Chapter Text
Radiant Garden College had a handful of official reputations to its name, each one with a different amount of respective truth. While the college did its best to ensure that it maintained these reputations and that the tour guides didn’t let anything slip (there was a reason that the tour guides were paid more than minimum wage, shh), it was an inevitability that anyone who spent enough time on the campus would eventually figure out the validity of these claims was somewhat fudged.
1. The quality of education here at Radiant Garden College is nothing short of excellent.
Yeah, kind of? Overall, the college had a respectable academic repertoire and most of its students were capable of holding their own in Quiz Bowl, but one could just as easily sail through on a healthy diet of entry level courses and a questionable major.
(“Sexual innuendo in Disney movies and its influence on gaming culture,” Roxas’ older brother Sora proudly said, when he came home from his sophomore year.
“No, but really?” Roxas said.
“Really,” Sora’s immeasurably patient boyfriend Riku said, pinching the bridge of his nose with one hand and reaching for the pain killers with the other.)
2. Civic responsibility is central to Radiant Garden College’s creed. Serving the community is not only encouraged, it’s expected.
This claim often raised eyebrows, since RDG was almost completely surrounded by a ten-foot tall iron fence topped with menacing spikes. The fence, in actuality, was an artefact from days long past (fours years, this March) when the students lived in constant fear of the community that bordered the campus.
(“So where’s a good place to eat?” Roxas asked as Sora led him and his identical twin Ventus around campus during freshman orientation week.
Sora pointed in the general direction of the heart of campus. “You’ll wanna upgrade your meal plan ASAP so you can get grub down in the Cave of Wonders,” Sora said. “That’s the place down under Walt Hall. They make decent sandwiches.”
“Okay, but what about outside of campus?” Roxas asked, frowning. “Where do the locals go to eat?”
“Whoa, whoa,” Sora said, holding up his hands. “First things first, Roxas, you have to be careful how you say the word ‘local.’”
Roxas squinted at his brother. “I’m using the word the way it’s supposed to be used,” he said, enunciating each syllable slowly, because maybe all the partying had killed off the rest of Sora’s already taxed brain cells.
“I read about this in the forum,” Ven said. In anticipation for matriculation, he had compulsively read through the last three years worth of the college forum’s posts. He was probably as aware of campus habits and lingo as any of the seven graduate students. The biggest testament to how far ahead Ven was of Roxas was the fact that Ven had taken to affectionately calling RDG by its student-coined moniker, ‘RadGard.’
Ven’s eyes flicked upwards, as they often did when he was recalling information or trying to concoct a convincing lie. “Apparently calling people here locals is kinda prejorative.”
“You must be fucking kidding me.”)
Upon the discovery that the students were too paralysed by fear and racism to venture farther out into the actual town of Radiant Garden, College President Xehanort and the rest of the administration hurried to devise a scheme to better the students’ relationship with their community.
They bribed the students out into the neighbourhood on community service missions using free t-shirts and exciting buzzwords, such as “character building” and “free lunch provided onsite.” In no time at all, Radiant Garden citizens and commuters began wincing at the sight of the hordes of RadGard students wearing their matching shirts and brandishing empty garbage bags and work gloves.
Incidentally, Radiant Garden civilians had come to the point that they considered the fence around the college to their own benefit—better to keep the students contained behind a barrier than have them run loose on the neighbourhood.
3. Radiant Garden College offers students the opportunity to rush Greek letter organisations (fraternities and sororities). Approximately 18% of Radiant Garden College students participate in Greek life, so while pledging is an option, it is by no means the only social engagement available on campus. The practice of hazing pledges is illegal and not permitted.
Ha. Haha. Hahaha.
*
It had only been a matter of time, so it wasn’t very surprising when Roxas opened the door of his dorm to find his older brother Sora standing there decked out in a three piece suit and an upside-down visor emblazoned with the Greek letter “Χ” in silver. Frankly, Roxas only felt dimly impressed that Sora had managed to restrain himself for this long.
“I’m not rushing,” Roxas said, already pushing the door shut.
“You didn’t even let me give you my pitch!” Sora exclaimed, shoving his foot into the doorjamb and prying the door open like a zombie in a B-rated horror flic.
“You’ve been giving me your pitch ever since you became a brother,” Roxas protested, trying to box Sora in before he gained anymore ground. “I’ve only had two weeks of class and I’m already in over my head. I’ve got more important things to think about.”
Undeterred, Sora ploughed on like the unshakeable rugby player he was, easily shoving past his smaller, feebler brother and making his way into the dorm. “C’mon,” Sora said, pronouncing it kamaaaan. “Even Ven said he’d join. The guys at the Chi Society will let you in no question.” Sora glanced around, taking in the unmade bed, the piles of dirty laundry, and the garbage pail overflowing with the crumpled balls of discarded problem sets for Roxas’ math class.
“Jesus, Rox,” he said, no doubt wrinkling his nose at the musty stink of unwashed laundry and body odour that Roxas had gotten used to long ago. He pulled the chequered curtain aside, disrupting a hefty layer of dust. Uncovered, the window filled the room with blinding natural light, bringing every greasy fingerprint and granola bar wrapper into unforgiving focus. “No wonder Ven told me not to visit your room. You’ve really let yourself go…didn’t you used to have a rug here?”
Shielding his eyes from the foreign source of light, Roxas muttered, “It got lost in my dirty laundry sometime last week.”
“Figures,” Sora said. Then, upon unearthing the second bed that had evolved into the shelf Roxas threw his unwashed clothes onto after he ran out of floor space, asked, “Didn’t you have a roommate?”
“Uh, yeah, but Vaan started sleeping in Penelo’s room because it was closer to his morning classes,” Roxas said, subtly nudging his pile of writing seminar books in front of his collection of mouldering half-full, half-sentient cups of coffee. Once Vaan had all but moved out, Roxas gave up any pretences of being neat and functional.
Sora shot Roxas a sideways look. “Morning classes,” he said sceptically. “Right.”
Roxas threw his hands up in the air. “Well, if you’re just going to stand here and judge—”
“Isn’t all of this embarrassing when you bring friends over?” Sora wondered, glancing down at his high-tops like he was seriously considering having them laundered.
Coughing awkwardly, Roxas lied, “No, I go to their dorms.”
Sora stopped dead in his tracks. “Oh my god,” he said, staring at his brother with large, horrified eyes. “You don’t have any friends, do you.”
“Of course I do,” Roxas bristled.
“Except,” Sora said, awed, “you totally don’t.”
“I do!”
“Name one.”
Roxas couldn’t do anything but quietly fume, because as mortifying as it was to admit, he totally didn’t have any friends.
Sora slung an arm around his brother’s shoulders and removed his visor, wedging it down over Roxas’ spiky hair. “So you’re going to Rush with Ven,” he said pleasantly. “Put yourself out there, Rox. You’ll have fun. Make friends, memories.”
“Why would anyone want to be friends with me? What’s so great about me?” Roxas wondered, gesturing to himself.
As it stood, there wasn’t much to gesture to. Roxas was barely 5’6”, scrawny, and blonde. All of his clothes matched because it was damn near impossible to make a wardrobe entirely comprised of black, red, and white not work.
“Your hair looks great,” Sora offered, noogying him. “Like, damn, do you have product or something holding your spikes?”
“No,” Roxas admitted, face reddening. “I just haven’t showered since Sunday.” Sora released him instantly, wiping his oily knuckles off on the back of Roxas’ shirt, which hadn’t been washed since before orientation and smelled noticeably of stale sweat and body odour. The stains in the armpits were at the point that no amount of Tide to Go was capable of erasing them. The shirt would probably have to be thrown out or retired for gym use (if Roxas ever got around to working out like he’d been planning for the month that he’d been starry eyed about college and Full of Hopes and Dreams).
“Right,” Sora said, looking remarkably unbothered for someone who was likely planning on walking straight to the Health Centre for a tetanus booster after he finished up here. “So I’ll see you at Rush, eh?”
Roxas rubbed at his forehead with the back of his hand, scowling at the glittering smear of grease. “Yeah, fine.”
*
Sometime between now and four years ago, this March, Radiant Garden College started shelling out tons of money to buy up all of the properties bordering campus. All buildings previously sitting on this land, which, mind you, were all quite respectable, were neatly bulldozed in order to make room for a series of economically built houses.
This housing development, known on campus as “the Planters,” was touted as an alternate living situation for whoever could back the bill. The Planters’ primary function was to accommodate the wealthier students and a couple student groups with full purses. Any remaining houses and apartments in the Planters were rented out to faculty and people from Balamb Garden who wanted cheaper living and didn’t mind the commute or the drunken college students.
Mostly the Planters hosted the college’s Greek Row.
The northernmost line of the Planters had been completely bought and rented out by the fraternities and sororities of the campus, which had all been evicted from the houses of their legacies due to a variety of critical structural inadequacies that could only be found in turn of the century Hollow Bastion architecture. (There had been some initial resistance from alumni and the more traditional Greeks, but upon the announcement of the college’s plan to install a Starbucks smack in the middle of the northern Planters, the dissent vanished overnight. Radiant Garden College’s administration was not unaware of the power a large franchise wielded and was not above harnessing that power for its own nefarious needs.)
While putting all of the Greek Houses in such close proximity to each other was an alarming prospect to the administration, the board members came to the conclusion that no amount of trouble the Greeks brewed together could possibly be any worse than having the Beta Sigma Taus and the Psi Kappa Omegas wage petty social battles through noise pollution from their former houses on opposite sides of the campus. At least now all the Greeks were tucked away into an area that could be more carefully monitored. It also meant that more students were able to get some sleep at night.
(It was also worth mentioning that most of the faculty housing sat on the south side of campus, far away from the newly organised Greek Row. Now if teachers showed up to class with bags under their eyes it meant that they’d been working late or binge-watching Netflix, like the respectable professionals they were.)
Having all fraternities and sororities on the same block also made Rush a helluva lot easier for rushees.
Roxas glared up at the first house on Greek Row and the crowd of jittery rushees congregating at its feet. The terms ‘fraternity’ and ‘sorority’ were somewhat loose at RDG since the administration, in an unforeseen act of well-intentioned egalitarianism, barred any form of gender exclusion in Greek life and demanded that all Greek letter organisations be coed. The rushees, who included people all across the spectrum, would travel as a group from frat to sorority, ensuring that they all saw each of their options.
Presently Roxas wasn’t even sure if the whole group would make it through this first house, let alone the rest on Greek row. The students huddled in small clusters, muttering amongst themselves and biting their fingernails and sneaking quick, furtive glances at the towering façade of the first fraternity’s house.
The awe imparted by the house’s tall white columns and overwhelming size was completely lost once Roxas noticed the scraggly lawn stretching out from its stoop. Bursting through the ground like flowers amidst the grass were countless weapons: swords, spears, knives, and every conceivable weapon with a pointy end were stabbed into the remains of the lawn, leaving scarcely any space for plants to grow. Some of the weapons reflected slices of the sky in their well-polished blades while others were dull with age and had rusted to the point of disintegration. No two weapons were the same and all of them bore the distinct air of proud legacy.
Hanging from the balcony was a spray-painted canvas banner reading in still-dripping letters,
ΗΡΩ WELCOMES ALL JUNIOR HEROES!!!!!
Someone tapped Roxas’ left shoulder and he automatically turned to look over on his right, where he found Ven, smiling sheepishly. “Hi,” Ven said.
Roxas stared. His brother was dressed in a smart blue blazer, a white oxford, and a pair of shorts that were a very dubious shade of salmon pink. In a slightly strangled voice, Roxas said, “You’re wearing boaters!” Ven glanced down at his feet, bemused, like he’d completely forgotten. “Where the fuck did you find that getup?”
Ven tugged at his bowtie. “You know my roommate Mowgli?”
“He the guy that totally flipped out and burned himself when he used a lighter for the first time?”
“Yeah.”
“I remember him,” Roxas said, not seeing the connection between the kid who dressed and behaved like he’d been raised by wolves and the Young Republican wearing his brother’s skin.
“Yeah,” Ven said. “So Mowgli is in the Big Bro/Little Bro mentorship programme thing. His Big Bro, Baloo, is a member of Beta Sigma Tau, and he said that it makes a good impression on the siblings if you dress nicely for Rush.” He paused, giving Roxas a once over. Ven’s mouth went a little slack. Roxas felt his face burn; his ensemble included a pair of unwashed sweatpants and the free t-shirt he’d gotten during orientation—also unwashed.
“Well,” Ven said, casting his gaze upwards, the tips of his ears slightly pink. “I’m sure that appearances won’t be that big of a deal.”
It was at this precise moment that a line of canons propped on the roof of the ΗΡΩ house went off in a series of ear-splitting bangs, each canon releasing an explosion of confetti and streamers onto the screaming rushees below. A student with chiselled features and bulging pecs and biceps emerged dramatically onto the balcony, his sapphire blue cape swaying in the breeze. Beneath coiffed auburn hair, discerning blue eyes scoured the faces of the rushees, and above that, a stained sweatband with the words ‘GO THE DISTANCE’ scrawled across the terrycloth in faded sharpie clung to his skull. If Roxas had been up on the balcony, he would’ve noticed the scent of the student’s musk: Victory and a hint of Old Spice.
The senior spread his toned arms and exclaimed, “Welcome to Eta Rho Omega, where we take little freshies like you—” here he pointed an incriminating muscled finger at Hope Estheim, who looked about to wet himself “—and we transform you from zero to hero!” Another round of canon fire burst from above. “I am Recruiting Officer Hercules, and I can say with confidence that within each and every person that pledges Eta Rho Omega, a star is born.”
“Wow,” Ven whispered in Roxas’ ear. “He’s really good.”
Roxas could already feel the migraine coming on.
*
Among the things that Roxas should have expected, but didn’t, was Ven’s pathological need to learn every possible detail about RadGard’s Greek organisations. Armed to the teeth with all this information, Ven talked up a storm with the siblings of each house, flaunting his freshly acquired wealth of knowledge and kissing ass like it was nobody’s business.
At Rho Pi Rho, a house with a dedicated focus to art and music, Ven and Roxas sat across from the senior who was vice president—“conductor,” by their preferred terminology.
“I believe,” Ven mused through his steepled fingers, “that the only thing in this world that’s truer than the pain and struggle of life, is that music and art brings colour to lives that would otherwise be bereft of meaning.” He glanced over at Roxas, who was making a valiant attempt at remaining stony-faced. “It’s incredible,” Ven said, and his voice fucking cracked. “We would all be so lost without art.”
“Damn.” Conductor Megumi Kitaniji exhaled a mouthful of smoke. “You’re a real person, Ventus. You’re whole. I hope you know that,” he said, extending a large hand and resting it on Ven’s shoulder.
“Thank you,” Ven choked. “That means so much to me.”
“What about me?” Roxas asked, mostly to be obnoxious.
Megumi lowered his mirrored shades a touch so he could look Roxas in the eye. “Not my place to say,” he said as he tapped the ash from his cigarette.
With each house they walked through, the mosquito bite of irritation developing in Roxas’ head became a little itchier. Things came to a crest at the house of ΒΣΤ.
“So tell me,” Ven said to the pair of juniors who had introduced themselves as the joint Pledge Masters. The two pledge masters were near complete physical opposites of one and other: the first was tiny and very thin with a shock of closely cropped red hair, while his friend was large both horizontally and vertically and styled his dark hair in a Mohawk. Roxas found himself connecting to this sharp contrast, because whereas he’d developed sudden muteness, Ven was clearly in his element, flashing a pearly smile and asking, “How do you guys manage to do the things you do with a faculty advisor like Yzma Supai?”
Pledge Master Timon and Pledge Master Pumbaa exchanged knowing looks. “Well,” Timon said in an overly blasé voice. “I’m not sure what exactly you might have heard about us—”
“Probably that we’re a house of party anima—mmph!” Timon clapped a hand over Pumbaa’s mouth before he could finish.
Unfazed, Ven said, “I understand that you guys have a great interest in green living and conservation, but your advisor keeps trying to redirect your funds and energy towards her own department.” Timon’s lips quirked into a half-smile. Ven continued, “In spite of this, RadGard’s chapter of Beta Sigma Tau continues to contribute more money and community service hours to wildlife conservation groups than nearly any other Greek letter organization in the country.”
“I see someone’s done his homework,” Timon said, folding his arms across his skinny chest and grinning. “You’re absolutely correct. Most of our fundraising goes towards conservation groups, and about one third of every Beastbrother’s dues is delegated for donations—this is nothing to sniff at, when you consider how we’re the largest frat on campus.”
Pumbaa chimed in, “We also have the lowest dues.”
Roxas thought about this for a minute while Ven chatted about sustainable housing, then realised why the numbers seemed so amiss. “Wait,” he said, frowning up at the pledge masters. “Where are you guys getting your money for alcohol and stuff if so much of your cash is donations?”
Too late, Roxas noticed the meaningful squint Timon and Ven both fired him. “Um,” Roxas said, lamely. “I mean…?”
“We do not spend our dues on booze,” Timon said loudly, inclining his head to the corner where the faculty chaperone, a grumpy old man named Mr. Fredricksen, stood, leaning heavily on his footed cane and scowling at anyone who drew near. “It would be wrong to expect underage students to contribute towards something they can’t partake of.”
“Besides,” Pumbaa said blithely. “There’s no need. The pledges last year built us the Water Hole.”
“The water hole?” Roxas echoed, wrinkling his nose. “What’s so great about the water hole?”
Ven opened his mouth like he was going to answer, but then a lanky student with pointed, almost elfin features appeared between the two pledge masters, slinging a thin arm around each of their shoulders. He smiled at Roxas in a vaguely condescending way and nodded entreatingly, his chin-length sheet of arrow-straight hair and heavy turquoise earrings swaying against his cheeks.
“The Water Hole,” the student said patiently, “is a homemade brewery designed for us Beastbrothers by resident engineering major Brother Flik.”
“And who’re you supposed to be?” Roxas demanded, scowling as he jammed his hands into his pockets. “The president of this place?”
Ven gripped Roxas by the elbow, face contorted into an expression of suffering. “Yes,” he said, voice pained by second-hand embarrassment. “But he goes by Emperor.”
“Name’s Kuzco,” the Emperor of the Beastbrothers drawled as he reached forward to pinch one of Roxas’s cheeks with his smart fingers. “Emperor Kuzco.”
“He’s the reason Yzma hasn’t retired yet,” Ven said. “Everyone’s convinced that her dying wish is to see him thwarted and expelled.”
Kuzco flashed a shit-eating grin. “Welcome to the Animal House, kids. Home of the Beta Sigma Tau Beastbrothers and Emperor Kuzco. Boom, baby.”
In hindsight, Roxas would find it puzzling that this proved to be his breaking point. Something about this precise moment, with Kuzco’s bright grinning face and Ven’s polite laughter and Pumbaa’s dusky fingers touching his septum piercing, was just too much. The annoying mosquito bite in Roxas’ brain wasn’t a bite so much as it was an aneurysm.
“Okay, fuck this,” Roxas announced, throwing his hands up. “I can’t fucking do this.” He spun on his heel and started marching out the door, Ven hastily making excuses in his wake before following him out.
“Are you okay?” Ven called after him and Roxas shook his head furiously, fists clenched and mouth pressed into a tight line because holy shit, he didn’t even want to join a fraternity. He stopped his flight halfway across the lawn and proceeded to pace in oblong circles, muttering to himself and gesticulating wildly as he flattened the grass underfoot. A nearby campus tour was quickly diverted away. A campus police car loomed ominously at the end of the block, just in case.
“Roxas, it’s going to be okay,” Ven said, slowing to a stop. He reached out to touch his brother’s shoulder when he came close, but Roxas jerked away and continued stalking around the lawn like an agitated gorilla. “You don’t actually have to do rush or join Sora’s frat. There’s no pressure—”
Roxas whirled around. “‘No pressure?’” he exclaimed, hackles raised. “There’s actually a fuckton of pressure! Sora has been hounding me to pledge the Chi Society nonstop.”
“You’re exaggerating…”
“He’s sent me 47 texts since nine this morning,” Roxas snapped, whipping his phone out of his pocket and displaying the glowing screen that read that Sora’s 47 text messages had now multiplied to total 53.
Wincing, Ven said, “He’s probably just excited?”
“Him excited is when they serve flan in the dining hall and he runs around balancing six plates of the stuff,” Roxas said shrilly. “That’s excited. This is not excited. This is manic. If I don’t join his stupid fraternity with you, he’ll make passive aggressive comments and guilt me until the day I cave and pledge.” He flung his cell onto the ground and its glass screen lit up again as Roxas received text #54.
“Roxas,” Ven wheedled, “c’mon, I’m sure it won’t be that bad—”
“It will absolutely be that bad!” Roxas raged. All around him, the air felt strangely thin and humid in his mouth. His vision started blurring, fading to black around the edges. “When he’s set on something, it’s like Final Destination. You can’t escape! A week will go by and you’ll think that everything’s okay because he smiled at you and made you pancakes, but then you look down at the pancakes and see that the apples have been cut so they all look like the letter ‘Χ’! And then you’ll realise that he’s still standing in the room, right in front of you, watching. Just watching.” Roxas’ pupils contracted violently. “I’ve gotta get out of here,” he gasped.
Powered on by adrenaline and suffering from tunnel vision, when Roxas turned to bolt in the general direction of main campus, he failed to notice that there was a student standing right in his path.
Roxas barrelled into the guy with the same devastating power as a tsunami smashing into a straw hut. The two of them crashed to the ground in a thrashing pile of arms and legs, Roxas spitting swears while the other guy laughed like a hyena and jammed his beanie back over his tangled mane of crimson hair.
“Are you guys okay?” Ven tittered. He kneeled down to help disentangle the pair.
“Everything would’ve been okay if you hadn’t been in my fucking way!” Roxas raged at the other student as Ven pried him free and pulled him to his feet. “Why were you even standing like three feet behind me anyway? That’s not something that normal people do!”
The other guy smiled an easy, toothy grin and shrugged with his entire body. “You were having a fit or something and I wanted to watch,” he chirped. He leapt to his feet, long thin limbs folding and unfolding until he snapped straight up. “I’m Axel,” the student said, head bobbing as he expectantly shoved a hand forward. “I’m a sophomore.”
Roxas eyed the hand suspiciously. Axel’s hand itself seemed fairly normal, albeit filthy with smudged ink all across the meat of his palm, but the sliver of arm peeking out from his rolled and hole-riddled plaid sleeves was little more than a twig. Roxas took a moment to wonder if shaking Axel’s hand would lead to the accidental, yet wholly inevitable shattering of bones.
He decided he didn’t particularly care.
“You don’t look like a sophomore,” Roxas commented. He accepted Axel’s handshake and was surprised to learn that those bony fingers were more than capable of such a firm grip. “I’m Roxas. Freshman.”
“I just came back from taking some time off, Roxas the Freshman,” Axel said, smile never wavering. He ended the handshake with little preamble, sliding his hands into the part of his jeans that had perhaps been pockets many aeons ago. The pants Axel wore really had no business being called jeans, either—they were more a patchwork of the ugliest bits of paisley fabric Roxas had ever seen in his life. Most of the remaining denim clung to the frayed hems cuffed just above Axel’s bare ankles. The overall impression of the threadbare ensemble hanging off Axel’s reedy frame was that of a scarecrow whose stuffing had all fallen out.
Roxas supposed Axel was some kind of a hipster, or at least a person whose sense of fashion was just as detached as his understanding of social norms.
While Ven introduced himself, Roxas busied himself with scrutinising Axel’s greying Chucks. Just as he was contemplating the possibility that the Converses were only holding together because of a lethal combination of duct tape and stubbornness, Axel crooned, “Commit it to the memory, baby,” and Roxas fired him a withering glare, flushing darkly all the same.
“So I couldn’t help but overhear that you appear to have a Greek problem?” Axel drawled, eyes still fixated on Roxas’ face.
“‘Overhear’ makes it sound like an accident,” Roxas griped as Ven cagily replied, “It’s nothing, he’s just feeling some fraternal pressure. Pun unintended.”
“Fraternal, eh?” Axel said, eyes glittering. “You frosh do look pretty familiar. Older brother? Maybe I’ve met him.”
“Oh, you know,” Ven said. “Our brother Cloud graduated five years ago, but that was probably too long ago—”
“Or maybe you know our other brother,” Roxas grumbled as he bent to pick up his phone. There were another two new messages from Sora pinging impatiently. “He Who Is So Greek He Might As Well Be Called Alexander The Great.”
Ven said, “Alexander the Great was from Macedon.” Roxas flipped him off.
“Oh,” Axel said, leaning forward. “You must mean Sora. Isn’t he the Administrative Chair of Chi?”
“The Administrative Chair is Riku. Sora is Social Chair,” Ven said in a rush, like he couldn’t stand idly by and let inaccuracies grow stale and unaddressed.
“Sora was in my first year seminar,” Axel continued. “Can’t say it’s much of a surprise that he’s developed into one of those upside-down visor wearing, Xehanort’s ass-kissing, rabid RadGard cheerleaders over at the Chi Society.” Then, a beat later, “Not that there’s anything wrong with those guys,” he said, mostly to Ven, who wore an expression befitting of a parent who’d just been told that their toddler’s finger-painted portrait was merely ‘okay’ and not the noteworthy foundation of a fledgling artistic movement.
“The new Chi President, Aqua, she’s probably the smartest person on campus,” Axel said encouragingly. “And she plays a serious game of flip cup.”
“Every Greek Week that Aqua has been a member of the Chi Society’s flip cup team, they’ve won effortlessly,” Ven agreed, losing some of the stiffness in his face and shoulders.
“That’s one fiercely competitive woman,” Axel said, nudging Ven with a grin.
Perking up, Ven chimed in with, “I’ve heard that the Chi Society’s Pledge Master Vanitas is even more competitive than she is!”
“Sure, but he’s not as consistent in bringing results. She’s the real deal. You seem like you’re pretty committed to this Chi business, so let me tell you that the single greatest thing Chi will offer you is the opportunity to try and absorb some of her greatness. Also they have the highest overall GPA and are actually all really great tutors.”
Ven looked like he was impressed, but trying not to show it. “You’re really up to date for a guy who took time off, aren’t you?”
Axel shrugged. “I like to keep up with the gossip.”
Bewildered and at a loss, Roxas eyed them, trying to figure out at precisely what point he’d been booted from the conversation. “Wait,” he said. “I thought you just said that Sora’s guys were all upside-down visor wearing, Xehanort’s ass-kissing, rabid RadGard cheerleaders.”
“Well, sure,” Axel said, scratching at a pimple near his left ear. “Just because they’ve got good leadership right now doesn’t mean that all the idiocy and ego associated with that house vanished with the passage of a title. They’re still huge douches. Your brother here mentioned Vanitas a second ago—the guy’s such a bro that his shits are pastel.” Ven looked like he wanted to protest, but quieted when Axel quirked an eyebrow at him. “Tell me I’m not right.”
When it became apparent that Ven had no viable defence to make for Vanitas or the overall quality of the Chi Society, Roxas shook his head with a weary laugh. “I think we can all safely agree that sounds fucking awful. How am I supposed to explain to Sora that I’d rather stick my head in a blender before pledging Chi?”
Axel gave Roxas a long, measuring look before finally grinning crookedly. “I’ll tell you what, frosh. You leave Rush and come with me right now, and I’ll give you a fool proof way to end Sora’s attempts to recruit you.”
“Fool proof?” Roxas echoed, squinting. “What exactly does this entail?”
“Can’t talk about it outside, frosh,” Axel said mildly. “But I can promise you that if you come with, Sora won’t be able to do anything to recruit you.”
“How do I know this will work if you won’t tell me what it is?”
Axel’s grin widened. “You gotta have faith.” He inclined his head back towards the ΒΣΤ house, adding, “Better make your decision quickly, though.”
Roxas’ mouth went a little dry. Behind them, the front door of ΒΣΤ opened and Mr. Fredricksen and the rushees milled out to walk to the next house over: a tidy pale yellow house with gauzy white curtains in the windows and a laser-printed banner displayed over the porch, reading,
ΧΒΛΔ RUSH 2014
only you can open the door
Roxas swallowed around the lump in his throat. The next house on the rush agenda was the house of Sora and the Chi Society.
“Roxas…” Ven shifted his weight from one foot to the other, anxious. “Roxas, the group is leaving, we should go.”
“I…”
“It’s crunch time, frosh,” Axel cut in, voice devoid of all the earlier teasing lilts. His eyes weren’t cool, exactly, but there was a challenge in them, and Roxas sensed that his decision here would affect the way the rest of his year played out. “You in or what?”
Roxas sucked in a long breath and gazed over at the orderly line filing into the Chi House. He licked his lips.
“Ven,” he said. “Can you tell Sora that something came up?”
Axel’s face split into a victorious grin.
“Okay,” Ven mumbled, rubbing at the back of his neck. “I’ll tell him something. But he’s probably going to want an explanation from you.”
Axel clapped Ven amicably around the shoulders. “He’s your big bro—I’m sure that he doesn’t mean to cause you all this stress. I’ll have a little chat with him later to make sure that he doesn’t give either of you too much grief,” he promised, and Ven’s face lit up like he completely believed him. (And, for some bizarre reason, Roxas found himself also trusting in those words.)
“Thank you,” Roxas said. “Both of you.” His cheeks were achy with the grin that had crept up without his knowledge. He could feel something prickling at the edges of his mind, something that he hadn’t genuinely felt in weeks—anticipation. And wow, Roxas thought, a little overwhelmed with it all, when was the last time he’d actually felt the drive to do anything other than go through the motions of everyday life?
“Ready, frosh?”
Roxas squared his shoulders, looked from his brother to Axel, and bared his teeth. “Fuck yes, let’s do this.”