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It’s weird to have to buy actual food, not just ice cream, but he’s a somebody again, and somebodies have working stomachs. Suddenly, there are consequences for consuming nothing but sugar and salt, though the grocery bag weighing down his left hand does contain a massive sea-salt ice cream container. The right one has vegetables, fruits, breads—everything he needs to survive. He’s spent more munny in the last week than he did in his whole life as a Nobody, but then, that’s more due to rent than groceries.
He turns the corner, halfway home, when his internal ramblings are interrupted by an abrupt attack. It’s been ages since Heartless were actually sighted in town, but he still knows how to summon his keyblade. Then he realizes exactly what’s knocked into him. He recognizes the blond tuft glued to his right side and the black one on his left. Roxas and Xion both have their arms tight around him, crushing in so close that he has to hold his groceries way out to either side like some sort of scarecrow.
He waits for an explanation, even a greeting, but instead just gets squeezed like he’s got a Dusk’s internal organs. Meaning none. He has to be the one to ask, “What the heck are you two numbskulls doing now?”
“Hugging you,” Xion mumbles against his chest, the sound completely muffled.
Roxas squeezes a little harder and throws in, “Obviously.”
Lea would aggressively ruffle Roxas’ hair for that if he had any free hands. But he doesn’t, so he remains at their mercy. Xion finally looks up, chin digging into his breast, and explains, “Ienzo said we’ll probably start aging more noticeably now that we’re not Nobodies, which means we might get taller, and Roxas and I were just talking about how much taller you are now...”
“But I’m gonna get even bigger than you,” Roxas says with total confidence, which would break Lea’s heart, because Roxas is an adorable pipsqueak that should stay cute and small forever.
“And that’ll make our group hugs different,” Xion sighs. Her sweet face is full of regret for something that hasn’t even happened yet. Sometimes Lea can’t even believe the nonsense that goes on in their threeway best-friendship. “So... we just wanted to make sure we got lots of these kind of hugs while we can.”
To be perfectly fair, Lea can kind of understand a fear of anything changing. But he still snorts, “Pfft, you dorks—”
“Hey,” Roxas cuts in, casting Lea a fierce look. “We know it’s dorky, but you gotta memorize the good stuff, right?”
Lea... can’t really argue with that. He looks into Roxas’ heated stare, then Xion’s imploring plea, and something in him melts like a fresh ice cream stick faced with the blaring sunset.
He mumbles, “Yeah, okay,” and awkwardly hugs them back, grocery bags and all.