Unfortunately, the cheap marker turns out to be harder to get off than she'd thought. Not that that wouldn't have made sense if she'd spent, like, any time thinking about it, but she hadn't. She'd assumed it was cheap, washable marker that would take one, maybe two pumps of soap to remove. Not so.
So the first time she sees Axel, her hands are nearly raw and she's got tears starting to form in her eyes.
Actually, she doesn't even see him. She's so busy fretting over her hands and wishing that she had some Neosporin that she didn't see him cross her path, not that he was the first to do so. But when they cross paths, he doesn't jump to avoid her like everyone else had. He meets her head on and she meets his chest with her nose and her face turns the color of her hair, though she can't tell if she's embarrassed or irritated as this man glowers down at her from, like, at least six foot two.
When she sees his face, she decides there are probably better words for what she is.
"Do you make a habit of getting underfoot?" he snaps at her, and she kind of stutters some kind of half-formed apology that's part apology and part excuse and part incoherent mumbling, then ducks her head and makes a beeline for her seat.
As she tries to dart past him, he grabs her shoulder and laughs and is like, "Calm down, lady, I'm messing with you. I like your hair." He points to the top of his own head, winking, and she grins to see a wild mess of bright red hair of his own. She pulls on a strand of her own, asking him, "Born or bottle?" and he gives this highly offended snort but he also doesn't answer her, so she laughs.
He asks if she's here with anyone or if she would want to grab a table with him and she winks and says she hasn't decided yet if she's got a date, but perhaps he could help her out?
He grins again and his teeth are so white, like, if he were in an ad for teeth whitening, the product would bust because people would see him and be like, No way, no one's teeth could be that white. Like that.
Someone had taken her little out of the way table, but he steers her expertly through the crowd to a spot in the back where it's a little quieter and a little less bright. She sits down and looks up to find that he's nowhere in sight, so she's just about to chalk him up to some kind of weird hallucination until she spots him at the bar, which probably should have been her first guess as to what had happened, anyway. She sighs a little bit because of course, Kairi, of course the first guy you meet here knows his way around the bar.
He returns with a couple of glasses and raised his eyebrows, like, "I figured you might need a bar ambassador," looking pointedly at the bright red patches of skin on the backs of her hands. She feels her skin heat up again and mumbles something incoherent and grumpy, but she reaches for the drink, because why not? He smirks at her like, "Vodka cranberry okay? It seemed to fit with your hair," and she glares at him but it's only really halfhearted. It only occurs to her after her first sip that she didn't watch it be made and had no idea whether or not this guy had put anything in it, but she's already one sip in, so.
He's like, "My name's Axel, you should remember that, it's important," and she says, "Why's that?" and he winks and goes, "Because I'm important." She laughs at that and introduces herself and properly apologizes for running into him because, "I'm really such a klutz, I guess I never grew into my feet," and then she thanks whatever god exists that he laughs because c'mon Kairi that's a really weird thing to say to a guy and what if he's got a foot fetish?
He asks standard questions and she gives pretty standard answers and says that she's new in town when he asks why he doesn't recognize her, he doesn't remember seeing her around before, and he remembers everything. She sips at her drink and rolls her eyes when he says he's got a thing for island girls and she's like, "Well I grew up mostly on the mainland, so."
He doesn't take his eyes off her and it's unsettling, but not because Kairi isn't used to it. She isn't exactly unaware of the effect she can have on men. She knows her hair is a draw for most of them, she has nice eyes and pretty skin that stays even and clear, for the most part. She's vaguely athletic looking in that way that some girls are, where you might assume that they played a sport, but you'd have no way to know which one. Is she a soccer player? A swimmer? A runner? Who knows?
Regardless. Kairi is used to being a subject of interest for men. It isn't especially fun or exciting anymore like it was when she was first starting to be complimented on her appearance, but it isn't harmful. So long as they didn't get too awful interested, Kairi could often get a pretty decent deal out of it. So if Axel were looking at her like another man might, it wouldn't be as odd. If he would look at her cleavage, or let his eyes wander down her legs as she stuck them out beside the table, or watched her throat as she spoke. But he didn't. His eyes stayed glued to hers nearly the whole time she talked.
And really, that was all to Kairi's benefit. She'd never seen eyes like his. Bright, cyan blue and lively as waves, full-lashed and expressive, they never left hers. When he would laugh, he reminded her of Riku, and the way the rest of his face could be smooth and impassive and you'd still know for sure he was laughing.
He keeps going back to the bar and ordering her different drinks, teasing her and trying to see if she can guess what's in the things he brings her, and he laughs loudly when she guesses rum and the answer is really tequila. He's so lovely, she thinks while his head is tipped back and his eyes are squeezed shut, I could cry. I won't, of course, because that's messy, but what a nice thought.
When he asks her questions, he smooths out his face and gives her no indication of how he feels about her answers until she's done talking, and then it changes all at once. It'll split open into a toothy grin, or he'll throw his head back and laugh, or he'll let a small, quiet smile slip onto his lips as he nods. It's very nearly off-putting, not knowing what he wants from his questions, but she supposes it makes her honest.
He asks her what she's in town for and at first she's like, "Uh, to live?" and then she realizes that that's, like, rude to say and blushes and mumbles, "I want to sell flowers."
He tips his head to the side and waits for her to elaborate. She takes a big sip of her drink, pops an ice cube in her mouth, and tells him a little bit. She doesn't get too far into the gay-love-of-my-life thing but she does tell him that she only knows this one little place in the world and that she wants to do her own thing. He smiles like that was just the answer he was looking for.
Then he asks her where she lives because it's getting a little bit late and do you want me to walk you home? When you're ready to go, that is, there's no rush.
She doesn't quite hear him because maybe she's not quite listening but she doesn't answer and asks him instead if she can touch his hair? Because she thinks it'll feel fried and rough but he keeps running his hand through it so it must be soft and she just wants to see, but he raises an eyebrow at her hand halfway across the table to him and tells her she can touch it all night if she wants to.
Almost immediately he squints at her, like, "How old did you say you were, princess?" and she says eighteen and he nods again and bites his lip and doesn't say anything so like, she doesn't know if that's good or bad.
A few minutes later they're laughing about something ridiculous and she startles out of nowhere and squeals, "Wait! Oh no, I can't go home with you, they'll be expecting me," and here she drops her voice conspiratorially, "I only just got here today, you know. I don't exactly have a place of my own yet."
He rolls his eyes like, "Oh, okay, fine, but where are you staying so I know if I can walk you home or if I need to call you an Uber or something," and she smiles and tells him about Aerith and Leon and Cid and the rest of them and about halfway through he gets this very not-nice smile on his face, like a twisted kind of smile and just nods and breathes and for the first time tonight, there's an uncomfortable silence between them.
She crosses her arms over her chest like, "What's the matter with you?" and he smiles but not all the way and mutters, "Nothing, princess. Do you know those people?"
That kind of pulls her up short because she doesn't. Of course she trusts friends of Sora's but the truth is she doesn't know these people. They're actual real life strangers but she can't exactly do anything because all of her stuff is there but now she really doesn't want to stay with them and she doesn't know what to do.
So instead of making a decision or really doing anything at all, she kind of just picks at her cuticles and watches Axel from underneath her eyelashes. It suddenly occurs to her that she's pretty drunk, and also that she's probably being very, very stupid, but that thought was rude so she pushes it from her mind.
Axel watches her emotions play out all across her face, laughing to himself because god, it's hysterical, she wears her heart on her sleeve in a way he's never seen before. He can actually pinpoint the exact moment when she realizes that she's committed to staying with strangers and when she first thinks that she might not want to do that. It's mesmerizing and the last thing he wants is to take advantage of the fact that she's an open book, but I mean.
Kairi looks up from her nail beds to see a slow smirk take over Axel's face like a slow-burning flame and she's confused, but he smiles and jerks his head towards the door and says, "Come take a walk with me," in a way that's kind of like a request, but a request that he's pretty sure she'll say yes to. She thinks very briefly that this might be a bad idea but she follows him out the door anyway and his legs are so long and he's so tall and she's having to jog to keep up with him.
She almost turns around and starts home, but hey, what's one more dumb thing to do? she reasons, and Axel laughs just as surely as if he'd heard her say it out loud. Kairi decides then and there that she would very much like to hear that laugh again, and that's what she's going to do.
Hi friends! Thank you for taking the time to read this little nonsense! I've had this ship since I was about 13 years old and let me tell ya, I'm gonna go down with it. Anyways, leave me a review or shoot me a message! I love getting to know you guys!
much love
