kh_drabble | (no subject)

Challenge: [171] Celebration
Wordcount: 639
Title: Long Road Back
Notes: This is so long, and so...not as good as I would have liked it to be. D: BUT HERE IT IS.

“It’s been a year,” Kairi says to the waves, and she assumes their slaps on the little island are mournful agreements. The bark of the tree chafes against her swinging legs , the sun flirts with the horizon, and there is no one else. She left Selphie on the mainland, unwilling to share the moment with someone who couldn’t even remember Sora.

Not that what she recalls is much beyond his name: a bright smile, a loud laugh, red clothes. But when she takes his absence and twins it with Riku’s, then, then there’s a hole in her heart so big she’s surprised she’s still alive.

Kairi watches the waves, asks them if they’ve taken her bottle where it needs to go, and their constant beat whispers ‘yes.’

-

“It’s been a year, since,” Kairi starts, and Sora’s boisterous laugh interrupts her, as he crosses his arms behind his head and nearly falls off the tree.

“It feels longer than that, with all the catch-up work they’re making us do,” he grumbles, and Kairi rolls her eyes.

“Riku seems to be doing fine,” she says, leaning in to Sora a bit to take the edge of her words. Riku smirks, but says nothing. “But, still, a year, a whole year, since,” and as she pauses, Riku’s shoulders tense, “since you both came back to me.

Now, Riku, come sit up here with us, please?” Kairi lays her palm on his arm, and smiles bright and soft, a little bit of Namine but moslty herself. Riku just shakes his head.

“Ri-kuuuuuuuu, come on!” If Kairi’s way was to plead, Sora’s had always been to whine; it was a natural gift. He prods Riku in the shoulder and finally Riku rolls his eyes and hoists himself up next to Sora. Kairi smiles softly at him over Sora’s head, and if she quints it looks like he smiles back.

“Do you two need to me to move or something?”

“No,” Kairi giggles, as Riku tells Sora not to be an idiot. and she thrills at the thought that maybe, just maybe, everything will be okay.

-

“So, I was just thinking, it’s been a year since this whole thing started and…” Kairi trails off, blushing. “Selphie said—“

“Why would you listen to Selphie, of all people?”

“Selphie?” Sora shrieks.

“I didn’t take any of her adivce. Really, how crazy do you think I am?”

“Well,” Sora starts, and Riku holds his chin pensively.

“Oh, shut up. I just thought…” she shrugs, helplessly embarrassed, “oh, I don’t know what I was thinking.”

“We should celebrate,” Sora chirps, halfway up the tree.

“How, doofus? I thought we agreed not to tell anyone,” Riku sighs, rolling his eyes and pulling Kairi up. She steps into his arms, slowly guiding him away from the sand-doodles she had been making.

“It can be just the three of us,” Kairi murmurs into his collarbone, and then something pegs Riku in the back of the head and flies into her cleavage. Before either she or Riku can yell at Sora, they notice what it is. A paopu fruit, the only one this year; the darkness has left scars on more than just them.

There is a bite out of it, and as Kairi fishes it out of her shirt, she bites back tears, and sinks her teeth into the hole Sora’s had left. Riku takes it from her, not making eye contact, As he takes his bite, Sora lands next to them, looking thoroughly proud of himself, and neither Riku nor Kairi can argue with that, so instead they draw him into that space between them, the three of them melding with a year’s worth of practice.

The paopu falls into the dirt, its purpose served, beside a scratched frawing of three people, and a starfruit between them.