It was the last day before classes started again, and Roxas thought it would be a fine day to go to the beach, if only he could gather enough money. Hayner and Pence and Olette were at the usual place, and they all agreed to look, and the four of them went zipping through the town.
His town. He knew it so well; he'd always been there.
He ran through the streets, delivering things -- searching for clues? Either, both -- and he knew the streets and the crowd of faceless inhabitants parted for him. Sometimes a face stood out briefly -- Seifer, Vivi, the ice-cream guy. He didn't stop; maybe he would, later, maybe tomorrow (but today was his last day.)
There were tasks to do, and people he blew past because he had no time to chat, and money won (not quite enough. It was fine. It was nice anyway. Together in his town.) Then home, and sleep.
Morning again.
It was the last day before classes started again, and Roxas thought it would be a fine day to go to the beach, if only he could gather enough money. Sometimes a face stood out briefly, but he was in a hurry (today was his last day) and he couldn't stop and chat with strangers.
There were no strangers in his town; he knew everyone on sight and everyone knew him and so, when the blonde (not Seifer) girl (not Olette) stood before him, it was jarring. But maybe he'd never noticed her in the background before. She was talking to him, he thought, but he was in a hurry. There were things to deliver and clues to find.
Evening came and they fell short of their goal but it wasn't so bad, was it, and then night and sleep and morning again, the last day of vacation. Chores, running, faceless crowds, the blonde girl again but he didn't have the time and he didn't even know her anyway and then she planted her hands on her hips and told him to stop right there, mister.
He would have, because she sounded like Hayner's mom, but he had things to do.
Then his back hit a wall and her hand hit his face and it hurt. He clenched his hands as she ranted at him about weird psycho stuff, nothing that made sense, and he wanted her gone already.
It felt nice and right to swipe at her with his weapon; the first time glanced off her shoulder and she dodged the second, but now he could see how she moved and he knew the third hit wouldn't miss, and it was so right and perfect and she deserved it.
Then she was gone in a puff of smoke that made no sense, and his weapon was gone, and he was late for his delivery.
The next day (the last day) he was skating through the crowd when he saw a blonde (not Seifer) girl (not Olette) who called his name. (There were a R and a A and a S and a O in it, and perhaps even another letter so) he stopped.
She smiled at him and batted her eyelashes.
Seifer batted his eyelashes at him sometimes, but mostly as a mean-spirited joke. If she had attacked him, he would have retaliated (his weapon was eager, fingertips tingling in anticipation) but her hands on his arms were more caresses than anything, and he had no clue what to do about the soft brush of lips on his. It was kind of hard to just dismiss a girl kissing him, no matter how late he was getting.
And while he was standing there dazed and confused, she crowed, "Finally!", closed her hands around his wrists, and everything around him went up in smoke.
It was like falling, and he almost felt as if he should have been scared, but all along the way she never let go.
He opened his eyes to a sky that wasn't Twilight Town's, and to a circle of faces he knew, even though they weren't from his town either and he'd never left it. He knew them anyway, Mickey and Dingo, Kairi and Donald, Naminé shimmering see-through beside them. They all grinned down at him like loons and he wasn't sure why.
"Uh."
Something crushed his left hand. When he looked, he found another hand holding it tight, and at the other end of it was Sora.
Roxas knew who Sora was. He might not have remembered, but it wasn't like he could forget.
"... What?"
"Mission complete," the blonde girl said breezily as Riku helped her to get up. She wobbled briefly -- all but swooned in Riku's arms, actually, up until another, black-haired guy with a weird bristly ponytail snorted and a fat guy who wasn't Pence inquired whether she needed help.
"I'm fine, of course. It really wasn't that difficult."
Riku smirked, and the blonde huffed at him; it might have developed further but the ponytail guy interrupted. "Sorry, but we really must be off now. Your Roxas should be alright now."
"Ah, quite right, quite right." King Mickey handed the boy a bag of jingling coins, which he took with a blasé nod.
The strangers' Gummi ship was waiting. A wave of the hand and they were inside and the motors thrumming to life -- only until the blonde popped back out, ran to Sora, and bopped him over the back of the head. "And you, stop losing your alter-ego in the bottom of your brain! He's so cranky, I swear next time I'll make you pay double."
Roxas was still blinking slowly and trying to get the world to make sense when
the ship disappeared.