A/N Hey guys. Well, I'm gonna start off by saying something: From now on, I'll try making this a weekly thing. Therefore, you can expect updates every Wednesday. If you don't, then feel free to flood my inbox with hate comments and death threats. Besides, I don't have a lot to do these days, considering the hell I experienced as a little toddler. Without further ado, please enjoy!
Disclaimer: Why is it called disclaimer? What's the etymology behind this word? Oh, and I don't own KH.
But I DO own your souls. O_O
Previously...
"I appreciate you for bringing my daughter back safely. However, I hope this will not become a habit. Naminé is very busy, and she does not have an open schedule. Goodbye. Now come along, Naminé."
Signalling his departure, the man stepped back into the house, leaving Naminé and Roxas in an awkward situation.
"Well, uh, I guess I'll see you on Monday."
Weeks had gone by ever since that awkward end to their short-lived joy. The days that Roxas once held him in a state of ecstasy dissipated, and soon he would wonder to himself whether or not they were actual events, but he highly doubted it.
The past few weeks, things had changed. Whenever Roxas saw Namine, he would wave at her to catch her attention. Instead of waving back, she would either pretend not to notice it, or give him a curt nod and walk faster. It was obvious now that his own teacher was trying to distance herself away from him, purposely severing their relationship that had begun to form between the two.
Inside the classroom, Namine called Roxas by his last name, and when she wasn't up at the board teaching, she was at her desk writing. The radiant smile was gone, and replaced with a small and polite upward curve of the lips. It was as if someone replaced his angel with an impassive clone of her. It was as if a door had been slammed in his face, leaving him alone outside, just like the night he met Namine's father for the first time.
Outside the classroom, his existence was hardly acknowledged. Both of them still took the same bus, but not at the same time. Namine would either get on an early bus, or stay in the school office, tending to other matters. Once, Roxas decided to wait for her, but after an hour passed, he gave up and went home, fearing the lecture he was going to get from his mother again for coming home late.
To the class, it looked like she was fulfilling her duty as a mentor. To Roxas, it looked like she was desperately searching for distractions and reasons to avoid him.
It hurt him inside. Thinking back on the kiss he received from Namine, he would marvel at how distant the two of them became in such a short amount of time. At first, his friends (and Axel) would bother him, asking him where Namine was. Roxas could only give them a mere shrug, for he truly didn't know what was going on.
So as the weeks passed, Roxas's attempts to approach Namine started to lessen, and soon his life went back to normal. Normal as in the boring and horrible kind of life. His attention during class slipped more often, and he found himself staring out the window frequently, ignoring everything that was going on inside his four-walled cage. That's why Roxas paid no attention to the annoyed glances that were thrown at him, and that's why he didn't notice a certain brown-headed man stare at him intently.
One day, during break, the man got up from his desk and walked over to the boy. He introduced himself as Leon, and instead of the usual intense glare he received from this man named Leon, the man spoke with no anger in his voice.
"I see that you're working hard."
Although there was no hint of sarcasm in his voice, it still irked Roxas.
"Do you have a problem with what I do?"
To his surprise, the man seemed taken aback.
"No."
"Then why're you giving me this intense glare?"
"Am I actually staring at you that intensely?"
"Pretty much, yeah."
"Oh...I tend to do that a lot."
"That doesn't explain why you were being so rude last time."
"Oh, that." Leon said, making a pained look. He told Roxas that he tended to have a lot of mood swings; mild bipolarity, he called it.
Silently berating himself for his condition, he stuck out his hand in front of Roxas.
"Let's start over then. A clean slate, so to speak."
"...Alright."
"Well, you already know my name. What's yours?"
"Roxas Hikari."
"That's an unusual name."
"Everyone says that. My family's a bit on the creative side."
Leon laughed.
"At least you're not one of those poor babies who got names like Superman or Harry Potter from their parents, right?"
Roxas gawked in disbelief.
"Are you serious!? People actually use these names!?"
"No joke, man."
"Yeah well, bet you didn't know that you didn't know that barnacles have the largest body to p-"
"I do."
"How do I know you're not lying?"
"I've been a student for a while now."
Roxas wanted to ask him about what he meant by that statement, but upon seeing Leon's grimace, he decided to let it go.
For the rest of the class, Leon sat beside him. During the last portion of the lesson, Roxas began to like Leon. He was about as old as Axel, maybe even older, but unlike Axel, he was not devious or sly (or a pyromaniac, for that matter). Leon was silent and calm, with a humorous side. Not only that, but he was also highly intelligent and completely serious about his studies. This time around, Roxas never got the chance to daydream, since Leon would glance at him and either tell him to take some notes, or help him by explaining certain theories to him that he failed to grasp before.
Roxas was curious. It was obvious that Leon was smart, yet he chose to spend the lesson beside him, filling the role of student and secondary tutor to Roxas at the same time. When queried about this matter, Leon merely blinked and said,
"I don't like to see people struggling. Therefore, if I can help, I will."
Those words sounded all too familiar. He grimaced and returned to his trigonometry.
The two became close friends, and now Leon would greet him with a welcome smile instead of his usual intense stare, which still irked Roxas, no matter how many times he saw it. They would share notes and whisper to each other discreetly about the happenings in their individual lives.
Just as Roxas had lost a drive for enduring cram school, he found a pillar of support in this new friendship.
Nevertheless, it did not fill the hole in his heart, nor did it answer the questions that continued to interrogate him.
With every passing day and every tick of the clock, his insatiable curiosity and confusion increased. It drove him nuts to sit still and think about it. He wished this stalemate would end soon.
Little did he know that a storm was brewing as our teenage hero moved into the month of December.
A/N Not much to say about this chappie. I'm sorry this took two weeks to finish, but it was the Holidays, so gimme some leeway here. :p
Besides the laziness, I really had some difficulty putting this chapter together. I had to re-write entire parts several times to get the final product.
Just to let you know, I'm in exam month, so yeah, I have a grand total of 8 exams to look forward. Fun, amirite? T_T So I might not be updating for a while. However, I'll try to upload every Wednesday, so you can halfheartedly hope for something on that day of the week. Until, next time, mates.
P/S Oh, and as for the barnacle thing....if you want to know, just send me a mail. I don't want to put it out there. =p
