Blasted site shut down yesterday. Bah!
Well, despite yesterday's troubles, I bring you chapter eleven, which contains different troubles that you're going to have to deal with, savvy:D
Disclaimers: Don't own it. No clever way to say it tonight. Enjoy the chappie.
"You're in a good mood today."
"Yeah, and why wouldn't I be?"
"Oh, right. You had Roxas over last night." Riku leaned against the machine next to Axel, who didn't even lift his eyes when he answered his friend.
"Sure did. And lemme tell you, it's an experience I'm more than willing to repeat."
"That good, huh?" Riku examined his fingernails. "Did Roxas say anything about Sora being sick or anything?"
"No." A chuckle. "He wasn't really up to saying much of anything."
"You shouldn't wear him out like that; he's too young."
"You wear Sora out and he and Roxas are the same age. Anyway, why did you want to know?" Aqua eyes looked at the wide entrance of Arcanum, where the mall's polished floors were gleaming in the sunlight and people took their sweet time browsing.
"He's late. It's only fifteen minutes, but it's unlike him." Axel nodded, lights and pixels flashing before his eyes. Arcade Legends was, in his opinion, the single best console ever to exist in an arcade.
"Do you want to play me at Tekken later?"
"Are you even listening?" His anger rose quickly; there was a nagging feeling in his head. It was making it very easy to go from cool to annoyed in seconds. "And yeah, I will. If Sora ever shows up."
Xigbar took this moment to interrupt loudly. Thankfully the arcade was nearly empty, because if not it would have been more than a little awkward.
"What the hell is this!" he was yelling. Axel immediately looked up and stammered, "I didn't do it."
But Axel wasn't the one being questioned. It seemed that Xigbar had Demyx by the latter's shirt collar and was berating him. Riku and Axel shared one glance and then bolted off towards the counter to watch the drama.
"I didn't do it!" Demyx whined, motioning with his hands for sympathy.
"Who else would have access to it? Who else would do it? And you did that thing with the fire alarm last week, so that makes you even more liable!"
"I didn't do that though!" Demyx protested. He was right, he didn't. A few feet away, Axel sniggered. He did it. Xigbar's lips were drawn back in a growl, the tension in the air growing and tumbling over itself until Riku finally asked, "What happened?" tentatively.
"This happened." Xigbar released poor Demyx and thrust something under Riku's nose. It was Xigbar's nametag, only someone had rubbed out his name and written 'Munny Hunny' in its place. Riku looked at the nametag, then looked at Xigbar, then at the nametag again, and finally at Demyx before bursting out laughing, hunching over. Axel, curious, plucked the nametag from the silver-haired teen's grip, and, upon reading it, started to laugh too. This coaxed Demyx out of his shell, and he began to laugh as well, releasing the giggles he'd been holding since Xigbar showed him the nametag.
"This is not funny," the scarred man growled.
"Yes, yes it is!" Axel cried out between laughs.
"Shut it, kiddo!" A hand on his shoulder startled him. Demyx's blue-green eyes were glittering with his amusement.
"…"
He didn't say anything, but he didn't have to. Just looking at the kid's happy face was enough to melt away the last bits of ice from Xigbar's heart, and at last he cracked a smile. Demyx grinned warmly, shaking Xigbar's shoulder a little. "I didn't do this, I swear! But I wanna know who did so I can give them kudos."
Riku looked questioningly at Axel, asking with his eyes, 'You did this, didn't you?' The redhead muttered, "Couldn't resist." Riku controlled his sniggers and said, "I'll bet it was someone we don't even know. Just a dumb prank."
Xigbar was about to object with how stupid that sounded, but Demyx raised his eyebrows at the man, bidding him to let it go. And he did.
"Well, whatever. I guess I kind of like it this way."
"Oo, oh! Can I replace my name with 'love kitten' or something?" He yelped when the older man shoved him in the shoulder.
"No."
"Aw, come on, you get all the fun? What are the customers going to think?"
"The customers already hate me," Xigbar stated. "What more can they do? Xemnas isn't going to fire me or anything."
"I think it's an improvement," Axel put in. Demyx blew a few strands of hair from his face and nodded in agreement.
"Fine, whatever. Go back to spending all your money, kid. And you," he addressed Demyx. "You have work to do."
"Yes sir!" Demyx latched himself to Xigbar's arm, leading the man behind the counter even though it was Xigbar who was supposedly in charge. It was hard to tell with those two. Demyx definitely had enough cheer to make up for Xigbar's lack thereof, but Xigbar had the authority prowess. It was one of those half and half friendships, where both have qualities to make up for the other, and together they create a seemingly whole being. Those were the best kinds of friends and couples.
Xigbar looked back at Riku and Axel almost pleadingly, but the boys just smiled and nodded, and Axel threw in a catcall just for the sake of it.
"Why did you vandalise his nametag? Lame."
"Aw, admit it! It was funny. And that guy needs to loosen up a bit."
"How did you do it, anyway?"
"Demyx let me do it. He lured Xigbar away for a bit." The redhead drew his fingers through his hair. "Nice guy, Demyx. I bet he'd do all kinds of favours for us."
The comment was innocent enough, but as Axel walked back to his game, Riku couldn't help but think of the implications. Maybe he could impress Sora with Demyx's help, although it wasn't like he needed to do anything to impress the boy. It seemed just his existence was enough. And hey, why did he want to impress him in the first place? That wasn't like Riku at all. Or maybe he just felt bad about always being so aloof around Sora. After all, besides their trip to the beach, Riku tended to brush the brunet off. But he was teaching him DDR, right? That was the deal.
Speaking of Sora, where was he? A check of his watch informed him cruelly that Sora was now half an hour late. What could he do? He could call Sora, right? Wrong; he didn't have the number. But maybe Roxas would! …if he was here. Well, if Axel had Roxas's number and Roxas had Sora's number…it was worth a try.
"Axel."
"Yeah, what?"
"I need Roxas's number."
"No way are you taking my not-boyfriend," the tall teen answered, shaking his skinny hips.
Riku rolled his eyes and corrected, "I need him to tell me how to reach Sora."
"Oh. Well in that case, hang on. They give me a break at the end of the level."
"And when does the level end?"
"Count to ten." Riku did so, and true enough, by nine, the level was complete, and the screen asked for Axel's permission to continue. "Here's my phone. Just look through the addresses until you find Roxas. It's his house." Riku gave his thanks and walked out of Arcanum, sitting on a wooden bench that was curled around a large cement flowerpot that, instead of flowers, was holding a tree.
Ring. Ring. Ri—"Hello?"
"Hi, Roxas?"
"This is him." Roxas sounded a little stressed. Riku hoped he wasn't interrupting.
"It's Riku. I was just wondering if you knew how I could reach Sora." There was no answer for a moment. "…"
"Funny story." Uh oh.
"What happened?" Riku choked out, biting his lip.
"Sora, the bum he is, came to my house for breakfast this morning, and he just had to have the cereal on the top of the shelf. And he was climbing on the counter and…"
"This doesn't end well, does it?"
"He fell," Roxas finished grimly. "He hit his head, and it took about two minutes before he was out. I called the hospital. I'm there right now."
"Oh my god," the aqua-eyed boy murmured. "Which one?"
"Atlantica," Roxas informed him. "But you can't come—no visitors. Sora's totally knocked out and they're medicating him and asking me all sorts of questions, like I bludgeoned him or something. Although sometimes I want to," he added, and then quickly said, "Eheheh, I didn't really mean that…" (Where he was, one of the annoying questioning people was looking sternly at him.)
"When will he get out? Is he going to be okay?"
"Chill. I'm sure he'll be fine; his skull is thicker than diamond. I don't know when he'll be released, but he's concussed. Really badly. I was waiting for you to call, actually. I figured you'd be the only one to notice he was gone."
"That's kind of mean, don't you think?"
"Not really," Roxas said easily. "Our parents are at work and you're teaching him, so besides me you're the only one who sees him during the day."
"Well…concussed?"
"Yeah. They were even worried for a little while that he was damaged mentally. Like he would wake up and be missing a chunk of himself." Riku shuddered at the thought; how horrible that would be. He could have a drastic change of personality, or be struck blind, or something awful…! "But I don't think it'll come to that. We just have to give him some meds and wait for him to pull through."
"So…there's nothing I can do," Riku resigned. Roxas sighed on the other end.
"Afraid not. Listen; go do your thing at Arcanum. Sora will be back before you know it."
"Thanks Roxas." The teens said their goodbyes, and Riku hung up, not feeling any better. In fact, he felt terrible, even worse than the time he'd stayed awake for three days straight. Only this time around there were no hallucinations.
Tightly he closed his eyes, slamming a fist on the bench softly. "Sora, you idiot. You had to go and get yourself hurt." It was bad enough that the brunet wasn't going to be around for a few days. It felt like a piece of Riku's life had just been removed, a piece he hadn't known he needed until it was gone. But he was in a hospital, unconscious, and Riku could do nothing.
Slowly he rose and returned to Arcanum, shuffling past Axel and giving the man's phone back. Axel called after him, but he recognised the warning signs: Riku was in a mood. He usually had a very good reason to be in said moods, so it was best to trust him and leave him alone. Riku shuffled all the way to the DDR machine, not even bothering to use Demyx's cheat, and began playing.
His first choice was something intense, Kakumei, one of his favourites. He leaned back and pounded arrows furiously, letting his mind shut down and focus on three things: the music, his feet, and the arrows. This was his form of coping. This was a way to exhaust himself mentally and physically and save him from whatever hurt. And right now, that hurt was worry for Sora, and the sorrow he felt when he thought of the boy, pale and frail, buried in hospital sheets.
By the second song, Drop the Bomb, he was so far gone that he couldn't think rational thoughts.
By the fifth game, first song (Max 300), his feet were stinging, his lungs ready to burst, and his eyes burned. But he kept going; his mind had no place in this, and the further away his thoughts were, the better.
This streak kept up for another hour before Demyx finally had a moment and came over, looking at Riku worriedly. When the song was over, he reached out to pat the large console.
"The machine is crying out to me, Riku. It keeps saying, Demyx, help me, everyone's abusing me lately!"
"Demyx," Riku warned.
"Sorry man. I don't know what's bothering you. But I want you to know I'll get you anything you want. Free pop, free nachos, free whatever you want. Okay?" The employee smiled at Riku, who returned it, although reluctantly. He was very thankful for Demyx's offer, however.
"Thanks Demyx."
"Don't mention it. Now, I've got to go and teach Xigbar the electric slide." Riku raised his eyebrows. "Don't ask." The blond rubbed his head sheepishly. He cast one last glance at the silver-haired teen before bounding off.
Riku stared at the DDR machine. "Buddy," he said to it. "You and I are going to have a long night."
Zomg! Sora's hurt! Oh noes!
I don't want to spoil anything, but the next few chapters will be fun to write, as some of the ideas I've had since day one will start to appear. As you can see by the ten chapters behind this, I didn't want to rush it along. I hate fanfics that go from "Hi, I'm Sora" to "Let's do it" in less than two chapters. So I'm glad you guys have tolerated the wait.
I LOVE MY REVIEWERS SO MUCH! You guys make my day, my night, my LIFE. Mucha love to you all.
