Author's Note: Yeah…so…that was an interesting reception. Just trying to capture the process of human thinking. Is this really how people think? Yeah, the three other stories are on hiatus, sorry, bite my ass, burn an effigy, or whatever. I'm not back on full schedule until the end of May.
Copyrights: All characters belong to Square-Enix and Disney. Plot is mine, yadda, yadda, yadda. A lot of stuff's based after what I deal with at school, blah, blah, blah. So…enjoy. And by the way, Senioritis is the copyright of my high school. Yes it's a real word. XP
Eyes On Me
2 – Senioritis to the Prom-th Power
Spring. Spring is good, spring is great, spring I wish I could really appreciate.
Why do people like springtime anyways? I mean, all we get is rain and national tests and rejection – and acceptance letters, of course – letters from universities and senioritis and prom. Prom!
Let me make this very, very clear: I don't dance. Period. I don't care if it's the high school senior prom or some gala ball where I get to meet the leaders of every nation on the goddamn planet. I don't dance.
And what's senioritis? It's a contagious disease that reeks in every senior classroom and through every hall, especially during the second semester. In short, seniors slack off and start failing their classes because they think that they're over with school and yippee, they're off to some barnstorming tour in Europe or something great, only to come home and find out their university of choice rejected them because of some damn 'C' on their last report card.
Oh yeah, what a result for slacking off, eh?
To get to the point, it was spring.
Yeah. I hate spring. I mean, rain is nice but not so nice when it makes the streets really wet and you're streaking around town on a speed bike with only a plastic helmet on your head to save you if your bike slips and you skid into some tanker trying to make it to the other side under a yellow light. I actually saw it happen to some poor bloke who, I later heard, lost his arm because of the accident. Something about bones crushed beyond recognition.
Luckily I don't go around at a hundred miles per hour not wearing a helmet through one of the busiest streets in the city. See, I'm not that bloke. I'm a straight A-student who's not stupid enough to do something like that. Well, Sora probably would but that's his problem, not mine.
Oh yeah, and that reminds me.
I hate school. Period that, too.
""
"Roxas, did you finish answering all the questions on Mr. Lin's handout? You gotta help me, man! I fell asleep over the stupid packet last night, it was so fucking boring I could've died!"
I sighed. Oh no, not again…
"If I told you I didn't do the homework, what would you do, Axel?" I asked my other best friend as I turned around. Good ol' Axel, the punker kid with a penchant for not doing his homework. His excuse? Something about his beauty sleep being interrupted by homework. I laughed so hard when he told our ninth grade literature teacher that both of us got kicked out. Weird way to start a friendship but still, the best things don't always happen in usual ways.
Of course that leads to one asking for the definition of 'usual' but we won't go there. Why am I referring to myself as 'we'?
"I'd freak out, of course," Axel said with a smile. He ran a hair through his red hair. "And then I'll have to go pester your girlfriend for the homework-"
"For the last time, she's not my girlfriend. Geezes, Axel, you're just as bad as any one of them!" I said, waving my arm in the general direction of our high school as I tried to remember my locker combination and talk at the same time. For the record, it's not the best thing to do. Numbers and words don't go together. Period.
"Roxas, Roxas, listen. I know you're still in denial but-"
Yes, the locker opened! Time to pay more attention to what I need for the day than Axel's daily lecture about my behavior around Kairi for the past thirteen or so years. I can't believe he thinks I have like the hots for her. She's my brother's girlfriend, for crying out loud!
"Yeah, I know," Axel said, rolling his eyes, "but you have to wake up, man. The way you act around her is anything but being a friend."
"Proof, Axel? You haven't gotten any because I don't do anything to make it look like I like her because I don't like her."
"Hm…do you even realize how close you sit to her? And how you always smile whenever she's around? And how you actually laugh when she's there? And how you don't act like your calm, serious, depressed self when she's around in general? Sometimes you are just so busy talking to her that you piss your brother off. And she's the one who always has to tell you that I want your attention or something. Being around her is like you're off in another world."
I stopped tossing stuff into my shitty brown locker and looked at him. I heard nothing until that last sentence. Whatever he was saying was mumbo-jumbo but me being in another world around her? My feet are planted squarely on planet Earth unless I'm on a plane and I'm not on a plane right now, am I?
"So…" Axel's little smirk again, "am I right or am I right?"
"You are wrong and you are wrong," I said and slammed the locker shut. "C'mon, let's get to class."
"Oh yeah, and another thing," Axel began as we started for the stairs to the second floor of the building we were in, "you always sit next to her."
"Oh? And what about you and Larxene? You always sit next to her."
"Oh please, brother! She's the one sitting next to me. Can't resist my charms, if ya know what I mean."
He winked at me. I only sighed. Typical of Axel. "Then I might as well move away, if only to resist your so-called 'charms'…"
Just to annoy Axel, I ran.
Note to self: don't run through a school hall before school. It's not that you'll accidentally run into someone's open locker. Nobody's that stupid. Honestly, the stuff that happens in those stupid high school chick flicks are just full of shit. I mean it. We high school students aren't stupid enough to run into lockers. We're stupid enough to run into people.
After all, I am the one who ran into the Mercedes-never mind. Let's not go there.
So there I was, running down the hall, dodging people and lockers while Axel's yelling something awful behind me. I couldn't tell if he was getting closer or if I was losing him, so I just ran like hell. I went through one hall, out the double doors, and over the concrete walkway to the neighboring school building. There were fewer people in the hall so I just ran, looking back constantly to see if Axel was even trying to chase me now-
Pain. Really intense pain. The next thing I knew I was falling. I closed my eyes tightly and cursed while my world spun in circles. I was aching all over; these tiled floors are quite unforgiving to idiots like me who run wild through halls only to run into a fellow student. That and I banged my head against the wall. My ears were ringing. My brain was pounding against my skull. It hurt. It was horrible.
Cross off horrible. That was a major understatement.
"Roxas? Roxas, are you alright?"
…that was…Kairi?
Something soft and warm and cool touched my face. I shivered slightly as I opened my eyes and found myself staring at a pair of purplish-blue Converse. Then slowly I turned my head slightly to look up. It was Kairi. She was crouching down next to my head, her eyes brimming with worry. I…I had never seen her look like that. That look on her face, the way her expressive blue eyes watched me, it was…strange. I shivered again but I couldn't look away. I couldn't.
"What…" Was that my voice? It sounded so distant. "What happened?"
"You uh…" Kairi turned her head to look somewhere in the direction of where my feet must be. I kept…staring at her. Kairi in profile. I never really noticed the curves in her face before. It was…fascinating. "You ran into Naminé, if you really want to know-"
Shit. Of all the luck in the world, couldn't some of it at least go my way? Why did I have to run into my ex-girlfriend in the first place? Who up in the high heavens thought it was great fun to position her so that I could run right into her while trying to get away from Axel? And have Kairi right there seeing the whole spectacle made everything worse. O ye cruel, cruel gods…. I closed my eyes tightly and curled up like one of those fetuses you see in those biology books. I didn't want to know, I didn't want to deal with the world right now. Just go away, please, go away and let me drown in my humiliation and misery. If only I didn't decide to prank Axel and his stupid 'charms'. Damn me and my stupidity, damn me and my horrible, horrible luck, damn me and my goddamn fucked up life-
"Roxas, are you alright?" Someone was fingering my bangs, brushing them over my forehead. Another chill up my spine. Something was pounding in my ears. Something other than the sickening sound of impact, which was already fading away.
Am I alright? Of course I'm not alright! How the hell could I be alright, when I acted like a complete and utter fool running down a school hall, crashed into my ex-girlfriend, and have the whole spectacle witnessed by my best friend? But then again…why should I be embarrassed in front of my best friend? What was there to fret about? I had my share of moments; it must be a thing that runs in our family. Not that I won't go there. But everyone knows us twins were always getting into things, be it Sora's chalk fight in the eighth grade or me falling down a flight of stairs and landing at the feet of our high school principal and the superintendent of all the schools in our district. You know, like the CEO of every school within a five-mile radius.
But why was I feeling so embarrassed? If it was just regular people, even a teacher or two, I'd just get up and mutter something evil while hobbling away. But here I was, trying to hide inside myself while Kairi was…what was she doing?
"Whoa, what happened here?"
That was definitely Axel's voice. He had finally caught up to us. And then…Naminé.
"I thought he outgrew first grade," she was saying. "Apparently he needs to go back to elementary school and relearn his manners. The nerve of him."
Naminé, how could you say something like that? What happened to the sweet, gentle girl I used to know? What the hell's going on? What did I do? What did Sora do?
"Hey." Kairi. Her voice had a harsh, defensive edge to it, a tone I never heard her use before. She was mad. "I don't want you saying that around him. Go away, Naminé. You're bothering him."
She was still touching my hair. It was the weirdest feeling. I felt all cold and hot, and relaxed and tense, and every other contradictory duo of words that existed in the English language.
"Fine," I heard Naminé say. "Have it your way."
I heard distancing footsteps. But my ears were ringing with her words. The tone in her voice…I didn't like it, period. Was she up to something? Wait, was this Naminé? This girl, my ex-girlfriend, she was a stranger. A complete stranger. Did we even date or was I just dreaming about her? Maybe I was dreaming about her. Damn these rose-colored glasses people always talk about. I see nothing rosy about her now. Or hear her at least.
"Something's definitely weird about her," I heard Axel declare. "Hey, shoo, go away. Enough sightseeing! Haven't you your own high school dramas to deal with, huh, huh? Fuck off!"
"Axel," Kairi began warningly but he interrupted her. "As I was saying, there's something definitely weird about her. Something very, very weird. Was she ever like that, Roxas? Hey, Roxy, you hear me? Hello?"
No, go away, just leave me alone. It hurts. My whole body hurts and my head hurts and I just want to go home and forget everything and…
"My head hurts," I found myself whispering, then bit my tongue. Great, now I sound like one of those whiny little first graders. I didn't say that, I swear…
"Well serves you right running down the hall like that," Kairi said smartly. "You banged your head against the lockers falling over Naminé. Lesson one: Unless you want to fracture your skull, don't run like a drunk driver down a school hall, okay?"
"I don't drink," I muttered. My head was really swimming. Things were going in and out of focus and Kairi had four eyes. That…really didn't look right. And what was that big red fuzzball off in the distance? I blinked and everything focused for a moment before everything dislocated but I knew that was Axel. Axel a big red fuzzball? That was…weird.
"No, Roxas," she sighed. "I told you you were too literal. Are you feeling alright, Roxas?"
She kept touching my hair. Why? She…she never touched my hair like this. Not ever. She did ruffle my hair every now and then, because I often did that to her, but the soft strokes, the brushing aside of my bangs, her cool fingertips, it was all surreal, all just weird.
"Roxas?"
The voices were fading. The hammer in my head was drowning everything out. That was all I could hear now. My eardrums were pounding with the hammer.
And then I just closed my eyes.
""
"Okay, fine, if you don't like her then she likes you. Happy? I'm happy."
"Axel, just shut up. I don't want to deal."
Today could be the crappiest day of my life. That whole escapade knocked me out cold for most of the school day, I found out later. And Axel managed to concoct some excuse to sit with me in the nurse's office and skip Mr. Lin's class. First-class genius, I swear. He almost got kicked out like every hour by the nurse for fiddling around with her equipment and scaring the 'wittle kiddy widdies' who visited her office with complaints of stomach pain and headaches and coughs and etc. And no nose could stand the nurse's office. I swear the place reeked of rubbing alcohol and old woman's smell. And the thin cotton blanket…I don't even want to know what it's gone through.
But that wasn't it. Because I woke up with Axel and Kairi practically hovering over me. That scared the bejeesus out of me and I sat up and I yelled and then they yelled and then some other kid in the room with a sprained ankle yelled and then the nurse assistant yelled and then half the main office freaked out and…we got an hour-long lecture about our rude conduct in the main offices, especially us three seniors. It was horrible; my head was still pounding away and then our old nurse was yapping in her high voice and Axel kept elbowing me. I don't know why in hell he decided to do that but I finally decided to pinch him in the side. Hard.
Thirty minutes' worth of more lecturing later we were free. School was over.
And then it was sprinkling and then…not sprinkling. Okay, the weather's got bipolar disorder. Oh look, it's sunny-no wait, not sunny. And there was my brother and oh look he's mad. He's standing there with our friends and he's clearly not a happy camper, sunshine or no.
And since when did Sora need to stick some tracking device – GPS to be specific - on his girlfriend? The first thing he demanded was where she was and she told him point-blank that she's been with me because I banged myself up earlier in the school day. Then it dawned on me.
Kairi, one of the top seniors in our high school, didn't go to class at all? Oh my god, was the whole friggin' world turning upside down? Someone tell me when the gravity's going to be switched off.
And there I was, spacing out and away while Riku and Tidus and Axel and Selphie and Wakka and Yuna and Aerith and Hayner and Orette and the rest of our pretty big group of friends tried to mediate some growing argument between my brother and my best friend. And once I came back down to Earth, they were nearly at blows.
"…didn't see you the whole day, you have any idea how scared I was? You never missed a day of school before so why the change?"
"Unless my eyes and my ears deceive me, you don't care whether or not your brother gets run over by a damn tanker! At least I care whether or not your brother faints in the middle of the school hall!"
"I wasn't there! How was I supposed to know?"
"Grow up, Sora. If this is how you treat Roxas, I'd really like to know how you really want to treat your girlfriend and the rest of our friends."
Then she turned and walked towards me, grabbed my arm, and literally dragged me away. I didn't even bother to fight; my head was still pounding and I was just so damn sick and tired of today. Rain didn't help lighten my mood either. Some people would sing when it rains…or rained, in this case. I pout. Or so people say. I mean, I frown, but people say I pout. What's the difference anyways?
Why am I thinking this? My best friend just had a huge verbal fight with my brother and I'm worried about how I frown? Where the hell are my priorities?
In any case Kairi let me go after a while, after school had long since disappeared, but she didn't talk. And so we were rather silent as we walked to her house. I kept looking at her, wanting to see the look on her face and wanting to read her mind to figure out what she's thinking, but she had her head bowed so I couldn't see anything past her bangs. And so I decided not to talk. When Kairi get's that way, even one squeak would result in a verbal lashing from her.
After I dropped her off, I walked all the way back to school just to get my speed bike. Brilliant, aren't I?
Axel was waiting for me there. And that's where we had that stupid conversation. Or should I say 'having'?
"No, seriously, the way she was at it, it was like she likes you, you know?" Axel was saying. He was dancing around my bike, obviously trying to keep me from getting away.
"Axel, we're best friends. How can she not like me?"
He stopped dancing. Finally. "She's right. You are literal."
"And your point is?"
"I'm not talking about that sort of 'like'. I'm talking about love like. As in she likes you as in she loves you."
"Uh yeah, can't best friends love each other?"
"Depends. Are you talking about friend love or love-love?"
O gods, I really didn't want to deal with this. I twitched the key and the engine rumbled to life. "Look, Axel, I really don't want to talk about this, okay?"
"My friend-" Oh no. "-we do need to talk about this. I should have seen it years ago. All the signs were there and yet my eyes deceived me again and again and again-"
"Maybe because you were too busy looking at Larxene's ass-"
"Shut up. We're talking about you, not me. And I don't look at Larxene's ass. I like her face."
"Or her breasts," I snorted as I pulled out my helmet. It was a nice dark metallic blue. Very pretty. Very, very pretty. Kinda like Kairi's eyes when she gets upset. I hate it when she gets upset but at the same time…I like it. O damn it!
"Tsk, tsk, you think all men are alike. How very sad, coming from someone like you."
"Yeah, I'm secretly a girl," I retorted sarcastically as I shoved the helmet on. Bad move. My head was still sore. And that really hurt. "Ow! Why did I bang into the lockers in the first place…"
"So you're planning a sex change or something? And remember, you were the one running away from me."
"No, Axel, and you're the one talking about your so-called 'charms'."
"Hey, I do have charms, compared to Mr. My-Heart-Got-Broken-By-A-Stonehearted-Bitch. Moping over Naminé breaking up with you on Christmas Eve-"
"I'm not moping!"
"Okay, then, explain your behavior."
"What behavior?"
"Ever since last year you haven't been the same, man. You did actually smile, unless you forgot. And out of the blue you get all defensive over nothing. I mean, what is going on, Roxas?"
I stared at him as I pulled on the visor of my helmet. Rose-colored glasses. UV protection-colored glasses. So many different ways of viewing the world.
And since when did I go and get all defensive over nothing? I have nothing to be offended against. Nothing offends me! So what was he talking about?
"Nothing. Nothing's going on."
"Yeah, well, that's what you say. But now I know."
"Oh do you?" I raised an eyebrow under my helmet as I inched the speed bike forward. "Hurry up. My engine's overheating thanks to your useless talk."
Axel had his mouth open to say something but shut it as soon as I said that. Oh my god, did I actually say that? Me calling my friend's words crap? Useless? Worthless? A bunch of hot air? A waste of my time? Axel, I didn't mean it, I swear!
His dark eyebrows were narrowed dangerously. I couldn't tell what shade his eyes were but I knew they were darkening considerably. And there was that frown on his face. It really was an ugly frown, edging on a snarl. He always looked like a feral cat when he was this mad. And I really hated it when he was this mad.
"Useless?" he hissed. "Useless? Well I'll give you useless, Roxas! I want you to wake up for once and understand what you're feeling. Yeah, that's right, what you're feeling. Why? Let me say this again: you're in love. You're in love with your best friend and you're so fucking blind it's disgusting! And I'm sick and tired of watching you do nothing, so damn tired of you ignoring your feelings because of whatever shit happened last year! When are you going to wake up for once and forget the past and realize all of this? When!"
I stared at him. That was all I did. I just stared. What else could I do? He was so mad and he so deeply believed that I was in love with Kairi. He's got to be joking, right?
"Axel, listen, I don't-"
"No, Roxas, no. I don't want you to answer. This is what Mr. Lin calls a rhetorical question, and I want you to go home and think on it for the next couple of days. Or weeks. Or months even. Maybe forever. I want you to go home and ask yourself: Am I in love? Because, Roxas, you act like you do."
"How-"
"Just shut up, you fucking idiot! I told you, go home!"
And he just spun around on his heels and walked off. That was that. He just…walked off. And I just stared after him, the engine of my speed bike overheating, my mind just frozen and mashed up by…by….
Would verbal abuse count?
But I don't love Kairi! I know I don't! So what is he talking about? What is Axel-okay, forget it, I'm going home. If Axel wants me to, I'll do it. I'll go home and I'll sit there and I'll ask myself if I'm in love with my brother's girlfriend.
Yeah. I'll do that. And I'd better hope my brother doesn't overhear me talking to myself out loud like I usually do.
He'd kill me.
But as I cruised down the rather empty streets towards home, I just had to think about what Axel said.
Am I in love? I've been in pain for so long since Naminé gave me back my black ring, which I now wear on the middle finger of my left hand. Been in pain for so long I can't distinguish between emotions anymore. Been in pain for so long I bury myself in my friendships with Kairi and Axel and think that's how my high school life will end.
And why Kairi? Why does he think I'm in love with my best friend? I mean, that's just not right. We've known each other for so long, it's kinda creepy thinking about it.
And then I just…I just remembered the way she kept touching my hair. That was so weird. I mean, firstly, I kept freaking out. And secondly, she's never done that before. So…what does that mean? Does that mean anything at all?
And what about those other times? Wait, what other times? I mean, I'm always jumping whenever she puts a hand on my shoulder, and I'm always feeling like I'm high or something supposedly close to being high whenever she smiles at me. Yeah…whenever she smiles at me I feel like running miles around the school track.
What does that mean?
I'd better stop thinking about this until I get home. That's the third red light I've ignored and that has got to be the fifth STOP sign I nearly ran into.
Author's Endnote: I'm only updating this so early because I promised some people. Don't expect stories to be updated this quickly. But please review. Press that little button, yes? I'd love your thoughts on this.
