Author's Note:

oh hey there, don't mind me, just back from the dead and stuff.
apologies if this chapter doesn't really flow with the previous two – obviously, this is the first thing I've written in like, years. So it's a little off.
I decided to pick this back up again out of all my stories, mostly because I have A LOT of it outlined, and I still genuinely enjoy this concept.

If there was a moment for crickets to ever chirp in awkward silence, now was that moment. The garage filled with people was oddly silent, and I was so caught off guard that I couldn't even form a coherent thought. That was quickly broken by a loud sputtering cough that seemed to snap everyone back into action.
The red haired man continued to cough, one fist clutched over his mouth as if that would stifle it, and leaned forward to pass the white bong to the boy sitting next to him with a ridiculous blond Mohawk…mullet kind of haircut.

"Who the hell are you?" Snapped a small blonde girl who was sitting on an equally ratty floral sofa in the middle of the garage, next to another girl with long pastel pink hair. One glance at this rag-tag group of teenagers made me realize that this was not the kind of people I usually got along with, never mind interacted it.

The girl started to cackle, leaning back on the sofa, and pointed a finger directly at me. "Aww how cute, he's wearing Hollister!" I didn't realize how I stuck out like a sore thumb compared to everyone else – I was wearing tastefully ripped dark wash jeans, flip flops and a blood hooded Hollister jacket. The jeering girl had big green spiral gauges going through her earlobes, two silver hoops going through either nostril, and was clothed in dreadfully skinny jeans, big black combat boots, and a black misfits tshirt that had been sewn to hug her body.

"Aw, don't be so mean, Larexene," Muttered the blonde mowhawked boy, his attention mostly on the lighter he was trying to get to spark. He too matched the attire of the majority, sporting equally tight blue jeans with tears along the knees, and dirty white wife beater with a black vest thrown overtop. From the angle he held the bong at, I could just make out the spirals of tattoos along his wrists that looked vaguely like musical notes of some kind. Nothing I could define on my own – I wasn't exactly musically inclined.

After a few more solid attempts the boy finally managed to make the lighter work and sparked up the bowl, taking a rip, obviously not caring that some random guy had walked in on them.

Feeling immensely awkward, I clutched the doorknob in my hand a bit tighter. "I'm, uh, here with Kairi," I started, almost stumbling along my words. This never happened – I was never unprepared for a situation like this. It was one thing to be thrown off from walking into such an unexpected scene, but I could feel those bright green eyes burning into me, and my stomach had started doing some sort of nervous fluttering sensation. What the fuck, body? Keep your shit together!
I clutched the doorknob again, flexing my fingers, watching as the blonde boy blew a stream of milky white smoke into the air. "I thought- I was just trying to find the back door for a, uh, smoke."

The girl dubbed Larexene scoffed," Well it's obviously not here, so why don't you just toodle off, Abercrombie?" She made a waving gesture with her hand to shoo.

I lifted my hand in a little awkward salute thing, feeling more and more like an asshole the longer I lingered there, and turned to go back into the hallway, pulling the door with me. Out of the corner of my eye, the blonde mowhawked man sat up, excitedly saying, "Woah man, no worries. Do you want a hit?" He lifted the bong in gesture, a bright smile painted across his lips. Why was that guy so friendly?

I found myself hesitating. Pot had never really been my bag. It was enjoyable if I was alone, or just around Sora, or already buzzed on something else. Without one of those three priors, I found that I was usually flooded with insecurities that normally I squashed down into the recesses of my mind.
Despite this, I found something pulling me into the room, and before I realized it I had stepped down into the garage and pulled the door shut behind myself. Those green eyes were boring into me, and when I glanced to the owner I could see a faint smirk had pulled his lips up. Fuck, stop looking at him!

Larxene looked either mildly impressed or put off, which made me feel slightly encouraged in my sudden decision to take up their offer. Doing my best to keep my face neutral to try and make up for the prior awkwardness, I took the only available seat- a brown, badly chipped wooden dining chair that was missing pieces out of the backing, next to the blonde mowhawk boy.

He smiled widely again, and offered the bong to me. I couldn't help but feel a bit caught off guard by how friendly this guy was, though somewhere in the back of the mind I couldn't help but see Sora reflected in that big smile. I took the proffered object and lighter, mentally chiding myself to not make direct eye contact with the man in the plaid pants lounging across from me.
I easily sparked my lighter, and pulled a fairly large hit from the bong. I leaned forward to offer the bong to the pink haired girl, making eye contact- and holy damn, that was definitely a man, not a girl.
I sputtered out a stream of smoke in surprise, and gave up and exhaled the rest of it. Now that I was closer, I couldn't see how I thought he was a girl before, other than the long feminine hair. The man (who definitely looked older than the rest of them) had a black slouchy beanie pulled over his pink hair, well fitting maintained dark jeans that were tucked into black boots, a deep v neck white shirt, and various hemp bracelets adoring his wrists.

"Hollister's got lungs," Larxene commented, almost sounding impressed. The smile on her face was not remotely as friendly as the blonde man sitting next to me, and I shifted my gaze and found myself looking into this bright green eyes again. The red head's smile perked upwards, obviously amused at either my staring, or something else. I furiously looked away, mentally chiding myself again. What the hell is wrong with you? It's like you've never seen an older… super… attractive man before.

It was hard to say that it wasn't awkward sitting there, after suddenly stumbling in on this group, and only vaguely knowing one person by name there. I glanced idly towards the garage door, wondering how long Kairi was going to take to get ready. Women.

"If you're with Kairi, you gotta know she hates the smell of this stuff," Drawled the red-haired man from his perch. His voice was smooth and low, filled with character and I could almost hear the amusement in his tone. We made eye contact again, me telling myself that it was a normal, appropriate time to look at him, and I could see his green eyes were faintly tinged pink from all the pot. I could just barely feel the beginning of the drug affecting my body, making me feel more sluggish.

Larxene laughed and propped her boots up on the coffee table placed between them, also as worn and shitty looking as the rest of the furniture. She lifted her hand, taking a swig from a beer I had only just noticed she was holding. "Doesn't mean you can't get her to smoke it," She replied, and smiled in that way that made me totally uncomfortable. She gestured with her beer towards me in a vague way, but was obviously talking to the red head. "Funny how she turns me down all the time, but Hollister here has longer, prettier hair than I do. If it's just the dick, that's not a problem."
I stared at her, feeling grossly uncomfortable at the weird turn this conversation had taken, and at the same time flabbergasted with how open she was being, talking about being with another woman. "I keep telling her we can work around that," Larxene added casually, and sipped on her beer.

Across from her, the red-haired man sunk down in his chair and lifted a lanky hand to rub his face, looking disgusted. "That's so gross, please don't talk about banging my little sister. I'll throw up."
That piqued my interest – I had already connected the dots that Kairi was most likely related to this guy, they had the red hair, he was in the garage, I was like 80% sure that there was a motor cycle in the driveway that he had flown by the school on the other day. It was still interesting to hear the fact being stated though.

"Hey, I'm Demyx," chirped a voice suddenly very close to me. I started in an alarm and swivelled my gaze back to my left to look at the friendly mohawked boy again. He had a hand offered, and again I couldn't help but be caught off guard why everyone wanted to shake hands all the damn time.
I furrowed my brow, and lifted my hand to return the gesture. It felt heavy, and his skin felt strange – signs that the pot was definitely starting to effect me. After a moment I realized he was waiting for something, his eyebrows lifted in an expecting sort of way. Oh. Right.
"Riku," I replied quietly.

Demyx leaned forward, getting way too much into my personal space bubble. I instinctively leaned away, though he didn't seem to notice. His blue eyes had gone very wide, and he told me knowingly, "Larxene is what we call a 'predator'." He lifted his hands up to make quotation marks in the air with his fingers. Immediately the somber expression broke and he dissolved into giggles.
I stared at him, and flicked my eyes to look back at Larexene, who was giving me a knowing smirk. "No shit?"

Demyx continued to giggle, and the pink haired man began to chuckle along with them. The bong was being passed around again, and even though I could most certainly feel the effects kicking in hard, I took another full rip off of it. I tilted my head back, sinking into my chair and blew the smoke towards the ceiling. When I looked down, my eyes fixed upon Kairi's brother again. So far, I had half of the names here, but not the one I wanted to know the most. But just coming out and directly asking him would be awkward as fuck, and the last thing I wanted to do was be anymore weird while in the presence of these people after such an entrance.

"So, who are you?" Drawled the red haired man, who had now sunk into his chair sideways so his long legs were dangling off the edge. The intense edge in his gaze had faded, probably due to the drugs, but that damn smirk was still there.

I scrunched up my nose, momentarily distracted by how strange it felt to do so. "I… thought I already said that part," I murmured, scrunching my nose again.

Next to me, Demyx started to giggle again, and I realized that I was acting weird as fuck and knocked off all that nose scrunching shit, and sat up straighter. I painted a more somber expression on my face, like this pot wasn't knocking me on my ass. "Riku," I said, gaze sweeping across the small group. "I'm Riku."

The red-head sat up from his chair. "Well Riku," He said, drawing out my name in a way that made my stomach flutter again. What the hell was going on with my body? This shit was not right. "You said you were looking for the back door- do you smoke?"

I nodded absently, and forced myself to look away from his bright eyes. It was weird to stare so much, I told myself, and tried not to frown too animatedly.

He pulled himself to his feet in one fluid movement, his tattered red Converse slapping against the concrete. He stretched his long, tattoo covered arms above his head. "Well, tell you what kid, you bum me a smoke and I'll show you where to do that."

Oh fuck, my mind snapped to immediately, and I went ridgid. He wants to go do stuff with you, what the fuck do you say? Wait no, smoking is normal! Smoking is a totally normal social activity to participate in, and totally normal to ask of considering this is his house and he just smoked you out.

"Kid?"

I snapped out of my internal high debate, and looked to the voice. The red-head was now standing at the garage door, having yanked it open. I moved to my feet slowly, my sluggish body crying out at moving, because sitting was so, so comfortable. I found myself nodding, and started to shuffle after him.

"Later, Hollister," Larexene called after me as I pulled the garage door shut after us. Suddenly the house was too quiet, and I found myself awkwardly standing in the hallway with the red-haired man. He was super tall, like holy damn, I thought I was tall and he still had a good half a foot on me. Tall and lanky as hell, but not like gross skinny, more like lean like a panther.
I mentally shook myself, because dammit I was stuck in my head again. He had already started on without me, striding down the hall and turning into the kitchen. I quickly fell into step behind him, casually looking around the house as we went. It was still pretty bare, the kitchen being the area with most things unpacked.
Through the kitchen he pulled open a sliding glass door, pulled up the white hood of his jacket to cover his hair, and stepped out into the rain. I hesitated a moment, pulling my own hood up and tucking my silver hair back so it wouldn't get soaked, and followed him out into the rain.

It wasn't until I had passed him a cigarette and we had both lit up that anyone spoke. "So what did Kairi rope you into? Shopping with her? I can't believe she's already found a new GBF," The red-head said, his voice breaking the monotonous sound of the rain.

I had been pointedly staring at the back fence up until that point, trying so determinedly to not stare at the gorgeous man next to me, but the comment caught me off guard and I shot him a look. "GBF?" I replied, confused.

He looked at me, brow crinkling into a slight frown, and took a drag off of his cigarette. "Y'know, Gay Best Friend?" He gestured aimlessly at me.

Holy shit, he did not just say that. There was no way that vibe was coming off of me, was it? The alarm shot through me quickly and I straightened my spine, clutching a little too tightly to my cigarette. The mixture of the comment and the cooling rain sobered me considerably and I could feel my head stop swimming as much.
I sputtered out a cough, looking sharply back to the fence. The fence was safer. "I'm not gay," I said coldly.

There was silence for a moment, then beside me he started to chuckle. He flicked his cigarette butt into a folger's coffee can half filled with empty butts, and shook his head. "Guess my gay-dar's off, my bad," He replied. He pulled the sliding door open again, and was stopped from going inside by Kairi appearing in the doorway.

I turned to look at her, feeling a bit sheepish after recalling her brother's words about Kairi not liking the smell of pot. She didn't seem too upset, though she did shoot her brother a scowl. "Axel!" She snapped, hands on either side of the doorway so he couldn't enter the house. "You fucking didn't!"

Axel, lifted his hands up in a defensive gesture, but had another smile painted across his face. "Hey sis'. Just showing the new guy some hospitality. Cross my heart, didn't make him do anything he didn't wanna do," He said, gesturing with one finger an x across his heart. Kairi scowled, but moved away from the doorway so he could step inside.

Axel pulled his hood back down and shook his hair out a bit, then looked past his little sister to stare directly into my eyes. His eyes looked brighter, more attentive, and had that intense edge to them again. My stomach flipped, I inhaled sharply on my cigarette for a distraction, and he gave me the most charming smile I had ever seen on someone other than myself. "Nice to meet'cha, Hollister," He drawled, and slinked back off towards the kitchen.

I could hear his shoes slapping across the tile, and the garage door opened with a chorus of loud cat-calls. Good humoredly, I could hear Axel shout, "Shut the fuck up!" before the door slammed shut and the noise was cut off.
Kairi looked at me with a worried expression. "Sorry about my burnout brother. His friends are assholes. They're here all the time."

I shrugged nonchalantly and flicked my cigarette into the coffee can. I could hear the sizzle as it hit the water. I was feeling immensely more in control of myself again now that that man- Axel – wasn't around. My stomach was calming down, my nerves didn't hum anymore, and I could control my thoughts again.
"Your parents don't care that you have a bunch of kids smoking pot in your garage?" I asked, quirking an eyebrow.

Kairi stepped back so I could step into the house again and pulled the door shut behind me, effectively cutting out the sound of the rain. She shook her head, "They aren't home very often. Dad's always out of town on business trips, and Mom is a nurse. She's only ever home long enough to sleep off one of her 14 hour shifts."

I followed her into the kitchen, wondering idly if I should have wiped my shoes off or something. Didn't have any doormats unpacked yet either, I guessed. "Seems to have a lot of friends for just having moved here," I commented idly.

Kairi shrugged and popped open the fridge, poking her head around. "Yeah well, he's a social whore," She replied, voice muffled. She stepped back with a jug of juice in one hand and went about trying to find a glass, opening various cabinets as if she didn't really know where things were yet. "He's been out here for a year already. When the rest of the family moved, he moved back in instead of staying in his dorm again. His roommate totally screwed up his head after-"

A little jingle tune went off, interrupting Kairi. She looked down in surprise and fished her phone out of her back pocket. Glancing at the caller ID, she looked at me apologetically. "Sorry, hold on," She said, and stepped back into the living room.

So, I thought, leaning back against the counter. Axel was clearly in college, probably a sophomore by the sounds of it. It was alarming at how intrigued I was by him. Normally I couldn't muster up the energy to care about anyone's back story (prime example being that I had no idea where Kairi had moved from, even though I'm pretty sure she had told me multiple times), but I wanted to know more. I wanted to know what happened with his roommate that turned so sour he decided to move back in with his parents. I wanted to know what he was taking in college – if it was towards an actual degree, something he was passionate in, or if he was just there for the parties.

I pulled myself out of my thoughts as Kairi strode back into the kitchen, a sheepish look on her face. "Hey, can we take a rain check on the movies? That was Yuffie, she needs me to come in to work. One of the girls didn't show up…" She looked at me for approval, still clutching her cellphone in one hand.

Honestly, this was a welcome change. My mind was so muddled, and I felt so rattled and off my game, that the idea of keeping up appearances and going out with Kairi sounded exhausting. I genuinely enjoyed her company, but the whole…holding hands, kissing her cheek,' let me buy you your popcorn and you can clutch me while the jump scenes happen' did not sound remotely appealing.
"Yeah, that's fine," I heard myself replying. Kairi smiled widely.

I followed her to the front door, feeling torn with confusing emotions, and I accidentally started to turn her cheerful babble out. I kissed her on the cheek absently on the steps, heard her saying something about calling me later, and turned to walk down the sidewalk. To my right sat the covered motorcycle in the driveway, and I felt my heart speed up again.

I clutched my car keys tighter and hurried to my car, my mind plagued with images of pale smirking lips enveloping a cigarette, of those long fingers clutching the bong. I shook myself, ducking into my car and starting the engine. What the hell was wrong with me?!

By the time I had made it home, I had come to two conclusions. The first being that it was fortunate this thing with Kairi had panned out this way, because I would have never had this interaction if it had not. And if it continued, this wouldn't be a fleeting thing – they were siblings after all, Axel would be there to bump into more often. I was having a severely difficult time trying to decide if that was actually a good thing or not, because the way I felt while around him was fucking terrifying. I had never lost my cool before – not with anyone. Definitely not with women, and never with the few men I had been with. I had never dealt with a sped up heart or shaking hands before, having my words come out in ridiculous sentences that made no sense.
The second conclusion was that I was definitely having some sort of panic attack. I realized this as I shut the door to my bedroom, securing myself away from my mother and father (who were caught up in their own work anyway).
I stood oddly in the middle of my bedroom, looking hopelessly through one of my posters on the wall. I gripped my keys in off and on little flexes, and started feeling around my jeans for my cellphone.

I knew very well that we were fighting, that Sora was so incredibly angry with me (he had every right to be, I knew this), but my brain had fizzled out, and I didn't know what to do.
I tried to call him at first. He shot me straight to voicemail – further proof that he was angry. Sora never intentionally ignored a phone call, and if he rejected it that meant he definitely had his phone on him.

I sat heavily on the edge of my bed and stared at the screen on my phone. After a few minutes, I found myself texting him anyways, pushing that boundary. I should have left him alone, let him stew in his anger, but I needed my best friend.
I met someone today. Send.
It's Kairi's older brother. Send.
Still no response. I tapped my phone against my forehead in frustration, and bit my lip.
I think I'm having a panic attack. My hands won't stop shaking, my stomach is being all flippy, I think I might throw up. Send.

Finally, Sora's resolve broke and my phone blew up.
Flippy?!
It's a guy!?
Is he hot or whatever?!
Kairi's BROTHER!?
He sounds like a game changer!

I groaned and flopped backwards onto my head, holding my phone above my head, and squinted at the influx of text messages I was receiving. Game changer? What the hell was that supposed to mean?

You can't date Kairi and be in love with her brother. Are you breaking up with her?

I scrunched up my nose at the phone.
Love isn't real. It's like Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny. Send.
Absolutely not. Send.

…Is it because you want to keep running into him? Why don't you just ask Kairi if her brother likes guys?

It's not that easy! I can't do that. I can't tell anyone but you about that. He already thought I was her 'gay best friend'. Send.

So he put the move on you already!? And you aren't freaking out about that!?

No. It would ruin my reputation. My parents would be devastated. I can't. Send.

Riku, you're a stubborn ass. You're just making this harder on yourself. What are you going to do then?

I rubbed my face with my hand, and angrily replied. I don't know. Then I dramatically rolled onto my side and buried my face in my pillow, letting out another groan of frustration. Why now? Why couldn't I have all this stupid butterfly, clammy hand bullshit in college? Just another year and then I would be off in the city, on my own, without my past to breathe over my shoulder. I could start up a whole new version of myself, and try to be… happy, as Sora had so eloquently put it.

A/N: tell me what'cha think! high fives to anyone who is still following this story like years after I started it. You guys rock.