46.
It was nearly halfway into fourth period when Roxas' decided to escape from class. His lunch was still forty minutes away, but he was all good and ready to ditch school and hang out with his friends before going home. School was a fucking prison.
He entered the washrooms with a nonchalant kick to the door, freeing himself from view of video cameras in the hallway. Picking a clean-ish spot on the ground, he took out his smuggled ipod and squatted, leaning against the smooth-brick walls.
After the vocals of 2NE1, riffs of Sum41 and Simple Plan and a mix by Oblivion, another boy entered the washroom. They immediately noticed each other; however, with different levels of merriment.
"Chibi-Strife!" Tidus cheered.
"Tidus," he said in derisive acknowledgement.
"I've heard some cool things about you." It was a redirect of teasing, turning it into fake-praise, to which Roxas rolled his eyes behind his side bangs.
"Oh yeah?"
"Yeah, I heard you were dealing with that Axel guy. Is that legit?" he asked, urinating on the other side of the room, his back to where Roxas was sitting. Thank God.
"Maybe," Roxas didn't bother giving complete answers. Who was this guy to begin to know him? He wasn't hiding anything, nor was he about to parade any details either. Roxas had only met Tidus yesterday, and it hadn't included the shiniest of impressions. Already, Roxas found him annoying, but to keep some sort of civility and perhaps some energy and peace of mind as well, he stuck to indifferent and disengaged interaction.
Tidus was laughing to himself. It was an ongoing test of Roxas' patience and above-mentioned decision. He didn't say anything, only watched the other with narrowed eyes while Tidus washed his hands.
"Well, then I'm sure you can guess what's gonna happen next." Tidus dried his hands on his already discoloured school shirt and crouched in front of Roxas. "Why don't you just save everyone the anti-climactic denouement."
"What?" Roxas hissed. They were face to face now, and his scowl darkened.
But Tidus only grinned that self-absorbed grin with his teeth bared. He looked Roxas over appreciatively. "You know, you're pretty cute. I could spoil you tonight."
"You're disgusting. I don't need an STD," he spat and looked away.
"Ha!" The other blond cackled and straightened up like a physical acceptance of being denied. "If anyone's disgusting, it's that man-whore of a boyfriend of yours. That guy's been having to get tested regularly for that shit since elementary school, in case you didn't know." Roxas actually didn't know. "Everyone knows that. Prolly cuz half of everybody here's been there and done that. It's the same story with that guy." Tidus decided to sit right next to Roxas this time. "Take this in:" He leaned in to Roxas and whispered, "has he fucked you in the back of his pick-up yet?"
Tidus was so fucking close to his face, he caught the miniscule reaction to the otherwise surprising question. He laughed with himself again and Roxas was seriously considering punching this guy in the face. It was right there anyway.
"Like I said, save yourself and everyone else the sad ending. You're not the longest Axel's ever kept around, which is what, three weeks? And it seriously doesn't look like the most different he's ever had either. You think you're special to him? Wake up, Chibi-Strife. You're not." He shrugged, staying non-aggressive. "I'm tellin' ya, it's all the same."
"You have no idea what you're talking about."
"Prolly not!" he shrugged again and threw his hands out. "I stayed away." Tidus grinned smugly. "And you..." He captured a lock of Roxas' hair, brushing near his face, with two of his fingers, examining it. Playing with it. "You... should prolly do the same." Roxas could feel Tidus leaning in closer and closer.
He was screaming on the inside! Screaming for himself to do something - something that would feel very, very cathartic. His fist clenched beside him, out of Tidus' view, and with a sharp inhale of breath, Roxas pulled back his arm (as far as the wall behind him would allow), threw his fist and... another hand appeared.
Stopping him.
Stopping him from stopping the impending violation, as it would seem, but it appeared that Tidus had been pulled aside as well.
Seifer stood there, crouched over, one hand tightly gripping Roxas' wrist, his other hand holding Tidus back by the neck of his shirt. And yes, choking sounds ensued, to Roxas' great delight.
"While this would have been highly entertaining... Tidus, Maleficent's trolling the halls for you." He released the boy, swinging his arm outwards to have Tidus land on the floor a few feet away. He groaned and fixed himself up in front of the mirror.
"And Roxas, you're teacher's looking for you too. Get to class, you punk." The blond quietly rose from his spot and followed Tidus out the door. Roxas looked back at Seifer for a tiny moment, blandly, expressing thanks to a long-time bully of his. It still didn't completely erase his chosen regard for the upperclassman, but Seifer probably knew just the same anyway, so Roxas left it at that.
In the hall, Tidus addressed him again. "Come find me later, Chibi-Strife."
Roxas side-stepped him and headed for his classroom.
"Where did you go?" his teacher asked exasperatedly. Roxas walked glibly past the large desk and towards his own seat.
"I know how you feel about me sleeping in class, so I went to fall asleep in the washroom." Roxas reached his desk, ignoring the class tittering about it, and pulled out a novel from his bag since he couldn't take out his ipod anymore lest it get confiscated. He ignored the teacher's reprimands, and kept quiet for the fifteen minutes left of class. He ignored many other things for the rest of that day as well.
"Sora, are you leaving already?"
Sora turned around to see the general manager of the hotel (aka the boss of his boss). Richard Deja was a tall, burly man, with a chiseled nearly-handsome face. Nearly everything about this man was fake. His question to whether or not Sora was leaving work for the day narrowly hid the subtext of reminding Sora that he still had twenty-three more minutes until his 'shift' was over.
It was common knowledge to all the employees that no one respected this man, even more so that he deserved none. This man walked around eyeing everyone and everything like his height made a difference in what was beneath him and then smiled as he would welcome special (high-paying) guests to the hotel. Once, Yuffie had told Sora that she'd gone into his office for a signature only to find him, shoeless, feet up on his desk, watching Russel Peters on Youtube. Yes, come stay in this hotel where we work to make your stay the height of enjoyment.
Arrogance and falsities are to be met with humble civility, so Sora had learned from dealing with too many customers of the like.
"No sir, Janice just called me. She wanted me to find a few files for her. And then I'm coming back to fix up my pod for the night audit guys before I go." Sora waited for clearance, his insides edgy and annoyed, until finally after a hard stare:
"Very good."
He turned back around to head for the elevator but then Deja spoke again.
"Your boyfriend is waiting for you out front."
Sora slowly turned around once again, and they shared yet another staring contest.
"Oh?"
"Yes."
"Okay then..." he said, warily. "Thank you." And he dashed for the elevator as it dinged open to let a few guests out. The last glance of his boss' boss was of him smiling cheerily, bidding the elderly couple goodbye and thanking them for staying at the Sofitel.
"There's gotta be something either extremely twisted or pathetically sad about having your soon-to-be second husband pay for the divorce of yours and your soon-to-be-ex-husband." Roxas scrunched his eyes up and held his arms out to heighten the ridiculousness of the matter. "What the actual fuck is Cloud thinking?"
Sora balanced the beer bottle between his lips, half-concentrating on taking a swig while his 'pillow' wracked beneath him in silent, over-exaggerated sob. "I don't know," he exhaled with a cool chill of Blue. "'Get out fast?'" he laughed. The two brothers lay under the stairs of their basement, on the floor on a make-shift floor/sitting area they had constructed years ago of wide foam cylinders. Around them were odds and ends that were brought down in attempts to clean the house over the years, as well as two desktop computers, wound up in their various cords and collecting dust.
"Sephiroth's like a big.. spider web," Sora mused as he spotted an actual spider web in his blurring vision. "Delicate, yet strong; elegantly constructed; silvery…with connections everywhere. You think you see some sort of general make up in one light, then you turn on another bulb and see the expansion- other places he's been- and you realize there's more than you thought."
Roxas followed his brother's gaze up towards the cobwebs in scrutiny. "I can't believe we're leaving this place."
"I know. I can't imagine living anywhere else," he agreed. "You know everytime I read or hear about a house, in my mind, it always resembles this one? You know in like positioning of things and the construction and stuff?"
"Yeah, and we know every corner of this place. Even here. We haven't been here in… two years?"
"Two years! Right. When we got in so much shit with Cloud, he took the computers out of our rooms and stuck 'em down here." They curled in on each other as they laughed, quite reminiscently.
"Did that stop us from getting suspended to stay home and play Runescape?"
"Oh, fuck no!" Sora rubbed his eye and sat up off his brother. "Yeah dad, take the computers out of our rooms while we're at school but forget that we get home hours before you?" he shook his head and threw back another gulp.
"Maybe he didn't think we'd make use of all these emergency extension cords lying around."
"Maybe he trusted us enough not to sneak back into the basement to 'meditate,' reassemble two computers and reconnect the wi-fi.
A beat, and then a fit of snickers from two tipsy teenage boys.
Roxas gasped for breath and shrugged his shoulders. "We were thirteen-!"
"I know, I know!" Sora waved his hands in a pacifying motion and then he twirled his index finger in a circle near his temple. "In my head-." And everything dissolved into drunken laughter.
Marluxia sat on the couch, with his feet up on the table, the remote control in his poised hand as he clicked 'Guide' and scrolled through his options.
Tues/09/Mar/ 7:45-
He was dressed in blue jeans and a white t-shirt with Pikachu on it. His pink hair was moussed. His breath was freshened. His eyes were thinly lined with Kohl and shadowed in NYC. He was clean shaven and he smelled like a Lush store. Now if only his phone would ring so he could leave his apartment and take his girlfriend out for a date night.
Twenty-five minutes passed. "Fuck it." He picked up his phone and dialled.
"Hello?"
"Hey, are we still going?"
"One second-"
"Yo, get the fuck out of my room! I'm on the phone!"
"Where the fuck am I supposed to go, bitch?"
"I don't give a fuck, the bathroom!"
"Are you fuckin' serious?"
"I'm serious as fuck. Now get out! I'll get you when I'm done."
"Bitch." Namine scowled at her older sister before she closed her bedroom door quietly behind her.
Once the door was closed, Larxene turned her attention back to her phone. "Yeah, Marly, my father stayed home today. I can't leave."
"What the fuck?"
"I know right? I came home and the twerp was hiding in my room." Larxene's room was on the second level along with the washroom, a linen closet and another bedroom. Namine's 'bedroom' was a portion of the living room that had its own entrance into the main living room where currently their father was residing.
Their father had a night job, making him sleep through the day and work at night. And since the latter of that sequence had not been fulfilled, he was home, on the couch, drinking a beer, Namine was upstairs and Larxene couldn't leave.
"Couldn't you climb out the window? I'll catch you like a base." Larxene was a cheerleader.
Larxene laughed. "I could, but the bastard broke the lock on my door last time. The twerp can't hide in the washroom forever."
"Alright, fine."
"Sorry."
"LARXENE!" came a yell suddenly from downstairs. "LARXENE, I'M HUNGRY!"
"ALRIGHT! I'M COMING."
"I gotta go, babe"
"Bye." Marluxia pressed 'end' and let his arm fall back to the couch. "I showered for you, bitch." He murmured to himself.
He trudged to the bathroom, took off his make-up, hung up his casual wear behind the door, and applied a nightly facial mask just for the hell of it. And in bright green Diesel boxer briefs, he parked himself in front of his end-table-turned-desk and opened up his biology homework.
Eleven minutes into facts of frog mating he threw down his mechanical pencil in revulsion. "ARGHH! No! Fuck you. I'm not doing it," he gritted. The oh-so meaningful six questions were due in two days anyway. It wasn't long before he canonballed into his bed. "Goodnight, fucking vitellogenin. Ugh."
"I wonder if Riku will look like Sephiroth when he grows up." Sora pondered into the cloudy night sky. "You know, all big and tall and commanding respect with every air he exhales sort of thing?"
Roxas smirked around the cigarette between his lips. Sora had obligied to accompany Roxas outside for a cigarette, so there they stood on their driveway, staring into almost nothing and thinking of nearly everything.
"I wonder how his mom looked… and how much of her he has in him." The Crescent household interior was homely, yet modern in which pictures and any forms of cluster, save for centrepiece accents were scarce. Pictures were meant to be filed away in albums and not in plain display- a contrast to their own home. Not one image of Riku's mother had he ever seen before.
"Well, if he pushes himself as hard as he does on the soccer field in every damn turn of his life," Roxas exhaled, "it just may amount to something like his old man." Visual paths of athleticism, education and business futures momentarily flashed in his mind. "Face it, brother. Your boy's bound for great things." Riku had everything set out for him in terms of his grades, his health and his father's company. He could choose anything and already have a foot in the proverbial door, unlike himself, still bumming around in his adolescent existence, not giving any real thought to things further than the next few weeks of his life.
Presently, it was comfortable and somewhat stress-free, still, at times he found himself restless, the unnerving fact that his future was a dark hole. And the reality that one day he'd come face to face with it and actually have to decide on something was terribly daunting. Roxas envied Riku in those respects.
"How are you guys, by the way?" he took another drag of his Belmont cigarette.
"Ehh, we're just fine." Sora half-grinned. "He walked me home after work today and we talked and…" he sighed. "I realized I couldn't really blame his angel-face."
"That face will get him everything, I swear."
"Noo, no, I just started thinking: how much would it have really made a difference if he had told me, or told dad, I mean, dad would have still been sleeping with Sephiroth, and it would still have broken dad's heart," he pouted a little about Leon, whom he loved very much. Sora just couldn't bear the thought of his respected father being treated so… "Ah, this is really a dead end and I'm tired of thinking about it." He looked to the ground and in the corner of his eye, Roxas was scraping the cigarette butt against the asphalt. Roxas tended to smoke faster after consuming alcohol.
"I feel ya."
"You have some nerve to show your treasonous face around here. Some nerve indeed."
"Treasonous? I would say you are the traitor, Marluxia."
"Do either of us have the heart to believe anyone?"
"The Organization's betrayed. In that name, I will annihilate you."
"That line's not you."
-BANG BANG BANG-
Gunshots?
-BANG BANG BANG-
Dumpster dancing?
-BANG BANG BANG-
"MARLUXIA!"
"Nooo…" Looking up from the soft maroon filaments, Marluxia looked desperately at the door at the top of the stairs.
-BANG BANG BANG-
"MARLUXIA, OPEN THE GODDAMN MOTHERFUCKING DOOR!"
Blue eyes shut tight and mouth hanging hopelessly, he slogged away from his bed and towards his mother's loving pestering. On his way he glanced that the Minnie Mouse clock reading 11:06. He'd never get back to sleep after making the effort to stand up, let alone walk. So much for turning in early.
Upon unlocking the door, Dahlia pushed open the door with impatience, and he staggered on the second step, holding on to the railing out of pure, skillful, god-loves-me reflex. And in came his mother.
And the music.
And all of Dahlia's middle-aged, trashy girlfriends.
All pushed him aside as if he was a decoration on the already narrow walkway down. Why, mommy, why?
"Alright girls, help me push everything off to the sides!" Giggles and laughter filled his formerly peaceful apartment as the walking blobs of make-up and botox acknowledged him, still in his underwear. -His neon green underwear that mapped out every inch of him. He should have known better, but he was half asleep, dammit! It was too late now.
He headed towards his mother, ignoring the group of women shamelessly examining his package as it bounced in his walk. Dahlia was crouched over the coffee table along with another friend, edging it closer to the wall.
"Dahlia…" he half-whined, tiredly. He then noticed that the lady aiding the impromptu feng-shui was dick-height in her bent-over position… and was taking advantage of the extreme close up full-length feature.
Ugh, seriously. He stood dangerously close to his mother, trapping her between himself and the wall, not close enough to touch, but close enough to force her to acknowledge him. He was vaguely aware of the group of forty-year-olds then acknowledging his ass.
Finally, Dahlia looked at him. "Keith has his poker-playing, cigar puffing, beer-drinking colleagues over. BO-RING! This party is girls-only," she announced, proudly when suddenly, her eyes twinkled with an idea. "Where's the phone book?" she leered.
"Where am I supposed to go?" he said, avoiding the impending enabling of any more strangers in his immaculate home.
"You're welcome to stay," she smiled, as if he was twelve again and doing his mother's and his toenails.
Marluxia grimaced and dared a look behind him. Six pairs of eyes suddenly met his own, some winking, some batting, all women more or less licking their lips at the prospect of him staying and making the need for the phonebook rendered moot.
He looked back at his mom, mournfully. "Please don't break anything. See you in the hangover." Marluxia sidestepped into the washroom and clothed himself in the clothes he'd donned earlier. Upon exit, the disappointment was lucid in the room. He packed his bag, grabbed his uniform, another change of clothes, footwear and undergarments his keys and climbed the stairs.
The teen turned back to gaze upon his destroyed sanctuary, especially upon seeing one of the women light up a cigarette. Marluxia dropped his head and sighed. He didn't have the strength to think of the damage that would ensue forthwith.
He reached the main floor and made a bee-line for the kitchen and to his father, surrounded by even older-looking men, and clouds of cigar smoke. Expectantly, he held his hand out, clearly unamused by the state of things. Keith, along with the rest of the poker table looked at him from above their hands of five.
The son weakly narrowed his eyes at the father. "You owe me." The table rumbled with the kind of laughter that only resonated from old, mirthless men.
"The boy has a point!" a sexagenarian chimed. Or boomed, as it were.
Keith looked at the man and sighed, but with a smile on his face and drew out the wallet in his back pocket. He fished out a twenty to which Marluxia glady accepted. As he turned away, freezing the room with his silence, Keith asked, "Where are you going?"
"I dunno, lie down in the middle of the street? AKA my bedroom."
"Why don't you sleep upstairs?"
Marluxia turned back to the room of men, challengingly. "How many rounds have you gone through?"
"Four."
"Six!"
"Three."
"Five…?"
"Two and a half."
"These parties' are gonna get co-ed pretty soon." Marluxia said, stepping into his shoes and walking out the door, to the roaring laughs and questions of 'that's your son?' and 'how old is he?' and 'are you gambling his trust fund there, Ikeda? HAHAHAHA!'
Larxene placed the bowl of homemade pasta in front of her father on a fold out table she put in front of the couch for him. She then set back into the kitchen to start the dishes. Just as she started on the knife she'd cut the tomatoes with, there was a crash and small shattering sound of glass in the living room.
"Shanelle!" Larxene turn the corner of the kitchen to see her father stumbling over to Namine, the table with the bowl, knocked over and broken beer bottle shards litering the laminate flooring. The shards surely slicing the undersides of his feet didn't slow the man down as he lunged for his youngest. "Shanelle, where have you been?"
Namine looked up, frightened, at her father, his large hands grasping tightly at her shoulders. "I was so worried! " The man's eyes began to spill with angry tears, and he held Namine's face in one hand and pushed his lips hard onto hers.
With practiced strength, Larxene was quick and effective to pull the large man off her sister. "Enough!" she yelled. "That's enough! Why did you come down?" she snarled at Namine.
"I thought he went outside! I heard the door."
"I took out the trash, idiot. Get upstairs," she said pushing the shorter blond in the direction of the stairs. Suddenly, she was roughly shoved into the wall.
"No! Don't take her from me!" Namine ran up the stairs and not seconds later, the bathroom door slammed shut. "Shanelle!"
"Will you cut it out?" Larxene growled as she stood back up.
"Sweetheart…"
The blonde shouted and karate chopped the wall she'd been thrown against. Beside her, the man who was her father began to cry and sob. So pathetic. He's a fuckin' grown man. Seriously, what the fuck? Pitiful. She sneered.
And yet, the same sharp twang ached her chest. "Fuck, man." Larxene wrapped an arm around her father's back. "Papi.. mom's gone, remember?"
"…My Shanelle."
"She's gone," she said, more resolutely, trying desperately not to fall back into the same rhythm this always took when her father drank and saw Namine, the spitting image of their mother. She was sick of this.
But what was it about seeing a parent cry that broke the hearts of their children?
"Come on. Let's sit you on the couch."
A stern man, numb to the world, sitting upright on the white and green couch cushions, Larxene fetched the broom and dustpan.
Marluxia had to use his skills in practical mathematics, aiming, and measuring strength, lest the rock he held break the window he was throwing it at. Four out of five were misses completely. Well, who said he should participate in gym? Even with his failures, the goal was still met. Blinds were peeked through and seconds later, Vexen appeared behind the opened front door.
Vexen with bedhead was completely giggle-worthy. "Is there a reason to this madness?"
"Mom. Dad. NOISE. Sleep. Headache." Marluxia pouted for good measure, but Vexen's eyes were barely open. The doorway was cleared for his welcome regardless and so hoorah.
Slipping off his shoes and locking the door behind him for his half-conscious friend, he followed him up to his room. "Thanks dude."
"Mmm."
Once inside the room, Marluxia dropped his bag onto the floor and Vexen dropped himself back into the cotton puddle of sheets and blankets.
"Where do I sleep?"
"I don't care," he grunted out from beneath the white pillow.
So stripping off his jeans and sweater and leaving him in his Diesel and white wife-beater, he climbed into bed next to Vexen. "Night, buddy."
Vexen snored.
End of Tuesday
Ahh, high school days. I swear a good chunk of the population all talked like Tidus.
Ahem, so what's up guys? Life's just been going for me but ye-hey I can still write 8D
To my long-time readers: I miss you! Tell me you're still out there -wistful face-
To my new readers: HI :D You guys are great!
Thank you to everyone for their continued support, and of course to my beta-partner LalaHachi who's been with me since the start :]
YHS
xDelfin
