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Roxas sighed, staring at the messages that had been left unread by the recipient. Two weeks ago, Cid broke the news that they had been able to extract encrypted data from the Organization, and that he had hopes there was some sort of clue to Sora’s whereabout entrapped within it. Two weeks ago was also the last time anyone had seen or heard from Riku.
Everyone missed Sora, but not nearly as much as Riku did. Sora and Riku had been close, basically brothers, and completely inseparable. It didn’t take an insider to see how badly Riku was coping with Sora’s disappearance. Over time, the silverette’s appearance progressively turned ragged and worn, with dark circles under his eyes that never seemed to go away. At first, they had chalked it up to poor Riku getting a double dose of stress from Kairi’s decision to enter a deep slumber to search her heart for Sora, and that his state would improve when she woke up. However, now that he had gone completely unresponsive to the group, worry began to sank in.
Adjusting his posture, Roxas set his phone down on the Gummi Ship’s dashboard and checked the autopilot’s interface. He was only about 30 minutes out from landing in Radiant Garden. With Kairi asleep, and the wielders from the Land of Departure in the Realm of Darkness, Roxas had made the executive decision to go make sure Riku was still alive. Furrowing his brow, he sent one more text message:
‘I swear that I will beat your ass if I get to Radiant Garden and you’re not there.’
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Walking the streets of Radiant Garden, Roxas finally found his way to Merlin’s House. The house itself stood out like a sore thumb, looking visibly different from the neighboring white stone houses and buildings. Cautiously, he knocked on the large wooden door and waited. After a long moment of silence, he knocked again, this time letting his anger carry over into each rap his fist took against the door. A longer moment passed, but still no response. Now what? Roxas growled under his breath for a moment, wondering what the hell he should do now before realization hit him. Is… the door unlocked? To his surprise, and acute personal embarrassment, the door had been unlocked. Well, this made things easy. Quickly, he made his way inside.
Merlin’s house was dimly lit and as cluttered as one would expect the sporadic wizard’s house to be. A large monitor stood at the opposite wall from the entrance, and slumped over its keyboard was Riku, sleeping awkwardly in the computer chair. Roxas pinched the bridge of his nose and sighed. He had a bad feeling before arriving that the silverette had been obsessing over the data, but he didn’t think it would have been to this extent. Starting across the room, Roxas’s foot made contact with an object that skidded across the floor. Picking it up to examine it, he saw it was Riku’s Gummi Phone. Curiously, he tapped the main button. Nothing happened. Annoyed, Roxas pulled his portable charger from his backpack and connected it to the phone. After a moment, the screen lit up, showing the phone charging from an empty battery level. Fantastic. This explained a lot.
Roxas walked up to Riku, giving him a once-over and frowned. His hair was dirty and unkept, and his clothes were wrinkled as if he had been wearing them for quite some time. Deep, dark circles nestled under his eyes on top of pale skin. It was clear that Riku hadn’t been taking care of himself. Freaking dumbass.
Looking around, Roxas found a blanket and carefully put it over Riku before pulling up a chair for himself. It was clear the silverette was in desperate need of sleep, and Roxas was not going to ruin that just to scold him; he could wait until later. In the meantime, the blond decided to see what was just so special about this data that it would drive Riku to his current state.
Carefully, Roxas swapped the keyboard Riku had been sleeping on with a nearby pillow. To his amusement, the older boy barely reacted to the exchange. Testing his limits, he gave Riku’s face a few experimental pokes only to find they gave no reaction. Why had Riku been pushing himself this hard? He had to find out.
Refocusing on the computer, Roxas tapped a key, waking up the computer in the process. To his surprise, Sora was on the screen. What? How? Had Riku found Sora in the data? Before Roxas had time to finish processing his thoughts, the door behind them opened. Whipping around, Roxas saw a brunette with long hair wearing a pink dress enter.
“O-oh, I’m sorry I came in without permission,” Roxas apologized quickly, “I came here to check on Riku since we lost contact with him. I’m Roxas.”
“Please don’t be sorry, I’m actually very happy to see you here,” the brunette said warmly, “My name is Aerith, it’s nice to meet you, Roxas. I’ve heard a lot about you.”
“You have?” Roxas said flatly, side eyeing Riku, “Hopefully that doesn’t mean bad things.”
“Oh no of course not, Riku has only ever spoken fondly of you. I can see why now too,” Aerith hummed, “You came all this way to check on your friend, that says a lot about you.”
Feeling his cheeks slightly flush, Roxas let out a nervous laugh. “Well yeah, I care deeply about all my friends. When he stopped contacting us, I had to come make sure this idiot over here—,” Roxas lightly jabbed at Riku, who didn’t even muster a noise in response, “—wasn’t dead or something.”
Aerith muffled a soft laugh behind her hands. “I’m glad you did,” she said, her voice sobering, “He’s been glued to that computer, stressing himself over the slow progress he’s made. I think he needs a good friend around now more than ever.”
“Speaking of the computer, what in this world is this?” Roxas asked, pointing to the Sora on screen, “That’s not Sora, is it?”
“I wish that were Sora, but unfortunately it’s only a digital version that Cid created to help us crack into the data. It turns out the data heavily encrypted, and would normally take years to break into. Luckily Cid is a clever one, and turned those encryptions into digital versions of the Organization. The thought is that we could control the digital Sora to break through them much faster than through normal means,” Aerith explained, “Think of it kind of like a video game.”
Roxas turned to look at the computer once more. A side-monitor was running some sort of analysis, reporting that the decryption process was 46% complete. A desperate Riku had been trying to break into the data as fast as he could, all in hopes that there was a piece leading to Sora. A part of him was mad at the silverette for trying to tackle the task alone and not even bothering to reach out to the others. However, he knew exactly how Riku was feeling: this was their first lead in over a year. It was hope, and it was exhilarating.
Turning to face Aerith, Roxas grinned. “Well, it looks like he could really use a player 2 right about now. I guess I’ll take a crack at it!”
——————————————————————
Riku slowly came to, bloodshot eyes slowly blinking away the sleep. Shifting slightly, he let out a groan. Sleeping at a desk had not kind to his spine. Slowly, he lifted himself to an upright position, freezing when he became aware of the blanket draped on his shoulders. How did that get there? Had Aerith covered him up? Now that he thought about, how long had he been asleep?
Suddenly worried about passing time, Riku snapped his attention to the side monitor. His stomach sank at the date stamped in the corner. He had likely been asleep for quite some time… wasting time. Letting out a disheartened sigh, he glanced to the taunting decryption process— wait. He rubbed his eyes to verify what he was seeing: it was reporting 61% complete. Confused, he let himself fall back into the chair, only to have a figure to his right catch his eye.
Roxas was passed out in a chair next to him, a notepad covered in writing tucked under his left arm with a pen still held in his hand. The keyboard had been shifted forward to make room for his head on the countertop. Riku slowly reached a hand out towards the blond, only to be met with storm blue eyes opening and locking with his own lagoon green ones. They both jumped in surprise.
“Shit,” Roxas groaned, “What time is it?”
“Uh… about 11:30pm,” Riku responded, trying his best to focus as his mind ran wild, “I wasn’t expecting to see you here.”
“Yeah well I didn’t expect you to be an ass and just ignore everyone’s calls and texts for two weeks,” Roxas said bitterly.
Riku was quiet for a moment before speaking. “Has it… really been two weeks?”
Roxas stared at the silverette in disbelief. “Please tell me you’ve left this damn house in the past 2 weeks, Riku.”
Riku’s silence was the only answer Roxas needed. Frustrated, the blond grabbed the silverette’s shirt to bring them face-to-face. “Do you have any idea how worried we’ve all been? The least you could have done was keep in touch with us, and take care of yourself. Do you realize how much you look like shit right now?” Roxas fingers tightened around the fabric for a moment, before falling loose.
Riku’s stomach sank. He has been so focused on his goal that he forgot about everything else. Guilt gnawed at him; everyone had been working so hard in their pursuits to get a lead, and he completely dropped the ball. Some leader he turned out to be. Tears welled at his eyes, and there was nothing he could do to stop them; he was too tired. Looking up at Roxas, he was surprised to be met not with anger, but worry. Riku tried to speak, but the tears came harder. The blond shifted to press his side into his, and slung an arm around the silverette’s shoulder.
“Come on,” Roxas whispered, “Let’s get some proper sleep.”
Without putting up a fight, Riku allowed Roxas to help him to his feet and lead him out of the house, back towards the Gummi Ship.
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Roxas awoke to the smell of food wafting through the air. Sitting up, he looked around the Gummi Ship’s sleeping quarters; he was alone. He glanced at his phone: it was 1pm. Curious, he made his way out and into the small kitchenette in the ship to find Riku placing a variety of takeout containers on the small pullout table.
Immediately, Roxas noticed the drastic change in the silverette’s appearance. It was clear that at some point he had taken a shower and changed into fresh clothes. While he still looked tired, his eyes were no longer bloodshot, and the puffiness had receded. Roxas’s stomach growled, bringing Riku’s attention to him in the doorway.
Riku grinned. “Sounds like I had this perfectly timed out. Do you want some coffee?” Riku turned around to retrieve the pot from the counter.
“What is all of this?” Roxas asked, opening up one of the boxes on the table to reveal two of the best donuts he’d ever seen in his life. His mouth watered.
“I wanted to properly apologize for yesterday,” Riku admitted, “You’re right. It was wrong of me to get so wrapped up in the data decryption that I failed to give you guys the same decency you showed me when you were searching. I’ll have to apologize to the others later… think they’ll accept apology donuts?”
“I know I sure as shit would,” Roxas laughed, grabbing one from the box and taking a large bite out of it, “These are fantastic.”
“I’m glad you approve,” Riku chuckled as he placed two mugs of coffee on the table and sat down, “Hopefully the rest of the food gets that same seal of approval so you can accept my apology.”
Roxas looked up from his donut to meet Riku’s eyes. “I’ll accept your apology on one condition: we tackle the rest of the data together,” the blond said in a serious tone, “And we make sure to take turns, and take proper breaks to eat, sleep, and whatever. Deal?” Roxas extended his hand.
“Deal,” Riku responded, grabbing the offered hand and giving it a shake.
“For now though, let’s focus on stuffing our faces with this food, it smells fantastic,” Roxas grinned.
“It tastes even better,” the silverette grinned in return.
——————————————————————
The two made their way back to Merlin’s house later in the afternoon. Roxas had insisted they took the long way back just to make sure Riku got some much-needed fresh air. Once inside, they sat down at the computer, ready to make another attempt.
“I call dibs on starting off,” Roxas called as he trotted across the room, “I was taking notes on the attack patterns, and I think I’m close to taking down another data organization member.”
“Wait, they have attack patterns?” Riku asked with great curiosity, “That’s super helpful to know.”
Roxas stared at Riku for a moment. “Have you actually ever played a video game in your entire life? I’m pretty sure any enemy from any game has cues to which attack they’re going to perform, and many of those follow set patterns.”
Riku ran a hand through his hair. “Oh… I guess I really never was the best at video games. I always tried my best, but…” the silverette let his sentence trail off.
Roxas furrowed his brow. “You just admitted you suck at video games, yet here you are, trying to play a video game without any help,” he said flatly.
“Hey! I don’t suck at them, I said I wasn’t the best.”
“That means you suck, Ri.”
The two bantered lightheartedly back-and-forth while reviewing Roxas’s notes. After deciding on a game plan, they set to work on taking down more data organization members. Time passed quickly, and before they knew it it was late into the evening. Wrapping up, they grinned when they saw their completion was up to 79%. Progress.
——————————————————————
It only took four more days for them to finally reach their goal of 100% decryption, with time properly allocated for eating, sleeping, personal hygiene, and fresh air. Shouting loudly, the two excitedly high-five’d each other in triumph; they had done it.
“Well done!” Aerith cheered on her way in, “Now we can finally search through the data for clues. We couldn’t have done it without you.”
“Absolutely!” Yuffie chimed in from behind her, “Think about how much faster you coulda done this had you two been working together from the start!”
Riku looked to Roxas sheepishly. “She has a really good point. I’m sorry.”
“Hey, that’s done and over with,” Roxas reassured, patting Riku’s back, “We know that you won’t make that mistake again. That’s what best friends are for, right?” Roxas smirked.
“Right,” Riku smiled. Best friends. Riku felt happiness well up inside him. He didn’t know what he had done to earn such a title from Roxas, but he was going to make sure he lived up to it from now on.
“We’ll call you as soon as Cid is done sifting through all the data,” Aerith said, “I promise you’ll be the first to know.”
The two boys said their goodbyes and made their way back to the Gummi Ship. During the walk back, Roxas suddenly stopped in his tracks, and looked at Riku with the biggest shit-eating grin on his face.
“What’s with the face?” Riku asked hesitantly, but failing to hide his smile.
“You know, I know a world that perfect for brushing up your video game skills,” Roxas hummed, “Why don’t we have some fun? You deserve it. Plus… I could use a player 2 in that world too.”
Riku let out a laugh, and Roxas grinned harder. It had been so long since the blond had heard a genuine laugh from the silverette. He had missed it, and admittedly, had missed hanging out with him too. Maybe Xion was right, and everything did happen for a reason.
“Alright, let’s go.”