mistressofmuses' fic

Summary: Riku was the first to see the mermaid. Just a flash of scales, out between the waves, there and gone in less than a breath. Easy to miss if you didn’t know what you were looking for, and most people didn’t.

So Riku was the only one to see the mermaid, and he was terrified.

Written for the SoRiKai discord's Summer Event! I selected the prompt "Mermaid" from the list, but this also fits the prompts "Storm", "Drowning", and to a lesser extent "Scars", and "Separation." (I aim for one of the fluff prompts, and wind up with one fluff and four angst prompts...)

---

Riku was the first to see the mermaid. Just a flash of scales, out between the waves, there and gone in less than a breath. Easy to miss if you didn’t know what you were looking for, and most people didn’t.

So really Riku was the only one to see the mermaid, and he was terrified.

He didn’t say anything, but Sora must have noticed something. A hitch in his breath, maybe.

“Riku, is something wrong?” Sora’s hands stilled, but did not pull away. He’d been braiding Riku’s hair, the pair sitting on a quiet stretch of sandy beach.

Riku shook his head slightly, careful not to tug his hair out of Sora’s gentle grip. “It’s nothing. Just getting a little hot in the sun.”

“We can head back,” Sora offered, resuming his braiding.

He tied the end off with a small loop of elastic, then stood and brushed sand off of his legs. Riku pulled the braid to the side to get a better look at it, and smiled despite his worry. A fishtail braid.

When Sora stretched out a hand, Riku took it, and allowed himself to be pulled upright. The pair walked hand in hand up the beach, toward the cobblestone streets leading up through the town.

---

Riku had always known it was possible. Perhaps he should have admitted it was really inevitable. Honestly, it was amazing that he’d been granted the years he had.

He picked at his food that night, trying to project normalcy that he didn’t feel, and he knew he failed in the attempt.

Of course Sora noticed, but he didn’t ask about it, and Riku loved him even more. Sora filled the quiet with small talk, and Riku was grateful for that, too. Silence would have been maddening.

Riku just kept turning over the memory of those few seconds in his mind. Had he seen what he thought? Could it have been the scales of a strange fish instead? Sunlight on the water? He wanted to cling to the possibility like it was driftwood. But no, he couldn’t lie to himself. His fingers habitually sought out his pendant, tracing the smooth surface as a way to soothe himself.

He’d hadn’t really been listening very closely, trying just to interject encouraging monosyllables when the conversation seemed to require it. Until:

“I saw a girl.”

Riku blinked at that. “A girl?” There were lots of girls on the Islands.

“In the water, right by the shore.”

“A swimmer?” Riku asked.

Sora shook his head. “No. Maybe? I mean, I guess technically. She was in the water, so she must have been swimming. But I didn’t recognize her. I tried to say hi, but she… disappeared.”

Riku felt himself frowning and tried to smooth out the expression. “Disappeared? Swam away?”

“Again, I guess technically she must have. But I didn’t see where she went even though I was looking right at her. It was like she dived down and was just gone.”

“When did this happen?” he hoped it sounded casual.

“A little while before you got to the beach this afternoon? I was early, so I was waiting for you. I thought I was alone, but then she was just suddenly there, looking at me. She was beautiful. Red hair, and really intense indigo eyes. But then… poof.”

Riku’s mouth went dry, and he hurriedly gulped some of his water before he could choke.

Sora continued, “I don’t know where she could have gone. Then you got there and I sort of forgot about it, but… well, she reminded me of you.” A little half-laugh. “Weird, huh?”

“Reminded you… of me?”

“Something about her eyes, maybe. A completely different color, but the same kind of unique, you know? Not a color I’ve ever seen in a person’s eyes before.” Sora blushed. “Wow, that sounded really weird when I said it out loud.”

Riku forced a smile and a laugh as he took another sip of water. “A little, maybe.”

“Your eyes are definitely my favorite,” Sora said, the tips of his ears still pink as he turned back to his food. “Maybe it’s just natural that seeing an unfairly pretty person in the water next to the shore would remind me of you. Considering how we met, and all.”

Now it was Riku’s turn to blush, and he felt it in his cheeks and across the bridge of his nose. The fact that Sora could just drop a phrase like unfairly pretty and still fluster Riku like that was just…well, talk about unfair. “Flatterer,” he grumbled.

“Honest,” Sora retorted.

---

Riku wanted to find her. Or them, he supposed, though he hoped that he was only dealing with one. But he wanted to see more than just a brief flash of scales. If she was going to approach his boyfriend, she could damn well approach him, too.

So the next day he went out to the small island, the “play island” as the younger kids called it, though there were no children playing there today. It was offshore from the main island, making it an even easier location to watch him from, if that’s what she was here for. He hoped she’d read it as the grudging invitation that he meant it as.

Walking barefoot through the wet sand, memories washed up with the tide.

Sora kneeling over him, asking his name, and if he was all right. Those endlessly blue eyes quite possibly one of the only things Riku ever wanted to see for the rest of his life. The heat of the sun on his chest, bare except for his pendant. That warmth contrasting with the cool of the water over his legs. The tug of each gentle wave inviting him into the sea, but Sora’s hands on his arms holding him as firmly as any anchor. Sora lifting him the rest of the way up, half-carrying him to Sora’s little boat, asking if he could walk…

He climbed the stairs in the clubhouse and went up to the bridge, hoping for a better view. He was half ready to give up, to go home to Sora, to pretend there was no looming disaster.

And then he saw the flicker of pink-purple-gold iridescence disappearing around the curve of the smaller paopu island. He ran.

She was still there, a few yards out from the island, where the water would be comfortably deep. Just as Sora had described: beautiful, with red hair, and eyes that were the most intense indigo Riku had ever seen. She met his gaze without flinching.

His voice froze in his throat. He wanted to call out to her, demand answers for why she was here, but he couldn’t choke anything out.

And then she was gone, a quick flip backwards, glittering tail barely disturbing the water.

---

Thunder rumbled in the distance. Local legend claimed that mermaids were an omen of disastrous storms. Riku knew that wasn’t true, but he still appreciated the coincidence. He could smell the rain on the air, feel the building pressure before the storm broke, buzzing restlessly under his skin.

He turned away from the window and went back to bed, sliding under the covers next to Sora.

“Hey, you,” said Sora, wrinkling his nose, and pulling Riku close. “Everything okay?”

“Looks like it’s going to be a big storm tonight.” It wasn’t a real answer, but it would do.

“We’ve been overdue for one,” Sora said. “I hope everyone got their boats in.”

“Yeah,” Riku agreed, and then he leaned forward, kissing Sora.

Sora relaxed into it, lips soft and sweet. He reached up to trace along the scars curving around each side of Riku’s neck. He’d never asked Riku where they came from.

Sora had braided Riku’s hair again, but now his fingers were working the braid loose, tangling in the silver strands to pull him even closer. Riku certainly didn’t object. They moved together, Sora’s fingers tracing back over the scars, skimming over his chest, gently brushing against Riku’s pendant.

Riku held Sora in the circle of his arms, the best and most important treasure he had, one he would do anything to keep safe. He pressed his arms along Sora’s back, hands cradling the back of his neck, running through his spiked hair, holding him as firmly as he could. Sora sometimes teased that Riku was part octopus, the way he would cling. Maybe he should have relaxed, but he just couldn’t quite bring himself to.

There was no way to explain that this could be a goodbye.

Later, when Sora had flopped onto his back, and was snoring the way he always did, Riku slid out of their bed.

He pulled his shorts back on, and glanced down at Sora. Not goodbye, he insisted to himself. I hope not goodbye. But you have to be safe.

---

The storm had started, but not truly broken yet. Riku could still feel its energy, held in potential hovering just off the coast. Lightning flickered in the clouds, sending thunder rumbling across the water. The waves were only a bit higher than usual, and the rain was steady but still gentle. He knew that wouldn’t last.

At least the storm would keep Sora from doing anything foolish like following him. Hopefully he wouldn’t even realize; Riku would return before dawn, and no one would ever have to know.

He stepped into the surf, the waves steady, rushing up over his bare feet and calves.

Riku reached for his pendant, the large scale held by a leather cord. Even in the almost total darkness, the scale itself was beautiful. Like strangely vibrant mother-of-pearl, twisting with every color of the rainbow. It was large, larger than the scales of all but the biggest fish, and came to a slight point along the curved edge.

Smoothly, he pressed this point against the heel of his other hand. The skin broke easily, a drop of blood welling up. He swept the small wound over the surface of the scale, coating it, and let it drop back to his chest. The rain was already washing the blood away, but that didn’t matter to the magic.

He ran forward and dived below the water.

It had been years, but the magic responded exactly the way he remembered. It was excruciating, his legs suddenly bound together, the bones shifting, scales pushing their way to the surface, the scars on his neck reopening into gills.

The pain made him gasp, water rushing into his throat and through the slits in his neck, but already there was no sensation of drowning. As intense as the agony was for a moment, it faded almost as quickly, and he flicked his tail to push him deeper into the water.

---

There were stories about merfolk who fell in love with the land. Most of them ended tragically: in shipwrecks, suffering, unrequited love, betrayal, murder.

Riku had heard them all as a child. He’d wanted to see for himself, and he saw Sora.

---

Riku pushed himself as fast as he could. He was out of practice, having relied on his legs for years, but swimming wasn’t something a merman could forget how to do.

She was out here somewhere, and he was going to find her.

Eventually she found him.

“Riku!” she spoke in the musical language of the mer, where every word was its own song. It carried better underwater. He hadn’t heard his name sung that way in so long.

“Kairi,” he replied. He looked at her, and his heart ached.

Of course it would be her. She had been his one regret, when he’d left the undersea. His best friend, the one mer that he had genuinely loved. As soon as Sora had described her, he’d known.

They circled each other slowly.

“We thought you had died,” she finally said. Then amended: “I was afraid you had died.”

The grief layered into her words pulled at his heart. He had wanted desperately to leave, not to hurt them. He’d hoped they would assume he had died, and that they would move on.

“I’m sorry,” he said, “that I couldn’t tell you.” He tried to capture every shade of sincerity he could in the words. It was the truth, if not entirely complete. He’d been afraid to tell her; she would have been the one person who could have convinced him to stay.

“I’m relieved,” Kairi replied. “Regardless of what happened, you are alive.”

He cut her off. “I chose to leave. And I can’t let you harm Sora.”

That was why the glint of scales had terrified him. It was one of the darker threads woven through the cautionary tales of mer-human romances: humans who were unworthy of the mer, but somehow tricked them into staying on land. And the “heroic” merfolk who rescued their charmed brethren by killing the human lover.

Sora was not unworthy. Riku had not been bespelled or tricked into staying. But now that they’d discovered he was alive… They could be planning to kill Sora, in order to remove Riku’s attachment to the land. Or maybe they’d simply threaten to, trusting that would be enough to secure Riku’s “willing” return.

Kairi flipped in the water, the semi-sheer flukes of her tail coming up in front of her face, as she stared with wide eyes.

The mer equivalent of a shocked gasp, borderline offended.

Riku hesitated.

“I would never,” Kairi said. “I saw him, Riku. He has the brightest heart I have ever seen! Harm him?”

She was right. Riku had come to the waters around Destiny Islands because he wanted to see humans for himself. And Sora was the first one he saw, a human with one of the most brightly glowing auras that Riku had ever seen. Like he just radiated pure love.

He’d known one other person with an aura like that, and he was talking to her right now.

Shame washed over him for even considering that Kairi would intend to harm someone innocent.

He flicked his own tail up and forward, fanning away from his face, showing embarrassment and contrition. He’d missed how expressive mer body language could be.

Thunder rumbled, the vibrations making it even into the deeper water.

Kairi’s expression softened, and she swam closer. “You’ve always been protective.”

“Everyone thought I was dead. Why are you here?” Riku asked.

Kairi swished her body back and forth. “Well, if he hadn’t had such a bright heart…” she trailed off.

Riku tilted his head, waiting for her to say more.

She gave the mer equivalent of a sigh. “I mourned you, Riku. I came in the hopes of finding out what had happened. If you had died, I was to retrieve your scale.”

He would have kicked himself if he’d had legs at the moment. Of course. Even if everyone in the undersea accepted that he had died, Nachre’s scales were rare. The scales of the Mother of the Mer, the first of their kind. Unlike the mer, She’d been able to change at will between the water and the land, shifting effortlessly between fin and legs. Her scales granted Her children the ability to do the same. But over the millennia, so many of the scales had been lost, stolen, destroyed… Why had he never considered the mer would come for the scale, even if not for him?

Kairi continued, “I held out hope that you had survived. I was afraid you’d been captured. Perhaps you’d used your scale to shift, and then something had happened to it, trapping you on legs. If I’d discovered that was the case…”

She trailed off again, but Riku could fill in that blank easily enough, with the grim tone the phrase ended on. She may have one of the purest auras he’d ever seen, but if someone had harmed Riku, she would absolutely have destroyed them.

She had a protective streak as wide as his own. It took effort not to reach for her, to pull her close. He wanted to just be glad to see her, and yet…

“What will you tell them?” Riku asked instead. He couldn’t ask her to lie for him, to pretend she’d found nothing. Maybe he could shift back, and then give her the scale. If he did that he really would be trapped, the way Kairi had feared. The thought of being forever separated from the water made him shudder, but it was a decision he’d already made peace with, choosing to be with Sora. “I won’t go back to the undersea.”

She flicked her tail dismissively. “Of course you won’t. As soon as I saw you with Sora, I knew you were happy. That was all I ever wanted for you. You know that.” He heard the undercurrent of sorrow to the words.

Vibrations from the thunder filtered down to them. The movement of the water itself changed, and Riku knew the waves had gotten rough.

He reached forward, and she tentatively took his hand, letting him pull her into a hug.

She reached one hand up, gently cupping his cheek. She didn’t quite answer the question he hadn’t quite asked. It was quiet, almost to herself when she said, “They should have guessed where you would end up, naming you the way they did.”

He quirked a half smile at her. He’d certainly appreciated the irony of a merman being named for the land, and everyone being shocked when he expressed interest in said land. “What about you, then? Shouldn’t your name have made you the ideal mermaid?”

Her answering smile was still sad, and her hand dropped from his cheek. “Neither of us was happy growing up in the undersea. Especially when everyone just assumed that our frustration with rigid rules and strict tradition was something we’d grow out. But when you disappeared, I was completely alone.”

He looked away. That hadn’t been his intent.

“I understand,” she hastened to add, a sense of delight and wonder coloring the word. “I saw Sora, too. I’m not sure there’s a mer alive that could look at him and not fall halfway in love that instant. I would never ask you to leave. I would ask…” she hesitated, running her fingers along the strap of a bag she wore across her chest. Despite her visible nerves, she pushed forward. “Would you allow me to stay? I don’t want to go back.”

He was about to answer, because of course he would want her to stay. She deserved to be happy, and if that wasn’t going to happen in the undersea, then he’d love for her to come to the Islands.

Thunder rumbled down through the water, carrying with it the sound of something else… A human voice, calling his name.

Riku’s entire body grew cold in a way that had nothing to do with the deep water.

“Is that..?” Kairi asked.

Riku was already pushing toward the surface, as quickly as he could get his tail to move him. The waters grew rougher as he got higher. His head broke through the surface, but it hardly made a difference, the rain was so heavy. Lightning flickered almost constantly, reflecting off the rolling waves in disorienting, shifting strobes.

“Sora!” he yelled. The word was all but covered up by another crack of thunder.

Kairi emerged next to him.

“You heard him, right?” Riku asked.

She nodded.

“Sora?” he yelled again, though with no more success. He tried to listen, but all he heard was the thunder. He even ducked back under the surface, hoping the sound would carry better, but it didn’t help.

When he bobbed back up, Kairi started to sing. It was a wordless, sweet song that cut through every other sound above the water, even the deafening thunder. Her voice twisted through the waves, somehow creating its own harmonies. Riku understood immediately, and added his own voice. If her voice had been otherworldly on its own, in combination their voices were magic.

It had been years since he’d had the chance to really sing. Few merfolk actually sat on rocky shores, intending to lure sailors into a shipwreck. However, there was some truth to the superstitions about merfolk’s song drawing humans to them.

If Sora couldn’t hear them calling to him, maybe he could still hear them singing.

Long moments passed, the sea churning. Then the wreckage of a small boat crested one of the rolling waves. Riku dived for it, cutting through the storm waters like they were nothing.

Sora was clinging to the broken fragments of wood, head weakly coming up to look towards them. But even as Riku got close, his fingers lost hold, and he slipped below the waves.

Riku breathed air into his lungs as deeply as he could—the sensation already strangely foreign, his body wanting to rebel against the unnecessary air—and dived after Sora.

Sora was sinking despite his efforts to fight back to the surface. He’d kicked off his shoes, the first thing any Islander learned to do when washed out to sea, but it wasn’t enough in waves like this. Bubbles streamed upward from his lips and nose.

Lightning still arced through the clouds, diffuse flashes of light making it down below the water. Even so, it was probably too dim for Sora to see much. Riku didn’t know if he was glad, or if he wanted Sora to see him.

He swam closer, and Sora did see him then. Riku reached for Sora, cradling his neck and pressing their lips together, a strange mirror to their kiss just hours ago. Sora’s eyes widened, though he didn’t struggle away.

Riku pushed the air from his own lungs into Sora’s. Sora didn’t seem to understand at first, but then he relaxed, taking the offered breath.

They were still sinking. Riku had bought them time, but not enough. He grabbed Sora under the arms and tried to push upward, but the roughness of the water made it difficult to manage. And one breath of air wasn’t going to last forever. Already some of that air was forcing its way back out in bubbles from his lips.

Then Kairi was there, diving down and facing Sora.

“Help me,” Riku said, his tail thrashing.

She nodded, then leaned forward. Her hands cupped Sora’s cheeks, as she pressed her own lips to his, offering the same kind of kiss and breath that Riku had.

Another lungful, a few more moments bought. She gathered close on Sora’s side, and Riku shifted so they were each holding him under an arm, and together they were able to pull him to the surface.

As soon as they reached the air, Sora took a gasping, painful sounding breath, nearly taking in water as the storm-tossed waves pushed them all down again.

“Riku,” he gasped when they resurfaced. Then, “Mermaid.”

Both Riku and Kairi had fingers in his hair, trying to support his head and keep it above water. It was a losing battle. The storm was too intense, the waves too constant. They could keep him up for seconds at a time, but would all be pushed back down with no warning. Eventually Sora would get a lung full of water, and another, and he’d be lost.

As if summoned, the biggest wave yet crashed over them, pushing them back down almost as far as before.

Riku bit his lip. He turned to Kairi. “I’m giving him my scale,” he said, already reaching for it around his neck.

Nachre’s scales granted the ability to shift. It was a gift meant for the mer, but nothing said the change only worked for them. There were even stories, admittedly of the cautionary variety, about humans who recognized the scales for what they were and used them to blend in with the mer.

It wasn’t without risk. The scales could only work for one person at a time. Ordinarily, if a mer lost or gave up a scale, they would remain in or revert to their finned form… but that was because almost no mer ever chose the land.

Riku had. He loved being a merman, and he loved his connection to the water. But going to land for Sora hadn’t been an idle decision, and he hadn’t returned to the water for years. He’d last used the scale to shift him to his finned form. If removed, the magic would shift Riku to what it considered his “true” form… and there was every possibility it would now consider two legs and breathing air his truest state.

Trading one drowning body for another. Ridiculous, to even consider that a mer could drown. Even so. If he could save Sora, he had no choice.

“No!” Kairi cried, pushing his hand away before he could pull the necklace over his head. They all sank a few more feet.

Riku shook his head. “Protect him. Please.”

“Just wait!”

“For what? For him to truly drown?”

“No! Just hold onto him. Can I let go without you risking your own life for a minute?”

Riku pulled Sora closer to his chest. He’d give her a moment, but no more.

As Riku took all of Sora’s weight, Kairi drifted back a few inches, reaching for the bag strapped across her chest. She fumbled the closure open and pulled out something on a thin woven cord.

Another of Nachre’s scales. The rainbow shine to it wasn’t dimmed, even in the dark.

“You have a scale?” Riku asked, as if it weren’t obvious.

“I thought I might have to save you,” she said by way of explanation. “I wasn’t going to let a lack of legs stop me. Maybe it’s needed for a different kind of rescue.”

If Sora was even conscious enough to listen, he couldn’t understand mer speech. Riku wished he could explain what he was about to do. Even just to ask Sora’s permission, to make sure he was okay with it. But human language couldn’t carry through the water, and there wasn’t time. Sora was barely conscious, the last of his air gone, eyelids fluttering. Saving Sora’s life was more important than getting his permission to do so.

Riku repositioned again, trying his best to cradle Sora, to support his weight and ensure he wouldn’t hurt himself. He kissed Sora’s temple, hoping he could just trust that Riku loved him.

Kairi took one of Sora’s hands, and pressed the sharp edge of the scale to the heel of his palm. The blood was washed away almost immediately, but the magic had already taken hold. She looped the cord over Sora’s head.

Sora screamed soundlessly, the very last of his air forced from his lungs as he convulsed.

The change from legs to fins was agonizing, even when Riku had been fully aware it was going to happen. Bones and flesh forcing themselves to meld together, rapidly rewiring nerve endings, scales breaking through skin… Riku clenched his eyes shut and just focused on holding onto Sora.

The silent scream suddenly became very loud, as Sora gained the ability to speak and be heard underwater. The scream itself cut off, replaced with wide-eyed shock as the skin along his neck split open, and suddenly he was no longer drowning.

As horrible as the transformation was, at least it was blessedly brief.

Sora was gasping, gills flaring as his body learned that he didn’t require air. His eyes had adjusted to the underwater gloom, because he was darting shocked glances back and forth between Riku and Kairi. He reached up to touch his gills. And then seemed to notice the tail.

Riku let him go, then quickly grabbed hold again as it became clear that Sora did not yet understand the mechanics of swimming.

“Let us show you,” Kairi said gently. “Swimming with a tail isn’t quite the same as legs.”

Sora nodded. “I think that’s one of many things you’re going to have to explain to me.”

---

Sunrise found them on the soft sand of the play island, stretched pleasantly in warm, shallow water. The storm had passed, and the waves were as gentle as they’d ever been.

Riku admired the way all three of their tails looked. His, an iridescent shift between bright aqua and dark blue, with a silver edge to each scale. Kairi, to his left, her scales glinting between pale pink and purple, the edges the bright gold of sun on water. And Riku wouldn’t pretend that he’d never wondered what Sora would look like as a merman. And now he had his answer—vibrant red scales, shifting to a deep blue-purple so dark it was almost black, edged in bright yellow-gold.

“I’m amazed you found us,” Riku said, not for the first time.

“Pure luck,” Sora answered again. “I saw you walking down to the beach, and by the time I got there, you were gone. I was sure you’d been washed out in a riptide. I had to go after you.”

Sora flicked the flukes at the end of his tail, and laughed. Even the simplest motions still seemed to fill him with a bubbling delight. “When I found you, I was sure I’d drowned after all, that seeing you like this was some end-of-life hallucination,” he said. “When suddenly I was being kissed by two beautiful merpeople I knew I must be dying.”

“Glad to be real.” Riku quirked a smile at him, and ran his fingers through the wet spikes of Sora’s hair. “And alive.”

Riku flopped backwards, just enjoying the gentle warmth of the rising sun. He glanced over at Kairi, who had her eyes half-closed, a gentle smile on her lips. “I can’t believe you had a scale.” He shook his head.

She smiled, and reached into her bag. She withdrew a slender silver chain. “Nope! I had two.”

Dangling from that chain, there was another scale.

Riku sat up. He was at a loss for words, finally spluttering, “How?!”

She grinned. “I told you, I thought I might have to rescue you. If I had to go onto land after you and something had happened to your scale, I wasn’t going to count on being able to share one.”

The idea of all three of them being able to change at will… But… Riku frowned. “If they were angry I disappeared with one, how likely are they to come after us for three?”

“They… may not know I have both of these.” Kairi’s smile turned a little sheepish. Then her expression sobered. “But I’m not sure they’ll care. After you left, the mer pretty much declared that no one should ever leave the undersea. That’s part of why I came. I was afraid I might never get another chance.”

“You still want to stay?” Riku asked.

She nodded.

Riku looked over at Sora. It was really Kairi’s choice to stay on land or not. But he wanted to know how Sora felt about it.

“Kairi is staying?” Sora asked.

“I’d like to,” she said, looking at him over Riku’s chest. “If I may.”

Sora beamed. If possible, his aura was even brighter. “You saved my life! Of course I want you to!” Then almost to himself, “Two merpeople…”

“Merfolk,” Riku started to correct. “And you might… kinda be one now, too. Tail and all.”

“Imagine the stories that could be spun!” Kairi said. “The first human worthy of having a merman and a mermaid fall in love with him at first sight, both choosing to leave the undersea for him.”

Sora blushed nearly as red as his tail.

Riku laughed. “Merfolk are fairly forward about their feelings. If it bothers you, I’m sure she’ll tone it down.” He gave her a pointed look.

Sora’s blush somehow deepened another shade as he shook his head. “No! Not bothered. It’s fine. Is it fine? I mean, it’s fine with me. Is it… is it fine with you?”

Kairi grinned.

Riku gave in to the helpless, giddy laughter that had been threatening to overtake him. “It’s perfect.”