Hello again all you lovely people!!!
K, here goes... I don't own Kingdom Hearts – Reno would be in it if I did and Axel wouldn't have died – and I borrowed a line from the movie 'Mean Girls' for this chapter. Anyone who can tell me what line I borrowed gets a kiss from Riku!!!(or one of the other characters if by some freaky 1 chance you don't want a kiss from Riku... I know I would love a kiss from Riku...)
Oh, and in case you're wondering about the stray last names everyone has in this story I made them up – actually, they're French for the most part. Riku's isn't, but most of the other ones are. At the end of the chapter I'll tell you what the last names mean.
On with the chapter!!!!
Chapter 4
I hope the new neighbors don't mind me being a little nosy... And even if they do, part of spying by nature is not getting caught in the act...
Twenty minutes later – because I just couldn't leave the house without at least managing to scarf down one or two of the pancakes my mother had gotten up early to cook me before she left for the picnic – I found myself walking across the street, and weaving between the movers lifting heavy furniture made my way to the sidewalk facing the house that led to the front door. Even I had to admit it was a pretty nice looking house, even if it was way smaller and shabbier than the one I lived in.
I snuck around to peer into one of the moving trucks, catching a glimpse of a skateboard, two bikes, and a beat up looking old football. Guess they have kids or something. If its little kids they'll be noisy, if its teenagers they'll most likely be preppy... there's no pleasing me is there? I stepped back from the truck as a few movers climbed inside, walking back to where I had been standing in front of the house. There didn't seem to be any occupants at the moment so I gave it up as a lost job.
Walking back across the street I selected my all time favorite seat up the tallest tree in our yard looking out over the street. There I would be comfortable and hidden from view, while still being able to peer across the street at the new inhabitants when they finally arrived to start moving in. Little did I know at the time – what a show I was going to be in for when they finally showed up.
No sooner than I was comfortable did a loud 'honk' of a car horn blast from the end of the street and the next second a small procession of vehicles pulled up in front of the house so that the occupants came spilling out, their vehicles still blocking the road until the trucks could move out of their driveway – a peculiar looking muscular blonde with spiky gravity defying hair slid skillfully off a fiery-red Harley motorcycle going over to knock on the window of the jet black Grand Prix, the blonde walking off towards the front door as the sullen brunette that had been driving it got out or the car, shortly followed by three others, a dirty blonde haired teen carrying a guitar case, another shorter blonde that had his nose stuck in a book, and a second young looking brunette boy. They looked a rather odd grouping standing in front of the house together as the tallest stern brunette struggled with the key to get the door open, finally succeeding. They all piled inside and I sighed, and thinking the entertainment had left, leaned back closing my eyes for a peaceful nap –
And then as I began to doze off my cell phone started to ring. I started awake at once, falling from my sturdy branch and as I started to fall somehow managed to fasten my legs around another tree branch, hanging upside down by my knees as I riffled through my pockets for my phone, all the junk cluttered in them falling to the ground. It was a lucky thing I was quick otherwise I might have snapped my neck. Frustrated, I flipped open my phone.
"What'd you want?" Yeah, I was probably ruder than was necessary, and yes, it was partially because I had almost fallen to extreme injury or death. The other part of it was I just didn't feel like being cooperative today.
"Damn it Moonbeam, what the hell did I do to you?" I sighed, realizing too late that it was Paine on the other end of the phone. I heard a mad scuffling in the background eclipsed by some static, and when I heard her voice again I realized she had set down the phone or handed it off to someone else. "You talk to him, or have her do it just not me or I might start screaming at him. Moonbeam must be having a PMS attack on the other line or some other freaking gay mood swing thing. I hate people right now, don't talk to me. What the hell are you looking at Tsunami?"
"Hello? Please don't bite my head off, I come in peace I swear." It was a very shaky sounding Yuffie. I would have laughed if I wasn't still so angry at being woken up and panicked into falling out of the tree – that and she would have heard me and then my emo-I-hate-happiness-and-laughter reputation would be shot in the ass. "She was fine a minute ago. Now she's punching my dresser, I'm afraid she's gonna hurt herself. What the hell did you say to her?"
"Well if she hadn't have made me fall out of my God damn tree I might not have been so inclined to yell at her!" I scoffed, agitated with everyone. Were they all gonna gang up on me today or something? It's really starting to seem like it from where I'm standing... um, hanging. "Here I was minding my own business... sort of, but we can talk about that later... and my phone scares the shit out of me and I fall out of the God damn tree! I could have snapped my neck and died for all you know!"
"DAMN IT I BROKE A FINGERNAIL!!!" Was heard from the background, Paine shrieking so loud it hurt me ears through the phone. I clapped a hand to my forehead already feeling the beginning of the killer headache I was going to have by the end of the day. "This is all Riku's fault!"
"Oh my God, I swear you two have to be the biggest drama queens in the entire universe!" Yuffie laughed, my face going red immediately. And now that my blood was really boiling I wasn't about to hold back because she happened to have done absolutely nothing to me as of yet besides hurt my ego – let the flood gates open and everybody drowns.
"Shut up you stupid moron, you're not the one that fell out of a tree! If you don't stop laughing I am so going to strangle you the next time I see you!" I shouted at her as loud as I could, my voice cracking slightly under the pressure I was exerting on it. She just laughed harder than ever at that. "THAT'S IT; I'VE HAD IT WITH YOU YUFFIE! YOU'RE BEING JUST AS GOD DAMN BITCHY AS PAINE IS! PUT AXEL ON THE PHONE RIGHT NOW!"
There was a ten second pause in which I fumed silently, then-
"Hello?" I could tell he was confused but I couldn't see why – it was pretty obvious what was going on. I mean really, I could still hear Paine's shouting and Yuffie's laughter in the background along with the thin blanket of static.
"Hey Axel it's me," I sighed loudly, closing my eyes as the blood continued to rust into my head. "God those two girls are such idiots sometimes. Humanity just needs to go fall in hole right now."
"So... what the hell happened here? I come back from the bathroom and Paine's lying on the floor shouting up at the ceiling all red in the face as Yuffie rolls around on her bed laughing her brains out and complaining about being called a bitch as she hands me the phone." His explanation nearly made me laugh, as mad as I was, and I smirked into the phone lightly. I explained quickly, him staying silent until I was completely finished. "Well, I think I get what's going on now. I think all three of you have PMS or something girly like that, all three of you sound more screwed up than normal today."
I didn't reply – but I did the next best thing to it. I flipped the phone shut ending the call, and tossing the phone down onto the grass at the base of the tree pulled myself up onto the branch before beginning the long climb down. My phone went off again from where it lay in the grass and picking it up glanced at the caller ID – Larxene, the one person who hadn't been involved in that last ridiculously idiotic phone conversation that had pissed everybody else off. I decided to answer it at lat, sighing as I did so.
"Hello, you have reached Riku's phone, may I ask who is calling?" I smiled softly when her harsh twittering of a laugh shot through the speaker into my ear stopping as suddenly as it started with a small hiccup. She was so different from the rest of my friends – one minute she was laughing easily and the next she was depressed and sullen. I remembered once asking Axel why she was like that, and he said that when she was younger she had lived in another town. He house caught fire one night, and as she was trying to escape the burning building a beam had fallen and struck her in the back of the head knocking her unconscious. When she had awoken, it had been to find that both her parents had died and that the beam had scrambled her brain leaving her with a spilt personality disorder that her aunt and now legal guardian had no patience for. She was only stable when she was drunk – that was part of why she drank so much. She felt normal when she had alcohol in her system, she felt just like everybody else. "Hey Thunderbolt it's me, just messing with you, what's up?"
"Nothing much really, just calling to see if you wanted me to come get you so that we could hang out at my place, you up for a little house party? My aunt's at work all day and won't be back until midnight so we have the house to ourselves for the day." She sounded drunk already, a troubling sign. I didn't like the idea of her being by herself when she was drunk – mainly because the last time she had wanted to fly off Yuffie's roof and would have if Axel hadn't stopped her. "Come on, it'll be fun. We can call the rest of the gang to come too and order pizza or something. Oh, we can harass the pizza boy, I love that, or we can get Pyro to hit on them!"
"I'd love to Thunderbolt but I have... to go out with my parents when they get back from the church picnic. I can't get out of it, I'm sorry." I bit my lip, hoping she would buy my lie. She did, groaning into my ear. Truth be told, I knew if I hung out with her today, while she herself was drunk, somehow I'd end up with a hangover the next day. It's not that I don't know HOW to say no to my friends – I just really don't care enough about what happens to me to say no... Well, most of the time anyways. "You should call Axel and the rest of the gang they're all over at Yuffie's already. I'm sure they'd love to party with you or come pick you up so you can hang with them."
"Boo, you whore!" Her laugh was punctuated with a hiccup, followed by a resounding 'click' as she hung up on me. I sighed, flipping the phone shut and stuffing it into my pocket before flopping down on the grass to stare up at the clouds. I slowly let my eyes drift shut, relishing the nearly perfect day as the cool breeze skittered playfully across my face. Everything was perfect – and then a shadow fell over me, a very big human shaped shadow. I opened my eyes... and came face to face with a pair of big blue eyes that looked oddly familiar.
"Shit!" I pulled back, terror flowing through me. The last time I had seen eyes that color so closely was when Sephiroth... I blinked, looking around my yard for the source of my panic, half expecting the pair from my nightmare to jump out of the flowerbeds beside the wrap-around porch and come after me a second time. There was no one there.
I was alone.
---
"Damn it, where the hell is he? We're going to be late if he doesn't hurry up!" Yuffie bounced up and down on the balls of her feet impatiently beside Paine who was pissed off at the world as usual and Larxene, who surprising was calm and quiet looking extremely unconcerned about what was going on around her. "Where's Pyro at and why isn't he here yet? He said for all of us to wait for him outside your house right Moonbeam?"
"That's what he told me last night when he called me and asked me to call the rest of you and tell you." I sighed rubbing my eyes distractedly, worried by Axel's absence. "Did anyone try calling him yet this morning?"
"I did earlier, he didn't pick up." Paine sat down on the curb and wrapping her arms I around her knees rested her chin upon them. "He better get here soon or I'll-"
"There he is!" Yuffie cut her off, Paine glaring up at the black haired girl standing beside her. Sure enough, Axel's beat up car came speeding down the road, screeching to a stop in front of up. We all piled in, me taking my usual spot in the front seat as always as the three girls fought over who got the window seats – in the end Yuffie ended up sitting in the middle as always, her peppiness standing no chance against the pure angry disturbed teenagers she had to argue over seats with. "What took so long Pyro?"
"I was getting a lecture from my step-bastard about leaving my sister stranded at Marluxia's as if she didn't love being there to screw around with her preppy dickhead of a boyfriend. She called Friday and said she was spending the weekend with him and his family, but she didn't say anything about me leaving her there like I did until this morning." Axel's tone was harsh, his words stiff and unfeeling. I tried to catch his eye but he turned his face as far away from me as possible while still being able to see the road. I saw tearstained of his cheeks and I bit my lip, not wanting to say anything in front of the girls in case he didn't want them to know he had cried.
"No big deal then, it was just a lecture right?" Larxene stated as she stared out the window at the blurs rushing past us, twirling a few stray strands of her hair around her finger absentmindedly.
"Right Thunderbolt, just a lecture." The way Axel said it worried me more than anything else. When he parked the car outside the school the girls filed out as usual, but I stayed behind with Axel who hadn't made a move to get out of the car just yet. "Go on Moonbeam, you're going to be tardy if you don't hurry."
"Not until you tell me what really happened to you this morning. I can tell your weren't telling the whole truth Pyro, I can tell when you're upset, there's no use trying to hide it from me." I turned in my seat and started at the side the side of his face I could see. He slowly turned to meet my gaze – my heart stopped when he did. "How did you..."
"I told you, my step-dad and I had a talk this morning about how big of a screw up I am." He sighed deeply, looking away from me as if ashamed that I was seeing him when he was weak. It was like last week all over again, except this time I could see the scars his family had given him in the vivid purple bruise just beside his left eye.
"He hit you?" My question was breathless, my shock apparent. He nodded, a few tears falling softly down his face. "Does your mother know about this Pyro?"
"No, and she doesn't need to know Moonbeam. It's not like she'd believe me even if I told her. He'd just lie to her and she'd believe him like she always does." Axel slammed the heel of his hand against the steering wheel in frustration. "I'm fine Riku, don't worry about me. I just needed a second to clear me head I guess. Let's go, we'll be late."
I nodded silently and followed him into the building. Turning a corner I heard an excited squeal as Yuffie rushed over to us, one hand holding a clipboard stuffed with papers as she tried to attach a name tag to her shirt with the other.
"Hey guys, what do you think?" She asked us, gesturing at her name tag. It read: Yuffie Guerroyeur, 10th grade.
"Tsunami, I think everyone already knows your name." Axel said it gently, almost like you would to a small child when you're trying to explain to a disgruntled kindergartener that one plus one equals two.
"No stupid, it's for the new student I'll be showing around this week. Apparently there are three new students that will be starting today and they need student guides so I sighted up for one of them. Hey, I've got a great idea!" She smiled expectantly at us, her eyes glinting as they always did when she came up with a plan – or when she really needed to go to the bathroom. All clues pointed to this one being a plan though – rats. "Why don't you two show the other two around, it'll be fun and you get out of classes all week to do it."
"Wait, you get out of classes all week?" I asked, hesitant. Where these kids such violent psychopaths that the establishment had to bait people into showing them around all week? "What are they like?"
"Well, the principal said that the reports she was sent from their old school said they were all very polite and nice to others and that one of them was really overly intelligent." Yuffie screwed up her face trying to remember the details like she always did. "And they're all boys. Um, I think that's everything."
"Yeah, I'll pass." Axel scoffed, smirking at her. "I'd rather shoot myself than be a student guide, skipping classes or not. No way would I be caught dead letting an annoying preppy smart goody-two-shoes tail around after me all week like a lost puppy."
"Yeah, are you kidding?" I sneered, stuffing my hands in my pockets. "That's a death sentence Tsunami, you know that? You'll regret it by the end of the week; I'm willing to bet you on it I'm so sure."
"Interesting..." I turned around just in time to see a reddish ponytail whip out of sight around the corner. Dread filled my stomach, churning my breakfast around like it was on the Tilt-A-Whirl at the county fair.
"Whoa, are you alright Moonbeam, you look like you're going to be sick." Yuffie clutched the top of my arm protectively, steadying me as I swayed.
"I just say Kairi Pyro, I think she heard what we said about showing the new preps around. She ran off in the direction of the offices." I clutched my stomach as Axel rushed past me after me, me hoping it wasn't too late.
Of course, it already was. That's just my luck isn't it?
A minute elapsed before I heard it through the intercoms, Yuffie dragging me towards the offices and towards my imminent doom – Riku Hykura, Yuffie Guerroyeur, and Axel Fuego to the office.
'There you three are, I was beginning to think you'd only sighed up as a joke!" The secretary let out a chirrup handing Axel and me our nametags and clipboards. I of course had problems with the safety pin and ended up poking myself in the shoulder – Yuffie helped me fix it to my skin tight black 'My Chemical Romance' tee-shirt while the nurse went to fetch me a band-aid. "You know dear, if you'd have worn a looser shirt you might not have poked yourself."
I didn't reply, there really was no point saying anything. I knew I wouldn't win, this was a brainless adult secretary convinced that she was right and I was wrong. Axel let out a small laugh from behind me as if knowing what I was thinking – he hadn't had any problems with HIS nametag. I'm convinced mine is defective or something. Or it just doesn't like me.
"Well, the new students haven't arrived yet so I'll have to ask you to just take a seat over there in the teacher's lounge until they arrive. It shouldn't be too long of a wait; I'll come get you when they arrive." We filed out of the office into the nearly empty back room she had shown us into and sat down in the chairs by the small coffee table, Axel and I both making up whispered plans on how best to extract revenge on his other-worldly bitch of a younger sister as Yuffie sat humming to herself in a cheery fashion as she flipped through a magazine she had picked up. Nearly ten excruciating minutes later, I heard the office's front door open and people shuffle in. I silenced the others with a look, gesturing towards the door with my hand so that I could keep them the quiet to listen.
"You must be our new students, welcome to Destiny Island Local High School!" The ever cheery secretary cooed. She reminded me somewhat of a pigeon, but don't ask me why. "Here you go, I need your parents to sigh these tonight and for you to bring them back in tomorrow. You won't have to start classes this week as you'll be touring the school with your own personal guide so that you don't get lost. I'll introduce you to your guides now, follow me please."
"Here we go then, get ready for the worst week of our lives Moonbeam." Axel frowned as the sound of footsteps became louder and the door creaked open. Four people entered, the three teenagers huddling together rather nervously as the secretary walked over towards us.
"These will be your guides: Yuffie, Axel, and Riku. They have nametags in case you forget." We all stared at each other as though lost as to what the hell we were supposed to be doing. "Well alright then, I'll just split you all up shall I?"
She walked over to the three hesitant looking males, pulling the tallest and least nervous looking away to stand apart from them slightly.
"What's your name dear?" She asked kindly, noting his obvious hesitance.
"Demyx Rêve, Miss." He smiled brightly, calming down considerably when Yuffie smiled and waved at him kindly as she did nearly everyone.
"Well Demyx, you'll be paired with Yuffie." Yuffie skipped over to him and offered him her hand which he shook lively, and together they skipped out of the office like the actors in the Wizard of Oz did in the movie. "Let's see, and what about you young man?"
"I'm Roxas Rêve." He smiled lightly, still seeming a little nervous judging by the look he threw the remaining unnamed boy behind him. I could understand why he would be nervous, I mean, I could guess Axel and I probably didn't look at all enthusiastic about showing them around.
"Well dear, you can go with... Axel." I frowned, watching Axel stand up and walk over to the blonde haired boy and shake his hand, leading him out of the office. Only one left. "And you'll be going with Riku then dear." I sighed and stood up, slouching over to him and jerking my head towards the exit out of the office. "And one last thing before you leave Riku."
"Yeah?"
"Be nice to him." She gave me a knowing look and I rolled my eyes, clutching my clipboard a little tighter as I stomped out of the office and into the lobby. It wasn't until we were out of hearing range of the secretary that I turned around to look him over.
"What's your name then kid?" I asked, taking in his strange appearance. His dark washed jeans looked too big for him, his studded belt barely fastening them tightly in place making them look like they'd been passed down to him from someone else. His bark blue button up dress shirt complimented his tanned skin... what a second, where the hell did that come from? Since when do I give a shit what anyone looks like?
"Sora Cauchemar," He said softly, his sapphire blue eyes boring into mine. I blinked and looked away, not sure what to do now. Where was I supposed to start? "You don't really want to show me around do you Riku?"
"Well, I didn't sight up for it if that's what you mean. But hey, I can't help that I got signed up anymore that you can help being such following me around." I frowned, ruffling through the papers attached to my clipboard to distract myself. I sighed, giving up and looking up into his face. He looked like he had a brown porcupine sitting on his head in place of his hair. I chuckled softly, stopping suddenly with the realization that I had laughed openly in front of someone. "Okay, let's just start with the ground floor alright?"
He nodded and we were off, me showing him all the different classroom doors, leading him into the empty room that didn't have classes to meet the teachers and all that jazz like a proper student guide was supposed to, finding his locker and helping him open it so that he could shove his heavy bag inside it before we continued the tour, me having to grab his wrist to keep from loosing him in the crowd as the bell rang.
Strangely enough it seemed he was enjoying himself – and even stranger... so was I.
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Well there you go, chapter 4!!!! Whooooo, it's done.
Okay, Sora's last name is 'cauchemar' which means nightmare in French, Demyx and Roxas' last name is 'rêve' which means dream in French, Yuffie's last name is 'guerroyeur' which means fighter in French, Axel's last name is 'fuego'which jeans FIRE in Spanish, and Riku's last name is 'Hykura' which jeans nothing whatsoever!!!!
Please review, the submit review button is oh so close!!!!