30th treasure [text]

[captainash]

Hey, tell me about your best friend.
Or best friends, I'm not picky.
Are they an absolute saint that would stay by your side even if you started eating babies? A complete dick you feel like punching one day out of two? Are they good at convincing you to do really stupid things?
Are they here? Do you want them here?

Or you can just ignore my drunken questions and rambling, that works too.







Happy birthday, you idiot.

Comments

[captainash]

He sounds like a fun friend to have.

[Which is exactly the sort of story he was hoping to hear today. Excellent.]

If being his friend takes five minutes, how long does it take to be his best friend?

[islandshore]

You know, I'm not sure. We've always been close, ever since we were little kids. And when you grow up together, you kinda get an edge over the competition.

[...As if there's competition for being best friends. Riku's not sure if there really is.]

And then there's Kairi. She's sassy, with tons of spunk, and whenever Sora and I start pulling stupid stunts, she's always the one to step in and get us back in line. Wouldn't call her pushy, though. Truth is, she's.. sweet. Smart. Always upbeat and energetic.

Man, I'm starting to sound like a sap over here.

[captainash]

That's making it unfair for everyone else, really, though I'm sure no one would begrudge you a childhood friendship. Especially not if there's three of you.

[Two boys and one girl, huh. A familiar pattern, if one that does not always end well.]

Having to keep two guys in line is thankless work, though, isn't it? Being energetic has to be the minimum requirement.

[islandshore]

Well, I kinda got an advantage for... other reasons. But still, Sora usually isn't the kinda guy to rank his friends. Kairi and I might be the closest, but he still cares a ton about almost everyone he meets.

And now Kairi's gotta deal with the fact that we're older. There used to be a one year gap between us. Now I'm nineteen, he's almost eighteen, and she's fourteen. Plus, we've had all this time to ourselves.

Think we kinda got spoiled.

[And they definitely did, though he's certainly glad to see her again. The trio's finally together, and he hopes it'll stay that way.]

[captainash]

Going from one year apart to four or five would change the group balance a lot. Is it because you've all arrived here at different moments, or because you were taken from different times? Those tend to be the most common reasons, around here.

[More common than cold sleep, at least. And who would waste a sleep pod on anything less than a decade?]

[islandshore]

Kairi's actually pretty close to my time. It's just that she just got back, while Sora and I have stuck around for a few years.

It's... kinda sad, actually. She's come and gone more times than I could count, and now that she's so much younger than me, we couldn't

[He stops for a couple seconds. Granted, he's not regretting where things have gone. That flame's still burning, but with such a huge gap, it probably wouldn't be feasible even if the circumstances where different.]

Well, it definitely changes things up a bit.

[captainash]

...I can see how that would be painful after a few times, especially depending on whether or not she remembers the previous ones. But at least you have them both with you at the moment, right? Even if it's not quite the same as it should be. Could be.

[He's not sure which of the two is most appropriate in Riku's situation.]

[islandshore]

She's never remembered. Don't get me wrong, I am glad she's back. There's just a lot of stuff we've gotta explain to her, and I'm not even sure where to start.

So what about your best friend?

[captainash]

Start with the worst part of it. That makes the rest easier to swallow.

[There, advice from a guy who's had a lot of stuff to tell someone before and got out of it in one piece. Completely free!

Or maybe it's a preemptive apology for the non-answer that follows.]

What about him? He's my friend, and out of all my friends he's the best. What more can be said?

[islandshore]

Well, it's not bad, just... awkward. I mean, it's not like we became mustache-twirling villains while she was gone.

[Though now he's picturing Sora with a long mustache and a tophat and... pfft, he'd look like an even bigger dork.]

Well, you're the one who asked what our friends are like. So what about him? Just saying he's a friend doesn't explain a whole lot.

[captainash]

Of course not. I mean, there's obviously no way you could have hidden a mustache from her all this time unless she's blind.

[He types the joke almost distractedly, wondering if he should just leave it at that and ignore the other part of the message.

He doesn't.]

...He was the smartest guy in our class. Good looking enough to have his own fanclub. He could look at a mobile suit and figure out what was wrong with it faster than anyone else, and then he'd control it well enough to run circles around his opponents. The kind of guy you have to love, because otherwise you'd end up hating him, you know?

[islandshore]

Plus, there's no way Sora could ever grow facial hair. He's almost eighteen and about as smooth as a piece of leather.

[Which... is an odd metaphor, he realizes, but it was the first thing that popped into his head.]

Yeah, I know how that is. So was he like your idol?

[Kinda reminds him of his and Sora's friendship, really. Riku was always one step ahead, with Sora trying so hard to keep up.]

[captainash]

Hey, I was as smooth as a baby's bottom at eighteen, and now I get a full beard in three days if I don't shave. He might surprise you with a goatee someday.

[Well, if they spend enough days apart for a goatee to grow.]

Idol isn't the word I would use. That would imply that I looked up to him, and that wasn't quite how it was.

['Burned with envy' would be a more appropriate description to use.]

[islandshore]

Sheesh. So when'd it all start?

[Is Riku gonna have to start checking the mirror every morning? Granted, he's only about a year older, but still! He'd rather not wind up with five-o-clock shadow.]

Ah, I see. So how'd you wind up being friends?

[captainash]

Mid-twenties. Scared my coworkers silly one morning, they thought they were hallucinating. Hell, I thought I was hallucinating too, at first.

[Not that he should have been surprised, considering his father.]

I was part of the mobile suit club in high school, and he was interested in joining. Turns out that shared geekery over machines is a good way to start a friendship.

[Or so he still likes to tell himself, even though he knows Zeheart was only using that as an excuse to spy on him.]

[islandshore]

What, did you wake up looking like you had a hedgehog glued to your face?

[...Or maybe a beaver. Something with a lot of hair or prickles, at any rate.]

Heh, that'd do it. So did you guys end up being rivals? If he really was that good...

[Well, it sounds like it'd be tough not to be.]

[captainash]

It wasn't quite as bad as a hedgehog, but since I'm blond and I was still half asleep at the time, I didn't realize anything was different until one of my colleagues started screaming that my baby-faced look was a lie.

[He'd found the whole incident pretty insulting back then, but these days it makes him smile fondly.]

Something like that. We were still the best of friends, of course, but that didn't stop the occasional competition.

[And the equally occasional fight to the death.]