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One of Sora and Riku’s shared traits, is their tendency to rely on actions over words.
It’s allowed the two of them to reach a level of understanding where they don’t always need to speak in order to understand what the other is thinking, and while it has made their relationship an intimate one from the inside, Sora is beginning to understand why those on the outside don’t always get it like they do.
Riku never “confesses” in the traditional sense, but there is a moment when they are reunited, after Sora had been thought dead by plenty of others, and Riku had gone round the universe and back searching for him, where Sora finds Riku is running into his arms, wrapping both of his around Sora’s smaller frame and holding him closer than Sora’s ever been held before.
“I don’t know what I’d do if I ever lost you,” Riku whispers into Sora’s ear, and there are tears in his eyes that are a new sight for Sora’s eyes.
Sora doesn’t have the words, and Riku doesn’t use them, but Sora knows he’s never felt more loved than in that exact moment.
“I don’t know what I’d do if I lost you ,” Sora echoes, hands clinging to Riku’s clothing and hiding that he’s smiling into his shoulder. To anyone else, it wouldn’t be enough, but their hearts do all the talking, and they desperately hold each other, letting the ‘I love yous’ exist unspoken, warming the beating of their chests instead of their ears.
They get to skip holding hands for the first time, having done that a million times as kids, and it’s the easiest thing to get away with, without garnering much attention from any prying eyes. Without anyone to question it, it’s something Sora does at any given opportunity, or any moment he wants to bring Riku’s attention back to him in the few instances it wanders.
There’s an otherwise inconsequential lunch at the Bistro, where Riku has ordered for the both of them, and he looks so confident as he smiles at their waiter that Sora can’t hold in the parts of him that want so badly to remind himself that Riku is his, has always been his.
“Did you see the desserts menu?” Sora feigns, holding up the full menu between the two of them, and when Riku leans in, their faces both covered by the pages, Sora delivers both of their first kisses at once, rendering Riku silent and burning red as soon as the waiter returns with their food.
There’s otherwise no indication this is a date (but it is) except the way Sora insists on playing footsies under the table, but Sora finds all the satisfaction he needs in the way Riku can’t stop smiling for the rest of the meal, and Sora’s heart never stops jumping every time he steals a glance.
“I don’t get it,” Hayner tells Sora one day. His arm is dramatically draped around Roxas’ shoulders with Roxas leaning back against his chest, only a few scoots away from being in his lap. “I don’t think I’ve ever even seen you two kiss.”
“I’m fine with that,” Roxas chuckles, flipping a page in his magazine without looking up at either of them. “I don’t know if I want to see that.”
“Hey!” Sora laughs, exaggerating his hurt and throwing a pencil straight at Roxas’ face. It’s a direct hit, but all Roxas does is wrinkle his nose and ignore it. “We kiss plenty.”
“Oh yeah? Prove it,” Hayner challenges, shoving a handful of potato chips into his mouth and wiping the grease onto his shorts.
“That’s weird!” Sora interjects. “It’s not like you guys kiss on command either.”
“Why not?” Roxas shrugs, and leans his head back, lips ready and waiting for a kiss that Hayner then delivers without hesitation, and Sora shakes his head.
Being told when to kiss is weird, but for a second he hesitates, wondering if it’s weird of them after all, to show that kind of affection in public so rarely, and his eyes wander over to Riku, where he’s entertaining an impromptu skating lesson from Pence and Olette, who are cheering him on even more enthusiastically than Sora and Kairi would be. Maybe he can sneak one.
He hops up onto his feet, giving Roxas and Hayner a sideways smirk as he waves goodbye, and he takes Riku by the hand without a word, ignoring whatever protests Olette and Pence may have and pulling him off down one of Twilight Town’s side streets, where they walk peacefully with fingers laced.
“It’s nice that you don’t question me anymore,” Sora teases, swinging his and Riku’s hands between them with a bounce in his step. “But I was wondering…” Wondering why you don’t kiss me with an audience? It seems weird now that he tries to find the words for it.
He doesn’t have to consider them long though; his momentary silence just serves as an opportunity for Riku, who caresses Sora’s cheek with his hand and pulls him into a tender kiss that lingers until the wind blows his hair in his eyes. “What were you wondering?” Riku asks in earnest, and Sora’s smile grows, eyes almost disappearing even though they’re as open as far as he can make them while grinning this hard.
“Nothing,” he shakes his head. “Just wondering...how you got to be such a good kisser?”
Riku laughs and rewards him with another, slower and longer, and Sora thinks each of his private kisses has got to be worth a hundred public ones.
Riku would look good in a suit, Sora has decided.
Even though he’s never seen it, or even had a reason to, it’s all he’s been able to think about ever since he started watching a reality TV show about a ballroom dancing competition. It seems so difficult, to be that light on your feet, while memorizing such complicated choreography and looking elegant while doing it.
He’s never known what that’s like, to dance in a place so grand, dressed to the nines, but it does seem like there’s a certain intimacy to it even when these pairs are doing so for full audiences of people. On this episode in particular, the couples are waltzing, and Sora finds his feet following along almost naturally, even if he is clunky on his feet and nearly trips over the rug of his living room in the process.
His eyes close and he holds out his arms for his invisible partner, humming along to the music and shuffling across the floor in time with the dancers’ steps. It almost feels like he’s done this before somehow, maybe in a dream or another life, but Riku isn’t one to join in on these things and he can’t imagine he’s ever done so with anyone else.
He loses himself in visualizing it, how Riku might look in a tuxedo, dancing under the stars, how it might feel to scuff the floor with their fancy heeled shoes. His chest feels warm, and Sora thinks it must be fondness, but so do his hands, and he hears a quiet chuckle that breaks his trance.
“Mind if I cut in?” Riku teases, gesturing to the air between Sora’s arms as he slides into the space and wraps an arm around his waist.
Sora beams, surprised. “Riku!” he says instinctively as a reaction rather than an intended observation.
“You’re pretty good at this just from watching,” Riku comments, quickly finding the rhythm Sora had established with the music still playing in the background, gradually fading and dulling as Riku’s heartbeat sounds louder so close, and Sora closes his eyes again, resting his head on Riku’s shoulder.
“I think I’ve always wanted to do this,” Sora muffles into Riku’s casual jacket, his socked feet silent on the carpet as he threads fingers through one of Riku’s hands and wraps the other around him to press against his back. “You’re a natural too.”
“Guess I’m just swift on my feet,” Riku shrugs shyly, leading Sora in their dance as Sora’s smile grows and softens all at once.
The music soon ends, but the tune they’re following between them doesn’t, and their slow dance lasts several minutes past where one would typically end, until Sora steals a move he’s seen in movies, gripping Riku’s hand and flexing the arm around him so he can lower Riku into a dip, arrogant smirk prominent as they lock eyes.
Riku blushes bright red once they do despite the privacy, and Sora kisses him, thinking that getting to see Riku make these faces is way better than letting him hide them in front of everyone else.
More often than he’d like, Sora feels like the butt of the joke. Sure, he’s not the smartest guy in all the worlds, but he’s never thought himself a fool, and he allows his friends to tease him whenever they feel like - even when it stings.
Riku is among them in his own ways too, throwing out teasing jabs and jokes on occasion, but there’s also something so different about the way Riku does so.
For a long time Sora was unable to identify the difference. All he knew was that it doesn’t hurt when Riku teases him, and every laugh Riku sends his way makes Sora warm instead of icy; there’s no sense of shame or anger, and Sora never holds onto it later.
It isn’t until they start dating that Sora begins to understand the difference. Riku’s jest comes from love, from knowing Sora inside and out and finding joy and laughter in pointing it out to him, and Riku’s playful nature with him overrides any potential suggestion otherwise.
It’s only Riku, who always knows when Sora needs reassurance instead of a joke, when he needs a comforting hand instead of a jabbing elbow, and it’s only Riku who is only ever laughing with him, instead of at him.
Riku’s laughter is the greatest sound in the world, and Sora takes great pride in knowing he gets more of it than anyone else ever will.
Terra is the strongest person Sora knows, at least when it comes to pure physical muscle. He can’t imagine how many years and how many push-ups it took for him to get that bulky.
With his keyblade and magic, Sora once had a fighting chance against him, but when he watches Terra spar with Riku for both of their training, he knows that their pure strength has him beat.
Riku’s always been stronger than him that way, and it stopped bothering him long ago, but Terra has made him acutely aware that Sora may never make a challenging rival or opponent either, and that worries him in a different way - that Riku may be out of his league after all.
He doesn’t catch who wins their last spar of the session, having tuned out and taken to heart how equally matched they are, and how strong Riku has become, and he almost doesn’t notice when Riku takes a seat on the beach next to him, nudging Sora’s shoulder while Terra drifts further down the beach towards Aqua as he always does.
“Not the result you bet on?” Riku smirks, leaning against him. When Sora doesn’t respond, he even takes his hand, resting their clasped palms in the sand between them. It’s the most he’s usually prone to in front of prying eyes.
“Oh, the winner doesn’t matter,” Sora chuckles, and he leans lovingly against Riku’s arm, head resting on his shoulder.
“Yeah right,” Riku says with a ‘tsk,’ seeing right through him as he always does. “What are you thinking about so hard?”
Sora squeezes his hand. “Do you ever wish I was stronger? Y’know, like Terra is?”
“Like Terra?” Riku echoes, eyes darting to where the man in question has his back to them, keyblade resting in the sand while he more confidently has an arm wrapped around Aqua. “I wouldn’t ever compare you two in the first place, but you’re the strongest person I know. Your--”
“My heart, right?” Sora finishes for him. “Yeah… But you know that’s not what I mean. Would you like me more if I were stronger?”
Riku pauses, and to Sora’s surprise, he leans in, pressing a kiss to his forehead. The action itself isn’t one unfamiliar to him; Riku’s done so a thousand times by now, but never with other people in their eye line, and Sora throws a glance over Riku’s shoulder and back towards Riku with wide eyes and warm cheeks.
“I- Does that mean no?” Sora laughs.
Riku nods. “I might even like you less if you were stronger than me.”
“Less!” Sora exclaims, standing up onto his feet in protest, heart skipping a beat until Riku stands up next to him and he can see the way he’s grinning under his bangs. “Oh, ha- ha ,” he groans, rubbing his neck.
“I’m serious,” Riku beams, but his tone is as sarcastic as he can get, and Sora raises an eyebrow with a half-grin of his own. “If that happened, how else would I be able to do this?”
In a swift movement, Riku moves to seemingly tackle Sora, but instead of knocking him down he lifts him up, hoisting Sora over his shoulder and resting him there like a sack of potatoes. “Hey!” Sora hollers, but he’s laughing, reminded of how strong Riku really is and finding that this might really be easier than walking and perhaps he should let Riku do this more often.
“See?” Riku says arrogantly when Sora’s protests quiet and he seems to enjoy himself instead, kicking his feet absently and tracing shapes in the back of Riku’s shirt.
He’s not wrong, even if his point is barely concrete, and Sora is willing to give this round to him, watching absently as his friends get smaller and smaller in the distance. He waves at Terra and Aqua, who steals a kiss to Terra’s cheek when he turns to wave back, and Sora can’t help smiling fondly at them.
If Riku is destined to follow in Terra’s footsteps, than perhaps Sora can follow Aqua’s, and watching them, Sora gains new motivation.
“Hey Riku?” he says softly, a request instead of an exclamation.
“Hm?” Riku says, poking Sora in the side.
Sora smiles wide, even if Riku can’t see him, knowing he can feel it. “I love you.”
Riku stops dead in his tracks, releasing Sora from his arm’s grip and setting him down in the sand, eyes locking onto each other the second they meet. Riku’s heart is pounding, and Sora’s matches it. “You really do?”
Sora kicks his foot shyly and nods. It’s not a new feeling, but they’ve never said it out loud, despite how long it’s been since they’ve known it to be true. “I really, really love you.”
Riku stares for a moment, and his heart settles, his own smile forming just as he dives in, his hands holding Sora’s face in his hands and kissing him as attentively as he can while his own lips refuse to stop smiling. “I really, really love you too,” he repeats, and Sora jumps into his arms, wrapping his legs around Riku’s waist knowing Riku will hold him up without hesitation.
He does, of course, and it’s Sora’s turn to initiate a kiss, something he finds all too easy with Riku holding him up like this, and if it were up to him, he’d never stop. He does though, when Terra and Aqua make enough noise hooting and applauding them from down the beach, and their kiss breaks.
“Hey!” Sora yells to them, waving with one hand while the other grips Riku’s shoulder. “This is my boyfriend and he loves me and he’s kissing me !”
“Sora!” Riku objects, but he doesn’t try to stop him, still set on holding onto him as he has been, and only suffering a deep redness in his face.
“ See? ” He snarkily repeats Riku’s earlier jest. “Being caught isn’t so bad, is it?”
“If it means I get to feel like this all the time,” Riku sighs, palm flat against Sora’s cheek and his thumb stroking it as he brings their foreheads together. “I’m never hiding it again.”