"I was told to give this to you." A wink followed.
Roxas stood still as the redhead held out a piece of paper folded over many times with a miniature paintbrush sticky-taped to the front.
"Who told you?" Roxas said as Axel shoved the paper into his hands.
Axel smirked mischievously at him and placed a finger over his lips in a 'shh' signal. Before Roxas could react, Axel saluted him with two fingers and walked briskly away.
Roxas stood frozen for a full minute, watching Axel round a corner and walk away, the soft bristles of the paintbrush pushing up against the palm of his hand. Eventually, his trance was broken as Axel disappeared and he glanced down at the piece of paper, wondering what it was.
The first thing he noticed about the note aside the brush was that if he squinted, he could see typed words. After seeing that he assumed it was a note from the school about an upcoming event or something. But the paintbrush's existence eliminated that theory.
It could have been a love note. But hey, it was the day after Valentine's Day. Who the hell gave Valentine's cards the day AFTER Valentine's Day? And besides, nobody typed a love note unless you knew their handwriting and they didn't want you to know who they were, and it's not like he knew Axel's handwriting.
Roxas didn't know the redhead very well. They were no more than friendly acquaintances, really. About a year previously they had been made to do an oral assignment together, lecturing the class about a book they had read together, and ever since then they always greeted each other with a smile or a nod, but never anything more. They even shared a few classes, but they had never worked together on anything ever since.
Before he could form anymore theories, Roxas opened the letter. It read;
Roxas,
I noticed you didn't get a Valentines card yesterday.
I've also noticed I love you.
You should smile more often – you look so beautiful when you're happy.
It's best if you don't look for me; some mysteries are better left unsolved.
Watching from afar,
Your secret admirer
Roxas read it three times before it made any sense, slowly getting redder and redder. But, by that time, someone standing behind him had noticed what he was doing, and snatched the letter away from him.
"What's that, hey?" A dirty blonde male jeered as he scanned the piece of paper.
"Hayner! Give that back!" Roxas growled as he tried to seize the letter from his friend.
Hayner was not having any. He pushed Roxas away and began laughing.
"Looks like Roxas' found himself a secret lover!" Hayner showed the letter to the two brunettes standing behind him, much to his blonde friend's dismay.
The boy took the letter and read it, chuckling to himself. He then handed it to the girl beside him and she laughed and made that weird aww sound only girls can make.
"Roxas, that's so sweet! Who gave it to you?" She said, handing the letter back to a furiously blushing Roxas.
"You know that Axel guy? Yeah, him." Roxas quickly folded the letter and shoved it back into his pocket.
"I wonder who it was that wrote it?" The boy pondered aloud. "Would it have been Axel?"
"No, Pence." The girl laughed "He was the messenger. Though, usually, unsigned letters turn up in your belongings, not given to you by someone." She paused, giving it more thought, frowning "Now I think about it… that was really, really strange."
"And who made you an expert on Valentine cards, Olette?" Hayner remarked, eyebrows raised.
The girl called Olette giggled "It's in the job description of being a girl."
The conversation went on, but Roxas stood to one side quietly, awkwardly looking at his note. He frowned again and looked at the paintbrush.
It was about four centimetres long (one inch or so), had a smooth black handle and soft bristles that looked like they'd never been used. It had a bit of dust under the clear sticky tape, and there was a huge fingerprint on the sticky side of the tape. Roxas made a mental note to see if he could trace the owner of the print. Regardless, he carefully handled the tape and put it in his pocket alongside the note and paintbrush.
---
Axel slowed his walk almost as soon as he rounded the corner, and paused to listen. As soon as he heard the dirty blonde's jeers, he smiled to himself and strolled away, hands in pockets, mentally patting himself on the back for a job well done.
---
"Could Axel Flynn and Roxas McCartney please report to the counsellor's office please. Could Axel Flynn and Roxas McCartney please report to the counsellor's office please. Thank you." The PA system blared out its message to the school in the voice of the receptionist.
Axel swore gently to himself and looked up at the teacher, who was trying to prepare the class for a long, difficult test which Axel hadn't studied for.
The teacher sighed "Okay Axel, off you go. You can finish your test later."
Axel grinned at getting out of his test. He'd study it later. He got up, leaving his books at the table, and left the room, heading for the counsellor's office, wondering what the hell it was that the bitch, Larxene, could possibly want. Hell, it might even be worth staying behind and actually DOING the test rather than go to her office.
As he rounded a corner, he walked smack bang into Roxas, who was also headed in the same direction. All of Roxas' books hit the ground with an almighty thud, and Axel cursed and apologized, stooping to pick the fallen books up.
Roxas, however, paid no attention to his books. Instead, he glared at Axel questioningly.
"What the hell was that note before?" He snapped, still not in a good mood from being teased.
"You aren't very subtle, are you?" Axel smirked as he roughly handed Roxas his books.
"What do you mean, I'm not subtle?" Roxas growled.
"You opened the note in front of your friends, who would never respect your privacy in a million years and want to read it too." Axel folded his arms and smirked down at Roxas.
"And what would you have done, Mr. Subtle?" the blonde spat, his bad mood turning into a filthy mood.
"What I would have done is irrelevant. What really matters is what you did. Now that they know, there's no way to back out and pretend it never happened." Axel droned boredly, as if he had recited it many times before.
"You make it sound like I have to do something about it." Roxas snarled.
"Of course you should! You should try to track the person down. They were courteous enough to leave you a lovely big hint, even longer than your nose." Axel winked, smirking. His hands rammed themselves into his pockets.
"You talking about the paintbrush?" Roxas said, not quite so angrily. Axel had caught his full attention.
"Indeed. And if we were forensic investigators I'd also mention the fingerprint, but we're schoolkids, so I won't." His smirk fell from his face, replaced by a thoughtful frown.
Roxas ignored Axel's change of tone, and thought about the paintbrush, too.
"Is it supposed to be a clue?" He said, eyeing Axel warily.
"It could also be a symbolic thing." Axel shrugged "How the hell am I supposed to know?"
Those words brought back the anger in Roxas.
"So are you gonna tell me who that was from?" Roxas glared, unamused.
Axel grinned sadistically, eyes nearly closed. "Haha, nope."
"Fine, be a jerk." Roxas stormed off.
"Where are you going?" Axel followed Roxas, head cocked slightly.
"Larxene's office." Came the reply.
"Really? So am I!" Axel smirked in mock delight.
"That's because I requested a meeting with you and her, in her office." Roxas growled.
Axel nearly stopped dead in his tracks. "WHAT." He said, eyes wide with shock.
Roxas gained a bit of grim pleasure at Axel's horror. "Don't make me say it again, Axel." He glared over his shoulder.
"But that bitch hates me!" Axel moaned.
"So she can get you to talk."
"But I had nothing to do with this whole thing!"
"You still have information that I could find useful." Roxas grinned, feeling a bit like a detective.
It was true, the letter had asked him not to try and find his secret admirer, but it had given him determination to do his best to find his mysterious lover. The joys of reverse psychology.
"Roxaaass Why?" Axel whined, following Roxas.
"Because I want to know who wrote this."
Axel glared at Roxas. "Even that bitch can't make me spill." He folded his arms stubbornly.
Roxas laughed darkly. "We'll see about that…"
---
BZZZT
"OKAY! OKAY! I'LL TELL YOU! JUST GET THAT FREAKING THING AWAY FROM ME!"
The blonde woman smiled, pocketing the tazer gun she'd managed to smuggle into her office. By law, she couldn't use it on a student, but she as sure as hell could use it to scare them. And if they blabbed she'd look up their addresses in the school directory and kill them in their sleep with her tazer gun.
"Okay." She sat down in an armed wheelie chair with a thump. "Shoot."
"I didn't know passing on a love-note was punishable by death…" Axel grumbled. The woman, whose name was Larxene, glared at him and Axel quit complaining from fear of a very painful, slow demise.
"Roxas, you can ask him anything you want." Larxene said almost gently.
"Okay, Axel. The first thing I wanna know is who the hell wrote that note." Roxas Gazed calmly across the room at Axel.
Axel gave it some though, shrugged and remarked casually "Well, technically, it was me who typed it up."
Roxas clicked his tongue in irritation. "Who was it from?"
Axel smirked, gaining his foothold "Again, technically, it was from me seeing as I – OKAY, OKAY, IT WAS A JOKE! DON'T!" Axel hollered as Larxene shoved her tazer gun dangerously close to the redhead's Adam's apple. She tutted and pocketed the device again.
Axel growled at Larxene, who made a face of triumph. DAMN she loved her job. "Axel. Answer the question. Properly." She grinned like a little kid who was just promised a toy. The site sent shivers down both Axel and Roxas' spines.
"Okay, okay. I'll spill." Axel sighed, shoulders slumped forward in defeat. "It was…" Roxas subconsciously learned forward, so eager was he to know who it was that loved him "… Me."
Larxene hid a snort of laughter as Roxas' jaw dropped. Axel looked up at him sadly, eyebrows forming a crease of regret across his forehead.
"A- Are you sure?" Roxas stuttered, absolutely gobsmacked.
"What do you mean, 'am I sure'?" Axel snarled "Nobody knows better than me!"
Roxas' hand slid unconsciously to his pocket and emerged in a tight fist. "You love me?" He murmured.
Axel sighed and nodded warily. It was tiring enough to screw up the balls to give him that letter but to actually admit it was from him? Thank God tomorrow was Saturday.
"So… What was with the paintbrush?" Roxas said his fist opening slightly so his fingers could stroke their treasure.
"You're in my art class and you said you liked my paintings." Axel rubbed his temples. "I've had that brush since I was five. You take good care of it, hear me?"
Roxas looked at his hand, fingers dropping a little, revealing the little paintbrush. His fist tightened again and he nodded at Axel.
"I will take very good care of it."
A snort of laugher sounded. Both boys looked at Larxene, who was doubled up with laugher, hands over her mouth. She caught the eye of the boys and roared with sadistic laugher.
"God, you two are retards!" She chortled, and proceeded to kick the blonde and the read-head out of her office, laughing manically.
Axel looked at Roxas, eyebrows rose. Roxas returned the look for a split second and burst into laugher, learning against the wall to stop him from falling over.
Axel remained unamused and stood, arms folded and foot tapping, waiting for Roxas to stop laughing. He thought to himself I'm not that pathetic… am I?
"What's so funny." Axel commented, pride too hurt to care about the answer.
Roxas gasped in some air, paused to say something, and burst out laughing again. Axel growled and lunged, pinning Roxas to the wall behind him. The blonde shut up pretty quickly, azure eyes wide with shock.
A moment of silence passed between them. Roxas noticed that his cheeks were flushed, and that Axel's face was awfully close to his. He could feel his warm breath on his lips. But, he'd never seen Axel's eyes this close up before, and took the moment to soak up their wonderful emerald depth and beauty.
Axel's lips parted in a sharp intake of breath. For one terrifying second Roxas thought Axel was going to kiss him. But instead, fierce words tumbled out from between those sharp white teeth.
"You. Me. Movies. Tomorrow at six. Come alone. Don't be late." Axel glared, and his face softened. A tiny smirk lit up his face "My shout."
With that, he let go of the blonde and strolled away as if nothing had ever happened, leaving Roxas standing against the wall, gawping like an idiot, trying to make sense of what had just happened.
Finally, after several minutes, he let out a miniature smile and followed the red-head.
---
Three years later, when the couple looked back on that day after Valentine's Day, the amusement of that afternoon was shared by both of them.
---
Author's rambles: … Wow this story is random.
Feedback appreciated!