A/N: This fic here is mainly rated for vulgarity, sexual references, use of drugs and alcohol, notty words, reality, sex, partner switching, my retardation, confusion, lengthiness, etc., etc., and the usual. XD Parings are Akuroku, Cleon, touches of Soriku and Zemyx, and maybe some others in later chapters. A lot of one sided teenage crushes.
I wanna give thanks to Sad0-masochisticPyro, blood as soft as silk, and reddoggie. You guys are a wonderful and supportive bunch. Thank you so much for all of your input and opinions. :D
Cry For Me, Laugh For Me
Chapter Four
Roxas stood quickly and marched away before anyone could say anything. He was going to go to the office and hang there until his class started, but a quick flash of frilly blue and red leather ties in a train of long hair caught his eye and had his mind changed just as fast. He approached Yuna's table slowly, waving a little as she looked up to see who it was.
"Roxas!" she said with a sweet smile. "Sit with us?" 'Us' being Yuna, a bouncy girl with wild braided and beaded hair, along with a silent girl with black hair so light it appeared to be gray.
"Sure." He took the offered seat next to Yuna. Feeling slightly uncomfortable, he glanced up only to find Axel staring at him from three tables down. Quickly he averted his gaze guiltily to the table before looking back to the girls' whose company he was now in.
"So, you're one of those new kids?" the bouncy blonde asked him from her spot across the table. She stretched across the tabletop and sighed in contentment. "I wish I was a new kid."
"So you can get rejected by everyone?" the gray haired girl asked sarcastically.
"Maayyyyybe. But then you and Yunie can come and pick me up off the street and we can all have a wild byndo!" At this point she was sitting back up in her seat dancing to a song that only she could hear.
Yuna giggled. "That's Rikku." She pointed to the dancing blonde, "And that's Paine." Next she pointed to the quiet girl. "We've been friends since middle school, so we're quite close." She pulled her bag out from under the table and grabbed her cell. It was light blue in color and had lacy designs traveling down the sides. "So how is your first day so far?" she asked as Roxas took her phone and handed her his own in return.
"Stressful," he replied with a sigh.
"Bummer," Rikku said and moved down a seat so she was directly in front of Roxas, blocking Axel's intense gaze. "Here," She leaned forward, her orange bra showing through her cotton white tee, and placed her hands on his shoulders, kneading her fingers gently into tense muscles. And surprisingly he allowed her to. She was rather good at it.
"What class do you have next? Maybe we can help you?" Yuna said hopefully as she handed back Roxas' cell, only to have it snatched up by Rikku's magic fingers.
"Me too, Roxie!" Roxas shrugged and took Rikku's orange cell with multicolored jeweled stickers placed sporadically on the front. He was surprised that when she had called him Roxie that he hadn't flinched, or gagged, or… anything. Maybe it was because she was… well a girl. He shrugged the notion off. It wasn't anything important to think about at the moment.
As he entered his number in Rikku's cell, he pulled his schedule from his pocket and handed it to Yuna.
"Yo Roxie, you have Riku's number in here?" Rikku said with a raised brow. "Can I steal it? I mean, do you even know how badass it'll be to prank call that guy?"
Roxas felt a small smile play on his lips. She reminded him of Sora in the cheerfulness department, but, where Sora was childish and innocent; Rikku seemed to be mischievous and silly.
"Feel free; just make sure to call him from payphones, so he can't block your number."
Rikku paused, looking up from the two phones in front of her as she copied Riku's number to her cell. "Wow, Roxie! You're a genius!"
"Or so I've been told," he muttered to himself.
"Roxas, you're a sophomore?" Yuna asked him suddenly. "But you're taking almost all junior level classes?"
Roxas shrugged. "I guess… Well I've always been a little ahead of my class."
Rikku shook her mane of braids and beads. "Yunie and me, we're juniors this year. Paine's a senior because she skipped ahead a grade when we were ten, but people think that she's a junior. So, when she's gone next year," she paused momentarily to make a dramatic sniffing sound, "we're going to tell people that she dropped out to chase her dream of being a hooker." She sighed dramatically, ruining it with a small giggle. "No one in this school really pays attention to the fine details."
Paine reached over and took Roxas' schedule from Yuna to look it over herself, as if she didn't believe what Yuna had said about his classes. "Rikku," The blonde stopped bouncing momentarily to give her attention to Paine, "he has M.A. with you next hour."
The bubbly blonde blinked a few times. "Really?"
"Yes, really."
"Hayd! Roxie and Rikku bonding time!" she said with a grin. Roxas was just glad that there was a table separating the two of them, else he would've been smothered by the hyper active girl.
Finally, his day was starting to look up.
oOo
Axel watched Roxas storm away in a huff, confusedly rubbing his head where Roxas had hit him with the sandwich.
"Okay, who said what?" he asked, giving a measuring glare to each member at the table.
"I didn't even say three words to the kid!" the blond paused for a second then gasped. "Oh my god, I think I said five!" Axel rolled his eyes. Five words from Dem were enough to drive anyone nuts. "Zexy didn't say anything though."
Axel turned to Larxene, who was currently shredding her napkin and muttering angrily to herself. "So, what happened, exactly, and why did he throw a sandwich at me?"
"Uhm," Demyx scratched his chin thoughtfully. "I said, Hi! I'm Demyx! What's yours? Then like, he just said Roxas and I kinda figured that he was like, Zexy… You know," he lowered his voice, "anti-social."
"Demyx… I can still hear you. I happen to be right next to you." Zexion said in a bored tone.
Demyx jumped and laughed uneasily. "Oh! Uhm, dude! When did you get there?" he gave another chuckle and turned back to Axel, completely missing Zexion's eye roll. "Anyway…"
Axel tuned Demyx out and he watched Roxas take a seat with Yuna and her friends. When did Roxas befriend them? He nibbled on the inside of his cheek. When Roxas looked up from his seat and caught his stare, he wasn't sure what he was supposed to feel. Anger? Jealousy? But when Roxas looked away in what really seemed to be guilt, he tried to settle on understanding.
"And when Larx was all up close, like, she said that he was some kind of… uhm, prom-a-gee…?"
He looked to Zexion for help. Zexion merely sighed. "Prodigy."
"Yeah one of them, and that he was uhm, Sora's twin or something." Demyx shrugged, taking a deep breath, "then he just told Larx to shove her nose in her girlfriend's crotch. I was like woah! He totally said that! Oh, and then he threw his sandwich."
"He called me a lesbian," Larxene seethed, and dug one of her long nails into the pile of shredded tissue. "That fucking brat!" she snarled before moving on to tear up her food. "He thinks he can get away with this… Think fucking again." She stopped suddenly as a grin spread across her face. "This is not over."
"No. No it's not," Axel said as he went back to staring at Roxas. He would figure the blond out someday. He found Roxas to be like an intriguing puzzle that only contained odd pieces that wouldn't seem to fit together unless you looked at it from many different angles. It was both refreshing, yet, extremely irritating to the redhead. "Dem, you have M.A. with him next hour."
oOo
"Yep! Here it is!" Rikku said, throwing open the doors to Music Appreciation. "This class is up on the charts with creative writing. And Professor Melody is awesome! She's up there on the other charts with Yuffie."
"Uh, okay?" Roxas gave Rikku a strange look, even though she wasn't looking. What the hell was she talking about? And what kind of charts was she referring to? Then again, he really didn't want to know.
"Oo, oo, sit here!" Rikku said, motioning to a seat between herself and Demyx. Roxas shrugged and did as he was told; doing his best to ignore the curious looks Demyx would send him.
"Good afternoon class!" A cheery woman at the front of the room greeted. She had reddish hair that was clipped to the back of her head so it spilt over the top of her head, accompanied with big gray eyes covered by a pair of non-rimmed glasses. "Did everyone remember their iPods?"
Roxas blinked. He didn't have an iPod. He did have music storage on his phone. He leaned over to Demyx, because Rikku seemed too busy digging through her bag, and whispered, "Can you use a phone?"
Demyx smiled. "Yeah dude! As long as it can download music files for class."
"Kud ed!" Rikku yelled waving around her orange colored iPod, decorated in the same fashion as her phone. She continued to wave it around until the earplugs smacked Roxas in the side of the head. "Oops, sorry Roxie." She set the device in her lap. "Yo, Melody! You said that today we get to start on modern music! I say we start with some dance music!"
Professor Melody smiled, opened her mouth to speak, but was cut off by a whining Demyx. "Nooo! We should totally do some rock! Or pop! Something with nice guitar riffs; that attack!"
There was a small roar around the room as students both agreed and disagreed. Roxas on the other hand, had no idea what an attacking guitar riff was, nor what music was strictly classified as dance. "I don't know about you guys," a guy in the back said over the crowd, "But, elevator music seriously trips my trigger, let's do that!"
Rikku sighed and rolled her head back on her chair. "Shut up tat face, no one cares about your overwhelmingly stupid opinion."
"Yeah well—"
"Zell, Rikku, enough!" Professor Melody said in a stern voice, earning the attention of the entire class. "Today we have a new student, we'll let him decide."
Roxas blinked a few times as Professor Melody gave him a pointed look. "Well… Uhm…" He drew a blank. He wasn't exactly big on a certain type of music. Whatever sounded good at the time would be what he listened to. His tastes were all over the place.
"Do you have, perhaps a particular band in mind?"
Roxas swallowed. If he said something he swore half the class would worship him and the other would murder him violently in his sleep. He just closed his eyes and thought back to the last song he and his friends had listened to together. He wasn't sure of the artists, but the title was something along the lines of 'That old time rock and roll'.
"Uhm, rock?" he squeaked out.
Professor Melody nodded, "Modern rock it is then," she said with a satisfied smile.
Rikku sighed from his right. "Well, I guess that's better than elevator music…" she mumbled. Demyx, on the other hand, looked so excited that Roxas could of sworn that he'd wet his pants at any given moment.
"Alright, class today we'll…" Roxas pretty much zoned out the rest of the class. Turned out all he had to do was listen to some songs each week and then form an opinion about it. And that's all they ever did in that class. Ever. Not that he minded, he just wondered how, exactly, they were graded.
After class Roxas decided to ask Demyx to show him to his English class since Rikku just up and left, most likely forgetting that he was there. Which really didn't surprise Roxas, Rikku seemed to be the type of person that could be quite airheaded at times. Roxas figured that Demyx was a really good guy, just… stupid. Demyx agreed to show him around and didn't mention one word about lunch or Axel. Actually the whole time Demyx was gabbing about all his favorite guitarists from some more modern rock bands and a few of the older ones. But with the speed that Demyx talked and Roxas' incapability to keep up with him had his head spinning by the time he made it to class.
"Okay, now you have fun little dude!" was the last thing Demyx said before he was pushed bodily into his next class. Yeah, complete idiot. He looked around the room that he had been shoved into, only to find that it was nearly empty due to the fact that he had arrived somewhat early. M.A. wasn't too far away.
"Ahem. Roxas." Roxas blinked. Had he spaced out? Naminé was sitting across the room, a hand on the desk next to her. "You can sit here if you'd like, no one sits here."
"Okay." Roxas sat down and rested his head on the cool surface of the desktop. The day was almost over. So close to being over; so very close. And yet, not close enough.
"How has your day been?" the pale blonde asked him after a long moments silence.
"Stressful," he replied.
Naminé nodded. "Same as Sora," she said quietly, "he just won't admit to it."
Roxas snorted. "Of course he wouldn't…" he looked to the ground. He wasn't used to being away from Sora for this long. It was probably one of the many reasons he was so edgy today. "You've seen him recently?"
Again the blonde nodded. "We just had math together. He asked the same about you, you know?"
Roxas attempted a small smile, but failed miserably. Great, now he was suffering from separation anxiety. He tallied that onto his growing list of problems. At least Sora was feeling the same.
Not a single word was said between the two for the rest of the hour. It was just a repeat of chemistry class, but this time, the teacher actually gave him a book.
oOo
"Thanks again Naminé," Roxas said as they reached his seventh hour Honors Algebra class.
"Oh, it's nothing. I'll see you later Roxas."
With a small parting wave, Roxas walked into his seventh hour. The desks were all sectioned off into groups of two and the occasional three. The teacher, a bald man with a large scowl, pointed to a desk near the center of the room, the one in front of it empty as well.
"Good to know some brats still come to class on time." Roxas looked around the room confusedly. He was the only one present. Oh. "Here's a text, calculators are over there, steal one and you'll have a swift death."
"Yes sir." This guy freaked Roxas out; threatening his students with death on their first day. Momentarily he wondered if the guy ever smoked or drank during class too. Shrugging the notion off, he went and grabbed the aforementioned calculator and sat back in his seat.
Two or three minutes passed by and the only other person to show up was that Selphie girl from his first hour. When she saw him, she looked positively murderous. He pointedly ignored her.
Three minutes until the final bell was to ring, Roxas thought that it was just going to be Selphie and himself. That was until the door was nearly ripped off its hinges and Riku came tumbling in, muttering how he was still on time.
The silver haired teen sat down in front of Roxas after fetching his own calculator. Riku shuffled some papers around on his desk before looking up and noticing Roxas for the first time.
"Roxas?"
Roxas forced back a smirk, instead settling for an apathetic stare. "Someone's pretty observant."
Riku scowled. "I can't believe you're in this class." He sighed, twirling his pencil absently on his desk. "So Sora wasn't kidding earlier."
Roxas quirked a brow, but didn't say anything on the matter. To be honest, he didn't care, nor was he going to waste the effort of trying to.
Finally after what seemed to be an eternity, the teacher started the lesson and Roxas still had the faintest idea as to what his name was.
The class went well for Roxas, the subject matter was something he had already gone over at Destiny, and so he pretty much had everything in the bag. And to top it off, Riku hadn't said a word more to him, and for that he was beyond grateful. Riku annoyed the hell out of him.
Just one more class and he was home free.
oOo
Cloud sighed in irritation at his machine shop partner, Reno. Honestly, this guy didn't know the difference between a bolt and a screw.
"No, put that there and this here or else the—don't turn it on!"
Cloud grabbed the long tail of red hair just as Reno flipped the switch to the 'on' position and pulled the other away from the small device as it all but exploded.
"Cooooool!" Reno exclaimed as it stopped sparking and went to poke at the mess with a pen. "What, exactly, happened to it?"
The blond sighed and adjusted his goggles so they hung around his neck. He picked up the partially melted clump of metal and wire. "It short circuited. Bad."
"Huh, now that definitely wasn't supposed to happen," the redhead said, pulling up his own goggles to rest atop his head.
"No shit."
"Hey, don't get mad at me! It was a total accident."
Cloud gave Reno a side glance. "Yeah. Right. Accident."
Reno looked closer at the blackened lump. "So uh, I guess we start over?" he said, poking at it once again.
Cloud couldn't wait to go to work.
oOo
Roxas sighed as he found his Spanish class. Cloud had already left school to go to work and Roxas wasn't jealous in the least.
He took a seat between a couple of people he'd never seen before, and just put his head down. He felt so tired, just from the complete boredom that he'd been suffering throughout most of the day. There was a few shifting and scuffling sounds from the seat next to him, but he didn't give it much concern, he just found it to be a little too loud. Spanish was probably his worst class ever, but both he and Sora promised their mother that they'd take foreign language classes to get into better colleges.
Class began shortly after, but Roxas didn't feel all too inclined to raise his head and listen.
There was a loud rapping sound right next to head, that startled him enough to get him to look up. There was a tall woman with blonde hair drawn up into a tight bun; she had on a pink outfit that seemed a little too tight. "Head up, hun," she said with a smile, stretching her red lipstick.
"Yes ma'am," he replied blearily. He blinked a few times and yawned. Damn he was so bored. Looking around the room, he noticed that ten minutes of class had already gone by. He panicked slightly. What were they doing? What had they gone over? Whose notes could he use?
He looked to one of the guys he had sat next to. The guy had spiky black hair and was pretty much twenty times his size and could very well squish him under his boot, so with a shake of his head he turned to the other side and suppressed the urge to groan, although he couldn't quite stop the eye roll. Sitting right next to him was the redheaded nuisance, Axel, when he was more than positive he had sat between a couple of people he hadn't met before.
See you in Spanish.
Oh. Now it made sense. Stalker.
"Okay class, now pick a partner and do the exercise. That's all for today."
Again Roxas felt the panic rise up inside him. He didn't know anybody but Axel in this class, and Axel was most likely mad at him. He needed to explain himself, sorta, and get the notes.
When Axel made to move from his desk he did the only thing he could think of. What Marly had done to him during P.E. He grabbed Axel by the wrist and yanked to get his attention. He needed to be confident, like Marly was with him.
"Uhm… Partner?" he asked when Axel looked down at him. Damn Axel for being so fucking tall, he didn't really like being towered over like this. And, damn him for being so fucking awkward.
Instead of leaving in a huff, as Roxas had figured the taller would do, Axel smiled and moved fully back into his desk. "I thought you were mad at me," he said as he turned his desk sideways, motioning for Roxas to do the same.
"No. I'm not." Roxas sighed. "And I didn't, exactly, mean… to throw my sandwich at your head. It just happened, and I'm still hungry because of it."
Axel chuckled. "Okay, fine," he said with a smirk, "I accept your apology."
"I wasn't –"
"Okay, now is all we have to do is…"
Class went by pretty fast for Roxas. It turned out that Axel was pretty good at deciphering the gibberish that filled the pages of the text book.
When they finished the assigned exercise, Roxas sighed and put his head on his desk, before propping it up on his chin. "I hate this class," he mumbled, followed by a small yawn.
"Why?" Axel asked his own head propped up on a hand. "It's good to know."
"Maybe." He sat up and glanced at the clock wearily. Five minutes left. "But I don't plan on border jumping anytime soon."
Axel snorted. "Doesn't mean that they don't."
"Yeah, well then they should learn English so that way my GPA can stop being put into jeopardy."
"Your GPA?" Axel stretched across his desk, green eyes flickering in curiosity. "What's it at right now?"
"Four point O," Roxas said with a shrug. "And I'd like to keep it that way."
"Wow, if you want— " The final bell rang, causing some students to jump at the shrill sound. Roxas sat further into his desk, he felt too lazy to get up. "If you want," Axel repeated, talking over the sudden rush of people, "I can help you out in this class."
Roxas blinked. The offer sounded too good to be true. Most people were too jealous to give him the time of day. Not that he really cared, they were all stupid anyway. "Really?"
"Yeah really."
Roxas stood slowly and slung his bag over his back as Axel did the same. The offer seemed genuine to Roxas, but it was still too good, Axel was, as much as he hated to say it, even if it was just in his mind, much better than him at the material. "There's a catch, isn't there?"
Axel's grin seemed to turn sharper as they walked down the hall together. "You'll have to come to my house to get help; I don't have any free time at school."
When what Axel said actually registered in Roxas' tired brain, he nearly tripped in his surprise. "Wha—your house?"
"Why not? It's not too far, and Reno can give you a ride after school, so we don't have to walk."
"Reno?" Roxas asked. What exactly just happened?
"He's my older brother." Axel pushed open the black metal doors leading outside. "So you'll be at my house tomorrow right?"
"Uh?" Axel was so confusing at the moment. He was talking way too fast and distracting Roxas with quirky hand gestures that the blond was positive he was doing on purpose. He just couldn't keep up.
A horn sounded and a sleek black convertible drove up in front of the duo. Roxas wasn't really into cars, but this one was rather shiny, bordering on that it's too shiny to look at and the owner has nothing better to do with their lives than polish their car over and over. But what did he know; cars were more Cloud's thing.
"That's my ride," Axel said as he walked up to the car and opened the passenger door, "I'll see you tomorrow."
Roxas stared straight ahead as Axel's car drove out of view. He was too out of it to care all that much.
"Yo Rox." Something hard was placed on his shoulder, snapping him out of his daze. He recognized the weight immediately as his skateboard. He grabbed it and put it on the ground before facing his friend.
"Hey Hayner," he said, a small smile beginning to form. When was the last time he'd ever just grinned? He couldn't remember. "Have fun getting here?"
Hayner snorted. "No. It's at least fifteen minutes away on wheels. I think I'd kill myself before I walked." He motioned to his rollerblades. "Got new ones," he said with a smirk, "And, you're just jealous that we get out before you."
"Nice. But, you're jealous that we get in after you," Roxas countered as he climbed atop of his board.
"Whatever." Hayner grunted and they both took off, weaving their way through the crowd of students.
When his cell began to vibrate, Roxas pulled it out of his pocket and flipped it open, still managing to wind his way easily through the thinning crowd.
Where R U?
-S-O-R-A
Goin 2 Olettes
-Closet Emo Rox
"Sora?" Hayner asked as Roxas put his phone back in his pocket.
"Yeah." When they made it out of the mess of people, the two friends sped up their pace and would occasionally pull a trick or two.
"You like it there?" Hayner asked after Roxas tried to ollie over a stray cat. It ran away before he could land the trick. He gave a curse.
"Too big," he said as he threw a pebble at the cat, "You can't find anything there."
"Sounds like it blows."
"It does. I hate how you can't be late to a class or you get locked out and sent to detention."
Hayner sighed and turned around to skate backwards. "Bigger schools always have crazy stupid rules like that." He gave Roxas a strange look. "Destiny's not the same without you, yanno."
"It's not like I can go back," Roxas said, knowingly shooting down any ideas Hayner was trying to form. "Besides, it's not like you guys really missed me that much anyway."
At this, Hayner growled and pushed Roxas off his board, causing the shorter blond to stumble a few steps backwards as his board continued down the sidewalk without him. "What the fuck, Hayner?" Roxas spat out.
"Don't 'what the fuck' me, Roxas! 'It's not like you guys missed me anyway', my ass!" Hayner threw his hands up. "Dammit Roxas, we're your friends, we fucking missed you. But I certainly didn't miss your pathetic 'nobody loves me' attitude!"
Roxas' fists clenched at his sides. "Take that back, Hayner," he ground out angrily.
The sandy blond snuffed his nose stubbornly. "No. Way."
For the second time that day, Roxas let his anger get the best of him. He tackled his longtime friend onto the grass. They both began to wrestle, pulling hair and clothes, kicking each other and trying to smash each other's faces into the dirt. Roxas wasn't sure how long they were going at it, but soon enough both of them began panting heavily and they slowly stopped and lied down next to each other on the grass to regain their breaths.
Roxas punched Hayner in the shoulder lightly. "I hate you sometimes."
Hayner chuckled airily. "Yeah, well, I hate you too." He kicked Roxas' shin with the front wheel on his rollerblade. Roxas hissed in a pained breath, he could feel a bruise forming on the spot already. Again Hayner chuckled. "Serves you right." He rubbed his face and gave his own groan of pain; he took his hand off his face and looked at it closely. "Fuck, Roxas. You need to cut your nails."
Roxas looked over at Hayner to see a long scratch mark traveling under Hayner's eye. "Serves you right," he repeated.
"Uhm… Roxas?" both Roxas and Hayner looked up to see another blond standing over them with a curious look on his face. He was holding Roxas' board in one hand and the other was hanging onto a leash.
"Demyx?" Roxas said, sitting up and trying to smooth his hair down.
"This yours little dude?" Demyx asked, holding out the checkered patterned skateboard.
"Oh… Yeah. Thanks." Roxas took his board back and stood up, brushing the grass off his butt. "What're you doing here?"
Demyx grinned. "Today's is Demy's day off!" he declared proudly. "But, I was walking Pluto and I saw you two just laying there." He gave a shrug and a tug on the leash he was holding. "Did you two crash or something? Like, major wipe out on the sidewalk?"
"Yeah…" he thought quickly for some kind of change in subject. "Pluto?"
"He's my—"
"Gah! Get this thing off me!" Hayner shrieked suddenly. The two conversing blonds looked down at him. A large tan colored animal was crawling atop of Hayner, giving the appearance that it was trying to eat Hayner's face off.
Roxas pulled the thing of Hayner by its collar, while Demyx sat back and laughed until it looked as if he were going to fall over.
Hayner gasped and stood quickly, wiping his face off much harder than necessary. "What is that gross thing?" he demanded before spitting several times into the grass.
"T-that's… hehe, Pluto. My d-dog." Demyx managed to say through his giggle fit.
Roxas looked down at the panting 'dog'. It didn't really look much like a dog. Its feet were too big for its body, its tail and ears too thin, and its nose looked like some kind of defect. Pluto just looked up at Roxas, a long tongue lolling out if its mouth.
"It's ugly," he said bluntly.
Hayner nodded. "Yeah, looks part dog, part rat and part… sasquatch."
Demyx sighed. He bent down and mashed Pluto's face against his. "But that's what makes him so adorable! Yesh you are! Yesh you are!"
Roxas pulled out his phone and pretended to be interested in the time it displayed. "Oh, hey, Demyx. We need to go, or we'll be late."
"Okay," Demyx said with a sigh. He began to scratch Pluto behind the ears. "I'll see you at school tomorrow, little dude. Bye to you and… uh…" he trailed off and looked at Hayner expectantly.
"Oh." Hayner said after a short awkward silence. "Hayner. That's my name… yeah."
Roxas nudged his friend as they started down the sidewalk again. "Smooth."
"Yeah, well, look who's talking, Mr. Anti-Social-might-as-well-be-bipolar!"
"At least I can introduce myself properly."
Demyx watched the two skate away. They seemed really close. With a shrug he stood back up and gave Pluto's leash a small tug. He wondered why they were fighting…
oOo
"What took you two so long?" Olette was out on her patio with Pence, both of them lounging on lawn chairs eating sea-salt ice cream.
"We ran into someone I know," Roxas explained, purposely not mentioning the fight between Hayner and himself.
"Really?" Pence said, sitting up in his chair. "Who was it?"
"Some freaktard named Demyx," Hayner answered and sat down heavily on his usual chair. He held out a hand to Olette for an ice cream.
Olette ignored his silent demand and smiled up at Roxas as he took his own seat, pulling out two popsicles from the cooler next to him. He threw one at Hayner as he opened his own. "Is he someone you met today at school?" she asked sweetly.
"Yeah," he replied with a shrug, "We have fifth hour together." Suddenly Roxas sat up with a surprised 'oh' sound. "You guys won't believe what we have to do in that class." He took the next five or so minutes to explain the basic concept of this strange Music Appreciation class, before he looked to his bag with a groan. "And that reminds me. I have about two hours worth of homework today, and I even got it 'easy' for being the new kid."
Pence's brows furrowed. "Wow, Rox. And you said that you don't have to wear uniforms to Oblivion High? That's strange," he said with a thoughtful glance to the sky before returning to sucking on his ice cream.
Hayner sighed, "So that means you have to leave soon, huh? Don't you think you don't spend enough time with us already?"
"I don't remember you being so high maintenance."
"I'm not."
"Then stop acting like I have to hold your hand all the time."
"Guys!" Pence said, waving his arms about as he sat up further in his chair, "Please don't fight."
"I do not, Roxas!" Hayner yelled, pounding a fist on the armrest of his chair. "Dammit, this is all your fault! You're the one that keeps leaving us!" Everyone grew silent as the blatant accusation was thrown into the air.
Roxas stood from his chair slowly, staring Hayner down with an emotionless expression. He wasn't mad, or upset. In fact he felt… hurt. Something he hadn't felt in a very long time. "If that's how you feel…" he said as he picked up his bag and skateboard from the ground, "I just won't come back this time. So you don't have to worry." Before anyone could move to protest, he ran. He ran even though he could hear Pence and Olette call after him, their voices high and worried, he ran as his cell phone went off, as traffic whizzed past him relentlessly.
He wasn't sure what else he could do but run.
oOo
Hmm. A lot of Roxas in this section. More on the family in the next one though. :D
Is this the part where I beg for reviews? XD