Payless
o-o-o-o
"Why the hell don't they sell stilettos at Footlocker?!"
o-o-o-o
"Now, not to sound prude or anything, because I know how much you love to just spend all my hard earned cash on whatever fanciful item catches your whimsy, but considering we're, like, three weeks away from graduation, which means – ya know, college is coming and stuff – I really don't have the finances to invest in whatever the hell you plan on wearing to your last night at High School."
There. That was good. Let's try it again. This time without the note cards.
"Now, not to sound prude or anything, because I – "
There's a knock at the front door.
"Aw, crap."
It's Kairi. And Roxas hasn't finished practicing in front of the mirror yet.
He quickly searches for some place to hide his hastily made cue cards (written in pink gel pen, no less; he was a desperate lack of options in study hall and Selphie was the only one around) finally decides to stash them under the china vase situated in the foyer, and calmly makes his way to the front door.
He opens it. And there is Kairi. There is his audience. All lights are go.
"Now, not to sound prude or anything, because I know how much – "
"Spare me," Kairi interrupts, dainty hand thrown in front of Roxas' now flummoxed face. "The windows were open."
o-o-o-o
Feeling like the cheap bastard he always wanted to be, and finding he didn't quite like the feeling once he obtained it, Roxas tries yet again to persuade his girlfriend to go against the very thing he was fighting for.
"Are you sure you're okay with this? Like, you're not going to disintegrate the minute you step foot in a thrift store, are you?"
"No Roxas, I'm perfectly fine." Here she pauses. "I do draw the line at Walmart, however."
Damn. Walmart was responsible for half his wardrobe. And that was before he hooked up with Kairi.
(Now the local Good Will is starting to look more and more appealing.)
"Besides, Payless is, like, I dunno, trendy, right?"
… And cheap, he doesn't bother saying.
Yes. Thank the gods for cheap.
And sales. And coupons. And discounts. And Black Friday. And –
"Well, don't just stand there in the wake of your good fortune and my ever so generous mood," Kairi prods, giving Roxas a little half shove into the store. "Come on. You probably need shoes too, right? Your prom ones got – "
"I know what happened to my prom shoes, Kairi," he cuts in, the lingering resentment still evident in his voice.
Hayner and alcohol don't mix. The results were regurgitated onto Roxas' brand new shoes. Something that never would have happened if Roxas hadn't tried to plant himself in between his intoxicated classmate and the wheel of said classmate's SUV. The altercation that thus ensued involved very many colorful terms and crescendoed in a water fountain like spurt of projectile vomit, compliments of the polished off vodka bottle Hayner had snuck into the gala.
The entire thing could have been avoided, which is the real tragedy of it all, because while the two alpha males were busy fighting over a set of car keys, Kairi had extracted her rather intense nail filer, and quietly went to work slashing all four of Hayner's tires without so much as a word.
"I still think you used a switch blade, for the record," Roxas adds, in memoriam. "Nail filers are not that sharp."
"How would you know? Namine is my official Sephora shopping buddy now."
"Oh. Right. Because I almost died the last time I went in there. How could I forget?"
Kairi senses that Roxas is undergoing some weird male pride thing, not because he nearly lost to a rather pathetically plastered Hayner, and not because Marluxia was the one who exerted more public displays of affection than she in the now notorious make up store that Roxas had the right of mind to sue had not one of the employees, ya know, saved his life and all – no, he was getting emo over the fact he could not provide for his girlfriend. And shoes.
She needed to find some way of remedying this. And fast.
"Roxas. Look at me."
He lifts his gaze from the tiled floor.
"Not at my boobs, Roxas. Me."
Here a ghost of a smirk flitters by his lips.
"Sorry, my neck doesn't bend that way. It'll hyperextend."
Kairi, now a woman on a mission, purses her lips together and says: "Okay, fine."
She then kicks off her platforms so she is now a foot shorter and directly under his nose.
"I'll look at you, then."
Roxas gapes. He's never seen Kairi toss her clothes aside with such reckless abandon.
(Well, except for this one time, in the backseat … )
"I would much, much rather have a boyfriend who is willing to tackle glomp his friend into the pavement so he doesn't take to the road shit faced than one who avoided the entire confrontation and was therefore able to buy me better graduation shoes because his were spared in the process."
Roxas fidgets.
"You left out the part where he tackle glomped me."
"… I was conveniently forgetting that."
"You also conveniently forgot the part where, after upchucking on my shoes and curb stomping my face into the parking lot, Hayner was somehow able to negotiate the door, get inside his car, start the engine, and pretty much take off like nothing ever happened if only all four of his tires weren't slashed."
Kairi blinks.
Well. Yeah. That's kinda how it went. Kairi saved the day. Not him.
"I didn't want to squeeze a funeral into my plans," she tries to say dismissively. "I just don't have the time."
(Besides, the way she retells it, Hayner ends up hand cuffed in the trunk and Roxas plays hero by tearing apart the tires with his bare hands. Kairi swears she sat on a nearby bench and patiently waited for her glorious, muscle bound boyfriend to finish playing hero so he could take her home before curfew and score brownie points with her parents.)
"I just happened to pick out a good nail filer, is all."
Here she inserts a nonchalant shrug, and turns to enter the desired store.
It is also here where Roxas swings his arm around her shoulders, pulls his now bare footed girlfriend to his chest, kisses the crown of her head so tenderly she almost wants to cry, and says naught but, "Nah. I just happened to pick out a good girlfriend."
o-o-o-o
"Maybe you should put your platforms back on."
"No, I think I like being shorter than you for a change."
"But what if you step on a hypodermic needle or something?"
"Well, it wouldn't be our first time the mall sent us to the ER."
Roxas thinks of continuing the argument, because, really, he's serious about the needles – he saw a special on the Discovery Channel the other night while Axel pouted about not being able to watch his latest porno ("Axel, shut the hell up, you're on thin ice as it is. Consider it a miracle I even let you come over after trying to lick my girlfriend's face off." "Dude, you're still PMS-ing over that? That was, like, months ago. And are you actually, like, maturing or something? Because the Pre-Kairi Roxas I knew would much rather be taking notes off this lovely porno here than watching the frickin Discovery Channel." "Shh! The commercials are over, lemme here what they have to say next!") And thus he was consequently wary about letting his beloved girlfriend prance around bare foot, susceptible to all kinds of horrible diseases inflicted by various puncture wounds.
"Just what were you doing watching the Discovery Channel anyway?"
For all her feigned cluelessness, Kairi was able to put two and two together awfully fast.
"Um. Liquid Sugar."
"I don't believe that," she decides to conclude. "You wouldn't waste your precious Liquid Sugar on Axel." Pause. "Why was he with you again?"
"You were at Sephora's picking out nail filers. I got lonely."
"That lonely?"
"Well. Yeah. And they had this thing on, like, beaches."
Kairi continues to look nonplussed.
"Beaches," she repeats, devoid of emotion.
"Yes. Beaches."
Silence.
"Whatever."
o-o-o-o
In all honesty, Roxas doesn't quite understand why the female population has such an affinity with shoes. It's not like his eyes ever travel that far down, anyway. Their money would be much better spent on, say, belts, because that's usually where the gandering ends and the imagining begins.
"Isn't alligator on the extinct species list?"
"I think you mean endangered species list, Roxas," Kairi corrects, backtracking to where her boyfriend seems dumbfounded by a faux pair of alligator skinned slip ons. "If they were extinct then they couldn't make the shoes."
"Maybe they became extinct because of the shoes," he muses.
"Well, it wasn't these shoes then," Kairi says as she tries to take hold of Roxas' arm and drag him further into the depths of foot bondage. "They aren't real."
"How do you know?"
She looks at him dead pan.
"It's Payless, Roxas. Use your brain."
o-o-o-o
Kairi has fumbled her way through about ten pairs of heels, walking to and fro, testing each pair out relentlessly before she dares to commit to a single one. (Roxas wonders if she put this much thought into committing to him.)
She's on her eleventh pair when she spots Roxas flicking at the puffy snow balls originating from some nondescript pair of furry boots. She comes up behind him and watches as he inspects this apparently very engrossing phenomenon.
"Snow boots don't go with my outfit," she offers, leaning her chin on his shoulder, once again eye level thanks to the wonders of high heels.
"So that's what these are?"
He flicks one of the fluffy balls hanging precariously from a strategically placed string of yarn.
"What did you think they were?"
"I dunno. But they remind me of testicles. Not snow balls."
Here they let awkward silence run its course.
"Roxas, I'm going to pretend I didn't hear that."
"Pretend all you want, sweetheart, but these boots are definitely a nod to that feminist movement your always referencing. Susan B. Anthony probably owned a pair of these."
"Oh please. Susan B. Anthony wore buckles, Roxas. Not fluffy snow boots from Payless."
"If she were alive today, I bet she would."
"Tell you what. Next time we venture to the mall, we'll invest in a high class Ouija Board and ask her ourselves, kay?"
Roxas scrunches up his nose.
"Okay, if that's what you want. But you're gonna have to tell her you forgot to vote last year."
"I didn't forget," Kairi hisses, jabbing Roxas in the side. "You drove me to the voting booth. It's not my fault we never made it out of the car."
Roxas tries to hide his smirk.
"Let's just blame it on my testicles."
Kairi tries to march away in a dither, even though she's choking from swallowing her own laughter, but doesn't get more than three feet before promptly falling flat on her face due to the lack of dexterity given her current footwear.
"Susan just tripped you."
"Roxas. Go to hell."
o-o-o-o
As Roxas sits on some hybrid of a mirror/booth/chair/thing, he watches Kairi don five more pairs of shoes before finally voicing his nagging inquiry.
"Why do girls like shoes so much, anyway?"
"Roxas," Kairi sighs. "Please. Why is air good to breathe?"
He has to think about this one.
"Gimme a sec, I'll come up with something."
As he sits there cultivating his mind for a good comeback (never mind it was five minutes in the making) he thinks he may have stumbled upon a good one liner when all of the sudden he hears Kairi squeal heinously from two aisles over.
All of the sudden Roxas finds himself hurtling over stray boxes and discarded shoes just to get to Kairi as quick as possible. He knows nothing life threatening can happen in a shoe store, but still. Male. Ego. Pride. You know how it goes.
(Then again, he did almost die in Sephora, so perhaps a shopping related demise isn't totally unfathomable at this point.)
"Kairi?" he exhales breathlessly, toppling over himself to be by her side.
She stands, traumatized, hands clasped over her mouth, staring at a pair of bright yellow, feathered leg warmers being modeled on some torso-less mannequin, who happens to be missing a good deal of her toes.
Since she is currently rendered incapable of speech – she points at the leg warmers.
Roxas takes the hint and tugs at the price tag attached to the item.
"Chocobo Leg Warmers. Genuine. One hundred percent pure chocobo."
He pauses.
Kairi, almost as if somehow hearing this apparent atrocity out loud was able to snap her out of her stupor, marches over to the nearest store employee and snags her by the wrist and literally drags the clueless girl to the display window.
"Please, for the love of all that is holy and sacred, tell me no real chocobos were harmed during the making of these leg warmers."
The clerk remains dumbfounded.
Kairi, unable to contain herself any longer, shakes the girl by the shoulders and practically shouts, "Those weren't animal tested, were they?!"
"Ma'am," the pale faced cashier begins, voice tremulous and cautionary, "those are the animal."
Kairi squeals again – deafening, this time – and grabs Roxas by the arm to drag him out of the store.
But not before vomiting on his new/old shoes he managed to salvage from Good Will.
"Well," he grumbles, after all is said and done and the entire store is now looking at his puke covered sneakers. "I guess I'm in the right place."
o-o-o-o
Author's Notes
o-o-o-o
Yes, I know you can not slash a tire with a nail filer. But let me pretend. It's called fiction for a reason. XD
And – I can't believe I'm actually saying this – but OMGSH, the dénouement is almost here! Vixen may actually FINISH one of her multi-chaptered fanfictions!
-giggles deviously; for she knows the ending, and you do not-
Never fear, though. There are still three more psychotic chapters to go, plus an impending epilogue which may or may not birth insanity anew. Who knows? Depending on my chemical enhancement at the time (ah, liquid sugar, how I love thee) there's no telling what this vixen may do.
But what I MUST do, however, is thank you all for taking the time to read and comment with such creative encouragement and warm reception.
You guys are amazing.
If it were not for Kairi, Roxas would be willing to participate in a fangirl orgie with you all. But since he is otherwise preoccupied being repetitively, shall we say, voided upon, I can present you all with the ever charismatic Axel in his stead, who is still single at this point in the game.
Okay. If you'll excuse me; Vixen shall now go and attempt to tackle her Review Replies.
Though sometimes they eat her in the process. To which she can only hope to be regurgitated, much like Hayner's vodka.