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“You have to tell him Axel,” Roxas insists, exasperation tainting his voice. Xion giggles next to him. The two are sitting at Lea’s kitchen table, waiting for the pancakes Lea promised them for breakfast. Lea turns and points the spatula in his hand accusingly at Xion.
“I bet you put him up to this didn’t you? In my own home,” Lea scoffs.
“I did not! It was all Roxas. He’s the one who told me about it, anyway.”
“I’m just sick of him whining,” Roxas says with a face of disgust. Xion laughs again. Despite Lea’s annoyance he can’t help but smile.
It’s been a month and a half since Lea’s friends had come back to him, but the sense of normalcy he has at seeing them sit in his kitchen waiting for breakfast feels almost unreal. It’s too good to be true, after everything the Organization had put them all through. But Roxas is all smiles when he sees Xion laugh, and Xion looks content picking at the flowers she had brought to place on the table. They look like...regular kids. Somehow, despite how unreal it seems, it feels right.
So Lea forgives their teasing and turns back to his pancakes before they burn.
The door to the apartment creaks opens and Lea places a few pancakes onto a plate before looking back to see Isa walk in the door. Roxas throws Lea a very pointed look before he and Xion call out slowly in unison, so his name is two syllables: “Hi Isa.”
Isa smirks, “You’re still training them like puppies, Lea?”
“Hey, that was all them,” Lea replies carelessly, going back to his pancakes.
“Good morning,” Isa reaches for the bag he’s carrying and pulls out a golden colored bottle as he walks toward the kitchen table, “Lea insisted I buy local honey, since you two have never tried it.”
Lea can hear the kids clamoring over for the bottle for a taste. It’s even more surreal seeing all of them together like this. Isa’s return to humanity has been the hardest of all, but Lea has seen him go through so much effort to be whole again, it’s a wonder they weren’t all having ice cream and sharing stories in the first place.
Isa comes up behind Lea and reaches for the pan and spatula, their hands brushing against each other. Lea looks up questioningly at Isa.
“I’ll finish here, you go sit,” he says, voice quiet and commanding.
“I’m almost done, it’s fine,” Lea starts, but Isa has already pushed him out of the way and is flipping the last of the pancakes.
“You do too much,” Isa says as if it’s enough explanation.
Lea resigns and walks over to sit next to Roxas, who is staring him down with the evil eye. Lea narrows his eyes at him.
“Thank you for the honey, Isa!” Xion chimes to diffuse the tension.
“Yeah, thanks,” Roxas echoes, but his gaze is still hot on Lea.
“You can thank Lea for that,” Isa replies. The stove clicks off and he heads to the table with a plate piled high with pancakes. He sets it in down in the middle of the table and sits across from Roxas, next to Lea.
“Dig in,” Lea jams his fork into the first pancake on top, and drizzles an obscene amount of honey onto his plate. The three others at the table watch him in mild concern as they serve themselves.
The breakfast is quiet, which none of them mind. Light from Twilight Town’s morning sun is filtering through the apartment’s window bathing everything in a soft yellow glow. Lea is glad he asked the kids to come. He’s happy to see them so at home, and he’s happy Isa finally feels more comfortable around them. Lea feels undeserving to have his cake and eat it too, but he tries not to overthink it. Things aren’t entirely perfect. Isa still struggles with having a heart, and not every day is a good one. Roxas and Xion’s strange un-human origin is sometimes painfully obvious—how do you explain to people you were created when someone ripped their heart out of their chest, or that you were created in a lab? Then there’s Lea himself, who ends up being the mediator in a lot of things—the mediator between the kids and Isa, the mediator between the Guardians of Light and the ex-members of the Organization, the mediator between Sora and Riku who both went off to find Kairi, who it seems he ended up understanding more than the both of them thanks to the indefinite amount of time they spent training together. Lea doesn’t mind dealing with so much, but it takes him away from home more often than he would like.
Lea smiles to himself. Home. After the fall of Radiant Garden he didn’t think he’d have a place to call home again.
“You’re all smiles today, Lea,” Isa breaks the tables’ silence. His voice has a hint of amusement in it.
“It’s because he gets to spend the morning with all his favorite people,” Xion defends, her eyes big and honest.
“Some of us more favorite than others,” Roxas mumbles between bites of pancakes, and Lea throws him a look.
“Xion’s got the right idea,” Lea says emphatically, swinging his fork in his hand, “I’ve got pancakes and good company. It’s more than I could ask for.”
“But not all you could ask for,” Roxas mumbles again and Lea’s smile falters. Isa raises his eyebrows at them but Roxas takes an innocent swig of his orange juice and Lea goes back to mopping up honey off his plate. Lea knows Isa will ask about this later, and he almost regrets having invited the kids.
Their meal lasts till almost noon. After the pancakes were finished, Isa offered them tea with milk and honey, and they stay around the table for a while. Roxas tells them about Hayner’s rebellious streak at school, and Xion explains that Naminé has been teaching her how to draw. Lea tells them stories about working at The Bistro. Isa mostly listens, offering an odd comment now and again, and once or twice a small story to show that Lea hasn’t changed much at all since they were kids.
Lea is surprised at how much Isa remembers. He hardly had memory for those stories himself. But part of that is what makes Isa so important to him in the first place—he never had to tell him to get it memorized, he always did it on his own. It brings a warmth to his chest when Isa joins in with all of them. It reminds him of how things used to be, how he wishes they could be now. But he doesn’t want to pressure anything on Isa. They might have been together once, exploring each other with kisses under Radiant Garden’s starlight, but things are different now. He won’t ask for much else, when the world has already given him so much.
Lea watches his little family smiling together, until Xion looks up at the clock and sees the small hand reaching the 12.
“Roxas,” Xion’s voice is full of disappointment as she says his name, “We ought to be going, we said we’d meet Hayner and everyone at one.”
“Aw,” Roxas frowns, “We have to go pick up some stuff so I guess so.”
The kids stand up and pick up their dishes despite Lea’s insistence that they don’t (“We can clear the table, don’t worry about it,”—“No it’s okay, you two did all the cooking.”) and they all head toward the door as Roxas and Xion get ready to leave.
“Thanks for everything,” Xion rushes up to Lea and gives him a tight hug, barely reaching his chest. She gives Isa a more hesitant hug, but Lea can see that she means it. Isa pats her head awkwardly, and Lea laughs, because it’s so very Isa.
“Take care okay,” Lea turns toward Roxas.
Roxas has that look on his face again, the one that tells Lea he better do what he says or he won’t hear the end of it.
“What’s stopping you?” Roxas asks and Lea rubs the back of his neck uncomfortably.
“It’s complicated, alright?”
“You’ll never find out if you don’t try,” Roxas turns to Xion and Isa, and waves at him, “Thanks for the breakfast.”
Xion gives Isa a small wave goodbye and scuttles to Roxas’s side.
They both give another round of goodbyes before heading down and out of the apartment. Lea is left feeling uncomfortably alone with Isa.
He shuts the door and heads to the table, picking up stray napkins and fallen flower petals to throw into the trash. Isa hovers behind him and Lea can feel it coming—
“What was that all about?”
Despite expecting it, Lea winces. He tries to play it off innocently, “What was what all about?” He knows Isa won’t relent, but it doesn’t hurt to try.
“What exactly is so complicated? You and Roxas have been speaking in riddles all morning,” Isa has a strange twinge in voice when he says, “I thought we were done with secrets.”
Lea turns to look at Isa, defensive. His hands are full of garbage.
“It’s not secrets! Roxas just…,” Lea waves his hands around as if that explains enough. He pulls out the garbage bin and tosses things away. Isa looks expectant. Lea knows he won’t press more, but the expression on his face says it would be a bad idea if Lea didn’t explain further. He’s not going to destroy Isa’s trust now of all times.
“Roxas just has this ridiculous idea about us,” Lea finally says. He leans back on the kitchen counter and crosses his arms.
“Oh? And what’s that?” Isa is leaning against a chair and mirroring Lea’s pose. He looks almost dangerous, but there’s a teasing glint in his eye. It brings butterflies to Lea’s stomach.
Lea gives a frustrated sigh and runs a hand through his hair, the messy red spikes coming out fluffy.
“He thinks,” Lea pauses as if the idea is ridiculous, “that there’s something between us just because I told him there was, way back before the Organization got in the way of everything.”
It’s obvious that this is the last thing Isa had expected to hear. His expression is unreadable, more so than usual, and the butterflies in Lea’s stomach end up feeling more like a pit.
Lea laughs but the sound is harsh. He turns toward the dishes in the sink and lets the water run over them. For a minute the only sound is the churning of the faucet.
He doesn’t feel it when Isa comes up next to him and turns the faucet off, so Lea flinches at the sudden closeness. He can tell Isa is trying to read him. It makes Lea nervous.
“That’s just what Roxas thinks,” Isa’s voice is low but the words sting at Lea’s ears. After a pause, Isa asks, “What do you think?”
Lea can feel the heat creeping up to his face. What does he think? It’s an absurd question, one he’s been avoiding till now. He had always felt overly possessive of Isa; overprotective and defensive of anyone who did him wrong. Their falling out in the Organization had been a misunderstanding－too much of Xemnas’s influence, too much straying from their original goals. But it had never changed how he felt about Isa, not really. When Roxas and Xion had cut SaÏx down and he had to watch his best friend disappear in his arms, it only brought him back to the times when they were younger, star gazing on each others laps, hands holding each other close.
Isa’s eyes look tired, and Lea wonders if he missed another night of sleep. Lea almost wants to ask him, but the expecting look on Isa’s face lets him know there’s no chance to back out from answering his question.
“I think,” he begins, “that I’m not going to jeopardize the nice life we have here.” Lea soaks in Isa’s unreadable face, “So what I think doesn’t really matter, does it?”
Isa’s hand finds its way to Lea’s resting on the counter. He cups his palm over it and idly strokes his thumb along the back. It’s something he used to do often when they were teenagers and the sensation sends shivers up Lea’s spine.
“You were never a very good liar,” Isa’s gaze rests on their hands. Lea lets out a breath he didn’t know he was holding and it takes all his willpower not to pull Isa into him right there and kiss him senseless.
“It’s not a lie, Isa.” There’s a heavy weight in Lea’s chest and it’s hard to get the words out.
Isa looks back up at him, “You’re not going to ask me what I think, Lea?”
Truthfully, he wasn’t. Lea had never given much thought to how Isa felt about him. He didn’t care if Isa hated him or put up with him just because he had to, as long as Isa was safe and seemed more or less happy. He hadn’t considered that maybe they both wanted the same thing.
Isa stands dangerously close to him now, his fingers interlaced with Lea’s.
Lea forces himself to ask: “What do you think, Isa?”
With the way they’re standing, Lea’s back presses into the kitchen counter. Despite being shorter than him, it feels like Isa hovers over Lea, and Lea can feel the heat of Isa’s breath on his face with how close they are to each other. After a moment of hesitation, Lea finds himself pressed between the cold, hard counter, and Isa’s warm, soft skin where their lips meet.
Lea feels like he could die in the moment, and everything would be alright.
The kiss is chaste, for just a moment, but then Lea pushes their mouths open and Isa tastes of milk and honey. His hands find their way to the nape of Isa’s neck, and he pulls him in closer, as if he could press themselves together to form one being. Isa’s hands rest on Lea’s stomach and the sensation is comfortable, familiar.
They break apart, struggling for breaths of air. Lea has a grin plastered on his face, and Isa’s smile is small, but his eyes shine in contentment.
“You should thank Roxas,” Isa says appreciatively.
“No way, he’s been a pain in my ass. That’s the last time I tell him anything about my personal life,” Lea says, but he’s smiling in way that Isa knows it will be far from the last time.
Lea pulls Isa in again, and presses their foreheads together. His eyes are closed and he thinks to himself about he long he’s wanted this, for them to just be Isa and Lea again, and for Lea to be able to hold his best friend in his arms. He thinks he could cry, but when he opens his eyes again, it’s Isa who has tears streaming down his face. Lea breaks, just like that, and he’s crying too. He wraps his arms around Isa and pulls him into a hug. Isa holds onto him like there’s nothing else in the world that could possibly keep him up and standing. Lea presses into his hair and asks:
“Are you sure about this?”
“You’re the only thing I’ve ever been sure of, Lea.”
Isa pulls them apart, just enough so that he can look Lea in the eyes. He brings a hand up to wipe Lea’s tears away, then his own.
“You’ve done too much for me,” Isa says. He pulls Lea toward himself and places a soft kiss on the corner of his mouth, “Let me do something for you for once.”
Lea gives a gentle laugh.
It’s still surreal, this life he lives. But it doesn’t matter. He brings himself down to reach his best friend's mouth again, the dirty kitchen long forgotten, and decides that days like these are worth any type of hell he has to go through to get there. Isa’s hands cup Lea’s face, and for once he doesn’t wonder how long it will take for Isa to let go.
Lea counts the kisses he gives till he can no longer keep track.
It’s a long time before Isa lets go.