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Sora had to wait for only five minutes before Naminé entered the café. They ordered and sat down near a window, where the breeze and occasional chatter spilled in from the street, and Sora began to fill her in on everything that had happened since she’d left.
“...So I’ve been helping her look for more. We haven’t had any luck, though,” Sora recounted, mind wandering. Poor Xion—her shell collection had been a thing of beauty. But living on Destiny Islands meant living with the occasional storm. At least no people had gotten hurt.
Across from him, Naminé took a small sip of her coffee. The smell wafted over to him as she raised it up to her lips—fragrant, mouth-wateringly so, and definitely way better than what it actually tasted like. (Sora’s own cup held hot chocolate, which was plenty mature, no matter how much his friends liked to tease him about it.)
“Is there anything else?” Naminé asked once she set her cup down again.
Sora scratched his head, trying to think of who he hadn’t mentioned. Xion, Roxas, Kairi... “Oh! Lea’s vase broke. It got knocked off a shelf or something. But,” he added, leaning in conspiratorially, “I don’t think he’s that upset about it.”
Naminé giggled. “It was the one Isa gave him, wasn’t it?”
“How’d you know?”
They shared a laugh. It’d been a really nice vase, a glossy shade of deep blue that matched the sea outside the windows, but it clashed horribly with the rest of Lea’s decor (red, orange, and more red). Roxas and Xion had been plotting ways to get rid of it for forever.
“I’m glad everyone’s okay,” Naminé said, smiling. “But that’s not what I meant.” Gently, she asked, “How are you doing, Sora?”
“I’m...” fine, he wanted to say, but something in Naminé’s expression stopped him. He was fine, mostly, things were going well and he was comfortable, but he couldn’t shake the inexplicable feeling that he was missing something— a contentedness that everyone else seemed to carry with them. The students that passed by his house every morning were eager to continue learning, the fishermen at the docks to fish, but Sora couldn’t help but feel as if he was just drifting along.
Was this how Riku had felt? Was this why he’d left?
Sora drummed his fingers against the wooden table. Maybe that was the issue—that he missed Riku. But that was ridiculous, right? He had a bunch of friends that lived far away. He missed them all the time, but it never felt like this—like there was a hole in his heart. Why would Riku be different?
He settled on a shrug. “I dunno. I just... feel sorta restless.”
Naminé was quiet for a long moment, watching him solemnly. Then, ever-perceptive, she said, “Riku was your friend.” Her deep, blue eyes creased in sympathy. “It’s only natural that you miss him.”
In spite of himself, Sora flinched. Right. Riku had been his friend. And not a particularly close one, either. So why did it hurt so much to hear? Why did Sora think about a random classmate so much? He caught himself inserting Riku into random memories, sometimes from long before they’d even met, which was weird and probably creepy of him. Once, he even dreamed Riku in the place of—
Sora’s hand had come up to his chest unconsciously, knocking against his necklace. He fished it out from under his shirt and examined it, pressing the pad of his thumb into the points. “Riku...” he murmured, comforted by the way the metal warmed in his grasp. “I wonder if he remembers me.”
“I’m sure he does,” Naminé reassured him. She sounded so certain. A spark of warmth flared up in Sora’s heart, and he found himself smiling at her. Naminé always knew what to say.
“I bet he has a ton of stories about life is like out there,” he said dreamily, thinking about Riku waving goodbye to everyone as he waded out into the sea, the splash of saltwater as he dove. The flash of silver-white fins rippling below the water’s surface. “I can’t wait until he comes back. I want to hear it all.”
Naminé nodded. “Me too.”
Her smile didn’t quite reach her eyes. Sora traced the edges of the star charm above his breastbone, still smiling, and took another sip of hot chocolate.
“Ughhh, Rikuuuu...”
Riku didn’t even turn around, staring into the blue, blue sea as if there was something super cool out there. (There wasn’t. Not even a rock or something.) “Soraaa,” he mocked. “C’mon, where’s your sense of adventure?”
“I see the ocean every day,” Sora whined, staring at Riku’s back longingly. How upset would Riku be if he literally wrestled him down? “I’m bored!”
The whole point of making a raft in the first place had been to go on an adventure together, like they’d always dreamed of. Which didn’t work if Riku was ignoring him.
“Okay, okay.” Riku sat down with exasperation, but he was smiling his Sora-smile as he swiveled to face Sora. It was called that (Sora called it that, privately, in his own head where no one else would ever know how much it made him blush) because he only ever directed it at Sora. Riku tended to grin, and when he was younger he’d loved to smirk, but the Sora-smile was softer than either. If Sora was as much of a sap as Riku liked to tease him for, he would have called that expression fond. “I’m not seeing anything, anyway.”
Sora huffed in agreement. There were supposed to be uncharted islands out there, full of undiscovered wonders or even—the rumors said—buried treasure. He couldn’t help being a little disappointed they hadn’t found anything, even if it was a long shot. “There’s gotta be something. No one comes out here.”
“Yeah...” Riku exhaled. “Maybe we got turned around?”
Sora turned to look back the way they came. The play island was still there on the horizon, the same place as the last time he’d checked. “Nope, we’re still going west.” A quick glance upwards, where the sun had barely crossed into the western sky, confirmed it.
“Hm...”
Riku unfolded their map, tapping a tiny, unlabeled sandbar due west of the play island. “We should have seen this by now, right?”
“Yeah,” Sora confirmed. They didn’t have any real equipment, but both of them had sailed enough to get a rough guess of how fast they were going. And they definitely should have seen it by now.
Riku frowned, eyebrows drawing together. His hand drifted across the paper, to an uncharted section south of the aforementioned island. “Do you think we’re over here?”
“All the way over there?” Sora exclaimed. There wasn’t much wind, so they couldn’t have been blown that far off course. “I don’t know...”
He sat back, pouting at their circumstances. “Maybe we should just sail back,” he suggested. So much for returning with treasure, and he would have counted a rock from a distant island as treasure. The universe was out to foil Sora’s dreams, apparently.
“Maybe,” Riku replied noncommittally. He stood up again to scan the horizon. “Hey, what’s that...?”
“Huh?” Sora perked up. “Do you see something?” He got up too, but he couldn’t see anything, only more sea.
“No, it’s... singing,” Riku replied, frowning. He cupped his hands around his mouth, and called, “Hello?”
The word echoed across the open ocean, eerily resonant. The world had gone suddenly quiet, even the blowing of wind and crashing of waves, the distant cries of seabirds fading to dull chatter as Riku’s voice rang out, clear as a bell.
The hairs on the back of Sora’s neck rose. He gripped the mast’s shaft, uneasy: “Riku—”
The sea rushed up to meet him.
Something—a wave, an animal, something—crashed into the raft hard. Sora was tumbling into the ocean before he even registered it, the raft ripped from his hands with force. He kicked and swam frantically towards the glow of light above him, the thundering of his heart making his lungs burn.
With a gasp, he breached the surface, and balked at what he saw. It was as if a storm had swept in, churning the dark waves into a frenzy, but the skies were still clear and sunny. He caught glimpse of the raft, but where was—
“Riku?” Sora yelled. He spluttered as he swallowed a mouthful of saltwater, spitting the rest out and taking a moment to cough.
He received no reply, and Riku didn’t miraculously appear. Gritting his teeth, Sora made his way towards the raft. The ocean water sat heavy and cold in his stomach like dread as he fought for headway, reaching to grab onto solid wood. What was going on? This wasn’t a storm, but what else could make the sea act like this?
(Singing, Riku had said.)
A particularly rough wave washed over Sora, and he nearly lost grip of the raft. “Riku!” he screamed.
If he let go, he might never see the raft again, but every second that he didn’t see Riku was another second that he might be underwater, might be drowning. It wasn’t even a hard decision to make.
Sora plunged back into the water with intent. He forced his eyes open, ignoring the way the saltwater burned, trying desperately to catch a glimpse of skin, hair, cloth— anything.
What he saw was none of those, but light, something glowing down and to the right of him, and something large. With no other options, Sora pushed himself deeper into the waters, wincing as his eardrums throbbed under the pressure.
What he saw made his heart seize. There was Riku, limp and unmoving, held in the arms of what could only be a mer. Of course! He wanted to slap himself for not realizing sooner. Singing, out here where no one went— of course it was a mer. They had probably sailed right into their territory.
“Hey!” he yelled as loud as he could. His lungs protested, but he forced himself to keep going, pushing out the last bits of air. “Riku!”
The mer turned. His entire body was a smudge of shadow in the dark sea, the only part of him that was really distinguishable to Sora the luminous glow of his golden eyes. “Don’t bother,” he said, and his voice rang through the water with otherworldly clarity. He looked back at Riku, gaze illuminating Riku’s face— Sora’s heart caught in his throat as he realized Riku’s eyes were half-lidded but open, the glint of aquamarine visible through the layers of water.
“—!” Riku suddenly thrashed, and the mer let him go, the light darting away faster than Sora could blink underwater.
A hand—Riku’s hand—grabbed his, and then Riku was there, solid and real in the vast expanse of water. The distant light haloed him, making him look as if he was glowing, highlighting his hair as it fanned out.
Wow, Sora thought. The darkness closed in from the edges of his vision as Riku pulled him through the water, but even as his eyes fluttered shut he felt utterly at peace.
A week after their disastrous expedition, and Sora was feeling right as rain again. The sea had apparently calmed not long after he’d passed out, allowing Riku to get the both of them home safe; he had a sneaking suspicion that it had something to do with that mer they’d seen. All their friends had given them the scoldings of a lifetime, which Sora had endured with good humor— but Riku had withdrawn.
Sora knew Riku; he knew Riku was keeping something to himself. He also knew that, as much as Riku was struggling with it, he wouldn’t want to tell Sora. So he stubbornly dragged Riku out to the play island in spite of his protests (seriously, he nearly drowns one time—) and resolved to make him have fun.
Now that they were older, there was less to do on the island, but some things never changed. “Race you!” Sora cried as he scrambled out of the canoe, setting off at a sprint across the beach.
“Sora—” Riku was surprised, but he recovered quickly, a competitive glint entering his eye. “Oh, you’re on!”
He, too, leapt from the canoe, and when Sora chanced a peek back, he saw that Riku was smiling. (Then he had to look forward again, because he nearly stumbled into the ocean, tripping in the sand to Riku’s laughter.)
Sora made Riku chase him all the way around the island, making up the rules along the way. The exhilaration had him giddy, his cheeks burning from laughing so much even as he had to pant for breath. He made it two whole laps before he had to take a break, slowing to a stop near where the canoe was beached.
Riku walked the last few steps, reaching forward to grab Sora’s wrist. “Got you!”
Sora yelped as he was pulled forward, until Riku had him pinned in a hug. “Nooo, Riku!” he cried, breathless, and sank deliberately to the ground. Riku was pulled along with him, the two of them flopping into the soft sand, and Sora crawled away before Riku could grab him again.
“Ha! I don’t think so!”
Riku didn’t reply beyond a chuckle, and for long moments the two of them just lay there, chests heaving, hearts full. Sora felt around until he found Riku’s hand, clasping their fingers together.
Eventually, Sora ventured, “Riku, what’s wrong?”
The sand shifted as Riku turned his head to look at him, and Sora met his eyes; they were downturned, contemplative. “That mer last week... he told me something about myself.”
“Yeah?” Sora prompted softly.
“He said... that I was like him,” Riku said with an exhale. “A mer. That we were family. He taught me how to transform in the water.”
Sora’s eyes widened. “Oh.” Oh! That was... “That’s great, Riku!”
“Huh?”
Sora squeezed his hand. “You’re always talking about how there’s more out there, right? You’ve always wanted to leave the Islands. Maybe this is why!” Maybe Riku had always been drawn to the sea because it was home.
(But, and he was realizing too late, didn’t this mean Riku would leave him, as well?)
“...Maybe,” Riku admitted shyly.
“Come on!” Sora leapt to his feet, reaching down to pull Riku up as well. “You gotta try it out!” And he wanted to see— he wanted to be the first to see this new part of Riku.
Riku hesitated as they waded into the ocean, and when the water was up to their hips, he stopped. “I don’t know, Sora. Maybe I shouldn’t...”
“Why not?” Sora asked.
Riku turned away from him. “I guess I’m... scared. What if I like it too much? What if I can’t turn back?” His voice dropped to a whisper. “What if I don’t want to turn back?”
“Then...” Sora faltered. He couldn’t help the way his stomach dropped, the way he instinctually wanted to cling to Riku and beg him not to. But he knew that Riku would listen to him if he did that, and Sora would never forgive himself for it. “Then that’s fine. We’ll still be us. I mean, we already hang out on the island all the time, so that doesn’t have to change. We can swim our races instead of running, and I’ll have to learn how to swordfight underwater, and— hey!”
Riku had burst out laughing. “I’m serious!” Sora said indignantly.
Riku shook his head. “I’m not laughing at you,” he said. “I’m laughing at me. I shouldn’t have doubted you for a second.”
“Or yourself,” Sora shot back. “No laughing at my best friend!”
Riku held up his hands in surrender. “Okay, okay! I shouldn’t have doubted us.”
They stood there for another few seconds as Riku mustered his courage. Sora reached for him and held on tight, knowing he had an anchor in the bond between them no matter the uncertainty of the future.
Riku took a deep breath, and, still holding onto Sora’s hand, slipped into the waves.
The sea was calm today, only gentle tides and soft breezes. Amidst the peaceful waters, Riku was easy to spot, his figure a tall obelisk against the flat horizon as he waded inland.
Sora waved at him rapidly. “Riku!”
“Sora!” Riku called back, laughing. He ran the rest of the way up to the beach, stumbling in the shallow water like he hadn’t swum all the way from the bottom of the ocean.
Sora met him halfway, and they stopped in the middle of the beach where the tide could lap at their ankles, holding each other loosely. “You’re back,” he breathed, something in him clicking into place at the feeling of Riku’s forearms against his palms. “You’re back! What’s the bottom of the sea like? Did you meet a lot of mer? How was everything?”
“Really big, yep, and—” He poked Sora in the nose. “I missed you.”
That— it was unfair, how much Riku made Sora feel just by saying that. He swallowed, overcome by the idea that out of everything that Riku felt and did in his time away, it was being away from Sora that was most important to mention. “I missed you too,” he said, the words feeling inadequate to what he meant. He’d missed Riku in the same way Riku missed Sora—like he would miss a limb. More, even, because Sora could learn to live without one of his arms or legs, but he couldn’t learn to live without Riku, not forever.
“Everything’s so different down there,” Riku continued, leading him up to the actual shoreline and towards the shack. “It’s dark, and cold... it wasn’t easy to get used to at first.”
As they crossed the bridge, Sora guessed, “But you really like it there.”
“Mm.” Riku hopped onto the tree, beckoning Sora up to join him. “You know, I wish I could bring you with me. It’s beautiful in its own way. You’d love the tube worms.”
“Tube worms?” Sora asked, picturing a normal earthworm.
Riku nodded. “They’re huge. Longer than me from head to tail, and they get this big.” He cupped his hand in what had to be a way-too-big estimate. Sora tried to imagine a worm that size, and only succeeded in making himself laugh at the thought of a giant worm swimming through the ocean like an eel.
“Most of the fish glow, and they have huge eyes,” Riku continued wistfully. “I tried to bring one for you to see, but, uh...” He winced. “It didn’t make it.”
“Aww.” That sounded so cute. “Guess I’ll have to settle for stories.”
“Actually,” Riku said slowly, “you might be able to see them eventually. I met this girl who was some kind of witch, and I think she might be able to do something.”
Sora beamed. “Really?”
“I don’t know for sure,” Riku replied, “but it can’t hurt to ask, right?”
“Right!” Sora kicked his feet against the tree trunk in excitement. To get to see the deep ocean, and to explore it with Riku... “Tell me about your friend?”
“Hm...” Riku thought for a moment. “Well, we didn’t get much time together, but we get along really well. She’s kind of shy, and quiet. Unlike someone I know,” he added, nudging Sora with the side of his foot. Sora huffed in mock-exasperation. “She loves to make art— actually, I think she’d love the surface.”
“I want to meet her,” Sora said honestly. Part of him was jealous, but mostly he was just happy Riku had made friends down there. “Maybe you should invite her up here sometime.”
“Maybe when we get to know each other a little better,” Riku agreed. “You know... I’m really glad I went. I didn’t realize at the time, but... that part of me is really important to me.”
Sora looked at Riku, radiant with joy even in the dimming light of the darkening sky. He had rarely ever seen him like this, at ease and purely happy. Sora tried, and he tried really hard, but maybe no one could make up for something as fundamental as what Riku had been missing. “Riku,” he said, unsteady in his resolve, “if you wanted to stay—”
Riku suddenly grabbed his hand. “Sora, no. I’m happy up here, with you.”
“I—I know,” Sora stammered, his eyes suddenly burning. He blinked, willing it to stop—he couldn’t cry, not right now. “But you’d be happier down there, wouldn’t you?”
“...Yeah. I think so,” Riku finally confessed, almost shamefully, bowing his head. He stared at their joined hands. “But only if you were there too, so... Not really.”
Sora thought about that, for a moment. Riku was torn between Sora and the sea, and Sora... he cherished his friends and his home, deeply, but he wasn’t sure it was the same way Riku did the sea. He really, really wanted to be selfish, but how could he ask Riku to leave that behind?
“This, what I have now, is fine,” Riku continued. “I get the best of both worlds. So don’t worry.”
Sora nodded. Somehow he knew this wouldn’t last, not forever, but... it was fine, for now.
“Naminé! Wake up!”
Sora pounded frantically on the door, panting and shivering—it was the dead of night, and freezing outside, but none of that mattered. Not when he finally had his answer.
The door creaked open to reveal a sleepy-looking Naminé. “Sora? What are you—”
Sora cut her off, shaking the star charm in her face. “Naminé. Where’s my necklace.”
Silence, during which time Sora started to feel a little bad for being so rude. But his thoughts were pre-occupied with Riku, Riku, Riku, trying to keep himself from forgetting.
Naminé’s eyes widened. Then, she said, “You remembered,” wonderingly.
“Not everything,” Sora told her; not everything, the memories slipping through his fingers like water, dreams fading away as if they weren’t so, so much more than that. “I just know that Riku was— he was my best friend, and I... Naminé. Please.”
For a heart-stopping moment, Naminé didn’t say anything. Sora watched guilt and fear flicker across her face, at war with each other. Finally, she bowed her head, and murmured, “I think you should come inside.”
He was taken to her kitchen, where he paced, restless, as Naminé disappeared to somewhere else within her house. Sora was tired, entire body trembling from cold and lack of sleep and shock, but he was afraid that if he took a second to rest, he’d forget again. Already he could feel the fog setting in, the confusion— he shook his head, trying to push it away.
Naminé returned with something in her hand. “Here,” she said, presenting it to him.
Sora gasped: his necklace. Just the sight of the crown charm was clearing his thoughts, and when he slipped it on—
Sora crumpled—Naminé yelped and pulled a chair over just in time—as the weight of nearly two decades’ worth of memories pressed down on him like the world’s most important anvil. His heart felt like it would burst; all those confused emotions, the incompleteness, the melancholy finally explained as the missing piece came to light.
“Oh,” he said.
Just... Oh. What else was there to say? There was so much, it was so much, he couldn’t possibly express it.
“I’m... I’m sorry,” Naminé whispered, her voice trembling. “I didn’t realize what I was asked to do at first, but then, I... I’m so sorry.”
Her voice echoed in the ensuing silence.
“Riku said...” Sora murmured at last. He faltered. “He said that a mer friend of his was a witch. That’s... you, isn’t it?”
It was the only thing that made sense, that could explain how he’d suddenly forgotten all about Riku, all Sora’s earlier memories of him replaced by Naminé, or another friend, or sometimes just... nothing.
Naminé nodded mutely, not meeting his eyes.
“Can you... take me to him?” Sora asked.
“I can turn you into a mer,” Naminé said, “but, Sora— I don’t know how long it’ll take for you to be able to turn back into a human.”
Sora took a deep breath. The familiar comfort of his home, the smells of his favorite candles the way the light filtered through the curtains in the morning... Roxas, Xion, the others, and his friends who lived even further away, who he wouldn’t be able to see just by swimming up to Destiny Islands. Was he really willing to leave it all behind?
...Maybe his answer would change later, but right now, what he wanted more than anything was to follow his heart— to Riku.
“That’s fine,” he declared. “I’m ready.”
Later that night, Naminé took Sora to Riku’s undersea home. She led him through the endless ocean with unerring accuracy, course-correcting almost as fast as her small body was tossed about by the currents. Sora followed clumsily, only basic knowledge of how swimming worked and Naminé’s hand on his arm making up for his inexperience as they shot forward.
The sea was so different to his new eyes, everything clearer even though there was barely any light from the stars and moon. Even with a mer’s vision, the sea was so vast, like a completely different world. Everything changed as he descended, as surely as climbing a mountain on the surface: the water cooling, the light dimming, the types of fish they passed changing slowly.
Finally they arrived at what couldn’t have been a natural structure, columns and arches of stone wreathed in luminescent bulbs, decorated with huge, pale bones. They surrounded the entrance to a massive cave, outside which there were a few chatting mer.
Naminé took him to the side of the underwater mountain, away from the curious gazes of the mer. There, there were some strangely shaped outcroppings of rock, glowing faintly and emitting what looked like white smoke. Sora gasped as he realized what he’d thought was just more rock was actually something alive, massive worms with a red plume at their ends. Riku hadn’t been exaggerating.
His gasp caught the attention of the mer who was floating beside one of the outcroppings. “Sora?” Riku said, and the way his voice echoed underwater was entirely new, too. His voice had gained a layer of enchanting otherworldliness atop the familiar.
“Riku, you’re...” Sora had seen his tail before, the iridescent silver scales that darkened to black at the back, the arcs of the fins at on the back and ends, but he hadn’t seen Riku like this. Glowing specks of light were arranged along his tail and up his sides and arms like jewels, glistening gold. “You’re beautiful.”
Riku swam closer, the lights of his tail undulating in a mesmerizing pattern. “Sora... why are you here? How are you...” He looked Sora up and down, and an incredulous laugh broke out. “A mer?”
“Naminé helped me,” Sora responded, distantly aware of the aforementioned girl slipping quietly away. “She...” He hesitated to say just what she’d done, unsure how he felt about her. “I lost my memories. I forgot... you.”
Riku saw right through him. “You mean, Naminé took your memories,” he corrected, crossing his arms
“...Yeah,” Sora admitted.
Riku sighed deeply. “I think one of my family members asked her to do it.” He shook his head, scowling. “They don’t want me to leave here.”
Sora bit his lip. “It was awful,” he said quietly. “I kept missing you, but I didn’t know I was missing you. I just knew that...” He touched his chest, where his heart was. “...something was missing, and it hurt.”
Riku closed the remaining distance with a quick movement of his tail. Gently, he peeled Sora’s hands away, so that he could replace them with his own. “I’m sorry,” he murmured.
Sora swallowed. “It doesn’t hurt anymore,” he reassured Riku. “Now that you’re here.”
“Sora...”
“Riku.”
Riku’s hands drifted up, up, until he was cupping Sora’s cheeks. “Can I...?”
Sora leaned in instead of replying, and Riku pulled him the rest of the way into a kiss. It was wonderful to simply feel that Riku was there; feel him smiling against Sora’s lips, a lifeline of warmth amidst the cold ocean.
Kissing underwater was a little weird, but Sora would happily kiss Riku underwater any day of the week. He’d swim all the way up to the surface just so he could kiss Riku if he had to.
He voiced this, once they finally parted (an advantage of having gills: they didn’t need to stop kissing for lack of air), to a chuckle. “As long as it’s with you,” Riku breathed, and drew him back in.
They still had a lot to sort out—people to confront, friends to visit, magic to research. Sora would have to have a serious talk with Naminé, and Riku with his family. But for that moment, at the bottom of the sea, Sora and Riku were finally together again. For the first time since their trip out on the raft, no matter where one went, the other would be able to follow. And that was enough, that they would face what came next hand-in-hand.