diatu | Happy birthday to you

Happy birthday to you

Who: Lea and Isa [Closed]
When: April 11th, around lunchtime/early afternoon
Where: Around the city
What: It's Lea's birthday. Friendship and possible shenanigans will ensue.

Lea sighed. He honestly wouldn't have thought that it was possible to make magic this boring, but it seemed the teachers of both his morning classes were determined to make it such. Both of them had spent their classes lecturing on various points of magical theory that Lea found drier than the chalk used to write them on the board, and as a result he'd spent a good portion of the classes just attempting to not fall asleep.

"Seriously, why do I need to know this stuff?", Lea muttered to no one in particular as he walked. "Just tell me what I need to do to cast the stupid spell; is that so hard? Long as it works, what's it matter how or why?"

All in all he could really use a break. Fortunately, the universe was about o provide one...

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Lea smiled. "Hey, you know me," he said. "I'll take any excuse to have a good time. Though you're right that this one is better than most."

"Anyway, looks like 'bumming around' it is then," he said. "Let me run back to my dorm real quick and drop off my books, then I'll meet you by the school's main gate and we can get started."

"I know you all too well..." Isa teased.

"I'll see you then." With a wave, Isa headed off to drop his own things at his own dorm.

Lea chuckled and returned the wave as he headed back to the Ka dorm. Then, a short time later, unburdened by school supplies, he arrived at the main gate, spotting Isa and jogging over to meet him.

"All set to go?", Lea asked. "Given the timing, I think our bumming should probably make finding a lunch spot a priority, since we'll be missing the school's."

"Ready as I'll ever be..."

As they headed out the gate, Isa continued.

"I would say that you should get to pick out where to eat, since it's your birthday... but knowing you, you'd probably just have ice cream for lunch."

Isa wouldn't be opposed to that, all things considered, he was just giving Lea a hard time.

Lea grinned. "Well I do actually know of a good ice cream place we can hit up for dessert," he said. "But I think we're both unfortunately a little past the point where we thought ice cream should count as a main course."

"I don't recall ever thinking that, that was all you."

There's a reason we say that Isa is about 80% of Lea's impulse control...

"So we have a place for dessert, what about the main course?"

"Well, you didn't argue with me about it, so that meant that you agreed by default," Lea said. Because that's totally how it works, right?

As for the main course though.... "Hmm...", Lea said thoughtfully as they walked. "Well it can't be anywhere too expensive; we're not exactly made of munny at the moment. Maybe a little outdoor cafe or something? With the weather warming up there out to be some of them open now."

That's not how it works at all, Lea.

"An outdoor cafe? How quaint." He did like the sound of that, though. "Let's keep an eye out for one"

"Right," Lea said, stretching a bit as he walked. "Man... this brings back memories. Skipping out on classes to go do something fun... We never did get caught at that, did we?" He chuckled. "Probably shouldn't be as proud of that as I am, but what can I say? It was dumb, but we had some good times those days."

"It always felt like we were dangerously close to getting in trouble most of the time, though," Isa replied, a wistful note in his voice, "It feels like a silly thing to miss, but... I really do miss the thrill of it all."

He stopped in his tracks...

"I miss a lot of things."

"Probably cause we were," Lea said, smiling in remembered amusement. "That was half the fun." Knowingly disobeying the rules in harmless ways had always had that slight edge of danger that made things exciting. It was the same reason they'd started sneaking into the palace, before they had other, more serious reasons to do so.

Lea was about to bring up some of the specific escapades they'd gotten up to on those days, when Isa's comment and the fact that his friend was no longer keeping pace with him brought him to a halt. "Yeah," he said. "All that time in the Organization... I guess we sorta convinced ourselves that things were OK, because we'd have gone nuts otherwise, but... we really lost sight of a lot of things along the way, didn't we? Things have been so crazy back home that there hasn't been a lot of time to think about stuff like that, but here..." Here things felt almost normal, at least compared to how their lives had been. Here, the routine of classes, studying, and relative safety lent itself to more introspection than he otherwise might have time for.

"I keep trying to pinpoint where everything started falling apart, so I won't make the same mistakes twice, but--"

But it wasn't so simple, Xehanort's influence, Xemnas's lies, his own plans, they all complicated things. There wasn't a "moment" where everything fell apart, their friendship had been slowly eroded.

That they bounced back seemingly so quickly was a miracle in Isa's eyes.

Also, wasn't this supposed to be a day to have fun, and take their mind off everything?

"...I don't mean to be a downer, my apologies."

"...But there wasn't one," Lea said, having come to the same conclusion as Isa. It wasn't one large, destructive blow, but a slow, gradual wearing down of what was once solid, like wind and water carving away rock. So slow in fact, that they hadn't even realized it until the cracks started to really show. "It just kinda... happened over the years, and we didn't realize it til it was too late."

He couldn't help but smile a bit though at Isa's apology, and rested a hand on his shoulder. "Hey, with the lives we've had, stuff's bound to skew into gloom now and then," he said. "Don't worry about it." Though Isa probably would anyway, if not now, then later. He tended to over think things a bit sometimes, and was actually more sensitive than his outer stoic demeanor would indicate.

"Fortunately, you've got me here to cheer you up," he said. "And I've got you here to keep me from doing anything too stupid to try and do that. So it's basically a win-win."

Lea was absolutely right about Isa being the sort to worry and overthink things, but for now, for Lea, he was going to try and not dwell on those things.

He chuckles softly at Lea's statement.

"I'd ask how you've managed to get by without me, but you've done some remarkably boneheaded things as of late..."

He doesn't elaborate on what, exactly, he thinks those boneheaded things are at the moment. He just starts walking down the path again.

"And what boneheaded things would those be huh?", Lea asked, easily falling into step beside Isa again. "I thought I was doing pretty well lately, all things considered." He was even managing not to fail any of his classes, if only just in some cases.

"Becoming a Keyblade wielder? That seems pretty boneheaded to me."

To be honest, Isa still wasn't sure why, exactly, Lea felt compelled to do that.

"You're going to hurt yourself, the way you hold that thing..."

Lea shrugged. "I knew that if I wanted to be of any real help in getting Roxas back and everything else that was about to happen, I'd need a Keyblade," he said. "I'm just lucky Master Yen Sid was even willing to give me a shot at one after... well, everything."

"And hey, you try adjusting from fighting with chakrams to fighting with what amounts to a sword," he said. "I found a way to do it that works for me, even if it looks awkward to other people."

"I see."

Isa can't help but give Lea a somewhat scrutinizing look, but he also didn't really have it in his heart to tell Lea that he and Ienzo did more to get Roxas back without Keyblades than Lea managed to with one.

"... Tell me, what would you have done if I had been in the lab when you woke up."

Isa was keeping his tone of voice carefully controlled, which, if you knew him well enough, was a good sign that there was more on his mind that he wanted to let on.

Deep down, Lea knew that Ienzo and those working in the lab would likely have far more directly to do with getting Roxas back than he would, Keyblade or no. But Lea also knew that when it came to the scientific end of things, he was out of his league. Fighting though? Fighting he could do. He could step up and take a place among the Guardians of Light so that those working behind the scenes had less to worry about. And if that was all he could do to help? You could bet he was going to give it everything he had.

At Isa's question though, he made a thoughtful noise, considering for a moment before replying. "Don't know, honestly," he finally said. "Would depend on a lot of things, including how out of it we both were after waking up. I know I was a little dazed when I first came around, and it took Even and Dilan a good amount of time to recover."

"But once we were both back on our feet, I'd have probably wanted to talk. To try and figure out what the heck had happened between us, how much of it had actually been you and not Xemnas pulling the strings, and if we could manage to fix it."

"...I really am sorry I wasn't there that day. Believe me, I wanted nothing more than to be at your side again."

But Xehanort had other plans.

Still, dwelling on what could have been wasn't really going to get them anywhere. That was all in the past, and what mattered now was that they were together again, and had the chance to make up for all that lost time.

"Wasn't your fault Xehanort showed up when he did," Lea said. "And you found a way back here anyway. I'm sure you will back home too."

Meanwhile, Lea had been keeping an eye out for potential lunch spots as they walked, and spotted a little cafe off to the right. "Hey, how about we try here?", he said. "Looks pretty nice, and judging by the specials on the sign there, not too pricey."

Isa looks at the menus posted outside and nods.

"We can try here if you want, the menu looks pretty good."

With that settled, Lea led the way inside, sitting down at a table for two, as he didn't see any signs telling them to wait to be seated. It wasn't long before a waitress approached and greeted them, handing them each a full menu and asking if they'd like anything to drink to start with. Lea made a quick scan of the beverage options. "I'll have some cinnamon tea, I think," he said.

The waitress noted this down, then turned to Isa, waiting for his selection.

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