Hi, guys! Here's the new chapter, I hope you enjoy it!
Disclaimer: I do not own anything. All of the characters belong to Square Enix and Disney.
"So, then," Hayner starts, and his gestures are getting away from him, he's all big, swinging arms tonight, all raised, exasperated voice. "Then Olette tells me that if I don't go to the freaking thing with her, she will seriously reconsider my commitment to our relationship. I mean, what the hell? Just because I don't want to go to some freaking charity ball!"
"That's pretty crap," Roxas says, but he's finding it difficult to get too involved tonight, he's too emotionally drained from over-thinking things, from over-thinking Kairi.
"What's up with you?" Hayner asks, and his brow furrows, and his palm finds its way to his forehead. "Usually I can't shut you up at this point."
"Ah," Roxas says, and he shrugs, "work's kinda crap at the moment."
"The smoothie hut? Dude, you should quit."
Roxas only quirks a brow, looks at his friend with good humor. "And what would I use to pay rent, oh wise one?"
"I dunno, sue Larxene for rape or something, get her to pay damages and live the rest of your years on that."
"Your plan, Hayner, it's unflawed."
Hayner shrugs, but he's smiling. "I could probably get you a job at the record store."
"Olette got you that job," the spiky blonde says, and he starts walking along the path. Hayner, he doesn't run to catch up.
"Yeah, but they like me!"
"No, they like Olette," Roxas calls back, and he can almost see Hayner laughing in the worlds behind him.
The park here, it's nice really, a nice place to be, to think, to walk.
When Roxas was very small, he and his brother, they'd run races down the maze of dusty pathways, seek out the prize of the playground, and even now, even now, Roxas's feet switch onto autopilot, and he's at the slide, the monkey bars, the seesaw, before he can stop himself.
It's empty, minus the little girl and her mother, minus that boy, the one on the swing.
Ah.
Kairi, she doesn't hear Roxas's feet plow through the leaf-litter, through the tiny mock-bark flooring. She only sees him when Roxas's shadow kills the light and warmth on his skin.
"Isn't it dangerous for you to be out on your own?"
Kairi stares up through her red bangs, and Roxas, maybe it steals his breath a little.
"You really can't hear me, can you? It's not just…it's not just Namine saying it to get me to leave you alone."
Kairi's pupils dart around her iris, trying to escape, her small, delicate fingers gesture to her ears, and she shrugs, smiles.
Roxas sits on the swing next to the girl. "I have enough trouble trying to understand people as it is, this kinda throws me on a loop."
Kairi's eyes are big and they're staring long and hard; Roxas can see her useless ears straining.
"I'm sorry," Roxas says, "but for what it's worth, I still like you."
The problem with the florist, Roxas thinks, is not so much the bell as it is the windows. 'Cause, you know, the windows, they're too big and too bold, and really are only there for show. To imply the findings of the great indoors.
Namine says that they overgrow some of the flowers so they look big and pretty to everyone walking passed. They're the flower, literally, and they're trying to get some pretty young thing in a stripy vest to pop by and spread the word, the pollen.
But Roxas, he kinda thinks it's stupid.
He goes in the next Wednesday though, and he's still wearing the ugly t-shirt from the smoothie hut, the black slacks and the name badge.
And Kairi, she…well, she's not there. Namine is though, the petite blonde with the grass-stained apron and the smile that would put even the most devoted dental model to shame.
"Where is she?"
Namine sighs, and she's pruning a set of overgrown magnolia bushes, clipping twigs and leaves and flower buds. She sighs again, inhales so hard that Roxas's lungs ache in sympathy. "When you break her heart, Roxas," she starts, and she's turned around now, is staring the spiky blonde in the eye, brandishing plant-clippers like you would not believe, "watch your back, 'cause I'll be there. Probably with a knife or a gun or some weapon of mass destruction."
"I think those clippers are more threatening," Roxas says, and he really wishes he was kidding.
"Then I'll bring these along too," she replies, and she's turned around, has gone back to pruning poor Magnolia.
"Was that your blessing, Ms. Namine?" Roxas tries, because it really sorta sounds like it. "Because it means a lot to me, really."
"Screw off."
"Whe-"
"She's out back. She's fixing an order for someone, so if she looks busy, leave her alone."
And Roxas, he's never actually been behind the counter before, so he tries his best to creep, to keep his hands to himself.
The read head, she's hard to see straight away, lost in a hurricane of green and pastel-yellow plastic-paper. There's endless gold ribbon that falls off the end of the table, rolls onto the floor, straight and narrow, a roman road. Her fingers, those small, gentle things, they're clutching a million stems, lilies and posies and magnolias.
Kairi, she's… she's engrossed, her eyes don't stray, and Roxas, he calls out a little, but Kairi's too focused, and her fingers are too busy, and, well, she's deaf.
So Roxas, he just, he sits, and he watches and maybe, maybe he can't help the smile that crawls across his face.
He's never sat still for so long.
"Will you talk for me?"
The girl stares at him, eyes squinting, face screwed up in concentration.
"I know deaf people can talk, because they have weird accents. I won't think yours is weird though, I'll probably like it," Roxas says, and his bangs really are getting too long, he plays with them a bit, before brushing them off his face.
Kairi just shrugs though.
"I still like you," the blonde says, and it's easier to say it now. Now that Kairi can't hear.
It isn't a surprise, the way the girl doesn't reply, but she finishes wrapping the petunias and piles them into Roxas's ready arms.
"Thanks," Roxas sighs, and he inhales till his heart aches in his chest. "Thanks," he says, and he leaves. But, he'll discover hours and hours later, there's a card on it that he didn't ask for.
I'm deaf, not blind and not mute. I think you forget that sometimes.
"You left me a note," Roxas accuses sometime the next day. "You, Kairi…Kairi I-still-don't-know-your-last-name left me a note."
She shrugs, and she's all innocence, with the wide eyes and the delicate face, but her cute smile, the twitch of her lips gives her away.
"You left me a note, and you aren't blind and you aren't mute, so I want you to talk for me."
Somewhere deep in the backdrop of the jungle, Namine laughs aloud.
So Roxas, the way he figures, is that if Kairi can write notes then so can he. Of course, the fact that he is not a twelve-year-old girl is seriously put under question as a result.
"Three violets," Roxas says, and Kairi nods a little, scribbles on a pad of paper and wanders out the back.
She comes back in a matter of minutes, a bouquet of three in her dainty arms. She looks like a grown flower girl, a bridesmaid, a maid of honour, a bride.
The paper she hands over says $8.98, and the munny that Roxas gives back has a note on top.
Come out with me tonight? Check yes or no.
"Crap," Roxas says, "crap."
Axel's lost amongst the sofa cushions, and maybe (there are no maybes about it) he's laughing a little.
"Crap," Roxas says, and his fingers run races through his hair, he straightens his button up shirt, and maybe he kinda wonders why the hell he's wearing a freaking blouse…thing.
"You're too cute," Axel says, and he's on the playstation, Mario Racecarts too tempting for his fragile resistance.
"No," the blonde says, and he collapses onto the sofa beside him, brushes at his bangs and yeah, he really does need a haircut. "I am a nervous wreck, I am a car crash waiting to happen. She's gonna get in, and then I'll say the wrong thing, and I'll completely screw everything up, because-"
"Dude," Axel starts, and his eyes are glued to the screen, he's Mario today, he's always Mario. "Roxas, provided you haven't been shamelessly lying to me, this kid's freaking deaf. Makes sense, no one who values their ears would date you."
"Shut up," he says, and he picks up the second handset. "I have a beautiful voice."
Axel laughs a bit again, ruffles his hair with a wayward hand. He states jokingly, "You have a beautiful everything, Roxas."
"Damn straight I do," he says, and it's strange, them living here together. He was never the friend he figured he'd shack up with. "And, Axel…"
"Yeah?" he asks, and he's back to playing the game, turning corners too hard.
"Thanks for everything tonight, y'know, cooking dinner and everything. Without burning it."
The game's on pause, and Axel, the man is just smiling.
"I hate you a lot," he says, and he rolls his eyes to the ceiling, to the light bulb that flickers above their heads, "but that doesn't mean I stop loving you, man."
"Yeah," Roxas says, "ditto."