Chapter Text
It’s the perfect occasion for a romantic date.
Love is in the air in the Ville Lumière. The night is warm and bright, in this late spring the fragrance of flowers still lingers on the riverbed and inside La Ratatouille dinner is had in pleasant company. Around them, people talk and laugh in the delight given by a full stomach. The stars wink at him from beyond the window, twinkling playfully on the dark sky, free of clouds to obscure their shine. And in front of him the love of his life is sipping wine with the grace of a consummated sommelier, his lips deliciously red as he says: “That fish looks a lot like Flounder.”
Sora, who has been admiring Riku with his chin propped up on his hand, almost hits his head on the table. “What?”
“Your dish,” Riku gestures at it with an elegant cant of his glass. It’s distracting how in his element he seems despite it being his first time here. “The fish is the same colour as Flounder.”
The ‘fish’ Riku is referring to is sole from the sole meunière he ordered. It sits in front of him, smelling inconspicuously citric and being undoubtedly tasty. Sora has cooked his fair share of them throughout the years, but none of those managed to look as mouthwatering as the one Linguini served him. Colette truly is a master chef.
And while the thought never crossed his mind all those times he was the one doing the frying, under this warm candlelight the sole’s buttery shine does resemble vibrant yellow scales. The realisation ties a knot in his stomach.
“Flounder isn’t a sole.” He defends himself, even if he isn’t sure exactly from what.
“It also is as round as him.” Riku continues. “Here, look.”
What he does then is take his fork to rearrange the asparagus dispersed through the plate to line them up on top of the fish and at the end, with some of the shortest pieces shaped into a triangle in the middle.
“Now it really looks like Flounder.”
It really does.
“No!” Sora protests, indignant at the mere insinuation. “Flounder’s fins are blue, not green.”
“Cooking them always changes their colour.”
“They’re asparagus.”
“It’s just to give you an idea of what he would look like unfried.”
“This isn’t Flounder!”
“I’m not so sure…” He says, pensive and concerned, but Sora knows him better than that. The edges of his lips are twitching to perk up in a smirk. His jerk of a boyfriend is having fun.
“Besides,” Sora rushes to add, “Flounder lives in Atlantica. There is no way he would end up being fished here.”
“Don’t you remember the ‘Unified Sea Theory’?”
Ugh. The chair whines when he lets himself fall against the backrest. He does remember Yen Sid rambling about it, about how the worlds are not only connected by a unique sky but also a single sea whose waters traverse from one place to another not unlike keyblade wielders do, explaining the mystery behind the objects from beyond washing ashore in Neverland, how Jean’s expedition managed to arrive at Deep Jungle after sailing from the city with the Clock Tower and why Ursula was able to reach the Destiny Islands during their Mark of Mastery Exam. Apparently, King Triton had noticed the phenomenon ages ago; however, as with many other things, he decided to keep quiet until asked directly about it.
Honestly, during that reunion-turned-class Sora was too focused on the implication of what that would have meant for them and their little raft to worry about the ramifications of such discovery. Because, if true, then their plan wasn’t as hopeless as they grew up to believe. Because not all worlds were like the Caribbean with a lethal waterfall at the edge of the ocean. Because, maybe, if reality hadn’t fallen apart, they would have set sail to awaken in a new land, filled with the adventures they would whisper about at night, under the stars that were not as far away as they feared.
It also means that it’s actually possible for the skinned, floured, buttered, spiced and fried lemon-scented fish in front of him to be his friend.
The single dead eye staring at him does look kind of the same.
Sora groans, glaring at the perhaps-not-sole. “Why did you have to mention it?” His stomach is churning.
“I thought you would want to know.” Offers Riku, sounding innocent. Sora shifts to glower at him.
“Now I can’t eat this.”
It is not that he is actually on board with the theory, but the What if is too loud in his head to go on guiltless. If Ariel starts questioning him about Flounder’s whereabouts next time he visits, saying that no one has seen him in a while, Sora wouldn’t be able to live with himself. How do you tell a mermaid princess that you had her best friend for dinner? Easy: you don’t. Better to play it safe and simply not take a bite. Explaining you suspect he was fished and served in a restaurant is less horrible than confessing you were the one devouring him.
“Linguini!” He calls with his hand raised. Some patrons look his way with curious eyes, but so does his friend, so he doesn’t mind the stares, even if some of them turn judgemental before refocusing on their meals. “Here, please!”
Once Linguini rolls over to their table, Sora returns the dish, reassuring the befuddled Linguini that “No, no. The sole meunière is great! Excellent! My congratulations to Collette.” It’s just that he changed his mind and he would like to order the beef bourguignon instead, thank you very much.
It’s only when Linguini rolls away with his discarded plate in hand (sorry Flounder) that Riku’s amused humming reaches his ears.
“Beef.” The word sounds nuanced on his lips. He is putting on the same contemplative act as before, but with added sultriness as he rests one elbow on the table, hand twirling the stem of his wine glass before pressing the rim to his bottom lip. “Does Clarabelle know you look at her with hungry eyes?”
The kind you are giving me right now? Is what Sora could have replied, had the image of his boyfriend’s Adam’s apple bobbing as he drinks not lit a bonfire within his guts. Has his shirt always had this many unbuttoned buttons? “Everyone thinks you are so mature.” Is what comes out instead. “What would they say if I told them the truth?”
“I don’t know. What would Maggie and the others say if I told them you are about to eat their cousin?”
Sora groans. This isn’t fair! “Riku!”
“Mrs Calloway would be scandalised.”
Oh, she would. She would look for a pearl necklace just so she could clutch it indignantly with her hoof and judge his life choices, bemoaning how betrayed and hurt she is from his actions. Sora would rather disappoint his own mother than her.
“Stop torturing me.” He whines, hands to his temples. This is supposed to be a romantic date; the last thing he wants is to remember his time stuck as a calf. His ears ring painfully from the mere memory of Slim’s yodelling.
“And Roxas says I’m dramatic.” His every word is coated in jest, like he is constantly on the brim of delivering a punchline. To Sora’s absolute dismay, he looks way too good while doing it. He can’t be truly annoyed when Riku appears so happy and carefree, his own lips are trembling with the impulse to return his grin. “Maybe I should be the one telling them how you really behave.”
Sora stops massaging his forehead to plant his flattened palms on the space where his food would be had his boyfriend opted for peace and not psychological warfare. “At least I don’t make my date feel guilty over enjoying his dinner.”
“That’s right, because I chose not to eat any of our friends or their relatives.”
The gasp that escapes his mouth silences him for a moment. The audacity of this guy.
His first instinct is to call him hypocritical. Acting as if he had not eaten a single piece of meat in his life. The problem is that Riku is, currently, not eating a single piece of meat. The dish cooling off next to his abandoned glass is a serving of tagliatelle al pesto, free from any slaughter. No beef, no fish. Just homemade pasta (Sora can tell; Colette wouldn’t allow anything else) and an aromatic sauce that must taste like summer if the season had a savour. Riku has been a fan since Massimo prepared it for him in Puertorosso and Sora found him learning how to cook from Alberto adorable.
Now, though? Now he curses the day he showed Remy the recipes he got from the old fisherman, who of course sent them to Colette, as he always did. If La Ratatouille didn’t have pasta options, then Riku wouldn’t be looking at him all hauntingly, feeling already the winner of what Sora supposes has evolved into a verbal spar. His whole figure is radiating competitiveness, that familiar beckoning spark in his teal eyes, half-squinted by the genuine smile threatening to curve his wine-red lips. Sora would follow that teasing twinkle to the ends of the universe—already has, many times—and now he lets the link looped around his heart pull him half over his side of the table, as close to Riku as he can get without climbing on it.
“You’re gonna pay for this, you know that, right?”
“I have the munny.” Riku answers, not without flipping his hair first.
Whatever clever remark Sora has on the tip of his tongue (something playful and just as charming as Riku’s whole pose, for sure) goes unsaid with Linguini’s sudden apparition at his side. He doesn’t even let him speak before sending him back to the kitchen with another order. “I’m not in the mood for beef” as his excuse. “I want filet mignon poêlè.”
“Filet mignon poêlè,” repeats Riku, the accent is criminally unfair in his sultry tone. “That has pork in it.”
“It does.” He agrees, tentative, his fingers drumming rhythmically on the table. “Got anything to say about it?”
Riku half shrugs, his own hand busy straightening some creases on the tablecloth. Sora isn’t fooled by his feigned disinterest, though. As if Riku would let go without a fight. “Not me. But I bet Pumbaa would.”
Aha!
The silverware jumps when Sora’s fist, in his enthusiasm, hits the table harder than intended. Their merry clinking like an ovation for his comeback. “Pumbaa isn’t a pig!”
His victory lasts the five seconds it takes Riku to ask: “What about Miss Piggy?”
“Eh,” Damn, what about Miss Piggy? “She would be glad that I have good taste and chose pig over any other meat.” He says it with all the confidence he doesn’t feel. To be honest, he is clueless about her stance on eating pork; the affirmation might get him karate-chopped into next week, but it sounds like something she would say.
Since Sora is the one that spent more time with her during their encounter with The Muppets, Riku must not know more than him; he doesn’t try to fight him on it, simply nodding his acknowledgement, and it feels like scoring twelve million points on Verum Rex. That’s it, until…
“And Piglet?”
“He doesn’t count,” he rushes to answer, “he is a stuffed toy.”
“That sounds eerily discriminatory.” One of Riku’s silver eyebrows lifts into the ‘arc of disapproval’ he has been directing at every one of his half-assed ideas since they were kids. The pressure and shame it inflicts upon him are the same as when he was four years old, so Sora tries to evade it by giving a general glance to the rest of the restaurant. They are admittedly at the best table: right next to the window with a clear view of the city and its golden shine, streetlights like fallen constellations with the Eiffel Tower as its north star. The brightest of them all. Sora decides it’s a safe spot to rest his eyes, rather than the personification of his guiding light sitting opposite him. “Are you saying stuffed pigs don’t deserve to be considered the same as ordinary ones?”
“I’m not saying that.” He grumbles. “Piglet would be affected if I ate cotton or something. This is different.”
Is it? Stars, he hopes so. If not, he has a lot of apologising to do to a lot of people. Although, if he has to promise to not eat any animal he has befriended (like he promised Donald he wouldn’t eat duck when dish upon dish of it was presented to them during the victory feast in The Land of Dragons) then he is going to be stuck eating nothing but vegetables for the rest of his life. Unless he happens to meet a group of talking carrots or something and then he will be left with air only. World Order magic could turn him into a plant and allow him to do photosynthesis, but after discovering the wonders of haute cuisine that existence sounds miserable. Sora is (more or less) a chef now! He can’t be tormented by these moral conundrums.
If it were the other way around, Sora wouldn’t be too mad about it. He is half sure the citizens of Halloween Town already do eat humans (he was offered bottled blood multiple times, after all) and it doesn’t bother him. As long as it isn’t him or his dear ones, then eat and let eat. It’s the ‘circle of life’ and all that song and dance.
“Okay.”
Sora blinks his frown away. Did Riku just agree with him?
“Okay?” He asks, turning to look at him.
“Okay.” Riku confirms, but his eyes aren’t locked onto him.
Twisting his torso to see what’s happening behind him that’s so interesting, Sora finds Linguini’s tense expression approaching them. The smile on his lips wire-thin.
“Here it is the filet mignon poêlè, as you requested.” His speech is more formal than what Sora is used to hearing from him, at least, when he is speaking to them. The movements of his hands, too, are antsy as he deposits the dish in front of him with a flourish. Weird.
“Thank you!” He tries to pack into it as much reassurance and glee as possible. Poor Linguini, the whole day of work serving customers must be getting to him. Sora can sympathise with that.
His smile seems to pop whatever ball of anxiety had been eating away at him, because Linguini sighs and returns the grin, his shoulders visibly less rigid. He leaves them with a “Bon appétit!”
Sora follows him with his eyes until his lanky figure disappears inside the kitchen to return a few seconds later, lacking the nervousness from before, and deliver the appetisers to a table on the corner of the room.
“He must be tired.”
From Riku, he receives only a hummed agreement. His mouth too preoccupied with chewing noodles now that Sora also has his plate. He might have been the cause for the delay, but at least he waited until Sora was served to start eating.
Sora can’t help himself; he thinks it’s cute. That ‘togetherness’ Riku seeks even in the smallest of ways and confessed to him, at first, as if it were a shameful secret. One of many Sora gently pried from his fearful heart, as reluctant as it was desperate for the love Sora was so willing to give.
They have come a long way, haven’t they?
“I wonder if you will be able to look Runt in the face next time you see him.”
Some things remain the same, though, like the light of his heart being a competitive bastard.
“You promised you would go and watch the baseball game they have in a few weeks, right?”
He did.
Raising his hand yet again to call Linguini over, Sora tells him “You’re an asshole.” Riku slurps his pasta purposely loud just to be annoying, which proves Sora’s point.
“Is something not to your taste?” Comes Linguini’s worried tone, meek and low. It still shocks Sora how someone so tall manages to make himself so small, especially while standing on roller skates.
“I want to change my order.”
“... Again?”
Sora nods. Linguini looks like he has been asked to choose between eating a wriggling worm or pouring a bowl of slugs inside his pants. “And what would you like instead?”
“Uh…” Sora directs his gaze at his dish. It looks damn good, the meat tender and savoury, the sauce on top of it dripping down like ambrosia drops from a golden cup. He salivates just at the thought of it in his mouth.
Then an image of sweet, not-so-little Runt flashes before his eyes and he is not hungry anymore.
“Do you have pigless pork?”
In his frustration, the question escapes before he can think it over. A serious mistake. Riku laughs so hard he starts choking on a mouthful of tagliatelle and needs to cough it out on his napkin.
Sora tries to kick him under the table, his feet hitting only air and Riku's chair. Years of being punted on the shins have taught him when to put his legs away. So, as revenge, Sora drags his plate to his side before loudly announcing to a puzzled Linguini, “I will be having his instead,” and handing him the fillet.
Their friend glances at the dish, then at him, then at Riku and then at the tagliatelle, his eyes growing wider with each shift. He opens his mouth, closes it. Lets out a gulp of air. Looks at Riku again.
Sora does the same to rejoice in Riku’s shaking frame. He isn’t coughing anymore, but little chuckles that he muffles against the napkin keep coming out. His eyes are almost closed from how squinted with joy they are. Sora bets he has the biggest grin behind that damn napkin.
“I would like a quiche, please.” He manages to say, his voice as merry as his laugh.
“A what?”
“A quiche, notted.” Says Linguini before practically speeding away from their table.
In his absence, Riku finally uncovers his mouth and his smile is, indeed, resplendent and delighted and all the other things Sora would coo over on a good day. Today is not a good day; Sora feels played like a fiddle.
“There wasn’t quiche on the menu.” He is so lost.
“Not on the menu, no.” Agrees Riku, which somehow makes it worse. “But Linguini said it was tonight’s special dish when he was serving us the wine.”
You see, the thing is that when Linguini was filling their glasses with one of the wine bottles from the package he brought to Colette from Thebes as a gift, Riku happened to be coincidentally shrugging his jacket off his shoulders and that, plus the candlelight lining his figure with honeyed shadows, plus the whiff he got of his new cologne, plus the whole romantic atmosphere of the place, was too much for Sora’s brain to handle. He had to shut something off and he, very smartly, decided that listening to Linguini was less important than ogling his boyfriend as he rolled up his sleeves until his forearms were on full display.
Not a decision he regrets making.
“Mmm…”
Linguini’s sudden reappearance startles him. Next time they come here, he is going to sit facing the kitchen.
“Sora,” Linguini, without a quiche on his hands but with panic in his eyes, gives him what seems a pitying grimace, shoulders raised almost to his ears. “Colette wants you in the kitchen.” He says, pointing towards the doors.
When the reason dawns on him, Sora’s heart makes the trip towards his throat, followed by the rest of his organs. Everyone wants to abandon ship when the kraken is about to attack. If only confronting Colette were as easy as that. Davy Jones’s tentacle face has nothing on her.
He gulps before asking, voice shaking. “When?”
“Now.”
Of course, there is no mercy in haute cuisine.
Sora considers giving Riku a parting kiss before meeting his early end at the hands of a kitchen knife, yet decides against the idea. It would be humiliating to kiss the man who signed his death sentence. And so, he abandons his chair like a prisoner does his cell on execution day and lets Linguini escort him across the room, his walk of shame catching the attention of the patrons they pass by, who murmur and theorise.
If only they knew what awaits him beyond those doors.
They squeak when Linguini pushes them open; it’s a mocking guffaw from the universe.
“Pigless pork, Sora?! Pig-less pork?! Are you making fun of me?! Do you think it is funny?! ‘Oh, let’s go to La Ratatouille and return EVERY SINGLE DISH just to be funny’! To hell with the chefs’ efforts! To hell with the wasted ingredients! To hell with their time and their money and their reputation because it’s SO MUCH FUNNIER to spit into everything they stand for! Is my cuisine a joke to you!? Pigless pork- For Gusteau’s sake. What will be next?! Cowless beef?! Chickenless chicken?! Tell me, Sora, since you are such a visionary and my mind is apparently too small to comprehend what goes on inside that hollow skull of yours! What else do you want?! Onionless onion soup?! Chocolateless chocolate cake?! No! No! That would be too normal for you. So why not go a step further since we are SOMEHOW revolutionising the culinary world tonight. Let's start with waiterless room service or chefless kitchens or—EVEN BETTER—foodless restaurants! Just seat the customers at a table and serve them the flavoured fumes from your inflated ego-”
“Good job, Sora. You have improved since last time.”
The smile on Colette’s lips is sincere like the rest of her always is, showing the sweetness that only appears outside working hours, while in her eyes shines the same pride Sora saw in Remy’s the first time he managed to crack three eggs in a row without getting yolk everywhere but the bowl.
For his part, the only type of smile Sora can give at the moment is an exhausted one; Colette has worked him within an inch of his life. Everything hurts. His legs from standing when he wasn’t rushing from one place to another. His arms from carrying sacks, saucepans and cooking pots around. His hands from peeling, cutting, skinning, sautéing, rubbing, whisking and cleaning. And his poor ears from listening to Colette's lecture, a full hour that she spent making him regret ever learning how to talk at the same time that she shoved him into a uniform and dragged him to the meat station to show him how very not-pigless their pork was.
After she had her fill and Sora looked chastised enough, her tone changed to something less reproaching, but still authoritative, that guided him during the service. Go fry that. Go wipe down that spot. Take this there. Bring that here. Do it faster. Do it better. Use less of this. Put more of that. No, not like that. Yes, exactly like this.
It was hectic in that organised-chaos way that all good kitchens were and, for a place where peeling one potato a second is taking too long, Sora thinks he did quite well. Colette isn’t one to give compliments to those who don’t deserve it and none of the other chefs complained about him either.
“I help out at Le Grand Bistrot from time to time.”
“So has Little Chef told me in his letters.” She pats him on the shoulder. “For you, he has only praise.”
The gesture turns his bones into butter, soft and already melting under his skin. He had no idea Remy talked like that about him to his friends; it took him so long to cook anything decent under his guidance, and he caused him so much trouble upon returning from Quadratum when he hid from everyone with the excuse that he was needed in the kitchen. Knowing it almost makes the tortuous dinner service worth it. Almost.
“You can leave the rest to Alfredo and me.” The fingers on his shoulder turn into a whole palm on his back that Colette uses to usher him away. “It’s inventory night.”
With no reason (nor intention) to overstay his welcome, Sora gives Colette a quick hug, which she returns with a squeezing grip, and exits the kitchen after returning the borrowed uniform.
The dinner room is colder than the kitchen but just as devoid of people; the floor already is swept and the tables have been arranged with the chairs on top of them, with the exception of one near the entrance door, where Linguini and Ego are having amicable conversation around a bottle of white wine with his traitor of a boyfriend.
Ego, due to being the only one directly facing the kitchen, is the first to notice his presence, announcing it with a rise of his glass. “And a thoroughly deserved ovation to our guest chef today, who has yet again graced us with his magical touch. Bravo, Sora.”
Linguini turns sideways to applaud while Riku, seated with his back to the kitchen, twists to place his arm on top of the backrest and greet him with an amused little smile and a tilt of his wine glass. It’s so reminiscent of how this whole mess started that Sora would laugh if that didn’t mean giving Riku the satisfaction of knowing that he isn’t as pissed off as he ought to.
Then, Sora approaches them in silence, snatches Riku’s drink from his hand, downs it in one gulp and it’s only after he has licked his lips clean and lodged himself on Riku’s lap that he acknowledges them with a blunt “Thank you” that he knows no one takes in bad spirits, judging by the smiles not abandoning their faces.
“Riku here was telling us about your contributions to Little Chef’s new menu,” says Ego, with that same pride in his words that Sora saw in Colette’s gaze. All the appreciation is getting him warm and fuzzy inside. Although it could also be the wine. Or the fact that Riku has his arms around his waist, the sleeves are still rolled up. “And how you are using your travels around the world to gain inspiration. What an enlightening experience it must be for your palate to visit that many new places. No wonder you are so full of surprises.”
“Enlightening, yeah, you couldn’t have said it better.”
After all, as far as Ego knows, Sora is some aspiring chef taught by Remy that travels ‘around’ and, from time to time, visits Le Grand Bistrot with new ingredients to use and recipes learned from the locals as a way to repay Remy for his lessons. Actually, he doesn’t have a clue if Ego is even aware of where Le Grand Bistrot is really located.
“I should go to help Colette,” Linguini gets up from his chair and it’s at seeing him shorter than usual that Sora realises he isn’t wearing his roller skates, “it’s inventory night.”
“She is already waiting for you.”
“I better hurry, then.”
Linguini’s departure leaves one seat free; however, Sora has no intention to occupy it. Riku owes him at least three hours of being his human throne and Ego doesn’t seem to mind his brazenness, happily serving him more wine when Sora silently asks for it with a wiggle of the glass.
“It’s a Sauvignon Blanc, harvest of the ‘63, a magnificent year for this variety.”
And as Ego starts rambling about types of grape and acidity and dryness and room temperature, going on and on about how ‘crisp, elegant and fresh’ it is as well as the best foods to serve it with, Sora drinks and thinks ‘yep, this is some goddamn wine’, letting the rest of the talk pass through him like white noise. He enjoys how eloquent Ego is in his speeches, his voice pleasant to the ear, but Sora is deadly tired and with Riku’s arms keeping his back pressed to his chest, he doesn’t feel like doing anything except taking a nap.
Well… there is something else he should do before that.
“Say, Ego,” the man smiles serenely at him despite the interruption—Is this really the critic everyone was so scared about? He is such a nice guy. “Do you know any way to make meat dishes without actual meat?”
At that, Riku’s chest trembles with the beginning of laughter, so Sora elbows him on the ribs, then sips more wine, since the glass was already close to his face. The alcohol is starting to smoothen the edges of the furniture.
“A very interesting question, indeed. Actually, there are some chefs experimenting with what they call ‘meat’s substitutes’, such as tofu or soy constructs to simulate the texture, not that they are having any luck with the flavour.”
That marks the beginning of another monologue that Sora is more compelled to listen to, if only to have something reasonable to answer if Colette asks him again what a ‘pigless pork’ is supposed to be. She isn’t letting that one go; Sora is as sure of it as of the fact that Remy will get a summary of the whole night in Colette’s next letter. He won’t be happy about it.
They stay for another hour talking with Ego and mopping the floor afterwards, which is how Sora learns that Riku didn’t spend the whole dinner service sitting pretty and sipping wine while Sora worked his ass off; he actually joined Linguini as a waiter, his white shirt and dark blue slacks similar enough to the uniform to not stand out too much. Equipped with the small notepad and a pen, Riku attended the tables with the manners expected of a keyblade Master (not that anyone in the room was aware of the title) and gained generous tips for the trouble, plus the number of three bold customers. One of them even dared to slip it into his back pocket.
Linguini kicked her out immediately.
“We should hang up a ‘Don’t harass the servers’ sign next time you visit.” Joked Colette when she handed them a box filled with desserts.
Sora is currently eating one of the fruit tartlets as they walk down the street. Being past midnight, the path from the outskirts to the centre of the city is silent—no cars and no people to obscure their footsteps. Riku proposed to drive them to the hotel (date night means no sleeping in the gummiship, those paperthin mattresses are the ultimate mood killer), but Sora opted for the stroll. He knows he is going to fall dead asleep the moment his head hits the pillow; this is the only way to stretch their date a little longer.
“Ego was right about Sauvignon Blanc pairing real well with dessert.”
“So you were listening to him.”
“The important bits.”
He finishes the tartlet in another bite—strawberry and kiwi mixing on his tongue—and gestures for the pastry box Riku’s carrying on his left hand. Since Sora refuses to let go of his right one, it takes some maneuvering for them to open it and take out a yellow macaron. Once they do, Sora lifts it to Riku’s mouth.
Riku kisses him instead.