Kingdom Hearts fic: A Sophisticated Palate

[mistressofmuses]

Summary: Riku cooks, and Sora invites their new farm tenant to breakfast.Day 11 of AU-gust: Farm/Ranch AU!
Had to go with a shorter little fic today. (Got home an hour and a half later than usual from work, argh.) So this is pretty much just a cute, fluffy little scene. Pre-OT3.

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Sora took a sip of orange juice, looking into the kitchen where Riku was fixing breakfast.

“If you make enough, can I take some up to our new tenant?”

Riku glanced up from whatever he was stirring. “Sure. Maybe she has a more sophisticated palate than you.”

“Ha ha,” Sora said. “Just because I can’t tell the difference between… I don’t know, clove and allspice…”

Riku rolled his eyes good-naturedly. It was a well-worn argument. “Or sugar and salt. Or chocolate sauce and balsamic vinegar. Or…”

“One time,” Sora protested. And the worst ice cream sundae ever made…

“If you want to bring her breakfast, do you want to just invite her over?”

Sora hesitated. He wouldn’t have expected Riku to so readily invite her into their space. Riku had been reluctant to even rent out the small guest house, though Kairi had won him over when they met up to “interview” her as a potential tenant.

“Would that be all right?” he asked.

Riku shrugged. “Fine by me. It’d be nice to get to know her better.”

---

He could have just called her; they’d of course exchanged contact information. But that felt weirdly formal, when it was less than a five-minute walk across the property.

Of course, Sora also didn’t want to seem like they were going to be invasive and not respect her space. But, he also genuinely liked her, and it seemed like inviting her over for breakfast was a nice thing to do.

He walked up the driveway, glancing at the part of the property that she was renting from them. The farm itself was enormous, part of Riku’s sizeable inheritance. They hadn’t gotten around to planting this section of it before making the decision to rent out the secondary guest house.

He could see seedlings coming up along one side: strawberries, if he remembered correctly. Kairi had laid out an entire plan for a mix of fruits, vegetables, and flowers that she hoped to grow and then sell locally. Her plan had been sound, and her very genuine interest had likely been what convinced Riku to take a chance on letting her rent the house and the surrounding land.

Sora knocked on the door, slightly nervous, hoping not to wake her.

He needn’t have worried, because she answered just seconds after the knock, already dressed for the day.

“Sora,” she said. Her face lit up when she saw him, though then her expression quickly sobered. “Is everything all right?”

He nodded a bit too emphatically. “Everything is fine! Do you want to come have breakfast with us?”

“Oh.” She blinked a couple of times, and then the radiant smile was back. “I’d love to!”

“Great,” Sora said. “Riku is cooking. And he’s an amazing cook.”

Sora may not have had the most ‘sophisticated palate,’ but that didn’t mean he was unable to recognize how lucky he was to have Riku cooking for him.

“Just let me get my shoes on.”

---

Sora had not oversold Riku’s skill. He’d made them omelets with a dauntingly long list of ingredients that somehow all blended into the most amazing flavor that Sora could have imagined, plus small sweetly spiced pancakes and some kind of homemade syrup.

The food took up the bulk of Sora’s attention, but a small bit of his mind was occupied being nervous about how having Kairi in their house would go. He loved Riku, obviously, but the man could be slightly territorial.

Halfway through breakfast, those nerves vanished as Kairi enthusiastically and genuinely complimented Riku’s cooking. She even started asking about which spices he’d put in the pancake batter, and was apparently right.

Sora would have been annoyed—he’d been trying to learn the difference, but cinnamon and nutmeg still seemed like they were practically the same thing, and he didn’t even know what cardamom was, to be honest—but he was too busy enjoying how surprised and pleased Riku looked.

“You know,” she added after another bite. “If the strawberries turn out as sweet as I’m hoping this variety is, I think you could make an amazing syrup out of them. I’ll bring you some, if you’d be interested.”

“I’d love that,” Riku said. “Could make something that tastes like summer.”

Sora smiled. It seemed like this was going to work out just fine.