Work Text:
Riku had always known he was different from the other kids on the island.
Or, he'd thought it, at least. Thought it when he said out loud something he thought so obvious, and only got confusion. Thought it when his dreams filled with visions of strange worlds and strange people, thought it when he found the cave on the play island and Knew that something important was there.
The exception had always been Sora. Sora who felt hearts like a wavelength, like the sun. Sora who listened when Riku said something that maybe didn't make much sense at first, who looked in that odd little cave and saw the same thing he did and said that this cave was Theirs. Sora who's eyes seemed to follow things that weren't there sometimes, who'd rebuke the ghost stories Wakka tried to scare them with, pouting and calling him mean.
And then a girl fell out of the sky, and suddenly their little group grew to three. Kairi who took their oddities as if they were normal and picked a fight with anyone who dared say otherwise. Kairi who didn't seem to mesh right with everything around her, who shone like a beacon in energy and existence.
He'd thought all of them special, untouchable, as eternal as the dark ocean depths.
... It was kind of embarrassing in retrospect. He remembers one of his visits back home, finding his old journal shoved in the bottom of a drawer and cringing, wanting to shake his own little self by the shoulders and say no, Riku, you aren't haunted or evil or an oracle or whatever, you're a thirteen year old.
Though, maybe some things did make sense looking back on it. Kairi being a princess of light from another world, Sora keeping hearts like pearls in an oyster. Riku looks back at it sometimes, thinks maybe he was always a little dark and just didn't know it.
He thinks he feels okay about it now, maybe. He was just a kid who was a little weird and didn't really know how to deal with it. He's still working on it, thinking about how he was back then. He's self aware enough at least to realize that just because he's made peace with his darkness doesn't mean his work is done.
Honestly, thank the stars for his friend's patience, hearing him out while he tried to dig out his thoughts and put them into words. He'd always envied the way both Sora and Kairi could just... say things. Say what they meant, say what they felt. There was a reason Riku had always called for help whenever they had to write down their thought process for homework, or god forbid, an essay. He just... wasn't that good at it.
Of course, they always disagreed. Sora would smile and say that Riku always had the right words when it mattered, and Kairi would thwack him on the shoulder and remind him exactly who had the best grades amongst them. It was always a little easier to talk when they were the ones listening.
So he talks, and they listen, and they reminisce and laugh about all the ways they were just a little weird, and he thinks, maybe he feels just a little more okay about it now.