"Check those guys out." A nervous chuckle from Sora followed Riku's quip as he and Roxas turned their heads to look in the direction Riku gestured.

"They've got 'art major' written all over them. Hope they're used to minimum wage. "

Spoken like a real pre-law student, Roxas thought to himself. Not that Riku's words didn't have a bit of truth to them; You typically don't hear about the staggering success of someone with a B.A. in fine arts. At least, compared to what you heard about the kids in pre-law, anyway.

"Hey, Roxas, you still with us, man?"

The blonde was too busy scanning the benches surrounding the grass quarry in search of those deemed 'obvious art majors' by Riku to notice he was holding the football they'd been tossing captive. If Sora hadn't called out to him and dragged him back to reality, he easily could've stood there holding the damn thing for a good twenty more minutes, staring like an idiot.

"It's like they don't even care about their futures," Riku carried on like a jackass, earning him the ball back from Roxas with a bit more 'oomph' then was probably necessary. Not that the older teen noticed, of course. Riku had always been a bit more built than Roxas and Sora. It didn't bother him. Not anymore, anyway, not like it did in high school, where everything was a competition. "They'll barely be able to support themselves. Forget a family."

Christ, the more Riku opened his big mouth about it, the more the scowl on Roxas' face grew. Why couldn't he just drop it already?

"Riku," Sora interjected, the same childish pout on his face that Roxas was beginning to suspect his step brother had been born with. "Come on. That's a bit harsh," Roxas wasn't entirely sure if Sora genuinely disagreed, or if he was just trying to stick up for him. Either way, he was glad he said something to dilute the ever thickening cloud of douche emitting from Riku. And just like that, it became a two-man game of catch between Sora and Riku, featuring a debate on the usefulness of an art major. Not that Roxas minded being excluded. If you hung around Sora and Riku long enough, you find out this sort of thing happens all the time. The two of them often got sucked into their own little conversations, usually forgetting about Roxas or whomever else happened to be around at the time, at least until they needed an argument settled by a poor, unsuspecting third party. Whenever they started talking like a married couple as opposed to best friends, Roxas usually would take the opportunity to get food, slip away, or in this case, people watch.

It was the first half way decent day of spring, or rather, what Roxas hoped would be the start of spring. It had been a gruelingly long, surprisingly dry, and a 'balls get frostbite' kind of winter, and Roxas along with the entire population of Nebraska was ready for spring. Then again, in this area of the Midwest, you could have seventy degree weather with sunny skies and a gentle breeze one day, and jack frost rubbing his ass on your window pane the next day with a fresh blanket of snow and a wind chill of negative twenty. Bitter cold winters and scorching summers. That's what you get when you live in Omaha. Consider yourself lucky if they decide to let spring and fall a nice, three week run, then you're back to either the sun's surface or the center of a polar vortex for what seems like half the year.

Anyway, being the first mild day without winds strong enough to rip your clothes off, Riku, Sora, Roxas, and essentially the entire student body of the University of Nebraska decided to take advantage of the sun and spend some time outside. At least until another inevitable wave of snow would blanket the campus and send everyone back to their seasonal depression and irrational, weather related rage.

"But you could say that about any major! Why do you have to be so judgmental about everything?"

"You're being to sensitive. I'm just a realist," Despite Riku's unrivaled ability to be an incredible douchebag and Sora whining about it, Roxas managed to stay in a pretty good mood. Didn't seem like much could bring him down on a day like this. "Just ask Roxas. Bet he agrees. He's smart."

"No, I'm pretty sure he disagrees. Strongly."

Roxas had finally spotted who he thought Riku was blatantly judging, finally. He was so absorbed in staring at them he didn't even realize he was about to be dragged into Sora and Riku's debate. You couldn't blame him, really. They really did seem like…quite the characters. There were five of them, three guys and two girls, and each of them…well, honestly, they did sort of scream 'art major', Roxas silently admitted, begrudgingly. The girls were both slender, lithe things. One, slightly taller than the other, was blonde, her hair cut short to what one might describe as a normal pixie cut…assuming you could get past her slicked back, antennae-like bangs which gave her a sort of predatory demeanor. The other girl, the shorter and seemingly younger, looked a bit more approachable with short, raven hair gently framing her delicate features. At least she seemed approachable when compared to the boisterous, and frankly violent looking blonde. The two were dressed like…well, they had a bit of a hipster-ish look to them, the blonde wearing what Roxas was pretty sure were lens-less thick rims, and the darker haired girl had an electric blue feather tied in her hair, just behind her ear. They were pretty, all things considered, assuming you could get passed the fake glasses and neon skinny jeans on one, and an Old 97s t-shirt and feathers in her hair on the other.

"Is he even listening?"

"..I dunno. Think he's checking out those girls?"

"Those art major girls? Christ, I hope not,"

"Oh, my god you're such an unbelievable dickwad! What the hell did I just say!?"

Not that Roxas was 'anti-hipster', nor did he really have an opinion about how they dressed. Just, in his experience, more often than not the people who did dress like that had a 'my way or the highway' kind of mentality. Riku might get along with them better than he thought, Roxas thought with a bit of a smirk.

"Roxas, come on, buddy, snap out of it,"

"Don't answer him, Rox! If you make eye contact you'll turn to.."

"…Turn to?"

"I had something. Then…I lost it. Sorry."

"God is your head filled with air?"

"Shut the hell up, asshole!"

Was that Sora and Riku screaming at each other tugging at his subconscious? Whatever, not his problem. The artsy-hipsters were much more interesting. And the guys seemed even more flashy then the girls. One of them was iliterally/i playing the guitar. Which wasn't all that strange, really. It was just the sort of thing you expected to see in college brochures, or in the movies, but no, apparently people iactually did/i haul guitars around on campus just to sit around and strum the same three cords again and again to get attention of girls who didn't know any better. And from the sight of the giggling girls stealing glances at him whenever he smiled, it was working.

God, they seemed to get flashier and flashier the further Roxas looked, finding the second man was even more dramatic than the first. His hair was blue, for one thing, and was long, trailing down to just above his chest. His expression didn't look like that of a man who dyed his hair an unnatural color, no, he looked like someone who might get along with Riku; serious and stern. He had a sort of…was it a tattoo, or a scar? Roxas wasn't entirely sure, and couldn't make it out from this distance, but the man definitely had something strewn across his face. Roxas hoped it was a tattoo, at least. A scar like that couldn't have been pleasant to obtain. Not wanting to think much more on how one gets a scar like that, Roxas turned his attention to the last, and most obnoxious looking of them all.

He had red hair. And not the kind of hair you'd find on gingers, but red hair. Bright, fire truck red. From the looks of it he also had some sort of tattoos on his face, but Roxas was too far away to tell. Makeup, maybe? And if he thought the blonde girl's hair looked dangerous, this guy was in a whole new league. How on earth did he make it through an entire semester without seeing him on campus? The man stood out like a sore thumb.

"Roxas, blink if you can hear me."

"Throw him the ball, he hasn't had it in a while."

God, if anyone screamed 'art major', it was this guy. He was tall, too, and ungodly thin. Maybe the reason Roxas had never seen him before was because the man damn near disappeared if he turned sideways. Something about him was just…transfixing, as if he was looking at some rare, near extinct animal on display. And he was…waving? Roxas turned, looking to see if he was waving at someone behind him and…no. How could he be waving at anyone else anyway, only he, Sora and Riku were down in the pit of the quarry throwing a ball around. Who waves like that anyway? Wiggling his fingers with a big, stupid grin on his face. He didn't know him, why the hell was he waving?

Roxas was too busy glaring, refusing to wave and cursing himself for being so humiliatingly obvious about staring at the group of them from the middle of what was basically an open field. Taking what he assumed to be sarcastic waving as his cue to mind his own damn business, he finally tuned back in to whatever the hell Sora and Riku were yelling about. The last thing he heard was "Roxas, heads up!" before the pointed end of the football flew into his temple at what may as well have been five hundred miles an hour.

His vision went blurry, then black. Just like that. He felt his legs give out and heard the suddenly concerned shouts of Sora and Riku as they ran towards him. He couldn't hear much, just muffled shouts that soon faded to nothing as he hit the ground, slipping into unconsciousness.