Title: My Girlfriend, Who Lives In Canada
Pairings: Axel/Roxas, Olette/Rai, SoRiKai
Disclaimer: The Kingdom Hearts franchise and its characters do not belong to me.
Summary: Roxas has a pretend girlfriend. People give him shit about it. In more ways than one.
VII.
The week that followed was tense and quiet and brimming with self-loathing.
Roxas's dad apparently decided that grinding away his soul at yet another class action deposition in Boston was infinitely preferable to engaging in fruitless attempts at reaching out to a sulky teenager, and so drove off on his week-long trip as scheduled. They exchanged curt farewells at the door—mumbled words, minimal eye contact—and then Roxas had the pleasure of watching the Ford Taurus speeding away down the street post-haste, as though his father couldn't wait to get away from him.
Too bad he himself couldn't afford the same luxury, because high school transformed over the next few days from a series of dreary, unbroken monotony into a series of dreary, unbroken monotony but that was also more similar to a certified war zone, with sharp, accusatory looks replacing landmines around every bright and cheery corner.
It was a good thing he had managed to patch things up with Pence—"Caught in a tangled web of your own lies, I thought that was enough poetic justice."—and Hayner—"No, man, it's totally cool, I just wanted you to chill, you know? No hard feelings? Me? No way! You? Cool, you want to maybe shoot some hoops after school?"—before the first day was out, because when you were in a hot mess, it was good to have allies.
Of course, all it took was Olette sharply turning her shoulder on him with a coldly impersonal, "Excuse me," when he tried to approach her at lunch, to remind Roxas that, yeah, baby boy, it wasn't going to be that easy.
Trying to get any time alone with Olette these days seemed like an exercise in futility. Whenever she wasn't in class, she was usually in the company of her harpy posse—uh, girlfriends, or embroiled in yet another heated discussion with the Junior Prom Committee. Clearly the stress of turning up the fabulous level of the upcoming event and possibly putting the senior class to shame was getting to her, Roxas noted hopelessly. As the days crawled by, Olette was often seen tromping through the hallways looking like she hadn't seen a pillow in 72 hours and snarling at anyone who dared approach her in this delicate state, which was limited to Rai and the criminally stupid. Faint distinction, as it were.
"I wouldn't say that within her earshot," Pence advised, watching from a distance as Olette tore one of her committee underlings a new one, five tables away. "Not when you're trying to get back into her good graces and all."
"For the love of God," Roxas said, pushing the peas and carrots on his tray around angrily. "I know I was in the wrong back there, but exactly how long am I supposed to be in the doghouse for?" He paused, and made a jabbing motion with his spork for emphasis. "Besides, it was so not entirely my fault."
Pence looked as if he wanted to argue, but soon thought better of it. He shrugged, and found a better use for his attention in a fruit cup. Further down the table, Hayner was engaged in some kind of silent obscene gesture contest with—who else—Seifer all the way across the room. Roxas rolled his eyes, and was amused to see Fuu, the girl sitting beside Seifer, do the same. No doubt about it, lunch hour had gotten a lot less exciting since Olette had stopped coming round to browbeat them into doing things her way.
o0o
By Friday afternoon, this thing with Olette had still not blown over, and his dad still hadn't called. As the silence grew longer, Roxas began to seriously fear that things were never going to be the same again around here. Which would make him the profound moron who had estranged his father and one of his best friends because he couldn't keep a leash on his drama queen tendencies--
"The offer still stands, Roxas. You know I don't usually go for kicked puppies, but between us friends, I'll be glad to make an exception."
Which would make him the profound moron who had estranged his father and one of his best friends because he couldn't keep a leash on his drama queen tendencies, who had just been ass-slapped and propositioned in a decidedly patronizing manner by his loopy female coworker.
"Thanks for the kind thought, Sally," Roxas mumbled, pushing his fists into his eyes so deeply he was seeing stars. "But I'm, uh, truly beyond help at this point, and it wouldn't be nice to give Stanley a premature heart attack."
Sally nodded in apparent understanding, and leaned one elbow on the counter to survey Roxas with a look of deep concern, while somewhere close by a customer was making enraged noises about wanting his macchiato ten minutes ago. Sally must have gotten new medications recently or something, because her crazy had mellowed considerably. "Well, if you ever feel like, you know. Talking about it."
"Yeah, no," Roxas said quickly, shuddering at the emphasis. Her scrutiny was feeding his week-long migraine, which he had named 'Axel' in a fit of masochism, what with the classic model no longer being around to personally inflict pain.
That was the other part of the problem.
After the incident in the mall on Sunday, Axel had fallen off the face of the Earth. In order to do so, all he'd had to do was stop texting. It wasn't until he had gone three whole days without being rudely interrupted in a moment of rest or work or breathing by the slow shrieking version of Katamari on the Rocks that Roxas was forced to reexamine the limitations of "no question, no lies". That was when he realized that, up until this point, he had never actually tried to directly contact Axel.
Their SMS system had seemed above reproach—Axel would send messages, and Roxas would make faces at them. They had never even spoken over the phone, and come to think of it, there would never have been any real opportunity for Roxas to return Axel's texts at all, unless he had ever had to take a rain check. The fact that there had never been a rain check either meant that Axel had known Roxas's schedule like the back of his hand, or that Roxas had always made a point to be available. If you wanted to be overly analytical about it.
And now, after five days of unnerving silence, Roxas had broken all of his rules—rules that he hadn't known existed—in one fell swoop. He had texted. He had called. All to no avail—his messages went unanswered and no matter how many times he pressed speed dial three, all he got for his troubles was a prerecorded message telling him that the person he was trying to call could not be reached at the moment. After awhile, the paranoid-narcissist in him pointed out that either Axel was blocking his calls, or he had changed his number altogether. Short of passing out flyers on the Amherst campus—and it had taken inhuman force of will to talk himself out of that idea—there was no chance of rushing Axel out any time soon.
"Why do you care?" Roxas muttered, rubbing his forehead. "You're losing your goddamn mind." Of which talking to himself was surely the first sign.
Even if he could somehow reach Axel and miraculously find him in the mood to talk, it wasn't as if he would know what to say. In fact, Roxas thought furiously, it should by all rights be him putting up the cold front in this particular fallout. After all, he hadn't been the one to totally freak out in the mall for no good reason (for the most part—he wasn't going to get into that headache) and then storm out of there into the great beyond. But, as usual, Axel had somehow found a way to make this all about him. Except now, instead of picturing Axel being a filthy slut in skeezy sorority houses, Roxas had a whole other set of… concerns.
In fact, there was the chance he would never see Axel again, for all that Amherst was practically the size of a peanut. He should probably give up and get on with his life. Or what was left of it. He was getting sick of telling people it wasn't all his fault.
o0o
But then it was 8 am on Saturday morning and Roxas found himself sitting on the waiting bench outside the train station concentrating all rationales on trying to convince himself that his being there was totally not the latest installment in a multi-part series involving him trolling all of their old haunts in the vain hope of running into Axel, and then things were back exactly where they had started.
Frankly, that vain hope was becoming very vain indeed, and the fact that it was a mockingly beautiful day just somehow served to compound all this. All was quiet; the first train wouldn't be arriving until well after 9 o'clock, and the station was completely deserted. It was warm and breezy and the sky was crisp, blue enough to be narcotic, but though it seemed easy enough to blink the morning sunshine out of his eyes and lose himself in that not-yet-punishing summer heat, Roxas was oddly agitated. He'd be damned before admitting that he was missing the smell of cigarette smoke, however.
"This is so stupid," Roxas said aloud, and brusquely got to his feet, knocking his backpack over and onto the ground in the process. He hadn't realized the zipper had been open all along until all the contents of the bag came spilling out onto the dirty platform. Lovely.
Roxas was already on his knees in the dust, shoveling notebooks and pencils back into his bag and condemning this entire shitty week in his mind, when something caught his eye. Half peeking out of the bag was a small leatherbound book, and Roxas let out a breath he hadn't known he had been holding when he saw 'The Cunning Man by Robertson Davies' in gold on the front cover. With everything else going on, he had forgotten all about the book, and it had evidently been buried at the bottom of his backpack since last Sunday.
("You wanted to know about Toronto, right? Well, you've never seen Toronto like it's written here.")
Suddenly, Roxas was very aware of the day's stillness, as though the very air molecules around him had stopped moving. Still kneeling on the platform, he held the book in both hands. Then he shifted his palms, and succumbing to gravity, the pages parted and fell open to a somewhat middle-ish part. Roxas felt the breath catch in his chest again when he found the strip of black and white prints from the photobooth, now nestled firmly in the crook of the yellowing pages. He had forgotten about that, too.
Axel hadn't been lying. In all four pictures, Roxas's monochrome face had a particularly constipated tinge. Axel's wore its usual best look of manic glee. So that's what it looks like, he thought. The moment right before everything fell apart. It was always a somber feeling, staring into the face of what you have lost.
Blinking quickly, Roxas removed the photo strip and stuck it at the very back of the novel. Then he turned back to the first pages, and there, found something else he hadn't before noticed. On one of the blank pages, penned neatly in a corner, was an inscription written in black ink and an elegant cursive hand. Roxas frowned to himself. He read it quickly, and filed the message away for later consideration.
Dec 1980,
To Addie: without you, I shudder to think.
Love, DB.
o0o
"Look, you're supposed to be my support system in a time of crisis here, so don't just sit there and tell me it's all my fault!"
On the computer screen, Naminé sighed quietly, giving him a mild but faintly pitying look. "I'd love to be supportive, Roxas, but I don't think lying to your face is going to do any good right now. I can't believe you said those things to Dad."
Roxas glared at her viciously. "Whose side are you on anyway?" He shoved another glazed Krispy Kreme into his mouth, saw that it was the last in the box, and glared some more.
"I'm on no one's side," Naminé said sternly. She was frowning, which was all kinds of wrong. "Is that all you've been eating?"
"Your point?" Roxas challenged around a mouthful of sugary dough.
After blowing up at his dad and subsequently setting the emotional progress of their relationship back by about a million years, he'd been understandably depressed and had spent a lot of time sitting around the house writing bad poetry and exercising his teenage metabolism with junk food. It wasn't like someone was going to suddenly pop up with coupons and offers of nourishing sushi these days.
Naminé actually seemed to be rolling her eyes. "Add fifteen cups of coffee a day, and you and Dad might just have invented the new Atkins."
"You've been talking to Dad?" Roxas asked, narrowing his eyes. Then he coughed for no particular reason, and said in low tones, "Does he ask about me?"
In lieu of answering, his sister just gave him this disbelieving, patently "What do you think?" kind of look. "And before you ask," she said, "No. I'm not going to play messenger for you guys to work out all your ridiculousness. Call him yourself if you want to talk."
"Who said I wanted to talk?" Roxas shot back defensively. "I don't want to talk to him, and it was not all my fault. I don't know if you realize it or not, Nam, but if you think about it, I wasn't totally talking out of my ass, okay? Maybe some of those things I said deserved to be said."
It was a good thing, Roxas later reflected, that they hadn't yet invented a way for disappointment to kill, because the look of disapproval Naminé was giving him could stop a bull's heart right now. She kept on staring, eyes wide and sinking and oddly dark, and when she finally spoke, her soft voice was heavy, iron and steel where it was usually air and light.
"You're the wordsmith in the family, Roxas, so you should know this better than anyone. Just because something is the truth doesn't always mean it should be said."
The really horrible thing about this was: he did know better. Always had.
"Please, Naminé," Roxas said, and wasn't surprised when it came out like a plea. "I—I just can't, okay? Not now."
Naminé had her hands over her face, and when she pulled them away, her cheeks were pink and blotchy, and suddenly her voice had quickened, thick and hushlike, watery. "I'm sorry. I don't want you to feel like I'm not being there for you. I've been trying to talk to Dad, too. He should call you, he shouldn't even have left like that."
Roxas closed his eyes, and fought to suppress a snarl. There was that sinking feeling again, all too familiar, rising up all around him. The feeling of being shipwrecked.
His sister was still talking, now barely above a whisper. "The thing is, I don't know if I'm getting through to you guys anymore. You and Dad, it's just like—just like before. Things were getting better, I could see it, but now you're all closed up again, just like that time right before you got suspended and everything went wrong, and—I'm really scared, Roxas."
"Come on, Nam," Roxas burst out, meeting her eyes and holding the gaze. "Come the fuck on. We've talked about this before. This is real life, remember? Let's not turn this into some crazy overwrought drama. We're all smarter than this, right?"
He finally tore his eyes away from the screen, and had the impression that, on the other end, Naminé was doing the same. They both needed a moment.
"Now you know why we don't talk more often," Roxas said, in an attempt to lighten things. "Every single one of our conversations always ends the same way."
"That's not really funny," his sister chided. Quietly, but calmly. It made him smile.
"It kind of is, actually."
"Well, we'll just have to persevere until we get it right," Naminé said, and he saw the corner of her mouth lift. "In the mean time, please eat something that takes more than five minutes to prepare."
Roxas raised his eyebrow. "Like you should talk. Have you seen a bowl of soup recently, because your shoulder blades are looking like they could cut cheese right about now."
Naminé smiled, a little wanly. "Well. It is the last week of May."
"Ah," nodded Roxas. "That explains it."
The last week of May was exams week at Artsy Chicks Academy, so in the past Roxas had come to expect his sister's appearance in various states of paint-streaked exhaustion, kept going solely by the buzz from accidentally inhaling too much chemical fumes. He silently hoped they wouldn't have to stage an intervention for Naminé when she came home for summer vacation. He could practically smell the paint thinner from where he sat.
Roxas stared discreetly into the computer screen, past Naminé's huge, shadowed eyes, over her left shoulder (which was looking extra pointy). Her sophomore year project was looking nearly consummate, a magnificent study in grace. Softly, his heart rose in a surge of pride.
"You have paint in your hair."
"Again?" Naminé sighed morosely, tugging at her pale blonde plait. "That's the third time today."
o0o
After that somewhat disastrous conversation with Naminé, Roxas had nearly resigned himself to the life of an emotional cripple and social pariah who would one day no doubt pen a bitter and effusive tome of literary genius. It was Monday night, just shy of seven, and he was a third of the way into The Cunning Man—the Bad Breath Contest was just commencing, i.e. unrivaled hilarity—when in a new and perverse twist, things started to turn around.
"You got into a car crash!"
"Let's not get ahead of ourselves," his dad said over the phone, sounding subdued and somewhat sheepish. "It was really more like a fender bender."
"More like a fender bender?" Roxas balked, gripping the phone tightly so that he wouldn't 'accidentally' punch something. "What is that supposed to mean? Christ, are you okay? When did this happen?"
"I'm fine," his dad reassured him. "I got back from the hospital two hours ago. I may have to keep this wrist brace on for a few days, but—no permanent damage that we know of."
Very calmly, Roxas took a minute to check and make sure that he hadn't hyperventilated and passed out at the mentions of 'wrist brace' and 'damage'. He went on, still preternaturally calm, "Are you sure that's all?" and surely, surely his dad had to know where this was going. After all, the man had given Roxas his y chromosome.
"Well," his dad went on, almost hesitating. "The car wasn't quite as fortunate."
"Really?" said Roxas, his voice so light and squeaky it might float away from him any moment now. "How so?"
"I believe I may need a new one," his father said earnestly. Then he said, "I think all those years of being the only Ford in a parking lot full of BMWs cursed it," at which point Roxas promptly and totally lost his shit.
"Why the hell didn't you call until now?" he bellowed into the phone, so loudly that his voice resounded through the empty house. In a strange, slightly comical moment, he imagined his dad wincing and jerking away from his phone on the other end of the line.
If Roxas had stopped to consider things, he probably would have noticed how much this seemed like an eerie reminder of the last time they'd talked. But the point was that he hadn't, and by now his dad must have discerned from Roxas's voice that he was on the verge of an impending stroke, because he said quickly, in a mollifying voice, "It wasn't very serious, and I didn't want you to worry."
"Not serious!" God, he could go blind. "What do you mean not serious? Your car was totaled!"
"My car was not totaled," his dad soothed. "I'm really okay, Rox."
In the brief but palpable silence that followed, Roxas grappled with his breathing and used every ounce of strength in his soul to keep himself from actually passing out. Then, now authentically calm, he rubbed his temple and whispered into the phone, "I'm really glad to hear that. Really. You should have called. Let me worry, it's my job."
"I think you've got that a little backward there, buddy," his dad said, laughing a little, and finally, finally the edge left their conversation. Roxas could shudder with relief. He imagined a dimly lit hotel room and his father with his wrist in a blue brace sitting on the bed with the duvet cover half tossed off, grinning into his Blackberry, and then he was smiling himself. It was difficult to think that they had spent the last seven days in virtual non communicado.
"So the long and short of it is that I'm going to have to stay out here for a few more days," his dad explained. "Not enough time to buy a new car, but I have to stick around until the insurance company gets back to me. Think you can hold the fort awhile longer?"
Roxas laughed by way of answering. "Are you shitting me?" he asked, not bothering to cover his language.
His dad pretended not to have heard. "I think I'll catch the afternoon train back on Saturday. Can't miss the Junior Prom."
"Oh please," Roxas scoffed. "Don't make me puke."
There was rejoining laughter on the other end. Then, John Van Leeuwen cleared his throat and said, "Hey, buddy. About last week."
Roxas blinked, and didn't speak. Only when he was certain that the current in their conversation hadn't changed for the worse did he say, "You don't have to say anything. It was all my fault. I'm sorry, I shouldn't have said those things. I didn't mean any of it."
"No," his dad said mildly. "I think you did mean some of it—and I think that's alright. And it was not all your fault."
Roxas closed his eyes and leaned his head against his headboard, cradling the phone lightly. "You're the only one who thinks that."
"I know I haven't been doing the best I can," his dad went on, sounding tired and sad and almost guilty. "Since your mother passed away, things have changed a lot for you and your sister. I should have done better for the both of you."
"I think you did the best you could, Dad," Roxas said, keeping his eyes shut. "But both of us can stand to do a little better in the future." Again, he thought about his dad, alone in a Boston hotel room. If he were there, Roxas would want to hold his hand, and maybe his dad would ruffle his hair, say, "I miss you." Maybe.
"That's what I like to hear," his dad told him. "And now, we act like gentlemen and pretend none of this ever happened?"
Roxas laughed. "That'll drive Naminé round the bend for sure." Then he added, "So, are you going to get a BMW?"
His dad made a wounded noise. "Only if you want me to become yet another symbol of conformity and bad taste. I'm thinking of getting that gold Miata I've been saving for my fiftieth birthday slash midlife crisis. Think that'll piss the suits off as much as the Taurus used to?"
"Sure," Roxas said, still cracking up. "You can name it Rosalina."
o0o
On Friday morning, when Roxas trudged to school like going on a death march and arrived almost an hour late, he came to discover that:
a/ The banners advertising the Junior Prom on Saturday were still as ugly and obnoxious as ever.
b/ Prior to his arrival, Olette and Rai had engaged in an epic blowout fight outside the computer lab, during which Olette had thrown a calculator and they had broken up.
c/ Rai had been last seen in complete hysterics being escorted down the hall to the counselor's office. Olette, shattered though slightly more dignified, had been swiftly whisked away by her loyal def posse.
The word on campus was that Rai had been seen making out with Candi the vampish cheerleader and Roxas's former number one fangirl, which Roxas immediately concluded was a total and complete lie, and not just because he had seen with his own eyes the look of starstruck-puppy adoration on Rai's face whenever he had faithfully sat at Olette's feet. Still, for Candi's sake, he hoped her friends had had the wisdom to remove her to an undisclosed location. Sooner or later, Olette was bound to get her hands on something sturdier than a Texas Instrument.
All this was related to him by Kairi, who had decided to join Roxas in skipping gym.
Apparently, due to Candi's rumored transgression, the cheerleading squad was in complete upheaval (moving the offender to Siberia, no doubt), and Kairi figured she couldn't work up the energy to deal with so much estrogen-fueled hijinks this early in the day. He was just trying to hide from all the tacky Junior Prom decorations. They sat outside the boiler room and passed back and forth a bottle of grape soda.
"So, do you think he really did it?"
Roxas shook his head. "Not a chance. Rai worships Olette. You should have seen the singing Valentine last February."
Kairi furrowed her pretty brows, and said, "I know it sounds horrible, but things like this make me feel bad for being a girl. Even Riku in his worst hissy fit and Sora on his most clueless day combined isn't half as bad as this."
Roxas gave her a curious look, and slanted away quickly, but Kairi must have noticed him staring because she smiled and said leniently, "It's okay. You can ask, you know. I know everyone at school thinks I'm dating the both of them."
"Well," Roxas demurred, a little embarrassed. What was he supposed to say?
Kairi rearranged her long legs in front of her, and stole back the soda from Roxas. She stared into the bottle, and said, "Did you know that, once, when we were all out to dinner together, this waitress pulled me aside and completely chewed me out? She said I should be ashamed of myself for leading those two nice boys on."
Roxas hadn't known that, but he did know that people in school sometimes referred to Kairi as the redheaded filling in a very nutritionally unbalanced sandwich, and he had no idea how she could stand to deal with all that. If somebody had said that about one of his friends, he would have punched the motherfucker in the mouth.
He made a mental note to start doing that from now on.
"So," he prodded tentatively. "What's the truth?"
Kairi smiled again, a tiny, secretive quirk of her lips. "The truth is that they're my best friends in the world." Her voice was light and airy, seeming to drift in and out. "They were the first friends I made when my family moved to Amherst three years ago, and you know what that's like."
Roxas nodded. "You're grateful for them, but at the same time, you always feel a little like an intruder. Someone who lives on the periphery."
Kairi was quiet for a moment. Then she said, "Sora and Riku, they've known each other all their lives. They practically grew up together, playing as well as competing. You know how some people just kind of complete each other? That's them. More than just the best of friends. That's the kind of connection they have. Who wouldn't envy that?"
"I used to know a guy like that," Roxas said abruptly, surprising himself. "Back in New York. We went to the same prep school."
Kairi looked at him sideways with a considering expression.
"Liam," he continued, staring straight ahead. "That's his name. He was a year ahead of me in school."
Liam had curly brown hair and dark, animated eyes that a hack writer would describe was 'always twinkling with mischief', a Greek nose on a Byronic face. He was the captain of the swimming team and the captain of the debate team on top of being completely brilliant at all things involving quantitative reasoning. In the winter, he was always losing his uniform blazer, and his tie was eternally a wreck. By his sophomore year, he had been voted 'Most Likely To Rule The World'.
"You keep using the past tense," Kairi pointed out. "What happened to Liam?"
Roxas didn't meet her eyes. "We had a major fallout right before I moved here", he said shortly. "I haven't really talked to him since."
"Boys are stupid," Kairi said. Mildly. Almost knowingly. "No offense," she added, smiling.
"None taken," he said, grinning back at her. "Anyway, it's probably true."
Kairi leaned her head back against the door and blinked up at him earnestly. She had eyes that were the color of the ocean off the coast of Cape Cod on sunny winter days, and her smile made them dance, brought out something from their quiet blue depths, some flatly nonjudgmental quality that reminded him, more than anything, of his sister Naminé.
It was that same wash of warmth that radiated from the soft voice, the easy touch, some kind of weird female je ne sais quoi that he didn't get but found oddly comforting anyway.
He thought wearily of Olette, white and shaking and brittle-jawed in the mall's food court. So the women in his life might be unfathomable and meddlesome. That didn't mean he didn't need them, didn't miss having them around, didn't feel the yawning loss.
"You're thinking about Olette," Kairi said.
"What, can you read my mind?" Roxas joked, nabbing the soda bottle.
"Don't have to. It's written all over your face. Quit stalling already," she laughed, nudging him to his feet. "I'm not the girl you should be talking to. Go." She narrowed her eyes, and added, "Now."
"Right," he said, nodding slowly as he backed away, "Right," and added, as an afterthought, "Thanks, Kairi. That was a nice talk. I mean it."
"Right back at you," she said, and gave him an encouraging smile. "I guess this means the Roxas Redemption Arc is finally coming to an end, huh?"
"God, I really hope so."
TBC
A/N: So I know Axel wasn't in this chapter at all, what's up with that, but I hope you guys still paid some attention to the other peasants, because the chapter is kind of important. Some details will become important to the storyline in time. Still, no Axel is... yeah. But hey, if you're sweet to me, there might be a surprise waiting in the next chapter.
On a cooler note, please check out the fantabulous art of "Anna" that the amazing arcthelove created. Go to her deviantART gallery. Go. RIGHT NOW. I ain't saying more than that.