Hmmm…Hai dere! So yeah. Um, this isn't exactly my first fanfic, but it is my first on . So yeah! Lemme break it down! *beat boxing out of nowhere*
Warning: This fanfic is a shounen-ai meaning boy on boy! Yes, this means that there are gay couples and situations in this story! If this isn't to your liking, please get the hell out of here! If you do like it, then please fasten your seatbelts and keep your hands on the keyboard (unless you have a…ahem, problem to fix). Should something arise, there are emergency nosebleed towels somewhere in your house! Thank you! =^.^=
Summary: This fanfic is about Rivailo, an eighteen-year-old boy whose just going through the same old crap every other gay teenager is going through in high school, but, of course, with the added twist and difficulty of finding himself a decent boyfriend. Enter best friend Axel, whom is the obvious object of desire for little Rivailo. And, ya know, almost every other gay guy and female out there. But hey, every high school drama just isn't about relationships! Rivailo has a lot more to deal with: dealing with the scars left from the demons of his past, learning how to break down his over-fortified walls built up over the years, and figuring out just what exactly he wants and needs from the people in his everyday life. Will life give him a break? Haha! You're funny if you thought, Yeah, it will. We all know it won't, especially not in high school.
Disclaimer; It goes without saying that the only things of this story that I own are the character Rivailo and the storyline. Kingdom Hearts, its characters, worlds, and everything else belong to Square Enix and Disney.
Well, here it is! Read and review, if you please. =^.^= Enjoy!
It's hard to decide what was more awkward. Dreaming inappropriately about several people, these persons being my closest friends, or having said group of friends almost make my dream an unwanted reality and make me wish I had other friends; okay, in spite of seeing much more than I wanted to see of each of them, I would never wish for others to fill their shoes. Just even thinking about that horrid thought slammed me with incredible guilt and shame.
Speaking of shame, wouldn't the average male, gay or not, have the decency to, oh, I don't know, not "coincidently" don Speedos for a trip to the beach and be pleasantly surprised that almost everyone else on our trip, all eight of us – only guys, by the way – was strutting around and wrestling in the surf very nearly in their birthday suits?
No, I decided as I desperately tried to tear my eyes away from such an alluring sight – failing miserably to do so – and concentrate on counting the grains of sand on my fingertip. I failed there, too.
In all honesty, I was completely uncomfortable being around this cluster of man at the beach. I sat down on one of the blankets someone brought, wrapping my arms around my knees, glancing at my trunks for a moment, and I couldn't help but wonder if I would ever be comfortable in my own skin. On top of my low self-esteem, the ongoing war that inevitably follows anyone who has come to terms with his or her sexuality is a war in which I have rarely won a battle.
"C'mon, Vai!" someone shouted from the water. I looked up and saw the youngest member of our group (he'll be eighteen in August), Sora – one of the others not in a Speedo – waving at me with the infectious grin of his stretching across his face. "You can't just sit there forever on your–"
Before his sentenced was finished, a streak of snow, Riku, plowed into him, grabbing him by the waist, and brought him down into the water, cascading droplets of watery sand everywhere, splatting anyone near them. Everyone laughed at the sight (even Saïx and Xemnas, and they never laugh at anything), myself included, as Sora was inevitably pinned by his best friend, taller and far stronger than his fragile frame. Even now in our senior year of high school, Sora and I are the shortest of our colorful crowd (well, Zexion already graduated, but he's still shorter than me, also the final boy to not wear such "provocative clothing"); I stand at about five-eight, maybe five-nine, still taller than Sora by at least two solid inches, not counting his height if including his bizarre, naturally spiked, gravity-defying earthy-brown hair.
Watching them all grinning and laughing and splashing around (minus Xemnas and Saïx, who are just kind of standing there, talking to one another, looking indifferent yet incredibly attractive as their hips are jutted forward, emphasizing what's just beneath their tiny swimwear), enjoying the first day of spring break, I felt…distanced from these, my friends and family.
Riku, for one, is both friend and family. Looking at him now, his sleek and straight, moonlight-silver hair now sticking to his cheeks, sides of his neck, and back, brought up the image of our dad.
Yeah, that's right. Our dad.
Evidently, Setzer Laine passed on much of his physical traits to Riku Wheeler, who took on his mother's maiden name, never having the opportunity to marry Mr. Laine. Shining silver hair, pale silky skin, lean solid body, and a face so exquisite that it takes your breath away – at least it did with me upon first meeting my half-brother.
There is a key difference between good ol' dad and Riku, however; Riku would never use his unusual beauty to gain fame, as Setzer strived to do. Not only was he a vain person, he was heartless, as well, an incubus who feeds on unsuspecting women, draining them of heart and mind – he drained purses, too. And that's exactly what he did to Riku's mom. He speculates that that's the reason why – his physical resemblance to his father – his mother abandoned him when he was fifteen.
Riku came home from school one day, only to find what appeared to be the aftermath of a hurricane in the living room and the rest of the house. He ran room to room, looking for her or possibly a thief waiting with a knife at her throat or some heinous situation that inevitably resulted in his and her death while the crook left the scene of the crime with their life's savings and valuables worth pawning… Instead, he found himself without a mother or a place to call home. At some point, he noticed that he was sitting at the kitchen table, looking around the kitchen void of life when he had managed to stifle his sniffles and dry his tears, and spotted something he hadn't noticed.
On the fridge was a piece of paper pinned by a magnet with what appeared to be tear stains partially marring what was written on it, as well as a photo of his mom and his "father."
"You took my husband away from me," the note had read; Setzer had deluded Riku's mother into thinking they would marry when they had first met all those years ago, though never proposed. "You little bastard, I'd rather die than be your mother for another fifteen years!" Two days later, the police found her body lying at the bottom of a dumpster in an alley of a city I've never heard of, her hand curled around a pistol, a bullet lodged in her right temple, drenched in her very blood. Nearly three years later, Riku is still haunted by the photographs shown by the detectives as Riku sat opposite a one-way mirror in the interrogation room, the sound of his echoing sobs as he was pounded with questions that tore at his heart, those wretched pictures branded into his mind.
"It's still hard," Riku had told me after revealing all this to me while he was in a dark set of mind. "Knowing that being born ultimately led to my mother's death." He smiled humorlessly at me, his face devoid of the beauty I have come to know, replaced by an agony that seemed impossible for an eighteen-year-old boy to burden; I remained silent, not knowing what to say. "The day her body was discovered was the day I turned sixteen.
"If it wasn't for Sora being there for me," Riku continued, his smile turned genuine, his aqua eyes shining like crystals in the sunlight. "I probably wouldn't be here. Probably would've killed myself, too." The way he spoke of his boyfriend of three-and-a-half years was filled immense adoration and devotion that I always felt the urge to flinch away from such potent and concentrated love, not wanting to intrude on it. Either way, we are all deeply indebted to Sora from saving Riku from following his mother's example.
Even now, sitting by myself, watching Riku and Sora interact with one another as a third-party observer, I could see that theirs would be an everlasting relationship, without a doubt.
Which brings us back to my side of the story, the other side – one of many – of Setzer Laine.
A playboy through and through, Setzer courted my mom as he probably had with many young women before her, Riku's mom included. After first meeting, he sent flowers, endless flowers of all kinds and colors in extravagant looking vases that were knock-offs he found who knows where. Alongside these gorgeous bouquets were poems that spoke of his undying love for her, that she was the missing piece of the puzzle, and all the bullshit that belongs in crappy romance novels.
Well anyways, he was confident that mom would fall head over heels for him, and when she did, he wanted to "take things to the next level," whatever that meant. The next year until mom suspected she was pregnant was filled with dinners at five-star restaurants, romantic yet original date locales, and someone who "loved" mom as no one else had before; she was twenty at the time, and only dated other men because they ended up not connecting with her on any level by the time their date had ended, so Setzer was like an obedient servant and love-toy who catered to her every need, and would even cause Cleopatra to be envious. But, of course, like with any other weak man out there, the second talk of two becoming three arose, Setzer cowered out of her life like a scared jackal with its tail between its legs.
Mom was obliterated.
How she pulled through the next nine months until my birth, I will never know. And, the only reason that I do know about all of this is thanks to my uncle, who I was placed in his care after turning three. Uncle Braig, who prefers me, and all others, to call him Xigbar, took me in without question. He and his sister were extremely close, and, for some unknown reason Xigbar could think of, mom had the suspicious feeling that her time in this world would soon end. And, unfortunately, her premonition was correct.
The tearful night that I was all settled in my strange new home with scary-looking Xigbar and his seven-year-old son, mom decided to go for a drive to the mountains to clear her mind, get her life back on track after losing so much to Setzer, and to fine-tune her plan to support me further. She often took me on these drives during the day to allow me to see more than the walls of our home. She would take me to the park for a majority of these little trips, where lazy clouds lolled about the endlessly blue sky, with pleasant breezes that swayed the trees and grass. Other times, mom would drive us to a private segment of a beach that the public didn't know of, where the waves were always soothingly calm, melodiously rising and ebbing on the shore, allowing me to sit and splash in the water and not worry my mom of waves possibly overtaking me. After a few times there, I didn't want to go anywhere else, throwing a fit if I so mush as saw greenery instead of white sand.
That night, however, wasn't the best for a drive to the cliffs. It had been raining for a few days and had just let up that morning – only slightly. The roads up on the cliffs were still slick, and the winds can be pretty fierce at night. Those two conditions made it difficult for any driver, no matter how slow or careful as they wove through those craggy curves. Mom didn't see the gasoline tanker pull around the bend until it was too late…
In a twisted sense of fate, Riku and I, not only tied together by Setzer Laine's blood, were also tied together by something ordained. It is more than just coincidence that I moved into the neighborhood of Sunset Hill in which Riku now resides with a college friend of Sora's, more than just coincidence that Riku had sensed something about me before we even spoke a word to each other, more than just coincidence that, above all else, found something eerily familiar to him in my eyes though we had never met.
Purposefully bumping into me as I headed for the library one fine winter day last year when we were both sixteen, the first thing out of Riku's mouth was, "Do you know who your father is?"
Perplexed that this stranger would randomly ask about my family, I felt compelled to reply. When I did, Riku reached into his back pocket for his wallet, and pulled out an aged wallet-sized picture of an attractive man and a beautiful young woman. The man, however, caught my attention first. I took the picture into my hands without asking, pulling it close to my face so I could scrutinize the man in the photo, and this boy before me.
Both had silver hair, pale complexion, and an abnormal beauty for a male. I knew the man was Riku's father in an instant. Observing this man's face, his sardonic smirk, the beckoning gleam of his eyes, I was shocked at what I discovered.
My eyes, a very rare and odd color, violet, stared back at me from that little picture.
From that point on, Riku and I became very close as I yearned to learn more about this mysterious man, as well as my new brother. Xigbar, too, assisted in filling me in on the kind of man Setzer was, my biological father. But that's all he ever was to Riku and I – just DNA binding us to his name, nothing more, nothing less. For me, Xigbar was my father for all intents and purposes, and that's what I addressed him as. He didn't mind, nor did my cousin Demyx; he always wanted a little brother, and I an older brother. I got a two-for-one deal, so to speak, as I often joked with Demyx and Riku.
Simply thinking about our predestined histories brought a smile to my face as I recognized that mom would want me to be happy, no matter where I was or whom I was with. I brought my knees closer to my chest, still smiling as Riku strolled over to me, grinning. I tried to ignore the fact that he, too, joined Club Speedo as he plopped down next to me, shaking his head, spotting my white T-shirt a little. He put an arm around my shoulder, jostling me playfully.
"Come on, Rivailo," he chuckled. "Why're you here all by yourself? Even Xigbar and Demyx are at out there!" Both in Speedos, I added mentally. And even though Xigbar is forty-six and has a cigarette wherever he goes, he is in such good shape for a man his age. Then again, I guess being a cop requires you to be in top form; some of the force that I've seen, however, obviously didn't get that particular memo. Even I, or probably anyone else here, for that matter, couldn't deny his rugged appearance to be attractive.
Standing tall at roughly six-foot-five, with long black hair in a constant ponytail streaked with a few solid stripes of gray running from his hairline to the tip of his pony, canary golden eyes (though his right eye is covered by an eye patch), scarred from various casualties on the job, Xigbar McIntyre would be dubbed as a bad boy all around, seeing as he can pass of as twenty-five or so with his body, scarred in oddly attractive places (the things you unwillingly notice when your uncle wears practically nothing…), looking even younger as he expertly slices through the waves on his surfboard.
I shrugged under Riku's arm; feeling the water from his arm and side soak through my shirt, cling to my skin.
"Not ready to go swimming just yet," I said with a forced smile. "Besides, we got here ten minutes ago. It's not like we're gonna leave anytime soon." I said this looking at his profile, for he was watching Sora being chased by Demyx who was holding a slippery cluster of seaweed, both laughing and screaming like little kids, earning odd stares from onlookers. I was glad that the beach was rather scarce of other spring break beach bums like us, especially because its spring break. We just got incredibly lucky.
Riku met my eyes, concern coloring his tone. "You okay, Vai? Something the matter?" I looked away, tucking some wavy black hair behind an ear; he could read me all too easily sometimes.
I sighed. "I'm just… The last time I ever came to a beach was…before…" I held two fists in the air, hitting them together, illustrating an explosion. Riku understood immediately.
He nodded once, pulling me closer to him in an effort to comfort me; we had this talk one too many times.
"Want to be alone for awhile more?"
I looked up at him, examining his face. I smiled. "You're so good to Sora, Riku. You're a good brother, too." His eyes widened a bit, surprised at my words. Without hesitation, I brought both arms around him, not caring that he was still dripping wet. "Thank you," I whispered into his chest before pulling away a bit in order to kiss his cheek. Smiling down at me now, he returned the hug.
"Anytime, kid. Anytime. Oh, by the way. Happy Birthday, Mr. Lockhart."
"Thanks, Mrs. Wheeler," I teased, pulling away. "Now go. Go have fun. I'll be there in a little bit. Promise." He looked me over for a few seconds before nodding, kissing the top of my head, and darted off back to the water, diving head first into the waves.
I sighed heavily, wishing that someone else could've made it, too. Resting my chin on my knees, I wondered why he couldn't make it… normally, wherever Demyx went, he went, too. So then why couldn't he have joined us?
Very much tempted to up and ask Demyx, but he seemed a bit occupied as both Riku and Sora had tripped him, allowing him to fall onto his stomach, and quickly made a couch of my cousin, sitting casually on his back while he flailed about, trying to throw the both of them off; for being twenty-two, he wasn't the most strongest man in the world. Given his maturity – or lack thereof – he's still more of a boy, really. Inside, that is. "I'm just a big kid at heart," he constantly tells us with a very innocent and believable grin. There is no lie in his words, and his view of the world is very bemusing. It gives Demyx an adorable charm.
Like his father, Demyx prefers to be called as such, as opposed to his name of Myde. And when you set them next to each other, you would probably not assume that they were father and son, for they are just so physically different from each other. His sandy-blonde hair, which must've been given from his mother, was cropped in a mullet-Mohawk fusion, whom obviously also passed down her turquoise eyes to cousin Demyx. Compared to Xigbar's perpetual tan (which is disturbingly even), Demyx is as pallid as a newborn.
Thinking of Demyx's lazy, carefree personality did nothing to sweeten my sour mood. In fact, I think my mood soured further.
No, not soured. That's not accurate. I couldn't exactly describe my current mood, but vulnerable is the next best thing to summarize it. This vulnerability is the reason why I wore a T-shirt to the beach, why I'm rather scared of today, my eighteenth birthday, and why I'm forcing a smile when all I want to do is be under the care of Xigbar's badge and in the–
"Heh. Who said you could start this shindig without me," a confident voice spoke behind me. "My finally legal birthday boy?"