushing his teeth when Riku starts talking, leaning on the counter; he’d rather rip off the band-aid sooner than later. “Okay, I know you love me, you’ve made that clear enough.”
Sora rolls his eyes at him, toothpaste foam around his mouth.
Smiling despite himself, he presses on. “But that doesn’t mean we should be together.” Riku’s heart is in agony, torture, misery. “Um, you know I have… a lot of issues. You know about them, but dating me would be another story entirely. I have shit nerves, shit self-esteem, shit everything, and it’d be really hard to deal with.”
He laughs, humorlessly, the sound echoing hollowly in his bathroom. “Basically, just… you don’t have to deal with any of this-- with me-- if you don’t want to.”
He closes his eyes, waiting for Sora to say he’s absolutely right and he doesn’t want to do this at all, when he hears a, “Riku, ‘ow daeh ‘oo,” accompanied by the sound of Sora spitting into the sink. He washes his mouth and faces Riku, hands on his hips.
“How could you think anything about the way I feel about you is meaningless just because you’ve got problems!” He steps closer to Riku, poking him in the chest, hard. “Riku, I love you! And that means I love everything about you, okay? I want to listen to what you’re going through and help you through it. Not that we don’t do that already, but I want to be able to kiss you when you’re feeling down, hold your hand when you’re panicking.” Sora’s still defiant, Riku can tell, but his eyes are searching Riku’s for any change in expression. “Riku, I want to be with you-- all of you. That includes the parts you think I can deal without.”
He intertwines his fingers with Riku’s gently, belying his tone. He cracks a grin and teases, “And this isn’t all for a fake relationship, in case that needed clearing up.”
“One more thing,” Riku says, though, and this is somehow harder, even if Sora is breaking down all of his walls one by one. “Sora, you have to realize some of the stuff you did was super shitty. I lost a lot of sleep and was given a lot of stress for no reason.”
Sora’s face contorts. “I know,” he starts, slowly. “I can’t say I’m sorry enough to make it up to you. If I can help it, none of it will ever happen again.”
“Okay,” Riku says, beaming enough to rival Sora when he’s fired up. “That’s all I needed.”
And he tugs Sora closer to him by way of their hands, leaning down to kiss him full on the lips. It’s not much of one, because he’s smiling too much. But even so, he can finally, finally, finally let himself have this.
It’s the best damn feeling in the world, kissing Sora in his dingy, too-small-after-his-growth-spurt bathroom and knowing Sora wants to kiss back.
---
Sora and Riku walk to school together, hand-in-hand, on the first day back after break. Sora’s smiling like always, but Riku’s beaming. He’s been doing better now that he’s removed from the constant stress of lying to their friends and himself, Sora notices, looking up at his easy smile. There are still hard days, but it’s a normal amount rather than his boyfriend slowly getting worse and worse like he was before, and Sora’s indescribably glad for it.
He spots Naminé and Xion ahead, and takes off down the hallway, dragging Riku behind him.
They pull their hands apart from each other’s, blushing, as Sora shouts at them to explain everything, how could he not tell them sooner, the break wasn’t that long and how could they not even text him--
And Riku stands off to the side, hand still intertwined with Sora’s, watching his boyfriend (his boyfriend) talk his head off, not even trying to school the expression of pure, unadulterated love and affection off his face.
It’s good. He feels good.