Like the Flowers Love the Sun || SoRiku

🌻s u n f l o w e r🌻

Riku is a year ahead of Sora, so he only gets to see him during lunch or electives. It's not ideal, but he sets it aside as the highlights of his day after coming to school together. When he walks into the cafeteria though, he freezes. Sora is there of course, a plate full of food, a twinkle in his eye, and a smile on his face. But his smile isn't directed at Riku this time, it's on Kairi. Big and bright and blinding and bracketed by braces, but not for him.

His heart stalls and his chest hurts and he runs off to the bathroom before anyone else can see the petals spewing from his lips.

He doesn't own Sora. Doesn't have a monopoly on his time or his attention or his smile for fucks sake, but he wishes he did somehow. Wishes Sora kept a secret smile locked away only for Riku. Something loving and cared for.

There is no one in the bathroom when Riku flushes the petals down the toilet and pushes open the stall door, emerging somewhat shamefully. His chest still hurts, but there's less pressure even if it takes a herculean effort to breathe. He washes his hands and looks in the mirror to practice his smile. He doesn't want it to look like a grimace though somehow he knows it will anyway. His hands grip the sides of the sink so hard his knuckles have gone white.

"If Sora's happy," he says to himself, "I'm happy."

When he smiles the next time he almost believes it.

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Kairi kissed Sora.

Riku wants to kick and scream and throw a fucking tantrum, but mostly he just wants to cry, because he can feel his heart breaking. He can feel the flowers spinning in his lungs like a tornado, the vines and leaves squeezing tighter and tighter until his vision is going black and he can't breathe.

"Riku!" And that's Sora's voice and he'd do anything for Sora to be happy. He feels himself smiling or failing to, he can't be sure, but Sora is at his side.

Then he sees Kairi again and he's screaming or puking, but it feels like his mouth is stretching wider than physically possible yet he still can't get enough air.

Riku can feel the petals in his mouth and on his face and dripping between his fingers, but he can't stop them. They burst out of him like a fire hydrant being let out on a hot summer day.

The darkness sucks him in and swallows him up even as the petals keep spewing out of him.

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Sora is a sunflower.

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"Riku. Can you hear me?"

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Riku has to remind himself of that while he floats in an endless darkness. The bright beauty of him. His bluebell eyes and sun-kissed skin. His bandaged knees and bracketed teeth.

——————————

"R
i
k
u"

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Sora is a sunflower, Riku reminds himself over and over again.

Beautiful, but deadly. He pulls him in with his smile and his laugh and his tight hugs, but his roots wrap just as tightly around his heart with his friendship and kindness; his stem poisons him with support and reassurance; only for his petals to crowd within his lungs and cradle his corpse softly.