Kairi told him once that he was a really good shoulder to cry on, and that he was probably good at it because Sora cried so easily too. That's been true even since he was a kid. Too earnest by half and with a heart always worn on his sleeve, he'd been an easy child to pick on. He cried during sad movies and cried during happy ones, he cried at a surprise birthday party when he was seven and cried when Kairi made them all matching friendship bracelets the year after. He knows what it's like to feel like a heart is too small for everything welling up inside of it, so when Riku reaches for his own face, when his voice is thick and his cheeks are all wet, Sora doesn't doubt him. He just understands.

Maybe if circumstances were different this would be a good place to make a joke, or to default to the natural teasing and nudging they've always done. But this moment, the breathless shape of the word okay, the way he ways I thought I lost you... it's a lot like that time in The World That Never Was. When the terror of having let Riku slip through his fingers, of searching everywhere that he could competed with a refusal to accept it as a possibility. When no matter how hard he wanted to believe- he couldn't help but doubt.

It's a heavy feeling to carry all alone.

"Hey-" Sora watches him, the parts of his face that he can see anyway- and then he reaches very carefully for the fabric of the blindfold. The material is soaked, but he tugs just enough for the knot to start to give, for the fabric to slip down Riku's nose, to show Sora his eyes. "Weren't you the one who said to believe in me?"

The smile is soft but present in his voice- not an attempt at humor, but instead warm with understanding. "I'm right here, Riku."