[A/N: Sorry if the details are off… I haven't played KH in such a long time, but I was in the Namiku mood. Not so much fluff here, but one or two more chapters should solve that. ;D Enjoy.]

He was caught by surprise.

He wasn't typically the one to be overwhelmed by any sense of emotion. If anything, he had spent the last year muting the whiny tinges of happiness, sadness, fear, and anger that he had allowed to dominate his person in previous years. This didn't necessarily mean that he'd perfected a Nobody mimic – rather, he was in fuller control of these spontaneous surges and could now mask the most ecstatic, painful, depressed, and furious states of his nature without too much effort. He didn't consider himself emotionless – he considered himself controlled.

So, when he stopped at the entrance to the chamber Sora's memory was being restored in and was forced to stifle an exhale fueled by discomfort, he was confused.

Where did it come from?

Sure enough, his gloved fingertips quavered in their position just out of reach of the door's handle. He frowned deeply at his shakiness and replenished his initial breath with a smoother, more natural intake. There was nothing in that room for him to lose his composure over.

Of course, his psych had been taking unnecessary turns as of late that could be wheedling the unsettling feelings into his system. Whenever he allowed himself to get a little carried away in the realm of daydreams, he found his thoughts straying to the blonde-haired girl that would work so hard in the confinement of that chamber. It would begin with an admiration for her hard work, but, over time, it had slowly progressed to the point where he would imagine them in a different scenario of sorts; one where he wasn't as much of the bad guy as he felt himself to be and one where she wasn't as connected to Kairi as she was – and that was usually where the line was drawn.

Riku huffed to himself in mild chastisement and pushed the door open with a newfound will of steadiness. He had learned that if he didn't linger on things, he couldn't get worked up about them. This wasn't the kind of thing he wanted himself susceptible to stressing over. That wasn't to say that he didn't fall into the trap of doing so, though.

She didn't look up from her work when Riku walked over to stare up at Sora's capsule from her side. "Hello, Riku."

"Namine."

Damn. He could barely keep the quiver out of his voice now. It wasn't as though any of this was new, so why was it affecting him to this degree now?

She must have noticed it too because she broke her focus to peer up at him from beneath long, dark eyelashes. "Are you getting sick?" She spoke softly and genuine hints of care backed the tone of her voice. Was that possible or was he imagining it?

"Huh." Riku didn't meet her gaze and kept his leer in Sora's general direction. "Don't be ridiculous. I'm always in perfect health."

She smiled at the stubborn streak he would display every now and then and returned to her drawings. "I see. I'd stay on my toes, though. It always starts with the smallest things."

Didn't he know it.

They fell into a comfortable silence and he watched her hand transform multiple sheets of blank paper into masterful forms of art, of memories that he could sometimes identify and other times wonder about.

She had this habit of blowing half-hearted puffs of air up at her bangs if she experienced a minor case of artist's block and would sometimes tap the ends of her pencil in a rhythmic cadence to ward off particularly bad cases. Riku would play his part by either telling her a story of his past with Sora or Kairi or simply sneaking in simple words of praise.

She always responded to his efforts with that same shy smile that made him wonder which of his two tactics was more effective. Of course, his train of thought would lead him back into that reverie of the impossible and it never failed to leave him bitter at the end of it. His expertise in hiding it was masterful.

"You're being pretty continuous today," Riku commented after a while had gone by. Namine hadn't looked up or paused in her vigorous coloring for a good amount of time. Riku's focus was just as on-task; he, however, took it upon himself to look over the more curiously created piece of art that was Namine herself. The image of her slightly bent over a sketchbook, working the pencils into luminous replications of memorabilia while her blonde locks of hair stubbornly fell over her perceptive, clear blue eyes, with that timid scrunch of determination between her eyebrows being the only disturbance on a face paved over with porcelain-like skin, was a picture Riku could have hung up and appreciated the depth of infinitely.

She finished filling in the smallest details of the page's components and set the colored pencil to the side, blinking up at the platinum-haired teen in slight confusion. "I can't tell whether that makes you happy or not," she joked quietly, smiling that small smile she commonly fell into. Riku swallowed with subtlety and pondered over the statement for a moment.

Did it make him happy? The completion of her progress would mean the awakening of his friend – and then, it would also mean the completion of his time there. It would mean moving on to bigger and better things, and it would mean leaving everything behind.

It would mean leaving her once and for all, in a sense.

"It's definitely good to be productive." He responded, successfully finding a way to guise his conflicted emotions.

"I suppose…"

Riku looked down at the small-framed girl, his eyebrows quirking up slightly when her voice quieted more than usual. "Do you disagree?"

"Oh, I agree." She met his eyes and he caught the ghost of what might have been sadness lingering behind her blue irises. "But progression leads into more complicated things. Complications are never really nice to the concept of normal."

Riku noticed her growing discomfort as the conversation took on a deeper context. He decided to borrow one of Sora's tactics and play the deflection card to spare her from being completely ill at ease. "What is normal, anyway?"

She sat still for a moment, and then bumped his cloaked arm, stifling a giggle, and tried her best to scowl at him; however, her scowl was the equivalent to a cutesy pout at the very worst.
He adored moments like these. In his more lonely episodes of weakness, he would reflect back on the days and weeks he had spent with Namine in this chamber, recapping on the small exchanges they would have during her short breaks, and they never failed to make him smile. At first, she had held her reserve – and rightly so, after being victim to the Organization's taunting torments – but after Riku began to drop his guard, she had slowly followed suit. He had found that she was truly a wonderful person to be around, as much of a person that she was entitled to be, DiZ would probably say, and Riku guiltily looked forward to the next time they would be alone because of those little chats.

"Riku! If you're going to be literal, then… Fine. As normal as things can get here, anyway."

Riku hummed for a moment before he playfully tapped the top of the blonde's head and mischievously leaned in close to her, lowering his voice and muttering, "Am I wrong for understanding that we're borderline psychotic in the realm of everyday happenings… and therefore the farthest possible thing from normal?"

More pouting. "Humor me?"

Riku laughed and stood upright. "Okay. Considering the norm around here…" He shook his head slowly and glanced around the room and up at Sora's frozen-over container, allowing himself to show her a small smirk. "No, I can understand what you're saying. Complications would be straight up assholes to this setting of normal."

Namine stared at him, smiling with her tantalizingly enchanting eyes and biting down on her bottom lip. "I'm glad you see it my way, but your wording isn't particularly amusing."

"Funny, you seem pretty amused to me."

She bumped his arm again, but laughed this time around. "Only because you manage to sneak those words into a professionally presented conversation without so much as a twitch!"

Riku's eyes flickered with remembrance at the familiarity of the words.

It was hazy, but he vaguely recalled a day he had spent with Kairi while Sora was out with the flu. It was back when she had first arrived at the islands; he had barely gotten comfortable with her friendship and had begun to drop his more mature-oriented language around her.

Namine's choice of words hadn't quite been the same, but they screamed of paraphrase.

"Ah," he leaned against the frame of the chair, tilting his head at an angle to look over her shoulder and at the sketchbook, "so, are you taking quotes from Sora and Kairi these days?"

Namine followed his eyes and also looked over the sketchbook, smiling faintly and realizing the nature of the question. "Unconsciously, I think. Sometimes I forget that the little things I learn about you are actually unintentional Riku lessons from their memories."

Riku's pulse quickened, but he stopped himself from thinking irrationally before he could do any harmful diving. "You're retaining a good amount. You'd make one hell of a student."

It had to be because of the lack of memories on her part. Although it had been Riku who had initiated their friendship, Namine had faced no trouble in navigating around the sketchier parts of his precautionary walls, which had led Riku into thinking that she really did have a way with people. Sometimes, though, he was reminded that she had the guidance of his best friends' memories, and that forced him back into a harsher reality. However, he didn't believe she was manipulative, as Larxene had so heartlessly branded her. He believed that she truly submerged herself within the depths of every seemingly meaningless event in the memories, which had only assisted to develop her already charming, yet innocent, character.

Still, he had to tie himself down in order to prevent himself from doing something dangerous with his opinions of Namine. Dangerous, as in…
"Right." Namine said in an eerily calm voice. "I've noticed that too. I pick up a lot from their pasts."

The conversation was taking a scary turn and it was going into it pretty fast. "Like I thought. You'd be the first I'd cheat off of for sure."

Namine cocked her head to the side, making his eyes clash with hers, and let him see the confusion that riddled their depths before a silent understanding clicked. Not yet, it agreed, and a trill of fear jolted through Riku when he understood the pact; she was humoring his evasiveness now.

"For some reason, I had the crazy notion that you were plenty book-smart, Riku."

"Said it yourself just now, didn't you?" He smiled mysteriously as he straightened up again and gestured vaguely. "You had the crazy notion."

Namine shook her head, laughing quietly. "Come on. You're smarter than Sora, at the very least."

"Yeah, well… That's not hard to be." He flashed an apologetic smile at Sora's frozen form and laughed, turning back to Namine. "I'm kidding. I'll admit that my IQ is a tad higher than Sora's."

"A tad?" Namine puffed her cheeks out. "I'd say you're too smart for your own good."

"I would agree with you," Riku commented blandly, his eyes straying back up to Sora again. "But being smart isn't always so hot, is it? Under different circumstances – namely, having Sora's IQ – it could have been me in his place right now." Namine cast an inquiring glance at him, but his expression didn't shift and his stare slowly started to harden. "Though, I kind of doubt he would have taken the path that I chose. That alone would have knocked out a considerable amount of damage. I wonder where that would leave us…?"

"Riku." She was tugging at his sleeve.

He blinked three times and kneeled down slightly so as to be at eye level with her, a sheepish frown reigning over his smooth features. "I'm sorry."

"I think we might be getting carried away with our chit-chat today."

"I think you might be right. What did DiZ put in the water?"

Namine laughed and leaned back into her chair, nervously putting more distance between herself and Riku's calculating blue-green eyes. "It might be nice, I think," she continued, good-naturedly ignoring Riku's joking comment, "to let the topics go into those levels. One day, maybe."

"Maybe," Riku chorused, keeping the connection with Namine.

"Right. Before progress leads to complication. Because, complications don't allow for nice."

Riku sighed, his eyes flicking downwards with his extended blink. Namine squirmed a bit in her seat when his breath reached her knees and kind of tickled her senses. "Complications. Complete assholes."

"Riku."

"I know."

Namine smiled at him brightly and reached forward to sweep his bangs from his eyes. His eyebrows shot up and his mouth quirked into a puzzled line with a questioning nature towards her action, but she just smiled and held his stare. He didn't move. Several moments passed before Namine finally dropped her gaze and laughed softly.

"Okay. Don't take any offense to this, but you're getting to be a distraction and DiZ has me on a schedule, believe it or not." She pulled back and expertly and gracefully lifted the color pencils back into her grip. "You can stop by later if you want to see Sora's progress."

Riku stood up, the faintest of red coloring a small portion of his cheek bones. "Oh. I'll come back later. I needed to update DiZ on… possible theories regarding… uh, Ansem, anyway…" Somewhat flustered, he excused himself from the room and caught the spread of Namine's smile as he exited the room.

Once outside the door, he exhaled the breath he had prevented himself from releasing before entering the room and found that something had changed in his uneasiness. Still at a bit of an uncomfortable angle with his encounter from Namine, however, he couldn't pinpoint the change and decided to dismiss it before he thought too much into it once again.

He would definitely have to come back later. And they would definitely have to have that talk. He knew wouldn't be in full control of himself until that happened.