Riku/Sora. Written for an anon on tumblr, the prompt being: Sora and Riku have been dating for months but ended up neglecting to tell Kairi while she was away. Hilarious antics to keep her from finding out and possibly getting mad ensue.

Summer's scorching haze. The dirt road stretched in front of Riku, winding uphill towards the gathering of dusty rooftops and withered leaves of the palm trees up ahead. The sea breeze from the ocean just beyond whipped up waves of dust, blowing into his eyes and coating his shoes and pants in a layer of grey-brown.

Dead in the middle of the summer's dry season, it was hard to remember what rain felt like, Riku thought, blinking slowly, his eyelids dragging over his cornea. He wasn't much for storms, but a storm right now sounded kind of welcoming. It'd neutralize the ridiculous dryness, probably.

Beside him, a companion in his current suffering, Sora sighed and used his forearm to wipe the sticky grime from his brow. Messy hair, limp with heat, stuck to his forehead, and Riku watched a bead of sweat roll down his temple. "Riku?" he mumbled.

"Yeah?" Riku's voice cracked a little in exhaustion, his eyes on the ground, his attention dedicated to putting one foot in front of the other.

"It's hot. You should carry me."

"Pffft. No."

"Fine. If I keel over from heatstroke later, tell my parents not to cremate me."

Riku laughed, little more than breathy snicker, as they entered the neighbourhood and turned left, finally on the home stretch towards Sora's house. "We're so close now, at least die after you unlock the front door. Then I don't have to drag a deadweight like you around without looking suspicious."

Riku figured if Sora's head wasn't muddled with muggy heat as it was, he'd make a witty comment in return, since Sora only sighed in happy relief as he stepped under the shade of the porch, fishing out his keys from his pocket. He jammed them into the lock once, twice, before finally twisting them in all the way and pushing down on the door handle and stumbling inside, dust shaking off.

As per routine reserved for Awfully Hot Days, they split up without further ado. Sora trudged his way upstairs while Riku immediately made his way to the living room, pulling the fan in front of the couch and dialling the speed to maximum. He slumped down and let the wind run through his bangs, closing his eyes.

He almost dozed off for a second there, and he probably would have fallen asleep right then. That is, if it weren't for something solid and ice-cold suddenly pressing against his neck.

Riku flinched and yelped in surprise.

Behind him, Sora cackled and pulled the bottle of lemon soda away, dumping a small towel on top of Riku's head. With a surprising amount of energy for someone complaining about dying from the heat merely minutes ago, he launched himself over the back of the couch and landed on the cushions with a bounce, jostling Riku while he was dabbing his face and the back of his neck dry with the towel. He swung his legs into Riku's lap, tanned and lanky but heavy, leaning back against the armrest, the bottle in his hands releasing a hiss as he twisted the cap off.

Something in Riku's pocket buzzed. Oh, he must have gotten a text. He considered ignoring it at first, in favour of basking in electrically-generated wind with Sora until they've both cooled off enough, but then again, what if Kairi sent it? She just finished her three-month long internship today, so she would be leaving Radiant Gardens soon, right?

So he pulled his phone out from his pocket, swiping the touchscreen unlocked. He squinted at the screen, angling it away from the light so it wasn't too dim for him to read the contents of the message. Not Kairi.

"Who's it from?" Sora asked, his voice echoing a little in the bottle.

"Xion," Riku answered, holding his phone in one hand and motioning to the bottle in Sora's possession with the other, prompting to Sora hand it over. He took a quick sip, the soda lightly stinging his tongue, before he read aloud, "Come party tonight for my first anniversary with Rox. Bring food."

"No wonder Roxas wasn't home. I didn't know it's been a year since he started going out with her, either. Time flies, huh?" Sora murmured as he ran his fingers through his hair. He made a face when they came out shiny and wiped them on Riku's discarded towel.

"I didn't know people partied to celebrate how long they've been dating anyways. I mean, they actually do that?" Riku turned off the phone with an electronic click and let it fall down to the cushions beside him.

Sora shrugged, with a sheepish sort of grin. "You're asking the guy who can't even remember when he started going out with you."

"You don't?"

"Uh… no?" Sora reclaimed his bottle from Riku's grasp.

"Good, because I don't really remember either," Riku admitted.

Sora nearly choked around a mouthful of soda, clapping a hand over his mouth and swallowing with a grimace. "Christ, you almost made me feel bad for second there," he wheezed, kicking one of Riku's legs with the heel of his foot. "Maybe it's because we never needed to, I don't know, define a starting point, like Roxas and Xion did. It's hard to tell that way, get what I mean?"

It was hard to tell, Riku thought, as he watched the blades of the fan whirr, semi-transparent with their sheer speed. There wasn't a confession or anything, or whatever the TV-series-of-the-season liked to laud. Things just happened, so to speak, nice and easy and comfortable, because Sora's been his best friend from even before he could remember anyways.

"Yeah, I know. I think I like it this way," Riku replied. Besides, he was pretty damn sure he couldn't deal with a bucket of awkward dumped on his head at once, as was typical of confessions of a romantic nature.

He didn't need to turn his head to know that Sora was wearing a fond smile, because he could feel it warmly beaming onto his face already.

He slumped further down in his seat on the couch, his fingers absentmindedly tracing over the small scars on Sora's knees— a testament to years spent playing outdoors together— while they passed the bottle of soda back and forth until it was empty.

A thought slipped into Riku's mind just then. Wind still blowing into his face, he held onto that thought, entertained it, gave it substance, and then a fissure of dread opened up in him, his insides teetering on the jagged edges.

Because someone very, very important, who hadn't been around for the past few months, didn't know about this development between them. At all. Because she wasn't there to see it.

"Sora?" Riku asked, very carefully.

"Huh?"

"I don't think Kairi knows."

Sora smacked a hand to his forehead. "Oh. Oh no."