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Time gets away from him.
He’s assigned a mission deep in the cosmos, in a galaxy that he’s never been to before. Scouting, mostly, but more to look for a peculiar presence that Master Yen Sid felt at the edge of space.
Nothing much comes of it though, and while many would consider the trip out there a waste of time, Riku enjoyed it. The world wasn’t anything he was used to, as far flung from any other stars as it was. It sat cradled in darkness, stagnant and sleeping. On its surface was gray dust and white rock, the most ‘planet’ world Riku had ever seen. Life hadn’t yet reached this star, but Riku could feel the world’s heart nestled deep within the rock, waiting and hoping and, perhaps, summoning him here to ignite that spark.
Riku did so. He took out his keyblade and planted it into the earth, and from his blade came a rush of magic and feelings with the intention to spur and brighten. Life would come in time, but with that light, shadows would follow. Riku marked the world on the map they kept on the Highwind for just that purpose. He, or someone else, would be back soon to watch over and nurture.
To travel there and back took time, and Riku was slow in his journey, sightseeing the outer reaches, feeling the weight of darkness this far out and searching for a counterbalance of light. He’s surprised that a world’s heart was able to survive on its own for this long. He’d report his findings to Master Yen Sid upon his return and voice his theories, but first…
First, he heads home.
The sky is a deep dark when he returns to Destiny Islands. He checks his phone and it’s just after three in the morning. No one will be awake now, and the thought isn’t a nice one, but it’s a setback of his duty.
Riku crosses the sea in little time and begins the walk back home. As he steps quietly through his neighborhood, he glances up to catch a glimpse of his house in the distance. And…oddly, he sees from a second story window that the lights are on.
Sora.
There are times when he regrets giving his best friend a spare key to his house, but those moments are few. Riku’s more upset that the hero of worlds is still awake at this hour. No doubt he’s avoiding something or has ingested too much caffeine and can’t get to bed.
But, Riku wonders, if Sora’s there, then maybe…
He shakes his head. No need for wishful thinking.
With a quick turn of the front door, Riku steps into the foyer of his much too large home. As soon as he does so, he hears the sound of footsteps rushing down the stairs, and the quick breathing of one hyperactive hero.
“Riku!” Sora shouts from the last step, jumping and leaping and skipping right into Riku’s arms. He hugs Riku tightly around the waist and squeezes like it’s been months since they’ve seen each other. It’s only been a day, but Sora cares not.
Riku squeezes him back, taking a deep breath to smell sunflowers and ocean spray. “Hey.”
“Welcome home!” Sora’s voice is muffled as he refuses to let Riku go. He squeezes harder, and who needs a chiropractor when Sora is there to squeeze the knots out of his back?
“Thanks,” Riku mutters, voice strained. He would like to breathe, but he doesn’t have the heart to tell Sora to let go.
“Sora, he can’t breathe,” a comparatively calm voice calls from the stairs.
Riku’s head snaps up and what little breath he holds in his lungs is snatched from him as he sees Roxas stepping closer, hands shoved in his pajama pockets, expression tempered into nonchalance. He eyes Riku for a moment and then…the smallest of smiles, which is just the same as Sora’s own unapologetic brilliance in its own right.
Roxas has to literally pull on Sora’s shirt to get him to let go before Riku passes out from lack of oxygen. Once the excitable ball of sunshine has calmed, Roxas again looks to Riku. “Welcome back.”
Still utterly shocked to see Roxas here, though perhaps he shouldn’t be, Riku smiles, cheeks warming. “Thank you.”
Sora is suddenly back in Riku’s face, his hands cupping Riku’s cheeks. “Tell. Us. Everything.”
Riku laughs despite his cheeks being pushed together. “There’s not much to tell.”
“Liar.”
“Want some tea?” Roxas asks, but doesn’t wait for Riku to actually answer. He’s already turned away toward the kitchen.
Riku flounders for a second but decides to answer anyway. “Sure!” he calls.
“You were gone all day!” Sora continues, pout set on his face, blue eyes waiting for answers, but then realization strikes him. “Wait, you were gone all day. You’re tired! C’mon, let’s sit down—”
Sora starts dragging him further into the house and toward the living space where the sofa and pillows await, but there’s more of a mess in here than Riku remembers leaving. There’s soda cans and chip bags on the coffee table, extra blankets and extra pillows on the sofa as well as a moogle printed fleece blanket that Riku remembers giving to Sora for his birthday. There’s a video game console plugged up to the widescreen television, but the game itself is paused.
Sora and Roxas were having themselves a little sleepover in Riku’s house. … Really, he’s not even mad, just upset that he wasn’t included.
Sora releases his hand and sheepishly tries to clean after the fact. “Sorry about this. We didn’t know when you’d be gettin’ back, so we stayed up to wait and—”
“I thought I said not to wait up?” Riku tells him, a single brow raised. He sits down on the couch with little grace and sinks into the cushions, exhaustion from the drive getting to him.
In an instant, Sora is sitting by his side on the couch, cleaning forgotten. “I know, but I was worried! And bored! So I called Roxas over and we both were waiting and just passing the time.”
“I guess I don’t need to ask if you had fun…” Riku says, giving the mess another look over. Popcorn kernels are scattered around the floor and are there feathers down there also? A pillow fight, huh.
Sora leans against his side, fiddling with his t-shirt, looking guilty though he has no reason to. “Yeah, we did. It would’ve been much more fun if you’d been here, though. You just took too long!” Now his expression transforms into that scrutinizing stare that he uses to extract the truth. “So...where did you go?”
“Near the edge of the universe,” Riku replies with little inflection, perfectly monotone and soft.
Sora’s reaction is anything but. He jumps up to stand on the cushions of the couch, pointing at Riku with his mouth open wide in shock, his smile almost reaching his ears.
“What did you see?”
Roxas comes in holding a mug of tea. As he draws closer, he hands the cup to Riku and takes a seat beside him on the couch. He’s sitting…close. Not so close that their shoulders and thighs touch, but closer than they’ve ever sat together before.
The gesture makes Riku forget about the question and the two pairs of ears that are eagerly awaiting an answer. He holds his mug of hot tea and feels his pulse quicken, his heartbeat twirling in his chest. With Sora, he’s used to the gestures, to the easy touches, to the closeness and familiarity, but with Roxas…especially with Roxas, Riku just isn’t as well-adjusted.
“I saw…worlds,” Riku answers finally, looking into the dark brown tea in his mug. The sweet smell of it is comforting and it hits him all at once how nice it is to be welcomed home, to be given tea and a hug and then be surrounded like this in warmth.
Sora plops back down on the couch, leaning against Riku’s shoulder. “Dead ones?”
“Some of them were, but there was another that was hanging on. I helped it to live.”
“Even all the way out there, huh,” Roxas comments, voice quiet, thoughtful. His eyes are trained on the television, but he’s obviously not thinking about racing games.
“There was a world? With a heart?” Sora asks, and his head is tilted just so, confused as to how that can be.
At the edge of the Realm of Light, there survived only a few worlds, the influence of darkness doing little to sustain them, but miracles are possible, and all it took was the heart of a world to ‘catch’ on something, to connect with someone or something, to reach out and take hold, and from that, a world can truly grow.
Riku nods. “Yeah, I think that’s what Master Yen Sid was sensing. A world’s heart.”
“That’s incredible,” Sora mumbles, and then he smiles and wraps his arms around Riku’s bicep. “You’re incredible, Riku!”
Riku nearly chokes on his tea, laughing as soon as he swallows. He gives Sora a confused look. “I didn’t do anything?”
Roxas nudges his left side. “Helping a world grow is hardly ‘nothing’.”
“Exactly! See, Roxas gets it.”
Cornered as he is, Riku relents and lets them think what they want. He often doesn’t think much of his accomplishments and it’s only at the behest of others that he reevaluates them. Maybe granting that world a peek into his heart was incredible, but what will come of it remains to be seen.
Sora pulls at his moogle blanket, snuggling against Riku’s right side. “You’re taking us with you next time.”
Riku smiles. “Of course.”
“We’re holding you to that,” Roxas says, offering his own show of affection by just slightly leaning his head upon Riku’s shoulder. The touch is feather light, the weight barely there, but a warmth swells in Riku’s stomach and he flushes, staring at his reflection in his near empty mug of tea.
Before his journey… Before everything, Riku would come home everyday to an empty house. He’d prepare his own dinner and be responsible for his own entertainment before doing his homework and going to bed. It was isolation in the worst way, and he never let anyone in to how awful it made him feel, how those scars of being unwanted and unloved inflicted themselves upon his heart.
When he takes measure of things now, he can feel those wounds healing, at least in some way. He feels welcomed and wanted and surrounded by people who enjoy his company despite everything, who’ve forgiven him despite everything. And if all they want in return is to journey with him and see the edges of the universe together, that’s no trouble at all.