"Oh my."
Her face was a picture. A hand just covering her chin and lips could not hide the surprise she was obviously feeling. Her eyebrows were raised into flawlessly waxed arches and her liquid blue eyes were wide and round, the flecks of brown she had inherited from Squall perfectly visible as they widened further, her head slowly turning to look round the room. Her dark red hair flopped over a shoulder in its ponytail and she subconsciously smoothed the top of her head with a grimy hand, probably worried about her brunette roots showing. There was a hint of laughter on her face as a dimple started appearing on her left cheek but her mouth was still its gaping oval.
"Oh my."
disclaimer: do not own kh or see you again by mc :3
pairing: akuroku
warning: lamie-philosophies ahoy! And inside-jokes and some coinages. :D
This Article Will Change Your Life
chapter one
What?
When standing atop a large building, people oft-times get the urge to jump right off.
Similarly, when waiting on a platform, some feel a sudden compulsion to cross the white line and see what happens if they were to be sucked into the tracks. The desire to fulfil these wildly outrageous impulses is a universal feeling, according to leading psychologists, sociologists and impulsologists, excluding only the Great Moogle race of Traverse Town.
Of course, a fact such as this is very worrying – or it would be if it weren't for the fact that these impulses are hardly ever carried out. Just think to yourself, when was the last time you thought about shouting loudly in class and actually went ahead and did it? You just don't. You will sit there and the thought what if I shouted? pops into your mind. It gnaws on you for a second or two, but then you forget about it. But for those two nerve-shattering seconds you go through several stages of should I, should I not?
The official names for these stages are as follows: What?; But...; Wait!; If-; No.
The people who do end up jumping off architecture, slipping onto tracks and being put in detention generally get stuck between the If- and the No. stages. And the people who end up doing something completely different and irrelevant, for example, hug the person next to them, do a little jig or ask their teacher whether they can go to the loo, they are stuck between stages But... and Wait!
Roxas Yagami is a boy who, for reasons currently unknown but which shall soon be discerned, is currently going through the What? stage.
He is waiting alone in a queue and the thought should I sing a song? just occurred to him. His face screwed up into the classic 'What?' expression as many famous psychologists, sociologists and spurologists could recognise as easily as you or I could recognise a cow.
His next move was to take another step in this seemingly never-ending queue he was in, and as he did so, he sailed through both 'But...' and 'Wait!' stages and docked in 'If-'. He immediately cast anchor and started heading for 'No.' but before he could complete the course, something terrible happened.
He reached the end of the queue.
Perhaps to the reader who had not paid any particular attention to the first few paragraphs, this statement may seem like a positive one, fairly upbeat. However, to those of you who did not simply peruse their way through it but took their time to read it properly, you know what the implications of this are.
Roxas started humming some tune he'd heard earlier, probably one he'd heard Rikku pounding out of her new stereo. The man at the end of the queue looked at him questioningly. It wasn't unheard of for people to start humming of course. However it isn't a widely accepted social norm for people to start belting out the words:
The last time I freaked out
I just kept looking down
I st-st-stuttered when
You asked me what I'm thinking about
Anything in hindsight is hilarious. Especially when it comes to the WBIWN (said: wibby-win) stages. For the next person, of course.
When Roxas came home that night, slamming the door behind him (which was not that unusual truth be told), he was in a foul mood and it only took a few minutes of prodding (with fingers) and probing (with words) from his family before they found out about his humility.
"An-And you actually forgot why you were there?" laughed Rikku, clutching her sides, rolling back and forth on the sofa before she actually fell off (with a little help from Roxas' foot of course). "Jeez, Rox. That's the funniest thing I've heard since Riku got owned by Sora."
Riku scowled (and Sora just laughed and laughed and laughed) but he couldn't help himself from letting a giggle escape as he imagined Roxas singing in front of a queue.
"Yes, haha, please laugh at my expense," said Roxas, his eye twitching quite profusely now. "It's not like I have any dignity anyway."
"That's the way to look at it, Roxy!" yelled his mother, slinging an arm around her youngest. Sarcasm really was lost on Jessie Yagami.
What everyone didn't know, but you shall now find out, is that Roxas is secretly still going through the 'What?' stage of WBIWN. He thought a thought a few days ago and he cannot stop thinking about it. Of course, he is not as informed as we all are, but he isn't stupid either and he knows that something strange is happening to him.
He has yet to reach the 'But...' point but as the moment stood, with Roxas and Rikku and Sora and Riku and Jessie and Wallace all having a massive cushion fight – it didn't really matter.
"I've got food in the kitchen if anyone wants it!" came a voice from the other room. Jessie's new love interest was Biggs and he ran the weapon shop in Twilight Town. Since the revolution and King Mickey the Foul had been de-crowned there hadn't been much of a market in weapons, but Biggs still had his eye on the hope that in the upcoming Blitzball contest there would be a few riots.
"It's sports season, boys," he kept saying, "and that's when you want to strike!" Then he would guffaw and no one knew whether it was because he'd called Jessie and Rikku boys or whether it was because of the impending violence.
Once again, as they entered the kitchen, Roxas asked in an undertone, "Where did you find this guy, mom? Seriously..."
Anyone else would take this as rhetorical, but every time he'd ask, Jessie would religiously reply with, "I've told you, Roxy, at the union meeting." Because of course, Jessie ran the local clothes and accessory shop. She strode into the kitchen and kissed Biggs' cheek. "The food looks wonderful, darling," she said. "What is it?"
"Fat bandit!" The whole room groaned. They were fed up with Biggs' exotic, rather large and rich-tasting meat. They wanted pasta, damnit. Muesli. Fried vegetables. Anything but Biggs' childhood dishes. "Reminds me of when I lived in Agrabah," he mused, carving a hunk of it out for Roxas now. "Those were the days. All the ladies were half-naked and willing, if you know what I mean," he gave a roguish wink in Roxas' general direction. "Roxas knows what I mean, don't you, boy. Oho, I bet Roxas does."
Roxas looked up from his slab of black meat. "Do I...?"
"Oho," said Biggs again. "Roxas, you devil."
"Um..." said Roxas, his mouth now full of chewy, thick Fat bandit. "Right." He gave a couple of attempts to swallow it but failed heroically. "Bleurgh." He spat it into Pluto's bowl, as subtly as possible. He promptly tipped the rest of his dish into the bowl as well. Pluto bound towards it almost immediately.
"Here you go, Wallace, old chap," said Biggs to Jessie's father. Wallace chuckled and pushed his glasses further up his nose. "I don't think I can eat that, Bug, son. My stomach's not what it used to be, you know."
Biggs' guffaws rang round the house. "You do make me laugh, old man! You can have extra for pure wit... HA!" Wallace chuckled again, albeit a little more nervously than before and muttered to Roxas as he went past, "Do you think Pluto could handle any more of Bin's food?" Roxas shrugged and Wallace tipped his own meal into Pluto's bowl.
Rikku, Riku and Sora all got their food with little hassle, unless you count Sora's choking on a piece of the tough meat and Riku had to perform the Heimlich manoeuvre on him which was met with a great round of applause from all but Biggs who "did not approve". (He was under some delusion that Riku and Sora were some sort of item – which in Roxas' opinion was absolute rubbish! His cousin; gay? As if.
Jessie accepted hers happily – too happily. Before Biggs had arrived, she'd been a devout vegetarian. Roxas suddenly wondered whether Biggs had drugged her... she had been a very happy Jessie recently, even when Roxas had come home with several C mark results when he was, in fact, a target B student.
Roxas chewed on a leaf of iceberg lettuce. The only green thing he was willing to eat, unless you counted E143. He looked round the table at what everyone was doing. Biggs was talking about some hunting of 'the Beast' or something like that. Jessie was hanging onto every word. Riku and Sora were playing a silent game of footsie, which almost became public when Riku gave a particularly hard kick and Sora squealed. "Um... I saw a spider... outside." Biggs was too anxious to carry on boasting rather than to question how in the worlds Sora possibly saw a spider outside when he wasn't even facing the window. Rikku and Granddad Wallace were playing rock, paper, scissors.
Roxas suddenly felt very tired. It had been a long day and he was hoping that he might be able to get over his big embarrassment sometime in the near future. However, for the time being, he was still very embarrassed about his rendition of whatever that song had been in the middle of town. He only wished he had actually remembered to sign up for the Struggle tournament instead of bursting into song. He had been sure he would have gotten through to the finals that year.
He headed upstairs with a heavy heart and the nauseous feeling that something was not quite right in the kitchen ("I think Pluto's choking, Mom!" "Oh my God! Riku, can you do the Heimlich on dogs?" "Er..."). He slept and dreamed of the school laughing at him.
Of course, when he did eventually get to school the next day, it wasn't that the school itself was laughing at Roxas, because of course, when have you last heard of a building – or indeed any inanimate object – coming alive and laughing at some poor kid (apart from that time when Merlin escaped from the loony bin – there were things popping up and laughing at people all over the place then). It was actually the students who were laughing at Roxas, but the effect was the same. His ears burned bright red and he stumbled over his shoes more than usual.
"Roxas," said Axel. "I saw you yesterday."
It was on the way to Math and Axel had been dropping hints about who was the one who told the school about Roxas' WBIWN moment the day before.
"Oh yeah?" said Roxas, defiantly, his chin jutting out like it used to when he was a tiny Roxas.
"Yep. I never knew you could sing like that. Why have you never sung to me, but you go sing to that Struggle guy when you've never even met him before?" Axel snorted. "I'm hurt."
Roxas punched Axel's arm, perhaps a little harder than he meant to but he felt that Axel deserved any punishment he could get. "Didn't you know? I'm going out with him tomorrow."
"Really?" said Axel, playing along. "Do you want me to help you choose what to wear? Are you going to do another rendition of See You Again-" ("Of course! See You Again, I knew that!") "-or will it be a new song?"
Roxas made a show of deciding what he would do. "I don't know if I'll be singing to him this time."
"No! You must!"
"Well, I'm thinking of expanding my horizons. I may dance."
Axel couldn't hold the laughter in any more. He threw his arms out in a roaring cry of glee. He then went on to throw his arms round Roxas. Roxas gulped as the thought he had thought came back to him. What? What? What? he thought. What? Please, what? (I can tell you that those psychologists, sociologists and temptologists, in their professional opinion, are certain that Roxas was going through Phase One.) Axel ruffled Roxas' already dishevelled head of hair then let go of the shorter boy. Roxas breathed a quick sigh of relief.
"You is crazy, Rox."
Roxas' ears burned up again. "Whatever."
And they entered the Math classroom to learn about Surds. This will be the second time Axel will learn about Surds as he was held back a year, and willingly. He had known Roxas since he was a child and being in the year above him did have its advantages (e.g. "I'm older therefore I am better. Haha.") but it also had its disadvantages (e.g. "I have to go on the nth grade trip, Roxas, I'm sorry. I hope you have fun on the n-1th grade trip.").
On the whole though, Axel thought the disadvantages outweighed the advantages, because really, there were only so many times you could say "I'm older therefore I am better" before the younger starts realising that this isn't actually true and they could own you at almost anything.
He still talked to his old friends, but he much preferred his new ones – mainly because Larxene liked to push Axel into bushes but Kairi, for example, did not. Neither did Pence, or Olette, or Hayner, or Sora, or Riku – or any of them.
Another great thing, too, was that redoing Junior year was the fact that he got a new tutor called Aerith Gainsborough – and she was very pretty.
For some reason, he got the impression that Roxas didn't like her though.
-
an: I know, I know! I should be working on thingy. Sisters. But I just couldn't help myself. I read an article in a magazine you get with the paper today and it was called 'This Article Will Change Your Life' and it was about the urge to jump off buildings, etc, etc. I basically put a load of crap together. By the way... just to be clear, there is no such thing (as far as I know anyway) as impulsologists, spurologists or temptologists – those were my coinages; I just made them up because I thought it was funny. And I don't actually believe that, being one myself, sociologists would study the WBIWN (again my own creation – official names would never be 'What?; But...; Wait!; If- and No. XDD) I really like this one. Don't worry, the article will appear at some point. Review, friends :3