musefic | Kingdom Hearts fic: Double-Booked

I've fallen a day behind! I had unavoidable plans last night that I had to go straight to from work, so alas. I'll hopefully get caught up in another day or two.
So despite being the 6th (where I am), this is the fill for Day 5 of AU-gust: Pet Sitters AU.

This one was a little difficult, as we lost my mom and younger sibling's dog to old age earlier this week. She had 16 good years, but we are going to miss her.

Kairi and Riku are both pet-sitters, with a fairly intense rivalry after a previous falling out. So they're both understandably surprised to discover they've apparently been booked for the same pet-sitting gig...

Day 1:

“Well, this is clearly a mistake,” Kairi said, the instant she spotted Riku heading up the sidewalk.

“Clearly it’s your mistake,” Riku snapped back. “I was hired for this job, and I’m going to do this job. You can go home and sort it out once the client is back.”

“Excuse you. ‘The client’—we both know it’s Sora—hired me to take care of his dog while he’s out of town, and I am going to make sure it gets done!”

Sora was a charming newcomer to town, and Kairi had been perfectly thrilled to have the opportunity to work for him for a quick five-day trip out of town. There was no way she’d let Riku muscle in and take over.

“Dog?” Riku asked. “Sora hired me to take care of his cat. Clearly you have this mixed up with some other house. An awkward miscommunication, but hopefully you can find the dog you’re supposed to be taking care of, then.”

“As if. I’m going to go in and take care of Sora’s undoubtedly very sweet dog, and you can go find the client whose cat is waiting for you.” Kairi pulled the key Sora had given her out of her pocket, turning toward the door.

Riku was already racing her for it, a key in his hand too.

The keys certainly looked the same, though that didn’t mean much. Most keys did, really.

Riku got to the lock a fraction of a second before her. His key slid into the lock smoothly.

Kairi had a moment of near-embarrassed panic as Riku looked at her in mild triumph.

“Like I said. I’ll take care of the cat, and you can go find whoever else’s dog.”

The door opened, and Sora’s dog greeted them, tail windmilling excitedly as she danced at the door in delight.

Kairi’s own slightly-confused smugness at clearly being in the right, since this was clearly a dog, didn’t last long. From the back of the couch in the living room, a grey cat gave a quizzical meow and a stretch.

As far as they could tell, they’d both been legitimately hired. Sora hadn’t mentioned the cat to Kairi, and he’d never mentioned the dog to Riku, but here they both were. They both had genuine front door keys. They’d both been hired for the same string of days.

“We can test Sora. I’m sure he’ll clear it up,” Kairi said.

“No!” Riku protested. “He’s on vacation. We are not going to bother him unless it’s an emergency. Look. This is clearly a weird misunderstanding. How about you just… call it a week, and I’ll take care of both animals. I’m perfectly happy to care for the dog too, and I don’t know why Sora didn’t just ask me to, but there’s no reason for both of us to worry about it all week.

“How about you take the week off?” Kairi threw back. “I know how to take care of a cat just as well as you do, and I don’t need you to try and do my job for me!”

“You are always like this,” Riku snapped.

“As if you have any idea what ‘I’m like’ anymore!”

And he wouldn’t have any idea. As soon as that stupid rumor had started about them, he’d wanted nothing to do with her. She’d returned the favor, since apparently he’d rather act like they didn’t know each other at all than have people think they were together.

The dog sat at Riku’s feet, looking up at him adoringly. The cat headbutted Kairi’s ankle while she glared at Riku. Both seemed utterly oblivious to their squabbling.

Kairi and Riku stormed to different rooms to take care of their respective animal clients. Kairi took Trinity, Sora’s dog, out for a quick run around the block.

Riku was playing with Kingdom, Sora’s cat, when they got back.

Kairi ignored him completely while she fed Trinity, then engaged the dog in a quick game of tug-of-war.

Riku didn’t even acknowledge her as he busied himself with Kingdom’s food, then took care of a quick litter box scoop.

They left at the same time, both shooting glares at each other the entire way from the door to the sidewalk, until they parted ways.

Day 2:

Kairi tried to get to Sora’s house as early as she could the next morning. She could get Trinity out for a walk first thing, and get everything for Kingdom done. It would serve Riku right to come back and find that he had nothing to do.

Except he was walking up the road from the opposite direction at the exact time she was arriving.

They repeated their silent treatment towards each other, even as both Kingdom and Trinity did their best to get as much attention as possible from both humans.

As they were leaving for the morning, Kairi finally gave Riku a sidelong look. “Were you trying to get here early so you’d be gone before I got here, or so you could get both animals taken care of?”

It took a moment, but he finally answered, “The second one. I was going to leave you a note letting you know that Trinity had already had a walk and been fed.”

“Typical.”

“Is it? You were pretty quick to remind me that I don’t know you that well anymore.”

Day 3:

On the second visit of the day, in the late afternoon, Trinity brought a tennis ball to Riku, and he threw it for her a handful of times.

Kairi found a bag of catnip tucked into the cabinet, and Kingdom wanted to be her best friend.

Kairi still took Trinity for her walk, and Riku cleaned out Kingdom’s litter box, and they fed the animals separately. It was getting harder to completely ignore each other when their charges refused to cooperate.

Day 4:

Kairi received a text from a number she’d almost blocked, but hadn’t ever quite been able to bring herself to.

Kairi. Will you feed Kingdom? I’m running late and I’ll be there in 45 minutes, but he probably doesn’t want to wait.

She hesitated before typing out a response. Cats are demanding like that. I’ll take care of it.

Thanks, he texted back almost immediately.

She itched to reply, even with something as simple as an emoji, before she reminded herself she wasn’t allowed to do that anymore. But he had said thank you.

Forty five minutes later, Riku arrived and Kairi was still there. She’d fed both animals, and was now on the couch with Kingdom half asleep and purring on her chest.

“Does Trinity still need to go out?” he asked.

She nodded. “I hated to make Kingdom move. Now that you’re here, he’ll have a lap to move to, so I can take Trinity.”

“Don’t worry about it, I’ll get her.”

And he did, leaving Kairi and the purring cat undisturbed.

Day 5:

They arrived at the same time again.

Riku stopped and sighed, waiting for her to catch up.

“Hi,” she said. It only seemed polite.

“Hey.” He stood for another moment without speaking.

Finally he said, “Truce?” He held out his hand.

Kairi stared at the offered hand, then slowly held out her own to shake. “Truce.”

That day, Riku got both bowls of pet food prepped, and Kairi took on the unenviable litter box clean for the day.

When she grabbed Trinity’s leash, Riku asked if she’d like company on the walk.

And surprisingly, she realized she would.

Day 6:

Sora came back on the sixth day, so they only had the morning pet care to worry about.

That also meant they were able to make sure they were there when Sora got home. Sure, they could have just left the keys, or planned to return them the next day, but that wasn’t nearly as good as a face-to-face meeting.

Sora, always a perfect ray of sunshine, was delighted to see them both, of course. Maybe not quite as delighted as he was to see Trinity and Kingdom, but who could blame him?

He did at least have the grace to look a bit sheepish when he finally turned to talk to them. “So… how was the week?”

“We were a bit surprised to discover you’d double-booked pet sitters,” Riku said.

“You do realize you can typically hire one sitter to mind multiple pets, yes?” Kairi asked.

“But you both offered when I told you I was going out of town. So how could I choose?”

Kairi didn’t know what to say to that, actually. Sora was right that either of them might have been resentful, if they discovered the other had been hired instead.

“And, well…” he added, “It was pretty clear from the times we talked that the two of you had some sort of rivalry. I just wanted you to have a chance to work it out.”

“I’m not sure if I’m more annoyed that you’d try that, or that it worked.” Riku glared at him.

“It did?” Sora’s puppy-dog eyes rivaled Trinity’s.

“Riku’s right. Annoyingly… it did.”

The handful of days had reminded her how great Riku was with animals, how generally nice and hard-working he was… Going on that walk together, they’d had a chance to talk it out. Their antipathy toward each other had ultimately been horribly small and petty, an overreaction and overcorrection to things other people had said. That had bred defensiveness and then had built up into something worse and worse.

“Do you want to go to dinner?” Sora asked.

“Me?” Kairi asked. “Or Riku?”

“Yes! I mean, both?”

“Why?” Riku asked.

“An apology? And because I’ve really liked getting to know you both.”

Riku shrugged. “I don’t have plans tonight.”

“Sounds like maybe you do,” Kairi replied. “I’m game.”

She had to admit, as the three of them left Sora’s house together, it felt a lot nicer than being angry with Riku for no reason. Judging by how relaxed he looked, he felt similarly. She was looking forward to letting the friendship rekindle, and seeing where it could go from there. And with Sora, too.