Disclaimer: Honest, I spent the year I wasn't updating trying to steal Kingdom Hearts away from Square. Sadly they bribed me with caffiene and games, so I still don't own it.
Author's Notes: Technically, I should be apologising for disappearing for a year. But then again, technically it hasn't been a whole year yet. At least the chapters will never come out this far apart again. Hopefully. Sorry!
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Working on the old pick up truck the business owned was boring. Napping in a customer's Ferrari was boring. And a bit cramped too. Hell, Larxene's death threats when he asked to take the cars for joyrides around the neighbourhood were getting boring. Alarmingly creative, but still less of a distraction from his pathetically unexciting existence than he'd like.
Axel groaned and kicked the nearest car in frustration. Above the small window connecting the shop to the office slid open, an eraser hitting his ear. The first projectile was followed by a handful more, causing the mechanic to cower and crawl back to the safety of the expensive vehicle's interior.
The blonde was out to get him, he swore. First she set the place with traps that encircled every doorway, so that he was in some sort of pain before getting to work, and then tossed things spontaneously to injure him more. Evil bitch LIKED seeing him in pain.
That had been confirmed when she cackled- not just laughed, but cackled- at Axel's double rejection. By the same guy. In one morning. Pulling out the cellphone that had caused the second offence against his ego, Axel gave it his best green eyed glare of death. Unfortunately, it being an inanimate object with no soul, the phone neglected to die said horrible painful death.
Instead it vibrated with a new message, the screen lighting up with the caller id. Reading it, Axel sat up, rubbing at his eyes and blinking, testing to see if he was seeing it right. His imagination would be cruel enough to play a joke on him. But no, it still said 'Roxas'. Greedily, the redhead flipped it open a broad grin on his face before he even read the words.
This was pointless. Actually, it might have past pointless and tread into the land of impossibly retarded once the teacher had actually arrived. Any form of math class fell under 'things that Roxas really couldn't care less about and still did fine in', which meant he was annoyed and bored. To death.
Sad really, seeing up until now and ignoring the strange stalker from earlier, his day was going relatively good. Friends he'd met over his summer vacations to see his brother had been in his first class, immediately updating him on school life. Hayner had quickly told him about the school's Struggle club, which was smaller than the Blitzball team, but at least didn't have to wear the uniforms displaying a black hole with 'the Nobodies' splashed across it.
Olette and Pence had been nice too, though the former was too caught up in the class work to join in the conversation much. They'd been fun to hang out with any other time he'd come to Twilight Town, since Cloud was too busy with his friends or boyfriend to care what his younger cousin or brother were doing. Mostly he'd assumed that the city had more than one high school and he wouldn't see them again. Apparently he was wrong.
They'd made the class fun though, before the bell had split them apart. Taking a page from Sora's book, he'd nearly skipped down the hall before crashing into said brunet who had no idea how to get to his locker or their class together. Somehow, that didn't surprise him.
And so biology had began. A panicked looking Kairi had relaxed as they entered, hugging her best friend and waving. Some blonde girl had been there too, drawing and nodding as she'd been introduced. Some cousin of Kairi's cousin's friend's little sister named Naminé. She didn't seem to talk much, but with two obnoxiously loud people right beside her, her silence was more listening than being shy.
That had been morning. Roxas was a little confused as to how 'the rest of the morning' was only one period, but sitting with Sora and glaring at Riku all lunch gave him a reason. Dealing with the silver haired senior should have been a problem since they obviously weren't going to get along. Not when he was looking at his baby cousin like that. Fighting with him would be easy though, he decided with a grin, before realizing that he was still sitting in the ugliest math room ever seen.
On some bizarre attempt at interior decorating, someone had chosen to paint the room mud brown. That was a bad enough mistake, not that he really knew about colour schemes. Whoever added the details beyond that had to be blind though, it being the only reasonable explanation. Pink flowers sat on the desk, clashing with the orange curtains and making the entire room a little too bright for the average person.
The man behind the desk set off the image again, with a stylish haircut and designer clothes. That didn't mean he wasn't terrifying, sadly. When the bell rang he'd basically yelled at them to sit down, shut up and take notes…or die. Fantastic. Now he was stuck in a room where he didn't know anyone with a teacher who wanted to be a military guard. Just great.
What kind of options did he have? Pay attention and slowly die of boredom, learn in the next minute how to sleep with his eyes open, or to find some sort of distraction. Hell, the room itself could cover that. After about five minutes of looking around, he realized it was a bit hopeless. Visually disrupting as they might be, the curtains couldn't keep him from being bored.
Pulling out his phone, the cerulean eyes scanned over the peculiar message from the morning. Technically he should have deleted it, and his fingers really were skimming down to the delete option, but somehow, he hit reply. An honest mistake, not meant as Roxas involuntary typed up a fresh reply to the strange number. 'So, do you have a name?'
Whoa, what the hell was he doing? Encouraging creepy stalker types who obviously knew more about you than made sense generally fell under what not to do if you didn't want to be raped and murdered. Yet here he was sitting, waiting for a reply. From said stalker type whom he knew nothing about. Which judging from the phone's movement in his hand, had just come through.
'A.X.E.L. Memorize it. And then entertain me. Work is boring.' Okay, so the stalker who was, quite possibly, an expert at preying on teenage boys had a name. That was…somewhat of a relief. It meant he wasn't breaking a cardinal rule- talking to strangers- if he exploited this person for amusement.
Not that it was really exploitation if the other person also needed to be entertained. It was really perfectly reasonable to continue a conversation that had been started with you, as long as no problematic information was exchanged. After a silent conversation about the dullness of a job versus a classroom, Axel, as his stalker really had to be referred to, seemed to have gotten a brainwave. 'Ask him about the time I set his toupee on fire.'
Staring at the screen in confused, Roxas typed back slowly, eyes carefully on the front. 'What?'
There was ten minutes to go. Ten minutes and he'd be freed from the insanity of class and be allowed to do what he pleased. Such a short amount of time and yet, so long… 'The teacher. Ask him about his toupee.'
Disbelief washed over the blond like the bucket of water at the end of a football game. Was this guy completely, absolutely and utterly mentally incompetent? The old man was already shooting daggers at him, mouth half open. Probably to yell about the phone. Wanting the cut off the lecture, his arm raised meekly into the air, seemingly belonging to a perfect, intelligent student. "What is it Strife?"
Hearing the impatient tone, Roxas considered the likelihood of the seat swallowing him. Improbable at best and asking to use the washroom was worse than having never lifted a hand to begin with. The lecture, having something to do with some formula where the letters weren't labelled was a moot point, because it wasn't as though he'd been writing notes.
So, it wasn't like he could just expect diplomatic immunity for it being his first day, and if he could, it couldn't be made any more difficult. "Excuse me sir. I was just curious about something. Did Axel really set your tou-"
"Detention Strife!" The man's face was burning enough to set something on fire as he spun back around, scrawling on the board. Apparently he wasn't exempted after all, he thought, sinking into his seat and glowering at his docile looking cellphone. Oh yes, it might look innocent, but it had gotten him into this, and it would be going down with him.
That rat bastard had gotten him into detention. On his very first day too. How unjust was that? One innocent slip about toupees and he needed 'administrative discipline'; known to the average human being between the age of ten and twenty quite simply, as hell. Sitting around while a middle aged, hair deficient teacher glared at him about an incredibly well-meant remark.
Right. Well, his expression had been positively comical, and it had been his choice, to some degree, to humiliate his own superior, but the punishment was all the mysterious texter's fault. Forthwith, as well as previously, described as 'that rat bastard'.
Leaning as far back in the hard chair he'd already been in over an hour, Roxas folded his arms and adopted a serene expression. There was something he could spend the extra time on. Plotting the other's unfortunate demise. Just because he didn't know what the other looked like, or even how old he was, or even, one hundred percent, that he was a he, didn't mean he couldn't exact justice. It would just be more difficult.
"I'm late! I mean, I'm always late, but I meant to get better this year and oh, sorry, hi, I'm Demyx," the door had barely registered as flying open before the rapidly spoken words came, directed mostly at the glowering man, save for the last part. Blinking at the blond figure- what was that thing on his head supposed to be, a Mohawk gone terribly wrong?- Roxas nodded back, stopped from answering by a gruff voice from the front.
"I have matters to attend to. Strife, no talking, sit there, and never attempt to goad me again," turning to the other teen his glare intensified, "Nocturne, you know the rules. You may leave at four."
Waving happily, the taller of the two delinquents waved and answered with a grin. "We will. Have a nice coffee sir." As the man left without commenting, the new student stared, impressed. So maybe the guy had consumed more sugar than any one person ought to. Maybe he'd been smoking up earlier. At the least, he was proving a sight more useful than he'd assumed.
The door closed again slowly, leaving the hideous room silent for a few seconds before a chipper voice once again broke the silence. "So what's your name?" Demyx leaned forward and asked, already half out of the desk, "I told you mine."
Pausing to wonder how many homicidal psychopaths could possibly be in one area, Roxas smiled in what he hoped was a pacifying way and slipped out of the chair to sit on the desk. Somehow, it was almost softer. "Roxas Strife. My cousin Sora goes here too."
Aquamarine eyes widened and the grin on the boy's face grew to almost Cheshire cat proportions. "Oh, I know Sora," Demyx nodded to himself in a way that made Roxas worry about possible mental disorders, "I like him. He's nice to everyone. So what're you here for?"
Thrown by the abrupt change in topic, Roxas thought for a moment before answering. "I got told to ask about his," nudging his finger towards the door, "toupee by this…this rat bastard." Good, he'd remembered the other's new name. No, his personal stalker deserved no name, especially after this.
"Oooh, I remember that. Good times, good times," Demyx offered appreciatively before smiling and swinging himself onto a pair of desks, sagging in the gap between. "If it makes you feel better, pretty much everyone gets a detention on their first day in Hook's class. Least you earned yours."
Huh, so maybe the creeper deserved a little more credit than he'd previously given him. "How about you? First day?" Sure he'd seemed like he'd spent plenty of time being stuck in the room, but that could be for other things. Like, helping the homeless, or upholding the rules.
"Nope!" Pulling off an impressive manoeuvre that raised his body high enough to drag to other desk beneath it, the blond grinned, the smile continually growing with every word. "He just doesn't have my musical appreciation."
What was that supposed to mean? Opening his mouth to ask for more details- having bad music taste was hardly a reason for a detention- Roxas was cut off by a light glowing on his desk. Of course, his phone, which had fortunately escaped the dreaded claws of confiscation.
Checking the screen, Roxas jabbed at the end button, missing the casually monkey like leaning from the other teen. "Hey, you know Axel," Demyx said thoughtfully, as though this fact shone light on something. "So that's how you know about the toupee, right? Right. So," he added with a tone that made the blond wonder if he was actually stupid or just acted it for show, "how do you know Axel?"
"Um, he kind of just texted me for now reason earlier…"Roxas paused as the implication of the other's words set in. "Wait, so he's a real person?"
"Well, that's generous, but yeah. Axel is about," sitting back on his own desk and lifting a hand above his head, Demyx demonstrated, "yay high, red hair, totally crazy. Not like me at all."
Oh yes, Roxas agreed internally, because you happen to be perfectly normal in every way. Aloud, he only carefully replied, "So, he's not…a pedophile or anything, is he?"
Laughing, the taller blond shook his head, nearly rolling off the desks. "No, no. Axel as a pedophile, I'll have to tell Larx that one." Still chuckling Demyx pulled his bag onto his legs, digging through it for a CD player. Tugging it out, he beamed, pressing the play button before it was halfway to his ear.
Watching in amusement- who else still used a Discman other than him in today's high-tech society?- Roxas sat up a bit more, pushing thoughts of the aforementioned redhead to the side. "What are you listening to?"
Brandishing a headphone and lugging it towards Roxas, the beam on the blond's face widened happily. "Treasure. They're from Al Bhed, which is the next town over, so they do shows here a lot."
Narrowly catching the earpiece, Roxas listened to the music, the deep bassline contrasting against the high pitched voice singing the chorus. "They're all girls?"
Nodding, Demyx eagerly began probably going to be a long winded explanation. "Yup, they are. Yuna's the one singing. It's only a bit of a demo disc, so the studio quality isn't there, but it's good, right?"
"Yeah," Roxas nodded, continuing to listen to the cheerful tones of the music. It was sort of catchy, once you got past the shock of the blond's music taste. Mind, Demyx himself was a shock.
"Great! Then I'll take you to one of their shows sometime!" Completely ignoring the perplexed expression on the other's face- when exactly had he agreed to this?- Demyx began chattered animatedly, hands describing everything as he went. "It's always great! This one time, during Rumbling Rose, there was this massive pit and Lexaeus, who's about a foot taller than me plus like two hundred pounds, just walks right into it to get Zexion. Zexy's tiny and it's just madness in there. All these guys they're just flying around and Lex…"
'You got me stuck in detention!' the text message couldn't display the fury radiating off of him as Roxas climbed on the bus again. He'd been quite amused by the stories Demyx had shared, but that didn't destroy the fact that his first day had been spent getting on the bad side of a depressed old man had hated teenagers and now, going home an hour late on a bus he wasn't sure was the right one. Once he made it there if he ever did, Cloud would be disappointed or angry and lecture him to no end.
The guy deserved to be lectured. Sure, Roxas had been the one to follow his ludicrous instructions, but he was an impressionable young person. Who had somehow been hunted down by someone with a sadistic need to put him through the ropes of troublemaking without any warning.
Still, the other didn't seem to be showing any remorse for ruining his day, if the short reply was any indication. 'So?' Axel typed back, easily interpretated as sarcastic. How was the blond supposed to know he'd be tucked under a car and really couldn't see well enough to have a proper answer when they'd never technically met?
Understandably he took the insult and continued ranting as he sat by the door, watching scenery go by. Of course the other knew it was a bad thing, but trying to make him get the severity would be like pulling teeth. Not that the blond could get that from one conversation. 'For an hour!'
'At least you met Dem' the redhead protested, sitting up and wiping fingerprints from the car body. Sure, they were little, but they'd had one complaint from an obsessive compulsive and he'd spent an hour cleaning it and apologising. Besides, the grease was horrendous to wash off without an actual cloth. The familiar buzz in his jacket pocket caused him to stop and read the message.
'Yeah.' Well, that was boring. Hardly a proper answer too. Where was his thank you? Frowning, he moved to answer when it went off again. Opening the new message, he sighed. Chances were, he was winning stalker points, judging by the question. 'How'd you know that?'
So now he was stalking his friend too? Lovely. Explaining it was a lot easier than having to explain how he got the phone number though- somehow he doubted the phone book was the proper answer. If he couldn't give a reasonable answer to this, he may as well throw in the towel now. 'Dem has issues with the no music policy'
'He said something about musical appreciation.'
'Anything about air guitar solos?'
'No?'
'He should have.'
Looking at the text messages, Roxas tried to think of something to say to that as he reached his new neighbourhood. The gaps in the conversation spoke as loudly as the words, and the mental image of Demyx getting too into a song during class popped up. Scarily, it made perfect sense. Changing the topic, he continued with a new thought. 'Well, he did say he knows you'
'That he does,' Axel agreed, continuing with a smirk on his face. 'So, believe I'm a real person now?'
'I guess so.' The neutral response would have to do. Strange as the messager was, he was apparently a friend of a self-proclaimed friend- not that he could complain; Demyx was less irritating than Kairi- and was amusing.
Yes! Containing the urge to run a victory lap, the redhead contented himself with bouncing around for a second and regaining composure. In eight hours, he'd turned he other from absolute loathing to a sort of neutral acquaintance. That would be good enough for today. 'Cool. I'll talk to you some more sometime then.'
'Okay,' Roxas sent, climbing off the bus at his stop and closing the phone off. He could handle that. They could get along, until the other went away. He just wouldn't listen to any of his suggestions. And then no one would get upset with him. Speaking of which…
Opening the front door, Roxas found himself looking into the pair of irritated blue eyes, the man behind them scowling and crossing his arms. "Why am I hearing about you and a toupee exactly?"
A week later, and Roxas had still failed to ignore the mysterious texter's advice. He'd asked Maleficent, the crazy science teacher, about the hamsters from hell, gotten trapped in detention with Demyx twice and discovered that the herbology club's president, while straight, could become overtly flirtatious with any friend of Axel's.
It had definitely been an adventure with disastrous results, thanks to the assistance of his personal stalker- just because he knew Axel's name, didn't mean he had to use it- but the blond had yet to stop sending back messages. What was originally just a distraction from the boredom of math class had turned to afternoon bus ride entertainment, the conversation occasionally spilling into the time past that.
In an eerie reflection of that behaviour, Roxas's morning bus ride was starting to become a ritual of sorts. Get up at some horrible hour before his alarm even considered going off, drink half a pot of coffee, follow Sora to the bus stop without walking into anything again and get on the bus. From there the plan was to glare at Riku and talk to Kairi- who was surprisingly tolerable one she clued in that he wasn't a morning person- until the creepy redhead got on the bus. Then he spent the remainder of the ride glowering out the window until the Route 13 reached Oblivion High.
Around then Roxas began to wake up, not even needing the caffeine that had failed to do anything other than keep him awake for the daily battle. He'd been born prepared to fight with that creepy pervert. Or something like that at least. Sadly, the mischievous eyed demon on the bus seemed just as ready, going through every pick up line in the book.
Like today, it was, "I could just drown in your eyes. They're like the ocean. All blue and…water looking," said with a deep, meaningful stare, as if that could cover the pathetic string of words. Meaningful, right. Innocent as his cousin was, Roxas knew when someone's gaze was concentrated on his mouth, and the taller teen's were. Ass.
"It would be easier if you just drowned yourself," he retorted, aiming a kick to the redhead's knee and ducking past, "save me needing to kill you." Hopping onto the sidewalk, he ruffled Sora's chocolate coloured hair gently to assure him that no, he hadn't been run over. No matter how many times Riku prayed for it.
Speak of the devil. The silver haired senior watched the short exchange, waiting until Kairi had caught the brunet up in a discussion about some legend or other to speak. "There's a back door on the bus, in case you haven't noticed." It was all said with a half smirk that slowly faded at the answer.
Following the crowds into the main building, an angry blond kicked at the ground. "Yeah," Roxas snapped back, eyes on the asphalt, "I know."
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Review if you want. flames are good entertainment too. Or, you know, you could just wait until the next chapter.
-Josiy x
