Note: This is my first fanfic, my first story involving yaoi AND the first story I've publicized. It's kinda scary. Anyway, please read and review, comments and criticism are greatly appreciated. And of course, I don't own Kingdom Hearts or any of the characters.
"Wait, what?" Sora asked, looking at his mom in disbelief.
"I said we're going to host an exchange student." His mother repeated, looking like she was about to burst from excitement. "Your school just sent out a message asking if anyone could host a student for a month, and I said we'd do it." She grinned at him.
Sora frowned. "But why? Where're they going to stay? They speak English right?"
His mother rolled her eyes. "Of course he speaks English. I thought he'd stay in your room."
"My room!" Sora repeated, sounding indignant. "Why not Roxas's room?"
"Well he'll be going to school with you, so it made sense that he'd stay with you too." She was still grinning from ear to ear, looking extremely pleased with herself.
Sora pouted, but didn't complain anymore. There was no arguing with her at this point. He was still curious though, and bombarded her with questions.
"When's he coming?"
"Tomorrow night."
"What!? Isn't that short notice?" Sora could've sworn these exchange things were planned months in advance.
"Well, I suppose it is, but apparently he urgently needs to get out of his house, so the sooner the better."
"Where's he coming from?"
"The mainland. No where too exotic."
Sora considered this. Some boy, about his age, was coming from the mainland under suspicious circumstances and would be staying in his room. So far, it didn't sound too good.
"What possessed you to agree to this?" he asked, looking at his mother like she was crazy.
"I thought we could use a man in the house." She teased, still grinning.
"Thanks mom." Sora rolled his eyes and stood up. He'd been sitting on a stool in the kitchen, watching his mom cook dinner while procrastinating his homework, but he didn't feel like talking anymore. A mixture of curiosity and annoyance was distracting him, and he wanted to go think the whole thing over.
"I guess I'll go start cleaning my room then." He said as an excuse for leaving her. "Call me when dinner's ready."
"I knew you'd agree!" his mother dropped what she was doing and ran across the room to hug him. "Thanks honey." She said, and Sora sighed, completely giving up.
"Ok mom… you can let go now." He said, and she jumped away, then rustled his hair affectionately and went back to her cooking.
Sora headed up the stairs to his room and paused in the doorway. I wonder if Roxas has heard yet. He knocked on the door across from his and called "Roxas, you in there?" There was a gasp of surprise from inside and Sora heard some mumbling and then a snap that could only be a cell phone closing. His brother appeared in the doorway, looking somewhat guilty. "What's up Sora?" he asked, stepping into the hallway and closing the door behind him.
Sora grinned. "Talking to Axel again? I thought you said not to bother you 'cause you had some paper to write."
"I do have a paper to write, so I called Axel for advice." Roxas said, but Sora raised his eyebrows.
"And how would Axel help? He's in my grade, he couldn't possibly have the same assignment."
"Well…" Sora could see Roxas was raking his brain for some excuse. "He did this assignment last year, so he could tell me what he did." Roxas looked a little proud at having found a believable excuse.
"Nice try, but I wrote the paper too. Why Axel and not me?" Roxas frowned, but Sora just laughed. "Whatever. It doesn't really matter, although it's a bit weird to have my little brother flirting with my friend."
"I wasn't flirting!" Roxas insisted, but his bright red blush gave him away. Sora laughed again and shrugged. "I'll leave you to your 'paper'" he said, turning to his room, but then he remembered why he wanted to talk to Roxas in the first place.
"Oh yeah, wait a sec Rox. Did mom talk to you about this exchange student?"
Roxas's puzzled look told Sora he hadn't heard about it.
"Never mind then, I'll talk to you at dinner." Roxas looked confused, but he shrugged and went back into his room, closing the door.
Sora turned to his room again and entered, leaving his door open and looking around. There were dirty clothes scattered across the floor in piles, and candy wrappers littered the entire room. He frowned, wondering what the boy would think. Sora felt suddenly self-conscious. He hadn't really changed his room since he was little, unlike Roxas who insisted on remodeling when he entered high school. There were still a few of his old teddy bears on the shelves in the corner, and the whole room looked childish to him. The stacks of comic books and candy bars didn't help the image. Sora shook himself. What was he thinking? He hadn't even met this guy yet and he was worrying about appearances. Stop being stupid. He told himself, and he began to collect the wrappers and shove them into his trashcan. The clothes were gathered and dumped in the laundry basket, and he was working on clearing the comics off his desk when his mother announced that dinner was ready.
As they were sitting down, Roxas asked Sora what he'd been talking about earlier. Sora was about to reply when his mom cut him off.
"Sora, you told him already? Why'd you have to ruin the surprise?" If anyone wondered where Sora's pout came from, it was definitely genetic. His mother looked completely devastated, and although Sora knew she was exaggerating, he couldn't help feeling guilty.
"Don't worry, I didn't tell him anything. Just… built up the suspense?" Sora grinned hopefully and she seemed to accept that. She then proceeded to tell Roxas everything she had told Sora. Roxas snickered when he heard Sora would have to share his room and Sora glared at him, but he didn't have any complaints and their mother beamed at them.
"So. You guys have to help me straighten up the house. I know it's small, so we'll just have to move some of the junk to make more room." She shot a glance at Sora, implying his room especially needed to be cleaned. Sora nodded. "I'm working on it." He said, finishing and standing up to clear his plate.
"Will you do the dishes mom? So I can go 'make room'?" he asked, then ran off without waiting for a reply. Roxas mumbled something about his paper and left, so she sighed and collected all the dishes. She hadn't told Sora or Roxas, but she knew the boy's reason for coming. She hoped to make them excited and cheerful, rather than allowing them to ponder his circumstances so he wouldn't have to worry when he got there, but she felt bad lying to her sons. She sighed again, and started the dishes, still lost in thought.
Her plan was working, whether she knew it or not. Sora had practically forgotten about the mystery of the boy's arrival and found he was glad he was coming so soon, so they wouldn't have to wait and allow the suspense to build. Although he was nervous too, and no matter how he tried to talk himself out of it, he couldn't help being a little self-conscious. He shoved the teddy bears in the closet and tried to rearrange the room in a more mature looking way. He wasn't sure what he considered "mature" though, so he ended up confusing himself. After a while he looked at the clock and realized it was getting late and he still had homework to do. He had to give up on reorganizing and rush through his homework so he could get to bed at a reasonable time, but found he couldn't sleep. Apprehension and excitement caused him to sleep lightly and go through many strange dreams.
Sora was up early the next day and he immediately began working on his room again although there was little left to do. He'd organized all the comics and books on his shelves, and everything was off the floor. But Sora was restless and found little things to do, like make sure collect all his pencils and put them in the cup on his desk. He surveyed his work and decided his room now looked like he had OCD, so he messed a few things up by pulling books off the shelves and pouring all the recently collected pencils in his drawer, out of sight. He would've continued, but his mom called that he was going to be late, so he hurriedly collected all his schoolbooks, shoved them in his backpack and ran out the door.
Roxas followed him out, looking skeptically at his brother. "Don't you think you're getting too excited?" he asked, walking next to Sora. The brunet shrugged. "Maybe." He said, but he wondered why Roxas wasn't excited. The blonde boy seemed as relaxed as usual; Sora had been expecting more of a reaction from him.
"Did you get your paper done?" Sora asked, changing the subject. Teasing Roxas was always a good way to use some energy. Roxas scowled at him, knowing what Sora was implying. "Yes I did." He said, speeding up to walk ahead of Sora. Sora bounded after him, a smug grin on his face.
"Don't you want to talk about it? Or would you rather talk to Axel?"
"You know, you really suck at teasing." Roxas said, walking even faster and looking straight ahead.
"And you take all the fun out of it when you say that." Sora said, catching up and frowning. He was going to pursue the subject, but before he could open his mouth Roxas ran ahead to meet up with his friends who were waiting on the street corner. Sora sighed and looked around for another form of entertainment. Nothing stood out, so he had no choice but to finish the walk to school in complete boredom.
After the first period ended, Sora wondered how he'd managed to sit still for so long. He was practically bouncing off the walls through the break, and although Tidus and Kairi tried to get him to explain why he was so excited he refused to answer, saying he wanted to surprise them. Wakka sat back watching, and pointed out that if Sora was that excited, he probably wouldn't be able to keep quiet for long. Kairi and Tidus laughed at that, and Sora pouted, insisting he'd keep it secret for the whole day.
Axel ruined that plan though. Apparently Roxas told him about the exchange student last night, so when he met them in the cafeteria for lunch, he told the rest of the group. Sora was annoyed that his attempt at keeping quiet had been ruined before he could prove himself, but Kairi insisted he'd done pretty well.
"So when's this guy coming?" she asked after Sora had cheered up again.
"Tonight."
"Wow, so soon?" Tidus looked surprised.
"Yeah, some kind of emergency. He had to get out of his house."
"Is he hot? Did they send you a picture?" Kairi asked, batting her eyes and smiling, but they could all hear the sarcasm in her voice. Selphie, who was sitting next to her, perked up at that question and looked at Sora hopefully.
Sora shrugged, taking the question seriously. "They didn't send a picture or anything. It's all kinda short notice, I don't think they planned that far ahead."
"Maybe he's so ugly they were afraid no one would accept him if they sent a picture." Axel said with a laugh. He kept shooting glances across the room to where Roxas was sitting with Olette, Pence and Hayner.
Sora giggled, and wanted to assure Axel that this new comer wouldn't be competing for Roxas's affection, but he wasn't sure the rest of the group would find that funny. They didn't know about all the late night phone calls between the red head and Sora's little brother.
"Who care's what he looks like." Waka said, grinning. "I wonder if he plays blitz ball…"
He and Tidus broke off into a conversation about what the team would do if this guy turned out to be a star player. Selphie was trying to talk to Kairi about the possibilities of having a hot guy around and although Kairi was acting indifferent, Sora could see she was intrigued too.
Lunch ended, and they all had to go back to class, but Sora was fidgety all afternoon. He barely paid attention in class and doodled all over the few notes he took. After what seemed like an eternity, the bell rang and Sora jumped up, hastily packed his bag and ran all the way home.
His mother laughed as Sora came in and had to catch his breath after running.
"We don't have to pick him up until 7 you know." She said, grinning at him.
Sora shrugged. "I thought my room could use more work."
"It looked fine to me…" she started, then put her hand to her head and added. "Ah, I forgot to set up his bed."
"I'll do it!" Sora said, and ran upstairs to the closet where they kept the air mattress they used whenever guests came. It took him a while to get it out of the closet and down the hall, but he managed. As he unrolled it he realized how much space the thing would take up, meaning they'd be sleeping awfully close to each other. There was about a foot between the mattress and his bed. He considered moving his bed, but there wasn't any better arrangement. He just hoped the boy would sleep close to the wall, and cursed his mother for buying the queen-sized mattress.
Another eternity passed before it was finally time to go to the port and pick up their guest. Sora got yelled at multiple times (mostly by Roxas) for not being able to sit still so everyone was happy to leave the house. Roxas hung back from the rest of his family as they walked, for their mother seemed to be just as excited as Sora. But even Roxas was surprised when he saw the boy getting off the boat. He saw his mother and brother's jaws drop and for once, he didn't blame them.