Hullo! this is the first fanfic I've written in almost two years so I'm a little bit rusty - DON'T HURT ME! Anyways, yeah, I wanted to do something different from my old stuff and try to be a bit more serious so let me know what you guys think. Any suggestions would be super helpful! Thanks guys! :D
"High school is such a shithole…"
Axel leaned back against the rough brick wall and flipped the top of his lighter back, igniting the flame over and over again. He stared absentmindedly off into the distance, counting up how much of his life he had wasted in school; it was almost twelve years now.
A deep sigh passed through his lips. Axel slumped down the wall into a sitting position with one leg outstretched in the grass underneath him, the other next to his chest. The sudden urge to light the whole school on fire crossed his mind, but regretfully he let it go. Arson wasn't exactly a felony he wanted to add to his reputation, as exemplary as it might be. Late to almost every class he didn't skip, constantly in trouble for smoking, and of course there was his…abrasive appearance.
He rummaged around in his leather jacket pockets, past the two other plastic lighters, permanent marker, and random bits of paper until he came to the little box. Axel pulled the pack of cigarettes out and extracted one from the carton, staring at it for a moment before bringing it up to his lips. He let it hang there, unlit, while he ran a hand through his flame-colored hair.
God fucking damnit…what am I even doing here? he asked himself, resting his head back against the wall, gazing up at the gathering grey clouds. His emerald green eyes stared at the blindingly bright sky, which had never made any sense to him. If the sky seemed so dark and gloomy then why was it always so intense and luminescent to look at?
His eyes began to sting so he focused his dark-spotted and blurry vision back on the grass until he could see clearly again, but for some reason part of him wanted to keep staring at the sky instead.
Axel got up and flipped open his lighter, about to light his cigarette when the first drops of rain started to fall, plopping on his jacket with little plunking noises. He sighed and stowed away the lighter and cigarette and walked slowly back in the direction of the school entrance.
With his hands in his pockets he shuffled through the throngs of babbling teenagers, towering over them, his combat boots carrying him to the art room the retrieve his sketchbook.
That stupid art teacher was the only reason he even bothered to stay at school, seeing how for some neurotic reason she would only let students collect their work at the end of the day.
I bet she has like 47 cats, Axel thought as he made his way through the crowd. He pictured the rather plump and homely art teacher sitting in her house, surrounded by an ever-growing collection of cat memorabilia and her 47 cats, turning into one of those people on that "hoarder" show. It was quite possible actually.
He became so lost in his fascination with imagining the home of a cat lady with a meow-mix doorbell ring, and a kitty treat cookie jar, and one of those weird moving cat eye clocks that he didn't even notice when he arrived at the art room door. He regained himself and quickly slipped in to grab his sketchbook, trying to avoid any sort of confrontation.
With human contact being successfully bypassed, Axel walked out of the room and once again into the sea of teenagers, heading towards the back exit. He was thumbing through the drawings in the sketchbook, assessing which ones needed to be burned when suddenly something, or rather someone very small bumped into him at chest height and knocked the book out of his hands. Unfortunately for the poor kid the force of the collision had pushed him backwards onto the ground.
Axel scrambled to pick up his scattered drawings, lest anyone see what monstrosities they were.
"Hey kid! Don't you know freshmen aren't supposed to be in this hallway?" Axel snarled angrily at the blond boy who rolled his eyes and helped himself up.
"Damnit, I'm a senior just like you!" he said in an exasperated manner.
Axel's brow furrowed as he studied the boy in confusion. He was quite short, his skater-style clothes looked like they were two sizes too big for him, and his innocent blue eyes were like the size of Puss in Boots', except they were kind of glaring at the moment. He couldn't comprehend the fact that this kid was the same age as him, or that he apparently wasn't afraid of him, so all that came out was, "Oh…"
"Yeah," The blonde said, picking his checkered backpack up off the floor and slinging it over one shoulder.
"Wait, how do you know I'm a senior?" Axel asked.
"Ha! You're kidding me, right?" he said, raising one eyebrow. He did a sweeping motion with his hand to gesture down the length of Axel's ridiculously tall body. "Dude, look at you."
"Oh…right." Axel muttered, feeling incredibly stupid. Of course he would look like a senior. In fact he probably looked like a delinquent that just got released from prison.
"You seriously have no idea who I am, do you?" the boy said, shaking his head while a faint smile passed over his face. The redhead's completely confused green eyes confirmed his question. "We've been in the same art class since 9th grade."
"Wha- no way. I've never even seen you before."
He laughed. "Your name is Axel, you always sit in the back of the room, you never talk to anyone, you only draw in charcoal, and you only ever draw antlers." He said, pointing to the sketchbook held in Axel's hands. "Oh, and you're probably oblivious to my existence because of the headphones you always have on."
"Oh…" The sheer eloquence of his speech today was astounding. He kicked himself internally for looking like such an idiot in front of this guy and it suddenly occurred to him that saying real words might be a good plan. "So then, um, what's your name?"
"Roxas." He said, his blue eyes staring so intensely into Axel's that he had to look down at his sketchbook instead and only glance up at him occasionally.
Axel wracked his brain for something, anything to say. "So, d'you uh, like art?" What the fuck was that?!
Roxas chuckled and shifted the weight of his backpack to the other shoulder. "Yeah, I guess, but I think Mrs. Pike is probably a crazy cat lady. She weirds me out sometimes."
His eyes lit up, "So it's not just me that thinks she's got like 47 cats at home?!"
"Oh definitely not!" Roxas exclaimed. "I mean, have you seen all those hideous pink sweaters she wears all the time? She's like a real-life Umbridge!"
Axel's face broke into a smile and he let out a laugh for the first time in what felt like years. "Just wait until she starts bringing in the kitten plates to put up on the wall." They both chuckled.
"I can't believe you like something so mainstream." Roxas teased.
"It's like, against the laws of the universe to not like Harry Potter!" Axel scoffed, pretending to be insulted. "And besides, not everything that's popular is crap…just most of it."
"Ha, well aren't you Mr. Mysterious?"
"Yeah, I'm basically like a long and dangerous maze. No one can ever understand the deepness of my black soul." He said with a serious face, looking just as intensely back into Roxas' eyes. His lips spread into a smile and they both burst out laughing.
"You're so deep I can't even handle it!" Roxas said between giggles.
It was strange how easy it was for Axel to talk to this kid like they'd known each other for years. Well, technically they had, but that didn't really make any difference. He'd been in class with the same absent-minded idiots for almost the past four years and barely spoke to any of them except for Demyx, but he was still an idiot too.
Once the giggling subsided they both looked around, realizing they were the only people left in the hallway. A silence passed between them as they shuffled from foot to foot.
"Hey," Roxas said, breaking the pause, "Uh, do you drive home?"
"Oh, no. I usually just walk." Axel replied, attempting to put his hand on the back of his neck, but instead encountered the metal spikes, so he awkwardly let it fall back down to his side.
"Well I could give you a ride if you want?" The blond said earnestly, seeming so small now in the face of possible rejection.
His natural instinct would have been to say no, but for some reason Axel's heart did a little flip at the idea of saying yes. His mind working a mile a minute, he weighed the pros and cons when he realized what had just happened. This kid that he'd just met (sort of) had made him feel like he had a heart. The epiphany left him speechless.
Roxas looked at Axel, waiting for some sort of answer, but nothing came. "But really, it's fine if you don't want to!" he blurted out. "It was just a dumb idea because I figured it's raining and you'd have to walk home and uhhh…never mind." He said, turning to walk in the opposite direction.
"Ah! Wait!" Axel called out hesitantly. "A ride would be great actually, if you really don't mind."
Roxas exhaled and smiled. "Yeah, it's totally fine with me."
"Good, because otherwise I think my hair would turn into an absolute mess." He joked as they started to walk side by side to the door.
"How do you even get it to do that?" the boy asked, poking at one of the ridiculously pointy spikes. "Are you like half porcupine or something?"
"Nope, just lots and lots of hair gel." The redhead said, ruffling up Roxas' blond hair.
"Hey!" Roxas shouted, chasing after the laughing Axel as he ran out the door to escape the small boy's tiny fury, but he didn't get very far before he started laughing too.