There was heavy breathing. Lots of it.
My hands were firmly glued to the sides of his face, tracing his cheekbones, part of the perfect structure I'd fallen madly in love with. But that wasn't nearly the half of it.
His mouth on mine raised a burning desire from the very most central part of me. It made me want him worse than I'd ever wanted anyone else in my entire life.
Pure want. A feeling of utmost exhilaration.
What would our parents think? What would everyone think?
I didn't care.
And that, a horrible thing called carelessness, is how mistakes happen.
-Sora-
Where I live, you don't complain about your problems. Where I'm from, things are a lot more calm and easy-going than in most other places you could visit. In my life, anything is acceptable as long as you can dream of doing it.
I dreamed of many things that I thought were pretty common for someone around my age. Being a well-paid, high in demand sports superstar, for instance, was the first fantasy I would mention. Then there was finding the person I loved and cherished more than anyone else in the entire universe. Boy or girl, it didn't matter or make much of a difference to me. We could live in our dream home, purchased from all the millions I'd be making, either have or adopt children, and be the happiest family that had ever existed.
From these dreams, I know you are probably making the assumption that I'm money-hungry, and I honestly wouldn't blame you. But really, I just like the game.
My name is Sora. At the time, I was living in a two-story, three-bedroom, two-bathroom, light-blue house with a few extras, like a pool in the basement and a sauna. I wouldn't have said we were wealthy, but I guess, thinking back on it, we probably were. My head was just too far up my ass to see it.
My dad ran a family business, a popular, high-end restaurant where my mom was employed as the head chef. They enjoyed what they did very much, and were never hesitant to offer myself or my unidentical twin brother Roxas some small jobs there, but we'd both always turned them down. Roxas often referred to it as 'broadening our horizons.' Funny then, how he ended up working at a fast food restaurant where he slaved away folding and rolling burritos for the entirety of his shifts. Very ironic.
The story I'm about to tell you is also quite ironic. It goes a bit like this:
It was early October, and we were about a month into our junior year in high school. I was in the back of a school vehicle with Roxas as the driver and our driving instructor Leon in the passenger seat. I remember Leon being pretty grumpy back then. He snapped at the tiniest little mistakes we made driving, was always stressed, and didn't care to hear excuses when we were a few minutes late on a bad day.
Unfortunately, Roxas really sucked at driving. He was absolutely terrible, and with our brooding instructor sitting next to him, it made me want to laugh. But I would never laugh because I knew how frightened Roxas was that he might somehow accidentally manage to run someone he hadn't even seen appear in front of him over. I just couldn't understand how he could be afraid of something so small when we were out in the middle of the country with no one to run over. Well, that's Roxas.
"Take a right at the four-way intersection." It was also pretty hilarious to watch my brother struggle with deciphering left from right, although I must admit that I could have trouble with that sometimes too. Especially under pressure.
Roxas managed to make the right turn without cutting the corner too tight, a pet peeve of Leon's and a problem Roxas really needed to correct before he could make his way to the DMV and do some serious damage- both to his driving record and the neighborhood.
We were coming towards the edge of Twilight Town (which is, by the way, a complete misnomer, as Twilight was actually a pretty decent-sized city), when Roxas just so happened to notice something coming towards us from the left-hand side of the car. I had been busy daydreaming about signing up for soccer, and how I would already be decidedly the star athlete of the team, so I of course was out of it.
"Oh... My God!" Roxas yelled in alarm, turning his head entirely towards the onslaught of deer running directly at us. I'd been so suprised at the sudden outburst that I'd jumped three feet in the air, in my seat, and smacked my head against the low ceiling of the car we were in. Great job the seatbelts would do if we got into a bind.
"Stay calm!" Leon demanded, reaching for the wheel. But, in a state of panic, Roxas wasn't having that, was busy freaking out and screaming like a little girl, and, without meaning to, somehow managed to do a complete 180 and have us facing in the opposite direction, deer still coming, and then speed forward, all the while Leon looking apalled. Then he hit a patch of loose gravel and had the car spinning out of control and into a ditch. From here, I watched the deer pass by, clearly undeterred by our small-scale accident.
It took only a few seconds to see that Leon was absolutely fuming. Furious, he turned to me in the back seat and asked, as was probably his job, "You okay, Sora?" I remember nodding and staring wide-eyed, being sure to keep my mouth firmly shut so I was unable to make any rude comments that might land me in severely hot water. Roxas looked like he'd just had a heart attack.
"Honestly!" Leon continued, glaring at Roxas like you've never known. Trust me, if you think you've seen something frightening, you have never in all your life witnessed Leon just after he has almost been killed in a car accident. "How the hell do you ever expect to get your license when you're pulling stunts like that?!" All the sudden, Roxas somehow managed to gain some courage and look angry.
"So you're saying it would have been safer to let them hit me?! Are you kidding?!" He sounded absolutely dumb-struck. I mentally pleaded to Roxas to think about what he was saying, and who he was saying it to, but then again, I'd never known him to be much of a mind reader.
Leon gave a great huff. "With the way you just lost control of the vehicle, yes, it would have been!" He said, matter-of-factly. Roxas, giving up the losing battle, turned to me.
"You're not saying much. You sure you're okay?" I'm sure he was probably just irritated that I hadn't been defending him through his spat with Leon, but really, there was no good point to defend, Roxas being kind of an idiot as it was.
I nodded in response. "Yeah, just in shock." Really, I was sort of in shock, but mostly it was like I said before. Roxas was stupid.
I watched Roxas look me over for any signs of obvious trauma or injuries, which kind of made me believe he was more concerned about me then I'd been giving him credit for. I have to admit, remembering this, I love my brother very much for caring.
"Sora, get in the front seat. We're going to practice getting out of ditches now, rather than going in them."
I really didn't find it fair that I was the one who had to get us out of this mess after Roxas had put us in it. But mom had always told me that Roxas was at a loss as far as brain matter was concerned, and that he needed a lot of love and a lot of help just to get the easy things done in life. I know it sounds like I'm being hard on my brother, but believe me, if you'd been living with him for almost seventeen years, you'd understand.
"Yes, sir," I replied. Although I'd had a positive response, it took me watching Roxas sighing, undoing his seatbelt and reaching for his door handle before I finally found some incentive to move.
By this point, you're probably wondering what all of this had to do with my story. You see, this whole thing is exactly that. It is the very beginning of the day that I first laid eyes on the absolute love of my life.
Beyond behind the wheel class, Roxas and I had to make our way back to the school's parking lot with a not-so-appreciative Leon watching my driving skills like a hawk. The worst part about it was that he was dead silent while he glared at me, which I personally find to be extremely nerve-wracking. I wish he just would have made whatever comment that had been floating through his head rather than making me want to crash into a tree just so he would say something.
It was a big relief for me, and I think I can speak for Roxas too, to get that car back in the school's garage and slink away as quietly as we could to our lockers.
The shit part of behind the wheel was how early it started and how long it ran. We had to get up earlier (a nearly impossible feat), and we returned to school right as the warning bell was ringing. This meant I didn't have time to talk to Wakka and Tidus about who they suspected would be at soccer try-outs, and how they thought the weather was going to turn out...
Didn't matter. I'd kick ass rain or shine. I'd show them all.
I was also slightly concerned with whether our regular coach would be returning this year, or if we'd be getting a new one. The coach was the most important person to impress, in and out of practice, and I was determined to start making a good, lasting impression as soon as I could.
But this whole being almost late for class thing also meant I was avoiding Kairi.
Not that Kairi was a bad person. I liked her company. She was funny and often hinted at how she thought we would make a good couple. Honestly, I found it rather flattering. She was a beautiful girl and a lot of guys wanted her. I'd even fucked around with her once or twice. Irresponsible, selfish me.
It was her ex-boyfriend, Hayner, who followed her everywhere that pissed me off. I'd been sure if he ever found a chance to confront me about what had happened between Kairi and me, he would have been at my throat. Whatever. I could take him.
I wandered to my locker and started to turn the lock when I heard a series of shrieks from the classroom right next door to me, the science lab. I assumed some early-rising valedictorian student had probably had one of their experiments go terribly awry and was now growing tentacles on their face. Ha.
Sure enough, I saw Vexen (everyone called him by his first name because he was such a kick-ass teacher and didn't mind) leading some poor brunette girl out of the room, shushing and guiding her in the general direction of the nurses' station. She was covering her left eye and wailing in pain like it was nobody's business, although she was loud enough to make it everyone's. I took a moment to feel bad before I turned away from the scene and began to make my way towards my first hour class, Personal Finance.
Personal Finance class made me want to bang my head against the wall, rip all my hair out and shoot myself. I'm not exaggerating. It really was that bad.
I strode into the room just as the bell rang and took my seat next to Olette, an intelligent girl also in her junior year that I depended on to take most of the notes for me. She didn't seem to mind helping me out much.
"Yo, homie," she greeted, sarcastically, then giggled at the speech she'd just used. "How was behind the wheel?" I often recalled all the tragic incidents that occurred when Roxas was driving during the dead time we had after a test. We had a lot of those awful things on course material that half of us would probably never use in our lives anyway, nor cared about, but hey, it was a required class. What was I supposed to do?
"Roxas put us into a ditch," I replied, pulling out a notebook and a pen so I could at least pretend to be recording the lecture we had inevitably been about to listen to.
Olette simply looked amused. She was used to answers like that. "How'd he manage that one?"
"Deer," Was my simple answer.
"Ahh, I see." That, sadly enough, was where our conversation ended as our teacher walked up to the front of the room. And that, my friends, is when I grabbed the oversized textbook we'd been issued for this boring-as-hell class, stood it up in front of me, put my head down in my arms, and drifted off to catch up on that hour of sleep I'd missed out on that morning.
-Riku-
Crash.
White ceiling, green sheets, light filtering in from the topmost reaches of the closed blinds. These were the first images I saw.
Laying, half-asleep, dead to the world.
Like I'd been in a coma or something.
Maybe I technically had.
My silver hair, long and, at that point, most likely knotted, was still wound into a loose ponytail, missed strands hanging randomly, framing my slightly tanned face. I had the covers and sheets all tangled together, and I was wearing pajama pants and nothing more. My alarm clock had been set, or rather thrown, on top of a heap of school uniforms, neither of which I'd touched since I'd graduated that June.
I rolled over, still groggy from my sleep of the dead, and tried to will myself to doze off again. I knew my body needed more rest, instinctively by this point in time, but some loud noise that had woken me up was still sounding clear outside my window.
Forcing myself into an upright position, I peeked through my blinds at the world existing without me. It seemed Daddykins was packing up the Range Rover with luggage. It meant we'd be going somewhere.
It meant I'd better get my ass up.
I managed to make it to the bathroom without reeling from dizziness. I was tired, hungry, and, unfortunately, a little word the better part of the world has come to know as constipated. It was pretty depressing. All this was nothing compaired to my most major problem.
I'd need a hit soon.
The nap had taken it all out of me, or, the crash, as some would refer to it as. And the word soon, for me, has come to mean almost immediately. Let me tell you, it's really hard to travel with an entrepreneur father, try to look composed and genuine as the sure-to-inherit-it-all son, speak clearly, listen actively, and not pass out when you are a class-one heroin addict.
I know, I know. You have this image, horrible needles, sinister and sinking themselves through flesh into spider-web veins, dripping poison while the blood stream distributes the murderous, vile substance around the body, causing all sorts of distorting effects.
I know.
But you have no idea. I think maybe you could... Maybe.
Think of having your best orgasm, eating a bag of skittles the size of jupiter and washing it down with a liter of mountain dew close to the amount of water in the ocean, driving three-hundred miles per hour in a fifty-five, and multiply that times infinity.
That, ladies and gentlemen, is heroin.
"Riku! ...Riku! You awake yet?" My dad, Sephiroth, is an entrepreneur who struck it big and now owns his own company. Well, I guess he kinda does, anyway. Mostly he goes around and bribes smaller, self-functioning restaurants to agree to sign a contract with him, and in return he loads them down with thousands and starts using their food products world-wide. My amazing, intelligent, lucky dad.
Pulling the band from my hair, I yelled back, "Yeah! In the bathroom!" And waited for him to let me know where we would be traveling on this fine day. Instead of yelling up the stairs, like he normally would, he made the trip upstairs and leaned against the doorframe. "What's up?"
"Riku, I think we've really found something on this one. It's a little business down in Twilight, run by two full-time parents of two sons and some help they've hired from around town. Guess they really rake it in off the amazing cooking."
Two sons, huh? Hmm... I liked boys.
I knew what that meant. Take a shower, pack your stuff, don't forget the phone charger, and jump in the car, so we can go out and make millions.
"How long?"
"Can you be ready in an hour? I'd like to get there early." I nodded.
"Sure thing." He started walking away, but I heard his voice carry from down the hallway.
"And, Riku, one more thing. I need you to impress these kids. You know how much that can sway the family. Let them know the deal they'll be getting." And with that, he was down the stairs and probably making himself some coffee. Impressing the kids. That was our agreement. And I was greatly rewarded for doing so when I was successful, which was often.
Impress the kids. Hah. Bring it on.
-Roxas-
Sometimes, when I close my eyes, I think I am seeing the real world.
My family has no money because my mom's cooking sucks and the restaurant has no business because there is no food due to the lack of culinary arts. My parents are divorced because they actually were never really able to agree on anything, and my brother is just full of shit.
In the real world, I'm holding a shotgun to my head. My finger is on the trigger and Kairi's perfect, glowing face is in front of me, begging me not to do it.
And maybe I did do it. But I know it would have felt wrong. So wrong.
Tick, tock, tick, tock.
Awkward clearing of the throat.
"Roxas? Hello?" I looked up into the eyes of my Advanced Algebra teacher and immediately regretted zoning out into my own little world. Half the class (the half that wasn't bored to death and were still alive and kicking) was staring at me, some laughing, some shaking their heads. Whatever. "Could you give us the answer, please?"
You honestly think I'll be able to give you the answer to a question you know I didn't hear? What a joke.
"Could I uh... Have the question again?" Sure, sometimes I felt like a complete asshole for wasting her time, but Miss Trepe was a bitch, and I was after all an asshole, so I did it anyway. But sensing the discord beneath the surface, I added a quick, "Please," on the end. She sighed loudly and shook her head.
"Roxas, Roxas, Roxas..."
Yes, we've established my name is Roxas.
"What are we ever going to do with you?"
Leave me alone. I'm tired. I put the school's car in the ditch this morning. Can't you see I'm trying to get past the bad experience?
"I don't know," Was all I could manage. Weak.
"See me after class." And she stalked away across the room without another word to go ask some other student for the answer. Sweet relief. But she kept scowling in my general direction. Not so relieving. And not so good. If she called my mom again, I was so super fucking screwed.
Too many late assignments already for being about a month into the year. Already three failed tests and no class participation to speak of. I'd say I was averaging at a pretty below-average score. Shit, and progress reports due home next week.
Fuck me.
To tell the truth, I was so far past trying to impress my parents that I just wanted to let my life go to hell to show them how little I needed their approval. The only problem was that in doing so, I was also ruining things for myself trying to prove a point that was absolutely ridiculous by all standards. It was nice to see how intelligent I was. Really.
Instead of sitting there like an asshole who'd just smarted off to the teacher, who always smarted off to the teacher, I left my pencil (all I brought to class, because like I'd said before, I didn't care) and opened the door with a loud squeak, slammed it behind me, and headed my way down to the soda machine. Caffeine can do a lot for tired minds.
I bought myself a Mountain Dew and stared at the clock hanging above me. Ten-fifteen. Ten more minutes to English class.
Great.
As I sat there, chugging mountain dew, belching loudly, and staring at the clock, I caught sight of Sora from the corner of my eye, leading some girl down to the office. This one looked like she was about to throw up.
"Hey!" I yelled, giving a half-assed wave and jogging over to what was, in part, my identical flesh and blood.
"Hey," He said back, giving me a weird look.
"What's the occasion?" I asked, eyeing up the poor angel he was holding on to.
This girl was brunette, hair sticking slightly up on the ends, curving towards the sky. She was wearing a yellow shirt that, when I'd actually come to look at it, had some blood smeared across the stomach area, where she was holding her finger.
Sora lead her onward, not waiting for me to tag along, which I did anyway. "She cut herself in Foods class. Miss Gainsborough asked me to bring her to get a bandaid and maybe to lay down. She doesn't like blood much." I could see this in the disgust lingering on her face. Selphie. That was her name. And usually she was bubbly as can be, but not right now.
"Lemme take her in, and then we can go to English, all right?"
I nodded, unamused by the idea of more school. "Sure." Not that I even wanted to walk with my full-of-himself brother down the hallway. I guess it was just company. And I guess Sora was as good as it could get at the moment. I just hoped he didn't ask why I wasn't in Algebra.
You know, I'm going to be perfectly honest with you. English class was not nearly as bad my junior year as I'd always expected it was going to be. Really. Serious.
I'd always imagined the windows being barred shut and shackles attatched to our ankles. You get it. Scary, torture device stuff like out of one of those Saw movies. Hah. Those movies rock. But I must say I'd been happy to see the absense of those dark materials, disregarding my interest in the Saw franchise.
The room was very plesent, actually, and that means a lot coming from my mouth. Trust me. The walls were a light shade of green and the ceiling looked like a few art kids had tried to copy Michelangelo's work. It was decent, I guess. At least a lot better than I could do. Way better. But the best part of this class wasn't the way it looked. It wasn't the absense of torture devices. It wasn't even our kick-ass teacher. It was the fact that Kairi sat in front of me.
I could see the shiny, beautiful, red, just-past-shoulder-length hair, smell the shampoo she'd used (obviously cherry blossom), and see the outline of her bra strap through the tight pink shirt she was wearing. Damn, was she gorgeous. But enough of that. I'll get hard.
Our english teacher, Mr. Strife (a giant emo of an adult if I ever did see one in my life, but he was cool), was explaining our next project. Hopefully I'd get through this one, or be able to bribe Sora to write it for me.
"Okay, class," Mr. Strife- Cloud -began. "Today I'm going to ask you a question I think you'll find very important in your lives someday, if you haven't already."
I wondered what that could be. What's your favorite sex position? Favorite flavor of lube? Best bra size?
Okay, I'm a flaming sexual deviant. But only with Kairi sitting in front of me. That girl puts all these evil ideas in my head. Oh, but I love her to death.
Cloud continued. "I want all of you to think about who you'd most like to fall in love with." All of the sudden, there was an immense amount of chatter all around the classroom. Girls giggled, (So did Kairi, I saw her shake.) guys whooped, it was like a fucking circus. "And," He waited for the crowd to quiet down. "And I want all of you to tell me why you'd want to fall in love with them. What qualities do they have? What do they look like? Why does any of this matter to you or possibly to others?"
I saw Demyx, the class clown, shoot his hand in the air. Faster than the speed of light.
"Yes, Demyx?"
"Can we write about celebrities? Or does it have to be a real person?" Celebrities are real people, dumbass.
Cloud thought for a minute. Clearly, it was eating him from the inside out (hah hah). "Well, I would prefer it to be someone you've met, but celebrities are acceptable if you honestly can't think of anyone else." More whooping from the class.
I already knew who my paper was going to be about.
We all wanted to get with Kairi. Most guys just wanted to sleep with her, having heard the stories, and of course, so did I, but...
Really, rather than sexy, I would have described her as beautiful to the first person who asked, because I was so head-over-heels in fucking love with this amazing girl. She was bubbly, upbeat, had the voice of an angel... And I could just go on forever, talking about how amazing she was to me.
And that was when she turned around.
My heart faltered in my chest, skipping beats here and there, to-and-fro, playing hopscotch alongside my brain, which could come up with nothing to say to this beautiful face that was staring at me. And those eyes. Violet-colored. How often did you see that?
"Hey, Roxas." That voice chimed to me. "Who are you going to write your paper about?"
I had no answer for her. I shrugged. "No clue. You?"
"Probably not Hayner."
Ughhh that asshole of an ex she had. Hayner. I used to be friends with that kid, up until he and Kairi started dating two years ago. That broke my trust right in half, snapped it down the middle, threw it into a deep, dark pit, and burned it until it was nothing more than a pile of smoldering ash.
"Oh, well, you could write about me," I suggested. I was shy, but I was smooth. Kinda. I think so at least.
She smiled, and it lit up the room. "I'll think about it. Thanks for the suggestion." She laughed a little. "You're so cute, Roxas. I'm surprised you don't have a girlfriend." Then she turned around. Conversation over. It sounded pretty successful to me, except for that end part.
Why don't you be my girlfriend?
I would have given her the whole world and then some. I would have thought of something more to say, but the bell rang, royally fucking up my chances.
Damnit, the world hated me.
-Kairi-
So I often find that life is confusing enough without adding my crazy, can't-take-a-hint ex-boyfriend into the mix, but just when I think I've seen the worst of it, pop! There he stands.
Ugh. Poor, pitiful me.
"Kairi!" Hayner, my ex of two-or-so-months that I dated for two-or-so-years, was holding my pink ipod in his grimey hands. Man, I wanted to smack that boy. "Can I borrow this? Pretty please?" Danger alert. Severe chance of self-destruction.
"And do what with it?" I was already fuming and I wasn't even halfway through the school day.
He faltered. "Just to... Borrow it."
"And do what? Take it home and make me a crazy playlist full of 'baby, come back to me' songs in hopes that I do indeed take you back? Forget that," I snapped, ripping my previously abused ipod from his hands and cramming it in my pocket. I was not in the mood for bullshit today.
"But, Kai-"
He never finished. I'd stalked away so fast you'd have thought I was running a marathon, minus the running part. Okay, so power walking a marathon. What do you want? I was moving quickly, and that was all that mattered.
That english essay our teacher was asking us to write was really starting to get to me. What did I look for in the person I wanted to be with?
Good looks, charm, the obvious things.
Someone who actually cared.
I wanted it better than either of my parents had ever had it. Their relationship had been a horribly rocky one, something I never wanted to experience hands-on in my life time, something too heart-wretching for me to think about. But I'll tell you about it.
Let me tell you something about myself, or, I guess, as the case happens to be, a few somethings. Or maybe more. I honestly don't know; I've stopped counting.
When I was little, like maybe three or four, I watched my dad bring home random girls he'd discovered at the bar every Thursday night, because those were the nights my mom was out of town for work meetings, conventions, parties, you name it. I think that's where she was, anyway. That's what I was told.
I think it's needless for me to say what my dad always ended up doing with those girls. He had a no-sleepover policy, so they were long gone before my mom could discover them.
This was normal, and I of course never said a word, being too young to know what was going on.
My dad got worse as a few years progressed. I watched him go through innumerable amounts of sluts, booze, cigarettes, maybe even drugs if I'd been paying any attention at all. By the time I was seven, he was bringing girls home when mom simply ran to the grocery store. Don't ask me how he managed; he just somehow always did.
I thought my dad was a rotten jerk. But that's why it came as a surprise to me when my mother set the paperwork in front of him, demanded a speedy divorce (can those be speedy?) and introduced me to her boyfriend, now technically fiancé, of five years.
So who was the real jerk? My dad for all the women he went through? My mom for cheating first? Or me, for keeping my mouth shut?
The world may never know.
I can tell you quite happily, however, that my stepfather Xemnas is a really nice guy. And my mother loves him very much.
As for my real father, Ansem? He's the principal of my school. And yes, I do get away with a lot of trouble. I do mean a lot. Right now, he's barreling down the hallway after me. You'd think he'd just get smart and call me to the office. But, to show he loves me, he's actually heading in my direction with a plate of cookies the Foods class probably just cooked.
I love my daddy.
"Kairi!" He says happily, and hits me lightly on the back. Then he holds out the plate to me and I grab a delicious chocolate-chip cookie, chalkful of amazingness. "How was English?"
"Good!" I say, taking a bite. "How's work?"
"Good!" He says. My father and I have been pretty agreeable recently. It's a good thing to note, since I've had a few general screwups in the past and I would never want those to come between us. Lucky me, they don't anymore. "Had a complaint from Miss Trepe about Roxas again, but other than that, it was a pretty uneventful day. Except for these cookies, of course. Excellent baking ability, kids these days."
"I agree," I said. "I should probably be getting to lunch, though. This kind of just spoiled it." He laughed.
"Well, it's always good to indulge a little, Kairi. Take it easy and enjoy the rest of the day. See you at home," He said, giving a small wave and offering cookies out to a few other in-the-right-place-at-the-right-time students.
With another smile in my father's direction, I turned and took off for my locker.
-Roxas-
School had been another trip through hell, as I often liked to describe it.
I'd fucked up behind the wheel, fucked up Algebra, fucked up my chances of talking to Kairi, fucked up lunch (I got detention, because of how rude I'd apparently been to Miss Trepe), and even fucked up History class, because I couldn't find Traverse Town on the map. Who cares about Traverse Town, anyway?
But as soon as I got out of school, things were a lot better.
Except I had to walk home with Sora.
Ew.
Okay, Sora's my brother and I guess he's not that bad, but it's really tough having an all-star brother and being kind of a failure. Being compaired really takes it out of you, if you know what I'm saying.
It was even worse than usual today, however, because he was asking me how school went. As though he hadn't heard.
"It was bullshit, to be honest." He laughed.
"You know, Rox, if you didn't try to upset the teachers so bad, you'd have a better chance." A better chance at what? Being an asshole who's full of himself, just like Sora was? No thank you. "Mom's gonna be mad."
"Tell me about it," I sighed. Might as well appreciate the fresh air while I can. I was going to be locked up for a century.
Sora nudged me. "I'm glad you didn't kill us this morning."
"Me too." This was true. Although if Leon had gone through the windshield, I wouldn't have felt too terrible. Sora probably wouldn't have either, to be honest. Leon really pissed me off. And it wasn't just behind the wheel. It was every day in general, because he was the teacher for Journalism, my favorite class, and no matter how much work I did he always related me to the shitty driver I was.
Someday, when I got my license (not if, but when), I was going to take that school vehicle and drive it right up his bitchy, pms-ing ass.
"I'm glad you didn't hit a deer."
"Me too."
"I'm glad Leon didn't kill you."
"Why are we talking about this?" Sora looked at me and shrugged, then readjusted the strap on his bag and stared straight ahead. We didn't share another word the rest of the way home. I'd effectively ended that conversation, fucked up again.
Man, I am just a giant fuck up today.
But I must tell you, it was a pretty enjoyable walk. The weather was nice, the birds were singing (I'm a sucker for animals), and the traffic wasn't too bad. After about twenty or so minutes, we were in view of our house, or mansion, or whatever-the-fuck it was.
And there was some unknown car in the driveway. It looked like a range rover. Like it could belong to my principal or my teacher.
Great.
-Kairi-
I shouldn't have to tell you this, but I feel like I should confess, because I feel terrible about it.
After my dad gave me that cookie, I went to the bathroom and I gagged it up. And I didn't eat my lunch. I stuffed it into the bathroom garbage and covered the top of it with a layer of toilet paper. Then I popped a mint in my mouth, grabbed my purse, and walked out of there as though nothing of the sort had happened.
I suffered the rest of the way through school. To be honest, my throat hurt a little bit. Not a good sign for a bulemic, but not really a rarely seen one, either.
Advanced Algebra, Painting and Drawing, Study Hall, and finally Economics. Then I walked to my locker and shoved some books in my backpack for dramatic effect. To tell you the truth, I didn't usually take anything home with me. Usually, I did my best to finish it in Study Hall. Just as I closed the door, picked my purse back up, and turned around, thinking I was home-free, I saw something extremely disturbing standing across the hall, looking in my direction.
Hayner. Damn it.
"Kairi," He said, giving out a breath of relief, possibly because he'd managed to find me, and running towards me, arms held out like he was going to envelope me in a crushing hug. I pushed him away.
"What the hell do you think you're doing?" I asked, heat rushing to my face. "I don't want to see you, I don't want to talk to you, I don't want to be near you! So leave me alone!"
Obviously, he was going to look hurt, but that had been my intention. I needed a restraining order.
"But I really want to work things out with you!" He said, too loudly, drawing too much attention to us. This was just turning out to be absolutely wonderful. "I don't care what you did, Kairi, I love you, and that will never change-"
"But I don't love you!" Now I was shouting. He needed to leave me the fuck alone. I needed space. What didn't he understand about this? " I don't want to work things out with you! I don't want to be with you! I don't need you! Now get out of my life and stop talking to me!" Again, I found myself walking away like a world champ running the mile... And again, minus the running part.
Lucky me, he didn't follow.
I went slamming my way through the front doors of the school, up the sidewalk, across the street, and headed in the general direction of a gas station that was conveniently placed right near where I lived.
When I got there, I had absolutely no idea what I even wanted.
But bulemics are supposed to eat a lot, aren't they? Then cough it back up? That's what I did anyway. So I decided if that was what was going to happen, I might as well get something that was going to entertain me and distract me from the plight I was in.
I went the way of the candy aisle and glanced at the chocolate. Yuck. That would just look like complete shit coming back up, now wouldn't it?
Disgusted, I grabbed a giant bag of sour gummy worms into my arms and stumbled my way to the front counter. I thought I saw several other customers eyeing me skeptically, but I mostly ignored them. Except for this real full-of-shit guy who dressed like he thought he was the real O.G. I shook my head and rolled my eyes when he nodded in my general direction, line of vision clearly not focused on my face or even my one grocery item. Go figure.
The cashier in this place at least looked like a normal person. Boring brown hair, hazle eyes, glasses, what I expected to see of the general public.
"Nice comparison shopping I see."
The guy standing behind me, however, was not.
I found myself looking him up and down, taking in raver-red, spikey hair, brighter-than-neon-lights-when-you're-on-crack green eyes, some crazy ass tattoos underneath each of these. Besides this, he was wearing a leather jacket, half-zipped with a stained white shirt underneath, some ripped blue jeans, black leather combat boots, and his nails looked disgusting. He had some strange smirk on his face that really, really made me wonder.
"Uhm, what?" Okay, what weirdo guy had just said to me made absolutely no sense. He just smiled his odd smile at my confusion, like he'd expected this response.
"I'm just saying," He began, looking down at me. One other thing, this guy was tall. At least six-and-a-half feet tall, if not more. "You skipped buying three seperate meals because you noticed a jumbo bag of gummy worms was cheaper. Comparison shopping."
Wow, what?
"Oh...yeah, I guess..." I decided that instead of standing there looking like an idiot, I should probably just do my best to agree with him.
He laughed. "You're a smart one."
"Thanks..." How awkward. I paid for my gummy worms and did my best to hightail it out the glass door, you know, the see-through one that tempts you with visuals of the outside world and safety from crazy creeper guys with bad jokes and tattoos in weird places, but, in a moment of well-hidden panic, I got push confused with pull and couldn't manage to open it.
My brain was about to register what was going on when a hand shot out above me and gave a good shove, and just like that, the parking lot awaited me. It was like magic.
"You must be having a worse day than I am," crazy, creeper, weirdo-raver guy said, smiling all funny at me again. If he hadn't been a crazy creeper, his smile might have been kind of cute. "First, you can only afford gummy worms, then you can't open a door the right way."
"Who says gummy worms are all I can afford?" I turned to him, eyes fixed on that stupid grin that I was somehow finding endearing.
"Oh, sorry," He said. "You just looked helpless."
I wanted to punch this freak of nature, but at the same time, yeah, I was glad it was someone who could make a joke of the situation who had helped me out of the door instead of some asshole that wouldn't have let me live it down. Still, I didn't know what to say to this guy.
"But don't worry," He said, shrugging. "You're a very pretty girl, and it's cute you can't get the door open. Where's your boyfriend to open it for you?" I'm normally not one that lets her emotions get the best of her, but he'd hit a nerve with that awful word boyfriend. It made me think immediately of Hayner and that is not a good subject for me.
Once again, instead of acting stupid and awkward, I decided it wouldn't hurt for me to tell this random and complete total stranger the truth. Who was he going to say anything to?
"I broke up with my boyfriend because he was too clingy."
Understanding lit up those bright green eyes, his eyebrows raised, and he nodded, emphasizing his words. "Ahh, yes, I think I can see you getting irritated by that. Just like any other girl probably would. I think you did the right thing by letting him go."
This time, I nodded, glad to have the backup for once in my life. I considered what this stranger was saying to me. I wondered all at once what was going to happen now that I was finished with Hayner. Would I be able to be with Sora? I hoped so. Even his brother Roxas wouldn't have been a complete waste of my time. I also wondered if everyone at school thought I was a slut for cheating on Hayner with one other guy (which would be Sora, as fate would have it).
I was actually about to say something else to him when he walked around to the side of me, leaned down because he was so freakishly damn tall, and held a hand out.
"Name's Axel. Nice to meet you."
I shook my head at the sheer idiocy of it all but gave him my hand in return.
"Kairi," was my simple reply.
Although at first sight Axel had presented himself to be a crazy creeper, he was actually turning out pretty decent. Except for the whole look he had going on. That was a major turn-off.
"Well, Kairi," Axel took up the conversation again, giving me another once-over, something I wasn't very appreciative of. "I hope you enjoy your bag of gummy worms and have an excellent rest of your day..." He looked thoughtful, just for a moment. "And an excellent weekend. Come to think of it, it is Friday, isn't it?"
I nodded.
"Any plans?" He asked. I wondered why.
"Not that I can think of. Not except for some English paper I have to write." Come to think of it, that English paper (and Hayner, but I didn't want to mention that) was the entire reason I was irritated, and buying a bag of gummy worms so I could see the pretty colors come up after I'd finished eating them. It was depressing that I thought about it that way, but I guess that's just the way I am.
Axel nodded. "School sucks. Well, see ya around." And with that, he was off.
What I did next was absolutely unexplainable. I don't know why it happened, I don't know why I let myself do it. All I know is that I'd felt this incredible longing just to talk to someone I didn't know. Spilling my guts out to some stranger seemed innocent enough, and hell, Axel was enough of an unknown yet that I'd probably relieve myself in some way, shape or form yet tonight.
"Hey, Axel," I called. He turned back around, an expectant look on his face. Did this happen often, I wonder? Or was it just me? "What are you doing tonight?"
He shrugged. "Nothing. Why?"
"Wanna go see a movie?" I asked. Oh, man, my father would never forgive me for this one. First of all, I was never supposed to talk to strangers unless it was absolutely necessary, and second of all, I was planning to go see a film with some crazy creeper identified as Axel that I'd never set eyes on before in my life, knew nothing about, and who could have been scheming to murder me.
"Sure!" He lit up like the forth of July. I hoped he wasn't a total loser with no friends that he got this excited over one movie. "Where do you live?"
And he was planning to drive. Hah. I was going to get into a car with a complete stranger and go to a dark movie theatre with him.
"Doesn't matter." I walked over to his car, a red Grand AM GT and waited next to the passenger side door. "Ready when you are."
"Alrighty then." And we got into his car, and left.
-Sora-
Some strange car was parked in our driveway, and I was determined to know what was going on.
To be honest with you, I thought it was someone from the school, probably there to tell my mom that it was the last straw, and if Roxas didn't shape up he was going to get into a lot of trouble. Whatever that meant for him. I think Roxas thought the same thing, because he swallowed hard and walked a little slower as we approached the house.
When I opened the front door, I was surprised to see my parents sitting on the couch with a tall-looking, built, silver-haired man with greenish eyes across from them in an armchair, holding some paperwork and in mid-sentence. Our dad was holding a pen.
This was a good thing. Maybe they'd been discovered and now they'd rake in even more money. Then they could afford to send Roxas to a nice college where they could help him out.
"Sora, Roxas!" Our dad said, enthusiastically. "Come have a seat!"
We did as we were told, me dropping my bag close to the door, and Roxas, who of course had no bag, who never had one, just shrugged and sat down next to me on our other sofa. "This, my boys, is Sephiroth Crescent. He owns the Crescent Enterprises Company. You know the one!"
This definately meant something good.
"Yeah," I nodded, looking positive.
"He's agreed to sign us!" Our mom said, halfway to tears from the excitement. "He and his son will be staying around this area for a little while to oversee some important changes. Oh! This is his son, Riku!"
And that was when it hit me.
Riku, as he was named, must have been in the kitchen getting himself something to eat, because he came out carrying a salad my mom had made the previous night. My breath hitched in my throat when I saw him.
He was muscular, tall, tan, gorgeous...
Silver hair, green eyes, nice ass.
"Nice to meet you," He said, giving us an all-knowing smile. His voice was something else, too, something alluring but strong.
"You're staying here for how long?" Roxas asked, always rude.
"Couple weeks. Maybe," Riku replied, looking undeterred.
"Good to know," I said. I felt Roxas's eyes on me, and he knew exactly what was going through my mind. He was relatively used to this, and I thanked him for putting up with it so well. "Nice to meet you too, by the way. I'm Sora. This is my brother, Roxas."
"Twins," My mother added, because really, we didn't look enough alike.
"Ah," Riku nodded, settling down across from us on the piano bench. "Thought so."
"I'll just need you to sign here," Sephiroth said, pointing a line out to my Dad. "And then we'll be done for the day, and Riku and I can give you your space." That was not necessary. I didn't want Riku to leave. I wanted to talk. I wanted to do more than talk, in fact...
Dad signed it, smiling brightly. Then Sephiroth stood up. Riku was a fast eater, the plate almost completely empty already as he made his way back to the kitchen to rinse it.
"Tomorrow, then," Sephiroth said, shaking both of my parents hands, then mine and Roxas's. "We can talk about the renovations."
"Nice meeting you," Riku said, nodding at us as he followed Sephiroth out the door.
Damn. I hoped he was coming tomorrow, too.
"Oh, Roxas," My mom said, suddenly interrupting my hopes. "Your principal called..."
"Oh, no..." Roxas groaned, sinking down with his head in his hands.
It was going to be a long night.
A/N- Hope it's long enough for a first chapter. There was a lot that needed to be said to set everything up. If you have any questions, feel free to email. Reviews are much appreciated. Thanks!