A/N: Yay, second chapter. And I know, Riku should be Sora's roomie, but come on, that's too easy now. :-P

Disclaimer: I do not (sadly) own Kingdom Hearts. Nor (not so sadly) Barbie, for that matter…


"BOO!"

Sora shrieked and jumped a foot off of his bed, eyes flying open as he was suddenly jolted awake. "Wha- who- where's the duck?"

He blinked and looked up to see Wakka raising his eyebrow at him. "Duck?"

"Yeah! He was wearing this funky hat and clothes and he was talking to me in a lisp and… carrying… a magic… wand…" Sora slowly trailed off and stopped his wild gestures that were supposed to help Wakka understand, realizing as he spoke just how lame he sounded.

"Right… you been drinkin', man? That's not allowed in the dorms, you know…"

"Hey!" Sora cried indignantly, completely ignoring Wakka's question and thinking of something else. "Why are you in my room?"

Sora's angry look only set Wakka off laughing, which the teen seemed to do rather a lot.

Sora pouted.

Wakka laughed harder.

Sora hurled his pillow at Wakka (which the tanned boy easily deflected) and then pushed himself up off of his sheetless bed. He managed to avoid tripping over and subsequently killing himself on his carelessly discarded shoes, though it was a near thing. He then proceeded to stick his tongue out at his laughing friend.

"Man, you're crazy, ya?"

"You still didn't answer," Sora said, making a show of crossing is arms over his chest and tapping his foot impatiently on the ground.

"I came in through the door," Wakka answered slowly as if to a small child, still grinning.

"But it's still shut," Sora said, looking in confusion at the door he had come through the previous night.

"The bathroom door," Wakka sighed. "I knocked and knocked but you didn't answer, so I just came in. You been sleepin' like the dead, man. You know what time it is?"

"Uh… no?"

"Food time! You're gonna miss lunch if you stay there much longer! Let's go."

Sora's stomach beat his mouth to a reply, grumbling angrily. With only a brief thought to the fact that he was still in yesterday's clothes (and an underarm sniff check proved that they were none too fresh) and a passing realization that his hair was a mess (then again, when was it not?), Sora complied, following Wakka out the door and pulling it shut behind him.

"Got your keys?" Wakka asked, looking back over his shoulder.

Sora's eyes widened and he turned back and all but dove for the door, which shut an instant before he reached it.

Wakka sighed. "You can go through my room later, just remember them next time, ya?"

Sora nodded, an overly serious look on his face, which made Wakka's mouth twitch in amusement. "Right."

"YO!" Wakka suddenly yelled down the hallway. "TIDUS! LUNCH!"

"SWEET!" Sora heard called back, and a split second later the blonde boy had joined them. "Afternoon, sleepyhead," he said upon seeing the brunet.

"Hey," Sora said. "So where're we eating, anyway?"

"Follow," Wakka commanded simply, and follow Sora did. They went down to the first floor in the elevator, hung a right, and were there. Sora, for one, was glad- he really wouldn't have any problems remembering where it was, and food was, after all, one of the most important things, well, ever. And if the strength of his stomach's complaints was any indication, he would end up there an awful lot.

The trio stopped at a desk just in front of the door where Tidus and Wakka promptly handed their school I.D.'s to the woman sitting behind it. Sora imitated them, suddenly glad that he hadn't changed clothes, and he was allowed in.

"You scan once to get in," Tidus explained upon seeing Sora's slightly confused look.

"But you can eat all you want once you're here!" Wakka finished, grinning as he glanced around.

Sora did the same and found himself looking at a couple of food stations along one wall and a simple room (complete with ugly carpet to hide the stains) full of other students. "Let's get our food and sit there," Tidus suddenly said, pointing to a table by the door.

The brunet nodded and set out on his own in search of sustenance. Needless to say, he was more than slightly disappointed with the food that was offered, for it was nothing like at home. He eventually settled for underdone noodles and a watery pasta sauce, then headed towards the fruit bar. He picked up a couple of different things, entirely unsure of how fresh they were, grabbed a drink, then wandered back to the table where Wakka and Tidus already sat stuffing their faces.

" 'ey," Tidus said through a mouthful of food as Sora sat down.

Sora was about to reply but was distracted by the thing that Wakka was about to bite into. "What," Sora asked, eyebrow wrinkling in complete consternation, "is THAT?"

Wakka swallowed his food. "What, you never seen pizza before?"

"Pizza, yes. Greasy cardboard colored to look like decent pizza, no," Sora replied, barely resisting the urge to reach out and touch the thing in Wakka's hands to see if it was alive. He had the stinking suspicion that it would rear up and attack him right back.

"Don't worry, you'll get hungry soon enough, and this'll seem like a heaven, all you can eat," Tidus informed him.

"Uh-huh…" Sora replied, fully unconvinced. "And what planet are you from, again?" He took a sip of his drink.

"I," Tidus said, momentarily abandoning his food to strike a pose with what Sora assumed was an imaginary blitzball, "am from Blitzania!"

Sora nearly spewed his mouthful of liquid all over Wakka as he burst out laughing. Some of said liquid escaped to dribble down from his chin before he could swallow it, and it was all he could do not to choke as he laughed.

"Man, that was lame, even for you, ya?" he heard Wakka say.

"Well, at least he thinks I'm funny!"

Tidus' defensive reply only made Sora laugh even harder, and he accidentally knocked over his glass, splashing the cold water everywhere. Wakka shot up out of his seat with something that sounded eerily like a squeal, overbalanced, fell into Tidus, and dragged the blonde teen out of his chair on the way down.

Sora didn't think he could laugh any harder.


Sora was completely and utterly exhausted by the time he finally collapsed into his bed later that night. The day had been a whirlwind, and after he, Tidus, and Wakka had managed to regain control of themselves, they spent the rest of the daylight hours rushing from one campus building to another trying to get all of Sora's stuff in order. There were forms to be signed, books and uniforms to be bought, pictures to be taken, schedules to be obtained, and all manner of other things for him to do. Since he had managed to miss the main orientation, everything that he needed had apparently been sent off in all directions on the campus, and no one knew where what he needed was supposed to be and pointed him to the wrong place repeatedly, so actually getting any single thing required at least five other stops. Well, at least he almost knew his way around the administration and office buildings on campus. Almost.

After that, the three had spent time showing Sora around the dorm and helping him get his stuff unpacked and set up to the accompaniment of loud music courtesy of a stereo system in Wakka's room. It was really mostly Wakka sitting on the bed and ordering the others around, but there had been the moment when Tidus had gotten tired of it and attacked Wakka, starting a massive wrestling contest. Sora had stayed out of it for the most part, but couldn't resist throwing things at them as the pair had rolled out of his room and into the hallway. Person after person had come out of their rooms to see what was going on, and then they all wanted to meet Sora, and by the time he finally shut his dorr his head was spinning with new names and faces.

Sora grinned slightly as he thought of the two blitzballers. They were actually all right, those two. Sora doubted that they'd be the best of friends, but they seemed okay to hang out with, at least. Besides, if they hadn't kept him from getting lost he would have been wandering around the other side of Traverse Town by now. He supposed that his mother would be far too pleased to hear that he wasn't miserable.

"I ought to call her," Sora yawned, shedding his clothes in favor of pyjamas. "Tomorrow." He crawled into his bed and was immediately plunged into a deep sleep.


"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHH!"

The scream hadn't even finished echoing down the hallway before the brunet teen had all but exploded from his bed. "I'M LAAAAAAAAAAAATTTEEEE!" Sora flew around the room like a whirlwind, clothes and books flying everywhere. He came to a sudden halt a minute later, shirt half around his shoulders and pants on backwards, huge eyes staring at the clock. It now read seven fifty-nine.

Class started at eight.

In another wing of the building.

Two minutes later, Sora sipped out of his room and into the vacant hallway, slamming his door shut behind him. His shirt was unbuttoned at the top and bottom and the ones that were buttoned were in the wrong holes. His tie was just hanging around his neck, completely undone; his jacket flapped open as he ran and the laces of his ugly brown shoes required by the school were untied. His hair was normally a rat's nest, but without a comb it was worse than ever, and he was certainly not going to spend time trying to tame it. Hastily packed bag dangling from one hand, Sora bolted down the hallway, praying that he remembered the way to his class. Hell, he hoped he remembered what that first class was.

He slid to a halt in front of the elevator, jamming his finger on the button. "Come on, come on," he demanded impatiently, glaring at said machine as the doors did not instantly open for him. Sora pressed the down button fifteen times in half as many seconds, and still nothing.

Fine. Time for plan B. Sora sucked in a deep breath to fortify himself and turned to the stairs. He zoomed down them at breakneck speed, fully expecting to trip over the laces and go smashing into the wall. Making a Sora-shaped blood splatter on the cement would certainly not improve his day any, but neither did the thought slow him down. Finally he burst out of the stairwell on the ground floor, just in time to see the elevator meet him there.

He growled at it and flew past, down one hallway, up a flight of stairs, around and around until he was just taking turns and staircases at random and hoping that they were almost sort-of maybe the right ones, checking his schedule for the room number so often that it was finally implanted upon his brain. He didn't know how, but somehow he managed to find the right corridor for his English class just as he was about to give up. He pelted straight down it, head turning from side to side as he tried to catch the room numbers. There was 410 on the left, 411 on the right, 412 left, another hallway on the left, 417 to the right…

Wait! Where were rooms 413 to 416? "Huh?" he gasped. Sora skidded to a stop, utterly confused. "Huh?" he gasped, peering down the hallway. But no, no room 413. Either the architect couldn't count or he was in a weird dimension. He half expected to see twisted clocks falling everywhere, maybe a white rabbit and a talking doorknob or two…

Shoulders slumping with the hopelessness of it all, Sora turned back. Maybe he had just missed two whole classrooms or something… "Heywaitaminute!" Sora exclaimed. There was that other hallway, maybe they were in there? Sure enough, he spotted an impossibly tiny sign that sported the missing room numbers and an arrow. With an all-suffering sigh, Sora set off running again, taking the corner in a wide arc that caused his shoes to squeak on the linoleum tile. He finally spotted the room he needed and all but threw himself at the door, slamming it open and stumbling inside. Twenty sets of eyes moved to lock onto him, and had Sora not already been red in the face from all the running, he would have blushed. "Uh, h-hi," he stammered, taking another step into the deadly silent room.

He drew up short, however, as he saw the teacher at the front of the room, half-turned towards him and one hand still holding chalk up to the board. Sora's heart sank as he immediately recognized the face.

"Barbie from Hell!" He had meant to only think it, but, judging from the titters in the room and the apoplectic look on his new teacher's face, he hadn't succeeded in that too well.

Hoo, boy…