By the end of the second day, Ventus realized that Vanitas Masaru was in all of his classes. He also noticed that a majority of their teachers either ignored him or had Vanitas doing things that weren't directly related to their classes.

It was kind of weird, he thought to himself as he waited for Roxas on the hood of his car, his overused, old USC sweatshirt as his protection from the burn that the back of his legs was sure to get if he didn't protect them. His music was playing, one earphone in, and one earphone out so he could hear the rustling of conversations over Zooey Deschanel asking her lover why do you let me stay here?

As the majority of the baseball team passed him, he saw Roxas meandering over to his car, talking to Axel Serafino, who Roxas had all of his classes with. It was strange, to think that Serafino, who was as good with computers as Axel was, wasn't in AP Comp Sci, but in AP Bio instead, a class Roxas was enthused about.

Ventus hopped off the hood as Axel broke off from Roxas, literally skipping down to a jet-black Toyota parked on the other side of the lot, the owner pulling a familiar red t-shirt off of their body and throwing it into the car, pale backside exposed with a chattering spiky-haired brunette in the backseat.

"Yo, Ven? Hey, Ven!" He focused back to his space, and Roxas was snapping at him, fingers barely an inch away from Ventus' eyelashes. "You're such a space case sometimes. Come on, the coffee shop awaits, empty-headed brother of mine."

Ventus snorted. "If I were you, I wouldn't be calling my older brother empty-headed. Especially if he owns the coffee shop you work at. Looks bad for the customers." Ventus dragged his sweatshirt off the hood as well and turned towards the drivers' seat. "Besides, I wasn't even the late one, Mr. I'm-So-Eager-To-Get-To-Work." His eyes drifted over to jet-black Toyota, which now had the pale owner getting slapped around by Serafino, who seemed excited about something. "What's up with you and Serafino?"

"Oh, we got into a conversation about Florence and the Machine, which albums were better and what not during Bio, then in Aerobics we couldn't finish it because Mr. S was being a total bitch about it so he told me he'd walk me to my car."

"Oh, how cute."

"Yeah, and he gave me his phone number so I'd text him and remind him to email Parker his paper. He's a bit of a space case."

"That was nice." Finally, the pale skinned man had put a new shirt on; a white one that was barely lighter than his skin, and turned to look at the sun and Ventus realized it was Vanitas. He veered his eyes away and back to Roxas. "Shall we get going?"

"Yes, lets. I have to start Hamlet as soon as we get to work, so I'd rather not miss some of the Drama majors coming in after their 1:45-3 rehearsals and begging them to read me the Baird."

"Alright, alright, we're going." Ventus glanced up once again, but he just got an eyeful of Axel. Roxas glanced back as Ventus got in the car.

"What were you staring at?"

"Nothing. Let's go, my country bumpkin."

Roxas frowned as he got in the car, "I should have never let you watch Cinderella. You've gotten idealistic on me."

Ventus slid on his clubmaster Ray-Bans, which he had bought after the coffee shop had broken even. "So, are Axel and Vanitas good friends?" He started the car as Roxas slid in the car and buckled his seatbelt. Ventus pulled out as Roxas responded.

"Yeah, pretty much best friends since grade school, but Axel said Vanitas refuses to say that out loud. They both work on Brattle Street – Axel at the theatre, Vanitas… somewhere. I wasn't really listening – Axel likes to talk. A lot."

"Like you?" Ventus shot back, and Roxas smacked him in the arm as he said: "Take me to my store. I need caffeine and music."

"And another look at that one customer (Zexion, I think his name was?)'s ass." Ventus snickered; Roxas smacked him again. But hey, it was the truth! Roxas did stare at that one guy's ass that one time.

However, in The Enterprise, Axel was just as actively beating up Vanitas' arm. "He has my number Vanitas! I tricked him into thinking I'm dumb so he'll text me to remind me the homework that I've already done. Then when I ask him for answers, he'll find me adorable and silly and we'll bond. Then I'll implement my master plan. Plus, today's payday, which means you get to buy me another pair of seersucker shorts from work!"

"I cannot believe that you're using me for the discounts." Vanitas deadpanned as he drove towards Blackberry Street. Axel had a full hour to browse, but Vanitas had to be clocked in at Urban Outfitters at 3 flat, and that only gave him twenty minutes to get there and slip on his Toms and skinny jeans before he had to go in and look bored for four hours.

Originally, the plan was for Vanitas to work at the theatre and Axel to work at UO. But Axel had forgotten to take his ADHD meds on the day of the interview and went crazy, while Vanitas had cut down the manager at the Theatre's taste in film so much that the manager had ordered him out of his sight and cried into his poster of some knockoff of Rudolph Valentino that Vanitas had noticed was a fake the minute he walked in.

Axel, however, had been charming towards the manager and had spent the whole interview talking about the merits of The Birdcage versus the original La Cage, and Vanitas had that too skinny, a touch bored look that the manager at Urban Outfitters had taken one look at and told him, "You have the job."

It was beneficial – one of the girls who worked there, Kairi (a friend of Sora's), had taken one look at him and had told him that she needed to dress him. At first, he was unsure that a girl the size of a dwarf could help him, but she had persuaded him into a few pairs of skinnies that didn't completely cut off his necessary circulation, gave him some of her too big concert shirts and had burned him like six mixes of 'pure hip goodness'. After he'd explained his plan to her about Ventus, she had started to make him watch pretentious romance movies.

Vanitas teared up during Something Borrowed. Kairi held him and promised never to tell Axel (aka, her cousin).

Luckily, Kairi was the schedule producer, so whenever Vanitas worked, Kairi worked. She was perched on the counter as Vanitas screeched in after getting pantsed by Axel, pulling up his skinny black pants up far enough that the label of his GAP boxers was barely seen over his pants.

"Were you getting some sex or did Axel pants you again?"

"Axel, though he said that Ventus was staring at me when I was changing for work. I had my gray Imagine Dragons shirt on, and the last time I wore it to work, I got hit on. By the way, where are those seersucker shorts? Axel wanted me to put a pair on hold for both of us. We both want the fire red. Axel said it'll go well with my Imagine Dragons shirt."

"It would." Kairi preened, and Vanitas rolled his eyes. "Hey Van?" Vanitas looked up from where he was logging into the cash register. "Please don't rearrange the mannequins again." The raven rolled his amber eyes.

"It was because you made me play that creepy game with the headless mannequins and blue dolls with red eyes. It was retaliation."

Kairi laughed, and Vanitas rolled his eyes. "Turn up that radio!" she commanded, and Vanitas turned up the volume to the store's radio, which streamed directly from Kairi's iPod in the back room. Vanitas had hooked it up on the second day of working there, and it was probably why he still had his job.

Then he got to rehanging while Ellen started to sing along to the Dean Martin song that was playing. After a few minutes, she shouted to Vanitas, on the other side of the store, "How's your lover?"

In return she got the finger.

Since school started on a Wednesday this year, it was relatively quick week, and the weekend sent both pairs of friends frantically working – Roxas and Ventus at their coffee shop because it's the posh place for Scripps Ranch High kids to go now, Vanitas at Urban Outfitters because loud-ass Braig had gotten eye surgery and Vanitas wanted the money to invest in a third desktop screen, and Axel on Phase Two of his epic plan, finishing up Phase One by buying all of the 50% off stuff at Urban Outfitters with Vanitas' extra 50% discount on top and American Apparel's cashier had a crush on him, so he got a 25% discount on anything. She wasn't his type, but he did love cheap clothes.

Then, he checked the weather. His plan would only be good on a rainy Monday, and luckily for him, the forecast called for rain. He reclined in his chair, smirking in victory at his desktop screen. Alas, as he went to prop his feet up so he could take a picture with his webcam, he forgot about his chair's back breaking and fell to the floor.

Oh well. You can't have everything in life. Axel sighed and pulled himself up, grabbed a blank white CD from his massive pile that he had bought at Wal-Mart, and stuck in into his CD drive, opening up iTunes, clicking his playlist labeled 'DAYS' and then in sweet victory the 'burn' button.

While it burned, he clicked onto Tumblr, as surprisingly all of his homework was finished, and logged in. Vanitas, who had been on the trend, had an account, but since he only used it to give and get help with code, he had given Axel the password so Axel could reblog all of the pretty memes and gush about how he'd dragged Vanitas to see Florence and the Machine last weekend.

It was also an effective stalking tool for Axel & Vanitas, as both had a large following. After a few weeks of "studying patterns", Vanitas had let Axel start to follow Ventus after a day over the summer where Ventus posted a video of him singing along to a Marina and the Diamonds song. Roxas' follow came after he had taken a Topless Tuesday picture. It helped Vanitas figure out what Ventus liked, and it helped Axel because Roxas was always saying what he did and didn't look for in a guy and what his new favorite obsession was.

Vanitas – of course – made Axel make himself a spreadsheet to note every time a musician was mentioned, and over the course of the summer he had collected and divided and created a spread of music that Axel would either like – thanks ! – or already did like. Vanitas, whenever he ventured on, focused solely on their two blogs and made notes, which he then emailed to Axel under the guise of 'coding suggestions'. The similarities of the two were noted, and the two columns were like reading pages of history notes – detailed, accurate, and occasionally dated.

The two best friends were similar, Vanitas had ascertained, but liked deviations. Roxas liked chiller, older music with a folk background while Ventus enjoyed poppy bubblegum style music. For example, Roxas loved Midtown, while Ventus enjoyed Cobra Starship. Roxas bemoaned the loss of The Hush Sound and The Young Veins, while Ventus was quite content with his Panic! and thought Ryan Ross was a drug addict who needed a haircut. Though the original thread was similar, there were differences, but that's what made them different.

Also, that's why Axel had made a mixtape instead of wearing clichéd tees and making himself look interesting like Vanitas had. As he scrolled through his dashboard, he saw a picture of Ventus and Roxas at their coffee shop, making goofy faces at the camera. Then the computer dinged, and he pulled out his CD as his other hand grabbed for his cell.

phase 2 begun. PS qt pic on tumblr of e n c.

cool. I'll check it in a bit. COD later?

ttly. gimme ten, i gotta finish this.

k

On Monday, Roxas walked out of the house without a rain jacket, ten minutes late, without any sort of style to his hair, exhausted from working. Roxas had fallen asleep around one, and woken up thirty minutes late, only giving him ten minutes to shower, dress, get coffee and get out the door before Ventus left his ass at home and he had to bum a ride off their mom.

So, as Ventus honked his horn, Roxas slid on his sneakers before looking outside and grabbed his bookbag and yelled bye to their mom, who yelled bye back. Then, as he locked the door behind him, a spray of water splashed the back of his neck. He ignored it, but as he turned around, it was like a monsoon had hit California. Ventus honked again, and Roxas cursed as he sprinted towards the car, his bookbag sliding around on his back as he ran towards what he had made out to be as the car. He rounded the back and slid into the passenger seat and breathed a sigh of relief.

Ventus laughed at him. "Ever hear of this thing called the weather?"

"No, sorry. My childhood dream was to be Prince of Cali, not a weatherman." Ventus reached over to smack him across his face playfully as Roxas buckled up. "Can I borrow your hoodie?"

"Sure. It's kinda ratty though."

"S'fine. Now let's get to school – Mrs. Sanders said she's going to let me help her pick out the musical for the fall today, and I want to make sure Demyx actually has a chance to be in a musical this year."

Ventus chuckled and put on his best Southern accent, "Lawd knows we can't do anotha no one sees the wizardfailure again."

"Exactly!" Roxas exclaimed, and Ventus erupted into giggles as he drove and Roxas realized that he was being made fun of. "I hate you."

"You asked for it."

linebreak

As Roxas slid into Mrs. Sanders' room, half soaking, half dry from Ventus' hoodie, the bell rang and Mrs. Sanders waved him back to her desk. "Roxy! Roxas, my darling! Come here!" She stage-whispered and Roxas rolled his eyes. Hopefully somebody hadn't suggested they do A Very Potter Musical to her again – he had to remind her six times how inappropriate it was last year, even though he did love it. He would have to be someone dumb in that, and it was his senior year. He wanted to do RENT this year, and no one was going to stop him. Not even Mrs. Sanders.

But it wasn't the musical she was bubbly about – she already had three spread in front of her, but her eyes were glued to him and her hands were behind her back. "Roxas, I have to tell you, you have a suitor here at school. They gave me a gift to give to you. I must say, it's quite charming." Then, from behind her back, she pulled a CD case out. At first it looked normal to Roxas, but then he realized it was a handmade insert, covered with the word DAYS. He was intrigued, and flipped open the case to find a white CD covered with what looked like day cards from a daily calendar. The inside-cover said in loopy handwriting, Sometimes the days pass so slowly, and then too long. Here's hoping yours passes faster now. Snapping it closed, he nodded briefly at Mrs. Sanders and headed back to his seat, flipping over the case to find a Tracklist in black ink, with anything that had the word day in it in red.

Everyday – Buddy Holly
Rainy Monday – Shiny Toy Guns
Another Day – Ari Hest
Crazy Tuesday – Thenewno2
Yesterday – The Beatles
Wednesday, 3 AM - Simon and Garfunkel
Sleeping Is All I Wanna Do( Stars on a Sunny Day ) – The Duhks
When The Day Met The Night – Panic! At The Disco
Thursday – Jim Croce
Daydream Believer – The Monkees
A Hard Day's Night – The Beatles
Friday – Rebecca Black
Love Today - MIKA
The Time Of Your Life – Alex Day
Another Saturday Night – Cat Stevens
Sunday Morning – No Doubt
Sunday Morning – Maroon 5
Some Day My Prince Will Come – Disney's Princess Collection

"Roxas! Come back here and pick from the selection we have, my child. You know it's important to me that you like what we do."

After a few seconds, Roxas returned to her desk, the CD slipped into the hoodie pocket. He skimmed the playbooks, pulling out a RENT script and handing it to Mrs. Sanders. "We need to do RENT this year. Need to, Mrs. Sanders, not want to."

She shook her head, her eyes filled with mirth. "Okay Roxas… Okay. Want to start on posters for auditions?"

Roxas nodded and sat down to design one by hand, knowing that during Advanced Theatre he could finish and maybe ask Axel or Xion to help him photocopy and distribute, then read through it. Most Advanced kids would get a part, but occasionally a star would break out the general student population.

Author's Note:

Aha, um.. Not much to say. Thanks for reading. Next update will be on next Sunday. ^^;

[expect every update to be on Sundays from now on.]