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Riku thinks about it a lot afterwards: their friends gone, Sora on the ground in tears, the darkness closing in. Riku had thought he'd do anything to protect Sora, but he remembers it now, the way his fingers had unfurled, the way he'd almost reached out to touch Sora, and then...he hadn't. He'd wanted to, but in the moment, he couldn't.
That's what he thinks about, afterwards--why he hadn't, and if things might have ended up differently if he had. Would Sora have been so quick to make up his heart and his mind? Would he have hesitated to go after Kairi, even a little bit, if he knew what he might be leaving behind?
xx
When he gets the summons from Master Yen Sid, it's almost a relief. Since he couldn't help Sora, he'd asked to go back to the islands after everything. He'd hoped that things could go back to normal, but it's hard even to know what "normal" is when so much has changed. He's not unhappy, but the islands aren't the same without Kairi and Sora, and he's glad for the change of pace that the Master's summons provides. Besides, Master Yen Sid refuses to learn to use his gummiphone, so it's literally a summons; a ship lands on the far side of the island and somebody tells Riku to get in.
He doesn't hesitate.
He expects the Master to have a mission of the utmost importance for him, to have summoned the whole gang to deal with a crisis that only Keyblade wielders can handle. But it's quiet when he arrives, and when he makes his way up the tower to the Master's chambers, the only other one there is him--not Aqua or her friends, not King Mickey, not even any of the ex-Organization folks from Twilight Town, just Riku.
He stands at attention in front of the Master's desk, waiting for him to say what exactly Riku has been summoned for. It can't be much of a crisis, if Riku can handle it by himself.
Master Yen Sid slides a fist-sized gem across the desk to him. It's shaped like a star, and it's solid and warm when Riku picks it up and turns it over in his hands.
"What's this?"
"That," Master Yen Sid intones, "is a Star Shard. It can be used to travel between worlds."
Riku looks up at the Master. "Where do you need me to go?" He doesn't ask his real question, which is have you found Sora?
"A linked Star Shard has been given to Roxas. He is..." The Master pauses, although Riku can't tell if it's because he is choosing his words or just for dramatic effect. "It can be difficult, after an ordeal, to settle into a life."
Riku blinks, surprised. "You want me to check in on him?"
"Your linked Star Shards, when used together, should bring you both to the same location. Coordinate using your--" he enunciates the word with a careful disdain, "--gummiphones, meet there, and report any problems to me. Your Star Shards will return you home afterwards."
"You want me to check in on him," Riku repeats.
Master Yen Sid raises an eyebrow, giving Riku a look that he's sure means you certainly are asking a lot of questions. "It is in everyone's best interest that the Keyblade wielders be ready, should a new threat arrive. You will be doing your part to promote that readiness."
Riku bows his head in acknowledgment. He can't argue with that. Still, it seems like a strange request, and he wonders why him, why not Lea or Xion or even Isa. Surely they're better equipped to deal with whatever Roxas is facing. And he and Roxas aren't friends; they'd hurt each other pretty badly last time they'd really met, set each other on paths that they'd both had trouble leaving.
It's not his place to argue, though, so he listens quietly as the Master explains how to use the Star Shard, pockets it, and takes his leave.
He stops and sits on the steps outside the tower, taking a moment to look up at the stars and breathe. No crisis. No Sora. Just this.
He can deal with this.
xx
When the time comes, the Star Shard works exactly the way Master Yen Sid had explained. One moment, Riku is standing on the pier; the next, he's somewhere else entirely. He looks around. He's in a parking lot outside what appears to be a kitschy little diner. It's round, with a domed roof and red and white trim; the sky above him is clear, and the heat coming off the pavement makes the nearby gas station shimmer.
He notices Roxas waving at him through the diner window, a small, tentative movement, and he heads inside to join him. He moves past a group of guys gathered at the counter--one of them says something about a new recipe and the others burst out laughing--and slides into the booth across from Roxas.
"Riku."
"Roxas."
Riku finds himself echoing Roxas's tone: polite, careful, with a slight edge to it. What did Master Yen Sid tell Roxas they were doing here? Does Roxas hold it against Riku that he's being checked in on? Or are there still hard feelings from his time in the Organization?
Then Roxas cracks a smile. "It's good to see you," he says, and his smile is infectious, because Riku smiles too.
They order food and catch up. Riku talks about life on the islands, about Wakka and Selphie and Tidus, about his home and how it had felt to return to it. Riku doesn't mention Kairi or Sora, and even though he knows that Roxas notices, Roxas doesn't ask. Roxas talks about Twilight Town, about Lea and Isa and Xion, about Hayner and Pence and Olette, about the life he's carving out for himself in a space he hadn't had before.
"It's...different, you know?" Roxas gestures with a fry to punctuate his points, pausing to take bites of it or to replace it with another fry when there's none left. "You have this idea of something in your head, and then when you get it, it's..." The fry weaves a vague pattern through the air. "Different."
Riku huffs a laugh. He does know. They hadn't had all that much time back on the islands after defeating Xemnas before they'd gotten the letter from the King--barely enough time for them to figure each other out again, after everything that had happened. Then it was one thing after another, the fate of all worlds, and now...
This isn't about him, though, this is about Roxas, and so he asks, "What's different?"
"I mean...most of it." Roxas chews thoughtfully on his fry. "It's not like I had a real frame of reference before. I thought that life outside the Organization would all be ice cream and trips to the beach, hanging out with my friends and all of us being happy all the time."
"And it's not?" Riku asks, because he feels like he should. He knows that it's not.
Roxas stares down at his half-eaten sandwich. "There's a lot less ice cream and a lot more vegetables, figuratively and also, like, in terms of actual ice cream." Then he brightens and looks up at Riku. "I've got my own body and my own heart, though--"
"A low bar!"
"--and even if we don't get along all the time, I still have my friends. That's enough, right?"
Now it's Riku's turn to look down at his food. It would be enough, wouldn't it.
"Oh," Roxas says, "I didn't mean--"
"It's okay," Riku says. It's not, not really, but it has to be, right?
The group of guys at the counter leaves, and the diner grows quiet without them.
"I'm sorry. I'm still... I'm not great at being a person yet. It's tough," Roxas says quietly.
"It's okay," Riku says again, meaning it this time. "I think you're doing great. This kind of stuff? This is what being a person is. "
xx
When he gets back to the islands, his phone chimes with a message from Roxas.
glad we could meet up today
same time next week?
ROXAS
Riku smiles. Guess Master Yen Sid was right--this was helpful for Roxas. Riku's happy he can help.
sounds good to me.
RIKU
xx
The next week, their Star Shards dump them out at an aquarium, and they walk around the exhibit tanks and look at fish. Roxas talks about how he and Xion will be starting school soon and about their trip to the beach. They'd buried Isa in the sand and looked for seashells and Lea had gotten sunburned.
"His face matches his hair!" Roxas says, delighted.
"I guess it's been a while since you guys needed sunscreen, huh?" A small blue and yellow fish swims back and forth past the glass, catching Riku's eye before he looks back over at Roxas, who laughs.
"Right? We were only ever in danger of getting--" Roxas forms a wide oval with his hands and holds them up in front of his face, peering down his nose through them at Riku, "--thiiiiis much of a sunburn."
"I bet those were some attractive tan lines," Riku says, straight-faced. He manages not to laugh until Roxas does, but then they're both cracking up loudly enough that several of the other patrons give them dirty looks.
It's nice, to be able to laugh about it like this, Riku thinks. It's nice to be able to actually reach out to somebody who needs him. And if Roxas makes him smile, well, that's a pretty good side effect.
xx
They message each other more, after the aquarium. Roxas sends a picture of Lea's very sunburned face--Lea does not look thrilled to be having his picture taken--and that kicks off a whole other meandering conversation about beaches and oceans and worlds that they've visited.
They keep meeting up. Not quite a week after their last trip, the Star Shards send them to a rustic diner where the waitress brings them something that appears to be a pillbug. As they attempt to eat it, under the guise of fitting in, Roxas tells Riku about the fight he's having with Xion, how Lea had taken her side, how much that had hurt. Riku sympathizes; he's very familiar with fighting with his friends and knows how painful it can be.
Four days after that, they end up at what turns out to be Cinderella's castle--there's some confusion, because Cinderella remembers Riku from his time with Maleficent, and her friends (who are mice??) seem to have Roxas confused with Ventus. A few days later, they attend a blitzball match on the water in a big port city. They spend the match in a good-natured rivalry, each of them picking one of the teams and cheering like they're lifelong fans. Roxas's team, the Goers, win the match, and he gloats about it as they leave the stadium, and their text conversation veers into trash talk for a little bit afterwards before veering back towards more normal topics. When it does, Riku feels like something has changed--something good--but he can't put his finger on it.
Riku's phone keeps beeping gently in his pocket, so he keeps pulling it out and checking it and smiling at what he finds. He thinks he's being surreptitious about it, until Selphie starts teasing him. They're dueling, actually--he made the mistake of telling her that he'd gotten much better at sword-fighting since he'd been away, and she was interested in upgrading to a wooden sword like all the boys use--and she sighs loudly when he stops her for the fourth time so he can check his phone. She makes him call Roxas, right then and there, and Riku is a little surprised when he picks up right away. Riku gets one quick look at Roxas's smiling face before Selphie snatches the phone away.
"You didn't tell me he was cute!" she whispers to him, loudly enough that Riku is sure Roxas heard.
"I didn't--what?" Riku manages, and he hears Roxas laugh.
Selphie introduces herself and asks some nosy questions about Roxas. She tilts the phone back so that both of them can see Roxas, and Riku watches as Roxas answers with what he knows are blatant, ridiculous lies. (To be fair, more than half of the questions don't have real answers that Roxas can give her, whether because of the guidance that regular people can't know about other worlds or because of the amount of time that Roxas has been a corporeal person.)
"Oh, Twilight Town sounds wonderful!" Selphie gushes. "I'd love to visit someplace off the islands someday. How long have you lived there?"
"Seventy--" Roxas begins, although he stops as Riku's eyes widen. Riku's glad Selphie's not looking at him right now. "Seven?"
Riku sighs.
"Seventeen! Seventeen...years? Seventeen years. My whole life."
Selphie squints at him--a little suspiciously, Riku thinks--and then looks over at Riku. That look is definitely suspicious. She doesn't ask, though; instead, she says, "So how do you know Riku?"
Roxas's eyes flicker over to Riku, and Riku knows immediately what he's trying to figure out. How do they know each other, exactly?
"He's--I know him through Sora," Riku finds himself saying. It's the easiest way he can think of to explain Roxas's whole...situation, and honestly, it's not entirely wrong.
A flash of something Riku can't quite read crosses Roxas's face at that, but neither one of them gets to address whatever it is as Selphie says, "Sora's friends with everybody. I should've guessed!"
Something twinges tight in Riku's chest.
Afterwards, it feels like something has changed again, but Riku still can't figure out what.
xx
He thinks about Roxas a lot, more even than he thinks about Sora, and he can't explain that either.
xx
Because Roxas is pretty much the only one who contacts him, Riku is surprised when he gets a series of messages from King Mickey.
Do u hv a min 2 tlk
Im hre w Ansem n Even n Or so
Kenzie
I E N Z O
We hv sum n
News
KING MICKEY
Riku shakes his head. Donald and Goofy had taught the King to use his text messages, and the results have been...baffling. Still, news from the King! Riku dials him back as quickly as he can.
"Riku!" King Mickey says, his face looming large on Riku's screen. "Did you get my messages?"
"Yeah." Riku nods. That's why I called you. "You said you had news?"
He expects to hear something about Sora and Kairi. Instead, the King tells him: they've figured out how to get Naminé back. They've had the replica body ready for a while, but Naminé's heart wasn't available for transference, since it was with Kairi and they didn't know where Kairi was.
"So you've found Kairi."
King Mickey looks away from the screen. "...no, not yet. It's complicated."
"What does that mean? Complicated how?" Do you know where Sora is or not? Riku feels himself tensing up, and he makes an effort to breathe a little deeper, a little slower.
"We're still working on it. Ansem is hoping that Naminé will have some answers for us, once she's awake." The King looks apologetic. "I wish I could tell you more."
Riku forces a smile. "Well, I'd rather hear no news than bad news."
The King outlines the scientists' timeline and plan to put Naminé into the replica they'd been brought, and Riku nods along. He doesn't know anything about the science of it, but they're all smart people who've done good work so far, so he has no reason to think it won't work.
"At this point, the only real question is what happens afterwards," King Mickey says.
That doesn't sound good. "Are you expecting trouble?"
"No, no, nothing like that. It's just...we're not sure where she's going to want to go. Everyone else had an obvious place to go back to: you, Kairi, and Sora to the islands; me and Donald and Goofy to Disney Castle; Aqua, Ven, and Terra to the Land of Departure; Lea and Xion and Roxas to Twilight Town or Radiant Garden. But Naminé doesn't really...none of the places she was while she existed before really feel like they could be home for her now."
Riku makes a thoughtful noise. He hadn't considered that, but the King is right. Castle Oblivion doesn't even exist anymore, not in the form that they'd known it; he can't imagine it was a place full of happy memories for her anyway. And staying with Ansem, while probably feasible, sounds more like a punishment than a reward.
"It would be okay if she wanted to come stay at the islands, right?"
"Of course!" Riku doesn't even stop to think about it. Naminé deserves to be happy, and if she thinks that'll happen on the islands, then that's where she should be.
"Good!" the King says cheerfully. "That's one problem solved!"
That should make Riku feel good, right? Why doesn't it?
Once he hangs up with King Mickey, he dials Roxas before he knows what he's doing. It rings once, twice, three times, and he's almost ready to hang up when the call connects. Relief floods through him--and that's a feeling he really doesn't have time to pick apart right now--and then the image on the phone screen resolves.
"Roxas's phone, what's your emergency?" Lea says.
Riku hadn't been certain what he was going to say when Roxas picked up, but now he's truly speechless. "...you're not Roxas."
Lea grins. "And hello to you too, Riku. Roxas and Xion are at school--we're trying school now, although who knows for how long. I told them they had to leave their phones here, and that I'd answer them in case there were any emergencies."
There's a pause, and Riku only realizes that he's supposed to chime in with his emergency here after he asks, "How's school going?" Roxas hasn't talked about it much, in their chats. Riku had kind of forgotten it was even happening.
"Oh, they're terrible at it," Lea says, and his candidness startles a laugh out of Riku. "Absolutely terrible. They've been in school for two weeks and I've been called to the principal's office twice. Me! I'm not even going to school!" He sighs, and Riku can't tell if it sounds more frustrated or fond.
"Anything I can do to help?"
Lea squints at him. "No offense, but you don't exactly have a great track record of being a good influence on these two."
Riku opens his mouth to argue with that, but without talking about the time he and Roxas have spent together since they defeated Xehanort, he doesn't have much of an argument--and if Roxas hasn't already told Lea about the time they've spent together, Riku won't be the one to do it. He shuts his mouth again.
"Now, did you have an emergency, or should I just let Roxas know you called?"
Riku shakes his head. It's not an emergency. His feelings are never an emergency; his feelings aren't even a priority. He'd just wanted to talk to somebody--
No, he realizes, not somebody. Roxas. He'd wanted to talk to Roxas.
"Just let him know I called," Riku says, and he hangs up the phone.
xx
It's a couple hours later when the Star Shard sitting on Riku's bedside table starts to glow.
He'd spent those couple hours sitting out on the paopu tree, staring off into the distance, his arm stretched out in front of him while he idly materialized and dematerialized his Keyblade in his hand. He'd thought about Naminé, about the space in his life she could fit into, about why that space was there. He'd thought about the Keyblade, about protecting the things that matter. Had he done that? Was he doing that? Could he? And what would it cost him?
The Star Shard pulses gently, which Riku has never seen it do before, and he leans over to study it for a few moments before reaching out a tentative hand to touch it. The moment his fingers close around it, it activates, and Riku finds himself on a beach. Not his beach, the one on the island that he and Sora and Kairi were going to sail away from, but a beach, with sand and gentle waves and palm trees. In the distance, a red-orange sun is sinking its way towards the horizon.
"Oh, shit," someone says behind him, and Riku turns to see Roxas. He looks surprised and more than a little sheepish. "It wasn't supposed to do that."
"What did you do...?"
"I was going to call you. Axel said you'd called," Roxas says, which isn't really an explanation. "It shouldn't have--Yen Sid said--"
"It's fine," Riku says, trying not to sound too relieved. "I like beaches, and I could use a break."
Roxas smiles, seeming to relax, and some of the tension eases out of Riku's chest.
"So, what did you need? Did Selphie need to see my cute face again?"
Riku snorts. "Bad news for her, your, uh--" he stumbles on the word cute, decides it's better to avoid it altogether, "--your face is here with me instead of on my phone where she can see it."
"A real shame," Roxas says, laughing. Then his expression sobers, sincere. "Seriously though, what's up? I'm sorry I wasn't there when you called earlier."
"It's fine," Riku repeats. "It wasn't an emergency. I...I heard from the King. They're going to--" He pauses. What's the right word? Reassemble? Reconstitute? Recorporealize? "They're ready to make Naminé a person again."
"Does that mean they found--"
"No."
"Oh." Roxas frowns. "That sucks. I'm sorry."
"Me too." Riku takes a deep breath, and then another one. "It sounds like she might be coming to the islands."
"You wanna talk about it?"
Riku thinks for a moment about how to even answer that. Why would he have reached out to Roxas, if he didn't want to talk about it? But he's already spent a lot of time thinking about it, and he's not sure that talking about it is exactly what he wants to do right now.
He settles for: "Not yet."
Roxas steps forward and looks at him, really looks. Riku shifts uncomfortably--if this is Roxas's level of interpersonal social skill, no wonder school has been a problem for him. Then he gives Riku a lopsided smile and says, "Let's see what they've got that passes for ice cream around here."
What they find is a vendor selling something called a "shave ice". Roxas makes Riku buy two giant bowls of them ("You stole my munny, asshole," Roxas says, faux-outraged, "Do you know how much mail I delivered?") and then drags Riku past a girl in a swimsuit with a sandwich, down along the beach to find the perfect spot to eat. Riku's not sure what his criteria is for perfect, but he has to admit, the sunset is beautiful where they finally sit, close, on the sand. The shave ice is tasty, and they eat quietly and watch as sunset turns into twilight and the stars come out.
"So how's school been?" Riku asks, once his shave ice is gone. Roxas is almost done with his.
"I've only been going for two weeks but I've already learned so much!"
The thought flashes across Riku's mind: Roxas, who loves school and his new friends and makes a life for himself without the Keyblade. Roxas, who doesn't owe the worlds anything else and doesn't let himself get sucked into their crises any more. Roxas, who quietly leaves Riku's life.
"Like, I've learned that if you literally don't know any history, and you say that when your history teacher calls on you, she'll think that you're being a smartass and send you to the principal's office. Even though you're a 'transfer student'--" Roxas does the air quotes with the hand that's not holding the shave ice bowl, "--and Pence said that would explain how you maybe haven't learned as much stuff as the rest of the students."
Riku laughs, although he swallows the end of the laugh when Roxas gives him a dirty look.
"Same with math, actually, and science, and literature? Xion told them they were lucky she could even read, and I guess that was not what they wanted to hear." Roxas sighs. "I wanted so bad to be a real person, and now it turns out I'm awful at it."
Riku thinks about Sora, distressed and uncomforted, and reaches out to put what he hopes is a comforting hand on Roxas's shoulder. Roxas looks down at Riku's hand and smiles a sort of soft half-smile. Riku pushes down whatever chaotic thing is happening in his stomach, glad that he is helping.
"You're not any worse at being a person than anybody else is."
"I am demonstrably worse at school than pretty much everybody else. Axel's been called to the principal's office, and he's not even going to school."
That's the same way Lea had phrased it--Riku wonders how many times Roxas has heard Lea make that complaint.
Roxas flops backwards onto the sand. "What if I'm never good at it?"
"School? Or being a person?" Riku leans back too, palms in the sand, head tilted skyward. "Because there are plenty of schools on plenty of worlds, and there are plenty of things you can do that don't need you to have been good at school."
"Do you go to school?" Roxas asks, sitting back up, his posture mirroring Riku's.
Riku thinks back over everything that's happened since darkness first took the islands. "Not, uh, not for a while. I wasn't very good at a lot of it either, honestly. And as for being a person? You fought incredibly hard to stay a person, and became one again through sheer force of will."
"No, plenty of people helped, Zexion and Vexen and Ansem and Demyx and Saïx and Axel--"
Riku shakes his head. "I mean, yeah, but it sounds like none of that would've mattered without your determination to come back. And if you can do that, you can be good at whatever you want to do." He steals a look over at Roxas, who is looking back at him with what looks like wonder.
"You know," Roxas says after a minute, "I'm glad Yen Sid had me talk to you. I think you might be the only person who knows all the details of my situation but isn't expecting anything specific from me."
"I want you to be happy. Sora would want you to be happy." Riku looks over again, but instead of the smile he's expecting, it looks like something has closed up--almost angrily--in Roxas's expression.
They sit in silence, the only noise the sound of the waves, the wind in the trees. Riku's not sure what he said wrong. Sora was one of the biggest proponents of Roxas's return, second only to Lea. What could Roxas possibly have against Sora?
Eventually, Roxas speaks. "You wanna talk about Naminé yet?"
"Not sure what I can say. She's been through a lot and ought to be happy. She might not even choose to come to the islands. And when Sora and Kairi come back--" (when, he says, not if, because he can't bring himself to even acknowledge the possibility) "--it won't be a big deal at all. So I just need to...get over myself, I think."
Roxas looks at him. "So, wait, let me get this straight. She's been through a lot."
Riku nods.
"And because of that, she ought to be happy."
Riku nods again.
"Sounds like somebody else I know," Roxas says, which is honestly not fair. That's not what Riku meant. He glares at Roxas, but Roxas is having none of it. "Why is it any different for you?"
"I don't know," Riku says, which is a lie, mostly. There are plenty of reasons, and Roxas can probably guess most of them. Riku leans back on his palms, tips his head back and closes his eyes. "But I'm glad Master Yen Sid had me talk to you too."
Roxas huffs a gentle laugh, and then...it feels like Roxas's fingers brush against his in the sand. The touch is feather-light, light enough that Riku's not actually sure if he's feeling it at all. He's afraid to look, to even move, because what if he imagining it?
And what if he isn't?
He lifts a finger cautiously, fully anticipating touching nothing but air, and feels it make contact with Roxas's hand.
Oh.
He half-expects Roxas to jump away, startled, like this isn't what he intended, like Riku is misreading the situation--because he has to be, right? But no, Roxas doesn't put any distance between them. Instead, after Riku lets his lifted finger trace along the back of Roxas's hand, Roxas links their fingers together. They sit, hands intertwined, not saying anything. Riku looks up at the stars and just breathes.
xx
thanks for the shave ice
next one's on me
ROXAS
gonna hold you to that
RIKU
xx
It's only a few days later when the Star Shard starts pulsing again. Riku touches it, but nothing happens. It just keeps pulsing. He picks it up again, tries squeezing it, but still nothing. He materializes his Keyblade and points it at the Star Shard, to no avail. He scrunches up his face, really concentrating; when he peeks open an eye to see, the Star Shard is still just sitting there on the table.
It's maybe pulsing a little faster?
Riku leaves it on the table and texts Roxas a string of question marks.
They've been talking more, since their trip to the beach--not about the trip to the beach or anything that had happened there, but it's better than nothing. Roxas talks about school, about the fencing club that Olette suggested he and Xion join, about the scheme he's thinking about posing to Ventus where they take turns attending school for each other. Riku remembers what Lea had said about being a good influence and does his best to talk Roxas out of it, but he's not sure he's succeeded. Riku, for his part, sends Roxas pictures of the sunset each evening and relays pretty much everything the King and Ienzo tell him about how things are coming along with Naminé, who is awake but hasn't decided where she wants to be yet.
If they had something to talk about, surely Roxas would bring it up, right?
A few hours later, he gets a response from Roxas: a matching string of question marks. The Star Shard is still flashing at him, definitely more rapidly than it had been at first. Riku reaches out to touch it again, and this time it activates.
Riku blinks, and he's standing in front of Master Yen Sid's tower. A second later, Roxas is beside him.
"He could've just called," Roxas mutters.
Riku snorts a laugh. "That would mean he knew how to use his phone."
They make their way into the tower, but before they can even start up the staircase, Roxas stops in the alcove, grabs Riku's right wrist, and says, "Wait, wait, wait."
"What's wrong?"
"I need to--I need to ask you something."
Riku's eyes dart to the staircase, where he knows the Master is waiting for them, and then back to Roxas. "Ask away."
Roxas steps in close, and before Riku realizes what's happening, he grabs Riku's lapels, tips up on his toes, and kisses him.
That is not a question, Riku thinks, right before his brain short-circuits. He kisses Roxas back, fiercely--this is exactly what he wants, how did he not realize--and then, confusingly, Roxas shoves him away.
A dazed, almost wounded noise escapes Riku's throat.
"You know that I'm not--" Roxas says, and in the momentary pause, Riku's brain fills in interested in you and actually your friend and, slightly hysterically, going to let you leave here without destroying your heart again, and then Roxas finishes, "--Sora, right?"
Riku can't have heard him correctly. "What?!"
"I'm not Sora," Roxas says again, more loudly this time.
Okay, so Riku did hear him correctly. But--what?!
"You like me because I'm..." Roxas waves his hands vaguely before folding his arms across his chest. "I really like you, even though I shouldn't, because Sora's gone and I'm the closest thing you've got."
"You really like me," Riku repeats, uncomprehending, but Roxas doesn't seem to be listening to him.
"I am so scared that we're gonna go up those stairs and Yen Sid is gonna tell you that they've found Kairi and Sora and you're never going to talk to me again."
"That's not--"
"I mean, what reason would you have? I'm not an idiot. You've only ever talked to me when you couldn't talk to Sora." Roxas's eyes blaze with hurt. "Tell me I'm wrong."
"That's not fair; you've only existed so far when I couldn't talk to Sora--"
"That's what I thought." Roxas steps back, putting even more space between them, his arms still folded across his chest like a physical barrier.
The image flashes into Riku's head again: Sora on the ground, hurting, and Riku unable to take ownership of his own feelings and touch him. He's not going to let that happen again.
He steps forward into Roxas's space, drags him up by his collar and kisses him again. Roxas flails for a moment before he grips Riku and kisses him back.
"The reason I'd keep talking to you is that I really like you too," Riku says, when Roxas finally lets go of him. "Why would you think I didn't?"
Roxas pulls the Star Shard out of his pocket and waves it at Riku, giving him a disbelieving look.
"What, because I had to check in on you, I wouldn't think you were worthwhile?"
Roxas stops in his tracks. "What? No, because I was supposed to--wait, you weren't checking in on me, I was checking in on you."
Riku laughs for about half a second before he realizes that Roxas is serious. "What would you have to check in on me for?"
Roxas continues to look at him like he's the worlds' biggest dumbass. "Your friends are missing and you are obviously not okay about it? So Yen Sid would send the closest thing to your best friend that he had to check in on you. What would you have to check in on me for?"
"You're having some trouble adjusting to being a person, so the Master would send someone who didn't expect anything of you to check in on you--you said so yourself," Riku says.
"That is not how it was explained to me."
Riku tries to remember exactly how the Master had explained it to him. "'It can be difficult, after an ordeal, to settle into a life,'" he repeats, lowering his voice in imitation. Roxas does not look convinced. "He was talking about you."
"He said that to me too, and he was absolutely talking about you."
There's a long moment where they look at each other, realization dawning. Roxas swears, and as one, they look up at the staircase.
Master Yen Sid's voice booms down at them. "I know you boys are down there!"
Roxas glares at the ceiling. "Guess we'd better get a move on."
"I'm a Keyblade Master too--he can wait another minute," Riku says, grinning, and Roxas pulls him in to kiss him again.
xx
They stand together in front of the Master's desk, Riku at attention, Roxas in a little more of a slouch, as the Master eyeballs them.
"I had intended to speak to you separately about the assignments I'd given you," Master Yen Sid says.
"He knows what I have to report," Roxas says, an edge to his voice. "He was there."
Riku gives the best shrug he can without leaving attention. When Master Yen Sid raises a skeptical eyebrow, Riku says, straight-faced, "I was there."
xx
"I can't believe that worked," Riku says afterwards, collapsing in a relieved heap on the top step of the entrance stairs to the Master's tower. There had only been a little bit of shouting, and Riku hadn't done any of it.
"I can't believe he let us keep our Star Shards," Roxas says. He sits heavily a few steps below Riku, his legs splayed out in front of him, his elbow draped across Riku's knee. The casual affection makes Riku feel a little giddy.
"I can't believe you thought that I thought you were, like, a discount replacement version of Sora." Riku tips forward to lean over onto Roxas; he is fairly sure he is smushing Roxas's hair but also fairly sure that neither one of them cares.
"Why would you like me?" Roxas shrugs, which can't be an easy motion when a good deal of Riku's body weight is leaned onto him. "I really assumed that the best case was that you dropped me as soon as Sora came back."
Riku blinks at him, surprised.
"The worst case was that you thought sad thoughts about him every time you looked at me, forever, until he got back."
"Wow, you actually think I'm a disaster," Riku says, laughing.
Roxas's face is all faux-innocence as he says, "Hey, being a person is hard, I can't blame you if you're bad at it."
"Well, I'm glad you'll be here to help me get better at it." Riku grins and climbs to his feet. He goes down a few more steps before turning and offering a hand to Roxas; once they're on equal footing, he kisses him.
"Glad I can help," Roxas says, smiling, and yeah, Riku is really glad too.