Back again! I know, I know, to the one person who might be reading this, I haven't updated in a while. So what, sue me.
Just kidding. Don't sue me.
Disclaimer: Unfortunately, I don't own anything.
Warning: Mild Swearing, Mind-numbingly petty high-school drama, and a ton of dialogue. Whatever, it's an introductory chapter.
"Hey."
A startled Donnikko her head around to look at the source of the deep voice, an extremely hot dude with vibrant red hair styled like Sonic the Hedgehog's.
"Uhhh... hi?" she half-stated, half-asked in confusion, suddenly self-conscious.. Who was this guy?
"Yeah. So..." Axel waved him hands in front of him in a desperate attempt to come up with something to talk about. "Uhhh... nice night, huh?" He then literally facepalmed at the absurdity of the topic and decided to backtrack and just get to the point. Before Nikko could come up with an answer that was sure to be equally awkward and lame, Axel went for the best way to explain himself: blatant truth and no bullshit.
"Okay, so..." he drew in a deep breath, trying to find his words, and realized something: He didn't know her name!
"Wait, what's your name?" he asked.
"Er, Nikko," the blonde replied nervously. "Who are you?"
Yay, explanation/rant time. "Okay, so this is all gonna sound really crazy, but whatever. My name's Axel, A-X-E-L, got it memorized?"
Nikko just stared at him strangely without answering, so he decided to just skip the introductions and get on with it.
"My friend Zolo's been looking for you for a while because he saw you in Hottopic once and talked to you and thought you were his soul mate or something." Axel shook in head and snorted. "Can you believe that guy? But anyways," he continued, "Anyways, I recognized you from this picture he has and I was like, Holy poop on a stick, It's that one girl! So I called Zolo and I was like, Hey, I found that one girl! And he was like, Holy crap! And he wanted me to come over here and confess his love for you or something. Stupid, right?" Here he laughed dryly. "So, yeah, I guess that's-"
"What?" Donnikko croaked in disbelief. "What the fuck are you talking about?" The Axel guy grinned at her bad language. It's like Roxas all over again, he thought. Then he turned impatient with her lack of understanding the current situation at hand.
"Zolo? I don't know if you remember him or not. Green hair, 'bout as tall as me, kinda has a long pointy nose?" To get his point across (pun intended), Axel gestured wildly, waving his finger in front of his face, but that just made him look like an elephant.
"Uh. No," the girl deadpanned. "I honestly have no idea what you're talking about."
Facepalming for the second time in ten minutes, Axel was about to launch into another detailed explanation about Zolo and Nikko's encounter (Zolo had told him everything) when he had the greatest idea ever.
Well, that was an exaggeration. But it was a pretty damned good idea. He could just give Zolo her number, have Zolo call her, and then let Zolo do the talking.
"Actually, you know what? I'm not doing a very good job of explaining everything like ol' Mossy wanted me to, so how 'bout I just give him your number?" Axel propositioned.
Nikko shook her head. "I don't have a cell phone," she sighed, getting quite annoyed with the so-called "Axel". Suddenly, suspicion flared up out of nowhere. "This isn't a joke, is it?" she spat. "Because this is not funny in the slightest."
"Geez, I wouldn't joke about something so important to Mossy," the redhead denied, running a hand through his hair. He thought a bit, then said, "Okay, what if you talk to him right now? Like, will you talk to him if I call him from my cell?"
Donnikko hesitated a moment, then nodded reluctantly. "Yeah!" Axel did a victory fist-pump. He didn't screw up! What a first! After dialing Moss-Man's number, he handed the phone to his new acquaintance eagerly and pressed speaker-phone. She didn't even have time to think of what to say before the phone was answered on the first ring.
"What did she say?" a guy's voice shot out at her like a coiled cobra striking out at his prey.
"Er... uh, hi?" she half-asked again.
"Who is this? Xion?" Zolo demanded. "Give the phone back to A-"
"It's Nikko," she interrupted. "The girl that Axel said you were looking for or something? I don't really know what he was babbling about-" she ignored the sound of the redhead's indignant "Hey!" in the background, "-but he said that you met me in Hottopic once. Or something."
There was no answer on the other line.
"Uh... hello?" Nikko's brow furrowed in confusion.
"You... you're name is Nikko?" Zolo asked weakly.
"Yeah, I don't really know what's going on or who you are or anything."
Zolo drew in a shaky breath and tried to jog her memory. "W-we met in Hottopic and we talked about music like Ozzy and Audioslave. And I was wearing a Black Sabbath shirt. Remember? Because you had accidentally bumped into me and dropped all your stuff..." Zolo trailed off expectantly. But he needn't have worried.
Nikko stood there, mouth agape, slightly dazed. "I remember you! I can't believe this... Oh my God, I was there with Gwen and then I basically embarrassed myself in front of you, and you - And I - And we-" She broke out into peals of nervous laughter. "Wow, this is crazy."
Zolo let out his breath and smiled a goofy smile into the phone. So she remembered. Great, great, great.
Then she stopped laughing abruptly and instead frowned. "What did he mean you had a picture of me?"
Thoughts did a 180. Shit, shit, shit. What could he say? What should he say? Shit, shit, shit-
"When you were in the checkout line, he took a picture of you with his phone. Major stalker, right?" Axel supplied with a giant grin on his face. Nikko's eyes grew to the size of fucking dinner plates. What the fuck?
Zolo faintly heard Axel say something in the background, only comprehending the words "phone" and "stalker" due to the red-head's shitty speaker. Man, he was going to fucking cut Axel. There was silence on the other line, and then-
"HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHA!" Nikko threw her head back and laughed in disbelief at the situation. "Wow, you took a freaking picture of me?" She burst out into more giggles as she struggled to form coherent words. "That's... That's... HILARIOUS!"
"Uh..." Zolo was slightly hurt. And kind of devastated by her reaction. Was this good or bad? Was she about to hang up on him?
"I mean," she sobered up quickly, "not hilarious. Well, yeah, hilarious, but not like a freaked out type of hilarious. Just, like, this is the weirdest fucking thing that's ever happened to me and, I don't know how to explain it..." She tried to rein in her intelligence.
"I'm flattered." Nikko finally spit out. That pretty much summed it up. And she was. She remembered this dude, and recalled how beautiful he was. She even remembered his earrings and gauges. For days, weeks, months after the incident, Donnikko's thoughts were only of green hair and rumpled jeans. But time eventually corrodes the memory, and after a year she forgot his face, reminiscing only on a haze of sea-green hair and clear, tan skin.
"So... Zolo, right?" she confirmed, tasting the name on her tongue. It was quite the unusual name; She had never heard it before.
"Yeah, Roronoa Zolo. I go by my last name," he said, nervously clearing his throat. "Nikko..." he mumbled. What a pretty name.
An involuntary smile crept onto her face. "Yeah," Nikko said, winding her long hair round her finger. "It's short for Donnikko. Donnikko Donnatella."
"Cool."
There was an awkward silence.
"So, what school do you go to?" Nikko asked hesitantly. She wasn't very good at making small-talk.
"Oh, I go to Twilight Preparatory School. Same as Axel."
The blonde raised her eyebrows. "My brother goes to that school. He's a year older than me, a junior. Do you know Roxas Addonexus?"
Axel, who was barely listening to the conversation and was currently preoccupied with lighting another cigarette, looked up in surprise at the mention of his crush's name. "Roxas? Angry little emo blonde Roxas?" he asked excitedly. "He's my best friend!"
Donnikko shook her in disbelief at Axel. "You're the annoying ginger he talks about?" she asked, surprised. "Wow, what a coincidence. He talks about you all the time on the phone." Axel's stomach did a backflip as he processed the girl's latest comment. Roxas talked about him? All the time? Roxas mentioned him? Roxas talked about-
"Roxas is cool," Zolo supplied politely, interrupting the spontaneous combustion that was taking place inside Axel's head. "I don't really know him as well as Ax does, but Axel's good friends with him."
"Small world," Nikko whistled.
The greenette furrowed his brow, thinking. "So you're a sophomore?"
"What? I can't hear you." O'Lavry's crappy phone was cutting out.
Zolo raised his voice so she could hear him. "I said, so are you a sophomore?"
"Oh, yeah," she replied quickly. "Yeah, a sophomore at Hollow Bastion High. Are you in my brother's grade?" He shook his head even though she couldn't see him, a funny habit that he had. "No, me and Ax are seniors."
Axel shook his head, still overwhelmed by the fact that Roxas talked about him. "So you're Roxy's sister? I mean, he said he had a sister named Nikki or something, but he didn't really say anything more than that..." Axel paused and scratched his scalp, processing the information. Then he realized something. "Wait, why do you guys have different last names?"
"Oh, um, well, it's kind of..." She stopped, trying to figure out how to explain it. "We're half-siblings," she said. "We have different dads. Roxas lives with his dad, and I live with my mom."
There was a short silence, then Zolo spoke, confused. "I thought Roxas's dad was gay. I always thought he was adopted or something."
Nikko was about to explain further, but Axel beat her to it. "His dad's gay now, but he didn't always used to be," Axel said helpfully. "When Roxas was a little kid his dad came out of the closet and his parents got a divorce. Roxas moved in with his dad, his mom found a new guy. Thus, Roxas' sister was born!" Axel thrust his finger into the sky dramatically, striking a superhero pose. Then he turned to Nikko. "At least, that's what Roxas told me."
"Yeah, you're right," she said, bewildered, "but I didn't think Roxas would've told you that. He doesn't really like to tell anybody about the whole thing. It's kind of a tender subject." The blonde smiled at Axel. "I guess he really trusts you." Her comment made Axel's face turn as red as his hair and his brain had another miniature freak-out. He coughed awkwardly and exhaled a cloud of smoke, hoping that he didn't look as happy as he felt, and decided to change the subject to the first thing that popped into his head.
"She dyed her hair." His tone was almost accusatory as he took another drag on his cigarette.
Zolo's eyes grew to the size of dinner plates. "WHAT?"
"Who?" Nikko asked, confused by the sudden topic change.
"Whaddya mean who?" Axel smirked. "You, of course."
"Oh," she faceplamed. Then, after a brief pause: "What's wrong with my hair?"
Nikko wasn't girly by any means, but she was very touchy about her hair. And her nails.
"What color is it now?" Zolo asked, baffled by the blonde's actions.
"It's still my natural blonde, I just dyed the underneath and the bangs black," she explained testily.
The phone beeped. Axel anxiously took the phone and looked at the text message.
Where are you? I can't find you anywhere. Did you leave?
"What was that noise?" Zolo asked.
"Ugh, Xion sent me a text," he groaned. "I thought I had lost her."
Donnikko's head snapped up, her eyes narrowed. "Xion? Xion Smith?"
Axel nodded, grudgingly answering the black-haired girl's message as he did so.
I'm out on the balcony, getting some fresh air.
"I just sent her a message. She'll be out here in a minute." He turned to the blonde. "Yeah, Xion Smith. I'm pretty sure she's a grade above you. Are you friends with her or something?"
Nikko clenched her fists. "We used to be friends, unfortunately. If you don't mind, I'd like to leave before she gets out here."
"No, wait, don't leave yet," Zolo replied indignantly. "We didn't even get to talk, really."
Nikko smiled. "Just add me on Facebook," she giggled. "Or don't you have one?"
Zolo spit out a rapid-fire, "No, I have one!" and followed it up with a, "I'll add you tonight."
"Okay," she grinned, twisting her hair around her finger, when she remembered that any minute Xion, her arch-nemesis, would come barreling out onto the now barely-lit balcony, heels clicking obnoxiously on the stone floor. "But I have to go now. Talk to you later, Zolo." She hung up, mumbled a rushed, "Thanks, I'll add you on Facebook, see ya," and rushed back into the seething crowd of people, hoping not to run into the black-haired, blue-eyed girl whom had once been Nikko's best friend. Unfortunately, life has a twisted sense of humor, and Nikko collided with someone in her attempt to get back into the dance hall. It was Xion, who had been hobbling precariously on five-inch heels at record speed, determined to get some alone time with her red-headed date, now sprawled on her ass on the edge of the dance floor, her angry blue eyes glittering with hatred at the sight of her former friend. Nikko, on the ground from the force of the impact, got up and shook herself off, averting her eyes from Xion's gaze. Xion stood as well, eyes like hot knives, and fixed her dress.
"Watch where you're going," she spat and shoved past the blonde, her words boiling Donnikko's insides.
Nikko looked up, her own expression as straight as could be.
"Fuck you." The two words spilled effortlessly from her tongue, and she walked away with no regrets as Xion mouth moved like a gaping fish out of water. That bitch had got what was coming to her. Plus, the look on Xion's face made Nikko feel better than she had in a long time.
ooOOoo
"See ya," Zolo muttered dejectedly into the receiver as words Call Ended blinked on the screen. Then he raced to his computer to add Donnikko Donnatella to his friend's list. So, she was related to Roxas. Thank God that the world was small. He was extremely curious, though. What did the blonde have against Xion?
