With his head spinning with laughter, he’s much too late to duck out of Riku’s hold, let alone fight it. In the end, he ends up losing his footing, scrape of loose gravel under the sole of his shoe—dew beneath socked feet, losing purchase on the rail. It’s too cold to be out here now, much too windy, it’s raining too hard, and… looking over his shoulder with his arms outspread and seeing Riku there (how bright his eyes had looked in the gloom, how wild, how–), all he can really think to do is give him a smile before he finally allows himself to fall forward. It seems now more than a little bizarre that what he’d remember later wouldn’t be the daunting distance between himself the ground below, but the fog of Riku’s panting breath in his peripheral, a warmth in the cold of winter, a glimpse ensnared in the barest fraction of the second just before he’d turned his head.
‘He’s not going to let me fall.’
A fist bunching in the back of his borrowed jacket; a second frozen in time, an instant spent held in suspension perpendicular to the cold earth three stories below, as if the two forces could meet at any moment. Lucid even in his breathless stupor, Sora knows the two would never meet (had known it from the start), because Riku wasn’t about to let him fall any day of the week–because with Riku, Sora could fly. Time would resume its usual pace with the crack of his shin meeting the rail, legs buckling and slipping out from under him as he’s hauled bodily beneath the cover of the balcony and into Riku’s arms, just like—
“WHO’S obnoxious–?! This from the walking-talking protein shake himself!” With absolutely no hesitation, Sora whirls in Riku’s slackened grip to throw his arms around him with enough gusto, he almost sends the two of them sprawling for the second time that night. But before the two of them can go spilling into the dust, Sora’s got his arms wound tight, hauling back as he more than merely balances their combined weight–no, he lifts Riku right off the ground. “Totally! It totally sucks–! You’re so lame, Riku!” He can’t keep the laughter out of his voice, high in all his delight and hollering into the night like his life depends on it.
Never-mind his aching arm, never-mind that he’s dropped his shovel! Never-mind that he’s long since lost their flare gun! If there’s anything on this whole earth Sora knows, even with his face one-hundred and ten percent squished against his chest, it’s that he loves Riku and Riku loves him too; he doesn’t need to be told, not ever! And while Sora knows some stuff about this or that, he knows it best of all, better than anything, when Riku’s laughing. Even as he suddenly releases Riku, he’s in motion, turning against his friend’s side to sling an arm about his shoulder from up and under.
With a jolt as he’s lifted straight off the ground, he’s reflexively clamped both hands down onto Sora’s shoulders, as if a two-foot drop meant certain death. The laughter doesn’t come as easy with Sora’s crushing embrace pressing in on his ribs, but he manages nonetheless, sounding breathless and a bit hoarse--but happy. In a blatantly insincere expression of disbelief, Riku huffs. The walking-talking protein shake himself claps his hands on either side of Sora’s face, smushing his cheeks and weakly attempting to lean away. “Hey! You didn’t have to make it personal--!!”
He throws his fit for the sake of throwing it, but eventually stills within Sora’s grip; his muscles already ache both from running and from laughing, let alone the active combination. Sora relinquishes him, and he regards him sidelong as his friend swings around beside him. A curious brow raises as he considers his options, but takes the leap before anything can stop him.
“I don’t think I could live with myself if I was as scrawny as you are,” there’s no pause for breath, “—but onward, it is!” As if either would have settled for any other plan. His friend’s fallen shovel draws his attention for only a second before he plucks his own up from the ground. It isn’t necessarily... his problem in the end. Riku locks his arm tight around Sora’s shoulders and hauls him along, straight down to fine soil that only allowed for sliding and stuttering steps that will leave no pair of shoes unscathed.
They come to a less-than-clean halt at the base of the hill, struggling against the momentum they’d accumulated. As this happens, Riku comes to think of something, and he’s certain he’s asked it before; but back then, he knows the feeling that accompanied this question was cold and sullen. And on occasion, he regrets it--but Sora was never at fault for that.
“... you think we’d get killed if we didn’t come back tonight?”