First real chapter! Yay!
Changes: Okay, there's actually some pretty substantial changes in here as far as later plot development goes, but it's mostly just some different responses and lots of out of character issues have been resolved!
Growling in frustration, a blond teenager with spiky, disheveled hair erased his work for going on the fourteenth time. Roxas figured that the paper was about one more wrong answer away from tearing straight through and wasn't sure if he even had another clean sheet of paper in his notebook. With a deep sigh, the blond reworked the problem yet again. Subtract the nine, square the twenty-two... Halfway through equation he checked his work against the book and bit back a yell of frustration. Where had that negative sign even come from?!
Roxas wasn't the star student in tenth grade algebra, but rarely did he get this hung up over something as supposedly straightforward as quadratic equations. The blond stabbed his math book a couple times with his pencil for good measure before rolling off his bed exhaustedly, landing on a pile of clothes with a soft fwump. He pushed himself to his feet, grabbed his math work, and set off for his brother's room; surely Sora, in a higher math than he, could explain what he was doing wrong.
"Hey, Sora, you busy? I just can't get-" he pushed his twin's bedroom door open and let his sentence trail off when he found said twin being happily straddled by a certain silver-haired boy. Neither boy acknowledged his entrance, nor even seemed to notice it, something that didn't surprise Roxas at all, considering how tightly Sora's hands were twisted in Riku's hair and how far down Sora's throat Riku's tongue must have been. Making a disgusted face, Roxas hurriedly shut the door without bothering to be quiet; the pair was clearly too occupied to care.
One of the pictures on Sora's door caught his eye before he turned away. It was a snapshot of his and Sora's thirteenth birthday party; the large half-chocolate, half-vanilla cake was visible in the background, missing the "app" from "Happy Birthday" and all four corner pieces. Sora's mom, about to rush off for the graveyard shift at the local drugstore, had ushered Riku and Sora together to pose "just one more time, honey", and Sora, sensing his twin's discomfort before Roxas himself realized it, had pulled the blond into the photo as well. The picture caught Riku and Sora in the center, arms slung about each other and identical grins on their faces, with Roxas standing off to the side, attempting to look bored but smiling nonetheless at his twin's happiness.
Roxas's stomach chose that moment to voice its objection to such reminiscing with a boisterous growl. The blond looked down at his stomach contemplatively before deciding that afternoon snack trumped homework.
After tossing his notebook in the general direction of his room, Roxas excavated some leftover Chinese from the front of the refrigerator (general house rules dictated that the freshest food went in the front, while the older and more dubious leftovers were pushed back until someone got up the nerve to throw them away). After setting his chicken fried rice in the microwave to heat up, Roxas took a moment to glance around their sparse, yet adequate kitchen. It was clean, almost creepily so, a sure sign that his mother must have come home at one point and picked up some before returning to work. His brows furrowed at that thought. His mother, Aerith, spent way too much time working; between the pharmacy job at night and the secretary position she held during the day, the twins rarely saw their mother for more than a quick hello-goodbye between shifts.
Their father – 'Bastard,' Roxas thought bitingly – had walked out not quite two years ago, unable to accept his son being gay, which left their mother working twice as hard just to pay the bills and get some food in the fridge. Riku's parents helped out more than their Aerith knew, often inviting Sora and Roxas over for dinner or showering them with "just because" gifts of clothing and video games. They were, after all, as good as family, and had more than a bit of spare cash to throw around, with Riku's mom being a well renowned and respected psychiatrist and Riku's dad the CEO of the largest electronics company in the country.
"When you walk away,
You don't hear me say,
Please, oh ba-"
The tune abruptly cut off and Roxas heard a muffled and rather irritated voice grunt "Hello?" from Sora's bedroom. The blond grabbed a can of diet soda, making a face at the general lack of decent beverages. A few seconds later he heard Sora's bedroom door open, and Riku walked into the kitchen, cell phone to ear and silver hair all of the place.
"Yeah, yeah... Yes, Dad, I know... I'm sorry! I was at Sora's hou-- What? Yeah, he's fine," Riku glanced at the brunet that had followed him into the kitchen and rolled his eyes, making Sora giggle in a decidedly girly fashion. "Yeah, Dad. Okay... It slipped my mind... Yeah, I'll be there in a minute... Leaving right now... Okay... Love you too. Bye."
Roxas pulled his food from the microwave and settled down at the table with a pair of chopsticks and ten or fifteen packets of soy sauce, shamelessly listening in on Riku and Sora's conversation.
"What'd your dad want?" Sora questioned as he rummaged through the fridge. Riku paused a second before answering, taking time to enjoy the view of Sora bent over and wiggling in his quest for food.
"What? Oh, I forgot that my cousin was coming over to stay for a while, and that I was supposed to be home to let him in." He caught his reflection in a nearby mirror and grimaced before attempting to fix the silver tangle sitting atop his head. "Didn't you just eat an hour ago?"
Sora straightened up and turned to Riku, his nose wrinkled cutely. "For your information, Riku, I need proper nourishment to look this adorable all the time."
Riku smiled dotingly at his "adorable" boyfriend before continuing to mess with his hair, prompting Roxas to wonder exactly how long it took the silveret to get ready for school each morning. "Oh, really?" Riku teased, "And here I thought all that cuteness was natural."
Sora made a classic "pshaw" noise. "Not Sephiroth, is it? He scared me." (Sora was once again delving into the depths of the fridge in his search, and he replied to his boyfriend's earlier statement as if there had been no interruption; Roxas found that this was a common occurrence in a Riku-Sora conversation, and he was always amazed that neither of the two ever seemed to get confused.)
Sephiroth had been slightly creepy (if carrying a ridiculously long sword around everywhere and occasionally coming home late with spots of blood on said weapon made one creepy), but Roxas couldn't find it in him to be scared of a man with hair that long and gorgeous, obviously the result of some serious hair care products.
Sora was now pulling several take out containers out and setting them on the counter in order to examine the furthest reaches of the refrigerator. "I could've sworn I put some leftover Chinese in here..." the brunet muttered before pulling his hand back with a frightened squeak. As Sora hastily shoved things back in with a traumatized expression, Riku raised an eyebrow at Roxas, who merely shrugged and continued to eat his rice, figuring Sora had located the month-old lasagna growing tentacles at the very back of the fridge.
"No, not Sephiroth," Riku finally answered, once again fiddling with his hair. "This one's a pyromaniac. Burnt down his kitchen or something and got kicked out. He's not really my cousin, even. Just some kid of an old friend from Mom's school days, but she insists we consider him a member of the family." Riku shook his head as though he found the whole idea ridiculous. "Don't know why Mom and Dad offered to take him in."
With a final glare at the now firmly shut refrigerator, Sora surrendered his search for the Chinese and settled instead for a bowl of cereal. Carrying the carton of milk – only a day past the sell-by date – and a box of Froot Loops to the table, Sora replied, "Your parents are just nice like that. I mean, they let Demyx use the garage for band practice, something no one else is brave enough to do." He grinned mischievously, obviously recalling some of the self-proclaimed musical prodigy's latest work.
Riku nodded absently, grabbing a bowl and two spoons before following his boyfriend to the table and placing a kiss in the midst of his spiky cinnamon hair. "I suppose so."
Sora graced the silver-haired teen with a bright grin that simply screamed love, and Roxas looked away, arguing internally over whether to be mature and silent or throw up. He decided on the former after a few moments, and watched Sora take the bowl from Riku, fill it with the colorful cereal, add some milk, and proceed to eat. Riku managed a few bites before Roxas finished off the last of his rice and stood to throw the empty take-out container away.
"Hey, Riku, I thought you were supposed to be letting your cousin in...?" Roxas ducked his head to hide a smirk when he turned back to the table in time to see Riku's aqua eyes widen comically. The silver-haired teen hastily stood up, gave Sora a quick peck on the lips, and ran out the front door, yelling an agitated "See ya later!" over his shoulder.
Sora stared after his boyfriend miserably for a second before blinking and turning to his twin, pouting. "You just had to remind him." The brunet stuck his tongue out childishly, before his gaze happened to land on the empty Chinese containers lying in the garbage can, and he turned to Roxas accusingly.
Wisely, the blond made a quick exit and escaped to his room, twisting the lock into position before Sora was even out of the kitchen. He chuckled breathlessly for a moment before the final notes of "It's a Small World After All" registered in his ears. Roxas lunged for his cell phone, cursing when the lit up screen showed three missed calls. He flipped it open and pressed talk to call back.
"Hello?" The voice on the other end sounded annoyed, and Roxas almost winced.
"Hey, Hayner... You called?" he responded in a supposed-to-be-calm voice, playing with the zipper of his jacket nervously.
"Roxas."
That tone was not very encouraging, but Roxas answered nonetheless, "Yeah, that's me."
"You ditched me. Again."
Roxas frowned. He made it sound so much worse than it really was. "I, um… I had homework…" he hedged, eyes landing on the abandoned math work from earlier.
"Homework."
"Yes."
"Roxas."
"Hayner." When he got no reply other than some unintelligible noise of anger, he continued, "What?"
"I can't believe you, Roxas! I thought you would understand! You'd think you of all people wouldn't mind, what with your brother and his boyfriend going at each other all the time-"
Roxas interrupted smoothly, trying to keep his tone from becoming angry. "That's different. Riku and Sora are different."
Hayner was silent for a second before he replied in a tightly controlled voice, quiet with rage. "Roxas, your brother is gay. No matter how they love each other, they're both still boys, and both gay. Get over it, and stop being such a dick."
And then a click, and Roxas made a face at the phone. His best friend just didn't understand that there was a huge difference between Sora dating Riku, which they'd practically been doing their entire lives, and Hayner suddenly coming out with no warning whatsoever. Roxas had never even seen it coming; his best friend was easily one of the manliest guys he knew – well, except for his love of that lily-scented shampoo he had a weird obsession with, but everyone had their quirks, right?
Not to mention Hayner's method of "coming out" left much to be desired, since he had essentially just waited for poor, clueless Roxas to walk in on Hayner and some asshole named Seifer playing tonsil hockey in the bathroom one day after school.
Nearly a month had passed since that afternoon, and Roxas was still going through great pains to avoid talking to Hayner at all, ignoring any requests (and demands) to hang out. It was just too awkward.
And Roxas was allowed a little while to come to terms with his best friend all of a sudden turning gay, right? Of course, he told himself firmly.
A knock at his door interrupted the teen's thoughts, and a beaming Sora walked in without waiting for a response, Roxas wondering vaguely how the brunet had gotten his door unlocked so quickly. The Chinese food incident of moments ago seemed miniscule in comparison to his social issues, so Roxas merely glared at him. "Oh, please, do come in."
The sarcasm was lost on Sora, and, seeing that his twin seemed upset about something, the brunet promptly forgave, forgot, and flopped onto Roxas's bed with a contented sigh, knocking his math homework onto the floor in the process.
"What's up?"
Roxas's glare only intensified. He didn't want to hash out all the gory details with Sora, knowing he'd just get some sincere advice crap about friendship and judging books by their covers in return. He just wanted to be left alone. "Not now, Sora. I'm really not in the mood."
Sora scoffed, clearly unaffected by the younger teen's attempts to brush him off, and instead took the opportunity to pounce on top of Roxas and sit upon his chest triumphantly, ignoring the blond's intense protests.
"What the fuck, Sora? Get off of me!"
"Not until you tell me what's wrong," the brunet sing-songed in reply, bouncing for emphasis.
The more mature twin gave up on struggling and rolled his eyes. "Nothing's up." At Sora's skeptical look, he continued, "At least, nothing I can't handle on my own."
The blond knew that wouldn't fool his twin, but, since the conversation was clearly going nowhere, Sora dropped the issue and his smile returned full force – Roxas had to restrain himself from shielding his eyes.
"Lovely! I hate seeing my younger brother upset!"
Roxas ignored his twin's hyperactive response and sat up, causing the caught-off-guard Sora to tumble to the ground. Suddenly, he remembered his math and decided to take advantage of the Riku-free time so he could finally get help with the damn stuff.
"Actually, Sora, I was having issues with some math that I was hoping you could help me with..." Roxas walked over to his desk and grabbed his book. "It's this stupid quadratic formula. I just can't get it to work–"
A pillow collided quite suddenly with the back of Roxas's head and he turned around to find his twin giving him an incredibly exasperated expression.
"Roxas, dude. You seriously need a girl…"
Roxas snorted. Like he needed to add a whiny, clingy, look-obsessed tramp to add to his always growing list of problems.
"… or maybe a nice, hot guy..." Sora continued, stroking his non-existent mustache thoughtfully.
Roxas's face flushed a vibrant pink and he immediately protested. "Nice try, Sora, but you're the gay one, not me. I'm completely and entirely-"
"Yeah, yeah," Sora interrupted in a disappointed tone, "You're straight."
"As a circle," an amused voice chimed in from the doorway.
"RI-KU!!"
Roxas glared at the silver-haired teenager his brother now clung to happily.
Riku shrugged apologetically, wrapping his arms around a purring Sora contentedly. "Sorry, kid. The truth hurts."
The teen's dark muttering was drowned out by Sora's voice.
"Riku! I'm so glad you're back! I missed you soooo much!" The brunet snuggled happily into his boyfriend's arms and Roxas fought the urge – for the second time tonight – to vomit at their displays of affection.
"Sora, he wasn't even gone half an hour."
The older twin stuck his tongue out rather maturely and turned his attention back to a highly amused Riku. "What about your cousin?"
"We had a bit of a disagreement over whether burning Mom's flower's was appropriate guest etiquette."
Sora's eyes widened, the picture of insulted disbelief "He was setting stuff on fire?"
"Yeah, I know," Riku responded emphatically, eyes narrowing and jaw clenching into a thoroughly pissed off expression. "My parents take him in out of the goodness of their hearts and he responds by starting fires, the very cause of his exile, with no respect to our family or our belongings, not to mention showing that he's exactly the delinquent I suspected him to be all along! How my parents'll react, I've no idea, but rest assured blah blah blah blah..." the teen ranted on, thoroughly annoyed, and both Roxas and Sora tuned out, the former taking another stab at his math homework.
The latter, on the other hand, was staring at his boyfriend with bright, lust-filled eyes, entranced by the (in his opinion) extremely sexy expression of a thoroughly pissed off Riku. Sora suddenly leaned forward and kissed the older boy, effectively cutting off whatever he was saying. Having never grasped the concept of an innocent kiss, Riku soon had the two engaged in a rather passionate make out session...
In Roxas's room.
The oblivious blond found himself presented with a number larger than his exhausted brain could accommodate, and he glanced around distractedly for a calculator. Instead, he found his brother and all-but brother-in-law apparently trying to break the laws of physics and meld their bodies together, the silveret already inching them closer to the bed. Roxas, of course, was not particularly thrilled at this development, and the couple abruptly found themselves pushed into the hallway none-too-gently with a door slammed in their surprised – and vaguely flushed – faces.
They looked at the door, looked at each other, looked at Sora's bedroom door, then looked at each other again. Riku shrugged and swept his giggling boyfriend up bridal-style before proceeding to the smaller teenager's room, no doubt to continue with their previous activities in a less occupied area.