Wow, I've been gone for a long time. I highly doubt any of you have read any of my previous stories, 'cause I wasn't so fantastic at writing back then, just a silly child who fancied the idea of manipulating characters without really understanding how to... But, anywhooooo, I've had this story idea in my head for a LONG time. Like, since I played Kingdom Hearts II. It's undergone several revisions, both in my mind and on the computer (come to think of it, different computers as well) as have all the characters in some way or another. New locations have been added, new characters, new scenarios. I don't know where the story will lead. I don't know where it will end. I have a lot of ideas and scenarios in mind. Rating is subject to change, as is genre, plot, and so on and so forth.
Just be patient with me, 'cause this is my first story in a LONG time. I'm actually starting from scratch, 'cause some of the characters changed from what I had them as originally. As of yet, this story is unbeta'ed. The one friend of mine who I WOULD have beta this for me has not yet played Kingdom Hearts II (tragedy, I know) and the rest of my friends think fanfiction is weird (another tragedy. For some reason they think it's all psycho anime cosplayers. Nothing against cosplayers. I happen to love anime and manga myself, so I'm already weird enough in their books.). So here we go!
Story Title: Haphazard Heptagon
Genre: Drama/Humor
Rating: T, for now. I don't plan on writing any citrus, just to basically leave it to the imagination should the situation arise for any of our little lovelies.
Summary: Life's one big soap opera, but at least they've got each other. AU.
DISCLAIMER: I do not own Kingdom Hearts II, nor any of the Final Fantasies. I do not own any of the characters (except for Hatsuware and few other OCs), nor any places, creatures, currency, weapons, spells, what have you. Everything but the plot and the aforementioned OCs is the property of Square Enix. I am making no profit from this fiction and no copyright infringement is intended. Oh, and I don't own Pringles either, nor the phrase "Once you pop, you just can't stop."
Main Characters (in no particular order, with little tidbits of information)
Roxas Hikari - Younger brother to Sora. Recently moved from Traverse Town. Age 15, entering sophomore year in high school.
Sora Hikari - Older brother to Roxas. Recently moved from Traverse Town. Age 16, entering junior year in high school.
Riku Ukuhota - Half-brother to Axel. Best friend to Sora. Rich. Age 16, entering junior year in high school.
Axel Ukuhota - Half-brother to Riku. Sleeps around. Rich. Age 16, entering junior year in high school.
Hatsuware Itsuko - My very own OC. Neighbor to Demyx. Broken home. Age 15, entering sophomore year in high school.
Demyx Kawashi - Neighbor to Hatsuware. Broken home. Age 15, entering sophomore year in high school.
Zexion Jumine - Parent figure of the group. Obscurely rich. Age 16, entering junior year in high school.
Note on surnames: they are, for the most part, Japanese influenced, but not accurate in terms of ANYTHING, except for Roxas' and Sora's, which means light, for those who didn't know. Riku and Axel's is loosely based around the character for fire (which, last I checked, was "hota"). Demyx's is loosely based around the character for "river" (which, again, last I checked, was "kawa"). Hatsuware and Zexion's don't mean anything in particular. Zexion's is pronounced joo-mee-ney, 'kay? Oh, right, and I wanted Hatsuware, Roxas, and Demyx's to all be relatively close alphabetically for a sake later revealed in the plot.
Pairings
I won't actually be listing any pairings until they're evident and you can more or less tell by yourself. But to let you all know, several of the pairings, especially those involving the male main characters, will be gay. That's right. Don't like it, don't read it. Also, the OC will NOT be paired with anybody who is traditionally (to some people) paired with somebody else. Meaning to say, she gets none of the main characters, or major side characters. Yeah, you'll get what I mean when the story's underway.
Additional notes: I'm not using any particular Kingdom Hearts II or Final Fantasy world. They're all just sort of warped together, and not ALL towns and cities and whatnot are there. The non-Disney towns of KHII and several cities from Final Fantasy VII will be included, as well as characters from all throughout the franchise. Currency will range from gil to munny from place to place. No storylines from either KHII or any other Final Fantasies will be figuring in this fic.
Alright, that seems like it's about it... On with the show!
Roxas Hikari struggled valiantly up the cobblestone hill, wheezing vehemently and toting a large cardboard box labeled "Sora's Stuff". He cursed when he felt resistance, and peered around the edge of the box to see that he had somehow run into the mirror of the moving truck. He moved to the left and resumed the seemingly futile walk into his family's new house. It seemed like it would never happen. Too far away, and the box is too heavy. What the hell was in the damn box anyway? Not that he blamed Sora for it. It was his brother's own perogative to fill a box with what seemed to be triple his weight in solid steel. And it was Roxas' perogative to drop said box of what seemed to be solid steel on Sora's foot next time he saw him.
... Come to think of it...
Where was Sora? He vaguely remembered something about 'going to Riku's'.
Roxas sighed and nudged the door with his toe, whimpering when the door didn't give way to the pressure and swing open, letting out the burst of cold air and the promise of being able to drop a box of your dumbass brother's shit and eat Pringles.. He pushed harder with his foot, applying more force until his Puma sneakers were trying to bore a hole into the wooden barrier. What if he didn't get in? What if his mom and Sora just sat down and ate dinner? What if they locked the door and forgot all about him? What if he was stuck out here all night? What if they ate his Pringles for dinner!? He began to feel slightly panicked, and worried he would consequently drop the box, or possibly panicked because he was beginning to drop the box. Signs pointed to the latter for fear of damaging the stylish Pumas and crushing his feet, but an inner voice clinging to his masculinity insisted that the hung - er, panic was inducing weakness on him, and that he would not normally drop such a puny item, he was a guy, after all. And being the strong, resilient guy he was, he did what seemed right.
"MOM!"
Footsteps, and then the door creaked open. "Roxas, honey, why didn't you just grab something smaller?" Momoko Hikari's concerned face appeared around the box, blue eyes wide and deep brown hair escaping from the vice-like bun it had been wrapped in. She stepped aside and let her son pass, watching fretfully as he dropped the box, and dropped to the ground.
"Um," he responded wittingly from the floor.
His mother frowned. "Why didn't your brother help you?"
"Er." Another clever response.
"SORA!" Momoko called out the door, pursing her lips when she didn't get an answer.
Roxas watched his left arm twitch with interest. "Think he left."
"What?"
His right arm twitched this time. Then both in unison. "Think. He. Left...?"
Momoko shut the door and slowly turned to look at her blond son. "And just where did he go, Roxas?" When he didn't answer, she stepped closer after locking the door, a gesture one normally associates with safety mangled into one that is ominously threatening. "Just where did he go, Roxas?"
Angry mother was worse than big box falling on your foot. "Well, um, I think - "
"Roxas..."
Angry mother worse than big box on foot! "I, uh, don't really - "
"Roxas!"
Frightfully, he squealed, "Riku's!" Good. She's not mad at you anymore.
"His cell phone?"
Fabricate, fabricate! "Off?"
"..."
"Mom?"
The brunette sighed and shook her head, placing her hands on her hips. "Go get him."
"But, Mom - " Pringles...?
"GO!"
Angry mother big box FOOT, GODDAMMIT! screamed the sensible voice in his mind as he sprang to his feet and... rocketed straight into the closed door. His mother sighed and hauled him to his feet before opening the door and shoving him back out into the heat.
Roxas' lip trembled as he stared at the door, arms still jerking spasmodically. Maybe he would kill Sora after all, he decided as he started down the path, out the gate and down the cobblestone hill to the south. He shoved his hands in his pockets and began to observe the his surroundings. It was a nice neighborhood, likely to be deemed "upper middle class." It melted into a sort of strip mall, filled with independently owned businesses, all small and, as his mother would say, "quaint." He decided the suburbia of it all annoyed him, and stopped dead to decide upon a new direction to walk in. After chewing on his lip and turning around several times (earning him a plethora stares that were both affronted and wary), he veered down a narrow alleyway and came out into what looked at first to be another strip mall.
Predominantly featuring were the small, timeworn shops offering homemade potions and salves for ailments, rare and exotic items, mysterious (and sometimes unidentifiable) weapons, and foreign cuisine, but the street was also crammed with makeshift booths and even a few fruit and vegetable stands. The vast number of people milling about, vendors shouting prices and customers demanding better deals just screamed "bazaar." Roxas blinked for a moment, this not having been what he had in mind at all. He cut down another alley and met something in between the two, probably what the bazaar had looked like before overflowing with flesh, hoarse voices and the stench of gil and flesh.
And then Roxas realized with a pang that he recognized this street.
Ten years really was a long time, and yet he could still remember walking past there, eating sea-salt ice cream here. The tram was that way. The train was that way. He, Sora, and Riku had once gotten lost there, hidden here, before dropping Riku off at his house. He realized with a jolt that he didn't really remember where Riku's house was, just that it was somewhere in this direction. He could ask for directions, right?
It was a Sunday, and despite the teeming throngs that had clogged the bazaar, very few people seemed to be about in this area. He continued south for a good ten minutes until he came to a small building with a green fence surrounding it. There were flowers in the front, in all hues of pink and orange to match the twilight motif of the town. Bright purple letters over the candy-apple red door read DAYCARE.
Now this was a memory. Ten years, but he could remember it all. Seven of them. Sora, Roxas, Riku, Axel, Demyx, Zexion, and Hatsuware. Swings, a sandbox, a scraped knee here, beesting there, all bound together by them and the simple, carefree bond they shared. Bitterly, he recalled his family's move severing that bond. Axel was... Riku's cousin? A relative of some kind, right? Hatsuware and Demyx were jittery and nervous, and Zexion was the one the parents used as an example when they misbehaved. ("Don't you want to be like Zexion? He's playing quietly. He didn't run screaming after the man in the trench coat.")
And this was where he developed his love of Pringles. Yes, his first pop. And now he just couldn't stop. Well, he could, but it wasn't easy, and it was usually out of necesity, and because he'd run out of Pringles. Or Sora had done something weird and he had to go find him. Oh, the astonishing array of Pringles he had at home! Sour Cream 'n' Onion, Pizza, Cheddar, Barbeque, Plain! He drooled just thinking about it.
"Excuse me, but are you Roxas?"
Roxas glanced briefly in the direction of the warped voice that interrupted his reverie, then did a double take to find himself staring at a giant can of Pringles. "What the hell!"
"Once you pop, you just can't stop," it purred, moustache twitching amiably. "Go on, divert your attention from the no-longer-important task at hand. Pop me, you distracted, distracted boy."
Roxas began to sweat. "Pop you...? Wha...?"
"Silly, I bet you don't even remember my name, Roxas!"
His eyes bulged. "You have a NAME?" Suddenly his vision swam, and the giant object of his digestive fantasy was replaced by a slender ash-blonde with electric blue eyes. "What the hell! You were just - and I was - but then - oh, wait! Naminé!"
She giggled. "It is you... you came back." She smiled, in such a way as to make Roxas slightly uncomfortable.
"Uh, yeah, me, my mom and Sora," he ran his hands through his already mussed up blond hair. "How've you been?"
"I've been good. It's wonderful to see you again."
Roxas laughed nervously. "Heh, yeah, you too."
He looked over her shoulder, and she frowned. "Are you looking for someone?"
"Oh, no, I'm just trying to find Sora. Well, not Sora, but Riku's house. You know Riku, right? Well, Sora kinda left me alone back at our place to help Mom out with the moving, so she got pissed and sent me to find him, and do you know how to get to Riku's?" He spewed, eyes wide and polite smile faltering.
Naminé extended her hand, palm facing the sky. "Of course I know Riku. I'll take you to his house." She waited expectantly with her hand still outstretched.
"Um," he said, staring at her hand. What, did she want him to grab it or something? He hadn't seen her in ten years, and she expected him to skip and hold hands with her? She raised an eyebrow, and he slowly complied, taking it hesitantly. "Thanks."
"You're welcome," she replied breezily, tugging him along.
Roxas had a sudden premonition that his day was going to be rather weird and filled with ghosts from his past... More than Riku. More than Naminé. More than just people even. He sighed and gave up on even entertaining the thoughts of his Pringles for today and allowed himself to be hauled through his hometown.
Axel Ukuhota leaned in the doorway of his half-brother's room, absently shoving violently neon green popcorn from the bag in his hands in his mouth as he watched the scene before him. Really, he had expected the two of them to grow up after ten years. Then again, those ten years had been spent growing up without each other, so maybe they needed some good quality six-year-old time together. He yawned and inclined his head to Zexion Jumine, who stood there with narrowed eyes and his mouth slightly open as he too observed the scene, shirtless and holding two shirts, one black, the other grey.
"Do I dare ask?" he finally asked Axel, who devoured the last of the acidic looking popcorn and tossed the crumpled up bag into the fray that was Sora and Riku.
The redhead wiped his hands thoughtfully on the acid washed, fitted jeans he was wearing, effectively coating them in the almost luminescent substance. "Sora took the remote. Been here for about twenty minutes and decided to play coach commando." He nodded at the shirts Zexion held. "Trouble with your wardrobe, Zexy?"
The pale teen frowned. "Black or grey?"
"Do they have designs?" Zexion held them up, revealing a ragged blue star on the grey one and the black one to be collar and button. "Hrm, black. They go better with your belt, and you look good in a dress shirt."
"I don't know how you can eat that garbage," Zexion replied absentmindedly, tossing Axel the grey shirt and pulling the black on. "I believe I heard the VisiComm on the fourth floor. Perhaps you should take a look soon."
Axel shrugged. "Later."
"And when your parents arrive unexpectedly, I'll allow myself a moment to reprimand you," Zexion told him, buttoning the last button and smoothing out his collar.
The redhead rolled his eyes in digust. "Why can't you say it normally?"
"I fail to see where my statement wasn't normal," the silver-haired teen snapped back, jutting his chin forward.
"What's wrong with, 'and when your 'rents show up, I'll say 'I told ya so''?!"
"Nothing, I suppose, I just didn't think to say it like that."
"Whatever, man," Axel scoffed, stretching. He hissed when the balled-up popcorn bag struck him in the face. "Yo, commit it to memory: do not throw things at me!"
Riku looked up from giving a squealing Sora a noogie. "Dude, don't be childish."
Whatever retort Axel might have bit back with, or pointing out of hypocrisy that Zexion would have done was interrupted by a loud chiming throughout the house. Riku and Sora jumped to their feet, Sora panting and glaring at Riku. Axel looked down the hallway with vague interest before catching Zexion's eye and heading in the direction the ringing was coming from. Riku tugged playfully, but harshly on a lock of Sora's spiky hair before darting after Zexion, winking at Sora over his shoulder. Sora howled and dashed after him, screaming threats. Zexion stared, slightly baffled at the behavior before hurrying after the three.
"Riku, I swear, I'm going to shave your head and tattoo guy-liner on you tonight! I'll dye all your clothes pink, and if I decide the shaving is too risky, I'm gonna put Nair in your shampoo, AND your Papou scented conditioner for extra measure, you girly man! I'm going to give you such a wicked purple nurple you'll never lactate again!!"
Riku laughed. "Yeah, right. Like you could ever even catch me," he called over his shoulder, before running straight into the front door.
"Glad I sidestepped when I did," Axel commented, nudging his brother, who groaned weakly, with his toe.
"Maybe you should answer the door," Zexion suggested. "Whoever it is seems to be quite insistent."
Sora arrived, huffing and puffing. "Thanks - for st - opp - ing him - Ax - el," the brunette panted, dragging Riku away from the door haphazardly.
"No problem," Axel told the smaller teen cheerfully, before swinging the door open to reveal four blond(e)s: one flustered, one giggling, one comatose, and one scowling.
Yay! Chapter 1 complete. Hope it wasn't too short. Or sucky. O.O; Yeah. I know the summary said "one big soap opera," and this chapter was pretty much just a little peek into the crazy ass world I'm creating. I promise the drama will come eventually, and it'll be pretty massive. But, um, yes. Reviews appreciated, as is construcive criticism. Flames not really appreciated, but I can't exactly STOP you from submitting them can I? I'll update when I finish the next chapter. I think it's kind of mean to hold chapters hostage for a certain amount of reviews, especially since I doubt I'll get very many. Sorry for any spelling or grammatical mistakes. I don't usually make any, but if I did... well, it's unbeta'ed. Sooooo... till next time. )
Next Chapter: Hatsuware's an insomniac, Demyx drops trou, and Roxas demands a ransom.