red frisbee;
There were sometimes voices.
Roxas? Oh, Roxas, when will you wake up?
Sometimes I wonder if you can even hear me.
The line AB is tangent to circle O, so therefore... hey, Roxas, have any clue? Oh, right. You missed that lesson in class.
Roxas, Roxas! Guess what! Riku kissed me today! I already told you that he told me he liked me before, right? Yeah, I know I did. But I'm so happy! I wonder if it'll be awkward tomorrow in class. Oh well, I guess I'll have to wait and see. So, in Animal Farm, the animals stage a rebellion...
Riku taught me a new word he learned from his grandmother last night. 'O-daiji ni'. He says it means 'take care of yourself'. So o-daiji ni, Roxas. I'm going to learn lots more Japanese so I can confuse you with it when you wake up, okay?
Roxas, Roxas. Did you know there's a game called 'ultimate frisbee'? It's lots of fun. You need to play with us.
Finally, the words weren't so distant anymore.
"--kly, I don't get why Ms. Lockhart likes to assign so much homework. I mean, chemistry's not that exciting, is it?"
Roxas slowly opened his bleary eyes and carefully lowered his chin in a sort of nod. Then he tried to focus his eyes and stared up at the ceiling, wondering where he was. Definitely not in his bed--the sheets were too crisp and scratchy. There was pressure against his jaw, and his entire body was numb. Except his legs. They hurt.
"I know, right? I mean, it's all just a bunch of letters and..." the cheery voice trailed off. "Roxas? You awake?"
He blinked to respond and his ears suffered. There was loud yelling and cheering from the voice and the squeaking of rubber on tile as it moved to shout out the hallway. He heard something about someone being awake, call the doctor, he just opened his eyes and blinked, I swear.
A few people shuffled in, and there was movement beside him.
"Ah, so he finally awakens." That voice he'd heard snippets of as well. It was deep and warm, but all too stiff to be soothing. He saw a man with pale hair and wrinkled skin lean over him and shine a bright light into his eyes. He managed to flinch away slightly, scrunching his eyes closed. "We'll have him discharged once we see how he's healing. Maybe a few more days, Sora. Maybe longer."
"Fine..."
A few feet shuffled outside and the door swung closed. The owner of the voice he heard most often leaned over him, peering eagerly into his eyes. The deep blue color was certainly a sight for sore eyes.
"Hey, Roxas, how're you feeling? I know you probably can't talk yet, but you can blink to answer. Um, one for 'awful', two for 'fine', and three for 'just peachy-keen'."
Roxas blinked once. Then felt his lips turn down and his mouth opened, whispering, "When the hell did you learn the phrase 'peachy keen', Sora?"
The brunet above him grinned and clapped giddily. "You can talk! I was watching some old movies while I was waiting for you to wake up. It's fun to say."
Roxas rolled his eyes and ignored the throbbing pain in his legs. Then he closed his eyes and sighed. "Where am I?"
"Um, the hospital, Rox. But everything's fine, now that you're awake," Sora smiled. "So just trust me on this, okay?"
X X X
He was discharged from the hospital a week later. It had been a car crash, he learned. He'd been late to school and had run a red light. He'd ended up in a coma for two months. His legs, both of which had been broken, were due to finish healing in another three weeks. So he was in a wheelchair for the time being.
When they got home, Sora insisted on taking him to the park nearby. He got strange looks from neighbors, but for the most part, they went about their own business and merely gave slight waves to Sora as they passed by.
The park was rather empty that day, and Sora wheeled Roxas out to the field beyond the playground. There were a few older teenage boys running around, tossing a red disc between them. They shouted occasionally when someone missed, and one with red hair made a particularly splendid catch with a leap.
"I'm going to go buy ice cream. Want to come with?" Sora asked suddenly, gesturing down a path to the rest area.
"Nah," Roxas shook his head, eyes fixed on the frisbee.
"Okay. Don't move." Sora left, jogging down the cement pathway and out of sight.
Roxas watched as the blonde one tossed the frisbee, and it missed the outstretched hands of the redhead. It landed in Roxas's lap. There was a yell of "Nice toss, Demyx!" from the redhead, and then "Your aim sucks!" as he began to run after it.
"Well so-rry," the blonde called back.
When the redhead reached Roxas, he gave an apologetic half smile and held out his hand. "Sorry about that. Can we have our frisbee back, kiddo?"
Roxas frowned at him, then replied, "I'm seventeen, kiddo."
The redhead grinned and bent down with his hands in his pockets. "Well excuse me, but you look like a sullen little kid all holed up in that wheelchair there. So whaddya say? You wanna give back the frisbee, or you going to play?"
"Are you blind?" Roxas rolled his eyes and gestured at the wheelchair he was seated upon. "I'm an invalid right now."
The redhead waggled his eyebrows at Roxas. "Then why're you all alone? Didn't your parents ever teach you about not talking to strangers? Especially now, when you can't walk, some creepy old man's going to snatch a cute kid like yourself away."
"Like you?"
"Ouch, that hurts, blondie," he laughed. "Now--"
"If you want the frisbee, catch it," Roxas swiveled his torso slightly and whipped the frisbee past the lanky redhead, right into the stomach of the blonde who had thrown it in the first place.
He let out a low whistle. "That's some arm you got there, blondie. Too bad you're an invalid, or you'd be on my team."
"Roxas."
"What?"
"My name is Roxas, not blondie."
"I'm Axel," the redhead replied. "A-X-E-L. Got it memorized?" He pointed at the side of his head with a grin. "So can I call you Roxie?"
"What a lame catchphrase," Roxas rolled his eyes and turned his wheelchair around to meet Sora at the end of the pathway, yelling about how they had to go. "See ya, dude," he said, meaning "goodbye forever".
"That means that you'll be back." Axel gave a quick salute. "See you then, Roxie."
Roxas rolled his eyes again and wheeled down to Sora, who immediately asked him whom he'd been talking to. Roxas replied with "a moron" and Sora grinned, wheeling him back home to immediately whip up a plate of pasta and some cookies to celebrate 'Roxas finally getting a new friend other than Hayner, Pence, and Olette'.
X X X
Two months later, July had come. Roxas was out of the wheelchair and had been on his feet for a month now. Sora had pushed him outside, telling him he needed fresh air, and he let his feet take him down a few streets until they took him to the park. There was a shout, and a red frisbee hit him in the shoulder.
Axel came running and stopped when he saw it was Roxas. With a smirk, he picked up the frisbee and shook it at Roxas. "Knew you'd be back, blondie."
Roxas blew hair out of his eyes. "My name is Roxas. R-O-X-A-S. Got that memorized?"
"It bites," Axel leaned forward slightly. "So, you up to playing with us?"
Roxas looked back down the street to where his cool room awaited him, with a big tub of sea-salt ice cream in the freezer calling his name. He wiped his forehead of sweat, then his palms, and shrugged.
"Why not?"
X X X
AN: I'm ready for summer. Anyone else?