Flash Forward
Genre: romance, school life
Pairing: Zemyx, mentioned AkuRoku, SoRiku, and Naminé/Marluxia
Rating: T (minor language, boys kissing, yaddah yaddah)
Word count: 3,549
Soundtrack: Good Charlotte (Good Morning Revival), Lady Gaga (The Fame Monster) (…don't ask)
Disclaimer: dragons, unicorns, kappas, and vampires : real :: Kingdom Heats : mine
Summary: Sometimes, it takes a lifetime, but sometimes in the blink of an eye and the space of a heartbeat, you just know. Happy (belated) Zemyx Day.
Comments: yeahhh… in my defense, I did actually have this thing finished on the ninth, it just took me a couple of days to finish typing it because I've had exactly –checks watch- one hour and forty-five minutes of computer access in the past three days. Also, this is still better than last year, when I completely dropped the ball and had nothing. So… enjoy? Although you should note that this idea came to me at like three in the morning, so it may not be the best (nor the most logical), and this story is unbeta'd because I suck. So. Um. Yeah.
-x-x-x-x-x-
It had started the day after midterms.
Their schedule, being juniors, worked out such that they had block classes on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday, so those were the days the teachers always, without fail, gave tests, including midterms; so, long story short, it was, being the day after midterms, a Friday, and for that matter the last day of term. For this reason, he highly suspected he was the only one left in the entire school, or certainly the only student anyway, and honestly the only reason he was even still here because he was too chickenshit to tag along with Axel and Marly and Larxene and the rest of them today, or rather he was too tired and melancholic to tag along and too chickenshit to tell them that. So instead he'd stuck around the school, darting quickly and (hopefully) silently away whenever anyone seemed to be approaching, though why he'd thought that this was a plausibly enjoyable alternative to hanging out with his rather nebulous and oft-changing group of friends (and friends' friends, and friends' friends' friends) was questionable. At least if he'd snuck home or somewhere else he'dve been able to toss his phone someplace and ignore, rather than be guilted by, the still-on-vibrate-for-school buzz in his pocket approximately every five minutes (a significant slow in the pace from earlier in the afternoon, but still enough to make him sheepishly guilty without even reading the messages), because if nothing else his friends were, had always been, persistent.
One way or another, though, his flight had ended in one of the few places in this school he'd almost never been: the library.
The lights had been off, and the place vacated, but the door, the door had been, perhaps pivotally, perhaps oddly, but one way or the other the door had been unlocked, so he had (somewhat gleefully) stolen inside, thanking all that was holy that the door was, apparently, well-oiled, and thus didn't squeak.
It was even darker inside than it had looked from outside the door. The library, being in the dead center of the building, had no windows and no skylights, and all the computers were shut off, along with the various floor lights and reading lamps, so the only light in the entire room- and it's a big library for such a small school, although he supposes, TTH did used to be the only high school in Twilight Town, back before Twilight Town Prep and Ocean View High opened their doors anyway, so the school was probably once a lot bigger- came from the little square window in the door, and even that wasn't really that noticeable because most of the hallway lights were off, too. Still, though, his eyes adjusted eventually, at least enough for him to slowly feel his way around, and so he did, shuffling carefully along the back wall until he reached the first bookshelf. He then wound his way slowly through all of them, running his fingers along the spines of the various tomes and trying to guess by size and shape what they were. He failed miserably, of course, but he found it entertaining, and a silly little grin melted onto his face at some point and stayed there until he'd made his way through to the very last row.
That was about the time when he tripped over an utterly-invisible-in-the-dark something that was sprawled completely across said row and fell flat on his face with a resounding thud and an even more resounding "oof!" from both himself and the unexpectedly placed something (someone?) he'd so ceremoniously found in the dark.
It took him a moment to collect his limbs enough to spin until the (unintentionally?) tripped was facing the (unintentional?) tripper, and then a moment after that for him to a) get his bearings and b) get readjusted to the light (or lack of it) enough to see so much as two feet in front of him.
But as soon as he caught sight of the light glinting off of aquamarine eyes (sapphire eyes, lapis lazuli eyes, beautiful, beautiful crystal-cold eyes), he was swept away.
-x-
It took him almost a week (after he got back from winter break, of course, but he decided not to count that as actual time, since he wasn't at school) to work up enough courage to actually look over in Chemistry and examine the boy who sat directly across the room from him.
Because, after all, those beautiful, lovely, wonderful eyes could only belong to one person, and that person happens to be someone he'd spoken to all of once since third grade, when they were field trip buddies because, as Miss Aerith had told them, Hollow Bastion was Much Bigger than Twilight Town and they could easily get lost, so they needed buddies. At that point, he'd still been the new kid- his family had only moved to Twilight Town the summer before; his mom had had a job transfer- and nobody had known him, so nobody had picked him to be their buddy. So in the end he'd been assigned to the only other kid in the class who no one had paired up with: a little boy with a way-too-big black hoodie and way-too-long charcoal-meets-steel-meets-ocean surf bangs that covered half of his face.
Honestly, Demyx thought when he finally, finally mustered up the courage to look across the rows of desks and lab tables to the boy who evidently liked to sleep in libraries, he hasn't changed a bit since third grade. Well, okay, he got a little taller. And… hotter. Definitely hotter. Although the 'hotter' bit, of course, probably had a lot more to do with his own awakening hormones, and, of course, the realization, once and for all, of his sexuality, then with anything Zexion may have done.
Zexion was, of course, Library Boy's name. Demyx, being overly friendly and occasionally something of a busybody, knew quite literally everyone's name, right down to the new night janitor who'd only started work back in September. Zexion Murdoch… he didn't have a Facebook, Demyx had checked, unless it was under a different name. Then again, unless a) his personality had completely changed since that one day they spent practically glued to each other in third grade and b) Demyx's current… covert inspection (it was not staring. Or stalking. Or creeping. Demyx was not a stalker. Really.) was leading him completely off base, the guy was a quiet, somewhat unassuming bookworm. At least, he currently had his nose buried in a thick, old-looking book, and hadn't spoken a word all of class, not even to answer any of the various questions about solutions their teacher, a sadistic old bastard named Vexen Phillor (who, no matter how much it annoyed him, all of the students called by his first name) who didn't seem to know the meaning of the words "chill out, this is the last class of the day on a Friday and we just got back from break", had been asking them at random intervals throughout the entire period.
Therefore, Demyx concluded, he was a nerd, but a quiet nerd, not a know-it-all in-your-face nerd who felt the need to constantly prove how much smarter than you they really were.
…in a weird sort of way, that made him seem even a little bit hotter. And the image of Zexion, embarrassed and flushed, with reading glasses perched on the tip of his nose… mmm.
That was the exact instant when, as Vexen turned his back to write on the whiteboard, Demyx was flicked solidly on the back of the head as Axel, one of his best friends, slipping a piece of paper onto his desk from behind.
Take a picture, it'll last longer…
He turned around to glare at the irritating beanpole of a pyromaniac, knowing full well that the blush he could feel burning over his cheeks would only prove Axel's point. The redhead was glancing, with eyebrows pretty much melting into his hairline, between Demyx and Zexion, who was still, thankfully, oblivious and buried in his book. In retort, Demyx simply raised one brown and pointed to the desk one to the right and two ahead of Axel's, where one Roxas Strife was, luckily for Axel, apparently paying attention, much unlike the rest of the class, and even taking notes. Meaning when it came time for finals, they'd all be paying $15 for photocopies of Roxas' thorough, detailed, and neatly handwritten notes, Demyx and Axel included. Sigh. It was Axel's turn to blush, though, because just about the only person who didn't know Axel had had a longstanding, head-over-heels sort of crush on Roxas since the blonde had moved to town in sixth grade was Roxas himself, of course. Because they were all unrequited and highschooler-y and shit. Demyx, for one, happened to know they were sort of mutually unrequitedly crushing, and thought they should just get it over with and start making out in the middle of class one day or something, because honestly at this point the UST was driving him up the wall.
At that point, Vexen turned away from the board to face the class, and Demyx and Axel both quickly turned around and tried to act like they'd been paying attention. As Demyx looked down and pretended to write something on the notes he hadn't really been taking, though, he stole one more look from the corner of his eye at the boy he'd suddenly become so enraptured by. And this time, Zexion was looking back.
-x-
It took Axel all of five seconds after school to spill the beans.
"Our little Demy's all grown up!" he announced, wiping a fake tear from his eyes, as soon as everyone had converged under the clock tower, their after-school meeting place of choice since forever.
"Whoa, man, you finally put the sitar down and got laid?" said Larxene, sounding impressed. "Who was 'e?"
"Not quite," Axel informed her, "but he's got a big, like big with a capital friggin' B, crush, if the way he was making eyes across the room in chem was any indication, so who knows, it might happen soon. Oh, and you'll never guess who."
"Vexen?" Marluxia suggested, sounding more than mildly horrified.
Demyx shuddered. "Hell no. Not my thing. The guy you're looking for is our age, at least."
"Oh, good," Naminé, Roxas' (and, by extension, Roxas' twin brother Sora's) younger sister and Marluxia's girlfriend of several months, sighed, looking immensely relieved.
"Sora?" Larxene guessed.
"Okay, a) Sora's not even in chem seventh hour. And b), taken, remember?" Riku said, curling an arm protectively around his brunet boyfriend's waist.
"Doesn't mean Dem couldn't be crushing on 'im," Larxene muttered mutinously. "But I guess I see your point."
Axel turned to Demyx. "Please, please, please can I just tell them?"
He rolled his eyes. "Why even ask? I know you're going to anyway."
Axel grinned cheekily. "Principle, my dear Demyx. Principle. So," he added to the group at large. "Any last guesses?"
Larxene whacked him with her backpack. "Just spit it out, you obnoxious moron!"
"Zexion Murdoch," Axel shared.
For one split second, it was silent. Then the group exploded into a combination of cooing over the adorableness and/or how hard Demyx was blushing (Sore and Naminé), laughing uproariously at how hard Demyx was blushing (Axel and Larxene), and trying to be heard (Riku, Marluxia, and Roxas).
"Wait, wait, wait!" Riku said, finally managing to talk loud enough over the commotion to get everyone's attention. "Zexion Murdoch as in never pays attention but gets straight As Zexion? Nose perpetually glued to a book Zexion? IQ of 38 billion Zexion? Emo hair since kindergarten Zexion? I've gone to school with him since first grade and he's barely spoken three words to me Zexion?"
"Um… yeah, that's the one?" Demyx tried.
"Aww, he's blushing again," Larxene said, pinching his cheeks. As he slapped her hands away, she added, "Didn't know you had a thing for bookworms, Demmy."
"Neither did I," he said, laughing.
-x-
It took him all of two weeks after that to fall. But when Demyx fell, he fell hard.
This was the perfect example of that, he supposed. Here he was- he, Demyx Foust, proudly a three-Cs three-Bs student with an A only in band (because even though sitar was by far his favorite instrument, the jazz band had needed a guitarist, and well…), having stepped into this room all of maybe five times in his entire three years of high school, was in the library.
And he wasn't even studying, or pretending to study, or rifling through the fiction section or anything even remotely normal like that. No, he was in the biography section, pretending to read a book on Les Paul (which, of course, in most circumstances he would have found rather interesting), not taking in a word, staring unashamedly at the boy who was, once again, sprawled in the aisle across from his. This time, however, he was not sleeping, but reading. Evidently, or at least according to the Dewey decimal system sign on the shelf he'd removed the book from twenty minutes ago (but, again, Demyx was not a stalker), Zexion had an interest in psychology.
For all of those twenty minutes, Demyx had been fake-reading while considering all of the various ways he could finally- finally- go over and break the silence. However, he wasn't doing so well.
"Come here often?"?
Yeah, great, for a creeper.
"What's the book about?"?
Lame, lame, lame! And obvious. And lame!
"So, you're Zexion, huh?"?
So, you're a stalker, huh?
"Hi, I'm that dude who tripped over you when you were sleeping in here the last day before break. I'm Demyx, and I realize we've never really talked but I think I'm madly in love with you."?
Like hell.
He sighed quietly and pinched the bridge of his nose. Look, Dem, he tells himself sternly, if you don't go over there right now and say something, you're never going to. He's not a monster who's going to eat your soul and you're not some blushing schoolgirl, so get your ass in gear and try. Just make conversation. Lord knows you're good enough at talking.
So he does. And after standing awkwardly over the other boy and looking down for about a solid thirty seconds, he finally opens his mouth, caves, and falls back on his original idea, not to mention one of the most overused mating calls of the male Homo sapiens.
"Come here often?"
-x-
It took exactly 54 conversations, 54 days in the library, 54 awkward openings and overused pick-up lines for Demyx to finally get up the guts to do it.
He'd spent spring break in Destiny Islands, where Roxas, Sora, and Naminé's family had not one, but two vacation houses they'd kindly agreed to let the entire gang come and stay in, because a) they were really nice people and b) they were going to Radiant Garden to spend the break with their eldest son, Cloud, who was a sophomore at Radiant Garden University. The entire time, Demyx had moped around on the beach with his sitar, trying to convince himself that even if he was completely rejected he'd have at least tried, whereas currently he was being a wuss again.
So there he was. In the library. Day 55. He was going to do it. He was. He was.
It took him all of thirty seconds to find Zexion (in the foreign language section, sitting in precisely the same spot as he had the day before).
"Ciao, bella," he said, as soon as Zexion looked up from the book he'd been reading (on Italian, of course. Demyx could be smooth when he wanted to.)
"Demyx," Zexion said, by way of greeting. "How are you?"
Despite knowing what he was about to do, he had to bite back a laugh (he only bothered trying to contain it because his laugh, as Zexion had informed him at least five million times, was "entirely too loud for a learning environment such as a library"). It had taken a couple of weeks to get responses of more than one word from the slate-haired boy, but now they could hold actual conversations. Demyx found it well worth the wait, because when Zexion did talk, he was thoughtful, intelligent, and witty.
"Good, good," he said, flopping down next to Zexion and taking a book about Japanese from the shelf across from him. "What about you? Observe anything I should know about?" Because one of the things he'd learned about his companion was that when Zexion was reading, especially when he was reading in class, he was also listening- probably the reason he managed to still get such good grades, despite his lack of apparent attention- and when he wasn't reading (which was "more often than most everyone seems to think, thank you very much, Demyx") he was peoplewatching. He was quite excellent at observing people, really. He had the ability to be a real gossip whore, should he ever want to.
"Kairi and Naminé spent all of fifth period talking about Marluxia," Zexion told him, turning a page in his Italian book. "Also, Larxene mentioned you…" He trailed off, evidently becoming engrossed in the book, but then Demyx looked too closely again (because it was Zexion, and with Zexion he always, always looked too closely) and he saw the pink beginning to dapple its way over Zexion's one visible cheek.
Oh, shit.
I will kill Larxene.
"W-what did she say about me?" he said, trying to ignore the stutter, his cheerful tone somewhat forced for once, and he knew Zexion noticed but tried, desperately tried, for the sake of his own sanity to pretend that he'd completely fooled him.
"Oh, nothing. Just… something about… you needing to get off your, er, I believe 'lazy musical ass' was the epithet she used, and tell…"
"Tell what?" Demyx wasn't even trying to force cheerfulness at that point, but rather trying his best just to keep breathing. Larxene Anne Collins, you are a dead woman.
"She, ah, didn't say what. Just that you needed to tell me… something."
With a whoosh, Demyx let out the deep breath he didn't remember taking. Saved by the damn bell, Larxene.
"Uh… yeah. I was actually, um, planning on doing that today."
"Oh. Really?"
"Yeah. If that's okay…"
"Certainly. What, er, what did you want to say?"
"…actions speak louder than words, Zex."
And that was when Demyx Foust leaned forward and reached out and grabbed Zexion Murdoch by the back of the head and pressed their lips together.
For a second, they were both still. And when Zexion didn't immediately throw him off in disgust, Demyx took it as a good sign.
When Zexion suddenly pulled him closer and started kissing him back, he took it as a great sign. Not to mention encouragement.
Some time later, Zexion informed him that Larxene had, in fact, said exactly what Demyx needed to say to him. But at that point, Demyx decided that, strangely, he really didn't care anymore.
-x-
From that point on, time sped up until it felt like he was flying. First date (or, as Demyx said, first real date; he liked to think they'd been on fifty-five dates already), first double-date (never, ever again; Roxas and Axel, although he was very glad they'd stopped beating around the bush and finally gotten together, spent the entire time with their tongues down each other's throats, and it was kind of disgusting), first -cough- heavy make-out session, first time being embarrassed to death when Demyx's mom walked in on them kissing (not that she wasn't fine with it, but it was still really, really embarrassing and weird and just generally not cool), the whole 'meeting the family' thing (definitely not his favorite part, although he supposed for pretty unusual reasons; it just creeped him out that his mom's smiles were getting a bit pervy by the second time she caught them holding hands under the table)… all of it led up to them packing their things and heading off to Oblivion, where they'd both go to Oblivion University, Demyx to major in music and Zexion in literature… and unpacking their things into the same little apartment. Where they would be sleeping in the same (not nearly as little) bed. And then they might, maybe, have sort of, kind of, in a way tried to get down on one knee at the exact same time. Needless to say, they both ended up with gold rings and just-engaged smiles.
And then suddenly it's all over and he's blinked and he's back in the library.
-x-
He saw it, in that one breath, that one heartbeat, saw all of it. He is shaken, surely, and he's trembling, but it takes him only one more breath, one more heartbeat, to figure out that that trembling and that shakenness are because, yeah, he's a little afraid, but he's also really, really freaking excited and maybe even a little bit in love with a guy he's lived his whole life next to but never even met. So he chooses.
He grins and extends a hand and says, "Come here often?"
-x-x-x-x-x-
I debated so much with myself about the title (as in, whether to call this "Come Here Often?" or "Flash Forward"), you have no idea.
On that note, here, have some cheese.
I did a companion picture that I posted on deviantArt; so far I've only got the lined version up but hopefully I'll finish the colored version and post it soon. The piece can be found on my dA profile at dawnstep(dot)deviantart(dot)com.
Thanks for reading, and please leave a review!
-Dawny