Author's note: Well, remember back then when peple would play the weirdest games at parties? I do:D The thought of '7 minutes in Heaven' just came to mind a while back. :P I assume you know the rules? XD Well, here is Part I!
Chapter Twelve: 7 minutes in Heaven Part I
Ever since school started again on Monday, I still couldn't take my mind off so many things. I wanted to be able to think about them all at once and be able to answer all my questions so easily. No matter what, that could never be a possibility.
The fact was Hayner was still pissed off at me. The minute I entered History class that morning, and on time this time, he did nothing but send a glare my way. Pence, on the other hand, at least had the humanity left in him to say 'good morning' as I walked past.
Mrs. Lockhart, of course, was her same chipper self when we were ready to begin the lesson. As usual, I wasn't near interested in learning about the geography of this and the birthday of so-and-so. Instead, I doodled on my notebook. Axel seemed to return to his old self again, exchanging gossip and whatnot between Marluxia. I figured he would have at least been a bit upset. Or he would have at least noticed that I had been staring at him all class period. He didn't have his sketchbook with him today. Maybe he had thrown it into his fireplace for all I knew.
That couldn't be right...he had drawn a nearly perfect sketch of me with my name written all neat beside it. His dad's, on the other hand, had been drawn and written like a kindergarten piece of artwork. He wouldn't burn mine, right?
xxXXxx
"Uh, hey, Roxas..."
I looked up from the cafeteria floor and turned to where I heard Pence's voice. He seemed calm and, by the way he twiddled his fingers, a bit apologetic. Hayner had walked ahead, passing me as if I was nothing more than a ghost. I sighed and tried to ignore it.
"Don't worry about him," Pence began, "he's just acting all annoyed 'cause he doesn't know how to apologize to you."
I found that a bit hard to believe. "Did he tell you that?"
"Well, no. But, he said that he might have gone a little over the edge."
"A little?" I scoffed and pushed away from the wall. "Pence, didn't you see the look on his face? All Demyx did was burst a bubble into his hair. At least he could have shrugged it off!"
By the look on Pence's face, I knew that something wasn't right. He casually gazed over at the floor and hung his head. "He probably got the wrong message from you."
"What do you mean?"
"I mean, it wasn't an accident, what Demyx did. He and his friend with the pink hair tricked us into going into that dead end by asking what score we got on our math test. After that, well, Demyx just started going off."
Demyx never seemed like the superior image of a bully. I couldn't even imagine seeing him coming to school one day with a doo-rag on his head and a tattoo on his face or something. I laughed when I saw it but remembered that Pence was still there and shook my head.
"Then he should have told me..."
He sighed and nudged my shoulder playfully. "He'll get over it eventually. Sorry for ditching you that day, Roxas."
I rolled my eyes and nudged him back, nearly sending him colliding with a passerby. "It's not your fault..."
With a wide smile, Pence rubbed the back of his head and stared down the line where Hayner was standing. "Hey, didn't you visit Axel yesterday?" He suddenly asked.
"Uh...well...uhm, yeah," I stuttered, glancing around the crowded room for no particular reason.
"How's he doing? Got any death related disease or something?"
"Pence!" I exclaimed, wanting to punch him in the stomach, "What the hell is wrong with you?"
He laughed and shook his head. "Just kidding! You know I wouldn't want something like that to happen; even to the freakiest guy here in school."
'Freakiest guy in school'? Exactly what made him so freaky? Oh...wait. I had once thought that about him before. Truth was, I didn't know exactly what it was that had made me so ticked off at him.
Pence left me a little while later after Hayner called for him at the end of the line. I let him go, watching the two argue over who would take the last jello tray. My stomach turned. I wasn't going to eat today. Even if it was ramen, I had to turn it down this once.
xxXXxx
Days went by; weeks even. What little trees there were in Twilight Town had started going bare and began cluttering the brick stone streets in leaves of orange and brown. Sora, to mom's and my surprise, had actually gotten a high grade in a math test: C+. Ok, so it wasn't high, high but it was high enough for him to be proud of.
Mom's soap opera was getting to its climax by the time we entered October. I often saw her huddled on the couch, either bawling her eyes out or yelling at the top of her lungs.
"Adam, you jerk! You don't, ugh, my goodness! Rodney, stay away from him!"
Everyday it was the same deal: Adam this, Rodney that.
Olette's papers stayed the same: gang info and latest information on the beaten up t-shirt. The fact that she hadn't posted anything on the basketball game shocked me, considering the fact that she was one of the crazed people taking pictures at the game. Nope. Nothing on Axel on the front page. I was relieved about that.
"So, Roxas, you going to the Halloween party this Saturday?" Olette asked sweetly while walking with me back from school.
I looked over to her as she began skipping beside me. "Party? I didn't hear anything about a party."
"Oh, really?" She asked, walking straight again. "Our whole school keeps talking about it. It's the one party of the year that Twilight Town All Boys High School and Sunset Hill All Girls High School are able to get together. You know, like a night dance sort of thing!" She giggled, reminding me of the way Larxene had that one day, and tucked a strand of her light brunette hair behind her ear.
"Why? Halloween's not until two weeks from now."
"They usually have the party early 'cause most people prefer trick-or-treating on the actual Halloween night. Plus, the Friday before the party, you get to wear your costume to school! You should go!" I found it awkward when she teasingly tugged at my sleeve. With my eyes widened I stared down at her as if she had been replaced with a different human being.
"Are you drunk?"
Angrily, she pursed her lips and crossed her arms. Nope, the same old Olette!
"Ooo, you're just like Hayner and Pence when I asked them! I can't help it if I'm excited to go!"
"Are they going?"
"Of course they are! They've already started costume shopping. I'm going as a black cat like last year."
Oh, yeah, I remembered that outfit. Last year, all four of us stayed out until near midnight to stock up on sour gumballs and chocolate kisses. I still had a bucket full of the candy in our kitchen somewhere. Pence had gone as a vampire, Olette had gone as a black cat, I had gone as a dead student with a plastic sword in my back and Hayner went as: a fairy. Yes, a fairy. Complete with wand and pastel butterfly wings.
Why? Why not? We always had this dare every Halloween. Whoever lost to a coin toss had to be dressed in whatever costume the winner picked. That year, I won and chose a nice little outfit for Hayner to wear. I had to admit that the blue eye shadow looked nice on him.
"So? Think you can make it? It's at 8:00 at night on Saturday."
I blinked and faced her again. "What would I go as?"
"Don't tell me that you and Hayner's little fight is going to get in the way of your yearly dare?" She asked stubbornly.
"Come on, Olette, he's obviously not in the mood to go through that this year." Already, I began ascending the steps to my house, leaving her to glare up at me with her hands pressed firmly on her hips.
"You guys will have to settle it somehow. It's been your tradition since you were both seven years old!"
"I know, I know," I sighed, sticking the gold key into the lock.
"Then do something about it! I don't want to put up with you missing out on this party, Roxas!"
"Alright, alright! I'll see what I can do! Gosh, you're starting to sound like mom..." I laughed when she called out: "Say that again, Roxas! Go on! I dare you!" and shut the door.
"Man, never changes, does she?" I whispered to myself and, when I turned, shut myself up at the sight of four pairs of eyes shifting toward me. Well, this was surprising...
"Getting home late lately, aren't you, Roxas?"
"Uhm...maybe," I replied slowly to Hayner who was the first to speak up. Pence remained silent. "What're you two doing here?"
When Hayner kept shut, Pence roughly elbowed him to force him to speak up.
I chuckled and nearly failed at trying to keep a straight face.
"What he's trying to say is..." Pence started out, moving his hands slowly for Hayner to continue. "Is...?"
"We're..."
"Yes?" I asked.
"We...ugh! JustosayI'msorry!'
"Sorry? Didn't hear that." I smiled wickedly as I watched Hayner rub his forehead in embarrassment.
"I said...I..."
"Get on with it, Hayner! I wanna go costume shopping at least sometime this week!"
I crossed my arms and smirked. Hayner kept his head lowered and went about messing up his hair. I always knew that Hayner was a pretender. Ever since we were kids, he hated having to say 'I'm sorry' in front of other people or to the person he was saying sorry to for that matter. All he did was mumble it once, twice, sometimes three times before he would heat over. At that point, he just blurted it out! Any second now...I knew it. His cheeks were tinting red.
"So this is what this whole visit is about? Costume shopping?" I asked slyly.
"No! Well, not really...see, it doesn't make any sense if we're fighting like this so...so, ugh, look, I'm...I'm sorry, ok! I'm sorry!" With a frustrated groan, he slumped forward and began whispering nonsense to the hard wood floor.
Pitying him, I sighed heavily and walked up to a distressed Hayner with that amused little smile still on my face. "You just gotta learn to let me in on everything, got it?" I demanded, slapping a hand firmly on one of his slumped shoulders.
He let out a chuckle and eventually looked up at both Pence and I. "Sorry, Roxas."
With our usual boy-ish secret hand shake, the whole ordeal was over. Pence was already more that excited that we would be able to hang out together again. By the time it was sealed, he dashed to the kitchen and began popping popcorn. It was what we did whenever us guys were hanging out. Ice cream in the summer, popcorn in the fall, chocolate in the winter, and potato chips in the spring. Beats me why it ended up that way. I sort of thought that it was just the way destiny wanted it to be.
"Alright, so," Pence began, scarfing down the last of his hand full of popcorn he grabbed from the white bowl, "now that we've got that covered...how's about we keep that old tradition of yours goin', eh?"
Hayner looked up from the game of tic-tac-toe that he and I had been playing and set the pen down. "You mean the costume thing?"
"Oh, yeah. Olette was bugging me about it just a while back."
"Yeah, we sorta heard her from outside."
We all laughed.
"So? Feeling up to it?" Eeriely, Pence reached into his back pocket and retrieved a small money piece that had already started to lose its shine. Unlike what you readers are accustomed to, our money isn't like a flat coin piece. I never understood why it had to be designed to be round, rainbow colored and glossy like a crystal.
I sighed and turned to Hayner who turned to me. "Alright. We'll go for it. But don't cry when you lose, alright Hayner?"
He scoffed and slammed his arms atop the coffee table in a challenging sort of mood. Knowing Hayner, he couldn't afford to lose. It was always, 'do over!' or, 'it wasn't flipped right!'
"I pick the yellow side this time," Hayner said.
"Alright, I've got dibs on blue." I felt confident about this...Hayner was so gonna lose! Already I began planning out his outfit. Princess or one of those baby ladybug outfits?
"Go on! Flip it, Pence!" Hayner said rather assertively.
At the end countdown from 3, Pence tossed the dull money into the air while we all watched it twirl aimlessly in the air. Blue! No, no, stay there! Not yellow! Blue, yes! Stay there!
"And the winner is..." Pence reached his hands out and caught the crystal money in his hands with ease. He cupped his hands over each other and slowly parted his fingers. "It's..."
YELLOW?
"Hah! Yes! I won! You lose, R-o-x-a-s!" Hayner annoyingly began pointing his fingers in my face while mentioning over and over in a sing song voice that I had lost. I lost, I lost!
I felt a bead of sweat slip down my cheek and I gulped. This wasn't good...maybe if I made a run for it we wouldn't have to...? No, I never backed away from a dare...nuh-uh.
By the time Hayner and Pence's faces straightened, sort of, they both shifted their devious eyes to me...I didn't like the looks of it and could only smile weakly. Under the coffee table, my hands were trembling beyond my control and I was bouncing my crossed leg rapidly.
"You'll like this one, Roxas," Hayner said, failing to hide his positive-ness, "Really, I'm gonna go easy on you!"
Yeah right! Easy? Nothing was ever easy! I hoped it wasn't too extreme like a showgirl...that would be just plain wrong. With my fingers crossed, I begged in my head that the costume Hayner was standing up to get was decent. What made things worse was that we were in an all boys High School! If I wore something really out of the ordinary, I'd be the laughing stock of the entire town through my graduation from High School!
"Try this on and see if it's your size, Roxas. You'll need it for Friday and Saturday anyway." While Hayner and Pence snickered behind the lifted costume, my eyes went blank and my throat became dry.
"Dad...can I join you being dead for a few days?"
xxXXxx
Remember when I said that everything happens of Fridays? Well, everything happens on Fridays...! Why is it that everything that happens of Friday has to happen to me? None of them are good news for me! I had that feeling like I wanted to crawl into a dark corner and stay there all through Sunday. At least I would be able to miss the Halloween party at the principle's house! But, no...like I said, I never turn down a dare...why? Why was I so stubborn?
"Everything fitting right, Roxas?" Hayner asked that morning in an adorable yet annoying voice. He was clothed in a black devil outfit; complete with extra long and pointed tail, horns, wide wings, plastic fangs and a mini pitchfork dabbed with fake blood.
"Yeah? Everything alright, miss?" Pence nearly choked on his laughter from behind his long, black outfit. He was dressed as the typical Scream that always freaked Namine and Kairi beyond reason...now that I think about it, I liked the sound of that. Plus, he had the rushing fake blood on his white mask. That would definitely be able to pull the master prank on them.
Me? Oh, you really don't want to know about me...
As they gently pushed at my back, past the fountain and up the stairs, I kept my head revolved around my revealed skin. Shit...I could already hear people laughing from inside.
"R-Roxas? Is that you?"
"What in the heck are you wearing?"
"Lose a bet or what?"
"Something like that..." I grumbled and walked through the strange crowd of students that were separating just to let me through. Just shrug it off, Roxas. Cool down. It's not working!
"Sorry, Roxas. A dare's a dare. It is tradition, ya know," Hayner said calmly behind me and gently pushed at the back of my shoulder.
"Yeah...tradition..." I replied sarcastically. Some tradition. For god's sake, I was dressed in a uniform! No, not our school's uniform...Sunset Hill All Girls High School's uniform. Hayner had taken his mom's old uniform from her closet and made some slight adjustments for me to wear it. The skirt was a plaid pattern of sky blue and white. The thing was that skirts back then were shorter than they are now.
Hayner loosened up the thin polo shirt to better hug to my body and had even pressed the spiffy tie that matched the exact style as the skirt. I had to wear a pair of black school shoes that were way too tight on my feet and a pair of navy blue socks that pulled up to the bottom of my knees. Yeah, just spiffy. At least I could keep my hair style the way it usually was...problem was that people would know who I was because of it.
"Yo, Ro...Ro-x-as?"
That voice! No, no! Not you! Hayner and Pence had left for a while to get their stuff from their lockers and left me to stick out like a sore thumb in the hallways. Nervously, I darted my head away in the opposite direction and shifted my uncomfortable feet on the tile below me. I was blushing again...great.
"Roxas? Whoa! What're you wearing?"
With another familiar voice closing in on me, and already mentioning my name, I knew I couldn't hide myself any longer and slowly turned to face my spotters. Demyx was standing over me, his baby-like eyes widened and mouth barely parted. Marluxia, Zexion, and, to my great embarrassment, Axel were standing just as shocked as Demyx around my puny self. They were all dressed up as devils, like Hayner. Zexion, in my opinion, played the part quite well considering that he already held that mystified characteristic.
"It's...it was a dare, ok?" I replied, my face pink and depressed.
"Dare? And you went and actually took the dare?" Marluxia asked with his mouth agape.
"That took guts," Axel brought up and smirked down at me. I glanced over into his eyes and pursed my lips. While the others in his group were standing astonished, he seemed rather impressed...pleased. The heat in my body intensified. The way he was looking right at me...was my skirt too short? Was my tie lopsided? What?
"I approve..." He chuckled and quickly winked at me before all of them walked off to first period. He had this habit of winking, staring, speaking...flat out existing. I had to ask him so many things about who he was and about what he was thinking. I left the embarrassing thoughts of my costume to drift. If it made Axel look at me like that...if he would do that all day...maybe this outfit wasn't so bad.
xxXXxx
The fact that the party on Saturday was being held in the principle's house was definitely out of the ordinary. Was the school planning on spying on our behavior or what? Even so, Hayner thought it would be a new experience to look forward to instead of the normal parties and dances in the gyms. We ended up leaving, Hayner, Pence and me, my house around 7:00 that night.
"If you come back later than 11:00 I'll send the cops to go get you!" Mom called as we shut the door behind us. I shook my head and we all began following a mass of teenagers all walking in the same direction. It had already grown dark which made me feel more comfortable about what I was wearing. At least no one would see me clearly.
To everyone's surprise, the principle owned a huge mansion just on the outskirts of town. No, it wasn't that one that had almost been burned but it was somewhere near there. All of us waited outside the metal gate before we were allowed inside. By the time we reached the front door to the massive house, we were told to only stay in the basement up until the time we had to leave.
"Think they'll torture us down there?" Hayner asked in a raised voice over the crowd.
"Dunno!" I replied while we began descending a flight of stairs once inside the main greeting room. All around the pale white walls were paintings of meaningless shapes and colors. The royal atmosphere died away when we stepped foot into the slightly dimmed basement. Now, it felt more like a club more than anything.
All around us were shadows, dancing to the beat of the strobe lights and music pounding off the walls. Each time the lights struck a wall, I was able to catch sight of some people's faces but they were immediately lost in a split second. Like being drifted out to sea, Hayner, Pence and I wandered through the swarm, helplessly calling out for Olette to see if she was around.
"Maybe she's over by that table over there!" Hayner yelled out, his voice barely recognizable through the beating speakers. I spotted him pointing toward a side wall in front of us that constantly had colors flashing on its surface.
"What would she...?"
"Pence! Hayner! Where'd you go!" Confused, I pushed through the unknown bodies and attempted to follow where I had last seen the two wandering off to. Great, just great. Being in this outfit was bad enough! Uselessly, I stood still in the waves of bodies, just keeping my arms crossed and head straight forward. I knew coming to parties was a bad idea. I always ended up only seeing tons of things I didn't want to see. Know what I mean?
"Ugh, those guys owe me big for ditching me and making me wear this stupid..."
"Roxas! Whoa, hey, watch it! Roxas!"
"Roxas! Not here! Not here!"
Those distance voices were somehow able to spark my attention and I began gazing over my surroundings, suddenly feeling like I had drifted to a completely different area even though I had been standing still. In annoyance, I bent down to pull up my left knee sock and pulled back up, only to be smashed into with Pence's back.
"Ow! Hey! Pence! Watch it!" I yelled, rubbing my cheek where I had been struck.
"Huh? Gah! There you are!" Abruptly, he shot his arms forward and grabbed my arms.
My heart jumped and I tried to pull away. "What the...?"
I felt him shake me vigorously while yelling 'we have to get out of here!' at the top of his lungs.
"What? Why? We just..."
"Pence! Did you find him?" Hayner's voice came from a closer range this time although I could tell he was drifting this way and that.
"Got him! What now?"
"Would you tell me what's going on?" I screeched, yanking my arms away from him, trying to give him the message that I wasn't about to go anywhere.
"Roxas, it's Namine!"
"What about her?" I asked.
"Hayner and I saw her at the punch table. She asked us if we would ask you if you would play a game with her friends and her!"
"G-Game?" I blurted, my body going into panic. "What kind of game?"
"You-you've heard of 7 minutes in Heaven, right?" Pence replied, his voice stuttering while I saw his shadow searching around.
"W-What!" I threw my hands out in front of me and felt sweat running down my face.
"See? No more asking stuff! You've gotta hide somewhere!" This time, I went cooperatively with him and ran recklessly in between dancing groups and couples in between their own personal businesses. "Uh...uhm...here! Go in here!"
The closet? Out of all places...it had to be the closet? In disbelief, I stared at the dark door in the corner of the large room, my body twitching. "Pence? This is the closet..."
"So?" He replied, already pulling the door open wide enough for me to slip through.
I stayed put and shook my head lightly. "Hello...7 minutes in Heaven is played in the closet! What if she...?"
"Just risk it!" Without bothering for me to finish, Pence reached forward and grabbed my wrist. Before I could even retort to him, he had flung me into the small darkness where the music outside was barely muted out. I panted heavily in the dark, feeling trapped and at a loss of words.
"Wha...why...?" I murmured to myself in between gasps for air. I could feel the light tickle of sweaters and coats behind me and nearly jumped. Not a sound, Roxas. With a heaved sigh, I figured there was nothing left to do but wait. Lazily, and disappointedly, I walked over to the right wall in the secluded closet and leaned against it.
"So much for a ..."
"Ow! Watch it!"
When my foot kicked at what I thought was a pile of boxes in front of me, I slightly jumped back, pressing my back hard against the wall. Though I couldn't see through the shadows, the flash of a small bright teal color in front of me brought something into mind.
"A-Axel...?"
ahem, the rules are simple! the next chapter will tell the simpleness of it all...:D -glomps pillow and falls asleep- goodnighties! don't forget, did you get your daily dosage of akuroku love today? axie says: at least10 more reviews! me: now axie, what do we say? axie: oh, at least 10 more reviews, please. me: that's better...:D axie: ...or i will engulf you all in fire! me: -.- he needs more training...
aku love,
kokoro77 :D
