chapter five;
brotherly bonding

"Dude," I said, leaning into Riku whose face was turning an uncomfortable shade of red as he tried his hardest not to burst into a fit of laughter. "Dude, I think you might have some competition." Despite all effort, he let out a snort, sending spit and snot particles raining down like confetti. "I mean, look at him over there." I leaned in closer to his ear, my mouth barely grazing his lobe, "Don't you just want to kick his ass?"

We were lounging on his couch watching Roxas and Naminé interact like it was reality TV, not paying attention to the History channel special about WWII that was actually on. Roxas was flipping through one of her many portfolios and they were animatedly chatting as if they were old friends. Since I introduced him to Naminé, he hadn't left her side, probably finding solace in the fact she looked normal, unlike me and Riku who found our solace in body modification. She was in the middle of a painting when we showed up, and instead of being forced into social situations with me and Riku, Roxas insisted on seeing more of her work.

"Aw, he's like twelve. It wouldn't feel right kicking his ass, ya'know?" Riku said, playfully pushing me to the other side of the loveseat.

"What do you think they're talking about?" I asked him.

"Probably something lame like, 'oooh, you have blonde hair and blue eyes and so do I.'"

"Can you imagine how sickeningly pure their children would be? Like porcelain dolls. Hitler's wet dream."

"Ew, dude, imagine the sex. It would be all missionary for the sole purpose of procreation."

"With the lights off," I added.

"And they're clothed from the waist up."

We looked at each other, trying to keep a serious composure, but we cracked up. Naminé's head perked upwards from over at the dining room table and she raised her eyebrows at us. "What're you boneheads over there laughing about?"

"They're high," Roxas deadpanned with an indiscreet roll of his eyes. We'd offered him a hit of the joint Riku rolled shortly after we got there, but he reacted as if we tried to hold him down and inject him with uncut heroin. 'That stuff is disgusting,' he'd said with a crinkled nose. 'It's a gateway drug.'

"We're just laughing at how fucking gross it'd be if you banged Roxas," Riku admitted without missing a beat, casually leaning back and propping his feet on the coffee table to exemplify the negative amount of fucks he gave over social conventions.

Roxas squirmed and went pink in the cheeks but Naminé was unfazed, being way too used to our antics to find offense. She laughed it off for Roxas's sake and went back to her artwork.

"So, he's like your brother right?" Riku finally asked. While Roxas was hanging out with Naminé, I gave Riku the run-down of the past couple days, from the burglary to my pink room to blueberry pancakes.

I shrugged. "I don't know what any of them are, honestly. It's all so surreal, like, this is the type of shit that only happens in Lifetime movies."

"You should get your own reality series and call it 'Keeping Up With Axel And His Stereotypically White Upper-Class Family.' It'll be like Diff'rent Strokes, except instead of a black kidney kid, there's you, the lanky ass motherfucker who comes up with snarky one-liners that everyone responds to with hands on their hips and a well-placed, 'that's our Axel!' Cue outro."

"The Henley's are too vanilla for American prime-time. I mean, look at Roxas. Would you want to watch thirty minutes of him wearing sweater vests and being entitled?"

"Nah, I guess not…"

After smoking up some more, we wandered towards the kitchen in search of some snacks and passed the table where Naminé and Roxas were situated. Naminé was explaining different brush strokes and color harmony, and I didn't know if Roxas was truly interested or if he knew hanging with her was the safer option. Or maybe anything was better than having to deal with me. Through the archway into the kitchen from the dining room, I found myself watching him, analyzing his mannerisms. He sat with his back straight and his hands folded in his lap, nodding along to whatever Naminé was saying. His blazer was neatly hung on the back of his chair, and there were no wrinkles or creases in his too-white dress shirt. I wondered what made him so uptight. Would that have been me if I had the same upbringing he did?

There was an aggressive pull on my shoulder and I turned to face Riku who quirked a brow. "You gonna answer me or what?"

"Sorry, what was the question?"

"How many pizza rolls will you eat?"

"Just make the whole bag, maybe the Olsen twins over there will eat some."

I went back to watching Roxas, except instead of a profile of his head, I was face-to-face with two very blue eyes. "Quit staring," he spat at me.

Flustered at being called out, I let out a huff. "Relax princess, I wasn't staring at you."

"Yeah, right."

"Holy shit," I said, throwing my hands in the hair, "You're so insufferable." I turned back into the kitchen where Riku looked very amused by our quarrel.

"Why don't you go kick his ass?"

"Believe me, I want to."

"The Axel I know would've already decked him."

I waved him off with a defeated chuckle. "That ship has sailed, I'm a family man now."

"Oh yeah? Well since you're such a family man, I guess you're not going to want to celebrate with me."

"Celebrate what?"

"Ya'know, you being alive and shit. It's still early, I can make some phone calls and we can get this place going."

"On a Tuesday night? Besides, Roxas won't go for it. He's all about homework and family dinners."

"So we ease him into it."

I thought for a moment and casted a glance back in Roxas's direction. "I dunno…"

"C'mon man! Our last party was a huge hit, you got laid! Maybe we can get Roxas laid too, and the woman who pulls the stick out of his ass will be crowned King Arthur." I smiled at the thought. "Besides," Riku added, "Now that you're living far away, we have to make up for the time we won't be spending together anymore."

"I mean, as great as your point is, I don't know if I have rules now."

"Fuck them and their rules. You really think they'll give you shit after all you've been through? They ought to be moisturizing your asshole with lotion made of finely ground-up diamonds, dude."

I figured Riku was right. It would take some audacity to scold the kid you abandoned. "Fine," I said. "Fine."

Riku looked like a kid on Christmas morning. "So, how do you want to do this?"

Turns out, it was easier than expected. All it took was Naminé asking Roxas if he'd like to stay for dinner, and I'm sure at some point in charm school he was taught to not turn down a nice woman. "Sounds lovely," he said to her, giving her a smile that brought out the dimples I didn't realize he had on account to his perpetual scowl. "Do you need help in the kitchen?"

"Oh sweetheart," she crooned, "I'm not cooking. But I am ordering a pizza. Any requests?"

By the time the pizza arrived, guests had already piled in around us, most of them familiar faces from the last shindig. Roxas had disappeared into the sea of people, so I didn't know if he was still following at Naminé's heels or if he was calling his parents to tattle on me, but that was only a by-the-way thought on my mind. Front and center was the prospect of seeing my one-night stand again, the cute black-haired waif from several days ago. I wasn't looking for love, but damn if I wasn't a chauvinistic pig when it came to giving in to my dick's wants. Using my ridiculous height to my advantage, I scanned the room.

Instead of sex with no strings attached, I found Roxas squished between two people on the sofa, neither of them paying any mind to him. Feeling like I had some moral obligation, I made my way over to him. "You alright?" I asked, taking a sip of the vodka tonic in my red Solo cup.

"No," he grumbled, the look on his face leaning towards a cross between petulance and constipation. "You all lied to me. I want to go home."

"Whoa, man. I didn't lie to you. And it's not a big deal, it's a little get-together. Have some fun for once in your life. Want a drink?" I offered him my cup.

He scrunched his nose and shook his head. "No, I want to leave. Help me find my blazer and let's go. I did not agree to this."

"Quit being so lame, it's my last night in town. Surely you can think about someone other than yourself for five fucking minutes?"

His voice rose substantially. "I know you of all people aren't preaching to me about self-involvement."

"Aren't we supposed to be engaging in brotherly bonding? Wasn't that the whole reason they sent you?"

"This isn't bonding! This is you exploiting my naivety! I took you to your friends' house, sat around for several hours and took being the butt of your jokes without complaint, and here I am at the seat of a very illegal house party when I should be at home with my family! You know Axel, for a second, I almost pitied you and your struggles. I almost felt bad for being so harsh. But now I'm certain you're a Grade A scumbag and that's all you'll ever be." He slapped the bottom of my cup, sending the contents onto my t-shirt, before liberating himself from between the two oblivious party-goers who couldn't hear our argument over the music and intoxication. I instinctively reached out to grab his shoulder, but he knocked my hand away and stomped off.

"Roxas!" I tried, but his name was drowned out by infectious drum and bass. With a grumble, I looked down at my wet shirt and decided to find Riku to see if he'd lend me a clean one of his. I found him hot-boxing in the guest room with Naminé and some other people while playing Scrabble, and he was in the middle of arguing that 'boner' was a valid word.

"Axel!" He said, "Tell them. Tell them that 'boner' is a playable word. I've got nine points riding on this."

"If I do, can I borrow a shirt?"

He looked up from the board, eying the wet spot on my torso. "You piss a girl off?"

"That's a pretty accurate summation of events."

"In our room, dresser under the TV, second shelf."

"Thanks, man."

"Um, Axel? Aren't you forgetting something?"

"Oh, uh, yeah, you can use the word 'boner' in Scrabble. It has a non-sexual definition."

I left them to their game and weed and made my way upstairs to the master bedroom, but when I turned the handle, it was locked. When I knocked, a muffled voice said, "Go away." And I knew right away who it was.

"Ugh, Roxas. Open up. Please."

"Leave me alone."

I leaned against the door. "I actually just need to get in there for a clean shirt since someone decided to make me wear my drink. You can go back to pouting when I'm done."

There was silence, and then I heard the soft padding of his feet on the carpet. I backed up and the door opened, revealing a very despondent looking Roxas. I carefully stepped past him and he shut the door behind me, letting out a sigh. We both opted for silence as I rifled through Riku's t-shirt drawer and he resumed his position on the edge of the bed. I pulled out a ratty band shirt and turned to face him.

"So how come you haven't just left without me?" I broke the silence.

"I told my parents I'd get you here and back."

"I'm sure they'd understand if you explained to them what a Grade A scumbag I am."

Roxas glanced at my eyes and then back at the floor. "I'm sorry for the name-calling. That was immature of me."

"Jesus Christ, dude! Aren't you like sixteen? You're allowed to be immature! It's part of life! Call me a scumbag, call me an ass-licker, I don't care! I'm not going to push my imaginary glasses up the bridge of nose and sneer at your so-called immaturity."

"Seventeen, almost eighteen," he corrected. "My birthday is in July."

"It doesn't fucking matter how old you are. Point is, you're a kid. You're so up your own ass that you're missing out on the best days of your life. Instead of moping, you should be out there hooking up with cute college girls." I pulled my wet shirt over my head and threw it next to him. "C'mon, let's go downstairs and we'll find you someone nice."

"No thanks, I have a girlfriend."

I quirked an eyebrow. "Oh, really? Let me guess, she lives in Canada or something? Is she a supermodel?"

"No, she goes to my school and she has a part-time job as a barista."

"Alright, then how are you a virgin?"

Roxas flushed. "I'm not! We have se—" He stopped himself. "We make love, not that it's any of your business."

"Oh yeah?"

"I don't have to prove anything to you." He crossed his arms over chest and looked away with a huff. I couldn't help but to laugh at his obvious insecurity.

"Is that where you were Sunday night? Sleeping with your girlfriend?"

"We weren't… doing that. We were talking and stuff."

"On a school night?" I feigned a gasp. "What would Jesus think?"

"Well, if I didn't go, I probably never would have caught you breaking into our house. So Jesus is probably glad everything worked out."

We fell into a silence, but it wasn't uncomfortable. I shook out the wrinkles in Riku's t-shirt and went to put it on, but as I was putting my head through the collar, I caught Roxas staring. There was a moment of internal debate on whether or not to call him out on it. But before I could make my decision, Roxas cleared his throat and went out of his way to look everywhere but in my general direction. "Sorry," he said, "I spaced out."

"It's okay, I know I have a nice body." With the t-shirt laying bunched up at my shoulders, I trailed my hands down my torso.

"Get a grip," he said, and left it at that.

I pulled the shirt all the way on and sat on the bed next to him, casually slinging my arm around his shoulder. "Hey, Roxas?"

"Yes?" He asked. In that moment, he looked like an innocent child with his big blue eyes and spatter of freckles across the bridge of his nose. And maybe underneath his harsh exterior, that's all he really was.

"Let's be friends."

He eyed me curiously. "Why would you want to be friends with me? Are you just saying that because you're drunk and probably high?"

"No, I'm saying it because being hostile towards each other isn't gonna solve anything."

"Axel, I don't like you."

"Why?"

"Do you really have to ask?"

"You know what? I'm going to tell you a story."

High school was a nightmare.

Regardless of circumstances, high school is usually pretty awful, but when you're tall and easily distinguishable from a crowd, there's no option of keeping your head down and pretending to be invisible for the next four years. I knew I needed a defense mechanism that would make me appear stronger, more confident, like a peacock and his mass of feathers. No one had to know of my suffering, that I had no real friends or family, or that I cried hot tears onto my pillows at night until the sun came up. With sarcasm and charisma as my trusty companions, I made sure people fell at my feet and laughed at my jokes and sat with me for lunch behind the science building where we'd smoke cigarettes with disinterest.

During the hours of 8a.m. to 3p.m., I was something. I was someone. No one gave me polite smiles out of pity or treated me like was defective. I wasn't Axel: the unwanted kid, I was Axel: that guy who has rad hair and drug hook-ups. And I basked in all the attention, hoping maybe I could fill the void in my chest. I'd act out and start fights. I'd back-talk teachers and incite disobedience. I'd skip class and hook up with both girls and boys under the bleachers until it ultimately ended in a gonorrhea outbreak. And at the end of the day, I'd walk to wherever my home was that week and deal with whatever punishment I deserved for my insubordination.

And this was my life before I got expelled.

My expulsion came as no surprise to anybody, of course. But the whole situation started innocently enough when a group of me and my pals were sitting at a table in the cafeteria before class started. It was a Monday and everyone was excitedly chatting about what they did over the weekend, when some snot-nosed punk said something along the lines of, "My mom wouldn't let me go out Saturday night because she wanted to have a nice family dinner with me instead. What a bitch, right?"

Everyone else kind of nodded along, and despite the blood curdling beneath my skin, I coolly responded with, "Oh definitely. How dare she try to show her love. What a cunt."

This kid wasn't the brightest, so he didn't pick up on the sarcasm. "Totally. I wish she'd just fuckin' disappear sometimes. You know she said she wasn't getting me a car? She said I have to get a job and save money, but how can I get to a job without a car? She's so fuckin' stupid."

And then I picked up the plastic tray my free school-issued breakfast was on and smacked him hard in the face with it. The irony of it all is that his mom wanted to press charges on me, but instead I had to attend mandated anger management and got transferred to an alternative school for mental and special needs kids, as if I needed another thing to hate about my life.

Several years after the incident, around the time I turned twenty-three, I ended up running into one of my friends from those high school glory days when he came into the deli for lunch. He immediately recognized me and gave me a knowing nod before rattling off his order like we didn't have a threesome together with that cute girl who worked at the ice cream parlor all those years ago. After making his sandwich, I decided to ask him how our social group faired after I left, to which he replied, "Oh, pretty great, actually. Turns out, we all only tolerated you because you were our drug connection. Once you left, we all agreed you were kind of a dick and none of us actually liked you." Before I could even utter a dejected 'oh', he took his sandwich from my hands and left.

Roxas was silent, looking at me with furrowed brows and a flat expression.

"Moral of the story is that I know I'm unlikable. Just give me a chance to prove there's more to me than vulgar language, violence, and jokes at someone else's expense. I'm not a bad guy, honestly."

"Let me guess, you're just misunderstood."

"I mean, yeah, kinda."

"Why are you telling me all this? Why do you want me to like you?"

I shrugged. "I want everyone to like me."

His features softened. "You're really drunk, aren't you?"

"More like tipsy. I'm a high-functioning drunk, though. I just get too honest. Don't think too much into it."

"Well, come on. Let's go home. It's a long drive and I'd like to go to sleep at a reasonable hour and you should too. You have more community service in the morning."

I waved my hand dismissively. "You're like a little old man, Roxas. But cuter and without the smell of mothballs."

"I'm not cute."

"You're probably right," I lied, "Everyone looks cute after a few drinks." Truthfully, he was very cute even in sobriety. Like a miniature schnauzer or a member of a boy band. His bad attitude just offset it a bit.

I stood up from the bed and stretched, giving Roxas a front-row view to my very prominent hip bones. "You're really thin," he blandly noted.

"Am I? Huh, never noticed," I said, looking down at my lanky body.

He smirked. "Now I know your sarcasm is a defense mechanism so I'm no longer bothered by it."

"If you say so."

The ride home had the potential to be interesting, but I dozed off after about ten minutes into our drive. As the streetlight blurred together, I wondered if Roxas and I had somehow eradicated the hostility between us, but I figured probably not. We were very separate breeds of people from two vastly different backgrounds that were forced to mesh because of a series of happenings out of our control. Roxas had a reason to be angry and I so did I, but he projected his anger at me and I projected my anger at the source: my mother.

When we walked through the front door, my garbage bag of belongings in tow, she greeted us in the foyer like she had been waiting for us, which I wouldn't put past her. She was all smiles and questions, and she didn't seem outwardly bothered by the fact it was midnight. Her smile never waning, she asked Roxas why he didn't answer any of her phone calls, and I expected him to tell her of all my sins, but instead he said he left his phone in the car while we were out eating dinner and catching a movie.

I tried my best to not looked surprised, and when she asked me if I had fun, I was afraid to open my mouth for fear of stumbling over my own words or having her smell the alcohol on my breath. Roxas came through with another save, telling her, "We had a decent time. Axel's a nice guy. Maybe you can spend time with him next." And with that, he disappeared up the stairs.

"Axel," she said, reaching forward and tucking a piece of my hair behind my ear. The gesture was so familiar to me. "I'm glad you're so effortlessly meshing with the rest of the family. I'll let you get settled into bed. Good night."

"Good night, mom," I responded, the words slipping out of my mouth before I could catch them.