Tuesday

One by one, students wandered into his office to turn in their essays. Some looked as if they hadn't slept in three days, which may very well have been the case. Others appeared nervous while some looked simply relieved to have finished the assignment on time. Very few of them looked as if they actually thought they'd done well on the essay. Unsurprisingly, when Kairi appeared through the door, she was one of those few.

"Hello, Professor Luxord," she greeted him as she approached his desk.

"Good afternoon, Kairi." It was impossible to look at her without thinking of the last time he'd spoken to her. The redhead had seemed so innocent, but Luxord knew better than to be fooled as she smiled ever so sweetly.

With a graceful flourish, the sophomore pulled a neatly stapled packet out of her bag and placed it on the history teacher's desk. As was required, the top page was blank save for the due date of the essay, its title, and the student's name.

"Thank you. I'll be sure to mark you down as on time," Luxord said as he moved the essay onto the stack of those he'd already received. It was thicker than the others, but he didn't give it much thought—Kairi had always been a bit of an academic overachiever.

"What would you have done if I was late?" Kairi asked, surprising the blond teacher.

Why was she asking? She'd never been late with an assignment before and he doubted she ever would be. Still, there was no reason not to answer her question.

"You would lose points or, if it was late enough, receive a zero for the grade."

Kairi made a slightly pouty face. "Aw, that's no fun."

Taken aback, Luxord blinked several times. "Excuse me?"

"Well, as a sophisticated, educated man with extensive knowledge of history, I'd hoped you would be able to come up with a more interesting form of punishment than reducing a grade."

Luxord raised one blond eyebrow as he looked at the smiling student standing before him. "And what else, I should ask, would you have me do?" It was a dangerous question to ask, given the way Kairi had been behaving towards him all semester, but he couldn't help himself.

"You're a smart man, Professor. I'm sure you could think of something better than giving me a zero. If you want a few ideas to get you started, though, then you can just read my essay." She winked cheekily, making Luxord's face warm with a blush, then wiggled her fingers in a goodbye wave before quickly leaving the classroom. The teacher stared at the door even after the redhead had vanished, partially stunned by what had just occurred.

She had winked at him. She had blatantly flirted with him even after promising to destroy what she'd written and assuring him that she would stop this nonsense before she got both of them in trouble.

Wait. Her essay. Pale blue eyes widened and Luxord snatched up the papers she'd handed in, flipping through them hastily. The first five pages were, as was required, the essay. After that, it couldn't have been farther from the assignment.

It was dirty. A scandal. But she'd never been so thrilled as she was now. Her skin tingled with anticipation. There mere sight of him made her heart pound—wordlessly, she dropped her bag to the floor and began loosening her tie.

"Professor."

"No, Kairi. I've told you before, we can't do this. It's wrong."

Ignoring his words, the student approached his desk as her hands worked on the buttons of her uniform blouse. "You know I don't care."

Her shirt fell to the floor.

Luxord was gripping the paper so tightly he was surprised it hadn't ripped. This was bad. She had promised not to write another one, yet she'd had the nerve to not only write it but turn it in with an assignment. His face reddening, the teacher quickly tore the extra pages away from Kairi's essay and shoved them into his briefcase before placing the essay on the stack once more. Then he leaned his elbows on his desk and rubbed his hands over his face, sighing. This had to stop. She was going to get him fired or arrested and ruin her own future. He'd told her to stop. What did he have to do to make her stop?

Slowly, his gaze shifted to the briefcase; he could see the edges of the pages he'd stuffed in haphazardly among his other possessions. A few ideas to get him started. She couldn't possibly mean…? No, definitely not. Kairi didn't want to sleep with him. She was a flirt, nothing more. All she wanted was to toy with his brain and his emotions until he gave in and admitted that he was attracted to her. Then she would laugh at him for falling prey to her teenage charms and leave him in misery. Maybe even turn him in.

That didn't seem all that likely, either. Kairi was a good student and always had been, save for the Kool-Aid-in-the-pool prank at the beginning of the year that he'd given her a month of detentions for. The one time she'd misbehaved, and it had landed her square in his path. Her behavior towards him had grown less and less appropriate every day since he'd told her to dress more modestly and it was driving him mad.

With a sigh, the teacher glanced at his watch and was relieved to see that it was no past the allotted time for students to come turn in their essays. Anyone who still had to turn it in would have to do so via email, so he would know exactly who had been late and who hadn't. Gathering the essays, he slipped them into his briefcase—carefully avoiding touching the pages of Kairi's story—and left the classroom. Before he walked away down the hall, he taped a piece of paper to the door that read, "Essays are now overdue. If you have yet to turn yours in, email it to me at ProfLux ." He wouldn't bother checking the email until the end of the week, just so he wouldn't have to go through it more than once. Sometimes, Luxord could be the laziest man in the world. Luckily, he didn't have any actual exams to give today, so he was free to return to his quarters and relax until tomorrow. Three exams on Wednesday, which he would definitely not enjoy sitting through. He'd have to remember to take a book along with him, or maybe something that would make him look at least somewhat productive. Maybe he'd start reading through the essays that had been turned in on time.

Pale blue eyes glanced down at the leather case in his hand as he crossed the short space between the school building and the faculty housing. He could always read…no. Not in the classroom, surrounded by students. Not ever.

I'm sure it isn't even that good, he told himself stubbornly as he pulled his collar up to protect his neck from the cold wind. How would she know what to write? She's one of the school's biggest flirts, but I doubt she's actually slept with anyone before. This story will be whimsical and unrealistic. There's no point in bothering to read through it all.

Still, he couldn't help but be a little curious about how Kairi thought of him.

Wednesday

He couldn't believe he was doing this.

Nerves clamoring for him to turn around, to text them that he couldn't make it, to run, Roxas made slow progress up the stairs of the senior dorm hall. Why he'd chosen the stairs over the elevator, he didn't know. Probably because he was too nervous about spending the evening with Axel in the senior's dorm to be there as quickly as the elevator would have taken him there. The stairs gave him time to calm himself down, promise himself that it would be okay. It was just giving him more time to think about how nervous he was.

I should have just taken the stupid elevator.

By the time he reached the right floor, he was slightly out of breath and his face was red from the effort of carrying his book-laden bag up eight flights of stairs. Pausing, Roxas leaned against the wall and caught his breath, letting his bag rest on the cement floor by his feet. Man, was he really so out of shape that walking up the stairs winded him? He worked out in P.E. class and he didn't eat junk food—he knew he was healthy and nowhere near overweight. Just because he wasn't a musclehead like Sora sometimes was, didn't mean he was lazy. But, wow, all those stairs had really taken it out of him.

Once he'd finally managed to get his breathing back to normal and he was sure his face wasn't flushed anymore, the blond hoisted his bag back over his shoulder and left the stairwell. The senior hall was unfamiliar to him, seeing as he'd never been there before, and it was considerably nicer than the freshman hall. This was really saying something, since the freshman hall was pretty nice. He shouldn't have been surprised, though, considering how much it cost just to go to this school. Everything here was nice.

He wandered the floor for several minutes before he finally found the right room—806—and knocked a bit hesitantly. The two voices he could hear coming through the wood of the door stopped abruptly before footsteps sounded and the door opened.

"Roxy!" Axel stood there grinning down at him, red hair slightly mussed as if he'd been sleeping and hadn't bothered to fix it yet. "You made it!"

"Yes. And don't call me Roxy," he added quickly, trying not to blush at the nickname. Hardly anyone called him that, and never with the sort of affection that Axel had managed to attach to it.

Axel's grin widened slightly as if the blond's request amused him. "Sure, sure. Come on in and we'll get started!"

With a shy nod, Roxas moved past the senior into the dorm and looked around, impressed. "It's so big," he commented, and didn't see the way Axel smirked as he shut the door.

"Of course it is. You didn't think they'd shove two seniors into one of those tiny rooms the freshmen get, did you? We're physically too big, and our egos would clash constantly without space," the redhead explained, his green-eyed gaze landing on the other senior in the room.

Seated at his desk with his books already open, Zexion met his roommate's eyes and nodded his agreement. "You barely survived freshman year, you idiot. I passed up several golden opportunities to poison you.

Roxas looked somewhat alarm by this statement, eyes widening and mouth falling open just slightly. He looked so cute that Axel had to resist the urge to hug the younger boy and kiss his cheek and promise him that he was safe from the chemical-loving senior. That would probably earn him an elbow to his gut or a similarly unhappy reaction from the blond, so he settled for running a hand through his hair.

"He's joking," he said when Roxas continued to stare at Zexion, and the blond turned those amazing eyes on him.

"Oh. Of course he is. I know he wouldn't actually kill you."

Axel saw Zexion grin over the blond's shoulder and fought back a laugh. "Right. Should we get started, then?"

A heavy sigh escaped the sophomore and he adjusted the strap of his bag. "Yeah, probably. I'm going to have my butt handed to me by this test if I don't study for about ten hours."

"Have you looked over the chemistry notes, yet?" Zexion asked, and Roxas shook his head.

"I'll focus on chemistry once calculus is out of the way," the blond explained, "since that test is later in the week."

"You're welcome to come study for that one, too," Axel offered with an uncharacteristically shy smile. "Zexion's a science wiz, so he'll be able to help you if you can't figure something out."

"That's true," the blue-haired senior drawled with false conceit, and Axel chuckled.

Blue eyes moving between the two roommates, Roxas found that he rather enjoyed the way they interacted. Like best friends but closer. It was nice. "Thank you."

Pleased, Axel looked around the dorm as if searching for something to say. "Um…you wanna use my desk, or…?"

Roxas smiled uncertainly. "I'll sit wherever you want me."

The redhead opened his mouth to reply, smirking, but Zexion cut him off.

"I wouldn't say things like that around Axel. He's liable to take advantage and hit on you," the shorter of the two seniors warned, and Roxas' cheeks turned pink.

"Would not!" Axel protested, embarrassed to have become so predictable. Or maybe Zexion just knew him that well. "I was gonna say he could sit wherever he wanted!"

The eyebrow that was visible rose and Zexion gave his roommate a knowing look. "Really."

"Yes!"

"I don't believe you."

"That's because you think I want to sleep with anything that breathes."

"It's because I know you've got a crush on blondie," Zexion betrayed him, jerking a thumb at Roxas and making the sophomore blush darkly and stare at his shoes.

"Traitor!" Axel accused, his face almost as red as Roxas'. Huffing, he dropped onto his bed and slouched against the wall, arms crossed over his chest as he sulked. Things had been going so well, and Zexion had to go and bring up the fact that he liked Roxas. Now things were going to be awkward.

A few moments of uncomfortable silence passed before Roxas gathered his courage and moved to sit beside the redhead, surprising them both.

"It's okay," he said quietly with a small smile. "I already knew you liked me."

"That doesn't mean I want him saying it like that right in front of you," the senior pouted, glaring across the room at Zexion.

Roxas's smile widened a little and he touched Axel's arm so that the redhead looked at him. Their eyes met and his breath caught in his throat for a moment—he hadn't realized how very close he was to the older boy, but he didn't draw away. "Maybe not," he said quietly, "but I don't mind."

Axel looked dumbfounded. "You don't?"

"No. It doesn't bother me that you like me, Axel," Roxas admitted, blushing all over again. "I just didn't like the way you were behaving towards me because of it." They both knew he meant when the senior had gotten him in trouble by passing notes and the time he'd been drunk at the party and kissed him.

"Yeah…" Axel rubbed at the back of his head, lowering his gaze. "I'm sorry about that…"

"I know. It's okay."

They smiled at each other, both shy and nervous about this first moment of genuinely getting along, and Zexion rolled his eyes from his place across the room.

"If you two are done confessing your love to each other," he began, making the two boys flush and draw away from each other with nervous laughs, "we should start studying so we don't fail Larxene's test."

Axel rolled his eyes. "As if you'd ever get anything lower than a 99% on a test, Zex."

Zexion grinned. "Oh, right. Sometimes I forget that I'm a genius. We should start studying so you don't fail the test," he corrected, and Roxas chuckled quietly before he could stop himself.

Green eyes mischievous and with one lifted eyebrow, the redhead turned to him and smirked. "You got something to say, blondie?"

"Ah," Roxas paused, searching for something to say before putting on the most innocent expression he could manage. "No, of course not, Axel." The senior rolled his eyes and pushed at his shoulder gently.

"Quit it with the puppy eyes, Rox. I don't have any treats, and if you keep that up, I might have to kiss you."

Roxas' face turned red and he quickly stopped, opening his bag and taking out his calculus book and notes to keep his hands busy. Was he…flirting? With Axel? And it hadn't made him uncomfortable? This would never have happened a week and a half ago, but now…he didn't mind flirting with the senior. Not when Axel was actually being polite about it. Maybe he'd been entirely wrong about the senior. Maybe.

Friday

"You're not gonna win, Brat."

"Yes, I am!"

Riku smirked, rolling his eyes as Sora toweled his hair. The two sophomores were standing in the locker room, surrounded by their P.E. classmates and had just finished showering.

"Roxas," the silver-haired student said, gaining the blond's attention, "you know I'm right. There's no way Sora got higher marks than me."

The blond twin smiled slightly. "I wouldn't be so sure, Riku. He studied even more than I did."

Looking slightly surprised by this, Riku looked at Sora as the brunet pulled his boxers on under his towel. Come to think of it, the younger boy had seemed to be studying more than he did for midterms. He'd even cut their workouts short so he could look over his notes a few more times before each exam.

Shit. What if he'd lost? He'd never lost anything in his life. If he lost this bet, then he'd have to be Sora's slave for twenty-four hours, and he just knew the brunet would be out for revenge after the way Riku had treated him while Sora was his slave.

He'll run me into the ground, just because he can.

It was too late to back out of the bet, and no way was he going to chicken out just because he didn't want to have to admit defeat. Besides, there was still a chance that he'd won. It wasn't as if he'd slacked off in his studying. Either way, he'd get to spend another entire day with the brunet, and he wasn't going to complain about that. He just hoped Sora wouldn't be too aggressive with his revenge.

"Hurry up, old man," Sora taunted, already dressed. Riku was still in his towel and had only pulled on a T-shirt after rubbing his hair with a towel.

Embarrassed to have gotten so distracted by thinking about the bet that he forgot to finish dressing, Riku hurriedly dried off and pulled his clothes on as Sora and Roxas waited for him. Both twins were smiling, their expressions identical in a way that worried him. They definitely knew something he didn't, which only made him even more certain that Sora had actually gotten better marks on his exams.

Sora was practically bouncing as he led the way out of the locker room, and Riku couldn't help but roll his eyes.

"Don't look so smug yet, Brat. The grades won't be handed back for a week."

"But I already know I won!" the brunet chirped, his blue eyes absolutely gleeful. "Just you wait. When you have to be my slave, it's gonna be awesome."

"You gonna use me for sex?" Riku asked as he continued walking, irritated. He knew that wasn't what Sora had meant, but the younger boy's triumphant happiness was getting on his nerves. He'd never been that annoying about winning, so he didn't understand why Sora had to be, and they didn't even know who the winner was yet. Somehow, he knew it was only going to get worse over the next week.

Sora grinned. "Only if you're a bad boy," he cooed, and Roxas made a face like he might be sick. "I promise to be a good master as long as you behave yourself."

"Gee, thanks."

As the three students exited the school's main building, they turned towards the mess hall with the intent of meeting Kairi and Namine there for dinner.

"I, uh, invited Axel and Zexion to come along," Roxas spoke up as they walked, looking a bit nervous to announce it. "I think Zexion is bringing Demyx."

"Cool," Sora replied, his head bowed against the wind. "The more the merrier, you know." He didn't say it, but he was glad his brother was giving the red-haired senior a chance.

After everything that had happened between them over the past five months, it was about time things started settling down. Maybe the three older students would become permanent additions to their little group of friends—they already knew and got along with Demyx, so that helped, and since Demyx was dating Zexion, the senior was sure to be around whenever the junior was. Axel practically jumped at the chance to spend time with Roxas, and they all knew it. Besides, his brother had willingly gone over to the senior dorm hall more than once during the week to study, and Sora knew how important Roxas considered exams to be. He wouldn't have gone over there if he didn't think it was worth it.

And Sora had probably won the bet with Riku! Finally, he was going to beat the older boy. And then Riku would know just how embarrassing it was to be forced into those stupid outfits. He didn't have anything special because he hadn't ordered anything online like the older student had, but Kairi and Namine had already offered their assistance. If Riku thought this round of Slave-for-a-Day was going to be boring, he had another thing coming. Sora was prepared to be anything but boring.