The thing about chapter 6 was chapter 5. In my billion page outline of this story, chapter 5 was supposed to: a. have the date go surprisingly well with a really sweet kiss after Riku dropped Sora off back at home. Sora's freakout wasn't going to happen until probably chapter 7. b. was supposed to end with Roxas finding out that Luxord has an open pool placing bets on when and how Demyx and Zexion were going to confess their obvious mutual obsession to each other. This mostly meant that chapter 6 was going to a. start with Demyx' POV and b. explore Riku's side of the date.

Obviously THAT didn't happen.

So there were a few weeks of 'oh shit now what,' which eventually turned into a decently solid writer's block. Which is usually fine, cause dude, I can deal with that shit. But the writer's block started getting buried under other little things, and individually they were small and insignificant but when combined into this conglomerate of Writer Problems it turned into the massive, gaping vortex of I Am the Worst Writer on the Planet This Trite Bullshit is a Fucking Joke Everything Sucks I Have No Future I Should Probably Just Die Now and Get it Over With. Even thinking about this chapter made me nauseas and I threw several massive (and silent, unless you happened to get caught in a text conversation with me, in which case poor you), histrionic hissy fits. It was ugly, nasty, and a parade of stupid.

Eventually, of course, the universe and various people I owe my soul to crawled out of the woodwork to give me a well-deserved punch in the face.

Thus ends my pathetic excuse for why it took me three months to write 20 pages. To make up for both the delay and the drama, and if you're at all interested in hearing about things from Axel and Riku's side of the world, you should go check out the first chapter of Songs of Dissension, which I posted last week and is disgustingly full of Axel and Riku drinking, cuddling, and just bromancing all over each other in general as the cry into their alcoholism over Roxas and Sora.

I fucking love you guys to the end of the universe and back.

(I've also, in my spare time, thrown literally every remaining ounce of my soul into a Soriku two-shot that I may tentatively (and prematurely) claim to be absolutely my favorite piece of fanfiction I've ever written. I've never been one to push my own stories, but seriously, it would mean a whole lot to me if you guys would keep an eye out for "It Had to Be You.")

Things I Own: A MacBookPro with every song Roxas and Axel mention in my iTunes library. My (right, as opposed to left) eyebrow pierced. Black framed reading glasses. Actually a lot of the stuff in this chapter is thoughts and memories. I own a lot of those. Sundays at the library and gushing about band rivalries and cuddly life chats in bed with my best friends. Shut up I'm feeling really nostalgic right now.

Things I Don't Own: my soul. But I'm working on getting that back. My heart. I gave it to you guys months ago and it's yours keep it. I'm supposed to say these boys…but I'm starting to get pretty possessive of them. So. Er.

Songs: "You're So Last Summer" by Taking Back Sunday, "American Riviera" by Tommy and the High Pilots, a handful of others that I would give things away by revealing so I will disclaim them in chapter 7.

III. November

Chapter 6: "You're So Last Summer" by Taking Back Sunday

Roxas' POV

"I genuinely have no idea what the fuck is going on here."

Roxas slumped forward until his forehead hit the table with a dull thud, landing only inches away from the sharp edge of his MacBook and narrowly avoiding smashing the bridge of his glasses into the thick wood. Naminé, clearly having no patience for Roxas' histrionics, kicked him under the table without so much as glancing up from her own steady tap tap tapping away at her laptop.

"Maybe you should have paid attention to the college counseling session yesterday," she scolded, "instead of texting Axel the whole time."

"Psht," Roxas scoffed, rolling his head back and forth across the table in a lazy version of a head shake, "don't act like you weren't texting Marly, I saw your phone in your lap."

The clatter of her nails against the keyboard faded.

"I wasn't texting Marly," the blonde insisted. There was something about the way she said it that made Roxas heave himself semi-upright again, just high enough to peer over the edge of his computer at her.

"We had a little bit of a fight," Naminé admitted. "He got all cranky about the fact that his ex is dating someone, but why should he care? We've been together for eight months, what difference does it make if Larxene's got a new boyfriend."

"Larxene?" Roxas sat up a little straighter. "I know her. She came to Rocky Horror with Luxord."

"She's dating Luxord?" Naminé raised an eyebrow. "Kairi's gonna be pissed, she thinks that Port Royale accent is incurably sexy."

"I thought Kairi had a thing for Riku. Or Sora. Or one of them. Or something."

Naminé laughed as loudly as she dared in the low buzz of the library. "Sora? Sora might as well be Kairi's brother. Come on, don't tell me you buy into all that shit everyone always says about them. And apparently she's given up on Riku, something about him being a 'big fat mopey idiot.'" She added air quotes around the last part, raising her voice half an octave to mimic Kairi.

Roxas snorted. If Riku was a big fat mopey idiot, he wondered what Kairi had to say about Sora right now, because he'd been nothing but a lumpy yellow waste of space the last two weeks. Naminé was way too perceptive for her own good, though, and Roxas wasn't about to bring up the connection between the two angsty bastards.

"All boys are big fat mopey idiots," he reminded her. The blond was not above shamelessly bashing his own gender if it made Naminé giggle. "Do you want to talk about yours?"

Naminé narrowed her eyes at him, frowning. "You're trying to distract me," she accused. "It's not going to work. This is 'write your college essay' time, not 'gossip about everyone's love lives' time. Unless you want me to ask you about yours."

He did not. He and Naminé had hashed it out quite thoroughly already, the Sunday and the Monday after Rocky Horror, and several less-intensive times since. He did not need to reiterate for the hundredth time that he and Axel were better off Just Being Friends for now, while Naminé repeated again that she thought that was a Stupid Idea.

She was probably right, because Roxas was probably going to fail miserably in a hopelessly masochistic kind of way, but he was standing by the unspoken agreement between them. Besides, even if he disagreed, Axel had seemed pretty damn certain about it, and while he was probably just letting the poor little high school kid down gently, Roxas wasn't going to make the situation unnecessarily awkward if he could avoid it.

This train of thought, though, while both fascinating and easily something he could go another round with Naminé over, was wholly unhelpful at the moment.

"I just don't know what to write about," he whined. "What am I supposed to do? Tell me."

"Roxas," she sighed. "I'm writing an essay about analyzing people's shoes. I really don't think I'm the best person to ask for advice. What did Axel write about?"

"The emotional component of getting a tattoo and the function of the tattoo artist as a pseudo-therapist," Roxas grumbled. Asshole.

"Oh that's good," Naminé groaned. "Why am I writing about shoes? What are you writing about?"

"That's the whole point, I have no idea," Roxas pouted back at her. He'd been staring at a blank word document on and off all afternoon, desperately trying to conjure something that wasn't boring, trite, overdone, and tired. He was supposed to be good at this, this whole creative writing thing. It was what he wanted to go to school for. He damn well couldn't claim intention as an English major while applying with a generic application essay.

"Kairi wrote about moving around a lot as a kid and the influence it had on her," Naminé offered. "It was good, not too cookie cutter, but nothing they haven't read before."

Roxas nodded. "I think Sora's writing about the experience of being on a team versus actually being part of a team, or something like that that sounds fancy and interesting but's really pretty basic."

"Does Sora even know where he wants to go?"

Roxas shook his head. Sora didn't even know what he wanted for dinner these days, let alone where he wanted to spend the next four years of his life. Their parents were getting antsy about it – he was running out of time – but Sora couldn't be assed to care.

"It's weird, isn't it?" Naminé said quietly. Roxas knew what was coming. It was the only thing that was ever coming in conversations these days, like every day that passed after the first day of senior year slowly stole their ability to discuss anything that wasn't college or graduation.

"That for the first time in your life so far you can't say with any certainty exactly where you'll be this time next year?" Roxas guessed.

The blonde girl nodded.

"Two months ago…" Roxas trailed off, not quite sure how to finish the sentence. Two months ago he would have been chomping at the bit to get the fuck outta dodge, blowing out of here so fast that he would have left shell-shocked passer-bys with windswept hair in his wake. Two months ago he had a single friend, a twin brother, and a friend-by-association to his name. Two months ago he didn't use his phone more than half a dozen times a day, had never heard of a hole in the wall music store called Arpeggio's, had never seen Rocky Horror. Had never considered the possibility that living on the outskirts of the self-proclaimed Theater District might have actually meant something significant.

Two months ago he was ready to go to the far side of the city, hell, the far side of the world, to get away from here.

He sat upright and turned away from his computer, and the knowing look Naminé was leveling him with, under the pretense of cracking his back and surveying the room around them. The library was decently crowded for a Sunday afternoon; more than one of the study tables were filled with Twilight Northstudents. Roxas had been preoccupied with the one at the far corner, with the brunette girl with her back to him and the blond Struggler that had caught him staring at least twice.

"What're..." Naminé paused, following both Roxas' gaze and subject change. "Hm. How's that going?"

"It's weird," Roxas shrugged. It was. "He's been – I don't know – nice, I guess. Says hi to me in the hallways at school and whatever, got all up in Saïx' face again the other day. It's just weird."

"Well it's just totally out of the blue, right?" Naminé frowned thoughtfully, discretely turning over her shoulder to peek at the table Hayner and Olette were sitting at. She and Roxas hadn't really been friends when he was still in his group with Hayner, Pence, and Olette, but she'd been around enough to know that ship had supposedly sailed.

"Completely," the blond agreed. "I have no idea where it's coming from, or why. It's…whatever. I'm sure he's got a reason, and I'm sure he'll make it obvious sooner or later."

"Probably sooner," Naminé nodded. "He's never been one for subtlety, has he?"

Roxas snorted, shaking his head.

"Speaking of sooner," his best friend prodded, arching a delicate eyebrow at him in a look that could only mean trouble. "How about that essay?"

Roxas groaned and let his forehead fall back down with a thud.

"What about 'Here (In Your Arms)?'"

"Hellogoodbye?" Axel asked. "Why is that even a question?"

"Maybe people had a deprived childhood and don't know it," Roxas argued defensively, pouting slightly as he dragged the file onto his playlist.

"Well then you'll educate them," Axel sighed, flipping over a page of his magazine. "Isn't that the whole point of this playlist?"

"Maybe," Roxas consented. "Mostly it's to alleviate the fact that you're boring as fuck and doing nothing to entertain me, you bastard."

Axel reached up and flicked the blond's ear without even pulling his eyes away from an interview with The Downtown Fiction. Roxas laughed, swatting at the redhead's hand.

They'd been sitting there for at least an hour now, Axel behind the counter under the pretense of manning Arpeggio's register, Roxas perched on the Plexiglas surface with his laptop in his lap. Axel had texted him in the middle of last period, whining pathetically about how slow the store was and how very, very bored he'd been, and Roxas had shown up 45 minutes later armed with backlogged issues of AP and a handful of empty thumb drives.

This was the third time this week he'd wound up at Arpeggio's, and the eighth time this month. It was quickly becoming routine, almost enough so that Roxas didn't feel the need to wait for Axel to invite him, as he had nervously done the first few times.

"What else?" Roxas mused, frowning at his computer. He had dozens of appropriate songs, and it was all he could think of on the way over here, and now here he was, staring at a mostly blank screen. Typical.

"Hmm…"

Oh crap, Roxas could practically hear Axel's grin in the air.

"I'M A BARBIE GIRL, IN A BARBIE WOOOOORLD."

"Ugh no," Roxas groaned, coming dangerously close to dropping his laptop in his effort to slap both palms over his ears.

"LIFE IN PLASTIC, IT'S FANTASTIC!" Axel continued loudly, barely-contained laughter under his intentionally warbly, off-pitch singing voice.

"Jesus fuck," the blond whined, shoving one shoulder up against his ear so he could keep his grip on his precarious computer. "I thought you were supposed to be good at that singing shit."

Silence followed that pronouncement. Roxas waited with bated breath, wincing in anticipation as he gingerly lifted his head enough to uncover his ears.

"Here I go. I'll scream my lungs out and try to get to you, you are my only one."

Huh. That was actually – huh.

"I let go, there's just no one that gets me like you do, you are my only, my only one," Roxas sang back. It wasn't nearly as good as Axel, who had almost sounded better than the damn band, but there was still a low whistle from behind him.

"Not bad, grasshopper," Axel commented. "Not bad." It was a compliment, mostly, but Roxas was almost certain there was a hint of challenge creeping into the redhead's tone.

Sure enough, not even a minute went by before he heard from behind him, spoken this time: "you could be my punk rock princess, I would be your garage band king."

He laughed even as he rolled his eyes, not bothering to turn around as he scrolled through his library towards S.

"Are you going to tell me how you just don't fit in, and how you're gonna be something?" the blond teased. "Come on, Ax, boys like you are a dime a dozen."

"Yeah, well you're a touch overrated," Axel shot back. He slammed his magazine shut with a flutter of glossy pages, shoving it aside and planting both hands on the countertop with two dull thuds.

"Is that what you call tact?" Roxas snorted. "You're a subtle as a brick in the small of my back, so lets end this call, and end this conversation."

Axel hoisted himself up onto the counter, legs dangling off the opposite side from the blond, close enough that Roxas could feel the older teen's shoulder shaking as he tried not to laugh.

"Twofold burn, Rox. Coming back at a TBS quote with an insult from a Brand New song, that's clever," the redhead nodded approvingly. He reached around behind him for the edge of the counter, curling his fingers over the metal lip and resting his weight back on his palms until he and Roxas were face to face.

"I'm always clever," Roxas insisted. He was fastidiously avoiding the part of his brain that was fixated on the (scant) distance between Axel's right hand and his own right knee. "Admittedly, though, I don't get it."

"You don't know the rivalry story? Taking Back Sunday and Brand New? 'Seventy Times 7' and 'There's No I in Team'?" He sounded aghast, but mostly delighted, like he couldn't wait for the opportunity to tell Roxas everything he knew about everything.

"No?" Roxas shrugged.

"Oh man, okay, so Jesse Lacey and John Nolan were like, best friends, right? Like they grew up together, went to the same high school, and they were hardcore into the music scene and shit, and when Taking Back Sunday was getting put together they were both asked to be in it. Anyway, they had this massive, totally explosive falling out because John slept with Jesse's girlfriend, and Jesse left the band to go off and form a brand new band, and, you know, 'as if it happening wasn't enough, I gotta go and write a song just to remind myself how bad it sucked.' Supposedly "you're as subtle as a brick in the small of my back, so lets end this call and end this conversation," was the last thing Jesse said to John before hanging up on him."

"So, 'they say best friends means friends forever,' versus 'best friends means you pulled the trigger, best friends means you get what you deserved?'"

"Yes exactly!" Axel cried enthusiastically.

"You," Roxas sighed, rolling his eyes, "are actually a massive geek." He knew, based on the smirk he received in lieu of a good solid dead arm, that the redhead had correctly interpreted Roxas' confession of interest.

"Yeah whatever," he sighed. "It's still cool and you know it. I think they should go on a tour together and call it the Rivalry Tour and sell shirts that say 'There's No I in Team' and jerseys with the number 70x7 on the back and dueling stages and wouldn't that be awesome?"

"A massive, massive geek," Roxas qualified, grinning. He added the songs all the same, Axel twisting around to look over his shoulder at the playlist.

"You're still missing like, the classic high school jam," Axel commented.

"What?"

"This song," Axel started, straightening again to watch Roxas' face. "I'm telling you, when I was in high school you walk up to anyone in the school and 4 out of 5 people know, at the very least, the words to the chorus."

"Well?" Roxas prompted, glancing up to meet vivid green eyes head-on. Axel didn't flinch, didn't blink, didn't look away as he sang the essential line to the teenage love anthem.

"My hopes are so high that your kiss might kill me, so won't you kill me, so I die happy?"

"My heart is yours to fill or burst. To break or bury, or wear as jewelry, whichever you prefer."

The silence that followed Roxas' almost involuntary response lasted barely seconds, but also possibly days. Axel just sat there, looking at him with that knowing little half-smile that was more in his eyes than on his lips, and in those barely seconds Roxas must have reminded himself a couple hundred times that they had decided to be friends.

"Grand Theft Autumn."

"Huh?" Roxas blinked, and just like that it was gone. They were back, sitting on the counter at Arpeggio's in this newly minted style of theirs, holed up from the real world in their own little reality of music and lyrics, and nothing was weird and Axel's hand wasn't a hair's width away from his leg and Axel's eyes weren't an inhumanely possible shade of green and everything was fine.

"Fall Out Boy," Axel reiterated. "You know, pre-Sugar We're Going Down? Which should probably be on there too, I don't know about you but that song was my shit man."

"Oh yeah," Roxas agreed. He already had Sugar on the playlist, but Grand Theft Autumn was a necessity that he couldn't believe he had missed. Sora would have killed him, he was such a little FOB fan back in the day. It was Cloud's fault, passing down his friends' music to his younger brothers when everyone else in the sixth grade was listening to the Backstreet Boys. It didn't matter that most of the lyrics went right over their heads, knowing nothing about love and heartbreak and what, exactly, teen spirit smelled like; they ate it up anyway.

"What about All Hail the Heartbreaker? I know maybe not everyone knows it, but it would feel wrong to leave it off a playlist of songs I grew up to," the blond mused. He had abandoned his oversized library in favor of perusing playlists, resolutely watching the lists move across the screen instead of looking at Axel.

Axel snorted with laughter. "Oh my god speaking of, apparently Demyx the other day walked in on Riku doing a full-out, balls to the wall performance of All Hail in front of the mirror...except he had headphones on and didn't realize the entire floor could hear him singing."

"Shut up," Roxas laughed. "No way. What did Demyx do?"

"Started filming, obviously," Axel chuckled. "Reeks didn't notice until halfway through 'Staplegunned.'"

"That's fucking priceless," the blond grinned, dragging both Spill Canvas songs to the 'Sounds of a PunkPopEmoRock Childhood.' "You gotta save that for blackmail."

"Dem thinks we should send it to..." Axel trailed off, awkwardly looking away. They had, by mutual unspoken agreement, decided to avoid the disaster that was the Sora and Riku Show, but that didn't mean they didn't slip every now and then.

"I thought Demyx didn't know," Roxas said carefully, instead of saying 'Sora been face-down on his bed for the better part of the last two weeks, listening to nothing but Spill Canvas, Brand New, and Secondhand Serenade,' like he wanted to.

"Well," The redhead frowned, "everyone knows Ri has a massive crush on someone right now. Demyx, being Demyx, is 96% convinced it's Sora. He just doesn't know that Riku's crush is actually fuck buddies gone horribly wrong, he thinks it's a case of unrequited crush on a straight guy. Existentialism on Prom Night."

"Oh shit, yeah," Roxas nodded. "Good call." Good save.

"You realize you're almost double the minimum song count, right?"

"How do you possibly expect me to keep it around 20 songs? It's not like the taxonomy one, where there's an obvious set of guidelines," Roxas scoffed. Honestly, sounds of his childhood limited to 20 songs. He couldn't even imagine how he was going to keep it under fifty.

"You bought that one?" Axel sounded surprised, one eyebrow arching up into his hairline.

"Yeah, why?"

Axel shrugged. "Was wondering where it got to."

"It's good," Roxas nodded. "I have a couple other ones too, Homecoming, and Conversations in Song Titles, and another one…why are you looking at me like that?"

"No, nothing," Axel shrugged. "I didn't know you'd been checking out the playlist bin." He was still looking at Roxas strangely, something brewing in those malachite eyes, head cocked to the side and lips drawn in a contemplative frown. They were seconds away from reaching uncomfortable, a few more inhale-exhale-inhale combos away from Roxas breaking the awkward silence, when Axel cleared his throat and leaned across the blond's lap to grab the shoebox full of thumb drives.

"Here," he mused, rifling through the assorted collection with a purposeful air that gave him perfect license to avoid Roxas' confused expression, "try this one…"

Sora's POV

Someone was climbing into his bed with him.

He felt them, hands and knees and feet and fingers and the heavy warmth of another body hovering over his own. For a heart-stopping second he considered the possibility that it was…well. It didn't matter, because it couldn't have been. This person was smaller, lighter. Couldn't have been Roxas, Roxas would have thrown himself bodily as a dead weight on top of Sora's slumped-over face plant, which really only left one option.

He cracked one eye open to catch sight of soft red and warm blue on the pillow next to him. Kairi was simultaneously the last and only person he wanted to see right now, but the latter outweighed the former enough that he wormed one arm out from underneath his ribs and held it out in invitation. She barely hesitated in burrowing in under it, tugging the covers back over them both and snuggling into him.

And the wonderful, wonderful thing about Kairi is that for every moment that she spent being bubbly, loud-mouthed, outgoing Kairi she spent another as his considerate and quiet support, warm and heavy and real against his side.

The silence, though, no matter how comfortable, could only be suffered for so long before Kairi's curiosity got the better of her.

"Wanna talk about it?" she prodded gently.

Sora shook his head, brown spikes sliding messily across both their foreheads.

"Gonna talk about it anyway?" she teased.

The head-shaking morphed slowly into a nod. "Probably," he conceded. "Just…give me a minute."

She gave him ten. It was, typically, because Kairi was a. a girl and b. a goddess and c. knew these kinds of things, exactly what he needed. He shifted them around until he was spooned right up behind her, seamlessly sealed together with his arms around her ribs and her head in the crook of his shoulder, fingers absently teasing the skin on Sora's wrist.

It was that, more than anything else, that broke him. Broke him twice over, really: once for the reminder and once for the reiteration. It was all too reminiscent of nights he would nudge his way through a crowded party and "accidentally" brush light fingertips over pale skin, a ghost of a touch fueled with the thrill of a secret and a promise.

Even more than that, though, it reinforced the fact that, no matter how badly he sometimes wanted it to be, his relationship with Kairi was never going to be anything more than this.

"I went on a date," he said finally. "I think."

"You think?" Kairi repeated. "Did you want it to be a date?"

"I…I didn't at the time?" Sora admitted. Guessed. Maybe. "At least, I thought I didn't? I don't know anymore."

"So try it again," the redhead suggested gently. "Feel it out, see how it goes when you go into it knowing it's a date."

Sora laughed humorlessly. Self-depreciatingly. "I think I successfully ruined any chances of that ever happening."

He could feel her frowning against his bicep, the tug of her downturned lip catching the edge of his sleeve.

"Then you should definitely try. Or at least try talking to her."

Sora opened his mouth to protest, but Kairi cut him off before he could start the desperate excuses.

"No, I'm just saying. She obviously means a lot to you, Sor, whether you realize it or not. Look at you."

The brunet took a deep breath. He'd always been a big fan of the theory of ripping a band-aid off in one fell swoop…until the theory was forced into practice. This one was going to hurt like a bitch, even if he had been preparing for it since the second she crawled into his bed.

"He."

He felt the moment it clicked. The fingers on his forearm froze mid-tap, a sharp suck of air rushing against his skin as Kairi gasped silently. He held his own breath almost as long as she did, bracing himself.

"Statistically," she said slowly, after the longest fucking moment of his entire life, "if one identical twin identifies as gay, there are like 50% odds that both twins do. True facts, they totally did a study on it."

Sora burst out laughing, rolling flat onto his back and using the arm that had been flung over Kairi's ribs to cover his face. Jesus Christ, this was why he loved her so much. He laughed until there was something suspiciously like tears rolling down his cheeks, the hair on his forearm catching the evidence before anyone could confirm it.

"Fuck, Kai," he sighed, scrubbing his arm across his face one last time before turning his head. She'd rolled over onto her other side, head propped up on her hand as she watched him with a small smile. "Needed that."

"You're dumb," she reminded him, "if you actually thought you'd get any less from me."

He should have known better, really. He had, after all, been there when Selphie had told her about Roxas ("Those yellow jeans your brother has on are sick, Sor, think he'd let me borrow them? I could probably pull them off with a belt or two." "Kairi, Roxas is gay." "So?" "So they're probably girls jeans anyway." "So…are you saying he'll let me borrow them?"). And, well.

"I don't…I don't really know what I identify as," he admitted, once he'd calmed down enough to use proper words. "I mean, I've never been particularly attracted to any other guys before. Then again, I've never been this attracted to a girl either."

It felt weirdly good, saying it out loud. Nice. Something he probably should have done months ago. It was just hard, talking to Roxas about it, and no one else knew before now.

"Sora." Kairi sighed exasperatedly. "Look. Honestly? Who cares. Who cares what you call it? What matters is that you obviously like this guy. You've done nothing but mope around like Moaning Myrtle since Hallo…"

Oh.

Shit.

Kairi's eyes bugged out of her head and she sat bolt upright as, yup, the missing piece fell effortlessly into place. He'd expected it to take at least a few minutes longer, honestly, until he noticed that Kairi wasn't looking directly at him anymore. He followed her gaze to where it landed a half-dozen inches up from his far shoulder, right on a worn, slightly dirty yellow…crap.

"Sora," Kairi said slowly. Sweetly. In that voice that made grown men cry and puppies run away and Sora shrink backwards against the offending, not-so-hidden sweatshirt. "Sora, is that Riku's yellow hoody under your pillow."

It wasn't a question. It wasn't a question, which was Sora's defense for why he didn't know how to answer it. Right. Uh. Think fast. Yes. No. Of course not. It was Roxas'. Yup. That one.

"Let me rephrase." She was still using That Voice, the one that meant she was about to open a can of kick-your-ass-all-over-the-place, as she leaned over Sora and pulled the pillow out from under him, unmistakably revealing the offending hoody. "Sora, why is a sweatshirt that usually belongs to the other best friend of mine who, coincidentally, has also been sulking around like a kicked puppy since Halloween, hidden under your pillow?"

"Uhhh…" Come on Sora think fast. "I was…cold?"

The first blow of the pillow landing flat against his chest didn't hurt much, but the second assault on the side of his head did. He whined pathetically at her, cringing away from a third blow aimed at his shoulder, and the fourth, until it became unavoidable to avoid Kairi's punctuating each word…

"YOU. WENT. ON. A. DATE. WITH. RIKU. AND. DIDN'T. TELL .ME."

"In my defense," Sora protested, blocking the last of the reign of pillow assault and pouting pathetically at his fiery best friend. "I didn't realize it was a date until I was solidly in the middle of it. In fact, I'm not even sure it was a date."

Kairi was still glaring at him with narrowed blue eyes, hugging the pillow to her chest and settling in in a way that said all too clearly that she wasn't moving from Sora's bed until he explained himself in full.

"Remember that first party you took me to?" he started warily. His fingers were itching to grab the sweatshirt, though whether Sora wanted to pull it on or shove it back out of sight again wasn't quite clear to him.

"Back in June?" she frowned contemplatively. "That one right before school ended? And you had a total panic attack because you had to go to school with that massive…"

She squeaked. Squeaked. Fingers flying up to cover her open mouth, blue eyes wide, blush burning over her fair cheeks. Sora grinned in spite of himself, raising his eyebrow in an undeniably Riku-esque fashion as he waited for her to say it.

"Rikugaveyouahickey," Kairi finally squealed, splaying the fingers still pressed against her lips just far enough to allow the words out.

"He gave me a lot more than a hickey," he said bluntly. Sora couldn't help it. The look on Kairi's face was completely worth it, abject shock followed by wide-eyed realization.

"Oh my god he's actually rubbing off on you," she breathed. "How did I not notice that? You never used to be this snarky, and now you're all kinds of sassafrass."

"I am not," he protested. He totally was, and he knew it, and he knew it was Riku's fault. Damn it.

"Are too," Kairi shot back. "Big time. Look at you, you're even pitching a bitch fit the same way he does. Bet you even made the same 'I Am Sad, So Very Very Sad' playlist. Spill Canvas and Brand New."

"There's some Motion City on there too," Sora whined. "And Secondhand Serenade."

"Psht," Kairi scoffed, "L.G. Fuad is his all-time favorite song, and I spent an hour one night talking BlackOut Riku out of getting 'breathe me in I'm yours to keep' tattooed on his ribs."

"That would look weird with the one on his shoulders," he frowned.

Kairi gaped at him.

"Sorry," she said, shaking her head slightly. "It's just weird. Not weird that you and him…" she backtracked hastily. "I mean. Not weird that…it's just…you and Riku. Riku. I mean…" Kairi bit her lip, alternating between coy and shy as she weighed the options on her tongue.

"So…is he any good?"

Sora laughed until it hurt.

And then he told her everything.

Roxas' POV

He was less than a block from Arpeggio, nose buried in a text from Axel that, at first glance, included the words 'Demyx,' 'needles,' and 'be there,' and were therefore cause of due concern, when a hand snaked around his bicep and yanked him backwards.

"You should watch where you're going, Rox, or one day you're going to walk right into something."

Roxas started, jerking his head upright and around to find Hayner Dincht clutching his arm. The other blond's tone was light and teasing, overly friendly for what Roxas particularly thought it should have been, and even though the voice of reason in him was reminding him that Roxas had been the one to shove Hayner away, the irrational, irritable part of his stomach squirmed at the feeling of Hayner's fingers on his sleeve.

There was, admittedly, a garbage can almost directly in front of him that he'd been about to walk face-first into, so he supposed Hayner deserved at least a little credit for that.

"Yeah," he agreed, freeing his arm from his old friend's grasp and running his hand through his blond spikes. "Thanks."

"I do what I can," Hayner shrugged, grinning. "You seemed pretty engrossed in that phone, figured you probably wouldn't notice the bin even if it burst into song."

"Just trying to figure out where to meet up with a couple friends," Roxas said. "Some tattoo parlor or something."

"Oh man, you with a tattoo," the taller blond laughed. "Weird thought. Guess you're almost 18 though, yeah? Still, it's way easier to picture you with that eyebrow stud you always said you wanted. Roxas Strife, all inked up."

"It's not…" he scraped the blunt edges of his nails across the back of his neck. This was awkward, why were they even having this conversation? "Not for me. My friend's getting something done I think, I'm just along for the ride."

"That's cool though," Hayner nodded. "I won't keep you. Good to see you though, we should hang out some time. Catch up, you know? It's been a while."

"Uh," Roxas couldn't think of a polite way to say 'hell fucking no,' not with Hayner looking at him with those big brown bambi eyes and a smile still on his tan face. "Yeah, sure."

"Cool. See you around, Rox."

He was gone as quickly as he appeared.

What the fuck was that. Roxas turned around bodily to watch Hayner walk off, ambling down the street with both hands in his pockets in the kind of laid-back, relaxed stroll he never would have seen coming from the energetic blond he used to know. Who the fuck was this kid crawling out of the woodwork and re-appearing in Roxas' life like he'd just been away on vacation for a few weeks?

Roxas was still mulling it over when he shoved his way into Arpeggio's, not quite slamming the door but certainly making enough of an entrance that both Axel and Demyx fell silent where they'd been gabbing away at the counter. Demyx' appearance somewhat explained Axel's rambling text about Dem's new tattoo quest, and Roxas was much more interested in focusing on that avenue of interest instead of dwelling on the Struggler still probably only blocks from here.

"Dem," Axel said grandly, correctly interpreting the stormy look still brewing in Roxas' eyes and choosing not to ask, "wants us to come hold his hand while he gets stabbed with a needle a few thousand times."

"You say that so damn judge-y like," Demyx sighed, "and yet how many thousands of times have needles been stabbed into your skin, ink-junky?"

"That," the redhead scoffed, "is completely beside the point. Whatdaya say, Rox, close up shop early and accompany babyface here to Ace of Spades?"

"Sure," the blond shrugged, "why the hell not. Never been to a tattoo parlor."

"So what's up, sunshine?" Axel asked fifteen minutes later, locking the front door behind them. "What brings you storming through like the harbinger of doom and gloom?"

"Nothing, did not," Roxas grumbled defensively.

"Kid," Demyx shook his head, "I was genuinely in fear of my life. Don't give us this nothing bullshit."

"I just had a weird run-in," the younger blond admitted reluctantly. He felt bad that they'd even noticed, to be honest; he didn't mean to bring their afternoon down with his adolescent whining.

"Oooh with an ex?" Demyx guessed, bouncing up next to the high school student shuffling his feet down the sidewalk.

"No," Axel guessed, "with a girl who used to have a crush on him."

"Used to?" Demyx echoed. "Look at him, she still has a crush on him."

"You guys suck," Roxas groaned, cracking a smile despite himself. "No, I ran into this guy I used to be friends with. Well, best friends, I guess."

"Was he a dick?" Demyx interrupted. "If he was a dick lets go find him and throw things at him."

"Hayner?" Axel guessed. Roxas nodded. He'd forgotten he'd told the redhead about him, back a few weeks ago after the time he and Naminé had ran into Hayner and Olette at the library. Axel had told him to be nice to the other senior, at least until Roxas was able to figure out what his ulterior motives were, but somehow that got lost in translation between Roxas' brain and Roxas' actions.

"Yeah," he shrugged. "He was nice, I guess. Stopped me from walking headfirst into a garbage can, so that was good of him. And he said we should 'hang out some time," he sneered, air-quoting around the words, "and 'catch up.'"

"What's so wrong with that?" Demyx frowned, glancing sideways at the smaller blond for a few seconds before gesturing down a back alley. "This way."

"Really nothing," Roxas admitted, more to himself than the older musician. "I just…why now? Why, after three years of us co-existing totally fine in the same school without bothering each other, is he all of a sudden all about being friends again?"

"Well obviously," Axel drawled, "you should find out. By playing along. Duh."

"Second," Demyx agreed. "Besides, is he hot?"

"No!" Roxas cried, torn between horror and laughter. "I mean, yeah, I guess he's not that bad looking, but he's like…I dunno, he's Hayner. Even if that wouldn't be weirdly incestuous, he's the captain of the Struggle team. The quintessential jock."

Axel mumbled something that sounded most suspiciously like 'just like Sora,' but Roxas was saved from trying to muster up a comeback by Demyx gesturing with a flourish at what looked like a total hole in the wall dive.

"So, what are we here for, exactly?" Roxas asked, wrinkling his nose and stepping through the door Axel graciously held open for him. The tattoo parlor, aside from being surprisingly clean, was almost as cool as Arpeggio's, but in the polar opposite way. Arpeggio's was flawless in its clutter and collectibles, but Ace of Spades was impressive in its compulsive neatness. The entire shop had the fresh, pristine look of a just cleaned parlor, straight, neat lines of whitest whites and crispest blacks, chrome gleaming with a polished shine under well-placed lights. Several framed paintings lined the walls, each boasting pretty much the only non-monochromatic color in the entire shop, and Roxas was so busy studying one of manic, drastic close-up of a twisted King of Hearts that he almost missed Demyx' response.

"Just getting a few rough spots touched up on this, being a perfectionist."

He turned around just in time to catch Demyx pulling his hoody over his head, revealing what looked like a fairly fresh line of script running straight down the left side of his torso. Roxas' fingers twitched with the urge to touch it, something about the still-slightly-raised texture of the imperfect handwriting, the way the words surfed the ridges Demyx' ribs like the very wave they described.

"Is it logical to be lost in a tidal sound wave?" he read, twisting his head to the side and squinting at the older blond's skin. "Dude, that rocks."

"Thanks," Demyx grinned. "Zex and I were at a Ludo concert last summer and the opening band had this song 'American Riviera' and this was the first line, and we just kind of stared at each other cause it was perfect."

"I mean it's great," Roxas agreed, crossing the room to drop down next to Axel on one of the black leather couches, "don't get me wrong. But perfect for what?"

"For…well, us," the musician shrugged. Axel, slumped against the back of the couch on Roxas' right, muttered something incoherent under his breath.

"Shut your trap, Red," Demyx warned, throwing his sweatshirt at the laughing redhead before turning back to Roxas. "We'd both been thinking about getting a tattoo, and we both latched onto this one extra hard. We almost fought about it, until we decided there was no reason we couldn't get the same one."

"And what made it so special?"

The taller blond smoothed his thumb down the long line of text, glancing down at it. "It's…well it's kind of the perfect blend of me and Zex, you know? Music and logic for him, music and waves for me. The surfer and the cynic."

"Write that down," Axel said quickly, pointing at his bandmate. "The surfer and the cynic, that's good. Sounds like a love song, if only you'd grow a pair."

"Don't talk to meabout growing a pair," the shirtless teen protested, raising Significant Eyebrows at the other teen.

Roxas frowned at the pair of them, having only the vaguest idea of what was going on. He was saved, or interrupted, by the arrival of a fourth person from the backroom, bleached blond hair and metal-heavy ears glinting almost as bright as the polished silver display case.

"You're their tattoo artist?" Roxas blurted out, raising an eyebrow at the sight of Luxord strolling towards them.

"Except those stupid fucking emo tears," the older man defended. "I had nothing to do with that particular exercise in stupidity."

"These things are the shit," Axel protested, thumbing one of his tattooed cheeks defiantly.

"Yes, yes, they're precious, just like you," Roxas teased, leaning over and pinching the fleshy part of the redhead's skin. Axel swatted ineffectively at the blond's hand as Demyx and Luxord laughed.

"I'll be yours too, if you want," Luxord smirked, nodding at Roxas. "What about it, kid, itching for some ink?"

"But I'm n-gjgjkskg" Roxas trailed off, mumbling the remains of the last words against the hand Axel had sealed over his mouth. He frowned at the redhead sitting behind him, shooting him a warning look masked by an easy grin.

"Nineteen, right? That's what you were going to say?" the drummer prompted, watching Roxas' face with a raised eyebrow.

"Yup," Roxas nodded. "Nineteen. But still not ready for an impulse tattoo yet."

"Boo, lame," Axel hissed, ruffling Roxas' blond spikes in playful retaliation. "Come on Rox, you'd look hot with a tattoo."

"Yeah, two big fat tear drops right on his face," Demyx suggested. "Oh wait, no, only a total jackass would do something that dumb."

"You're just jealous cause you had to steal your shit from a ruddy pirate," Axel teased, nodding at the black outline on Demyx' forearm.

"You're just jealous cause I actually remember making the conscious decision to let someone tattoo me," the pianist said tauntingly.

"Jesus, are they always like this?" Roxas asked exasperatedly, turning to Luxord.

"Should see them at rehearsal, love," the artist said, nodding. "It's a wonder we get anything done. Especially with Riku being a total wanker. And Demyxhas developed a new habit of dropping, breaking, or crashing into the nearest object every time Zexion walks into the room."

"I do not!" Demyx whined, shuffling over to the bench Luxord was gesturing him to.

"Dude…" Axel laughed.

"Am I missing something, or what?" Roxas finally asked, looking back and forth between the three band members. "Zexion's your best friend, right?"

"Oh they're best friends alright," Luxord muttered.

"Best friends," Axel repeated.

"You," Demyx warned, sitting up halfway and pointing threateningly at the redhead. "I know shit about you and Riku that would make Roxas run out of here screaming."

"Reaaally?" the younger blond drawled, raising an eyebrow and turning to find Axel's face almost as red as his hair. "No, no," he paused, shaking himself and switching back to Demyx. "You're trying to distract me, you manipulative bastard. What am I missing here?"

"You mean other than my massive, completely overwhelming, and so painfully obvious it hurts to even think about, enormous crush on Zexion?" Demyx said wryly, rolling his head to the side to look at Roxas.

What?

"Don't listen to him," Axel scoffed, leaning in to Roxas. "'Crush.' Please, try so truly, madly, deeply in love that Savage Garden got the inspiration for their song from Demyx and travelled back in time to write it."

What? (and really…what?)

"You and…" Roxas trailed off, gesturing randomly between Demyx and the empty air next to him even as the surprisingly loud buzz of Luxord's tattoo gun filled the shop. "You and Zexion?"

"Come on now, Rox," Demyx sighed.

"Move again, twat, and I'll give you facials to match the freak's," Luxord warned, glaring at the reproachful-looking blond stretched out in front of him.

"Sorry," he apologized sheepishly. "Anyway," he continued, carefully looking at Roxas without moving anything from the neck down. "You didn't seriously think you were the only gay boy in all of Twilight Town, did you? I mean, this is the theater district."

"Stereotypes…" Roxas trailed off lamely.

"Are, sometimes, actually based in reality," Axel reminded him. "Seriously, I don't understand your high school. It's statistically impossible you're the only gay kid in the whole school."

The blond ignored Axel in favor of the much more interesting subject of Demyx, grimacing at him from halfway across the room. "Does that mean you're…"

"Gay?" Demyx looked like he was forcibly restraining himself from shrugging. "I mean, I guess? I dunno, I was never really into dating in high school, I kind of just whored around a lot. I guess if I really sat down and thought about it my preference would probably be male."

"By male he means Zexion," Luxord clarified, glancing up from Demyx' ribcage. "Clearly."

Roxas glanced helplessly at Axel, who was watching him with thinly veiled interest. "Are all your friends gay?" he challenged.

The redhead laughed. "I mean, technically I think Riku kind of skews the standard a little bit," he joked. "And no one's really sure about Zexion, thus far the jackass has proved to be asexual."

"Tell me about it," Demyx grumbled, making a face at Luxord as the older blond shaded lightly over an area that was more bone than anything else.

"I'm not," the drummer called over the buzzing. "You gents are great and all, but I like my women soft and curvy."

"Which is clearly why you're dating a bitch with claws," Axel drawled. "See," he added, turning back to Roxas. "Lux isn't. Obviously Larxene isn't. Xiggy isn't, or at least wasn't last time anyone bothered to check. Plenty of the people in the outer circle, the ones you haven't really met yet, but totally will at the Thanksgiving party, aren't. We just happened to find all the good ones."

"Roxas," Luxord said loudly, switching off the gun and straightening up to look at the still-gob smacked blond. "Know what's an excellent way to get over a big shock like that? Adrenaline rush. Bet you the cost of the jewelry you don't have the balls to get a piercing done right now."

Roxas worked his mouth open and closed several times, glancing between the fond look on Axel's face, the discomfort-laced amusement on Demyx', and the challenge in Luxord's smirk, brain racing to catch up with the situation. He really ought to stop being surprised like this, especially after Sora, but the processingjust wasn't really sinking in.

He thought about the promised adrenaline rush, the sharp spike piercing through the haze of half-formed thoughts, the tangible satisfaction of cool metal through his skin and dull, throbbing pain bringing him back down to the real world. It was maybe a little masochistic, and maybe a little out of character, but right now it might just be exactly what he needed.

"What are your thoughts on an eyebrow stud?" he responded slowly.

All three musicians grinned.

At the end of Chapter 5 I mentioned that I quoted my favorite book. The quote was "the foolish refrain of the hopelessly devoted," from The Realm of Possibility by David Levithan. I spend a stupid amount of time trying to decide what said refrain is and often apply it to things. Like that.

Sounds of a PunkPopEmoRockis a killer playlist, and readily available if you want it. How many of the songs on it can you name, based on the conversation the boys had?

Also, because I'm dead curious, what did you guys write your college admissions essay on/what do you think you might write it about? Mine was about the inconsistency in the normal space-time continuum one experienced when entering my high school's yearbook editing room. Yeah, I know. I'm great.