characters; Roxas, Axel (Sora, Riku, Kairi, Yuna, Rikku)
pairings; None
related chapters; All
notes; Roxas and Axel meet. :O

It was the day of the field trip to the college. They were studying careers, after all. The tour-guide showed them around and explained the merits of attending college. He was a rather scholarly old man; pale, and he had white-blond hair and bright orange eyes.

Roxas hated him. He couldn't put his finger on why, and the man had done nothing wrong - except give Kairi a very awkwardly-long stare. Roxas shoved his hands in his pockets and distracted himself by looking at his surroundings. Steps and stairs, trees in bloom - college students sitting in the shade. It was all very nice, and Roxas decided that it might not be so bad to go here once he was older.

Then they entered the library. He decided he was going here when he got older.

"This is the library." The tour guide said, though Roxas felt it was unnecessary, considering the various signs that had said as much. He had introduced himself as Ansem, Roxas recalled, but didn't really care. The guy was still a creep, in his opinion. Not only did he look at Kairi for so long, he then proceeded to stare-down Sora, and Roxas had felt the piercing eyes on him far too many times for it to be coincidence.

"There are some places to get food just next door," Aerith said without getting the class's attention first. The mention of food was enough, and all eyes were on her. "We'll meet right here in one hour, so don't wander too far, feel free to ask anyone for directions if you do get lost, and don't bring any food into the library, okay?"

Sora nudged Roxas lightly. "We gonna eat?" He asked. Through the large, moving crowd of students, Roxas spotted Kairi and Riku sifting towards them. They were holding hands, and Riku was in front, attempting to make things less troublesome for Kairi. It wasn't working very well, but Roxas decided that was thoughtful of him.

Riku gets five acceptance points. Congratulations, Riku. Roxas thought dryly. He turned to Sora. "You can eat with your friends, but I think I want to look around the library. I'm not hungry, anyway."

Riku and Kairi reached them, and Kairi, having only heard the last word of that conversation, greeted them with "What-now? We eating?"

Roxas walked away without a word, not noticing Kairi's wince. He didn't particularly feel like repeating himself and was sure Sora could handle that. Namine observed him curiously from across the room.

---

Roxas had found a book he was interested in easily enough. Oh, existential philosophy novels, how he loved thee. The public library, upon all visits, had nothing interesting. (Also, the librarians kept trying to lead him to other sections of the library and asking if he wanted something less difficult to read.)

The problem was checking it out. Apparently they thought some random fifteen year old intended to steal the book, and didn't trust him to bring it back. A pair of girls had been nice enough to check it out for him, and had free time to come get it to return before he left. The blonde one winked at Roxas, and the brunette smiled when she handed him the book outside.

"Yunie and I can swing back in about forty five minutes and we'll return the book for you, 'kay?" The blonde asked. Roxas nodded and thanked them before finding a good tree to sit in the shade of. High-schoolers were mostly stupid, in his opinion. So far, college students had given him a pretty good impression - he looked forward to this.

---

It really wasn't his fault that he was prone to falling asleep when he was relaxed. And the warm weather wasn't helping. The book had been very interesting, of course, but in an enigmatic, puts-you-to-sleep-while-you-stop-to-think kind of way.

Rikku nudged him, then turned to Yuna with a shrug. She picked the book up off the ground and said "S'pose we should wake him up?" Yuna pursed her lips thoughtfully.

"There are a lot of other high school students; they'll wake him up when it's time to move on with the tour." She deduced.

Unfortuanately, this was incorrect.

---

Aerith clapped to get everyone's attention. "Is everyone here?" She asked the crowd of students. Even Sora caught the look Ansem gave her - a curious are you completely stupid? But Sora was preoccupied. Roxas wasn't around. His hand shot into the air so he could tell Aerith, but just as quickly, Riku pulled it down.

"He knows when and where we leave." Riku said, knowing it was about Roxas. "He probably preferred that book to the tour."

Sora scratched his cheek, embarrassed. "I guess so."

Kairi laughed quietly, almost nervous. Namine had approached her during the lunch break and pointed out Roxas sleeping. Then asked very quietly that Kairi didn't wake him up, or let him be bothered at all. Namine was always right.

---

"Hey, Kid."

Roxas felt himself being nudged, and opened his eyes slowly. He looked up at the speaker with bleary eyes, feeling, for the first time since he could remember, tired after waking up. The man in front of him was young, probably a college student, and sported bright red hair and familiar green eyes.

"Axel." Roxas said without thinking at all. Then blinked, expression settling into one of confusion.

The man in front of him looked equally confused. "We met before?" He asked. The blond did look awfully familiar. Still, he wasn't really surprised when the boy shook his head slowly and admitted that he had no idea where that came from.

Roxas pushed himself off the ground, and glanced around for the book. It was gone - the girls had probably taken it back while he was asleep. His eyes widened;

"What time is it?" He asked the man - Axel.

Axel pulled a cell phone out of his pocket and flipped it open - Roxas wondered why he hadn't thought of that, but rationalized that his phone was deep in his backpack somewhere.

"Two twelve." The red-head reported, putting his phone away. Roxas sighed.

"Well." He said slowly. "That sucks a lot."

Axel raised an eyebrow, then said "That tour for you kids already move on...?"

Roxas nodded. He wasn't surprised the man understood the situation - he'd seen posters about it on the walls. The tour had gone on. Not that he really wanted to be a part of it; and since he knew where the buses were, he would be fine. He had half an hour to kill and no more book, though.

"My class just ended," Axel said abruptly. "so I have free time. Want to get some ice cream or something...?" Roxas eyed him skeptically for a very long moment. On one hand, his Namine-can-explain-this senses were tingling, which meant it was safe. On the other hand, Axel had weird marks on his face. Ice cream was out-weighing makeup-choice by a lot, but when Roxas failed to respond, the red-head looked embarrassed. "Er, that was random. My bad, Roxas."

It took all of his will-power not to point accusingly at that. Instead, Roxas narrowed his eyes and watched Axel carefully. The man looked up as though he was going over the sentence in his head, then frowned.

"I think I was waiting for that," Roxas said slowly, and didn't really understand what he meant. Axel met his gaze evenly, expression unreadable.

---

"So while you were missing," Sora said dubiously, pacing in Roxas' bedroom. Roxas lied on his bed, watching his brother warily. "You basically... Had ice cream with, and got the phone number of, some random college guy?"

Roxas nodded.

"I'm never worrying about you again."

Pastel Ink