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"You're not him," Sora says brightly. "Even if you started off the same, now you're just you!"
*** sighs. He tries not to think of himself as having a name anymore. It's easier that way. And he hadn't needed one before Sora yanked him from the place of sea and sky and down to this town, this safe harbour for the lost.
"You say that like it's a good thing." He tries to keep the bitter edge from his voice and mostly succeeds. Sora never leaves well enough alone. Or does he? He barely knows Sora anymore but even a few years older he's still achingly familiar.
"Well, isn't it?" Sora asks.
*** shakes his head and leans back against the brick of the alleyway, letting the dim light shade his face. Is that dramatic? Yes. Sora deserves no less, though.
"He gets my name, he gets my friends, he gets y--he gets...everything important," *** says. He doesn't resent Riku. This is just how things are. Rehashing it, laying it out for Sora, though, hurts.
"Riku..." The name on Sora's lips cuts at him deeper.
"It's okay," he stops Sora with a wince and an outstretched hand, the pain finally reaching his teal eyes. "You don't have to pretend. Our childhood together--it wasn't real; it's in my head, and it's in your head, but we still don't share it. I understand. I'm not Riku."
"If that's the name in your heart then that's your name. I'm not pretending," Sora insists.
*** laughs sadly at his once-best friend. Life is so simple to Sora. His brow is furrowed and his lips are forming a pout already in response to the slight huff of helpless amusement.
It's cute. *** wishes he...well, wishes Riku had ever admitted that, ever just caved in and kissed those soft lips. Told Sora he liked him just once. Then he could carry that memory still, since it was one he'd never have the chance to make now. And if Riku out there ever does--or already has--done so, *** will never know.
He doesn't get to share that song. He just has a grinding, scratchy excuse for a tune in his heart, like an old and broken music box, or one forgotten half of a duet. He'd heard the other half, in Riku's heart, along with a glimpse at everything his should have become. It was beautiful.
An empty spot inside him tugs hopelessly toward Sora, now, to the other half of that song. But his is a stuttering echo, not worthy of that brilliance.
"I have a lot of things in my heart that don't belong to me," he finally says.
Sora looks down, then, sorrow finally joining the storm in his eyes and forcing them away from eye contact; it's like he wants to argue but he hesitates and reaches out to touch instead, just a soft brush of fingers.
"What does it feel like?" Sora asks.
*** knows what Sora means without him elaborating, and even that understanding is stolen, he realises, as much as it feels like home.
"It's like the storm carried me away that night on the islands and I woke up in Castle Oblivion and made a promise to Naminé, not knowing how long it had been. Only to find out that somewhere out there was another me, living life and making different choices and learning lessons with my friend. With all my friends. And making new ones. Growing up together. Becoming heroes."
"I'm sorry." The apology is immediate and *** blinks. Of course Sora is sorry. He's such a sap. They both are, aren't they.
Shrugging, *** continues, "My memories don't feel fake. They never have. Even though I know it, they're all I'm made up of. Every promise still burns inside."
Sora smiles at that, and the sight stops his heart. As always.
Once, that smile was his world. Now he guesses he trusts that to Riku, along with everything else.
"Like your promise to Naminé!"
He manages not to laugh. It's almost too sad to laugh, but he's about run out of sadness, too. Just determination and numbness.
"...yeah," his eyes linger on Sora's necklace. "Naminé."
Sora senses the mood shift but doesn't do more than fall quiet, clearly not understanding. They stand in silence a moment before Sora, inevitably, speaks again.
"So you really won't come back?"
"Like I told Riku: the worlds already have him." He smiles fondly at that. Riku has been through more and grown through more than *** has. He's proven himself. He deserves the name, and everything else. "He's willing to sacrifice himself a hundred times for those he cares about. I'm the same way. Even for him. I--"
"And I never let him do it!" Sora interrupts him, scowling now. The storm flaring up again in that blue sky. "I always bring him back from that edge! Why would you be any different?"
*** isn't taken aback by this. But he finally caves in and pushes off the wall to step toward Sora. He sighs and taps at Sora's chest.
"You don't feel me here, do you." It's not a question.
But Sora grabs his hand before he can pull it away and traps it, pressing it flat against him with his own on top of it. He can feel Sora's heartbeat under the rough fabric of the shirt, can feel the soft warmth of Sora's palm. They've done this before. It's just how he remembers.
He can also feel his face heat slightly but he can't pull himself away from Sora's intense gaze, now a little too close.
"Why?" Sora asks, suddenly cryptic. "Do you not feel me in yours?"
“I--I--” he stutters. Sora's the only one who can do this to him.
“Because I have this...this jagged edge,” Sora says softly, almost to himself, like he’s trying to figure something out, “and something that’s just barely hanging on by a thread. That’s the thread I followed to find you.”
*** blinks in surprise. He hadn’t wondered how Sora had found him. For all he knew, Sora had just wandered in and *** was the first one he saw. That sort of thing happened to Sora all the time.
“You know I do. I never stopped feeling you, even when I wanted to. Any version of me, in any lifetime can feel you.” Sora blushes but *** ignores him and presses on. “But you don’t even remember me from the Castle. How can you feel me?”
“I have echoes,” Sora admits. “We were allies. You were brave. But I also remember you from growing up with you.” And there Sora laughs. “Just because there’s another Riku out there that I know now doesn’t mean that I didn’t grow up with you, too. And I’ve heard all about you since, from Namine, from Riku. Even so, I don’t have to remember everything to know you in my heart.”
“It’s not that simple, Sora,” *** protests.
“Sure it is!” Sora finally lets his hand go, only to grab it again in both of his, holding tight. They’re the same height now, which is a little disconcerting and not fair at all, but Sora still gives the impression he’s looking up at *** somehow. It’s sweet. “Do you really not want to be called Riku anymore?”
The question isn’t what he was expecting and it throws *** off. “Uh.”
“Whatever name you want is fine by me. You’re still you. But is it okay if I call you Rii for a sec?”
“You haven’t used that nickname for me since we were kids,” Rii says, smiling in spite of himself. And then he knows it’s already stuck. He can feel it creeping into his head, branded across his heart in Sora’s voice. Sora’s just like that. “Sure,” he concedes.
Sora shines the entire sun at Rii, then, with the smile that splits his face. He clutches Rii’s hand tighter and beams at him.
“I’ve missed you, Rii,” Sora says earnestly, and somehow he really means it. “I know you missed me. We can catch up. We can still grow up together. You, me and Riku. I know he misses you, too. And Kairi and Namine, and everybody else!”
“I…” for the first time, it’s tempting enough to consider. Rii feels selfish for it, but maybe...maybe that’s okay. The second he admits he wants it, the loneliness he’d been staving off for so long crashes into him like a punch to the gut.
To be with friends, again. To be able to say he has friends. To be with Sora, who he can never stop missing. To be less concerned with his origins and more concerned with the present, and the future. Things he hasn’t allowed himself to wish since the days in life he’d never really lived in the first place. If it’s Sora, maybe it can work; he has a kind of magic about him, and things just do.
Sora notices the change in Rii’s face and, moving on instinct, drops his hand to pull him into a tight hug.
Warmth envelops Rii as Sora’s lithe arms come around him and he pauses only a second before he hugs his friend back. It’s the least of his indulgences today and it feels like an anchor against the swirling sea of emotion.
Familiar, warm, home. Laced around the edges with butterflies and confusion and a vague but intense desire to protect. Possibilities and futures. Just like when they were kids.
The small tug on his heart becomes a firmer, insistent pull, and accompanying it is a twinge of doubt. Rii tries to pull back but Sora holds on tight.
“Sora, wait. There’s a song, though” he starts, suddenly almost frantic to get the words out before he falls any further into this.
“You’re so dumb, Rii,” Sora says affectionately, snorting a soft laugh into his ear. “You think there’s only one song in all the worlds? Only one version of one song you can play with one person?"
Rii blinks rapidly and buries his face further in Sora’s shoulder, relaxing back into the hug to hide the dampness pricking at his eyes. He had. “I--I guess not.”
As Sora takes him--unnecessarily--by the hand, like he might otherwise run off, and summons his keyblade to make a new portal away from Traverse Town, a few soft notes play in the space between their heartbeats.
Something new, but something familiar, too. Just like them.