Chapter Text
The air already smelled sharp with rain, but Riku was wearing reliably worn hiking boots, and the September morning was a warm one, so he decided to go on the date alone. Six miles—ten kilometers—of dense forest of phoenix feather autumn leaves leading to his intended destination, a beloved local waterfall where he had hoped to steal his first kiss from the friend who had insisted yesterday he was just a friend, and only ever would be.
Riku doesn’t so much mind the thought of drowning in a downpour on his way, and if not then, then when he reaches his destination. Not the final kind of drowning, but the almost kind, the being pulled down, sopping and sputtering, spitting rain and blinking it out of his eyes, thick like tears, everything heavy, but everything smelling beautiful and pure and clean, and carrying on through the weight of it.
That is what Riku wants.
Baptism, maybe. By the rain and the wind and the fiery, dying leaves of the trail. Communion with the elements to make him forget. As if he can forget.
He’s been friends with Sora for so long it would feel like forgetting how to breathe. Sora who made him six friendship bracelets when he went away to summer camp because he didn’t know which shade of green was Riku’s favorite. Sora who never once had a jealous syllable to utter when Riku made first string in soccer and he didn’t three years running in high school.
Sora who followed him to his university and spent long weekends exploring the city with him, accompanying him to crowded museums and musty archives for his research projects, annoying the other patrons with his humming, occasionally offering provocative insight just when Riku had convinced himself his friend must be bored out of his mind. Sora who had traveled to another country with him for the study abroad program Riku had his heart set on.
Sora. Who he had assumed could only reject their sweet, spunky best friend Kairi when she asked him to her sorority sweetheart formal at the end of last semester if he had someone else in mind.
Sora who only yesterday had explained what he had been hinting at for years: that he didn’t feel that kind of way about anyone, he was pretty sure, and maybe never would, effectively, if unintentionally, smashing Riku’s heart into a gooey pulp like a smushed caramel chocolate under a shoe. And Riku isn’t feeling angry or jealous or inadequate or jilted, or maybe he is feeling all of them to a minute degree, but mainly, he is just feeling overwhelmingly sad.
With maybe a dash of pathetic for flavor.