-Double Date: Extras Edition-

A/N: Hey, boys and girls. We’re back for another writer’s commentary, this time for chapter three. I’m The Darkside Incarnate, also known as Tommy. Like before, everything that was originally bolded will be in italics, and everything originally in italics will be underlined, so as to avoid confusion. Anything bolded is my comments on the events of the chapter. Enjoy.

-Chapter 3: The Date (pt. 1 awkward hell)-

Earlier, I told you that whenever I start a story I have the title, caption, and the “By: The Darkside Incarnate” part in bold, with the title and caption centered and the third part set to the left. Since this is the THIRD chapter, it starts out with the chapter being aligned to the left. Although, if you look through a few of my stories, you’ll notice that I sometimes accidentally break this rule.

“Hey Rox, wanna go somewhere with me?” Sora asks with a little too much enthusiasm. He’s being optimistic, that’s always a bad sign.

See? Everyone makes fun of Sora.

“No, I don’t.”

“C’mon dude, how are you going to live a life if you’re always sitting around watching Underworld all the time?”

Ha. I forgot all about this. See, I saw the movie Underworld (and loved it for its undeniably sexy heroine, and hated it for its poor interpretation of Vampires), and because aspects of myself are sometimes emulated through my characters, Sora and Roxas end up watching and loving it. This same effect would later be seen in a chapter of Rocky Relationships, where Sakura and Sora bond over episodes of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, both openly expressing a love for the show. Buffy is one of my favorite shows. And its sixth season influenced a lot of Rocky Relationship’s tone.

“You’re the one who wanted to watch it!”

“That’s not the point!”

“Then what is?”

“We need to go somewhere, okay?” he grabs the back of my shirt and hurls me to my feet. Damn, the kid’s strong.

Before I can protest again, he practically drags me to his car.

“Sora!” he doesn’t answer, he just drives.

“Sore uh,” I say, pronouncing the syllables of his name like separate words.

Originally, the line “Sore uh” was going to be like “Sore-Uh!” but the stupid spell checker wouldn’t allow it, and me being impatient, just changed it around until it fit.

No response, he just goes faster.

“Damn it Sora! Are you going to talk to me?”

He sighs, “What?”

“Where are we going?”

“To eat, duh. If you’re as hungry as I am, then it’s probably obvious,” he pats his stomach, and almost on cue, mine starts rumbling.

“I am kind of hungry…” I admit.

“Exactly,” he nods, using his cheesy grin.

I start to say something else but he turns up the radio, and communication becomes impossible.

-Namine’-

Notice how Namine’s name has the little ‘ thing in it. Well, this was because I was trying to figure out how to make that thing, like in café. Does anyone know? The few times that I do try to use Namine’s name correctly, I just copy and paste the “e” out of “café”. You’ll notice that Namine’s name seldom includes the slash mark.

“Why are we here?” I ask Kairi, eyeing the surrounding restaurant known to all Destiny Islanders as the “The Gummi Ship” (god knows why they named it THAT).

Another way in which I try to incorporate Kingdom Hearts terminology into the universe that this story is set in. You may notice, however, that “Gummi” is used another time to name something in Rocky Relationships, due to lack of creativity.

“Because we’re going to eat and…” she trails off.

“And what?” I demand.

“And we’re…meeting someone,” she admits.

My heart skips a beat, my throat tightens and I have a sickening feeling in the pit of my stomach. I all ready know who we’re meeting, I all ready know what Kairi’s planning. But, of course, I still have to ask.

I love Namine. Of all the characters I write for she is easily one of my favorites. In Kingdom Hearts: COM, we see her progress from shy, easily controllable witch to empowered force, which sacrifices Sora’s own memories of her to restore the memories she took. Namine matures a similar way in the story. She changes from shy to more out-going.

“Who?”

She looks up at me, her wide blue eyes peering through me. “Roxas and Sora.”

My heart skips four beats then, even though I saw it coming from a mile away, I can all ready tell that this was planned.

I know that this is it.

I’m finally going to talk to Roxas, to really talk to him. I’m getting the chance to peer into his eyes, observe his voice, his muscles…everything that makes Roxas…Roxas.

I remember being really worried about that line “…everything that makes Roxas…Roxas,” because of a slight awkwardness to it. When I write things, I try to make sure that the story has a flow, with easy to follow dialogue that allows the reader to coast through it. I hate it when a confusing line breaks up my concentration, making me reread it and then try to submerse myself back in the story. I was afraid that this line would do that to you, so far though, I’ve gotten no complaints.

As all of these revelations slip through my head, I hear a sound, the sound of a ringing bell. It signals that someone is entering the restaurant…which means—

“Namine’?” the voice is one part soft, two parts timid, and entirely hopeful. I know who it is almost immediately.

I look up from my soda, and gaze at Roxas. He’s wearing a pair of baggy jeans and a T shirt, all I wore was a tiny white dress that Kairi insisted that I change into. She said it made me look ‘hot’ which is flattering, but still kind of creepy. Now her true intentions for making me wear it are clear, to impress Roxas.

Ah, Namine’s white dress. Truth be told, I pictured her in this outfit the entire story, even though she had supposedly been wearing something different earlier.

“H-hello…”

“Hi Sora!” Kairi says cheerfully as her boy friend sits beside her on the other side of the booth.

Roxas looks at Sora, a question in his eyes. “C’mon Rox, sit down.”

Rox? Cute nickname.

Roxas glares at Sora before easing himself down, very carefully, beside me. I turn to him as he finally settles down and use my best smile. He grins back, not Sora’s cheesy grin, but a better, more sincere look of happiness.

Am I the only one that likes Roxas’ smile better, the few times that we see it in the game?

As I stare at him I begin to notice all these little things, small, but important things. How his eyes are a bright blue, like two stars. I feel the aura that vibrates all around his body, the intense presence that allows him to think and feel differently then others. He’s different…not like anyone I’ve ever met. How is can he do this? How can he make me fall for him even more with just one look…?

Previously to this story, I had gotten some complaints on Fiction Press about my over-use of dialogue and, at times, complete and utter lack of description. As a result, one of my mission statements in THIS story was to describe lots. Hopefully I succeeded.

“Hello, hello…can I get either of you anything?” I look away from Roxas and notice Kairi, Sora and a waitress all staring at us. The waitress looks impatient, like she’s been waiting for us to pay attention to her for a while.

“Um…Chilly Cheese Fries please…” I answer uncertainly.

At this Christian Camp I went to, you could order Chilly Cheese Fries…god, those things were amazing.

“Same here,” Roxas murmurs, looking down at his plate, breaking the powerful glance that we shared.

The waitress smiles in a relieved kind of way, “I’ll get right on it.”

The woman departs, and all is silent.

No one’s speaking; not Roxas, not Kairi, not even ‘talk your head off’ Sora. I sigh, embracing myself for the awkward hell that’s destined to follow.

“Awkward Hell” remains, to this day, one of my favorite chapter titles.

-Sora-

‘Are they going to talk?’ I ask myself, staring at Roxas and Namine. I turn to Kairi, ‘Are we going to talk?’

“So…I hear the burgers at this place are really good…” I start, pulling on a grin, “and the soda too, I mean it’s just so hard to find quality soda these days…”

Sora is often used as an Ice Breaker by me, simply because of his simple, goofy way of doing so. Although, I have noticed that he seems a lot more competent in crackerjacks00’s stories.

I’m interrupted from my potential rant by Namine’, “Isn’t Soda the same everywhere?”

There’s a small silence before Kairi speaks up, “Yeah, it is.”

“But some places could be better then others…like if this place made their ice from blood…then I guess the soda would taste bad if you put ice. But if they made it out of water, it would be okay wouldn’t it. So technically, soda isn’t ALWAYS the same,” Roxas says, looking up from the table and smiling.

Some may not notice, but this is a turning point for both Roxas and Namine. Namine’s comment “Isn’t Soda the same everywhere?” is her first real dialogue interaction around Roxas, and begins their first conversation. Then, Roxas asserts his opinion with his short monologue about bloody ice.

YAY, progress!

“Okay, who the hell would make their ice out of blood?” Kairi asks.

“Our school’s cafeteria,” Namine’ cuts in.

This is still one of my favorite jokes.

We all laugh at that.

“But really, I mean, there’s such a think as health inspectors, any restaurant that made their ice out of blood would be shut down.”

“Unless the place was rich, and they paid the health inspectors enough money to turn a blind eye. Or maybe the place OWNS the health inspectors,” I retort.

“Wow…talk about a conspiracy theory…” Roxas rolls his eyes at me.

“What? It could happen!”

“Maybe in an alternate universe,” the other three say, all at the same time.

Wow. Looks like I’m cornered.

Suddenly the waitress appears again, looking even more gorgeous then before; with those long, movie star legs and that soft chocolate complexion.

“Here’s your food,” she says shortly. She puts the plates down, and leaves.

“Someone’s in a bad mood…” it isn’t until I say that that I notice no one is talking again.

‘Great,’ I think to myself, ‘back to square one.’

Even though they make progress, Roxas and Namine have a knack for reverting to their old selves.

A/N I’m ending that chapter here for now. It doesn’t seam that I can make it go on without making it some what confusing.

And as usual it ends with an author’s note. By the way, that excuse for making it a two-part sequence is bull shit. In reality, I was just too lazy. This also marks the first time that I use a multiple part storyline. This will later be repeated by the climactic chapters of Rocky Relationships, Shatter: parts 1-3.

The next segment of DD: EE will be a “Pros and Cons” section, where I list the plusses of Double Date, and also the drawbacks and mistakes, such as forgetting to include Riku, or even mention him. See you next time.