Chapter One
Get Me Out of This Place, Before I Cause More Damage

It all started with a window. A window and a really fucking stupid idea.

…no, it started before that. It really started when my father fucked my mother in a suite at some resort in Hawaii. Nine months later I was pushed through a hole that’s usually the size of a Hostess doughnut, covered in blood and screaming my head off while still attached by a cord made of arteries and veins.

Pretty gross.

Time skip through the first six years of my life and you’ll see my father fucking other women. Time skip three years after that and you’ll see I moved to a new house with my mom, somewhere near my grandparents. Time skip to about nine years after that, past all the junior high awkwardness and high school idiocy and you’ll see that I graduated in the top ten percent of my class, honors and everything.

Time skip to a little over a year later and you’ll see I didn’t get very far.

I mean, it’s not like I didn’t try the whole college thing. I was there for a whole year, you can’t tell me I didn’t try. The thing is, I was bored. College just wasn’t for me; the advanced classes I took in high school were far more challenging than the classes I was taking at the university. So, I quit. And in quitting, I realized my mom wasn’t going to let me live with her again.

So, I needed an apartment. And I needed a job.

Well, the first part wasn’t really that hard, all I had to do was call around. Sora needed a roommate; I made myself comfortable at his place. It wasn’t like it was the first time we’d ever slept in the same place; we practically lived at each other’s houses growing up. No, it was the job part that was harder than it sounded. On one hand, I had been quite accomplished in high school and I had a year of college under my belt. On the other, I didn’t have much else. Our town, it’s kind of a small one. We don’t have a lot of “permanent” jobs for college drop-outs.

I stand by the fact that it was sheer dumb luck I got hired at Turning Tables nearly two weeks into my job hunt. I also stand by this same fact when I got promoted to assistant manager after two months of working there. Sheer. Dumb. Luck.

Turning Tables, to put it bluntly, is a music store. Records, cassettes, CDS, instruments, you name it we probably have it somewhere in the building. In reality, I should be pretty grateful I got this job instead of ending up at Starbucks like some other loser. I like music; understatement. I absolutely love music; close enough. It really is the perfect job for me I guess; I sit behind a counter most of the day listening to whatever I decide to play over the store’s sound system while reading the current issues of AP, Rolling Stone, Blender, and anything else we happen to get in.

Time skip to about a month after I was promoted and you’ll see a pretty little red head we’d just hired.

According to the nametag on her boobs, she answered to Kairi. I was supposed to be training her or something along the lines.

I ended up dating her instead.

And this is where it all started with a window and a really fucking stupid idea.

Kairi and I had been dating for about three months when she dropped the bad news on me.

“What the fuck is that supposed to mean?”

“It means my dad doesn’t like you and wants me to break up with you,” Kairi repeated as she continued restocking CDs on the proper shelf.

“Are you going to do it?”

“…well I mean, come on Rox, he’s my dad. I love him.”

“Yeah and I thought you loved me too,” I replied, following her around the store with a cardboard box of new CDs. “You can’t be serious about this, just because your dad wants you to doesn’t mean you should. You and me, we’ve got a good thing going don’t we?”

She stopped for a moment, Radiohead’s In Rainbows clutched in her petite hand. “We do. We do have a good thing going.”

“Okay so why would you let that go to waste just because your dad has a stick up his ass?”

“Roxas!”

“Well seriously, Kairi. Why doesn’t he like me? I’ve met your dad a total of like, twice. What can he hate about someone he’s met twice?”

“I don’t know, he just thinks you’re a punk-ass. Can you hand me that stack of Muse CDs?”

“Well okay maybe I am, so what?” Handing her the stack of CDs and kicking the now-empty box into a corner of the store I watched her set them on the rack. “I like you. You like me. Your dad doesn’t exactly fit in anywhere.”

“All right I get it…” Following me back to the counter, she sat on her barstool and grabbed for my copy of the month’s Spin.

“No really. Just because your Daddy’s Little Princess doesn’t mean I’m a bad guy and seriously…tell your dad to suck it up ‘cause I’m not leaving.”

“Roxas…”

“I mean it, it’s going to take a lot more than that for me to break up with you.”

“Roxas.”

“What?” I finally realized she was talking, turning my head to face her. Grinning a little, she grabbed onto my chin and brushed a kiss over my mouth.

“I know. I believe you.”

“Well…good.” Sinking onto my own stool and leaning my elbows on the counter I looked at her again. “So what do we do now?”

“Well…I have an idea.”

“…does it involve you, me, and sex in the stockroom?”

“…no. No, it’s a way to get around my dad’s sudden ban on you,” she explained, closing the magazine and pushing it back toward me.

“I’m listening.”

“See, my dad never checks on me after I tell him I’m going to bed. If I went to bed early…” she trailed off, giving me a triumphant look.

“…then you would go to bed early?” I finished for her. Her face fell flat and she reached over to flick me in the ear.

“No, Rox. If I went to bed early, you could sneak into my room and my dad wouldn’t even know about it. Get it?”

“…ohh.” Yeah, I got it. “Okay so um…how do I get into your room then?”

“Window.”

“Kai you live on the third floor.”

“Climb up the fire escape and just crawl through the window. It’s the only one with pink curtains, you can’t miss it. So, my house? Say around 11?”

“Depends…what’s in it for me?”

“I’ll make it worth your while.” Sliding off of her stool, she settled herself into my lap and rested her forehead against mine.

Didn’t hurt that she wasn’t wearing a bra either.

“11 sounds great.” I grinned and held her there, already planning out the evening.

All right, so I didn’t actually leave my apartment until about 11:30 but the walk from my place over to the apartments by Station Heights wasn’t very long. Climbing up the fire escape was an entirely different story though. Climbing was more Sora’s thing, not mine. The ladder was a little wobbly but it held long enough for me to climb up to the third floor.

“Pink curtains…right.” Problem was, there were two windows on either side of me.

Both of them had pink curtains and the lights were turned out in both of them.

So now what was I supposed to do? Guess apparently. Let’s see, thinking about the layout of the apartment doors in my head I thought of where Kairi’s apartment was.

“Guess we’re going with the left,” I said to no one in particular and scooted over toward the left-hand window. Carefully guiding one foot into the window, I silently crawled into the dark room and landed on the bed. Okay! So I had picked the right room. Kairi’s bed was pushed under the window. Sitting on the bed and blindly reaching a hand to the other side of the bed, I smashed my finger into her nightstand. The digital clock read 11:47pm. A mirror sat opposite of the bed on the far wall and the door was directly across from the window.

Figuring Kairi was just in the bathroom getting ready for me, I knew I had to act fast. Closing the curtains, I waited for a few moments.

“Well…I think Kairi’s in for a little surprise.” Stripping down to my boxers didn’t take too long and after carefully throwing my jeans and shirt across the room, I sprawled out on her bed and waited.

And waited.

And…waited.

“This is so fucking stupid.” Grumbling under my breath, I got off of her bed and hunted for my pants, digging my cell phone out of my pocket and dialing Kairi’s number on my way back to the bed. It only rang twice before Kairi answered.

“Hello?”

“Where the hell are you?”

“Where am I? Where are you? I’ve been waiting for you for an hour now!” she hissed.

“…I’m in your room right now.”

“…no you’re not, because I’m in my room and you’re not.”

“Wait what? I thought-”

“Where are you?”

“I have no idea!” Starting to panic a bit, I tried scrambling off of the bed and fell to the floor. “I think I-” I didn’t get much further into that sentence before the door opened and a light switched on.

“Who the fuck are you?”

And it was a male voice that told me this had been a very, very stupid idea.

The first line's been in my head for months now. I just now got around to turning it into something with potential.

Chapter 9 of How My Best Friend Screwed Me Over will be up soon, for those of you waiting for that.

Feedback in any form is appreciated. This is just an experiment to write an AkuRoku that's not a high school AU. Hope you enjoyed it, I know I did.

-Ty