50
By: Aviantei
Act II: School Life/Loneliness
Scene III: "You didn't have to do that for me."
Rhea did manage to kick Axel out of the room when she went to take a shower, and she had the dorm to herself when she went to bed. In the dark, her alarm clock's numbers glowed at her, confirming that the date hadn't changed whatsoever, and it was beyond surreal to think that she had classes like normal, and no one would even think that she had skipped several days—and, as far as they were concerned, she hadn't missed a thing.
Not that it would matter much if I did miss anything, she thought, not too long before she passed out.
It was better than spending an all-nighter, rolling around and getting caught up in her thoughts, but she was still surprised she woke up in the morning feeling rested. If she were lucky, she could pass everything off as a dream—time was malleable when you were unconscious anyways. But when she woke up to the sound of her alarm and not to Roxas's gentle knock on her door, she knew that things weren't anywhere close to the same.
She still had a routine to do, though, so Rhea pulled herself through the motions, following the checklist taped to the wall above her desk. She'd set it up as a way to keep herself together on her worst days; even if today wasn't one of those, it was still helpful. Still, she couldn't help but miss the comfort and flexibility of the Fifty Minute Room, especially since Temperies breakfast was nowhere near as appealing, though the aesthetic (from her point of view) was about the same.
If Roxas dropped in for his meal, it wasn't at the same time as her, and Rhea felt pathetic for hoping he would come and sit down across from her, smiling just like always.
There was no sign of Axel still hanging around, either. Considering that he hadn't said anything to the effect when Rhea had pushed him out of the room, she assumed it wasn't like he didn't have some place to stay. Hell, with how empty Temperies was, it wouldn't be hard for him to find a place to stay—and he'd been hanging around Roxas before, so there must have been somewhere he'd set up camp.
We made a deal last night. He'll come and help me practice fighting, if nothing else. So just calm down and do what you have to do.
Considering how much she'd wanted something different when she left her home world, Rhea had never dreaded a day of her life here more.
Classes in Temperies covered a variety of basic topics—or at least it was similar enough to what she'd been taught back in her home world that she assumed they were the basics. Either way, Rhea had enough base knowledge to follow along, but she could already feel her mind wandering as she sat down in her usual seat. Maybe she wouldn't get called on to answer any questions as things went on. Such things tended to be up in the air, anyway, so it would be the luck of the draw.
What was less subject to luck was the inevitable encounter with Roxas. Whether he'd skipped breakfast or avoided the dining hall that morning on principle (Rhea hoped that he'd at least eaten at some point, though there wasn't much sense in being worried about him when he wouldn't be worried about her), he wouldn't switch classes. Temperies was weird, and there weren't enough students for him to just hop over into another class or anything. So, sooner or later, they'd have to see each other, though maybe it would be better because they were in class and it couldn't just turn into another fight?
No, this is all going to suck, there's no way around it. Getting ignored always did.
Rhea tried her best to focus on anything else, flipping through a textbook in hopes of maybe learning something new—she should have asked if it was possible to take books out of the Fifty Minute Room's library, that would have been a better choice. That said, even if she had been interested in what she was reading, it wouldn't have mattered. Every time someone entered the room, her eyes flicked up, searching for Roxas, and, a few minutes before the class period was to start, he arrived.
It was surreal, she realized, watching him enter the room. Since Rhea had always been at his side, she realized that she'd never seen him approach this way. Sure, she knew that he'd done it before her, so it wasn't anything particularly novel in concept, no, but this way, seeing how he stepped into the doorway alone, a clear tension in his shoulders—well, it was all enough to make a lump form in Rhea's throat.
Out of habit, Roxas started to walk towards his usual seat next to Rhea before he caught himself. There was a moment where he paused, unsure of where to go, and Rhea couldn't help but hope for a moment, even if she knew it was pointless.
Scowling, Roxas trudged to the opposite side of the room and dropped his bag onto an empty table. If anyone had noticed the strange interaction and began to whisper about it, Rhea wouldn't know. She'd stopped being able to hear the moment she caught the distaste on his face, which had formed upon noticing her. And why had she expected otherwise? For Roxas, it had only been one night since he'd kicked her out of the car, which wasn't any time to process it at all. The mismatch in their lived time had done nothing but extend the gaping chasm between them, and Rhea hated it even more, because there was no way you could undo something like that, not unless Roxas also ended up in another place like the Fifty Minute Room that would let him balance things out.
I hate this, I hate this, I hate this—
"Whoa, that's way harsher than I was expecting."
Rhea almost tumbled out of her seat at the sound of the familiar voice. When she whirled around, at last tearing her eyes away from Roxas hunched over his new seat. Axel was sitting in her friend's usual spot at the table next to Rhea, leaning his chair onto its back legs. He was still dressed in black, but the all-too familiar hoodie was tied around his waist, instead showing off his t-shirt, tight fit over muscles that Rhea wasn't surprised were there, but still seemed startling.
Or, well, maybe that was because Axel of all fucking people was sitting in her classroom.
"What the hell are you doing here?" Rhea hissed, for what little good it would do. In any other situation she would try to avoid making a scene, but this was a notable exception. People would already be worked up over her and Roxas's beyond obvious fight; just add something else to the pile while they were at it! "You didn't say anything about—"
"Class is starting, Miss Rhea," said the teacher from the front of the room, and Rhea snapped her mouth shut, feeling mortified and pissed off all at once. "Now if you don't mind, I'd very much like all your undivided attention. Today we're starting—"
Rhea kept her curses to herself, her mind running in ten thousand different directions. The idea of her attention being undivided was nothing more than a joke, but she had more important things to worry about than whatever silly concept they were covering in class.
After all, her usual routine had just been tossed right out the fucking window. Might as well go along with it.
"Alright, time to tell me just what the fuck you were thinking coming in here."
It was the afternoon lunch hours, and Axel was enjoying the sandwich he'd thought ahead enough to prepare. The guess that Rhea would both want to avoid the lunchroom and that she'd flip out about his presence in her life once more had both been accurate, so he'd made enough for the both of them.
…Okay, maybe he'd scored some extra hours in the Fifty Minute room to give him enough time after the late hour she'd pushed him out of the room, but that wasn't the point. The point was that he'd read the situation well enough, and that little bit of foresight was satisfying.
"Deep breaths, there," he said, leaning against the tree; there was more than enough time left for her to get the answers she wanted while also chilling out. "I don't want to hide anything from you, so there's no sense in getting so worked up there, kid. Here, at least eat something while you've got the time."
Rhea gave him a look that all but screamed that she thought there was plenty to get worked up over, but she still snatched the offered sandwich from his hand and started to undo the plastic wrap around it as she fell cross-legged in the grass. Axel resisted the urge to correct her form; the type of threats she had to put up with wouldn't cause many problems, even with some of her immediate attack options tucked away. "I'm just saying, it sure would have been nice if you'd told me you were going to school. Actually, why are you going to school here?"
"In my defense, this is a much more recent decision." From Rhea's perspective, anyways, but there wasn't any point in getting into that. Axel had plenty of experience to know that people often didn't process the time differences well, even if they knew about the Fifty Minute Room. "But I figured since I was hanging around anyways, you'd appreciate the company. It's not like it was all that hard to enroll here, but I'm sure you know that just as well as I do."
Rhea wasn't a native to this place, but Roxas had brought her here, anyways, and she was well integrated enough into the classes. Axel hadn't even had to fill out any papers or talk to anyone. He just showed up, and people accepted his presence without any issues. Temperies was a strange and malleable world, and it was easy to use those attributes to his advantage.
Her mouth full from chewing through the sandwich (no complaints on what was in it, more thanks to talking with Sir before leaving the Fifty Minute Room), Rhea didn't have an immediate response, so Axel continued, "Either way, I figured that you'd like the company. Things are awkward enough, yeah?"
Though he'd been indirect, Rhea still grimaced at the reminder. Axel didn't blame her, either; he hadn't been in that good of a state after his own fight with Roxas. Hell, if you looked at overall time, he hadn't even come out of the Fifty Minute Room yet at this point. "I guess," Rhea mumbled, staring down at the grass. "Did you… Um, before, did you do this for Roxas, too?"
"No." He hadn't done anything of the sort, though he could have. Rhea gave him a look that conveyed her question just fine: Why me and not him? "You made it clear you wanted to keep going here." Axel got that, even if it wasn't quite logical. Sometimes you couldn't do a thing about what your feelings dragged you into. "I figured if you had a friend around, it would be better than sulking all alone by yourself over it."
"I wasn't sulking!" Rhea's protest was halfhearted at best, and Axel brushed off her glare. She wasn't all that scary. Maybe she could become that way, but she didn't have enough venom in her for the time being. "…But you do know that you showing up on my side isn't going to do you any favors with getting back on Roxas's good side, right? You… You didn't have to do that for me."
In fact, it would likely be a detriment, maybe even for Rhea, too. But Axel knew well enough that whatever had upset Roxas wasn't natural—though he didn't have enough evidence to back that theory up or know how to fix it. No need to give Rhea false hope they couldn't follow through on. At the very least, they could endure the storm together.
"Hey, I thought we agreed that we're in this together. Or don't tell me that you were gonna back out on me already."
It was an empty taunt, but Rhea scowled right away. She was better angry than depressed at this point, or whatever else of a rise he could manage to get out of her.
Or maybe that was him projecting. No matter.
"I'm impressed," Rhea said, her tone filled with sarcasm. "You manage to become even more annoying by the day. How do you manage that?"
Axel grinned. "Trade secret. I'm afraid I can't reveal that until you've at least learned how to fend for yourself in the Castle." The mention of their promise to train seemed to catch Rhea's interest—or maybe it was the idea of something active to do. Either way, she looked at him, expectation apparent. "We can go ahead and work on some stuff after school. Or, if you ever wanna skip class, I'm down for that, too."
Rhea's sigh sounded impressively long-suffering for how little time she'd known him. "You've just gotten here, and you're already skipping class. I don't know why I'm surprised." Well, it was a pretty accurate read on him, all things considered. "But no, I'm not skipping class. I mean, I will if we think it's going to be an emergency. I'm not ruling that out. But if I can help it, I'd like to stay and have my usual life as much as possible."
Axel resisted the urge to ask what was more of an emergency to her than losing Roxas—but he also got it. Axel had been through enough to know that, no matter how hard it hurt, a friend slipping away wasn't the worst thing that could possibly happen. Something like this could wait just a little bit longer, especially whenever Roxas was still safe—distant, but safe.
And, well, Axel got it. He'd lost his own world such a long time ago, and he hadn't ever had the chance to go back. Everything had fallen apart from there, but he'd longed for that sense of normality for a while, at least until he realized that nothing was going to get him that. And for Rhea, who hadn't lost as much but still had a chance for something structured—about the only good thing about a weird in-between world like this—he couldn't fault her for clinging to it. Wasn't he here, too, after all?
Man, I've sure turned into some kinda dumbass ever since I got here, huh?
"Alright, I won't fight you on that," Axel said, and, for a moment, Rhea looked relieved, though she covered it up by chewing threw a rather big bite of her sandwich. "But that means we gotta work extra hard in the time we do have. I'll give you breaks, since you'll burn out without them, but be ready for me to work you into the ground, got it—"
"Memorized," Rhea said, her tone dry.
But Axel didn't miss the little hint of a smile tugging at her lips.
The rest of the school day had been awkward, what with sharing a schedule with Roxas, but he hadn't interacted with either of them, so that was—? Well, it was better than him picking another fight, but it was shit compared to how things had been before, and somehow that didn't cancel out into a net even emotional neutrality, and Rhea wanted a fucking refund.
At least training was enough to turn her mind numb. Axel hadn't been kidding whenever he said he wasn't going to go easy on her, which might have just been for the best, all things considered. Working out meant that she didn't have time to think, far too focused on how out of breath she was and the despair of needing to do more overwhelming everything else.
And the worst part was that she hadn't even been able to learn anything, save for how out of shape she was.
Rhea thought she did pretty damn good keeping up in the Castle. She could crawl all the way up to the fortieth floors with Roxas, after all. Sure, they took breaths when they could afford them, but going that long and back wasn't anything to sneeze at. Whenever they had their gym classes in Temperies, she and Roxas easily lasted longer than any of the other students, too.
Axel could outpace her, ten times over, and he didn't even look out of breath about it. She'd suspected that he was good, considering how clear the Castle had been the night that they'd crossed paths, but it was still ridiculous to witness in person. But Axel had a point that her physical condition would be essential for doing well, so Rhea did her best to restrict her bitching and just focus on keeping going.
By the time the sun had gone down over the courtyard, Rhea was beyond tempted to not even bother with a shower and just collapse in bed, but she felt just gross enough with sweat soaking through her clothes that she managed some modicum of energy to clean up. Staggering back to her room, she unlocked her door, only to trip when she stepped inside.
Rhea had just enough experience to not injure herself with her fall, but she did spill everything out of her shower caddy on the floor. After the long day, she was half tempting to just kick her door shut and just stay there, because the idea of crawling up onto her bed felt near impossible, but she stopped just short.
What she'd tripped over was her own Castle equipment bag sitting outside her door.
[Author's Notes]
Happy fic anniversary, 50. I haven't given up on you yet.
See more regular updates on walk steady on this cruel world's path, my kny fic, and Ragnarok, my reverse isekai Durarara! fic that will start posting its final chapters this Saturday.
Next chapter in this fic will come out in December, during the fic update bash. Please look forward to it!
-Avi
[09.16.2021]