I've been gone for something like 2 months, but honestly, I've had the worse author's block. I couldn't write a thing, not even in school in my notebooks, which is where I used to be able to write out a oneshot every few days. Coincidentally, the author's block coincided with the lessening of (and subsequent complete stop of) my morning and night coffee drinking.

So, without any more waiting, here's a oneshot that's been sitting around the document manager for a while. I hope you like it!

For the first time in the 2 years working as a professional chef in my own restaurant, I, Roxas Hikari, have taken a day off.

The day before was simply normal. I got up at about 4:30, met up at the docks with my personal assistant-and-chef-in-training Ventus, and we picked the freshest meat and produce before anyone else in the city could. After taking them back to Forte, my restaurant, we set up shop and opened. Nothing much deviated from the norm that day and, by 9 pm I was out. Once home, I had a small dinner with my wife of 3 years, Namine, and we went to bed.

But that morning, after my alarm clock rang, I just couldn't get myself out of bed. A tidal wave of apathy and a lack of sleep pushed my body harder and harder against the sandy shores of my bed and my blankets. I picked up the phone and called Ven.

"Hey man," I said. "Do you think you can handle running things today?"

"What?" he gulped. "B-but there are cooks with more seniority like Axel and Vexen, and Aqua's better with managing and, and, and-". His voice grew quicker and his words jumbled together by the end of the sentence.

"Relax. I know you got this! Axel and Aqua may run things better, and they may have more seniority, but I'm put you in charge for a reason. I'm training you, aren't I? Trust me, you'll do fine. And if anybody challenges you, tell them you're in charge, owner's orders."

"Yes sir!" He said with renewed confidence, and I hung up.

I moved in closer to my wife, cuddled up against her, and fell asleep again.

About an hour and a half later , I heard an alarm clock ring and I woke with a start.

"Huh?" I questioned.

But Namine was already sitting up, rubbing the tiredness from her eyes. "Roxas? What are you still doing home?"

"I decided not to go in today; I'm dead tired. And no one comes in on a Tuesday anyway; Ven'll be fine for a day."

"Ugh, you're so lucky. I wish I could just call off like that, but making lesson plans for a sub just isn't worth the trouble." She sighed.

Namine worked as an art teacher in a high school. Truth be told, I thought she was good enough to make it in the actual art world, but according to her, she's just "One water droplet in a summer rain". The students liked her, though, and so did the staff, so at least she was comfortable where she worked. She told me that she had wanted to be a teacher anyway; it was a backup plan if her art career were to ever fall through.

We were 18 when we first met and although we had a rough start (including an incident with a white dress, a bowl of pasta, and wet floor), Namine and I began dating at 21 and married at 24. I proposed to her when we were on a boat in the middle of the ocean. She had wanted to paint the ocean for so long but I put it off until I could buy her a ring with my menial job as the chef of a restaurant owned by a former enemy of mine. Once I did, I set it up for us to have a little boating excursion. I cooked food throughout the day on the little grill the sailing vessel came with, and Nami created the ocean on her canvas. She was so surprised after I asked her to marry me that she nearly knocked her picture into the water! To this day we still have that same one painting proudly hanging on our living room wall.

Namine walked off to take a shower and, reluctantly, I got out of bed. I decided to make her breakfast, something I never really got a chance to do after I opened my own restaurant. So while she was in the shower, I got two eggs from the fridge and fried 'em sunny side up in home-made butter. When they were done I put two slices of buttered toast on the side and a few strips of bacon on her plate. I only wanted some coffee, so I made two cups and sat at the round table in our kitchen, waiting for my girl.

Namine was out of the shower and dressed a few minutes after her eggs were finished. She was wearing a blue v-neck sweater with a long-sleeved white blouse underneath and beige pants. As refined and neat as she looked, there was something about her, a radiance, that made me want to just lay with her in bed all day, doing nothing but being with her. Sappy, I know.

We sat across from each other and had a nice conversation about the weather (it would be rainy today, with a cool wind blowing in from the north) before she realized that she was going to run late. She hurried through brushing her teeth and the rest of her bathroom ritual and got her shoes on. Just before she left, she gave me a little kiss and thanked me for the eggs.

"They were delicious." She said.

"Thanks."

After she left, I cleaned up and went back to bed.

~!~

I woke up for the third time today at about 10 in the morning. From outside my window, a dull light barely illuminated my room. I could hear the tip tap of raindrops on the roof and the gusts of wind swaying the trees to and fro in the yard.

Although I was still tired, I got up and took a quick shower. The water helped wake me up, but only enough to be a functional human being, nothing more.

I went to the kitchen and had a bowl of cereal, and then I walked into the living room to watch the rain outside the sliding doors that led to the balcony. The gray clouds seemed to stretch out forever over the horizon, covering the whole Earth and all its inhabitants with an unceasing spring storm. With my cereal finished, I got up to clean the dish and spoon. After that, I made myself a cup of coffee and resumed staring out the window, not doing much of anything. Anything besides thinking, anyway.

But could I call what I did "thinking"? A lot of the time, I ended up staring into space with thoughts running through my mind like cars on a super highway. I knew that somewhere in the back of my mind I was pondering something or trying to solve a problem, but in the front of my mind there were only the gray clouds enveloping the world.

The ringing of the house phone shook me out of my thoughts half an hour later. It was Ven, calling from Forte.

"Hello." I answered.

"Quick question Roxas; if Axel threatens to set me on fire for just giving him pointers, am I supposed to take him seriously?"

"Yes. He gets very defensive with his cooking. Do not try to tell him what to do."

"Got it. Oh, and Aqua wants me to tell you that you're going to, and I quote 'Get your ass kicked when you come back for putting a scrawny little punk in charge before he was ready'."

"Tell her that I love her." I laughed.

Aqua had been a mentor of sorts to me since I was in high school. She was 3 years older than me, but even back then she was one of the more mature people I knew, just the person to handle most of the harder accounting material required for running a restaurant (especially because she majored in finance). Axel was my best friend since I was 8 and he was 10. Growing up, we shared the same dream of being a chef, so I knew I'd have to give him a job when I opened Forte. Both of had them chipped in some of the money towards the loan to get Forte, so I owed them big time.

"Will do, boss man." He replied.

With the call over and me shot out of my trance, I had no idea what to do. I walked around the apartment, looking for anything I could do in doors that would keep me occupied for a while. There was nothing on tv and reading would've put me back to sleep, thanks to my already worn-out brain. I must've circled the place 10 times without founding anything.

On my way back to the couch in the living room, I accidentally bumped into the computer desk. A box of 149 paperclips (plus one free bonus paperclip, or so it said on the box) lost its balance on the shelf in the desk and tumbled to the floor, spreading paperclips all over the floor. It took me a while, but I picked them all up, or at least the ones I could see. And then I was suddenly struck with an idea.

I hurried back to the couch and put the coffee table closer to me. Once there, I emptied the box into a neat little pile and began my work, twisting and bending and reshaping each paper clip. I linked some and made them into shapes; snakes, planes, boats, elephants, trees, anything really. I had never noticed up until that point how fun the little things in life (like paperclips) could be.

At one point, I ended up sculpting a scene out of the little silver playthings. On one side of the coffee table was a giant dragon with wings outstretched and its mouth open, roaring at a man with a key-sword (keyblade?) on the other side. They weren't great creations, but they were fun to make nonetheless. The white-ish light coming from outside caused the silver metal to reflect light like tiny mirrors. I took a quick picture or two with my phone and then continued staring at my creation. A smile, a genuine "only for me" smile came to my face, one I hadn't had in a long time. It was nice to get back.

Soon after, Namine walked in from a hard day at school. She sat down on the recliner across from me and closed her eyes.

"What's that you're making?" she asked.

"Just a sculpture. I'm getting rid of it, though."

"Ah."

I thought she fell asleep after that, because she didn't say anything more, but then she stretched her arms out and told me that she had to go take a shower.

"I'll be in bed soon." I told her as she walked across the apartment to the bathroom.

I got up and took apart the creation one by one and threw the bent and used pieces of metal into the garbage. After what seemed like an hour, I was finished. It turned out that I had used up every single one of them.

That night, before I went to bed, I realized that there were a few legal forms I had to fill out for the company leasing me the building. The forms asked the usual questions: What was the monthly net income? Had it passed all previous sanitation department checks? What was last year's total income? Things like that.

When I was finished, I went to put the four forms together, but I didn't have any staples left. Glue wouldn't work, which only left paperclips.

I bent down to check the shelf that they're always on, but I found nothing.

"Hmm," I thought. "I could really use a paper clip. I wish we had some."

When I realized that I had used up all of the ones that we had. I slammed my head into the desk and sighed, figuring that I'd think something up in the morning.

I laid in bed and stared at the ceiling and I only turned around when I felt the pressure of Namine's body press the mattress down. She cuddled into my side and laid her head on my shoulder. "How was your day?" she asked.

"Pretty boring, actually. I don't think I'll stay home again for a while."

"Really?"

"Well, the paperclips were fun."

"Ah." Her eyes were closing as we spoke.

"Speaking of paperclips, we need some more."

"Mhm."

"Maybe next time I'm home we can build things with them together."

"I'd like that."

After that, I heard her breathing slow and her low, nearly quiet snoring. I chuckled a bit to myself and then fell asleep.

I tried out a new style with this oneshot, a style in the vein of my favorite author's. I'd really like some feedback. This will be the first in a series of oneshots that are going to be in this new style and/or the style close to that author's.

I have 2 more oneshots in the document manager, so those will be released soon. One of them was written a little before this one, and one only a few days ago, when I started drinking coffee again and magically gained back the ability to write. Keep on the look-out for those!