Work Text:
The white shore of Destiny Island is washed clean with the ebbing tide, dragging wetly down the sloping sand into the stretching ocean, where Riku’s world seems to end. The horizon stretches endlessly on, but it’s over terrain he can’t cross—at least, not with his feet. None of the wooden boats that bob against the pier belong to him, and a sudden storm two nights ago laid waste to his raft. He’ll build another, he thinks, if time allows it, and if the drive remains inside him. A part of his weary mind whispers to just give up: this is the world he was born to, and he’s trapped here.
But when he paces the quiet beach in the dead of night, peering out along the thin line of sea and stars, he thinks of challenging that. He wants a world that isn’t blanketed by water, maybe shielded by mountains, maybe overrun with trees—buildings, even, anything but this. The veil of darkness twists his thoughts and tugs him deeper down that rabbit hole—it’s easier to banish such useless longings in the light of day.
He lifts the paopu fruit to his mouth for a bite, but his teeth don’t connect. He’s lost his appetite again, or at least, placed it in something else. His arm falls back to his side. He diverts from his path, strolling towards the pier instead. The wood is old and creaks under his heavy boots—it doesn’t seem as sturdy as it used to. Nothing does. Maybe he’s just outgrown it all. The pier lets him get a little closer to that far off goal of elsewhere, and he wanders right to the very edge, where he can all but feel the water lapping at the sodden posts. Tiny, tethered boats wade amongst the slow current. He thinks, not for the first time, of just giving in and stealing one.
But Riku’s grown, or at least is trying to, and he won’t let himself wander down that dark road again. Instead, he keeps his frustration to himself, and in a fit of anger and self-pity, he chuckles the uneaten fruit as far as he can. Even if his body won’t reach other worlds, maybe his bidding can.
The paopu fruit makes it nowhere near that far, instead arching down and landing with a distant ‘pop,’ splashing and sinking out of view.
A second later, a head breaches the surface, and Riku starts, straightening in surprise, as the face of a teenage boy shakes out brown hair, spiked despite the water. The boy turns to look at him, and even through the darkness, Riku’s pierced by bright blue eyes, bluer than the water’s ever been, than any sky Riku’s ever seen. For that first moment, he’s mesmerized. The boy stares at him in return.
Then the head disappears again, the water rippling, a slate-blue fin reaching out. Before Riku knows it, the boy’s popped out just before the pier’s end, this time rising to show off sun-kissed shoulders. The rest is obscured beneath the surface. The boy reaches out with one lithe arm, offering the fruit Riku had thrown, and he says in a kind voice, “Here, you dropped this.”
Riku... doesn’t know what to say. Or do. The boy smiles beautifully at him, eyes wide beneath thick lashes. At another gesture of the fruit, Riku bends down to collect it. Their fingers brush on the way, soft and warm, and Riku withdraws with a shiver.
“I’m Sora,” the boy adds when their hands have parted. “And you?”
Riku grunts, “Riku,” even though he’s usually disinclined to tell strangers his name so quickly. Sora’s caught him off guard. When Sora just smiles goofily, Riku mutters, “I never heard of anyone named Sora on these islands. And they’re small enough to know.”
“Yeah,” Sora choruses with a bit of a laugh. “I’ve swum around this one three times already to make sure I wasn’t missing anything!” Riku frowns, because that doesn’t answer anything, and Sora seems to pick up on that. “Anyway, I’m not on the islands.”
“So you just live in the water,” Riku wryly deadpans. Sora sticks out his tongue.
Then he backs up, disappears, only to leap out of the water in a colossal splash that wets Riku’s pants. He steps back just in time to save his vest, but that’s all the movement he manages—he’s transfixed again as he watches Sora’s body arch gracefully before him, all peach-pink skin down to slender hips, then a long, sleek tale that reminds Riku of a shark. Sora’s gone beneath the water again in a heartbeat, then surfaces with a broad grin as though he knows just how wild and impressive he seems. Riku’s too stunned to say anything.
Sora says for him, “I’m not from this world. I got lost on the way out of mine, and... now I can’t find my way back...” He falters there, the smile drooping for a moment, but then he seems to catch himself and quickly plasters it back. He strikes Riku as the exact opposite of Riku’s usual temperament: pessimistic and wary. Sora’s sweet and cheerful. Sora chirps, “But this place isn’t so bad.”
Riku’s not sure he agrees. But at least it did just get more interesting. He says numbly, “Welcome to Destiny Island.”
Sora says, “Thank you,” with such genuine warmth that Riku can feel it right up to his cheeks. He wavers.
Then he slowly climbs down onto the end of the pier. He doesn’t have a clear plan yet—whether to try and help Sora get home, or have Sora tell him everything about elsewhere, or maybe even try to find a way out together. Two proverbial birds with one stone. As Riku settles into place, Sora wades a little closer, his nose almost touching Riku’s knees.
He says like it’s already set in stone: “This place is even better with a friend.”
Riku’s not sure how he feels about that. To his own surprise, he doesn’t protest. Sora points at the fruit now in his lap and asks, “What is that?”
“Oh,” Riku mutters, picking it up again. “Just a fruit.” Because Sora immediately gives it a hungry look, Riku thrusts it forward and offers, “You want it?”
Sora answers, “Yup,” and plucks it right out of Riku’s hands. Then he takes a large bite out of one tip, smiling broadly to moan and announce around his mouthful, “It’s good!”
Riku quirks a little grin. He doesn’t explain just yet what it means: that people who share paopu fruit are supposed to have their destinies entwined. In a way, it seems like they already are. A perfect match: a boy who wants to go and a boy who didn’t mean to come.
He sits with Sora until the fruit’s all gone, and then they talk of things, and it all grows from there.