IMPOSSIBLE

Namixas

Their first kiss was something of an accident in the school hallway. But sweet, nonetheless. NAMIXAS, AU.

She always knew he had something for her, even when they were trying their hardest avoiding each other most of the times in school with their separate classes and busy schedules. She was head cheerleader – he was the school's best soccer player, and it was hard not to skip an awkward moment between each other when the entire school was practically rooting for the two of them to give it a shot as a couple, and every mutual friend they had were playing matchmaker all the time.

It worked in some ways – she sat up and took notice of his existence when she finally matured enough to realize the male population in school actually appealed to her. Her girl friends nudging her in his direction each time they crossed paths in the hallways made her all the more conscious of his growing presence in her life which she tried to ignore. Heck, she was still a schoolgirl concentrating on making the most out of her education and activities in high school. She barely had time for romance at all. Still, she didn't know when it was that she started hoping he would eventually look up and stare into her eyes and notice her among those hallways that gradually began to grow in significance each passing day.

They practically became the venue for their most random meeting points, of which he never reciprocated her hopeful glances and sideway stares. She was fourteen, going on fifteen, still harboring nonsensical immaturish crushes on eye candies – but none took her breath away as much as the way his blond hair would caress his ivory skin that never bronzed under the hours he spent playing soccer under the sun.

But he was a crush she would grow out on her 16th birthday – nothing more. And when she started dating other guys in school, he slowly faded away, and their meeting points along the hallways meant nothing more but criss-cross paths that became memory wisps at the back of the head.

Strangely then, she began to notice him staring.

She was 17 then. Fully matured, no longer just an adolescent. Captaining the cheerleading squad, she was gorgeous looking with beautiful blonde locks that fell to her shoulders, flushed cheeks that accentuated her dimples all the time, crystal blue eyes that could cause any straight man to be mesmerized on the spot, and that fascinating bodily curves of hers. At 17, she was a knock-out, and he no longer meant anything more than just another one of those boys who could cast appreciative looks at her in the hallway.

But still – he stared longer than he should…most of the times.

Or maybe some parts of her still longed and hoped for that crush of hers three years back.

Impossible.

One day – that kind of normal, random day when classes came and went and teachers yelled and students ran and laughed, and chance encounters in hallways meant nothing more than the next – it was about 5 in the afternoon when the building nearly vacated, and she was passing through the hallway to get a forgotten textbook after cheer practice, and he was right there, across her, in the opposite direction, skateboarding through on a speed too high to be legal on campus.

"Shit! Coming through!"

Apparently, he had not expected any single soul to be prowling around the hallway at this late hour, and he had taken this opportunity to test out the new wheels of his skateboard on a kind of agility he was unaccustomed to flaunting around campus during school hours.

The next few moments happened in a flurry – with her textbooks flung out of her hands, and her nearly losing balance in scurrying to avoid a major collision with a speeding skateboarder moving to a side, her blonde hair swishing behind her back and falling out of her otherwise neatly-tied ponytail, her mouth agape at the sudden onset of change before her, and then the sight of a man crashing literally into her vision, hearing the sound of a skateboard slamming against some wall and rolling down a long flight of stairs with a plank, and then painfully wincing as hands clammed her against the wall and pinning her against her back.

"Oh my god."

She opened her eyes when the voice in front of her spoke – the source of the person who had the guts to nearly cause her a concussion in the hallway just seconds ago.

"Shit, I am so sorry." He was apologizing profusely.

Strangely, she worried more about the skateboard that was probably in pieces right now down the stairway…somewhere.

When she dared look into those eyes that apologized – her fault and mistake – she was rooted onto the spot.

When was the last time she had stared fascinatingly into those eyes and wished they were gazing at her, like he was right now?

Years, really.

"You." She breathed.

He raised an eyebrow. Apparently he hadn't known he was a presence in her life until now.

Of course he missed out the fact, too, that he had haunted her girlish dreams in her puberty days.

"Erm, yes, me. Hi." He said awkwardly, still fully conscious of the way he was holding her, and she was beneath him, pressed up against the wall. He had just saved her from dying from a crazy skateboarding man in school – himself.

He looked at her, genuinely concerned, "Are you okay?"

She held in her breath, all of a sudden fleeting thoughts running through her mind reminding her of the ten thousand reasons she had found herself smitten with this boy years back – the fascination, the crush, the hopes, and then the disappointment when he never once looked her way years later, and the final crushing decision to give all hopes up of ever being noticed by this handsome, charming, charismatic, sought-after boy. It was so hard to get someone's attention when the entire female population in school was craving for his, too. She stood nowhere near for a chance to grab at least a fleeting look from him.

She winced. What a way to grab his attention now. By nearly dying in his arms. Literally.

"Let me go?" She looked away, still not liking the way her voice was coming out as a soft squeak.

Shit. Even after so many years, he was still a weakness. A soft spot.

"Oh, right. Sorry."

But he wasn't letting her go. She noticed.

That willed her to meet his eyes at last.

At the worry that creased his forehead, she had to let out a soft laugh, one that crinkled her eyes enchanted him on the spot. "I'm fine. Don't worry, Roxas."

…Great. You just told him you know his name. Now he'd know you'd been stalking him since you were fourteen.

He didn't seem surprised, but broke into a secretive smile of his as well that reached his eyes and touched her heart. "I'm glad, Namine."

Oh my god. He knows I'm alive.

How in the world? She looked at him with round eyes, forgetting that he was still holding her in an awkward pose that would definitely get them in trouble if any teacher walked in on them right now.

"You're too loud on the cheering field not to notice you on the squad, woman." He found it hard to suppress a grin curling against his lips.

"Oh, like you're easy to miss when you rip off your shirt to flaunt your abs when you score a goal for the soccer team." She rolled her eyes.

For some reason, it made him not want to let her go all the more.

In that moment, their eyes met, and never left.

Her heart thudded, she lowered her gaze and was nudged up to meet his eyes again by his fingers.

"We need to meet up more like this in the future, Namine." His voice dropped low, husky now.

She noticed how his lips was nearing hers incidentally when he did that – or maybe he was conscious of what he was doing to her? Like absolutely demolishing her defenses and abolishing every guard she had set up against him in her heart?

"If you intend to almost kill me and take my life more than once in the hallway, I'd rather not." She laughed softly, and looked into his eyes in time to catch that softness.

She didn't understand how that much attraction could run amok in two person in one second too many until now. She stopped herself before she could run her fingers through his equally blond hair – a gesture she would never be able to justify if she shamed herself to it. But the way he was looking at her almost reasoned any stupid mushy things she wanted to do to him.

It melted her on the spot – she found it difficult to breathe. Butterflies caught her stomach.

"I'd try." He winked, making no effort to hide his flirtatious way with her.

"Do you flirt with every girl you collide in the hallway?"

"Nope. Just you."

"Oh. I feel privileged." She was making no attempt to hide the laughter escaping from her lips now, looking away just in time for him to bend and catch a lock of her hair and pushing it behind her ear.

His eyes bore into hers, burning a hole all the way into her heart. His blood burnt, his senses tingled.

He had known she was alive since she was 14 – god, who wouldn't – when an angel would walk by you in the hallway every single day. But they were so young, and both so immature, it was better to pass it off as a fleeting crush until he was older, and was sure of what she was going to mean to him. It was better to wait it out.

But it was hard – when she was 17, and still bothering his senses every single time she walked by him in the hallway. All the more harder when she was looking better and better, and encapturing every single guy's attention on campus, and he was not exclusive.

And all of a sudden, she was right here, in his arms, just because he had crazily attempted to skateboard through the hallway on a random afternoon.

He thanked his cousin Sora for fixing him new wheels for his skateboard to try today.

"Are you going to let me go soon?" She finally broke their trance-like state. Her eyes were smiling, her tone not serious.

"If I refuse to?" The tone in his voice made her smile deepened, until it gradually faded when she slowly grew increasingly aware of their closing distance. "It's not every day I collide into a pretty girl in the hallway who've fascinated me since she first looked my way…"

She breathed. "You noticed."

"I notice everything."

His lips were closing in on hers.

"Why?" She still looked surprised, innocently beautiful the way the afternoon sun was casting glorious patterns on her face and smouldering her blue eyes.

He brushed her stray strands of hair from her eyes. "It's hard not to look when an angel passes by you every day in school."

She let out a small laugh, enough to clench his heart. "Cliché."

"Is it now?"

He smelt like a mix of scented wood and fresh pine. Excellently enfreshing and devillishly boyish.

"You're teasing me."

"Is it working?"

He finally unpinned her, and he snaked an arm around her small waist, catching her by surprise.

She sucked in her breath, feeling his embrace all the way to her toes as his force caused her to tip-toe against his taller build, their faces inches apart.

He prompted again, "Is it working?"

She laughed. "You might want to check on your skateboard."

"Don't ignore the subject. I can get Sora to fix it anytime."

She sighed, then finally gave in, but not without him noting the way her eyes lit up with mirth. "Yes, it's working perfectly, Rox—"

He never gave her a chance to finish her sentence, when his lips swoop down to claim hers in his.

And whoever said crushes that start small in the randomest places like school hallways, will never tantamount to anything big or serious, are the dreamers.

Because this was real, real, and everything.

FIN

a/n:

review. Simply because high school moments like this are the best parts of our non-existent romantic lives we wish we could all have. Sigh, or maybe just me. I've missed out wayyy too much.

myst-san