Title: A Game of Cat and Mouse
Genre: Kingdom Hearts
Rating: UNDECIDED
Spoilers: NA
Pairing: Roxas/Axel
Summary: When Roxas finally moves out of his old town of Destiny Islands, and into an apartment in the city of Twilight Town, he finds that the previous owner has left something behind. AU. Axel x Roxas.

And all his friends tell him, he's so 'pretty'.
But he'd be a lot prettier if he smiled once in awhile.
But even his smile looks like a frown…

- - -

Once upon a time there was a blonde teenager by the name of Roxas, who lived on a quiet, peaceful island town known as Destiny Island with his parents and older twin brother, Sora. They lived in a large two story house that was frequently lit up by the many friends that Sora and Roxas both brought over.
Roxas and his brother had just recently turned nineteen, and were beginning to realize that putting off college forever was not something that their parents were going to accept. Roxas, although being the younger of the two, had always been the more mature and was therefore the first to get his shit together and pick out a college. He decided on a well known university out in Twilight Town famous for its literature courses, which was a good four hour drive away from his home-town.
His parents accepted the school, they toured it, laminated the idea of going there, and Roxas applied. A few months later, and he was accepted, which led to this particular night where he and his best friend, Hayner, were in his room, surrounded by boxes.
Hayner, although the same age as Roxas, had headed straight off to college right after highschool. He had moved out to Twilight Town the year before, and had already completed a year of schooling in the same university that Roxas had plans to attend.

"Okay, man, you've had this stupid stuffed duck thing since the third grade," Hayner's voice broke through the turned-down music playing on the stereo, and when Roxas turned to look at the other boy in slight confusion, Hayner wiggled the purple duck in his face.
Roxas wrinkled up his nose and moved his head away, watching the stuffed animal's eye (which was hanging by a thread) sway with the movement. He frowned as Hayner held the duck above the big plastic garbage bag that was already half-filled and sitting on the floor. 'But Olette got that for me', He wanted to protest, but knew his best friend well enough to know that Hayner would just snap at him for 'dwelling on the past'. Hayner gave him a blank look.

Roxas gave a heavy sigh, giving in and waved a hand dismissively. Turning, he watched Hayner drop the stuffed animal into the garbage out of the corner of his eye, and then returned to packing up his bookshelf.
Hayner did have a point, though; Roxas was too good at dwelling in the past. Him and Olette had been over for, what? Three or four months now? Things like stuffed ducks or old photographs should not be holding him down, not now that he was ready to move on to a bigger part of his life.

There would've been silence if the stereo hadn't been playing. Hayner peered over to his best friend, and did his best to break their non-silence. "So, uh, I was thinking about asking Olette to go see a movie with me next Saturday," He started casually, watching with caution at the way Roxas' shoulders stiffened and he stopped mid-pack to listen. Inwardly, Roxas sighed; he knew there'd been a reason why Hayner had been acting so weird lately.
Four months after everything had happened, and something still twinged painfully inside of him at the mere mention of her name. The rest of Hayner's sentence died on his lips, leaving the dirty blonde to clear his throat awkwardly and shove a few more things into a nearby box.

"A movie?" Roxas murmured a few minutes later, setting his book down into the box he'd been working on. "Sounds cool. She's always been big on movies."
Behind him, Hayner relaxed, relief flooding his normally confident face, and he lifted a hand to rub the back of his neck. Grinning loosely, he tossed a few more things into the box. "Thanks, man," He said softly, and Roxas only grunted in reply.

Another hour or two passed in the same fashion, their conversation turning back to safer grounds, like the school and Roxas' new apartment. With the room packed up almost entirely aside from a few more important things that Roxas was going to shove in a box in the morning, Hayner yawned and stepped back.
"I'm out, Roxas," He announced, and gave a little tired wave to his best friend before backing out of his bedroom door, and downstairs to where his car was parked on the side of the road. "Call me if you need help unpacking tomorrow!" He yelled over his shoulder.

Without Hayner, the room seemed considerably emptier. Roxas took a moment to finish closing and duct-taping up a box before he sunk down on the edge of his bed, casting a glance around his room – once crammed with possessions, but now crowded with cardboard boxes.
He glanced to his alarm clock in his window sill, and groaned at the time. He had to get up early tomorrow to go pick up the truck and pack everything in it, and then he'd have to drive the four hours to Twilight Town, get everything off the truck and return it.
"Great," Roxas groaned, collapsing back onto his bed and toed off his shoes.

Roxas awoke the next morning when a stream of sunshine from his cracked window fell upon his face. He let out a little groan and covered his face, as if that would somehow lull him back to sleep. He'd never been much of a morning person, and after going a year without school he didn't seem to wake up very well when it was by something like an alarm clock or stupid sunshine.

The blonde was halfway buried under his covers again with full intentions to hide his face under a pillow and go back to sleep when he abruptly remembered that today was moving day. Roxas jerked upright, his blanket still wrapped around his shoulders, and peered sleepily around for his alarm clock. He snatched it up from his desk, nearly unplugging it in the process, and hissed a curse at the time.

"Twelve thirty? I still have to go get the moving truck," Roxas grumbled to himself, untangling the blankets from his ankles and hopped out of bed to find some clean clothes.
While pulling on a fresh polo shirt he heard loud voices from outside, and turned to peek out his second-story window. In the driveway there was a U-Haul, and he could clearly see his twin brother, Sora and Sora's best friend Riku struggling to push open the sliding door on the back of it.

There were a few other people standing around that Roxas definitely recognized from all the years of school he'd had with them. Destiny Islands wasn't very large, so most everyone knew everyone else. From his window Roxas could see Tidus and Wakka, along with Kairi, who had her red hair tied back and out of her face, as if she were actually going to help with the moving process.

Roxas snorted to himself at the idea of Sora's other best friend doing anything laborious and not complaining about breaking her manicured nails.

He shook his head and stepped away from the window, looking around at the various boxes littered about his bedroom. Roxas shrugged absently and grabbed two from a pile near him and started downstairs to begin filling up the truck.

Three hours later and Roxas and Sora stood in an empty room on the second floor of their house that had once belonged to Roxas. You could tell someone had lived there for many years even with how empty it currently was ; there were indents in the carpet where various pieces of furniture had sat, a few stains on the carpet and many, many small thumb-tack holes all around the walls that had once held up posters and photographs.

"So you're really going, huh?" Sora spoke up quietly, his tan hands tucked into the pockets of his cargo shorts as he looked wistfully at the bedroom.

Roxas looked sideways at him and nodded after a moment. He'd been waiting for Sora to get sad about him leaving – so far he'd just been all smiles and 'this is such an awesome opportunity!' about the subject, but Roxas knew his brother well enough to know the idea of him moving away was upsetting.

Sora nodded too, and frowned a little but didn't say anything else.

After a long moment Roxas lifted a hand to clap it on his brother's back. "Hey, you can always come and visit, right? Hang out in the city for a couple of days."

Sora grinned and nodded. "Definitely! You're going to have your own place, so I'm gonna have to come and check it out!" He looked around the room one last time before turning to exit back into the hallway. Roxas lingered for a moment longer before following him out and down the stairs.

"I should probably get going if I want to get anything out of the truck before it starts getting dark," Roxas said as they stepped down onto the main floor. He trotted into the kitchen to pop open the fridge and grab a bottle of vitamin water before walking back to Sora in the living room.

His brother had flopped down onto the couch and looked up at him as he walked back into the room. Sora nodded and moved back to his feet. Without giving him any warning he moved up to squish Roxas in a bear hug. " 'Kay. Drive safe and text me when you get there," He said.

Roxas nodded, rolling his shoulder and grabbed the U-Haul's car keys from the coffee table. "Yeah, sure," He replied and lifted his drink in a farewell wave before slipping out the front door.

- - -

It was sometime close to eleven when Roxas had unloaded the truck entirely (he'd gotten some help with the bigger stuff from some friendly neighbors that lived above him). He'd even managed to start unpacking some of the boxes before he'd decided to call it quits. He was exhausted, but somehow still giddy as he flopped back onto the used couch Kairi's parents had given him.
His situation was starting to sink in now that he was in it. His own apartment, a new city that was four hours away from his past in Destiny Islands. And most importantly there was no Olette to run into at the mall, or at a party. No more need to be wary of going outside in case his past came up to smack him in the face.

Roxas breathed a soft sigh of relief and dropped his head back into the cushions of the couch, letting his eyes shut. Before he knew it, the newly independent boy had fallen asleep.

When he awoke there was something heavy sitting on his chest and over-lapping onto his stomach. Roxas blinked through the darkness in sleepy confusion and lifted a hand to throw the cushion off of him. But what his hand brushed up against wasn't a cushion- it was fluffy and warm and let out a loud meow.

"What the-!" Roxas jumped up, throwing the cat off of him in the process. It hissed as it hit the floor, and Roxas fumbled to a light-switch, throwing it up. In the middle of his living room, currently perching itself onto one of the many boxes, was a fat fluffy gray tabby with a squished up face.

Roxas stared at it in disbelief. How the hell had it gotten inside? WHEN had it gotten inside? Had it pissed somewhere in his new apartment?
He looked around as if to spot any stains or markings, found none, and looked back to the cat. It's eyes were now closed and it was kneading the box and purring.

"I don't think so, cat," Roxas said, walking over to grab the cat. It mewed happily and began to purr even louder, but Roxas paid no attention to the that. He instead carried the cat to the front door and chucked it out into the night.

Shutting the door, Roxas gave himself a moment to stare and ponder the situation. He gave up shortly, shaking his head, and began to unpack some of his clothes in an attempt to find something to sleep in.

The next morning Roxas had unpacked some kitchen stuff and sat with a cup of tea on his couch, flipping through a notebook filled with things he needed to do before classes started and things he needed to get.

After finishing his tea and checking off packing and moving all of his things, Roxas stood to gather his things to attempt the next bullet on his list, which was Freshman Orientation. Throwing a jacket on, Roxas grabbed his keys, shut off the lights that were on and stepped out the front door. As he was turning to lock the door, he heard a meow.

Roxas looked down to find the same cat from yesterday rubbing up against his legs. There were scratch marks on his front door, evidence that the cat had been trying for some strange reason to get into his apartment all morning.

"Shoo," Roxas said, waving his hands at the fat cat. That did nothing and the cat just stared at him, a bit of it's tongue poking out of it's mouth.

"Shoo!" Roxas tried again, this time stomping at the cat and throwing his keys in it's general direction. The cat meowed and booked it up the steps going to the second floor and disappeared out of sight.

Roxas shook his head, scooping his keys up and locking the front door properly. "Weird cat," He muttered, and started down the sidewalk, looking up at the second story of the building as he walked.

Two hours later, Roxas was unlocking his front door and noticed that the bush to the right of the walkway looked like it had big feline eyes. He stared, but when the eyes neither disappeared nor blinked, he shook his head and let himself inside.

"Cats," Roxas sighed, tossing his keys down onto a counter as he passed by the kitchen, and went to go unpack the rest of his boxes.

He'd finished unpacking all of his bathroom and kitchen stuff (there wasn't a lot since all he had kitchen wise was paper plates and some utensils) when he heard faint meowing. Roxas looked up from a half-empty box on his bedroom floor. The meowing continued.
He tossed some pants onto his messy bed and peeked through his bedroom blinds, only to see the fat squashed-face tabby sitting in front of his door again, meowing at it. He watched for a minute or two, but the cat steadfastly remained, meowing.

Roxas bit his lip in thought, hesitating for a long moment before he walked out of his bedroom and to his front door. He twisted the knob and experimentally opened the front door, and the cat slinked in. Without hesitating the cat trotted into the living room, jumped up onto the couch and curled up.
Roxas followed, sinking down next to the cat, and carefully pet it.

The cat bristled up and purred loudly, and Roxas laughed despite himself.

- - -

"...It's so weird. The landlord didn't say anything about cats, but this guy just won't budge," Roxas told the receiver on his cellphone and glanced to the fat tabby who was stuffing his face with some canned tuna on the kitchen floor. "I don't even really like cats, but I'm not like heartless enough to just let it starve outside when it's so dead-set on my place being it's home."

"Maybe someone abandoned it," His phone replied in a quiet, feminine voice.

Roxas leaned against the counter in his kitchen and continued to watch the cat eat. He frowned. "That's messed up. Who moves away and leaves their cat?"

"Horrible, awful, mean people do, that's who. Thinking a fat house cat can fend for itself when it's used to getting canned food is just wrong."

Roxas nodded absently in agreement even though Namine couldn't see him doing that. He lifted a hand to scratch his ear and tilted his body away from the cat, looking out the window over-top of his kitchen sink. "Yeah. I dunno, you can't have pets on campus, can you?"

"Nope," Namine replied, sounding a little sad about it. Namine was the only other person Roxas already knew that went to the same school as him and Hayner, having met her the summer before when he had stayed with Hayner on campus for a weekend.

"Maybe I'll just take it to a shelter or something then..."

"Oh no! So it can sit in a little metal cage all day? Everyone knows that older cats don't get adopted, Roxas. Everyone wants kittens instead. He'll just be miserable there. I thought you said you weren't heartless?"

Roxas winced and rubbed the back of his neck. He looked back to the cat, who had finished off the can of tuna and was now licking itself clean. ".... Maybe I'll hold onto him until I can find someone who wants a cat," He mumbled, giving in. On the other end of the phone, Namine let out a little squeal of delight.
Roxas winced again and held the phone away from his ear. The cat jerked it's head up to stare wide-eyed at the phone and the high-pitched noise coming from it.

After a moment it seemed safe again and Roxas held the phone back to his ear. "I'm gonna go, Nami. Bye."

Roxas snapped his phone shut and slid it into the pocket of his jeans. He crossed his arms, gazing absently at a corner of tiling on the floor, until the cat strolled up and began rubbing against his legs. He looked down and smiled a little. "Just you and me now, huh?"

Things started to fall into place throughout the weeks following that day. School started up and Roxas began college full-time, throwing himself passionately into his courses and letting his need to succeed in school be the excuse of his non-existent social life. He saw Hayner and Namine, made a few new acquaintances around the campus, but most of his human interaction happened in class or over the phone.
The cat (whom he now called 'Spaghetti') kept him company, waiting on the window-sill of the kitchen window for him to get home and sleeping at the foot of his bed, and made the transition to a new place less lonely. He found himself thinking about Olette less and less, and discovered that he was finally moving on.

After a little while he found himself a part-time job working for a record store a few blocks away from campus called Gummi Records. He stuck mainly to night-shifts and weekends, when the store was slow enough that he could bring homework with him to work on.

It was on Friday when Roxas found himself with a day off from both work and school, which was a rare thing. Instead of going out and enjoying what was probably one of the last nice days before fall really hit, he was sprawled out on his kitchen floor with a few school books, some papers and his cellphone on speaker phone.

"I don't know how you graduated highschool, Hayner. Did you just sleep all through English or something?"

"It's not my fault I'm not a super human dictionary like you, Roxas! Words are stupid," Retorted an irritated sounding Hayner. His voice came out slightly distorted and too loud on speaker phone, which caused Spaghetti to go on high alert. The cat was laying on his stomach a few feet away, staring studiously at the phone as if it were about to attack at any moment.

Roxas paid the cat no mind, rifling through his notebook. "Words are not stupid," He replied shortly. "You should just learn how to spell."

"Ugh! Whatever! All of this literature is going to make my brain explode. The Catcher in the Rye is a stupid book anyways, so I don't care if I misspelled shit on my paper about it."

Roxas pursed his lips and didn't argue with his best friend. 'The Catcher in the Rye' was a stupid book, and trying to edit Hayner's paper over the phone was going to give him a migraine. He sighed and set his textbook down, leaning back against the wall behind him and picked up his phone.

"I call for a change in subject! How're you liking school? Meet any new people yet?"

"It's alright. I guess so... The people in my Drawing I class are nice, and I get to hangout with Namine so that's pretty cool..." Roxas trailed off, frowning absently to himself.

"Yeah? Namine's single, you know?"

Roxas stared at his cellphone, and tried to decide if he was more upset that Hayner was trying to play match-maker or that Hayner was bringing up relationships at all. "...Neat, Hayner."

"Neat?" Hayner echoed, sounding confused. He apparently quickly brushed it off though, because he didn't stay quiet for long. "I can totally see you two hooking up. You're both all quiet and smart and stuff."

"I don't want to go out with Namine," Roxas said flatly, pulling his legs up to his chest and stiffening up.

"What? Why not? Is she not your type or something?"

Roxas grit his teeth together and closed his eyes. He couldn't put his finger on the reasoning behind it, but he was feeling very cornered and very nauseous about the direction this conversation had taken. Still not saying anything, he could hear Hayner babbling on, "Is it because she's a blonde?"

He lifted a hand to press against his forehead and loudly cut through Hayner's conversation with himself. "I've gotta go, Hayner," He said simply.

Hayner paused on the other line. "Woah man, don't get your panties in a knot. I'll lay off, okay?"

Roxas sighed. "Fine. Whatever."

"You know it's mine and Olette's one month anniversary coming up, right?" Roxas' shoulders stiffened up again and the sick feeling rose up in his stomach."Do you think I should get her something, or would that be too cheesy?"

"I've got a paper to write," Roxas muttered, and before Hayner could protest this time, promptly ended the call. He remained sitting on the floor for a few more minutes, his stomach twisted up and feeling sorry for himself, before he pulled himself to his feet.
He scooped up Spaghetti and instead of writing his paper (which really did exist), Roxas went to sleep.

In his dreams, Roxas found himself standing in the middle of a very white ballroom, surrounded by people he knew. They were all dancing, a classic waltz, and dressed in clothes that someone from Disney's Beauty and the Beast would have been wearing.
Roxas looked down at himself to find he was dressed the same way, and when he looked up, all the people in the room had paired up. Pair by pair they began to step off the dance floor, only to walk up a flight of stairs to a large white door. They opened it and disappeared inside.

This happened one by one until Roxas was the only one standing in the room, all alone. He crossed the white tiled floor, up the stairs and grabbed the handle of the doorknob. He tried to pull it open, but it wouldn't budge.

Underneath his hand, the doorknob grew a mouth and two eyes and began to laugh at him. "I'm afraid you're not allowed in," It informed him.

"Why not?" Roxas protested, letting go of the knob to speak directly to it.

"Why, because this door is for people who aren't alone. And you are alone, boy. All alone~," The door sang, and began to laugh again.

Angrily Roxas lifted a hand to pound on the front of the door. Nothing happened and the doorknob continued to laugh at him. He lifted both fists to hit the door. Pound, pound, pound...

Roxas jerked awake at the sound of heavy knocking coming from the living room. He peered blearily at his alarm clock and scowled. It was far too early for him to be awake, especially on a Saturday when he had no classes.
It was also too early for anyone he knew to be knocking, so Roxas shrugged himself back under the covers. It was probably a door to door salesman or something. He closed his eyes.

The knocking came again, louder and impatiently this time. Roxas groaned and smothered himself with his own pillow, but the knocking continued.
"This bett'r be an emergency," He threatened no one in particular in a sleepy drawl and stumbled from his bed, viciously tearing his blanket off of himself. He didn't bother to put on a shirt, or pull his pajama pants up from where they'd sunk low on his hips.

Instead he stomped out of his room, nearly tripping over the cat, and wrenched open the front door, ready to chew out Pence or Hayner or whatever poor salesman had been knocking at his door.
What he saw instead of either of those options was a tall, skinny man with spiked up bright red hair. The man was wearing typical gutter-punk attire, with black pants that were too tight, and a black fitting shirt.

For someone who had been rudely pounding on his door, Roxas noticed that the man was staring at him very oddly. Roxas scowled at the stranger. "Do I know you?"

The seemed to snap the man out of his trance, and he straightened up. A charming smile picked up his features and the man extended a hand to shake. Roxas stared at it until he dropped it. "No, no you do not," The man replied cheerfully. How someone could be cheerful at eight in the morning was beyond Roxas, and it only made him hate the man before him more.
"I'm Axel Gainnes," He continued, and peered over Roxas' shoulder. "And I believe you have my cat."

A/N: This is going to be about two or three chapters total, I think, unless for whatever reason I feel like extending it.
Tell me what you think. Srsly.
AND LIKE I SAID ABOVE -- THE RATING FOR THIS STORY IS CURRENTLY UNDECIDED. Right now it's at a PG-13 area, but I don't know if I'm going to throw in a lemon or not.