Ĉђąρτεŕ ƒίvε – Ëăŕł Ḡŗεγ Tεą

Earl: (noun) A British Nobleman whose rank is below that of a marquis and above that of a viscount.
Grey: (noun) Variant of 'gray'. An achromatic colour of any lightness between the extremes of black and white.
Tea: (noun) A bitter, aromatic beverage that is prepared by immersing dried and prepared leaves of a Camellia sinensis shrub in hot water.
Earl Grey Tea: (noun) Leon's favourite hot beverage. Despite being the manager of a coffee bar, he insists that he hates the taste of coffee with a passion.

"They Said We Were Made Of Awesomeness."

So, there they sat, around one of the small café tables, the four of them – Squall I-Am-Actually-Leon-Do-Not-Question-Me Leonhart, Cloud I-Am-Not-A-Party-Goer Strife, Axel I-Like-Oreo-Cookies-in-Milk Onér and Demyx I-Think-Chocolate-Beats-Vanilla-Hands-Down! Aeco. Larxene was still pretty much shooting them scornful looks in their direction every few minutes, but they paid no heed to her strange antics and treated her like disregarded furniture. Why? Because there was a little Truth or Dare competition heating up at their table.

Of course, the participants were decidedly in emotional turmoil.

Cloud was still wondering whether Leon had hit his head on something sometime in the past ten minutes somehow (maybe it was the Starbucks beverage that made him go all strange, but Cloud doubted it) because seriously, a composed, demure, dignified guy like him couldn't possibly want to be part of this retarded children's game (even if not doing so may cause side effects such as certain redheads calling him 'chicken' for the rest of his life). Man, this had to be some sort of sick joke. Leon had just resigned himself to a silly high school teenage girl pastime! Cloud shook his head in disapproval, muttered "poor bastard" under his breath then looked over to the only other blond at the table, who seemed to be bobbing his head up and down merrily, subjecting his meticulously gelled-up hair to a sudden and inconvenient torture.

Demyx was smiling a happy, serene smile. There was no doubt here. The rocker kid was in a good mood tonight. Of course, the whole damn purpose of the let's close The Fix early and have a boy's night out! plan was to get Demyx to cheer up after the unfortunate (but very funny) Oops I Dropped Your Mocha incident that took place that afternoon. It had been his first day on the job and despite that particular disaster, the punkster was starting to feel that his decision to take up the job offer at The Fix was a good one. He could already see that he was going to be great friends with his co-workers. Surely. Just look at how his boss was being such a good sport at his suggestion of game choice! What a supportive fellow!

Leon? He didn't quite care about the game, really. Quite on the contrary. The man just didn't want to be christened 'chicken' (or any other type of feathered fowl for that matter) for the rest of his life. So he set his face to Bring It On, Bitch and looked defiantly back at Axel.

The redhead was hyped. No, really. He was totally keyed up and running on a boatload of caffeine, grinning like he had just been offered a prestigious spot as an extra in one of Shakira's music videos. It was a creepy grin that was accentuated by his dual teardrop tattoos, crimson broom-head hair and sharp pointed teeth. It was the type of grin that would have scared little kids into comas.

Demyx spoke first, since everyone seemed to have been lost in their own little fantasy world for a few moments. He twirled a finger daintily in the air and finally pointed in the general direction of Leon. "Okay. Since you're so desperate to prove yourself of your manliness, why don't you go first? Truth or dare?"

Everyone shifted in their seats slightly for the session was now officially in motion. No one had to ask if the others were game. Axel was obviously in, and so was Demyx. Cloud couldn't escape the vicious circle and he damn well knew it. Axel would never let him live it down if he sat out. So he tried to act just a liiittle more interested, for the hell of it. Besides, this had the potential to turn out somewhat amusing (if not humiliating and life-ruining).

There was a slight pause on Leon's behalf as he mulled over his very short list of options for a moment. Then, Cloud heard him mutter something like 'truth' and the blond couldn't help but snort.

Axel went one better and laughed out loud. "Oooh… truth. Very manly, Leon. Very, very manly."

Leon glowered at both Cloud and Axel for a split second, then shrugged casually as though refusing to be ruffled by this silly contest. "Alright," he said. "Fine. I'll do both for this round. Truth and dare."

Cloud blinked. Was that even allowed? Axel gave a low whistle, somewhat impressed by Leon's sudden show of nerve and bravado (and maybe idiocy, but you can be the judge of that). "Wow, plucky little gutsy punk tonight, aren't we?" The redhead's grin widened as he wondered to himself how far he could push the boss before his calm, cool and collected exterior started to crack.

And then Demyx was bouncing excitedly in his chair, a hand half-raised in the air. "Ooh, ooh! I have a truth question to ask him! May I? May I?" he exclaimed with bright shiny eyes, looking to Axel, and then to Cloud, and then to Axel once more. Somehow, Cloud was reminded of the Energizer Bunny. Either that or a puppy on cocaine and a lot of sugar-filled products.

Axel shrugged. "Okay. Ask away. But I'm coming up with his dare. No questions asked," he said smirkingly as he took a sip of his drink (Starbucks… The Freshmaker. We Live to Deliver. It's Finger Lickin' Good. I'm Lovin' It. Just Do It. Insert Famous Slogan Here.).

"Sweet!" Demyx looked back at Leon. "Okay, here's your truth question. And don't give us some bogus answer, yeah?" The kid glared in something like a semi-threatening manner, if not for the fact that his ridiculously bizarre hair made him look nothing remotely close to threatening. "Do you, sir, have a girlfriend? Like, are you going out with someone?" he demanded. Hah! Demyx's inner self pumped a non-existent fist in the air triumphantly. At last, the shining moment of truth has dawned!

Leon raised an eyebrow. "… What?"

Demyx repeated his question as though the man was deaf. Which he was not. He heard it the first time.

Leon sighed. "Who told you I was… What gave you the impression…?" he huffed, crossed his arms, almost pouted (but remembered just in time that he had so much more poise and self-respect than to do something so lowly and inane), before muttering, "I'm not going out with anyone."

"LIES!" Demyx accused, pointing his Finger of Accusal for effect. "Axel said you've been making secret, covert phone calls and stuff. That could only mean you've got some sort of secret, covert love interest."

Axel looked at Cloud. "You know, I think Dem may be on to something."

Cloud rolled his eyes. Well if he is, then that's a good thing, he told himself. At least then I'd know he's not as dense and stupid as I initially thought… Then again, Axel himself could be pretty air-headed without trying too hard. The blond scrunched his face up tightly. Morons.

Demyx, meanwhile, was relentless and ruthless. "Who did you call this afternoon when you walked out of The Fix? Huh? Huuuuuh?"

Leon looked at Demyx with an expression of utter bewilderment. Then, he narrowed his eyes and looked at all of them in suspicion (including Cloud, who was looking elsewhere with a bored expression on his face), suddenly realising that his employees had been talking (and possibly conspiring, gossiping and/or scandalizing) about him behind his back. "It was a business call," he sniffed disdainfully, "And you people had better not be eavesdropping on any of my phone conversations." He turned back to Demyx stiffly, face straight. "To answer your question quite bluntly, no, I'm not seeing anyone. If you haven't noticed, I've been too busy manning a coffee bar to have a decent relationship with someone. I mean, I practically live in The Fix," he said, trying to force back a growl.

"Okay, okay. Fine, we believe you," Cloud grated, annoyed all of a sudden. "Jesus. Stop defending yourself. Who'd want to go out with you anyway? You're not even all that good looking." And that was a lie, of course, because Cloud knew Leon was about fifteen times more attractive than himself. It was his cold-hearted bitch demeanour that detracted from his appeal.

Leon's eyes flashed dangerously and his grip on his mug of hot tea tightened considerably.

Cloud went on like a drunkard, ranting and raving and scowling. "And if you haven't noticed, Mr. I Live A Busy Life – which I'm quite sure you have, but hey, I'll be empathetic to your lack of awareness – Axel and I man the bar too," he said in a voice that seemed to accuse Leon of taking away any form of normality in his life. "Full-time," the blond added vehemently. "Not part-time like the new kid."

Tension hung in the air for a quite a few moments after that.

Demyx laughed nervously and fiddled around with his half-filled cup of chai latte on the table and tentatively lifted it up to his cupid bow lips to take a small swig. Concealed hostility could be sensed as it sizzled in the air electrifyingly. Until Axel suddenly screamed out of the blue (okay, he didn't scream, because that would only give Larxene an excuse to throw them all out – but it was close enough).

"LEONHART! YOUR DARE IS TO KISS CLOUD. FOR FIVE WHOLE SECONDS."

Demyx would have successfully sprayed everyone with chai latte had he not conveniently choked in mid-sip of his drink.

Silence. Choke. Cough. Hack. Wheeze. Egads, I'm dying! More silence.

And then Cloud exploded. "AXEL!" he snarled, "What the hell? I don't get a say in the dare?! Okay, that's it. I want out. RIGHT. NOW."

Demyx started giggling insanely once he'd managed to clear his windpipe.

"You can't back out!" Axel exclaimed. "This isn't your dare, you goof. It's Leon's. You're just a tool in this operation."

A tool?! There was a lot of spluttering and objecting coming from the blond. And before the situation could end in Axel rolling on the floor clutching his groin in agony, Leon half-rose out of his seat in calm, wordless silence, leaned across the table and planted a tiny five-second kiss on the Cloud's left cheek.

Cloud was frozen in mid-IHATEYOUYOUMUSTDIENOWAXEL-speech.

"No! Hey! What the cherry blossom apple pie was that supposed to be?!" Axel gaped.

"You didn't say where," Leon explained, his voice monotonous as he sat down again. Clearly, he wasn't very aware that he had kind of broken Cloud's brain with something equivalent to a sledgehammer.

Axel was frowning. "Damn. I should've made it clear. Kiss him on the damn mouth. Crap. You're never going to pick 'dare' again, are you?" he muttered, "Blast. What a waste." And he couldn't even call Leon a chicken anymore because technically, he performed the dare fair and square.

Demyx cheered. "That was adorable!" He took his 3.5 megapixel Samsung D900 camera phone out of his pocket, pushed some random buttons rapidly and held it up. "Do it again! It would make the most awesomest picture ever!"

At this, Cloud's brain had finally pieced itself back together and started to work again.

He stood, his chair dragging across the ground with an ominous screeeeeeech.

"Excuse me," he said icily to them, expression distant. He was totally avoiding any sort of eye contact with Leon as though his boss didn't exist in this tangible world any longer. "I have to visit the restroom." To plot all your murders. "And put your phone away," he growled at Demyx, disgusted.

He stalked off in a random direction, presumably to where he thought the toilets were.

"Ooooooh," Demyx oohed. "I think he's angry." He shrugged. "That was still pretty cool, though." And he grinned at Leon. "That was bold. Honestly, I didn't expect you to do it."

Leon shrugged. "Well I'm not a damn chicken and you know it."

"But now Cloud's going to hate you. And all of us."

Axel waved a hand in the air nonchalantly, clearly unconcerned. He knew Cloud during his high school years. The silly blond would get over something like that in like two minutes flat. "Don't you worry about him. He may be a party pooper, but he comes around pretty quick. Anyways… Demyx! Truth or dare?"

"Ah. Umm… Dare, I guess…"

"You sure?"

"Yup."

"Okay, hotshot. Go up to Larxene and ask her for her bra size."

Two minutes later…

Axel was astonished and perplexed as Demyx came back from the counter where, just moments ago, he'd been talking to Larxene. The redhead was bewildered. Demyx didn't look… well, dead. "Did you get it?" he asked him curiously, still unsure as to why Demyx hadn't been slapped or assaulted by the Starbucks bitch.

"Oui, mon confrère," Demyx nodded in affirmative, but he was looking a little baffled and disoriented. "That and more," he mumbled awkwardly, producing a paper napkin with the Starbucks logo emblazoned across it along with some black Sharpie scribbles that looked suspiciously like numbers. "I got her number too. She insisted that I call her." He waved the napkin in front of their faces and made a gagging noise.

Leon smirked a little maliciously. "Maybe we should use that number to prank her. I still need to get her back for calling The Fix a hole in the ground."

Axel stared at Leon for a few seconds. "Riiiiiiight. Okay. You come up with the weirdest ideas, man." And he turned to Demyx, who was taking his seat. "Damn, that Larx is one crazy lady."

Demyx shrugged. "She was actually quite nice to me."

"Because she wants to eat you, dumbass. Why do you think she gave you her number?"

"Huh. You have a point," Demyx conceded, then laughed uneasily and shredded the napkin under the table discreetly, littering the floor with its tatters.

"Where's Strife?"

"Maybe he got lost."

But no, he didn't get lost. And Cloud came back a minute later, looking noticeably more tranquil and relaxed. He even looked a little happier than normal. Which was very not normal.

"Hey guess what?" the blond said loudly, holding up a rectangular piece of paper. "I found fifty bucks on the floor in one of the restroom cubicles."

Everyone just sort of stared at him. Axel turned to Demyx and Leon. "See? Told ya he'd come around."

"Axel, truth or dare?"

"Truth. For now."

"Okay…" Demyx racked his brains for something to ask the redhead. "Hmm… Well, er, are you ever going to settle down and I dunno, get married?"

Leon and Cloud snorted. Was that supposed to be a question you posed to somebody like Axel?

The redhead tched and pursed his lips thoughtfully. "Well… I don't know if I'm ready to do something so silly as to get married. Although I do know that if I ever do, it's not gonna be with some plastic Barbie doll chick with flashy peroxide hair, I can tell you that. They're just so… one-dimensional. And too… girly."

"Alright, alright. We get it. You're not straight."

"I prefer to be known as bisexual, because I do look at ladies occasionally. But yeah, I guess I'm not totally straight as an arrow."

"So long as you're not trisexual, we're fine," Leon said dryly.

"Cloud? Truth or dare? Wait… I don't even have to ask. What's your sexual preference? And don't you lie to us."

"I'm straight."

"Wow. No complications there," Demyx laughed.

Cloud nodded, but there was this weird irksome feeling that was starting to develop in his head that troubled him somewhat.

"Leon?"

"Truth."

"Bastard. Pick 'dare' again, goddammit!"

"Whatever."

"Gah! Fine. Why the hell did you pick such an unoriginal, unproductive name to replace Squall?"

"… I didn't know what to change it too. Leon sounded normal enough. I just wanted a regular, common, household name. Not something like… Squall."

"I quite like the name Squall," Demyx quipped.

"Yeah. It's got character, or whatever," Axel added his two cents worth, "I mean, at least you can find it in the dictionary. Unlike Leon."

"Dem?"

"Truth."

At this, Cloud jumped at his first chance.

"Just how are you and Leonhart related?" the blond demanded a little too harshly.

Demyx looked startled, then glanced at Leon with an embarrassed, sheepish smile. "Uhhhh… If you really must know," he murmured, "about seven months back, I met Leon at a Birthday Massacre concert. I had two backstage passes – special clearance and all that jazz – cuz I'm so leet and I've got connections to Very Important People. Aaanyway, my mate from M.T. couldn't make it with me, so I sort of just walked up to any old random dude in the crowd, who turned out to be Leon, and asked him if he wanted to come meet the Birthday Massacre people backstage. He was pretty stoked about it and said yes and we, uh, we hit off from there."

"Oh."

"What's Empty?" Axel asked.

"You mean M.T.? Mismatched Thirteen. My band I formed at college."

"Hmm… What's leet?"

"… Er, no clue. I learnt it over the internet."

"Ax?"

"Dare."

The four got kicked out of the café after that. Not by Larxene, but by some other guy whose name tag read: Seifer Almasy. He really didn't like it that the redhead had attempted to carve something like 'Starbucks sux, Caffeine Fixation Pride Foreva!' into the table with his pocket knife.

It was almost 9:00PM. The four of them leisurely ambled down the narrow Darcia Lane in the semi-darkness. At least with the sun gone, Summer wasn't so bad.

"Well, that was fun," Demyx said, swinging his arms in the air cheerfully, the shiny bracelet chains around his wrists glinting against the street's lamplights.

"Yeah, fun. Until Axel actually went through with his stupid dare and got us banned from that place for five months," Cloud retorted sarcastically.

"Hey, at least I managed to get half my message engraved into the table."

"It said 'Starebacks Sex'…"

"Close enough!"

"Guys, shut up!"

There was a noise coming from Leon's pocket. The lyrics "Maybe I'm a lion" resounded loudly, followed by some hardcore rock music. And then his pants started to vibrate. No, this isn't a joke.

It was his cell phone.

He fished the flashy Nokia N95 out of his pocket and looked at the caller ID. The Caffeine Fixation owner raised an eyebrow before answering it.

"Hello?"

What followed after was a series of grunts and noises of denial and headshakes (although why he would shake his head when he was talking over a phone was beyond the other three).

"Yeah. You did? Huh… And I wasn't? … You didn't catch me there? … Oh. No, I actually stepped out for awhile this afternoon… You serious? … Yeah, uh-huh. Cool. Right. Listen, I'm kinda in the middle of something right now. I'll call you back later. See ya."

He ended the call.

"Who was that?" Axel asked in a very cavalier manner.

"Riku," Leon replied, equally as cavalier.

"That name sounds vaguely familiar to me somehow," Demyx said to himself under his breath contemplatively.

"Who's Riku?" Axel went on to question Leon.

"My cousin."

"Oh."

"He said he stopped by The Fix this afternoon. But I guess I wasn't in at the time. Did you guys see him? Probably did."

"We don't even know what the hell he looks like."

Leon shrugged. "He's kinda tall."

"Yes," Axel nodded sagely. "Thank you for describing about half the people who walked into the bar while you were out."

"I'm not good at descriptions."

"Pfft. Yeah. You can say that again."

And then Demyx glanced at his watch (a very cool Rolex watch, I might add, that he got for his eighteenth birthday from his Secret Santa).

"Merde!" the blond swore (in French). "Look at the time! Oh man. I gotta get back home early. I have class tomorrow!" He looked up at his fellow workmates. "Um… I have to take a bus back cuz I live on the other side of town. So I guess I have to go now, dudes."

Leon nodded. "Sure."

"I don't work on Thursdays, so you guys'll see me the day after tomorrow. Ah, well. I had fun! See you people on Friday! Bye!"

And with that, he rushed off in a hurry, leaving the three others behind.

They started walking back towards the direction of The Fix. Leon's shiny black five-seater car was parked by the road somewhere in front of the bar. Axel usually took a cab home and Cloud lived in a dingy apartment three blocks away so he walked to and from work on a daily basis (refer to chapter one).

They strolled in silence for awhile. The shadowy streets were devoid of cars, but only because they weren't usually very busy at this hour. Axel started to hum to some completely random theme song from Super Smash Bros Brawl (Final Destination).

Then, Leon spoke up.

"Okay, I have a confession to make," he muttered quietly. "Contrary to what I said earlier, I'm actually going out with someone."

"… Oh?" Axel looked interested. "Who?"

"A girl."

"Well, aren't you Mr Specific. Does she have, y'know, some sort of name maybe?"

"Her name's Rinoa. Met her through a mutual friend of mine, Irvine Kinneas."

"And here I thought you met her on some speed dating website."

Leon gave Axel one of his freaky stares again. But he did not give the redhead any satisfaction by telling him that his friend Irvine came very close to being exactly like a speed dating website. The charming socialite knew all the hot chicks in town. And every single, unattached bachelor too, for that matter.

"Whatever."

Cloud was silent as his brain processed this new bit of information with so much difficulty that he had to wonder if there was something wrong with him. So the smug bastard had a girlfriend. So what? It didn't matter to him in the slightest, right? Riiiight? He's just my stupid boss. Cloud scowled inwardly at himself and without thinking, involuntarily rubbed at his left cheek. Ah, shit.

They finally reached The Fix, where they got ready to part ways and head home for the night.

"Oh, yeah, and uh, just a heads up," Leon said as he took his car keys out to unlock his very-cool Volvo. "I'll be bringing in two other part-time newcomers tomorrow mid-afternoon, so I'm going to need you two to be on your toes at all times and act as supervisors. Unlike Demyx, they've hardly had any experience in dealing with customers."

The next day (a.k.a. Thursday)…

Mid-afternoon came quickly and Leon, true to his word, walked in with two completely new co-workers from the back door. Only, they weren't exactly new faces.

Axel caught sight of them and nearly dropped the mug he was drying with a dish cloth, then jabbed Cloud in the ribs hard (and painfully).

"Oh my god, do you see what I see?"

The blond smacked Axel upside the head before looking towards Leon.

"This is Sora and Roxas," Leon introduced patiently (disregarding his employees' preceding retarded behaviour), waving vaguely at the two (incredibly) short adolescent teenagers standing side-by-side to his right. One had messy chocolate brown hair, the other had equally messy golden blond hair. They both had large, sparkly blue eyes. One looked gleeful to be in The Fix, the other looked not-quite-as-gleeful.

Blondie and Brownie were back. In black.

(No, really, their standard uniforms were black).

And Cloud gaped.

"…You have got to be shittin' me."

Author's Note: It's just one calamity after another. And okay, so Sora and Roxas didn't get a main part in this one. But they will in the next. Honest!