Hey, Tessa here. I uploaded the first chapter of this fic without much thought, but after looking over it once again, I realized that there were all these little things that were annoying me. So I went back and edited a bunch of small things, including a few of the characters' names. Also I realized that I hadn't put in a disclaimer last time.

Disclaimer: Unfortunately, I own nothing.

Warning: Mild swearing, mind-numbingly petty high-school drama.

I also wanted to say that the updates on this story will definitely be irregular, but with favorites and reviews come quicker chapters. Feel free to give me any suggestions or opinions, or even flames. I don't care as long as it's feedback :)

And, to all of my fellow AkuRoku fans, stay tuned for future chapters because you won't be disappointed! I know it's a little slow at first, but you've just gotta hang in there because the good things are worth waiting for.

So, without further adieu, I present to you: ICKY THUMP.

Night was starting to fall, the setting sun washing over the balcony, transforming the girl's straight, blonde hair into a blaze of blinding gold. She was alone on the balcony, with the exception of a repulsive couple who wouldn't stop making out with each other, watching from afar as the lights in the city slowly blinked on, one after another. Donnikko didn't even know why she had let her friends drag her to this stupid dance, and now she cursed herself for believing that this event would be fun. Everyone inside was either an extreme douchebag or a creepy guy who had tried to hit on her, sadly failing at it. Looking in, she was disgusted that nothing had changed; There was still the same group of sweaty, slutty, and horny teenagers who Donnikko didn't want to associate herself with. Since this was a school function and she detested her fellow classmates, it was all the more reason to fake a migraine and have her mom pick her up. The prom was a joke, and the poor girl could only take so much of the forced polite banter that was exchanged between her and a few annoying acquaintances that had approached her out of sheer boredom or loneliness.

She folded her hands on the cracked, stone rail in front of her, thankful that it was mildly warm outside. Her strapless prom dress wouldn't offer much protection against the cold, no matter how fashionable it was. The dress itself was beautiful and unique, a masterpiece of clothing design. While everyone in the dance hall was wearing bright pinks, blues, reds, and purples with sequins, Nikko's dress was a dark, wispy gray with black, thorny roses growing crooked and overlapping each other. The underneath was a gray so dark that it could be mistaken for black, and the slightly lighter gray sheen that was sewn over it created an amazing, misty effect. Her shoes, unlike all of the other girls' obnoxiously expensive stilettos, had been purchased the week before at a flea market, and she had attained them for a mere four dollars. The tall, high-heeled boots were black with three zippers sewn around them, the real zipper running down the inside of them. As Donnikko had walked in to the decorated dance hall, blinded by glaring white strobe lights, she could feel everyone's eyes on her, smirking or sighing, wishing she would liven up her outfit colors a bit. The student body respected her, but they still didn't understand why she was so different.

And, honestly, neither did she.

The sad truth was that the blonde just didn't fit in. She had two friends that she sat with at lunch and that was it. While her fellow classmates spent their weekends at parties, Nikko spent hers in her room, organizing her Pokemon cards or playing Keyblade Master on her pink Nintendo DS. Yes, she was seventeen, but that didn't mean that she had to go and get wasted every Friday night. She was perfectly content on her own, Nikko told herself in a sad attempt to cheer herself up. In reality she was lonely and depressed, and coming to a dance filled with happy couples didn't help her mood one bit.

Bored and annoyed, Donnikko picked at the ivy that was slowly crawling up the balcony side, sinking into her thoughts and not noticing that someone else had slunk quietly out into the night, desperately breathing in the fresh air in an attempt to get the stench of teenage sweat out of his system.

Axel was incredibly irritated. The dance was only half-way over and already he had lost sight of his obnoxiously loud date, Xion. She, along with half of the girls at Hollow Bastion High, was one of the wanna-be emo girls who strived for attention by spreading rumors about themselves or saying that they wanted to commit suicide, the very type of girl he despised. She was cute, nice, and funny, but extremely fake, and just, in a nutshell, not Axel's type. All night, fake whores had immediately been drawn towards him, suffocating him as they clung to his arm and batted their mascara-covered eyelashes in his face.

And who could blame them? Standing at six feet two with a mane of rebellious red spikes for hair and donned in a dashing black tuxedo with a bright green tie to bring out his eyes, Axel O' Lavry was incredibly sexy. He walked the hallways of his school with an air of feminine grace about him, resembling a sleek, proud cat with his stubborn and sarcastic demeanor and his head held high. The entire female population of his school, Twilight Preparatory, was completely in love with him - And from the way the red-head acted, the feeling was mutual. Going to a different party every weekend, O'Lavry had quite the reputation and flirted with every girl he met, the good, the bad, and the ugly. He was known to sleep around and people constantly made snide comments about him, but Axel didn't care. He was the type of guy to do what he wanted, when he wanted, and didn't dwell on what others would think of his actions.

Unfortunately, only fake whores were drawn to him, not knowing the one little fact that would break all of their hearts if discovered: Axel O'Larvy was truly and undeniably gay. His love belonged to a fiery little blondie named Roxas. There was one tiny problem, though, and she went by the name of Namine. Roxas's girlfriend. Roxas was straight, Axel's best friend, and many other obstacles prevented the red-head from fessing up his feelings. Besides, they were best friends. Axel was okay with the way things were now. He didn't want to fuck anything up.

What made Axel even more pissed off was that he had really wanted to come to this prom, hoping to meet new people and hang out with new friends. Xion was from Hollow Bastion, a small town full of racist hillbillies, pathetic emo kids, or ridiculous douchebags. Axel, coming from Twilight Prep, a private school where douchebag party-boys and disease-infested sluts had weed-parties on the weekends and where each kid's popularity depended on the amount of alcohol in his daddy's wine cellar, was disgusted to find that everyone from the other school was even more drug-happy then his own school. His cousin, Kairi, had introduced him to Xion, and she immediately started texting him non-stop until she finally asked him to go to prom with her. Axel didn't particularly want to go with her, but he wasn't some jerk that would say no, and she was cute anyways. Besides, he'd get to meet cool, exciting people who didn't judge him right off the bat, right? Wrong.

So now he was standing in the shadows on the far side of the balcony, fumbling for a Marbolo to ease his nerves. After a few seconds he managed to pull one cigarette out of his near-empty pack and, while searching for his lighter in one of his pockets, the red-head looked around. There were only three other people outside on the balcony with him, a couple that was sucking each other's faces off and - Holy shit, it was that girl! Axel dropped the cigarette in surprise and cursed his clumsiness, bending down to blindly grope for the cancer-stick in the dark. After several moments of failing to find it, he gave up and, shaking himself off, took another look at the girl.

Yeah, it was her alright. He'd recognize her long, blonde hair from anywhere, only - wait, did she dye the front? Yeah, she dyed the front bangs black, he realized. Oh man, was Zolo going to shit himself in excitement once Axel told him!

He pulled out his small red flip-phone and scrolled down to "Mossy :D" in his contacts, proceeding to call his best friend. After two excruciatingly long rings, the grass-head finally answered his phone.

"Hello?"

Axel took a deep breath. "Moss-Man, your dreams are about to come true."

Zolo sighed loudly, and the red-head could visualize him rolling his eyes. "What are you talking about, Axel?"

"Okay, so I'm at Hollow Bastion's Prom, right? And I walk out onto the balcony to smoke a cig, just wantin' to get a little fresh air! And guess who else is out here, standing not even twenty feet away from me?"

"Who?" Zolo asked, bored.

"That one chick from Hot Topic. The one you're in looooooo-ooooove with," Axel drawled, lazily dragging out the word in a way that would usually infuriate his green-haired friend. But Zolo was too shocked to even utter a syllable. His mind, to put it simply, was blown.

"Zo? You there?"

ooOOoo

Zolo, Axel's green-haired, calm, collected, and fucking ripped best friend, was, in short, obsessed with a blonde girl, whom he dubbed "The Girl". He didn't know anything about her, not even her name or how old she was. All he knew was that her stormy, captivating gaze had taken his breath away while he was with Axel, looking for new ice-pick gauges at Hot Topic, a store that he absolutely despised, yet he shopped there all the time.

The Girl was shopping with her friend, "Gwen", Zolo overheard, who was at least a head taller than The Girl. The Girl was pretty short, about five foot four, he guessed. She was wearing rumpled blue jeans with a hole in each knee and a gray, scoop-necked long-sleeved shirt that had strange fleur-de-lis patterns running all over it in an even darker gray, her waist-length blonde hair lying flat against her back. Her necklace, he noted, was a pretty amber-colored stone that grew darker or lighter when it was turned a certain way. She was wearing black flip-flops.

The Girl had first glanced his way when she was rifling through a low shelf of band t-shirts (including the Gorillaz, Slipknot, and System of a Down, which Zolo took note of while he was in Stalker Mode). He had been following her around the store for about ten minutes, discreetly turning to look at the nearest clothes rack if she so much as turned his way. Axel was off looking at a pair of grey skinny jeans that looked about two sizes too small for him, so Zolo couldn't alert his friend of The Girl. She wouldn't have been O'Lavry's type anyways, the greenette decided, a bit hopefully. Zolo didn't really like whores all that much, unlike his fellow spiky-haired friend.

So anyways, The Girl had finally looked Zolo's way, her dark blue/gray eyes catching his brown ones. Her eyes widened slightly and she quickly turned away, lightly blushing. The idea of having mere eye contact with a cute guy embarrassed her, and she purposely kept her gaze fixated on the rack of t-shirts in front of her, determined not to catch the dude's eye again. After a few seconds of burning curiosity, she looked up again from her crouched stance on the floor, actually pausing to get a good look of the guy.

He was pretty tall, she noted, but then again, she was very short and currently located on the floor. His short hair was dyed a strange shade of green that reminded The Girl of the leaves on a summer tree, a color that would result by mixing sea-foam green and dark green, she thought. The Boy was standing with his back towards her, rifling messily through a rack of flannels, his head slightly turned to the left. The Girl could see that he worked out a lot, the curves and contours of his muscles showing through his faded Black Sabbath shirt. She also noticed that The Boy had a small gauge in each ear and three earrings in his left ear, three gold teardrops that dangled delicately from said ear. His brows, or the brow that she could see, was furrowed in what looked like either intense frustration or determination, and the stoic expression on his face made the mystery guy slightly intimidating. The Girl was now aware that she was staring at this random boy, that of which who looked about seventeen, and she quickly moved to the clearance section on the other side of the store in hopes of finding something of good quality that wouldn't cause her to go bone broke.

Zolo had felt her gaze on his skin, and uneasiness prickled over his body. He was most definitely interested in her, having been stalking The Girl since the moment she set foot in the store. The green-haired teenager's mind worked differently than that of his egotistical and extremely flirty friend; While Axel just went right up to someone and engaged in conversation, Zolo would stand on the sidelines and wait to be introduced or noticed, either because he was too lazy or he was too shy. And that was exactly what was happening now.

Sighing, he cautiously peeked over his shoulder to where the girl was previously kneeling, but he was shocked to find that she had vanished. Going into a state of minor panic, Zolo frantically around the store. A flash of gold caught his eye and - Ah, there she was. Instantly his heart rate slowed down and he took a deep breath, slowly making his way towards the display of gauges near the clearance rack. Maybe if he just causally bumped into her and apologized, then he could finally approach The Girl instead of ogling her from afar. His heart rate started to rise as he slowly made his way over to the small girl and -

Her tall friend, "Gwen", called out to her from across the store.

"You ready to check out?" the tall teenager yelled, her voice dashing all of Zolo's hopes.

The Girl, not two feet from where he was standing, turned her head towards the voice, replying with a vigorous nod. She then swung around abruptly and promptly crashed into him, her head connecting with his broad chest while she simultaneously dropped her clothes.

"S-sorry!" she stuttered, bending to pick up her clothes while she looked up at The Boy towering in front of her, cursing her complete stupidity. This is why she never approached anyone - she would either end up saying something incredibly awkward and/or stupid or she would hurt herself or the person on accident.

"S'okay," Zolo murmured, stooping down to grab a shirt that The Girl had misplaced and hoping to catch a glimpse of her beautiful blue-slate irises. The Girl, much to the disappointment of the green-haired boy, had her eyes glued to the floor, nervously and frantically scooping up the dropped merchandise, hoping to run away as quickly as she could before she died of embarrassment.

Zolo stood slowly, looking at The Girl's shirt that he now held in his calloused palms.

"Audioslave," he observed dumbly, mentally facepalming himself for stating the obvious. The Girl looked up sharply, momentarily forgetting her flustered stance, and straightened herself up.

"Yeah," she replied, glad that someone else her age had heard of the band. "D'you like them?"

"Of course!" Zolo smiled warmly, elated that the two had something in common. "I have all of their albums."

"Oh," The Girl said, relieved that The Boy's opinion was positive, not negative. "I only have two of them, but they're still great."

She looked at his shirt then, and, after a sudden burst of courage, decided to contribute to the conversation.

"I like your shirt," she added cautiously, not sure of what exactly to say. This was the first time that she had ever experienced an encounter with a beautiful, strange boy that didn't go to Hollow Bastion.

Zolo's face split into a wide grin, amazed that this girl had heard of his favorite band. "I love Black Sabbath. Ozzy's pretty amazing."

The Girl returned his wide, toothy smile, revealing to him that she had miniature fangs and a set of perfectly straight, white teeth. It may be stupid to say, but for some unknown reason Zolo fell in love with her fangs. They were awesome.

"I like the bass the best," she replied, casually flipping her extremely long, blonde hair out of her face. The Girl had split ends and her hair was parted down the middle, causing an aura of hippie-ness to emanate from her. "I have one of their old tapes that I listen to in the car. It has all their good songs, the ones before Ozzy left the band, like, the pre-Dio stuff."

Zolo had realized by now that The Girl had great taste in music, listening to the same genres as him, specifically older rock. He was about to ask her if she listened to The Doors when her infuriating friend with the bad timing barged into their conversation.

"Hey, it's time to go," Gwen said, tapping her friend on the shoulder. Stupid wench, he thought, cursing Gwen's bad timing. The Girl nodded, then turned back to Zolo.

"Er...," she trailed off, looking at the shirt still grasped in his hands. Zolo mentally stabbed himself and handed back the shirt, brushing his large fingers over a patch of pale skin that peeked out form underneath her sleeves. Her wrists were really small, he noticed.

She tucked the article of clothing back into her small pile, running her fingers through her hair anxiously.

"Thanks... and, er, sorry for, uh, running into you."

"Oh, uhm, yeah, no problem," he mumbled, painfully acknowledging the fact that the girl of his dreams was walking away.

And then Zolo had the biggest stalker moment of his entire life.

He took a picture of her with his phone.

Yes, yes, as strange and completely humiliating as it is to admit, he snapped a photo of The Girl with his cell when she standing in line at the check-out behind two other customers, idly observing the many shirts tacked onto the walls. She looked... detached from the world, he thought. Like Jack and Meg on the album cover of Icky Thump, a White Stripes album. Like The Girl was unaware of everyone around her, in her own little bubble. Or maybe it was the opposite, and she looked perfectly content with the world around her, one with the world, and seemed to be contemplating life itself. She looked wise and thoughtful, a Zen-like expression on her face.

Or maybe he was just overanalyzing her expression. Whatever.

When a dazed Zolo returned to Axel and first showed him the picture, his friend had died of laughter at the pure stalker-vibe of the whole situation. But then Axel promised Zolo that if by any chance he ever saw the girl, he would alert the greenie of it right away.

But what were the chances of that happening, right?

I mean, the odds were one in a million! Astronomical!

... Right?

ooOOoo

Zolo awoke from his amazed flashback to find Axel's voice blaring in his ear.

"Zohhhhhhhhhhhhh-lohhhhhhhhh," the annoying red-head said, drawing out his name. "Earth to Zolo!"

Snapping out of his dazed stupor at the sound of his voice, Zolo quickly went into action-mode. Rapid-fire questions were shot at Axel so fast that he didn't know what hit him.

"Is she with someone?"

"No, she-"

"Have you talked to her yet?"

"I-"

"Did you tell her about me?"

"No, jesus, slow down! I didn't even get to-"

"What did you say to her, Axel? I swear to God, if you fucked up or something, so help me-"

"SLOW DOWN, MAN!" Axel shout-whispered into the phone. "I haven't even talked to her yet. As soon as I saw her I called you." He chuckled, picturing his normally calm and collected friend in a panic over The Girl.

There was a short silence, followed by a question. "Do you know it's her?"

Axel snorted. "Of course I do, dumbass, you only used to talk about her ALL THE TIME-"

"Seriously, Axel. This is crazy. Crazy weird." Zolo sighed. "Are you suuure it's her?"

"Dude," replied the ginger. "I'd bet my fucking life on it." This was followed by an even longer pause.

"... What's she wearing?"

Axel laughed, his sparkly white canines twinkling briefly in the darkness. "What the hell, ma-"

"Just answer the damn question," an annoyed Zolo growled.

After taking a few moments to analyze The Girl's clothes, Axel answered, "She's wearing a strapless dress with black roses on it and she has on some weird zipper-boots that look like they just came out of a Resident Evil movie. You happy?"

Zolo paused, constructing a mental image of what his friend had just told him. In his mind, The Girl was wielding dual pistols while wearing a ripped prom dress spattered with zombie blood. Resident Evil, he thought distantly, not really paying attention to the fact that the fantasy was ridiculous. He shook his head, coming back to his senses.

"Go talk to her," he ordered, not wanting to miss the one-in-a-lifetime chance of the perfect girl.

"What?" Axel sputtered. "What do you want me to say?"

"Anything!" the green-haired teen shot back desperately. "Just make sure you give her my number!"

His friend shook his head. "Will do." He shut the phone, ending the conversation and turning his attention to the plain-looking girl on the balcony.

Oh Jesus, here we go.