[OPEN] Look in front of you NOW. Do you have a waffle?

[madeinoblivion]

Who: Replica Riku, AKA: Joe Fieldman ....and OPEN to everybody!
When: Wednesday, 1pm
Where: Brinners, in the Underground Mall Food Court
Summary: It's Wacky Waffle Wednesday, and who can turn down food that just costs a buck, and comes with all the toppings you want?
Warnings: This could get unreasonably silly.


Joe Fieldman didn't always know a great deal when he saw one.

But waffles-for-a-dollar with a loaded waffle bar included? Sounded like a great deal. Enough to make a trek down to the mall for them, anyway, and loudly inform his whole apartment, if anyone felt like tagging along.

Of course, the trouble with great deals, especially when they were announced over the public newsfeed, was that a lot of other people seemed just as eager to take advantage of them.

So Just-a-Buck waffles turned out to be over a fifteen minute wait, and by that time Joe had seen so many people pass by with Tantalus Torture piles of whipped cream and strawberry syrup and chocolate chips and sliced peaches and sausage gravy that he decided to buy himself a stack of about <i>eight</i>.

Luckily, he's brought along a old half-forgotten journal he'd found underneath his bed last week (Ciel Phantomhive had managed to make him so self-conscious about the state of his bedroom that he'd actually decided to give it a clean) to amuse himself. He couldn't for the life of him remember where or who he'd gotten it from (Christmas before last, maybe? Or for a 'birthday'?), but it came with all sorts of entertaining instructions for what to do with the pages, and so he went about doodling bubbles and poking pencil holes, dog-earing pages and blackening the edges while he waited to aquire some food to stain the stain log with.

Okay, so it was slightly immature. So were overly-loaded waffles, but plenty of people seemed to be perfectly fine with partaking.

Comments

[pullsheavendown]

Roxas shrugged and dug into his own pile. Definitely not enough yet—he was still hungry.

"Well, I'm sick of Jell-O." He grimaced at the memory. "I never want to eat anything that wriggles again. That stuff was the worst." Though it hadn't been the worst part of that awful month.

[madeinoblivion]

"I promise," And coming from Joe, a promise was a promise. He set down his sandwich and wiped his hands on the napkin to lay it over his heart. "You'll never eat Jell-O again. Not at our house, anyway. We'll ban Jell-O from the whole apartment, forever."

Decided and emphatic. And that was that.

"...Yeah, I guess we should all figure out better cure magic or something, if anything like that ever happens again. Right?"

[pullsheavendown]

"I'll hold you to it." He ducked his head, hiding a grin than threatened to turn into something sappier. It wasn't that he was surprised that Joe was a loyal friend, or that he cared that much. He'd known that for ages now.

But it was nice to hear it out loud once in a while.

"You think there's a kind of cure magic that works specifically for sickness and not injuries? Maybe we should ask Aqua."

[madeinoblivion]

"If there isn't, there should be." He sighs- a shame that for all the magic in the universe that could heal up cuts and scrapes, a cold was still a lousy cold.

He could stand those better when they weren't deadly, and his girlfriend wasn't dying from them.

Which made this very awkward table conversation.

He stabbed his pencil at the journal again, scowling.

[pullsheavendown]

"Maybe she could come up with one. She's really good at magic and all."

The silence drew out then, and he tried to fill it by...not filling it at all, just filling his mouth. That worked for a minute or so.

"How's the book going? Is it wrecked yet?"

[madeinoblivion]

"It's getting there." He shrugs in consideration, turning idly through the scrawled-on, rubbed on, rumpled up pages. "Might have to drop it a bit more. Jump on it with muddy shoes."

A wry grin. "...and get more fruit stickers. You can help with it, you know."

[pullsheavendown]

"Let's see it, then."

He snatched the book out of Joe's hands and began to leaf through the pages. He had to hand it to his friend—the pages that had been wrecked had been wrecked pretty well.

"I could see where Terra gets his stickers," he said, grinning. "He sent me some really good ones once."

[madeinoblivion]

"He gave you stickers?" Joe blinked, seeming a bit surprised- Terra really didn't seem the type to be giving those kinds of presents. But he and Roxas seemed to be good friends, for some reasons.

(Joe still suspected the 'some reason' was because Roxas looked a lot like Ven. Terra didn't seem to be quite so keen on him, but maybe that was because his own keyblade wasn't really much of one. Soul Eater, for the most part, was just Soul Eater.)

"When was that? Was it for Christmas?"

[pullsheavendown]

"No, it was..." He squinted, trying to remember exactly. "A long time ago. Not too long after he first got here, actually," he said.

What had prompted it? He couldn't recall now, exactly. But he did know that in those days, it had been a tentative friendship, hampered by the minor stalking and the unresolved issue of this 'Ventus' person.

Things changed.

"He left them for me at Kahve," he added. "They were kind of cool."

[madeinoblivion]

"I don't think I remember you getting them" Joe frowned, curious now- they weren't the glow in the dark star ones, were they? "But that's a long time ago- wow, I mean, almost two years now, right?"

Time seemed to race by, when you weren't expecting it. Just a few more months, and it would be their third Halloween.

[pullsheavendown]

In fact, they were. "I don't think I ever mentioned it," he said. "And then I didn't really think about it. Man."

He shook his head. It was hard to believe so much time had passed in what felt like the blink of an eye. "Can you believe it? Neither of us were even one year old when we got here, and now..." He chuckled. "Maybe we're getting old."

[madeinoblivion]

"I thought about it the other day," He laughed, finally giving up on sandwiching one of the messier waffles and setting into it with knife and fork in defeat. "...when someone asked me what grade of school I was going into, or what I'm studying this fall, and I realized I'm telling them I don't go for the third time."

He pauses thoughtfully for a moment, scribbling a little on the journal-cover corner.

"...you don't think it's a bad choice, right? Not to go to school? People always say stuff like, 'you're wasting an opportunity'. I still see it the other way around."

[pullsheavendown]

"No." He shook his head. "I've thought about it a lot, though. So many people our age have been going to school their whole lives—that makes it seem weirder when people don't go."

He drummed his knuckles on the tabletop, looking thoughtful. "I think it's a bad choice if you never learn anything. Seems like school is the easiest way for a lot of people to do that. But I learn all the time. I don't think it counts less because it wasn't in a classroom."

[madeinoblivion]

It was encouraging, that he wasn't the only one to think about it often- if he should try to go, just because it seemed like the think everyone their age ought to do... even if it seemed to make most people miserable.

But then he'd seen the trouble Ritsuka'd run into, with school. Joe didn't want to deal with fighting off locals trying that bully routine with him. He'd sooner wipe the floor with them, with his darkness, and then he'd just be in trouble.

School didn't sound like it was so much more than a waste of precious time. They might not ever get to stay here forever. Another troubling thought.

"If I ever wanted to read something or learn something, I could on my own." he nodded in agreement, defensive. "I don't need a teacher or homework to do it"

[pullsheavendown]

"Even if you did want to try learning from someone else, you could do it without going to school all the time," he pointed out. "Riku told me once that some of the schools let people pay just to take the classes they want. It's not cheap, but...it's an option."

He kicked his feet restlessly under the table, thinking of the possibilities. He'd never seriously considered school as a possible choice for him, and he wasn't rethinking that now, but related thoughts came to mind.

"Do you think it's weird for people like him and Sora and Kairi? They musst have gone to school their whole lives before things got crazy for them. Maybe they're too used to doing what they want now."

[madeinoblivion]

"That's the colleges." Joe corrects with a shake of his head, distaste evident in his voice. "They want you to finish high school, before you do college. Which sounds so much better, if you can pick what you learn, at least."

"I've never really asked Riku about it." There were lots of things he'd never thought to clarify, assuming that for the most part, Riku thought about the world in the same way he did.

Riku did read more library books, though. And 'applied himself' better, to get two managerial jobs.

[pullsheavendown]

"Yeah, but...can they prove you haven't? A lot of places have to take newcomers' word they've done things."

Of course, some people, like the lawyers, had to take a sort of test to prove they knew what they were talking about...but that might not apply here, and they were still speaking hypothetically.

"Maybe I'll ask Sora what he thinks sometime," he said after a moment. "But I guess if they really wanted to go to school here, nothing's stopping them. So that's probably an answer on its own."

[madeinoblivion]

"They couldn't," He considers, stabbing at his waffles. "Not unless they tested me for stuff I don't know."

And tests frankly don't sit well with him, even though he knows, by some strange instinct of displaced memories, that Riku's always performed much better on exams than he's anticipated. Maybe he just had luck with working under pressure, but Joe would rather spend the energy on something exciting over pushing a no. 2 pencil to paper.

That, and then there was another reason, a troubled frown darkening his expression.

"...but I hate lying about anything, Roxas, you know that. It's bad enough I have to lie all the time when people ask how old I am."

"My guess is it's just too cooped up to be fun, with too many rules. It's probably a really boring way to spend your time, after you've seen so many worlds."

[pullsheavendown]

"Yeah, I get it." He couldn't blame Joe for disliking the idea. He wasn't a fan of telling falsehoods about their lives himself, even though it was necessary sometimes. It was so much better when they could just be who they were, without pretense or omissions. The people here he treasured the most were the ones who let them do that.

"Just like they're cooped up in this world, huh? At least the city is more exciting than school."

Sometimes he wondered if he should feel guilty for hoping the people he cared about didn't leave, when they probably chafed at the restrictions of the Pull. Maybe, maybe not. Either way, his wishes didn't actually make a difference.

[madeinoblivion]

"And it's still busier here than the islands back home." Joe points out with a shrug, going from from what he knows of those vague snatches of splintered Destiny Islands memories. "I've never really been bored here yet, have you?"

They were lucky just to exist. Maybe Kairi, Sora and Riku still didn't really get that.

[pullsheavendown]

"Not really." He reconsidered. "Well, maybe for a little while, but not more than a day. Something's always happening, you know?"

Not always something good, but something.

[madeinoblivion]

"You really should give joining the Superhero team another thought, Roxas." He whispers in an undertone, leaning in conspiratorially. Joe hadn't been too secret about his secret identity around his closest friends, who probably figured out by now what the Teen Titans communicator left out by his pillow or the wearing of his belts like a cape was all about.

"I know Sora does it too, but it's real easy to get partnered up with someone else if you just ask Red Robin."

[pullsheavendown]

"I don't know." He sounded skeptical, like he had before when the subject had come up, but less so this time.

"Sora being in it doesn't really bother me," he said. "I don't know if I'd want to be partners, but it'd be okay having him around. We're friends now." That last sentence was quieter, as if Roxas were still getting used to the idea.

He did have one remaining reservation, though. Should he say it? Maybe he should say it. "I don't want to wear a silly costume, though."

[madeinoblivion]

"Yeah? I guess he's finally starting to get it."

Partnering with Sora still felt weird sometimes, and a little bit like he was betraying both Riku, Xion and Roxas all at once, working together with someone he didn't belong with.

Then he remembered that they were all fighting for a good cause, and that was more than who was whose friends or not.

"Fine." He scoffs, pitching his eyes into a roll. "You can just Super naked."

[pullsheavendown]

"Not just him. It's both of us." He shrugged, a little embarrassed, though he couldn't pinpoint why. "I think we both needed to figure out how to think of each other."

And it had certainly taken him long enough. If it had been up to Sora, they would have been friends from the start. But maybe it was better things had taken the path they had.

"Anyway, you can forget about me joining if my options are silly clothes or nothing." He flicked some droplets of syrup at Joe with his fork. "Sheesh."