"Sora, wake your scrawny ass up." Riku kicked Sora's seemingly lifeless body that rested on the floor of, his now, trashed room. The night before, Sora and invited all of his friends over for his 18th birthday party, and someone thought it would be a great idea to bring a keg of beer, Sora being and idiot and drinking about half of it. Riku stayed the night, fearing Sora would do something stupid if he let him wake up on his own. "Sora." Riku was trying to be nice about waking up Sora, knowing he was going to have a major hangover, but after 5 minutes of trying, Riku had enough.

Riku walked over to Sora's desk, the only thing that was actually clean in his room, and grabbed one of his text books. Making his way back over to Sora, who merely turn over and is now laying on his back, Riku raised the book over his body and dropped it on poor Sora's stomach. "OWWWWWWWWWWWWWW! Riku, what the hell was that for!" Sora raised to his feet, clutching both his head and stomach, from the newly found hangover and the pain caused by his "so-called" friend. "What the fuck were you thinking?"

"I thought it would wake you, I guess I was right." Riku snickered as Sora tried to glare at him.

"You jack-ass! Why did you do that in the first place!"

"I'm guessing you forgot what today is."

'Oh shit! I forgot something! What could it be? It can't be Riku's birthday, that's in December*. No real holiday is coming up, and I can't think of anything important coming up-' Sora's train of thought was cut of by Riku lightly tapping his head with the textbook he dropped on him earlier.

"Sora, it's the first day of school Einstein." Sora was quickly disappointed by the statement.

"No wonder I didn't remember it."

"Oh lighten up Sora. This is the last year we're going to be in high school together, seeing as I'm graduating this year." Sora's disappointment, turned to sadness. He knew this was the last year he had to spend with Riku, because after this year, he was going off to college, and is going to leave Sora behind. "Cheer up, we'll just have to make the most of this." Riku threw an arm over Sora's shoulder, making the younger teen blush slightly.

"Uh…I'll just go get ready…I'll be down in 5 minutes." Sora ran into the bathroom, where his blush grew ten fold. Ever since freshmen year, but he could never tell him, and he was okay with that. As long as Riku stayed his friend, he was happy. After a short while, Sora went downstairs where Riku was waiting for him.

"Took you long enough. Let's go, Kairi's waiting for us. Vanitas went ahead of you." Vanitas is Sora's twin brother, but because he hated being mistaken for Sora, he dyed his hair black.

"Aww, why Kairi? Vanitas you lucky bastard, thinking ahead and leaving early." Sora and Kairi weren't on the best terms since Sophomore year, ever since he broke up with her saying that he just wanted to stay friends.

"Because unlike you, I'm actually still friends with her. Don't worry, if things get too out of hand like they did last time, I'll step in, I promise." Last time Sora and Kairi were together, Kairi practically lashed out at him. Not physically, but verbally, which in Sora's case, was worse. She called him names like "Man-whore" and "Slut", all because Sora's relationships after they broke up lasted no longer than a week. It wasn't Sora's fault that they didn't last long, Sora just finds out early on how people act, and each and every person he went out with either wanted to get him into bed, or just used him as a status symbol, seeing as he was the second most popular kid in school, Riku being the most popular. Sora just found out recently that he was gay, after dating some girls, he found out that he never liked girls as anything more than friends. And some girls just took advantage of him. The only reason he went out with girls was to see if there was a chance he was bi.

"Okay Riku, I'll hold you to that." The two boys walked outside seeing Kairi and Namine waiting for them. Namine was Kairi's cousin, but you'd mistake them for sisters, seeing as they look so much alike. Namine was nice, and she was nicer to Sora than Kairi ever was.

"Hi guys, you sure took your time." Namine chuckled at her statement, while Kairi just glared.

"Yeah sorry, Sora here took his time waking up today." Riku lightly punched Sora's shoulder, which Sora returned.

"Well let's get going, the sooner we start this year the sooner it's over." Sora had to force himself to smile saying this, he wanted this year to last forever. The four of them made their way to school, which was about a mile or two from Sora's house, and the entire time Kairi was glaring at Sora, which he noticed. After what felt like an eternity, Sora finally spoke. "Is something wrong Kairi?"

"Well since you asked there is." Venom coated her words, causing everyone to stop dead in their tracks. "You Sora, you are getting on my nerves!"

"W-Why?"

"Don't act like you don't know!" Kairi grabbed Sora by the hem of his shirt, almost lifting him off of the ground.

"Kairi calm down." Namine tried to talk some sense into her cousin, but it didn't work.

"No Namine! Did you have too many sips of the keg that you don't remember? You're such a fucking retard!" A pain shot through Sora, he really didn't remember anything that happened last night, maybe Kairi was right, like he would know.

"Stop it Kairi!" Riku grabbed Kairi's wrist, causing her to let go of Sora. "You've said enough."

"But Riku, don't you think he should-?"

"No I don't! Now drop it!" Riku let go of Kairi's wrist and grabbed Sora's hand, making him continue walking, even though he wanted to stay. Namine stayed behind with Kairi. Despite not really liking her cousin for what she said to Sora, she was family, and she never abandoned family. Riku and Sora kept walking, still holding hands, until they made it to the front of the school. Riku turned to face Sora, who now was starting to cry lightly. "It's okay Sora, she didn't mean anything." Riku gave Sora a protective hug, letting the younger teen cry into his shirt.

"B-But, w-what did Kairi mean-"

"Don't worry about Kairi. I'll have a talk with her." Sora looked up to Riku, the tears slowly dying down.

"But Riku, what did happen last night?" Riku looked down, and before he could say anything, an annoying voice appeared from behind them.

"~Oh Riku~" The two boys looked to see Larxene, one of the members of a local gang, the Organization.

"What is it Larxene?"

"You remember that little, 'discussion' you had with my boss?" Larxene is referring to Xemnas, a guy who looks way older thank 18. Riku knew what she was talking about, and quickly broke off eye contact with her. "I'll take that as a yes. Come on, he wants to see you. Now!" Riku nodded and started to follow Larxene, but Sora grabbed his wrist.

"Riku's what's wrong?" Riku broke away from Sora's grip.

"It's nothing, don't worry about it. I'll see you at lunch." Riku walked away with Larxene, making Sora slightly worried, but calmed down, thinking Riku could handle himself. Sora made his way to his first period class 20 minutes later, even though class didn't start for another half hour. He had chemistry with Even as his teacher. He was a creepy teacher to say the least, always going off on what experiments he wants his student to do. One time last year, he made all of his students go out and find a dead bird so they could dissect it. And he made it so no two students could bring the same bird species. Yes weird, but no one was brave enough to question him. Lucky for Sora, Vanitas and Ventus were in his class too, so he wouldn't have to suffer on his own.

"Ugh, can you believe we have this quack as a teacher." Vanitas wasn't one for school, and having creepy or just plain bad teachers didn't help.

"Don't complain Vanitas, just deal with it and don't get yourself in trouble." Ventus was Vanitas' one and only friend, aside from Sora and Riku, and was constantly trying to keep him out of trouble.

"Yeah, yeah. No promises though."

"Jeez, Vanitas. You're always like this, even at home. No wonder mom and dad kicked you out." After Vanitas got suspended for the 40th time, no joke, his parents had enough and kicked him out.

"Hey, it didn't matter to me. I manage."

"Yeah, you live with me now Einstein. You're just lucky Terra is alright with it." When Ventus turned 16, he confessed to his parents that he was gay, and they immediately tossed him to the curb. His boyfriend, Terra, let him live with them, and he lived alone ever since his parents died when he was 17, so they had the house to themselves until Vanitas came along.

"Hey, I give you guys plenty of time at night to have your alone time. Believe it or not, I have a life. I would actually be surprised if you were still a virgin." Ven looked shocked and started to blush.

"Oh man, you still are aren't you." Vanitas burst out laughing, just making Ven blush even more.

"Oh shut up Vanni, leave Ventus alone." Sora never liked seeing Vanitas making fun of people, especially Ven, but sometimes it was just too funny, so he just watched. Today wasn't one of those days. Just like that the bell rang for first period, and the subject was dropped. Sora couldn't pay attention in class, all he could think about was Riku. He didn't know whether he was alright or not, and he wouldn't until lunch time. Time seemed to fly by, as first period was over, meaning second period was about to start. Second period for Sora was gym. Lucky for him, he knew that Riku had this class now too, but they weren't in the same class, so he had little to no time to try and talk to him.

Sora had a lot of his friends in this class. He had Roxas, Ven's twin brother and is constantly mistaken for him, so they got away with switch classes. Namine, and Xion, Namine's sister. And lastly, Hayner, Pence and Olette, Roxas' friends who were really nice. Across the gym was the senior class. Riku was obviously in this class, and a bunch of bad students were too. Seifer, Rai and Fuu were the town's trouble makers, they never did anything as bad as the local gangs, but they were known. Larxene, Marluxia, Zexion, and Demyx, more members of the Organization, although Zexion and Demyx were some of the nicer members of the group. Axel, Roxas' current boyfriend, and member of the Organization as well, he wasn't as mean as the other members, but he wasn't as nice as Zexion and Demyx.

Sora looked around to try and find Riku, not able to see anything. Right before the bell rang, he saw Riku walk into the gym, but something was a little off about him. Riku was limping on his left foot, his right arm was limp and Sora could swear that he saw a bruise around Riku's neck, but couldn't tell because he was so far away. The bell rang before Sora could go and see what was wrong. All he could do was watch as his friend sat down with his class, and what Sora saw next made his heart just stop. Marluxia, who was sitting right next to Riku, placed a hand on Riku's shoulder, causing Riku's body to tense up. Sora didn't know what was going on, but he was going to find out.