Kingdom Hearts fic: Third Wheel

[mistressofmuses]

Summary: Riku appreciates the lengths that Sora and Kairi go to to include him in their lives. Inviting him along whenever they go out, having him over for dinner multiple times a week, picking him up in the middle of the night to cheer him up... But he does worry that at some point he's going to need to stop being the third wheel. (They feel a bit differently.)

Day 17 of AU-gust: Firefighters Modern
The prompt for the day was "Firefighters", but I felt like that was a type of AU I didn't know enough about to write a convincing story for. So I used one of the event's "jokers"(three additional AU prompts that can be substituted for ones on the list): Modern AU.
I feel like I'm getting these posted later and later every day. :'( I should have taken better advantage of my time early on to work ahead, but alas I did not. So I'm just trying to get things written and ready for posting after work each day!

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“So… do you mind if I come over?” Riku asked.

“What? Of course not! Sora and I both love it when you stay over,” Kairi answered, voice slightly tinny through his phone speaker. But it was a video call, so he could see her smile. “Have you eaten yet? I think we have some leftovers in the fridge that I can heat up, if you don’t mind those.”

“I’ll be fine,” he said. He fidgeted with the edge of his shirt.

She rolled her eyes. “You haven’t eaten, have you? Well, I’ll heat something up. We can all have an… 11 o’clock at night snack. Do you want us to come get you?”

“No, I can walk. It’s not that far.”

He heard Sora’s voice shouting in the background. “Yeah right. We’ll go get him. It may not be that far, but it’s after dark. It’s safer and faster if we just pick him up.”

Riku snorted. “Well, Kairi, tell your boyfriend that I'm not exactly helpless, and I don’t need him to protect me.”

Kairi gave a long-suffering sigh before calling over her shoulder, “Riku wants you to know that he’ll take his chances being mugged in an alleyway because he thinks he has something to prove.” She lowered her voice to continue, “We’ll be there in five minutes.” She ended the call.

Riku let the phone fall to the mattress beside him. He wasn’t sure why he kept doing it. Whenever anything upset him, he called Sora and Kairi. And they always ended up coming to get him and cheering him up. He understood that friends were always supposed to be there for each other, and yet he figured this might be pushing it.

At first after the two of them had gotten together, he’d tried to distance himself. He wanted to give them space together, to respect their relationship. And, selfishly, he expected that he would get jealous seeing them together, even though he was happy for them.

But they wouldn’t let him.

He knew that they shouldn’t waste their time on ‘just’ a friend, but the both of them seemed determined to do just that. They’d seek him out whenever they could, with little calls and messages throughout the day. They invited him over multiple nights a week for dinner. Other times they stopped by his apartment to ask if he wanted to go grab dinner with them, or go to a movie, or go for a hike, or any other random thing they were planning to do. They hadn’t even cut back on physical affection; still hugging him and grabbing his hand while they were out walking. It was like nothing had changed.

He honestly couldn’t say that he felt lonely. They included him in so much, he could barely even say that he felt left out. They were still there for him, and cared about him more than he had any right to expect. But phoning them at all hours of the night because something was bothering him? That had to be pushing it. Worse, he knew that it was just an excuse to see them.

This is the last time, he promised himself again. Sora and Kairi should be getting married soon. Sooner or later, they aren’t going to want to be responsible for their messed up childhood friend. What will you do when they’re on their honeymoon, eh Riku? Call them up, ask them to come home to tell you a bedtime story? You should know better.

Despite his protests, he was grateful that they came to pick him up. It was only a twenty minute walk to their house, and it wasn’t like the nights were cold.

But seeing Kairi pull up outside the apartment building, with Sora waving from the passenger seat, still made him feel content in a way few other things did.

Sora turned up the radio, and they both sang along to it. Sora’s enthusiasm almost made up for his lack of skill, though Kairi was a good singer. Riku laughed and hummed along, not quite willing to actually sing.

“I think I promised you late-night dinner,” Kairi said as she hung up her keys and kicked off her shoes. “Rice and vegetables or casserole?”

He chose the rice and vegetables, and then they all retreated with their plates to the living room, since they’d never bothered with a formal dining room.

They ate and talked, all sprawled on the couch, and Riku all but forgot what had even bothered him to the point he’d asked to come over. He knew it had been work stress, but being with the two of them just eased it away.

Sora took the plates to the kitchen when they were done, and returned with cookies.

“You’re staying overnight, right?” Kairi asked, nudging Riku with her toe.

“Sure,” Riku said. Ridiculously, he felt in danger of blushing, which was totally uncalled for. Going back to his apartment would have been a pain, when they’d just gone to pick him up.

“Good,” she said. “Your toothbrush and everything is in the bathroom, as always.”

Maybe he should have wondered when it had gotten to the point of just being easier to have a brush and a toothbrush and some spare clothing at their place.

He sat up a little straighter on the couch and licked his lips.

“You okay?” Sora asked, picking up on the tension before Riku had even said anything.

He swallowed hard before he could force the words out. “It’s just… I know that I shouldn’t keep imposing on you like this. I appreciate it, but I’m sure it’s weird to have me third-wheeling all the time. I promise, I’ll try not to bother you so much.”

“Bother?” Sora asked. “What do you mean? How would you be bothering us?”

“Uh… having you come pick me up in the middle of the night? Eating dinner here so often? Coming along when you two are going out?”

“You do realize we invite you to do those things, right?” Sora asked, in a tone of voice like he was trying to explain something that should have been obvious.

“And I appreciate it,” Riku said. “I really do, I just don’t want to take advantage.”

Kairi sighed, covering her face with her hand. “Riku, why do you think we invite you to do all of those things?” Her tone was nearly the same as Sora’s.

Riku frowned. “Because you’re good friends? You don’t want me to be lonely? And I appreciate it! I’m not lonely because you two bring me along all the time. But if I could, I think I’d spend all my time with you, and I don’t want to be unfair to you.”

Kairi groaned and then stared at Sora over Riku’s shoulder. Sora was staring back at her.

“I’m starting to feel like I’m missing something,” Riku said.

“Riku, can you think of any other reason that we might have been inviting you on just about as many dates as we could?” Sora asked.

Dates? Riku blinked, but couldn’t quite manage to speak. He might have made a questioning noise.

Kairi reached over and took one of his hands. On his other side, Sora grabbed the other.

Kairi sat up, and looked very directly into his eyes. “Riku, we have been trying to date you. I thought we were dating you. Are you telling me you really didn’t notice? Or that we were that bad at it?”

The questioning noise forced its way out of his throat again.

“Riku, will you go out with us?” Sora asked. “Will that make it obvious enough?”

There were a lot of things realigning themselves in his head. Casual hugs, kisses on the cheek, hand holding, invites to movies and dinners and damn sunset walks on the beach. Calls multiple times a day and texts that ended with heart emojis. Dinners, both home-cooked and in restaurants. The fact that he didn’t need to bring anything for an overnight because he had everything already at their house…

“Yes?” he managed to force out the actual word. Then: “Yes. Yes I will go out with you.”

“Oh good,” Kairi said. “I was suddenly worried that we had way overstepped.”

“And here I just thought that you wanted to take things really slow.” Sora quirked a smile at him.

“Oh god, I have been just the worst boyfriend.” He was going to have to invite them to do so many things to catch up. He needed to learn to cook.

“Apparently we haven’t even been a boyfriend or girlfriend, so I think we’re even.” Kairi laughed. “So can we start over, all on the same page?”

“I think that sounds great,” Riku answered, squeezing both of their hands.