Author's Note: please don't make me drink barbeque sauce... Hello everyone! Welcome to the... what chapter are we on now? Fifth...? Welcome to the whatever-th chapter, I hope that you all enjoy it. Thanks to all my reviewers: Kanilla-Master of Fluff, carbuncle021, Lack Thereof, Queen of the insects, and Knight-of-wands/Asehma-the-dark-fury...? Is it just me or is the review system messed up? Anyway. Zell is a ff8 character, absinthe is illegal (i think) because some of its ingredients are poisonous, therefore illegal.

Disclaimer: I do not own the characters, but I own the story, so read and enjoy but please do not take.

Summary: One day a man in a wet shirt and leather pants shows up on Sora's doorstep. So, Sora gets a roommate, a young artist named Riku who turns out to be the most charming person person he has ever met. So charming, infact, that he proceeds to charm the clothes right off of all of Sora's friends. But that's okay, because Sora doesn't know. Yet.

Riku rubbed shampoo into his silvery hair. He heard the front door open and then shut, but paid it no attention. As he began to wash off the bubbles, he heard two voices, one Sora's and one... female? Kairi?

Riku swore. They cornered him! How rude. He had worked hard for a week trying to avoid Kairi, only to be cornered while taking a shower? That was just dishonorable.

He turned off the water. He might as well take it like a man, he thought. He left the shower and looked around the bathroom uncertainly while dripping on the small carpet. He considered the open window.

"Riku! Come out and meet my girlfriend!" came Sora's voice from the living room.

Riku narrowed his eyes and then threw his towel out the window. "Will she mind seeing me naked?" he asked with barely masked anger. Sora and Kairi did not notice, of course.

Kairi thought about replying with a cheerful 'no,' but decided against it when she saw Sora's scandalized expression.

"What...? Of course she minds!"

"Well, that's just too bad," yelled Riku from the bathroom. "Guess I'll just have to stay in here, seeing as how I've got no towel and she doesn't wanna see me naked..."

Sora sighed and rubbed his temples. "Hold on, I'll get you something..."

Sora ran his hand through his hair, motioned for Kairi to wait, and went to his room to get one of his bath robes. He knocked on the bathroom door, robe in hand. The door swung wide open. Riku was standing there, his wet hair dripping on him and the carpet.

Sora handed him the robe and sighed deeply once again. "Do I really have to see... everything?"

Riku took it with an unconcerned shrug. "It's not like it's all new and mysterious," Riku waved his hands around to illustrate the last word. Sora rolled his eyes as Riku put on the robe. They left the bathroom and the first thing that Riku saw was the word 'jugs,' it was written across the chest of the shirt of the girl that was standing in the doorway.

Sora elbowed him in the ribs causing Riku to look up from Kairi's breasts and into her face. It was a pretty face, tastefully framed with her soft red hair. This greatly confused Riku. How could someone with such a tasteful hairdo wear such a tasteless shirt? But then he was distracted from his thoughts when Kairi extended her hand to him, causing her breasts to jiggle. Riku shook her hand, a wide grin was plastered on his face.

She introduced herself, he introduced himself, and Sora went to pour tea, leaving the two of them in an uncomfortable silence. They sat down.

"So," said Kairi, "what do you do for a living?"

"I'm an artist," said Riku as Sora came in with tea and sat beside his girlfriend.

"Oh..." said Kairi and her eyes lit up, "what kind of artist?"

"...A painter..."

"OH!" Kairi leaned forward in her seat. "So, do you have any interesting stories to tell us?"

Sora put an arm around his girlfriend. "Yeah, Riku! Tell us a story from your life!"

Riku had to suppress his urge to raise an eyebrow; he thought that they would think that he thought that they were being really stupid. And he did, but he didn't need to proclaim that to the world. Instead he decided to humor them.

"A story...? Could I have an example, please?"

"Oh, come on, Riku! Just tell us anything interesting that happened to you," Sora said, the grin still on his face.

"Well..." Riku began. Sora and Kairi scooted forward in their seats with eager expressions. This somewhat scared Riku, and he leaned back into the overstuffed arm chair in which he was sitting. He brought his cup of tea defensively in front of his face. "Well, this one time I was invited to do a show, so I decided to paint a special painting. I ordered some special paints, and got to painting." He paused for an effect that he didn't get. When he saw no response to his wanna-be suspense, he continued on, slightly disenheartened. "Well, these were paints that were discovered in a warehouse and dated back to the 1800's. When I started using them, I noticed a problem- they had been discolored by time. I decided to just finish the painting, because I had no time to start the concept sketches for another."

Riku took a sip of his tea. He noticed the glance that Sora shared with Kairi. They thought that his story was boring! Riku narrowed his eyes, then set his cup down with a loud sound on the table. The sound shocked them slightly, and their eyes went back to him.

Riku settled into the chair, smiled, and continued his story. "Well. To make a relatively short story even shorter, one of my fans didn't like the painting. He thought that I was experimenting with contemporary art, and he thought that that was a disgrace to my name.

"So he decided to save me the shame, and ate the whole thing."

Sora's eyebrows went down while Kairi's eyebrows went up. "He ate the painting?" they asked in unison.

Riku nodded. Now they were interested. "But that's not the end of it. He had swallowed the last bit, and then suddenly looked up at me with wide eyes. He didn't even notice the horrified crowd around him. He gagged a couple of times and then he clutched at his stomach. Two hundred year old paint does not do wondersfor the digestive system. Especially if said paint had lead in it.

"And then he fell over onto the floor, but I got some people to help me load him into my car, and then I drove him to the hospital."

Riku stopped and folded his hands on his knees.

Kairi stared at him, wide-eyed. "That was such an honorable thing to do, Riku!"

Riku grinned. "Not really. Afterwards I sued him for all he was worth. When I got through with him he couldn't even pay his hospital bill."

Kairi blinked and came out of her trance. "Well... Don't you think that that's a bit cruel...?"

Riku shrugged. "That's the way the world spins."

Author's Note: Well, inn't he a nasty little bugger? Nah, not really. :) Review, please, I love reviews! They make my world go 'round...

Next Chapter: Riku teaches a kid some manners