I winced as I heard the sound of yet another door slam in our faces. "Damnit!" my lovely companian who went by the name "Terra" shouted as he punched the wall earning a shout from the lady inside, not that we understood her, "Terra-" I started only to be cut off "I know, I know, profanity is the refuge of the ignorant and uncreative," Terra recited. I smiled, happy he listened to me all those times "But dammit, I like the way it rolls off my tongue and I'm an adult, so if i want to fucking swear I will fucking swear! I don't need a little punk like you to tell me what I can and can't do!" he yelled in my general direction.
Ugh, i hate it when he gets like this, "You turned eighteen like, forty-eight hours ago, what the hell!" I retorted "Yeah? So I'm still an adult, and you just swore!" I rolled my eyes "Hell isn't exactly a swear word, Terra! And can we get off this porch, that lady is probably going to call the police!" Terra suddenly seemed to realize where we were and started walking down the path that led to the road.
"It's your fucking fault we ended up in this situation." Terra mumbled. Ah yes, the "situation". "If it were up to you we wouldn't have made it past the airport! We would have come all the way here just to go back," then I said in a much less irritated voice "could you please stop shouting now, I swear your anger is going to rub off on me."
Terra looked at me " Oh yeah, like you didn't throw a chair at Sora just because he "wouldn't stop talking" or almost broke a kids arm because they "wouldn't leave you alone", please you have it much worse than i do". I looked down, ashamed. Once Terra saw that he had hurt me he quickly backtracked "But its not like you can control it, don't worry no one blames you for it, and you know i'm only acting like this because I'm worried about you, as your big bro I have to protect you, Roxas!" Terra said with a big brotherly smile.
No Terra wasn't really my big brother, with his chocolate brown hair and blue eyes he reminded me more of my friend Sora and not even their related. The reason why Terra says that he's my "big bro", as he calls it is because when we first met, he protected me from this street gang(not that I needed it) and has been protecting me ever since. Of course, when people ask I just shrug, why? simply because i enjoy being an enigma. Terra had an interesting past, and when I say interesting I mean sad and deppressing. The reason why I said "goes by the name Terra" is because, well, we don't really know what his name is, hell, he doesn't even really know how old he is, but he acts pretty mature so... yeah. A few years ago i found him on the street singing and playing his guitar. And god his voice is beautiful, like an angel, but anyway i found him and my dad let him stay at our house after some convincing. I helped him get his life on track and they found out he's awesome at sports, he trained and went to the olympics in 2008(even though he wasn't exactly old enough if he's eighteen now, but since no one really knows his age they acted like he was old enough with fake papers and stuff, Riku's the best at that) and so far he has won a total of 20 gold medals. They call him the golden boy, in any event he's in he never gets less than a gold medal, this summer he's supposed to be in the 2012 olympics to help the U.S bring the gold home so later on we have to go to London. So all in all Terra is pretty awesome not only is he attractive he's interesting, and I love interesting people, but of course I only love Terra in a brotherly way. Speaking of which I guess the reason he feels so protective of me is because when I found him he was lost, just going through the motions of life and protecting me gave him purpose.
"And I didn't know Italians were such jerks." Terra added as an after thought. "Not all Italians are jerks, we just chose the wrong neighborhood" I corrected him with a sigh.
Yeah. That's right, we're in Italy. And why are two kids-yes i said kids, I refuse to call Terra an adult yet- who are supposed to be in germany visiting my mom, in Italy? Well it goes like this, I visit my mom and my step-dad every summer and occasionally in winter, this year I brought Terra because my mom said i could only go backpacking if i had a friend go with me.
She said i could go with my step dad, but it's still kind of awkward being around him and while im happpy that he showers my sister and I with gifts, I still don't think he's right for my mom. So when we arrived i was ready within the hour to start heading east, no I don't know where I'm going, but all I want to do is see and experience. This whole backpacking thing is really important to me, you see when I was younger my family traveled all the time. We moved every two years, then parents got divorced, and everything went to hell. Before that we were rich but then my mom got custody and things happened(mostly my dads fault) and we ended up living in North Carolina, U.S. My dad dropped off the map for a while earning him the title "Dead-Beat-Dad". Then my dad got custody, my mom got remarried and moved to Germany so when we visit her we can see the world, we being my sister, Larxene and I. Most people think my sister is unpleasant, she mostly is, but she has her moments.
So anyway the reason why backpacking is so important to me is because I want to see the world again and this time not only the tourist attractions, I wanna see everything, how people live, their views on life and everything. I believe that every experience you have even the tiniest one can change you for the better. I've had a lot of adventures in my life and they make for great stories to tell people, but i want to keep having new ones. So yeah that's it.
Or at least I thought it was. I had no idea what was going to happen when we finally set out(a day after I was ready due to Terra's jet lag, poor thing wasn't used to it), I had no idea we were going to get pickpocketed, lose our money and have to beg people to let us stay in their home for the night.
As we walked around looking for a place to stay the events that happened earlier that day were playing over and over again. Don't get me wrong, I don't dwell on things that I can't change, but there was something about the pickpocketing that I couldn't get out of my mind.
Red.
Earlier That Day
Terra and Roxas were sitting outside of a small family owned cafe a little north of Padova, Italy licking their gilatto happily. "You were right Roxas, gilatto is really good!" Terra announced "Glad you like it! I can't wait to get to Venice so we can ride on a gondola!" Roxas giggled. Roxas paused as he saw an old man struggling across the street. "Hold on Terra, here's five euros pay for our ice cream, I'll be right back." Roxas called out as he went across the street to help the elderly man. "Okay, you really are a saint, Roxas" Terra chuckled as he went inside to pay.
When Roxas got to the old man he asked him "Are you okay do you need help?" Then he remembered where he was. "Hai bisogno di aiuto?" he asked again in Italian. "Ah!" Roxas let out a suprised yelp as the man pushed him into an alleyway. Roxas thought quickly,'Oh God is he going to rape me! I don't want to be raped by an old person! Or any person! Okay Terra's inside so he won't hear me, I didn't see anyone out there, this isn't exactly the place for tourists and barely any locals since it was Sunday' but that didn't stop Roxas from screaming his heart out. The old man searched Roxas for something 'Probably my wallet'. He cursed himself for not leaving it with Terra.
"Damn stop yelling, I could hear you from a mile away" Roxas flinched involuntarily to the swear word, and looked up only to find the old man looking around too. Then suddenly the old man was thrown off of him. He ran away thankfully without Roxas' wallet, revealing his saviour, the guy looked a little older than Roxas was and stood at an incredible height, to Roxas at least, but what really stood out to him was his bright red hair and acid green eyes.
"Hey shorty, shouldn't you be in church?" the moment was ruined by the redheads question. Roxas fumed, he knew he was short, but he didn't need that guy to throw it in his face! "Shut up!" Roxas yelled. "Okay, okay no need to bite my head off, I know your a tourist, why else would I be talking to you in english?" the redhead said in a bored tone. "Whatever, I know how to speak Italian anyway" Roxas was becoming more and more annoyed with his 'savior' "Yes, but a local would know not to go up to a person they don't know, it's dangerous." "I was only trying to help." Roxas said in a pathetic voice. "Well thats sweet of you, but I'll give you some advice: trust no one." his 'saviour' said with a smirk. "That's terrible advice, I can trust lots of people! For all the bad people there are twice as many good people." Roxas said firmly. "Suit yourself. Ciao!" and just like that the redhead was gone... and so was his wallet.
End Flasback
Needless to say Terra was pissed, not entirely at me, at the old man and the mysterious redhead too. As I continued to think about it I wasn't that angry anymore. I was one thing, though, and that was intrigued. I had a thing for wierd and interesting people, that was why I had a brief crush on Namine, a girl who was in his class who claimed whatever she drew came to life, and a ton of other people I didn't really remember. So when I thought about that guy with the bright red hair and acid green eyes one thing came to mind: I had to know him.