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Moving, Roxas decided, was as difficult as fuck. It wasn't packing or the actual progress of moving that inspired this decision. Not the unpacking, the part Roxas' twin, Sora, had bailed out on. Sora claimed to have 'work' that he had forgotten about until that very moment. Even though Roxas called bullshit out on him, he sprinted out the door, wishing Roxas and Axel good luck. No, the worst part about moving was putting together the furniture. IKEA furniture to be exact.
"So Roxas.....how do we do this?" Axel questioned, poking the side of the unassembled dresser. "Cause I have no fucking clue."
"It's called reading the instructions. Uhhhh...wherever they are." Roxas rumbled through the box the dresser parts had been in, until Axel flipped the box upside down. Which made everything an unorganized mess in Roxas' mind, but Axel insisted that it would be the easiest way. Fucking bullshit Roxas thought, slightly ticked off. After spending several weeks packing his and Axel's stuff and getting everything ready for their new apartment in Twilight Town, no one could really blame Roxas for being irritable.
"Ah never mind Rox, I think I got this. The screw looks like it should fit here. And what do you know, it does!" Roxas brushed some of his blonde, unruly hair out of his face and glimpsed a peek at Axel, who had tied his flaming mass of red hair together with a bandana and had his plain black T-shirt sleeves rolled up all the way to his broad shoulders. Roxas thought it kind of made him look like a professional mover. Until he realized exactly what Axel was doing to the dresser pieces.
"What the fuck, Axel?! You have no idea what you're doing! Where are the instructions?!" Axel had been screwing together two pieces of wood or plastic or what the heck it's made of and Roxas was positive they did not go together like that. It appeared more like a giraffe's neck than anything else.
Axel threw down the screwdriver, frustration flaming through his emerald eyes. "Can we finish this later? Like never?"
"No, we bought the fucking thing. We are going to put this together one way or the other." Roxas grabbed the screwdriver from the ground, or to be specific, from the instructions it fell onto. As he handed them to Axel, Roxas quickly undid the damage Axel had done to the dresser parts.
"Okay, so you should have 20 screws that are kinda long and have an x on the top." Axel read, sitting on the queen sized bed he had brought from his last place. They would've gotten a new bed, since Axel's tended to squeak when they were....doing things...on it, expect after realizing how much everything cost them, they both quickly agreed that they could suffer through being quiet for a little longer. Plus, as Axel had pointed out, they had a couch.
Roxas counted the screws and his face paled as he stared at Axel in horror. "We only have 8, Axel."
Axel peeked over at the screws and chuckled as he said gently, "Wrong screws, Rox. The ones I'm talking about are a little bigger." He pointed at the ones he meant and Roxas' face redded quicker than it had paled. Axel roared with laughter as Roxas pretended to hit him with a piece of wood.
After finding all the screws, and realizing that IKEA had given them 5 extra of each screw (which had caused major confusion for a good ten minutes), Axel lethargically read out the instructions to Roxas. Which is harder than it sounds since IKEA only puts pictures in the instructions.
"Okay, so take that big piece and screw a screw into the other parts that are put together already."
"Wait, which screw? And which piece are you talking about? They all look the same! Why can't IKEA use words like normal people?" Roxas slammed his palms onto the wood flooring, creating a smacking sound larger than he had anticipated. "Ugh, I'm sick of this! Fuck pictures that make no sense! Axel, stop smirking your ass off and help me!" Roxas was in no mood to deal with Axel's smirks, even if he did find them very attractive. The attractiveness of them seemed to piss him off even more.
"Yeah, yeah, I'm helping." Axel groaned when he realized exactly how many of the screws looked the same. "Ummmm I think this is it? Maybe? Just try it," as he shoved the metal screw into Roxas' outstretched hand. Much to both of their frustrations, the screw Axel had attempted to shove into the partly assembled dresser was the wrong one.
"Fuck this!" the couple yelled in unison, unable to control their anger any longer.
"Hey, Roxas.....how about we...you know...burn it? To the ground." Axel grinned wide as a Cheshire Cat, his pyro side revealing itself once more.
Roxas sighed. He couldn't deny the appeal of burning it to ashes but...
"We can't afford another one. We already spent too much as it is." Roxas was already planning to work overtime to pay for all their expenses and he was not about to work more just because they could not figure out Swedish furniture. "We're like half way done. We can do this.....I think. I hope."
With a sigh, Axel scratched the back of his neck. "If you say so, Rox. Let's decrypt these Swedish furniture instructions."
Only 5 minutes had passed, when another outburst from Axel was voiced. "I hate this stupid, Swedish dresser! I'll burn it right here, I swear!" This particular outburst came from the realized that they had screwed the wrong screw in. Which wouldn't be a huge deal. Except for the fact that the screw had been placed in the center of the dresser.
Which meant that they had to take apart the whole thing to unscrew it.
Roxas saved the dresser from imminent death by fire by tackling Axel to ground and essentially sitting on his chest. No matter how pissed Axel got, Roxas was sure that Axel wouldn't do anything to harm Roxas on purpose, so he was safe from being thrown off his chest. He wasn't so safe however, from Axel's swears and curses directed at the dresser, blasting through his ear drums.
"Axel, calm down. The dresser can't understand you, it's a fucking dresser. Actually, I'm glad it can't understand you. It would've gone HAM on you 5 minutes ago." As much as Roxas wanted to destroy the dresser with Axel, he at least had enough sense to understand that it wouldn't do any good. Roxas wasn't so sure Axel knew that though, with the amount of death threats pelting from his lips.
"Roxas, I cannot deal with this...this demon furniture any longer. And stop rolling your eyes at me! I can see it!"
"You're suppose to see it, dumbass. I'm not hiding it. You are being way too dramatic."
"I am no-"Axel began, but was cut off by a sharp knock on the door.
"Police! Open up!" Whoever was outside the door, mostly likely the police, Roxas safely assumed, banged on the door with enough force for Roxas to feel vibrations in the bedroom. Axel and Roxas glanced at each other for a split second before Roxas got off Axel's chest, then proceeded to help Axel to his feet.
Axel swung the door open wide, his lanky body lazily filling up the entire door frame. "Good afternoon, officer. Anything I can help you with?" He shot the officer, a young, dark haired guy in his late 20s, a dazzling smile, displaying all of his teeth.
"I've got a report of domestic disturbance from this apartment. Care to tell me what's going on in there?" Axel's bright, toothy grin clearly didn't affect the man at all, causing Axel's face to drop slightly, into an expression of confusion.
Axel shot a very confused Roxas an equally confused look before answering. "Uh no offense, but I think you got the wrong place. We're not fighting or anything in here. We're just unpacking our stuff. Right, Rox?" Roxas attempted to appear as innocent as possible while nodding.
"Your next door neighbor claimed to have heard shouting and a lot of cursing. She pointed me to this apartment." The officer seemed unfazed by Axel's confused expression. In fact, he was seemingly unfazed by Axel in general, to Roxas' surprise. Usually his hair or his demeanor created some sort of reaction, but Roxas' figured the guy had seen a lot of people similar to Axel that nothing really fazed him.
Roxas decided to chime in then, to save Axel from having to explain. "Oh that....actually we just bought furniture from IKEA and.....we're having some issues. We might have...started cursing at it." And threaten to burn but he didn't really need to be aware of that little tidbit. Roxas gave the officer a sheepish grin. "We'll be quiet from now on. I promise."
The officer stared at them in slight disbelief. "You're...having problems with IKEA furniture?" Axel went back into the bedroom, then dumped the pieces of Swedish dresser at the officers feet.
"We can't figure out the instructions and we just realized how badly we fuc-...I mean screwed up." Axel crossed his arms and pouted like a 5 year old who wasn't getting any dessert.
The officer's face redded a bit around the cheeks. "Well....ha well try to keep it down. A domestic disturbance call for IKEA furniture.....this is one interesting story. I doubt anyone's gonna believe this one."
Axel's pouted face transformed into one of slight embarrassment mixed with slight anger. "I'm glad we were able to entertain you. Bye now." And with that, he shut the door. Even with the door shut, both of them could hear the laughter of the officer as he strolled away from the apartment.
Roxas turned to Axel. "You didn't have to shut the door in his face, you know." Axel's expression was now one of embarrassment more than anything else.
"Did too. He was making fun of us." Picking up the pieces of furniture, Axel trod back to the bedroom, muttering about rude cops and stupid furniture. Roxas rolled his sapphire colored eyes, then joined Axel. He leaned against the door frame, watching silently as Axel reread the instructions, glaring at the little pictures on the instructions.
"Hey, Axel..."
"Hm?" Axel hummed as he continued to hold a staring, or more accurately, glaring contest with the instructions.
"Wanna get some sea salt ice cream and do this later? I think the cops will come back with another report of domestic disturbance if we continue this." Roxas gave a short laugh and shot a relaxed smile at Axel.
Instantly, Axel sprung up to his feet, removing the bandana from his thick red spikes. "I thought this day would never come. Let's hurry up. I think both of us need a little ice cream in our systems right now."
Threading his fingers into Roxas', Axel bent down and kissed his boyfriend on the lips. "Thank you for saving me from the IKEA picture instructions torture." After grabbing his wallet, Axel sprinted for the ice cream cart, with Roxas in tow.
After purchasing two bars of sea salt ice cream, the two sat on their usual spot on top of the clock tower, watching the red sunset that always reminded Roxas of Axel. He wasn't sure if it was the red that seemed to match his hair color or if Axel's pyro tendencies lined up nicely with a giant ball of fire. Or perhaps the fact that both of them keep him warm, the sun during the day and Axel at night. With their hands woven together and Roxas gently resting his head on Axel's shoulder, the two of them pretended that, when they go home, they wouldn't have another violent screaming match with an inanimate object.