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It was really his own fault, Sora realized, that he was in this position. After all, he had been the one to suggest that they focus on trying to readjust to being students and keep all the things that had changed between them quiet until they sorted it out for themselves.
That didn’t change that he hated everything about this.
It had been three months since they had re-enrolled in school, trying to maintain some semblance of normalcy while they waited for whatever was coming for them next from the outside worlds. Three months of Sora being the goofy junior everyone had always expected him to be, while Riku…
Riku was a senior, being a year older than him, and where he had mostly been ignored before he was suddenly surrounded by everyone. Sora didn’t begrudge him friends, of course, and eventually others had to figure out that Riku was more than the nerd he was frequently mistaken for at first glance.
No, what got him was the fact that the entire female population at their school had finally noticed that underneath the uniform they all had to wear was serious muscle, honed by years of both island life and mastering the use of his Keyblade (not that any of them knew that). Add that to the fact that Riku’s already long silver hair now fell halfway down his back, and apparently girls everywhere wanted to approach him when before they’d never had any interest.
Sure, Sora could agree that Riku was a sight to behold. Sora truly enjoyed beholding it on a regular basis, in fact. And when Riku pulled his hair back and it revealed the strong line of his jaw and how that line flowed into a long and elegant neck…
Damn, he was getting distracted.
Point was, Riku was gorgeous, okay? And it shouldn’t have bothered him that other people had noticed that too, especially when he himself had taken so long. But watching Riku get visibly flustered as the second girl of the day stopped him in the hallway was just too much. It made him want to…
Nope. He was getting distracted again, and he was already running late. He would have to run if he wanted to make it to his class even close to on time.
And so he did, turning on his heel and running off, but he couldn’t help feeling that he was running away from something important.
~*~*~*~
“It’s not funny,” Sora whined as Kairi laughed.
“It absolutely is,” she replied through giggles. “You literally set yourself up for this, you realize that.”
“I thought it was a good idea at the time,” he replied as they found a quiet corner to eat their lunches and catch up.
It really had seemed like a good idea. They’d only been back on the islands for a week or so, and maybe they had completely laid their hearts bare when they’d thought they were going to be trapped in darkness forever, but things changed once they got back. Sora had thought it was a good plan to give this thing between them space to breathe and time to grow before they subjected it to the pressure of the whole island knowing. It would give them time to figure out how to act around each other now that their feelings were out in the open.
And at first it had been fine. Riku, once walled-off and evasive when forced to talk about himself, had blossomed under Sora’s attentions. Now they could spend hours trading words they thought they’d never be able to say to each other, and that had slowly evolved to trading kisses and careful touches when they were alone.
But Sora didn’t know how to take that ease they had found when alone and bring it into this part of their lives too. He sighed. “I didn’t know it’d wind up like this.”
“Well, you should’ve,” Kairi retorted. “I mean, he’s all… Riku, you know? Mysterious. And he’s definitely grown up,” she added wickedly.
“Kairi!”
“What? I know you’ve noticed,” she grinned.
“Well, yeah,” he admitted. “I just don’t know what to do. He’s never mentioned wanting anything to change—”
“Because he’s not the one who suggested hiding your relationship, Sora. That was all you.”
“But that doesn’t mean—”
“It really does. Look, if you want something to change you’re going to have to say something.”
Sora groaned, head tipping back against the wall behind them.
Kairi’s gleeful expression softened into something more compassionate. “I guarantee you he wants to show you off just as much as you want everyone to know he’s taken. Just talk to him, okay? It’ll all work out just fine.”
“Maybe,” Sora responded. “Or maybe—”
“Nope!” Kairi grinned. “Keep going and I’ll have to make you regret it. And you don’t really want everyone to know a girl beat you up, right?”
They both laughed, but Sora was soon lost in thought about the problem at hand. How was he going to convince Riku, so reserved in his public life, that what they had was finally ready to stand the test of their school?
~*~*~*~
As it turned out, convincing wasn’t the problem. The problem was Sora’s impulse control, which admittedly had never been great.
In his defense, this time it was Selphie who had approached Riku. Despite the fact that she would have no real reason to, Sora couldn’t help feeling that she should know better. The fact that she was standing by Riku’s desk in the library, flipping her hair over her shoulder and giving him the most obnoxious giggle Sora had ever heard, made him want to climb Riku like a tree and physically put himself between the two of them. Preferably forever.
It wasn’t even like Riku was responding to her obvious advances. No, Riku was writing down something or other in a notebook before reaching back and tying his long hair out of his face. That had become a habit of his lately, and in private he had been complaining about his hair always getting in the way. Despite all of the trouble he said it gave him, he still hadn’t cut it, though, so hair ties would have to do.
Selphie reached out to tug the ends of his hair and Sora lost it, right then and there. Before he could consider what he was doing, he had marched right up to Riku.
Riku looked up at him and smiled. “Hey, So—”
But Riku couldn’t finish his greeting, because Sora had tugged his head back by the ponytail he was currently sporting and was now kissing him within an inch of his life, more passionately than he had even when they were alone.
When he pulled back Riku was flushed and his eyes were dazed. Right about then, Sora realized what he had done and he could feel his own face growing redder by the second. “I. Um.”
Before he could stammer out an explanation, they were interrupted by Kairi calling across the library. “I said talk to him, Sora, not kiss the living daylights out of him in public!”
Sora frowned as everyone started laughing, even though he could already tell that later he’d be thanking her for diffusing the awkwardness of the situation he’d created.
Finally Selphie spoke up again. “So, how long has this been going on?” she asked, clearly having decided that being rejected in such a way was fine if it meant she got a good piece of gossip out of it.
Riku smiled. “Depends on what you mean. We’ve been dating a couple months, but I’ve loved him our whole lives.”
And just like that, the jealous itch that had seemed to constantly accompany Sora throughout their recent school days melted away, replaced by the warm fuzzy feeling he’d come to associate with Riku in general and the belief that maybe everything would work out just fine even if he’d just successfully embarrassed himself in front of everyone.
~*~*~*~
Later that evening, Riku met him on the play island, hair pulled back to keep the sea breeze from tangling it. “So what was all that about earlier?”
Sora blushed. “I don’t know. I just saw her reach out to touch you, and…” Sora’s fist clenched at his side just remembering it.
Riku laughed. “So you decided that you were ready to tell everyone—in spectacular fashion, I might add—because you were jealous.”
Sora scuffed one foot against the sand. “I guess so, when you put it that way. Are you mad?”
“No,” the older boy responded. “I’ve been hoping you might decide you’re ready for a while now.”
Sora’s blush started to spread down his neck as Riku took both his hands. “Really?”
Riku nodded and stepped closer. “Really,” he responded, before leaning in and kissing Sora’s cheek. “Don’t get me wrong, you’re adorable when you’re jealous, but I’m glad I don’t have to hide this anymore.”
“It’s not my fault!” Sora protested. “She was all up in your space, and you know how I feel about your hair being tied back anyway.”
Riku groaned. “I don’t get why. I’ve been thinking about cutting it since we got back, it just gets in the way.”
“…How short are we talking?” Sora asked, carefully trying to act like the answer didn’t matter to him in the slightest.
Apparently he was just as bad an actor as ever, because Riku laughed again. “Not as short as you’re afraid of. But it’d be nice to have it off my shoulders again.”
“All right,” Sora relented, “as long as it’s still long enough that I can do this.” And without further ado he snapped the tie holding Riku’s hair back, fisting one hand in the long silver locks at the base of the taller boy’s neck and bringing him down into a kiss to silence the startled squawk Riku had made as his hair fell back into his face.
As Riku wrapped his arms around Sora’s waist, Sora smiled against his lips. Yes, he could definitely get used to having those strong arms around him more often without worrying about who was looking. It really was all for the best.