Warning: This story has been rated for language, drug/alcohol use, language and sexual themes.
Disclaimer: I don't own Kingdom Hearts or any of its characters. All characters in this story are fictitious. Any resemblance to any real person, living or deceased, is purely coincidental.
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Virgin
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The Beginning
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"Oh man," the brunette muttered to himself, "a little TLC? A little TLC my ass."
Taking a look around the shabby cookie-cutter home, Sora dropped his bags onto the flea-infested, mostly carpeted flooring. He had a long road of work ahead of him to bring him and Kai's new home up to livable standards. The gaudy, flowered wallpaper was half torn off the sheetrock and pieces of the stained, maroon carpet were missing; the ones that were still there reeked of urine. Two of the windows were completely replaced with plastic and duct tape while the wooden trim bordering them was rotten, nearly falling off of the wall itself.
Sora walked into the kitchen for further examination of what had to be done over the course of the next week. Immediately he took note that the countertops were chipped. A thick layer of dust coated everything. There were cigarette burns in the yellowed linoleum flooring. And, to top it all off, upon opening one of the oak cupboards, Sora found a round, black spider wrapping its prey in its silk.
The house, if it could be called that, was absolutely vile. But nevertheless, it was a roof over Sora's head. He made his way to the bathroom and found the shower curtain to be crusted with mildew and briefly wondered why the previous tenant had bothered to leave it at all. The inside of the toilet was disgusting and the bottom half of the mirror was coated in old toothpaste.
The bedrooms weren't much better than the living room. The only good thing about them was that they actually had glass windows. Cobwebs dangled off of ceilings and the closet door in the master bedroom was missing completely.
Sora had to get this dump cleaned up before Kairi arrived. "Let's see here," he muttered to himself, "I'm going to need some bleach. I'll need to rent a carpet cleaner and maybe buy a couple sponges. Definitely need a broom and dustpan. And paint. Paint will spruce this place right up!"
Twirling around to face the exit, Sora brightly smiled and clapped his hands together before his shoulders drooped. Why did he always get stuck doing the dirty jobs?
-.X.-
"Time to get to work!" Sora switched on the clock radio (which he had tactfully placed on a piece of paper next to the sink). When he placed the wet sponge down onto the counter, it was instantly covered in filth. "At this rate, I may as well bring a garden hose in here and spray everything down!"
Determined, Sora began to scrub inch-by-inch and sponge-by-sponge. Kairi absolutely could not see that his parents' old house was so trashed. Never again would he buy a house from them if he didn't look at it first. Never again would he trust his parents.
Sora jumped and jerked his head toward the banging noise coming from the front door. Immediately, he quit singing along with the song on the radio and dropped the sponge into the sink. "Dear lord," he began, "it better not be Kairi already." He cursed under his breath, frowning.
He hoped to God that he hadn't tortured anyone with his singing. Sora had absolutely no musical talent; that belonged to his younger brother, Denzel.
Approaching the entrance, he inhaled, expecting the worst case scenario: an entire police taskforce kicking him out for disturbing the peace. Drawing up the nerve to open the door, he laid his hand on the rusty handle and twisted it straight off. Grumbling, he toyed with the inside of the handle to get it to open.
"Is anyone in there?"
"I'm working on it!" he yelled back, "The handle just kind of broke off!"
"Can I open it from this side?"
That idea never crossed his mind. Either the person on the other side of the door was a complete genius or Sora was retarded. "Yeah! Go right ahead!"
"Shit! The handle just kinda fell off over here…" the stranger declared, bending down to peer in through the guts of the doorknob.
"No need for bad language," Sora scolded, continuing to fiddle with the contraption. "Do you have any idea how to open this?"
"Let me try," the turquoise-eyed man suggested.
"All yours." He took his finger out of the jam and stood up from his crouching position, backing away from the door. Sora chuckled to himself and shook his head; if he couldn't get it open, then who could?
Click.
Apparently Boy Wonder could. That would definitely be his new nickname. Boy Wonder. It had a nice ring to it.
As the door swung open, the taller male's teal eyes widened in recognition. A crooked smile found its way onto his pale, chapped lips. "Sora! Long time no see."
Sora cocked his head to the side, smiling, pondering as to who the person was. The man was much taller than he, himself, and looked to be about nineteen or twenty. His long, platinum hair was tied back with a strip of dark grey cloth. He wore a grey wife beater and a pair of holey blue jeans. His eyes were the same color as the ocean surrounding the Bahamas and-
Wait. The color of the ocean. Just like that kid that used to live next door to him in that white house. "Oh!" he snapped his fingers and broke into an ear-to-ear smile. "How in the world have you been, Rick?"
"You don't remember me, do you?"
"No! No! No! I do!" he exclaimed, frantically waving his hands in the air. "It's just that I don't exactly remember your name…Rika was it?" Oh for the love of-Rika was a girl's name.
"Riku."
"That's it!" Sora excitedly exclaimed, clapping his hands together before pointing, almost accusingly, at his newfound, old friend. "You're that kid that lived next door in that white house! We used to play in my sandbox and ride bikes together to the corner store! I didn't forget you…" He just didn't remember him until right then.
Riku gave Sora an apprehensive look and peeked into his trashed home. "How long have you lived here?"
"I just got here today. Parents sold it to me real cheap," Sora chuckled, "Dad was all like, 'Needs a little TLC'. I didn't really think much of it and I told Kairi that I would clean it up nice and pretty for her."
"It smells awful in there." Riku scrunched his nose. "Why didn't they clean it up before selling it to you?"
Sora shrugged. "They're my parents. They'll send me money for supplies if I ask." he looked back into the home and shuddered. "Anyway, it was nice to see you again Riku. Maybe we could get smoothies sometime. But I really need to get to work. I won't hear the end of it if I don't get this done."
"Do you want some company?"
Sora burst into a toothy smile and nodded vigorously. "I would love company."
"Do you want to grab a cup of coffee before we really get started? On me, of course," he clarified, a hesitant smile playing on his lips.
Shaking his head, he bit his lip and crossed his arms. "I don't really like coffee."
"How can you not like coffee?"
"I don't know," he frowned, shrugging. "I just don't."
"Smoothies then…?"
His disposition brightening, Sora smiled. "Let's make it a date!"
"Date?" Riku asked, quirking a slender, silver eyebrow.
Immediately, Sora's hands flew out in front of him and he began waving them back and forth frantically. "Nononono! Ididn'tmeanitlikethat! I meant it in a planning kind of way. Not date. Definitely not date. Just plan confirmation."
Riku nodded, laughing heartily. "Starbucks or Dutch Brothers?"
Raising a finger to his lips, his eyebrows knit together. Kairi always got to choose back home. "Starbucks. They have smoothies or something like that, right?"
"Which one would you like to go to?"
"What do you mean?"
"There are so many of them here. There's one in the Fred Meyer shopping center, one in each of the three Safeways, one downtown, one in Barnes and Noble and one drive-thru building across the street from Safeway and Barnes and Noble…"
"Which one's closest?" Sora questioned, scratching the back of his neck. "I wouldn't know…"
"You have your choice of Safeway, Drive-Thru or Barnes and Noble. We have an 'End of the World' here-except worse. There are three on the intersection."
"Which do you like best?" Sora asked, kneeling down to pick up his rollerblades.
"Barnes and Noble. It's the coziest. Has a nice staff there too," Riku nonchalantly replied.
"How far is it?"
"Right across the parking lot."
"Great! Let's go!" the blue-eyed boy ecstatically grinned, dropping his blades on the floor.
The two men started out the doorway when Sora paused just outside, realizing that he was leaving the door to his home wide open. Riku grinned and tapped his head. "I have an idea. Let's use a pencil to close it and balance the doorknob back in the hole."
"Nah. It's not like we're going to be gone that long. And besides, nobody in their right mind would want to B and E that place," he nodded, very confident in what he was saying. "And anyway, what are they gonna take? Bleach? My sponges? Or worse! My dirt!"
Riku laughed as they exited the Cedar Wood neighborhood and ventured into the Costco parking lot. Sora had absolutely nothing to talk about. What could he say? It was rather awkward. What were the chances that Riku would also be in Lakefield and living next door to him at that? He gave the teal-eyed man a side-long glance and sighed.
"What's wrong?"
Sora didn't really know how to reply; he couldn't just say, 'Hey Riku! I don't know you and this is quite sudden and awkward. And I don't know what to talk about because, again, I don't know you. Oh and by the way, you're really cute and I have dinosaurs stampeding in my stomach. No big deal.' Quickly, he faked a smile turned to his companion. "Nothing. Just a little pressed for time on the house is all."
"Ya goof! I'll help you out as much as I can," Riku responded, grinning.
The two men walked, step for step, in unison, across the Costco/Safeway parking lot. Riku, along the way, pointed out several tasty places to eat such as Yoko's Japanese Restaurant and Goody's Chocolates. He also pointed out Jamba Juice and, immediately, they changed their minds. That would be a much better place for smoothies.
Sora felt his cheeks heat up when Riku grabbed his wrist and eagerly led him passed all of the tables and to the counter.
"Naminé, this is Sora. He's my new neighbor," Riku explained to the blonde girl behind the counter. She was short and had a pale complexion. She shyly smiled, revealing tiny dimples in her cheeks.
"Sora, huh? Welcome to BFE," she winked and turned her attention back to Riku. "Sorry, Ri. I'd love to stay and chat, but my puppy gets out of the vet's office here in about twenty minutes. I'll grab Ax and catch ya later. Nice meetin' ya Sora! Watch out for them Cougars." She winked, turned around and sauntered off to the back, her long, blonde braid swinging behind her.
"Cougars…?" Sora questioned, a nervous look washing over his face.
Riku shook his head, broad grin plastered to his lips. "That's the mascot for the high school right down the street, Lakeview. And the Lakeside Fire Otters are down the street the other way. And then clear over on the west side, you have the Lakefield Storm."
"Wakka went to Lakeview," Sora mumbled to himself and began to wonder just how close this fellow lived to he and his Kairi.
"Wakka Bautista? He played basketball for the Cougs a couple years back. Point guard, I think. I was the soccer goalie for the Otters."
Sora's lips twisted upward into a devious smile. "Soccer? I played soccer back in high school myself."
Riku returned the gesture and folded his arms, arrogance seeping from his pores. "You wanna go sometime? We can go out to Big Sky Field."
"Definitely," Sora nodded, eyes fiery with determination. "I'll totally school you."
Riku glanced up at the menu board. Sora followed suit, though he already knew what he was going to get. From the back door emerged a man even taller than Riku. His long, flaming red hair poked out here and there from a low ponytail. As recognition set in, his lips curled up into a smirk. "You didn't take out the trash."
Riku ran a hand through his hair and shrugged. "You didn't do the dishes."
Sora looked from Axel to Riku and back to Axel before he put two and two together. They lived together. What size was their house? Did they share a room…? Were they gay lovers?
"Who's the kid?"
Sora's attention snapped to the redhead and he smiled bashfully, scratching the back of his head. "I'm Sora, Riku's new neighbor."
"So you're the lucky candidate to buy that skuzzy place, huh?" He gestured to himself before tapping his temple. "I'm Axel, Riku's best friend. Got it memorized?"
Riku nudged Sora with his elbow. "What do you want?"
"May I have an original Chocolate Moo'd?" he asked, taking a step toward the counter.
Axel looked to Riku, smirk still evident on his face. "The usual?"
Riku shook his head. "Aloha Pineapple today. You got any whipped cream?"
"Gross," Sora exclaimed, startling Riku. "You like whipped cream? That's plain wrong."
"He's into that white stuff, you know," Axel winked, receiving a glare from his roommate.
Sora thought about how fun his new neighbors seemed to be. Maybe he wouldn't have to follow Kairi around like a stray puppy after all.
-.X.-