Chapter Text
Roxas jolted upright from a doze when he felt something hit the back of his head. He reached his hand up to the back of his head and turned around to glare at Hayner, who looked suspiciously innocent. There was a balled-up sheet of paper on the ground behind Roxas’s chair.
“Dude,” Roxas hissed. "What the fuck?"
Hayner shrugged one shoulder, a cavalier smirk on his face as he went back to his game.
“Ugh…” muttered Pence, his head dropping onto his desk with an audible thunk. “The last few days of school are always so boring…”
“At least it’s almost over,” said Olette, tapping him on the head with her pencil. When he didn’t move, she let out a small huff and dragged their tic-tac-toe paper from under him. “Last day of school for the year.”
“Another year gone,” said Hayner absently, not taking his eyes off his game as he threw his fist triumphantly into the air. “One year closer to freedom.”
“‘Freedom’ is a relative term,” Pence groaned. “We’ve still got college, and then jobs, and then life… ”
“Aw, man,” Hayner exclaimed, as his game made a strange, forlorn bweeping noise. “Stop getting existential! You made me lose focus!”
“Or maybe,” Roxas said sagely, “you’re just bad at the game.”
Hayner spluttered, offended, as Pence, head not moving from the table, snorted and held out his fist for Roxas to bump.
“Guys… come on,” said Olette with a giggle. “Be nice.”
“Pence is right, though,” said Roxas with a hum. “It’s actually... kinda fuckin' scary, when you think about it.”
“Thank you, Roxas,” Pence sighed, reaching up his arm blindly to scrawl an x into one of the tic-tac-toe squares. “I’m glad one of you understands.”
Olette rolled her eyes and filled in an o in the blatantly empty third square in a row, crossing through the three circles. “I win.”
Pence raised his head to glare weakly at the page. “Crap.”
“Maybe if you actually tried,” Olette chuckled, tapping him on the head again.
“Olette,” said Hayner, once again embroiled in his game, “Pence gets like this every year on the last day.”
“Just give him some time,” Roxas chuckled. “Once the bell rings he’ll be our excited puppy again.”
Pence dropped his head back onto the table and grumbled something that sounded like I’m not an excited puppy.
“Yeah, you are, Pence,” Roxas said, reaching over and patting him on the head. “It’s why we love you.”
The game beeped sadly again.
"Damn it!"
“Language, Hayner,” the teacher said, “You’re about to leave my class forever, so I don’t really care” clear in her voice despite her words. “Come on. There’s less than fifteen minutes left. Please try to be civil.”
Hayner grumbled out a response, sitting back in his chair and putting the game in his bag. “Fine.”
Roxas smirked and falsely coughed into his hand. “Told you, you just fucking suck.”
He earned himself a ball of paper directly in the forehead for his troubles.
“For fuck's sake, Hayner,” said Olette with an exaggerated frown. “Stop throwing paper at Roxas.”
“Oh sure, you and Roxas drop f-bombs every other word, but I'm not allowed to say damn?"
Olette, taken aback, let out a little snort. “Hayner!”
“Oh, my God,” Roxas laughed, putting his face in his hands. “Not this again.”
“You do say it a lot," said Pence wisely.
Olette looked at him, unimpressed. “You are aware that I’m your ride home.”
Roxas burst out laughing again, leaning back in his chair.
“Wow, Olette, that was cold,” Pence said, putting his head back down on his desk. “Fine. Say it all you want."
“Thank you,” she said with a giggle. “Let’s play another game of tic-tac-toe?”
“And get schooled by you again? I’m all right.”
"Shit!" Roxas yelped and jumped up just as his chair fell backward, crashing onto the floor.
“Roxas…” came the teacher's tired admonishment after a few seconds of stunned silence. “You've gotta be kidding me.”
“Sorry about that,” he said weakly, amidst Hayner's uproarious laughter. “Leaned back too far.”
The teacher gave him a wry look. “I couldn't tell. Please pick your chair up.”
Roxas bent over and picked the chair off of the floor, his ears turning red as he sat back down.
“Good going,” whispered Pence with a snicker.
“Shut the fuck up.”
“Now it's your turn to piss her off, Pence,” Hayner muttered with a smirk, leaning in close. “C'mon, it's a tradition…”
“A tradition I've hated doing and, actually, only accidentally done for the past four years,” retorted Pence. “And it's almost always ‘cause of you.”
“I've gotta agree with Pence on this one,” said Olette, tapping her pencil on her desk.
“What tradition?” asked Roxas with a snort. “What the fuck are you talking about?”
Hayner rolled his eyes. “Never mind. You guys are no fun.”
“What tradition?”
“If you don't know about it, you're lucky,” said Pence with a dramatic grimace. “It's one of Hayner's stupid schemes.”
“Hey! My schemes are not stupid!”
“They kind of are,” said Olette with a laugh, still tapping her desk. “Especially the ones that manage to get us all in trouble.”
“That's happened, like, maybe once,” Hayner scoffed, crossing his arms. “You act like I try to get in trouble.”
All three of them gave him identical Looks.
Before he could respond, the bell finally rang, startling nearly everyone.
The teacher stood up with a sigh. “Go! Be free!”
Roxas and Hayner were already halfway to the door before the others had even left their seats. At the door, Roxas turned around and called, “Have a great summer, Ms. B!”
“You too, Roxas,” said the teacher with a fond eye roll and shake of her head. “Now go. And take your friends with you.”
Roxas grinned and bolted out of the room, Hayner hot on his tail.
Olette and Pence took their time to meet them outside the doors, and Pence already looked rejuvenated.
“School is over for the summer!” Hayner crowed, jumping up and pumping his fist in the air. “What are we gonna do first?”
“I wouldn't mind a nap,” mused Roxas, stretching his arms above his head. “School hours are the fucking worst.”
Hayner gave him an incredulous look. “Dude. Seriously. What is wrong with you?”
“What? I'm tired!”
“We could always go to the beach,” said Olette. “We didn't get to go last year, remember? We promised we would this year, first chance we get.”
“Yeah, but it's too late to go now,” said Pence. “We'd only get to be there for like an hour, max, at this point in the day.”
“Yeah, you're right,” said Hayner. “The beach’s gotta be an all day thing.”
“We could go tomorrow,” said Roxas. “Make a day out of it.”
“That sounds good to me,” Pence said with a grin. “Pretzels, right?”
“Hell yeah!”
“Of course!”
“Abso-fucking-lutely.”
“Right. So it's settled. We go to the beach tomorrow,” said Hayner, reaching out and ticking off an imaginary checklist with his hand. “So what should we do today?”
Roxas held out his hands and shrugged. “Hey. I already gave you my input.”
“We are not sleeping on our first day of summer vacation, dipshit.”
“You aren't, maybe, but I might-”
“Oh my God!” Pence yelped.
The other three turned to look at where he was looking frantically in his bag.
“Guys, my camera's gone!”
“What?” Hayner asked. “What do you mean, it's gone?”
“I mean it's gone,” Pence said sharply, yanking his camera bag out of his backpack and showing them the empty contents. “I haven't touched it all day!”
“You mean someone stole it?” Olette said with a gasp. “Who'd do that?”
“Uh,” said Roxas, “have you seen the people we go to school with?”
Pence turned white, digging through his bag again.
“Pence?” Olette asked hesitantly.
“No,” Pence moaned. “My portfolio!”
Olette gasped again. “Is it gone, too?”
“Yes,” Pence said, putting the bags down and covering his face with his hands. “The binder's there, but the folders with all my photos are just… gone.”
“Who the hell would steal photographs?” Hayner asked incredulously.
“We'll find who did it,” Roxas said. “You've been building that up for years, Pence. We'll get it back.”
Olette furrowed her brows and reached into her purse. Bringing out her wallet, she opened it and let out an emphatic noise. “What the fuck? My picture's gone, too!” She turned her wallet around to show off the empty picture compartment. “I had that picture of us in front of the tower here!”
Hayner patted his back pockets and pulled his wallet out. “Yeah,” he said darkly. “Mine too.”
Roxas's blood ran cold. He took his own out and immediately noticed the absence of the two photos that usually took up residence there.
“Mine are gone, too,” he said quietly. “The one of the four of us…” He swallowed. “And. The one of me and my dad.”
“Oh, Roxas…” Olette said softly.
“What kind of thief is this?” Hayner asked again. “How could all of our photos go missing at once?”
“I guess we know what we're doing today,” said Roxas after a moment. “We gotta find the asshole who stole our pictures and get them back.”
“First we should see if anyone else is having this problem,” said Olette. “See if it narrows down any possibilities.”
“You're right,” Hayner said. “Good thinking.”
“What if everyone's photos are missing?” Pence asked. “What then?”
“Then we keep looking,” said Roxas. “There's gotta be some clue to follow.”
“Well, let’s quit standing around gossiping,” said Hayner, knocking Roxas on the shoulder, “and get started!”
“Where do we even begin?” asked Pence, zipping his bookbag up and pulling it back onto his back. “This is… advanced.”
“Uhhhh…” Roxas voiced, then turned around to look at the teens still leaving the school building. “Hey! Is anyone missing photos?”
He got a few strange looks, and he distinctly heard Hayner snort behind him ("That works…" ), but one girl with shaggy red hair stopped and searched through her purse.
After a few seconds, she shook her head and showed him her wallet, in which a photo of herself and a shorter dark-haired girl with big glasses and an odd looking stuffed animal was visible.
Roxas huffed irritably as she walked away. “Okay… so apparently we were targeted?”
“One person isn’t enough data to know for sure,” said Pence. “We need to get more information before we try to figure anything o-”
“Hey!”
Olette sighed as Hayner and Roxas bristled and spun around. “Here we go…”
“The hell do you want, Seifer?” Hayner growled.
“We want what you took from us,” Seifer replied with an ingratiating smirk.
“Oh, fuck off," said Roxas sharply. "We didn't take jack shit from you.”
“Oh yeah? Well, I think you did,” said Seifer, leaning in to loom over him. “Give us back our tournament photo.”
“You think we stole your tournament photo?” Hayner scoffed. “Why would we do that?”
“Because you lost,” said Seifer. “Why the fuck else?”
“We didn’t steal your fucking photo, Seifer,” said Olette coolly. “Ours are missing, too. Pence’s entire portfolio is gone.”
Pence nodded, unzipping his bag again and showing Seifer the empty binder.
He glared at them for a few seconds longer, then abruptly turned around and stalked away.
“Doesn’t like to admit when he’s wrong, that one,” said Pence wisely.
“Call me crazy,” said Hayner without further comment towards Seifer, for once, “but… haven’t all the photos that have been stolen been of Roxas?”
Roxas whipped around to stare at Hayner like he'd grown a second head. “What? Where the fuck did you get that idea?”
Silence.
“You were in that tournament photo, Roxas…” said Olette slowly. “Not any of us. That girl had a picture of herself, and it was fine.”
Pence flipped through his empty folders and made a sound like he had been sucker punched. He pulled out a single photo and showed it to the others.
“Just Olette, Hayner, and I,” he said weakly. “You took this picture. When we went to the falls. All the others are of just you three or all four of us.”
“Wait,” said Hayner with a grin. “Pence, you sap, are we the subject of your portfolio?”
“Could we, I dunno, maybe talk about that later?” asked Roxas, his voice noticeably shaking. “Are you guys saying that someone's fucking targeting me?”
“Let’s not jump to conclusions,” said Pence quickly. “We need more data.”
“The data I've gathered so far says that I need to look over my fucking shoulder for the rest of my life,” said Roxas, feeling queasy.
Olette patted him on the arm. “We’ll get to the bottom of this, Roxas, don’t worry.”
“Besides,” said Hayner, slinging an arm around his shoulders. “What person would wanna steal photos of you?”
“Oh, thanks!”
"Any luck?" Pence asked as Roxas and Olette walked out of the drugstore.
Olette shook her head. She cast a mild glance over at Roxas, who was clearly seething.
"You, uh…" Hayner began, raising an eyebrow, "you okay there, Ro-"
"Why in the fuck does everyone think it's me doing this?" Roxas burst out. "What reason could I possibly have to want to steal pictures of myself? I'm not fucking Narcissus!"
Hayner snorted, but shut up quickly under the glare Roxas leveled him with.
"The store owner was missing the photo he took with his little sister and Roxas last year when the store opened," Olette explained. "He thought Roxas had done it at first. He was being kind of an asshole about it. His sister called him out for that, though, and how he jumped to conclusions."
Roxas sighed, some of the tension in his shoulders dissipating. "I just don't get it. How is this happening? Why is it happening? Why to me?"
The three of them were silent, and he looked up from the ground to see them, arms crossed, looking at him with identical looks of concern. He looked away, scratching the back of his head, his face heating up. "Sorry. Letting it get to me."
"You have every right to be, dude," said Pence. "This is… majorly creepy."
Hayner snorted again. "Majorly creepy?"
"Shut up."
Roxas laughed despite himself. "Thanks, guys."
The sides of Olette's mouth curled up. She clearly already knew the answer to her own question as she asked, "What for?"
Roxas rolled his eyes up to the sky. When he looked back down, Olette’s smile had grown wider, and without much thought, his rose to match. “You know… just. Being yourselves? I think I’d be…” He scratched the back of his head. “Well. Freaking the fuck out even more than I am right now, I guess, without you guys.”
“Awww,” Olette cooed as Hayner and Pence snickered. “You’re so sweet, Roxas.”
Roxas turned his head to the side, running a hand through his hair. “Shut the fuck up.”
“So where do you think we should look next?” Pence said. “Not gonna lie, I’m kind of tired of this."
“I dunno, man,” Hayner sighed. “You were right. This shit’s advanced.”
Roxas sighed. “Honestly? It’s almost sunset. Let’s go get some ice cream and then go home. Put the beach off and figure it out tomorrow.”
The three of them blinked at him owlishly. It was almost amusing.
“Roxas,” said Olette hesitantly. “Are you sure?”
“Yeah,” said Roxas in what he hoped was a flippant-enough sounding tone without being concerning. “It’s alright.”
Hayner made a noncommittal noise. “You’re crazy.”
“Maybe,” Roxas snorted. “But whatever.”
They were oddly quiet as they walked to the ice cream parlor, all of them too lost in thought to keep up their typical back-and-forth.
Pence opened the door to the parlor, and Hayner, going in first, bumped into someone coming out at the same time.
“Hey!” Of course, being Hayner, he immediately went on the offensive. “Watch where you’re going!”
The guy he’d knocked into was around their age with sandy blond hair. He looked at Hayner coolly with an unplaceable smile on his face at his outburst. “Why do you assume I wasn’t?”
Hayner blinked. “What.”
The guy honest-to-God giggled. “Oh, wait, I know you. You’re the ones raising a fuss over photographs, right?”
“How do you know that?” Hayner hissed.
“It’s a small town,” the guy replied, seemingly even further amused by Hayner’s hackles rising. “Word travels fast.” He crossed his arms, tossing his head slightly. “I’m interested to see how this plays out.”
Without another word, he slipped past Hayner and left the store, not even sparing a last glance their way.
Silence.
“Okay, and who the fuck was that guy?” Roxas asked.
“Our thief?” asked Olette, cocking her head to the side. “Something was… off about him.”
“Who, the guy who just left?” The question came from a guy with ginger hair, who had approached near the end of the largely one-sided conversation. He let out a snort, pulling his headphones up from where they hung around his neck. “Nah, he’s just a little shit who enjoys fucking with people for his own amusement. Just ignore him, your life will become infinitely easier.” He nodded in Roxas’s direction and followed after the blond.
“Okay…” Olette muttered. “Ice cream time?”
“Why not?” Roxas snorted. “Some sense of fucking normalcy today would be… nice.”
“Normalcy?” Pence snickered. “In this economy?”
“Okay, Mr. Outdated Meme,” Hayner said, shoving the back of Pence’s head and moving them into the parlor. “You’re paying.”
“Damn.”
“Sorry we couldn’t find your photos, Pence,” said Olette, taking the ice cream sundaes out of her cooler and passing them around. A chorus of “thank you”s echoed off the clocktower as she sat down in her spot, opening the box containing her still-cold sundae and taking a bite.
“Yeah,” said Hayner, somehow managing to sound sympathetic despite the fact that he was enthusiastically licking his lips as he stared greedily down at his ice cream. Olette rolled her eyes at him.
Pence made a sound of discomfort, opening his as well and stirring it around slightly.
Roxas stared down at his box silently as it made his hands grow colder. The sunset was beautiful, as always, and the company was good, as always, but the warmth seemed far away.
“Roxas?”
He jumped slightly to see all three of them staring at him, concerned.
“Sorry, did you say something?”
“We were talking about our plan of attack tomorrow,” said Pence. “I say we still go to the beach, and they were arguing with me about it.”
“We need to find those photos!” said Hayner loudly. “We've gotta get to the bottom of this!”
Olette patted Roxas on the leg softly. “And I know this is worrying you, too.”
“All the people that we talked to today who were missing photos,” said Roxas quietly. “Every last fucking one of them. They were of me.”
Olette made a soft sound and moved her hand to squeeze his. “It’s… really scary. I agree, we need to figure this out.”
Roxas grunted, putting his ice cream down next to him and leaning back.
He was about to lean back up when something caught his eye. “What…?”
“What is it, Roxas?” Pence asked.
Roxas sat up and turned around, narrowing his eyes over near the clock face. There was a brick out of place underneath it. “What the fuck…?”
He stood up, walking over and nudging the errant brick.
“How the fuck did you see that?”
Something uneasy settled in his gut, and he ignored Olette’s question in favor of wiggling the brick out of the wall.
He dropped the brick with a clatter, only just missing his foot by an inch.
"What the fuck," Olette whispered, having come up behind him without him noticing.
In the tiny alcove on the wall were the missing photos.
“Well?” Hayner asked, sounding peeved. “What is it? Share with the class.”
“It’s the photos,” Olette said.
“It’s the fucking photos,” Roxas echoed faintly. “All of them.”
Olette reached her hand in and grabbed a handful.
“Holy shit,” said Pence. “Those. Those are my photos.”
“What the fuck,” said Roxas, hands shaking. “What. The fuck.”
“So!” said Pence, voice cracking. “How about… I sort these at home, give everybody else the ones they’re missing, we pretend this never happened, and we go to the beach tomorrow? Because this is really starting to freak me out.”
“Pence…” sighed Olette, crossing her arms.
“No,” said Roxas. “He’s… I mean… He's right. The pictures… they’re back, right? So we don’t need to worry?”
The three of them looked at him with raised eyebrows, their reactions comically identical.
“So then… Fuck it. Let’s go to the beach,” Roxas said, clearing his throat and looking away. “We promised we’d go last year, and we didn’t. Let’s just go, and have fun. If anything fucky happens there, we’ll get to the bottom of it. Okay?”
“Are you sure you’re all right?” Pence asked. “You seemed really disturbed earlier.”
“Yeah,” said Roxas with an attempt at an easygoing grin that he hoped didn’t fall as flat as it felt. “Don’t worry. It’ll take a lot more than some creepy-ass ninja photo thief to get me.”