How to lose a roommate in one week (Part 1.)
“Naked guys,” Demyx whined. “Lots and lots of naked guys having-having…”
“Butt sex?” a girl with green eyes and blond hair asked with a laugh. Two long strands of hair stuck out in front, framing her round face. Her grin widened at Demyx’s misery.
“It’s not funny, Larxene. None of this is funny.” Leaning back in her desk chair, he placed his hands over his face and groaned. His father told him several stories about embarrassing moments from when he was in college. He heard about the streaking, the crazy drunkenness, and the first date with his mother, which involved a day trip to Wal-Mart. Somehow, Demyx had surpassed them all without doing anything. “What the hell am I going to do?”
“So, short stuff is into gay orgies, huh? I never would have pegged him for that. He looks so innocent.” She cackled once more before sliding dull brass knuckles off of her desk. After putting them on, she carefully examined them like it was a 10 karat diamond ring on her finger instead of a weapon. Demyx gulped having second thoughts about making Larxene his confidant, but she was the only one he knew who had the proper credentials.
“It was really sick.” The porn on his roommate’s computer wasn’t orgy material, but over one hundred videos filled the unnamed folder on his PC. Demyx had been the latest victim of accidental porn watching and was unhappily educated on the ways of gay sex for nearly forty five minutes.
“What were you doing sneaking on his computer anyways?” She had put down the brass knuckles, and Demyx finally noticed the small pink heart on the front of her black baby-T.
“He told me I could use it even if he wasn’t there, since mine was acting funny yesterday. I was working on a paper for my theater appreciation class. I-I thought that the files were music files, and I lost my iPod, so I thought…” Demyx shifted his weight, resting his ankle on his knee as Larxene laughed sadistically again. Due to undisclosed circumstances, she hadn’t shared the dorm room with anyone since the end of September. He didn’t hear the reason why, but he began to suspect that it had to do with a gapping hole in the charred closet door. She sat in the bed that had been converted to a pseudo-couch by a mound of fuzzy, black pillows.
“So, why are you telling me this?” She yawned as she leaned on the pillows.
“Uh, direction? Advice? Guidance? It seems you know how to handle your uh-roommates.” Demyx pointed to the wall and looked away from the girl. He didn’t have anything personal against his roommate, but the guy was gay. Demyx wasn’t homophobic. The classes that he took attracted those types, so he was used to being around effeminate men. However, the knowledge that his roommate, someone who could do things to him while he was sleeping, was sexually attracted to other men sat uncomfortably in his mind.
“Hey, that was an accident,” she said raising an eyebrow as well as her fist.
“I know.” Demyx rushed the words out of his mouth. “I was just wondering if I could maybe possibly have an accident similar to your accident happen in my room to my roommate. Heh heh.”
“Why don’t you ask the RA for a dorm room change?”
“My RA? He’s got to be the biggest asshole on campus. Talking to him is a no go.”
“Supposing that I agree to this.” She waved her hand at him and cocked her head. “What’s in it for me?”
“You get a warm fuzzy feeling for helping a fellow out?” She glared at him. “What? You’ve never heard of benevolence?”
“You ever been hit with a brass knuckle?”
“Okay, Okay. It was a joke. Sheesh. What would you want?”
“Money.”
“Well, I don’t have a lot of that…”
“Alcohol?”
“How do you expect me to get that?” Demyx frowned, knowing that she knew he was only a first year and still underage.
“I don’t know.” She stroked her chin with her thumb and forefinger. “Dave Mathews Band is coming to campus. You get me two tickets; I help you out.”
“You like that band?”
“No, but I can scalp those tickets for four times the amount it costs to buy them.”
“Alright, deal,” he said as he stood up and stuck his hand out to shake on it.
The girl looked at his hand, rolling her eyes as she walked past him. Opening the door to her room, she looked at Demyx expectantly before gesturing him out. “Just get me the tickets.”
“Right.” As he walked down the hall, he pushed away the small pang of guilt forming in his mind. Roxas isn’t going to know what hit him.
One week later, early Saturday morning, Demyx, with tickets clasped in his hand, was knocking on Larxene’s door again. Avoiding Roxas was not easy when the gay-porn-watching student spend almost every waking moment in the room that they shared studying for his science classes. Demyx spent much of his time in the sound proof music rooms practicing his instruments before he knew about Roxas’s little problem. Last week, he was practically living in a practice room, leaving only for sleeping, his classes, and meals with his classmates.
The first night after his discovery, he had tried sleeping on the floor of one of those rooms, but it resulted in getting only one hour of sleep and waking with aches all over his body. His viola professor kicked him out of class because he had made more mistakes than the woodwind instrumentalists, who were playing strings this semester as their elective. Fearing his instructor’s short temper, he slipped into his dorm room on the second night at midnight to try to get a good nights rest.
Instead of one hour of sleep, he got about five each night unable to stop listening to the stirring of his roommate in the bunk bed below him. To top it all off, he was forced to ‘sleep’ last night, a Friday night, with just his pillow and a blanket in front of the ticket booth at the student center. He had waited for his turn this morning to purchase the Dave Matthews Band tickets which cost seventy four dollars and ninety cents. Demyx charged it to his student visa card hoping that Larxene would pay him back when he handed her the hard slips of paper gleaming in his hands. He knocked again wondering what was taking her so long to get to her door.
“What do you want?!” she screamed as the door flew open. Her face was paler than he had remembered, and she was wearing a short silk pink robe.
“What’s the matter? You look kinda tired. Are you sick?” Demyx asked genuinely concerned for her health. He needed her to be in good condition if they were going to get Roxas to move out of his room.
“No, you moron!” she shrieked louder than before. Demyx looked around to see if anyone else was woken up by the noise. “Wait here.”
When the door opened again 30 minutes later, Demyx was asleep sitting on the ground and slumped against her door. Startled awake from falling back into her room, Demyx blinked wondering where he was. Larxene looked down at him seething, but her appearance was similar to when they had their first chat. “I got the tickets,” he said as sat up, rubbing the area where his head hit the floor. He looked down at his hands in alarm. “I did have the tickets. Where did they go?”
“Relax; they’re right here on the floor.” Larxene snatched them up before he got up. “Well, well. I didn’t expect that you would actually get them.”
“I had to camp out all night in the Student Center. I hadn’t been able to sleep yet.”
“Only an idiot would to that. I guess you’re pretty desperate to get blondie out of your room, huh?”
“Yeah. When do we start?” His eyelids became increasingly hard to open after he blinked, and he yawned enjoying the satisfying stretch of his mouth.
“I don’t think you have it in you,” she said, smirking.
“Sure, I do.”
“I’ve got a list,” she said. Her grin turned wicked, and she pulled a sheet of pink paper off of her desk. “Just make sure you do everything on this list, and Roxie’ll be out of there in no time.”
“Yeah, sure.” Disappointed at the anticlimactic moment, he took the paper from her. “I’m going to get some sleep. Thanks, Larxene. I owe you big.” He dragged himself away until he was just outside of the door. “Hey, Larxene. Um, were you going to pay me back for those tickets? I-” The door slammed in his face. Sighing, he meandered down the hall to the stairwell that would take him to the men’s floor. Taking two steps at a time, he tripped on the last couple of steps. Playing it cool, he straightened out before he glanced around making sure that no one else saw his mishap. Because it was Saturday morning, he didn’t see anybody in the green corridor as he turned his key and cracked the door to his room open.
He internally groaned as he heard the sound of typing coming from Roxas’s desk. The typing stopped, and Demyx froze as the blond spikes on his roommate’s head swayed from turning in his chair.
“Hey,” Roxas said turning back to his computer.
“Hey.” Demyx climbed up to his bed and collapsed into his mattress welcoming the coolness of his pillow against his cheek.
“Demyx?”
“Huh?” His mind jumped awake and his eyes popped wide opened. Thankfully, his head was turned away from Roxas and towards the postcard of the Eiffel Tower his parents had sent while backpacking in Paris. Demyx had tacked a collage of photos on the beige wall thinking that it would be nice to wake up to pictures from around the world.
“Do you-? I mean… are you… okay?” Demyx heard Roxas struggle to find the proper words.
“Yeah,” Demyx replied wondering if Roxas heard the unnatural inflection in his voice.
“You, uh, sure?”
“Yeah, I’m just tired.”
“So… nothing up with your mom and dad?”
“No.”
“Or your classes? I mean, you’re still on scholarship, right?”
“Look, I’m fine.”
“Okay.” Roxas drew his breath in too add to the conversation, but the words never came.
When Demyx woke up, the black clock on the wall read 1:15 and he could hear a woodpecker rhythmically drumming the large oak tree just outside of his window. He didn’t know what time he had fallen asleep, but his head ached and his eyes were painfully dry. He peered down towards Roxas’s desk and let out a deep breath when he realized that he was alone in the room. After checking every other pocket of his baggy jeans, he found Larxene’s list in his back left one. The scent of this pink paper made him crave green apple jolly ranchers. After unfolding the slip of paper, he could make out the hand-written decorative hearts on the top of the page.
How to Lose Your GAY Roommate in One Week
Anonymous
1.)When he is taking a shower, lock him out of the room while you are still in the room. When he finally gets his naked-ass back into the room, look at him like he is the crazy one.
2.)Take note of his food items in your fridge. If it’s liquid, hock a loogie in it. If it’s solid, wipe your ass with it.
3.)You have the right to listen to (or play in your case) music as loud as you want to. Exercise your right especially when he’s sleeping. And especially if it’s shit he doesn’t like.
4.)The floor is yours, why waste the storage space? Leave your stuff lying around. Better yet, leave rotting food lying around. Nothing gets rid of a roommate like a quick trip to the emergency room.
5.)Sex is magical. Show him all of the secrets of magic by getting it on with some random chick, and have him walk in on you. No matter what happens, do not stop when he walks in. (If you don’t get lucky, masturbating will do. If masturbation is your only option, do it at night and make lots of noise. Screaming out his name would have worked, if he wasn’t gay...Hell, it probably would still work.)
6.)His clothes are now your clothes. Feel free to use them for anything you deem fit. You can take one of the other things off of the list if you wear his underwear. (No, not his long johns or an undershirt. I’m talking boxers or briefs. If he doesn’t wear underwear, God help us all. It may take more than this list to get rid of this guy.)
7.)His other stuff is not your stuff. You don’t need his crap lying around everywhere. Feel free to throw away whatever is precious to him. In fact, pissing or puking on his stuff while in a drunken state (so at least you have an excuse) is a bonus.
8.)Last but not least, torture can be done to an individual without leaving a single mark. One easy way to get someone to crack is through sleep deprivation. Wake blondie up in all hours of the night, and watch how fast you can get him to move out.
Demyx’s appetite for jolly ranchers jumped out the window, committing suicide. He slowly made it down his ladder and reached for the door of the fridge that the two shared. He sighed in relief when there was nothing in there that was Roxas’s. Mentally, he checked off number two on his list. This is going to be a long week.
Roxas grabbed his toiletries and a large yellow towel from his closet before he gave Demyx a confused look and left the room. It had been a couple hours since Demyx had read the list, and he had been waiting for this exact moment to carry out task number one. Roxas had come back from lunch with some of their dorm mates a short while after Demyx had woken up and ate what was left of his organic cereal. As Roxas studied for his chemistry test that he was having on Monday, Demyx stared at his blank word document in silence.
All he had to do is flip the button on the side of the door and wait. After tiptoeing across the room, he opened the door a crack and quickly snapped the lock into place. Silently, he slid the door millimeter by millimeter until it was shut. Feeling stealth like James Bond, Demyx snuck back to his desk to wait for his return.
After 10 minutes, he heard metal against metal as the door knob clicked against the lock. The sound made him giddy. He interlocked his fingers and stretched the anticipation out of his muscles.
“Demyx?” Roxas pounded on the door.
Demyx remained silent.
“Demyx? Are you in there?”
Demyx bit his finger fighting the urge to laugh.
“Damn it.” Roxas’s desperate muffled voice carried through the door. As he heard hollow footsteps getting louder, Demyx saw the shadow of two extra feet through the crack at the bottom of the door.
“Locked out? Hey boys, we got a show. Come one, come all. Cutie locked herself out, and she’s naked,” a deep mocking voice boomed. Demyx scrambled off of the chair, tripped, and landed on the floor with a thud.
“Fuck you, Marly. Demyx? Hey, are you alright?” Roxas said with voice laced with concern and irritation. The door knob rattled violently.
“You know, Roxas. If I have to get the damn key from my room and I find out that your freak of a roommate isn’t bleeding or unconscious, I may have to make him that way,” said the other man. Demyx jumped up and scurried to door ignoring the throbbing pain in the arm that he landed on. He yanked the door open.
“Demyx, what the fuck?” Holding on to the towel that was wrapped around his thin waist, Roxas shoved his way into the room and slammed the door in Marly’s face. The man behind the door laughed menacingly as the two flushed roommates faced each other.
“Uh, sorry. I couldn’t get to the door.” Larxene’s list did not mention what to do when things went wrong. Demyx couldn’t act like Roxas was crazy when there was another witness that could testify to Roxas’s sanity. “I was, uh, changing.”
“You’re wearing the same clothes as you were before.” Roxas pointed to his black shirt, which bared John Lennon’s silhouette on the front. Demyx could hear his roommate’s teeth grinding. “And you could have answered me when I knocked the first time.”
“I needed to change my, uh, underwear.” Number six in Larxene’s list had lingered in his mind, and Demyx almost clapped his mouth shut after his sentence.
“Uh, okay?” Roxas raised an eyebrow, but quieted and walked to his closet to get dressed. Instead of his usual youthful appearance, the wet matted hair made him look his actual age. The water clung to the one of the locks, beaded until it was saturated, and fell trickling down Roxas’s thin arm. Demyx’s eyes followed one of the drops as it ran from the nape of his neck along his boney spine, hovering at the first two vertebras then racing past the rest, losing its battle against gravity.
“I mean, I spilled something, and it soaked through my pants onto my underwear. I had to change them, so that’s why I couldn’t get to the door.”
“Okay,” Roxas said as he pulled a red T-shirt over his head. He had already hiked his boxers on under the towel. “Are you going to eat soon?”
“Huh?”
“The other guys down the hall said something about eating around 6:00. You want to go?” The blond hoped on one foot to get his jeans on but steadied himself on the chair when he nearly toppled over.
“I think I’ll pass.”
“Alright. See you later then.” White socks and blue Pumas were carelessly flung on, and he left waving his hand behind him. Demyx would have to wait for tomorrow until he could tackle Larxene’s list. He looked up at his life-size poster of Queen that threatened to fall off of the wall and ran his fingers through his hair. Looking in the mirror that hung on his sliding closet door, he gave his refection a confident smile. There were dark bags under his blue-green eyes, and his two inch long hair which usually stuck straight up on the top of his head was flattened from the lack of gel. He fingered the long hairs in the back and chuckled. Business in front; party in the back. It’s not really business in the front though. Grabbing his green winter jacket, he walked out of the room to set off to the Student Center’s poorly stocked grocery store. He would have to practice his viola for the rest of the evening since he had wasted most of the day in his room.
“I am a sex machine ready to reload, like an atom bomb about to oh oh oh oh oh explode,” Demyx sang, turning the knob on his computer speaker up. He was powerless against the urge to sing along with his favorite band. “Don't stop me. Don’t stop me. Don’t stop me. Hey hey hey! Don't stop me. Don’t stop me. Ooh ooh ooh.”
The door opened, and Demyx instinctively turned the volume down. Roxas lugged his oversized book bag to his area of the room before kicking off his shoes and draping his grey wool coat over the back of his black desk chair.
“I could hear you from the stair well, you know that?”
“Err, sorry. It’s one of my favorite songs. I couldn’t help it.”
“It didn’t sound bad. Just loud.”
“Where have you been? You were gone the whole day.”
“Studying. It’s hot in here”
“Oh,” Demyx said. Roxas studied in their room earlier this Sunday morning, and Demyx had been singing loudly the entire time. His roommate hadn’t asked him to stop, but did not come back up to the room after lunch. “Yeah, they cranked the heat way up. I feel bad wasting energy by opening the window, global warming and all, but it’s the only way to survive. So you were studying for your chemistry test?”
“I’ve got a test in my film class tomorrow, too,” Roxas said while he nodded.
“Film class?”
“For my humanities elective.”
“You picked film?” Demyx laughed. “What kind of film class? Are you directing something? Can I be in your movie?”
“No, we just watch foreign movies and write papers. It’s not too bad.”
“You know, I was named after a foreign director. A French musical director to be exact. My mom was obsessed with the guy’s movies saying that they were masterpieces that portrayed everyday life in France in the post war era. I watched one of his films. Never again. It was so boring. Those French people ought to learn how to spice things up a little.”
“Really?”
“Yeah. Jacques Demy. I was so glad that she didn’t name me after his first name. I would have beaten up a lot more when I was a kid.”
“Demy? But your name is Demyx.”
“Oh, a nurse wrote over my birth certificate with carbon paper and must have been filling out a survey or something. My birth certificate was covered in x’s, and there was one right next to what was supposed to be my first name. My dad really didn’t like the name Demy because he thought it was a girl’s name. He lost to my mom on the ground of ‘I’m carrying this thing around in my uterus for nine months, and I’m the one who has to go through a painful process of birthing. That’s why I get to name it.’ The x was his consolation prize, and my mom was too tired to argue with him.”
“That’s some story.”
“I know. Cool, huh? So, do you have a story?”
“What do you mean?” Roxas voice lowered, and he nibbled on his bottom lip.
“You’re name isn’t the average Jim, Bob, or Joe. Don’t you have a story behind it?”
“No.”
“Oh. Well if you did have a story, it would be cool to hear.”
“I don’t,” Roxas said too quickly. He wedged a large mesh laundry bag from inside his closet through the sliding doors. He tugged on it a few times before it toppled into the rug. He grabbed for his keys and college ID. “I’ve got to do laundry. Do you need anything from the vending machine while I’m down there?”
“No, I’m good. Thanks.” Demyx watched Roxas as he swung the bag over his shoulder without much effort and strode out the door.
“It’s just another manic Monday. Ooh. I wish it were Sunday. Ooh. Cause that’s my fun day. Ooh. Where I don’t have to run day. Ooh. It’s just another manic Monday. Ooh. I wish it were-,” Demyx sang loudly.
“Demyx? Could you please stop singing and let me study? I have this test in two hours, and I really need to memorize these hybrid things and how to put the electrons in the-damn it- what are they called?” Roxas was sitting in his bed scanning his chemistry text book and shuffling through his notes.
“Oh, sorry.” Well, now what the hell am I supposed to do? I can’t just ignore him. His stomach growled, and he was thankful that Roxas was too busy studying to go down for lunch today. Demyx still had thirty minutes before the cafeteria that was connected to their dorm opened.
Demyx drew the sitar out from under the foot of the bunk bed while Roxas mumbled something about his scheming professors who had scheduled three tests on the same week. He didn’t seem to notice as Demyx gingerly lifted his beloved instrument out of its case, cradling the neck in the palm of his hand before he sprawled the sitar out onto his lap. He sat legs crossed on the floor stretching his fingers along the strings.
The strings vibrated, filling the room with an exotic twang and leading Demyx into another world. Closing his eyes, he began strumming melodies that his Indian music teacher had taught him years ago. The vivid memories of a summer spent overseas reemerged from his mind. The warped voices, haggling poorly in a bustling market place, the singing and dancing embedded deep into the culture, and the bold colors, a blatant disregard for the conservative nature of the country, melted together. Demyx struggled to express those memories through each note. When finished, the overwhelming nostalgia nearly moved him to tears.
“Demyx?” Roxas asked. “What is that?”
Demyx opened his eyes, falling out if his light trance. Instead of the angry response he had tried to elicit, Roxas was staring quizzically at Demyx with fists full of crumpled paper at his sides. “A sitar, my numero uno instrument-o. It’s from India.”
“I thought you played a violin.”
“I, uh, play viola for school, but if I could, I would study to play this instead. There’s no real college that offers a music degree in sitar performance.” His stomach flipping, but he knew that he should feel disappointed, not thrilled, that his roommate seemed interested in his music.
“It’s really… nice. I’ve never heard that sound before.”
“Really?” Demyx pulled the instrument back into playing position and grinned as he played a familiar tune. “I bet you know this one.”
“It’s familiar, but I can’t remember what it is.” Roxas’s eyebrows furrowed thoughtfully.
“I’m trying to play other parts as well as the sitar’s, so it might sound off. I’ll give you a hint,” Demyx said while strumming the intro. Shamelessly, he broke out into song. “Hey! If we can solve any problem, then why do we lose so many tears?”
“I really can’t tell what that is,” Roxas interrupted. Demyx let the melody play until it got to the refrain.
“Every time you go aw-ay, you take a piece of me with you,” Demyx sang boisterously, but stopped when Roxas bit his lip, snorted, and coughed, trying to conceal the snort. Determined not be discouraged, Demyx continued beaming. “Paul Young. He uses an electric sitar in this song, so it sounds a little different than this one. The sitar is a widely used instrument in popular music.” Demyx reiterated the information he read of off Wikipedia.
“I liked that music you were playing earlier better. Shit, I’m never going to get this.” Roxas smoothed out his notes to just haphazardly collect them into a shuffled mess and shove it in his text book. Gathering everything in his arms, he got up and started to exit the room. “I’m going downstairs to study.”
The door was slammed forcefully before Demyx could say anything. He couldn’t tell if it was caused by the breeze that the window had let in or by Roxas. His gay roommate thought that the sitar was nice. Demyx felt his guilt build up but shrugged it off as bad indigestion. There was no way he was going to be okay with living in the same room as Roxas. The list must go on.
“Relax, it’s just a pair of shorts,” Demyx muttered staring at Roxas’s cotton red boxers with orange flames printed near the bottom hem. The rest of his roommate’s collection of boxers was plain solids. Demyx didn’t wear plain boxers, so if he got caught he could make up an excuse about how he had mistaken these as his own. He used his first two fingers to pick them up out of the drawer and waved the garment to spread the boxers out on top of the dresser. Checking all of the spots that he ought to check, he found everything quite clean and unstained. He thought of smelling them, but couldn’t force his nose to carry out the act. Tired of his pointless pettiness, he applied what he had learned from his Uncle Ernie about swimming in a cold lake and dove in head first.
Roxas was thinner than Demyx, so he was ready for the snugness around his waist. Dressed only in the boxers, he posed in the mirror admiring the way that he looked in them. I should get a pair like these… He flexed his calf muscle to try to pump up his skinny legs and rolled his eyes when he failed to enlarge them to the desired size. Rubbing his flat stomach, he groaned at the lack of visible abdominal muscles.
Suddenly, there was a knock on the door, and Demyx ran to the dresser with his hands held up to the back of his head. “One sec. I’m, uh, changing. You’ve got to wait. I’m totally naked,” he called out as he pealed the boxers off of him and stuffed them back into the right drawer. He ran into two things and tripped over five due to number four on Larxene’s list, before he was fully clothed and looking dazed at the visitor at his door.
“Hey, I guess Roxas isn’t here, is he?” Standing before Demyx was a body that put the Greek gods to shame. His black clingy sleeveless shirt accentuated the tight muscles of his arms and the flawless V-shape of his torso. His eyes were unnaturally teal, lighter than Demyx’s blue green, and his hair was mostly white, with a grey, pink, or blue tint depending on the angle. Using his imagination, Demyx outlined the muscles on this man’s stomach. “Hello? You alright?”
“Yeah, I’m fine. Sorry. Roxas isn’t here.”
“I figured that out on my own. Do you know when he’ll be back?”
“What time is it now?” Demyx took a step back into the room to read the clock.
“ Four o’clock.” The white haired guy glanced at his watch before Demyx could answer.
“It’s Tuesday, right?” Demyx strained to remember what Roxas could be doing.
“Yeah…”
“I think he’ll be back in a couple hours. He usually works out until 5:30 or so.”
“Roxas works out?” Mr. Muscles smirked. “He could use a few pointers.”
“Okay?”
“Can you tell him to call Sora? I’ll just write it on your white board so you won’t forget, alright?” He scribbled an illegible note on the small white board that hung on the outside of the door. “Thanks. Bye.”
As Sora walked down the hall, Demyx could help but glare at the tight round gluteus maximi swaying from side to side. This is probably who Roxas sleeps with.
“Five days into this list and he hasn’t cracked once. I’m almost done with this list, Larxene. This is kinda sad.” Demyx was lounging on Larxene’s bed. He had paid seventy four dollar and ninty cents on those damn tickets, and he wasn’t going anywhere until he saw results. Mostly, he just wanted her to show him whatever caused the hole in the door, so that he could repeat what she did and speed this process up. “Did you even do half of these things?”
“It was different for me. So, what exactly have you done?” She was sitting on her make-shift couch inspecting her newly painted fuchsia fingernails.
“The first six.” Demyx handed over the list.
“You actually did these? I am impressed.”
“It wasn’t easy.”
“So, how did he react?”
“Well, that’s just it. He, umm, hasn’t done anything. He doesn’t get mad or anything.” Demyx looked everywhere except at the girl.
“No fucking way. I don’t believe you. This is foolproof. He didn’t go off on you when he saw you wearing his clothes? What about the masturbation? Come on, there had to have been something when you locked him out.”
“Umm, he did get a little mad when I locked him out, but he got over it fast. He asked me to go to dinner with him two seconds after I locked him out. He didn’t notice that I wore his underwear, and the sex thing was the one thing I didn’t do because of the underwear.”
“You wore his underwear?” Larxene wrinkled her nose in disgust. “God, you’re probably going to catch something.”
“What? What do you mean?” Demyx rose from his laying position panicking. “You can get something by wearing someone else’s underwear?”
“No, I’m just saying it’s gross,” Larxene said. A large grin spread across her face. “Maybe, he has a crush on you.”
“What?!” The idea that his gay roommate had a crush on him overshadowed his previous worries of contracting an STD.
“You need to step it up a notch. If blondie has a crush on you, you need to be a total dick. Make him see you doing all this shit. Is he in his room now?”
“No, I think he’s taking a biology test.”
“Let’s go down to your room. This may need a woman’s special touch.” She clasped onto Demyx’s wrist and led him through her door and into the hall, where a couple girls were walking around in skimpy pajamas. Running past them, Demyx thought back to the day that he saw only a towel draped around a short blonde. Roxas can’t have a crush on me.
They made it down the stairs and into the male corridor, where it smelled less like perfume and more like mildew and sweat. Larxene waited patiently as Demyx searched through all of his pockets for his keys.
“Demyx,” a familiar deep voice shouted out at them. “You know you’re not supposed to bring girls into your room. You might get hurt.”
“Shut up, Marly,” Demyx thought about what to tell this pink haired pansy without starting a physical altercation.
“Oh, it’s not like that,” Larxene interjected. To Demyx’s horror, she batted her eyelashes at the other man and let out a high pitch giggle. “I’m helping Demyx with a project.”
“I should have known better. You are?” Marly asked coolly. The harsh expression usually etched into the pink haired man’s face softened into a smirk.
“Larxene,” she replied sweetly making Demyx choke on his own spit. The other two did not take notice as tears streamed down Demyx’s bright red face from hacking so hard.
“Well, I better let you two study. Maybe, I’ll see you around, Larxene. ” As Marly strutted to the bathroom at the end of the hall, Larxene didn’t take her eyes off of him.
“Who was that?” Larxene whacked Demyx back and continued to stare at the bathroom door.
“That was my RA, the biggest jerk on campus.” Wincing, he took his hand away from his neck and held his lower back.
“Why didn’t you tell me he was so hot?”
“You’ve got to be kidding me. He’s got pink hair, and he’s an arrogant asshole.” Demyx yanked the hair out of his arm to make sure he hadn’t passed out from the lack of oxygen. “Besides, I wouldn’t know if he was hot or not. Hey, where are you going?” Larxene had thrown the list at him, and Demyx caught it before it fluttered to the ground.
“You can take care of Roxas yourself,” Larxene said walking towards other end of the hall.
“You said you were going to help,” whined Demyx.
“Finish the list and let me know what happens.” Larxene shouted across the hall and ducked through the door that led to the stairs. Demyx reluctantly opened the door to his room. He walked to his desk tucking the list in one of his cluttered drawers. A light blue box tied with a wide green ribbon sitting on the fridge caught Demyx’s eye. Curious, he walked over to it and read the tag. To: Roxas From: Sora. I hope you like these. They’re Riku’s favorite. P.S. Kairi helped me make them.
The box reminded Demyx of Easter colored jelly beans. Because of the spring showers that usually started then, Easter was one of his favorite holidays. Knowing that Roxas would not be back for at least another hour, he slipped the ribbon off of the box carefully and lifted the lid. The scent of freshly baked chocolate chip cookies filled the room making Demyx aware of his empty stomach. He peeked into the box to find a dozen perfectly shaped chocolate chip cookies framed by sky blue tissue.
Demyx’s foul mood, which was getting better with his memories of Easter, got worse as he continued to stare at the cookies. Larxene had been wrong when she guessed that the short blond had a crush on Demyx. Roxas had Sora, and Sora had Roxas. Larxene was about to get Marly, and Demyx had nobody. Instead of wallowing in his loneliness, Demyx, with Larxene’s task number two in mind, decided to take it out on one of the cookies. Nothing was going to stop him from making Roxas miserable.
I’m going directly to hell. Demyx’s mortal soul was in jeopardy. It was Thursday evening, almost 24 hours since Demyx had mistreated one of Roxas’s cookies, and Roxas was sick. The box was gone by the time that Demyx had come back from practicing music in the evening yesterday, and Roxas had already crashed in his bed exhausted from the test taking he had done this week. Demyx stayed up last night, googling what the risks were for getting an STD via underwear sharing. He happened to open an article that talked about the risks of children not washing their hands and Demyx was convinced that Roxas had E. coli. and people died from contracting E. coli. Roxas was going to die, and Demyx was going to hell.
“Maybe you should go to the health center?” Demyx asked looking over the empty gift box in the olive green metal trashcan that was sitting next to their bed. Maybe if he choked on the guilt, which was gradually filling his chest and twisting his internal organs, and died before Roxas had a chance to, Demyx wouldn’t go to hell. Doubting his botchy reasoning, he tried to salvage his tattered soul by giving his roommate every chance to survive.
“I hate doctors,” the shivering lump in the bottom bunk grumbled. Turned towards the beige concrete wall, Roxas had cocooned himself in his royal blue comforter. “Besides, it’s just food poisoning, so it’ll be gone in a day or so.”
“It could be meningitis.” If Demyx mentioned a deadly disease, then maybe Roxas would go to the doctor. “-or a flesh-eating bacteria.”
“I’m fine. It’ll go away on its own.” Roxas flailed out of his blanket shell and turned towards the trashcan, loudly emptying out the contents of his stomach. The blue gift box was now sprinkled with putrid pink chunks. Demyx took a few steps back in case the vomiting turned projectile.
“Yeah, you look fine.” Demyx rolled his eyes as he watched Roxas wipe his mouth with his hand just to hold it up away from his body.
“Don’t you have class?” Cringing, Roxas took the Kleenex that Demyx had swiped off of the dresser.
“No. All of my classes are before 2:00.”
“Then, where are you for most of the days?”
“Practicing my music.”
“Shouldn’t you do that instead of watching me puke?”
“I’m just making sure you’re aright. I could go to the health center with you if you want me to. You could have something serious.”
“I had the seafood special at the cafeteria last night. I’m pretty sure that stuff was bad.”
“Didn’t you have that before?”
“Yeah, but it tasted funny this time, I think.” Roxas curled back into a ball and gathered the comforter around him.
“You sure it’s not something serious, like let’s say… E. coli?”
“No.” Roxas snorted. “Why would you think that?”
“I dunno. A hunch?” Demyx walked over to his desk picking up his music stand and his thick music history book along the way. The last thing that he needed was for his roommate to die tripping on something on the floor. Screw Larxene’s list
“Vomiting is not a symptom of E. coli., dia- dysentery is. I do not have dysentery.” The last sentence was a little hushed making Demyx look over at the blushing blond. Roxas was facing towards the outer edge of the bed, so Demyx could clearly see his face which had the comforter wrapped around it like a giant shawl. Small locks of hair stuck out stubbornly in front and something about his roommate’s vulnerability that made Demyx’s insides squirm.
“Does Sora know that you are sick?” Several things were wrong with what Demyx had said, but he didn’t really think about it until it came out.
“Sora? How do you know Sora?” Roxas asked.
“He gave you those cookies, right? Sorry, I got kinda’ nosy and read your tag.” Oh, why did I bring up the God forsaken cookies?
“It’s alright. You didn’t eat any. You could have asked for one if you wanted one. How did you get that he would care if I was sick off of a gift tag?”
“Actually, he came by here a couple days ago.”
“What?” Roxas sat up and looked at Demyx with a puzzled expression on his face. “He came to visit? What did he say?”
“Just that he could give you a few pointers at the gym and to call him. He left a message written on the board. I thought you got it.” Demyx had purposely kept the information about Sora’s visit from Roxas, but his roommate did not have to know that.
“That doesn’t sound like Sora.” Roxas shook his head. “He doesn’t need to know I’m sick. My cousin gets too worried about stuff like that.”
“Cousin?” The anxiety from the guilt that had built up in Demyx yielded a little.
“Yeah, he doesn’t go here. He goes to CSU.”
“He really doesn’t look anything like you. You guys must be cousins twice removed or something.”
“Really? People say that we could pass for twins.”
“Yeah right.”
“Seriously, if I just dyed by hair brown and spiked it, well more than it is now…”
“Brown spikey hair? You mean white flowy hair, right?”
“White?” Roxas eyes narrowed, and he snarled. “Did this guy look like he was on steroids?”
“Maybe. He was ripped, I guess. Umm, he had some guns on him?”
“Riku.” Repulsed, Roxas spit out the name before reaching for the trashcan again. He proceeded to use the old tissue to wipe his mouth before lying back down and closing his eyes. Apparently, he was done talking to Demyx.
“Who’s Riku?” Demyx asked after a moment of silence.
“Sora’s friend,” Roxas said.
“I take it you don’t like Riku?”
“No, I don’t.”
“Can I ask what he did?”
“He- I-” Roxas sighed. “He didn’t really do one thing in particular. Sora just needs to find better friends. Not arrogant douche bags like Riku who acts like a drama queen the second something goes wrong. Why did you think he was Sora anyways?”
“He came around looking for you, and told me to have you call Sora. I just assumed that he was Sora.”
“Stupid Riku. Chocolate chip cookies are his favorite, not mine. I don’t even like chocolate. I gave all of them out to whoever wanted them,” Roxas grumbled.
“What?!” Demyx jumped from his chair and knocked a stack of papers off of his desk.
“I don’t like chocolate. Is it really that hard to believe?”
“Chocolate is, uh, awesome. Umm, how could you not like it?” Demyx squeaked out as he scrambled to grab all of the sheets of music scattered on the floor. Roxas wasn’t going to die. The guilt ebbed away allowing relief to run through his entire body. Elated, he left some of the empty pages on the cream area rug. He needed to release the positive energy mounding in the pit of his stomach. “Hey, do you mind if I listen to some music?”
“Knock yourself out. Just keep Paul Young out of it, will you?”
“You don’t like 80’s music? Break my bleeding heart, why don’t cha?”
“Some of it isn’t bad. Don’t you like anything normal, Demyx?”
“Hell no. I will not listen to the crap that they are spewing out these days. I’m libel to end up drowning myself, shooting someone else, or smacking around a shortie, if I listened to that.”
“Music doesn’t influence people that much.”
“It affects my mood, and I don’t want to be angry all of the time. So, I listen to the classics.”
“Whatever. Hey, you could play some of that Indian music if you want to. It was nice.”
“You really think so? You don’t think it’s lame?”
“No, it’s cool. I am so the captain of all things cool.” Roxas rolled his eyes at his own sarcastic statement then pulled the trashcan closer to him. He didn’t do anything this time, just sat there, waiting as his face grew paler. “Damn that seafood special.”
Demyx was having fun with his gay roommate. This was not in the plan. The plan was to seek and destroy all weakness and to eliminate the enemy. Not to make friends with him so that Demyx could feel like a jackass when they ended up going their separate ways. Yet, the light must have been off in the room because Roxas looked content sitting next to a trashcan full of his own vomit talking to Demyx about playing a musical instrument on a Thursday night.
They were bonding. Maybe like they had before Demyx discovered the porn on the computer. Maybe more than before he had. The light must have been really off because he noticed the way that Roxas’s eyes lit up to the perfect color of blue reminding Demyx of the first summer thunderstorm.
It really wasn’t the color that reminded him, but the feeling that he got staring into them. The same feeling surfaced when he stared out into the downpour from his rickety wooden swing on the front porch back at home. Being safe and dry under the awning while the rest of his world was jostled awake by the chaos. The rain pelted the roof so hard that they could barely hear the thunder over pounding. How he yearned to walk up to the edge of the porch barefoot and allow a few drops to tickle the tip of his toes. His mother would shout out to him if it was earlier in the year, claiming that it was too cold, but this was one of the only instances were his rebellious nature would make its presence publicly known. He knew that he shouldn’t cross his mother, but he just couldn’t help it.
“Demyx? You alright?” Roxas had put the trashcan to its original place and sat straight up titling his head.
“Just spacing.” Demyx knew that he had to get rid of Roxas.