Sora remembers them as he falls asleep next to the form of their absence.

He lies on his side and clutches at the sheets beside him. It feels just as empty as the air had after reaching out for his friends and failing. He remembers and then dreams—he prefers to dream, because the memories as they really are are just nightmares—Kairi does not let go when they part ways, and Riku's hand actually meets his before their whole world is swallowed up.

Sora has this unabashed need to literally be in the middle of everything.

In the morning he sees Riku and Kairi up ahead on the road to practice, probably just chatting casually about something insignificant, and before they even know it he's squeezed himself in-between them. They automatically side-step, only enough to accommodate him, because this isn't anything new, and they don't even think about it. Sora's shoulder brushes lightly against Kairi's and there is no shame, no reflex to politely pull away. Riku leans over and musses the smaller boy's hair, and Sora laughs with closed eyes, gives no indication that the gesture is unwanted.

Just the three of them, like it's always been.

It's like they're kids again, going down the road to school like they used to do, side by side—the memories play themselves out in Sora's mind and he smiles.

Kairi is great fun when they're ganging up on Riku. He gets so red when they push him down on to the sand, tickle him until he threatens to never let them cut his hair again, he'll just let it grow forever to spite them. He gets even redder when they replace fingers for kisses, and they are always unrepentant, because they never want him to forget how beautiful he is.

Riku reminds him to be gentle with the antiseptic when they're tending to Kairi's scratches, blood on her knees and bruised lips, but she's smiling all the same because she's learning so much from her boys. They've had more practice at this Keyblade business and she's determined to catch up—they revel in the way the light shines hungry in her eyes, ferocious and bright, and suddenly they forget why they thought they needed to be gentle.

But Sora likes it best when he's the one in the middle, when he can hold both of their hands at the same time. He has spent so much time chasing these two—he is not about to let them go any time soon.

Kairi watches the way Sora and Riku look at each other, how they look at her.

It is in the middle of a very tender moment, knees digging in to sand with a hand on each thigh (one from each of her boys), when she reaches out and palms their cheeks. Sora on the left, Riku on the right, and she just knows, knows them, the weight of them in her hands, the skin they were born in but have not always worn.

She feels the burn of green and blue sear in to her and knows she will never be able to forget it, even when it's not there, even under the guise of amber. She looks in to their eyes and thinks that yes, this is the way she prefers them.

When she had held Sora as a Heartless, he had been so small. Not like now, as she slides her arm around his shoulders, pulls him in for a proper kiss, laughs in to his mouth when his hair tickles her. She presses him down on to Riku's bed, tastes the shape of him, his mouth, his jawline, slides her fingers across the palm of his hand and counts the fingers that intertwine with hers, delighted when she gets past three. She smiles against his skin, the brown glow of his island heritage, so much better than the pitch dark of nothingness she tries not to remember.

When Riku finally gets home—greeted by the early dusk of twilight filtering over his two favorite people—Sora has already fallen asleep. She wonders if it's because he gets so little of it nowadays—time zones aren't really a solid thing when you travel as much as they do. She watches lazily from underneath the covers as Riku softly touches the backs of his knuckles to his cheek.

"I'm starting to think Yen Sid wasted all those separate rooms on us," he says.

She doesn't say anything, just shuffles on to her knees and draws herself up to his height. He's so much taller than either of them, but she meets his gaze, just barely. She locks her hands together below the nape of his neck, gently pulls forward with a smile and he humors her—he always does—until their foreheads touch. They smell like the sand and the sea, together like this.

She runs her fingers through his hair. It's matted and damp with sweat from practice with Lea, but she doesn't mind—this is her favorite thing to do, because she has seen the way he sometimes catches himself in the mirror and forgets not to flinch. Xehanort's hair is silver too, but not like the strands she's weaving through right now. Riku is warmer, a softer silver, reminds her a bit of blue moonlight. Riku thinks the difference is too subtle, but she sees it. Still, she thinks of how he used to avoid his own reflection and thinks that cutting it was definitely a good decision.

"Riku," she fills her lungs with his name, "Don't ever change."

Riku knows the exact moment when both of their heartrates sync up.

He has Kairi's back against his chest. Sora's head is in her lap, with both her and Riku's hands on top his chest. Sora's pulse is slow under his fingers, but Kairi's beats out the anthem of someone who has just finished training. It echoes against his ribcage. It's two different rhythms to focus on, but every so often, for just one, singular beat, Sora and Kairi's hearts will match up. It's the best part of any measure.

He closes his eyes and listens to their symphony, a harmony of their breath, life, and, most importantly, wakefulness.

He can't sleep at night sometimes, especially if the others have fallen asleep before him. That's how it is tonight—it's his turn in the middle and Kairi has rolled over in her sleep to sling an arm around him, leg brushing over his hip, her head on his chest. The weight is not at all unlike anything he's used to, limp and quiet, barely breathing, like when he used to cradle her in his arms. The only difference is that she sleeps with her eyes closed, and he doesn't have to worry that she won't wake up.

That, and the most important difference, the slow but steady thump of her heart beside his.

He has been through this three times now—once with Kairi, twice with Sora. It's enough to put anyone off sleep, even on the best of days. On a whim, he rolls his head over to see how Sora's doing, and is met with the blue brights of his boyfriend's eyes.

He yawns, "Hey."

Sora just sidles up closer to him, silent for a moment before saying without ceremony, "You can feel your heartbeat in your thumb, did you know that? There's this big vein there."

Riku stiffens a little, goes a little cold. He's not sure why Sora's spouting randomly specific trivia at him this early in the morning, but he can't help but feel like he's been caught red-handed doing something he shouldn't. He doesn't say anything.

"It's why you're not supposed to check for someone's pulse using your thumb," Sora continues in the absence of any reply, and then a little bit later, "Here, look," before shoving his palm towards Riku's face.

Riku reaches with the hand that isn't resting on Kairi's waist, presses one finger, two against the base of Sora's thumb. Presses a bit harder when he doesn't feel anything. There—is that it? He thinks he can feel the weakest hint of a beat. He wonders if he's imagining it.

"I figured it out, you know," Sora says, voice small, "I haven't figured out why you like it so much though."

Riku just looks at him, like he doesn't know what the other boy is talking about.

"It took a while, but I noticed. Like laying your head against our chests, ear first, stuff like that," Sora stretches lazily over and absentmindedly pushes some stray strands behind Kairi's ear, "You kiss our necks a lot."

Riku can feel the weight of the last few years on his eyes every time he blinks, he's been up for so long, "It's just nice. To hear it. Feel it."

He feels Kairi's chest balloon against him suddenly, and both boys say a silent sorry as she slowly gets up, eyes bleary, and reaches up to kiss Riku lightly on the corner of one eye. He immediately closes both of them, obediently.

"Go to sleep," she says, returning to Riku's chest, before reaching over and tangling her fingers softly in Sora's hair, "Or so help me god, I'll whup your asses to next Tuesday in training today."

They respond, correctly, with silence. The next few minutes are filled with nothing but soft breathing, and Riku, for once, drifts off in to blessed deep sleep. His dreams are filled with steady rhythms.