Author's Note: I offered to give my best Internet friend and favorite reviewer moon maiden of time a KH Fic for the holidays, and she asked for a SoRiku/AkuRoku Christmas-themed Fic. So this was what I came up with. It takes a lot of its inspiration from an essay I read in English class called "SantaLand Diaries," which was one of the funniest things I've read this year. (And it was a homework assignment too, how ironic. O.O)

This story was going to be a one-shot, but after the fifteen-page long monstrosity I just finished writing, I decided to break it up into short chapters and make it a Ficlet. Since I have a very clear idea of where I want to go with this, this means there will be an unprecedented (for me, anyway) update every day, at least until Christmas. If the story isn't done by then, I'll just upload the rest of it on Christmas Day.

DISCLAIMER: All I want for Christmas is the rights to "Kingdom Hearts." However, I don't think I'm going to get that. Sigh… "Kingdom Hearts" belongs to Tetsuya Nomura, Disney, Inc., and Squeenix. I own nothing but my Sora plushie. I also don't own the essay "SantaLand Diaries," which this story was inspired by.

DEDICATION: For moon maiden of time, of course. She's reviewed everything I've written, even when I was just starting out, trying to find my niche, and was writing utter crap. She's also a great author in her own right, too. I'm very lucky to know her.

OK, I'm done rambling now. (Sorry, didn't mean to go on for so long!) Here's the Fic. I hope you guys like the style; I'm trying out something new for this one.

Go Elf Yourself

www. KeybladeMaster .com
Blog Entry 137
November 30, 2009, 9:59 PM

Sora Aoyagi is back, everyone! It's been a long time since my last blog posting, huh? Moving into the new apartment took Roxas and me way longer than we thought it would. I only just got my desktop computer set up today. Who knew my brother and I had so much stuff between us? We spent the last few days setting things up in the two bedrooms, bathroom, and kitchen. The last room left to unpack in the new apartment is the living room, where I'm typing this up now. Roxas is rolling his eyes and tapping his foot impatiently behind me as I type, reminding me that I only have fifteen minutes because the towers of boxes in here are about to fall down and crush us.

Anyway, it's been two months since I graduated college with my twin brother, and I'm still surprised that Roxas got a job at the Highwind Networking and Communications Corporation so fast. As I'm sure you readers already know, HNCC is the premier computer networking business in the world, and they only take on the best of the best. That my little brother got a job there says a lot about how far he's going to go. And I came with him, of course, because we've been together ever since we were little and we can't imagine being apart now.

Roxas also can't afford an apartment in Hollow Bastion on his own salary. The rent prices in this city are insane, and they apparently pay new employees slave wages at Roxas's new job. (Roxas still says it's worth it for the opportunities it presents. I'm starting to wonder if he really is the more level-headed twin like he always says he is, or if this proves he chases crazy dreams as much as I do. Ha!)

The big news today is that I finally got a job! I've been out walking the streets of Hollow Bastion every day looking for work, scouring the "Help Wanted" section of the paper every day and visiting all the places that looked promising. After all that searching, I finally got one interview at a little coffee shop one day. The woman giving the interview asked me why I wanted to work in a coffee shop. I was nervous, so I said the first thing that came to mind.

"I really like coffee, but my brother won't let me drink it because I don't handle the caffeine highs real well. One time I had a cup of coffee and I had so much energy I started bouncing off the walls and accidentally broke a folding chair. And that was from decaf, so I bet I have even more energy on regular."

The woman's eye started twitching and she said that she didn't think I was right for the position. When I told Roxas what happened, he groaned and started banging his head against the kitchen table, asking the gods why I had to be so bad at job interviews.

But I've gone off topic. Today I was walking past the Radiant Garden Department Store, the biggest, fanciest, most expensive store in the whole city. Roxas and I couldn't afford to buy a piece of dirt off of their floor. But what made me stop was the flyer in the display window. It read:

HELP WANTED!

ARE YOU CHEERFUL AND JOLLY??

DO YOU LIKE CHILDREN??

LOOKING FOR A JOB THAT WILL WOW FUTURE EMPLOYERS??

RADIANT GARDEN DEPT. STORE IS HIRING ELVES FOR ITS "SANTALAND" ATTRACTION FOR THE MONTH OF DECEMBER.

APPLY WITHIN.

Assuming they weren't looking for child molesters (because that's what the flyer put me in mind of, unfortunately) I figured I'd be pretty good for the job. I was cheerful and happy most of the time, and all my younger cousins love me. And I had nothing to lose but what remained of my dignity, which was nothing compared to freezing my ass off on the street if Roxas and I couldn't pay the rent on the apartment and ended up getting kicked out. So I went inside.

I was directed towards Cloud Strife, a very angry looking man dressed all in black. He had blond hair that was spiked to rival my own and a pair of the bluest eyes I had ever seen. I spent most of the interview wondering if he wore contacts and staring at my lap, because he looked like he was about ready to grab the festive Winter Wonderland snow globe on his desk and hit someone in the head with it. I did not want to be that someone.

This interview went a lot better than the first one. It was also the shortest job interview I've ever done in my life. Cloud asked me why I wanted to work as an elf. I told him it was because I liked Christmastime and making people happy by spreading holiday cheer, which wasn't a lie. I love Christmas. When I was a kid I used to sneak downstairs after everyone else was asleep and sit in the fireplace waiting for Santa to come down the chimney. My parents would find me sleeping against the fireplace bricks in the morning, all covered in soot, and would make me take a shower before opening my Christmas presents.

Cloud sighed, pinched the bridge of his nose like he felt a massive headache coming on, and told me I got the job. "Be back here tomorrow for training, 8 AM sharp," he said. I nodded and walked calmly out of the store. When I got outside I started running through the streets, whooping and cheering with happiness. Roxas was just as happy as I was. When I told him he nearly crushed my ribs in a hug, and then we went out to the bar down the street, Seventh Heaven, to celebrate by wasting some of our precious money on booze.

Now that I have a job, I think I'm really going to like living in Hollow Bastion. Even though it's old, I love our apartment building. Our landlord, Merlin, is really nice, even though he keeps calling me "Miss Sora" (Roxas finds this absolutely hilarious.) The people living near us are business types in suits who go to bed early, wake up early, and aren't home most of the day.

We do have one crazy neighbor, though. He came by our second day here, introducing himself as Axel Pyru. He's the thinnest person I've ever seen in my life, and has what must be the spikiest, reddest hair in the world to boot-it looks like it could poke someone's eye out. He's also got really green eyes, with a teardrop tattooed underneath each one for some reason. Axel really seemed to like Roxas, because the first thing out of his mouth when he saw him was "Nice pants you got there. I bet you'd look even better with them off, though."

Roxas didn't take that comment too well, and he hit Axel in the stomach with his prized Struggle bat. Axel ran out screaming bloody murder along with a few swear words I've never heard before. Despite that fiasco, I don't think we've seen the last of him, because Roxas says Axel's always in the hallway using cheesy pickup lines on him when he goes down to the bus stop in the morning for work.

Well, I have to go now, because one of the boxes in the living room is falling over and it has Roxas's favorite lamp with the rotating fish in it. He's yelling at me to help him, so I'll post again later.

Author's Note: The title of this story comes from a conversation I was having with Krystal. She says that during the holidays there's always an employee (or more) in the stores that's a real jerk, so you tell them to "go elf themselves." The title was originally going to be "Christmas Blog," but I decided I liked this better.

To my knowledge, the website Sora's posting his blog on doesn't exist. I made it up. (I think it would be awesome if such a website did exit, though.)

Well, I hope moon maiden of time and the rest of you lovely readers out there are enjoying this so far. As always, it would be much appreciated if you would leave a review on your way out.

See you tomorrow!

~LWD~