Well, the good news was that Sora would be easy enough to "make friends" with. He was friends with everyone. That was the whole joke in 3D, right? He would just be nice and polite, and boom Sora would be won over. He just had to be careful not to be too familiar from the get go.
When he came out the door, he saw the hologram. Moogles, sweet! He rushed over to eagerly try to stock up what he had. He'd buy a bunch and- YES! Man, look at all that munny! Boy it was nice to feel rich for like two minutes. If only real life was this easy. Ok, stock up on potions. Maybe three for now? And…
Ah. The treats he had found in the treasure chests as he searched them. And toys, and paint guns, and…
He had made this mistake on his first playthrough. In his rush to get through as much of the game as he could before he gave it over to his friend, he hadn't bonded with the dream eaters all that much. He paid for it in the final battle, dying to young Xehanort multiple times before having to level up a little more, then winning. (That was how his friend and his boyfriend ended up being on the receiving end of his gamer rage death glare by accident. He still hadn't beat young Xehanort yet by that point, and he had fully expected to be able to finish the game before he had to hand it back over. It was frustrating.)
Well, this time he'd give Sora a head start so he… oh, right. He was going to "suffer" no matter. Riku was the one that would need to buff up. But Sora would still need all the help he could get. He got one of all the treats and toys to be safe, since he couldn't remember what everything meant, and started heading down. Sora must've gone through the mail room at least by now, and might have been in the fountain plaza, or the fifth district. If he used flow motion, he could skip the battles and catch up easily.
When he got to the top of the stairs, he spotted Sora in the middle of the plaza. Limp, lifeless, and face down on the ground.
'No!'
Not-Neku dashed down the stairs and to his side, dropping down instantly. He knelt beside Sora, not noticing his form fading out, with a new one fading in just as quickly, to a boy that was only fifteen, with white hair, brilliant yellow tanktop, and blue waders. At least not until he put a hand on his shoulder. "Sora?"
It felt really, really weird to have Riku's voice come out of his mouth, but he'd ignore that for now. (Did he actually make the same inflection too?) He tried to figure out if he was injured, then noticed Sora's face was peaceful, mouth slightly parted as he breathed softly.
"He's asleep," he realized with relief. He sighed with a groan, laughing a little breathlessly. "At least he's not hurt."
Well, not that he could see anyway. But then again, "injuries" didn't appear on the game models the same way. He debated with himself a moment wondering if he should heal him. He didn't want to waste a potion, but maybe it was better to be safe than sorry? After a few hard moments, he finally did so, tossing the bottle into the air after he remembered potions weren't actually "drunk" in this game.
"Follow the rules of the game."
The rules… of the game…
He stood up, knowing it would be some time before Sora awoke. He began to pace, a sort of calm coming over him as he tried to think about what was happening.
Every time he went near someone, he seemed to turn into someone they knew. Someone close, maybe? For Kingdom Hearts nonsense, it would be something like "the most important person to them" or some such thing. That would make perfect sense for Rhyme and Shiki, but that didn't make sense here. Sora's most "important" person was Kairi, and even if it was Riku, it didn't make sense as to why he'd be in his kh1 version. Wouldn't he just take on his 3D form?
He paused, looking down at himself uncertainly. His shoes, the bright colors, and height was definitely different from his body, but the weird thing was that it didn't feel weird. He expected to feel like he was tripping over his own shoes, but everything felt totally natural. Except his neck felt awful cold.
He snapped up, reaching up to feel the ends of the white hair, and realized it was cut short. And then everything came flooding back. The intro, the islands-
That's it! He was in the form Sora last saw Riku in! That's why he was in his old body, but not his new clothes, Sora hadn't seen them yet! So he was somehow taking on the remembered form of people they were close to? But what about Rhyme?
He held his hand out to summon a keyblade... then just stared at it a few seconds as he flexed it testingly. 'Jeez I know his hands are big but h- s- that's huge.'
His hands suddenly felt tiny in comparison, but that was something to think about for another time. He tried to somehow "will" the keyblade into his hand. He imagined it, tried to "feel" like he was channeling some kind of energy, or… something. But nothing happened. After a moment of trying to remember any clues from the game, it hit him. The keyblade was linked to the wielder's heart. That was why he couldn't summon it. He may have looked like Riku, but he didn't have his "heart", so the keyblade wouldn't come to him. He supposed that would have been too easy. Darn. There was of course the other way to get the keyblade, but he couldn't remember the words, so he wouldn't be able to summon his own anyway, so it was pointless. Double Darn.
He looked at Sora again, thinking how weird it felt to see him life sized. But the sight just made him feel depressed. He looked so big and so real compared to a screen. Even as a "3d cartoon" he just seemed so natural, and solid. This dream was extremely vivid to say the least, and he had to keep reminding himself it wasn't real. But at least this was his 3D form, not kh2 version. He didn't "hate" it or anything, he just wasn't as excited to see him. Not-Riku wasn't attached to this version of Sora. It was his kh2 version that made him ridiculously happy and excited to see and "filled him with serotonin" as it were. Which was good, because he didn't want to act too excited around him right off the bat and weird him out. But as far as Riku went-
Not-Riku looked away, reaching into his pockets to bring out the dream fragments he had been collecting. He needed to figure out how they worked, now that he had a moment of quiet. With the sheer amount of dream eaters around, Sora would need as much help as he could get.
Just keep a healthy distance, keep his emotions in check, and just be polite. Just let things end well here and he could move on.