"What time is it?" Roxas asked, as himself and Sora wandered around downstairs, following Tidus' voice to the pool.
Sora checked his watch. "About noon," he said, pushing open the door that led to the pool. The two of them stood just inside, taking stock of the large room of glass and cement. The rectangular pool dominated the center of the room, with a diving board at the far end. A projection screen hung from the ceiling on the right side of the pool, and Sora and Roxas could see benches inside the water to sit on while a show was enjoyed on the screen. It made sense, Tidus not only being rich but on the blitz ball team, to have such a commodity in his own house.
Roxas folded his arms across his chest. "Great, then. Only ten more hours of torture," he remarked sarcastically.
"Isn't it cool? Now that everyone knows about Stiff-Oh anyway, I should throw a pool party, huh?" Tidus' voice echoed loudly in the glass room.
"That would be way cool!" Sora said excitedly. Roxas just rolled his eyes. He had to say, though, he really admired Sora's patience with people.
"So, there's a bathroom in the far left corner. If you go inside, you'll find a laundry chute to put your uniforms in, and there should be something laid out for you that's more suitable for cleaning the pool."
"Ew…cleaning the pool?" Sora said, without thinking. He looked into the water as they walked by. Actually, it didn't look that dirty. Still, he'd never cleaned a pool before so he figured it could be ew.
"Oh, suck it up, Sora. We'll probably get to swim?" Roxas patted him heartily on the back, pushing him into the bathroom. It was an interesting affair, with one stall and one sink. The other half of the room was made entirely of tile and appeared to have showerheads that protruded from the ceiling and walls.
"Laundry chute," Roxas informed Sora, lifting up the little door and peering inside. It went directly into what looked like the maid's room on the other side of the wall. Roxas fumbled to untie his apron. "I'm glad to get out of this stupid thing. Thank goodness no one had to see us in them."
"Aww, but it was just so cute on you. You do frills very well," Sora teased, untying his apron and taking it off.
Roxas tried to frown at him, but it didn't really work. Instead he just wadded up the apron and threw it at him. "Oh shut up," was all he managed to say, and Sora just chuckled.
Once the two boys were standing around in their underwear, they took a look around the bathroom. "So uh…where are these swim trunks or whatever?" Sora asked, opening the door to the toilet and looking in, for good measure.
Roxas spotted two towels laid out on a bench. He approached them and picked up one of the two black garments on top. "And I thought Axel was a pervert," he said, holding the spandex item out to Sora. "It looks like girls panties for men to swim in."
Sora took the black speedo from him. "Wow. You're right. I don't…really want to wear it." He almost added 'especially in front of you', but instead just started turning a little red.
Roxas made a face, wondering if all his…assets would even fit inside the thing. He pulled at it and stretched it. "Me either," he decided, looking around. "Well I doubt he has a camera in here, since that's probably somehow illegal. He's not gonna know if we don't put it on."
Sora rolled his eyes. "He'll know as soon as we go out there, then he'll lock us inside the pool until we do it. Not to mention," he pointed at the laundry chute, "any other clothes we had are in there now."
Roxas stretched the underwear thing angrily. The last thing he wanted, or needed, was for things to once again get awkward with Sora, when they had seemed to be slowly going back to normal. He heard Sora sigh and looked over at him. He was trying to figure out which of the sides was the front, and Roxas watched his hand go slowly to the waistband of his boxers, where he slid his fingers inside and started pushing them down.
Sora looked up from the sorry excuse for a bathing suit for a second, and saw Roxas' eyes fixated on his nearly exposed hip. "Well, aren't you going to put it on?! Geeze!" he turned his back on Roxas, trying to avoid blushing to his ears.
Roxas turned his back on Sora. "Sorry! Geeze…it's not…that big of a deal. I mean…aren't we practically brothers or something?" They did live in the same house and all.
Sora let his undergarment fall to the floor and stepped out of it, clumsily pulling on the speedo. "Gross! Don't say that. We are NOT brothers." It was slightly uncomfortable, the speedo. Sora had to adjust himself a few times before it felt okay.
Roxas sort of stood there for a second, trying to decipher what that meant. He felt way overly exposed in the thing, mostly in the way of his legs and ass. He turned around slowly and stared at Sora's back, forcing his eyes to his back and not his bottom. "I thought…brothers were like, really close, and wanted to look out for each other, and lived together, and were similar in appearance. I don't really see how that's gross." Roxas had never had siblings before, he didn't really know what it was supposed to be like, brothers and sisters. He still had a hard time separating how he felt about certain people over other people.
Sora turned around and took Roxas' arm, pulling him out of the bathroom. "Well, that stuff isn't gross but…its kind of hard to explain. You don't feel the same way about a brother as you do about…not a brother." He could see where this was going and although it wasn't such a bad idea, he just wondered how to tactfully go there.
"I love Riku," Sora stated, and Roxas appeared to look really confused. "I love Kairi, too. But, that's because Kairi and Riku are like my brother and sister. I love them the same way I love my Mom. Not like the way I told you about before."
"The heart beating fast way?" Roxas recalled their short conversation in line for the roller coaster.
Sora nodded. "The heart beating fast, funny stomach twinge, can't stop staring, want to kiss them and hold them, intense sexual tension, want to touch every part of their body, wish you could sleep next to them every night and wake up tangled up in them every morning, want to give them everything they want and make them happy…"
Roxas interrupted him "Sora?"
Sora sort of laughed. "Sorry, I rambled. You get it?" He let go of Roxas' arm.
Roxas stopped Sora just outside the bathroom, running over the things that Sora had said in his mind, recalling a few of them as familiar, things he'd said himself before. He'd learned that it wasn't necessarily a good idea to take literally, or over analyze things that Sora tried to teach him, because the way his brain worked was different than all other humans in society. Roxas was starting to learn how Sora's brain worked, though. "You know…I think I'm starting to. I…" he looked down at himself and Sora, turning away quickly. "Don't want to have this conversation while we're both dressed in…uh…NOT dressed…half naked. Let's clean the pool?"
"GREAT idea, guys! You like the suits I picked out? Pretty hott, huh?" The two speedo-clad boys looked up at the projection screen to see Tidus relaxing on a lounge chair, lemonaid in hand.
They gaped. "How the…what the…where the hell even are you?" Roxas asked, checking around the room. Sora walked to the other side of the pool and looked behind the screen. He shrugged. Tidus wasn't actually in the room at all.
"Cleaning closet is behind you, Roxas," Tidus informed him, taking a sip of his drink. There was even a little umbrella in it. Roxas turned around and opened the closet, only to be confronted with a bunch of stuff that he didn't understand. Large jugs of crap and hoses and poles and nets. Roxas pulled one of the poles off the walls with a net on the end and inspected it. He turned around to see Sora with his head cocked to the side, staring at the projection. "I don't get it! How is he on a tropical beach? We just saw him on the balcony!"
Roxas sort of half smiled. "Sora! Get over here!"
"Kay!" Sora said, coming over to where Roxas was. "Look, here's the instructions. Get the ladybug and turn it on, and put it in the pool. The switch is on the side blah blah blah…what's the ladybug?" They looked down at a robotic little thing that had the appearance of a vacuum disguised as a ladybug. The two boys spent the next few minutes trying to figure out how to turn it on, then pushing it in the pool. It crawled along the walls and floor, cleaning the ick and sucking it into the ladybug, through the hose and back into the room it had been housed in. Sora crouched at the edge of the pool watching the ladybug crawl around. Roxas stood at the edge watching Sora. He was amused by the tiniest things.
"You gonna go in?" Roxas asked, and Sora looked up at him. After several moments, Sora continued to look up at him, with a sort of loopy half smile like he'd seen a very large cake he really wanted and was now daydreaming about it.
Roxas looked up at Tidus, who was busy reading a comic book. He was perfectly capable of giving them a little privacy now and again. "Can I push him in?"
Tidus looked up from his comic book. "Oh, yeah. Have some fun. You can be in the pool with the cleaner, it'll shut off when its done. Takes like a half hour at least."
Roxas started to approach Sora, who appeared to begin coming to his senses. "Huh? Oh, hey, what's going on? Rox-" but Roxas put one bare foot on his back and pushed, sending Sora toppling into the pool.
"You should come swim with us," Roxas suggested, partially because it would be fun and partially because he wanted to wring Tidus' neck. Tidus shrugged and got up from his chair. "Ah, no. I've got a few things to do," he grinned and the screen went black.
Sora broke the surface of the water, grinning. "Tidus said we can just hang out for a while," Roxas told him, coming around to the side of the pool where the stairs were. He looked down at the water and finally walked in, stopping when it reached his chest. After a moment, he paddled around a bit. Alright, swimming was totally easy. He'd never been, but he didn't figure it was hard. You just stayed above the water.
"This is kind of nice. See? Tidus wasn't being totally evil after all," Sora pointed out, swimming around lazily. Roxas watched him float by. After a while of sloshing around in the pool, Roxas pulled himself out and sat on the side. Sora paddled over to where he was, noting that the ladybug was still going. "Hey…what's that?" he asked, pointing to a door with a small glass window in it. He pulled himself out of the pool and padded over there, Roxas getting up to follow.
Sora opened the door with ease. The room smelled of Eucalyptus and had cement flooring, with two tiers of wooden benches attached to the walls. There was a pitcher of water sitting on one of the benches and a pedestal with rocks on it in the middle of the room. "I think it's a sauna," Sora said, inspecting the dials on the outside of the door.
"A what?" Roxas asked, not understanding at all what the room was for. Sora turned one of the dials and pushed Roxas inside. It was dim, and Roxas sat down on one of the benches tentatively. Sora shut the door and sat down across from him. They simply waited.
"Does it do anything?" Roxas asked, thinking this was probably something like Sora's lava lamp that he'd need to wait patiently for.
"It heats up and when it starts feeling too dry, you pour water on the rocks," Sora explained. "Don't worry, I turned the temperature really low."
"Right," Roxas said, not feeling assured.
"I heard its good for your skin?" Sora shrugged a little. There was a knock at the door and they both looked over to see a familiar blonde waving at them through the window.
"It's Tidus!" Sora said, going over to the door. He heard a click and looked down, trying the door handle. "Oh no…" he said, pulling on it.
"Why oh no?" Roxas asked, coming to join him at the door. Sora strained to look out. "He locked us in!"
"WHAT?!" Roxas asked, batting Sora's hand away and pulling on the handle. "That bastard!"
Tidus waved again and pointed up. Sora didn't really get it, so he pointed up again and waved his hand in front of his face like a fan.
Sora banged on the door. "Shit, he's turning the temperature up," he said frantically.
Roxas' mouth gaped. Sora never swore, so this must be bad. "Is he trying to kill us?!" He proceeded to bang on the door with Sora, only to watch Tidus give them a thumbs up and walk away.