Chapter Text
Riku would need at least ten extra hands to count all the times Sora has corralled Riku into doing something, for a lack of a better word, stupid. There wasn’t a time when Sora didn’t start up a conversation with “Riku, guess what!” that Riku didn’t roll his eyes and send a pout to the side because he sure did know where this was going. Likewise, there was never a time where Riku didn’t eventually reply with a defeated “what?” and even so, a time never did pass where he was rewarded with a beaming, toothy smile and mischievous eyes that crescented like two blue moons.
What would happen next was a toss-up. Sometimes would lead them to Saturday detention. Riku would moan and complain and tell Sora that was the last time – The Last Time – he ever entertains one of Sora’s hair-brained ideas. To that, Sora would always send him that same blinding smile and the remaining silence would be spent with Riku pointedly ignoring the little wads of paper flicked at the back of his head until he gives up feigning maturity and sends a spitball back when the teacher isn’t looking.
Other times were more advantageous. Sora would say Riku was lucky to have a friend that found interesting things in the forest by their neighborhood. Riku would shoot back a negatory. That No, Sora, it was not cool to drag me into an abandoned shed just because you found it while you got lost biking because you had to leave the hiking trail. But Sora would remind him that nothing bad happened. They got to write their names on the side of the decrepit building, along with a star-shaped fruit that always seemed to accompany Sora throughout the years. On his school notes, smudged in sharpie on a wrist, traced on the back of Riku’s hand when they were bored and the next dangerous activity wasn’t coming to mind. Then on the side of the shed, shooting over Riku and Sora’s names like a meteor.
And then there were times when Riku ended up in the ER with a busted nose and a sprained ankle because that small bridge over the creek was condemned for a reason, but Sora said there was a legend about the bridge and if they had just been wearing the right shoes— The doctor didn’t think it was very funny. Neither did their parents. He had to get stitches for the gash on his cheek.
Or the time where Sora convinced Riku that they needed to stake out the cow farm across the river. Sora claimed to have seen strange lights coming from the field and heard weird sounds of animals being tortured and wouldn’t it be cool, Riku? If we caught whatever was happening on film? Whoever thought it was a good idea to gift Sora a digital camera for his birthday needed to be flogged. Preferably by Riku himself.
Recollection is a funny thing because Sora remembers that night as one of the most adrenaline-inducing nights of his life, where he got all his cardio in for the week in one sitting. He had never laughed so hard. And aren’t these kinds of things funnier in hindsight?
Riku remembers if a little differently. He remembers seeing the farmer out in the fields when he should have been asleep. And a flashlight shining in their faces. And yelling and gunshots, something about cow-tipping, Riku grabbing Sora’s hand and making a mad dash into the forest. Bumping into a herd of wild boars, spooking them and then being chased out of the said forest by giant snorting pigs with eyes that glowed when the flashlight of the angry farmer ran across their snouts.
It's with less of a feeling of annoyance and more of a feeling of absolute, pants-shitting dread, that Riku takes in a deep breath, eyes closed, before opening them up enough to peer down at Sora, back against the bed as he sits on the floor, head leaned back and looking up at Riku with expectant, unearthly blue eyes.
“You’re not serious.”
“Oh, but I am.” He shoots that same toothy grin that makes Riku weak. Because he knows that he’s lost. He lost the moment Sora said his name. He lost before he even thought about winning.
“I’m going to ask a really stupid question,” Riku says slowly, pushing his textbook to the side and shifting his foot that is now asleep under the weight of his opposite leg. Sora waits patiently, a smile on his face, innocent eyes that are anything but. “There have been recent sightings of a– what was it called?”
“Heartless.” Sora provides.
“Right, heartless.” Riku sighs. “And you’ve seen one?”
Sora’s eyes glance to the left, away from Riku in thought. His bottom lip juts out a little as he decides on what to say next. “Well, seen isn’t the word I would use, personally. But I know it was there.”
Riku blinks once, knowing that to ask him what the ever-loving fuck that means is already pointless. He’d never get a straight answer. So, he decides to go the diplomatic route. “And where did you…”
“Feel.” Sora provides again.
“Right, where did you feel this… entity?” For lack of a better word.
“Mm…” Sora hums, pulling his head forward to look at Riku’s bedroom door where stickers, caution tape, and old movie tickets taped to the white painted wood in a chaotic swirl. They had started adding to his door with the first movie they saw together, Along Came Polly. Sora had held his ticket in his hand, front tooth missing, wanting to keep the memory in a tangible way. Riku was the one that suggested getting the tape. His mom ended up not minding. “You know the park with the busted swing set?”
“Yeah?”
“There’s a little path,” Sora lifts his arm lazily, pointing a finger at the door as if the trail started there, but only Sora could see it, “and if you follow it, there’s a small pond with a tree fallen over across it,”
“Did you cross the tree?” Riku asked, already knowing the answer.
“I crossed the tree,” Sora said with the seriousness of a Victorian mortician. Riku rubbed a hand over his face, holding back a groan. One day, it was going to be Sora in the ER instead of him. How that hadn’t happened already was beyond him.
“The brush gets a little thick around there, but I was in pants, so I thought, what the hell? Pushed through that for a while until I found another clearing. Looked like an old camp spot.” Sora glances up at Riku to shoot him a knowing smile and Riku’s back straightens because he can’t believe that with just that look and the mention of a campground that he’s already mentally navigating his own attic to where the box of his family’s camping gear is located.
“I stayed there for a while, found a salamander, you know. The usual. And then I heard something rustling…” Sora pauses for dramatics.
“Let me guess, it was like a rabbit or something?” Riku says, sarcasm thick in his tone and smirk on his face, the one he usually uses when dealing with one of Sora’s outlandish stories. He’s awarded a patented Sora Pout, complete with pink tongue sticking out and scrunched up nose.
“It was a Heartless, duh.” He says, the glare he shoots Riku after pulling his tongue back into his mouth is as scary as a hamster, and just as round. They weren’t really kids anymore, but Sora had yet to shake off the look of one, round cheeks and all.
Riku ponders this for a moment, searching Sora’s face for any micro expressions that might let on that Sora was just fucking with him. Sora’s gaze is steadfast and intense, like he knows Riku is looking for some lie that isn’t there.
The moment feels longer than it should and Riku’s inner struggle with whether to call Sora out on his bullshit or relent and ask when the next stakeout is going to be must show on his face because Sora blinks rapidly and turns around fully to grab Riku’s knee and shake it.
“I’m serious, Riku. I know what it was.” He looks almost hysterical, in a subdued way that means this conversation isn’t going to dwindle down without a definite response. Riku can feel the beginnings of a headache come on.
“Sora, listen…” He begins, brows scrunched in the middle to offset the ache that’s growing in the middle of his forehead. “I believe you felt what you think you felt but I don’t know if… What is it that you even want to accomplish?” He sputters, realizing mid-sentence that he almost gave away the fact that he had been mentally planning this excursion in his head before Sora even voiced his idea.
Just as Riku makes this horrifying self-discovery, a shit-eating grin slowly spreads across Sora’s face and, for the umpteenth time that night, Riku knows he’s lost.
“You’re going to get us arrested.” Is the least he can say in response to Sora’s growing smile, eyes crescenting the way they always do when he knows he has Riku backed into a corner.
“Oh, come on, Riku. Have I ever steered you wrong?”
He has, but Riku thinks he might be a little bit of a masochist because he’d rather see that dazzling smile than the blank disappointment of turning his not-offer down.
Riku hangs his head, burying his face in both hands and groans softly before peeking between two fingers up at Sora. “Let me just check the attic. We’re not going through with this half-assed.”
He’s rewarded with a ‘yahoo!’, a fist in the air, and a very fond, ‘you’re the best, Riku,’ so it might just end up being worth the hassle.