A/N: Hm. This whole idea smells a bit AUish, but hey. So did a couple of my other Roxette oneshots, and no one got terribly confused. Well, this whole idea is based around jealousy and envy, so I had to twist the plot around a bit.
I tried out a new writing style, bringing in my poetic influences. Not sure exactly how fluid it'll be, but I think it turned out pretty well.
Enjoy.
"And I nearly lost a reason,
Just like you lose some change.
Now she changed mine forever,
And I'll never be the same.
I can try to move on lonely,
She might never let me go.
Why do we have these thoughts,
I'll never know,
I'll never know."
-"I'll Never Know", by The Color Fred
Reason:
Olette wondered how it happened this way.
She wondered what small event, what miniscule decision, what single word set this in motion.
She wondered if it was a mistake she had made, her own decision gone wrong, or a word off her own lips that had eventually caused her to end up where she was now. On this crate, in the back alley.
Alone.
He wasn't going to come, was he?
But she hadn't really expected him to, had she?
But that was the beauty of her pathetic tragedy, wasn't it?
That she hadn't expected him to come and save her from her own loneliness, even when asked.
But she had hoped.
Why was that?
As she sat on the crate, alone, her head fell to the ground and her gaze with it. And she realized she might never know.
She might never know.
But she had to admit, there were things she knew for sure.
She looked up. Sure enough, there was a small pad of paper on the couch across the room from her, so she stood up and walked over to get it. Luckily, there was a black pen right beside it.
Based on the imprints in the yellow pad of paper, she had to guess that Roxas and Hayner had played a very violent game on the preceding piece of paper. She scoffed slightly and sat back down on her faithful wooden crate.
And she realized that he still wasn't here.
She sighed.
But she was going to write down what she knew.
'My name is Olette.'
The first, basic thing she thought of. She stared at it for a moment, then cocked her head slightly. After another moment, she crossed it out and wrote underneath,
'I am Olette.' That was better, that was easier. It was far easier to define herself than to label herself.
The next thing that came to mind was easy.
'I am a painter. I paint things.' She continued to define herself as someone who painted, someone who created things in this world.
Instead of destroying them.
Buy she refused to let herself think about that right now.
'My friends mean the world to me.' She wrote that line slower than the previous two, as she took some time to think about it.
There was certainly no doubt as to whether or not it was true, but it still demanded some thought.
In fact, she felt this way because that line was true.
Her friends meant the world to her. Especially Roxas.
Which was why this hurt so much.
And she couldn't escape this any longer.
He was tearing her apart.
She heard some commotion from down the street.
She half expected to hear Roxas' voice, and that girl's laughter. The pale girl with long, blonde hair and beautiful blue eyes.
She was everything that Olette wasn't.
She heard the cry of some kind of animal and a cat streaked past her, hiding behind her crate.
Timidly, she scratched behind the poor cat's ear, wondering what had caused the animal pain, and from down the alley she glanced at a slightly larger, lighter-colored cat.
"It's okay," She cooed to the cat as it meowed pitifully at her. "It's okay. I'll keep an eye on you." As if in understanding, the cat meowed again.
Olette looked down at her paper to see that she had drawn a heart at the top corner.
It was pathetic.
She had liked to think she was special to him.
Hell, she was special to all of them, wasn't she? She was Roxas, Hayner, and Pence's only female friend, only contact with the other species of human. Of course, she had gotten a different kind of attention from them than they gave each other, but she enjoyed it.
But now it was time to face the facts.
She should have expected this to happen.
She knew it would, eventually.
She was devastated at her own denial of it.
After all, they were growing up.
But why did it have to be Roxas?
She liked to think that he understood her best. They seemed to have a special connection, the way their minds were so different yet so similar. They enjoyed dusk and dawn on Sunset Hill, especially together.
Just a few weeks ago, she had painted him as he dozed. She hadn't been able to decide, as she painted, what had been more beautiful—the sunset or her best friend, asleep in its light.
So what had given him the idea to just abandon her like that.
"Disgraceful, honestly." Hayner had remarked, upon spotting the two together, laughing and talking in the Sandlot. "To dump his best friends for a girl."
Pence had been disgruntled, too. "He's got a lot of nerve, leaving us like this."
He had even abandoned the three of them at school, instead of hanging out with his best friends, he spent all his free time with none other than that pale, blue-eyed blonde girl, Naminé.
Olette tried to convince herself that she was a good person.
Really, she did.
But no matter how glorious this girl was, she could never forgive her for stealing her best friend.
Naminé had tried talking to her a couple of times.
She failed miserably, probably not something she was used to.
It was usually when Roxas was at his locker, because Olette and Pence's locker was right next to Hayner and Roxas. Instead of being civil and just ignoring her, Naminé would sometimes try to hold a conversation.
Olette never thought she'd take a leaf out of Fuu's book, but whatever worked.
"I saw your painting in the library."
"Really?"
"It looks really, really good."
"Thanks."
"Uh…what kind of paints do you use?"
"Oil."
As Naminé and Roxas left, she couldn't help but feel a strange sense of satisfaction.
The girl's infallible charisma undermined.
As Hayner arrived at his locker a couple feet away, glancing in the direction of the two blondes, Olette smirked and whispered,
"Olette-1. Naminé-0."
At the memory, Olette frowned.
She really didn't mean to be that horrible to Naminé.
Honestly, she didn't.
This whole disdain thing was so out of character for her, but it was only because she really, really cared about Roxas and couldn't stand to lose him like this.
And who did she really have to blame but the girl that had replaced her?
And then she realized it.
That's why she was so hurt.
Roxas had replaced her.
She looked down at the pad of paper as the small cat meowed at her again.
'And they will always be my first priority.'
Her fourth line, however, didn't seem quite complete enough. Something was missing…It took her a moment, but she figured it out. She turned her period into a comma and continued,
'even if I am not theirs.'
That was for Roxas alone. At least, she hoped. She knew she would always want him back, even if he was on the other side of the world.
It was almost childish, her devotion to her friends.
She frowned.
Perhaps if she were more mature, she would be able to handle this better.
Perhaps she would be able to let him go.
She liked to think that she was special to him, but since then she had been replaced.
Even though she had Hayner and Pence, she felt empty. A part of her was missing, a part of her had been lost the moment she lost her best friend.
So what was the reason that she still cared?
Shouldn't she be able to leave him behind?
Shouldn't she be so angry and feel so betrayed that she could figuratively storm out of his life and shut the door behind her?
She was certainly mad, she was certainly angry, and she was certainly feeling betrayed.
But she still wanted her best friend back.
'There are people in this life that never really leave you.'
She stared at her fifth line, slightly in awe, but she believed it.
'Even if we grow up in the meantime.'
The sixth line seemed to confirm and validate the fifth, make it more believable and less extraordinary.
Was that what Roxas wanted? Did he want to leave his childhood friends behind because he was ready to grow up?
He gave them up so easily…
Olette bit her lip and lowered her gaze to the floor once more. They had grown up in this hideout, this back alley.
Now, more than ever, the place seemed to be filled with memories.
She seemed to see them in her mind's eye, replayed like a movie as she looked around the room.
Their initial discovery of the hideout at the age of six, she saw eager first-grade students working on their connect-the-dots and coloring sheets.
She saw them marking their heights on the eastern wall, she saw fifth-grade students memorizing regions and capitals.
She saw Roxas and Hayner learning to fight, she saw Pence's first camera and the haphazard pictures that resulted, and she saw herself and Hayner attempting to set up her first easel.
She saw them playing darts, she saw the arm-wrestling tournament, and she saw them reading magazines and tacking up posters of their respective idols.
She saw the birth of the secret handshake, she saw them lying flat on their backs, watching the sun set and the clouds roll by.
For a long moment, she saw her first heart-to-heart conversation, and she saw the fond but painful memory of her first kiss. She shut her eyes and the memory faded.
She saw the four of them seated on the couch, listening to the train, swearing that they would leave this place someday.
She saw them growing up.
And here, now, she saw herself still on that crate, with that pad of paper.
Alone.
'I am who I am because of my friends.'
And she knew that was true. She suspected that there people who said that and didn't really mean it, but she knew for a fact that her life was shaped by her friends. She knew them better than she knew herself, sometimes.
And for a long time, she had believed that they would always be there for her, whenever she needed them to be.
She almost expected them to fly out of nowhere and save her from herself, just like a superhero.
And until recently, it hadn't been without reason.
But now, she realized that they might not always be there for her.
After all, if she could lose her closest friend, who's to say that Hayner or Pence wouldn't leave her next?
Olette did realize how cynical she was being, but the observed that there was certainly some truth in it all.
Perhaps she was growing up, too.
She sighed.
The warm light of dusk shone through the top of the hideout, and she wondered how long she had been out here.
The cat was now pacing around the hideout, and when it realized that it was watching her, the dark brown cat gave her another 'mrrow!' and turned back to what it was doing, which happened to be sharpening it's claws on the couch.
She and her friends had always longed for the independence that taking the train and leaving the town offered.
She still wanted to leave, but she felt she had a different reason, now.
She wanted to leave so she could get away.
Away from her own memories.
She still saw them all unfolding before her eyes as they traveled around the room.
And it hurt.
'I'll always remember the time I spent here,' she paused, trying to find the right words.
'even if it hurts.'
Realizing exactly what she wanted to say, she continued to pen her words, as the sun set and as the stars rose.
'I am Olette.
I am a painter. I paint things.
My friends mean the world to me.
And they will always be my first priority, even if I am not theirs.
There are people in this life that never really leave you.
Even if we grow up in the meantime.
I am who I am because of my friends.
I'll always remember the time I spent here, even if it hurts.
He's my best friend, and he always will be.
He may or may not come back.
But it'll all make sense in the end,
Even if there are some things I'll never know.'
-
'I am Roxas.
I'm not all that great with words.
My friends mean more to me than they realize.
I'm not wise, I'm not thoughtful.
There are things that I will never understand, and things I will never know.
I'm growing up faster than I would like.
There are times when I wish I was ten years old again,
Throwing darts at the wall, waiting to grow up.
We never realize what we have until we lose it.
She's my best friend, and I hope she knows that.
I'm not sure how the story will end,
But nothing is without reason.'