a/n: Hello, this is chapter five of The Cool Guy! I'm sorry it took me so long, but I was having extreme doubts about this chapter...
BE: I said it was fine. You can all thank me. HAH
And that was a word from my editor, Blood-eye. She helped with the whole concept of this story, and is supremely awesome.
BE: NO I did not. It's all her brilliance!
And now she is SPAMMING my story.
BE: MWAHAHAHAHA
Anyway, I certainly do not own Kingdom Hearts. Alas. Oh well, I'll get over it one of these days. Without further ado I'd like you to enjoy the chapter, and please leave a review!
BE: Kurama is a girl
Chapter Five
"God dammit!" Roxas called out as, in a fit of betrayal, his foot caught on a broken beer bottle and he flew into the midnight asphalt of the street.
He broke his fall with one palm; it came away smudged with blood as he pushed himself up with a frustrated grunt, continuing his running with barely a pause. With his lungs on fire and his sides aching it was easy to ignore the stinging of his hand.
His breathing was rough, shallow---staccato, since he was currently cursing Axel, alcoholics, and his athletic ability (or lack thereof) to high hell.
He suddenly was reminded of himself as a sixteen year old boy carefully explaining to his mother that he had more important things to be doing than running track, thank you very much.
"Hah!" He gasped.
Never in his wildest dreams---and he had some strange ones---would he have guessed that it would come to this.
That it would all come down to whether or not he could chase a man down a dangerous street in the dark, his sweat plastered hair sticking to his equally damp forehead, to scanning the air with feverish eyes for a trace of that showy red hair.
Would track have really helped? He doubted it, not when the mortar holding together his self esteem had crumbled upon the contact of those acidic words, so harsh to his ears.
The confidence with which he'd abandoned the raging party was swiftly flagging.
Roxas had been running down the street for close to an hour. He had of course asked after Axel; this was the street he was pointed towards, but who knew if he hadn't gone inside one of these buildings, turned down an alley, got into a car?
It was impossible for him to know and he knew it.
Roxas kept up the chase that stifling night. He pushed himself forward until the first strokes of grey came sliding across the sky and he fell into a heap of exhaustion and frayed nerves on the edge of the sidewalk.
"Hey."
"Nnnnng."
"No, hey you. Get up."
"No.Go away."
"Look, kid---you're in the way of my cart."
"Oh god!"
"What?" Marluxia watched as the obstacle drew itself up in a flurry of alarmed movement. Its straw colored hair was sticking out at the oddest angles, its ocean colored eyes fluttered in recognition, it lifted a scabbing hand to swat at the dirt covering its longish nose, all in about a second.
"I mean oh good. It's you."
"It's eight," Marluxia said, finally recognizing it to be the young man vying for the position of errand boy. He ran a hand through his abundant pink hair. "You don't look so good, Jack."
"It's Roxas."
"Well? Did you or didn't you?"
Roxas stared up at the man in shock. Here he was, crumpled on the cold sidewalk, and there was no "are you okay?" or "so why were you sleeping outside?"
In fact, Marluxia was beginning to look annoyed, so he answered, looking at his feet rather than the man.
"I found Axel at a party. No, I didn't deliver the messages. I didn't get a chance. He left and I ran after him until around dawn, when I fell asleep here."
"Right outside the shop?" Marluxia mused, and Roxas stood up in astonishment, looking around--- sure enough, the establishment was right there. He'd practically used the doorstep as a pillow.
It was a much more impressive sight in the daylight. The windows were so clear it was like they weren't even there, giving the passerby an excellent view of the splendid interior. Roxas was surprised to see a half a dozen people moving around, watering plants and arranging cards. They would have had to have stepped over him, wouldn't they?
"Come on, then," the pink haired florist grabbed his arm for the second time in as many days and dragged him through the glass door. Somewhere in the front room's depths a cheerful bell rang and everyone in the store looked up.
"Sleeping beauty finally wakes up?"
"I guess he wasn't dead at all. You win," one man said, and flipped a coin at another.
"And here I thought he'd never walk through the door."
"Errand boys are a dime a dozen, anyway."
"Yeah---if a dime's worth a diamond."
"Oh, shut up, all of you," Marluxia snapped. "Look at him, you're going to scare him away!"
Roxas stared at the sight before him. He'd never seen a pair of individuals quite so…individual before. Marly's hair was not the strangest thing by far.
One of the men had long black dreadlocks, hanging down from an elegant knot fashioned at the back of his head. He was the one that lost the bet: he spoke with a smooth english accent in a measured, deep voice, and his eyes were like two blue chips of ice, predatory in nature as he scoped out Roxas.
As soon as his gaze connected Roxas recognized him as the large man Xigbar had been laughing with at the party. He seemed much less wild in these surroundings, calmer by nature.
Standing some feet away from him, fiddling with a rack of sympathy cards, was the man he'd flipped the coin to. His coloring was not unlike Roxas's own, but his eyes were smaller, sharper. He had a beard that accented a firm chin and a single hoop dangled from one ear, glinting in the sun. His smile was cool and clever. On the whole, he reminded Roxas of a fox.
They were the only two wearing aprons---so far as he could tell, the other people in the shop were customers.
Roxas wondered at the severity of their language in front of their own patrons; it was downright eerie. No one seemed offended or even surprised, a few smiled greetings at Marluxia and one even waved at Roxas before turning back to inspect the arrangements.
"Follow me," Marluxia said, and he opened a door Roxas hadn't noticed before, partially concealed by a graceful bower.
It led to another sprawling room filled with stacks of paper and miracle-gro. There were a couple of desks scattered with office supplies and in the back of the room was a table with a coffee machine on it and a large tower of paper cups.
"I don't get it," Roxas said as Marluxia went digging through a box of markers. After looking at Roxas intensely for a moment, during which the subject took a wary step backwards only to find someone had shut the door behind him, he selected a yellow one.
Roxas was mesmerized as he strode over to the large writing board on the wall and added the name Jack to a colorful list of what he assumed were employees and employee tasks. Marluxia's own name was up there in hot pink, he noted. Under it was written in a flowing script:
-drag around god damned cart.
-search for errand boy.
-process new orders.
-run store, etc.
Marluxia watched him read it.
"There's nothing not to get. You're hired." He underlined Jack pointedly.
"But…I didn't do what you said. And you said if I didn't deliver the messages, then I shouldn't come at all--"
"—but you did." Marluxia cut him off. "That means you are persistent--"
"But--"
"Which is just the quality I am looking for--"
"But--"
"And since you actually found him, you are also smart, which I am also looking for--"
"But--"
"And if you interrupt me one more time then I will change my mind."
Roxas stemmed his protest in the face of this threat, taking the apron Marluxia held out to him and pulling it over his head. It fit perfectly, which did not escape his boss's notice.
"Hmm. I thought you two would be the same size. Lucky thing he wasn't wearing it that day, otherwise….well, you wouldn't want to wear it."
It didn't take a genuis to figure out that he was talking about the previous errand boy who had apparently thrown himself out a window. Roxas shivered when he thought about it, suddenly seized by the desire to rip the garment off.
He didn't.
"Okay. There are a few things I need to say. First off, I don't normally hire people like you. This job takes a certain aura and I don't think you have it." Marluxia sniffed, looking at him with lazily haughty eyes.
"The second is that no one has held on to this job for more than four days. The record goes to Larxene and she fought tooth and claw and still couldn't find Axel more than three days in a row. Got it?"
Roxas nodded. Somehow, he wasn't surprised to hear that.
"Okay. Thirdly, you answer to me and only me. Don't be tricked by malicious people pretending to be able to order you around. Xaldin and Luxord will try to mess with you; don't take it personally. Fourthly, tie your apron!" The last was barked out and Roxas jumped to reach behind himself for the black ties.
"So---let me get this straight. When you say no one's held on to it for more than four days--"
"I mean if you go more than one day without finding Axel, you're sacked. Company policy."
"So, if I don't find him today…?"
"Right; then it's tomorrow you have to worry about. And I think that's just about all the wisdom I have for you today. ….hold on, then." Marluxia frowned. "Where did the clipboard go?"
Roxas looked down at his hands, as if that would make the clipboard magically reappear.
"I---I don't know," he admitted.
"Dearest Axel, you are my one tru luv. I didn't mean to smack you like that, plz come back."
"Yeah. Riiight."
"This is for me and my parrot, you jerk! I hope you rot! No! I hope you rot in hell!"
Axel thought back to the shriveled black roses he'd gotten a couple weeks ago with mild interest. Strangely enough he could remember the parrot but not the owner.
"Hi. You don't know me, but I know you…"
"There are less creepy ways to announce admiration, but that's pretty bold."
"It's your birthday, right? I know you'll never get the message, but these are from Demyx!"
"Huh." His birthday had been months ago.
Axel stopped reading from the clipboard to take a sip of coffee, smiling to himself. His smile was interrupted by the sound of a phone ringing.
"Roxas, honey! Please answer the phone. This is your mother. You know, the woman who gave birth to you. Surely you remember…I guess you're out. I just wanted to tell you that I love you, and I've got your room just as you left it in case you want to come back and run the family business. Are you eating well? Coffee is not food, dear." The woman's voice paused on the answering machine.
"I'd like to think that you're out chasing a pretty girl. Bye for now."
Roxas was in a foul mood when he left the flower shop behind. Marluxia had yelled at him for being careless before decreeing that he only had one day to find Axel now and practically threw him out the door after writing:
-retreive clipboard
Under Jack's list of tasks.
It was half past eight and Roxas decided that he should first touch base and go to his apartment before trying to scour the city again.
Through the sheer luck of being able to remember street names Roxas found himself walking through the door of the coffee shop twenty minutes later, outwardly worse for wear but inwardly refreshed and relaxed.
He was cautious in stepping through the door, half expecting to be assaulted by the landlord.
Xigbar was nowhere to be found, apparently deciding to leave Roxas to his own devices.
Roxas didn't think to actually enter his apartment.
Instead he lounged at the coffee shop, taking his time in devouring a blueberry muffin, watching the people watching him with a half scowl on his face.
One of the many facts of life is that people can live out their existences not thirty feet away from people who would change their lives, if they would only notice them and break through society to say hello.
It was currently a fact of Roxas's life that Axel was those metaphorical thirty feet away, was in fact sitting in Roxas's apartment without the slightest idea who lived there now, and had already changed his life.
Noticing Axel, now, that was no problem. The challenge lay within the reversal.
Roxas began thinking of his life and whether he'd had any experiences from which to draw advice. This was a dilemma with no clear solution in sight.
But Roxas is persistent by nature, and he knew that he was. And soon enough, thinking of persistence brought to mind a far off summer from his far off small town.
The memory involved a paper route, a bicycle, and a stubborn man by the name of Mr. Gall.
Mr.Gall was ungenerous in paying his dues for the paper, and took no small pains to avoid whatever unfortunate paper boy that had him on his route.
He was also a sadist, Roxas remembered, taking an especially large bite of his muffin. After five paperboys had abandoned the task in despair, and after his mother had been pestering him for about a week to obtain a job, he took the paper route.
Sure enough, on collection day, the man let himself out of his house at the approach of the bike, which could be easily heard.
He had deduced that the man had no hidden power of observation, that it was only the sound of the bike which alerted him to the paper boy's presence, giving him the opportunity to vanish.
Roxas smiled. The next day he didn't use the bike.
It was a simple solution, and yet it had proved too much for five others of his same age.
And it came to him, just as he was finishing the muffin, that perhaps this wasn't so different, wasn't so impossible, that sometimes the most difficult things have the simplest answers.
To catch Axel, all he had to do was not use the bike.
a/n: Thanks for reading!