Hey! So this is where I've been all summer long...working on this monster. Welcome to the KingdomHearts BigBang challenge. The contender? Yours truly. The goal? 25k. I didn't quite make it, but there are some side stories coming soon that flesh it out and answer some questions.
In other news, I am now an official college graduate. I moved halfway across the state and got an job in my degree field. I live mostly alone with my budgie behind a cabinet in a relative's apartment, and I work 9-5 five days a week at a local nursery and greenhouse. Still writing...just taking a quick breather after the bigbang entry.
7th floor. It hadn't occurred to Roxas that there wouldn't be an elevator up to the place, but as it turned out, the freight elevator in the stairwell was for moving in and emergencies only unless you were in one of the businesses on the first three floors. Just heading up to check the place out and figure out where his things went wasn't a qualifying need. That meant stairs. Lots of stairs. He stood in the stairwell and looked up, all the way up to the ceiling, where he was heading. His legs hurt already.
One hundred and twenty stairs. Twelve sets of them, two sets to a floor. Roxas wanted to collapse at the upper landing when he finally arrived. The first three floors hadn't been bad, which was a blessing, since those first thirty steps had been crawling with patrons of the bakery, coffee shop, and hobby store on those floors. Right around the middle of the fourth floor, his legs started to hurt. By the end of the fifth floor, they burned. When he reached the final landing at the 7th floor, his legs were shaking and sore, and he wondered if the landlord was a sadist or just didn't like college students.
The double doors were bright, grab-you-by-the-eyeballs PURPLE and had the apartment number hanging on them in silver letters. Roxas prayed he had the number wrong as he tried his key in the lock. It fit and turned. He swore silently and pushed the door open.
Inside was one massive room. Roxas had been prepared for a wide-open space the moment he'd seen the word 'loft' in the ad, but this…it extended much further than he'd expected, high ceilinged and enormous. It smelled it paint and something earthy, and it was uncomfortably warm.
"Hey! Don't hold the door open, you're letting the heat in!"
He scooted inside and let the door shut behind him, looking for the source of the voice. It was vaguely familiar, but he wasn't sure where he'd heard it.
"So you're my new…room…mate. What the hell? Roxas?"
Roxas looked up sharply. For a split second, he saw a fourteen year old boy standing in front of him, all too-big feet in blue Converse and a short, scruffy mess of silvery white hair. Then he blinked, shaking himself, and found himself staring at a man in his early twenties, relatively tall, broad shouldered and sporting some impressive muscling in his arms. Thick white hair hung around his face, barely restrained by a bandana being used as a headband. His eyes were wide with surprise and a distinctive shade of bright blue-green.
"Riku?"
"It is you!" Riku moved closer, then shook his head and stepped back. "No. You can't stay here. Out. Now."
"Out? I've paid my deposit. I'm living here."
"I don't care. I'm not living with you. Not after what happened the last time. Get. Out."
"Last time? You started it!"
"I didn't start a fist fight," Riku hissed. His hands balled into fists, making muscle in his arm stand out with tension and reminding Roxas that he was significantly shorter and weaker than Riku.
But the last time they had seen each other he'd been eleven and Riku had been lying on the ground, clutching his face and sobbing around the blood gushing from his nose and mouth, and Sora had been behind him, crying in fear and betrayal, and it had been all. Riku's. Fault.
"Yes, you did."
"Oh, bullshit, you just want to justify trying to beat me to death to make yourself feel better." Riku sniffed derisively at Roxas. "How's Sora?"
"None of your business."
"Not talking to you?"
"Fuck off."
"He stopped writing to me."
"Yeah? He moved on. Unlike some people."
"Some of us actually liked having friends, sunshine," Riku muttered. He turned away. "Whatever. Move your crap in if you must. I don't care. Just don't touch my stuff."
Roxas wasn't sure if he was hearing a change of heart or if Riku just didn't want to get into an argument with management, but he was grateful to not have to look for another apartment. Not now, so close to the semester starting.
"Where's my room?"
Riku stopped, looking back at Roxas over his shoulder. "Who said you got a room?"
"I'm sharing this place with you as a roommate, not a crash buddy," Roxas snapped. "I get a bedroom."
"Did they tell you that, at the office?"
"No, but-"
"This is the apartment." Riku spread his arms, indicating the entire massive room. "One big bathroom, back that way. A massive walk-in closet for two. A corner with all the kitchen stuff and some counters. And an empty space. It's a loft. What did you expect?"
Roxas stared at him, then around the room. It looked like Riku wasn't kidding: there were two doors down the wall from the one he'd walked in through, and they were too close together to belong to a real bedroom of any kind. Behind Riku, the place opened up a little more. Kitchen corner, as promised, with a large fridge and a sink with a stack of coffee cups waiting to be washed beside it. A big wooden table with duct tape around one leg, surrounded by a few mismatched chairs. A lot of cheap metal bookshelves against the walls. A squashy couch-shaped thing under a tapestry-style throw. A wall of windows- that was the street side. In the corner opposite the kitchen, there were curtains hanging from a frame suspended from the ceiling, spreading open to reveal a messy bed. Must be where Riku slept.
"But…where am I supposed…to…?"
"Wherever you want, I guess. Move some furniture if you have to. You could get some help and drag a mattress up on top of the closet and bathroom- landlord says it can support plenty of weight." Riku nodded at the corner behind Roxas, across from the closet door. "That's as far away from my corner as you can get, if that's what you're after." He tossed his hair back over his shoulder with a sigh. "You can leave the door unlocked while you bring your stuff in, but don't leave it open- it takes forever to cool the place down after you lose the cold air."
Riku walked away to the curtained corner, leaving Roxas alone in his new home.
Great deal for students my ASS, Roxas thought, and stormed back out to the stairs and elevator, slamming the door behind him. He heard Riku holler about not slamming the door echoing down the stairs after him.