His silent stare holds for a long moment and then drops away from him, his expression complicated, the feelings behind it moreso. Riku struggled with Bruce's selfless charity, feeling undeserving after he had not just seriously injured him, but was prepared to end his life for stopping him from protecting what he had believed was Sora. In the weeks that followed... Riku can't say he understands everything Bruce intended, planned, or wanted out of this, but he believes that his trust is a gift, and not one to squander.

He also learned that he values privacy. Not just his own, either. Riku doesn't doubt that his responses had been out of that same desire, to protect the privacy of those he had taken into his care. There's one vital detail that's been lost in translation, however - to Riku, it had only felt like a week, because his sense of time has slipped without a tablet around to dictate time and schedule.

"I heard," Riku says, "I wasn't gone that long," sounds like an excuse, maybe it is, because it takes very little to make Riku uncomfortable when he feels like he's on the back foot. History shows he isn't the best when it comes to looking out for his own best interests, unless that interest is one of his friends (and Sora in particular), when it inconveniences or worries someone he cares about, that compounds the issue.

"...And I wasn't kidnapped."