Shells Cause Invasions of Privacy

"Where's Riku?" Kairi wiggled her bare toes in the warmed sand as she and Sora walked onto the beach. They left their shoes behind at the boardwalk, trusting they'd be there when they'd gotten back from their walk.

"At home. His mother was bugging him about chores or something." Sora recalled standing outside of Riku's house. The older boy almost made it out of the door, almost, but then his mother's complaint of his room sent him right back in.

"You must be disappointed," Kairi stated, a smirk laced into her voice. "You'll have to wait until tomorrow to see him at school."

Sora raised an eyebrow, obviously trying to hide the oncoming embarrassment in response to Kairi's remark. "Okay?..."

"Sora, it's so obvious!" The brunet continued to stare at her questionably as Kairi bent to pick up a Thalassa shell. As she heaved herself back up, her pitch dropped ever-so-slightly. "You like him."

"What? You mean like—like that? I do not!"

But Kairi's determination did not falter. "You stare at him like a lovesick puppy." She drew her hand to her eyebrow to scratch an itch. "Why don't you just confess to him and get it done with?"

"Okay, fine… You caught me." Sora hated it when people saw right through his lies. And it happened quite frequently, especially so with Kairi—how were his emotions so easy to read? "But what if he's… y'know…"

"Sora, no matter what, Riku's going to be your best friend. So what if you're gay? Even if—"

"I'm not gay," Sora clipped her off. "I like Riku. Just Riku."

The other was about to reply, but forgot about it as she observed what she had picked up. This caught Sora's attention; he looked at the shell as well.

It was a spiral shell, but its color was unusual compared to the usual seashell. Its gold color sparkled in the afternoon sun—so bright it was blinding after staring for a few moments. Kairi dropped it to the ground, losing interest in it quickly. Sora was the one to pick up the shell this time; he was too fascinated with it to not. However, Kairi focused back to the conversation that had been left off.

"Okay, but you're missing the point, Sora. This is Riku we're talking about, remember?"

"But it would make things awkward and ruin what I have. That's… enough for me."

"That doesn't seem to be the truth. I know you want more from him—" She paused, noticing Sora had the strange shell in his hands now. "You know, that has to be plastic to shine like that—just put it down." As her hand went to bat it out of Sora's grip, the shell's brightness increased ten-fold, blinding the teenagers.

Sora found himself waking up in the strangest manner. Why was his face half-buried in sand? What was he doing before he had fallen asleep?

That's right, he thought. I was walking on the beach with Kairi until she tried to take the shell out of my hand… I wonder what happened.

To inquire Kairi about whatever event may have just taken place, he looked around for where she may have been. She hadn't taken off and left Sora here to drown in the shore of the beach, had she?

But the person laying beside him instead of her threw him into a panic.

There he was—his own body—laying in a curled up position, sleeping. The last time he'd seen himself (besides in the mirror) was the Anti-Sora courtesy of Riku—but at least it didn't have his color on him. In fact, he was beginning to think this was one huge dream. Or he was dead. He was really praying on the first choice.

But… if I was dreaming, would I be able to address the fact that I was dreaming?... He shook his head to dismiss the train of conflicting thoughts in his head. Okay, I gotta calm down. I'm sure this can all be sorted out.

I wonder what would happen if I woke myself up? What would I do? The sudden curiosity of further evaluating the situation seemed to calm himself down—at least slightly. He looked over his unconscious form. He was dressed in his school uniform, just like he was now—

But when he looked down to compare the uniforms, his heartbeat drummed loudly in his skull.

His pants had been swapped for a skirt—the same school uniform with a sex change. His legs were lithe and cleanly shaved—definitely not his legs. And his chest—he'd thought there'd been a weird addition of weight to his chest!

There, as he stared downward, he found two small breasts.

Did someone give me a sex change when I'd gone to sleep?

Currently distracted with the new information he'd just acquired, he barely missed when the other Sora began to twitch in the signs of wakefulness. He looked up at the boy beside him and waited for a response.

Other Sora opened his eyes, blinking once, then twice. He rubbed his head gingerly and wore a look of confusion. He proceeded to look up at Sora. A look of horror crossed his face, like he'd seen a ghost.

"Am I dead?" he shouted. Sora was fascinated with the sound of his own voice; he'd never heard it as a third party before. But this was overshadowed by the fact that his own body had begun to freak out. "Who—who are you?" Other Sora peered down to evaluate himself. A flash of red covered his face quickly. "And—holy crap, I'm in Sora's clothes!"

"Say what?" The words came out before Sora could shut them up. "Hey, what's going on?"

The voice he heard come out of his mouth sounded female, but it was vaguely familiar. Greeeaaaat.

Other Sora snapped up to feel his hair, clothing, chest—between his legs… Sora felt awkwardly violated by this. But Other Sora seemed just as perplexed. "Oh, god—I think I am Sora!"

Sora lifted an eyebrow. This only continued to get weirder and weirder.

"Sora, is that you?" Other Sora asked, looking at the real Sora. "It's me—Kairi."

"K-Kairi?" he squealed in that higher pitched voice. "Yeah, it's me—what's going on?"

"I think… I think we've swapped bodies," Kairi explained, tugging at the white uniform shirt nervously. "I… no, that's… ugh…"

Swapping bodies would have made sense of the situation. Well, as much sense at it seemed to make, anyway. Sora grabbed a tuft of hair from his head and wrapped it around to peer at it with his eyes. It was definitely Kairi's red locks he had wrapped in his fingers.

"So… what do we do now?" Sora asked, letting the hair fall back in its place.

Kairi brought a hand to her chin. "Do you think it has to do anything with that shell you picked up? The golden one?"

Sora took a moment to contemplate. The shell had been awfully suspicious… "Do you have it? I was holding it when we fainted, remember?"

With an, "oh, right!" Kairi plunged her hands into the pockets of the pants and twisted her head to look around for the shell. Within a moment, she picked herself up and dusted the sand off of her legs. "Maybe you dropped it and the tide picked it up."

"If that's so, what chance do we have of finding it now?" Sora groaned.

"You want to stay like this forever?"

"Well, no—"

"Then what do we have to lose?" She marched down the shoreline without giving Sora a chance to open his mouth. He simply got up and followed her.

The sun had set and there was no light, save for the moon. The two teenagers had scaled the beach as far down as possible (until they'd hit private beaches) and were forced to turn back.

"What now?" Sora asked for the second time that day.

"We'll… have to live as each other for now, I guess," she offered. "If we go back to our own houses, our parents will flip out."

She did have a point. Sora daydreamed about what his parents would do if he waltzed in as Kairi and told them they'd have a new daughter for a while. But for how long would they play this charade?

"We'll keep looking on the beach for something," Kairi continued. "There's no point in not. We'll meet after school days to do it."

There was a moment of silence. Until Sora spoke up, "Wait, Kairi. How are we gonna explain this to Riku?"

"We won't," she replied simply. "And you need to call me Sora now, or people are going to think we've gone off the deep end."

"Why won't we tell Riku?" Sora was stopped dead in his tracks. "Doesn't he have a right to know?"

Kairi sighed. "Riku is going to think it's a silly little game and not believe us."

"But we've—"

"Despite what we've been through before, this is still pretty crazy… especially without any real explanation of why this happened." She twirled one of Sora's brunet locks. "Besides, he doesn't really need to know. We'll figure this out somehow."

"I guess you're right…" What was the point in worrying Riku if nothing could be done about it? But what if they stayed like this?

"But if we're going to appear normal," Kairi continued, "We're going to have to act like each other. Okay, so, my family always has dinner at five o' clock…"

Sora crept awkwardly into the house, trying his best not to make a sound. If at all possible, he wanted to avoid any family members. Period.

To his fortune, Sora was able to travel straight to Kairi's bedroom without any awkward encounters. Sora, despite being Kairi's friend for so many years, wasn't sure of her behavior around her family members. It was hard to pinpoint her personality in a different situation from what he was used to seeing her. He just hoped no one noticed her sudden change in demeanor.

I guess I should change into something more comfortable now… ugh, this is going to be weird… Sora dug through her dresser drawers in search of an outfit. Wasn't this considered an invasion of privacy? He especially asked this to himself as he looked down at a pile of panties and bras of varying colors.

Well, it's not like I can keep wearing the same clothes all the time. That would look strange.

It took a good five minutes before Sora threw an old t-shirt and pair of flannel pants onto the bed. This was going to be the hardest part. Taking off the uniform—essentially, stripping Kairi.

He loosened the tie with a few tugs, and threw it onto the bed beside the outfit he'd just picked out. Turning away from the standing mirror, he slowly unbuttoned the cotton shirt. Each button undone made him more awkward. He shrugged out of the shirt when he finished and threw it on the bed, covering the tie. Next was the skirt. And within moments, he was standing in Kairi's underwear.

Curiosity won over embarrassment, and he spun to gaze at her body in the mirror. He wasn't really turned on by it—but rather was taken over by mere fascination. It was one of those questions that most people never have the chance to have answered. 'So this is what it's like to be a girl.'

Overall, being a girl just felt softer, and it didn't help that Kairi wasn't the athletic type either. She merely watched Riku and Sora train from the sidelines (which they still did after their journey, just as they had done before). It was a strange sensation to grab an arm and feel it squish, muscles less prominent than usual.

He slipped the new clothing on, tired of analyzing Kairi's body in the mirror.

Kairi, however, did not have that much of a problem with the discomfort of being the opposite gender. In fact, being in Sora's body was just somehow refreshing. She felt more energized—it was like Sora's body was made of electricity. (Or maybe it had to do with that fact that he definitely worked out more than she ever did.)

That morning, as per Sora's direction, Riku would be meeting at Sora's house in the very near future. She slipped the backpack over her shoulders as she heard the doorbell ring. The Strawberry Poptart lying on the table was slipped in-between her teeth to keep both her hands free, and when Kairi opened the door, Sora was true to his word: it was Riku.

"Murnin'," came the muffled response from the stuffed mouth.

"I see I caught you during breakfast," Riku laughed.

She closed the door and then spat the breakfast bar back into her hand. "Running a little late today." Kairi didn't know how to work Sora's alarm clock, and so it happened to not chime its perky tune that morning. "I slept in by accident."

Riku rolled his eyes as if this were typical. "You act as if running late isn't your trademark."

Kairi rose an eyebrow. Riku only chuckled. Kairi did not know Sora to be running on the last seconds of the clock. She assumed it was just a morning thing, or else something she had never noticed.

"Hey!" Kairi waved to the distant Sora (in her body) and Selphie approaching. Selphie giggled, but Sora just gave an awkward wave. Riku seemed to be noting this strange behavior, as he rubbed his chin thoughtfully.

"So, you'll never believe what happened last night…" Selphie chirped away about how she saw the most gorgeous guy the previous night. Kairi listened intently to the conversation, while Sora seemed more interested in stealing glances at Riku. But he only had to be caught once to not try it again. He turned away as a blush made his cheeks rosy.

Riku just stared on straight ahead afterwards, disregarding Sora's behavior. Sora timidly brushed a red strand behind his ear and found the ground to be the most interesting thing on the island at that moment.

"So, if you would turn your books to page two-hundred thirteen…"

Sora sighed as he tiredly turned the pages in his enormous English textbook. He so did not want to be there in the classroom. Rather, he just wanted to crawl into a bed and lay there for a good long while.

Did I eat something bad? …but isn't toast supposed to help stomach aches, not make them? Or maybe it was the jelly… Unconsciously, he clutched his abdomen with his arms. 'Ugh. Not my day.'

His eyes searched around the room for anything else besides The Canterbury Tales. Without thinking, he decided Riku's hair would be nice to look at.

'It looks so soft. And fluffy. I wanna touch it.'

It took only seconds for Riku to notice the staring. He turned in Sora's direction, giving him a raised eyebrow. Sora immediately turned away, trying to hide the forming blush. As if to damn him, his abdomen gave another throb, and his forehead met the desk.

"No sleeping in class!" the teacher snapped, and Sora's head shot up like a rocket. "Usually, your pal Sora is the one that sleeps in class. You shouldn't be picking up his habits."

Sora scowled. Kairi giggled.

But this image with swapped bodies looked rather strange to most onlookers who knew the two. However, most students choose to ignore it, seeing as how the two of them were usually kind of strange anyway.

Most.

The throbbing continued through to the night. It was about evening, after Sora had come home from seashell hunting when the horror would begin.

It was an innocent bathroom run, really. Sora took a deep breath (like he always did since the switch) and quickly dropped her pants.

When he looked down, he noticed something that explained all the stomach pains from the previous day.

Oh god. NOT NOW. OF ALL TIMES.

Sora prompted seated himself on the toilet mid-panic. He concentrated on what he knew about periods and what girls did. Pads and tampons. They were needed right now. …crap, where did they even keep them in here?You've gotta be kidding me. Her body picked the worst time ever for this. Really.

He rummaged through the cabinets until he found a box of tampons, and promptly seated himself back on the toilet. So… what do I do with these? …this is more complex than I'd thought. He pulled out a wrapped tampon. To his fortune, he also found the folded sheet of paper in the box of tampons. Unfolding it, he realized it was a full-blown instructional manual. Tampon insertion 101.

I'm just going to pretend that this isn't awkward. I can't exactly ignore the situation at hand here.

Oh, but it was awkward.

The next day in class, Kairi could only take pride in Sora's pain. And she took time during the class break to rub it in his face.

"Not so easy, is it?" Kairi (in Sora's body) crossed her arms rather smugly.

"Shut up!" Sora pouted his lip and turned away from her. What was he supposed to say? He couldn't exactly deny that the completely natural process of menstruation is easy or painless.

"But thanks for dealing with it for me while I'm on vacation. I appreciate it."

"…today I think I hate you."

"It's the hormones."

"Hey," Riku cut in, appearing behind Sora. He put a hand on his shoulder and tugged him ever so closer to himself. "You mind if Kairi and I talk real quick, Sora?"

"No problem. You take your time." Kairi proceeded to waltz away to Selphie, who was rather confused by (what appeared to her to be) Sora's unpredictable company.

Sora spun around slowly to meet Riku's gaze. He wasn't sure how to interpret his gaze. He looked bewildered and helpless at the same time. It wasn't a typical Riku-face.

"Hey, Kairi. Um… I just wanted to talk to you about something really quickly."

"What is it?" Sora's heart beat was racing. This was important. Riku was about to share information that was, as far as he knew, supposed to be exclusive to Kairi. Another invasion of privacy.

"It's—"

"Alright, students." The teacher stood up, chalk already in hand. "You've had plenty of time; take your seats."

"Meet me after school, out by the tennis courts," Riku quickly murmured as he turned away to head back towards his seat.

What could he want from me? Sora thought, as he returned to his own seat. Or rather, Kairi. Did he want to ask about my staring yesterday? Or worse… what if he… what if he likes Kairi and is asking her out? No, just calm down Sora. That's definitely not it.

The throbbing pain was dull compared to the terror of what Riku was going to tell him after school. Oh god.

"Thanks for meeting me out here."

Sora timidly nodded, and turned his gaze to the less intimidating brick wall his back was against. "What was so important that you had to talk to me in private?"

"It's… it's about Sora." As a reflex to his name, Sora's gaze snapped towards Riku. Riku's face was reddening by each second.

Sora felt his face's color begin to match his friend's. He tried to fight the prickling in his face and muffling of his ears.

"What… what about Sora?"

"…hey, why are you blushing?" Riku asked, noticing Sora's rosy cheeks. "I know you used to like him—" This remark only made the blushing worse. "But I thought you said you were over it, pretty much."

"I… I am?" Damn. This is like another invasion of privacy. How many times would he unwilling pry into Kairi's life? "You're changing the topic! What about … Sora?" Sora gulped and braced himself for the answer. Oh god.

"Well—okay. I need some advice."

There was a silence. Riku was obviously waiting for a prompt. "What is it?"

"How—ugh." Riku's trembling hand met with his forehead in a flustered fashion. "Okay, um, so... how do I tell him… you know?"

"…you know what?" Sora was hoping the end of that sentence wasn't something like, "To tell him to stop staring me all the time."

"That I may… have feelings for him."

Sora wasn't sure if he'd heard that right. And just to make sure, he questioned Riku, "What?"

"I like him, okay?" Riku hissed, shifting his gaze towards the tennis players currently practicing. "I kind of imagined you being giddy about it rather than being all weird." The last statement had a bit of bitterness to it.

Sora was paralyzed by the disbelief of what was going on. He was tempted to leap at Riku and hug him as tightly as possible. Though that would be quite hard to explain. "Taken care of. It's me, Sora! In Kairi's body! I know, hard to believe. Blame the magic shell."

In a panic, Sora stuttered, "I-I-I don't know. I… I just remembered I have to… to meet Ka—Sora somewhere. Um—I'll let you know when… when I think of something. Like, the advice thing. Sorry!" And he broke out into a run, because all he needed to do at the point was get out of that situation.

Sora kicked the sand from the beach as he filled Kairi in on the "secret meeting" with Riku. "So I just ran for it. What was I supposed to do? He just basically confessed to me while asking how to do it! And by the way, this may have never happened if we would have just told—"

Sora stopped midsentence when the girl in his own body started giggling. "What's so funny?"

"You!" Kairi replied, clutching her stomach. "You have yourself so worked up about this. But you know the truth now." She wiped the tears from her eyes. "When we change back into our former selves, you can confess, no problem."

"It's still… awkward…"

"Oh, you're so funny!" Kairi continued to giggle mercilessly.

Sora plopped onto the ground, skirt fluttering a bit too high for good taste. Quickly he ruffled it down, remembering he wasn't wearing pants. "We're never gonna find this stupid shell," he groaned, defeated.

"So you're just going to give up and pretend to be me forever?" Kairi was next to tumble onto the sand next to Sora. "No offense, but I'd like my old body back."

"Yeah, me too…" Sora hung his head low, only to discover something shining. Only a millisecond passed by until he furiously began to dig at the spot as Kairi looked on in awe. But what they found was not what they were expecting.

"Well, hello you two! Ribbit." The shell. A goddamn frog with the shell. "Hey, wait. Ribbit. I think I recognize you two—ULLGGHHH!" In his ferocious anger, Sora grabbed the tennis-sized frog and shook him.

"WHY DO YOU HAVE THE SHELL?""

"It's—ullgghghh—mine…"

"Sora, I think you're choking him!" Kairi quickly saved the frog from Sora's clutches, delicately placing him in the palms of Sora's borrowed hands. "We think the shell is responsible for the two of us switching bodies! Please help us!"

The frog (as best as a frog could) wore a face of contemplation. "Well, that shell does have magic properties. I recently dropped into in the ocean, and have been looking for it a while now." The amphibian paused to shudder under the pressure of Sora's heated glare. "I don't why it would have acted on its own accord, though…"

"Can you fix this mess?" Sora grumbled.

"What's his problem?..." The frog asked Kairi, disregarding Sora's question completely.

"Girl hormones, he's rather new to them," Kairi explained. "But can you?"

"Well, I can try my best. But no guarantees, okay?" Sora's glare let up, relief getting a reign on his temper. Kairi's face lit with a smile. "I just need to concentrate—"

"What's going on with you two?" The voice came from a few feet towards the mainland—Riku looked almost as furious as Sora had been moments prior. "You two have been acting so strange lately; and Kairi, why did you run off like that?"

The two slowly spun around, carefully hiding the magical frog from Riku's view. "I knew we should have told him."

"If you didn't act so entirely stupid, he would have never guessed…"

"I just said I needed to concentrate, ribbit! Do you two want to be back to normal or not?"

The trio were all startled by the sudden, croaked outburst. Riku lifted his chin up, seeing the frog just overtop brunet spikes. "All right you two, what have you been doing?"

Kairi offered a small smile. "You remember when we wanted to go to the beach together, but your mom wouldn't let you because you had to clean your room?" Riku nodded. "Well, we went to beach together when we found a weird shell. Somehow, it disappeared and we… kinda… switched places…" Riku raised an eyebrow, suspicious. "We didn't say anything because we thought you'd think we were crazy."

"Kairi, you're the one who said that! I was the one who offered to say anything!"

"Hold it!" Riku's words halted the argument. "So you… are each other?" They nodded. "That makes sense… why you two have been acting so different in the past two days. But what about the talking frog?"

"It was my shell, ribbit. I was about to change them back."

"Yes, please do!" Sora cried. "I don't ever want to be a girl again!"

The frog closed his eyes, and without any further ado, another bright flash blinded their eyesight.

When Sora came to, he was groggy and slightly confused. "Am I…." His head lolled to the left to see Kairi beaming at him. Seconds later, when it dawned on him, he patted his body, exploring which one he was in. "I'm me again!" he exclaimed, sitting up quickly. "Oh thank god!"

Kairi laughed, and so did Riku. However, he didn't see Riku—until he spun around. Riku was chuckling at him too. "So you're really Sora, now?"

Sora nodded, wide grin across his face. He heard Kairi shuffle and start to walk away from the two boys. "Hey, where are you going?"

"Home," she said. "All this magic is making me exhausted. I'll see you two at school tomorrow." She brushed her school skirt of sand and trekked across the beach alone. But Sora knew that wasn't the real reason why she'd left. Now Riku and Sora were the only ones left there.

"So, earlier today…" Riku said, his eyes looking down as if there was an interesting grain of sand. "Uh, I'm sorry."

"Sorry about what?..." He was asking more to confirm than anything; Sora had an idea he knew where this was heading.

"When I was asking about… advice..." And he left it at that. There was a pregnant pause, and as Riku rose to leave, Sora yanked him back down by the wrist.

"No, don't leave—I…." Sora's voice cracked. Great! Just to make the situation even more awkward. "I'm… glad you said something. Because… well, I like you too."

Sora peered to the left, and then to the right. All clear. Taking the plunge, he tentatively grabbed Riku by the front of his shirt, shyly bringing his face closer to his best friend's. Riku grabbed the back of Sora's head and quickly closed the gap, their lips smashing painfully from such a hard impact. Sora could feel butterflies burst in his stomach despite the bruising and pain the kiss brought. The kiss was brief, and Riku was the first to pull away. "Sorry, that must have hurt…"

"Stop being sorry, would ya!" Sora punched Riku's shoulder playfully. And that encouraged Riku to shove Sora back down into the sand, where the two began to wrestle playfully, as if nothing strange had happened.

When they were done rolling around the beach, there was sand crammed in uncomfortable places, and Sora was sitting on top of Riku triumphantly. "So… are we together now?" he asked softly.

Riku nodded with a smile. "Only if you want to, though."

Sora gave a toothy grin, and dove in for a much less painful kiss.

End.

A/N: Ah! Finally, this is done! I think I started this about… oh a year or something ago, but never got around to finishing it. I changed this over and over until I was satisfied. First it was gonna be more dramatic, and then it was gonna have a lot more plot to it, and then… it really got clipped short, lol. But in his finished state, I'm satisfied with the way it went and it actually took (most) of the direction of its initial plotting. –throws confetti-

Well, anyway, critique as harshly as it comes. I don't ever utilize a beta, but I've read through this several times to make additions and check consistencies, so hopefully it flows well and makes sense.

OKAY YEAH THANKS FOR READIN' BAI. C: