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Riku finds Sora on the pier.
It’s not an entirely surprising occurrence these days. Sora came back from death rattled and shaky, and even after Riku brought him home to the islands he’s still nervous, hovering around their old home like a frightened ghost. Lately, Riku wakes in the dead of night to a short text asking him to trek to some quiet corner of the island where he always, always finds Sora huddled into himself, his expression tight and pensive. Riku woke up to find that tonight’s text had simply read “come sit with me?” and nothing else, leaving Riku to haul himself out of bed and search for Sora using only the humming line of their newly reforged dream eater link to guide him.
Of all the times he’s had to find Sora, Riku thinks this one was the easiest.
As Riku walks down the pier, footsteps naturally quiet in the hush of night, he hears the lilting notes of a ukulele filter through the air. This, strangely, is a surprising occurrence, and Riku can’t help the way his feet falter at the rush of emotion the simple strummed chords evoke in him. There’s a figure sitting at the end of the pier, swaying side to side in time with the ukulele melody, and the sight of Sora, because it is him, so small yet so Sora has Riku choked up as he reaches the edge of the walkway.
Sora doesn’t react when Riku slides down to sit beside him, both of their legs dangling off the pier with Sora gently kicking his back and forth. A quick glance to Sora’s face shows that he’s lost in his music, eyes slipped shut and the ghost of a smile on his lips. If Riku listens, really leans in and pays attention, he can hear a faint hum harmonizing with the chords and plucked notes dancing from Sora’s fingers. It all comes together to paint a familiar picture that Riku sorely has missed. Sora hadn’t touched his ukulele since they’d both returned to the islands, and while Riku hadn’t mentioned it, something about seeing Sora avoid one of his favorite passions had neatly gutted him. Riku knew Sora was hurting, a little broken from all the events of the past year that he had only just begun to open up to Riku about, but seeing the way his boyfriend almost wilted when confronted with fragments of his old life drove a knife clean into Riku’s heart.
But now, here was Sora, playing a tune Riku hadn’t heard before but that he could feel the fragile hope radiating from. It wasn’t quite the buoyant energy Sora had once played with, but it was a start, a beginning in a long journey of healing.
Long moments pass as Sora brings the song to a gentle swell, suspending a chord at the height of the piece before calmly bringing it all back down softly, softly to an end. Riku watches the low waves lap against the pier’s support beams, dark in the moonless night, as the last notes fade into the still air around them. There’s a beat, a breath, and Riku turns to look at Sora at the same moment that Sora turns to look at him. When their gazes lock, Riku’s heart twinges as he notices that Sora’s eyes look glossy, but there’s a small and real smile on his face that tells Riku that maybe, just maybe, things are alright tonight.
“Hey,” Sora whispers, his voice raw and raspy with so much emotion that Riku can feel it coating his own throat as he moves to speak.
“Hey yourself,” Riku whispers back. He holds an arm out beside him, gratified when Sora instantly wiggles closer and tucks himself under Riku’s arm, the ukulele carefully shifted to the side of his lap for safety. He feels Sora’s nose nuzzling his shoulder, the easy affection yet another piece of Sora that Riku had been missing, and it fills him with such deep, soothing warmth that he has to press a kiss to the crown of Sora’s head. “What were you playing?” Riku asks, turning his head to lay his cheek against Sora’s hair.
Sora hums, nuzzling into Riku again before shifting his head so he can speak and be heard. “Just something I made up,” he replies. “I dunno, it just wouldn’t get out of my head, and I couldn’t sleep so-” he trails off, sighing deeply and - maybe even contentedly - as he rests more of his weight against Riku.
It’s Riku’s turn to hum, allowing a comfortable silence to settle between them as he trails his fingers up and down Sora’s arm. Most of their nights have gone like this lately, curled together in the quiet night, but Riku can tell something in the air tonight is different. Gone is the crushing weight of sadness that normally hung around them, replaced instead by something light and hopeful, if still melancholy. It’s not a complete turnaround, Sora isn’t fully healed and Riku doesn’t expect him to be anytime soon, but it’s a start.
Riku will take a start.
Sora wiggles again, turning just enough that he can pull his instrument back into his lap while still cuddling into Riku’s side. Quietly, he starts to idly pluck at the strings again, starting anew on the song he’d been playing when Riku arrived. The music fills the air with tender sweetness, blanketing the two of them in serene warmth and comfort, and Riku realizes with drowsy thoughts that Sora will be okay.
Both of them will be.