Why I Ward Off Darkness
(rough draft)
A Kingdom Hearts fanfic by Raberba girl

Attempted/failed fic for Sora/Kairi Day, 17 September 2013

Summary: Sora really is clueless when it comes to having a girlfriend... (Platonic Sora/Riku; Riku/Naminé; Sora/Kairi. In that order. *sweatdrop*)

A/N: Takes place post-canon, though there's a timeline error that's been noted at the end of the fic. Oh, and in case you haven't read Sora's Job Quest, Sora & Riku work for the Moogles, now that the war with Xehanort is over and they're done with school. :p

o.o.o

Even though Sora and Riku both worked for the synthesis guild now, they were not often assigned together. That was why Sora was absolutely delighted when he finally partnered with his best friend on a mission, and why he was so cheerful throughout the entire day - even though the giant Heartless took their combined full-strength efforts to defeat it, and they were both gasping, sweat-soaked, and exhausted by the end of the battle.

"Heh, Team Destiny Islands for the win," Sora panted, smiling as he weakly pumped a fist in the air.

"Ugh, how are you even moving?" Riku groaned from where he was sprawled flat on his back on the ground, where he had collapsed as soon as the Heartless began dissolving into sparkles. "I'm too tired to blink..."

"Potion, Potion, where's my Items..." Sora already knew they were all used up, but he checked anyway, and smiled ruefully back at Riku once he had confirmed this. "Sorry, Riku, I don't have anymore healing stuff. I can Cure you once my Command finishes reloading, though..."

Riku groaned again and rolled onto his stomach. "Tired..."

They eventually managed to drag themselves out of Neverland and over to Traverse Town, where the guild headquarters were. They turned in the loot they'd picked up, received their pay and rewards, and then headed back out.

Sora was surprised to find Riku walking in a different direction than where their ship was parked. "Where are you going, Riku?"

"Shopping."

Sora shrugged and hurried to catch up.

They hit the Item shop first to restock, and then Riku went to look at Accessories next. He took a pair of snowy white earrings off a rack and examined them thoughtfully.

"Blizzard Defense boost?" Sora inquired, peering at them as well.

"Yeah. I've been checking out places to take Naminé for our next big date - the one I've had my eye on tends to have ice-based Heartless around, so I figured these'd come in handy."

"Ooooh, that's a good idea. I'm gonna get some, too! Well, I mean I have some good Blizzard Defense already, but I think I need something for Darkness. I've been popping into Anti-Form a lot lately, it's annoying."

Riku glanced at him. "Still? I thought you were supposed to be over that."

"Yeah...I think it depends on what kind of mood the others are in. Especially when Van's ticking everyone off. So when Ven wants to strangle him and Roxas wants to beat his head in and Naminé's scared and Xion's screaming at them all to shut up, all at the same time, I can feel it even when I'm not on the Islands, and it's kind of...overwhelming..."

"...Sora, I do not envy you."

"Heh." Sora picked a bracer off the shelf, nodded in satisfaction, and went to go pay for it.

Even then, Riku did not head for the ship. He went to a gym instead. "Riku?! You're gonna work out?!"

"No way!" Riku absently squeezed his own biceps as if they were sore, even though they'd already healed up from the battle. "I don't even wanna think about exercise until tomorrow. I just need to shower."

"Shower?" Sora trailed after his friend in puzzlement as Riku went to the men's locker room and started undressing. "Can't you just shower when you get home?"

"Yeah, but Naminé'll probably be waiting to greet me. I don't want to be sweaty and disgusting if she is."

"Ooooohhh. You're so smart, Riku! Why didn't I think of that?"

Riku, who had grabbed a towel and was heading for the shower area, paused to glance back at Sora in surprise. "So you just shower at home every time you come back from work?"

Sora had started undressing, too. "I mean, yeah, I never thought I'd have to, like..."

Riku smirked a little, waiting for his friend to catch up. "Does she flinch and grimace when she kisses you, or does she even give you a welcome-home kiss at all?"

"She kisses me!" Sora paused. "Just kind of...pecks my cheek and backs away... I never realized 'til now, but she never hugs me 'til after I've showered."

Riku shook his head. "You're such a clueless dork..."

"Axel said that's what makes me cute," Sora said defensively. They'd reached the showers, and he turned the water on.

"It's like that guy doesn't even think before he says anything..." Riku muttered.

"Huh?"

"Nothing." Riku rolled his eyes. "Well, so here you are, cleaning up before coming home for the first time ever. Maybe Kairi'll reward you with some tongue."

"That's only for really special occasions," Sora said, blushing. He suddenly paused. "Wait, how do you and Naminé usually kiss, then?!"

Now, incredibly, it was Riku who was blushing. "I've actually...never like that...yet... She's so..." He seemed to be lathering his hair with shampoo more vigorously than was necessary, and now shoved his head under the stream of water, effectively silencing himself.

Sora waited patiently. All the shampoo seemed to be gone after a while, but Riku still kept rinsing. Finally he came back out. "She's so what?" Sora asked promptly.

Riku groaned in defeat and squirted more shampoo into his hand. "She's so - pure. Like a- I just feel- I can't kiss her like that, not unless she does it first, but she doesn't even know people can kiss like that, and I can't tell her, and it's stupid to ask someone else to tell her, and I..." Riku ducked under the water again.

Sora waited. It suddenly occurred to him that he ought to be washing his own hair, too, but if he did that, he might miss the moment when Riku came back out again and could hear more questions. Come to think of it, there wasn't even anything to wash his hair with except the bottles that Riku had brought in... "Why'd you wash your hair twice?" Sora asked, forgetting his original question.

Riku looked surprised again. "...Because you have to wash it twice before you can wash it three times?" he said dubiously, as if he had no idea why Sora thought this odd. He squirted more shampoo into his hand.

"You wash your hair three times?!"

"You don't?!"

They stared at each other.

"Oh," Sora remembered, "I don't have any shampoo. Can I borrow yours?"

"Sure." Riku handed over the bottle.

"Wow, this stuff smells good..." Sora idly turned over the bottle. "WHOA!"

"What?!" Riku yelped, Keyblade instinctively materializing in his hand. The other men showering looked over at them in astonishment, and when no immediate threat made itself apparent, Riku sheepishly dismissed the weapon. "Why'd you yell like that?" he hissed at Sora.

"This shampoo cost 350 munny?!"

"Yeah, so?" Riku said uncomfortably.

"My shampoo at home costs, like, 7 munny!"

Riku actually dropped the bottle of conditioner he'd been about to use. "What?!"

"Where do you buy this stuff?!"

"I don't - my father brings boxes of it home from work."

"But- But even if you're not paying for it, someone is! Who'd spend THREE-HUNDRED-AND-FIFTY MUNNY on shampoo?!"

Riku just stared at him.

Sora stared back. Then slowly grinned. "No wonder you guys always have such perfect hair."

Riku took the shampoo bottle out of Sora's hand and looked at it for a long time. "...My family really are crazy, aren't they."

Sora patted him on the back. "It's okay, Riku. I'll still be your friend even though you waste tons of munny just to make your hair look pretty."

"Shut up," Riku mumbled, ducking his head in embarrassment.

o.o.o.o.o

The girls were still waiting for them on the beach, though instead of alertly watching the ship's descent as usual, Kairi appeared to be asleep on her beach towel, and Naminé was putting away her sketchbook.

"I'm glad they didn't give up and go home," Sora said in relief.

"Would've served us right if they had. Would've served you right," Riku amended.

Leaving his friend to actually power everything down, Sora bounded out of the ship as soon as it landed and raced over to his girlfriend, who was yawning as she approached him. "Kairi!"

She smiled. "Sor-" She stared. "Sora?!"

"Kairi!" He reached her and seized her hands, gazing with beseeching urgency into her eyes. "I'm sorry sorry sorry we're so late, I just didn't think of bringing clean clothes, so we had to wash them at the gym, and they took forever to finish-"

"What happened to your hair?!" Amazed, Kairi touched one of the long, smooth brown locks swinging to Sora's shoulders - then her eyes widened and she buried both hands in his hair, sliding her fingers through it over and over again. "It's beautiful! It's all silky like Riku's-" She sniffed. "It smells like Riku's, too. I mean, it's a good smell, but- What happened?"

"Did you know that my CLUELESS DORK best friend spends 350 munny on shampoo, and 425 on conditioner, and 390 on detangler, and 300 on some super-special hair gel, and other numbers I forgot on other bottles I forgot, and didn't even know that that's weird?" Sora cackled.

"Huh?"

Meanwhile, Riku had also come out, and was going to greet Naminé. She reached out with a smile and put her arms around him, and he gave her a quick, chaste little kiss before returning the embrace.

"I'm glad you're home, Riku."

"Sorry for making you wait. Sora was..."

"You guys had fun, didn't you," she said affectionately.

"Yeah...it was good having a mission together, for once." He shook his head. "It was definitely a good thing to have a partner I could trust, that Heartless was strong..."

"Are you all right?"

"Of course."

Riku smiled a little and drew out his earlier purchase. "From Neverland. Well, Traverse Town, really; but the mission was to Neverland."

"They're beautiful," she said softly, fingering one of the earrings as if almost afraid to touch it.

"Wait," Sora exclaimed, "those were for Naminé?!"

Riku eyed him. "Of course. You think I need extra protection from ice monsters? I try to bring back a gift for Naminé at least once a month, since she doesn't get to see those other worlds as often as I do."

"Whaaaat?!" Sora stared at Kairi in horror. "I never even thought of getting you anything!"

"Really, Sora, it's okay," she laughed, simultaneously a bit exasperated.

"It never even occurred to me...!"

Kairi finally just kissed him to shut him up. "Mmm, you really do smell amazing..." she murmured.

Riku turned his attention back to his girlfriend. "Do you...wanna put them on, or do you...think you'll need help...?"

"Oh..." She smiled slightly, eyeing him through her golden bangs. "They look a little difficult. Do you think you could manage them for me, Riku?" she asked, shyly flirtatious, sounding and looking cute enough to send a pink tinge into his cheeks. He worked the earrings free of their packaging and then gently tilted Naminé's head, moving very carefully to set the jewelry in place. Naminé's eyes closed, and the hand she'd been lightly hugging herself with tightened its grasp on her other arm, and slid slowly upwards in delicious response to his touch on her skin.

Then she opened her eyes again and gently cupped her hands around the earrings, still as if in awe of them. "They feel perfect... Are they Accessories, too?"

"Yeah. I won't tell you what they do yet, though; it might give it away."

She smiled again and stretched up on her toes to touch her lips to his.

"Man," Sora remarked as he watched them, "I really am a crummy boyfriend..."

"Stop comparing yourself to Mr. Perfect," Kairi ordered, starting to tug Sora away. "Let's go somewhere and be alone, all right?"

They found a nice spot on the beach further down. Sora sat on the sand, and Kairi sat in his lap and put her arms around him. "You're so warm..."

"Riku's just good at everything, even at having a girlfriend," Sora said unhappily. "I didn't even know it was gross when I'd come home and say hi to you before showering, or that I was supposed to bring you presents, or-"

"Sora," she said, gently touching her fingers to his lips to silence him, "Like I said, don't compare yourself to Riku. You're not him, and I'm not Naminé, okay? I love you because you're you."

He pulled the bracer out of his pocket and looked at it. "I bought this today, when Riku was buying the earrings. I'd give it to you, but...I mean, it's just a Darkness ward, you don't even need it." He smiled sadly at her. "You're a Princess of Heart, the darkness can't even hurt you, at least not in a way this could protect you from. I'm the one who's got darkness in me...turning me into a crazy monster half the time, messing up Roxas and the others..."

He was surprised when she kissed him. "Put it on my wrist," she said affectionately.

"The bracer?"

"Yes, silly."

He did so, giving her a confused look.

She held her arm up to the last rays of sunset. "It's a beautiful gift, Sora."

"Uh...I mean, you can have it if you want, but it's not very pretty. I should have gotten earrings or a circlet or something..."

"It's beautiful because I can see your heart in it, Sora," she said gently. "A heart that cares about me and always wants the best for me, and for all the rest of our friends. You want to be free of darkness so you can be stronger and keep us safe, right?"

"Yeah." He brightened a bit. "Yeah. I mean, I guess that is why I don't like the darkness - because it makes me not myself, and I forget everything that's important..." He looked at her. "You're really important to me, Kairi. I know I mess up a lot and Riku's cooler than me, but...I love you, Kairi. I really do. I want you to be happy."

"You make me happy every day, Sora."

He smiled.

"Kiss me, Mr. Keyblade Master," she ordered with a twinkle in her eye.

Grinning back at her, he pulled her close and obeyed.

o.o.o

Author's Notes: ...You can tell when I don't like a pairing, because I'll attempt a story for their Pairing Day which gives more screentime to other pairings. *huge sweatdrop* In this case, SoRiku and RikuNami instead of SoKai. *sigh*

Sora & Riku should have had these conversations (about Riku's hair products and such) long before now, but I had to have the story occur at a later point on the timeline, so...timeline fail. *sweatdrop* Speaking of two guy friends chatting as they shower in a communal area, there I go again writing about stuff I have no clue about... I just browse through Google for a while and then start writing whatever makes sense to me with the characters, context, and research. *huge sweatdrop (again)* Is that totally off...would that never happen...?

Oh, and as was very vaguely implied, Riku's dad is Sephiroth (and his brothers are Kadaj, Yazoo, & Loz). XD There's a bit in Final Fantasy VII Crisis Core that talks about Seph using an entire bottle of hair conditioner or something every time he washes his hair, and I figured his kids might take that kind of thing for granted. :p

Anyway, so I wanted to write a SoKai Day fic for two reasons - one, my SoKai Day drabble last year was really late; and two, someone fairly recently made a comment... As my Rurouni Kenshin readers (...probably haven't...) learned, hearing people express dissatisfaction with any character or pairing in my stories makes me want to write them more. *sweatdrop* (As in, when they dislike it solely because of the character/pairing, with no relation to writing quality.) So I tried to brainstorm a SoKai fic idea.

...The problem is that SoKai is FREAKING BORING. It took ages to come up with an idea I could actually write (without falling asleep during the drafting process), but of course I was much more interested in Sora's friendship with Riku and Riku's relationship with Naminé, and I realized that most of my plot bunnies were actually for them. I just don't know what to do with SoKai, they're pure cliché and there's nothing interesting about them to catch hold of. *sweatdrop*

But I tried, and had a lot of fun with Riku in the process, so yay for that.

...I also had to cut out the scene where Sora was urging a confused Naminé to give Riku some tongue, as an embarrassed Riku threatens to hurl a Keyblade at Sora's head, because it made me uncomfortable; but if not for my conscience, Naminé & Riku would be having QUITE an interesting time over on their side of the beach. *huuuuuge sweatdrop* Gah, I wish everyone was asexual; it would make things so much easier. X(