The Trigger

Chapter Eight

Paopu

Riku had come to a realization.

While it was tempting to carry on with the amount of loathing he harbored toward Sora, and had since high school, it wasn't going to solve the long-term problems. It was situations like these that had caused their lives to worsen in the first place—their "lives" being the multitude of ones they had experienced in different realities.

Of course, part of him still wanted to deny that these lives were even true. But they had been haunting him since his teenage years. And now they were involving Sora, and Sora had let him in on a key component that explained why there was so much misery, why the cycle kept repeating itself, worsening each run around: they had shared a paopu fruit.

The paopu fruit was a local legend from Destiny Islands. If two people shared one, their destinies would be intertwined forever. Cliché? A little. A notion hundreds of girls subjected their boyfriends to each year? Definitely. Reports of it actually working? Nonexistent.

Until now.

There was still plenty Riku hadn't told Sora. He hadn't, after all, lied about it being his fault that Sora was in his current state of agony, no matter what the other man thought. The truth of it had revealed itself in Riku's dreams, night after night. It was only the trickle effect that had eluded Riku. Why would one tragic moment branch into so many threads that continuously tied them together, no matter where their souls happened to reappear?

This didn't mean it would be particularly easy righting things. But someone had to do it. If that meant setting aside his own personal grievances acquired in this reality, then he'd swallow his pride and he'd get to work.

The only problem?

It was going to take two people to fix this, and the other factor in the equation was having trouble just swallowing the fact that he'd had a lifelike dream in the middle of the day.

Kairi, inevitably, called him. They spoke every day, for the most part. Riku had been expecting the call since that morning, when Kairi and Roxas had been a useless mess over wherever Lea could be hiding. Why no one had thought to check the man's actual house was beyond him, but Riku didn't spend much time ruminating on such things when he had more pressing matters to deal with.

Like the fact that he was siding with Sora on this, and Kairi couldn't believe it.

"He slept with Rox's boyfriend, Riku!" Kairi's voice had lowered, like she'd put her hand over the receiver to hide whatever she was talking about. Roxas must have been in the vicinity.

"I know," Riku said quietly.

"You know, and you're still—?"

"You know as well as I do that Sora needs help." Riku glanced over at Sora's prone form. He hadn't stirred since Riku had returned with an icepack for that swelling eye.

What kind of help he needed, well, that was up to Kairi's interpretation.

"Oh, Riku," Kairi sighed, and it crackled over the line. There was silence then, a moment that spanned into several and ticked into close to two minutes. When Kairi finally spoke again, it was so softly Riku almost didn't catch it, "He hurt you so much last time."

He didn't say anything.

"But if I know you," Kairi continued wearily, "and I do know you, Riku, you'd never abandon a friend in need, and Sora needs you more than anybody right now. If anyone can get through to him, it's you."

Riku leaned against the wall in Sora's room closest to the door, crossing one arm across his chest. But he smiled a little. He appreciated Kairi's words. They would make the coming days a little easier to bear.

"I'll manage damage control over here while I can." Wry amusement coated her voice. "I can't make any promises, Riku."

"I wouldn't want you to," Riku replied. "If Roxas gets free and punches Sora again, Sora had it coming."

At that, Kairi laughed outright. The sound of it was bright and cheery enough that it brought an answering chuckle from Riku's lips.

"Give him a kiss from me?" Kairi whispered after a time.

"Yeah."

After they had signed off, Riku pocketed his phone and leaned over Sora. He studied him for a long moment, musing over how innocent Sora looked while asleep, hiding the new front he put on for the world.

Riku stroked Sora's hair off his brow and brushed a kiss there.

"From Kairi," he murmured.

The scene was always the same.

Sora standing there, looking so vulnerable, his arms crossed, the sleeves of his sweater so long they covered up to his fingernails. His big, blue eyes upturned to Riku as they stood within Riku's small apartment by the shore and listened to the tide coming in, eroding more of the beach as winter settled over the islands.

"I just… I just thought… maybe we could share a paopu…"

Though his lips moved, no sound came out. Riku knew what he was saying regardless. Sometimes Sora was muted like this, other times he seemed to scream the words into the stillness. But usually, it was how he originally spoke them, whispered and afraid.

"It seems stupid, doesn't it…?" Sora dropped his eyes to the floor and touched his hand over the back of his neck. A wistful smile took over the length of his mouth. It drew Riku closer, made him reach out and trace it with the pad of his thumb.

"I'm just surprised you're being so shy about it," Riku laughed quietly.

At that, Sora knotted his brows and glared up at Riku in a look so familiar it made Riku's heart hurt. "Fine, you jerk. Share a paopu fruit with me. Or else."

"Or else?" This made Riku laugh outright, and he had to put a hand over his side as it cramped up from the force of it.

Sora puffed up and put his fists on his hips. "Oh, just because you're a Keyblade Master now, you think you get to make fun of me?"

"No," Riku gasped between chuckles, "I just think you're never going to look menacing."

Sora waited impatiently for Riku to calm himself, but when Riku did, the words he spoke were not ones Sora had wanted to hear.

"I can't," he said, not looking at his brunet friend, "We can't."

"But why?" Sora protested.

"You don't want to tie yourself to me, Sora. I'm too broken."

"Isn't that for me to decide?!"

They would argue for hours, but the result was always the same. Sora ran out of the apartment, and Riku let him go, and their friendship was shattered irreparably. They still battled together, still had one another's backs. There was just a distance there that Riku could never breach again.

Or so Riku had thought until the day before in his kitchen, when Sora had told him something to rattle him to the marrow in his bones.

They had shared a paopu fruit.

But when?

And why hadn't Riku dreamt that memory yet?

"Where are you going?"

Riku glanced at Sora as he put his wallet into his back pocket with his phone and collected his keys. "I have to be up early tomorrow. Interning."

The brunet blinked tiredly. He shrugged his blanket over his shoulders and rose into a sitting position, wearing the blanket like a shawl. "You weren't gonna say goodbye?"

Riku paused and licked his lips. Then he drew his fingers through his long hair. "I wasn't sure if I should wake you or not."

The other boy got to his feet, stumbling over to Riku and putting his arms around him. Riku froze just a little bit—Sora was hugging him voluntarily—but wound his arms around Sora's waist. Sora made a sleepy noise and rested his cheek against Riku's chest. Riku was trying not to let his heart melt. Sora was adorable, as always, but he'd hurt Riku so much…

Didn't you just tell yourself you weren't going to let that stand in the way anymore?

Riku put his hand to Sora's head. "I've gotta go, okay?"

"Riku, do you remember when we were younger, and we'd spend the night every night, and you'd let me curl up in bed with you?" Sora mumbled.

But of course, nothing was ever easy.

"Sounds familiar," Riku said. Of course, he knew exactly what Sora was talking about. He'd relived those moments so many times through high school. Had held onto them as hope that Sora would return his feelings when the time came…

"Stay?" was all Sora said.

Curse Riku's soft, soft heart. What would Kairi think if she could see him now? Kairi, the person who had comforted him when Sora had split from the group. When he'd crushed Riku's—

"I—Sora, I can't… it wouldn't mean anything. I can't… I can't do that to myself. Not right now."

Sora tilted his head back and fixed stubborn blue eyes on Riku's. "Who said it wouldn't mean anything?"

Riku gave him a look. "You just woke up in Lea's bed. You slept with your brother's boyfriend, Sora."

The shorter boy broke out of the embrace. He got rid of his blanket in a huff, scowled at Riku, and walked into his kitchen. Riku turned slightly with him to keep him in sight. Sora poured himself a healthy glass of tap water and then started to chug it.

"Okay," Riku murmured. "Bye, Sora."

He'd made it to the door when Sora's soft voice cut across the living room.

"I have a long history with Lea. He… He was the first person I ever slept with… We were both drunk… I think… I think it's just because I look like Roxas…"

Riku lifted his head slowly.

"We saw each other in secret for a while, and then it fell apart. Well… I made it. I didn't want to be involved with Lea anymore. Not because of Roxas, I don't give two fucks about that. But because I had feelings for Lea, and it wasn't going anywhere."

"When was this?" Riku asked.

"In high school. Like, three months before you confessed to me."

"You told me you weren't—"

"I know what I told you." Sora sighed. There was the sound of his glass being put in the sink. "I was ashamed and embarrassed, and I was still in love with Lea."

Riku didn't know how to process that. He stared at the door, as if it held the answers.

"Riku, I'm fucked up, okay? I'm a fucking mess. But… you don't deserve the way I treated you."

"I don't," Riku murmured.

And then he walked out.

He had a lot of think about.