Complicated

He wasn't sure why things were the way they were. Why his hands shook whenever he was spoken to, or why his parents fought constantly. He didn't know why his father was always angry with him or why he had no friends other than a mute, blond artist who spoke with him through her pictures. He didn't really want to know why life was so complicated.

His old friends were dating now, Sora and Riku, so they completely forgot about him. But that's okay. Everyone does, eventually. Even the mute forgets about him most of the time. Xion, an old childhood friend, forgot about him. Cloud, his college-bound brother, forgot about him. Wakka, his older senior friend, forgot about him. Even Tidus and Selphie, his twin younger siblings, never paid him any attention.

Complicated, Roxas wrote down on the first line of the notebook paper. He sighed, tapping the eraser against his bottom lip as he thought. On the second line, he wrote, I scream in a crowed room. He ran a hand through his blond spikes, smirking humorlessly, And nobody hears me. He squeezes the pencil in his hand to ward off the unwanted emotions, Can anybody hear me? His handwriting gets messier as he writes more lines down on the "thought paper" as it was titled in the margin. Can anybody see me? Feel me? Remember me? Am I damned to be a forgotten face? He sighs again, When did this get so complicated?

"Probably the minute you burst out of the womb." Someone answered his unspoken question. That didn't cross his mind until after he jumped and his book, paper, and pencil fell down the stairs of the fourth floor.

A burst of fiery red rushed past him and down the stairs to pick up his belongings. It was as the person slowly came back up the stairs that Roxas got to look at him. The impressively green, emerald irises lifted from the notebook paper to meet Roxas's anxious, wide ocean-blue ones. "Thought paper?" The stranger asked with equal part curiosity and amusement in his deep, enthralling voice.

Roxas blushed madly and snatched back his things outstretched for him. "That's rude! You shouldn't look at other people's work! Especially something relevant to a diary entry." Roxas growled, his nearly-permanent scowl in place as he stared accusingly at the redhead.

The older man grinned. "Looked more like some angsty poetry to me."

Roxas scoffed. "Hardly."

Despite being uninvited, the fire lover took a seat uncomfortably close to Roxas having not known the blond prior to that moment. "You seem a bit down." The older one sighed, draping his arm across the younger one's shoulders.

Roxas tensed a bit. "I'm fi-"

"Roxas, is it?"

Roxas would've made a nasty comment about how interrupting was just as rude as being nosy, but the majority of his attention was wrapped around the stranger who knew his name. "You... you know my name?" Roxas asked, voice now soft and full of awe like he was seeing a miracle unfold.

"Sure I do. I'm Axel, by the way. Senior. You're in my chemistry class. I recognize you from the hallways, too. Bit of a loner, 'cept for Namine, the mute girl. Roxas... Oakland, isn't it?" Axel's arm dropped away, but Roxas barely noticed. He was too wrapped up in this man that knew him, knew about him, noticed him.

"You... yeah, it is." Roxas nodded.

"Axel! Dude, c'mon! Party just started!" A dirty blond shouted down to the redhead, a wide smile on his face and his mullet a bit disheveled.

Axel looked up at his friend. "I'll be there in a minute, Demyx."

Demyx looked oddly at the stranger next to his best friend. "Who's this?"

"Roxas, from my chem class." Axel clarified, looking back at the blushing blond who was blinking owlishly at the flamboyant mullet-haired boy. "We'll be there in a bit."

Demyx smiled at the answer. "Cool!" And he raced back up the stairs in the direction of the barely-there music.

"We?" Roxas asked suspiciously.

Axel smirked. "Yep. We. C'mon." He stood up. When Roxas defiantly didn't follow, he reached down and wrapped an arm around the blond's waist, forcing him up. "Didn't you want to be noticed?"

"No, I-"

"I can write poetry too." Axel said.

"Huh?" Roxas blinked.

"I see you," Axel said. "I feel you," He flexed his arm around Roxas's waist, making the blond counterpart blush madly. "And I vow to remember you and your damned-to-be-forgotten face. Because I, Axel, love watching you screw up chemistry formulas from the back corner of the back corner of the room." He punctuated his ending with a swift kiss on Roxas's forehead before letting the blond go and running like hell up the steps.

Roxas lazily followed after, his belongings forgotten but his face apparently not.

Monday rolled around. So did chemistry. As Roxas's chemistry partner groaned again at Roxas's "stupid, idiotic mistake" that made Roxas want to be swallowed by the ground, the boy checked over his shoulder at the back corner of the room. Sure enough, a certain goggle-wearing, redheaded pyromaniac was smirking at him ever so knowingly.

He mouthed two words to the blond to fix the broken spirit almost instantaneously.

I remember.