Warnings

Boy/boy pairings, the use and abuse of stereotypes, hints at original pairings, regular updates (I know people are not used to this), a sometimes excessive level of cuteness and a useless Warnings section at the beginning of each chapter.

Chapter Notes

Being different from others is no shame, being ashamed of it, is.

Reviewers

SilverHairedAngel: And yes, the story is finally over. 32 chapter is a long way, but we finally made it. Thank you so very much for staying until the end. That said... check the end of the chapter for a little surprise, hope you'll like it ;).

P.S: Casey V is an amazing writer.

Epilogue: Victory Line

Sora could feel the eyes of all of the customers of the small bar focused on him. After all, if you enter in a public place hand in hand with your male best friend, it's perfectly predictable to draw the attention of a few people. For a moment, he felt like letting go, but when Riku squeezed his hand a little, he took a few steps in, facing his friends that were looking at them.

"Sora? Are you two..."

"Wow, wow, you mean it's official, now?"

Sora couldn't help but feeling embarrassed by the way Tidus and Selphie were pointing out the awkwardness of the situation. Kairi simply smirked, though, in a way that, Sora knew it very well, meant 'told you so'.

"Hi guys." Riku said without letting his friend's hand go. "You plan to stop embarrassing my boyfriend or are you waiting for us to make out in the middle of the bar?"

"Uhm, where's my brother?" Sora asked, desperately trying to change the subject of the conversation. Olette simply pointed towards a table from where the seniors were looking at them and laughing. Roxas was sitting amongst them.

"Hey, what's so funny, guys?" Sora asked, despite having a pretty clear idea of the reason why they were laughing.

"Oh, it's nothing. We were just considering that you and your tinted-hair-friend are so... what's the word, Axel?" Larxene looked for a moment at the redhead. When she saw him practically glued to Roxas, she rolled her eyes. "Oh, yeah. 'Gay'. Thanks, Ax." Both Sora and Roxas blushed.

Riku squeezed Sora's hand again, then he glared at the blond girl and answered totally serious. "My hair color is natural and your hairstyle remember me of some kind of bug. You're correct on the rest, though."

"He's right, Larx." Axel said as much serious as Riku was. "I mean: those ridiculous appendages on your head..."

"You're the one to talk. Where have you gotten that hairstyle, pyro?"

"Aw, come on, there's a lot worse." Saïx interrupted. Axel didn't get the time to thank him for the support, though. "There's a lot worse in Axel than his hair, I mean. Just look at his ridiculous tattoos."

"I'd just like to point that you have blue hair." Axel answered smirking.

"And don't try to say that it's your real color." Demyx quickly added.

"You're one to talk, brother." Tidus, who had in the meantime reached the table with his group of friends, put a hand on Demix's shoulder, with a grin as huge as his face. "Should I tell them about that time you wanted to paint you hair pink?"

Demyx looked embarrassed at his friends, who in turn were looking at him surprised. "That's... that's not accurate at all..."

"Oh, you're right. You didn't want to... you actually did it, right?" Sora, who knew Tidus had always wanted to take a little revenge on his brother, found himself smiling inside. Even if that was more because of the fact that none was paying anymore attention to their newfound relationship.

"Hey, let's not distract ourselves, we were waiting for a speech, am I right?" Kairi exclaimed bringing Sora back to the harsh reality.

"Oh, come on, Kairi. You can't really want..."

But Riku was already letting go of his hand and pushing him: before Sora could realize it, he was already standing in the middle of the room, surrounded by a dozen of people.

"Wait. Just... just what I'm supposed to say?"

When nobody answered, eyes fixed on him, Sora figured he had to start talking. And so he started talking.

"Uhm... I'm... happy to see all of you here."

Silence. Sora had the impression that even the few freshmen that were in the bar were trying to talk as low as possible just to embarrass him further. In the crowd, someone yawned, too much noisily for not being intentional. He tried to find something intelligent to say, but he quickly realized that he couldn't.

"What my boyfriend is trying to say..." Sora's heart missed a beat at the hearing of those words. "...is that despite all of that has happened in the last few weeks -tensions, discussions, not to say his usual, adorable whining-..." he instinctively glared at Riku "...he's really grateful to all of you for the support, friendship and all those stuffs that you've showed him. After all, you know that he can be a little girly sometimes, one of the things I like so much about him. Isn't that right, Sora?" Riku concluded winking at him.

'Oh, you so shouldn't have done it!'

"What I wanted to say..." Sora paused, looking at the silver-haired boy in a defying way. "...is that in the last weeks a lot of things happened: it wasn't always easy to deal with all most f them and I don't think that, just because you guys have decided to come out, all of the problems will simply disappear." None said anything. It looked like that even Larxene was listening, for once sincerely interested. "What will change, what is already changing even if slowly, is that people will hopefully start to realize that, yeah, there are people like us and, no, it's not like we are strange or, I don't know, dangerous or anything like that. I mean, what's so bad in my brother liking a guy or me liking Riku?" He said that without directly looking at his friend, but he could see that he was actually smiling. 'Not for long.'

"Even if he has a really small wiener!"

After a moment of absolute silence, a burst of laughter erupted from all of the students. Sora, feeling a little guilty, offered a timid smile to Riku, who was looking totally surprised and clearly embarrassed.

"Really now, Riku?" Kairi teased, an evil grin plastered on her face.

Riku took a few steps towards Sora, the only one that wasn't laughing. "I'm sorry, Riku. I just couldn't resist." the brunet said, offering another huge smile.

And after a moment, Riku smiled too. Then he grabbed his friend and started kissing him, in the middle of the bar, surrounded by another sudden silence. Sora knew that the spotlight was on them again.

But, finally, he simply didn't care, enjoying the kiss and choosing to close out that deafening silence. When they finally stopped kissing, a few interminable seconds later, Sora opened his eyes again and smiled at their astonished friends.

"It won't be easy, but it will be worth it, Riku."

End Notes

Yes, it's the last chapter! It's been a long ride, but here we are, closing the story at a whopping 32 chapters. It's been fun while it lasted: this was my first story ever published, but you actually read the 2nd version, corrected and revised after having gathered a little bit more of writing experience. For those who read it and liked better the 1st version... well, you're crazy, this one is much better ;). On another note...

A NEW STORY IS STARTING RIGHT NOW! CHECK OUT...

THE EVENT HORIZON

...pretty please? ;)

- Maverick Flare -