His smile confused her at first--why would he smile about that? Fortunately he didn't take long to make it clear that he was happy about what the tears were evidence of, not the tears themselves. It was true that Sora had said that in the meeting, but she hadn't thought of it in relation to herself. True, she'd begun to wonder if Nobodies really were as heartless as they claimed to be. That said, she'd always thought of herself in terms of being Kairi's other half, one that would need to return. As much as she'd appreciated the extra time that she'd been given here, nothing would change that. Now that Riku was calling attention to a different possibility, though...When he pointed, she put a hand over her physical heart.

Before she could form a response, he went on, and she was confused all over again. In Castle Oblivion, Sora had once mentioned that even if his memories of her were fake, the feeling of happiness at seeing her smile wasn't. She got the feeling that Riku was talking about something different, though, something that hadn't entered into her thoughts. For him as for Sora, there had always been Kairi, who she couldn't be, who she wasn't, if Riku's earlier statement about hearts was right. So he couldn't mean...could he? Finally, she pulled herself out of her thoughts enough to try to smile. "Thank you. I like being around you, too."

It probably wasn't want he wanted to hear, and it didn't really answer anything, but it was the best she could manage at the moment. If she were a normal girl, she might know better how to respond to this, but she wasn't. All she could do was hope she hadn't hurt him too much.