CHAPTER TWELVE: WAYS TO GO
"I didn't ask for this
I didn't want to care
And then I saw you there."
"Ways to Go" - Grouplove
Of all the new experiences this relocation had thrown at him, one of the most outright alien that Riku hadn't even anticipated was his first foray into the world of evangelical Christianity. He'd had the dubious pleasure of attending a service with his parents Sunday morning.
Now, as he made his way off their rental property and began the drive toward school for the start of his third week, Riku found himself wondering if this whole situation, initially advertised as straightforward and temporary, would've been more manageable on his end if it'd been marketed less as an already constructed prospect than the more accurate warning of 'some assembly required'.
He wasn't even sure when his mother'd had time to talk to Xion's, given the general craziness of her scheduled rounds at the hospital. All Riku knew was that at some point the two had crossed paths and conversed, that at some point during the ensuing conversation an invitation to the First Baptist Church of Radiant Hollow had been offered. Riku could only assume that it was in under the auspices of ingrained social graces that his mom had accepted, then promptly informed both her son and husband over Friday night dinner.
He'd had a solid thirty hours to stew in the interim.
Beyond what he'd seen in movies, Riku knew very little about Christianity of any shade. His parents stuck to a vegetarian diet but seemed to pick and choose the Buddhist festivals they otherwise celebrated. They were by no means strict in their approach to spirituality; science and rational thought had always been extolled in the Kimura family over blind adherence to religion. Likewise, although they ran the gamut from Shinto to Reform Jewish, none of his friends back home were particularly religious.
Meanwhile in Radiant Hollow, the days where Riku heard a reference to God, Jesus, or just religion in general outnumbered those that he didn't; it seemed like reverent expressions were just a fundamental part of the local vernacular, even in instances when the topic of discussion happened to be secular.
His first concern had naturally involved who might be in attendance. Despite earlier misgivings, the mere thought of seeing Sora again was enough to make Riku feel a conflicting combination of eager and nervous. Ultimately, Sora had said he'd be returning to school on Monday, Riku had reasoned with himself, in an attempt to quell his own crush-induced anxiety. Seeing him a day earlier wasn't going to be life-changing. A more pressing concern involved the content of the service itself. He may not've possessed much beyond a cursory familiarity with Christian doctrine, but Riku was well enough versed to know about the tenuous relationship that existed between Southern evangelicals and the LGBT-identifying American public. He hadn't been blind to the Southern protestors who'd materialized in force after word broke of every new same-sex marriage court ruling. There was even some random guy back home who'd march around with a 'Jesus loves you' sign (and an unpunctuated 'Homosexuals repent or burn in hell' on the back for good measure) in the center of San Francisco's shopping district who his friends always made a point to avoid whenever their paths threatened to cross during downtown excursions.
It was one thing to be aware of a single hateful person who everyone thought was crazy and quite another to be in a situation where that man's views had a high probability of being held by a wide-margin majority. Riku wasn't really sure if he wanted to sit through ninety minutes of fire-and-brimstone forewarnings about the sins of homosexuality, not near Xion and her mother, and definitely not next to his parents.
But there'd been no sign of either Sora or Roxas that morning, and the church service itself was primarily focused on upcoming Good Friday and Easter services. No mention of gay people, not one reference to hell. Both were worth being relieved about, Riku supposed, if not outright thankful.
The service hadn't been completely void of recognizable faces, however. Apart from a few Radiant High students whose names Riku hadn't committed to memory, he'd also noticed two other classmates sitting together in the row second from the pulpit. Seated next to an adult couple in similar attire, Seifer and Olette were dressed in a light suit and a tasteful skirt and blouse, respectively. Their clothing matched others around them, giving the crowd an air of affluence that seemed out of place when compared to the rest of the people in this town Riku regularly encountered.
Although it did provide a fuller illustration of Radiant Hollow's socio-economic demographics, Riku hadn't spent much time dwelling on it then, thanks to a healthy dose of Seifer's ominous presence and the subsequent rise in anxiety that corresponded to it.
As he rolled to a stop in front of the first downtown street sign and performed a quick scan of the next road before pulling forward, Riku returned to the observation made yesterday in an attempt to determine if wealth was even a factor that affected his ability to acclimate to a place like this.
Money wasn't something that he'd ever spent much time thinking about. He'd grown up in a single-family home in a city that he was aware boasted a higher cost of living than most other places, and attendance at his private school probably didn't come cheap, although if asked about tuition specifics Riku would've been hard-pressed to offer more than a ballpark estimate.
His closest friends were members of families who were similar to his — all doctors and lawyers and executive level businessmen (and women). Neku's situation came the closest to financially precarious: a divorced mother who ran her own business, with a flagship store recently opened not far from the Financial District. That being said, their situation was hardly what he'd consider impoverished. From the way Neku so often glibly spoke about it, Riku knew his friend's mother had been court-awarded a great deal in both alimony and monthly child support; his father, in turn, had received an unwanted lesson in improperly executed pre-nups.
Beyond the knowledge that someone in Sora's family owned a flat-bed truck, and what little he'd managed to glean from his social media snooping, Riku had next to no sense of the Strife family's financial situation, or if it even mattered in the event that it ended up being very different to his. Having no further information to work with, he had to end his conjecture on the matter, at least for the time being.
As the modest architecture of Radiant Hollow's downtown streets flashed by his window, Riku considered the fact that today wasn't going to involve just worrying about what to say to Sora, or even how to act around him. He also still had Seifer to avoid because, unless he was vastly underestimating the guy, he was still at risk of being cornered and forced into discussing the issue about Olette.
Whatever that even was.
It'd been awkward enough seeing them together at church, Olette smiling but still seemingly hesitant, Seifer far more stoic, eyeing the entire Kimura family with thinly veiled judgment. Riku supposed he should feel fortunate that, after an hour and a half of listening to a sermon involving Judas and his sinful betrayals of the one-and-only Lord Jesus, both of his parents had seemed as eager to leave as Riku had felt, his father especially since the next stop on the agenda involved an Audi dealership a few towns over.
Now he had a car of his own, and essentially the first real ounce of freedom since arriving in this town. It seemed somewhat superfluous. To Riku, freedom was composed one part of a means to get away from home, another part having somewhere to go. At this point, he was still sorely lacking on one of those fronts.
Pulling into the school parking lot, he also couldn't help but note the visual disconnect to parking a top-of-the-line Audi beside a string of American cars with an array of make dates that mostly spanned the final decade of the last century. Not that he'd personally had much involvement in selecting the car he was now driving. It was his dad who was a fan of European luxury vehicles; having little interest in cars himself, Riku had only offered the most perfunctory of input during the car buying process.
At the very least, it'd given father and son something somewhat family-oriented to do together for an afternoon. Shifting to park and unbuckling his seatbelt, Riku wondered in passing if Sora had a close relationship with his father or if parental emotional distance was a scenario they shared.
Ultimately, that question was for another place and time. In the interim, Riku decided to do his best to clear his mind and focus more linearly on one task at a time to ensure he got through this day in a single piece. At the top of the list was Hayner's hot-and-cold temperament to deal with during first period.
Retrieving his messenger bag, Riku exited the car and began the short trek toward the school's front entrance. There was an alternate route around the side of the building to get to the outside class trailers, but he'd end up arriving earlier than was necessary. A trip to his locker to off-load a few unnecessary textbooks sounded like an acceptable compromise.
Plus, there was also a chance that he might run into Sora on the way, maybe Kairi along with him. Despite having an entire weekend to run through various conversation scenarios and assess how a sampling of his own comments might sound in response to them, Riku still wasn't convinced he'd know what to say if he encountered either of them unexpectedly. Just the same, he took care to observe his surroundings on the walk up to the school's main doors, ever watchful for the distinctive hue of Kairi's hair or the doe-eyed blue that'd tip him off to Sora's presence.
He got Selphie instead.
"Hi, Riku!"
The greeting was almost cooed, audible emphasis placed on the wrong part of his name as she pulled up beside him. Although the syllabic stress sounded odd to him, almost as though she was saying someone else's name entirely, Riku didn't comment on it. There was no point in shining a spotlight on something most people already considered foreign.
A few feet from the school's front entrance, he slowed, then turned to look at her. Before he could return the greeting, Selphie sounded off again in the same chipper tone.
"I was wondering, what's you're last name?"
"Um…"
Caught off-guard by the unanticipated question and an upbeat demeanor that seemed out of place first thing on a Monday morning, Riku hesitated before answering.
"…it's Kimura."
He'd mumbled a little, and Selphie blinked in response, her expression still friendly, brows now slightly furrowed.
"Is there an 'l' near the end, or was that a 'y'?"
Riku shook his head.
"Neither. It's 'k-i-m-u' —"
He stopped as they reached the door, noting that Selphie had pulled out her phone and was starting to type something.
"Sorry." He tilted his head just enough to dislodge some of the hair tucked behind one ear in an attempt to see what was being written. "What are you doing?"
"Nothing." An exaggerated fluttering of lashes followed another bright smile. "I just thought I'd search for you on Facebook. I have some photos from the night at St. Bastion's I wanted to tag you in."
He pushed open one of the entry's double doors, holding it long enough for Selphie to slip in behind him. For a split-second, he considered lying, making the claim that he didn't have an account. Two weeks into his stay here and Riku wasn't convinced he wanted someone he hardly knew digging through every photo and each old status people had mentioned him in over the past few years of high school — especially not if it only promised to set him further apart in this social environment once people saw the properties his parents owned, or the destinations his friends and family traveled to during vacations from school.
"I don't really use it much so it might be hard to find me," he said instead, opting for what he deigned a happy medium between lying and outright admitting that his privacy settings made him more or less unsearchable.
"Hm." She nodded, looked thoughtful, and Riku waited for the inevitable comment about how evasive he was acting.
True to form this morning, Selphie took a different approach and chose to blind-side him with something else entirely.
"Any ideas who you'll be asking to Prom?"
Before he could start stammering out a response he hadn't fully thought through, Riku swallowed and took a sudden interest in the strap of his messenger bag. An image of Sora had materialized almost immediately on the heels of Selphie's question, a rising flush of heat from his chest into the upper boundaries of his neck arriving mere moments after.
Slowing as he reached his locker, Riku tucked some hair back behind his ear, then slid his bag under an arm and closer to his chest, eyes down as he made an attempt at looking like he was studying the contents within it.
"I haven't really thought about it."
With a light bounce that sent her mousy hair dancing around her shoulders, Selphie stopped along with him and watched as Riku twisted through the combination dial, then swung open his locker.
"You might want to make up some time and start brainstorming real quick then." She looked at him intently. "Tickets go on sale during lunch today and it's only about a month and some change out now."
This was not something he'd anticipated, mostly because Riku hadn't thought past simply surviving three months at a rural high school before he'd be able to go home and spend the rest of the summer with his friends in a more familiar setting. He hadn't foreseen getting involved in peoples' personal lives here, and certainly hadn't seen himself attending official school events.
Then again, he also hadn't envisioned getting invited to a party or developing a crush that had the potential to get his ass completely handed to him if anyone found out about it. Maybe the prospect of attending a dance shouldn't have come as such a surprise to him, under the circumstances.
He reached for a book, then paused and looked at her.
"Is Prom really all that big here?"
Because back home, he probably would have opted out. There was a slight chance that certain friends would have success in convincing him to go in a group with Neku, Kadaj, and others. Even then, it'd be brief appearance. They'd arrive, stay for an hour or so, then duck out in favor of more interesting venues in the warehouse district, maybe find a night club with a bouncer more interested in large cash tips than in legal age limits. Or they'd just opt to return home to an empty house if one set of parents was out of town on business. Anything was usually preferable to school dances.
"Oh, yes. Absolutely." Selphie's words were emphatic. "It's been on my calendar since the date got announced at the start of the school year."
While that didn't technically answer his question about whether anyone else at school thought Prom attendance was essential, Riku was initially at a loss as to how to clarify without sounding belittling.
Maybe this necessitated a different answer-seeking strategy.
"So..." As he spoke, Riku began to lift the unneeded textbook out of his bag. "People like Roxas and Sora will be there too?"
Truth be told, Riku didn't really care where Roxas was at any given moment, the final school dance of the year included, but he figured safety in numbers was a good way to approach anything involving a reference to his brother. The last thing he needed was Selphie reading into his inquiries, particularly given how active she seemed to be on social media.
"Duh." Selphie rolled her eyes as if it was obvious. "Roxas will go with Xion, and Sora'll probably take Kairi again."
Wait, what?
Textbook halfway between his bag and the open locker, Riku froze and didn't even come close to suppressing the surprise that followed. He turned away from Selphie and dropped the book into his locker in a one jerky movement, then tried to keep his tone casual as he posed his next question.
"Sora's taken Kairi to other school dances?"
Her phone was out again, eyes practically shining as she responded to what looked like a friend's recent status update. Selphie nodded.
"Like, every dance since freshman year. Maybe a few in middle school."
"Oh…"
The word slipped out before Riku could even think to rebrand it to sound less disheartened. If he'd thought Selphie might miss it in the midst of scrolling her friends' Facebook statuses, Riku was mistaken. She glanced up an instant later, eyes probing.
Scrutiny quickly ceded to a look of sympathy.
"Aww." Again, with the cooing tone. "You were going to ask Kairi to be your date."
"What? No! I mean, that's not —"
Eyes widening, Riku visibly recoiled and clamped his mouth shut before he could dig himself a bigger hole than he'd already started.
"Oh-em-gee, that is so cute. I literally can't right now." Mistaking his reaction for flustered backpedaling, Selphie patted his arm and offered him a look of empathy. "I'm just sorry to be the bearer of the bad news that she's already taken."
She palmed her phone, expression turning thoughtful. Riku supposed he should've been grateful she hadn't immediately started composing a status update to announce the revelation of this newly discovered unrequited love of his.
Sliding the phone into a pocket, her hand returned to Riku's arm and something arguably worse happened instead.
"There're plenty of girls who'd be super excited to go with you, don't worry." He felt the light squeeze of her fingers pressing into his bicep as though to highlight her words. "I'll start asking around. You know, put some feelers out."
For the love of god, Riku thought. Please don't.
Before he could think of a tactful way to decline her offer, he heard her name called out from across the hall in an equally feminine tone. Selphie released his arm and they both looked up, Riku noting that the speaker was another senior girl.
"I need to get going." Tucking a few strands of hair behind her ear in a move reminiscent of the one Riku had performed earlier, Selphie shot off one final smile, turned, then called out to him over her shoulder. "But don't stress about Prom. I've gotcha covered!"
Yeah, that was pretty much exactly what he didn't want to hear when he was already worrying about a handful of other school-related issues. Now, he had Selphie's so-called skills of expert matchmaking prowess to add to his growing list of impending social catastrophes.
As Selphie disappeared around a hall corner with her friend, Riku tried to assure himself that none of this was as bad it currently seemed. He fished one more book out of his bag that he didn't need until the second half of the day, then reached up and slammed his locker shut in conjunction with the three minute bell warning.
Roxas and Xion. Kairi and Sora. In the instant before practical thought returned, he found himself considering both pairings as if they were on equal footing.
They couldn't be, though. He'd have picked up on it if Sora and Kairi were something more than friends. He wasn't that oblivious.
Or… was he?
They'd attended every dance together since ninth grade. That's what Selphie had said. This information, taken on the whole with Kairi's obvious cautiousness when he questioned her about the finer points of Sora's whereabouts last week, left considerably less analytical wiggle room.
He also hadn't picked up on the relationship between Roxas and Xion until one of them had come right out and announced it to him. Maybe that was a different set of circumstances, but it still wasn't leaving him feeling all that confident about his inherent ability to distinguish between relationships that were more romantic than they were platonic.
With a growing sense of unease, Riku nudged his bag back into place behind him, then forced himself to quicken his pace toward the outside trailers. With the weight of his worries seeming to multiply by the minute, the last thing he needed was to get marked late by an unsympathetic teacher in first period Senior English.
o - o
Any lingering doubts as to Selphie's claims about the Radiant High student body's collective Prom-associated enthusiasm were promptly dispelled when Riku saw the line snaking its way from a student council table at the center of the cafeteria out into a nearby hallway. It was even longer than the line to purchase food.
Not that the food was anything worth standing in line for, in Riku's estimation. This mirrored his opinion about buying Prom tickets.
Avoiding both queues of students as he entered the cafeteria, homemade lunch already in hand, Riku considered his seat options. For the most part, he'd been sitting off on his own during lunch since week one and his falling out with Hayner. While other students sometimes sat next to him, it was more due to the lack of availability of open seats elsewhere than a genuine interest in engaging with the new transfer. There were a few students who actually seemed to relish the solitude; most people who sat at Riku's table eventually had friends join them at some point during the lunch period, however.
While it maintained the status quo, sitting alone meant risking thoughts drifting back to Sora, a topic he'd already worn so thin today alone it was practically transparent at this point. Seeing him in the one class they shared in the morning hours definitely hadn't helped. The time it took Riku to get from the trailers to the right school corridor where his second period class was located hadn't afforded them any interaction beyond a quick exchange of smiles before the lesson started. While Sora had grinned at him as though nothing was different, it was Riku who'd felt awkward, his attempt at a returned facial expression even more so. He'd settled into his desk soon after, self-consciousness building as the lecture dragged on even past the bell that signaled the interim period between second period and third. It was all he could do to remember to wave toward the back of the room in Sora's general direction before making a mad dash out the door and back in the direction of the outside trailers.
In retrospect, his was possibly the dumbest class schedule in the history of dumb class schedules.
Nevertheless, well aware of his ability to analyze his own actions toward an early death if his mind was left to its own devices, Riku didn't need much more encouragement than catching a glimpse of Pence's familiar headband before deciding to make his way over to the table Hayner and the rest of his friends typically sat at.
Once again, Pence was in the process of eating something that barely qualified as food, in Riku's view; this time it was some form of meat, breaded and impaled up the vertical middle by a thin serving stick. By the time Riku arrived, Pence was already intent on pulling off the breading, separating the golden-yellow outer layer from the cylindrical sheath of processed meat underneath. Still standing, Riku watched him for a moment before clearing his throat.
"Hi again."
Pence looked up, a piece of artificial yellow breading pinched between his thumb and an index finger.
"Hey, man. What's up?"
Trying to ensure his face didn't reflect any genuine thoughts about the food Pence was in the active process of dismantling, Riku did his best to keep his expression neutral, eyes aimed at his classmate rather than the stick of food he was still holding.
"Is the invitation to sit with you guys still open?"
His classmate popped a wad of breading into his mouth, chewed once, twice, then grinned.
"Sure. Take a seat. Any seat."
Riku did.
Scanning the room without catching a glimpse of either Hayner or Roxas yet, Riku turned in his seat, set his lunch on the table in front of him, and tried not to grimace as Pence peeled back another strip of bread from his greasy corndog.
As he pulled out a tupperware container with a simple mix of vermicelli rice noodles, greens, and shredded tofu, then a separate, smaller container with sauce to pour over it, Riku glanced back at Pence.
"How'd everything go with Olette and that note?"
"All good, buddy." Another mouthful of half-chewed breading, and a foxy smile followed. "I took care of it. You're in the clear, and you're welcome."
"Yeah …thanks."
Considering he didn't know what Pence meant with the rather ambiguous comment, Riku also wasn't sure how press him for any additional information.
And if he expected Pence to help out by elaborating, he was off-mark. Breading now fully stripped away and eaten, Pence took a generous bite off the top of the skewered hotdog, then lapsed into silence while Riku tried to convince his gag reflex that throwing up in the middle of a crowded lunchroom was not the recognition he wanted to earn for himself on school grounds — or anywhere else in this town, for that matter.
He turned away as a compromise, plastic fork held loosely between two fingers. His gaze traveled the space of the cafeteria until it settled on the table that students were still waiting in line for. He studied the sign scotch-taped to the wall behind it announcing the pricing scheme for dance tickets, noting there was a discount for purchasing in twos.
"So… Prom."
"Yeah." Pence sounded like he was commiserating. "It's supposed to be a big thing this year, what with the Almasy family sponsoring. Nice food, upscale venue. Lots of people are looking forward to it, or whatever."
As Riku turned back to him and suppressed the urge to voice doubts that anything in Radiant Hollow could possibly qualify as upscale, Pence polished off the rest of his hotdog in a series of wolfish bites. Much to Riku's dismay, he saw the second breaded confection on his classmate's lunch tray just as Pence made a swipe for it.
"Actually, it might be just your type of thing."
As Pence went to town on stripping the breading off his second hotdog, it took Riku a moment to realize the comment was about Prom rather than Radiant High's current hot lunch offering.
"Why's that?"
As he spoke, Riku finally took the time to pry open his sauce container. He poured it over his main course, then stuck his fork into the center of the noodles, hoping pure mental will could overpower olfactory disgust enough to not only get some food into his stomach but keep it in there for the duration of the lunch hour.
"The Almasies own half the town." The statement was followed by a squelching sound that indicated Pence had reached the top of his second hotdog. "And your family's loaded too, from what I hear. From there, I took the logical next step to assuming it'd be the type of event to which you're already accustomated." He paused, brows knitting together, then repeated the final word to himself while Riku held back the urge to correct the sentence. With a light shrug, Pence ended up moving on, ultimately shooting a knowing glance at Riku. "Or maybe I'm off-base here. Feel free to correct me."
Riku looked down, for a moment hesitating as he considered his response options. His parents' income wasn't something he was particularly eager to discuss in the presence of someone he hardly knew. Instead of answering, he took his first bite of vermicelli, chewing with deliberate slowness, before he opted to change the subject.
"Are you going with anyone, or—"
Pence shifted in his seat, looking away mid-inquiry, and Riku trailed off, sentence unfinished, before following his line of sight across the cafeteria until he located Roxas and Hayner in the process of heading toward them. While Hayner shot him a look that still hinted at lingering dislike, Roxas' expression didn't change as both boys made their way around the table and took seats across from the two of them.
Like Pence, both had cafeteria trays and food identical to what Riku'd just endured watching Pence consume. Unlike Pence, neither seemed interested in performing the same elaborate corndog deconstruction.
Maybe, Riku mused, there was a god.
"Riku here was just asking about Prom."
As Pence resumed speaking, he also reached for the carton of whole milk that remained as yet unopened in front of him.
Hayner rolled his eyes in response, while Roxas merely placed both arms on the table in front of his tray and dropped his head onto them.
"Everyone knows Prom's just dolled-up admin-sponsored bullshit." Hayner bit into the top third of his corndog. "Polish a turd, and… well, you know the rest of it."
Riku actually didn't know. Cautiously, he glanced from one classmate to another before he settled on Pence who'd finally come up for air just in time to see the look Riku was shooting him.
"It's still a turd," he offered.
"Ah." Riku wound some noodles around his fork. "So you all aren't going, then?"
He'd come close to trying his hand at a certain Southern contraction, but couldn't quite bring himself to go through with saying it. He also wasn't completely sure if "y'all" was even the proper word, if "all y'all" was preferred, or if there was another variant about which he remained yet ignorant.
A muffled snort filtered over from Roxas' side of the table.
"Oh, we'll be goin' all right. Not even a question."
His twangy inflection on top of words muttered straight into the table made the response almost unintelligible to Riku. For Hayner, apparently, not so much.
"The girls've got us by the balls." He supplemented, then turned to poke Roxas in the shoulder. "Though a few have firmer grips than some've the others."
Face still mostly hidden, a covered forearm rose, and Hayner was treated to the silver and white of Roxas' splinted middle finger in prominent display above his other still fisted digits.
Unfazed, Hayner just grinned, then glanced over at Riku.
"The dance is just a formality so parents'll sign off on us staying out after in the name of tradition, or nostalgia, or something similar. There're usually a couple after-parties worth going to. Then you crash wherever."
"And whoever with," Pence added.
Riku nodded but said nothing, thoughts drifting as Hayner and Pence continued talking. This didn't sound all that different from back home and getting unwittingly roped into attending a school formal. He'd usually concede if one of his friends was adamant about going, then make sure to leave for more interesting venues as soon as was realistic. His gaze traveled past Pence and across the table, first to Hayner who was in the process of wondering out loud which destination would be best to head to after the dance, then paused on the unruly blond tresses that made up the visible part of Roxas' head. He eyed the splint next. Having no wish to mentally revisit the questionable way Roxas had chosen to deal with his injury a few weeks back, Riku quickly looked elsewhere, eyes lowering next to the glossy sleeves that covered his classmate's forearms for lack of anything more appropriate to settle on.
It struck him as more than a little odd that anyone would opt for a long sleeved shirt in the South's muggy Spring-Summer weather interim. Initially fixed on that observation, it took Riku a moment longer to realize that, while a similar color, the fabric on Roxas' arms wasn't actually a match to the rest of the shirt he was wearing, that the sleeves didn't even seem to be attached, actually.
"… probably by Jardins. It's close and there won't be anyone around at night anyhow."
Riku managed to catch the last half of Pence's comment, just not enough to know its underlying context.
"Maybe," Hayner returned. "Or we could find something that's closer to…"
As Hayner trailed off midway through his response, Riku glanced up, noting the newfound tension in his classmate's newly upright position. While he was still looking across their table, Hayner's eyes were directed past both Riku and Pence, to something behind them.
Or someone, as it so happened.
"A group of losers eating lunch together. What a shocker."
Instead of turning toward the speaker, Riku suddenly found himself paying acute attention to the details of his noodle container. He'd figured Seifer would catch up to him eventually. It just sucked that it was at a time and place where he couldn't easily excuse himself without making a scene that half the school would end up witnessing.
While Riku silently cursed his bad luck, and the student behind him for good measure as well, he watched from the corner of one eye as Roxas lifted his head and reached for his corndog.
"Gee, Seifer. Verbal assaults while people are trying to nourish themselves?" Chin now propped onto the one arm still resting on the table, he waved his stick of food as though to illustrate. "Is nothing sacred?"
"Fuck off, and not everything's about you." Riku could almost imagine the sneer that came along with the tone Seifer had adopted. Two seconds later, he got visual confirmation as Seifer rounded the table and pulled to a stop behind Roxas and Hayner. "Hollywood and I've got some business to attend to. Your all being here is just an unhappy coincidence."
As three sets of eyes turned toward him, Riku swallowed hard and stabbed his fork back into his vermicelli with undue force.
He'd been making the assumption that getting cornered by Seifer and his cronies alone was the epitome of unwanted. Somehow, the prospect of duking this out in front of Hayner and his friends struck him as even worse.
Awesome. The day just kept getting more complicated.
He didn't even know what this entailed, as referenced, or why it was wreaking havoc on his anxiety in the first place. What he did know was this was fast getting old and, on a day that he was just trying to get through as quickly as possible until he could make his way over to the library for study hall, Seifer was the exact last person he wanted to encounter.
Maybe he felt emboldened by the sarcasm in Roxas' opening response. Maybe he was simply tired of feeling like he was constantly trying to dodge a guy he knew only by virtue of his seemingly endless arsenal of insults. Possibly, he was in the throes of a complete emotional meltdown and what came next was simply inevitable. Whatever the case, as Riku finally mustered the nerve to look up at Seifer, his response was less measured snark than it was a barely contained outburst.
"Here's the deal," he said, eyes rising past Hayner and a still slouching Roxas across from him directly to the source of this latest intrusion on his lunch hour. "Yes, I spoke to Olette last week, but she approached me, not the other way around."
That got a reaction, but mostly from Hayner, whose face had transformed from a rough semblance of confusion to unabashed incredulity. Ignoring the look, Riku forged on before anyone else could cut in.
"I'm not interested in your girlfriend like that anyway, so will you please just drop this?"
Across from him, Hayner made a choking sound that appeared to be a direct result of the food he'd just swallowed, and Roxas reached over to slap him on the back at the same time that Seifer crossed his arms over his chest and arched an eyebrow.
"My girlfriend."
It wasn't a question, and a curt laugh followed, like he found humor in the comment.
Not exactly the reaction Riku had been expecting.
"Yeah, you know. The person you've been stalking me all over school wanting to discuss?"
There was still ire in his tone, but it was a lot less assertive than his initial outburst, reason being it was an unconscious reaction of increasing uncertainty to the way the two boys seated across him were now gawking.
Across from him, Roxas shook his head, then offered Hayner one final slap against the back, before glancing up over his shoulder at Seifer behind him.
"Methinks the new kid doth got his wires crossed." He dropped the inharmonic combination of Southern twang and heightened word choice in his follow-up sentence, which fell more in line with muttered. "Been a lotta that going around of late."
"Y'don't say."
Seifer's attention returned to Riku, a quickly formed smirk punctuating the momentary quiet between both comments.
"Even if she was my girlfriend, worrying about her falling for a faggot like you wouldn't be high on my list of concerns."
And there came the insults. He'd anticipated it this time, but that didn't do anything to soothe the resulting sting.
Giving up on lunch, Riku drew his hands away from the table and down to the edge of the seat on either side of him, jaw clenching. It was all he could do to remain calm in the face of another hurtful slur. Maybe if they weren't in a public location, he'd have been more willing to speak up for himself, to tell Seifer off. Here, in a cafeteria filled with people who'd known only one of them for years, Riku didn't want to hedge his bets on which side others might take if any argument he helped instigate turned into something more physical.
No, it was better to play things safe, to avoid conflict as much as possible — even if it went against every natural instinct he possessed not to stand up for himself in the face of someone's asshole comments.
"If she's not your girlfriend," Riku said, finally breaking the silence that had settled over their group, along with the majority of their table within hearing distance after Seifer's latest comment, "why are you even trying to talk to me about her?"
Seifer answered with an exaggerated eye-roll before cuffing the top of Hayner's head with an open palm. The action elicited a surprised yelp from Hayner in tandem with both hands flying upward to protect his head from any additional assaults.
"Ask this dumbass."
"He doesn't know anything, so following him around's kind of pointless," Pence cut in, glancing at Riku. It was the first time he had spoken since Siefer's arrival. "Rest assured, we're working on it though."
Seifer didn't seem particularly impressed by the statement.
"Work faster. This is getting about as old as coming up with new ways to call Hollywood a homo."
"Yeah, that must be difficult," it was Roxas this time, along with a bored expression as he unceremoniously dropped his corndog back onto his tray, "what with a word bank vocabulary at your disposal that rivals a five year old."
Seifer's eyes narrowed.
"Watch it, Strife."
"Or you'll break another finger?" Roxas fluttered his injured hand and didn't look especially concerned. "Y'know, you've got a grand total of nine more times before you're gonna have to pick another set of limbs to threaten disfigurement with. Seven if you disqualify thumbs, though I know math's not your strong suit."
Seifer dropped his arms to his sides, and Riku watched as hands subsequently flexed into fists and a vein became impressively more prominent across his forehead. For a moment, he wondered if he was about to get an up-close demonstration of how Roxas had come by his first finger dislocation. With increasing tension, Riku watched Seifer as Seifer glowered at Roxas who, in turn, was in the process of resuming the position he'd initially adopted, head resting on two crossed forearms like there was nothing more desirable to him at the moment than the prospect of catching a quick nap between classes.
Seifer just scoffed but didn't act out further, probably due to the visible proximity of a nearby lunch monitor. He appeared to say something under his breath that Riku didn't catch, before turning and heading away from them.
With none of them speaking, the air remained uncomfortably thick for a few solid minutes even after Seifer'd departed. It was Pence who eventually broke the silence.
"Hey, Rox. You gonna finish your food?"
"Or eat it at all, more like."
Hayner's words were quieter, his attempt at sarcasm as strained as the look that hadn't quite disappeared from his face.
"All yours," was Roxas' muffled response.
"Sweet." Pence grinned. "I called it first."
Reaching forward, he swiped the corndog from Roxas' tray. As conversation between Hayner and Pence turned to last season college football, Riku packed up his lunch and excused himself. Even if he was knowledgeable enough about the sport to join in the discussion, the confrontation with Seifer would've been too fresh on his mind to adequately focus. He rose and headed toward the corner exit that would bring him closest to his locker for a mid-day school supply swap-out, thoughts still muddled as he tried to work out what had just happened in the span of the last twenty minutes.
As far as he could now tell, Olette really wasn't Seifer's girlfriend, but she and Hayner weren't talking because of something related, which was why she wanted him to deliver that note without getting Seifer involved. But Pence had intercepted it and said it'd been taken care of, which seemed less than accurate if what he'd just told Seifer was any indication. As Riku passed the line for Prom tickets, he noticed his insult-flinging classmate near the end of it and quickened his pace, eyes down, even though Seifer seemed to be making a point not to look at him.
As he slipped out the door and into the adjacent hall, Riku remained somewhat thunderstruck about how many people were willing to waste the majority of their lunch hour to buy school dance tickets. That included the people he'd just had lunch with, even.
Because Roxas was taking Xion to Prom. Pence and Hayner had both implied they'd be attending, or would at least be taking part in one of the after-parties. Selphie planned to go, and she'd said Sora and Kairi would be there too, which wasn't making Riku feel any better about seeing either of them during study hall. Even Seifer looked like he'd be going, either due to familial expectations since his parents were apparently footing a big chunk of the bill, or maybe because he had a date.
A date who apparently wasn't Olette.
With a sigh, Riku headed down the hall, feeling as though he'd taken a step forward in his attempt to be social at lunch, only to find himself no fewer than half a dozen leaps back by the end of it.
o - o
On the way to the library after gym, Riku found himself playing the mental version of two truths and a lie, with three inter-related silent statements.
One, he'd been waiting for seventh period study hall all day. Longer if he figured in the weekend.
Two, he couldn't wait to see Sora and piece together the truth about his absence after a full week of wild speculating.
Three, he totally wasn't nervous about any of this.
Sweaty palms and the mutinous racing of an out-of-control pulse would've tipped him off to the odd one out, even if it hadn't been a lie that was piss-poor obvious in the first place.
Whatever, he thought. It was a stupid game anyway, and at least he knew Sora was at school today, that he wasn't getting his hopes up for nothing.
As he neared the library, Riku momentarily slowed to take stock of his emotions and organize them into a semblance of outward calm. Maybe if he'd had time to talk to Sora before or after their morning class, he'd be feeling less nervy now. That was a pretty hefty supposition, however, considering how awkward he'd felt just offering a smile and a quick wave in his rush to get outside to third period on time after being let out late in second.
Out of the corner of his eye, another student approached from the opposite end of the hall. Riku reached for the library door handle, slipped inside, and held it open just long enough for his fellow classmate to grab onto it before he took off toward the back study tables down one row of towering bookshelves. As his destination neared, anticipation also built, peaking at a dizzying sensation of pent-up adolescent earnestness. Just a few seconds more and he'd see Sora. Another few, and they'd finally be talking. Any lingering doubts were dispelled at the prospect of simply not spending another day feeling entirely isolated for seven hours straight in this building of purported secondary learning.
That optimistic thought at his mind's forefront was probably why catching his first glimpse of Sora intermingled with one of Kairi right next to him threw Riku into such a thorough mental tailspin. Standing beside Sora, Riku couldn't help but note the pair's comfortable proximity as Kairi leaned forward, hovering over his shoulder as she read something out of the textbook open on the table in front of them.
Sora'll probably take Kairi again.
Unbidden, his earlier conversation with Selphie returned, the parts featuring an apparent couple and their intentions of attending Prom together more specifically.
I'm just sorry to be the bearer of the bad news that she's already taken.
Suddenly, the little gestures at the marsh party that Riku'd interpreted as subtle hints of intimacy all crumbled, their consistent, friendly banter in the library during past study halls mattered very little. The hours he and Sora had spent sending texts when face-to-face conversations hadn't been feasible morphed into nothing more than a diversion from what was really important — ultimately, Sora had lied to him, Kairi had slipped up in her attempt to cover it, and Riku was still an outsider regardless of any efforts Sora had expended to make him feel like he was anything other.
It took no more than a handful of seconds for his emotions to seesaw from one end of a spectrum that started with positivity and ended in pessimism. When he finally stepped out from the cover of shelves and made his presence known to them both, Riku's expression had dimmed from its earlier eager into something more or less outwardly emotionless.
With Sora's back to him, Kairi noticed Riku first, her expression still hinting at the same uncertain cautious that had marked their last interaction in the week prior. Riku supposed it made sense, considering there'd been no satisfactory resolution to their conversation about Sora's extended absence. Although they'd sat together at the same table as usual the day after, he hadn't felt like talking on Friday and had pointedly ignored any attempts at eye contact with her.
Now, he met Kairi's gaze with a flat stare of his own, and felt a modicum of satisfaction when she looked away first. It was more difficult to achieve the same effect a second time, if only because the bright smile that'd formed on Sora's face was considerably more flustering.
"I have returned!"
Despite his hushed tone, Riku could still hear the high-spirited rise in Sora's vocals that never failed to send a unique brand of fluttering up from his chest into his throat. He inhaled slowly before responding in an attempt to steady his breathing.
"I see that."
The comment was offered much less snidely than he'd initially expected, though the aggrieved feeling still lingered at the peripherals of Riku's conflicted emotions.
Hoisting his messenger bag over his head, then laying it out on the table where he planned to sit, Riku suddenly hesitated, fingers pressing against the faded fabric cushion along the back of the only empty chair at the table.
Thrumming the tabletop quietly, Sora looked up at him but didn't speak, and Riku sensed the fluttering within him reform into a flush of heat that he hoped didn't rise far enough to be visible in his neck and cheeks.
"How're you feeling?"
He spoke quietly. Unlike Sora's animated cadence, his own voice remained closer to monotone. While Sora didn't seem to notice any tension underlying the question, Kairi took a seat across from them and appeared to be studying him with a guarded expression.
Good, Riku thought. Let her wonder if he planned to call them both out for the inconsistencies in their stories. After an entire week of speculating and fretting over whether or not he was being paranoid to think Sora's consecutive absences might amount to something more serious than a simple illness, it seemed only fair to allocate a share of his internal turmoil onto her spaghetti-strapped shoulders.
"Back in action."
As Riku finally pulled out the chair a took a seat, and Kairi wordlessly pulled out her own study materials, Sora leaned forward, propping his elbows on either side of the textbook in front of him and offered two thumbs up to supplement his response.
"I mean, kind of."
Hands relaxing, Sora looked down for a moment. Riku watched him, eyes hawkish.
"Kind of?"
With a small shrug, Sora nodded.
"I went and tweaked my ankle a little, or else I would've been back sooner."
Glancing down, Riku quickly realized there was nothing to see between the dim light in their corner of the library and the baggy jeans Sora was wearing.
"How'd that happen?"
Another shrug, followed by what Riku had already come to regard as Sora's trademark grin.
"I'm just a klutz of the highest order. Had to get crutches and everything." He gestured to a spot under the table that was beyond Riku's line of sight. "Between Roxas' finger and my leg, these bouts of clumsiness might qualify as genetic."
Given what he knew about the origins of Roxas' injury, Riku found himself sorely tempted to point out the fallacy in Sora's reasoning, however jokingly it'd been posed. He remained silent only because Sora hardly missed a beat as he moved the conversation in an entirely different direction.
"Oh! Before I forget..."
Twisting away from Riku, Sora bent down and began rummaging through his school bag. He straightened with an article of clothing offered up between two outstretched arms that was immediately recognizable by virtue of its familiar college logo.
"Sorry it took so long to return." Sora's smile turned appropriately sheepish. "I threw it in the wash last week so it's not gross or anything, at least."
The hoodie exchanged hands. Riku said a vague word of mumbled thanks while folding it, then set it on the edge of the table nearest to where he was sitting, no doubt to be shoved into his bag later on his way to the parking lot.
Unsure how to keep the conversation alive without sounding forced, Riku reached for his messenger bag and pulled out a notebook. Although he'd been assigned some new homework in his classes today, it promised to be mostly review again — apart from some strategic maneuvering he was going to have to perform to complete a US History paper that was more on par with creative fiction writing than fact-based reasoning. That was the only way he foresaw maintaining a level of personal integrity while discussing the finer points of the alternate-reality Civil War history he was hearing about during class lectures.
He had time on that one though, and nothing else had an impending enough deadline to warrant avoiding the web app issue Neku had pointed out during their last conversation. At least finding a solution for that would present some form of intellectual challenge.
He flipped through the first couple pages of his notebook, pausing to look over the MVC diagram he'd drawn a few days earlier. Although his eyes remained fixed on the notebook, Riku could still sense Sora next to him well enough to know he was being covertly watched. The dull scrape of a faux wood chair leg against decades-old industrial carpet drew his eyes back upward, this time to Kairi who included both of them in her table-encompassing gaze.
"While y'all two get yourselves properly reacquainted, I'm gonna go take my chances with Marlene and see if she's made sense of this homework for Senior English."
She shot Riku a pointed look, her expression speaking more to her usual level of unruffled than the hesitancy she'd exuded earlier. He watched as she smoothed her frayed denim skirt, then gathered her belongings, knowing all too well what her comment had been implying. They were both in the same English class. If she'd really had a question about the assignment, she could've just asked him.
Even still, Riku couldn't bring himself to look over at Sora and resume talking.
He turned to a blank page in his notebook instead, and quickly found himself staring at it without having any sense of what he should be doing other than keeping his eyes down and minding his own business, a supposition that might've assured complete avoidance of the awkward situation he was in now if he'd just applied it from day one.
It was probably too much to hope that someone as attentive as Sora was just going to miss him just sitting and staring at nothing without so much as a pen to make it appear as though he was planning on doing something productive. A couple of strained seconds later, his hunch was confirmed as Sora shifted in his seat and posed a question Riku had more or less seen coming.
"Everything alright?"
So, the question had been anticipated. What hadn't was the subsequent hand Sora placed on Riku's forearm. Warm to the touch but hesitant, it sent resurgent heat circulating from his core on outward at the same time that his body tensed. He waited a few seconds, then more, long enough to sense that the lingering touch might be purposeful.
No, Riku thought. Everything's not.
Abruptly afraid his expression would give him away, Riku kept his eyes down and focused on his unmarked notebook.
"Fine, yeah."
The hand moved away a beat later, although the feeling of being studied endured. For the sake of having something to hold onto, Riku finally reached for his bag and pulled out a pencil, well aware by now that he was acting ridiculous.
But …why had Sora touched him? Had it been a simple attempt to redirect his attention or something more meaningful? This was the South, for god's sake, where displays of blatant masculinity were practically sanctioned as red-blooded American pastimes with the same level of enthusiasm as college sports teams. Even he knew that. And Sora? He'd been born into this life of rigid gender role mentality.
So what was the meaning behind Sora's decision to ignore conventional limits on physical contact? The only thing Riku knew was that this breakneck, silent theorizing was liable to give him a migraine.
He had to say something. After a full week of day-to-day uncertainty, Riku already knew how much shot-in-the-dark speculation sucked, not to mention he'd risk being pinned as a moody tool if he kept up his ongoing act of glassy-eyed silence for the entire study period.
Apart from all that, it might be good to clear the air between them. Get some concerns off his chest. Start fresh, even.
With newfound resolve to act like a semblance of an adult, Riku looked up, determined to offer Sora an explanation for why his attitude this afternoon had been so unpredictable with a side of all over the place.
A few tables beyond them, his gaze caught on Kairi first. In the span of a few sum nanoseconds, his entire plan crumbled and rebuilt itself into an inquiry he'd been stewing over since he'd first arrived at school that morning instead.
"So, you and Kairi are going to Prom together?"
The silence that followed was different than what had just vanished in the wake of his question; there was a heavy expectancy to it that was almost suffocating, at least for one of them. Tearing his eyes away from Kairi, Riku finally forced himself to steal a glance at Sora.
Sora was still looking at him, but his smile had dimmed, replaced by furrowed brows and an uncharacteristically quizzical tilt of his chin.
"Did Kairi tell you that?"
Despite his best efforts to maintain calm, Riku was aware that he was starting to get flustered by the embarrassing, telltale heat quickly rising from where it'd formed in his chest. In an attempt to conceal the impending physical reaction to being put on the spot by Sora's returned question, Riku quickly shook his head.
"Selphie mentioned it."
"Ah."
Another span of silence, different still from its predecessors, if only because it involved Riku mentally floundering, incapable of interpreting the meaning behind the monosyllabic response he'd just been offered.
Both boys looked at each other, Sora openly studying Riku. When he next spoke, his words were initially slower, more carefully chosen.
"We're planning to go to Prom together, yeah." Before Riku's heart could plummet from his chest into his stomach, Sora took a quick breath in and continued explaining. "We've got a standing arrangement to go as friends unless someone else asks us on an actual date, not that that happens often. As you've probably already guessed, neither of us is all that popular. Everyone keeps saying we're perfect for each other, and some even think we've been low-key dating for years, but I've always kind of felt like dating Kairi would feel the same as being exclusive with a sister. We've been friends for way too long to change things up now."
The words came more quickly as Sora continued speaking, and Riku took a moment to consider the possibility that the question had flustered Sora to answer as much as it had for Riku to ask it.
The response induced immediate relief. Definitely. But, unbidden, something else followed it. It was something unexpected that threw him off long enough to maintain his silence.
That something was a twinge of jealousy.
Could it have arisen from their close-knit friendship, something that'd all but been severed with his friends by virtue of newfound physical distance? Was it the realization that this revelation didn't markedly change anything about his own situation of unrequited feelings, or something else entirely? Riku didn't know, and in the time it took to acknowledge his enduring ignorance, a half-smile had formed on Sora's face, not as bright as his opening expression but still polite and friendly.
"Were you thinking of going?"
It was Riku's turn to offer a shrug, then feel grateful that Sora had moved the conversation so effortlessly forward. "I don't usually attend school events unless one of my friends decides to drag me to them. They're not really my thing," he admitted. "Selphie was pretty adamant about it being a big deal here though."
Sora nodded.
"It kind of is for a lot of people. You've been here long enough to know there's not a whole lot to do within city limits, or even much for miles outside of them. People look forward to these types of events for months, then celebrate them like they're the second coming."
"Right."
Sora's final comment seemed posed in good humor, but Riku was feeling anything other than amused by the twists and turns his feelings had been taking this afternoon. Beyond the single word reply, he managed an awkward incline of his chin and a glance back at his still-blank notepaper.
"This place must seem like such a joke to you…"
There was a wistful quality to Sora's tone that had Riku abruptly doubting the reasonableness of his earlier pent-up frustration and anger. Since he'd arrived, Sora had been nothing but empathetic about his fish-out-of-water situation. Whatever he was hiding — and whatever secrets he and Kairi collectively had chosen to keep from him — there had to be a logical explanation for it, a sensible reason why Sora was going to such great lengths to avoid bringing it up in casual conversation. Maybe he just needed more time to open up, Riku thought. They had only known each other for a few weeks, after all.
He was pulled away from his thoughts by a sudden burst of high-pitched giggles. Although they were subsequently muffled by the inclination of heads, hands quickly rising to cover mouths as well, the sounds resonated in a setting that had otherwise been quiet. It also drew the attention of other students. Heads lifted, eyes all moved in the direction of a smaller table where two girls were seated, shoulders still shaking with the vestiges of laughter.
Upon closer scrutiny, and to Riku's considerable astonishment, one of them was Kairi.
While she was quick to compose herself in the face of her peers' attentive gazes, it was one of the few times Riku had seen a spontaneous reaction from her — beyond the negative ones he'd personally had a hand in inspiring when calling her out about Sora the week prior.
Although most of their classmates quickly lost interest, that didn't stop the librarian from making an appearance, arms crossed and expression stern as she scanned the room seeking a guilty party. Next to him, Sora looked down at his textbook, adopting an expression of bookish innocence. Following his lead, Riku put pencil to paper and finally began writing something relevant to his web app project.
The librarian remained in their midst just long enough to make them collectively nervous, reflected by the subtle shifting of bodies in chairs, of clandestine glances in her direction when her back was turned. By the time she twisted heel and disappeared back into the stacks, Riku was reaching for his cell phone, determined to at least see if he could look up some hints at solving the problem Neku had pointed out last week via chat.
At the very least, it'd give him something to do beyond grappling for words around Sora for the remainder of the hour.
As he pulled up a mobile browser and typed in his first set of keyword queries, Riku couldn't help but feel that this day had been entirely derailed. Part of it involved the confrontation with Seifer earlier, no doubt. If he was being honest with himself, a large part of his current state of malcontent had been his own doing, however.
How many times had he tried to convince himself he was just looking forward to seeing Sora, that the other unanswered questions about last week's mystery illness could wait until an appropriate moment to bring up? Even the crutches and Kairi's steadfast refusal to clue him in didn't matter as much as the opportunity to talk to Sora again.
Except it did. To Riku, every little omission, and each perceived slight, all added up to the cost of being an outsider in this place, which was something he despised.
From there, he circled back to the why, tried to reason with his own illogical envy over the relationship between Sora and Kairi. The way Pence, Roxas, and Hayner weren't willing to explain the situation with Olette and Seifer just served to add insult to considerable injury. The social dynamics at this school were maddening.
One thing was certain at this stage, however, and that involved life having been much simpler in San Francisco, among people he'd known since childhood. He understood the rules back home, knew how to navigate his last school's various social cues. Considering himself far from a social recluse there, Riku couldn't understand why fitting in here was presenting so much of a challenge.
With clairvoyant accuracy, it was at this moment in Riku's mental wanderings that his iPhone screen lit up in his hand and offered a silent indication that a phone call was pending.
It was Kadaj, just about the last person he'd expect a call from mid-day PST on a Monday.
Staring at his phone, unsure how to proceed given the requisite quiet of his current location, the screen went dark before Riku could make a decision to accept the call or not. He waited close to a minute to see if a voicemail notification might pop up on his screen next.
It didn't, so he shot off a text, then tried to conceive of a reason why Kadaj would call him in the middle of a school day that didn't involve an emergency. When no text response seemed forthcoming, Riku stole a quick glance at Sora who seemed thoroughly absorbed in his reading material, then glanced back at his phone to gauge the time.
There were just fifteen minutes left until the period ended, but that might be drawn out further if Sora wanted to talk afterward. In any other instance, Riku might have welcomed the opportunity to spend more time together, especially if it meant getting this current miscommunication properly sorted; the longer he sat doing nothing though, the more he began to worry that something might be wrong, even though Kadaj hadn't called back or responded to his text. Maybe, Riku worried, it was because for some reason he couldn't.
Making a quick decision, Riku pushed his chair back, pocketed his phone, and stood. Beside him, Sora glanced up at him with a look that suggested the unanticipated action had startled him out of deep concentration.
Although Riku shot Sora a genuine look of apology, he didn't hesitate when pushing his chair back into place in front of the table.
"I'll be right back."
Not waiting for a response, Riku headed off, through the bookshelf stacks and away from the study tables, making a beeline for the librarian's desk near the front of the room. The woman glanced up at his approach with a look bordering on suspicious, not all that dissimilar from what he remembered of his encounters with the admin office receptionist during his first week as a student.
By now, he was almost becoming accustomed to the resounding indifference of school authority figures. Maybe accustomated was the proper term, as Pence had phrased it earlier.
"I need a restroom pass."
The request was posed politely, but there was a moment of silence as she glanced down at her watch, then pointedly fixed her gaze back on him.
"Can it wait until the period lets out?"
Doing his best to look self-conscious, Riku shook his head.
"My last class was dismissed late, and I had to get here from the trailers outside."
It was a lie that he was hoping she'd accept without question, because if she realized he'd just come from phys-ed by way of the gym locker room, there wasn't much chance she was going to be sympathetic. He was new, which he wasn't sure counted for or against him. That he'd been consistently quiet, had received no infractions for noise since arriving, would hopefully work in his favor.
It also probably didn't hurt if she associated him with Sora's overt studiousness.
"Fine."
He watched, relieved, as she reached for a slip of paper and filled in the empty lines before sliding it across her desk to him.
"But make it quick. No dawdling."
With a nod and a quiet word of thanks, Riku exited the library and headed down the hall to the nearest restroom.
With seventh period lessons still in session, the hallways were quiet, save for the occasional adult voice filtering out from a few open classroom doors. Riku located the closest bathroom, entered, and quickly checked that no one else was present. From there, he slipped into one of the handicap stalls, then pulled out his phone to return Kadaj's call.
It took a few rings for his cousin to answer, which only served to increase his own anxiety over why he'd been called in the first place.
"Heya, what's up?"
As Kadaj's voice drifted to him through the phone speaker, Riku felt his jaw tightening at the nonchalant tone his cousin had answered with.
"You called me." It took him a moment to realize how accusatory his words sounded. Riku made an attempt at toning it down in his follow-up. "Is everything okay?"
"Um." There was a slight pause on Kadaj's end, as though it was taking him a moment to process the question. "Yeah. I just woke up."
"Okay…" Silently, Riku told himself to curb his growing irritation and exercise a small amount of patience if he wanted to get some genuine information out of his cousin. "So, is everything alright over there?"
Another pause, followed by a long exhalation of breath.
"Yeah, fine. Just hella bored and wanted to see what you were up to."
Riku blinked at the stall's far wall, lips unconsciously thinning.
Bored.
Kadaj had called him because he was bored.
Mimicking his cousin's audible exhale, Riku leaned up against the bathroom wall and sought out a zen mental place before responding.
"What I meant," he ventured, deciding to rephrase, "is I was wondering why you were calling me in the middle of a school day."
"Because it's not one."
"It's not one what?"
Riku wasn't following. Although he couldn't see it, he could easily imagine the exaggerated look of impatience from the tone Kadaj adopted in his next response.
"A school day. It's Spring Break."
"Oh."
That option hadn't occurred to him, having not committed his old school's Spring semester vacation dates to memory before leaving. Across the line he heard shuffling; it sounded like Kadaj had pushed back his bedsheets, maybe swung his legs over the side of his bed to the floor below it.
"You had school today?"
"Yeah," Riku said. "I'm pretty sure I missed their Spring Break."
Maybe that was one of the problems, he mused, considering the fact that he'd opted for the third person possessive to describe his new school, rather than a pronoun more personally related to him.
"Lame as fuck, bruh."
Yeah, and Kadaj didn't know the half of it with all the unassociated social woes he was still trying to field. Nevertheless, the words were spoken in a prolonged drawl that sorely tested Riku's impulse control. Using the last of what was by now a vastly depleted reserve of willpower, he forced himself to remain quiet, not that Kadaj noticed.
"We'll get turned up on my visit. I heard NOLA's got a hella good party scene."
"Yeah," Riku said, not sure what to say beyond a repeat of his last lackluster sentence. Kadaj wasn't exactly the best listener when he needed someone to talk to, even when he wasn't holed up in a grungy bathroom stall on a temporary reprieve from seventh period study hall. In his own way, moreover, Riku knew that his cousin was making an attempt to get his spirits up, which he supposed was admirable.
With a quiet sigh, he pushed away from the wall and made his way back toward the stall door.
"I have to go. School's not out yet."
They said their good-byes, and the call dropped on his way back into the hall, leaving him with a grand total of six minutes before school ended between the walk back to the library and the day's final bell. This time, Riku walked with less purpose, too mentally fatigued to so much as worry about what to say when he returned to his seat beside Sora. As both library and the prospects of ending up in another awkward conversation loomed closer, Riku finally began trying to devise a few acceptable one-liners. Basically, anything that would pull him out of this emotional funk and not make him look stupid in front of Sora would be acceptable.
He needed something, was willing to take with almost anything at this point, actually. Because, as it currently stood with one hall separating him from library reentry, Riku had nothing in his mental arsenal except misgiving after misgiving.