SORRY SORRY SORRY SORRY SORRY SORRY! D: I updated so late…I hope you guys aren't too pissed off at me. This chapter was surprisingly difficult to write; parkour's tougher to describe than I had originally thought. It's also eleven pages long.
I neglected damn near all of my stories to write this chapter and it took insanely long to get acceptable, so I really hope you guys like this one. And smileydomino, get well soon! ^^
Musical inspiration: "Taking over Me", by Evanescence.
BTW: The title was inspired by "Move Along", from the All American Rejects. It's a pretty good song and it perfectly describes Naminé right now.
DISCLAIMER: I DON'T OWN ANYTHING MENTIONED IN THIS STORY.
I only own this story. Without further ado, the chapter.
Xxx XXX xxX
It was in the early evening when Naminé finally made her way back to the campus. Xion, Sora, and Riku were waiting for her by the gates. All three let out cries of relief and rushed her when they caught sight of the petite blonde trudging up the main driveway.
"Where were you?" Xion demanded, although the traceuse's sharp tone was undermined by the fierce hug she half-crushed Naminé with.
"We were so worried about you!" Riku added, glaring at his sister. "We thought you'd been hurt!"
"You missed periods 3 and 4," Sora growled. "Care to tell us why?"
Naminé didn't respond. A dozen different emotions were gnawing at her insides—sadness, grief, heartbreak, loss, despair, apathy…fury, annoyance, confusion…sympathy, love, compassion…
She couldn't believe that she was feeling those last three. Roxas had willfully hurt her, had left her hanging, and had abandoned her when he supposed to be there for her. He had no right to make her feel bad for him—she was supposed to hate him for doing this to her.
Riku sighed. "You met Roxas, didn't you?" he asked.
"Yes."
So this was love and all its cruelty.
"He ran away again, didn't he?" Xion asked.
"Yes."
This was so confusing. Was she supposed to react to Roxas's actions with disgust or understanding? Hatred or sympathy?
"So why didn't you come back?" Sora asked, crossing his arms.
She thought about that for a second and came up with a few possible reasons. She had felt somewhat afraid of confronting her friends, knowing that they might be angry at her. She had hoped Roxas would come back, and so she waited for him until she lost her patience. She hadn't wanted to come back to the place where she'd first felt heartbreak; the town outside felt so free of worries, free of pain…she thought she could forget her sorrow, forget Roxas.
"I don't know," Naminé mumbled.
None of them looked convinced and she couldn't blame them. She would've called bullshit on them if they had tried the same answer.
"Well, if you don't want us to know, we won't pry," Xion sighed, favoring Naminé with a kind smile. "Just tell us when you're ready, okay?"
That was when Naminé decided then and there to stop pining over Roxas. Her friends were worried about her, and she'd be an ungrateful bitch if she didn't try to stop aching.
She smiled shakily. "Thanks, guys," she sniffled, her lip wobbling. "Th-thank you so much…"
She wasn't just talking about their concern. She knew now that she really could bury her misery over Roxas and patiently wait until he grew out of his problems.
"Aw no, Naminé, don't cry…" Riku mumbled as his sister buried her face in his shirt and started crying her heart out into his shoulder. "It's a new shirt, sis…."
"You know, I don't like men who don't comfort their hurting sisters."
Three heads pivoted around to stare at Xion, who had a stony expression on her face. Naminé raised an eyebrow, tears and pain completely forgotten.
"Did you just say what I think you just said?" the blonde asked, protectively stepping in front of her red-faced brother.
"I think this calls for shotguns," Sora deadpanned, miming racking the pump of such a weapon. "You keep your dirty paws off Xion, Mr. Riku."
The traceuse rolled her eyes and punched her brother's shoulder, making Sora wince. "That's just my male preference, dimwit," she snapped. "And in case you've forgotten, I'm bi. I don't have to be stuck with men to find love. So there."
Riku blinked. "You're bisexual?" he asked. "Damn, that's—"
Naminé elbowed her brother. "Don't even think about it."
"It's the hormones!" Riku protested. "How can you blame an adolescent male for being turned on by hot lesbian chicks?"
Light pink dusted Xion's face and she looked down.
"How can you blame any girl for being offended by that?" Naminé retorted. She vaguely remembered that she'd been crying moments before, but she found that she didn't really care.
"Whatever," Riku groaned. "Can we go back to our dorms now? I downloaded Rebuild of Evangelion and I really want to watch it."
"I have no idea what that is," Xion said.
"You wouldn't, but apparently Zexion would," Riku replied. "He loves Neon Genesis Evangelion."
"Zexion is your roommate?" Naminé asked.
"Yeah, you know him?" Riku replied. "He's a pretty cool guy. I heard he was kind of emo, but I'd call it lovesickness."
Lovesickness…? Before Naminé could ask further, out of nowhere Larxene dropped down on top of Riku, knocking the silver-haired boy to the ground.
"Why, hello there, Mr. Sexy," the blonde traceuse purred, tracing a fingernail across the platinum blond's jaw. "I don't think I've ever seen you around the campus before…"
"Get off him, Larxene," Xion snarled, shoving her fellow traceuse off of Riku. "He's the new kid—Naminé's brother."
"Oh, my apologies, Xion," Larxene drawled, her shit-eating grin only widening. "Is he yours?"
Xion's cheeks flushed a vibrant red. "What? No!"
"Well, he sure looks like he wants to be," Axel snickered, trotting up.
"Shut up, fire-head," Riku hissed, his eyes narrowing. "You don't deserve Larxene, you son of a bitch."
"And whatever the hell is that supposed to mean?" Axel snorted, although Naminé could see the faintest trace of a blush on the traceur's face.
"It's exactly what you think I mean," Riku replied, crossing his arms. "Make of that what you will."
"But I have no idea what you mean."
"Any retard could figure out what I mean."
"Was that supposed to be an insult? Because that's the most pathetic one I've heard all day."
"I don't think anybody respects you enough to so much as insult you."
The verbal duel between her brother and Axel reminded Naminé of their brawl in her dream—
The blonde crushed the memory of her nightmare underfoot, an unnoticed snarl of pure rage momentarily materializing on her face. She would not be overcome by a goddamn dream.
"The fact that you insulted me first proves your immaturity."
"The fact that you provoked me proves your immaturity."
"The fact that you two are fighting like this proves that both of you are immature," Larxene cut in, shaking her head. "Why is it that men always have to be dominant over each other? Why can't you be like Sora, calm and cool?"
Sora smirked. "What she said."
Riku smirked back. "She only said that because you're whipped."
That was when Axel tackled Riku to the ground and put Naminé's brother in a brutal headlock. "Did you just insult the brother of one of my best friends?" the redhead inquired in a dangerously quiet tone. "And what's more, did you just insult the words of one of my best friends?"
"Oh, I wasn't insulting anybody," Riku grinned through the finger crushing down on his throat. "But I highly doubt that you took offense as a best friend."
Axel's eyes flashed a bright emerald glint of anger, but then Xion delivered a kick to his ribs, knocking the redhead off the platinum blond. Naminé followed the brunette with a second kick to Riku's leg, making her brother cringe in pain.
"Both of you shut up!" Naminé shouted, placing her hands on her hips. "I agree with Larxene, you're both immature."
The two boys just rolled their eyes.
"Whatever, Naminé…"
She promised herself—she wouldn't dwell on Roxas anymore. She wouldn't despair over him, wouldn't pain herself over him. She would try to forget about him until the day he finally came around. She wouldn't have her heart broken by him day after day anymore.
She'd move along.
Xxx XXX xxX
"Wake up wake up WAKE UP!"
The blonde just groaned and twisted around, burying her face in her covers. "Go away and let me sleep, damn you…"
"You asked for it."
Uh-oh.
She heard the noise of Xion cracking her knuckles, and suddenly the covers were yanked off her bunk. Naminé shrieked both in surprise and at the sudden rush of cool morning air on her skin.
Xion raised an eyebrow. "You were sleeping in the nude? Whoa…kinky."
"What's wrong with that?" the blonde shot back defensively, although her cheeks flushed crimson. Flashing Xion like this was essentially showing off her body to a guy.
"Nothing, I guess," Xion chuckled, her eyes looking Naminé up and down. "Get dressed. We've got a big day ahead of us…"
Naminé frowned. She'd been planning to spend the first day of winter break indoors, drawing and reading and screwing around the computer. She didn't want to go out…
But Xion was her friend. She didn't want to disappoint her.
"Okay," Naminé mumbled, hopping out of bed and darting to the closet in a blur of pale skin. "Don't peek!"
"No point in that! I already know what you look like naked, anyways."
Once again, red dusted Naminé's cheeks as the blonde threw on a T-shirt and pulled her hair into a ponytail. She could still remember her first night at ADBS and the…incident after she had come out of the shower.
"Where're we going?" Naminé inquired, stepping out of the closet. "The mall again?"
"Nope," Xion replied. "We're going to go to the clock tower!"
The clock tower? Wasn't that where Axel, Xion, and—Naminé ruthlessly crushed the upsurge of emotions at the memory of a certain spiky-haired blond. She would not let some puny memory screw her over.
"Why?" she asked.
"First semester finals are coming up," Xion replied. "We thought you might need a break, get out a little, get some fresh air, yadda yadda yadda."
"By 'we', you mean you, right?"
"By 'we', I mean me and Axel. 'We' is plural. You know that, right?"
"Yes," Naminé sighed. "Miss OCD Grammar."
Xion snorted. "I hated my grammar tutor."
The girls trotted down the hall to the elevator. As if on cue, the doors opened to reveal Axel leaning against the back wall. Naminé and Xion took spots next to the tall redhead.
An ear-shatteringly loud noise resembling the love child of a car crash and a tortured pig suddenly erupted from the elevator speakers—directly above the three. They yelped in shock and clapped their hands over their ears.
"What the hell is that?" Axel yelled, glowering at the speaker above him.
"Heavy metal!" Xion yelled back. "Heavy metal elevator music!"
"What idiot chose heavy metal for elevator music?"
"What, I'm supposed to know why?"
Naminé was just trying to prevent the violation of her ears. In all honesty, Riku's heavy metal hadn't been all that bad, but her brother had had the courtesy to use earphones. The elevator car, on the other hand, sounded like the inside of an action movie. The suffering trio couldn't run out fast enough when the elevator reached the first floor.
"And we have to go through that again when we come back," Xion grumbled.
"Well, lucky you," Axel growled. "My dorm's on the seventh floor, if you've forgotten."
The other two shook their heads in sympathy.
A winter morning in dusky Twilight Town was usually crisp and refreshingly cool, but never cold, not like in Hollow Bastion. The campus lawn glittered with dewdrops under the pale light of the sun. White clouds drifted lazily across the grey-blue sky.
There were quite a few students lounging on the grass. Naminé recognized Terra among a crowd of seniors and waved; the brown-haired boy grinned and waved back. His group suddenly exploded into murmurs—Naminé caught the words 'who', 'she', and 'babe'.
When she heard that last one, the blonde turned bright red and looked down at her sneakers.
"Friend of yours?" Xion asked.
"Acquaintance."
"Oh."
Axel narrowed his eyes. "Is there anything between you two?"
"I said we were just acquaintances!" Naminé protested.
"I certainly hope that's true," he growled. "Nobody, not even our favorite dumbass Roxas, deserves getting cheated on."
Yeah, like she'd ever cheat on that amazing boy. Naminé just sighed and kept quiet.
The parking lot outside the main gate was connected to the main driveway by a small path. There were a few cars and trucks parked there, but they were clearly the faculty's vehicles—except for one gunmetal grey Saturn Grand Prix with a familiar friendly, one-eyed visage in the driver's window.
"Hi, Mr. Xigbar," Naminé smiled, popping open the backseat door.
"Hey there, little lady," Xigbar replied. "And just call me Xigbar. I'm too young for 'Mister'."
"Isn't your thirtieth birthday only a month away?" Xion snickered, sliding in next to Naminé.
Xigbar reached back and bopped Xion on the head. "Shut up, XIV."
"That just proves you're getting old," Axel remarked. The redhead had taken the passenger's seat, in front of Naminé. "Only that geezer Vexen calls us by our numbers."
Everybody laughed at the memory of the cranky man, but the mirth was gone the instant the car screeched out of the driveway and onto the street, clipping a small bush along the way. Naminé squeaked, unable to make a louder sound in her terror, and her fingernails dug into the leather of her seat.
Xion patted her shoulder. "Relax, Naminé," the brunette advised.
"Why?"
"Because there's nothing you can do about how Xigbar drives."
That was a good point, she supposed, but it was small comfort and—
"TRUCK!"
"I see it, I see it…"
The car fishtailed out of the way of the eighteen-wheeler; Naminé glimpsed the driver flashing Xigbar a rude gesture as the two vehicles streaked past each other. How they had survived going into the opposite lane and coming back when there was an almost solid stream of automobiles speeding past, Naminé didn't know.
She was too busy hyperventilating.
"Let's have some music," Axel declared. If the redhead was frightened, he didn't show it. "Xigbar?"
"Go ahead."
Axel jabbed the power button for the radio. A lively pop punk song—"Girlfriend", by Avril Lavigne, Naminé recognized—blasted out of the woofers in the car.
"Hey, hey, you, you, I don't like your girlfriend!"
"Come on everybody, sing along!"
"Hey, hey, you, you, I think you need a new one."
She didn't want to sing along—singing along meant actually being able to form coherent words. Naminé had no intention of humiliating herself with the mouse noises that were all she was currently able to form.
"Hey, hey, you, you, I can be your girlfriend!"
On the bright side, Axel and Xigbar singing Avril Lavigne was just as hilarious as she'd imagined. That they could sing a woman's voice fairly well was a bonus (of course, Naminé was being nice about that).
Conclusion? Both girls were laughing their asses off as the guys utterly butchered "Girlfriend".
Xxx XXX xxX
"This is the place?" Xigbar asked. He sounded dubious. "It's a total dump."
The man had a point. The roof of the building had collapsed in several places, and the main loading docks were almost entirely filled with refuse. The corrugated steel walls were etched with rust; it was a miracle there was no graffiti anywhere visible.
"To be precise, it's a warehouse, not a dump," Axel replied.
Naminé gazed out the window at the grey walls. It was the place Roxas had taken her to for her first real taste of parkour, just before the Fall Formal.
The three stepped out of Xigbar's car.
"Thanks for the ride!" Axel called.
"No problem, dude!" Xigbar called back. "You three take care of yourselves, alright?"
"Will do! Have a nice one!"
"You too!" And Xigbar's car peeled away from the curb, disappearing around the corner. The three headed for the building when he was out of sight.
"So many memories," Naminé murmured, blinking back a happy tear.
"Excuse me?" Xion asked.
"Roxas brought me here once," Naminé replied, stepping over a cinderblock. "It was the first time I ever did actual parkour…"
"Did you two make out here?" Axel chuckled.
"No, it was too uncomfortable," Naminé smiled, rubbing her neck. "But we did have a lot of fun."
"It's good that you can focus solely on the good memories you have with Roxas," Xion smiled.
"It does help…" Naminé's voice trailed off as she noticed the tiny glyph she'd spotted the first time she went here. "Hey, what's that thing?"
Upon closer inspection, the mark was revealed to be an upside-down heart with a cross projecting up out of the point.
"That?" Axel said. "That's the Organization XIII symbol. It marks this spot as our turf."
Naminé raised an eyebrow. "Turf?"
"He means practice area," Xion explained. The traceuse shook her head. "Axel, can't you just use some other word besides 'turf'?"
"What's wrong with 'turf'?" Axel whined.
"Using it makes you sound like a gangster."
He sighed. "That's just a stereotype."
"Exactly."
Axel sighed again. "Okay, good point," he muttered. "Anyways, today we're going to be playing a game. We're going to run in a straight line to the clock tower, a mile away, from this starting point."
"Uh-huh…"
"Here's the catch, though—we go in a set order, and we have to finish in a set order. The spirit of parkour isn't about competition, after all."
She hadn't heard that before. "Okay. When do we start?"
"Now."
And Xion and Axel exploded into motion, wall-passing up to the warehouse roof before Naminé had even taken a single step. The blonde snarled a curse and followed, climbing as fast as she dared. This side of the warehouse was four stories tall, and Naminé quickly found herself having to jump up in order to muscle-up windows. At times she was using the divots in the corrugated steel to climb up.
But eventually she made it to the roof, where Axel and Xion were waiting for her.
"What's the matter?" Xion said teasingly. "I thought Roxas taught you parkour."
"You two caught me off guard," Naminé grumbled, her face reddening with embarrassment anyways.
"Sure…" Axel snickered. "Alright, the order's Xion, you, and then me."
The girls nodded.
"Three…two…one…go!"
Naminé had never seen Xion perform parkour up until now, but any doubts she'd had about the brunette's skill in the discipline were dispelled when Xion was suddenly on the next roof—again before Naminé had taken a single step.
The artist decided then and there to move instead of just watch the others. She took off, leaping over the seven foot gap of the opposite building, and landed on her toes. Naminé sprinted forward again, barely taking a moment to check for a rooftop below before she vaulted the railing and rolled forward on impact.
This rooftop had a thin wire stretching over the street below to the next roof. Naminé heard shouts of shock and horror from below as she cat-balanced across the wire, which was at least thirty feet off the ground. She knew that deep down she was utterly terrified, but she also knew that if she took even a heartbeat to acknowledge that fear, she'd fall to her death.
Not exactly a comforting thought…
But finally she reached the opposite roof and continued running to a brick wall. Naminé began climbing up, using any protruding bricks as hand and footholds. When she reached and muscled-up over the top, she caught sight of Xion jumping down. Naminé rushed to the edge of the roof and looked down to see the brunette descending the adjacent apartment complex by leaping from balcony to balcony.
"This is insane," Naminé whispered, but a feral grin was plastered on her lips.
A one and a two and a one two three—Naminé took a running leap to the first balcony, braced on impact, and jumped off down towards the next one. At one point she encountered a pole jutting from the wall and used it to swing forward, using the momentum to soar towards the next balcony. She turn-vaulted on that balcony's railing, rotating around one hundred eighty degrees so that she was facing the inside of the balcony, and let go to drop down to the street.
The blonde about-faced again and began running after Xion's lithe form, weaving through the crowd. Upon encountering a convenient crate, Naminé jumped on top of it and used her momentum to cat-grab the windowsill above her, muscling-up onto the sill. She used the window's header board as a springboard to jump and cat-grab the windowsill above, and then muscled-up to the window. A third cat-grab/muscle-up combo, followed by a vault over a railing, brought her onto the rooftop.
Where the hell was the police? Rooftops weren't usually places people were allowed to run amok in.
Naminé took a breath before loping forward, quickly building up to her full speed. In seconds she was practically gliding across the roof (which she noticed was tiled with concrete), sprinting towards a fountain she spied off in the distance. Xion's head suddenly appeared off to Naminé's left; the blonde turned in surprise just in time to see the traceuse run up the remainder of the staircase and skid to a halt in front of her.
"Well, fancy meeting you here," Xion quipped.
"Yep," Naminé replied. She extended an index finger forward. "Shall we?"
"Let's."
Both girls darted forward, Naminé being careful to keep behind Xion, and in seconds they reached a jam-packed square. There was a crowd clustered around a circular arena, and as Naminé passed them, she saw two boys dueling with short blue bats.
"That's struggle," Axel said from behind her. "It's a popular Twilight Town sport."
Naminé yelped in surprise, almost tripping. "R-right," she said. "You scared me."
Axel grinned. "I know."
She pouted before tearing off so fast it was like she had suddenly disappeared. She'd never tell, but hearing Axel's shocked sputtering as she did so was rather satisfying.
The square was huge, at least three hundred meters to a side. Naminé estimated that they had traversed four, maybe five hundred meters—between a fourth and a third of the way to the clock tower. Fortunately, the next third of the course was mostly bare sidewalk. The blonde found herself whistling the tune to a rock song (she couldn't remember which one) as she jogged along the street.
But the sidewalk eventually gave way to a row of office buildings, and Naminé spotted Xion clambering a partition of glass and steel, using the tiny divots in the walls to climb. The blonde shivered; she was not the type of person to trust life and limb to centimeter-deep fingerholds. Unfortunately, she had no choice. Scaling the office buildings was the most direct way to the clock tower.
"What have I gotten myself into," she mumbled even as she wall-passed up to the first floor. It was tantamount to an act of God that nobody saw her.
The aforementioned divots carved into the walls had been decorative, but now Naminé used them like a non-OSHA-compliant ladder to ascend the wall. After a minute of climbing, Naminé saw the rooftop overhead and muscled-up onto it as fast as she could. She took a moment to rejoice in her survival before getting up and continuing on.
A running jump across seven feet of thin air brought her onto the opposite rooftop. Naminé looked up just in time to catch Xion's raven hair descending out of view. The blonde loped forward to the edge of the rooftop and turn-vaulted to lower herself down to the divot ladder, climbing down as quickly as she dared. Naminé let out a breath of relief when her feet touched the sidewalk.
"I really hope I don't have to do this again," she muttered, running forward to give Axel space to jump down.
The street wound around the buildings in the last part of the course, meaning that Naminé had to scale the buildings in her way if she was going to go in a straight line to the clock tower. Luckily the rest of the buildings weren't quite as dangerous to traverse as the office buildings were. The rest of the trek to the clock tower was relatively smooth after that.
Xxx XXX xxX
"Don't tell me we have to climb it," Naminé groaned, straining her neck to see the top of the tower. "This thing has to be two hundred feet tall!"
"Three hundred, actually," Xion grinned. "But no, we're not going to climb it. That would be utter lunacy."
"No, really?" Axel sighed. "Roxas once tried to climb it. He spent a month in the hospital; it was a good thing it was summer break."
Naminé winced. "Are there any elevators?"
"Stairs," Xion said cheerfully.
The blonde groaned again. "You're kidding me."
"Today's not your lucky day, then."
Double doors led into the tower's ground floor. The inside of the enormous edifice was mostly empty space, with massive girders and supports visible overhead. A massive alternating tread staircase encased by a metal tube rose up and up and up into the shadows of the tower's upper reaches. The inside of the stair silo, however, was well lit.
"How long does it usually take to reach the top?" Naminé asked, setting her foot on the first step.
"About half an hour, give or take."
"Shit…"
"Hey, watch your mouth," Axel growled.
Namine was exhausted by the time the trio reached the third bridge-balcony, an extension from the staircase to the wall of the clock tower every landing. Xion explained that the bridge-balconies were for maintenance purposes and were connected by scaffolding outside.
"Can we…use them…to take a…break?" Naminé panted, pulling herself up another step using the railing.
"Nope!" Xion sang. The brunette appeared unaffected by skipping up a hundred and fifty steps, but then again she'd presumably done this multiple times. "We go straight to the top, no breaks!"
"What…what if I…collapse?"
"I'll catch you," Axel replied. "And then I'll tickle you until you wake up."
She glared at the redhead, her fatigue forgotten. "What?"
"You heard me."
The blonde shivered. She was very ticklish. Very ticklish. "Don't, please."
"Well I won't so long as you don't fall behind."
"I won't."
Thirty seconds later she broke that promise, falling to one knee before keeling over onto her side. Axel sighed, but wordlessly picked her up. She wrapped her arms around his neck while he slid his arms under her knees so that she was resting on his back.
Xion glanced at the two and smirked. "Axel, you look like you're her boyfriend."
"I have a crush on somebody else," Axel replied wearily. "Besides, Naminé's fat. I prefer slender girls."
Naminé scowled and whacked the top of Axel's head. "I'm not fat!"
"Then explain to me why my spine feels like it's about to snap in half."
"You're just exaggerating!" Naminé yelled, blushing furiously in embarrassment.
"Like hell I am. Have I ever exaggerated, Xion?"
"Not that I've heard," the brunette replied, grinning evilly.
"You guys suck," Naminé grumbled, whacking Axel's head again for good measure. "Let's change the subject. Axel, you said you had a crush on somebody—who is it?"
He smirked. "Not telling."
"Come on…"
"Yeah, I want to know, too," Xion said, glancing at Axel. "Who is it?"
Now Axel was blushing. "Why do you want to know?"
"Just because," Naminé cooed. "Just tell us. It's not like we're going to scream it from the rooftops…"
"With you, I don't know."
She sighed, knowing that Axel was impossible to budge when he had that tone. "Fine, be that way."
Naminé had recovered enough by the time the three reached the second-from-last bridge-balcony that she could walk up to the final balcony herself. The blonde set a hand on the door, shoved it open, and promptly froze in her tracks.
"Beautiful view, isn't it?" Xion smiled, pushing past her onto the platform wrapping around the top of the clock tower. "I had the same reaction the first time, too."
'Beautiful' was an understatement. 'Dazzling', 'breathtaking', 'riveting', and/or 'stunning' were better adjectives.
The sun lanced every cloud between it and the clock tower, refracting the sunlight into its seven base colors. Naminé could see purple tinting the silver-white puffs of the clouds, and reddish gold illumination bathed the town below. Speaking of the town below, she could literally see the entirety of Twilight Town—the train station, off to her right side, the pentagonal Arthur Durand Boarding School off to her left, and a row of towers between the two jutting up like a platoon of Greek hoplites in shining bronze armor.
"Over here, Naminé."
The blonde looked to her left to see Xion and Axel sitting on the edge of the platform, their legs dangling over.
"Isn't that a bit dangerous?" Naminé asked warily.
"It is," Xion said. "But so is the rest of the stuff we did this morning."
"Good point," the blonde admitted, walking over and carefully sitting next to Xion. "So what do you usually do when you're up here?"
"We just…watch the view," Axel replied, scratching his head. "You lose track of time up here…it's like you're the only person in the world."
Only person in the world? That didn't sound very healthy…
Apparently Naminé's thoughts showed on her face, because Xion shook her head.
"We don't come here to escape," the brunette said. "Only Roxas did that; we deal with our problems in other ways."
Naminé raised an eyebrow. "Other ways? Lot of stuff I can infer from that…"
Axel and Xion looked a bit confused for a second, and then they burst into laughter.
"No, we're not stupid enough to do drugs," Axel chuckled. "By other ways, we mean parkour. Every member of the XIII has their own problems that they use parkour to run away from."
"Interesting…" Naminé murmured. "Could you tell me more? I mean, if I'm allowed to know, of course. I don't want to be offending anybody."
"You won't," Xion replied. "But some of the guys don't like talking about it."
"Then don't. Go on, please."
"Our Number I, Xemnas, formed this merry little band with his buddy Xigbar," Axel explained. "Both of them were parkour athletes and wanted to make a club of enthusiasts."
Number I? So this Xemnas person was whose choice of second-in-command Vexen had been bitching about.
"What they didn't count on was every single one of their members having a shitload of inner demons," Xion continued. "And Xemnas decided that he'd remake the XIII into something like Alcoholics Anonymous except that everyone knew each other."
"As for the problems of our screwed up little group? Well, to start off, Xaldin's a war vet—he's got PTSD from Wutai."
"Vexen's a cancer survivor, but his parents aren't."
"Lexaeus came home to find his wife's pieces stuffed into the fridge."
"Zexion has self-esteem problems; he was always a bit of a nerd and he got bullied for it."
"Saix has anger management issues. When he's in one of his moods, you would not want to meet him in a dark alley. I know that from experience." Axel rubbed a long scar on the underside of his arm. "As for yours truly, I'm a pyromaniac. I've got it under control, but sometimes…"
"Demyx has a drinking problem. He's never told us why."
"Luxord has—had—a gambling addiction, but he's working on it."
"Marluxia had abusive parents, those ultra-religious types. He ran away from home when he was ten; I have no idea how he survived on the streets."
"Larxene's a sadomasochist and has sociopathic tendencies, and she hates herself for them, which is kind of strange, really; it doesn't change her appearance in my eyes."
"I…Sora and I've got the gene for Huntington's disease. My mom died of it."
Naminé could only gawk at the information her brain was attempting to process. She couldn't imagine what these people must've gone through in their lives. And two of eleven were sitting right next to her, seeming perfectly unaffected…
"Let me recap what I just heard," she croaked. "Axel, you're a pyromaniac. You like setting things on fire."
"It's more complicated than that, but yeah, that's the gist of it."
"And Xion, you have Huntington's disease. You're going to die a vegetable," Naminé whispered, her eyes widening with horror. "That's…that's just fucked up."
Xion laughed mirthlessly. "No shit," the brunette muttered. "But I got over it—yeah I'm going die, but so what? At least I've got time left I can use to really live. Sora feels the same way."
She had never known parkour could be all-consuming enough to let these people drown their sorrows in it, but she supposed that people could use anything to run away from
That made eleven people of the XIII. Xemnas and Xigbar presumably hadn't had these kinds of issues, judging by their original intent of starting a parkour club. That left—
"What about Roxas?"
The other two's eyes instantly took on a haunted look.
"Roxas…he had it the worst," Axel muttered. "He refuses to talk about it under any circumstances. I've told you that his mom died of a stroke, but that's literally all I know."
"What about his dad?" Naminé asked. She remembered hearing Rufus Shinra (shudder) mention a Lt. General Ansem Takahashi.
"His dad?" Axel sighed. "I didn't see much of him. All I know is that Mr. Takahashi was Roxas's stepfather and that he and Roxas weren't all that close."
Naminé began laughing. Xion and Axel gave her confused looks, but she didn't stop snorting and sniggering and chuckling at the idiot's nerve.
Then she stopped laughing and her face grew cold and angry.
"You're telling me that he broke my heart because he had a bad childhood?" Naminé growled in a half-mocking tone. "That's just pathetic. He has to know that."
Axel rolled his eyes. "He does. That's probably half the reason he hates himself."
"But why won't he let somebody help him?" Naminé sighed. All her anger had left her.
"You already have," Xion said simply. "You might've succeeded, but then Seifer interfered and everything went to hell."
Seifer. Naminé marveled at how she would both shudder in fear and snarl in rage at the very mention of that beanie head sonofabitch's name. The blonde drew her knees up to her chest and tried not to think about the run-ins she'd had with the bastard, lest she do something she'd regret in the fires of her resentment.
Memories of Roxas helped with that. Naminé relaxed as she remembered the first time she and he had kissed, the annoying but cute way he'd antagonized her on the first day, their first date at the karaoke bar, her first lesson in parkour…
She decided right then and there—Roxas had until the New Year. That was how long her patience would last.
If he didn't come back…
Naminé steeled herself. If he didn't come back, then they were over, simple as that.
Xxx XXX xxX
Yes, I understand that parkour is almost never performed on so dangerous a setting as a rooftop. So sue me; I've been watching too many Assassin's Creed II videos lately.
"Jump" has been indicted into Kiome-Yasha and her crew's Four Colors of Love community. I'm honored that my writing's good enough for that. :D
A shout-out for all you Namixas fans: Try Again, by AquaroseNamine. It's Roxas/Naminé awesomeness and a pretty good read.
And yes, my lovely awesome epic treasured anonymous reviewers, I do care about what you have to say. Random KH Fan Girl stands out in particular. ALL. YOU. AWESOME. IN PARTICULAR. AXEL?
Axel: Got it memorized?
School starts next week for me—meaning, updates are going to be few and far between. I'll do my best to not have a repeat of this time, though.
Longass author note's over. Please review! ^^