(1) Mornings Suck
Roxas opened his eyes, blinking at the light that had dared come within his room. Leaving his blinds wide open had been a bad idea. Everything he did these days seemed like a bad idea.
Getting up, Roxas closed the brown blinds that usually kept out much of the cursed morning light. But now that Roxas was up, he wasn't sleepy anymore. Of course. Roxas was going to greet the day at—quick glance at the clock—too early in the morning. Insert big ole effing sigh here.
At least he was awake enough now to remember the only thing that made mornings bearable: breakfast. Mmmm… breakfast. It was that thing he usually skipped in favor of sleeping in until noon. Roxas's mouth started to water. He'd bought honey buns and cupcakes yesterday, which wasn't a nutritious breakfast, but it was a good breakfast. Maybe they could make waking up this early even…
Nah. It still sucked.
Roxas sighed, finally moving his butt to the kitchen. To hell with the shower, he'd do it after. Ah ha, honey buns, here I come!
Knock. Door. Visitor. Damn! Roxas's sleep-deprived mind just barely recognized the sound. He mentally flipped off whoever it was, but went to the door anyway. On the way he noticed the clock. Who knocked on someone's door at 6:45 in the morning?
Olette, apparently. Oh, it was so like her to show up this early after not talking to him for three days. What had happened was Hayner had thrown a fit at him for not being able to go to the beach, and since Roxas'd gotten mad at him too, Olette had chosen sides. Anyone could guess with whom. It was retarded that two people he'd considered his best friends betrayed him because of a stupid cold. It made Roxas realize just how fake his "friends" really were. Only Pence still said "Hi" on the street, but Pence had never been one to hold a grudge.
Roxas yanked open the door. "What?" He growled, not in the mood for her crap.
"I saw you through the window. Look, Roxas… Hayner's really upset you're gone but he wants you to apologize for being mean to him. I've tried to talk to him—" Doubtful, you manipulative hag. "but he won't listen. If you apologize, I can get him to back off. Please? It's just a little apology, and I'll always remember you as the bigger man if you do." She batted her eyes at him, making Roxas a little sick inside. What had he seen in her? Oh, yeah. Nothing but her pretty face.
"No. Hayner called me a faggot for not being able to go to the beach once. I'm not going to apologize to him. Honestly, I don't want to be friends with him—or you, for that matter." Roxas winced as her eyes burned holes into his. Man, was she pissed. "You keep tugging me around by the heartstrings, but you've never really liked me. It was always Hayner. I've known that for a while. Just go, before I call the cops on you." Roxas knew it had to be this way, but he still really liked her. It was hard not to take her up on her offer, but he knew if he did, Roxas would never be free, and would never find the portal and be truly happy.
"What could you possibly charge me with?" Olette snarled nastily, moving up close and personal. That was enough.
"Harassment." Roxas hissed right back. He hated it when people got in his face, like they were so much better than him because they were taller. Slamming the door, Roxas stomped to his coffee machine. His bad mood went away almost instantly when he caught sight of his plastic-packaged treat.
Honey Buuuuuuuuuuuns!
Grabbing one and turning on the coffee machine, Roxas went back into the small living room and sat on the couch, content to just lounge the rest of the day. Or not.
"Crap! I didn't add the water!" Roxas leapt up to run to the coffee machine and after correcting his mistake, he took a cupcake on his second trip to the couch. "Can't believe I almost forgot the cupcake. What's a breakfast without blue icing?" Roxas smiled, tearing off the only part of the cupcake he actually wanted. Roxas just couldn't eat the bottom part; his reasoning was without the icing, cupcakes were just mutilated cake filler. Food for thought.
Once Roxas was finished munching on his cupcake and honey bun, he threw the rest out the window for the cats that congregated outside of his house (he did this often). Roxas was about to turn back and turn on the TV to browse through uninteresting channels when he heard a loud "EW!" and cats hissing and jumping. Stopping, Roxas stared wide-eyed outside his window. His first thought was, Really, I just threw food on someone? and his second happened to be Wait, there's someone OUTSIDE MY WINDOW?
Starting to freak and materializing his weapon, Roxas called, "Who's there? I got a bat beside me!" Really, it was just his Keyblade, but even a giant key was a nice club every once in a while.
Roxas slowly inched toward his window, holding the Keyblade aloft, and looked outside; he didn't know what he expected, but it sure wasn't a flash of purple hair retreating around a corner, being chased by hungry cats.
... Why is Fuu stalking me?
xxxxx
"He saw you?" Seifer repeated, raising and eyebrow, "Isn't the whole point of spying preventing that?"
"Yeah, well, I wasn't expecting the Battle of the Cats to happen, ok? Jeesh, those guys are vicious. You're cat's evil when it comes to Roxas's leftovers, Seifer. Remind me to kick him." Fuu muttered, embarrassed despite her attitude. Even with Rai, the noisiest person in Twilight Town, Fuu had never had problems sneaking. This had been the first time she'd been caught—ever.
Seifer sighed. "So you're telling me that he now suspects he's being tailed."
"At least ya know why your cat's not been eating much, ya know. The more ya know, the more ya know, ya know." Rai smiled.
Vivi face-palmed. "… That was so redundant. I cannot believe you just said that." Vivi looked to Seifer. "So is it our turn?"
"Yeah. Hopefully ours will not end in epic fail. You can be silent, right?" Seifer asked.
"Of course! My momma made me a sneaky scarf when I was little. She told me I'm supposed to wear it always so she'd never lose me." Vivi boasted, holding it up.
Seifer stared. "… That defeats the purpose."
xxxxx
Okay, finding Roxas had been really annoying. Rai and Fuu had last seen him at his house, but it was empty by the time Seifer and Vivi had gotten there. A long search ensued, and finally they'd found him buying an ice cream across town from his house.
"This sucks!" Vivi whined. "He's really fast. We'll never catch up to him like this."
"We just have to keep him in sight, okay? And stop hopping like that! It's weird." Seifer hissed quietly.
"But I gotta pee!"
"Then wait."
Rounding a corner, Seifer looked for Roxas, finding him buying a peach tea. Where'd he get all that money? Seifer wondered.
"Seifer?"
Seifer sighed at the pleading way Vivi said his name. He knew what was coming.
"Can we get some peach tea, too, Seifer? It's always too hot during the summer." Vivi looked at him with pleading eyes.
"I thought you needed to pee."
"I do. I'm just more thirsty than bladder-full-y."
"You are so weird. Fine. But you pee your pants, you're walking home to the tune of me laughing hysterically. End of story."
Vivi gave a little "hmph," but went to go get some anyway.
xxxxx
All in all, watching Roxas was like watching old people in a retirement home—extremely boring. Roxas had eaten cupcakes and honey buns the rest of the day, gave bottom halves of the cupcakes to cats, watched TV for three hours and taken a nap on his couch. The only real entertainment was Vivi's I-gotta-pee dance about ten minutes into his peach tea. When nine o'clock came around, Seifer was about to pack up and go home out of sheer boredom and being hot. He'd heard in different worlds, moons didn't reflect the heat of their suns, just the light. Lucky ducks.
Both moons were up, but one just had a crescent left of it, so the heat wasn't that bad, but it still made him sweat a bit. Seifer wished desperately for an ice cream or an interesting event.
Suddenly Roxas jumped up from his position on the couch and raced up the steps. The hell?
xxxxx
Roxas had always been impatient. Waiting for eleven to roll around on his plain clock took a hella-lot of concentration and TV. That was why at 9:16, Roxas couldn't take it anymore. Putting on his watch, coat, and shoes, Roxas took off down the steps he'd just run up. Rushing out into the night, Roxas frowned, again considering if he should be doubting what he was doing.
He couldn't understand his urgency, but Roxas had always trusted his gut; ever since his mother had left for her trip, he'd been getting strange dreams and warnings. He needed to get out of here. Out of Twilight Town, out of this entire World; all he had to do was find one of the mundane Portals that regular humans used to use to go to different worlds. The only one currently in use near Twilight Town was regulated so heavily that if he would never get past. That left the one in the Suburbs.
No one but Roxas ever went into the Suburbs. It had been abandoned ever since he was little. But supposedly, there was an illegal Portal hidden in a common object—that was what Roxas was after. He felt a little bad that if he found the Portal and left that his mother would be worried, but he reasoned he'd visit after he figured out what was haunting his dreams. That, and got over the fact that who he'd considered friends and confidants were really just fakers in a little street gang made to combat Seifer's group. Roxas continued to run until he faced the Suburbs, fueled by his thoughts.
It would be silly to doubt my gut now, Roxas thought, looking at the Suburbs, winded a bit, because I've come this far. I can feel the Portal somewhere near. It's here, definitely. But where in here?
Roxas stood for a moment feeling overwhelmed before shrugging it off. He'd find it. He knew he would. Walking steady now that he had made a true decision, Roxas headed toward the nearest building. Since Twilight Town's residents never went in here, Roxas was the only one that knew of the expanse of connecting rooftops that spanned the Suburbs all the way to the sea. He was really the only one who saw the sheer beauty of the Suburbs every day. Roxas liked being that privileged. It made him feel like all the Worlds could be connected like those rooftops, and someday he could travel them as easily and see every World there was to know.
xxxxx
Seifer and Vivi were waiting outside of the Suburbs, trying to decide whether to go in or not. If they did, they'd get in trouble with Roxas. But if they didn't, Roxas could be hurt and have no one to call for help.
"I'm going in," Vivi stated, looking at Seifer with clear eyes, "even if I get in trouble for it. There's always been something about Roxas… Whatever he's doing, I'm supposed to be there, I just know it. I think you're supposed to be there, too."
Seifer remembered a time when Vivi had actually found a ghost within a man-made waterfall. The adults had made it a Wonder of Twilight Town, thinking he wasn't serious. But Vivi had showed the rest of his team. There really had been some shadow person behind the waterfall. And then when Roxas had gone to it, it had suddenly disappeared; Vivi had said that Roxas had something to do with it. This was scary, but Seifer trusted Vivi's paranormal instinct.
"Okay, we're going in."
xxxxx
Roxas looked on from a rooftop as Seifer and Vivi entered the Suburbs. He had noticed them following him after the Fuu incident.
So they wanna stalk me, huh? He thought, annoyed, Well, then, I'll just see how far they'll go to do it. Roxas smiled. This was going to be the prank of the century.
xxxxxxx
A/N: This was really late because my teachers decided they were gonna cut my computer time in half and this was a big chapter. Oh, and there's some real early-morning experiences sprinkled in this chapter. Can you guess which ones?
This is me signing off. Be ready for my next chapter! Pandaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!