Me: An update
Riku: Nexlei does not own Kingdom hearts or any other random references
Me: yep
The Struggle
Though stereotypical in its origins, it was a common fact that men loved sports. Sports of all kinds were the way the male half of the population enjoyed spending their time. They would dedicate hours to practicing their favorite sports and suffer to the point of exhaustion, they would destroy their voices for a week but for the chance to yell at a ref for an unfair call and of course they would spend an unlimited amount of time discussing sports with their friends.
This was not to say though, that the female population did not like sports, to the contrary they did, though they had something called boundaries. The little line between enjoyment and obsession was always very clear to them, while to their counterparts, not so much.
Roxas was not the typical boy in most matters. He wore to much black for his own good, ate too much candy for him to possibly be as thin as he was, and of course loved fire almost as much as his dear friend Axel. How he had such a flowery girlfriend was a mystery to everyone.
Though, in one way, he was exactly like other boys. His intense love of sports… well one sport in particular. The Struggle. Roxas loved everything about The Struggle, the heat of the competition, the fighting and of course the spotlight of "totally owning some lamers".
"Tell me again what is so damn exciting about this?" Axel asked his best friend a week before The Struggle tournament.
"The heat, the action, the…" Roxas was cut off before he could finish his sentence.
"Yeah yeah, whatever you just like knocking the balls of some guy," Axel's catch fraise. He was not as into The Struggle, as he was not into Sea- Salt ice cream. Axel had been born in another town, which was usually the reason attributed to his lack of love for Twilight Town's many quirks.
"For the last time…" Roxas began, but was again cut off.
"I know you're not gay,"
"I like the sport for it's…"
"I know exactly why you like the sport, you've repeated it eighteen times already," Axel told his friend a little annoyed. Every year around this time, all of Roxas's attention would be diverted from their scheming and pranks to The Struggle. Of course, it was not in his nature to stop his best friend from doing what made him happy, but of course it was also not in his nature to tolerate rants about it all day. That was a little too far.
"You realize that summer vacation is almost over right?" Axel asked him, the two sat on top of the roof of a local store, overlooking the main town.
"No shit," Roxas put rather eloquently.
"That the date today is August 17th?" Axel added trying to instill into his friend a sense of their impending doom, school.
"WAIT…" Roxas suddenly shouted out.
"What?" Axel asked alarmed, and wondering if they were under attack.
"So today is August 17th and the struggle is in one week…" Roxas started… , "So that would make it on…"
"Seventeen plus seven equals" Axel spelled it out for his friend not understanding his sudden panic.
"Oh shit,"
"You say shit too often, you should mix it up more, you know there's crap, damn, f…"
"I know all the words, but… August 24th…" Roxas looked more worried than usual.
"Yes?" Axel asked.
"Namine is coming, I promised to show her the town and ice cream and stuff, but I can't on the day of the struggle" Roxas said.
"You could bring her with you," Axel said.
"But wouldn't she think it was boring?" Roxas asked his friend.
"Well, she's your girlfriend, not mine so how should I know," Axel said.
"I know," Roxas suddenly shouted out.
"I could actually see a light bulb over your head that time," Axel pointed out.
"Shut up,"
"What's your brilliant plan?" Axel asked.
"You could distract her all day… and I could win The Struggle and than still have time to take her out for dinner," Roxas pointed out.
"That's not being a very good boyfriend…" Axel said.
"Who are you to judge, your idea of a romantic date is a blow torch and some marshmallows," Roxas pointed out.
"Ok, that one may not have ended very well, but at least I know better than to dump my girlfriend on my best friend while I go participate in some beauty pageant," Axel said.
"The Struggle is not a beauty pageant," Roxas announced to his friend.
"I think you missed the entire point…"
"No I get it, but besides that, The Struggle is a beautiful sport, but not a beauty pageant…"
"You are undeserving of any girl's affections," Axel bluntly told his best friend.
"Maybe, but I'll still take her out for dinner right?" Roxas said.
"Yeah, but still, you are breaking a promise and it would be much easier to just take her to The Stuggle," Axel said.
"She would hate it,"
"Who cares, it's supposed to be you who she likes right," Axel announced and almost slapped himself for saying such a pathetically sappy thing.
"Does it really matter, I just don't want to bore her," Roxas told his friend with a defeated sigh.
"You should just not play in The Struggle this year," Axel suggested, though knowing that his friend would never on his life agree to that, reasonable ideas were always good to mention even if they were going to be completely ignored, that way when the person in question failed miserably one would be able to rub it in their face more effectively.
"Please just distract Namine for one day,"
"Fine," Axel agreed, knowing well enough that it would be an easier task to do than to put up with Roxas's constant whining.
"Thank you so much," Roxas looked like it was Christmas. Axel shook his head and looked at the sky.
"You are such a dumbass," Was all that Axel said and the two continued to loiter on top of the building.
insert dramatic music here for the dramatic time skip
It was the day of the Struggle, Roxas was woken up way to early to be allowed. For him, this was around ten O'clock. But Axel was not one to judge as he waited for his lazy friend to get out of bed.
"You know, Namine's going to be here in a half an hour," Axel said.
"How the hell did you get in here anyway?" Roxas mumbled.
"Your mom let me in" Axel sighed, "Namine…"
"So," Roxas mumbled through his pillow,"
"You're going to have to put on the attentive boyfriend show that won her heart," Axel told his friend with a snicker, looking out the window and half expecting to see the girl already there. He had actually never met her before, Roxas had simply arrived home, from summer camp and informed Axel that he had somehow gotten a girlfriend. Axel, though he would never say it aloud, suspected there was witchcraft involved. Roxas was to shy around girls he liked for his own good. And the one's he didn't like, well they may as well have not existed at all.
Though, as his friend, he was a little surprised that he had been so completely inattentive to his girlfriend as to dump her on him of all people. He never though Roxas to be the uncaring kind of person. But being his friend, he could sometimes piece together the scattered and always illogical thoughts in Roxas's head. He wanted to be in the Struggle and he though his bonnie lass (Axel had been watching pirates of the Caribbean) would not like it, so he was doing her a favor.
Of course, in the real world that made absolutely no sense.
"Just get ready, you have your pageant to win…"
"Fine," Roxas must have been very tired as he did not violently kick his friend for insulting his favorite sport.
No sooner was Roxas ready for the day and seated on the couch, anxiously than a car pulled up into his driveway.
He turned around and peered through the window, there was his girlfriend.
"WAIT," Axel nearly shouted.
"What," Roxas asked panicked that Axel would back out of the plan at last second.
"She's not that bad looking," Axel said shocked that Roxas had managed to get a girlfriend like that.
"If you so much as…"
"Dude, I'm shocked, how did you even ask her out, you're like jello with pretty girls like that,"
"She isn't a pretty girl," Roxas shouted.
"Did you just insult your own girlfriend?" Axel questioned a little surprised that Roxas would call her not pretty, she was pretty.
"No, I mean, just because she's blonde doesn't mean she's one of those stupid pretty girls, she's actually smart," Roxas started rambling.
"Well I meant the literal pretty thing, not the insult," Axel sighed. Namine knocked on the door and Roxas jumped up to get it, "Strange how you're so eager to see the girl you are about to dump on your best friend,"
Roxas did not hear this comment, he was already answering the door. Axel, trotted to the entrance hall, just in time to see the blonde come bounding through the door and into his undeserving friends arms. When she kissed him he almost rolled his eyes.
They pulled apart and Roxas turned to Axel.
"Namine," He addressed her tenderly, Axel bit the inside of his mouth, it was funny to hear Roxas addressing anyone without a hint of sarcasm, let alone sweetly "This is my best friend Axel," She smiled at him kindly.
"Hello," The blonde said, she seemed a little shy. He nodded his head back at her for a greeting. Roxas sent him a glare that demanded he actually say hello. As fun as those 'cool' nods were, Roxas was not willing to accept it.
"Hi," Axel spoke. Roxas smiled and they moved into the living room, where the plan would start.
"Have you heard from Kairi and Sora," Roxas figured that it would be easier to make small talk before starting the plan… he did after all, have ten minutes before he needed to be at the struggle. That gave him three for talking, one for escaping out the back of his house and six for a mad dash across town.
"Kairi emailed me the other day, they are still just as in love with each other as they were when we saw them,"
"That's good," Roxas nodded.
"Yes it is," Axel agreed, having no idea who this other couple was. Probably some people from Roxas's stupid summer camp. Stories from that damn place were sounding more and more like the reruns of the love boat he had seen the more he heard them.
"Do you even know them…" Namine caught on.
"Nope,"
"You know what would be really good right now… Ice cream," Roxas announced to the two in a voice so dramatic, it was obviously planned out.
"That would be good," Namine said, "Could it be that Sea- Salt kind that you always talk about,"
"Yeah sure…" Roxas glanced at Axel, who hated Sea- Salt ice cream and smiled.
"Yay," Axel could not hide the sarcasm.
"You know what… I forgot to print out a homework assignment…"
"It's summer," Namine said confused.
"Yeah, my school is evil, they make us submit essays in them middle of the summer…"
"Absolutely horrible," Axel said, referring the mere idea of summer homework, which they really had and the fact that that was the worst excuse to leave the room that he had ever heard. How easy was it to print something later.
"You guys better get ice cream without me… I'll follow you when I'm done,"
"We could just wait…" Namine suggested.
"No… it's ok,"
"Fine," Namine said, disappointed at not getting to spend every second of the day with her boyfriend, though his friend seemed like an interesting enough person. If not slightly sardonic.
"Let's go," Axel glanced at his watch. Namine, of course, had to go give Roxas a goodbye kiss, and than she and Axel left the house.
"So is this Sea-salt ice cream any good?" She asked.
"If you haven't eaten in three weeks, I'm sure it's plenty good," Axel told her.
"Roxas said everyone loves it," Namine said, the two were walking down the streets leading from the houses of Twilight Town, to the plaza. Where the Sea- Salt ice cream was located.
"Well, I guess almost everyone does," Axel told her of the entire town being utterly obsessed with it and how it was a little bit scary.
"It must be good than," Namine said, she had heard how insane the town went when they had to go without sea salt ice cream for an entire week.
They walked up to the Sea-Salt ice cream stand and bought two popsicles. Axel was only eating one to be polite.
Namine took one lick before she started gagging. Axel laughed.
"I told you it wasn't good," He told her,
"But Roxas said…"
"I could never understand why everyone liked this stuff," Axel said, "At least I know I'm not insane now,"
"How could anyone like this?" She asked. The next fifteen minutes or so were spent discussing how any town could be so in love with something that tasted that horrible, twilight town passerbys of course stared at them like they were committing heathenness crimes, saying that sea salt ice cream wasn't good.
"Where is Roxas, shouldn't he have caught up by now?" Namine asked. Of course, Axel knew that by this time, Roxas was already at the sandlot, maybe even playing that stupid game already.
"Idiot probably jammed the printer again," Axel said.
"We should go back and help him," Namine said, jumping off the bench they had been sitting on.
"Ok," Axel said, there was no way Roxas was in the house, so when they got there she would just assume that he had gone out to meet them, and they had just missed each other.
This was exactly how it played out.
"Well, we could go looking for him," Axel said after finding the house to be empty.
"Ok," Namine said, "We'd better go to the Sea- Salt ice cream stand first, we must have practically passed him on the way here,"
"Yeah…"
So they ran back to the sea-salt ice cream stand. Lo and behold, Roxas was nowhere to be found. Namine looked confused and Axel sighed at the start of a long day.
"Maybe he thought we were going to the other ice cream stand…" Axel said, there were just two Sea- Salt ice cream stands in twilight town. One was by the train station, and the other was in the plaza. The one by the train station was about as far from the sandlot, where the struggle was being held, as one could get. Not to mention, if he took the long way, it could take them a long time to get there. Thus killing more time.
"Ok, where is it?" Namine asked.
"Up this hill…" Axel pointed up the somewhat steep road, and the two started climbing it. Axel stopping every few steps to point out buildings and in the slowest way possible give a detailed history of each. Finally those stupid summer projects were coming in handy, he at least was well versed in Twilight Town history.
"And through that crack, you can walk outside of the city and there is a freaky looking haunted mansion…"
"Axel… you've pointed out that crack three times… are we going in a circle…?" Namine asked.
"No… Twilight Town is just filled with identical freaky cracks in random walls… they all lead to freaky mansions where freaky old men in freaky red cloths live,"
"Ok…"
Axel decided that it was time to actually start heading for the other stand… any more times around the square and she would defiantly notice. So up the hill they went.
"And that's the tree where the old lady's cat got stuck last week," Axel pointed to a tree.
"How… fascinating,"
"Yeah, Roxas was the one who saved it," Axel told her… coming to a complete stop and seeing this opportunity.
"Really?" Namine seemed suddenly interested.
"Yeah, he can be a really nice person like that" Axel said.
"Yeah," Namine looked over at the tree with a happy expression, before heading up the hill apparently even more excited to see her boyfriend, the hero of kittens across the country.
"Namine slow down," Axel whined. She did and they continued up the hill at a regular pace.
It took them about an hour total to get to the sea salt ice cream stand near the train station. Axel was quite proud of himself for turning something that usually took fifteen minutes into an hour.
Roxas was nowhere to be seen of course. Namine looked worried. How could they possibly have lost track of her boyfriend… this wasn't a big town.
Axel's mind was busy thinking of some other plan to distract her. He came up with just the thing… thirty flights of stairs…
"Namine… see that big clock tower on the train station…?" He asked her.
"Yeah, why?" She asked.
"Well, it is Roxas's favorite spot in all of Twilight Town," He told her. She looked up at the tower… it was pretty high.
"Really,"
"He may have gone up there," Axel suggested and nudged his head up to the top.
"We should look," Namine fell for it. Axel smiled and nodded his head enthusiastically. He wasn't particularity keen on going up thirty flights of stairs… but the elevator was just to fast.
"This way," He showed the back entrance to the train station and into a door leading to stairs… endless stairs.
"Uh, isn't there an elevator?" She asked.
"Heh no," Axel said and started up the stairs, "The tower builder, he's real cheap you see… and umm an exercise nut,".
"Stairs suck," She mumbled under her breath before following him. Up and up and up and up, thirty flights of stairs the two climbed. Not exactly an enjoyable experience. But it did take them a good fifteen minutes or more… for this, Axel was very happy.
They walked out the door, to a spectacular view of the entire city. No Roxas in sight, but the view was to amazing to pass up, so Namine walked forward and looked out at the city.
"What an awesome view," She said, Axel chuckled a little and agreed, preparing a speech on every landmark in sight. "Hey what's going on over there?" She asked. Pointing to an area, almost a strait line downhill from there point, where many people were gathered.
"Maybe someone lit a mailbox on fire again…" He did not mention this was impossible, as he was standing right next to her and Roxas was at the struggle. They were, truly, the only ones insane enough to start mailbox fires in the first place and informing Namine of this would more than likely put Roxas in more hot water than he already was
"No… look, they are standing around a square… hey maybe it is a competition of some sort," Namine said.
"No… you know, people here like square dancing… that could be it"
"Square dancing isn't like that," Namine said.
"Maybe… ,"
"Maybe Roxas is there," Axel looked horrified.
"Why would your boyfriend be square dancing when he was spending the day with you?" Axel laughed nervously.
"He could be looking for me there…"
"Yeah… he could be," Axel said, "Do you like square dancing?"
"No… but…well, let's go," Namine turned and started heading towards the stairs when something caught her eye, "Wait… there is an elevator,"
"What, when did they put that in?" Axel asked. Namine was glaring at him, a little bit miffed that they had walked up thirty flights of stairs for nothing.
Namine shook her head, wondering just what was wrong with Roxas's friend and pushed the button for the elevator, which appeared minutes later.
Once they were on the ground, she made a beeline down the hill for the spot where she had seen all the commotion.
"Hey… do you know where you are going?" Axel asked, hoping for a chance to lead them off track.
"It's just a strait line… and no offence, but you have the sense of direction of a jar of ketchup," Namine said. Axel raised his eyebrows. He had been called many things, but he had never been compared to ketchup before.
"Yeah, I try," Axel said.
"So we were purposely going in circles before," Namine asked as she increased her already fast pace down the hill.
"What… no why would I do that,"
"I don't know," Namine said truthfully, though she obviously had an idea that something strange was going on. Axel didn't particularly want his friend to get in trouble, so he tried again.
"Maybe he went back to his house to wait for you…"
"No let's just go to that competition," Namine said. They had already reached the plaza
"I thought it was square…,"
"It looks like a competition,".
"Really, he is probably at home," Axel said, "You don't want to watch as they put out a stupid mailbox fire right… that's probably all it is…"
"Roxas likes fire, he might be there," Namine said.
"But his house…"
Namine sent him a glare and he was silenced. They walked into the very crowded sandlot, and made their way through the crowd to the square just in time to see Roxas win a match against a boy with funny yellow hair.
"Come on back here, I'll explain," Axel sighed as he motioned for Namine to follow him to the back of the crowd where Roxas couldn't see, it was best not to make him panic yet.
"Every year they hold a Struggle tournament in Twilight Town… you know what the Struggle is right?" Axel asked the girl once they were safely out of sight.
"Of course I'm pretty awesome at it myself," She grinned.
"Right… So your wonderful boyfriend Roxas loves The Struggle and he accidentally made your date on the day of the tournament… he thought you would hate it, but he couldn't miss it, so he told me to distract you all day,"
"Really…" Namine looked angry.
"Look, he really cares about you and all, he just didn't want you to be bored and he couldn't possibly cancel your date for something like this… that would seem shallow,"
"Shallow, like having his best friend baby-sit me all day,"
"If it makes it any better he was going to take you out for dinner," Axel put in. Namine was still frowning.
"Is there still time to sign up?" She asked suddenly.
"Sign up…? For what?" Axel asked.
"The Struggle," Namine said. Axel looked at her like she had three heads.
"Maybe…" He told her.
"Good, and I'll be needing to borrow that hoodie," She pointed to Axel's trademark black hoodie.
………………………………………………………………………….
It had been easy getting through the first few rounds. Nothing but civilians who had never held a struggle stick in their entire lives. The next few had some idea what they were doing, which made them even more easy to beat, and than came the ones who really knew what they were doing. They went down without much of a fight.
With her blonde hair in a pony tail and a hood covering most of her face, it was impossible to tell who she was, Axel hung back in the crowd and watched as she totally demolished all of the competition, with a look of awe on his face. Now this girl brought the sport to an art form.
Roxas was doing just as well. A match made in heaven, Axel laughed,
Steadily names were erased off the chalk board, until there were only two left. Roxas had just defeated some guy named Seifer, and it was only him and the hooded guy that no one could beat.
Roxas jumped on the platform, eager to win the last match and get the glory, the spotlight and the trophy with all of the colorful balls.
Namine walked forward, ready to jump onto the platform as well, when there was a tug on her sleeve, Axel. She turned around.
"Knock the balls off of him," He said just above a whisper and in the most serious voice she had heard from him thus far. She smiled and stifled her laughter as she turned several shades of red and jumped onto the platform, intending to do just what Axel said.
"Ladies and Gentlemen, Boys and Girls, the moment you've all been waiting for, the final completion…" The announcer started. Roxas and Namine walked towards each other, they were standing just a few feet apart, each holding their stick in a ready position, "Ready…. Struggle," The announcer said.
Roxas hadn't had a chance to move Namine knocked him with her stick three times, making him loose nearly half his balls. He swung at her, but she rolled to the side picking up the balls he had dropped. She was in the lead. If he couldn't land another strike on her for the rest of the game… she was winner by default.
But being winner by default was not as much fun. She came at him again, allowing him to hit her once, so she could get in a combo, gaining back all that she had lost.
He was gritting his teeth, obviously not happy with the way the game was going. She was maybe, three hits from winning and the time wasn't even halfway up yet.
With tremendous speed he lunged at her, not wanting to be knocked over alone, she grabbed his wrist, brining him down on top of her.
He had a look of the utmost shock when he looked down at her. She looked back perplexed at him for a moment before realizing that her hood had fallen off. Cover blown…
"Roxas," She said as a way of greeting, before knocking him off of her and jumping to her feet. Despite his utter shock, Roxas was back on his feet in a matter of seconds.
"Namine…" He said back, biting his lip, he knew he was in trouble.
"I'd like to thank you for the babysitter," She told him
"I told him to be more of a tour guide…" Roxas said. They were circling each other, undecided who would attack first.
"Well, he did manage to give me a detailed history of every nook in the town," Namine told him humorlessly.
"I'm sorry… I didn't know you could struggle," Roxas said. She suddenly lunged at him. He dodged.
"Maybe if you spent real time with me, you would have known," Namine said. He did not reply, as she moved with a speed she had acquired from who knows where, she delivered another combo attack and Roxas was ball-less.
In three seconds she had collected them and won the game.
Once the confetti and cheering had died down, she collected her trophy and walked to the back of the crowd.
Roxas followed, looking terribly defeated and ball-less.
Axel gave Namine a high five, and Roxas looked down.
"I'm sorry Namine," He told her. She glanced back at him and laughed.
"You should be,"
"I promise, I'll never do anything stupid or deceiving again," He told her. She shook her head and walked away from the mass of people. Axel followed after her.
"Hey… listen," he called.
"What," She turned around.
"He really cares about you," Axel said.
"And how could you tell that?" Namine asked, "I can't tell,"
"If he didn't he would be way more torn up about loosing the Struggle than he would about you hating him," Axel pointed out.
"I don't hate him…"
Namine turned back around and walked towards the crowd where Roxas was sitting looking rather defeated, on the edge of the Struggle platform.
"Hey looser," She called to him he looked up, "No hard feelings," She said, before closing the distance between their lips.
Needless to say the next morning, Twilight Town's newspaper printed an article titled "The Struggle: Love and War" with a picture of the two kissing on the front page.
a/n This idea has been in my head for a while now. Not exactly the funniest chapter, but I think there is some irony. Anyway, I didn't actually start typing it until the line Axel says to Namine "Knock the balls off of him" popped into my head. Than I was like… write… now…
That's the story. Reviews would be appreciated. Reviewers get nonexistent cookies!