29◆ Awake and Unafraid

"And why exactly are you practically tripping me again?" Roxas was trying to walk down the crowded hallway in school. This was not being helped by the fact that his twin was acting more like a dog than a human being, or that Axel was randomly picking up the habit of walking and reading at the same time. Roxas had already steered him clear of three poles, a teacher and at least a dozen students.

"Because I'm afraid Riku is going to find me and then I'll be stuck with a really awkward conversation." Sora looked behind him anxiously.

"Geeze Sor, just because of the date thing?" Roxas grabbed Axel's sleeve before he could knock over the science teacher.

"Yes because of the 'date thing'! I do not want to go out with him today!" Sora whispered angrily towards the blond hair in front of him.

"Well, you're still going right? I mean, if you ditched, Riku'd probably never forgive you…"

"I don't like to back down after I've agreed to do something! You know that!"

"Axel what the hell is so interesting in that book that makes it ok to step on Jimmy Miller?" Roxas had been paying attention to the conversation with his little brother so he had missed catching Axel before he practically smashed the poor kid when all he was trying to do was tie his shoelace. Axel was apologizing like crazy to the now red-faced freckle-spotted kid at his feet.

"Uhh, dunno really. It's confusing. I have to read it by tomorrow though for English."

"Then what were you reading earlier today? The same book?"

"Nah that was a book I was reading for Reno because he wanted me to figure out how to cook Italian food for some reason…"

"… You cook?"

"Not well but he sure thinks so. Well, either that or he's the biggest lazy-ass I've met as of today."

"Probably both, it just didn't look like a cookbook."

"I covered it with the cover of another book because I am not Mansex's teacher's pet."

Roxas shuddered at the sudden, disturbing image in his head.

Sora giggled and Axel sighed.

"Sora, I couldn't help but hear that you're going out with Riku today. Right?" Axel smirked at Sora's annoyed expression but he nodded nonetheless. "I bet he's really happy. You know, he had like the biggest crush on you since the very first day of school when he pointed you out to me."

Sora felt the blush on his face, which just made him blush more. He looked away. Roxas turned to his boyfriend, smiled and winked.

"C'mon you two, let's go get some food." He dragged Sora by the wrist into the cafeteria and Axel followed close behind.

Surprisingly, they got to the table almost last which made Sora sit on the empty end of the table. Riku was on the end of the other side. He munched on his fried emos in silence.

Axel glanced down at Roxas' tray.

"Didn't you get through the whole 'I don't want to eat food' stage yet?"

"Kind of. Today I'm not hungry." Axel raised an eyebrow.

"So you didn't even get a drink?" He knew Roxas wasn't anorexic or bulimic or anything but still, he needed to eat more.

"Apparently that would be the case."

"Whatever, just eat something tomorrow. I don't want you turning all emo again like you were in the beginning of the year."

Roxas saluted.

Riku glanced around Demyx to see Sora but looked back at his food in a matter of seconds. He definitely didn't need to be looking needy right now. He just wanted to ask if he was still going out with him after school. Although the table had been full, making Sora sit on the other end of the table, Riku could tell he was being avoided. All he could assume was that Sora was nervous or trying to think up some excuse as to why he could not possibly go on the date today, no exceptions.

Riku, on the other hand, was ecstatic that he was going on a date with the brunette. He'd been waiting all year for the chance to ask him out but had always chickened out right before he had asked the burning question. He was anxious that he'd say something wrong or do something Sora didn't like but so far Sora had been a pretty accepting person. He'd made up with Riku after the experience at the Christmas party that as far as Riku could tell, he had hated.

His hopes were through the atmosphere.

0o0o0o

Sora opened his closet. His brothers always teased him about how he hung up his clothes (except underwear, that would just be weird) in the closet since they had never seen the beauty of them. They always chose dressers and drawers over hangers. He sighed and pawed through his clothes, passing up the older shirts and the holey pants. Everything in his closet he'd already worn in front of Riku in the past month! Ugg, everything suddenly looked so dull!

He fell back on his ass and closed his eyes. What to do… What to do…

"ROXAS! GIVE ME BACK MY DIARY RIGHT NOW!" Sora sat up and looked at his closed door.

"AHA SO YOU ADMIT IT IS IN FACT, A DIARY AND NOT A JOURNAL!"

"WHATEVER JUST GIVE IT THE FUCK BACK!" Sora heard a rather loud crash outside his door and he shot up, flinging the door open. There were his brothers, each tugging on either sides of what Sora expected as Cloud's diary.

It was blue.

"Uh, aren't I supposed to be the youngest?" Sora pointed at his face. Cloud glared at him and Roxas did the same.

"You could actually help me get my diary back from your twin."

"No, help me get his diary to read all the mushy things he writes. You are my twin after all."

Sora blinked. "Whatever guys. Roxas I think you should let Cloud have it for now…" He ignored the betrayed face and continued. "And uhh, could you come in here for a minute?"

Roxas blinked at Sora's sudden almost desperate expression. He smirked. Riku perhaps?

"Sure Sor." He pushed past the brunette and tugged him into the room behind him. Cloud graciously ran back to his room and hid his diary under the loose floorboard in his empty closet, unaware of the date with Sora and Riku. Roxas plopped into Sora's wheelie desk chair and spun it once. "So, what's up?" Sora walked from his anxious position by his door to sit on his bed.

"Well… uh… I have nothing to wear…" His eyes were focused on the carpeted floor and he was just a little pink.

"You mean to your date?"

"Y-yeah." Sora's blush grew. Roxas smirked. Sora didn't like to ask for help. Actually, he didn't either. The only times he'd ever ask for help is if someone's bleeding or there's an emergency. Well, bleeding is an emergency … He guessed it was because of what their Mom taught them a while ago, to stay full of pride and to only show weakness when it will 100 serve you in a good way.

Wait, was that what she had told them when she was teaching them to play video games?

"Hmm. Where are you going?"

"I don't know. We just said he'd come here in about an half hour and then we'd go someplace…"

"Okay well, you want to look nice but do you want to be nice in a 'hot' way or nice in a 'cute' way?"

Sora stared at him blankly.

"O-kay, I'll just go with my intuition." Roxas hopped up and sauntered to Sora's closet. He fingered the clothes and finally pulled out an outfit and flung it at his brother. "Yosh! Try them on!"

Sora stood up to leave.

"Matte-yo! Try it on here, now! We have no time to waste!" Sora groaned but nonetheless pulled his old shirt over his head and put the new shirts on. He was about to do the same with his pants but Roxas grabbed his wrist before he could. Sora gave him a funny look but stopped short when Roxas flung a pair of dark blue boxers at him out of nowhere.

"Roxas, why did you give me your underwear?" Sora held the underwear between his forefinger and thumb as far away from him as possible.

"It's clean idiot! You should wear them because first dates should be comfortable. No itchy boxers! See? That one is really soft like most of the ones I buy now." He pulled down the corner of his pants to show off another pair just like t he ones in Sora's hand but black. "You look best in blues and dark bottoms though, just like Cloud, so you should wear that pair." Roxas smiled. You never know how far it could go after all… "If you really don't want them, I'll take them back but I think you should use them."

"Whatever, turn around and I'll put them on." Roxas turned his back and turned around when he figured his twin was done. Sora was already pulling up his pants and fastening them.

"You clean up good, little brother." Roxas thumbed-up. "Now I have to fix your face." Sora gulped and was pulled from his room to the bathroom. Roxas plopped him forcefully down on the closed lid on the toilet and opened his drawer under the sink. Sora tried to see what he had in his hand but was simply slapped away. Roxas bent his head down so he was eye-level to Sora and ran something hard over the area near his eyes. Sora blinked twice. His eyelids felt almost sticky when they met each other. Then Roxas ran a comb through the brown natural spikes and pulled his brother to look in the mirror. Sora gasped a happy gasp.

0o0o0o

Riku stood awkwardly in front if the Strife house. Just an hour ago, he was still trying to calm down from realizing the fact that he was actually going on a date with probably his biggest crush he'd ever had. Of course, he had scolded himself many times for falling for Sora. He and Sora were close but for some reason, the boy made him really very shy. Sora was someone the likes of Riku had never gotten a crush on before. The last time he had to give himself a hand-job was when he had fallen in love with a completely straight, black-haired actor in their school play. He was a rather serious guy but he was very popular and always seemed to have people around him. Except Riku. Riku tried to avoid Mickey at all costs. That was of course, because he had fallen into an inescapable trap of a one-sided love fling that didn't seem to ever end – even after Mickey had left the school to go to a gifted drama school on the mainland.

That was, until he saw Sora. Something had just pulled him in that first day of school. He could never tell what exactly it was. Maybe because Sora had just been so happy and carefree on the first day of school of all days. Maybe it had been because of the way his brown spikes had bounced ever so slightly when he talked, or because of the lopsided grin that plastered on his face when he was having a lot of fun.

Whatever it had been, it wasn't helping him ring the doorbell.

He fingered the bottom of his long-sleeved green shirt, wondering if Demyx had been right and it was getting too hot already for warm clothes. Whatever. He shot his hand out before another thought could pop into his mind and hit the doorbell. He couldn't hear it ring and nobody was answering so he was about to push it again when the door opened to reveal a rather smiley Roxas who pushed Sora out of the door.

"No inappropriate things on your first date!" Roxas shouted through the closed door, causing Sora to blush more than he already was. For some reason, ever since that one fateful night at Axel's house, Roxas had been much more open about the topic of sex. Maybe it was because he had the experience.

"Hey." Riku looked down at Sora. He was only a few inches shorter than himself but sometimes he looked taller on days that his spikes were really … uh, spiky. Sora was wearing a light blue long-sleeved shirt with a black sleeveless hoodie over it. He had on black jeans that made his legs look longer and when he looked up to face Riku, the silver-haired boy could've sworn he saw eyeliner.

0o0o0o

Once again, 'yosh' is a Japanese word for something like 'yay' or 'alright!' or something but I never got the real meaning- just the outline of it. 'Matte' is the shortened form of 'chotomatte' which is 'wait'. The cause of the Japanese usage again is because I was reading some Loveless manga at the time… I must say, Loveless has become one of my favorite anime/manga of all time. Coughcough Soubi looks like Jade from Tales of the Abyss coughcough I love Soubi coughcough

The title of this chapter is a line from the song Famous Last Words by My Chemical Romance.

DISCLAIMER: I own Jimmy Miller. That is all.