Title: Photogenic
Pairings/Characters: Sora, Kairi, Riku; suggested Sora/Riku
Rating: G
Notes: Just a random piece of plotless fluff written in three 15-minute sessions of Write or Die, with about an hour or two of editing and tweaking after that. :) I hope it makes you smile, at least! Reviews always, always appreciated.

Photogenic

Which was real love: the kind you were willing to let go for the sake of their happiness, or the kind you needed to keep close for the sake of your own happiness?

It was a question that didn't so much plague him as seemed to be like a mildly annoying itch, one too deep into your skin to reach that was only easy to ignore when you had other things to think about; the problem being, of course, that he rarely had other things to think about. Which might have been a surprise considering who he was, but love was a clever and funny mistress that way. You didn't think much of it when it wasn't there, and wanted all of it when it was. You could live a life without it and feel okay not knowing what you'd missed, but feel miserable for years if you had been with it once and lost it.

Complicated. That was what it was, at the bare essence of it all.

And he didn't really like thinking about complicated things, but it still only brought him back to the Question, now a proper noun for great justice, and he voiced it, bringing out a laugh from Kairi.

"Is this really what you think about?" she asked, sounding more pleasantly than insultingly surprised. "Love? No, not even just love, but... kinds of love?"

"Sure," admitted Sora. "I think about it a lot. There's not much else to."

"When it's there," Kairi said, amusement softening into a sudden understanding, and Sora couldn't help but feel a burst of affection for her.

"Yeah," he said, then gave a sigh and picked a leaf off an overhanging tree as they passed it. "Sometimes I wish it was as easy as just... knowing. Everyone says, 'you'll know when it happens.' They pass it off like it's so easy to deal with, like someone just comes up to you and says in your ear, 'hey you, guess what, you're in love.' But that's not it at all, is it?" He was quiet by this time, leaving Kairi to give him a long, thoughtful look.

"I think," she began, choosing her words carefully, "it's infatuation when you think you know right away. And it's not a bad thing, but it's not love. Love comes from knowing, and being okay with knowing, you know? No matter what happens. If that person loves you back or if they don't. If it's making you miserable, it's still just infatuation. You've gotta be... just, okay with it. That's what I think."

"You know, I'd expect something more romantic from you," said Sora, teasingly, though it was obvious he had taken her opinion into serious consideration. "Nothing about finding your soulmate who you're destined to be with for the rest of your life and all of eternity beyond that?"

"The only soulmates I'm concerned about are my shoes," said Kairi, in a way that was so deliberately blank that Sora had to stare, then give a sudden laugh.

"That took me a moment. I can't believe you actually went there."

"Neither can I, to be honest."

"You're the most incredible girl I know," said Sora, words playful and grin dorky, yet still genuine; a lot like himself.

"So are you," said Kairi with a cheeky smile, pecking him on the nose to stop him from automatically protesting, and the last few minutes of the walk were spent in a Sora-and-Kairi silence (which was a silence a whole lot better than that other 'companionable' kind everyone usually went for).

They met up with their missing third at the dock less than ten minutes later, finding him perched on one of the posts, gazing out at the play island and thinking thoughts that were doubtlessly just as deep, as usual.

"Hey, smile," was all the warning Sora offered as Kairi's camera gave a satisfying shutterclick, and Riku glanced back, eyebrows raised.

"Usually you say that before taking someone's picture, not while you're doing it," he pointed out, as Kairi stepped into place beside him and Sora flopped down on the dock, shoes already in his hands so he could dangle his feet in the water.

"So my timing was a little off," said Sora with a shrug and an easy grin. "We could've done two, but you still didn't smile."

"Did it occur to you that I might be in a bad mood today?" said Riku, expression believably severe, but seventeen years of watching that face grow and sharpen and change gave Sora the upperhand of seeing through it. "I might have just finished crying. My dog could have died."

"You have a cat that you hate," returned Sora, picking up a bit of floating debris with his toes, "and a ferret that lives at my house."

"The point is," Riku continued, sometime while Sora had mentioned the ferret, "the point is that I'll smile if I have a reason to."

"Getting a good picture of you isn't enough?" asked Kairi, frown believably sad, but Riku had the upperhand of twelve years this time.

"I'm more photogenic when I don't smile," said Riku, perfectly serious. "Like a black and white photo. Sometimes you have to take all of the colour and life out of something for it to look good."

"Good, but depressing," said Sora, which was the truth, and they all fell into a contemplative quiet after that.

"I feel like a smoothie," Kairi announced, which wasn't as random as it could have been, since there was a smoothie shack just a little ways down the beach. "You guys want anything while I'm there?"

"Pomegranate." Sora handed her a five, as if he'd been waiting for that very question.

"Blueberry," added Riku, handing her a ten. "Keep the change."

"Stop it," Kairi admonished him in exasperation, though there was a fond smile on her lips. "I can pay for my own."

"You can buy me ice cream later," said Riku, obviously intending on winning this, and giving her an almost smile-that-needed-a-reason in return.

"Fine," said Kairi, in a half-laugh. "Fine, I'll be right back." She left.

"Hey, Riku?" Sora said, after a few minutes of Sora-and-Riku silence, leaning back against Riku's post and fiddling with the leaf that he had decided to hang on to.

"Yeah?"

"If I asked you to kill me, would you?"

"No," said Riku, without so much as a break for surprise.

"If I was in a lot of pain, and I asked you to kill me because I couldn't take it anymore, would you?"

That time the question was met with a long pause, and Sora waited patiently, chancing a glance up at him.

"If you wouldn't make it, no matter what?" asked Riku quietly, still staring out at the ocean.

"Well, you don't know," said Sora, as if that was obvious. "It's not just one of those hypothetical situations where you know the outcome from the get-go. It's really happening, and you're probably panicking a little, since it would suck if I died and it was miserably painful, but it would also suck if you killed me when I could've lived through it. So there's a risk. A big risk."

"The thing is," said Riku, finally looking down at him, "I don't think you would ever ask me that. You'd know that I would regret it for the rest of my life. So it would really have to be my choice."

"I guess," Sora admitted. "But what if I was going crazy, going desperate? If it hurt just that much? I wouldn't be thinking a whole lot of your well-being in that case, no offense."

"You're trying to make this harder than it would ever be," said Riku, knocking on his head with a heavy fist and prompting an, "Ow!"

"Maybe," grumbled Sora, rubbing his head. "But I want to know."

"Yeah, I would," said Riku, and he sounded so sure of himself that Sora had to look at him again in surprise. "Only if you were going crazy, because then it wouldn't be your fault," he clarified.

"What?" said Sora, now thoroughly confused.

"I'd live with knowing it was completely my fault you were dead. I wouldn't be happy, but I would live. But if you asked me to do it and were completely aware of the consequences, I'd probably kill us both at the same time."

Sora's brow furrowed, the explanation getting through, but not quite connecting. "How do you figure that?"

"I'll be ready for death whenever you are," said Riku simply, eyes returning to the water, and Sora gave a small, "Oh," of finally getting it.

"Hey, Riku?" he said again, after another few minutes, in which he'd done nothing but dropped the leaf into the water and watched it float.

"Yeah?"

"I think I love you. Both ways."

Riku smiled for a reason, just for a second, and there was the familiar sound of a shutterclick as a returning Kairi somehow managed to get out her camera while fumbling with their three drinks.

"It's not that good," she said honestly, peering at the preview on her screen; a rushed blur of orange and blue and brown, with Riku's expression too frozen in transition to really look like him at all. "But it's happy."

And that was okay.

fin.