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There were few pleasures in life, Kairi felt, that could compare to the joy of Sora and Riku being home at last.
It had been a couple of weeks since Sora and Riku had returned to her – returned to the Destiny Islands, that is. Mickey, Donald, and Goofy had taken their gummi ship home after assuring themselves that Sora and Riku were okay. Donald had gruffly elicited a promise from Kairi to keep an eye on both of them, which she had given freely. There was nothing he could have done to prevent her from watching over them at that point.
She was sick and tired of them disappearing on her.
Life on the Islands was slowly returning to normal. Sora’s mother was overjoyed to see them home, and, surprisingly to Riku, his uncle was just as happy to have Riku return. Something had happened between them, Kairi was sure, though she didn’t know what. But if Riku was happy, well, that was good enough for her.
Kairi, meanwhile, was just as happy to have both her best friends home, safe and sound. It was past sundown, and she’d spent the whole day with them, reminiscing and catching up. Sora had regaled them with tales about the worlds he’d been to, and Riku had carefully avoided giving too many details about what he’d been doing while Sora was asleep. That was something they’d probably have to pry out of him at some point; right now all they had was the sense that he wasn’t proud of the things he’d done.
But there was time for that later. Right now, Kairi was luxuriating in the glow of having her boys back. Not that… she had any particular claim on them, of course.
They were just friends.
Kairi pursed her lips. Why… exactly was she thinking like that? She’d known Sora and Riku for as long as she could remember. They’d been apart for a while, sure, but it wasn’t like anything had changed in any huge ways.
Except…
She couldn’t help but notice things. Small things. Riku had always been taller than the two of them, but before they’d lost him, he’d been built like a twig. Now, though… he’d filled out. Especially his arms.
Light, especially his arms.
Kairi shook herself. That didn’t mean anything; Sora seemed just as fascinated by them, judging by how many times he’d tried to egg Riku into flexing.
Sora, though.
Sora, the bum, was taller than her now. She was now, after years of intermittent growth spurts putting one over the other, officially shorter than Sora. And, obviously, shorter than Riku. It wasn’t fair that they could both look down at her now.
Somewhere in the back of her head Kairi wondered why she quite enjoyed the thought of both of them looking at her.
It wasn’t just Sora’s height that had changed, either. His voice had gotten deeper. There was still a boyish charm to it, but she couldn’t deny that she quite liked the way he sounded now. Plus, he still pouted in exactly the same way.
Riku’s voice hadn’t changed, but there was a softer quality to his voice now. It matched his personality, Kairi figured. She had a pretty good idea of what had happened to him; Riku had been so sure that he was doing the right thing, that what he was doing would help her, Kairi – and he’d ultimately been wrong, and caused more harm than good. Anyone would be shaken after that. And Riku was no exception. There were times when she just wanted to hug him, pat his head, and tell him that he was a good boy. Because he was, no matter what he believed about himself.
Sora, on the other hand, was the same as ever. Still just as exuberant, still just as happy to be alive. He’d been through a lot, but he repeated time and again, all he really cared about was the fact that he’d finally been reunited with herself and Riku. The three of them, together once more, and hopefully, never to be separated again. For completely opposite reasons, she also wanted to tell Sora he was a good boy. Although she’d likely have an easier time convincing him of the fact than she would convincing Riku of his “good boy” status.
Kairi sighed, happily, lying back on her bed with a huge smile on her face. She was, in truth, just as happy as Sora was to be reunited with her friends.
She loved them both so much.
Kairi’s smile froze on her face.
What had she just thought?
She sat up, frowning. “I… love them both,” she said, out loud. Of course she did, they were her best friends that weren’t Selphie. And she loved a lot of people, like her dad, and Selphie, and Tidus and Wakka, and her other friends at school, and Sora’s mother, but…
“I love Sora and Riku.” It sounded right. And that was weird.
Kairi got off the bed and walked over to the mirror sitting over her desk. She looked deep into her own eyes. “Kairi,” she said to herself, “are we in love with Sora and Riku?”
For a second, she thought she saw her face flicker like a skipped frame in a movie. Her purple eyes turned blue, her auburn hair turned blonde. “Naminé?” she gasped, but by the time she opened her mouth to speak, the other girl was gone.
“Huh,” Kairi muttered to herself, and placed a hand over her heart. Someday, she promised the other heart she was sure was hidden somewhere in her own. Someday, they’d find a way to make things right for Naminé, and for Roxas.
But her attention right now had to be focused on the problem in front of her. She took a deep breath. “I love Sora and Riku,” she said, and watched her own face.
She looked, and saw the truth of her words.
And, she had to admit, it made sense. Being separated from them was the worst experience she could remember. It didn’t help that she had been quite literally unable to remember Sora for a year’s worth of it, to say nothing of her experiences from within his heart. Watching the two of them fight had nearly broken her, even if Riku hadn’t been fully in control of himself by that point.
“I love Sora and Riku,” she repeated, and slumped forwards on her hands. Great. Now what was she supposed to do about this? It would be hard enough telling just one of them she liked them, but both?
She let her face slide out of her hand to land forehead-first on the desk itself.
“Oh, fuck me.”
“Hey Dad? I’ve got a question for you.”
Kairi’s father looked up from his breakfast. Kairi had decided to sleep on it, and had woken up certain of one thing: that she needed advice. Her father was unmarried, but she’d heard stories from when he was her age, long before he became the mayor, and was pretty sure he’d be able to give her an answer.
“Sure, Kairi. What is it?” he replied.
Kairi bit her lip. “If, hypothetically… there was a guy I liked… then, hypothetically, how would I go about telling him that?”
Her father raised an eyebrow. He was a large man, much taller than Kairi was, and he was always, by default, the person tapped to dress up as Santa Claus for the little kids. He wasn’t a fan of the fake beard or the wig, but he had the “bowl-full-of-jelly” aspect down pat. “If, hypothetically, there was a guy you liked?” he asked.
Kairi busied herself with retrieving the cereal box and a bowl in order to avoid his gaze. “I mean… I know you have experience in the area,” she said, casually.
Her dad laughed. “I’m a little out of practice, Kai,” he said.
“Still,” she said, “I value your input.”
“That so?” he asked, teasing. “Well then, purple is definitely more your colour than–”
“Dad,” Kairi interrupted, sticking her tongue out at him. “I like pink. And we were talking about boys.”
Her dad sipped his coffee. “Right, right,” he said. “Would that be one boy or two boys? Hypothetically speaking.”
Kairi froze. She dared glance up from her cereal to see her father smirking at her from behind the rim of his mug. “It might potentially be more than one boy. Hypothetically speaking,” she muttered.
This, in itself, was not an uncommon arrangement on the Destiny Islands. It wasn’t the number of potential partners that had Kairi skittish to talk about it. It was more that she’d never expressed an interest in dating in front of her father before, and wasn’t sure how he was going to react.
“If, hypothetically speaking, it was two boys, would their names hypothetically rhyme with ‘Yozora’ and ‘Miku’?” her dad asked, casually.
Kairi inhaled her milk. After she recovered from the coughing fit, she drained the rest of the milk from the bowl and put it down, resting her chin in her palm and pretending she wasn’t bright red. “Whatever would give you that impression?” she asked,
Her dad’s eyebrow quirked. “Kairi… the fact that I live with you,” he said. “It’s been kind of obvious that you had a thing for both of them since you were six.”
Kairi’s hand slid around her face to cover her eyes. “So, are we still talking about hypotheticals, or…?” her dad asked, amused.
“No, no I think we can be done with the hypotheticals,” Kairi said, groaning. “Is it really that bad?”
“Bad?” her dad asked. “No, it was actually really cute. And at least I know Sora and Riku would treat you right. If my opinion was what you were worried about.”
“Daaaaaad,” she moaned. He chuckled to himself and took another sip of his coffee.
“We’re back at my original question,” Kairi said eventually, after taking a minute to compose herself. “How do I tell Sora and Riku that I like them?” She frowned. “Wait, if it’s been obvious that I liked them since I was six, maybe they already know?”
She made eye contact with her father across the table, and a certainty passed between father and daughter who had known both Sora and Riku since they were very young children.
“…yeah, okay, fair point,” Kairi muttered. “So what do I do?”
“Kairi,” her father said, “I’m going to level with you.”
“Dad, please don’t use the ‘public service announcement’ voice,” Kairi moaned.
“Hey, I’m hip and cool,” her dad said, smirking.
Kairi rolled her eyes. “Dad, saying things are ‘hip’ was outdated when you were my age!”
“And yet,” her dad said, laughter in his eyes, as Kairi slumped to the table in secondhand embarrassment.
“Like I was saying,” he continued, “has it occurred to you that you could simply talk to them about it?”
Kairi sat back up, ramrod straight. “What? Don’t be ridiculous, I can’t–”
“Why not?” There was a wide smile on his face due to the look on hers, and Kairi did not appreciate it. “What are you worried about?”
“Them not… feeling the same way,” Kairi mumbled.
“Well, there’s not much you can do to control that,” her dad said. “And yes, I’m not going to pretend that it won’t hurt if that is the case. But, I don’t think it is the case. And in the extremely unlikely event that they don’t return your feelings, you know what will happen?”
“I’ll die friendless and alone having never found love?” Kairi muttered.
“No,” her father said, “We’ll get a huge tub of ice cream and invite Selphie over for a movie marathon.” He leaned over and put a hand on her shoulder. “It won’t be the end of the world, I promise.”
Kairi sighed. “Well, I guess if you promise,” she mumbled. “Talk to them, huh?”
“It’s really that easy,” her dad offered. She gave him a look that said he should know full well there was nothing “easy” about it, and he replied with silent acknowledgement and a teasing grin.
“Thanks, Dad,” Kairi said, and patted his hand on her shoulder. “Talking to you helped.”
“Glad to be of assistance, sweetheart,” he replied.
Kairi smirked, having regained her mental footing. “Lucky for you it was boys, huh? You wouldn’t be able to speak from experience if it was girls.”
Her father arched an eyebrow. “If it had been girls, my advice would have been the same.”
Kairi snickered. “Yeah, but it’s a moot point anyways. Besides, I don’t even like girls like that.” She took a sip from her own mug of coffee and by doing so completely missed the incredulous look that flew over her father’s face.
Boys, Kairi had decided, were really dumb.
She had tried, was the thing. She had tried to tell Sora and Riku how she felt, later that same day. But every time she worked up the courage to say the words, to show them her heart, either Sora would grin, or Riku would smirk, and she’d feel that heart turning into a mushy, goopy mess in her chest.
It wasn’t fair. How dare they be this cute? How dare.
It wasn’t fair.
And they weren’t even doing it on purpose! Nothing had changed since yesterday! The only thing that was different was…
Was that now Kairi was aware of how she felt about them. Was aware of them in a visceral way she hadn’t been before.
Stupid dumb jerks.
What business did either of them have being so cute and attractive?
Trying to charge directly into the problem wasn’t working. If she were Sora, she’d probably back off, practice for several hours to improve her performance, then come back later. If she were Riku, she’d probably run off and try to step aside to allow the other two to express their feelings for one another. Without ever addressing her own.
Kairi, however, preferred a more strategic approach. The easiest thing to do, she decided, was to divide and conquer. And given Riku’s known proclivities, the best place to start would be to gather another ally.
Which is why she was currently sitting with Sora on the far side of the play island, where they had once tried to build a raft.
Riku had been with them, but he’d remembered that his uncle had asked him to come home early to help in the garden while there was still light. So her being alone with Sora wasn’t suspicious to either of them; and Kairi absolutely didn’t want Riku to think she was “choosing” Sora.
If, indeed, Riku liked her.
She was a positive thinker.
She was trying to figure out what exactly to say to the boy next to her when Sora said, out of the blue, “I heard Selphie has a new boyfriend again.”
“Oh, really?” Kairi asked, at once irritated and relieved for the distraction. “Again? Think this one will last longer than the last one?”
Sora shrugged. “No idea. What was the record again?”
“Her third girlfriend lasted three weeks,” Kairi recalled. “The real question is, how long do you think it’s going to take her to figure out she’s not interested in romance?”
Sora blinked. “She’s not?”
Kairi shook her head. “I don’t think she ever was.”
Sora was frowning. “But… if she’s not, why does she keep trying to find it?”
Kairi snickered. “I don’t think it’s the romantic aspect that she’s interested in, Sora.”
“Oh,” Sora said, and then a couple of seconds later, “Oh.” He reddened, and it was adorable.
“So, um…” Kairi said, trying not to panic over what she was about to say, “What do you think?”
“What do I think? About what?”
“You know,” Kairi said, and she was pretty sure her face was bright red. Sora was looking at her like it was. “About…”
“About Selphie?” Sora asked, still frowning. “Or, do you mean, about romance and… s-stuff like that?” At least he was bright red, too, there was solidarity in that.
“Let’s, um, start with romance,” Kairi said. “Have you ever had… someone you were interested in?”
“…yeah, a little,” Sora said. “You?”
“…yeah,” Kairi echoed. “A bit more than a little.” She took a deep breath.
“Riku likes you,” Sora blurted before she could get the words out.
Her heart leapt, but she had her suspicions about why Sora was bringing it up. “Really? Well, that’s good,” she said, “because I like Riku… and I like you, too, Sora.” There. It was out.
She was going to die of embarrassment, but it was out.
Sora looked like she’d just hit him in the face with a frying pan, but it was out.
“And, um… I think Riku likes you, too,” she added, hurriedly. Sora was still frozen in shock. “So… um… how do… you… feel?”
“I… I…” Sora stammered. He pinched his eyes shut, and took a deep breath. If Kairi hadn’t been so distracted, she would have found it adorable. “I like… you, too…” he whispered.
At once, all the worry, fear, and concern melted away, and Kairi grinned, broadly. “Really?”
Sora nodded, more confident now that she looked so happy. “Really really. I li…” he swallowed. “… I love you, Kairi.”
Kairi, she was pretty sure, had died in this instant. There was no way things could be going this right. She smiled. “…I love you, too, Sora.”
They sat there for a bit, both reeling from the revelation. Kairi was the first to recover. “So, um… Like I said, I like Riku, too. Do… you…?”
“Yeah,” Sora said, easing her last concern. “I like him, too. The same way.”
Kairi breathed a sigh of relief. “Well, that’s good. It wouldn’t feel right without him.”
Sora shook his head. “No, it wouldn’t.” He took a breath, and got to his feet, holding a hand back for her. “Come on!”
“Come on?” she asked, letting him pull her to her feet. “What d’you mean?”
“We gotta tell Riku how we feel about him!” Sora said, beaming with that stupidly cute smile again.
“Hold on, Sora,” Kairi said. “If we go to Riku and tell him that we like each other and also him, what do you think is going to happen?”
Sora opened his mouth to respond, confident, then frowned, reconsidering his answer. “Oh… yeah. It’s Riku. He’s probably going to panic, and think we’re just humouring him, or something. Good point.”
Kairi nodded. “If we don’t have a plan to counteract his Riku-instincts, we’re sunk.”
“Well, now we’re together in this!” Sora said, smiling again. “I’m sure we’ll figure something out between the two of us!”
Kairi grinned. “Right!”
Both of them became abruptly aware that Sora hadn’t let go of Kairi’s hand yet. Their eyes flashed to the point of contact, then back to each other’s faces. Both blushed.
Slowly, Sora shifted his fingers so that hers and his were intertwined. “This okay?” he asked, softly.
Kairi nodded. “This is wonderful,” she said, smiling, and Sora’s face got even redder.
He cleared his throat. “We, uh, we probably shouldn’t do stuff like this around Riku.”
“Yeah,” Kairi said, although she could see the disappointment in his face and it matched her own. “We don’t wanna spook him.”
Reluctantly, they let go. “It’s getting late,” Kairi said. “Let’s get together again soon and figure out how to tackle him.”
“Right,” Sora said, nodding. His face scrunched up. “Man, I wish there was a way we could send each other messages just between the two of us. Like, a portable phone, or something.”
“Yeah, that’d be really convenient,” Kairi agreed. She had the sudden urge to kiss him goodbye, and also a simultaneous spike of embarrassment about it, so she settled for punching him lightly in the shoulder. “…Love you, Sora,” she mumbled.
Sora, rubbing his sore shoulder, beamed. “Love you, too, Kairi!”
Sora took a deep breath. He was bad at lying. He knew he was bad at lying.
Unfortunately, his mom also knew he was bad at lying.
Which made it awkward to try to keep secrets from her.
But he had a plan. He’d met Tidus on the way back from his talk with Kairi, and had begged him for help. Tidus had volunteered his services, always ready to help a friend, and had also promised not to say anything about Sora and Kairi to Riku or to anyone else.
Sora figured Wakka would know by the end of the week, but hopefully the older boy would be able to exercise some impulse control over Tidus.
“Hey mom!” he said, walking into the kitchen. His mother looked up from her evening tea and smiled.
“Welcome home, Sora,” she said. He smiled back, still riding the high of finally being home.
At least until he remembered what he was about to do.
He needed advice on how he and Kairi should confront Riku about their feelings for him. But he wasn’t sure how his mother would react if he said that he was trying to take things with Kairi and Riku to an even higher level.
That was where Tidus came in.
“Mom, I need advice on something; well, Tidus does and I don’t know what to tell him,” Sora said.
“Oh? What’s up?” his mother asked.
“Well… there’s this girl he likes, right? And he wants to tell her how he feels, but he doesn’t know how to,” Sora explained. “So he asked me if I had any idea what to do, and I didn’t know what to tell him.” And here was the beauty of it: None of that was a lie.
Well. Sora didn’t know if Tidus actually had a crush on someone. But the rest of it, Tidus had asked him.
The fact that Sora had asked Tidus to ask him all that wasn’t relevant.
It wasn’t lying, Sora reasoned, if it was true.
“I see,” his mother said, tapping her finger against her mug. “Do I know this girl?”
“I don’t think so,” Sora said, with sudden internal panic. His mother, of course, knew everyone on the Islands around Sora’s own age, since her son had such a habit of befriending everyone he came across. “She’s from a different island.”
“Does she have a name?” his mother asked.
“Yuna,” Sora blurted, on instinct.
Several worlds away, a fairy sneezed.
“Hmm,” his mother said. Sora was still trying not to visibly panic. “Well, tell me about this Yuna. Have you ever met her?”
“W-well,” Sora stammered. “She… uh… He’s pretty sure she likes him back, but he doesn’t know for sure, and he’s worried that she might try to avoid the question if he confronts her about it. She… kind of has a history of… putting aside how she’s feeling if she thinks she doesn’t deserve something. And literally running away, sometimes. He just wants her to know she’s loved – that he loves her. No matter what’s happened between them.”
His mother gazed at him for several long moments, and Sora prayed that his face was betraying nothing untoward. “Okay,” she said eventually. “If that’s the case, then does Tidus know what’s making her afraid? Why she’d be running away from a potential relationship?”
“I think… concern over things that she did in the past. That she’s made up for, but she’s afraid that she’ll… mess up again. Even when he knows she won’t,” Sora said.
His mother was nodding. “Well, in that case, he should probably let her go at her own pace. If she’s having trouble recognizing that she’s moved past her previous mistakes, then maybe she needs to deal with that before engaging in a relationship.”
That was very sensible, and also not the answer Sora wanted. “She is moving past it, mom, and she’s come a long way. A-and Tidus has been good for her, with that. She’s said so, and I’ve seen a difference.”
“So you’ve met her, too?” his mother questioned.
“Yeah, when I was away,” Sora said, with confidence since he had met a Yuna on his travels.
His mother accepted this without comment, nodding to herself. “His problem is really just… he’s worried she might not accept that she’s loved,” Sora said.
“I see.” His mother sipped her tea. “In that case… He should just be honest with her, and tell her how he feels.”
Sora frowned. “But… that’s…”
“And,” she added, “he needs to be prepared to back down if she says she’s not ready. Or, even move on if need be. If what you think about them is true, that probably won’t happen, but if she’s not ready, she’s not ready, and no amount of wanting someone else will change that. Does that make sense to you, honey?”
Sora sighed. “Yeah, it does. Thanks, mom.”
She smiled at him. “Anytime.”
There was an obvious logical problem in his story. How exactly had Tidus and Sora both met someone that was from one of the islands that Sora had visited while he was away? However, his mother had elected to leave the question alone for now. Whatever this was actually about, she was confident he’d confide in her when he was ready.
“Oh, one other thing,” his mother said.
Sora jerked up from his thoughts. “Huh? What’s up, mom?”
She leaned over to the fridge and pulled open the ice box. “I don’t suppose you know who keeps eating all my sea-salt ice cream? I could’ve sworn I had more than this.”
The moon shone brightly down over the garden, and almost reflected on Riku’s silver hair. He looked up towards the brilliance, taking in both the moon and the stars surrounding it – the stars he now knew, for a fact, were each their own worlds.
“Sora and Kairi were right all along,” he murmured to himself with a half-smile. “Even in the darkness, there’s still light.”
And, he supposed, that was true of himself as well.
They’d forgiven him.
Everything he’d done, they’d forgiven him. Even if he was sure they didn’t fully understand the things he’d done. They’d still forgiven him.
And the funny thing was, they were making him feel like he deserved it.
Riku had had a lot of time to think during his year apart from both of them, but he’d done his best not to. Singular focus on his goal of reviving Sora had been all that drove him forwards; drove him forwards and kept him willingly blind to the effects his actions were having, on Roxas, on Naminé, and on… on…
Riku shook his head, not sure where that train of thought was supposed to be going.
Regardless, after what had happened between him and Sora while Kairi’s heart was missing, he hadn’t been in a very introspective mood. Or, rather, his introspection had all been in terms of how badly he’d messed up, and how horrible he was for it.
And then, two bright lights in the darkness. Sora, and Kairi. They could recognize him anywhere, no matter how far he thought he’d fallen. They’d found him in the dark, and brought him back. To himself, and to them.
It was only now, after the fact, that he could admit he had been… jealous. Of Sora, because of the attention Kairi paid him. But also… of Kairi. Because of the attention Sora paid her.
Suffice to say, he was (somewhat guiltily, given the circumstances) enjoying having both of them focusing on him.
He did love the attention.
In fact, he loved –
Riku froze in place, still staring up at the moon and stars, his eyes widening.
“Oh no.”
Why did he have to make everything so complicated?
Riku slowly sat down on the ground, and hung his head in his hands. To be honest… he wasn’t even that surprised at himself. It explained the jealousy, at least. But how in the worlds was he supposed to tell both Sora and Kairi that he liked them both? Bad enough if he’d just had feelings for one of them, but both? The odds of them both liking him back were…
Riku sighed. “Come on, you’re smarter than this. Just because they’re both adorable, and both wonderful, and both did a lot of… growing up… over the past… year…” his voice got smaller and quieter as he continued the sentence, and he pushed the palms of his hands into his eyes while he waited for the blush to subside.
There was no point in denying it.
He was attracted to Sora and Kairi.
He liked Sora and Kairi.
And things had been going so well, too.
Riku sighed again, and shook himself. This was exactly the problem he’d been having. If he started turning this over and over in his head again, he wouldn’t get anywhere with it. He needed to talk to someone else.
But who?
Usually it would be Sora, Kairi, or both, but Riku figured he’d run out his allotment of mistakes for the year. Sora’s mother had, since Riku was very young, always been firm in the idea that he could talk to her if he ever needed anything, but “I want to smooch your son and also Kairi” wasn’t something he really wanted to talk to her about. Selphie was an option, but he already knew her advice would be “go for it”, and he was trying not to jump in feet first and mess everything up. That left…
Riku jerked his head up from his hands. There was one option, who would absolutely have advice for him.
The availability was just new, was all.
When he and Sora had finally returned to the Islands after fighting Xemnas, Riku had still had a ways to go to actually get “home”. Sora and Kairi had both offered to let Riku stay with them until he was certain of the situation, but he’d declined. This was something he had to do sooner rather than later.
Things hadn’t exactly been… warm, he’d say, between himself and his uncle before they’d left. Now, a year later, Riku wasn’t expecting to be welcomed back with opened arms.
Which is why it was such a shock, when he walked down the lane towards their large house, to see his uncle freeze in place in a garden that hadn’t been nearly as well-maintained previously, and run to embrace Riku as if he hadn’t seen him in… well, in a year.
“Um?” was all Riku managed to get out.
His uncle promptly let go of the hug and stepped back, awkwardly. “Riku, you’re… home,” he said.
“Yeah, yeah, I am,” Riku said. “I… uh…”
His uncle nodded. “Sorry. I know that was… um… unexpected.” The closer Riku looked, the more lively his uncle seemed to be compared to what he remembered. There was colour in his cheeks and life in his eyes, and Riku couldn’t help but wonder if it was because he had left.
“No, of course it wasn’t, don’t be ridiculous,” his uncle said when he attempted to prove the hypothesis later, after they’d gone inside. “I was a wreck after you vanished. Well… more than… usual,” he mumbled, focusing his attention on the glasses he was filling.
Riku frowned. “So… what did happen?” he asked, finally.
His uncle brought the drinks over, and sat down to join Riku at the kitchen table. “At some urging from old friends, I finally went to talk to someone.” He sighed. “I haven’t exactly been a good… I haven’t exactly been a parent.”
Riku declined to comment on the subject. “So I went to see a therapist,” his uncle continued, respecting his silence. “He’s a bit on the younger side, only a few years older than you are, I think, but… The things I talked about with him made a lot of sense. Not just about my relationship with you, but about…” he trailed off, staring at the bottom of his glass.
Riku sipped his own water. “About my mom and dad?”
“Yeah,” his uncle muttered. “He said something like… ‘with all the problems in this world, you’d think there’d be more answers, but there aren’t. It’s not fair, but it’s the way things are.’ And that if I wanted to find an answer, I had to do it myself.”
“An answer to what?” Riku asked, softly.
His uncle smiled, grimly. “What to do with myself now that they’re gone.” He leaned back in his chair. “Which is why I started working in the garden. His idea. Gave me something to do with my hands, aside from sitting around and worrying after you.” He smiled. “You got taller.”
“Yeah,” Riku said, his hands clasped around the glass.
His uncle shifted, uncomfortable. “Look, Riku, I’m not going to pretend I’ve been… at all taking care of you the way I should’ve been. You needed me, and I wasn’t there, and there’s nothing that’s going to fix that. But… if it’s okay with you… I would like to start to get to know you. We can’t make up the time I wasted, but I don’t want to be… a stranger to you, anymore.”
Riku sat back in his chair, looking at his uncle. There was no blood relation between them, but in that moment, he really did feel like he was looking at a mirror. The same fears and anxieties, the same doubt that what he’d broken could ever be fixed.
And maybe it couldn’t be. But, if he’d learned anything from his friends, it was the true power of an open heart.
Riku stood up from his chair, and offered his uncle a hand. “The garden does look great,” he said. “Would you mind showing me around?”
Eyes widening in surprise, as if he hadn’t expected his plea to succeed – which, Riku reflected, had been a reasonable assumption, in fairness – his uncle rose to join him. “Of course,” he said.
“And… if you’re okay with it… would you mind if we talked about my mom and dad?” Riku asked, quietly.
It was his turn to be surprised, as his uncle nodded. “I think… that’s a conversation we should have had a long time ago.”
Things with his uncle had gotten better over time. There was still a bit of awkwardness, after such a long and personal estrangement, but Riku was slowly growing used to the idea of having a parent that wasn’t borrowed from someone else.
Which is why it hadn’t initially occurred to him that he could go to his uncle for advice.
Even now, it was still awkward to bring up the question, but at least Riku knew it was something his uncle had firsthand experience with.
Firsthand experience didn’t stop the deer-in-the-headlights look when Riku asked him how to tell a boy and a girl he liked them.
“Uh…” he said, clearly fumbling for a response. “In my experience… Wait for the two of them to come after you and tell you they like and want you?”
“Oh,” Riku said. “That’s… um…”
“Something you were already planning on trying?” his uncle asked, with a small half-smirk.
“…Yeah,” Riku admitted.
His uncle laughed. It was a sound Riku had heard more over the past couple of weeks than he had for the entire rest of his life. It was a sound he liked. “Somehow, we’ve become quite similar people.”
“Well, I can think of worse things to be,” Riku said, smiling back. The two shared a chuckle.
“It’s Sora and Kairi, right?” his uncle asked.
Riku froze. “It’s… I mean… you… there’s… we…”
“I’m guessing that’s a ‘yes’?” his uncle continued.
“…yes,” Riku muttered. “How did you know?”
His uncle gave him a skeptical look. “How did I know that you had developed a crush on the two people you’ve been spending nearly all your time with these past few weeks, that you’ve been very close to since you were a young child, and that you’ve risked your own health to try to find?” Riku hadn’t filled his uncle in on the particulars of his misadventures, there being the world order to consider, but he had given him a rough explanation of why he’d been away for so long: looking for Sora.
“Well when you put it like that, it seems obvious,” Riku muttered.
“It never does from the inside,” his uncle said, still smiling, although it had turned a touch wistful.
Riku sighed. His uncle nodded, knowingly. “I can give you this advice, though. At this point, you have two options. You can either wait, and hope they notice how you feel, or you can tell them directly.” He looked at the way Riku was considering and frowned. “And I’m going to tell you from experience, waiting and hoping is not the way to go about it. If I had said something to your mom and dad earlier… well, we got there in the end, anyway.”
“I wasn’t going to just bury my head in the sand,” Riku said, defensively.
“Yes, you were,” his uncle deadpanned. “It’s what I did at your age.”
Riku screwed up his lip in a manner that was not a pout, no matter what Kairi insisted on calling it.
“And it’s a bad idea,” his uncle added. “Take advice from your elders who made mistakes.”
“I can’t just… tell them,” Riku said. “I already messed things up bad enough.”
“Do you really think they’d stop being your friends if they knew you liked them?” his uncle asked.
Riku thought about Sora, and about Kairi, and about how ecstatic they’d both been to find him again. “…no,” he admitted. “But I… I think they like each other, and I don’t want to be in the way.”
His uncle nodded. “Yeah, that’s how I felt about your mom and dad. But, as it turned out, they wanted me in the way. I’m not sure they would’ve gotten together just by themselves, if they hadn’t managed to convince me they wanted me, too.” Tentatively, he reached over, and put a hand on Riku’s shoulder. “I know I haven’t seen as much of them as you have, but even then I have a hard time believing those two wouldn’t love you back.”
There was that “L”-word Riku had been avoiding thinking, not wanting to get his hopes up. His hopes, however, were stubbornly buoyant. “I can’t be sure, though,” he murmured.
“No, you can’t,” his uncle agreed. “You just have to trust your feelings. And, of course, trust theirs.” He patted Riku’s shoulder a couple of times. “Do you trust them? Sora and Kairi?”
Slowly, Riku nodded. “With my life.”
“How about with your heart?” his uncle asked.
A small smile crept over Riku’s face. “Of course,” he said.
His uncle smiled back. “Then all you have to do, is tell them everything you feel. Not,” he added, “that that’s going to be easy.”
“Well,” Riku said, “nothing worth doing ever is.” His smile grew wider. “Thanks… Dad.”
It was his uncle’s turn to freeze, and both men turned bright red, but he was able to cough out a quiet, “Anytime.”
For as long as he could remember, Sora had loved Riku and Kairi.
There are many different forms of love, and while they had been children, it hadn’t been romantic; it couldn’t have been. But upon reuniting with them, upon seeing how much they’d both grown up, Sora couldn’t deny it; not that he would have wanted to in the first place.
He loved Kairi and Riku.
When he was with them, the worlds felt brighter, the sun was warmer, his smile all the easier. The worry and fear that had been as constant a companion to him as Donald and Goofy was now, finally, laid to rest. Riku and Kairi were both home, both safe, both okay.
He had never, for one second, doubted that he loved them.
He had never, for one second, doubted that they loved him back.
Even if it might be taking them longer than it’d taken Sora to realize, or admit it. Sora could afford to be patient with them. They had all the time in the world. Kairi’s teasing, Riku’s sardonic smile, their laughter, their faces, everything he loved about them were here to stay.
And, he sometimes thought to himself in the part of his mind that wanted to be rebellious, they both had nice butts.
This was just an objective truth.
It had taken himself and Kairi a few days to work out what Sora thought was a foolproof plan of “attack”. Of course, Sora’s confidence that the plan was foolproof was entirely based on his confidence that Riku loved him and Kairi just as much as they loved Riku.
Kairi was less sure, but Sora was looking forwards to proving her wrong. They’d asked Riku to meet up with them on the far side of the play island; that said, they all still rode the same boat, and both tried very hard not to be too obvious about staring at Riku’s arms as he rowed them across.
“So… what’s the occasion?” Riku asked, once they’d reached the far side. If he was lucky, he thought, this might be his opportunity to tell them how he felt. Assuming, of course, they weren’t here to say they were now dating each other and were asking him to leave.
“Well, we have something to tell you,” Kairi said, and noted the minute stiffening of Riku’s limbs. About now, she had predicted, was about when Riku would start to panic, and think she and Sora were asking him to step aside so they could be together.
But they had prepared for that.
“First, though,” she continued, and smirked. “Sora, now!”
“Now?” Riku asked, and that was all he managed to get out before Sora and Kairi lunged forwards, wrapping themselves around his torso and making him topple backwards onto the ground.
“Riku,” Kairi said, conversationally, “Sora and I have been talking, and we need to talk to you, too.”
“We’ve got something very important to tell you,” Sora added, beaming.
Riku, still stunned, tried to push them off, but Kairi and Sora were using their full body weight to keep him pinned. “Guys? What’s going on?” he asked.
“Well, Riku,” Kairi said. “We want you to know that – stop squirming – we want you to know that we… l… li…” Her confidence was shaking a bit, now that she was realizing she was sitting on top of Riku.
Sora’s confidence, however, was quakeproof. “We love you, Riku!” he said, excited.
Abruptly, Riku stopped trying to get free. “You… what?” he asked, slowly. He looked over at Kairi, who had turned bright red.
“We… we like…” she gulped. “We love you, Riku. Both of us do.”
“…You guys are my best friends,” Riku said, not sure he was understanding their meaning and not willing to make the assumption he wanted. “Of course I l–”
“No, we mean…” her face was almost the same colour as her roots, Kairi could feel it. “We wanna… like… hold your hands and junk. You doofus,” she added, trying to save face.
“You mean… like…” Riku tried to process this information.
“We mean like we want to date you, Riku,” Sora said. “Both of us.”
Riku blinked. “But… Sora, you like Kairi.” It was obvious, just from watching them.
Sora nodded. “Yes, I love Kairi.” Beside him, she let out a panicked squeak. “And I also love you, Riku.”
Gaining no expected traction with this track, Riku changed targets. “But, Kairi, you like Sora.” It was obvious, just from watching them.
Kairi, still blushing, nodded. “Yes, I li… li… love Sora.” Beside her, Sora’s grin somehow found real estate on his face to grow even wider. “And I also l-l-l-love you, Riku.”
Riku sat there, in silence, held down in a patch of sand by his two best friends, unconsciously enjoying the sensation of them pinning him down while consciously trying to figure out if they actually were making his wildest dreams come true, or if this was some sort of convoluted, extended way of letting him down gently. He looked from the beaming face to the blushing one, hardly daring to hope. “But… after everything that’s happened… everything I’ve done…”
“After everything that’s happened,” Kairi said.
“After everything you’ve done,” Sora added.
“We love you,” Kairi continued.
“And we want you to date us,” Sora finished. “While, we, um, date each other, too. I dunno if we made that part clear.”
“You’re sure?” Riku whispered.
They both nodded. “It wouldn’t be the same without you, Riku. We wouldn’t be happy. Something would be missing,” Kairi said.
“It’s like a triangle when all the sides are the same,” Sora said. “Equilateral.”
“An mmf threesome by default,” Kairi agreed, smirking at Riku, who rolled his eyes.
“A what threesome?” Sora asked, looking over at her in confusion. Kairi and Riku met each other’s eyes and privately agreed to do their best at maintaining Sora’s innocence for as long as possible.
“I’ll tell you when you’re older,” Kairi said, winking at Riku, who rolled his eyes.
“We’re the same age!” Sora protested, but Riku cleared his throat.
There was a point, he figured, where he should just shut up, and trust this.
“There’s… actually something I wanted to tell you both, too,” he said.
“Yeah?” Sora asked, excited, but Riku could see a flash of fear in Kairi’s eyes, and realized in that moment that she’d been just as worried as Riku himself.
He smiled. “Kairi, Sora… I love you. Both of you. And if you’ll have me–” He didn’t manage to finish the sentence, as both had shifted position to hug him tightly.
“Air!” Riku gasped, and chagrined, Sora and Kairi sat back, finally letting him up. He sat up, feeling the sand coating his back, but not caring. All three of them were quiet, not able to do much more than grin at each other, until Sora broke the silence and held out his arms.
“Dating hug?” he asked, and Kairi and Riku burst into laughter, closing the distance to hold their boyfriend tight.
“I love you,” Sora said, when they had settled in.
“I love you,” Kairi echoed, resting her chin on their shoulders.
“I love you,” Riku agreed, squeezing them both tight.
“So, um,” Sora said, after a long moment of satisfied silence. “Riku, could we… would you mind…?”
“Would I mind what?” Riku asked, already aware that he’d walk into the Realm of Darkness in a bikini if Sora asked it of him.
To his surprise, Sora reddened. “Would you mind if I… wanted to hold your hand? Kairi and I kind of already did accidentally, and I just–” Riku slid his hand into Sora’s, shaking his head and smirking, and Sora brightened immediately.
“Hey, forgetting someone?” Kairi said, holding her hand out to Riku mock-imperiously.
“Of course not, my Princess,” Riku said, taking her hand as she turned bright red once more.
“Nicknames are cheating,” she muttered.
Riku smirked. “Sorry, Kairi.”
“I didn’t say ‘stop’,” she added in exactly the same tone.
Riku and Sora burst into laughter, and a moment later, Kairi joined them. It was the sound of relief, as everything had gone the best way it possibly could.
Sora had expected nothing less.
Kairi practically skipped down the lane. It had been a couple of days since Riku and Sora had officially become hers, and she was still on cloud nine over it. He father had managed to figure out the good news just from the look on her face when she’d come home that night, and had entirely seriously asked if she wanted to have Selphie and ice cream over anyway, to celebrate.
The news would come out to Selphie, regardless, and Kairi knew there’d be a reckoning if it didn’t reach Selphie’s ears through Kairi’s lips, so she’d taken him up on the offer. Her father was fetching the ice cream, and Kairi was fetching Selphie, assuming she wasn’t busy with her newest partner (Kairi had long since learned to knock before entering).
The road to Selphie’s house passed by Sora’s, and Kairi was pleased to see the boy himself, sitting on the branch of a tall tree in the yard, watching the sunset. He had a stick of something that was probably an ice cream bar in his hand. Kairi almost called out to him, but something held her back. This moment seemed… private, almost. Like there was a spell over the area that she would break if she wasn’t careful.
There was a brief pulse in her heart, a momentary feeling of warmth. “Naminé?” she asked, placing a hand over her heart, but there was no response. She looked back at Sora, up on the branch.
Slowly, almost mechanically, he took a bite of the ice cream.
There was a strange air of loneliness around him, almost melancholy. But it was private. Not her place to intrude.
Kairi frowned, but shook her head. Well, Sora had been through a lot. It was okay to let him have time to himself.
After today, they’d have all the time in the worlds.