Roxas's Birthday
Summary: Roxas was definitely in for a surprise when he walked into his house that night.
When Roxas woke up that morning, it was like any other day. He wanted at least another five hours of sleep, but of course, couldn't afford it. If he was late one more time, Roxas would be fired. He was already hanging on to his job by a thread. Not only could he not even muster fake happiness towards customers, he would intimidate him, and help them in the most vague way as possible, making them look for someone else to help them, or leave the store fruitless. He currently worked in a Wal-Mart in a shopping center not too far from his neighborhood. It wasn't a sought-after job, but it was better than nothing, considering he was seventeen years of age. But he was so groggy that he, in fact, missed the bright red circle on his calendar on the wall next to his door. The large circle was over a certain date: his birthday.
Roxas stepped out of the shower, ruffled his hair dry, and wrapped it around his hips loosely. His parents were already at work, and his sister, Naminé, was either snoozing the morning away, or painting in her room. He slapped his cheeks twice in attempt to wake himself up more. He then blinked a couple of times before walking out of the humid bathroom. He trudged over to his wardrobe, fished out a navy blue polo and khaki pants and slipped into them (with a pair of boxers) with ease. After nearly tripping down the stairs, Roxas took a peanut butter jar that was half empty, strawberry jelly, and a bread container out from the pantry. He ate his sloppy peanut-butter-and-jelly-sandwich as fast as he made it. He then climbed up the stairs again to finish the rest of his morning rituals, which consisted of him brushing his teeth and combing his hair up to perfection.
With just a thin line of eyeliner he stole out of his sister's drawer to make his eyes seem even more intimidating, Roxas thought he was decent enough to face the world. He drove to the Wal-Mart, still not fully awake even though it was 10AM. He wasn't fully awake enough to realize that Naminé helped sneak some people into her room early that morning. Sure, he heard something fall in her room, but he wasn't too alarmed. His sister was occasionally clumsy, so he didn't bother looking into her room unless she was crying.
Once Naminé hear the front door click shut, she ushered the people out of her closet and underneath her bed. Three people, who were crammed not too nicely inside the closet, poured out of it unceremoniously; two more people crawled out from underneath the artist's bed.
"Ugh, it's finally nice to breath in some fresh—paint?" Sora, a brunette with star-shaped hair, stretched his arms out, but quickly withdrew them once he smelled the foul scent of paint. He was clearly not used to being exposed to a lot of paint in such a small room. He pinched his nose and looked away in disgust. Thankfully, Naminé had a window open. She was painting on one of the walls in her room that morning. The redhead, named Kairi, next to Sora stood and laughed. "C'mon Sora, it's not that bad!" she laughed and hugged her blond friend, who hugged back, smiling. "She even has a window open! Not to mention that noisy fan over there!" she pointed to a corner after breaking away from the hug.
"Easy for you to say…you come visit her at least five times a week! When was the last time I actually went into Naminé's room? I'm too busy hanging out with Roxas," Sora retorted.
"Yeah, you're so busy you don't even say 'hi'!" Naminé stated with a look of mock-hurt.
"I do too!" Sora exclaimed, bringing his hands up for emphasis. Naminé and Kairi gave the brunette a knowing look and Sora put his hands down in defeat. "…sometimes…" he finally said, scratching his cheek.
"Now that we're all settled," said a petite girl, about the same height as Kairi and Naminé but with short black hair, as she got rid of the extra dust on her clothes. "How about we start decorating?"
"Yeah!" everyone in the room said in unison.
The other occupants of the house were Riku, a silver haired boy with stunning turquoise eyes that anybody would get lost in, and a lanky man with red hair that was as bright as the flame on one of the lighters the man carries. The redhead had hair that resembled a hedgehogs', a spiky mane that went just a bit past his shoulders. He had piercing green eyes and marks under his eyes that resembled tear drops. His name was Axel. Axel was no doubt the oldest in the house at twenty-one years of age. Riku's hair also went a bit past his shoulders, but was flat and sleek, unlike Axel's untamed mess of spikes. Riku was built, but not too muscular. He was positively fit, fit enough to have girls who have barely had their tits grown drooling after.
The funny thing with Kairi, Naminé, and the small black haired girl, known as Xion, was that they all had beautiful blue eyes, but they weren't related at all. Their friends would think that they were at least cousins, if not sisters, but the blue-eyed trio denied it. However, they acted as close as sisters, so it was hard to believe them.
The group headed down the stairs and into the foyer of the house. Sora, being the chipper and bubbly boy he was, decided to take the railing down the stairs. Despite how many times he has done this at Roxas's house, there was always that one ridge in the banister (that was made by one of Namine's pets when she was younger) that made him lose his balance, thus making him tip over onto the stairs and roll the rest of the way down. You'd think his body would be used to that kind of impact enough to not leave bruises.
The group behind him laughed loudly at Sora's performance, whilst the brunette sat up and rubbed his sore butt. He finally recovered from his fall once everyone was at the base of the stairs, and he bolted for the secret plastic bags that weren't so cleverly hidden in the shoe closet. It was truly a wonder for Roxas to miss something as bright as a yellow plastic bag hanging on the inside of the door handle of the shoe closet. But they all knew that Roxas was not a morning person; never was, and probably never will be.
The excited brunette successfully carried all seven yellow bags of party supplies out of the shoe closet and dumped them, nearly causing the overflowing bags to spill, onto one of the sofa's by the T.V in the living room. He smiled brightly at his friends before saying, "So, what should we do first?"
One time during their party decorating task, Sora ended up looking like a blue party streamer zombie, walking around like a crippled person and muffling a "help me" through the mess. Of course, everyone laughed and snapped a photo or two on their phones before rescuing the poor teen out of the mess. Another incident was when Kairi absent-mindedly missed a spot when taping a "HAPPY BIRTHDAY" banner, this making the banner look lumpy. Axel, being the great role-model he was, decided to help the fellow redhead, but the lighter the pyromaniac always carried slipped from his pocket and somehow clicked to life.
The girls in the house shrieked while Sora squealed (manly, of course), and Riku yelped in surprise. Riku quickly ran into the kitchen, grabbed whatever could hold water (a glass) filled it up with water, and dumped it on the relatively small area of fire the lighter caused. The silverette grabbed the lighter and shut the tiny fire hazard. The girls, which were cowering in a corner of the living room along with Sora, all sighed out of relief and cautiously made their way out of the corner.
Axel laughed nervously and scratched the back of his head while saying, "Sorry 'bout that," Then, he lost his balance on the ladder he was standing on, and fell backwards. He was still holding the banner that he offered to fix, so all of his efforts, and Kairi's, were wasted, as the other teens in the room watched him and the banner fall.
After getting yelled at by both Kairi and Riku (Sora couldn't help but feel incredibly sorry for Axel as he heard their bickering all the way in Roxas's room, where he started to decorate), Axel was assigned with helping Naminé making the cake (him making the cake and Naminé decorating).
But that wasn't all, as Xion found extremely large balloons at the party store. Sora wondered if someone could be put into a balloon with one that size, and stuck his foot into one. His thoughts were answered as he was actually inside the balloon. Of course, that was only if the helium producing machine would continue to blow because if they closed the opening, Sora would most likely pass out and die. But before anyone could take a decent picture of the childish teenager inside a balloon, one of the spikes on Sora's hair popped the large balloon, making everyone temporarily deaf for a good ten seconds. They all agreed on not using the huge balloons while decorating the house.
"Time to bring everyone in! Oh, we also need to send out the decoy to keep the birthday boy distracted long enough for everyone to hide!" Kairi announced as the group stood from the foyer and slowly made their way through the house. Besides the new black spot on the carpet by the living room, they thought the house was perfect.
There was nothing out in the foyer of the house. In the next room over, the living room (which was quite large), there were streamers draping over the exit of the hallway in all colors. When one entered the living room from the hallway, they could see balloons, presents on the coffee table, more streamers connected from wall to wall, ne of the birthday boy's favorite multi-player Wii games would also be laid out by the T.V, ready for him to pop in the disk and play: Mario Kart. and a patched up "HAPPY BIRTHDAY" banner on the other end. After going through that hallway, one would enter the kitchen, where there'd be a line of fruits and chips on the kitchen counter, along with fruit punch and lemonade pitchers with cups stacked next to it. The birthday cake was hidden in the fridge, but the birthday boy didn't have to know that. The back yard also had some balloons and party favors littering the floor; up in the birthday boy's room were more presents, presents from the ones he cared for the most. There were a few streamers and smaller "HAPPY BIRTHDAY" banner in his room as well. The banisters to the boy's room were covered in different colored tissue paper, and the stairs were covered with notes faced down for him to pick up and read. The group was definitely proud of their work so far, and hoped that it would be a success.
Axel was sent out as the decoy. Sora wanted to be the decoy, but everyone knew that he would somehow slip and blurt out something that would ruin all of their hard work. Sora hung his shoulders in defeat, but agreed with his friends. Axel called Roxas when Naminé knew his brother would be getting off work to tell him that he needed him to help buy something for his brother, Reno. They argued a bit before Axel winked towards the group, telling them that he effectively got Roxas to buy the bait (it wasn't entirely a lie, he did owe his brother some sort of clothing, since the redhead set part of his pants on fire, burning a hole in one of his pants). Axel strolled out the door with a slight smirk on his face and headed towards Roxas's car that was already in the driveway. Roxas's sudden presence caught him off guard, but remembered that he had a mission to do, and recovered from his shock so fast that Roxas barely took the time to see it.
When Riku declared that Roxas and Axel were out, Kairi, Naminé, and Xion called all of the people who were to come to Roxas's party. They told them to get there immediately, for they were holding a surprise birthday for the soon-to-be eighteen year old. Sora and Riku waited by the door to tell everyone their hiding spots when they walked in the door. Sora smiled to himself, anxiously waiting.
"I honestly don't know how you can stand that music!" Axel complained as he strode out of the car. Roxas shut the door behind him and locked the car. "Sora isn't letting me borrow his CDs, and I'm too broke to buy any of my own, so I learned to cope with the crap they put on the radio," Roxas shrugged. He had to admit, some songs on the radio were catchy, despite how annoying and crude the lyrics were.
"You know, I could lend you some of my—" Axel began to offer.
"No," Roxas deadpanned. He didn't know how Axel was able to stand the heavy sounds of his genre of music. Then again, he didn't understand why he preferred his own genre of music. Sora must've rubbed off of him somehow.
"Sheesh, I was just bein' nice. Ever thought of making your own CDs? Like, with a computer and stuff?"
"Get me a blank CD, and maybe I would,"
Axel laughed at his statement and began browsing through the clothes, searching for something nice, and in Reno's size. It was so hard finding his brother's size, the damn guy just had to be unique down to his own body type!
"OK, is everyone in position?" Sora called loudly to the house from the foyer. He got a collective shout of "Yeah!" from the many people in the house (which were now Hayner, Pence, Olette, Selphie, Tidus, and Wakka.). Sora grinned a toothy grin and ran off to his hiding spot, behind the T.V in the living room. Naminé was hiding right next to the entrance of the hallway into the living room, Kairi was behind the sofa, Riku was also behind the T.V (they had an exceptionally large television), and Xion hid underneath the coffee table. Not a very convenient place, but she blended in a bit with the carpet, and she was small. Hayner hid on the other side of the entrance with Naminé, and Tidus his behind one of the leather chairs (that matched with the sofa), and Wakka was behind the loveseat. Pence and Olette were both hiding in the shoe closet, which was before the entry to the living room. Everyone hoped they wouldn't make out in there and ruin the surprise.
Sora then whipped out his phone and dialed Axel's number. He tried to keep his voice down, but due to all of the excitement, it was hard for the cheerful brunette. Axel laughed on his end, and said, "We'll be there soon," and hung up. Roxas didn't notice that Axel was on the phone and lazily checked his appearance with the reflection of his phone. He nearly jumped out of his skin when Axel suddenly took a hold of his wrist. "A-Axel?"
"We need to get home, kid. Don't tell me you forgot about your birthday!" Axel smiled as he took them out of the clothing store. Roxas blushed in embarrassment. He did forget about his birthday. How could he forget? He was even turning eighteen! OK, not as exciting as some may think, but that means that he would be an adult! He'd finally be able to move out and live on his own!
Axel sniggered when he got no answer from his blond friend. "Seriously, you and Sora are so alike. No wonder you two are best friends," he winked towards Roxas.
"D-Don't compare me to him!" Roxas pouted slightly before starting up the car. Axel just laughed.
Once they heard the door unlock, the people that were incognito immediately froze in position. They tried not to make a single sound. They also prayed to the heavens that the two love birds in the closet were not making out. Axel couldn't hide the smirk on his face—it made Roxas almost want to slap it off. What made him so damn giddy? Was he high? But didn't he quit drugs a year ago? Before Roxas could be disappointed in his friend, he felt a warm hand on his shoulder. "Damn. Where is everyone? Man, that's not fair. Did they forget it was your birthday too, eh, Roxy?"
Roxas looked ahead in shock. Come to think of it, Naminé wasn't even tumbling out of the room to greet him. The entire house felt still, like no one lived in it for years. It gave Roxas an eerily sad feeling. "Well, it's not like anyone would remember my birthday,"
Axel looked down at the now saddened blond. He was only joking, but, as usual, he never knew when it was "too far" with Roxas. The redhead clicked his tongue and shoved him forward, almost making Roxas collide with the wall. "Wha-what was that for, Axel?" Roxas cried out angrily.
Axel shrugged. "Man, sometimes you really are like Sora. Both of you are pretty dense. That's probably why it makes practical jokes all the more entertaining, know what I'm sayin'?" Sora made a move to say something back to Axel for saying that, but Riku pulled him back. Unfortunately, these actions made a noise with the wires. The slight noise made Roxas jump.
"What was that?" he asked Axel. Axel just smiled in response. He then ruffled the blond's hair and turned him to face the hallway leading to the living room. "Why don't you go find out?" Roxas let out a "what?" in response, but trusted Axel's words. He could tell he wasn't joking around anymore, but stepped cautiously towards the living room. He saw what looked like streamers covering the hallway entrance and was really confused. Those weren't there before…were they?
With Hayner and Naminé's peripheral vision, Naminé flipped the switch to the lights behind her and turned to brother. All at once, everyone popped out of their hiding places and shouted (even Pence and Olette and Axel from behind Roxas),
"HAPPY BIRTHDAY, ROXAS!"
It was a good thing Axel was literally right behind him, or else Roxas would've fallen on his ass from the sudden surprise. He looked behind Axel and saw Pence and Olette, then back to the front to find Sora, Riku, Hayner, Tidus, all of his friends smiling at him. They did remember his birthday. They did. Just that fact brought water to his eyes. But before he realized the water even started pouring from his eyes, his friends laughed and cooed at him, and soon, he was enveloped in a large, group hug. Even if his friends didn't get him anything, this was definitely good enough for him.
After the party, it was only Roxas and Sora in Roxas's room. Naminé was tired out and practically fell asleep once her head hit the pillow. Sora, with his bottomless pit for a stomach, was finishing off his fourth slice of cake. "You're gonna get sick if you keep eating that," Roxas made a face at his friend.
"Yeah, whatever, but getting sick from this cake is totally worth it! I mean, who knew? Axel's a pretty darn good cook!" Sora said after swallowing the last of the cake. He made a satisfied sound. "Ahh, but now I'm totally stuffed," he pat his belly softly.
Roxas laughed at the motion. How long has it been since they hung out, all on their own, like this? Since Roxas got that job at Wal-Mart, he's had less and less time to hang out with…anyone. It felt good to finally be with his best friend again. Sora laughed too, for he missed his best friend just as much as the other did. Sure, he had fun with Riku and Kairi and everyone else, but he couldn't help but feel like someone was missing. After laughing a bit, they both just sat in silence, staring into nothing. Sora had a content smile on his face, as did Roxas.
"So…" Roxas asked after a moment. Sora's head perked up and looked into blue orbs that looked strangely identical to his. Only Sora's eyes were that much more blue. Roxas blushed at the sudden silence and attention, which was weird because he should be used to this kind of attention from Sora. He should be used to getting only Sora's attention, without anything to distract the brunette. The blond cleared his throat before speaking again.
"Who came up with the idea to surprise me?" he smiled out, trying to calm his nerves. Sora's face lit up at the question.
Suddenly, he boasted, pointing a thumb to his chest, "Why, I, the Great Sora, came up with this genius plan to surprise you!"
Roxas chuckled. "Oh, really?"
"Yes, really! Aw, c'mon, don't you believe me, Rox?" Sora then stuck his bottom lip out and acquired the "puppy dog" look. Roxas looked away, they both knew that he couldn't stand that look.
"F-f-fine," Roxas stammered, "I b-believe you, Sora. Just stop with that look, y-you know I'm a sucker for that face,"
Sora snickered. "That's exactly why I did it!"
Roxas looked at him, baffled by his statement. "Say, it's gotten pretty dark out, now hasn't it," Roxas said after looking out his window.
"It has," Sora turned to look out there too. "You know, we haven't hung out much since you've gotten that job, Roxas. D'you mind if I…stay the night? Like we…used to?" Sora asked sheepishly, scratching his cheek.
Roxas turned to the brunette and smiled. "I was thinking the same thing, to be completely honest," He stood up to take out the spare sleeping bag he kept underneath his bed, just for Sora (or other situations where his friends had to stay the night).
"Awesome," Sora said and hugged the birthday boy. "Happy birthday, Roxas," Sora whispered into Roxas's ear. They pulled away, and Sora smiled while Roxas dealt with a weird emotion that he hadn't felt since his crush on Xion in the beginning of high school. "Haha, c'mon Roxas, would it hurt to smile on your birthday?" Sora playfully hit Roxas on the shoulder, which snapped the blond boy out of his reverie. Roxas couldn't help but smile back. "OK, OK, I'm smiling, you happy?"
"Hmm…nope!" Sora said, smile still on his face. Roxas looked at him, slightly confused.
"You're not? Then what will—" Roxas was about to ask him what would make Sora happy, but stopped in midspeech when he felt a tingling feeling on his right cheek. He looked at his best friend. There was just the faintest of blushes on the boy's tan skin, Roxas swore he saw it. "There!" he said, finally. "Now, I'm happy," Sora said, still smiling at the dumbstruck boy with a hand over the cheek he just kissed.
With that, Roxas could tell his eighteenth year was promising.
(A/N: AHH! I honestly didn't know whether to add in that little bit of romance in the end, so I just put it there! Sorry if the description of the house totally sucks, but I just wrote this right off the bat so this isn't really edited either…but hey, I needed something to budge that writer's block out of my friggin' head, so I wrote this! I was inspired to write this after watching a bunch of The Sora and Roxas Show by idiotfrnds0123, and being the yaoi shipper I am, I couldn't help but have some feelings for Sora and Roxas as a romantic couple again! (Not the youtube users of course, since they're twins. I just really look up to them!) I hope you guys enjoyed it, and I honestly can't believe how much I've written. Wow! 4k+ words? For a one-shot? This is definitely the longest one-shot I've ever written so far. I hope you guys enjoy it, and please review any mistakes or…anything please! Xoxo and Thank you so much for reading, I love you all. ;u; )