(Roxas's POV)
I was up early that morning searching for my swim shorts and a towel. Eventually I managed to find them within the deep dark depths or my closet. It's safe to say I need to clean out my room, badly.
A quick icy cold shower and dressing later I was out the door and on the bus to Downtown. The sidewalks were nearly empty, except for a save few morning commute people like myself. There was plenty of traffic though with businessmen and women inching along to their respective building and agency.
Though I normally didn't hang out in Northeast as much as Northwest or Southeast, Starkies was fairly nearby. I finally came upon Starkies, another one of those small, local coffee shops, though Starkies was legendary for its famously delicious waffles. I heard somewhere that the original owner and founder of the place named it after his favorite character in the popular 70's crime fighting show, but he misspelled the name, and before he could correct it to Starsky's, Starkies was stuck for good.
Inside, the place was fairly large, larger than Lucy's by all means, but it was still somewhat small. It wasn't hard to find Shiro and the others. They sat in a booth in the corner, one of those big ones, you know? So far there was only four people there: Shiro, Ashe, Ahna, and Yuffie Kirasagi, a girl in the year above me, and a self proclaimed ninja. She often hangs out with Leon, Cloud, and Aerith, all of which are incoming seniors. Riku could've been a senior, but his birthday was after the cut-off date, so he's stuck being on of the oldest juniors.
"Roxas!" they waved to me to come join them.
"Am I late?" I asked as I sat down on the end next to Yuffie.
"Nope," Yuffie replied.
"We're still waiting for Connor and Seth," Ahna finished for her. "They should be here soon, though."
A waitress came by and took our orders- nearly everyone got waffles. A few minutes later a tan boy walked inside. Everything about him, form the way he stood to how he dressed screamed athlete, but like jock athlete, but the kind of athlete who was good, but not a varsity player. He walked over to our booth and laid a hand on Ahna's shoulder.
"Oh, hey Connor," she greeted him as he slid down next to her. "Thought you were going to ditch us."
"That wouldn't be very nice if I ditched you after not seeing you for so long, Ahna," he said and lightly kissed hero n the cheek. "Did you get sunburned again?" She laughed sheepishly and nodded slightly.
"How was Montreal?" Ashe asked.
Connor waved his hand nonchalantly. "Oh, same old, same old. Not really any different than here, except at least there's some sun here."
Suddenly Yuffie remembered I was here and introduced us to eachother.
"Connor, this is Roxas Inaya. And Roxas, this is Connor Matthews."
Just then the waitress came by with our orders. She asked Connor if he wanted anything, but he politely refused. He ended up eating some of Ahna's instead.
Finally, the man we've all been waiting for, Ashe's brother, Seth, came to pick us up and drive us to Hagg Lake, where we were going to go boating. We all managed to cram into his Suburban. It took about an hour to get there, then another ten minutes to get the boat ready and to cast off.
At first we just sped around, then the tubes were broken out. There were two of them to attach to the boat, so Ahna and Ashe went first. Seth went fast and did all sorts of sharp twists and turns, until eventually Ashe was thrown off. We all went at least once, some as many as four times. Even Seth went once, while Ahna drove
After a lunch of sandwiches provided by Seth, we started wakeboarding. It was fun and it lasted a long time. But soon we stopped the boat and bobbed on the water. Immediately Connor and Shiro snuck up on Yuffie and threw her in.
"HEY!" she shouted at them, while we all laughed.
Suddenly Ahna and Ashe shoved me in after Yuffie. I playfully splashed them in retaliation. While Ahna was distracted Connor lifted her up from around the waist. Despite her protests, he tossed her in, but Ahna grabbed his arms and dragged him down with her.
"You're coming down with me!" she laughed.
In the meantime, Shiro was trying to throw Ashe in, when Seth suddenly picked them both up like they were nothing and tossed them in. He dove in shortly after us.
I have to admit. I had a great time with them. They were the kind of crowd that could do anything at any given moment, like when Ahna, Ashe, and Yuffie tried to drive off with the boat and leave us behind. Don't worry, we boarded before they managed to successfully commandeer the boat.
On the ride home, most of us slept. Yuffie, who was riding shotgun, was chatting with Seth about whatever. Ashe, Shiro and I were in the middle row. Ashe was resting her head on Shiro, who was leaning against the window. In the back seat, Connor and Ahna were sleeping, with each other's heads resting on each other's. Eventually, I felt asleep against the window.
Today was fun. I really enjoyed myself. After we got back to Portland, I got everyone's cell phone numbers, which I wrote on a piece of paper that had pretty much everyone's numbers I knew, which made it quite extensive. We said our goodbyes and went our separate ways.
I met up with Sora at our favorite Thai restaurant, Pad Thai Kitchen. A satisfying dinner later, we went home. Dad was gone, which was good, because then we could watch some TV. We were up past twelve watching a CSI marathon- The good CSI, not Miami or New York, the good old original Las Vegas one, with Jorja Fox, the love of my life.
The he came home. Immediately, Sora and I made to rush upstairs. But Dad wanted another beer, and he wanted it now. But his problem was that he was already so drunk that he could barely stand.
"Boy!" he barked at me, "Gemme anuther beer."
Sora and I looked at each other which boy was he talking to? We could've asked him, but the half-empty bottle smashing on the wall next to me made me rush into the kitchen and grab the first six-pack of Budweiser I could find in the fridge.
When I went back into the living room to give him his beer, he snatched the cans from me and threw one at me like a fastball. I blocked it with my arms, but it still hurt.
"GOD DAMNIT BOY!" he snarled. "Can you do anything right? I wanted the bottles, but you brought me the cans! Are you fucking retarded?"
"You didn't say what you wanted, sir," I said more calmly than I felt. In truth, I was starting to panic. Today had been so good so far; I didn't want Dad to ruin it.
Not staying to listen to his response, I went back into the kitchen and grabbed some beer bottles. I tossed them unceremoniously on the couch next to Dad and started upstairs. Suddenly something hard shattered on my back, drenching the back of my shirt, and bits of glass embedded themselves into my skin.
I met Sora at the top of the stairs. He gave me a sympathetic look, which I replied to with a weak smile.
"It's okay," I told him. "It's just a bottle."
Sora still shook his head, the brown locks swaying in the motion. "Bastard," he muttered, sending a hateful glare down the stairs even though he knew Dad couldn't see him.
"I'm going to shower and then go to bed," I said, stretching my arms.
"Relaxing on a boat all day sure is tiring, huh?" he replied with a playful shove.
"You bet."
I then went into the bathroom and started up the shower. I peeled off my now beer soaked shirt and the rest of my clothing. With some difficulty, I picked out the shards of glass that got stuck in my skin and then stepped under the running water. I hissed slightly at the hot temperature and turned it down a bit.
'Why does he hate me so much?'
I snorted as I shampooed my hair. I knew damn well why. It's because of the accident. We never talked about it. Not since the day we came home from the hospital with Sora and me in tears and Dad so indifferent that it seemed all the worse. He drank a lot that night. It was the first time that I had ever seen him drink anything alcoholic, and it was by far not the last. It wasn't until after the funeral, did he turn violent.
I remember the first time he looked on me with those angry eyes, his face aged so much within a few days that he couldn't have recognizable as the loving, if rough around the edges father who'd give his sons piggyback rides and wrestle with them. He was no longer the man who'd envelop me in a massive bear hug whenever he came home from work, instead, he'd sooner strangle me to death than show any signs of affection towards Sora or me.
But I still always asked myself why. Why would he hate me so much? It wasn't as if I had caused the collision. I wasn't me driving. It wasn't Mom's fault. It wasn't Sora's either. It was no one's fault really. Maybe that's why he hated us, so that he could have something to blame, an excuse for his actions, to release his emotions. The alcohol, the drugs, and the hookers he occasionally brought home… it was all a way for him to try to forget his pain. The only thing preventing him from forgetting completely was what was left of his family, Sora and me.
After the shower, and the difficult bandaging of the cuts on my back, I draped my beer soaked shirt over the back of my desk chair and belly flopped on to my bed, the angst thoughts still swirling in my head. I buried my face in the pillow and took a deep breath. I focused instead on the good things of the day: the day at the lake, dinner with Sora at Pad Thai, and watching CSI.
With those playing over in my brain, my eyes drooped and the fast pace of my thoughts began to slow down, eventually slipping into sub consciousness as I fell asleep.
Got a little emo there at the end… hey at least I didn't make him cut himself or something like that. ;
In case you didn't notice, there's going to be a lot of OCs in this, but only a couple are going to play a big role. And I guess I should have you note that Ashe and Shiro are together and Ahna and Connor are together too. All of which are mine except for Shiro, whom I created, but belongs to Auroramoon101
And I'm not sure if I've already said this previously, but most of the characters are going to go through multiple crushes and relationships before I'm done with this fic. I want to make it as realistic as possible, so there's going to be a fair few crack pairings for a while like Kairi and Tidus and such.
And looking back on the previous chapters I noticed that I said that Sora and Roxas were 15, they're actually 16 since their going to be juniors. I'll get around to fixing it someday…