Kingdom Hearts Fan Fiction ❯ Empathy ❯ Chaper 2 ( Chapter 2 )

Donald's experimental magic backfires, and our boys are forced to spend an entire afternoon in each others bodies until he can fix it.

RikuxSora(xRiku)

 

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Disclaimer: I own nothing at all to do with Kingdom Hearts, Disney etc. I only wrote this story.

 

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Sora tried to remind himself that stranger things had happened. That time he'd borrowed a gummi ship part from Cid without asking, who had found out and been so angry he'd bought a spell from Merlin that had changed him into a chicken, now that had been strange. But today's predicament, he had to admit, was coming close to chart-topping. He looked down at his - Riku's - body for what might have been the eighteenth time in the last two minutes.

It was a really odd feeling. He walked unsteadily because he wasn't used to the distribution of weight. Riku's shoulders and chest had more muscle on it than his, and when he had first starting walking down to meet Kairi he'd felt over-balanced. He was also viewing the world differently; being that he was now taller. His shoes suddenly seemed a lot further away, and he had certain doubts his arms would even reach that far down to tie them. He also wanted to ask Riku how the heck he put up with so much hair being in his face all the time. Plus whenever he turned his head more came and joined what was already there. He was constantly having to brush it out of his way so that he could see what was in front of him. He'd narrowly missed hitting a stone column. That would have been an interesting situation to explain, seeing as the passageway could have fit three of Cloud's bikes comfortably inside of it.

At first he had been a lot calmer and more relaxed about the whole turn of events, happy to once again leave it in Donald's capable hands to find a spell to reverse the effects, knowing that he would find one given the right length of time in which to search for it. Now, however, he was beginning to feel as if he wasn't so okay with the whole thing and actually, would prefer the retrieval of such an item to be sooner rather later, if at all possible.

He walked on for another five minutes before an important fact suddenly occurred to him; that because he was Riku and not Sora anymore, and Sora was meant to be meeting Goofy not Kairi, that Riku knew where Kairi was and not Goofy, that although he was in Riku's body he was not Riku himself, and so he knew where Goofy was, but not where Kairi was. Which led, therefore, to his realizing that he had absolutely no idea where he was going.

He stopped. Life had a really good way of simply laughing in your face.

Then he pondered, in rather a panicked way, what he should do next. Remembering what had happened not long ago, he pulled out Riku's phone and pressed the talk button, automatically dialing the last number that had called.

A few seconds later she picked up again, “You're sure taking your time.”

Honesty was one of Sora's more favored policies, “I got a bit lost. Where are you again?”

“The hall near the north study.”

“Oh, right.” That wasn't too far away. At least he'd been going vaguely in the right direction. “I'll be about five minutes, sorry.”

“See you.”

He cancelled the call and then stared at the phone for a few moments. Riku's wallpaper resembled some band he remembered Riku liked, whereas Sora could picture on his own phone his screen had a photo he'd taken of his friends one day at the beach. It was funny how different they were sometimes, but how they seemed to get along anyway.

Sora remembered to keep walking. Riku was a bit of an oddity, he thought. One minute he was smiling and laughing and the next he was staring off into space, deep in contemplation. But Sora quite liked Riku's serious side. He knew he always had someone he could to talk to about serious situations, whereas friends like Goofy and Donald, for example, he had never really felt he could discuss things with. Which didn't make them any less invaluable as companions, but there was something a bit more special about Riku.

Sora didn't really know how to describe it. There was something about the other boy that allowed him to like him no matter what mood he was in or what he said to him. Riku could have been talking about weather patterns and Sora still would have been interested in hearing about it. Anyone else talking about it and he might well fall to sleep.

He wasn't quite sure what all of that meant just yet, but thoughts played around in the back of his mind - far enough away that they could still talk amongst themselves and not be overheard - only loud enough that they retained permission to be there, simply out of curiosity on Sora's part.

Kairi was always hard to miss. Aside from her brilliantly red hair she, like Sora himself, indulged in a fairly vibrant wardrobe.

She also had a penchant for information.

“So, has the spell worked do you think?” She asked, skipping right past `hello'.

“Uh, yes.” He hazarded a guess, remembering he wasn't supposed to let on the true nature of the situation.

“Cool. So you can feel where Sora is and stuff?”

“Yes.” He said with a definite certainty.

She smiled widely, like this was the most brilliant thing anyone had ever said in their entire lifetime. “So, where is he now?”

Sora paused, thinking back to where he would have been right now if the spell had worked properly, “In the garden, by the fountain.” He realized that Riku might not have thought it mattered anymore to continue with the rest of the experiment and could well have been on a space ship home at this point for all he knew.

“Wow! That's incredible! Do you know what he's doing exactly as well? Or what he's thinking?”

Sora was thinking about whether or not he was supposed to know that too. He hadn't been too concerned before hand with the `suppose to's', because theoretically they would have made themselves clear come the initiating of the proper experimental procedure.

“I don't think so.” He said slowly.

“Oh, oh well then.” She deflated slightly. “How long are we supposed to wait here for if you already know where he is?”

“I'm not sure,” Sora admitted, “I imagine we've confirmed the experiment is a success and can now go about our business.” He was privately impressed at the way he made himself sound a bit more literarily-informed, as he thought Riku would normally have said things.

“You're not in any rush to get out of Sora's head then?” She grinned at her own joke, naturally quite unaware how much closer to the mark she was hitting.

“No?” He said a little hesitantly. Would Riku be wanting to get out of his head right about now?

Her grin changed slightly, to more of an understandingly devious smile; “Yes, I suppose you wouldn't Riku.”

Sora didn't really know what she meant by that, so felt it was probably safer to smile back instead of actually saying anything that might incriminate him further.

Eventually she shrugged, “So what do you want to do now?”

Sora took a moment to work this out. He realized, for the first time, that he was hungry. He knew he had eaten lunch right before going in to see Donald, but by the feel of it Riku hadn't eaten anything all day.

“Want to get something to eat?” He suggested, and then upon further consultation with Riku's body added, “And something to drink? Apparently I'm very thirsty.”

She raised an eyebrow, “'Apparently'?”

“I mean, I am.” He corrected quickly.

She looked at him quizzically for a moment and then seemed to forget about it, “Okay, I could probably eat something too. Let's go.”

He nodded and then followed her as she walked off. He would need to keep a closer watch on what he said in future.

 

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Riku had managed to decide that the best thing to do to distract himself would be to stay directly on course and meet up with Goofy, who Sora was supposed to be meeting had the experiment actually worked. That's what Sora himself was doing anyway, so that's what he might as well do. He didn't worry too much about not quite knowing where to find the knight, as he figured if he walked in more or less the exact opposite direction to where he, Riku, had originally been supposed to be walking he would eventually run into his target.

Ten minutes later he was pleased to find his tactic had worked surprisingly well. As he walked through the small enclosed garden Riku glanced up to see Goofy spread out at the base of a fountain, head on his chest and fast asleep. He rolled Sora's eyes; typical.

Walking slowly over, Riku nudged Goofy's foot with his own, and surprisingly, the dog-like creature sprang up immediately, fists raised and ready for action. Riku's eyes widened in surprise and he took a small step backwards, no point in getting Sora whacked in the face accidentally after all.

“Oh Sora!” Goofy said jovially, his expression turning to one of happy recognition as he spied his friend. “What are you doing here?”

“Um…” Act like Sora… “Hey Goofy!” Big, big smile; “I'm supposed to meet you here, remember?”

Goofy looked dramatically thoughtful, his foot began to tap slowly and he placed a hand under his chin. Suddenly, “Aha! Right, you were supposed'ta be seeing Donald to get some kinda spell placed on ya to see where Riku is!”

Very good, fifty points.

“Yup!” Bigger smile than before, “So here I am!” He spread his arms wide to confirm this.

Goofy wondered, for a second, whether Sora was asking for a hug or not, but decided he probably wasn't and continued his previous train of thought. “So… has it worked?”

“Uh…” What was the best thing to reply here? It had worked, and he was Sora; or it hadn't worked, and he was Sora? Either way all of this constant smiling was beginning to wear out his facial muscles. Maybe he could pretend Sora was in a bad mood or something for the rest of the afternoon?

Concentrate!

“…yeah, it worked.”

“Cool, so where is Riku now then?”

Quickly racking his brains to earlier conversations with Kairi he replied, “Just outside the North study.”

Taking his word for it Goofy smiled, seeming somewhat in awe, “Gawrsh, that's pretty impressive!”

Riku shrugged, “I guess so.” He would be more impressed if he wasn't lying.

Goofy paused for a few moments and considered him, “Are you feeling ok Sora? Donald's magic didn't make you feel sick again, did it?”

“What? No, I'm ok.” Damnit, act more like Sora! “Did you want to… um… grab something to eat?”

Easily distracted by food, Goofy jumped at the idea, proclaiming he was starving. Riku smiled through the mask of Sora, but inside he was already beginning to regret the decision to seek the knight out. He was pretty certain it had something to do with the fact that usually, what puzzle took Average Joe fifteen minutes to solve took Goofy four days, two online instruction videos and all three life lines. Riku found slowness irritating, but then, Sora had often told him of times when Goofy would be the one to crack a case the quickest; it was just that Riku had yet to see him actually prove this point. Perhaps if he did he might concede a bit more admiration, but until that day came…

Goofy had already begun to walk off, presumably towards the kitchens, and remembering how he himself often did that to Sora he yelled; “Hey wait up!” and waved his hand in the air a bit, before hurrying to catch up.

 

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Sora had spent the afternoon noticing a few other things. He noticed Riku was a lot more ambidextrous than him, for example, and he would find himself sometimes feeling more secure holding an object in his left hand than in his right. Food tasted a bit different too. Normally he didn't like cucumber but today when he ate a sandwich he found he disliked the taste a bit less. It was odd though, sort of like one half of him was telling him it tasted fine and the other half of him was trying to convey to him that it was the worst salad component ever invented. So to prevent spontaneous combustion his being had to find some sort of happy medium in which cucumber was tolerable but not worthy of asking for seconds.

A more recent discovery was that, like most other human bodies after having intaken a whole meal of food and water, his new body needed to expel it.

“I need to pee!” He said, quite astonishedly, as if experiencing for the first time something rather exciting.

“Uh, congratulations.” Kairi was looking at him as if he'd gone mental.

And then, like a tonne of bricks on a misplaced teddy bear, his spark of enthusiasm was squashed completely as he realized that the situation was not quite so exciting after all.

He would have to go to the toilet in someone else's body. This might not turn out so well.

“Um, excuse me… bathroom…” Sora said weakly, all conviction gone.

“Riku, are you feeling alright? You've been acting a bit strangely ever since…”

“I'm fine,” He interrupted in what he hoped was a tone of voice that sounded as if he meant it. Then he waved and left as quickly as possible.

He considered his options:

One, he could hold it in until circumstances reverted back to normal.

Two, he could knock himself over the head with a brick and hope that when he came to, he was back to normal.

Or three, he could attempt going to the toilet.

It wasn't a case of him thinking he wouldn't be able to get it right - he assumed the procedure was fairly straight forward no matter whose body it was done in. Unless Riku happened to have something dramatically wrong with him, say for example if he happened to be a girl. Apparently the female race didn't like to pee standing up. Sora had never quite worked out what their problem was there.

As far as he was aware, however, Riku didn't have such an issue, so theoretically it should be a simple operation.

He marched to the bathroom like he was about to come face to face with an electric chair. He opened the door slowly and made sure no one else was inside, before locking it behind him.

Deep breaths…

He wasn't sure what was so difficult about this. He and Riku had been friends since birth, practically, and when they were younger they used to play outside with water pistols and go swimming in Riku's pool even if one of them had forgotten to bring bathers. It had never bothered him then. Of course, he had been four then, and was more bothered by the discovery that he had a left foot, over the sight of his best friends private parts.

No, it was simply the fact that he was no longer (physically) four years old, and had developed the opinion that it was not polite to view another's bits and pieces without permission that Sora felt so nervous about.

So… logically that meant that if he could do this without looking then he would be fine? That seemed to make sense on at least one level to him, so he approached the urinal with a fierce determination to keep his eyes tightly closed throughout the whole proceedings.

Everything did indeed seem to be acting as normally as he was used to - he was even privately pleased with himself for not missing, what with the change in height and all that. All he had to do was imagine he was himself, and not Riku, and everything was turning out just fine. Why had he been worried again?

Thinking too much can be a danger in a certain type of person. Sora was not specifically this type of person, but probably had an uncle and a cousin or two who was. Because it was situations just like this, wherein Sora was alone in a strange environment, that over-thinking could be a real killer.

Why had he been worried again? Well, that was a fairly good question, he guessed it came down to the fact that right at this second in his hand he was holding Riku's…

Oh my God!

Sora flung his arms back as far away as possible, over balancing Riku's entire body and falling flat onto his back. His eyes flew open and he stared downwards.

…

Wow, it was so much bigger than his! Totally unfair!

Stop looking!

Snapping his eyes shut again, Sora gathered his senses, put Riku's pants right and re-opened his eyes to a hazard-free view. Phew, that was odd. His shoulders hurt a little from where they had hit the concrete floor, and he blushed sheepishly as he realized how silly he was acting.

Purposely avoiding looking in the mirror, he washed his hands and turned to leave. He speculated that he probably hadn't had a bathroom experience this unnerving since potty training, and he would rather like to keep it that way.

Donald had best hurry up with that spell, Sora thought, or he was going to go stir crazy. He decided he would go and excuse himself from Kairi and offer to help the duck look - Donald did like to do things his way, but Sora was ever so slightly desperate for a distraction right now.

Mind made up, he left the bathroom.

 

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Kairi span the fork around on the empty plate idly while she waited for Riku to return. Each time she span it she tried to keep it going for longer, however stupid gravity got in the way all-too-often and most of her attempts fell over after only two or three spins. She was going to have to do a lot more practice if she was ever going to become Champion Fork Spinner. It was a title reserved only for the best contestants of her imagination, along with Master of the Scribbles and King of Watching the Microwave Tick to Zero.

Kairi's mind went to odd places when she was bored. Today it was wandering towards Riku's slightly off behavior at lunch. Maybe he wasn't feeling well? He had been a lot more upbeat and animated with his conversation, only sometimes he seemed to suddenly remember something and would change to looking downtrodden and brooding. Very odd indeed… perhaps the spell had developed some more serious side effects than anticipated? Because, Kairi wondered absentmindedly, if she wasn't completely nuts in thinking so, it almost seemed as if Riku was acting more like…

“Sora!” Her train of thought stopped completely as she spotted her friend walking through the large kitchen doors, followed closely by Goofy who looked perkily around for some food. Sora smiled at her, then paused and waved as well, walking over to her table.

“Hi Kairi,” He sounded slightly more reserved than normal.

She frowned, “Donald's magic didn't make you feel sick again, did it?”

“Wha?” Sora seemed to back pedal from nowhere; “What makes you say that? Why do people keep asking me that!?”

“Calm down,” Kairi laughed, “You just had a serious look on your face is all. And you looking serious, well, usually means that your stomach is up to no good.”

Sora seemed to look reminiscent for a moment then laughed as well, “Oh, right, yeah that's very true.”

Then, as if someone had flicked the switch from “inattentive” to “observant” in Sora's mind, he suddenly said; “Where is Riku? Weren't you supposed to meet him?”

He frowned disapprovingly at Kairi as if she had left her keys in the wrong handbag and they were already out of the house. “Uh… I did, he's just…”

The door opened slowly and with a creaking sound, and Riku stepped tentatively through the opening. Sora seemed to round on him like a mother about to tell off a naughty child; “Where were you?” he demanded.

“Bathroom,” Riku automatically answered defensively.

“Oh?” Sora queried, clearly questioning the honesty of this statement.

And then Riku turned the brightest shade of red Kairi had seen in months. He looked down at his feet and mumbled something, before clearly changing his mind and suddenly snapping his head back up to glare at Sora, “What's it matter, anyway?”

As they argued about why it was and wasn't important to know where the other was, something quite obvious occurred to Kairi.

“Hang on a second, why didn't you know Riku was in the bathroom Sora? What happened to the spell?”

They both turned to blink at her for a few moments with wide surprised eyes.

Sora recovered first, “uh, yes, I should have… excellent point Kairi… Riku, I think we should go and see Donald and demand to know why the spell has worn off.” He seemed to stare a bit too pointedly whilst saying this.

Riku blinked at him a few times as if what Sora was saying was coming through in jibberish and he couldn't quite comprehend. But then some internal translator kicked into gear and he said; “Ohhh. Yes, sure, that sounds like a good idea.”

More puzzled still by the increasingly odd behavior of the pair of them, Kairi placed her hands on her hips in an `I'm about to make a speech sit tight' kind of way. Taking a deep breath and preparing her pointing finger for the lecture, the boys excused themselves faster than lightening and excited the room.

From the corner Goofy chewed his sandwich slowly and thoughtfully, as he watched Kairi deflate.

 

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“That was close,” Sora remarked.

“Yeah, a little too if you ask me. I should have been paying more attention, but I was too darn focused on you.” Riku replied, irritated.

Sora laughed, “Since when has that ever been a problem?”

Riku turned to stare at him with serious eyes, “I'm always focused on you.”

Sora stared for a moment, then realized the situation called for him to be uncomfortable so he shifted and turned away.

Damn, Riku thought, even in the wrong body it was still Sora's mannerisms, and they were too darn cute!

Riku was feeling decidedly odd. Since seeing Sora again in the kitchens he had felt more demanding, more protective, and, dare he mention it, more attracted to the other boy than he had felt in a long time.

It wasn't the fact that he was looking at himself (although, gosh darn, he was handsome), there was something else at work here; something in the air around them seemed to crackle with insistency whenever he looked across.

The air was also decidedly tense from his last serious comment, and he felt that this really needed to be broken. He needed to say something random, something stupid…

“You know when people ask you that if there were two of you, would you have sex with yourself?”

Sora's eyes widened from the sudden change in topic, “No, no I don't.”

“Oh. Well, would you?”

“No way!” Sora didn't think he was the most attractive guy on the planet. Heck, Riku was more attractive than he was. He stared at himself and mentally shook his head. “Would you?”

“Of course.” Sora's face grinned at him in a very cocky Riku-like way. “I'm the sexiest person I know, why wouldn't I go for it?”

Sora rolled his eyes, “Well for one thing it's physically impossible.”

And then Riku gave him a look that was not at all at home on his face, but one which conveyed very easily his intentions. He grinned, as if to say you took the words right out of my mouth.

Sora desperately wished he hadn't said anything at all. “You can't be serious… Riku?”

“Why not? It might be fun.”

“Or it might really, really, not be fun.” He tried to make it obvious that he wasn't stepping backwards.

Riku kept up the pace. “You'll never know until you try it,” and without waiting for Sora to protest, he kissed him.

To Sora, it felt very strange. All he could see was himself, and all he could think was that he was kissing a warm mirror. He hastily pulled back, “This is too odd,”

“So pretend it's you,”

“No, that's what's odd about it,”

Riku paused, “So pretend it's me.” And he leant in and kissed him again.

Sora felt trapped - somehow his… Riku's… someone's arm's had secured themselves around his body and he didn't feel he had the option of dashing off anytime soon. Not without causing damage to some part of his own body first. With nothing else to do he closed his eyes, and pretended he was kissing Riku.

It helped. It made it feel better. It made it feel a bit too much better. Sora began to worry; he could hardly remember how it had come to this. He wasn't exactly sure he was upset about it, but as nice as it felt, he couldn't escape a nagging feeling of wrongness about it all.

Riku, on the other hand, was struggling to believe it was happening at all. By what miracle had he suddenly managed to get Sora into this situation? Damn… if he'd known it would be this easy, he would have done it years ago.

The air seemed to hum around them, like the spell they were under was protesting the close proximity. Riku didn't care one bit, in fact, it felt more exhilarating. Of course, he was completely ignoring the fact that he was kissing his own body; all he could think about was Sora. Slowly and tentatively he felt the other boys hands come around to cling onto the back of the jacket he was wearing. Eyes half-shut he pulled away, remembering that breathing was important.

“Riku… st…” Sora began to mumble, but Riku wasn't about to let a word of protest get out; barely had he gasped a breath before he crashed their lips back together with increased insistence. After a moment he let his free hand slide down to the bottom of Sora's shirt and tugged instantly on it until it relented and let his hand underneath. He felt, more than heard, a rushing in his ears, but was determined to stay focused on the task at hand.

Sora was melting, he didn't understand the feeling, but wasn't sure he wanted to run away from it either. He was confused, and when he was confused he usually appreciated the opinions and decisions of others stepping in. Riku seemed very opinionated and decisive right at this moment, his hands and lips were moving with a fierce determination which Sora could only yield to, with no better option presented at current really. But that rushing in his ears was beginning to concern him, not only because he was worried he was about to go deaf.

Tentatively he opened his eyes. Everything was white, all he could see was himself in front of him. He pulled back quickly, and tried to shout but nothing appeared to come out. He didn't get time to read the expression on Riku's face before he was blinded completely and his body disappeared.

 

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Sora woke up feeling like someone had just whacked him over the head with wiffle bat. He sat up finding his body sore and holding his head in his hands to steady himself both mentally and physically; what had just happened?

He stared at his hands, they were his hands. He quickly looked down at his clothes, his shoes (was tempted to look at other things too but resisted the urge). He was back to normal!

Sora stood up, scanning the area for Riku. He saw him lying on his back barely two metres away, chest slowly rising and falling but eyes still closed. Slightly hesitantly, Sora walked over and bent down, nudging him awake.

Riku groggily sat up, head spinning slightly but he could tell the feeling was quickly retreating. He saw Sora, gave a slightly confused look and then it all clicked into place; they were back to normal.

Sora extended a hand to help his friend up; they were both slightly pink in the cheeks as they remembered what had happened. Riku knew he needed to say something but Sora, as usual, managed to beat him to it. “Are you alright?”

“Yeah, fine, you?”

“Happy to be myself again,” He smiled cheesily for a moment; “Um… Riku… don't worry about what happened. I know it was just an experiment and all that…”

Oh God, was that the sad puppy dog I feel like I just got rejected but don't want to admit it and am confused about my own feelings look? Riku hated that look! It made him want to cuddle Sora for being so damn cute. But then, he really needed to clarify what had just happened before someone rushed in and stole the moment.

“Sora! Are you alright!?”

Damn moment stealers, he would literally kill, cook, and eat that duck for this!

Riku turned with a look of utter loathing to see Donald flapping like a mother hen across the yard towards them. Donald was paying absolutely no attention to Riku and was more concerned for his friend and so missed the look entirely.

Sora turned as well, smiled widely and said; “Donald! Yes, we're fine. You managed to work out a way to reverse the spell?”

“It was easy once I found the darn parchment I wrote it down on! Honestly, I need a maid!”

Or a good kick in the pants, Riku thought.

Sora laughed, slightly forcedly Riku reflected, and tapped the duck lightly on the shoulder. “Come on then, let's go and tell the King, I'm sure he'll want to know all about how it's gone.”

“Yes,” Donald said thoughtfully, “How was the time you spent in each other's bodies?”

Sora looked like he instantly regretted his suggestion, “Uh… well…” He looked desperately towards his friend for help.

“Educational.” Riku said diplomatically, as Sora gave him a smile of thanks and Donald a look that implied he wasn't quite sure what to make of that. Riku didn't offer to expand.

As the silence was broken by the two of them chattering away about `weirdness' and `what a funny feeling', Riku reflected that the experience hadn't exactly been entirely unpleasant. He had sufficient ammunition for future advances at any rate, which can only be thought of as a plus.

Yes, he would admit that for once a plan which he had only negative reservations regarding had turned out quite the opposite. He was going to have to keep these kinds of kooky ideas in mind for the future.

 

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OWARI

 

Thanks very much for reading this far! And if you actually enjoyed it, well, much the better! However it made you feel, I'd love to hear about it; review and much appreciation will be had.

Until next time~

Etsuyo