{WELCOME TO THE SUMMER BALL}{Open to all}

[Roxas]

Roxas could feel himself softening already. Axel just had a way of making the pseudo anger drain out of him, even if Roxas knew he wasn't called the Flurry of Dancing Flames for nothing. "Don't even give me that, you're faster than I am."

But Axel only seemed to get more awkward as he talked and Roxas hesitated, a little surprised at what Axel was insinuating. They were both guys, that didn't make a lot of sense...but Axel was right, it wasn't a particularly fast song and the few people who tried to start dancing only to quit in embarrassment when no one else joined in had all taken up slowdance positions. Even so, wouldn't that be almost...nice? Roxas would never admit it but Axel never seemed to touch him enough. He had memories of Sora getting noogies from Riku and of the Twilight Town Roxas getting an arm around his shoulders from Hayner, but Axel...aside from ruffling his hair every now and then and little touches that jostled instead of connected, Axel had been very hands off in comparison.

But...

Don't make things more awkward between us...

If Axel was even slightly aware of the confusion Roxas had been feeling back at the ice cream shop, of the inclinations he was experiencing now, what would he think?

"Not trying to like--"

The rest of what Axel had said was obliterated by a terrific BANG that seemed to shake the entire forest and Roxas leapt away from the refreshment table like it was alive. For a terrifying instant he'd thought it was, feeling the tablecloth slither against him, but it turned out that was the whole thing coming off, dragging all the flimsy cups of punch and the entire glass bowl of it down to the floor with a crash and a rush of liquid.

In springing away, Roxas had escaped the worst of it--but punch still splattered on his shoes and the cuffs of his pants. He looked around, not sure if he was more shocked or murderous, but there wasn't anyone there.

...And then THIS happened.

As if things weren't bad enough.

Screw it.

"Yeah. Dancing. Great. Let's go." He took Axel's wrist and made for the dance floor.

[tamakisuoh]

With great care and grace did Tamaki guide "his butterfly" of the evening to the main event location, where many of his peers he recognised were already in attendance, mingling and such. Being in Tamaki's nature he quietly in his mind pinpointed a few of his fellow male classmates as possible candidates of Chocolat's Host Club. For example the boy with the white hair and doggy ears (yes inu yasha, I mean you) would be ideal - the ladies would adore that abandoned stray puppy persona that seemed to roll off him like waves unconsciously; though the personality was certainly rough on the edges but in a way it made him more appealing choice. There was a few others too, but he would have to actually interact with them to make further judgement on their appropriateness for his beloved club; like the quiet boy Sean Ki? No no, that wasn't right Shiek Lynn? No totaly wrong - Oh yes Syaoran Li! He seemed the mysterious enigma type! Shaking his head to clear his wandering mind from business, he turned his attentions back on Cheza, flashing a charming grin, while silently admiring her crimson eyes as he offered her a dance, "Would you care to dance first of simply mingle Miss Cheza? It's your choice; tonight you are my princess and I am your faithful subject to serve your whims."

[sam]

Sam was running a bit...late to the ball as it were. A strapless sky-blue knee-lenth dress adorned her figure, and her jet-black hair was piled up in an elegant bun atop her head with a few ringlets spiraling down, Her soft blue gaze was only intensified by the way she had done her makeup. A pair of blue ballet flats were upon her feet. The thing that irritated Sam the most was that she had no date. Oh well. A sigh escaped her lightly glossed lips, and she sat on one of the chairs, placing her hands on her lap, watching everyone have fun.. Tsk..no date, how embarassing was that?!


Zeke's black hair was pulled into a ponytail at the nape of his neck. A pair of black dress pants, a light blue long-sleeved button up shirt was upon his upper torso, and a sleek black jacket completed the outfit. Matching black polished shoes were on his feet, and he had a rose in his pocket, the bright crimson red standing out against the black like a beacon. Zeke looked handsome, to say the least. he also had no date, so he sat beside his twin sister and sighed "No date...this sucks.." He grumped.


"Tell me about it..I can't believe everyone was snapped up so quickly" Sam sighed heavily and inspected her carefully painted nails, the silver sparkled lightly in the lights surrounding them and she allowed a smile on her face.

"...I don't know why I bothered to come.." Zeke murmured

[Neku Sakuraba]

The orangette almost had time to make an annoyed face before his eyes widened slightly, wipping his head over to the source of the loud noise. Damn! There was a huge mess and the faint glimpse of a Pi-face scuttling away in his normal apperal. Geez, what the hell was that about? He was surely showing his grace tonight. How lovely...

Though he was snapped back to reality--to Joshua--after he was swiftly pulled to the dancefloor, "I just call that stupid." he responded blankly, glancing at the hand on his waist. If that hand slipped any further, Joshua was a dead man. Yes, Neku would find any way possible to kill the composer, it had to be possible...

Blue eyes glanced into Violet as Joshua turned to see him. He wiggled a little at touch, but thought it better then being close to his ass. He gave Joshua a slightly annoyed look, wanting to slap smile off his face. It certainly did bother him...alot..."Well..kind of...sort of..." he sighed a little, "no. Not really." he responded finally.

[axeldangerflynn]

Axel was practically hypnotized by the strange newcomer, watching him as he stalked with his eyes set on someone in the middle of the dance floor like a lioness ready to attack an unsuspecting gazelle or something. He reached his arm out in mid-sentence to pull Roxas away as the the man fell face first onto the table, but he had already jumped out of the way.

He looked at the other as his wrist was grabbed and he was tugged off, trying to peel his eyes away from the destruction of the refreshment table.

Stopping, he looked down at the blonde awkwardly, holding up his right hand to be taken, his other hand slipping gently around his waist, "Best not waste time I suppose."

[psychopath]

//directed to Tsuki//

"Ah, just Akane is fine," she said with a smile. On the inside, Akane was secretly pleased. Usually, no one bothered with any of the formalities with her. She bowed. "It's a pleasure to meet you. I do hope you enjoy your time at the academy."

[Roxas]

Roxas felt something flip-flop in his stomach when Axel put that hand on his waist and reached up to take the other, his left hand floundering a minute before deciding to rest on Axel's shoulder. Axel had rather quickly taken the lead, which he figured made sense given that Axel was both taller and older, but it still felt a bit...vulnerable. Still, he tried to relax into Axel's guidance.

Roxas wasn't very sure-footed, and especially wasn't sure how to work on the receiving end instead of the lead, but he managed, careful to give when Axel needed him to give and follow where he needed him to follow. Even if he stumbled a few times and kept his eyes on his feet, he was careful not to trip Axel up any. It was also to try to hide the flush that had taken up residence on his cheeks and seemed content to stay there indefinitely. It was relatively dark in the forest and he could probably pass it off like nothing, but the less Axel saw of it the better. It's not like he'd let Roxas get this close to him if he thought...

But I'm not!

Roxas lost his focus. "Gh--sorry," he said when his foot came down--however briefly--on Axel's.

[Joshua]

Neku had certainly quieted down since their days in the Game, Joshua reflected. Normally the concept of dancing with Joshua, much less attending a ball with him in a dress, would drive the boy insane. But maybe he'd been talking to Mr. H too much...

That would have to be remedied.

As cooperative as this made him, Joshua was equally as jealous with his staff as he was with his proxy and Sanae needed to know his limits. Getting too attached to one or another individual spelled disaster. Any immortal knew that.

In the meantime, though, Joshua pressed a chaste kiss to Neku's lips to stun him. "I'll be your guide~," he promised with a throb of false devotion in his voice, and in the next moment he had them moving to the beat, not even having to think about it before taking up the rhythm. After all, music always had been and remained very much his soul, in light of his position, and wherever Neku stumbled Joshua compensated, as though aware of it before it happened.

[Mr. H]

Coming to the ball hadn't been the best idea. Sanae had plenty to do in preparing for classes, and where he was used to opening up shop whenever he felt like it, class tended to happen every day. But he wasn't very concerned--he took a very relaxed approach to education, and while he wasn't exactly aiming to be everyone's favorite teacher he put interest and application above grades and made the class easy to ace for anyone honestly interested in doing so. In the face of his own relaxed deadlines, he figured the students wouldn't be too bummed not to have their tests back on the dot. Especially right after the summer ball.

Speaking of which, he'd mostly kept to himself. He was still feeling out the school, for the most part--who was dangerous and should be avoided or discouraged from acting out, who was meek and needed protecting, and who was loud and obnoxious but meant no real harm. Joshua he'd acknowledged with a nod but his superior either hadn't seen him or was still upset over their last argument. Kariya he hadn't spotted, not that the lollipop-wielding Reaper was likely to recognize him when he wasn't standing behind the counter at Wild Kat, and Minamimoto, of course, hadn't shown.

Neku, on the other hand...he was concerned about. Very. Concerned.

But since the orange-haired boy was currently in the arms of his puppeteer and the resounding bangcrashspill earlier had Sho written all over it, Sanae tracked the math fetishist down behind a tree and put a hand on the bark to cut him off, the sleeve of his kimono slipping down to his elbow. "You don't look so good, boss." Minamimoto really didn't. His nose had smashed into the table when he fell, and his eyes were rimmed with off-black like a raccoon's. "Been stayin' up calibrating heaps?" he asked. His voice wasn't exactly lined with concern, but Minamimoto had never stopped being the backup and Sanae had personal reasons for keeping him around as well. If the Grim Heaper intended to kill himself again, Sanae wanted to be there to hold him back.

[axeldangerflynn]

Axel shrugged as his foot was only very lightly stomped on, "Don't worry about it."

The forest was starting to really dusk up and a firefly buzzed by and landed gently on his cheek, which, finding his hands both occupied, he let it slip away on its own accord.

He narrowed his eyes. This really was an intimate kind of dance, but it was really the only way he knew how to do. Not like he'd be able to shrug it off to curious classmates the next day either.

"Hey," He sniggered, pulling him a good bit closer from the grip he had on his waist, "It would have been preetty interesting to have seen you in a dress. Then I could be the manly one for a change, neh? But then again, I don't see Riku and Sora dancing, now do I? What sissies."

Truthfully, not having emotions and concepts of the human race put him in a different league than Sora and Riku. They knew how to bond and be best friends, and Axel really wanted to be normal sometimes, so he could really know how to stop being awkward and patch everything perfectly.

[Roxas]

Roxas made a soft, uncertain sound when Axel moved him closer. It wasn't unpleasant, it was just unusual, and Axel was sure to notice the blushing just like he had at the ice cream shop.

At those words, though, he gave his best friend a forced smile and stomped on Axel's foot on purpose that time. "I'm not a sissy like my Other," he said flatly, suddenly and bitterly reminded of the way Sora had brushed him off. But he shoved to the back of his mind firmly and hesitated, eyes wandering to Axel's and then darting away. "You wouldn't think that...if I did, though. Right?" The heat or something was getting to him and he wasn't thinking straight anymore--Sora had worn that dress for Riku, like that was a best friend thing to do, so if Roxas were ever so inclined...

But that's not a best friend thing to do, is it?! I can't remember anything like that from before now...

He stopped short, biting his lip. "Axel, is this...weird to you? Dancing with me...I mean."

[Sho Minamimoto]

"You don't look so good, boss."

Sho jumped about a foot, almost colliding with Sanae's arm in the process of whirling to face him. The instinctive response of escape was quickly overridden by the instinctive response of what the factor once he caught a glimpse of who it was that scared the sine out of him, and for a moment he just stared, clutching his bleeding nose and trying to figure out what the hell Mr. H was wearing.

"Been stayin' up calibrating heaps?"

"...Not exactly. Do the math." he wheezed through his hand, mentally cursing the fact that Sanae just had to show up now, of all times. When Sho was looking his worst. And right after doing something incalculably stupid. Figures. Blinking hard, he leaned back against the tree and turned a little, searching for Joshua once more.

"...Have to admit, I didn't see you anywhere in the equation. But it factors out just as well." His voice dropped to a whisper, sounding only a little less nasal. "Your Plan B needs a Plan B. But if we're going to talk about that, we should at least recalculate our vector into a different domain."

[Neku Sakuraba]

Neku sighed a little, frowing the tiniest bit. Why was he here...? In a dress noless? He swore his mind blanked out of him again, for the many times before, and was despirately trying to process everything again. The thought actually occoured to him that he was in the arms of another man, in a dress, at a formal affair. And it was bad enough that that man was Joshua. What the hell possesed him? He would have thought he was imprinted on, if he wasn't smarter. He shook his head slightly, tightening his grip in annoyance.

The orangette froze when the kiss was placed, what the hell was that about?! His grip let up to come up and swiftly slap Joshua, a rather loud thwack resounded. "Don't do that!" he barked, glairing at Joshua. In the back of his mind, he knew it was such a bad terrible idea to go to this thing with him. Why couldn't he see this sooner?

[axeldangerflynn]

"I know you're not a sissy. But you do have French Vanilla sissy urges. But I stopped that short," Axel winked at him, grinning a devilish grin as he ignored the pain in his foot, "And if you showed up in a dress I'd laugh my ass off until next month but you'd kick my ass even in a frilly skirt, every time I tried to snicker at you. So no, I don't see you as a sissy, even though that blue he had on would totally go with your eyes," He said.

Axel hesitated for a moment, looking down at him until he could shape it, "No, it's not. Otherwise I wouldn't really be doing it. It just doesn't seem awkward to me for some reason I guess, I'm okay with it. Even if I get hell for it tomorrow by my classmates and such I don't really care because you're my best friend, not theirs. And the same applies to me. So maybe you know, yeah, we don't have usually slow dancing on our agenda of things to do, but we still know each other better than anyone so I don't really care."

"Why?" He asked as he raised an eyebrow, squeezing his hand a little, "Is it weird to you?"

[Mr. H]

Sanae's eyes narrowed slightly in what might have been suspicion, but it didn't do to be suspicious of one of his only allies after the sacrifice he'd made to get things that way, so he dropped his arm and took Minamimoto by the elbow, pulling him in one direction slightly--just to let him know Sanae wasn't taking no for an answer--and letting go to head deeper into the forest. "C'mon then."

The barista wasn't completely certain where he was going, but he tended to know which areas were safe and which were dangerous and he had a faint inkling of a relatively solid, grassy clearing not far from the ball. He definitely didn't want to move far from there--there were several students in attendance with questionable control over various elements and powers and if something erupted, Sanae would need to be there with the other chaperones to quell it.