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Sora yawned, perfectly content in his quiet spot on the window seat in his family’s living room. His cheek pressed against cold glass while the rest of him was wrapped up in a toasty warm blanket. His hands were wrapped around a steaming mug of hot chocolate.
He was home alone, but he’d made sure all of the Christmas lights were on and the warm glow of the tree reflected prettily against the window glass. Christmas music was quietly playing from his laptop on the table and he’d spent a little time thinking about all the ways he’d tried to catch Santa as a kid.
Not for the first time, he wished for snow, but that was never likely. Cold weather, yes. Snow, not so much. It didn’t matter however, he was building a Christmas atmosphere for himself and was enjoying it.
He had no plans for the night, and fully expected to be in that exact spot for the next hour, or until he needed to refill his hot chocolate, whichever came first. The distraction came at a set of headlights coming down the street. All the houses had their lights up and cars did occasionally drive by slowly to take a look at them but this one was moving at a crawl as it prepared to turn into his neighbor's driveway.
Sora perked up, nearly slamming his forehead against the bay window. He tossed the blanket aside and set his mug down on the coffee table before shoving his feet into his house slippers and grabbing a hoodie. It was really too cold out to go outside so under dressed but he was only going to be out there for a second.
He jumped out the front door onto his porch just in time to see a silver head popping up out of the newly parked car.
“Riku!” Sora screamed, a grin splitting his face. He jumped down the three stairs to the porch and was already dashing across the yard to his neighbors property. “You weren’t supposed to be here until the end of the week!”
The taller teen just smiled faintly, turning in time to catch Sora as he barreled right into him. “Hey,” He wrapped his arms snugly around Sora. “I finished my last final early so i came home. No sense staying longer.”
“I’m so excited to see you!” His boyfriend being a year older than him made things tricky sometimes. Riku was in college this year and while it was only two hours away, it still made things difficult for them. They usually talked daily, but finals and the holiday seasons had made things a little more spaced out than usual.
Sora hoped it would be easier the following year with his plans to follow his boyfriend set in stone in his mind.
He reached up, cupping Riku’s face and tugging him down to steal a kiss when he shivered. “Brrrr, you're chilly, why are you so cold?”
Riku nearly purred instead, his gloved hands covering Sora’s. “You’re so warm.” He nuzzled his cheek against Sora’s hand and pulled away to kiss his palm. “I had the heat low. It’s been acting up and i didn’t want it to crap out while i was driving home. I’ll get dad to look at it before i go back to school in a few weeks.”
“Good.” Sora muttered, shivering again. “Your house is empty though. They headed over to Ms. Tara’s Christmas party with my parents a little while ago.”
“I figured. Mom said it was today.” Riku said, finally pulling away enough that he could shut the drivers side door to his car. “Get inside, you’re gonna freeze. Are you even wearing socks.”
“Don’t nag.” Sora said, but he couldn’t help his smile. “Wanna come over? I’ll make you hot chocolate and force you to snuggle with me on the couch.”
“Oh no…” Riku deadpanned. “A fate worse than death.”
Sora snorted. “That a yes?”
“Yeah.” Riku’s expression broke out into a smile. “Lemme put my stuff in my house first and then we’ll head back over to yours.”
Sora poked him in his side, though Riku didn’t even react because of his thick coat. “You just wanted me to help you carry stuff in.”
“Well you did run all the way out here.” Riku said, a teasing melody to his voice. He opened up the back of the car revealing several bags, at least two of them likely being laundry to be washed if he didn’t want to waste his time spending money on it on campus. He had a bag of school things and his laptop bag.
There was also a bag of presents he brought with him.
The pair of them loaded up on everything Riku brought home with him, determined to take it all inside in one trip. The most difficult part of the whole trek was Riku needing to fish out his house key to unlock the door. The second obstacle was neither of them tripping over the cat who had come to greet whoever was coming in.
Bags were set in the laundry room and Riku had left his laptop bag by the door. Everything was taken to his bedroom which hadn’t changed at all while he’d been away. The lack of dust probably meant his mom came in occasionally but other than that, everything was where he'd left it.
Riku heaved a sigh. “It’s nice to be home.” He dropped his things into his bed and went about pulling out a few items. Sora knew without looking that it was likely the nice clothes he'd packed for Christmas day. His mom always did like for all of them to look fancy for Christmas dinner.
“I missed you.” Sora muttered, warmed by the look Riku threw over his shoulder.
“I missed you too.” Riku opened the closet door, snagging a few hangers and gently sliding the bag of presents inside for safe keeping.
Sora just watched, brow raised as if Riku had just accidentally presented him with a puzzle. “Why don’t you just put them under the tree?”
“The wrapped ones are yours because i thought you might be around.” Riku said, smiling knowingly. “The ones under that aren’t yours but aren’t wrapped yet. I’ll do that later and put them under the tree then. Until then i don’t want the bag just sitting out. Just in case, you know?”
Sora grinned. “Can i have mine now?”
“No.”
“No fair.”
“Wait for Christmas.” Riku said in the same tone. With his nice set of clothes on hangers, he hung them in the closet, but a shiny paper on the top shelf caught Sora’s attention.
“Do you already have presents hiding in there?”
“Mm?”
Sora pointed to the corner of the closet shelf, a box nearly hidden by Riku’s old struggle bat. “Up there.”
Riku’s head tilted in mild confusion before he reached up to check, not remembering putting anything up there at all. It was a blue and white box with a snowy theme to it. He lifted the lid and snorted. “Oh, i totally forgot about this?”
“What is it?”
Riku pulled out an obviously handmade ornament. It was a glass ball on a hook, decorated with painted snowflakes and snowflake shaped glitter inside. “I made this in school for mom years ago. I forgot about it. It must have been before high school.”
“That’s some hiding spot.” Sora snickered. “You should give it to her this year.”
They shared an amused look. “She’d probably like that. She always did love the stuff i made her for Christmas.”
Their Christmas tree was still covered in ornaments that Riku, Sora and even Kairi made once upon a time. His mom was the artsy type, always hand making their Christmas wreaths and many of their other decorations. This would be the kind of thing she’d adore, a gift from past Riku.
“Anything else up there?” Sora asked.
“Hm,” Riku stretched, feeling along the back of the shelf. A second later his fingers brushed across another bag and he pulled out. This one was green with little trees on it, and Riku honestly didn’t remember what the thing was.
If he thought back on it, he vaguely remembered standing on a chair to hide these things but he’d done too good a job and forgotten about them himself.
“Who was that one for?”
“Dunno.” Riku said, not bothering to check the tag and instead moving the tissue paper aside to look before he froze. His face went dark, the blush unexpectedly spreading to his ears. “It’s nothing,” he declared a second later.
“Nothing?” Sora looked at him in disbelief. “You look like you’re about to choke. That's not nothing. What is it?”
Riku nearly crushed the bag against his own chest and repeated, “Nothing.”
Sora was absolutely confused, but he’d known his friend all his life and could count the number of times he’d seen Riku embarrassed on one hand. “Uh uh. You gotta give me more than that. Who was it for?”
Riku just scowled, trying to deflect his feelings but he’d learned in his younger teens that such tactics didn’t work on his sunny boyfriend who seemed to love him no matter what and shoved the bad attitude right out of him.
“C’mon Riku, it can’t be that bad. Who’s it for? You don’t actually have to give it to them.”
That had Riku shifting, looking just this side of mortified. “You.”
Sora was alert, smile returning slowly. “Me? And you forgot about it?”
“Yep?”
“When’s it from?”
“Long. Long. Time ago.”
Sora bit his lip, attempting and failing to not look too eager as he eyed the bag. “Can i have it?”
“No.”
“Please? I bet i’ll still like it.” Sora said, and didn’t have a single doubt that he would.
“Absolutely not.”
“Hm.” Sora crossed his arms. “I’m not gonna laugh. What are you so worried about? It’s just a Christmas present, right? What’s embarrassing about that?”
Riku tsked, his cheeks still pink. “I was a dumb kid.”
“We both were, and look at us now.” Sora grinned, “I’m still gonna love you for ever and ever. Let me see what little Riku was gonna give me.”
“Ugh, you can’t just say please and get your way.” Riku grumbled. “We’re not little kids.”
Sora hummed his agreement. “True, now i just gotta tell you that i wanna touch your butt.” The reaction was immediate, Riku’s face had gone slack, the blush darkening all over again. The blatantly honest comment had him lowering his guard and Sora grabbed the bag.
“Hey!”
“It’s even got my name on it!” Sora cheered, actually checking the name tag hanging on the string. He was positive it was even Riku's handwriting and tossed the tissue papers aside without waiting another second. He sent the gift down on a nearby desk and peered into the bag that seemed to be full of trinkets. “Nn?”
The first item he pulled out was a box of Mickey Mouse band-aids which made him laugh. He and Riku had each gone through dozens of those as kids. The second item was a rolled up paper that Sora recognized instantly. It was one of the many pirate treasure maps they used to make as kids. He and Riku were so sure they were going to go on grand adventures and be explorers. That alone put a smile on his face.
He found a flashlight and the little green walkie-talkies they’d used as kids that had gone missing at some point. He'd have to check and see if they will worked later.
There was a pouch that looked handmade, it was something like an old bandana with the ends tied together. When Sora opened it, it was filled with plastic money that had likely come from a board game. He knew exactly what it was for.
The games they used to play always had them finding ‘mysterious’ people from other places and they needed money to buy ‘rations’. They’d taken their games so seriously. They’d given names to imaginary characters and had once built a raft that would let them sail out to sea.
The next item was a little glass bottle with a red cross drawn on it in marker. Some people might have needed to ask what that was but Sora didn’t. It was a magic health potion. One of them would always get ‘wounded’ and need the magic potion that was often just mud. This was clearly a little Riku’s attempt at making it more showy. Sora could already imagine their younger selves filling the bottles with water so they could actually drink from it.
The last item in the bag was a spiral notebook. Sora pulled it out, seeing his and Riku’s name written on the cover. Inside were a bunch of the old maps they’d drawn of fake countries and islands. One was nothing but waterfalls. One for animals only, no people. One was a dessert where the giant scorpions lived.
The drawings were childish and nostalgic and Sora remembered most of them. He flipped through the pages and Riku had clearly added several more to be a surprise. It was the book of places they were going to travel to when they were older.
When Sora looked up, Riku was still pink. He hadn’t said a word the entire time Sora was rifling through the bag.
“Don’t laugh…” Riku muttered.
“Laugh?” Sora asked, voice cracking. “I’m about to cry. Riku this…is the best gift ever. Just as good now as it would have been then.”
Riku huffed but it was still an embarrassed sound. “We really liked that game, didn’t we?”
“We loved that game.” Sora muttered, carefully packing everything away again. “I love it.”
“Are you actually crying?” Riku asked, stepping closer and rubbing away a single tear that escaped. “Sora…”
“Shut up. I loved it.” Sora said, sliding his arms around Riku. He hadn’t taken his coat off but they’d get to the real snuggling back at his house. “I’m keeping it forever.”
Riku laughed a little, arms around Sora as he dropped a kiss on the top of his head. “I love you too, you know? I can’t believe i forgot about all that. Must have been… thirteen? I dunno. It was before high school.”
Sora sniffed. “It’s perfect and one day, we really are gonna travel. I wanna put new drawings next to the old ones.” He tilted his head back to look up at Riku. “Right?”
“Yeah.” Riku muttered. “Let’s go somewhere this summer before school starts. Can starting saving now.”
“Yes!” Sora beamed, bouncing up to catch Riku’s mouth in a kiss. “I’m bringing the potion bottle!”
That startled a laugh right out of Riku. “Yeah, yeah, swords master Sora. Let’s go. You promised me hot chocolate and…maybe we can talk about where we’ll go.”
Sora nodded, clasping Riku’s hand in his and grabbing his gift bag with the other. “That sounds great. We had such a big list once. We might need to revise it a little.”
“Probably. Maybe Santa will have idea’s for us.”
“I’m sure he will.” Sora snorted, leading them both out of Riku’s house and back towards his own.
Sora hadn’t had plans an hour ago, now this Christmas he wanted to make dozens of plans for his future as long as they included Riku.