For Starry, a big thank you!
--
Roxas and Sora began with spilt coffee at the bus stop on a cold autumn morning.
Shit was the first word exchanged. Sora was laughing, or at least Roxas could tell he was.
The street was damp and grey. Roxas's car had been left at the shop that morning. He rarely took the bus to school.
For the first time he noticed the city's autumn had no orange or gold leaves. The green foliage shriveled to distasteful mustards and browns and dropped to the ground like crumpled market receipts. A post-rain grey washed everything from the streets to the blue bus sign to the peach colored buildings. A lady in runner's clothes ran by with her Labrador retriever. Everything looked eerily like a black and white photograph. Aside from the runner, Roxas figured these streets to be deserted, with but him and his stainless steel coffee mug.
After he rounded the corner, however, what looked to be a curious, huge marshmallow was propped on the bus bench on the other side of the street.
Roxas squinted his eyes confusedly, and with them followed the figure as he walked, only to tear them away as he realized there was a head of chocolate brown hair on top of this marshmallow, and it was looking straight at him.
Roxas reached the bus stop with his head tucked into the black collar of his sweatshirt, pretending like he hadn't actually seen Sora sitting there in the first place. Even if his overbearingly gigantic white jacket was hard to miss.
They didn't speak, and when Roxas finally felt Sora's eyes fall from him, he felt a little more at ease, and he took a sip of the coffee that quietly brewed in his hand.
That is, he almost drowned in it. It was angrily hot and he had humiliatingly tried to down a good mouthful of the black stuff. It dribbled from his mouth onto his fingers and he spat a little out, panting furiously with his burnt tongue.
"SHIT!" He yelped, holding the cup with the tips of his fingers like it was diseased, arms splayed out, staring at the brown-spattered ground.
But when he whipped his head around, it was Sora who had his mouth covered and his cheeks puffed up like he was about to burst.
Roxas glared at his classmate, the blood in his cheeks running with embarrassment as he cleaned his mouth with his sleeve. "Yeah, thanks," he muttered to him.
"Sorry, sorry," Sora choked after a moment, sniffing and still snickering. The bus came then, and they sat in separate aisles in separate sides of the bus, both of them wearing smiles.
--
Sora and Roxas still led different lives at school. Sora had his friends and so did Roxas, they had their lunch tables and lockers they hung about. That still did not stop them from smiling at one another every once in a while—whether they were chosen for lab partners or selected for a race against one another in P.E.—like they had a secret no one else knew about.
--
So apparently Sora and Roxas were friends after that without Roxas knowing. Roxas had been invited to Sora's home to study and do homework, which Roxas agreed to promptly. Roxas accompanied Sora on the bus ride home, this time in the same aisle, the same seat, the same smile.
Upon arrival, Sora's mother immediately took a liking to Roxas, Sora had said so after they hid in the sanctity of his room. The woman doted, calling him one of Sora's "nice little friends," assuring that if the boys needed anything they shouldn't hesitate to call, she would make them anything, snacks, drinks.
("She does this to all my friends," groaned Sora, dropping his backpack beside the door and dropping himself on his bed. "Sorry."
"She's nice," Roxas assured, dropping his own backpack beside the small desk in Sora's room and sitting cross-legged on his carpet. "Wait, you have a Wii?")
They immediately became side-tracked from their supposed study group with Sora's avid collection of video games. Their mother entered with a tray of hot chocolate and an irritated look at her son, who gave the most apologetic grin one could muster.
Roxas was going to wait until the hot chocolate cooled, beginning his homework as Sora finished a last one-player mission.
Sora brought the whipped cream-topped drink to his mouth, only to take more than a mouthful and spill it all over his shirt, steaming hot. He panted heavily and stood up in disgust at his stained clothes. Roxas covered his mouth, trying to keep from laughing as Sora shot him a malicious glare.
"Sorry, sorry," Roxas sputtered between chuckles.
Sora couldn't help smiling after that, snatching a new shirt. "Goddamn karma," Sora laughed, tugging at the ends of his shirt to better study the stain as he headed towards the bathroom. "Shut up, Roxas!"
--
It had been approximately one month since. Sora poked him during Chemistry one day. Saturday night, he would be going to a party held at one of Sora's friends' house, a jock with a funny accent.
Roxas never liked parties. He came all the same, stealing a few bagel bites from someone's mother's platter. He found friends he was not quite so familiar with and stood around them, taking an offered red cup of alcoholic spew. He sniffed it and simply held it there, standing awkwardly near a group of people who sort of forgot he was there. He tossed the liquid into a plant and gripped the cup for appearances, leaving the group to explore.
The party heated up quickly. Downstairs, it was blacklights and open doors and PDAing just everywhere. He stepped over a couple writhing on the floor when he found a figure sitting uncomfortably on the edge of the couch, staring at his full plastic cup tiredly amidst pounding music and loud moans. He, Sora, looked up towards Roxas at the other side of the room seconds later.
Roxas widened his eyes, as if he was surprised Sora was there.
Sora blinked then flashed his eyes a few times to the glass back doors behind him urgently.
Roxas furrowed his brows, then lifted them, then crossed the floor towards the doors, Sora following behind him, muttering, "Go, go, go!"
When they stepped outside, Sora drained his cup on the backyard grass and tossed it somewhere along with Roxas's. "You didn't actually drink it?" He asked.
"No," Roxas said, "but their plant was dying anyway."
Sora laughed. Roxas laughed a little too, and both of them hopped over the back fence into the open street. The sky said it was midnight, cloudless and cold and full of stars and a bright white crescent hovering over the smokestacks and company buildings. They ran hills and bought hot dogs and Sora a blueberry slushie at a gas station. Roxas, eighteen, bought firecrackers, which they set off in empty lots while they talked about teachers and the people they didn't like. They talked about action movies while putting other people's garden gnomes—which they enhanced with sharpie penises and boobs, "a true masterpiece," Roxas called it—on other people's yards. They put slugs and band-aids on Seifer's car—or was it his mother's?—while they laughed about class antics like the other wasn't in the room though they had almost every class together, just never stopped to notice.
At four AM, Sora's mother was furious. Roxas's parents didn't care. Sora and Roxas didn't either.
--
Winter frost was finally hitting their town hard. Roxas's engine was lost to fucking Jack Frost, and he left it in Cid's care again. He, his stainless steel cup, his black winter coat and scarf were at the mercy of the bus again that morning.
The ground and sky were white and blue all over.
Roxas rounded the corner, and the first thing he saw was a floating head of brown hair that grinned brilliantly back at him as he crossed the street.
"You still dress like a giant marshmallow," Roxas said, smiling back. "You know that thing is huge."
Sora snorted. "Is not," he said bluntly. "And I don't care, I'm cold." Sora reached up and took the drink from Roxas's hands, stealing a few sips as Roxas shook his head and looked up the street for their bus. None in sight.
Sora grinned. "Yesterday was awesome," he said.
Roxas nodded. "Yup," he replied, face splitting to a small smile. "Can't wait to see Seifer's face when he sees his car."
Sora laughed. "And those gnomes! Especially that one flamingo one we found, you know?"
Roxas chuckled. "Yeah," he replied. They both laughed a little more, a small, discomfited silence following.
Sora cleared his throat and looked away from Roxas. "We should do that kinda stuff more," he said. "There's… another party going on later, at Axel's house. You could come."
Roxas furrowed his brows and smiled in disbelief. "Sora, we didn't even go to that party," he said. "You were really invited but it didn't really look like you wanted to stay, so…"
Sora paused for a minute, watching his shifting fingertips on Roxas's coffee mug, then looked back at Roxas. "So we could do stuff like that," he said, "even when there isn't a party going on. … 'Cause it's not like we talk at school or anything. I mean, we do, just not all the time. And talking to you is pretty fun, and last night was fun too! So I don't get why we can't. I wanna talk. To you."
Roxas's mouth was open to speak, though no words came out even as his mind churned them out like clockwork. He pressed his mouth closed, locking his eyes on Sora's. He bent forward, and on the barren white streetside he kissed Sora softly.
Sora spilt the coffee.